Page 74 of Who Cries for the Lost

“I don’t believe you.”

Jarvis shrugged into his waistcoat. “I understand you’ve developed an interest in Cabrera.”

Sebastian studied his father-in-law’s faintly smiling features. “Why do you ask?”

Jarvis went to work fastening his white satin waistcoat’s row of tiny pearl buttons. “You know, of course, that Alexi Sauvage had a close relative who died there?”

“On Cabrera? Who?”

The amusement in Jarvis’s eyes deepened. “Ah, so you didn’t know.”

“Why the bloody hell should I believe you?”

“Ask her. I understand they were exceptionally close—virtually raised together.”

“How do you know this?”

“I make it my business to know such things.”

“And yet you would have me believe you don’t know who shot the face off Miles Sedgewick and dumped his body in the Thames?” said Sebastian, and had the satisfaction of seeing the big man’s smile slip.

Chapter 41

Gibson was leaning over a female cadaver on the elevated stone slab in the dank outbuilding behind his Tower Hill surgery, a butcher’s apron tied over his rumpled clothes and what looked like a butcher’s knife in his hand, when Sebastian came to stand just outside the building’s low doorway. The surgeon’s cheeks were unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, his skin the color of something long dead. But he was fiercely sober.

“If you’re here looking for answers to help solve the riddle of what maniac is doing this,” he growled, looking up from what Sebastian now realized was Astrid Wilde’s eviscerated corpse, “I can’t help you.”

Sebastian let his gaze wander over the crude shelves on the surrounding walls until he found a shallow, chipped enamel basin containing a thin braided cord with a dowel knotted at each end. “That’s the garrote that was used to kill her?”

Gibson nodded. “Professional, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

Setting aside his knife with a clatter, Gibson reached for a rag and wiped his hands. “You’re thinking this is the work of the Bourbons’ assassin?”

“I’d say it’s more than likely. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’s responsible for all the other killings.”

Gibson frowned. “How do you figure that?”

Sebastian had to force himself to look again at the contorted features of the dead woman between them. “I’m told she had it in her head that the Bourbons were responsible for Miles Sedgewick’s death, and she was threatening to come to me about it. So even if they had nothing to do with any of the other deaths, I can see them deciding she was becoming a dangerous liability that needed to be silenced.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Gibson. He tossed the rag aside, then fixed Sebastian with a steady stare. “People are saying the fighting has started in Belgium.”

Sebastian blew out a long, troubled breath. “I’m hearing the rumors. But if the government has received anything official from Wellington, I don’t know about it.”

“Well, hell. I was hoping you might have at least heard something.” Gibson scrubbed his hands down over his haggard face. “It’s hard, just sitting here, holding our breath and waiting.”

Sebastian nodded, his gaze drifting back up the hill toward the medieval stone house. “Is Alexi around?”

Gibson shook his head. “I think she said she was going to the St. Martin’s workhouse to see if Sedgewick left Phoebe’s baby there.”

“She’s still looking?”

Something flared in the Irishman’s bloodshot green eyes. “Last year, one of the babies she delivered died in his sleep. The authorities accused the mother of smothering him and hanged her for it. So as long as there’s a chance of finding that babe, then I’d say, yes; Alexi is going to keep looking for it.”

Alexi was just leaving the grim, soot-covered brick workhouse when Sebastian walked up to her.

“Any sign of the baby?” he asked.

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