Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(34)

Ambrose stayed where he was, his breath coming in hard, angry pants. “I was still here, damn you.”

“In your library working on your libretto?”

“Yes!”

“Alone?”

“Of course.”

In a household such as this, without a butler or footmen, the door was typically answered by a housemaid with numerous other duties, which meant that Ambrose could easily have left the house and come back hours later without any of the servants knowing.

Sebastian said, “I’m curious as to why you led me to believe Jane’s family was dead when her brother Christian Somerset is still very much alive.”

“Why do you think? For the same reason I objected to her visit to Princess Caroline.”

“Yes, of course. And how did you learn of that visit, by the way?”

“Jane mentioned it to me.”

“On the steps of the Opera?”

Ambrose hesitated a moment too long, then said, “Yes.”

“Without also mentioning why she went?”

“I told her I didn’t want to know.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

Ambrose gave a short, bitter laugh. “You should know as well as anyone the swirl of intrigue that surrounds Caroline.”

“Are you suggesting Jane was involved in that?”

“I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care to know. If you think it so important, I suggest you ask the Princess yourself.”

“I intend to,” said Sebastian.

Ambrose simply stared back at him, his jaw set hard and his eyes now hooded.





Chapter 20

Wrapped in a warm carriage robe and with a hot brick at her feet, Hero crossed the frozen city in a horse-drawn sleigh. The farther east she traveled, the more wretched were the snow-filled lanes and courts, the more desperate the bleak eyes raised to watch her pass. This part of the city had long been a crumbling, overcrowded morass of grinding, soul-destroying poverty and aching want. Now, after endless paralyzing weeks of cold, life there was becoming unbearably grim. Near St. Giles, a water main had broken during the night, flooding the street with what had become a thick sheet of ice. Those few lucky children with shoes were running and sliding across the frozen surface, arms windmilling, voices shrieking with laughter. But their mothers stood watching solemnly, faces tight with fear, for a broken main meant no water in addition to no food and no heat.

Jenny Sanborn, the cooper’s wife Hero was coming to see, lived at the end of a noisome alley in a miserable one-room hovel that looked as if it had been built as a lean-to shed for animals. When they drew up before the shed’s rough door, Hero could hear the muffled sounds of a woman weeping within. Exchanging a quick glance with her coachman, Hero looped the handle of her food basket over one arm and went to knock on the door.

The door was opened by a skinny, ragged girl of about six whom Hero remembered from the other night. “Hullo,” said Hero, crouching down until she was level with the child. “You’re Sarah, aren’t you? I’ve brought your mum a present.” Then Hero looked beyond the little girl to where the mother, Jenny Sanborn, lay curled up in a ball on the room’s only pallet.

The woman was as thin as a fence board, with limp fair hair and a face swollen and blotched with tears. She was probably no more than thirty, although she looked fifty or more. Her newborn babe lay beside her, and Hero didn’t need more than a swift glance to tell her the child was dead.

“When?” Hero asked.

The woman dragged in a ragged breath that shuddered her thin chest. “Last night.”

Hero rose slowly to her feet, her throat so tight she couldn’t seem to force out any words.

“Is all that food for us?” asked the little girl, her eyes round.

“Sarah—,” began her mother.

“It is, yes,” said Hero, summoning up a smile that trembled a bit around the edges as she handed the basket to the girl. “And my coachman’s got a bag of coal for you, as well.”

“Gor,” breathed one of the girl’s brothers, coming to stand beside her.

“I don’t rightly know how to thank you,” said Jenny Sanborn, pushing herself up with difficulty. “Your ladyship has already done so much for us. We’d never have made it through this dreadful cold spell without you.”

Hero wanted to say, Please don’t thank me. For a sack of coal and a simple basket of food I will never even miss? Do you have any idea how guilty I feel, knowing that women like me will never be in danger of seeing our husbands snatched off the streets and forced to serve in a war that means nothing to them? Knowing I’ll never need to worry about my son growing up to someday suffer the same fate? I should be here begging your forgiveness—we all should, although no one ever will.

Except of course she could say none of those things. So she said instead, “This freeze can’t last much longer.” And it sounded so weak even to her own ears that she wished she’d said nothing at all.



“You did what you could,” Alexi said later that afternoon as she and Hero walked beside the frozen moat of the Tower of London.

Hero shook her head, her exhalation billowing around her in the cold air. “It wasn’t enough.”

“No. But we can only try. One woman, one child at a time.”