What Angels Fear

Chapter 41

It was just past noon when Sebastian reached his sister’s townhouse on St. James’s Square.

“My lord,” said Amanda’s butler, his eyes widening in surprise and fear when he answered the door to Sebastian’s preemptory knock.

“Bayard’s still at home, I presume?” said Sebastian, brushing past the man and heading for the stairs.

“I believe Mr. Wilcox is in his dressing room, my lord. If you care to wait in the—My lord,” bleated the butler, but Sebastian was already taking the stairs two at a time.

Sebastian flung open the dressing room door without warning to find Bayard in his shirtsleeves, his neck craning back at an awkward angle as he struggled with one of the monstrously wide cravats he affected. He spun about, his jaw going slack, his eyes opening wide. “Devlin.”

Sebastian caught him in an angry rush that sent a chair flying and took the two men across the room to slam Bayard’s back up against the wall, hard enough to drive the air out of him in a painful huff.

“You lied to me,” said Sebastian, pulling his nephew away from the wall, then slamming him back against it a second time. “You said you’d never gone near Rachel York. Now I hear you threatened to kill her at Steven’s in Bond Street.”

Bayard’s voice wheezed, his chest jerking with the effort to draw breath. “I was foxed! I didn’t know what I was doing, let alone what I was saying.”

“You were foxed the night she died, too. How do you know what you did then?”

“I would never hurt her! I loved her.”

“You said you were going to rip her head off, Bayard. Then a few days later, someone comes bloody close to doing exactly that. I still remember the turtles, Bayard.”

Bayard’s mouth sagged, his eyes opening wide with horror. “Is that what happened to her? How do you know that? Oh, God, it’s not true, is it?”

Sebastian tightened his hold on his nephew’s arms, lifting him up until his feet barely touched the floor, and holding him there. “What about the other one, Bayard? Mary Grant. Why did you go after her, too?”

The mystification on Bayard’s face was so complete that Sebastian knew a moment of misgivings. “Other one? Who the devil is Mary Grant?”

A woman’s voice cut through the sudden, thick silence. “Let him go,” said Amanda. “Let him go or I swear to God, Sebastian, I’ll bring the constables down on you.”

Sebastian swung his head to stare at his sister. She stood in the doorway, a tall, middle-aged woman with the inescapably proud bearing of an Earl’s daughter. She had their mother’s coloring and slim, graceful stature, but enough of their father’s blunt, heavy features that, by the age of forty, she resembled the Earl far more than the beautiful, ethereal woman who had once been the Countess of Hendon.

Sebastian hesitated, then eased his grip on Bayard’s arms to let the boy slump against the wall.

Bayard stayed where he was, his shoulders pressed against the paneling, his mouth slack, his breath coming hard and fast.

“You knew, didn’t you,” said Sebastian. “You knew he killed that girl.”

Bayard wiped a shaky hand across his loose, wet lips. “I didn’t! Why won’t you believe me?”

Sebastian kept his gaze on his sister’s face. “You knew, and yet you kept quiet about it. And now he’s killed again.”

“I tell you, I didn’t kill her,” said Bayard. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

Amanda’s gaze shifted to her son, her face set so cold and hard that for a moment, Sebastian knew a stirring of sympathy for his nephew. She had always looked at him this way, even when he was a little boy, pathetic in his hunger for her love. “Leave us.”

“But I swear to you, I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Leave us now, Bayard.”

Bayard’s throat bulged with the effort of swallowing. He hesitated a moment, his mouth working as if he were trying to say something. Then he ducked his head and pushed away from the wall, brushing past his mother in an awkward, ungainly rush from the room.

Amanda watched him stumble toward the stairs, then brought her gaze back to Sebastian. “The incident in Bond Street means nothing,” she said. “A boy’s wild talk, that’s all.”

“Is that all it was? You know what he’s like, Amanda. You’ve always known, even if you didn’t want to admit it.”

“You make too much of a schoolboy’s wild ways.”

“A schoolboy?”

Amanda walked over to right the chair that had been knocked sideways in the struggle. “Know this, Sebastian: I will not allow my son to be destroyed as a result of the inconsequential death of some worthless little bit of muslin who deserved everything she was given.”

“My God, Amanda. We’re talking about a human life.”

Amanda’s lip curled in disdain. “We don’t all have such a mewling weakness for the dregs of society. One would think you’d have learned your lesson after your experience with that light-skirt who used you for such a fool six years ago. What was her name? Anne Boleyn? No wait, that was another man’s whore. Yours was named —”

“Don’t,” said Sebastian, taking a hasty step toward his sister before drawing himself up short. “Don’t start on Kat.”

“Good heavens.” Amanda’s eyes widened with wonder as she searched her brother’s face. “You’re still in love with her.”

Sebastian simply stared back at her, a faint, betraying line of color heating his cheeks.

“You’re seeing her again, are you?” She gave a shrill laugh. “You never learn. What does she think is in it for her this time, I wonder? A chance to play the grieving widow at your hanging?”

“I won’t die for your son, Amanda.”

The amusement faded from Amanda’s face. “I tell you, Bayard had nothing to do with that light-skirt’s death. He was with his friends until nine o’clock, when Wilcox picked him up and brought him home. He never went out again.”

“That lie might satisfy the authorities this time. But he’ll do it again, Amanda. And then what? For how long do you think you can protect him?”

An angry flush darkened her cheeks and deepened the sparkle of animosity in the brilliant blue eyes that were so much like their father’s. “Get out of my house.”

The sound of loud knocking, followed by excited voices and a rough shout, echoed up the stairs. Sebastian turned toward the commotion, his lips pulling back into a hard smile. “You might not have called the constables, my dear sister, but it appears that Bayard did.”

Chapter 42

There were only two constables, both on the wrong side of forty, one tall and bone lean, the other slow and fleshy.

The first was halfway up the stairs when Sebastian’s fist caught him under the jaw with an audible smack that closed the man’s mouth and sent him arm-wheeling backward.

“I say,” blustered the second, just before Sebastian buried his fist in the man’s soft gut. His eyes widened, and he doubled over with a wheezing whooph.

Bayard was standing at the base of the stairs, his derisory, self-satisfied smile fading fast. “You little