“No; not at all. But two other people who knew Preston and saw him that day are now dead too. Which means that whoever Preston visited in Bucket Lane could very well be in danger. Only he-or she-might not know it.”
McDougal brought his gaze back to her face. “Well, I can look into it, m’lady. But I can’t guarantee they’ll be willin’ t’ talk t’ ye.”
“I know. Just. . whoever it is, please try to help them understand that their lives might be threatened. If they know anything-anything at all-it’s important for them to come forward.”
He rasped one palm across the several days’ worth of beard shading his jaw. “I’ll try, my lady. I’ll try.”
The rain was already beginning to fall by the time Hero made it back to Brook Street, a fine but hard-driven rain that swirled in wind-whipped eddies between the tall town houses and stung the tender bare skin of her face.
She had just stepped from her carriage and was about to mount the front steps when she saw Devlin round the corner from Bond Street, the capes of his black greatcoat flapping in the wind, his hat tipped low against the downpour.
“Devlin,” she called, and he looked up, his face lean and unsmiling. Then his strange yellow eyes widened, his body jerking as the crack of a rifle shot reverberated between the tall row houses.
A shiny wet stain bloomed dark against the darkness of his coat.
“No!” Hero screamed.
The bullet’s impact spun him around. He grasped the iron railing of a nearby house’s area steps. Tried to stay upright. Crumpled slowly to his knees.
“Oh, my God.” Hero ran, hands fisted in her skirts. Her world narrowed down to a gray wet canyon where the only sound was a desperate gasping she dimly recognized as her own, and the only color the red splash of Devlin’s blood.
“Sebastian.”
She dropped to her knees beside him, hands reaching for him. He lay curled on his side away from her, the rain washing over his pale face. She touched his shoulder and he turned toward her. She saw the confusion in those familiar yellow eyes, the pain that convulsed the features that were so like Devlin’s. But it wasn’t Devlin.
It was Jamie Knox.
Chapter 45
Sebastian reached home just as Pippa, the barmaid from the Black Devil, was coming down the front steps. She had a paisley shawl drawn up over her head and a child of perhaps a year on her hip. At the sight of Sebastian she paused, her arms tightening around the child, so that he squirmed in protest.
“It’s your fault!” she screamed, tears mingling with the rain on her face. “I told him no good would come of it, but would he listen to me? No. He never listened t’ me.”
Sebastian stared at the child in her arms. It was a boy, with fine-boned features and a small, turned-up nose and the same yellow eyes that stared back at Sebastian from his own mirror.
From his own infant son.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
Her laugh was raw, torn; not really a laugh at all. “You sayin’ you don’t know? He’s layin’ up there in one of your own fancy beds, dyin’ because of you, and you don’t know?”
He grabbed her arm more roughly than he’d intended. “Knox?”
She jerked away from him. “You tell him- You tell him, I won’t stay and watch him die.” And she pushed past him, her head bowed against the rain, her shoulders convulsing with her sobs as the boy gazed back at Sebastian with a solemn, intense stare.
Gibson was coming out of the guest bedroom at the end of the hall when Sebastian reached the second floor.
“How is he?”
The surgeon rubbed his eyes with a spread thumb and forefinger. “I’ve done what I can. The bullet ripped through his lungs and lodged beside his heart. He’s bleeding inside, and there’s no way to stop it. At this point, it’s just a matter of time.”
“Surely there’s some hope-a chance-”
Gibson shook his head. “Lady Devlin thinks whoever shot him mistook Knox for you.”
Sebastian felt an aching hollowness open up inside him, carved out by denial and rage and a hideous, familiar sense of guilt. “Where was he?”
“Just steps from your front door.” Gibson started to say something else, then stopped.
“What?” asked Sebastian.
“It’s just. . the resemblance is uncanny.”
“Yes,” said Sebastian, and turned toward the bedroom.
He found Knox lying with his eyes closed, so ashen and still that for a moment Sebastian thought him already dead. Then he saw the rifleman’s bare, bandaged chest jerk, heard the labored rasp of a dying man’s breath.
Hero sat nearby, her fingers laced together in her lap, her eyes sunken and stark, as if she’d just been given a glimpse into the yawning mouth of hell. “He was coming to see you,” she said softly.
“Do you know why?”
She shook her head. “He tried to say, but it didn’t make any sense. And then he lost consciousness.”
Sebastian stared down at the pale face that was so like his own. And he knew a renewed surge of anger and regret and a panicked sense of impending loss that he could do nothing-nothing-to avert.
Knox drew another ragged breath and opened his eyes. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he said, his voice a hushed quaver.
Sebastian felt his throat seize up, so that for a moment all he could do was set his jaw and nod.
“You asked. . You asked about Diggory Flynn.”
“Never mind about Flynn. You need to save your breath.”
A ghost of amusement flitted across the former rifleman’s features. “Save it for what? It’s probably Flynn who killed me. They say. . he’s a good shot.”
“Who is he?”
Knox’s head moved restlessly against his pillow. “He doesn’t. . really exist. But there’s. .” His breath caught on a cough, and a line of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Sebastian reached for his handkerchief and carefully wiped away the blood.
Knox licked his dry lips “They say there’s a Buckinghamshire vicar’s son. . served as an exploring officer in the Peninsula. . likes to use that name.”
“Who told you this?”
“Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t know. . any more.” Knox’s hand came up to grasp Sebastian’s wrist. “Tell. . tell Pippa. . I’m sorry. The boy. .” He drew in a noisy, oddly sucking breath. “Should have married her. Know what it’s like. . growing up the bastard son of a barmaid. Now. . too late.”
“No.” Sebastian took Knox’s hand in both of his and gripped it with a determined fierceness. “It’s not too late. I can find a vicar. Get a special license and-”
But Knox’s hand lay limp in Sebastian’s grasp. And as he watched, the eyes that were so much like his own grew unfocused and empty, and the bandaged chest lay ominously still.
“Breathe, damn you!” Sebastian sank to both knees, the rifleman’s hand still clenched tightly between his own as he watched, waited for the next breath.
“Breathe!”
He was aware of Hero coming to stand beside him, felt her touch on his shoulder although he did not look up. She stood beside him as the minutes stretched out, until the absence of life had shifted from a dread to an undeniable certainty.
Finally, she said, “I am so sorry, Devlin.”
He suddenly felt bone tired, his eyes aching, a tight band squeezing his chest as he shook his head slowly from side to side. “I don’t even know who he was. Don’t know if I just lost a brother, or not.”
“Does it matter?”
“On one level, no. But. . I should know.” A man should know his own brother, thought Sebastian.
His own father.
She turned toward him, cradling his head in her palms to draw his body against her soft warmth. The only sounds were the patter of the wind-driven rain striking the windowpanes, the fall of the ash on the hearth, and his own anguished breath.