He leapt from the curricle and started running. Pushing his way up Margaret Street, he cut across Old Palace Yard to the small former chapel that stood at right angles to Westminster Hall and served as the House of Commons. Bursting through the double doors, he found himself in a dark, low-ceilinged lobby crowded with a throng of spectators queuing patiently for a spot in the galleries. He knew a surge of relief. He wasn’t too late.
Glancing around, Sebastian snagged the arm of a self-important clerk bustling past and hauled him back. “Where is Perceval? Is he here yet? Tell me quickly, man.”
“I say, sir,” bleated the clerk. “You’re not allowed here in boots.” He blanched as his gaze traveled from Sebastian’s bare neck to his bloodied, hastily bandaged arm. “And neck clothes are mandatory. Have you an introduction from a member? Because you really should have entered through the Hall, you kn—”
Sebastian resisted the urge to shake the man. “Damn you, I’m not here to gawk from the galleries. Where is Perceval?”
A movement to one side of the lobby caught Sebastian’s attention. A dark-haired man had risen from a seat near an open fire and was now walking briskly toward the entrance, one hand resting conspicuously inside his coat. “Bellingham,” said Sebastian. Then he bellowed, “Bellingham. Someone seize that man!”
Shocked faces turned not toward Bellingham, but toward Sebastian.
With an oath, Sebastian surged forward. The clerk latched on to his wounded arm and held tight. “Sir, I must insist—”
The slight figure of the Prime Minister appeared in the open doorway. He had his head half turned away, speaking to someone behind him.
“No!” shouted Sebastian, shaking off the clerk just as Bellingham walked up to the Prime Minister and fired a single shot into Perceval’s chest from a distance of no more than three or four feet. As Perceval stumbled back into the arms of the man behind him, Bellingham turned calmly and resumed his seat beside the fire.
They carried the Prime Minister into the office of the secretary of the speaker. Someone called for a doctor, but one glance at the gaping charred hole in Perceval’s chest was enough to tell Sebastian the Prime Minister was beyond any doctor’s help.
Sebastian looked around. “You,” he said, his gaze falling on the self-important clerk hovering nearby. “Run to Downing Street. Tell his family what has happened. Run!” he said again when the men hesitated.
Perceval’s hand fluttered. “Spence? Is he here?”
“He’s coming,” lied Sebastian, grasping the Prime Minister’s hand. Already, it felt cold.
Perceval sucked in a gasping breath that rattled in his throat. “I would like to have seen him one last time before I . . .”
Sebastian leaned forward, straining to hear his words. But the Prime Minister only stared up with blank, unseeing eyes.
Chapter 60
Paul Gibson thrust his needle through the flesh of Sebastian’s forearm, stitching up the long gash left by Epson-Smith’s blade. “You’re lucky,” said Gibson. “He nearly sliced the tendon.”
Sebastian watched the Irishman work his needle in and out. “I think you sew better than my tailor.”
Gibson tied off his thread and reached for a pair of scissors. “You keep me in practice.”
Sebastian held out his arm to open and close his fist.
“It would be better if you rested it for a few days,” said Gibson, turning away to smear salve on a bandage. “Not that I expect you to pay me any heed.” He began wrapping the bandage in place. “What do you think they’ll do to Bellingham?”
“Hang him, I should think. Probably before the week is out.”
“The man is obviously insane.”
“Yes. But I doubt that will stop them.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” said Gibson, busy with his task, “is how the gentleman who stopped Miss Jarvis’s carriage on the way back from Richmond fit into all this.”
“He was probably another hussar officer. He obviously wasn’t at the birthday debauchery, but he must have been involved in the plot to goad Bellingham into shooting Perceval. I suspect it was the four of them—Epson-Smith, Somerville, Drummond, and the Richmond assailant—who attacked the Magdalene House. Epson-Smith killed him to keep him from talking.”
“You think there could be more mixed up in it?”
Sebastian thought about the men who had nearly lured Hero Jarvis to her death. But all he said was, “I doubt we’ll ever know exactly how many hussars were involved.”
“Particularly if the Crown continues to insist that Bellingham acted alone.”
The sound of a carriage pulling up in the street outside drew Sebastian’s attention. Even before he heard the knock on the door, before he heard the lilt of her voice as she spoke to Mrs. Federico, he knew it was Kat.
She came in, bringing with her the scent of the night and the promise of more rain. She wore a sapphire blue carriage dress with cream braided trim and a matching pelisse, and as she paused on the threshold to Gibson’s front room, the exquisite peacock feather of her jaunty blue hat curled down from the brim to rest against her pale cheek. He knew she hadn’t expected to find him here.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, her gaze focused resolutely on Gibson. “I see you’re busy. I’ll come back later.”
She turned to go, but Gibson said, “No, wait. Let me just empty this and I’ll be back.” Picking up the basin of bloody water and soiled cloths, he walked out of the room.
Her gaze fell to the bandage on Sebastian’s arm. “I’d heard you were wounded.”
“It’s just a cut.”
“You could have been killed.”
“I wasn’t.” He slid off the edge of the table but made no move to approach her. They stared at each other across the width of the room. “Do you come here often?” he asked. “To see Gibson?”
“Sometimes.”
They fell silent. For one stolen moment he lost himself in looking at her, at the familiar childlike tilt of her nose and the full curve of her lips. He would have sworn that the very air quivered with an aching awareness of all they had once been to each other and all that they could never be again.
She said, “I must go.” But still she lingered, her gaze on his. And he knew then with a quiet rush of despair that both this love and this pain would always be a part of him.
And a part of her.
Later that evening, Hero received a courteous note from Viscount Devlin briefly detailing for her benefit the day’s events and the circumstances surrounding the Magdalene House killings. He told her of the quarrel between Rachel and Tristan Ramsey, but without the knowledge Hero had acquired from Lady Sewell, Rachel’s subsequent flight would still have made no sense. She had no doubt that Devlin himself knew of Lord Fairchild’s dark secret, and it irked her that Devlin had thought to protect her by withholding the information from her.