Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(68)

“It can wait until you’re finished here,” said Sebastian.

“No. If you’ve something you wish to say, say it to me now. Why not? It’s only my wife’s funeral.”

“All right,” said Sebastian. “I know about Emma Carter.”

It occurred to Sebastian, watching him, that Ambrose had as much control over his expression as any actor on the stage. Sebastian waited while the dramatist absorbed the implications of Sebastian’s words, considered denying all knowledge of the woman, then decided simply to say nothing. And none of those ruminations showed on his face.

Sebastian said, “I’ll give you this: You’ve been extraordinarily careful in your dealings with her. But then, you had to be, didn’t you, given that your success depended on your wife?”

Ambrose threw an anxious glance over his shoulder at the waiting vicar. “Why here, for God’s sake?” he asked in an angry undertone. “Why now? You bring this up at my wife’s funeral? Have you no decency?”

“Decency?” Sebastian felt an absurd impulse to laugh. “You know what I think? I think Jane found out about your mistress—your pregnant mistress. I think she threatened to leave you, and you flew into a rage and killed her.”

“You son of a bitch,” hissed Ambrose. “I did not kill my wife.”

Sebastian studied the other man’s handsome, even-featured face. “I don’t believe you.”

Ambrose threw another worried glance in the direction of the vicar. “Jane did not know about Emma. She didn’t even suspect!”

Sebastian shook his head. “I keep thinking, what would it do to a woman who’d just lost both of her own children to then learn that her husband had got another woman quick with child?”

“I was always careful. Always.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t tell her. Someone who wished you harm—you, or her.”

“You’re wrong, I tell you. Do you understand me? Wrong!”

“Perhaps.” Sebastian turned to go, then paused to say, “Tell me this: Did your wife have a particular friend? Someone in whom she might have confided?” Someone who knows the shadowy recesses of her life, which might hold the secret to her tragic death?

Ambrose shook his head. “No, not really.”

“You’re certain?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“But then, how well did you actually know your wife?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it,” said Sebastian, and walked away.



Sebastian sat for a time in the quiet of St. Anne’s churchyard and watched a few lazy snowflakes fall to earth, his thoughts drifting haphazardly from one aspect of Jane Ambrose’s death to the next.

He’d been coming around to thinking that the threat to Jane’s life had come from outside her home—from someone such as Rothschild, Jarvis, or van der Pals. But like so many women, Jane had lived with a man who had no hesitation in taking his frustration and anger out on her with his fists. Debt, infidelity, jealousy, and rage were a potent brew that all too often could lead to death. The problem was, if Ambrose had killed his wife, why that Thursday? And where? It seemed to make no sense.

Which meant Sebastian was still missing something.



Frustrated, Sebastian walked to Christian Somerset’s establishment on Paternoster Row, only to find the bookstore closed and the printing workshop deserted except for a sandy-haired, rosy-cheeked lad of perhaps fifteen who was cleaning dirty type, his arms black with ink up to the elbows.

“Mr. Somerset and the other lads are all at the Frost Fair,” said the young apprentice with a grin. “You ought to see our booth; it’s ever so grand!”



Christian Somerset had set up his booth midway between Blackfriars and London Bridge, on the Frost Fair’s main promenade. It was indeed an impressive structure, painted with craggy cliffs and fairyland castles beneath a pastel sky and stocked with a fine collection of romances, poetry volumes, and packets of feminine stationery. For a penny, fairgoers could also buy a souvenir memento that carried a crude image of the Frost Fair above the Lord’s Prayer, with PRINTED ON THE THAMES 1814 FROST FAIR emblazoned in large type below it. Christian Somerset himself was personally working the press.

“Somehow I didn’t expect to find you here,” said Sebastian, walking up to him.

Jane’s brother rotated the press’s handle to roll the bed under the platen and gave one of his slow, self-deprecating smiles. “This frozen river is minting money. A man would need to be a fool to miss this kind of opportunity.” He paused to turn the screw’s long handle. “I even dragged my old wooden press out of the basement for the occasion. I was afraid if I brought one of the new iron-framed Stanhopes out here it would crash through the ice and drown us all.” He nodded to a nearby apprentice to take his place at the press, his smile fading as they stepped away from the booth. “I saw you at Jane’s funeral.”

“Allow me to express my condolences again on the loss of your sister,” said Sebastian.

Somerset nodded and had to look away for a moment, blinking. “Have you learned something new?”

“I’ve discovered you were right: Ambrose does indeed have a mistress—an opera dancer he keeps in rooms in Tavistock Street.”