The hackney was old and broken-down and smelled of moldy hay and spilled ale. Gibson was conscious of her woman, Karmele, scowling at him from the vehicle’s interior, her arms crossed beneath her massive breasts as he handed Alexi up into the carriage. He wished he could say something—anything—to stop this moment and hold her in his life. But the jarvey was already cracking his whip. The carriage rolled forward.
He raised one hand in an awkward gesture of farewell. But she kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, her hair a bright flame lost all too soon in the gloom of the night. It wasn’t until she was gone that he realized he hadn’t actually called her stubborn.
He’d only thought it.
? ? ?
The impulse to lose himself in opium’s sweet embraces was strong enough to propel Gibson away from Tower Hill that night. Resisting a secondary urge to seek a coarser type of oblivion at his local pub, he caught a hackney to Mayfair and met Devlin at a quiet coffeehouse in Hanover Square.
“I can look at your face and see that you haven’t brought me good news,” said Devlin, ordering coffee for them both.
Gibson eased out a soft sigh as he settled in a chair near the fire, glad to get off his peg leg. “Part of the problem is Richard Croft. He’s been very busy going about justifying himself to anyone and everyone who’ll listen. Technically I suppose he could claim he’s been discreet, but it’s amazing how much a man can somehow manage to convey without actually saying it. Most people are wise enough to discern the truth—that Croft resigned because he feared Jarvis’s wrath should something go wrong. But rather than helping matters, that’s probably only made the situation worse.”
“All I need is one name,” said Devlin, leaning his forearms on the table between them.
Gibson wrapped his cold-numbed hands around his steaming coffee. “Well . . . My colleague Lothan has offered to consult with Lady Devlin. But to be frank, I don’t think he’ll find favor with her any more than Croft did—less so, in fact. If anything, he’s worse than Croft when it comes to the employment of bloodletting, purges, and emetics. And he absolutely refuses under any circumstances to use forceps, which I’m afraid may become necessary in this case.”
Devlin listened to him in silence, his lean, handsome face looking unnaturally bleak and hollow eyed. “So what do you suggest?”
Gibson took a sip of the coffee and burned his tongue. “There are a few men I still haven’t managed to contact yet. But if worse comes to worst . . .” He paused, drew a deep breath, and said, “What about Alexandrie Sauvage? She’s a physician and an accoucheur, and she—”
“No.”
Gibson dropped his gaze to his steaming cup. He knew he should tell Devlin that Alexi had left his surgery and returned to Golden Square. But somehow his throat closed up at the very thought of even trying to talk about it. He said instead, “Have you learned anything more about the men who attacked you outside Stoke Mandeville?”
“No. I had a message from Sir Henry a bit ago, saying his constables came up empty-handed at the livery stables. But I’m not surprised. Whoever we’re dealing with here isn’t careless enough to leave a clear trail.”
“Seems to me the two aren’t necessarily linked—Pelletan’s murder and the attack on you, I mean. It could be that you’re making someone connected to either the Bourbons or the peace initiatives nervous.”
“I’ve no doubt my questions are making a lot of people uncomfortable.”
A silence fell between them, both men lost in their own thoughts. After a moment, Devlin said, “What are the chances the babe could still turn? Give me an honest answer, Gibson.”
Gibson forced himself to meet his friend’s gaze. “In truth, they’re small. But it is possible. I’ve known babes to turn within hours of a confinement.”
Devlin nodded silently.
But the look in his eyes was that of a man staring into the yawning abyss of hell.
Chapter 33
That night, in his dreams, Sebastian breathed again the familiar scent of orange blossoms. Except this time the laughing shouts of the children were far away, like a haunting portent of things to come. This time, he felt the sharp edge of a too-tight rope biting deep into the flesh of his wrists and a hot, sticky wetness that trickled down the side of his face from the gash near his eye.
The moonlight was the color of bleached pewter, the air frigid with the sudden chill that darkness can bring to the mountains even after a warm spring day. He sat with his legs sprawled awkwardly before him, his bound hands wrenched painfully behind his back. The ground beneath him was bare, hard-packed earth. A fitful wind bent the crooked limbs of the trees overhead and filled the night with dancing, grotesque shadows.