“Yet she drew your portrait.”
“I didn’t know that.” Pierce drew up abruptly and turned to face him. “Why are you doing this? Why interfere? The villagers were content to believe she killed herself. So why stir them up?”
Sebastian felt a breeze kick up, swirling the damp mist against his cheeks. “Because she didn’t kill herself.”
“So? What the hell is she to you?”
“Nothing. And everything.” Sebastian studied the other man’s big-boned face, the hard light in his eyes. Sebastian knew the kind of men Jarvis employed. He had no doubt that Hannibal Pierce was more than capable of holding down a young woman for five minutes and watching her die a slow, agonizing death. “Did you kill her?”
Pierce stared back at him, his nostrils flaring with the violence of his breathing.
In the tense silence, the shifting of the branches of the ancient yews in the churchyard sounded unnaturally loud. Sebastian could hear a trickle of unseen moisture and the rustle of some night creature—
And the metallic snick of a flintlock’s hammer being carefully thumbed back.
Chapter 14
“Get down!” shouted Sebastian, throwing himself flat as a roar of burning powder and whistling hot lead exploded from near the lych-gate.
The bullet hit Pierce high in the chest, spun him half around. He stumbled, then slowly crumpled.
“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian.
He could hear the shooter crashing through the churchyard, running away down the hill through the fog-shrouded tombs and crooked headstones. A shout sounded from one of the nearby cottages, then another. Sebastian pushed cautiously to his feet and went to crouch down beside the gasping man. As Sebastian lifted Pierce’s head, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
Sebastian knew only too well what that meant.
“Who would want to kill you?” he asked, yanking off his cravat to press the wadded cloth against the man’s ripped and bloody waistcoat.
Hannibal Pierce sucked in a shaky breath that blew bubbles in the wet sheen of his chest. His face was full of bewilderment, his thoughts and focus turning inward.
“Who shot you?” shouted Sebastian. He cradled the gravely wounded man in his arms, watched the warm blood seep through the cloth to run down his fingers. And he found himself wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t moved. Because given the angle of the shot and the way the two men had been standing, the bullet could easily have been intended for Sebastian himself.
“You didn’t see anything?”
Archie Rawlins kept his voice hushed, although it was doubtful their words could wake the pallid, dying man in the bed beside them.
They were in Pierce’s room at the Blue Boar. Dr. Higginbottom had arrived, bandaged the man’s chest, pronounced there was no hope for him, and left. A single candle burned on the nightstand; the rest of the chamber lay in shadow.
“Nothing except the glow of burning powder in the fog,” said Sebastian.
“It’s bloody thick out there.” The young Squire blew out a heavy breath and brought up one hand to rub the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t understand why this is happening. We’ve never had anything of this nature in Ayleswick. I mean, every once in a while some drunk will beat his poor wife to death, or somebody will get killed in a brawl. But never anything so . . .”
“Clandestine and premeditated?” suggested Sebastian.
“Yes, that’s it.” Rawlins nodded toward the dying man. “I never could figure out what he was doing here.”
“He was keeping an eye on Lucien Bonaparte. For London.”
Rawlins looked at Sebastian, his jaw slack. “Good God! How’d you know that?”
“Lady Devlin recognized him.”
Archie Rawlins went to stand at the window, his gaze on the swirling fog. “I don’t like where things are going,” he said after a moment. “I find it difficult to believe this shooting isn’t somehow connected to the murder of Emma Chance.”
“Probably,” said Sebastian. “Although it could conceivably be completely unrelated. Pierce told me Napoléon has someone here watching his brother.”
Rawlins pivoted to stare at him. “Who?”
Sebastian shook his head. “He didn’t know. He said he had some suspicions as to whom, but he couldn’t be certain and he didn’t name anyone.”
“You’re suggesting he was shot by a French agent? Here? In Ayleswick!”
“Perhaps.” Sebastian watched the dying man labor to take a rattling breath. “It’s also possible Pierce was hit by mistake. We were facing each other, and I moved when I heard the shooter pull back his hammer. A good marksman with a rifled, long-barreled pistol can reliably hit a target at fifty yards. But most men’s accuracy goes all to hell beyond ten yards—and that’s without the mist.”
“How do you know the shooter was using a pistol?”
“I spent six years in the army.”
“Ah.” Rawlins frowned. “How far away would you say he was?”