When Gods Die (3 page)

Devlin’s eyes narrowed. He had inhuman eyes, this young Viscount: as yellow and feral as a wolf’s. “I think we can dispense with the civilities.”

Jarvis set aside the decanter. “Very well, then. Let’s not skirt around the issue. We’ve asked you here because the Regent needs your help.”

“My help.”

“That’s right. He’d like you to discover exactly what happened in the Pavilion tonight.”

The Viscount laughed, his amusement short and sharp and faintly bitter.

Jarvis kept his voice pleasant. “It’s not our intention to see you framed for this murder, if that’s what you fear.”

“How reassuring. Mind you, it would be rather difficult, given that I never left the music room this evening.”

“Yet there are those who whisper that your presence at tonight’s soiree was…shall we say, suggestive?”

“Ah, I see. It’s in my own best interest to find this killer—is that what you’re saying?”

“Something like that.”

The Viscount wandered the room, pausing for a moment to inspect one of the mythical creatures rendered in gold on the wall cloth. “If I cared what people thought of me, I might be tempted,” he said without looking around. “Fortunately, I don’t.”

Jarvis smoothly shifted tactics, the smile fading, his voice becoming stentorian and grave. “I fear this murder comes at a critical moment in our nation’s history. Our armies are not doing as well as one might wish on the Peninsula, and there are distressing signs that this year’s harvest may fail. The people are restless. Have you any idea what a scandal of this nature might do to the country?”

Devlin swung around, a disconcerting gleam in his strange yellow eyes. “I certainly have some personal knowledge of what it might do to Prinny’s already faltering popularity.”

Reaching for the decanter again, Jarvis poured himself a brandy, then took a long, thoughtful sip. “I’m afraid this isn’t just about the Prince. You’ve heard what people are saying? That it isn’t only the King who’s mad? They’re saying the entire House of Hanover is tainted.”

Jarvis had no intention of mentioning it, of course, but there was more to it than that. There’d been disturbing reports lately, of dangerous murmurs and furtive whisperings. Some people were suggesting the House of Hanover was more than mad, that it was cursed—and that England would be cursed, too, as long as the House of Hanover sat upon her throne.

The Viscount was looking faintly bored. “Then I suggest you direct the local magistrate to lose no time in tracking down tonight’s killer.”

“According to our most estimable local magistrate, the young Marchioness of Anglessey committed suicide.”

Devlin was silent for a moment before saying, “Quite a feat, from what I saw.”

“Exactly.” Jarvis took another sip of his brandy. “Unfortunately, the kinds of people who normally deal with these matters are simply too afraid of giving offense to their betters to be of any real use. What we need is someone who’s both intelligent and resourceful, and who isn’t afraid to follow the truth wherever it might lead.”

He was no fool, Devlin. A faint, contemptuous smile curved his lips. “So bring in a Bow Street Runner. Hell, hire the entire force.”

“If we were dealing with some murderous thug who’d come in off the streets, that might suffice. But you know as well as I do that something far more serious is afoot here. We need someone who is a part of our world. Someone who understands it, yet also knows how to track a killer.” Jarvis paused significantly. “You did it before. Why not do it again?”

Devlin turned toward the door. “Sorry. I only traveled down to Brighton to spend a few days with my father. I’m expected back in London tomorrow.”

Jarvis waited until the Viscount’s hand tightened around the knob, then said, “Before you walk away, there’s something you should see. Something that actually involves your family directly.”

That stopped him, as Jarvis had known it would. The Viscount swung back around. “What?”

Jarvis set aside his glass. “I’ll show you.”

S
EBASTIAN WAS NO STRANGER
to death. Six years of cavalry charges, of slashing sabers and stealthy missions behind enemy lines had left him with searing memories of incidents and images that still haunted his dreams. He had to force himself to follow Jarvis through the door to the Prince’s cabinet.

The fire on the hearth had burned down to glowing embers but the room was still warm, the stale air thick with the sweet scent of death. His footsteps echoing hollowly, Sebastian crossed the gaily patterned carpet. Guinevere Anglessey lay on her side, half sliding off the settee where the Prince had dropped her in his agitation. Sebastian stood before her, his gaze traveling the smooth line of her forehead and cheek, the delicate bow of her lips.

She was very young, no more than one- or two-and-twenty. He had met her once, in the company of her husband at a dinner party given by Hendon. He recalled a beautiful woman with a quick wit and dark, sad eyes. Her husband, the Marquis of Anglessey, was close to seventy.

Sebastian glanced back at Jarvis, who had paused, watchful, just inside the door. “The death of anyone so young is tragic,” said Sebastian, his voice even. “But it’s still none of my affair.”

“Take a closer look at her, my lord.”

Reluctantly, Sebastian stared down at the woman before him. The shimmering emerald green satin of her evening gown lay loose about her shoulders, its tapes undone, the bodice shoved down nearly to the tips of her full, smooth breasts. From this angle he could only just see the ornate pommel of the jeweled dagger imbedded in her back. But he had a clear view of the necklace that lay nestled in the shadows near the base of her neck.

His eyes narrowed, his breath catching in his throat as he hunkered down beside her. His hand reached out as if to touch the necklace, only to curl back into a fist that he pressed against his lips.

It was an ancient piece, wrought of silver in the shape of a closed triskelion and set against a smooth disk of the same darkly mysterious bluestone found so often in the enigmatic old stone circles of Wales. There was a legend that this necklace had once been worn by the Druid priestesses of Cronwyn. They said it had been passed down through the ages, from one woman to the other, the necklace itself choosing its next caretaker by growing warm and vibrating when the right woman held the old stone in her hand.

Sebastian had been fascinated by this necklace as a child. He used to climb up beside his mother and listen to her soft, melodious voice reciting the old tale. He could remember holding the curiously wrought piece in his hand, willing it to turn warm and vibrate for him. He’d last seen the necklace at his mother’s throat, its burnished silver shining brilliantly in the sun as she waved good-bye to him from the deck of the neat little two-masted yacht a friend had hired for a lark one summer’s day when Sebastian was eleven.

The afternoon had been unusually hot, the sea breeze a gentle breath of fresh air. But then the day had turned rough, dark clouds scuttling across the sun, the wind kicking up strong. The two-masted craft had floundered in heavy seas and gone down with all on board.

The body of the Countess of Hendon—and the necklace she’d worn that day—had never been recovered.

Chapter 5

“I
t can’t be the same necklace,” said Sebastian.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Lord Jarvis answered him. “But it is,” said Jarvis, coming to stand beside him. “Look at the back.”

Moving carefully, Sebastian flipped the triskelion, his fingertips just brushing the woman’s cold flesh. In the flickering light from the wall sconces he could see where the initials A. C. had been artfully entwined with a second set of initials. J. S.

The engraving was old—not as old as the necklace itself, but still worn with the passage of the years. It had been well over a century and a half since Addiena Cadel had marked the necklace with her initials and those of her lover, James Stuart—the same James Stuart who later assumed the British throne as James II.

Sebastian sat back on his heels, his splayed hands gripping his thighs. “How did you know?” he asked after a moment. “How did you know my mother once owned this necklace?”

“She showed it to me one day when I happened to admire it. Its story is an intriguing one. Not the sort of thing you forget.”

“And did you know she was wearing it the day she died?”

A faint widening of the eyes was Jarvis’s only sign of reaction. “No. No, I didn’t. How…curious.”

The memory of that cold brush of dead flesh against his hand nagged at Sebastian. Curious, he leaned forward to study the woman before him. Her fingertips were already turning blue, the muscles of her neck stiff with the rigor of death. Yet the skin of her face seemed unnaturally pink. “How long has it been?” he asked Jarvis.

“How long since what?”

“Since the Prince was found with the Marchioness in his arms. Two hours, would you say? Less?”

“Less, I’d say. Why?”

Reaching out, Sebastian rested his palm against Lady Anglessey’s smooth young cheek. It was cool to the touch. “She’s cold,” said Sebastian. “She shouldn’t be this cold.”

He glanced over at the glowing coals on the hearth. His years in the army had taught him only too well what the passage of time does to a dead body. Heat could accelerate the processes of death, he knew. But it should at least have kept the body warm.

Jarvis took a step closer. “What are you suggesting?”

Sebastian frowned. “I’m not certain. Have either of the Prince’s physicians seen her?” The Regent had two personal physicians, Dr. Heberden and Dr. Carlyle. They were rarely far from his side.

“Naturally.”

“And?”

A derisive smile twisted the other man’s full lips. “Both supported the magistrate’s conclusion that she committed suicide.”

Sebastian let out a humorless huff that was not quite a laugh. “Of course.”

He rose to his feet. She still lay as he had found her, awkwardly curled on one side. Reaching out, he gently rolled her body toward him.

The disarrangement of her satin gown had left her back essentially bare. There was something violently sexual, almost intimate, about the way the dagger’s blade disappeared into her dark, livid flesh. Sebastian drew a quick breath.

Beside him, Jarvis was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Good God. She appears to have been badly beaten.”

Sebastian shook his head. “That’s not bruising. I’ve seen it happen before, with soldiers left on the battlefield. It’s as if all the blood in a body collects at its lowest points after death.”

“But she was lying on her side, not her back.”

“It would be difficult to do anything else with that dagger in her,” said Sebastian. Gently lifting the blue-black hair that tumbled around her neck, Sebastian released the necklace’s clasp and eased the thick, intricate chain away from her throat. “There’s a surgeon of my acquaintance who has made a study of these things—an Irishman by the name of Paul Gibson. He has a surgery near the base of Tower Hill. I want him sent for right away.”

“You want to bring a surgeon all the way down from London?” Jarvis laughed. “But it’ll be ten hours or more before he gets here. Surely we can find someone locally.”

Sebastian glanced at the man beside him. “To give us the same opinion as His Highness’s personal physicians?”

Jarvis said nothing.

“It’s important that no one else be allowed to enter this room until Gibson arrives. Can you arrange that?”

“Naturally.”

Sebastian turned in a slow circle, his gaze covering the chamber. “Do you notice something else strange?”

Jarvis regarded him with vague animosity. The earlier winning smile was long gone. “Should I?”

“That dagger was well aimed. It would have pierced her heart. Wounds of that nature typically bleed profusely.”

“Good God,” said Jarvis, his gaze lifting from the young Marchioness’s livid bare back to Sebastian’s face. “You’re right. There’s no blood.”

Chapter 6

H
alf an hour later, Sebastian walked into the private parlor of his father’s rooms at the Anchor on the Marine Parade. In a tapestry-covered chair beside the empty hearth, the Earl of Hendon sat with an open book on his lap, his head nodding to one side as he dozed.

“You shouldn’t have waited up,” said Sebastian.

His head jerking, Hendon quietly closed his book and set it aside. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Sebastian leaned against the doorframe, one hand absently fingering the bluestone necklace in his pocket. “Tell me about the Marquis of Anglessey.”

Hendon rubbed his eyes with a spread thumb and index finger. “He’s a good man. Steady. Honorable. He does his duty in the House of Lords, although he has no special interest in government.” He paused. “Surely you don’t think Anglessey had anything to do with what happened tonight?”

“I don’t know what to think. How well did you know Lady Anglessey?”

Hendon let out his breath in a long sigh. “Such a beautiful young woman, Guinevere. They married three—maybe four years ago now. There was considerable talk at the time, of course, given the difference in their ages. Some considered it a scandal, a sick old man taking such a young woman to wife. But the marriage was understandable.”

“How’s that?

“Anglessey is desperate for an heir.”

“Ah. And was he successful in getting one?”

“I heard just last week that Lady Anglessey was with child.”

“Jesus.” Sebastian pushed away from the door and walked into the room. “She was discovered in a decidedly compromising position this evening. Yet you say such behavior was not typical of her?”

“No. There has never been a whisper of scandal attached to her name.”

“What do you know of her family?”

“Nothing reprehensible there. Her father was the Earl of Athelstone. From Wales. I believe her brother, the new Earl, is still a child.” Hendon let his head fall back against the tapestry of the chair as he looked up at his son. “What has any of this to do with you?”

“Jarvis thought I might find the circumstances of Lady Anglessey’s death interesting.”