Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 19

Kat stood beside the heavily draped windows of her bedroom, her arms wrapped across her chest. The room behind her was dark. The night watchman had long since called out, Two o’clock on a fine night and all is well, but she still wore the robe en caleçon of blue satin piped in white that she’d worn home from the evening’s performance. She had not been to bed.

She didn’t want to look, but she had to. Touching the edge of the curtain, she shifted it so that she could peer down on the street below. The night was unusually bright, the moonlight mingling with the light from the streetlamps to bathe the pavement in a soft glow. She searched the shadows, looking for a shape that shouldn’t be there, a hint of movement on a still night.

Sebastian would have seen the figure in an instant; it took Kat several minutes. She had almost given up looking when he raised his hand to his mouth, like a man stifling a yawn.

She let the curtain fall back into place, then simply stood there, her breath coming hard and fast. She had no illusions about the situation she was in. Jarvis was not a man given to idle threats; he had meant everything he said. She had until Friday.

She’d found it curious, at first, that he’d given her several days to deliver up to him the spymaster’s name. Then she’d realized he must have had agents watching her for months, ever since Pierrepont’s flight last February. It must have been when Jarvis grew frustrated by his inability to ascertain the spymaster’s identity by stealth that he had decided to approach Kat directly. Convinced that she did not, indeed, know the new spymaster’s name, he had decided it necessary to allot her that brief span of time in which to discover it.

Pressing the fingertips of one hand against her lips, Kat swung away from the window. She had no need to discover the name of Napoleon’s new spymaster in London, for she knew it. Aiden O’Connell was an Irishman who cooperated with the French for the same reason Kat once had: for Ireland. He had approached her last summer hoping to reestablish the connection she had once enjoyed with his predecessor, Leo Pierrepont. She had told him at the time she wanted out of the game, but that wouldn’t save her now from Jarvis.

Her options were limited and she knew it. She could attempt to escape, but Jarvis was notorious for his network of spies, and her stomach roiled at the thought of the things his henchmen would do to her if they caught her. She could wait until Friday and nobly refuse to give up O’Connell’s name, but Jarvis would then simply wrench the information from her by torture. She knew she would tell them anything they wanted to hear—anything, even as she knew it wouldn’t be enough to save her. Or…

Or she could betray O’Connell freely, and hope it would be enough.

With a groan, Kat sank to the floor, her arms drawing her bent knees against her chest. Jarvis had left her no real choice, and he knew it. On Friday, she would tell him Aiden O’Connell’s name. The trick would be to find a way to do it on her own terms. Because she harbored no illusions. Now that Jarvis had his hooks in her, she would never be free, never be safe.

And neither would Devlin.

Leaving his aunt Henrietta’s ball, Sebastian descended the torchlit steps to discover a man in a rough greatcoat and slouch hat lounging against the wall near Sebastian’s carriage, his hands in his pockets. As Sebastian approached, the man pushed himself upright and took a step forward.

Sebastian’s footmen made to stop him, but Sebastian waved them back.

“Nice evening,” said the man, the skin beside his eyes crinkling in a smile. He looked to be about thirty years of age, with broad shoulders and a kind of coiled restlessness that reminded Sebastian of men he’d known in the army, in the secret service.

Sebastian casually slipped one hand into his own pocket and felt the smooth, well-crafted wooden stock of his pistol. “Then why the coat?”

This time the man’s smile showed his teeth. “You know why.” His speech was not that of a gentleman, yet not of the streets, either.

Moving deliberately, Sebastian brought the small flintlock from his pocket to hold it loosely at his side. He was careful to keep a calculated distance between them. “What do you want?”

For an instant, the man’s eyes left Sebastian’s face, his gaze flicking to the flintlock at Sebastian’s side. The man’s expression never altered. “I’ve come to offer you some friendly advice.”

“Advice?”

“Advice. I was hired to give you a warning. You know the kind. A dead cat on your doorstep. A brick through your window in the middle of the night. But then I thought, Why play games? There’s something the gentleman needs to understand, so why not simply explain it to him?”

“Hence the advice.”

“That’s right.” The man in the slouch hat brought up his left hand to scratch the side of his nose. “The thing is, you see, you’ve been asking too many questions. The gentleman who hired me wants you to stop.”

“You mean, asking questions about Barclay Carmichael and Dominic Stanton.”

The man smiled again. “That’s right. See? I knew you’d understand.”

“Who hired you? Lord Stanton or Sir Humphrey Carmichael?”

The man’s smile slid away. “Now there you go, asking questions. Not a good idea, remember?”

The man was starting to annoy Sebastian. “Just who are you, anyway?”

“My name isn’t important. I’m just the messenger.”

“And the adviser.”

“So to speak.”

“And if I fail to heed your advice?”

The man’s smile was completely gone now. “That would be unwise.”

Sebastian signaled his footman, who leapt forward to let down the carriage steps. “Give your employer some advice from me, why don’t you?” Sebastian said.

The man pivoted to keep his face toward Sebastian as Sebastian moved past him to the carriage. The man’s right hand never left his pocket. Sebastian never raised the pistol from his side. “Tell your employer I don’t like people who kill cats. I have a real objection to heavy rocks being thrown through my windows. And if he sends anyone after me again, I’ll kill him.”

Something glittered in the other man’s eyes, something that was both a warning and a promise. “Till we meet again, then,” he said, and faded into the night.

Sebastian settled into the corner of his carriage, the flintlock resting against his knee. He could hear the distant strains of music from his aunt’s ballroom and, from nearer at hand, a woman’s laughter.

His questions were obviously making someone uncomfortable. The threat against him had been serious, the man who delivered it a professional. Leaning forward, Sebastian signaled his coachman to drive on. He had no intention of heeding the man’s warning, of course. Which meant that he’d be meeting the gentleman in the slouch hat again.

Only next time, Sebastian knew, he wouldn’t see the man coming.