What Angels Fear

Chapter 64

Sebastian watched Kat breathe, watched the gentle rise and fall of her breasts beneath lace-trimmed sheets, watched the flicker of golden candlelight over the pale skin of her eyelids, closed now in gentle sleep.

He stood beside the bed, his dressing gown thrown casually over his shoulders. Around them, the Brook Street house settled into the hush of the night. It seemed oddly strange, to be here again in his own house, to be wearing freshly laundered linen and fine silk. He was here, and safe, and yet the coiled sense of alertness, the driving restlessness remained.

“She’s going to be fine, Sebastian,” said Paul Gibson, coming to stand beside him. “I’ll stay with her. But you need to get some rest. You’ve lost a fair amount of blood yourself.”

Sebastian nodded. Beneath the bandages, his shoulder and leg throbbed with a fiery ache that seemed to radiate out and blend with every cut and bruise he’d acquired over the past week. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in a lifetime. “Call me if she wakes.”

“Of course.”

Turning toward his room, Sebastian became aware of the sound of a man’s loud, angry voice drifting up from the hall below.

“Damn your impudence,” swore the Earl of Hendon. “And to hell with your instructions. I want to see my son.”

Sebastian paused at the top of the stairs. “Father.”

Hendon looked up, a succession of emotions chasing one another across the features of his white, anguished face as he watched Sebastian limp down the stairs toward him. But all he said was, “I’d heard you were hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” said Sebastian, and led the way into the drawing room.

Hendon closed the door carefully behind him. “I’ve had a meeting with Lord Jarvis and Sir Henry Lovejoy, concerning these recent revelations about Wilcox. The situation is delicate, particularly with the Prince’s instillation as Regent to take place tomorrow. For an intimate of the Prince to be implicated in such heinous crimes at this time . . .”

“Devilishly inconvenient. So what is Jarvis proposing? I’m confident he’s come up with some solution.”

At the levity in Sebastian’s tone, the Earl’s features settled into a deep frown. “As a matter of fact, the suggestion was mine. The murders of Rachel York and Mary Grant will be attributed to the Frenchman, Leo Pierrepont.”

“Of course. Cooperative of him to have fled the country.” Sebastian went to stand before the hearth, his gaze on the fire. “And Wilcox’s death?”

“The work of the cutthroats and thieves who set fire to the warehouse. The riverfront can be a dangerous place at night.”

“Amanda will be pleased. No opprobrium attached to the family name to interfere with Stephanie’s come out next year.” Sebastian glanced around. “You do realize that Amanda knew?”

“What? That Wilcox had butchered those two women? That I can’t believe. Even of Amanda.”

Sebastian smiled grimly. “Unlike you, however, she was unaware of her husband’s French connections.”

Sebastian wasn’t expecting an apology from his father and he didn’t get one. Sebastian waited, instead, for the inevitable question.

Hendon cleared his throat. “It was Wilcox who took Lady Hendon’s affidavit from Rachel York’s body, I assume?”

“Yes. Although I gather from something he said it’s gone missing again. He thought I’d taken it.”

Hendon stood very still, beads of moisture showing on his temples, as if he were hot. “You don’t have it?”

“No.”

The Earl turned away, one hand scrubbing across his face as he struggled to absorb this. It was a moment before he said gruffly, “And the woman? I understand her injuries are serious.”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, but the doctor says nothing vital was hit. Barring infection, she should recover.”

Hendon worked his lower jaw back and forth in that way he had. “She told you, I presume, what passed between us six years ago.”

Sebastian stared at his father.

“I did what I thought was right at the time,” Hendon said, his voice brusque. “I still think it was right. Such a marriage would have ruined your life. Thank God she finally saw that herself.”

“How much, precisely, did you offer her?” Sebastian asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Twenty thousand pounds. There aren’t many women who’d turn down a chance at that kind of money.”

“She turned you down?”

“Why, yes. You mean, she didn’t tell you?”

“No. No, she didn’t.”

Kat came awake slowly. The fiery pain she remembered from the night before had gone, leaving a dull ache that throbbed down her side.

The room with its dusky blue silken hangings and gilded furniture was unfamiliar, but she recognized the man in doeskin breeches and top boots who sat, arms crossed at his chest, in a tapestry-covered chair beside the bed. He must have sensed her gaze upon him because he turned, his hand reaching to cover hers on the counterpane.

“I knew you’d come for me,” she said, surprised to discover her throat raw, her voice husky from the fire.

Devlin’s hand tightened around hers. “Kat. Dear God. I am so sorry.”

She smiled, because it was so like him to blame himself for what had happened to her, to blame himself for having involved her in his struggle to make sense of Rachel’s death. And then her smile faded because he didn’t know—she hoped he would never know—how deeply she had been involved in the events surrounding Rachel’s death even before he came to her for help.

“I had a long talk with Hendon last night,” he said, his brows drawing together, his jaw held unexpectedly tight. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“Which truth is that?” She kept her voice even, although her heart had begun to thud uncomfortably in her chest. “There are many truths, more than a few of which are best not told.”

“The truth about what happened six years ago.”

“Ah. That one.” She laughed softly, hoping to turn away any more questions. But he continued to stare at her in that compelling way of his, and she knew he would demand an answer. She sought to frame it in the lightest terms possible. “Telling you would have been counterproductive. That sort of noble sacrifice only achieves its object when masked.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a ghost of a smile. “You need to curb this unfortunate predilection of yours for martyrdom.”

Her hand twisted beneath his, held him tight. “He was right, you know. Your father. He said if I really loved you, I wouldn’t marry you.”

His eyes had always fascinated her. Wild and fiercely intelligent, they glittered now with anger and hurt. “And so you lied to me. For my own good.”

“Yes.”

“Damn you.” He pushed up from the chair and swung away, only to turn again, nostrils flaring, chest jerking with the passion of his breathing. “I would have made you my wife. You had no right to make that kind of decision without me.”

She struggled to sit up, her shaky hand sinking into the featherbed beneath her. “Oh, Sebastian. Don’t you see? I’m the only one who could.”

A silence fell between them, taut and sad. She could hear the cry of a vendor hawking his wares in the street outside, and, nearer, the soft fall of ash on the hearth. She let her gaze rove over the man before her, over the familiar, proud bones of his face, the lean, beautiful length of his body. And because she loved him so much, because she would always love him, she forced herself to say what needed to be said, although the words tore open every old bleeding wound she’d hidden away so deep within her. “And I would do it again,” she whispered, “because you are who you are, while I am . . . what I am.”

His head jerked back, his lips pulling into a thin, hard line. “I can change what you are.”

“By making me the future Lady Hendon?” Kat shook her head. “That would only change my name, not what I am—what people would see when they looked at me.”

“You think I give a damn about other people?”

“No. But I care. I care what other people think of you. Nothing you can do would ever raise me up to your level, Sebastian; I would only drag you down to mine. And that I refuse to do.”

He stared at her, his strange yellow eyes fierce and hard. Then he sucked in a quick breath and for a moment she saw a flash of his soul, a hint of the vulnerability she knew he kept hidden deep within him, and it ripped at her heart. “You could have said that six years ago, instead of driving me away with a lie.”

“Oh, Sebastian. Don’t you see? I had to drive you away. I knew if I told you the truth, you’d try to change my mind, that you wouldn’t accept it. And I knew, too, that I wouldn’t have the strength to hold out against you.”

He came to stand beside her. It wasn’t until he gently touched her cheek and she saw the sheen of wetness on his fingertips that she realized she was crying. “I’m not accepting it now,” he said.

She shook her head, although she couldn’t quite stop herself from bringing up her hand to cradle his palm against her cheek. “I’ll not be changing my mind.”

He smiled then, the smile she loved, the one that made him look both boyish and a little bit wicked. “I can be patient.”

“The mantle should be of silk-trimmed paramatta, I think,” said Amanda, holding the pattern card so that it caught the weak morning light streaming in her drawing room windows. “With crepe.” She handed the card back to her dressmaker and reached for the next design. “But on this one we’ll have the bodice covered with crepe, with cuffs and collar of deep lawn.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Amanda sighed. It was always such a bother, this business of assembling the accouterments of deep mourning. Black petticoats and stockings, handkerchiefs with black borders in cambric and silk . . . The list seemed endless. All the servants would need to be outfitted as well, of course, although Amanda intended to look into dyeing some of their existing clothing black. She’d heard Indian logwood worked quite well. Thank heavens Stephanie would be out of mourning before she was due to be presented at Court the following Season. Amanda herself, of course, would be in half mourning for another year or two beyond that.

The commotion in the hall below surprised her. Then she heard her father’s voice, and understood.

“Send the woman away,” said Hendon, appearing in the entrance to the morning room.

Amanda nodded to the dressmaker, who collected her pattern cards and samples, and scampered out the doorway.

“Where is it?” Hendon demanded the instant the door shut behind the dressmaker.

Amanda settled back against the damask cushions of her chair and stared up at her father with a placid, well-composed face. “Where is what?”

“Don’t play me for a fool. Your mother’s affidavit. Wilcox thought Sebastian had taken it. And since I disremember hearing of your having any break-ins recently, the conclusion is obvious.”

Amanda held herself quite still. “Is it?”

Hendon stared at her from across the room, dark color suffusing his face, his chest rising and falling with his agitated breathing. It was a moment before he spoke. His voice was crisp, but surprisingly calm and even. “So that’s the way we’re going to play it, is it? Very well. But mark my words.” He raised one hand to jab a thick finger into the air between them. “If I can hush up your precious husband’s nasty little activities, I can also lay them bare to the world. And I don’t think the consequences of that would be pleasant—for either you or for your children.”

Amanda surged to her feet, rage thrumming through her so hard and fast she was trembling with it. “You would do that? You would do that to your own grandchildren?”

Hendon stared back at her, his jaw set. “I would do anything to protect the succession. Do you understand? Anything.”

“Yes. Well.” She gave a torn laugh. “We’ve already seen that, haven’t we?”