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Helen took the sketches and studied them. “Possibly. Probably. These are all lords. I know them—I mean, knew them. But I can’t tell if that’s from the interactions at Jarvis’s house or from before. What is this? Are these the dates of their demise?”

Ian nodded.

Helen squinted at the information written on one of the men’s sketches. It didn’t tell her much so she flipped to the next page and blinked in surprise. “Jarvis could not have killed him. He wasn’t even in London at the time. You know that. We were already…” She cleared her throat. On the night of the murder, Ian had been in her house, and Jarvis was still out on his other estate.

Ian shrugged. “And yet, he showed up out of nowhere the night I got caught. Did you know he was back already?”

Helen frowned. She did not. Even Olivia was surprised to see her husband that night.

“Are you certain he even left?” Ian raised a brow.

Helen’s mouth opened slightly in surprise. Did Ian think that Jarvis was lying about his trip to his estate? No, that couldn’t be. “He would never do that to Olivia. He adores his wife. And she is with child! After what happened the last time… She lost her child when he was away. Jarvis has not forgiven himself for not being there for her when she needed him. No, he wouldn’t just hide away for weeks and not take her with him if he could. He wouldn’t.”

Ian studied her face thoughtfully. She could see that he wasn’t fully convinced, but he didn’t say the words out loud. Helen hid her face from his determined perusal and went back to the sketches, and the accompanying notes.

She looked at the next man’s date of demise, and the ugly memories swam before her eyes. She forced herself to concentrate. “And on this night… Well, let’s just say I know for certain that he wasn’t away killing anyone. I’d been sick, similarly to the way I was sick a few days ago, and Ian had called the doctor who performed bloodletting that night.” She cleared her throat. “And it almost killed me. He said—it doesn’t matter what he said, but Jarvis was with me the entire night.”

Helen finally raised her eyes to Ian’s and saw concern in the depth of his soul. Again, he opted not to comment, and Helen was glad for it. Instead, he said, “Perhaps it’s not Jarvis who killed them, but it must have been one of the Shadows.”

Helen took a deep breath, finally getting enough courage to ask him the question. “How do you know?”

“As I said, these men were blackmailed before being killed. And the blackmailer is the leader of the Shadows. Erebus.”

Helen stood and paced away from Ian. Could it be? Did she know the identity of the person Ian looked for?

“I do have doubts,” Ian continued. “The note I stole from St. John’s study, the one which instructs St. John to eliminate me has a different handwriting from those blackmail letters. Of course, Erebus could have asked someone else to pen them but—”

“I might know who the blackmailer is,” Helen blurted out as she turned to face him.

Ian’s eyes rounded and he looked at Helen as if he didn’t recognize her. “How could you know it?”

Helen let out a breath. “Because my friend was blackmailed as well. Lavinia. And Caroline, the Duchess of Kensington’s, uncle, too.”

“Who is it?” Ian stood and walked toward her, his eyes troubled. “Who blackmailed them?”

She was saving Jarvis, by absolving him and his ‘colleagues’ of this one suspicion. But she was dooming another person. A person, who she knew one of her friends cared about very much. “It’s the Duke of Kensington’s bastard brother,” she said tightly. “William.”

Chapter 23

“William? The bastard is the one blackmailing everyone?” Ian frowned thinking back to all the inconsistencies that made him pause before. The handwriting, the political overturns, the murders. The Shadows had never been so brazen before, but this still wasn’t proof enough that it wasn’t them, especially considering the note he had recovered from St. John’s study. “Well, he has quite an operation if that’s true.”

“It is,” Helen said softly. “Caroline found this out over a year ago. It’s why William left the country. Caroline has all the evidence.”

“That’s brilliant, then. Bringing home a blackmailer will definitely get me reinstated.” Of course, he’d have to double-check these claims. He believed Helen, but without seeing the evidence, he couldn’t be sure that what she was told was actually true. He’d need to steal the evidence from the Duchess of Kensington and study it. But if this was true, once he handed the proof over to Davenport, he would definitely be welcomed back into the spy ranks.

“But what will it do to William?” Helen looked rather concerned. And again, irritatingly, she was calling another man by his Christian name. Not that anyone knew any other name for him except for the bastard.

“If we prove that what you know is true, then hanging, most definitely.”

Helen blinked up at him with horror in her eyes. “You can’t do that. He is a criminal, certainly, a blackmailer. But it doesn’t mean he killed those lords. And I think Victoria truly loves him. Please, don’t do anything before I talk to her.”

Ian looked at her in disbelief. “He is a blackmailer who, by your own admission, blackmailed the Duchess of Kensington’s uncle, leading him to end his own life. He blackmailed an innocent lady and possibly killed several lords. How can Princess Victoria still have feelings for him?”

Helen raised a brow. “You used me to get to my cousin and wanted to commit him to gaol. That didn’t change my feelings toward you.”

That made him pause. “It didn’t?” A small smile tugged at his lips.

“But I don’t think he could have killed these men, either,” Helen insisted, completely bypassing his question as if he hadn’t spoken. “He is not even in the country.”