Chapter One
London – January 1902
“Lady Aston?”
Jocelyn looked up from her morning tea to find Abbie Morton, her son Oliver’s nanny, standing in the dining room doorway with a worried frown. “Yes, Abbie?”
Abbie shifted nervously, her dark eyes filled with concern. “I poked my head in Lady Evelyn’s room on my way down... um, to say good morning... and she wasn’t there. I checked with the upstairs maid, and Evelyn’s bed wasn’t slept in last night. I’m quite worried.”
The friendship between her sister and the nanny didn’t bother Jocelyn in the slightest, and she wished Abbie wouldn’t be so hesitant to admit it even existed. Jocelyn knew very well that, most mornings, Evelyn and Abbie took breakfast together in the nursery.
“Did she say anything about going to a meeting last night?” Jocelyn asked with a frown. Evelyn was quite active in the women’s suffrage movement, often putting herself in dangerous situations, even though Jocelyn had begged her to stop.
“No, my lady.” Abbie shook her head, making tendrils of dark hair waft around her serious, elven face. “And she usually always does. I even go with her whenever my duties allow it.”
Jocelyn nodded, her thoughts racing and a sense of foreboding settling deep within her. “Thank you for letting me know. Go back upstairs and check on Oliver, and I’ll find out where Evelyn is.”
Bending into a deep curtsey, Abbie left the room, though her worry lingered behind her.
Oh, Evelyn. What have you gotten yourself into now?
With a sigh, Jocelyn pushed to her feet and hurried up the stairs to her sister’s room, hoping that somehow both Abbie and the maid had been wrong, but as purported, Evelyn’s bed was still pristinely made, and her sister was nowhere to be found.
After questioning all of the upstairs servants, Jocelyn sent a footman to have her driver ready her carriage. She feared she knew where her sister might be. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time Evelyn had been out all night. The last time it had happened, she’d been arrested and spent the night in jail.
A shiver went down Jocelyn’s spine at the memory of her lovely, gently raised sister stuck in a filthy jail cell. Evelyn had been surrounded by all manner of cretins, who’d shocked her nearly to death with their crude comments. When Jocelyn had gone to bail her out, Evelyn had promised to never again put herself in such a situation, but Jocelyn should have known that wasn’t a promise her sister could keep. Evelyn’s passion for her cause was far greater than her fear for her own personal safety.
Still, Jocelyn couldn’t shake the feeling that this time was different. Evelyn usually spoke about a big suffrage rally for weeks before it happened, and she hadn’t said a word about attending a meeting in the last few days. She’d been a bit quiet at dinner last night, though.
As Jocelyn waited on the front steps for the carriage to be brought around, she tried to think where she should go to try and bail out Evelyn this time. Depending on where her sister had been arrested, she could be in any of London’s local precinct houses, and Jocelyn knew Evelyn well enough to doubt it had happened in Mayfair.
Inspector Sebastian Ness!
The memory of the man she’d met at her best friend Allison’s wedding last month suddenly came to her, and she decided the precinct he ran in Bethnal Green was as good a place to start as any.
Truth be told, he’d crossed her mind more than once since Allison’s wedding. She hated to presume upon their brief acquaintance as their connection was tenuous, to say the least. Still, if he didn’t have Evelyn in his jail, perhaps he could at least make some calls and point her in the right direction.
And it would give her an excuse to see him again.
* * *
INSPECTOR SEBASTIAN Ness was crossing the precinct lobby when the front door opened, and a lady breezed in with a gust of winter air. He froze, his gaze captured by her brilliant auburn hair. He swallowed dryly as he realized that she actually was a lady. Jocelyn Layton, the Countess of Aston. He’d met her at his friend Quinn O’Brien’s wedding, and then, as now, he’d been captivated by her beauty.
What the hell is she doing here?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. A lady like her didn’t venture down to a neighborhood like this unless something was dreadfully wrong.
One thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t have time for this.
Since being promoted to inspector and taking over J Division, he’d had not only the day-to-day operations of the precinct to deal with but had also been tasked with catching a murderer they’d dubbed The Viper, who’d already butchered two young women. The last thing he needed was for an honest-to-God lady to heap more trouble his way.
With a sigh, he intercepted her before she could reach the desk sergeant. “Lady Aston. What can I do for you?”
She flushed, glancing around at the handful of people in the lobby with obvious embarrassment. “May I speak with you in private, Inspector?”
He nodded and led her down the hall to his office, carefully leaving the door open a crack for propriety’s sake before taking a seat behind the desk and gesturing to the chair in front of it. She settled herself carefully, her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, then lifted her beautiful green eyes to his.
“Inspector, may I ask... Is my sister Lady Evelyn Lindsay being held here?” Her cheeks were painfully red now, nearly the color of her flaming hair.