Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(88)
Rather than contact the local public office, Hero had gone straight to her father, which was undoubtedly the wisest choice under the circumstances. By the time Sebastian arrived at Berkeley Square, night had long since fallen and Sir Henry Lovejoy was in attendance. But there were no constables, no staff from the nearest deadhouse. Sebastian recognized the men gathered around the courtier’s body as belonging to that shadowy network loyal to Jarvis and Jarvis alone.
“His lordship has informed us there will be no inquest,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, his voice pitched low as Jarvis’s men lifted the dead body onto the shell they would use to carry the courtier to the Dutch ambassador’s residence.
“Precisely how does his lordship plan to explain the Dutchman’s rather inconvenient death?”
“He doesn’t intend to even try. It will be given out that van der Pals has been called home, and no one will know he left London in a box rather than by post chaise. The Dutch are most anxious to hush this up.”
“I should think so,” said Sebastian. “Bit awkward, having your Prince’s boon companion try to kill a distant cousin of your betrothed.”
“Thank heavens her ladyship had a pistol,” said Lovejoy, although there was something about the way he said it that made Sebastian suspect he found the idea of a viscountess carrying a muff gun and using it to shoot an assailant highly disturbing—even if it was fortuitous.
Sebastian said, “She began carrying it several days ago, when she thought someone was following her.”
“You think that was van der Pals?”
“It must have been, surely?”
Lovejoy’s eyes narrowed as one of Jarvis’s men kicked at the bloodstained snow, obscuring it. Soon there would be no trace of what had occurred here. “So van der Pals killed them all? First Jane Ambrose, then the Italian harpist, and finally Edward Ambrose? The man must have been mad.”
“He was obviously a killer,” Sebastian said slowly. “But I’m not convinced he was responsible for all three deaths.”
Lovejoy turned to look at him in surprise. “No? Why not?”
It was a question Sebastian had been asking himself. By attacking Hero, Peter van der Pals had shown himself to be capable of plotting to coldly and deliberately take another person’s life. And he had a motive to kill each of the three victims: Jane because of her refusal to keep quiet about the rape; Valentino Vescovi for betraying Orange’s sexual tastes; and Edward Ambrose as an attempt to shift suspicion toward Liam Maxwell.
And yet, somehow, it didn’t feel right.
“I suspect van der Pals did kill Vescovi,” said Sebastian, choosing his words carefully. “But I’m not convinced he’s behind the deaths of either Jane Ambrose or her husband.”
“No?” The magistrate was silent for a moment, his gaze on the mist drifting across the nearest streetlamp. Sebastian knew Lovejoy’s continuing but unavoidable ignorance of the palace intrigues swirling around Jane Ambrose’s death frustrated him. But when he spoke, all he said was “Did you hear that a section of the ice has given way on the Thames? Down near London Bridge. The three men who were on it when it broke free had to be rescued with some difficulty.”
“That should be the end of the Frost Fair,” said Sebastian, remembering Liam Maxwell’s dire prediction from that afternoon.
“One would think so. But I understand most are convinced the rest of the ice is still sound.”
“It won’t be for long.”
“No, it won’t be,” said Lovejoy, turning away. “But I suspect it’ll take someone getting killed before they’re willing to admit it.”
Later that night, Sebastian lay awake in bed and held his wife as she slept. She felt warm and vitally alive in his arms, her breath easing quietly in and out, her hair silky soft against his bare shoulder. And yet he had come so close to losing her—would have lost her if not for her foresight and quick thinking and unflinching courage.
Death could come so quickly and unexpectedly. It was a knowledge that filled him with both terror and fury. Some of that fury was directed outward, toward Nathan Rothschild and Jarvis and the bloody royal houses of Hanover and Orange. But he was also angry with himself for his failure to unravel the dangerous, deadly tangle into which Hero had inadvertently stumbled that snowy night in Shepherds’ Lane. He wished he could believe the easy explanation, that Peter van der Pals had killed all three victims. But the niggling doubts remained.
A subtle shift in Hero’s breathing told him she was no longer asleep. Glancing down, he saw her eyes wide and luminous in the night.
She said, “You might be able to figure it all out better if you got some sleep.”
He tightened his arm around her, hugging her closer. “Possibly.”
“Why are you so convinced Peter van der Pals wasn’t Jane’s killer?”
Sebastian ran his hand up and down her arm. “Part of it is because Vescovi’s murder looks like the work of a man who has killed before and knew precisely what he was doing—which is why I think the courtier was responsible. But Jane’s and Edward Ambrose’s deaths were”—he paused, searching for the right word, and finally settled on—“messy. And van der Pals was so bloody arrogant, so cocksure of the mantle of his Prince’s protection, that I find it difficult to believe he ever considered himself in serious danger of being charged with Jane’s murder. Which means he would have had no reason to kill Edward Ambrose in an effort to divert suspicion away from himself.”