Page 50 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

“Iwasn’t aiming for his throat,” she told Devlin as they stood with Sir Henry Lovejoy beside the young man’s sprawled body. A wind had gusted up, bunching the gray clouds overhead and sending a torn sheet of worn newsprint tumbling across the dusty paving. “I was aiming for his chest.” It bothered her that she’d come so close to missing him. And yet…“Perhaps if I’d hit him in the chest, he might have lived.”

“I’m just thankful you stopped him,” said Devlin, his voice rough.

“Have you ever seen the man before, Lady Devlin?” asked Sir Henry.

“No. Never,” said Hero.

Devlin hunkered down beside the would-be assassin, his eyes narrowing as he studied the dead man’s blood-splattered features. “I wonder if he actually was a hussar.”

“Do you recognize the regiment?” said Sir Henry.

Devlin nodded. “It’s the 25th.”

Oh, no, thought Hero.

The magistrate’s lips tightened into a thin line. “That’s Major Chandler’s regiment, is it not?”

Devlin pushed to his feet. “It is, yes.”

Sir Henry tucked his chin back against his neck. “Easy enough for someone to have purchased the uniform from one of the secondhand stalls, I suppose.”

“Yes.” Devlin kept his gaze on the dead man’s sun-darkened features. “Although that looks like a scar from a saber slash along his jawline.”

Sir Henry’s eyes narrowed as he bent to inspect the man’s face. “Yes, I see it now.” He glanced up at Hero. “Can you think of a reason someone would want to kill you, Lady Devlin?”

“I can’t, no. I’m writing an article on the hardships faced by all the sailors and soldiers being discharged, but surely no one could object to that.”

Straightening, Sir Henry let his gaze rove over the crowd of curious onlookers being held back by constables. “It might help if we knew who he was. Hopefully, someone in the neighborhood will be able to identify him.”

“Let us hope,” said Hero. “But if not, I would like to see that he is properly buried.”

She was aware of two frown lines forming between Devlin’s eyes as he quietly studied her.

“I’m all right,” she told him.

And then she said it again, as if by doing so she could somehow convince herself and him. “I’m all right.”

That afternoon, Sebastian drove with Hero out into the open countryside, far beyond the last dirty, wretched, straggling outskirts of London. A stiff breeze from out of the south had blown away most of the clouds, leaving the sky a rare, freshly scrubbed blue and drenching the rolling green hills with rich sunlight. On the far side of a clear, gurgling stream, they left Tom with the curricle and went for a walk along the quiet, winding lane.

“It’s lovely out here,” she said, smiling faintly as she twirled her parasol and drew the clean air of the country deep into her lungs.

“Yes,” he said.

She glanced over at him. “I really am all right, you know.”

“I know.”

“It isn’t as if he’s the first man I’ve killed.”

“No.”

Adjusting the tilt of her sunshade, she paused to look out over a herd of brown cows grazing contentedly in the sun-soaked, wind-ruffled grass of the hillside below them. “It’s just that he was so very young. I keep thinking that somewhere out there is a mother who has been waiting desperately for her son to come home from the wars. A mother, or perhaps a sweetheart. And now…he’ll never come.”

“The choice was his.”

“Yes.”

They stood side by side for a time, watching a hawk soaring high overhead, the sun warm on its wide, outstretched wings. Devlin said, “There may be no one waiting, you know. No mother. No sweetheart.”

She looked over at him. “In its own way, that’s desperately sad, too, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She turned to face him, her lips parting on a deeply indrawn breath as she searched the oh-so-familiar features of his face—the lean cheeks; the fierce, deeply set yellow eyes; the strong, square chin. “Does it never bother you? When you’ve killed someone, I mean. Or does one grow accustomed to it after killing so many during the wars?”

He took her hand and, holding it between both of his, raised her fingers to his lips. “It bothers me,” he said, then added, “afterward,” in a way that made her wonder exactly what he meant, although it didn’t feel right for her to ask.

“I’ll admit some deaths are more disturbing than others, but I don’t think it ever gets easy—or at least it shouldn’t as long as we retain a sense of our shared humanity. And that’s something I never want to lose. It’s what separates us from the monsters, isn’t it?”

“You think someone hired him?”

“I think it’s likely, yes. And his death is on that person’s head. Not yours.”

“I wish I could believe that. Truly believe it, in my heart of hearts.”

“Believe it,” he said. Then he wrapped his arms around her, drew her close, and held her.

Simply held her.

They arrived back at Brook Street to find a dilapidated carriage drawn by two horses pulled up before the house and Lady Tess Farnsworth turning away from the front door to descend the steps.

At the sight of them, her hand tightened around the iron railing at her side. “Oh, thank goodness you’ve come,” she said, taking the steps in a rush as Sebastian swung Hero down from the curricle’s high seat.

“What is it?” said Hero, stepping forward to grasp Tess’s trembling hands. “What has happened?”

“It’s Hugh! Oh, my God; they’ve taken Hugh.”

“Who?” said Sebastian, steadying Tess as her knees began to buckle beneath her. “Who has taken him?”

“Sir Nathaniel! Bow Street! He’s being remanded into custody for the murder of Preston and those two other people we’d never even heard of before all this started.” She sucked in a deep breath, her voice becoming a torn whisper. “I don’t know what to do. It’s all my fault—all of it. This never, ever would have happened if I hadn’t left Preston. God help me, what have I done to him?”

She looked up at Sebastian with pleading, tear-filled eyes. “What have I done?”