When Gods Die

Chapter 64

A gentlewoman never lay upon her bed until it was time to retire for the night. For spells of faintness and periods of rest, a lady of quality had a small daybed in her dressing room.

And so Sebastian found Lady Audley there, on a Grecian-style couch upholstered in green velvet. She wore an evening dress of black silk richly embroidered and trimmed with Chantilly lace, and had loosened her hair so that it spread out on the pillow around her face like a bright flame. Her breathing was already slowed, her cheeks pale. Whining softly on the carpet beside her lay the collie bitch, Cloe.

“What did you take?” asked Sebastian, pausing just inside the doorway. “Cyanide?”

Her gaze flickered toward him. “No. Opiates. I will simply go to sleep and never awake.”

“It’s a far kinder death than the one you gave Guinevere.”

“With Guinevere, I needed something that would act quickly.”

He walked into the room. The collie stretched to her feet and padded up to him, sniffing. He crouched down to stroke her soft coat.

“How did you know it was me?” Isolde asked when he remained silent. “It was the necklace, wasn’t it?”

“The necklace and the note.” And the certainty that had Claire been the killer, Portland would never have disclaimed responsibility for Guinevere’s death.

“The note.” Isolde moved her head restlessly against the pillow. “That, I hadn’t anticipated. What woman doesn’t destroy a note from her lover?”

“Yet you sent someone to search her rooms for it after her death.”

“No. He was looking for the Savoy letter.”

“That she did destroy.”

With a whine, the collie returned to its mistress’s side. Isolde reached out to rest one hand on her neck. “Varden confronted me. After you spoke with him. The note I could have denied, but not the necklace.” She gave a soft laugh. “How ironic. It was supposed to bring its owner long life. Instead it has brought me death.”

Sebastian stretched to his feet. “But it wasn’t meant for you, was it? It had once belonged to one of Guinevere’s great-grandmothers. That woman you met in the south of France asked you to give it to Guinevere, didn’t she? But you kept it instead.”

Isolde’s voice sharpened. “That necklace has power. I could feel it when I held it in my hand. Power. I didn’t often wear it. It was enough for me simply to have it.” Her tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips. “Now it’s gone, and I am dead.”

“So is Guinevere.”

For a moment, the serene features of Isolde’s face contorted with a quiver of rage and hatred so fierce it took him by surprise. “She would have ruined everything. Everything I worked so hard to bring about.”

Sebastian shook his head. “She loved Varden. She would never have destroyed him.”

“Yet she did destroy him in the end.”

“No.” Sebastian turned toward the door. “You’ve done that. You’ve destroyed Varden and Claire both.”

“Claire knew nothing of this. Nothing.”

“And Portland?”

“Portland was a fool.”

He heard her suck in a gasping breath and turned to look back at her. She was almost gone now. “I’ve never understood why you interfered in all this,” she said hoarsely.

“The woman with the necklace,” said Sebastian.

Lady Audley’s lips parted, her delicately arched brows twitching together in the ghost of a frown. “I don’t understand.”

“She was my mother.”

DRESSED IN A SPLENDID SCARLET UNIFORM with a saber at his side, the Prince Regent was having a rollicking good time. He was a marvelous host; everyone said so. People were always praising him for his generosity and congeniality.

The ballroom was so crowded that no one could actually dance, but that didn’t matter. The orchestra played gamely on, while the guests amused themselves by taking in the wonders of his most recent architectural improvements to Carlton House. He’d heard gasps of awe provoked by the grandeur of the Throne Room, with its curtained bays and gilded columns, its rich red brocades and massively carved chairs. The Circular Dining Room, with its mirrored walls reflecting a two-hundred-foot table that stretched out into the Conservatory, was sure to be the talk of the town for weeks to come.

At half past two, supper would be announced, and then everyone would marvel at the real serpentine stream he’d had confected to run down the center of his table and meander around the massive silver tureens and serving dishes. Flowing between banks built up from moss and rocks, with real flowers and miniature bridges, the river featured live gold and silver fish and created an amazing spectacle. He just hoped the fish didn’t start dying.

Looking out across a garden filled with flambeaux and Chinese lanterns, George felt a thrill of pride. For those guests not fortunate enough to sit at the Prince’s table, there was an enormous supper tent festooned with gilded ropes and flowers. Then his gaze fell on the tall, dark-haired figure working his way through the crowds, and George’s smile slipped.

Viscount Devlin was correctly, even exquisitely attired in evening dress, with knee breeches and silver-buckled shoes. But heads still turned his way and conversations lagged when he walked past.

“We need to talk,” said the Viscount, coming up to where George’s cousin, Jarvis, stood chatting with the Comte de Lille.

“Good God,” said Jarvis with a laugh. “Not now.”

Devlin’s smile never slipped, but his terrible yellow eyes narrowed in a way that sent a shiver up George’s spine and had him groping for his smelling salts.

“Now,” said Devlin.

“IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERABLY MORE CONVENIENT,” said Jarvis, producing an enameled gold snuffbox from his pocket and flipping it open with one practiced finger, “if you could have discovered Lady Anglessey had been killed by a jealous lover. We can hardly tell people this tale, now, can we?”

Sebastian simply stared at him. They were in a small withdrawing room set apart from the main state apartments in Carlton House. But the voices and laughter of the Prince’s two thousand guests, the hurried footsteps of the servants, the clink of fine china and glassware were like a roar around them.

Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril. “We’ll have to place the blame on Varden.”

Sebastian gave a short laugh. “Why not? It worked with Pierrepont. Whatever would we do without the French?”

Jarvis sniffed. “You didn’t, by any chance, come upon the names of the other conspirators?”

“No. But there are others—you can be certain of that.”

“Yes.” Jarvis dusted his fingers. “I doubt they’ll make a move in the immediate future, however. Not after this. Particularly if we shift the regiments around and keep the Prince here in London.”

The Prince wouldn’t be happy with the change of plans, Sebastian knew. His Royal Highness was already fretting, anxious to return to Brighton. The people of Brighton didn’t tend to boo him when he drove down the street the way they did in London.

“And the necklace?” said Jarvis. “Did you ever discover how Lady Anglessey came to be wearing it?”

There was something in the big man’s smile that told Sebastian that Jarvis knew: he knew that Sebastian’s mother still lived, even if he didn’t quite understand how her necklace had come to be clasped around the throat of a murdered woman in Brighton.

Sebastian slipped the triskelion from his pocket. Just the sight of it stirred within him a well of anger and hurt that was suddenly more than he could bear. He held it for a moment, its smoothly polished stone cool against his palm. What had made his mother change her mind all those years ago in France? he wondered. Why had she decided to give it up to Guinevere after all?

“No,” said Sebastian, returning Jarvis’s lying smile with one of his own. “But perhaps you can see that it is returned to her.”

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the necklace onto the table at the big man’s elbow. Then he turned and walked out of the room.