Where Serpents Sleep (46 page)

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Authors: C. S. Harris

BOOK: Where Serpents Sleep
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Chapter 58
 
 
The rooms occupied by Colonel Bryce Epson-Smith were on the first floor of a genteel house just off Bedford Square. Sebastian arrived there shortly after four to find the former hussar colonel gone from home. A terse conversation with the Colonel’s majordomo elicited the information that the Colonel was spending the afternoon escorting the family of a Liverpudlian friend to the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.
 
 
Turning south toward the river, Sebastian dropped his hands and let the chestnuts shoot forward. “If’n ’e’s lookin’ at pictures, at least ’e ain’t killin’ the Prime Minister,” said Tom, clamping his hat down tighter on his head and tightening his hold on his perch.
 
 
Sebastian kept his attention on his horses, feathering the corner as he swung onto Drury Lane. He had a niggling sense that he was still missing something. A connection he should have seen, perhaps, or an implication that continued to elude him.
 
 
The Royal Academy of Art occupied rooms in the large neoclassical pile on the Thames that had replaced the Duke of Somerset’s original palace. Pulling up on the Strand, Sebastian tossed the reins to Tom and hit the footpath running. He sprinted toward the vestibule, heedless of the shocked expressions and muttered tut-tuts, and took the steep, winding staircase two steps at a time. The Academy, like all the other societies and governmental departments housed in the building, occupied a vertical slice of all six floors. To take advantage of the natural light provided by a skylight, the Academy had placed their Exhibition Room in the high-ceilinged, nearly square space at the very top of the stairs.
 
 
Breathing hard, Sebastian burst into a chamber crowded with more than a thousand paintings, which climbed toward the ceiling in row after row hung together so closely that their heavy gilt frames nearly touched. At the sound of his hurried footsteps crossing the polished floor, the small party gathered beneath the central lantern turned. Sebastian had a vague impression of two wan-faced women in plain round bonnets and unfashionably cut pelisses, one clutching the hand of a half-grown girl, the other attempting to restrain a fidgety boy of perhaps eight. Beside them, Epson-Smith cut a dashing figure in his military-styled coat, shining top boots, and swooping side whiskers.
 
 
His gaze fixed firmly on the former hussar officer, Sebastian walked up to the small group and executed a short bow. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us? The Colonel and I have something to discuss.”
 
 
The men’s gazes met, clashed. “This won’t take but a moment,” said Epson-Smith to his companions. “Some friends of one of my acquaintances from Liverpool,” he told Sebastian as they moved away from the ladies. “I thought it would make a nice outing.”
 
 
Sebastian kept his own tone low, conversational. “Lord Jarvis might be a powerful protector, but he also makes a powerful enemy. I’ve no doubt he’d be willing to overlook the murder of any number of unimportant people, but he’s not at all pleased with your little plot to kill the Prime Minister. And as for your attempts on the life of his daughter . . . I’d say you’ve signed your own death warrant.”
 
 
The man’s complacent arrogance never faltered. “You’ve no proof tying me to any of this,” he said, still faintly smiling.
 
 
“Not enough to convict you in a court of law,” Sebastian conceded. “But then, you’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. The only thing that matters is what Jarvis believes.”
 
 
“True. Only, why should he believe you? You’ve threatened to kill him—several times, whereas I have served him faithfully for nearly four years now.”
 
 
“Faithfully and efficiently,” said Sebastian, dodging one of the pedestals topped with a particularly hideous set of bronzes that littered the Exhibition Room’s floor. “It’s a distinctive way of killing—just a quick snap of the neck. Where’d you learn it?”
 
 
The Colonel’s smile hardened. “The Sudan.”
 
 
Through the glass of the skylight, Sebastian could see the afternoon clouds building overhead, bunching masses of angry black turmoil. The room grew perceptibly darker. “What precisely is your argument with Perceval?” he asked.
 
 
Epson-Smith’s lips pressed into a thin, tight line. “Thanks to the incompetence of his government, my regiment went through hell in Argentina. We were promised compensation, but Perceval deemed it an extravagant and unnecessary expense, and canceled the arrangements. Thanks to his damnable interference, the ambitions of the few men who survived have been shattered, while the widows of those who died are ruined.”
 
 
“You would kill him over that?”
 
 
Epson-Smith pivoted to look back at the small party of women and children now clustered at the far end of the room. “Not me,” he said calmly. “Perceval has made many enemies. A man driven by passion can sometimes be goaded to act in ways not precisely in his own best interest. Particularly when he’s not in his right mind.”
 
 
“Bellingham,” said Sebastian, remembering the half-mad Liverpudlian he and Perceval had encountered on the footpath outside Almack’s.
 
 
“You know him? Then what a pity you’ve just missed him. He was here with us, you know, but he had to leave early. Some business to attend to, I believe he said. At the House of Commons.”
 
 
Sebastian swung toward the steps, but Epson-Smith put out a hand that closed on Sebastian’s forearm in a surprisingly strong grip. “You’re too late,” said the Colonel.
 
 
Sebastian lunged toward him, trying to break the man’s hold on his arm. But in a maneuver Sebastian didn’t see coming, the ex-hussar spun Sebastian around, one arm clamping across Sebastian’s chest to grip him by his right arm and draw him back into Epson-Smith’s deadly embrace.
 
 
“You kill me here, now, and you’ll never get away with it,” said Sebastian.
 
 
The Colonel’s free hand came up to grasp Sebastian’s chin in an unexpectedly iron hold. “If Jarvis knows I tried to kill his daughter, I’m a dead man anyway.”
 
 
One quick twist, Sebastian realized, and his neck would snap. Bucking against the man’s hold, Sebastian slammed his head back into Epson-Smith’s face, bone crunching cartilage. With a startled grunt, Epson-Smith loosened his grip on Sebastian just long enough for Sebastian to grasp the arm clamped across his chest and spin around, smashing the back of his fist into Epson-Smith’s bloody face. Still holding the man’s arm, Sebastian twisted it in and down, forcing Epson-Smith to pivot enough that Sebastian could stomp the heel of his right boot into the back of the man’s left knee.
 
 
Epson-Smith went down on his knees, his left arm still held in Sebastian’s grasp. Too late, Sebastian saw the flash of the blade that had appeared in the man’s right hand. Slashing upward, he laid open Sebastian’s forearm to the bone.
 
 
Sebastian stumbled back, slipping in his own blood, bumping into one of the Exhibition Room’s pedestals. Whirling, he caught up the bronze statue of a satyr and hurled it. As Epson-Smith ducked sideways, Sebastian yanked his own knife from his boot and charged. With a sweep of his forearm, Sebastian knocked the wrist of the hand holding the blade aside and drove his own dagger deep into Epson-Smith’s chest.
 
 
He became aware, suddenly, of a woman screaming, a man’s harsh shout, running footsteps. Yanking his knife free, sliding in the spreading pool of blood, Sebastian hurtled back down the steep winding stairs. Sprinting across the vestibule, he set up a call for his curricle. If only Tom hadn’t gone far—
 
 
“ ’Oly ’ell, gov’nor!” Wide-eyed, Tom reined the chestnuts in hard before the vestibule’s entrance. “You’re bleedin’ worse’n a leaky bucket.”
 
 
Sebastian scrambled into the curricle. “You drive,” he said, yanking off his cravat to wind the long strip of linen around his throbbing arm. “The House of Commons.
Quickly!
”
 
 
Chapter 59
 
 
“What’s all this then?” Tom demanded, struggling to thread the curricle through the tangle of chaises, sedan chairs, gigs, and hackneys that clogged Parliament Street from Whitehall to far beyond the houses of Parliament and the Abbey.
 
 
“There’s to be an inquiry this evening into the Orders in Council,” Sebastian said as the bells of the Abbey began to toll five o’clock. Men shouted and whips cracked. A donkey brayed. Ragged urchins and barking dogs darted past, the boys whooping and laughing. “Looks like it’s attracting the devil of a crowd.”
 
 
“What time’s the Prime Minister s’posed to arrive?”
 
 
“Five o’clock.” From up ahead came the crash of splintering wood as a landau hooked one of its wheels with a coal cart. “Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, grasping the seat rail with his good hand. “Pull up here. I can make better time on foot.”
 
 
He leapt from the curricle and started running. Pushing his way up Margaret Street, he cut across Old Palace Yard to the small former chapel that stood at right angles to Westminster Hall and served as the House of Commons. Bursting through the double doors, he found himself in a dark, low-ceilinged lobby crowded with a throng of spectators queuing patiently for a spot in the galleries. He knew a surge of relief. He wasn’t too late.
 
 
Glancing around, Sebastian snagged the arm of a self-important clerk bustling past and hauled him back. “Where is Perceval? Is he here yet? Tell me quickly, man.”
 
 
“I say, sir,” bleated the clerk. “You’re not allowed here in boots.” He blanched as his gaze traveled from Sebastian’s bare neck to his bloodied, hastily bandaged arm. “And neck clothes are mandatory. Have you an introduction from a member? Because you really should have entered through the Hall, you kn—”
 
 
Sebastian resisted the urge to shake the man. “Damn you, I’m not here to gawk from the galleries. Where is Perceval?”
 
 
A movement to one side of the lobby caught Sebastian’s attention. A dark-haired man had risen from a seat near an open fire and was now walking briskly toward the entrance, one hand resting conspicuously inside his coat. “Bellingham,” said Sebastian. Then he bellowed,
“Bellingham. Someone seize that man!”
 
 
Shocked faces turned not toward Bellingham, but toward Sebastian.
 
 
With an oath, Sebastian surged forward. The clerk latched on to his wounded arm and held tight. “Sir, I must insist—”
 
 
The slight figure of the Prime Minister appeared in the open doorway. He had his head half turned away, speaking to someone behind him.
 
 
“No!”
shouted Sebastian, shaking off the clerk just as Bellingham walked up to the Prime Minister and fired a single shot into Perceval’s chest from a distance of no more than three or four feet. As Perceval stumbled back into the arms of the man behind him, Bellingham turned calmly and resumed his seat beside the fire.
 
 
 
They carried the Prime Minister into the office of the secretary of the speaker. Someone called for a doctor, but one glance at the gaping charred hole in Perceval’s chest was enough to tell Sebastian the Prime Minister was beyond any doctor’s help.
 
 
Sebastian looked around. “You,” he said, his gaze falling on the self-important clerk hovering nearby. “Run to Downing Street. Tell his family what has happened.
Run!
” he said again when the men hesitated.
 
 
Perceval’s hand fluttered. “Spence? Is he here?”
 
 
“He’s coming,” lied Sebastian, grasping the Prime Minister’s hand. Already, it felt cold.
 
 
Perceval sucked in a gasping breath that rattled in his throat. “I would like to have seen him one last time before I . . .”
 
 
Sebastian leaned forward, straining to hear his words. But the Prime Minister only stared up with blank, unseeing eyes.
 
 
Chapter 60
 
 
Paul Gibson thrust his needle through the flesh of Sebastian’s forearm, stitching up the long gash left by Epson-Smith’s blade. “You’re lucky,” said Gibson. “He nearly sliced the tendon.”
 
 
Sebastian watched the Irishman work his needle in and out. “I think you sew better than my tailor.”

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