Page 71 of Who Cries for the Lost

“It’s linked,” said Sebastian, going to kneel before the dying fire. “And Sibil knows it.”

Hero watched him shovel coal onto the glowing embers. “You think the headless, handless corpse they pulled from the Thames really was Francisco de la Serna?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. It could be. I’ve asked Lovejoy to see if there’s any way to find out if the man actually sailed with whatever ship he was booked on. But there probably isn’t. Not at this point.”

“The Ambassador’s wife said Francisco was a former cavalry officer, roughly the same height as her husband, but he’d put on weight in recent years so that he is now something like two or three stone heavier.”

“Which would fit Alexi’s estimate. But then, I’ve no doubt it would also fit tens of thousands of other men out there.”

She came to sink into one of the chairs beside the fire, her gaze on the flames slowly licking into the new fuel. “I keep thinking about Phoebe Cox’s baby. Surely Miles Sedgewick couldn’t be so cruel as to simply drop the child in the Thames. Could he?”

“I’d like to think he couldn’t do something like that. But the truth is, even if he simply handed the child to some beggar woman, would it really be all that different? The child is unlikely to have survived.”

Hero let out a long sigh. “Poor Phoebe. She lost her baby, and now the Crown is going to punish her for her poverty and her powerlessness by taking her life.” She was silent for a moment, her gaze on the fire. “Will it ever change, do you think?”

“Perhaps. Although to be honest, I sometimes wonder.”

She looked up, meeting his troubled gaze. “So do I.”

It was several hours later, when they were consuming a leisurely breakfast at the table on the terrace, that they heard the distant peal of the front bell. A moment later, Morey appeared with a bow.

“A personage here to see you, my lord.”

“What sort of ‘personage’?”

“She says her name is Rowena Wilde. She is... quite agitated.”

Sebastian met Hero’s gaze. “Show her back right away.”

The woman Morey escorted out to them was dressed not in the costume of some past century but in a simple high-waisted muslin walking dress with a short red spencer. Her thick curly hair was wild around her face, and she clutched to her chest a bulging satchel from which protruded bits of lace and ribbon.

“You must help me,” said Rowena, her eyes wide, her pretty features pinched with fear. “Please. If you don’t, they’re gonna kill me, too, the same way they killed Astrid.”

Sebastian stood to draw back one of the chairs at the table. “Won’t you please have a seat? How about something to eat? A cup of tea, perhaps?”

Rowena shook her head from side to side, her hands spasming against the satchel she held before her. “Are you gonna help me?”

“Who do you think is going to kill you?” asked Hero quietly.

“Sibil!”

“Your sister?”

“She ain’t my sister.”

Sebastian settled back into his own chair. “You’re saying Sibil killed Astrid?”

“I ain’t saying she did it herself, but she’s behind it. I know she is.”

“What makes you think that?”

“They had a big fight—Sibil and Astrid, I mean.”

“About what?”

“About that fellow got himself killed—Miles Sedgewick. Astrid was sweet on him.” Rowena’s lip curled in derision. “She thought he was sweet on her, too, because he was always making up to her, and Astrid was too stupid to realize that’s the way he treated all women.”

“I still don’t understand precisely what the fight was about.”