Wesley straightened up. “It’s an impressive collection.”
“Thank you,” said Lord Blanshard. “I’ve been working on it for longer than you would believe.”
His gaze stayed on Wesley. As with the pomander, there was something unsettling about the moment, although for the life of him Wesley wasn’t sure why. If Blanshard had unlocked the door for the party, then surely he did want his antiques collection admired?
The earl was also far from imposing physically, and he was only blinking calmly at Wesley now. Yet some part of Wesley’s mind was screaming at him that he didn’t want to be alone with Blanshard.
Then again, of course he was uncomfortable in his host’s presence: Wesley was being unpardonably rude, poking about the earl’s home and purposefully making himself late to dinner. He grudgingly adopted a more gracious expression. “I’m afraid it’s so impressive that I’ve lost track of time. I was meant to be at dinner already, wasn’t I?”
Blanshard only inclined his head. He moved out of the doorframe, however, making room for Wesley to join him.
“We both are,” Blanshard added, lightly. “I’ll just close this room behind us, shall I?”
The earl didn’t seem particularly moved by Wesley’s attempt at manners. Well, he could stew in it. Wesley didn’t give a toss about being disliked; he frankly wouldn’t know what to do with someone whodidlike him.
He followed Blanshard down the hall, leaving the room of antiques behind him.
Chapter One
September 1925
London
The residential street in Kensington was as quiet as always, the stillness broken only by the occasional Bentley or Aston Martin puttering past the row of tall and stately homes. Sebastian stood under one of the trees that lined the street, its leaves a mix of summer greens and autumn browns. The air was chilly and damp with a misty evening rain, and he tucked his chin into his scarf under the flat cap.
Across the street was a four-story home of reddish brick with graceful front steps behind a short iron gate and large white-trimmed bay windows that curved to the street. A lovely home, and as far as he could tell, still completely hidden from magic.
Not that the home’s owner, the Viscount Fine, had any idea. Lord Fine likewise had no idea Sebastian made sure to pass by every so often to check that everything was in order. But it was really the least Sebastian could do. Maybe he couldn’t ever fully atone for the things he’d done to Arthur Kenzie and Rory Brodigan, but he could at least make sure that Arthur’s aristocratic friend wasn’t in any danger after Arthur and Rory had stayed in the Kensington house in the spring.
Not that Lord Fineshouldbe in danger. Sebastian had never met or even seen Lord Fine for himself, but Arthur and Rory had said he didn’t know about magic. Lord Fine hadn’t known he’d had a paranormal houseguest in Rory, and he didn’t know that in his basement now hung a paranormal painting by Sebastian’s cousin, Isabel, a Barcelona cityscape that hid the home from magic eyes and would send most paranormals who got too close wandering in the opposite direction.
Lord Fine lived a perfectly normal life, safe and unaware, but Sebastian still stayed careful. After all, not every paranormal who’d come after Rory Brodigan was gone. No one had seen one Jack Mercier, a paranormal with fire magic, since the spring. He knew exactly how deadly Mercier could be, and Sebastian chose not to take chances with nonmagical lives.
At least, now that he got to make choices for himself again.
Sebastian abruptly stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to keep walking. Lord Fine was safe; maybe the bustling of the London Underground would distract him from the memories.
He took the train from the High Street Kensington station back to Liverpool Street. It was dark when he emerged out of the station onto the busy street, where more light rain fell on waiting taxis as flower girls and newsies wove between people and the occasional organ or pull cart. The meat man’s cart was nowhere to be seen in the throng, but hopefully Sebastian could get some scraps for the cats from the pub later that night.
Sebastian’s room was the same one he’d had since February, on the second floor—first floor, they called it in England, but he hadn’t been here long enough to think of it that way—above the businesses that lined a pedestrian side street off Bishopsgate. The business directly below his room held the appearance of a shuttered art gallery. In the spring, they’d used it as a front for Isabel’s paranormal art. Now her paintings had all been shipped back to his family in Spain—well, all except two, the painting of Barcelona in Kensington, which would stay where it was, and the painting that hung over Sebastian’s table, of the blue San Juan Bay, the beach and palm trees, the bright sun and El Morro on the hill.
That one, he hadn’t been ready to give back.
Sebastian went in through the gallery’s front door to grab any mail that had been stuffed through the slot, usually nothing but flyers. He locked up behind him and scooped up the good-sized pile of papers from the gallery floor before heading up the internal staircase.
His room at the top of the stairs held only a narrow bed on one wall and a tiny table with two chairs on the other. It did, however, have its own potbellied iron stove with gas instead of coal, and September in London was already cool enough that he was grateful for it.
He lit the stove’s pilot light, and it began to glow welcomingly warm at Sebastian’s back as he sorted through the mail. Flyer for a chemist. Flyer for a grocer. Flyer for a dance show.
Letter from Jade Robbins.
Sebastian’s eyebrows went up. He set everything else to the side and spread the envelope’s contents across his tiny wooden table: a handwritten note and three newspaper clippings, one each from Paris, France; Frankfurt, Germany; and York, England.
June 18, 1925,Meurtre non résolu à Paris.
July 29, 1925,Mord ohne Erklärung.
September 2, 1925,Body found, police stumped.
