What Angels Fear

Chapter 50

Sir Henry Lovejoy was at his desk, dozing lightly after a pleasant meal of steak and kidney pie at the corner tavern, when he was jerked awake by his clerk’s apologetic hiss.

“Sir Henry?” said Collins, his bald head appearing around the door frame. “There’s a lady here to see you. A lady who refuses to give her name.”

Lovejoy could see her now, a delicately built young woman fashionably dressed in a redingote of soft blue with a matching, heavily veiled round hat. She waited until the clerk had reluctantly withdrawn, then lifted her veil to reveal the pale, troubled features of Melanie Talbot.

“Mrs. Talbot.” Lovejoy pushed hastily to his feet. “You need not have put yourself to the trouble of coming here. If you’d sent a message—”

“No,” she said with more force then he would have expected. She looked fragile, this woman, with her fine bone structure and slight frame and sad eyes, but she was not. “I’ve waited too long as it is. I should have told the truth from the very beginning.” She sucked in a deep breath, then said in a rush, “Devlin was with me the night that girl was killed.”

Lovejoy came around his desk, one hand outstretched to usher his visitor toward a chair. “Mrs. Talbot, I understand your desire to help the Viscount, but believe me when I say that this is entirely unnecessary—”

“Unnecessary?” She jerked away from him, her blue eyes flashing with unexpected fire. “What do you think? That I’m making this up? John swore he’d kill me if he ever found out I’d seen Sebastian again. Do you think I would risk that? For a lie?”

Lovejoy stopped, his hand falling to his side, all the old doubts about this case blooming anew within him. “What are you saying? That you met Lord Devlin last Tuesday evening despite your husband’s prohibition?”

She went to stand before the window overlooking the square. “John told me about the duel—bragged about it, about how he was going to kill Sebastian.”

“So you . . . what? Thought to warn his lordship that your husband intended to shoot to kill? Surely his lordship was aware of that?”

She shook her head, her lips curling up unexpectedly into a wry smile. “John could never have bested Sebastian. I went to Sebastian to secure his promise that he would not kill my husband.”

She swung away from the window. “That surprises you, does it?” she said when Lovejoy only stared at her. “You think that if I were truly miserable with my husband I would have been glad to be rid of him in whatever way possible. You don’t understand what it’s like for a woman. As difficult as my life is, John is all I have. My father would never take me back. If anything happens to my husband, I’ll be left destitute. On the streets. I couldn’t face that.”

“Where did you meet with Lord Devlin?”

“In a quiet corner of the park. I don’t think anyone saw us. I swear, all we did was talk. But even if John could be brought to believe that, it wouldn’t matter. He’d—” Her voice cracked and she broke off.

Lovejoy watched her slim throat work as she swallowed. There were bruises there, he realized, nearly hidden by the lace edging of her dress. Four bruises in the shape of a man’s fingerprints. “What time was this?”

“From half past five until just before eight.”

It must have taken a considerable effort, Lovejoy thought, for Captain John Talbot’s beautiful young wife to convince Lord Devlin not to kill her abusive husband. But if she were telling the truth, it would have been virtually impossible for Devlin to have made it to the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields in Westminster in time to kill Rachel York either before or after his meeting with Mrs. Talbot.

If she were telling the truth.

Lovejoy fixed her with a hard stare. “What made you decide to come forward with this now?”

A hint of color touched her pale cheeks. “I should have told you the truth before. But Sebastian had sent me a note, through my sister.” Opening her reticule, she drew forth a torn, creased piece of paper and handed it to Lovejoy. “He warned me to keep silent. I kept hoping you’d realize that it was all a mistake, your thinking Sebastian was somehow involved in that woman’s death, that I wouldn’t need to say anything. That John need never know. . . .”

Lovejoy stared down at the hastily written words on the scrap of paper. The ink was smudged, as if with tears. “There is no need for you to say anything.”

“What?” She shook her head, her eyes wide, not comprehending. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there is no point for you to put yourself at risk by coming forward with this information. Thanks to the duel, your association with Lord Devlin is well known and the worst possible implications have been read into it. It will simply be assumed that you’ve made this story up, that you are lying to protect the man you love.”

“But it’s the truth.” Her narrowed eyes searched his face. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“As a man, here and now, I would probably say yes. But as a judge, weighing your testimony against the other evidence in court?” He shrugged. “I think not.”

“But that’s absurd.”

Lovejoy tucked the Viscount’s note into his pocket. “That’s the law.”