He stopped mid-stride, turned from his pacing, fixed her on a look. "What do you mean?"
"The Lord Mayor's wife is dead."
* * *
Garrett woke Mary and sent her for Richard's carriage, knowing the Duke's men would recognize the Crown Investigator's housekeeper and do as she bid. She put Henry to bed in a guest room—it amused him—to get what rest he could, and cast a minor working over herself to ensure wakefulness. She didn't remember the necklace until she drew hot water and began to undress. When she dropped her one remaining glove on her vanity, a golden chain slipped from the pale kid like a serpent from its den. The stone clinked on marble, and when she picked it up and held it to the light it glittered green, the twin of the one in Henry's ear.
She lifted the long chain over her head and let the stone hang against the crimson sigil between her breasts while she bathed. She was dressed again, decent in a high-necked blue-grey linen gown, by the time Mary returned perched beside the coachman on the bench of Richard's carriage, and with Richard inside.
Garrett waited for the Duke inside her door. "The Prince?" he asked. Before he even had his hat off.
"Asleep," she answered. Richard bent to kiss her and she turned her face away so that his lips brushed her cheek. She gazed up the stairs. "He felt unwell."
"I imagine. And you?"
She shrugged and hung his hat. "Concerned. How is Eliot bearing up?"
"Badly. He insists on the arrest of the Prince."
Garrett swallowed and staggered. Richard caught her arm before she could fall over the hem of her dress. "The—Henry?"
"Yes."
"But—"
Richard lead her to a chair. "There was a similar crime in London six months gone, before the airship departed for Tenochtitlán. The woman killed was—a favorite of his Highness'. It's rumored, anyway."
Garrett was pleased that she did not flinch. "What would the Prince want with Cecelia's emeralds, Richard?"
The Duke seated her and released his grip on her arm. Gently, he smoothed a disarrayed blonde strand back from her eyes. "Misdirection?
It's easily explained away. Given the Prince's disappearance just before the murder, when the guests were accounted for and questioned. . .Telegrams have been sent: Parliament approves the action."
"I am not in the pay of Parliament," Garrett said quietly. "And neither are you, your Grace. What does his Majesty say?"
"His Majesty is silent," Richard replied, bending his head low over hers. "But in the absence of a better suspect. . .."
"I can offer one, Richard."
Garrett's head turned, as did the Duke's. Henry stood at the foot of the stair, his hair combed and the shadows under his eyes somewhat lightened. "Your Highness!" She hastened to her feet, Richard's hand still resting on her shoulder.
"Sit, Abby Irene," the Prince said kindly, and Garrett heard Richard's breath stop short, felt his fingers clench on her arm. "I can see you are unwell."
She glanced at the Duke but he would not look at her. His forehead was white: she imagined his flesh must feel as cold as if all the blood in his body had run down into his boots. And now you know, as you've often asked me, why I left London, my love. She obeyed her prince, and sat. "Another suspect, your Highness?"
Henry nodded and crossed the intricately tiled entryway to stand before them. Richard drew his hand off Garrett's arm. "Forgive me for eavesdropping. I overheard what you said, Richard, about the similarities to the murder in London. I was not even in London at the time: I had the details from a friend."
Richard nodded; his throat worked, but he didn't speak.
Garrett felt a strange tautness in the skin of her face, as if it stretched toward a shout. No. Henry. No.
"One of the guests at your ball, New Amsterdam, had both motive and opportunity for the crime. The Spaniard, de Ulloa. It was my contention that the crime in London was the work of an unclean beast. . .and here we find another such crime and another such creature in close proximity. The coincidence is unnerving."
"Beast? The 'Great Detective'?" Richard glanced down at Garrett, a knife line drawn between his eyes. "DCI?"
She closed her hands on the carved wood of the chair and stood,
forcing herself to steadiness. She raised her eyes to the Duke's and made her voice strong. "Sebastien's a wampyr, Richard. That's what his Highness is
so gently insinuating. Did you expect—what? Stoker's Dracula or Dumas' Gosselin?" She smiled bloodlessly at the