A soft smile touched her lips. “I’ll admit this isn’t the first place I looked.”
The urge to take her into his arms was so overwhelming he had to clench his fists around the back of the pew before him. He said, “You talked to Hendon?”
“He came to see me.” She rested her own hand atop one of his. “I’m so sorry, Sebastian.”
He let his head fall back, his throat stretching tight as he looked up at the whitewashed plaster ceiling. “I’ll not deny it’s a bit of a shock, learning I’m not exactly who I’ve always thought I was, but—”
“Sebastian . . . No.” She shifted so that she could grip his right hand between both of hers. “You’re still the same man you have always been. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. And one day you will be the Earl of Hendon.”
“I don’t think so,” he said evenly.
Her lips parted as she drew in a quick breath. “What are you saying? You wouldn’t—Oh, God, Sebastian . . . You wouldn’t go away?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“You couldn’t do that to Hendon.”
He brought his gaze to her face. “Oh, really?”
“He loves you—”
Sebastian made a deprecating gesture with his free hand.
“No,” she said. “You know it’s true. I don’t think he wanted to love you. But how many of us can will our affections?”
When he simply continued to stare at her, she said, “You know it’s true, Sebastian. Hendon could have told you the truth at any time these last eighteen years. But he didn’t, for your sake. He knew what it would do to you.”
“What it would do to me?” Sebastian repeated. “How about what his lies did to me—did to us both? If he had told the truth ten months ago, you would never have married Yates and I would never have—” He broke off abruptly.
Her brows drew together in a frown and she shook her head, not understanding. “Never . . . what, Sebastian?”
Freeing his hand from her grip, he brought it up to touch her face, his fingertips sliding across her wet cheek. He hadn’t realized she was crying, the silent teardrops falling one after another down her face.
He wanted to say,
Except that nine months ago she had made a promise to Russell Yates, a promise she would not go back on now, simply to grasp at her own happiness. While he had obligations of his own, to Hero Jarvis, and to the child they may have conceived in those moments of terror and impending death beneath the ruined gardens of Somerset House.
He felt it again, that gut-churning surge of despair and rage. “I will never forgive him. Never.”
“You must, Sebastian.” She brought his hand to her mouth, pressed a kiss against his palm. “Not just for his sake, but for your own.”
He drew her to him, her tears wetting his neck, his fingers tangling in the dark, familiar fall of her hair. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t.”
Chapter 36
WEDNESDAY, 15 JULY 1812
“My lord?”
Sebastian heard Jules Calhoun’s soft voice, and ignored it.
The voice became louder. More insistent.
Sebastian opened one eye, saw his valet’s fresh-scrubbed, cheerful face, and closed both eyes again. “If you value your life,” he said evenly, “you will go away.”
The valet had the effrontery to laugh. “Sure, then, I could do that. The thing is, you see, I’ve a suspicion that if I do, the lady’s liable to come charging up the stairs and roust you herself.”
Sebastian opened both eyes and groaned as the bed hangings swirled dizzily around him. “Lady? What lady?”
“The lady in the drawing room who’s here to see you. And it’s no use asking me
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, who had no difficulty recognizing this description of Lord Jarvis’s infuriating daughter.
“Here,” said Calhoun, pressing a mug of some hot, foul-smelling liquid into Sebastian’s hands. “Drink this.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Milk thistle, my lord. To cleanse the lingering toxins from the liver.”
“Toxins?”
“Brandy, my lord.”
“Oh. That,” said Sebastian, and downed the vile brew in one long, shuddering pull.
The tall young woman in an elegant walking gown of slate blue with a matching spencer sat in one of the cane chairs beside the drawing room’s front window. By the time Sebastian put in an appearance, she had been sitting there for quite some time and had availed herself of a book to read.
“Bishop Prescott was reading it. I thought I’d take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the tale.” He walked to the tea tray Morey had sent up. “Have you no regard for the dictates of propriety, Miss Jarvis?”
It was considered most improper for a young woman to visit the home of an unmarried gentleman. “Of course I do,” she said in some annoyance. “I brought my maid. She awaits me in the hall.”
“I noticed. And there’s the veil, I suppose. I assume you took a hackney?”
“Naturally.”
“Naturally,” he said, reaching for the pot. “Tea?”
“Please.” She pushed back her veil, her eyes narrowing as she studied his face. “You certainly look as if you could use it.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly, adding a measure of cream to two cups before pouring in the tea. “I take it you’ve come to continue our discourse from the other night?” He held out her tea and, to his chagrin, heard the cup rattle against its saucer.
“Our what?” Taking the cup, she looked puzzled for a moment, then colored lightly as understanding dawned. “Good heavens. Of course not. I’ve come because I’ve discovered some interesting new information about Lord Quillian.”
“
“Enmity has nothing to do with it. I have simply come to the conclusion after viewing all of the available evidence that he is the man most likely to have murdered Bishop Prescott.”
“Quillian claims he was with the Prince Regent in the Circular Room at Carlton House the night of the murder.
