When Maidens Mourn by C. S. Harris Read Free Book Online

he got lucky. He hit her heart with just one thrust.”
    “She died right away?”
    “Almost instantly.”
    Sebastian dropped his gaze to the long, tapered fingers that lay curled beside the body’s hips. The nails were carefully manicured and unbroken.
    “No sign of a struggle?”
    “None that I’ve found.”
    “So she may have known her attacker?”
    “Perhaps.” Gibson tossed the rag aside. “Lovejoy’s constable said she was found drifting in a dinghy outside London?”
    Sebastian nodded. “On an old moat near Enfield. Any idea how long she’s been dead?”
    “Roughly twenty-four hours, I’d say, perhaps a few hours more or a little less. But beyond that it’s difficult to determine.”
    Sebastian studied the reddish purple discoloration along the visible portions of the body’s flanks and back. He knew from his own experience on the battlefield that blood tended to pool in the lower portions of a cadaver. “Any chance she could have been killed someplace else and then put in that boat?”
    “I haven’t found anything to suggest it, no. The
livor mortis
is consistent with the position in which I’m told she was found.”
    Sebastian’s gaze shifted to the half boots of peach-colored suede, the delicate stockings, the froth of white muslin neatly folded on a nearby shelf. “These are hers?”
    “Yes.”
    He reached out to finger the dark reddish brown stain that stiffened the delicate lace edging of the bodice. Suddenly the dank, death-tinged air of the place seemed to reach out and wrap itself around him, smothering him. He dropped his hand to his side and went to stand outside in the yard, the buzz of insects loud in the rank grass of the neglected garden as he drew in a deep breath of fresh air.
    He was aware of his friend coming to stand beside him. Gibsonsaid, “Lovejoy tells me Miss Jar—I mean, Lady Devlin was acquainted with the victim.”
    “They were quite close, yes.”
    Sebastian stared up at the hot, brittle blue sky overhead. When the messenger from Bow Street arrived in Brook Street that morning, Sebastian thought he had never seen Hero more devastated. Yet she hadn’t wept, and she had turned down his suggestion that she drive up to Camlet Moat with him. He did not understand why. But then, how much did he really know about the woman he had married?
    Hero and this dead woman had shared so much in common—an enthusiasm for scholarship and research, a willingness to challenge societal expectations and prejudices, and a rejection of marriage and motherhood as the only acceptable choice for a woman. He could understand Hero’s grief and anger at the loss of her friend. But he couldn’t shake the uncomfortable sense that something else was going on with her, something he couldn’t even begin to guess at.
    Gibson said, “This must be difficult for her. Any leads yet on the two lads?”
    Sebastian glanced over at him, not understanding. “What lads?”
    “The two boys Miss Tennyson had spending the summer with her.” Gibson must have read the confusion in Sebastian’s face, because he added, “You mean to say you haven’t heard?”
    Sebastian could feel his heart beating in his ears like a thrumming of dread. “Heard what?”
    “The news has been all over town this past hour or more. The children have vanished. No one’s seen them since yesterday morning.”

Chapter 8
     
    T he Adelphi Terrace—or Royal Terrace, as it was sometimes called—stretched along the bank of the Thames overlooking the vast Adelphi Wharves. A long block of elegant neoclassical town houses built by the Adams brothers late in the previous century, the address was popular with the city’s rising gentry class, particularly with Harley Street physicians and successful barristers such as Gabrielle Tennyson’s brother. As Sebastian rounded the corner from Adams Street, he found Sir Henry Lovejoy exiting the Tennysons’ front door.
    “You’ve heard about the missing children?” asked Sir Henry, his