She only pealed in laughter again. She had been determinedly walking me around the corner to James Street, which led south into the large square that was Covent Garden.

This late, the vendors would have closed up and gone, to wait for early morning when their wares came in from the country. At the moment, Covent Garden would be home to the denizens of the night, ready to prey on the unwary.

I managed to detach myself from the lady as we walked down the shadowy street, but she grabbed me again in a firm grip. Another young woman closed on me from the other side, this one a street girl, and together, the pair dragged me on toward the square.

They must have known I would not deliberately hurt a woman. I was pondering making an exception in this case—they might be taking me to men who would relieve me of my watch, its precious fob, coins, and even clothes, which would fetch a good price with secondhand merchants.

I noted the absence of Brewster, who would be handy about now. Of course, he’d choose this instance to grow tired of following me.

The ladies drew me to a halt in the deep shadow of an arch in a corner of Covent Garden market. On the other side of this wall, ironically, was Grimpen Lane, where my rooms above the bakeshop lay.

“I promise you,” I tried. “You’d do better to lie in wait for a wealthier gentleman.”

My young lady in finery grinned. “Never you mind that. We’ve not brought you here to rob you. A friend wants to speak to you.”

“Friend?” I could not imagine who they meant. I knew several of the street girls, most notably Felicity, a black-skinned young woman who had a ruthless streak in her. Felicity, however, if she wished to see me, would simply find me herself.

“He’s not much for the opera,” the young woman continued.

“If he wishes to call upon me, he has only to send a card,” I said. “Or a letter. I can arrange to meet him in my rooms if he wishes anonymity.”

She patted my arm. “He never said you were so amusing.”

The street girl who’d come to help her remained silent, unsmiling. Behind the belligerence in her eyes, I read worry. I wondered very much.

“Captain.” A terse voice came out of the darkness. “I had word you wished to speak with me.”

I recognized the accent with its touch of the west of England, the man holding a hardness that was quiet but with an edge. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the balding head and sharp face of the surgeon I’d met a few months ago, the one I’d gone to Denis to seek.

He did not emerge from the shadows, but I gave him a bow. “Well met,” I said. “You are a difficult man to find.”

Chapter Six

The surgeon did not speak as I told him quietly what I wished him to do. The courtesan and the street girl faded from us, disappearing into the gathering mists, as though they’d never been there.

The surgeon studied me with cold dark eyes as I described the bones and related how I’d taken them from the house in Wapping to store at Grenville’s. I saw no flicker of interest, nothing.

“I’d be most grateful for your opinion,” I finished.

The man watched me for a few more heartbeats, before he said. “We’ll go now.”

I recalled Donata’s insistence than when I examined the bones again she come with me. However, I knew that if I asked the surgeon to wait while I dashed back into the opera house to fetch her, he would fade as quickly as the young women had done. I’d never see him again.

I gave him a nod. “I will find a hackney.”

“I have a conveyance.” He turned abruptly and strode into the mist.

I hobbled after him, my stick making too much noise on the cobbles. Fog magnified sound in the square which, while it still had plenty of people wandering about it, was eerily quiet tonight.

I reached Russel Street to find the surgeon waiting by a dark carriage pulled by two bay horses. A coachman hunkered on his box, head bent against the fog. He looked nothing more than a bundle of clothes with a whip poking from them.

The surgeon opened the small coach’s door. I put my foot on the step, preparing to haul myself inside when his hand on my elbow assisted me up efficiently. His grip was strong, his guidance sure. I sat down without my usual difficulty.

The surgeon climbed quietly in as I planted my walking stick on the floor. He glanced once at the stick, no doubt remembering I kept a stout sword inside it.

He said not a word to me as we trundled through foggy London from Covent Garden to Mayfair. We went by way of Long Acre, then to Leicester Square and Coventry Street to Piccadilly. North through Berkeley Square and so to Grosvenor Street, the coach halting precisely at Grenville’s front door.

During this journey, the surgeon had not spoken. He’d not gazed out the window or at me, only fixed his eyes on some point behind me and remained silent.

When the coach stopped, the surgeon looked at me directly. “Go inside. Keep the servants away, then return and fetch me.”

I nodded my understanding and opened the coach’s door before the footman in Grenville’s vestibule could do it for me. I got myself down as the lad reached me, and shut the carriage door before he could look inside.

Grenville was at home, the footman informed me, but dressing to go out. I knew just how long this process could take, and I knew that if I made the surgeon wait, or if Grenville commanded a servant to bring him inside, he’d simply leave. I had this chance and no other.

I handed the footman a coin. Servants expected gratuity from guests they assisted, though Grenville’s had long ago forgiven me that obligation. The lad looked startled and stared at the penny in his hand.

“No need, sir,” he began to say, but I shook my head.

“Send Matthias to me, if he is here. And go downstairs and have some … coffee.”

I tapped the side of my nose. The footman looked enlightened—I was asking for discretion, though he wasn’t certain what for.

He darted off for the back stairs, and I waited in the cool staircase hall, hoping Matthias wouldn’t be too long. I could give the order to Matthias to clear the ground floor and path to the cellar and be certain he’d carry it out without question—at least, he’d save his questions for later.

However, it was not Matthias who came down the stairs on light feet but Grenville himself.

“Lacey?” he called as he skimmed down the steps. “What the devil? You dash in here and leave a corpse in my cellar without so much as a note for explanation. I send word to South Audley Street demanding to know what you mean by it, and I’m told you’re at the opera of all places. Damn it, man, what is it all about?”

Grenville’s eyes were alight, but with curiosity, not anger. He’d once told me he’d befriended me because he could never be certain what I would do, and today I had only confirmed this conviction.

I decided to let his curiosity burn a little longer. “Come and see. May we enter your cellars? Or did you move the poor woman?”

“Woman, is it?”

Grenville reached the foot of the stairs. He was dressed to go out, in black pantaloons with buttons at his ankles, fine shoes, a pristine linen shirt and perfectly knotted cravat. Only his coat was wrong—a frock coat meant to be worn in the afternoon rather than a formal evening one.

He must have snatched up the first garment he’d laid hands on in his charge downstairs, which conveyed his agitation more than words ever could. The fact that he readily skimmed toward the backstairs without even thinking to change his clothes also betrayed his eagerness.

Despite Grenville’s swift pace, Matthias appeared and reached the door to the backstairs before him—Grenville rarely touched a door handle in his own house.

“Wait,” I commanded. I surged forward and gave Matthias the orders I’d meant to give before Grenville appeared—to clear the way so that none would see who entered.