Where Shadows Dance

Chapter 44

Sebastian was in no mood for subtleties.

The muzzle of his pistol pressed to the temple of one of Todd Sullivan’s cronies at the Castle Tavern solicited the information that Sullivan frequently made use of a ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of Barham Wood, near Elstree.

In the grip of a cold, driven purposefulness, Sebastian borrowed a bay hack from the nearby livery and entrusted Tom with a message for Bow Street.

“Why can’t I come with you?” asked Tom, his head ducked, his voice strained as he tightened the saddle’s cinch. “It’s because o’ the things I said about Miss Jarvis before, ain’t it? It’s because you don’t trust me no more.”

Painfully conscious of the daylight slipping from the sky, Sebastian paused to rest a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I trust you with my life, and you know it.” He swung into the saddle. “But I could be riding into a trap. I need someone I trust to deliver this message. Now go,” he said, and spurred the bay out the livery door.

For Hero, the darkness came all too quickly.

Only a single tallow candle set at one end of the table’s rough boards lit the inside of the cottage. That, and the soft glow from the fire kindled on the hearth by the coachman.

The coachman had long since subsided into a drunken stupor in the fireplace’s inglenook. But the other two men continued to drink steadily. They sprawled now beside the crude table, the remnants of their dinner—more bread and sausage—scattered across the scarred surface. They talked in desultory tones about horses and cockfights and some colleague named Jed who had recently “made a good end” on the hangman’s noose. But all the while, Hero was aware of Sullivan’s dark gaze following her in a way she did not like as she restlessly paced the confines of the cottage.

At one point she heard the buff-coated man lean in close to his friend to whisper, “Need to keep yer breeches’ flap buttoned fer a while yet, lad. Least till we hear they won’t be needin’ her fer some reason.” Both men laughed, and Hero felt a new rush of cold fear wash over her, followed by a hot fury that left a steady resolve in its wake.

“Hey,” Sullivan called to her, raising his voice. “How about ye quit wearin’ out the floor and make yerself useful by fixin’ some more tea?”

Wordlessly, she prepared the cracked, brown earthenware teapot and set in on the boards between the two men. The butcher knife they’d used to slice their bread and salami still lay nearby; she’d noticed the handle of Sullivan’s pistol peeking from the pocket of the coat he’d hung on a peg near the door. She was careful not to glance toward it when she went to tend the water she’d set to heat in a blackened saucepan over the fire.

She was aware of the old coachman snoring softly beside her as she waited for the water to come to a good roiling boil. Then, grasping the handle of the pot with a rag, she carried the heavy pan to the table.

“Who’d have thought,” said Sullivan, smiling up at her, “that a fine lord’s daughter like ye would even know how to boil water?”

“Who’d have thought?” agreed Hero, and dumped the scalding water into his lap.

She was only dimly aware of the hot water splashing up to burn her own flesh through the cloth of her walking dress. Sullivan came roaring up off his chair, both hands clasped to his wet, burning crotch, his face snarled with pain and fury. She could hear the buff-coated man stumbling to his feet behind her. But she was already spinning toward him, the saucepan still gripped in a tight hold. Throwing all her weight behind it, she slammed the hot base of the pot into the side of the second man’s head with a sickening, searing thud. He went down.

“Ye bloody bitch,” growled Sullivan, lunging for her. She threw the pot at him and snatched the butcher knife off the table. Clenching it in a two-handed grip, she slashed the blade like a sword across his throat.

Hot, bright red blood spurted everywhere. Streams of it. For one awful moment, she could only stand, the knife still clenched in one fist, and stare at him as his step faltered and his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Wot the ’ell?”

Looking up, she saw the coachman stumble to his feet near the hearth. Their gazes met across the room, his jaw slack with horror.

Then they both scrambled for the pistol hanging near the door.

He was closer than she, and he reached Sullivan’s coat first, for she tripped over Sullivan’s body on the way. But the coachman was more than half drunk and he was still trying to pull back the hammer when she buried the butcher knife in his back.

He howled and stumbled sideways, but he didn’t go down. She tried to pull the knife out so that she could stab him again, only she couldn’t seem to yank it free. She heard a scuffle of footsteps behind her and looked around to see the buff-coated man staggering to his feet, the side of his face burnt and blackened from where she’d hit him with the pot.

“I’m gonna make ye wish ye’d never been born,” he spat, charging her.

Giving the old coachman a shove out of the way, she snatched the pistol from his loosening grip, pulled back the hammer, and fired.

Sebastian was galloping down the overgrown lane when he heard the booming report of a pistol. He checked for a moment, a sick fear seizing his gut. Yanking out his own pistol, he spurred the bay forward again.

He clattered into the yard of a tumbledown cottage softly lit by moonlight. The door stood ajar. The familiar, tall figure of a woman leaned against the outer wall of the cottage. She had her head tipped back, her eyes open wide; in one hand, she held a pistol, the barrel pressed against the blood-soaked skirts of her once elegant walking dress. “Hero,” he said, sliding off his horse beside her. He realized he was trembling. “My God. Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not,” she said, her voice unbelievably calm and steady. She nodded toward the inside of the cottage. “They’re in there.”

His own pistol held in a tight grip, Sebastian pushed the door open wide.

A gray-haired, liveried coachman lay facedown just to the left of the door, a butcher knife sticking out of his back. Another man, younger, wearing a buff-colored coat, was sprawled on his back halfway between the door and a crude table, a bloody hole blasted in his chest. He was alive, but barely. He breathed his last as Sebastian bent over him. A third man—taller, darker; Sullivan, Sebastian suspected—lay near the table. Someone had slashed his throat so viciously, they’d half cut off his head.

Sebastian put his gun away and walked back outside.

She was still leaning against the rough wall of the cottage. Just standing there, her chest rising and falling with her quiet but rapid breaths, her gaze on nothing in particular. At his approach, she turned her head, her eyes huge in the moonlight.

She said, “Are they dead?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He nodded toward the blood-splattered interior of the cottage. “You did that?”

She glanced down at the pistol, then up at him again. “They killed Marie.”

Reaching out, he drew her into his arms.

She came stiffly, holding back. “I’m all right,” she said, her voice muffled against his neck. But he could feel the faint tremors rippling through her.

He brought his hand up, hesitated, then began to stroke her hair. “I know.”

“I’m all right,” she said again, trying to pull away, as if ashamed of even that momentary betrayal of fear and weakness.

But he held her close, his lips pressed to her hair, his eyes squeezed shut. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s over.”