The cloaked figure held his victim tenderly, letting the warm weight of the senseless body slump against his shoulder as he envisioned the heart shuddering to a stop, the blood ceasing to pulse through the veins.
“Rest easy, my dear Cedric. You won’t have died in vain. This will all be for the greater good, I swear it.”
He waited another long moment, inhaling the mist-chilled fragrances of the night. The clouds had blown off, leaving the black velvet of the heavens alive with a sparkling of diamond-bright stars.
A good omen, if one believes in such signs.
Taking out a large black silk handkerchief from his coat pocket, the assailant calmly wrapped it around the sleeve of his coat, then slowly withdrew the blade from Cedric’s chest. Starlight skittered along the razor-sharp blade as it cut again through the night.
Swoosh, swoosh. The slashes were lightning quick, cutting through fabric and flesh. With a dancer’s grace, he twisted away from the spill of wine-dark blood.
After unknotting the protective silk from his sleeve and carefully wrapping his prize in it, he took another few moments to appreciate the night’s beauty, then rose and walked off, whistling softly.
Crunch-crunch. As the darkness deepened with impending rain, the nightingale’s song quickly swallowed the receding notes of Beethoven’s Third Symphony.
Sinfonia Eroica—the Heroic Symphony.
For tonight was a night for epic heroes.
CHAPTER 1
“M’lady, m’lady!”
Charlotte Sloane looked up from her drawing as two mud-encrusted boys peltered up the stairs and burst into her workroom.
“There’s been another Bloody Butcher murder!” announced the one called Raven in a breathless rush.
“Oiy, and this time the victim’s a titled toff!” piped up his younger brother, who was known as Hawk. “And—”
“And it’s disgusting,” cut in Raven. “Lilly the flower girl said—”
“Said it were so ’orrible the Bow Street Runner puked all over ’is boots,” exclaimed Hawk, tripping over his tongue to be first in revealing the gory details. “Because—”
“Because the Butcher cut off one of the gent’s bollocks!” finished Raven.
Holy hell. Though rarely shocked by man’s viciousness toward his fellow man, Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face. Putting down her pen, she leaned back in her chair, for the moment too taken aback by the gruesome news to chide the boys about their filthy faces and less-than-perfect English.
These mutilation murders seemed to be taking a terribly sinister turn. The first two victims had been nameless vagrants, followed by a respectable tradesman.
And now an aristocrat.
What madman was on the loose?
“Who was the victim?” she asked, forcing herself to focus on the grim practicalities of the news.
Her livelihood as London’s most popular satirical artist depended on feeding the public’s insatiable appetite for scandal and depravity. And they looked to A. J. Quill to be the first to trumpet all the juicy details of the evils that man did to his fellow man—though the fact that a woman penned such scathing commentary was a well-kept secret. She would need to do a drawing of the crime by evening so the engravers could have it ready for sale in Fores’s print shop for tomorrow morning.
“Lilly didn’t know,” answered Hawk. “She heard the news from one of the gardeners who found the toff.”
“Where?” demanded Charlotte.
“Kensington Gardens,” replied Raven. “The Duke of Sussex had a fancy party for some visiting men of science from Prussia last night at the Palace.”
Science. The word stirred a pricking at the back of her neck.
“Word is,” continued the boy, “the victim looks to be one of the guests. But Lilly said Bow Street’s being tighter than a flea’s ars—” He stopped and flashed an apologetic grin. “That is, the Runners are being closemouthed about any further details.”
Her brows drawing together in a frown, Charlotte took a moment to think over what she had just heard. Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex and sixth son of King George III, had a keen interest in scholarly subjects and was a member of the Royal Society, which, along with the Royal Institution, was the leading bastion of London’s scientific minds. He often held lavish receptions for its members and guests in his apartments at Kensington Palace.
Given that such soirees usually included those who moved within the highest circles of Society, she couldn’t help but wonder . . .
“If Lord Wrexford was there, he might know more about it,” Charlotte mused aloud.
“You want for us to run along to Berkeley Square and ask?” volunteered Hawk, his pronunciation quickly improving. The earl’s cook was very generous with sweets.
Charlotte hesitated. But pragmatism quickly overruled emotion. She needed information, and if Bow Street was keeping tight-lipped about the crime because the victim was an aristocrat, her usual sources wouldn’t be of help.
“Yes,” she answered, and quickly penned a short note. “If he hasn’t risen from his lordly slumber . . .” A glance at the mantel clock showed it was well before noon. “Ask if you may wait for a reply.”
Both boys bobbed a quick nod and clattered off with undisguised enthusiasm.
Her own feelings were a bit more ambiguous. Wrexford. A man of maddening complexities and contradictions. Though, conceded Charlotte, she was just as difficult.
A sigh. She and the Earl of Wrexford had first been drawn together when he was the main suspect in a gruesome murder. Through her network of informants, she had reason to believe him innocent and so they had grudgingly agreed to work together to find the real killer. A wary friendship had developed . . . though that was a far too simplistic description of their relationship.
They had recently collaborated on solving another complex murder, which had caused Wrexford to come within a hairsbreadth of death. She had helped to rescue him, and in the heat of the moment, both of them had revealed personal secrets and expressed certain emotions . . .
Which perhaps they were both regretting.
It had been a fortnight since his last visit, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether he, like herself, felt a little rattled at having spoken—however obliquely—from the heart.
“What a pair we are,” she muttered. “Prickly, guarded, afraid of making ourselves vulnerable.”
Taking up her pen, Charlotte carefully cleaned the dried ink from its nib with a damp rag. As a rule, she tried not to brood over a decision once it was made. Noli respicere—don’t look back. But much as she tried to return her thoughts to her unfinished sketch of the Prince Regent’s latest peccadillo, she couldn’t keep from asking herself whether it was wise to get involved in another murder with the earl.
A shiver, sharp as daggerpoints, danced down her spine as Charlotte recalled how the thought of losing Wrexford had shaken her to the core. The depth of her sentiment had frightened her. Weakness of any kind was dangerous. Only the strong survived.
“I am strong. I always have been,” she whispered, trying to give some force to her breath.
Or am I?
Of late, so many of her defenses felt under siege. Caring too deeply made one vulnerable. Raven and Hawk, the two homeless, half-wild urchins she had found sheltering in her previous house, had taken hold of her heart in ways she had never expected. Charlotte couldn’t say exactly how it had happened. They had started running errands to her network of informants in return for scraps of food, and . . .