When Gods Die

Chapter 40

“Lady Addison Peebles?” said Devlin, staring at Kat. They were in the drawing room of her house on Harwich Street. He could hear the distant shouts of children playing a counting game on the footpath outside, their laughter mingling with the birds’ evening song as the shadows lengthened. “What the devil could Lady Addled and Feeble possibly have to do with any of this?”

Kat gave a soft laugh. “Nothing. It seems the modiste tried to talk her out of this particular shade of green satin, but she was so taken with it that in the end the woman could only let her have her way. I understand she was excessively pleased with it—until her mama-in-law, the Duchess, told her it made her look like a sick frog.”

Devlin walked over to pour out two glasses of wine. “So what did she do?”

“She gave the gown to her abigail, who sold it to a secondhand clothes dealer. The woman claims she can’t remember which one, probably because she actually sold it to her regular fence out of force of habit.”

Devlin looked up, one eyebrow raised in incredulity. “The gown came from a secondhand dealer?”

Kat came to lift her glass from his outstretched hand. “Evidently.”

He took a long, thoughtful sip of his own wine. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. Someone kills Guinevere Anglessey by poisoning her with cyanide. The death is violent. So violent that the murderer finds it necessary to bathe the body and dress it in a fresh gown—a gown he buys from a secondhand dealer in someplace like Rosemary Lane. Only, our killer is so unfamiliar with his victim that he buys the wrong size so that it won’t close properly around her. Nor does he bother to assemble the underclothing, shoes, or stockings a lady would normally have been wearing. He loads her body in a—what? A cart or a carriage, we’ve no way of knowing which—and hauls her down to Brighton, where he somehow manages to sneak her body into the Pavilion. He sends his accomplice—wearing a similar green gown and a veil—into the Prince’s music room, where she hands a note to the Home Secretary, Lord Portland, and disappears. A note which for unspecified reasons no one wants me to see. Oh yes, and did I mention that after he has carefully arranged Guinevere’s body in the Yellow Cabinet, our killer stabs her with a Highland dirk which once belonged to James the Second, but now forms part of a collection owned by the Prince Regent himself that is normally kept in London?”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out.”

He went to stand at the windows overlooking the street below. The children had gone. “All except for the who and the why part.”

She came up behind him, her eyes on his face. “What is it? You keep going to the window.”

“I’m worried about Tom. I left instructions with Morey to send the boy here as soon as he gets back.”

“It’s not even dusk yet.”

“I told Tom I wanted him out of Smithfield before nightfall.”

Kat slipped her arms around Sebastian’s waist and held him close, her breasts pressing against his back. “Tom’s a street lad. He knows how to take care of himself.”

Sebastian shook his head. “These people are dangerous.”

He was aware of Kat’s silence. After a moment, she said, “He’s a servant.”

“He’s still only a boy.”

“And he loves tending your horses and poking around, asking questions for you. It makes him feel important and useful. He would be both disappointed and insulted if you didn’t let him contribute what he can.”

Sebastian turned in her arms to draw her close to his chest. “I know.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”