“Let’s walk,” said Hendon, waving away his carriage. “I need the air.”
They turned together toward their hotel on the Marine Parade. Neither spoke, their footsteps echoing softly in the darkness. The familiar scents of sea-bathed rocks and wet sand hung heavy in the warm night air, and the moon-flooded streets were haunted by shared memories neither father nor son cared to confront. For years now they had both avoided Brighton whenever possible. But Hendon’s position as Chancellor of the Exchequer combined with the present visit to England by the dispossessed French royal family had made the Earl’s presence here in Brighton unavoidable. Sebastian himself had driven down only for the occasion of Hendon’s sixty-sixth birthday. The Earl’s other living child, Amanda, had stayed away for reasons that were not discussed.
“That woman…” Hendon began, only to pause, his jaw working back and forth as it did when he was thoughtful or concerned. In the faint glow of the nearby streetlamp, his face was pale, his hair a shock of white in the moonlight. He cleared his throat and tried again. “She looked oddly like Guinevere Anglessey.”
“It was the Marchioness of Anglessey,” said Sebastian.
“Good God.” Hendon wiped a splayed hand across his grief-slackened face. “This could be the death of Anglessey.”
For a moment, Sebastian kept his silence. It was a common enough occurrence in their world, beautiful young women marrying wealthy and titled older men. But even amongst the ton, the forty-five year difference in age between the Marquis and his young wife was considered excessive. “I must admit,” said Sebastian, treading carefully in deference to the long-standing friendship between Hendon and Anglessey, “I wouldn’t have thought her the type to join the ranks of Prinny’s paramours.”
Hendon’s eyes flashed. “Don’t think it for an instant. She was no easy tumble. Not Guinevere.”
“Then what the devil was she doing in his cabinet?”
Hendon expelled a harsh breath. “I don’t know. But this isn’t good. Not for Anglessey or for Prinny—or for you, either,” he added. “The last thing you need is to have your name linked with another murdered woman.”
Sebastian frowned, his gaze caught by the royal crest emblazoning the panel of a carriage drawn up before their hotel. “Believe me, I have no intention of taking the fall for this one.”
Hendon looked at him in surprise. “What makes you even suspect such a thing?”
Wordlessly, Sebastian lifted his chin in the direction of the liveried servant standing beside the carriage’s restless team.
“What is this?” said Hendon.
The footman stepped forward and bowed. His livery was unmistakable; the man, like the carriage, came from the Prince’s household. “My lord Devlin? Lord Jarvis would like a word with you, my lord. In his chambers at the Pavilion.”
Officially, Lord Jarvis was no more than a distant cousin of the King, a wealthy nobleman with a ruthless reputation for shrewdness and a legendary omniscience that came from his wide network of private spies. But in practice, Jarvis was the royal family’s brains, a Machiavellian intriguer fiercely devoted to both England and the monarchy with which he identified it. “At this hour?” said Sebastian.
“He says it’s most urgent, my lord.”
Given his previous interactions with Jarvis, Sebastian at first wanted to send the servant back to his master with the curtest of messages. Then he thought about Guinevere Anglessey lying pale and lifeless in the Prince’s candlelit cabinet, and he hesitated.
“Tell your master Lord Devlin will receive him in the morning,” snapped Hendon, his jaw working back and forth in annoyance.
Sebastian shook his head. “No. I leave for London at first light.” Wary but intrigued, he leapt into the carriage before the steps were let down. “Don’t bother waiting up for me,” he told his father, and sank back into the plushly upholstered seat as the footman closed the door.
Charles, Lord Jarvis, occupied a suite of rooms at the Pavilion reserved specifically for his use by his cousin, the Prince Regent.
The Prince’s love of the small coastal town of Brighton stretched back thirty years or more, to the days when he’d been young and handsome and even—although it bemused Jarvis to remember it now—popular with the people. The Prince still came here whenever he could, to bathe his bloated body in seawater and host an endless round of musical evenings and card parties, and plan a new series of extravagant extensions and decorating schemes for his Pavilion.
At the moment, Jarvis’s rooms were fitted out with dragon-encrusted chandeliers, faux bamboo furniture, and peacock blue wallpaper decorated with gold-leafed exotic beasts. But before the end of the summer, the look might well have changed, perhaps taking on the lush aura of a sultan’s harem or a maharaja’s temple. Jarvis himself had little affection for the oriental styles with which the Prince was so enamored. But Jarvis understood better than most that the Pavilion—like Carlton House, the Prince’s residence in London—was the equivalent of an ornate set of building blocks in the hands of a fat, overindulged child. The endless rebuilding projects might be expensive, but they amused the Prince and kept him safely occupied so that wiser, saner men could get on with the business of running the country.
Standing well over six feet tall and now, in his fifty-eighth year, comfortably fleshy, Jarvis was an imposing man. His size alone would have been impressive. But it was the power of Jarvis’s intellect that intimidated most men—his intellect, and the amoral ruthlessness of his dedication to king and country. The position of prime minister could have been his in an instant, had he wanted it. He did not. He knew well that power was far more effective and satisfying when wielded from the shadows. The current Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, understood precisely how things stood, as did most of the other members of the cabinet. Only two men in the government ever dared to stand against Jarvis. One was the Earl of Hendon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The other was this man, the Earl of Portland.
Drawing a delicately carved ivory snuffbox from his pocket, Lord Jarvis eyed the nobleman now pacing back and forth across the chamber’s green-and-gold Turkey carpet. A tall, loose-limbed man with an abundance of nervous energy, Portland had been Home Secretary for the past two years. He was generally considered a clever man.
