found it easier to consider the Marquis a suspect. But it was hard to see how this frail old man could have played a part in the complicated charade that had followed her murder.
Sebastian turned toward the house, then paused to look back and say, “Is there any possibility that your wife was planning to leave you?”
The Marquis still stood beside the rose, the basket of yellowing leaves gripped in one hand. “No. Of course not.”
“So sure?”
A ragged cough shook the old man’s frame. He turned half away, his hand fisting around a handkerchief he brought to his mouth. When the cough subsided, he tucked the cloth quickly out of sight, but not before Sebastian glimpsed the bright stains of blood against silk.
Anglessey looked up to find Sebastian watching him. A faint band of color touched the old man’s pale cheeks. “So. You see. Why should Guinevere consider leaving me when she’d have been a widow soon enough? According to my doctors, I’ll be lucky to last out the summer.”
“Did your wife know?”
Anglessey nodded. “She knew. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I keep thinking about the day before I was to leave for Brighton. Normally, she was strong about what was happening to me, but I’d had a difficult night and she took it badly. She tried to hide her face from me, but I knew she was weeping. And she said—”
His voice cracked. He looked away in some embarrassment, his eyes blinking, his lips pressed together for a moment before he was able to go on. “She said she couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to live without me.”
SEBASTIAN FOUND GUINEVERE’S ROOMS enveloped in silent darkness, the drapes at the windows drawn closed against the daylight. A light scent hovered in the air, as if the memory of the woman still lingered here, elusive and sad.
He crossed to open the drapes, the thick carpet absorbing his footsteps. The windows overlooked the garden below. From here he could see Anglessey’s conservatory, and the limb of the big old oak that thrust out close enough to give access to the bedchamber, just as Tess Bishop had described it.
Sebastian turned back to the room. The bed’s hangings, like the drapes at the windows and the upholstery of the chairs beside the hearth, were done in a soft yellow. The morning sun filled the room with a warm, cheerful light. He couldn’t have said what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this, this sense of serenity and calm joy. It didn’t seem to fit with what he knew of Guinevere Anglessey, a woman torn between her passion for a lifelong love and her growing affection for her aging, dying husband.
He worked his way methodically through the apartment, starting with the dressing room, not at all certain what he was looking for. The intruder who had come here after Guinevere Anglessey’s death had been desperate to get his hands on something. Had he been successful, Sebastian wondered, or not?
Opening a chest near the largest wardrobe, he found himself looking at tiny caps decorated with delicate tucking and lace, nestled amid stacks of carefully folded miniature gowns and white flannel blankets embroidered with birds and flowers. His chest aching with a strange catch, he searched it quickly and gently closed the lid.
Returning to the bedchamber, he stood in the center of the rug, his thoughtful gaze taking in the sun-filled room. On the mantel above the empty hearth, Guinevere had kept a collection of seashells casually arranged beside an ormolu clock. Mementos from her childhood in Wales?
Intrigued, he was walking over to study them when a flash of white from the rear of the cold grate caught his eye. Crouching down beside the hearth, he reached back to free it from the grate and found himself holding a tightly wadded sheet of paper.
Straightening, he uncrumpled the paper and smoothed it out upon the flat top of the marble mantel. It was a short note, written in a bold masculine hand.
The signature was scrawled but still legible.
It took some time, but Sebastian eventually tracked the Chevalier de Varden to White’s in St. James’s.
“There ’e is, gov’nor,” said Tom, jumping down from his perch to run to the chestnuts’ heads.
The Chevalier was descending the club’s front steps in the company of another young buck when Sebastian drew in the curricle close to the footpath. “If I might have a word with you, sir?” he called.
The Chevalier exchanged a few pleasantries with his companion, then strolled over to the curricle’s side. “What is it, my lord?” The smile that accompanied the words was pleasant enough, but his eyes were guarded and wary.
Sebastian returned the smile. “Drive with me a ways, won’t you? There’s something I’d like you to see.”
The Chevalier hesitated, then shrugged and bounded up beside him.
“Stand away from their heads,” called Sebastian, bending his hand to give the horses the office to start.
“What is it?” Varden asked as Tom scrambled back up to his perch.
“I was wondering what you might make of this.” Without taking his eyes from the road, Sebastian drew the crumpled note from his pocket and held it out.
He was aware of Varden’s breath quickening as he took the note and read it through. His hand tightened around the paper, his face fierce when he looked up to meet Sebastian’s quizzical gaze. “Where did you get this?”
