Why Kill the Innocent by C. S. Harris EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: C. S. Harris
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Clerkenwell, London: Thursday, 27 January 1814
Ahowling wind flung icy snow crystals into Hero Devlin’s face,
stinging her cold cheeks and stealing her breath. She kept her
head bowed, her fists clenched in the fine cloth of her merino
carriage gown as she struggled to drag its sodden weight through the
knee-deep drifts clogging the ancient winding lane. A footman with a
lantern staggered ahead of her to light the darkness, for Clerkenwell
was a wretched, dangerous area on the outskirts of the City, and
night had fallen long ago.
She was here, alone except for the footman and a petite French
midwife who floundered through the snow in her wake, because of an
article she was writing on the hardships faced by the families of men
snatched off the streets by the Royal Navy’s infamous press gangs.
The midwife, Alexi Sauvage, had offered to introduce Hero to the
desperate eight-months-pregnant wife of a recently impressed
cooper. No one had expected the woman to go into labor just as a
fierce snowstorm swept in to render the narrow lanes of the district
impassable to a gentlewoman’s carriage. Thanks to their presence,
mother and child both survived the long, hard birth. But the snow
just kept getting deeper.
“Do you see it yet?” Alexi called, peering through the whirl of
white toward where Hero’s carriage awaited them at the base of
Shepherds’ Lane.
Hero brought up a cold-numbed hand to shield her eyes. “It
should be j—”
She broke off as her foot caught on something half-buried in the
snow and she pitched forward to land in a deep drift on quickly
outflung hands. She started to push up again, then froze as she
realized she was staring at the tousled dark hair of a body that lay
facedown beside her.
The footman swung about in alarm, the light from his lantern
swaying wildly. “My lady!”
“Mon Dieu,” whispered Alexi, coming to crouch next to her. “It’s a
woman. Help me turn her, quickly.”
Together they heaved the stiffening woman onto her back. The
winter had been so wretchedly cold, with endless weeks of freezing
temperatures and soaring food and coal prices, that more and more
of the city’s poor were being found dead in the streets. But this was
no ragged pauper woman. Her fine black pelisse was lined with fur,
and the dusky curls framing her pale face were fashionably cut. Hero
stared into those open sightless eyes and had no need to see the
bloody gash on the side of the woman’s head to know that she was
dead.
“She must have slipped and hit something,” said Hero.
“I don’t think so.” Alexi Sauvage studied the ugly wound with
professional interest. As a female, she could be licensed in England
to practice only as a midwife. But Alexi had trained as a physician in
Italy, where such things were allowed. “She couldn’t have died here.
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