Where Shadows Dance

Chapter 18

The night was warm, the moon nearly half full and unusually bright.

Sebastian left his carriage on Piccadilly and strolled down St. James’s Street, an evening cape thrown over his shoulders, the heels of his dress shoes clicking softly on the flagged paving. The windows of the gentlemen’s clubs blazed with light. Music spilled from open doors; the laughter of ungenteel women carried on a soft breeze. Passing the Je Reviens coffee shop, he glanced in the oriel window. Despite the hour, the coffee room was still crowded, the burly, gray-bearded Frenchman at his station behind the counter.

Madame Champagne had obviously retired for the night.

Smiling softly at the thought of what she’d told him, Sebastian pulled his hat low and slipped in through the side door to quietly climb the steep, straight flights of steps. The stairwell was dark, with no telltale slivers of light showing beneath either of the doors on the first floor, the inhabitant of the one doubtless out on the town, the other asleep. The servants would long since have retired to their attic rooms.

On the second-floor landing, he paused and listened. Sebastian’s hearing, like his eyesight, was acute. As a child he had simply assumed that everyone could see well enough to read in the dark and could hear whispered conversations from distant rooms. But in time he’d come to realize that his senses were so keen as to be considered uncanny by most. Wolflike, Kat used to call him....

But he shut his mind to that.

He listened carefully but heard only the distant murmur of voices from the coffee shop and the clip-clop of hooves, the whirl of carriage wheels, the laughter and footsteps from the street below.

Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a ring with a cluster of small metal shafts, their tips bent at various angles. Selecting one of the shafts, he slid its tip into the door’s keyhole. It was a thieves’ tool, a picklock, and it took only a delicate touch and good hearing to slide the tip through the lock’s gates and carefully press the levers aside. He heard the final click, and the lock sprang open.

Pocketing the tool, he slipped inside and quietly closed the door behind him.

The light filtering in through the drapes was dim but sufficient to enable him to see that the valet, Poole, had made little further progress in his assigned task. The comfortable clutter of a young gentleman’s existence lay undisturbed, as if Ross had only just stepped out and was expected back at any moment.

Sebastian started in the bedroom, methodically searching through drawers, checking the pockets of the few coats left in the cupboard. But Poole’s efforts were most apparent here. There was little left. He found a litter of stray buttons, a chit from Tattersall’s, an enameled snuffbox that looked unused, as if it had been a gift. The framed profile shade—or silhouette, as the French called them—of a young woman, shadowy curls framing a winsome face, hung above the bedside table. One could imagine Ross pausing to gaze fondly upon it before retiring for the evening, never to wake again.

Except that Alexander Ross had not died peacefully in his sleep. He had been violently murdered, his body put to bed by his killer.

So where had the murder actually taken place? Here, in this room? Or somewhere else?

Sebastian went over the room carefully, looking for traces of blood. He found none.

Frustrated, he moved to the main chamber. He glanced through the invites on the mantel. In addition to the invitation to the Queen’s reception for the Russian Ambassador, there were also cards for a function at the Swedish Embassy, a dinner with the American Consul, an assembly being given by the Portuguese Ambassador. Alexander Ross had been a handsome young man, a rising star at the Foreign Office, the heir to a barony betrothed to a wealthy and beautiful woman. The combination had obviously made him a popular guest in diplomatic circles.

Turning to a davenport desk standing near the hearth, Sebastian lifted the hinged top and sifted through the contents of the upper compartment. He found a few tradesmen’s bills, but none of them excessive or overly extravagant. Beside the bills lay a sheet of parchment with what appeared to be a half-written letter addressed to Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty.

Sir:

I am writing on behalf of a young American seaman, Mr.

Nathan Bateman, impressed off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts, by the HMS Rodney in June of 1809. The citizenship of Mr. Bateman has been firmly established by documents presented by his father, namely a

There the writing ended abruptly, as if Ross had been disturbed and set the letter aside to complete at a later time.

Thoughtfully tucking the letter into the pocket of his coat, Sebastian glanced quickly through the davenport’s drawers, then went to stand in the middle of the room. He was acutely conscious of the passage of time. The longer he stayed, the greater the risk that one of the occupants of the rooms below would awaken or return to hear the sound of footsteps overhead, or that someone in the street might look up and catch a whisper of movement behind the drapes.

He shifted his attention to looking for those things Ross might have preferred to keep hidden. He turned over the clock on the mantel, the cushions on the chairs; he felt behind furniture. Inside the frontispiece of a worn copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius he discovered a folded sheet of parchment. Opening the page, he found himself staring at a curious line of numbers:

7-10-12-14-17

Puzzled, he was thrusting the page into his pocket when he heard a faint sound. The brush of cloth against cloth. The scuff of quiet footsteps on bare stair treads.

Sebastian slipped the book back onto its shelf and moved to station himself beside the door. Whoever was creeping up the stairs had reached the first floor now and was coming around to the second flight of steps.

Dressed as he was, in formal knee breeches and low shoes, Sebastian had no weapon, not even the dagger he habitually kept sheathed in his boot. He held himself very still, listening as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs.

One man, only, Sebastian thought.

He could hear the man’s quick breathing as he paused outside the door. Then Sebastian heard the soft click of metal against metal and recognized it for what it was: a picklock. He smiled into the darkness.

He heard the unseen intruder grunt, pleased but evidently not unduly surprised to find the door unlatched. There was a faint clatter of metal shafts clicking against their mates as the man put the thieves’ tool away. Then, as Sebastian watched, the door latch slowly turned. The panel swung inward and the intruder stepped into the room.

He was carrying a horn lantern, its light carefully shielded so that it formed only a narrow slash. But this was no ordinary thief. Like Sebastian, he wore evening clothes: satin knee breeches, a black coat, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes. Sebastian waited until he had taken two steps into the room. Then Sebastian reached out, grabbed the man by the back of his coat, and shoved him forward, hard.

Caught by surprise, the man stumbled, off balance. Sebastian slammed his foot into the back of the man’s right knee. With a startled cry, he crashed to his out-flung hands and knees; the lantern smashed and went out.

One hand still fisted in the back of the man’s coat, Sebastian brought his right arm across the front of the man’s throat and yanked him back, Sebastian’s right hand bracing against his own left elbow as he shifted his other hand to press against the back of the man’s head.

“hat the devil?” exclaimed the man, flailing around with his arms, trying to reach the unknown and unseen assailant behind him.

“Who are you?” whispered Sebastian, his lips close to the man’s ear. “What are you doing here?”

“Who the devil are you?” snarled the man, his nails raking across the back of Sebastian’s head and sending his top hat flying.

Sebastian tightened his chokehold. “I ask the questions. You answer them.”

“Bugger you,” spat the man and threw himself violently to one side.

They went down together, pain exploding across Sebastian’s ribs as he crashed into a small table that shattered beneath him. Sebastian lost his grip on the man’s neck and caught a heel in his groin. His breath left his body in a whoosh, and he rolled reflexively to one side.

Scrambling up onto his hands and knees, the man lunged through the open door into the hall. Diving after him, Sebastian caught the man’s foot and tried to yank him back. The shoe came off in Sebastian’s hand as the man reared up and pivoted to face him. Sebastian saw the gleam of a knife in his hand.

“Whoever you are,” sneered the man, “you just made your last mistake.”

Sebastian surged to his feet, the leather dress shoe still in his hand, as the man slashed at Sebastian’s eyes.

Sebastian jerked his head back, the knife whistling through the air. Then he stepped forward and slammed the shoe against the side of the man’s head. The buckle bit deep, drawing blood.

Swearing, the man fell back, one hand swiping at the trickle of blood running down the side of his face. With a growl, he lunged at Sebastian, the knife clenched in his fist.

Sebastian sidestepped and felt his legs slam against the banister.

The man turned with a grin. “Got you, you bastard,” he said and lunged again.

His back to the banister, Sebastian dropped. With his gaze on the other man’s face, Sebastian knew the exact moment when the man realized what he’d done.

His lips twisted in a foul oath, the knife still clutched in his hand, he shot over the railing and plunged headfirst into the darkened stairwell.