Sniggers greeted the rebuke. Unlike the beau monde, the Weasels weren’t intimidated by his lofty titles.
The younger boy grinned. “I gotta new toof coming in.” He raised a hand to his lower lip—or perhaps it was a paw. It was too filthy to be sure. “Here, would ye like te take a peep?”
“Good God—donotput that finger in your mouth,” he snapped. “You’ll likely get the plague.”
The older boy—whose name was Raven, though the earl pretended not to know it—made a rude sound. “Our tutor, Mr. Keating, says there ain’t been an attack of the plague in London since 1665.”
“Yes, well, ingesting a mouthful of that disgusting muck could very well change that.”
Hawk—like his brother, he, too, had an avian moniker—obediently dropped his hand.
Raven hesitated, then turned his attention back to the corpse. He crossed the footpath and leaned in for a closer look. “Cor, that’s a nasty bit of blade work.”
“It’s a nasty part of St. Giles,” replied Wrexford. There was no need to mince words. The brothers had grown up amid the brutish realities of life in the stews. Hoping to forestall further questions, he added, “Which begs the question as to what you Weasels are doing here at this time of night.”
Raven ignored the question. “It’s odd for a cove te have his togs shredded like that,” he mused.
Damnation—the boy was too sharp by half.
“Not if a thief thought he was being diddled by his partner,” said the earl. “My guess is it’s a quarrel over money that turned ugly.”
“I s’pose that makes sense,” allowed the boy.
“Are ye gonna find the murderer?” demanded Hawk.
“Absolutely not. I’ve resolved to leave solving crimes to the proper authorities,” replied Wrexford firmly. The boys had played a role—far too great a one—in helping catch the Reverend Holworthy’s killer, and he didn’t wish to encourage the thought that it might happen again. “As is the duty of any law-abiding citizen, I’m going to alert a night watchman. And then I’m going to seek out my bed and sleep the sleep of the innocent.”
Though he knew it was pointless, he moved slightly to block the younger boy’s view of the mutilated torso. “I suggest you two scamper home and do the same.”
The boys continued to stare at the body.
“It’s just a commonplace murder, one of many that likely occurred here in Town tonight,” he murmured. As if the taking of any life, however flawed, could ever be thought of as meaningless. “No need to study the gruesome details. There’s nothing about this crime that will interest Mrs. Sloane.”
Raven nodded and slowly turned away. “Aye. M’lady says her skills ain’t needed te tell the public about nasty truths of their everyday life. She thinks that her pen is more useful fer exposing the evils in society that can be changed.”
The pen is mightier than the sword.It was true that Charlotte’s drawings had a rapier-like sharpness. And the fact that she unerringly cut to the heart of the problems facing the country or the hypocrisy of the ruling class was elemental to their popular appeal.
Feisty courage and lofty principle—a dangerous combination if ever there was one.
Repressing a grim sigh, Wrexford watched the two boys disappear into the fog-swirled darkness. The pounding in his head now felt like a spike was cracking through his skull. “Come, Kit, let’s find—”
“Halloo!” A flash of lantern light and a sharp hail cut him off. “Who goes there?”
“Ah, excellent. Here comes a night watchman. We can hand things over to him and wash our hands of this damnable business.”
CHAPTER 2
Wrexford gingerly took a seat at the breakfast table and darted a pained squint at the mullioned windows overlooking the back gardens. Sleep had done little to temper the ill effects of the previous evening. During the night, the throbbing in his skull had turned into a dull ache, whose bilious tentacles now reached down into the pit of his stomach.
The footman standing by the sideboard tiptoed across the carpet and quietly adjusted the draperies to block the blade of sunlight. Like all of the well-trained townhouse staff, the fellow was very good at reading his employer’s mercurial moods.
“Tea and toast, milord?” he asked in a low, soothing voice.
The earl gave a tiny nod, though the movement made him wince. “And ask Tyler to prepare—”
“To prepare his special Hair of the Dog concoction,” finished his valet, who at that very moment appeared in the doorway bearing a tall crystal glass filled with a ghoulishly green liquid. He circled around to the head of the table, and let out a reprovingtsk-tsk. “It’s an elemental axiom that combining brandy, champagne and Scottish malt is the devil’s own recipe for a hellish morning after.”
“Thank you for the basic chemistry lecture,” said Wrexford sourly.
