His hands tightened on hers. He understood how she’d felt because he’d known the same helpless despair when he thought he was about to lose her in childbirth. He said, “I’m sorry, Hero. I’m so sorry. But . . . I can’t stop what I do, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
She loosed her hands from his grip to press her fingers against his lips. “I’m not asking you to stop. I won’t pretend I don’t fear for you—I fear for myself, because I know my love for you makes me vulnerable. But I know too that what I feel is the same fear endured by every woman whose man ever marched off to war; every wife who watches her son or lover sail to sea or go down in a mine to earn his bread. Risk is a part of what it means to be alive. We can’t live our lives in a constant, paralyzing fear of death.”
“Some do,” he said, his lips moving against her fingers.
A fierce light shone in her eyes. “Yes. But I refuse to.”
Her words echoed something Kat Boleyn had said to him once, long ago. He shifted his hands to Hero’s shoulders, leaned forward until his forehead was pressed against hers. “I will be careful. I can promise you that.” Once, he had been careless with his life, heedless of whether he lived or died.
That was no longer true.
She gave him a sad smile. “I know.”
He kissed her, hard, on her mouth, then rose to unlock the upper right drawer in his desk and withdraw a sleek, walnut-handled dueling pistol. This was not the small, double-barreled flintlock he often carried, which was easily concealed but accurate only at close range. This pistol was made with a long, lightly rifled barrel that made it deadly even at some distance.
“You think the shooter was Diggory Flynn?” she asked, watching as Sebastian set about loading and priming the pistol.
“I’d say it’s more than likely, yes. I think he was watching the house, waiting for me. He saw Knox, and like you, he assumed Knox was me.” Sebastian paused, his hands stilling at their task as the bitter truth of it all washed over him anew. “Knox died because he looked like me. He died in my place.”
She rested her hand on his arm. He thought she was going to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t keep blaming himself for deaths caused by others. Instead, she said, “Will you kill him?”
“First, I’m going to find out who hired him.” Sebastian slipped the pistol into the pocket of his caped greatcoat. “And then I’m going to kill him.”
Chapter 46
S ebastian spent the next hour or so frequenting taverns favored by ex-military men, particularly those who’d served as exploring or observing officers.
Most such men rode a war-torn countryside wearing their British uniforms, lest they be caught and ignobly hanged as spies. But there were some who knew how to blend in with the local populace, to slip behind enemy lines and return again with none the wiser. It was frowned upon, of course—for a gentleman to use subterfuge and deception. Yet for thousands of years, generals had relied upon those with such skills.
Their motives differed. Some risked everything out of love of country, or for the sake of the men with whom they served, or because the vicissitudes of life had eroded their attachment to the things most other men held dear. But there were some who acted solely for the thrill of it all, for the joy of deception and the opportunities it offered.
Sebastian suspected Diggory Flynn fell into the latter category.
It was in a smoky, run-down inn off Cursitor Street that Sebastian found the old acquaintance he was looking for: a one-legged former lieutenant named Dillon Rutherford, who peered at him over the rim of a brandy glass and said, “Diggory Flynn? What do you want with him?”
“I want to kill him,” said Sebastian, taking the seat opposite the lieutenant.
A soundless chuckle shook the lieutenant’s thin chest. “You and a fair number of other people. Unfortunately, he’s not all that easy to kill.”
Rutherford was one of those men who looked as if he could be anywhere between thirty and fifty. Of medium height and slim build, with a gaunt face and thinning brown hair, he’d been born the youngest of a country squire’s five sons. When he was sixteen, his family scraped together enough money to purchase his first pair of colors. But in more than ten years of service he’d managed to save enough to buy only one promotion. And after losing a leg and the use of his right arm at Medina de Rioseco, he’d been invalided out. He now survived by tutoring small boys from a rented room near the Inns of Court.
“Where can I find him?” asked Sebastian.
Rutherford licked his lips. “Flynn isn’t his real name.”
Sebastian ordered two brandies and slid one across the table toward Rutherford. “What is?”
“He’s used so many over the years that I have a hard time keeping them all straight. Barnes? Brady? Something like that.”
“His father was a vicar?”
“So they say.” The lieutenant sipped from his new glass of brandy.
“Did he ever serve under Colonel Sinclair Oliphant?”
The lieutenant widened his eyes. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”