Sebastian caught him just inside the door.
Locking onto Varden’s right wrist, Sebastian twisted the man’s arm in a way that shoved his hand up into the middle of his back and spun him around, throwing Varden off balance. Sebastian slammed him face-first against the wall, Sebastian’s left arm coming across the front of Varden’s throat to hold him from behind. “You bloody bastard,” Sebastian whispered in his ear.
The Chevalier tried to turn his head, his eyes rolling sideways. “
Sebastian tightened the pressure on the man’s throat. “You lied to me,” he said, enunciating each word slowly and carefully. “I know about the arrangement the Marquis of Anglessey had with his wife, and I know about your part in it. So don’t even think about trying to deny it.”
“Of course I lied to you,” Varden said, his voice strained. “What gentleman wouldn’t?”
Sebastian hesitated, then stepped back and let the man go.
The Chevalier swung around, his dark eyes flashing, his left hand rubbing his other arm. “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”
He went to pour water in one of the basins on the washstand and splashed his face with quick, angry motions. “Who told you?” he said after a moment. “Anglessey? I wouldn’t have expected that.”
“He wants me to find his wife’s killer.”
Varden looked around. “Are you suggesting I don’t?”
Their gazes caught and clashed. Sebastian said, “Where did you and the Marchioness used to meet?”
Varden hesitated, then reached for a towel. “Different inns. Usually not the same place twice. Why?”
“Did you ever meet in Smithfield?”
“Smithfield?” There was surprise in the man’s face, but something else, too. Something that looked almost like fear. “Good God, no. Why do you ask?”
“Because Guinevere Anglessey went there the afternoon she was killed. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?”
His brows drew together. “Where in Smithfield?”
Sebastian simply shook his head. “How did you spend last Wednesday?”
The implications of the questions were obvious. Varden’s nostrils flared. “I slept late. I’d been out most of the night before with friends. I didn’t even leave the house until around five, maybe six.” He paused in the act of pulling on his boots to throw Sebastian a malevolent glare. “You can check with the servants, if you don’t believe me.”
Sebastian watched him shrug into his coat. “I want to know about Wales.”
Varden adjusted the lapels of his coat. Two men walked into the room, the older one slapping the younger man on the shoulder as he said, “Well done, Charles. Well done, indeed.”
“Not here,” said Varden.
Sebastian nodded. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love Guinevere,” Varden said as they strolled along the Serpentine. A fine haze was beginning to bleach the color from the sky, turning it white. The air had taken on a sultry quality, the scent of grass hanging heavy in the still air. “She was…she was like no one else I’ve ever known. Proud and courageous and everything that’s noble, and yet so tender, so giving.”
There was something about the way the flat light fell on the Chevalier’s face that reminded Sebastian of just how young Varden still was. He was only twenty-two, his handsome face pale and hollow-eyed with grief. “Guin and I grew up together,” he said. “I suppose Claire and Morgana were around some of the time, but I don’t remember them. In my memory, it’s always just Guin and me.”
He stared out over the parkland, to where two children played with their dog, the dog barking and the children running back and forth and laughing while an aproned nursemaid called to them. A smile touched his lips, a wistful smile that was there and then gone. “I always knew she loved me. And I don’t mean in the way a child might love a brother. From the very beginning there was more to it than that, for both of us. Even when we were too young to understand what it was.”
He fell silent. Sebastian waited, and after a moment Varden continued. “We grew up thinking we would always be together. That she was meant for me and I was hers. Guin simply took it for granted we would marry someday.”
“And you?”
“I was the same at first. But as I grew older I became aware of…the difficulties.”
“Such as your lack of fortune?”
He huffed a small, bitter laugh. “That most of all. When Guinevere was seventeen, her father’s sister invited her to spend the Season in London. She’d done the same for Morgana. At the time old Athelstone had grumbled, but in the end he’d scraped together the money needed for clothes and sent Morgana off. She succeeded better than anyone expected. Athelstone was convinced Guinevere would do even better.” Varden paused. “The old bastard needed her to do better.”
“Badly dipped, was he?”
Varden nodded. “Worse than Guinevere realized. She thought he’d leap at the opportunity to be spared the expense of a London season. But when she told him she had no need of a brilliant alliance because she planned to marry me, he laughed. And then, of course, he flew into a rage.”
