What Angels Fear

nothing?”

Sebastian watched, bemused, as Bayard’s fear slowly dissipated beneath the onslaught of a deep and powerful fury. “I heard it was you,” he said, enunciating the words through clenched teeth, “you who killed her.”

“You’re forgetting the pistol, Bayard,” said Sebastian as his nephew half rose from the table.

Bayard sank back into his chair, his gaze locked on his uncle’s face. “Did you do it? Did you? Did you kill Rachel?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Me? But I love her.” The present tense of the verb wasn’t lost on Sebastian. “Besides, it’s your flintlock they’re saying was found on her body.”

“And yet it’s you who’s been preying on the poor woman since before Christmas.”

Bayard’s eyes widened, that brief flash of anger sliding away as the fear surged again. “Preying on her? What are you saying? I never touched her! Why, I never even managed to summon up the courage to approach her. The one time I found myself face-to-face with her, I was so overcome I couldn’t open my mouth.”

“You never actually spoke to her?”

“No! Never.”

Sebastian leaned back in his seat. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Bayard worried his lower lip between his teeth. “Monday night, I think. I went to her performance. But that was all! I swear.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, of course.”

Sebastian stared across the table at his nephew. As a child, Bayard had been not only spoiled and cruel, but also dangerously, almost pathologically untruthful. He wondered how much, if any, the boy had changed. “Where were you Tuesday night?”

Bayard might be self-indulgent and weak, but he wasn’t stupid. His eyes widened. “You mean, the night Rachel was killed?”

“That’s right.”

“We planned to spend the evening in Cribb’s Parlor.” He jerked his head toward the two men still leaning on the bar, their attention focused on the mammoth breasts of the woman slinging gin behind the counter. “Robert and Gil and I. We’d been here—at the Leather Bottle—most of the afternoon, so we were pretty well lit by the time we got there.”

“You were there all night?”

“Well, actually, no.” He scrubbed one hand across his face, as if to wipe away an unpleasant memory. “I started feeling unwell.”

“You mean you shot the cat.”

A deep stain of mortification and resentment colored the younger man’s cheeks. “All right. Yes. Robert and Gil were hauling me out of there when what should we do but run smack up against my father. It was damned embarrassing, I can tell you that. He insisted on taking me home. I must have passed out in the carriage because the next thing I know, I’m in my own bed and he’s hauling off my boots and prosing on about how lucky I am that my mother didn’t see me.”

“What time was that?”

Bayard looked confused. “What time was what?”

“At about what time did you pass out?”

Bayard shrugged one shoulder. “I couldn’t say for certain. Early. Around nine, I suppose.”

Sebastian studied his nephew’s red, sulky face. It would take time, but it should be easy enough to trace Bayard’s movements through the course of Rachel York’s final day. If he were telling the truth.

“Wait a minute,” Bayard said suddenly, sitting forward. “I did see Rachel on Tuesday. It must have been about midway through the afternoon, when I swung by the theater on my way here. I was hoping I might get a glimpse of her, and there she was.”

“At the theater?” Sebastian frowned, trying to remember Rachel’s schedule for the afternoon before her death. “They were rehearsing?”

“No, no. She wasn’t actually at the theater, you see. She was in the goldsmith’s across the street. I wouldn’t even have noticed her except for the way he was shouting—”

“He?”

“That actor. You know the one? He was doing Richard III at Covent Garden when it burned down.”

“You mean Hugh Gordon?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“You’re certain?” said Sebastian, frowning. What was it Hugh Gordon had said at the Green Man? I haven’t spoken to her for six months or more.

Bayard nodded vigorously. “I’d have recognized his voice even if I hadn’t seen him.”

“They were quarreling?”

“I don’t know about that. But I could see he had her by the arm and he was leaning into her, all threatening- like. I was about ready to go in there and ask him what the devil he thought he was doing, treating a lady that way, when he gave her a little shake and let her go.”

“You didn’t hear anything he said?”

“Not so’s I remember. Except at the very end, right before he turned away. He said—” Bayard broke off, a strange, arrested expression narrowing his eyes and slackening his jaw.

From somewhere at the back of the room came a sharp breaking of glass, followed by an outburst of laughter. “What?” said Sebastian, his gaze on his nephew’s face. “What did Gordon say?”

“He said he’d make her pay.”

Chapter 26

Sir Henry Lovejoy stared at the man who stood in the center of the office. The Earl of Hendon was built big and powerful, with a barrel-like torso and a thick head, his nose broad and flat in a slablike, plain-featured face. If there was any resemblance between this man and his son, Lovejoy couldn’t see it. “You, my lord? You’re confessing to the murder of Rachel York?”

“That’s right. She went to that church to meet me.” The Earl fixed Lovejoy with a fierce blue stare, as if he could somehow compel the magistrate to believe him. “And I killed her.”

Lovejoy sat down so fast, his chair made a little thumping noise. He had been expecting some kind of trouble from Viscount Devlin’s influential father, but never in Lovejoy’s wildest imaginings could he have anticipated this. He shook his head, his voice coming out even higher pitched than usual. “But . . . why?”

It was a question the Earl didn’t seem to have expected. “What do you mean, why?”

“Why did she meet you in St. Matthew’s?”

Hendon pressed his lips together and sucked in a deep breath that flared his nostrils and expanded his chest. “That is none of your damned business.”

“Forgive me, my lord, but if you expect me to accept your confession, it is very much my business.”

Hendon swung away to take a quick turn across the room and back. “What the bloody hell do you think I went there to meet her for?” He glowered at Lovejoy, heavy eyebrows furrowed, as if daring Lovejoy to disbelieve him. “A girl like that?”

The implications were as inescapable as they were unbelievable. Lovejoy met the Earl’s challenging gaze without flinching. “In a church, my lord?”

“That’s right.” Hendon rested his hands flat on the desk and leaned into them. “What are you saying? That you don’t believe me?”