When Gods Die

Chapter 52

Kat watched Devlin peel off his shirt, the soft light from the brace of candles beside her bedroom washstand glazing the skin of his neck and back with gold as he bowed his head to study the smears of foul-smelling muck on the fine cloth of his evening coat. “Bloody hell. If this keeps up, my valet is going to succumb to a fit of the vapors. Or quit.”

Coming up behind him, Kat ran her hand across his bare shoulders, her fingertips gentling as she traced a long bruise there, just beginning to show purple. “It’s taking a toll on your body, as well.”

Tossing the ruined coat aside, he pivoted to draw her into his arms. “At least nothing vital has been damaged,” he said with a hint of laughter.

“They meant to kill you tonight.”

He nibbled at the tender flesh behind her ear. “I think the idea was to have my body wash ashore somewhere around Greenwich.”

She drew back so that she could look up at him. “But why? Why do these people want you dead?”

He shrugged. “They obviously think I know more about this conspiracy than I do.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they’re simply afraid of what you might learn.” She pulled away and went to get him a brandy. “Who’s behind it, do you think?”

“Even Jarvis doesn’t know.” He poured water from the pitcher into the bowl and bent to splash his face. “It’s bigger than any one man—or even a score. Something like this needs a broad base of support if it’s to have any chance of success.”

“Yet someone must be at its core.”

He nodded. “The Whigs would seem the most likely candidates. They spent the last twenty years expecting Prinny to sweep them back to power, only now he’s been made Regent and the Tory government is still firmly in place. The problem is, I can’t see the more radical Whigs risking their lives simply to replace one dynasty of spoiled, crowned fools with another. Why not do away with the monarchy altogether?”

“You mean like the French?” said Kat with a wry smile.

“I was thinking more about the American model.” He straightened and reached for a towel. “The Tories would make better suspects, except that they’re already in power, and will likely stay there for another twenty years or more. So why would they want to get rid of Prinny?”

“Especially when moving against the Hanovers might very well set in motion precisely the kind of popular movement the Tories fear the most,” said Kat, thinking about what Aiden O’Connell had said that morning in Chelsea.

He glanced over at her. “You mean a revolution?”

“Or a civil war.”

“I doubt they’d see the danger. Not men with the kind of hubris required to plot to overthrow a dynasty. It’s probably never occurred to them just how easily they could lose control of everything.”

“But what does any of this have to do with the death of Lady Anglessey?”

“I wish I knew.” Devlin tossed the towel aside. “I suppose she might simply have stumbled across something, the way Tom did in the alley behind the Norfolk Arms. Or…’’ He hesitated.

“Or she could have been involved in it herself,” said Kat, handing him the brandy.

He took a sip and looked up to meet her gaze. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

Kat was thoughtful for a moment, remembering what else Aiden O’Connell had said, about a Stuart restoration leading to peace with France. Alain Varden was half-French.

“The Chevalier de Varden,” she said suddenly. “What are his political inclinations?”

“As far as I can tell, he has none—or at least none he’s made known. His brother-in-law, Portland, is obviously a Tory, as is Morgana’s husband, Lord Quinlan. But then, most men of birth and property are Tories—including Anglessey. And my own father.” Devlin went silent for a moment, the glass of brandy held forgotten in his hand.

“What is it?”

“When I saw Varden this afternoon at Angelo’s, he told me Guinevere wanted to leave Anglessey. That she was afraid of him.”

“Afraid? Why?”

“He said Anglessey killed his first wife.”

“Is that possible?”

“I’d heard his first wife died in childbirth. I was on my way to Mount Street to ask him about it when Lovejoy caught up with me this afternoon.”

“What are you suggesting? That Guinevere somehow found out about her husband’s involvement with the Stuarts and was afraid he’d kill her to keep her quiet? But…surely she wouldn’t betray her own husband. Would she?”

Devlin brought up one hand to rub his forehead, and she realized just how tired he was. Tired and frustrated. “Obviously, I’m still missing something. Something important.”

Slipping her arms around his waist, Kat pressed her body close to his. She would never be his wife, but she could know the joy of holding him, of loving him and being loved by him. She told herself that was enough. For his sake, it would have to be enough. “You’ll find it,” she said, her voice low and husky. “If anyone can, you will. Now come to bed.”

SHE AWOKE BEFORE DAWN to find the place beside her cold and empty. She turned her head, her gaze searching the room.

He was standing beside the window, one of the heavy drapes pulled back so that he could look out upon the gradually lightening street. He was turned half away from her so that all she could see was his profile, and he had his head bent, as if he gazed not at the street below but at something he held in his hand. It wasn’t until she slipped from beneath the covers and went to curl her arms around his shoulders that she realized he held his mother’s bluestone necklace, the silver chain threaded through the fingers of one hand.

“What is it?” she asked, nuzzling his neck. “What’s wrong?”

He reached back his free hand to cup her head in his palm and draw her around to him. “Amanda came to see me last night.”

“Lady Wilcox?” said Kat in surprise. As far as Kat knew, Devlin’s sister hadn’t spoken to him since February.

“She’s concerned that my unusual activities might harm her daughter’s chances of contracting a successful alliance. She wanted to know what had possessed me to do something so plebian as to take part in a murder investigation.”

“You told her about the necklace?”

“Yes.” He held up the necklace so that the triskelion swung slowly on its chain, tracing a short arc through the darkness. “She was puzzled, but not surprised.”

Kat studied the shadowed lines and angles of his profile, but he had all his emotions locked away someplace where she couldn’t see them. “Perhaps the implications escaped her.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a tight smile. “Oh, no. Amanda is nothing if not quick. She might have been puzzled that my mother would give up something she’d always held dear, but it never occurred to her to question what happened that day off the coast of Brighton.”

Kat drew in a deep breath. “What are you saying, Sebastian?”

He turned his head to look directly at her, and for one unguarded moment she saw it all—the bewildered mingling of anger and hurt, confusion and pain. “Amanda knows. She’s always known.” He let out a soft huff of laughter that held no humor. “That pleasure outing—the sinking of the yacht—it was all for show. My mother didn’t drown that summer. She simply left. She left my father and she left me. But she didn’t die.”

His hand closed over the necklace, his knuckles showing white in the first light of dawn. “She didn’t die.”