When Gods Die

Chapter 17

The Public Office at Queen Square didn’t have the cachet of Bow Street, with its famous Runners and its Bow Street Patrol and the vicarious glamour that lingered still from the days of the Fieldings. But the position of chief magistrate at Queen Square suited Sir Henry Lovejoy just fine.

He was a serious man, Lovejoy, unimpressed by either fame or glamour. A widower who’d been childless now for more than a decade, he had decided in midlife to devote the remainder of his years to public service. If he’d been a Catholic, Sir Henry probably would have become a priest. Instead, he’d become a magistrate, pursuing his new dedication to justice with a religious zeal that drove him to arrive at his Queen Square office every morning before eight.

The air was cool that Saturday and blessedly clear, thanks to the stiff wind blowing in from the east. Pausing in a slice of sunshine on the corner across from the Public Office, Lovejoy bought a muffin from a baker’s boy, then hesitated, his attention caught by a tall young man in an elegant chapeau bras and cape making his way through the crowd of street hawkers and milkmaids.

“You’re up early, my lord,” said Lovejoy when Viscount Devlin came abreast of him. It was rare to see a resident of Mayfair abroad before midday. But then, judging by the Viscount’s evening dress, Lovejoy realized it was unlikely the young Viscount had ever made it to bed last night—or at least, Lovejoy decided after a moment’s shocked reflection, it was obvious Devlin had never made it to his own bed.

A faint gleam lightened the younger man’s strange amber eyes, as if he had followed the progression of Lovejoy’s disapproving thoughts and been amused by it. But the amusement faded quickly. “You’ve heard about the discovery of the Marchioness of Anglessey’s body in the Pavilion?”

“Who has not?” said Lovejoy, the Viscount falling into step beside him as they turned to cut across the square. “I can tell you, I don’t like some of the whispers I’m hearing. It’s troublesome. Very troublesome. The royal family can ill afford such a scandal at this time.”

Lovejoy glanced sideways at his companion, but Devlin’s face was impassive. Either he had not heard the rumors about what they had taken to calling the Hanover Curse, or he had decided it was wiser not to comment upon them. Instead he said, “I’ve discovered Guinevere Anglessey left her house in Mount Street early last Wednesday afternoon, after asking one of her servants to procure a hackney for her.”

Lovejoy drew up short. “Do you mean to say she was here? In London?”

“That’s right. She could very well have been killed here.”

“Good God. Where?”

“I don’t know. It would help if I could talk to the hackney driver. The footman can’t recall the carriage number, but he thinks the driver was from Yorkshire.”

Lovejoy gave a pained sigh. “Do you have any idea how many hackney drivers in this city are from Yorkshire?”

“No. But I would imagine you do.”

He studied the young nobleman’s lean, handsome face. “Why are you involving yourself in this?”

Devlin widened his eyes in a feigned expression of innocent surprise. “If I remember correctly, you’re the one who suggested I might be of assistance in such delicate matters.”

“And you told me you were motivated to investigate last January’s murderers by pure self-interest. So what is your interest in the death of Lady Anglessey?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Huh. That’s what worries me.”

Ducking his head to hide a smile, the Viscount started to turn away, then paused to glance back and say, “You take an interest in scientific inquiries, do you not?”

It was something Lovejoy prided himself upon, his diligent determination to stay abreast of current scientific developments. But he wasn’t sure how Devlin had come to know of it. “Yes. Why?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where there’s to be a balloon ascension today, would you?”

THE BALLOON ASCENSION WAS SCHEDULED for eleven o’clock that morning in St. George’s Fields on the south side of the Thames.

“It’s unnatural, it is,” said Tom as they neared the fields, and the rippling sheets of red and yellow silk could be seen taking shape just above the treetops. “Men weren’t meant to sail through the clouds.”

Sebastian laughed and handed the chestnuts’ reins to the boy. “Keep the curricle well back from the crowd. I’ve heard tales of these things catching fire and causing a panic.”

Tom nodded solemnly. “No need to worry about that, yer lordship. I’ve no intention of gettin’ anywhere near that contraption.”

Continuing on foot, Sebastian pushed his way onto the field. A motley throng had assembled to watch the balloon ascension, gentlemen in top hats and ladies with parasols mingling with tradesmen in their Sunday best and the usual assortment of thieves and cutthroats and pickpockets. The cool morning breeze had withered away, leaving the day still and hot. The beer peddlers were doing a brisk trade, the rich malty odor from their barrels rising up to mingle with the scents of grass and hot gas and warm, closely pressed bodies.

He found Guinevere Anglessey’s half sister, Morgana, not far from where a roaring furnace was slowly filling the silk sheath with gas. A tall, angular woman with a long, sharp-featured face and skin that was inclined to freckle, she had none of her sister’s soft curves or winning ways. She’d brought along a hatchet-faced abigail as a nod to the proprieties, although Morgana Quinlan struck Sebastian as the type of woman who was more than capable of taking care of herself.

“Excuse me, but it’s Lady Quinlan, isn’t it?” Sebastian said, lifting his hat. “I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the gentleman undertaking today’s ascension.”

“The ‘gentleman’ is actually a woman,” said Lady Quinlan, indicating the tiny birdlike creature in a feathered cap and narrow skirts who was darting about the balloon’s wicker cage and inspecting the cables that held the apparatus moored to the ground. “The famous French aeronaut Madeleine-Sophie Blanchard. But you’ve no need to dissemble, my lord. I know you’re looking into the circumstances surrounding my half sister’s death.” She smiled with a grim kind of satisfaction at his temporary discomfiture before adding, “Lady Portland told me.”

Sebastian tipped back his head, his eyes narrowing against the sun as he watched the balloon swell with hot air from the fire, the red-and-yellow silk brilliant against a deep blue sky. Guinevere was a childhood friend of my wife, Claire, Portland had said. It made sense that Lady Portland would be in contact with Guinevere’s sister, as well.

“I can’t imagine how you might think I could help,” Lady Quinlan continued, her gaze, like Sebastian’s, on the billowing silk above them. “Guinevere and I were never close, even as children.”

He glanced over at her. “Were there so many years between you?”

She shrugged. “Three. Which can be significant when one is dealing with children. But even if we had been born nearer together, I doubt we would have been close. We had little in common. I was always interested in my studies, whereas Guinevere…” She hesitated, then ended dryly, “Guinevere was not.”

“What interested Lady Guinevere?”

“The cliffs above the sea. My father’s horses. The workings of the abandoned mines in the hills behind Athelstone Hall…in short, everything but the information that could be found between the covers of a schoolbook. She roamed the countryside as freely as if she were some cotter’s child.”

“Or a boy.”

Morgana turned her head to meet his gaze. “Or a boy. She was always headstrong. I suppose it was easier for our governesses to simply let her go than to try to fight with her.”

Of course it would be easier, Sebastian thought. But what of the Earl of Athelstone, her father? Hadn’t he cared that his eldest daughter was left to run wild? Or had he been content to delegate the rearing of his daughters to their governesses and to that sad procession of stepmothers doomed to die one after the other in childbirth?

“I’m afraid she grew accustomed to it,” Morgana was saying. “Accustomed to doing as she pleased and thinking she could order her life as she chose. Marry as she liked.”

“Whom did she wish to marry?”

Morgana let out a huff of scornful laughter. “Someone most unsuitable. Such a fit she threw, when she learned Papa meant to send her to spend the Season with our aunt here in London. Guinevere swore she’d never speak to him again, and she didn’t, either. Even when Papa lay dying and was asking for her, she refused to go to him.”

“Because he forced her into marriage with Anglessey?”

“No one forced her. Anglessey was her own choice.” Lady Quinlan gave the black skirt of her mantua walking dress a little shake. “She always claimed she couldn’t forgive Papa for refusing to allow her to marry where she wished. But if truth were told, I think what she really couldn’t forgive him for was favoring Gerard over her.”

“Gerard?”

“Our young brother.”

Sebastian studied the woman’s closed, hard face. “It didn’t trouble you?”

A confused frown creased her forehead. “Of course not. Why would it? All men favor their sons. It’s the way of the world. But Guinevere could never accept that. She was so naive, so idealistic.” Her lips quivered with disdain. “A fool.”

Sebastian glanced away again, across the crowded, sun-scorched clearing to where the cooling shimmer of a canal could just be seen in the distance. What had happened, he wondered, to produce such animosity, to make Morgana hate her sister so much that even now, in the aftermath of Guinevere’s violent death, there was no softening, no flicker of either affection or regret?

The balloon was nearly full, the silk stretched taut, lifting the wicker cage from the ground and straining at the moorings. The little Frenchwoman, Madame Blanchard, was in the basket, making last-minute adjustments to the flap that would allow some of the gas to be let off and help her control the balloon’s ascent.

Sebastian kept his gaze on the balloon. “This man your father refused to allow your sister to marry…who was he?”

Sebastian half expected Lady Quinlan to be reticent, but she answered him readily enough. “Alain, the Chevalier de Varden. He’s the son of Lady Audley from her first marriage. To a Frenchman.”

Sebastian had heard of the Chevalier, a dashing young man with a quick temper and a ready laugh who was well liked about Town. He turned to look at Morgana in surprise. “Varden was considered unsuitable?”

“Of course. The family’s good enough, to be sure. Better, actually, than that of Guinevere’s mother. But Varden himself is penniless. Everything he would have inherited was lost in the Revolution.”

There was something about the sneering tone of her reference to Guinevere’s mother that piqued Sebastian’s interest. “Tell me about Lady Anglessey’s mother.”

Again, that condescending little laugh. “Guinevere herself was quite proud of her mother’s family.”

“Why shouldn’t she be?”

Morgana sucked in her cheeks in a way that made her look older—and more disagreeable—than before. “Her mother, Katherine, was not from the best of families. They say her great-grandmother was burned at the stake as a witch.”

It was one of the dirty little secrets of Western Christendom, the witch-burning craze—an outpouring of hatred and suspicion that had twisted itself around until it found a safe target in society’s weakest members—women. He’d heard it said that before the witch-hunting frenzy died down, some five million women had been burned at the stake across Europe. There were some villages where the hysteria ran so high that when it was over, not a woman was left alive.

“If it’s true,” he said, staring out over the perspiring, sun-dappled crowd, hushed now with a mutual breathless anticipation as Madame Blanchard secured the door of her little wicker boat and snuggled into a warm coat, “then it’s an indictment of those responsible for her death, rather than of the poor woman herself.”

Someone shouted, “Let ’er go!” The balloon’s moorings were cut loose and a great cheer arose from the crowd as the silken ball lifted straight up, soaring high above the treetops.

“Perhaps,” said Morgana, her gaze, like his, on the rising sphere. “Although her grandmother was said to have been a witch, as well. They say she bewitched no less a person than the King’s son and contrived to have a child by him.”

Some six or seven hundred feet overhead, the balloon caught a current and began to drift rapidly away to the west, the sun bright on its taut silken skin, the basket with its little Frenchwoman growing so small as to become nearly indistinct. Watching it, Sebastian knew a strange sense of dislocation. There was a roaring in his ears and his cheeks suddenly felt flushed, as if he were hot. “Which prince?” he asked, although he knew the truth even before she answered him. Knew it, deep in his gut where all certainty lies.

“James Stuart. The one who later became James the Second.”