The gruesome murder of a prominent nobleman throws an already unsettled London into chaos in this electrifying new historical mystery by the Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, learns of the murder from a ragged orphan who leads;;him to the corpse and then disappears. At first, everyone in the dead man’s orbit paints Lord Preston as a selfless saint. But as Sebastian delves deeper into his life, he quickly realizes that the man had accumulated more than his fair share of enemies, including Major Hugh Chandler, a close friend;who;once;saved;Sebastian’s;life.;Sebastian also discovers that the pious Lord Preston may have been much more dangerous than those he sought to redeem. As dark clouds press down on the city and the rains fall unceasingly, two more victims are found, one strangled and one shot, with ominous;tarot cards placed on their bodies. The killer is sending a gruesome message and Sebastian is running out of time to decipher it before more lives are lost and a fraught post-war London explodes.

Autorentext
C. S. Harris is the USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries; as C. S. Graham, a thriller series coauthored by former intelligence officer Steven Harris; and seven award-winning historical romances written under the name Candice Proctor.

Klappentext

"August 1816. England is in the grip of what will become known as the Year Without a Summer. Facing the twin crises of a harvest-destroying volcanic winter and the economic disruption caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British monarchy finds itself haunted by the looming threat of bloody riots not seen since the earliest days of the French Revolution. Amidst the turmoil, a dead man is found hanging upside down by one leg in an abandoned chapel, his hands tied behind his back. The pose eerily echoes the image depicted on a tarot card known as Le Pendu, the Hanged Man. The victim--Lord Preston Farnsworth, the younger brother of one of the Regent's boon companions--was a passionate crusader against what he called the forces of darkness--namely criminality, immorality, and sloth"--

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

London: Monday, 19 August 1816

T
he boy stood with his thin shoulders hunched against the cold, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his ragged coat. Narrowing his eyes against the slanting rain, he studied the silent windows of a certain elegant town house on the far side of Brook Street, then shivered.

It was only midafternoon and yet already the sky was dark and gloomy, the wind icy enough to make it feel more like February or March than high summer. But then, they hadn't had anything like a summer that year. The crops in the fields were dying-or dead. People were already going hungry, and Father said he didn't know what the poor would do when winter came. Lots of folks were scared, saying the weather wasn't ever gonna get better, that the end of the world must be upon them and Jesus would be coming back soon to save the righteous and smite the wicked.

At the thought, the boy shivered again, for he sure enough knew which category he belonged to-he and Father both. Then a flicker of movement jerked his attention back across the street, and he watched as a wavering light appeared in the room that lay to one side of that shiny black front door, as if someone there was lighting a brace of candles. A tall, lean man with dark hair and a slight limp crossed in front of the room's windows. It was the nobleman the boy was here to see: Viscount Devlin, he was called.

A trickle of rain ran down the boy's cheek to tickle his bare neck, and he swiped at his wet face with the back of one hand. He was afraid that what he was about to do was a mistake. But something needed to be done.

Sucking in a deep breath of the foul, coal smoke-scented air, the boy leapt the rushing gutter at his feet and crossed the street's wet granite paving. But at the base of the house's steps, he faltered. He had to force himself to march up the steps and grasp the door's shiny brass knocker. He brought it down so hard that he jumped back in surprise.

The door was opened almost at once by a grim-looking majordomo with a military air and a forbidding frown that darkened as he took in the ragged, undersized lad shifting nervously from one bare foot to the other. "The service entrance is-"

"Sure then, but 'tis his lordship I'm here to see-Lord Devlin, I mean," said the boy in a rush before the man could shut the door on him. "About a body, it is: a dead man. His face is all purple, ye see, and he's hanging-hangin' upside down."

"Ah," said the majordomo, some emotion Jamie couldn't quite decipher twitching the man's thin lips as he took a step back and opened the door wider. "Then, in that case, I suppose you'd better come in."

Chapter 2

S
ebastian Alistair St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, rested his hips against the edge of his desk and leaned back, taking the weight off a leg that still gave him more trouble than he liked to admit. He was a former cavalry captain, in his thirties, tall and lean, with dark hair and strange, wolflike yellow eyes. He was known to the world as the only surviving son and heir of the Earl of Hendon, although he was not, in truth, Hendon's son.

The black-haired boy who stood before him, blue eyes wide with fear as he nervously twisted his wet, ragged hat between his hands, looked to be perhaps fourteen or fifteen, although seriously underfed and scrawny. His features were even and surprisingly clean, but then, that might be the work of the rain.

"What's your name, lad?"

The boy had to swallow hard before he could answer, and even then his voice came out hushed and scratchy. "Gallagher, sir. Jamie Gallagher."

Jamie. It was a name that still had the power to twist at something deep inside Sebastian, even after three years, so that it was a moment before he trusted himself to speak. "Tell me about this dead man, Jamie. Where is he?"

"He's in the ruins of that old chapel, sir," said the boy in a soft Irish lilt. "Ye know the one? In the courtyard off Swallow Street where they're tearin' down everything to make way for the Regent's grand new avenue?"

"I've seen it. You say he's hanging upside down?"

Jamie nodded. "Hangin' by one foot, he is, sir. And someone done tied his hands behind his back, too-like this." The boy bent his arms, elbows spreading wide as he thrust both hands behind him.

So obviously not a suicide, thought Sebastian. Aloud he said, "Why come to me? Why not find a local bailiff or constable, or go to the nearest public office?"

The boy dug one mud-streaked bare big toe into the rug at his feet. "Faith, ye think they'd listen to the likes of me? Toss me in the watchhouse for making a disturbance, that's what they'd do-if they didn't go decidin' it musta been me who done for the nob and hang me."

The nob. This was a new detail. "The dead man is a gentleman?"

The boy sniffed. "Sure then, but he must be, wearin' clothes that fine."

Pushing away from the desk, Sebastian walked to the library door. He spoke for a moment with his majordomo, then glanced over at the boy. "Morey here will take you down to the kitchens for a bite to eat while the horses are put to."

At the mention of food, something leapt in the boy's eyes, something painful to see. But he wasn't about to be distracted from his original purpose. "So you'll be comin', then? You'll be lookin' into it?"

"I'll come," said Sebastian.

“It might be a trap,” said Hero some minutes later as she watched Sebastian move about his dressing room. She stood in the doorway from the bedroom, the Honorable Miss Guinevere Annabelle Sophia St. Cyr, their nine-month-old daughter, balanced on one fashionably gowned hip. The baby was chewing on a chubby fist, her brilliant blue eyes narrowed with…