Someone.
Henry Gerrard, his eyes open, blank, staring at nothing, warm blood still oozing from the gash in his throat. In the next breath Tristan was running toward the church, his hands dripping with Henry’s blood, a plea for forgiveness on his lips, but when he staggered into the confessional his voice was gone, and he was left alone with his sins and no hopeof a blessing—
He woke with a jerk, his heart pounding and his nightshirt clinging to his damp skin. He sat up and dragged a hand through his hair, also drenched with sweat.
It wasn’t his first nightmare, nor wouldit be his last.
At first, there’d been no pattern to them, no logic or reason. When Tristan crawled into his bed and closed his eyes, he never knew which of his demons would choose to haunt him, but over the past few weeks the nightmares all ended the same way.
When he opened his mouth to beg for forgiveness, he’dbe struck dumb.
Sometimes he was begging Henry’s wife, Abigail, to forgive him, but more often it was Henry himself. Sometimes Henry would be just as Tristan remembered him, with his trusting brown eyes and laughing mouth, but in Tristan’s worst nightmares he’d be as he was tonight, soaked in blood, with vacant, staring eyes and a jagged slash across his throat.
Then Tristan would wake, shaking and panting, and trade his sleeping nightmare for his waking one—one where Henry was still dead, murdered in St. Clement Dane’s churchyard, and Tristan was still the man who’d failed to save his best friend.
Before tonight, he’d never dreamed of priests and confessionals, or dark-haired ghosts and white marble crypts, but he could hardly fail to trace those particular demons back to their source.
I’m anxious to confess my sins. I’m quite wicked, you see.
Tristandidsee. He saw a great deal more than she could ever imagine.
He didn’t know how or when he’d realized she was running to No. 26 Maddox Street tonight. They’d still been a dozen streets away from the Clifford School when he’d changed course to get ahead of her. At that point, she could have beengoing anywhere.
But she hadn’t been. And somehow,he’d known it.
Perhaps it was nothing more than the way she ran from him. He knew the city as well as he knew the pattern of scars on the backs of his hands, yet he’d lost sight of hermore than once.
Tristan didn’t lose people.Ever.
She was too clever not to have realized she couldn’t outrun him, so what might have been a quick enough chase led to a race through every back alley in Westminster. She’d led him down one darkened street after another as if he were a clumsy, dull-witted cat and she—small and quick and like a shadow herself in her black clothing—a particularly wily mouse.
If there was a corner to duck into, she found it. Once she’d made it through the churchyard and onto the Strand, she stayed close to the sides of the buildings where the darkness gathered, clinging to the walls as she passed, slipping silently aroundLondon’s edges.
All the way to No. 26Maddox Street.
There was nothing unusual about the sprawling brick building there. Nothing to distinguish it from any other Mayfair residence, but then nothing about the Clifford School was what it appeared to be, least of all its inhabitants.
There was a brass plaque fixed to one side of the front door. It was small, unobtrusive—not meant to draw the eye.
The Clifford Charity School for Wayward Girls. Lady Amanda Clifford, Proprietress. Pupils accepted by private recommendation only.
Tristan hadn’t approached the door tonight. He hadn’t ventured from the shadows to read the plaque. He already knew what it said. He’d memorized it weeks ago, after Jeremy Ives, one of Lady Clifford’s servants, was taken up for the murder ofHenry Gerrard.
Ives was currently being held at Newgate. In another week he’d stand trial for his crimes, when he’d certainly be found guilty. Tristan was looking forward to his hanging with grim anticipation.
He threw the coverlet aside, rose from his bed, and made his way to the window. He shoved the drapes back to find only darkness waiting for him on the other side of the glass.
Not that the hour made much difference. He’d have no moresleep tonight.
He didn’t keep track of time anymore, but he must have stood at the window for hours, staring blindly into the darkness, because when he came back to himself the sky had lightened, and the sun was edging over the horizon.
You look like an aristocrat, ratherhigh, I think.
An accurate guess, on her part. He hadn’t been quite so accurate, on his.
She wasn’t a thief. Or perhaps it was more appropriate to say she wasn’tjusta thief.
He might have learned more if Daniel Brixton hadn’t emerged from the shadows like some kind of disembodied spirit. If he’d been in his rational mind, Tristan would have been expecting Brixton to materialize. The man had preternatural instincts, and he was a proper watchdog.
