What Angels Fear Read online

  “It’s the reason you never remarried, isn’t it?” said Sebastian. “Because while you might enjoy chatting with the ladies about gardens and furniture design and the latest sonata, you’ve never had the least interest in taking any of them to bed.”

  For a moment, Sebastian thought the man meant to continue denying it. Then his shoulders sagged, the skin around his eyes tightening as if in a wince, and he said softly, “Who else knows?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering.” Sebastian considered the sword. It was double edged and very, very sharp. “Rachel was blackmailing you, was she? Her silence, in exchange for whatever little secrets the French might be interested in getting their hands on.”

  Fairchild’s head jerked back. “What? Good God. I would never do such a thing.” He sucked in a deep, angry breath that flared his nostrils. “What do you think? That because I favor peace with the French that makes me a traitor? I’m against this war because it is destroying our country, not because I sympathize with Napoleon.” He flung out one arm in an expansive sweep that encompassed the East End of London, his voice taking on the stentorian tones of a speaker in Parliament. “Look around you. Children are dying of starvation in our streets. Men by the tens of thousands have been thrown off the land their families worked for generations, while women who once made a decent living are now reduced to selling themselves in alleyways and under bridges. The price of a pound of bread has doubled in the last twenty years, while a typical working man’s wages have fallen to almost half what they once were. And for what? So that a handful of industrialists and merchants can grow rich by lending their money to the government and equipping the armies that will be used to put the old crowned tyrants of Europe back on their thrones?”

  It could have been an act, a performance intended to deceive, but Sebastian didn’t think so. The man’s entire being was practically throbbing with indignation and the fierce determination of the hopeless idealist. “Are you telling me Rachel York never asked you to pass her sensitive information?”

  Fairchild stared back at him, eyes widening with a horrified kind of revelation. “Good God. What is it you think? That I killed her? That she was threatening to blackmail me, so I shut her up?”

  “I might,” said Sebastian, still playing with the sword, “except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whoever killed her, raped her.”

  “Heavens.” Fairchild clasped his hands together between his knees, and stared down at them for a moment. “I didn’t know. Poor Rachel.”

  He said it as if she had been his friend. And it came to Sebastian that, in some strange way, they probably were friends, this gentle, troubled nobleman and the woman who had gone every Monday afternoon to sing to the babies in St. Jude’s Foundling Home.

  After a moment, Fairchild looked up and said, “Are you quite certain she was working for the French?”

  “No. But everything I’ve found seems to point in that direction.”

  Fairchild pursed his lips and pushed out a long, troubled breath. “A few weeks ago, Wesley’s rooms were broken into. He had these letters I’d written him—probably something like half a dozen of them. ” A faint hint of color tinged his cheeks. “It was a foolish thing to have done, I know that now.”

  “The letters were taken?” said Sebastian, wondering if this Wesley Davis had also played a part in setting up Lord Frederick for blackmail.

  Fairchild nodded. “I was sick with worry. Rachel and I talked about it. She promised she’d deny everything if someone tried to use the letters against me, although we both knew it would do precious little good if it did come to that. Then last Friday, she came to me. She said she’d discovered who had the letters and she knew someone who could get them back for me. Steal them, actually.”

  “For how much?”

  “Three thousand pounds.”

  It was less than what she’d demanded from Hendon. And it came to Sebastian that there might very well have been others she’d approached; other rich, powerful men, one of whom might have decided to kill rather than pay for the secrets she had to offer.

  He studied the man who sat slumped on the bench, lost in his own thoughts. “Do you think she’s the one who took the letters from Davis’s rooms in the first place?”

  “Rachel?” Lord Frederick considered this a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Although the last few weeks, she seemed afraid of something. I don’t know what. She talked about going away, starting over someplace else.”

  It fit with what the others had told him, Hugh Gordon and the Reverend Finley at St. Jude’s. “When were you supposed to meet her? Tuesday?”

  Fairchild’s chest lifted with a weighty sigh. “I only wish I had. It’s what she wanted, but it wasn’t easy for me to raise that kind of money. I asked her to give me until Wednesday.” He scrubbed one hand across his face, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I was still getting the money together when I heard she’d been killed.”

  “So who has the letters now?”

  His hand fell back to his side. He looked haggard. Frightened. “I wish I knew. As soon as I heard what had happened to Rachel, I went past the lodging house where she kept her rooms. I had some notion of going up and looking for them, but the constables were there. I didn’t dare stop.”

  Sebastian nodded. So Fairchild had gone to Dorset Court that day. But if he hadn’t gone up to search Rachel’s rooms, then who had?

  Fairchild jerked up from the bench and took an agitated step away before whirling back around. “If those letters are made public, I’ll be ruined. Absolutely ruined.”

  Sebastian studied him dispassionately. “Did Rachel tell you who had the letters?”

  A faint flush touched the man’s high, aristocratic cheekbones. “Yes. Leo Pierrepont.”

  “Of course,” said Sebastian. “I should have known.”

  At the far end of the Row, a young blade on a showy, white-marked chestnut sent his mount cavorting. Sebastian lifted his head and watched the chestnut’s four white stockings flash in the thin winter sunlight. And he knew it again, that tantalizing sensation of a thought hovering somewhere on the edges of consciousness, just beyond his grasp.

  “Exactly who had she found to steal the letters from Pierrepont? Did she say?”

  The other man shook his head. “All I knew was that it had to be done while Pierrepont was out of town for the week, at Lord Edgeworth’s country house down in Hampshire. She was hoping to be gone by Thursday, before Pierrepont had a chance to come back and find the letters missing. I could be wrong, but had the impression . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s the one she was afraid of. The one she was running away from.”

  Sebastian glanced down at the gleaming blade in his hands. The sword stick was a common enough weapon amongst London’s noblemen. Sebastian’s own father carried one, while Leo Pierrepont was known to have an extensive collection.

  Sebastian slid the blade back into its sheath with a quiet hiss. Lord Edgeworth had hosted a party at his Hampshire estate the week before, Sebastian knew; as a part of that set, Pierrepont had undoubtedly been invited. But if he’d been planning to spend the week, something must have changed his mind, for he’d come back in time to host a dinner party on Tuesday night.

  The night Rachel York was killed.

  Chapter 43

  Sir Henry Lovejoy sat in the empty pit of the Stein and watched Hugh Gordon, decked out as Hamlet, rehearse his climatic sword fight with a significantly overweight Laertes.

  The discovery of Mary Grant’s ravaged body should have removed whatever lingering doubts the magistrate might have had about Lord Devlin’s guilt. Lovejoy himself had interviewed their witness, Mrs. Charles Lavery, and he’d found her a solid, no-nonsense woman. If Mrs. Lavery said she’d seen Lord Devlin leaving the lodging house, then Lovejoy was inclined to believe the man had been there. And yet. . .

  And yet, the doctor who examined Mary Grant’s body
had given it as his opinion that she’d been killed earlier in the day, perhaps before noon. And while most people didn’t put much stock in such things, Lovejoy had too much respect for the scientific method to ignore the doctor’s report. Except that if Devlin hadn’t killed Mary Grant, then what was he doing there at her rooms? Why was he still in London at all?

  Lovejoy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, remembering his interview with Charles, Lord Jarvis. If Henry’s wife, Julia, were still alive, she’d tell him he was being a stubborn fool, trying to understand Sebastian St. Cyr rather than simply concentrating on capturing him. And Henry, he’d tell her that he was doing everything in his power to bring the Viscount in. He just needed to tie up one or two loose ends, for his own satisfaction.

  And then Lovejoy realized what he was doing, and heaved a soft sigh. His Julia had been gone from him for almost ten years now, but he still had these little conversations with her, imagining what she would say, what he would say in response.

  A thump followed by a bustle of movement and laughing chatter drew his attention back to the stage. The scene had ended. Still wiping his hot face with a towel, Hugh Gordon ran lightly down the steps, to the pit.

  “You wanted to speak with me?” he said. He was smiling, but Lovejoy noticed the wariness in his dark eyes, that cautious kind of watchfulness one saw often in the face of a man confronting a magistrate.

  “That’s right.” Stiff with the cold, Lovejoy pushed to his feet. “I understand you and Rachel York were once . . .” He hesitated, searching for an expression that wouldn’t offend his moral sensibilities. But any irregular sexual liaison of that sort outraged Lovejoy’s strict Evangelical principles. He finally settled on the word, “involved.”

  Gordon’s nostrils flared with a quickly indrawn breath. “Everyone knows who killed her. It’s that viscount, Lord Devlin. He did Rachel, and yesterday he got that other one over in Bloomsbury. So why are you here talking to me?”

  The aggressiveness of the man’s tone took Lovejoy by surprise. “We’ve been doing some checking into your background, Mr. Gordon, and we’ve discovered a few things which disturbed us.”

  “Such as?”

  “Does the name Adelaide Hunt mean anything to you?”

  The man hesitated, his jaw clenched as he considered his response. “You obviously know it does. I haven’t seen the woman in years. What’s she to do with anything?”

  “I understand you cut her up once, quite badly. In fact, you almost killed her.”

  “She tell you that?”

  Lovejoy said nothing, just looked at the man expectantly.

  A muscle bunched along the actor’s jaw. “I was defending myself. The bloody woman came at me with a bed warmer. Did she tell you that?”

  “As I understand it, you flew into a rage when she attempted to break off the relationship. She wielded the bed warmer to defend herself.”

  “No charges were ever pressed, now were they?”

  Lovejoy drew in a deep breath scented with greasepaint and the faint, lingering tang of orange peels. “Some men make it a habit of cutting up women who try to break off with them. I understand you were particularly angry with Rachel York when she left you for another man.”

  A faint flush darkened the actor’s lean, handsome face. “So? That was almost two years ago now. What is it with you people? I explained all this to that other fellow.”

  “What other fellow?”

  “The one who came around a couple of times, asking questions about Rachel. First he claimed to be her Cousin Simon Taylor from Worcestershire, then he said he was a Bow Street Runner.”

  “What? What did this man look like?”

  Gordon shrugged. “Tall, lean, dark. Younger than he was trying to make himself look. Dressed rather scruffy.”

  Lovejoy felt a quickening of interest verging on excitement. See, Julia, he thought; this stubborn fool is onto something after all.

  For the description fit almost perfectly with that of the man seen leaving Mary Grant’s lodgings. The man identified by Mrs. Charles Lavery as Viscount Devlin.

  Edward Maitland was coming down the Public Office’s front steps when Sir Henry Lovejoy made it back to Queen Square.

  “I want you to set a couple of men to watching Hugh Gordon. Both at the theater, and at home,” said Lovejoy.

  The constable drew up in surprise. “What? You don’t seriously think Gordon is our man?”

  Lovejoy hadn’t entirely discounted the possibility, but he wasn’t about to go into all that with Maitland. “No, I don’t. But Devlin seems to have developed an interest in him. He’s already approached Gordon twice, and he may try to do so again. I want us to be ready for him.”

  Chapter 44

  That evening, Lady Amanda attended a soiree given at the home of the Duchess of Carlyle.

  The signs of looming social disaster were subtle, but there—in the furtive looks cast in Amanda’s direction, the whispered conversations that broke off abruptly when she drew too near. Amanda felt a cold anger hardening her heart as she moved with easy determination amidst the steely-eyed matrons and turbaned dowagers. She was Lady Amanda, wife of the Prince’s boon companion Lord Wilcox and daughter of the Earl of Hendon, Chancellor of the Exchequer. They would offend her at their peril.

  Midway through the evening, she was surprised to see her own husband approaching her through the throng. Having no taste for the whirl of social functions or visits to the theater and opera that occupied his wife’s time, Wilcox normally retreated after dinner either to an evening session of the House of Lords or to one of his clubs.

  “Something wrong, dear?” she said in a smiling aside as she lifted a glass of champagne from a passing servant’s silver tray. “Has Sebastian’s latest exploit resulted in your being blackballed from White’s? Or has Boney landed at Dover?”

  Wilcox’s habitual placid smile was firmly in place, but his eyes were grave. “Bayard tells me his uncle paid you a visit this afternoon.” Even as he spoke, he kept his gaze moving casually over the glittering crowd. “Is that wise, my dear?”

  “Really, Martin. Do you seriously think I had extended Devlin an invitation? Suggested he might want to hide out in the carriage house, or perhaps pose as one of our footmen?”

  “No. I suppose not.” For one telling moment, Wilcox’s smile slipped. “Where the devil is he hiding, anyway?”

  “He didn’t happen to mention it. But unless I miss my guess, he’s taken refuge with that light skirt he made such a fool of himself over when he first came down from Oxford.”

  Wilcox swung his head to stare at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am.” Amanda set aside her glass. “Ah, there’s Lady Bainbridge. Do excuse me, dear.” And she left him then, to make use of the information or not, as he chose.

  Sebastian watched Leo Pierrepont rein in before the open door of his carriage house. Night came early to the streets of London in February; by four, the mews and the gardens leading up to the house were already dark. “Giles!” the Frenchman shouted, his voice echoing hollowly in the cold stillness. “Giles? Où est tu?” He waited expectantly. “Charles?”

  Swearing to himself, he swung from the saddle to lead the tired chestnut into the stables. He lit the lamp suspended from the rafters, glanced around the softly lit area, then said, “Merde,” under his breath and reached to unbuckle his cinch.

  From the shadows of an empty stall at the end of the row, Sebastian waited, listening to the muttered grunts of a man unused to the task of unsaddling and grooming his own horse. The smell of warming oil mingled with the scents of hay and oats and horseflesh. In a nearby stall, one of Pierrepont’s carriage horses moved restlessly.

  Slipping the flintlock pistol from his pocket, Sebastian crept to where the Frenchman, still grumbling, crouched to run a currycomb over his chestnut’s wet belly. Sebastian held out the pistol until the muzzle was scant inches from Pierrepont’s ear. At the sound of the hammer being pulled back, Pierrepont fro
ze.

  “Move very carefully, Monsieur Pierrepont.”

  Pierrepont turned his head, his gaze focusing on the pistol before lifting to Sebastian’s face. “Where are my groom and coachman?”

  “Someplace where we don’t need to worry about them disturbing us.”

  The Frenchman straightened slowly. “What do you want?”

  “I thought I’d tell you a story.”

  Pierrepont’s eyebrows lifted. “A story.”

  “A story.” Sebastian settled back against the edge of a bale of hay, the pistol still held, loosely, in his hand. “It goes something like this: Once upon a time, in a place we’ll call Windsor Castle, there lived a mad old King.”

  “How original.”

  “Yes, isn’t it? Anyway, while our King slips deeper and deeper into his own mad world, his houses of Parliament in nearby Londontown are busy negotiating the details of a bill that will make the King’s eldest son Regent, meaning he will rule in his father’s place.”

  “This is fascinating.” Pierrepont leaned against a nearby wooden post and crossed his arms at his chest. “I do hope there’s a point to it.”

  “I’m getting there. The story has a villain, you see. A man named Napoleon.”

  “Of course. The villain is always a Frenchman.”

  Sebastian smiled. “Napoleon’s country has been fighting a war against our old mad King for close onto twenty years, so naturally Napoleon takes an interest in these negotiations. He realizes this Regency might be a good thing for France.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “Well, you see, the King has always aligned himself with a group of men in Parliament we’ll call the Tories. Like the old King, the Tories don’t like change. They think the way to keep their country strong is to keep the old institutions such as the monarchy and the church strong. And because they’re making a tidy profit out of the war, the last thing they want is any kind of peace treaty with our villain, Napoleon.”