Where Shadows Dance Read Free

see this.”
    Sebastian blew out a long breath. “It’s not going to be easy, investigating a murder no one knows occurred.”
    “But you’ll do it?”
    Sebastian glanced back at the pallid corpse on Gibson’s dissection table.
    The man looked to be much the same age as Sebastian, perhaps a few years younger. He should have had decades of rewarding life ahead of him. Instead he was reduced to this, a murdered cadaver on a surgeon’s slab. And Sebastian knew a deep and abiding fury directed toward whoever had brought Ross to this end.
    “I’ll do it.”

Chapter 3
    T he milkmaids were still making their rounds, heavy pails swinging from yokes slung across their shoulders, when Sebastian climbed the shallow front steps of his elegant, bow-fronted establishment on Brook Street.
    “A note arrived a few moments ago from the Earl of Hendon,” said Morey, meeting Sebastian at the door with a silver tray bearing a missive sealed with the St. Cyr crest.
    Sebastian made no move to pick it up. Until a week ago, he had called Hendon father. Sebastian supposed that he might eventually adjust to the brutal realization that he was not in truth the person the world still believed him to be, that far from being the legitimate son of the Earl of Hendon he was in fact the by-blow of the Earl’s beautiful, errant Countess and some unnamed lover. Perhaps in time he would learn to understand and forgive the lies Hendon had told him over the years. But Sebastian knew he could never forgive Hendon for allowing him to believe that the love of his life was his own sister. For that lie had turned their love into something sordid and wicked and driven the woman Sebastian had hoped to make his wife into a loveless marriage with another man.
    “Send Calhoun to me,” said Sebastian, leaving the note on the tray as he headed for the stairs.
    The shadow of some emotion quickly suppressed flickered across the majordomo’s face. “Yes, my lord.”
    Sebastian took the steps two at a time, stripping off his coat of dark blue superfine as he went. He was in his dressing room, pulling a clean shirt over his head, when Jules Calhoun, his valet, appeared in the doorway.
    “I’d like you to find out what you can about a gentleman named Mr. Alexander Ross,” said Sebastian. “I understand he had lodgings in St. James’s Street.”
    A small, slim man with even features, Calhoun was a genius of a valet, uncomplainingly cheerful and skilled in all manner of refined arts. And since he had begun life in one of London’s most notorious flash houses, some of his more unusual talents were of considerable use to a gentleman who had made solving murders his life’s passion.
    Calhoun picked up Sebastian’s discarded coat and sniffed. The faint but unmistakable odor of decay lingered. “I take it Mr. Ross has been murdered?”
    “By a stiletto thrust to the base of his skull.”
    “Unusual,” said Calhoun.
    “Very. Unfortunately, the world believes he died peacefully in his sleep, so this one’s going to be rather delicate.”
    Calhoun handed Sebastian a fresh cravat and bowed. “I shall be the model of discretion.”
    Lifting his chin, Sebastian looped the cravat around his neck and grunted.
    Calhoun cleared his throat. “About the other matter you asked me to look into ...”
    Sebastian felt an unpleasant sensation pull across his chest. He ignored it. “Yes?”
    “I have it on excellent authority that Miss Hero Jarvis will be patronizing the opening of the New Steam Circus north of Bloomsbury this morning.”
    “The what?”
    “The New Steam Circus, my lord. It’s an exhibition of Mr. Trevithick’s latest steam locomotive. I believe the gate opens at eleven o’clock.”
    “I should be back before then. Have Tom bring my curricle around at a quarter till.” Sebastian adjusted his cuffs. “Tell, me: How, precisely, did you discover this?”
    “Miss Jarvis’s maid, my lord,” said Calhoun, holding up a fresh coat of navy Bath