Nancy, which he must have cut from the notebook. He peeled it off and slid it to the bottom of his pile, revealing beneath a sketch of Horace that caught at her breath. The likeness was unmistakable, from the arrogant set of his shoulders to his amiable and yet somehow secretive eyes.
“Oh, no,” Griz whispered, “you suspect him, too…”
“Of some connection to Nancy, yes. His employment and her mercurial interest in radical politics seemed too much of a coincidence. And I did wonder—I still wonder—why they came to the Hungarian evening.”
He moved Horace to the bottom of his pile and revealed the much blander Mr. Gabriel, with his watchful eyes and thin lips. “If it has anything to do with Lord Horace, then it’s perfectly possible Gabriel acted for him, either with or without his knowledge.”
Griz swallowed. “Perhaps Nancy came to the theatre to renew her acquaintance with you because she was ordered to look into you or one of the other Hungarians. Like your newly arrived Mr. Lazar, who seemed to cause such a stir.”
“Or perhaps she came to warn me.”
“Not asking for your help after all,” Griz mused, “but offering hers…” She dragged her gaze away from Gabriel’s subtle face to Dragan’s. “I deliberately let Nick and Horace meet this morning. I thought if they had seen each other in Art’s company, they would give it away.”
“And did they?”
“No. I could swear neither had ever laid eyes on the other.”
Dragan nodded and removed Gabriel to the bottom of the pile. Jack Payne’s ordinary yet determined face gazed up at her now. “Nancy may have worked for your brother, and yet her death has nothing to do with him or politics, but with unrequited love and jealousy.”
“If I can suspect my own brother, then I can suspect an old friend,” Griz said ruefully.
Dragan moved Jack to the bottom of his pack, revealing the last sketch, the harsh, semi-shaven face of Goddard, his mean eyes glaring out of the paper.
Griz shivered. “I can’t work out how he is involved, especially if he didn’t know Nancy. And yet, he does seem to be somewhere in all of this. I wish we knew what Art looked like, too. Do you mean to show these to people in Covent Garden?”
“I think we should.”
“They are amazingly detailed,” Griz said with all the wonder of a young lady who had failed miserably at sketching and water coloring, “especially considering you must have worked only from memory. The likenesses are so good. How did you learn to draw like that?”
He shrugged. “I just always did it. I was an observant child. A teacher at school encouraged me, taught me other techniques more useful to portrait artists than anatomists.”
He put the sketches back in his pocket, his lips parted as though to say more. He seemed to bite back the words, then they tumbled out anyway. “I used to draw everyone. Friends in cafes plotting revolution, working men and peasants, marchers and leaders, soldiers, prisoners… I lost them all when I fled Hungary. I never meant to draw anything at all again, ever. Until that day in your house when I felt compelled to sketch Nancy.”
A requiem. A tribute to a vital young woman who should never have died when or how she did.
Forgetting the windows once more, she laid her head against his shoulder. Just for a moment. An instant of mutual comfort. Then she straightened. “We’re nearly at the market. Shall we alight here and send John home with the carriage?”
Crossing the bustling market toward the theatre, they were hailed by a sudden, “Hello there again, my darling. Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
It was Nell, standing beside a flower girl with a bruised face. She seemed to have been hugging her and now, surreptitiously slipped a coin into the girl’s hand, even as she swaggered across to Griz and Dragan. Other young women, dressed much in the same manner as Nell, were still with the flower girl, half-cajoling, half instructing.
“What happened to her?” Griz demanded.
“Walked into a door, didn’t she,” Nell sneered. “Told her she needed a new door that doesn’t get in her way.”
“One without fists?” Griz guessed.
Nell stared at her with rather more respect.
“How much money would she need to get out?” Dragan asked.
“It’s courage she needs, not money.”
“But the money would help,” Griz said suddenly. “A barrow and flowers to sell in the wealthy neighborhoods.” She pulled a note from her capacious cloak pocket and thrust it into Nell’s hand.