Where Shadows Dance (27 page)

The woman known as Yasmina Ramadani lay curled on her side, her thick-lashed hazel eyes wide and staring, her mouth parted, her head twisted back at an unnatural angle. Even in death, she was beautiful, her flesh as pearly and smooth as a statue. In contrast to her dress the day he saw her, she wore a cream silk walking gown caught up with a scarlet ribbon; a gold pendant nestled between her breasts; a reticule embroidered with red poppies rested near her hip, its ties still wrapped around her delicate wrist.

“Her neck is broken?” asked Sebastian softly.

“It appears to be, yes.”

Sebastian reached out to touch her pale cheek. She was already growing cold.

He pushed to his feet. “Who found her?”

“A maid. She chanced to notice that the door stood slightly ajar and went to close it. I’m told the latch is faulty and frequently fails to catch unless the door is firmly shut. Otherwise I doubt the poor woman would have been discovered until morning.”

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the small parlor. A tapestry-covered footstool lay overturned near the hearth; otherwise, the room appeared undisturbed. “What the devil was she doing here?”

“That I do not know. According to the landlord, Madame arrived alone just after two o’clock this afternoon and requested a private parlor. As far as we can tell, no one besides the Ambassador’s wife was seen entering or leaving the room.”

“What does her husband say?”

“He is devastated, naturally. But he claims to be utterly baffled by his wife’s activities.”

Sebastian brought his gaze back to the little magistrate’s grim-featured face. “You believe him?”

“One can hardly call the Ambassador to the Court of St. James from the Sublime Porte a liar.”

“You may not be able to,” said Sebastian. “But I can.”

 

 

His Excellency Antonaki Ramadani may have been devastated, but not so devastated as to forgo his usual evening ritual, which typically began with dinner at Steven’s before progressing to Limmer’s.

Located at the corner of Conduit and George streets just across from the Church of St. George, Limmer’s was the evening resort for the sporting world. A sprawling brick edifice from the previous century, the hotel essentially served as a late-night Tattersall’s. Pushing through the crowd that filled its dark, spartan public room, Sebastian found the Ambassador looking for all the world like a country squire in buckskins and high-top black leather boots, his only condescension to his presumed state of mourning being a black ribbon tied around his arm.

“Mind if I join you?” asked Sebastian, pulling out a nearby chair.

Ramadani met Sebastian’s gaze, his own narrowing. Then he turned to the slim, middle-aged man beside him and said quietly, “You’ll excuse us for a moment?”

Sebastian watched the former jockey walk away. “I didn’t know you were a passionate follower of the turf.”

“I find it amusing.” The Turk settled back in his chair. “Take a glass of the hotel’s famous gin punch with me, my lord? Or do you prefer port?”

“I’ll have the punch, thanks,” said Sebastian, watching the Ambassador signal the barmaid. “I was sorry to hear about the death of your wife.”

“It is tragic, is it not? She was a very beautiful woman.”

“She was indeed.” Sebastian waited while the barmaid set their punch on the table before them. “Who did she go to Queen Ann Street to meet?”

“That I do not know.”

“Really?”

The Turk returned a bland stare. “Difficult to believe, I know. But nonetheless true.”

Sebastian watched the Turk’s face—and his hands. “I’ve heard the oddest rumor: that Yasmina was not your wife. That she was in fact brought here to function as a spy.”

Ramadani gave him a thin, tight smile. He kept both hands wrapped around his punch, although he did not taste it. “Did you know that ambassadors posted to the Court of St. James are subjected to closer scrutiny by your government than at any other court in the world?”

“Closer even than at the Porte?”

“One might wish that we were so thorough. History tells us that Walpole spent a million pounds sterling on his secret service, and I am given to understand that such expenditures have only increased in the last seventy-five years. Our servants are bribed and hectored into becoming spies who read our private papers and report our every move. All incoming and outgoing mail is routed through the Foreign Office, where it is opened, read, copied, and then resealed before being sent on its way.”

“So you’re saying—what? That a nation with so little respect for the sanctity of the diplomatic corps shouldn’t object when some of its guest diplomats engage in a bit of their own spying?”

“I certainly wouldn’t expect such a people to stoop to murder.”

Sebastian sipped his gin punch. “Are you accusing the British government of murder?”

“The government?” Ramadani pursed his lips and shook his head. “Perhaps not. But certain members within that government? Now, that’s a different matter altogether.”

“Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”

The Turk gave a harsh smile. “May I suggest you address some of these questions to your prospective father-in-law? He is said to be omniscient, is he not? And the ruthlessness of his methods is legendary.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I told you I prefer the garrote, did I not?”

“Antoine de al Rocque was garroted.”

“True. But not by me,” said Ramadani.

And he walked away, leaving his gin punch untasted.

 

 

Charles, Lord Jarvis, was standing at the elbow of the Prince Regent in a gaming hell off Pickering Place when Sebastian walked up to him and said quietly, “If I might have a word with you, my lord. Outside.”

Annoyance and something else flared in the big man’s eyes. But he flattened his lips and turned to murmur his apologies to the Prince.

“Well, what is it?” snapped Jarvis as he and Sebastian strolled toward King Street.

“The spies in the households of the various ambassadors posted to London,” said Sebastian. “Who controls them? You? Or the Foreign Office?”

“The Foreign Office. Why?”

“But you have access to their reports.”

“Naturally.”

“So you knew why the woman known as Yasmina Ramadani was sent to London as part of the Turkish Ambassador’s household.”

“We had our suspicions, yes.”

“Did you have her killed?”

Jarvis snorted. “I did not.”

“Yet you knew she had seduced someone at the Foreign Office. Who was it?”

Jarvis’s full lips curved into a smile. “Even if I knew, you don’t seriously think I’d tell you, do you?”

With effort, Sebastian suppressed the urge to plant his fist in the middle of his future father-in-law’s complacent face. “What about the Swede, Carl Lindquist? Did you have him killed?”

A man in a swirling evening cape walked toward them. Jarvis dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “Don’t be absurd. The Swede’s death has complicated an already delicate state of affairs.”

“How many people besides Ross knew of the transfer of the gold?”

Jarvis kept his voice low. “It’s impossible to keep arrangements of this nature a closely held secret. By necessity it is known to individuals in the Treasury, the Cabinet ... even some members of Parliament.”

Sebastian waited until the gentleman in the evening cape had passed them, then said, “And Antoine de La Rocque? How did he figure into it?”

The King’s powerful, omniscient cousin drew a gold snuffbox from one pocket and flicked open the lid. “I know nothing about de La Rocque. To my knowledge he was merely an expriest with a rather curious passion for collecting old books.”

Sebastian smiled. “Of course.”

Jarvis lifted a delicate pinch of snuff to one nostril and inhaled. “You haven’t asked if I killed Alexander Ross.”

Sebastian met the older man’s hard gray gaze. “Would you tell me if you had?”

Jarvis closed his snuffbox with a snap. “I suppose that would depend on why I had him killed.”

 

 

Lost in thought, Sebastian was walking up St. James’s Street when one of Kat Boleyn’s young pages found him.

Breaking the seal of her note, Sebastian read through the brief missive. Then he turned his steps toward Covent Garden.

H
e found Kat waiting for him at the stage door.

She wore a crimson velvet cloak with the hood pulled up over her auburn-shot dark hair. He walked toward her, his footsteps echoing in the stillness, his gaze drinking in the sight of her.

She held out her hand to him. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

He took her hand in his, held it a moment too long, then released it. “Your page had a difficult time finding me.” He searched her beautiful, beloved face. “What is it?”

“You’ve heard of the death of the woman known as Yasmina Ramadani?”

“Yes. Why?”

They turned to walk up the narrow lane. She said, “The friendship between France and the Sublime Porte goes back hundreds of years.”

“Thanks largely to their mutual dislike of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the grand tradition of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
’”

“Something like that.”

Sebastian glanced sideways at her. “Are you telling me that the information Yasmina collected was being shared with the French?”

“Yes.”

“Via whom?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

He nodded. “Can you tell me who Yasmina targeted at the Foreign Office? Was it Alexander Ross? Or someone else?”

“I’m not certain, although it’s possible she may have had more than one lover.” Kat hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “It has occurred to you, I suppose, that it is in France’s best interest to prevent an alliance between Britain and Sweden?”

“Are you saying the French acted on the information Yasmina gleaned from Ross—or someone else—and killed Lindquist in an attempt to disrupt any alliance between Britain and Sweden?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility. But do I know for certain? No.”

“And Ross? Why was he killed?”

“I haven’t been able to learn anything about Alexander Ross.”

Sebastian blew out a long, frustrated breath. “I suppose it’s possible his death isn’t related to any of this at all.”

“It’s related,” she said. “The manner of his death tells us that.”

They walked along in silence for a moment, their footsteps echoing hollowly in the narrow, empty street. Then she said, “Have you considered Jarvis?”

“When one is dealing with what looks like the work of a professional assassin, the possibility of Jarvis’s involvement does tend to suggest itself, yes. Although if Jarvis had Ross killed to prevent him from spilling state secrets to a Turkish spy, I don’t see why he wouldn’t simply admit it.”

“You
asked
Jarvis if he killed Ross?”

“Yes.”

She let out a peal of laughter, soft and melodic and so belovedly familiar it brought an ache to his chest. “Oh, Sebastian,” she said, “your future family gatherings ought to prove beyond interesting, to say the least.”

Then she must have read something he didn’t want her to see in his eyes, for her smile faded and she reached out to touch her fingertips, ever so briefly, to his arm. “I know why you’re doing this, Sebastian.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “How can you?”

“The British government isn’t the only one who pays servants to spy on their masters. Get your bride a new abigail.”

 

 

That night, Hero received an urgent note from her cousin Sabrina.

I need to talk to you
, the girl had written, her penmanship wobbly, agitated.
Could we meet for a walk in the park tomorrow?

Intrigued, Hero wrote back,
Of course. I’ll see you at ten.

Then she sat for a time, her cousin’s note in her hand, her mind busy with a series of conjectures that in the end seemed to go nowhere.

 

The morning dawned cool and overcast, with a soft white mist that swirled through the trees in the park.

Hero found Sabrina looking pale and heartbreakingly lovely in a walking dress of the deepest mourning topped by a black spencer. At first, Hero was content to simply allow the conversation to ramble as they walked. Her abigail, Marie, followed languidly behind—thankful, Hero suspected, for the moderating effect Sabrina’s presence had on Hero’s normally brisk pace.

They spoke for a time of Alexander Ross, and Sabrina’s grief, and her inability to respond with enthusiasm to Jasper Cox’s plans to remove to the seaside for a few weeks.

Hero said, “I suppose you must find some comfort in your music.”

Sabrina choked back a sob. “I haven’t been able to play since I heard ... since I knew . . .” Her voice trailed away.

Hero reached out to touch her cousin’s shoulder in an awkward but sincere gesture of comfort. “It will come back, eventually. I know it will.” Then, feeling profoundly dishonest, even contemptibly sly, she added, “You play the harp, don’t you?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Pianoforte.”

“Of course. How could I have forgotten?”

Hero stared off across the park, to where the waters of the Serpentine glinted in the distance. She had never actually believed sweet, dainty Sabrina capable of wrapping a harp wire around a man’s neck and twisting it until his face turned purple and the veins in his eyeballs burst.

Hero wasn’t so sure about Jasper.

Hero said, “Were you by chance acquainted with a French émigré named Antoine de La Rocque?”

“De La Rocque? I don’t believe so. Why? Who is he?”

“He was a collector of old and rare books.”