Ashton fished out his purse and threw it down. “Here, take my money. I’ve nothing else of value with me.”
His assailant let out a nasty laugh. A mask hid his face, but a malevolent glint showed through the eye slits in the silk.
“I don’t want money. I want the drawings.”
How did a common footpad know about the drawings?“W-What drawings?” he stammered.
In answer, the blade flashed a series of lightning-swift feints, driving Ashton back up against unyielding iron bars. He was now trapped in the narrow gated recess between two warehouses. In desperation, he lashed out a kick, but Evil Eyes was quick as a snake. Dodging the blow, he smashed a knee to Ashton’s groin.
“I’m tired of playing cat and mouse games with you.”
“I don’t have—” gasped Ashton.
But a vicious elbow to the throat crushed his windpipe before he could go on.
No, no, no,he mouthed in silent agony. Dear God—not now! Not when his momentous discovery was on the cusp of changing the world.
“Please, just let me live,” he managed to whisper.
“Let you live?” The knife pierced the flesh between Ashton’s ribs. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
There was no pain, just an odd tickling sensation.How strange, he thought. Steam was always so pleasantly warm, but the silvery mist caressing his cheeks was cold as the Devil’s heart.
“You see, Mr. Ashton, letting you live would ruin everything.”
* **
Evil Eyes let the lifeless body drop to the ground. A search of Ashton’s pockets turned up nothing but a pencil stub, a coil of twine and a scrap of wire. Uttering a low oath, he wrenched open the dead man’s coat and set to slitting open the lining with the still-bloody knife.
Nothing.
Trousers, boots, stockings—the blade sliced through the garments and still not a scrap of god-benighted paper was to be found.
As disbelief gave way to fury, Evil Eyes slashed a series of jagged cuts through the pale flesh of Ashton’s exposed belly.
“Damn you to hell! Wherearethey?”
CHAPTER 1
“Why is it thatInever win at dice and cards, Wrex?” Christopher Sheffield kicked aside a mound of rotting cabbage before leading the way through a low archway. “Whileyoualways walk away from the gaming hells with your pockets stuffed with blunt.” He expelled a mournful sigh. “It defies logic.”
The Earl of Wrexford raised a brow in bemusement. “Hearingyouinvoke the word ‘logic’ is what defies reason.”
“No need to be sarcastic,” grumbled Sheffield.
“Fine. If your question was truly meant to be more than rhetorical, the answer is I watch the cards carefully and calculate my chances.” He sidestepped a broken barrel. “Try thinking, Kit. And counting.”
“Higher mathematics confuses my feeble brain,” retorted his friend.
“Then why do you play?”
“I was under the impression that one doesn’t have to be smart to gamble,” protested Sheffield. “Didn’t that fellow Pascal—and his friend Fermat—formulate ideas on risk andprobability ? I thought the odds should be roughly fifty-fifty for me winning simply by playing blindly.” He made a rueful grimace. “Bloody hell, bythatcalculation, I must be due to win a fortune, and soon.”
“So you weren’t actually sleeping through lectures at Oxford?” said Wrexford dryly.
“I was just dozing.” A pause. “Or more likely I was cup-shot. Aberdeen was awfully generous with his supply of fine brandy.”
“Speaking of brandy,” murmured the earl as he watched his friend stumble and nearly fall on his arse. “You’ve been drinking too much lately.”
