When Gods Die

Devlin shrugged his shoulders into the coat she held out for him. “It was given to her by an old crone she met in Wales one summer. The woman claimed to be the granddaughter of James the Second—said she was one hundred and one years old, and that her mother had given her the necklace shortly before dying at the age of one hundred and two.”

Kat studied his face. He seldom spoke of the Countess, although Kat knew the loss of his mother at such an early age had affected Sebastian deeply—particularly coming, as it did, so soon after the death of his last surviving brother. “But why give the necklace to your mother?”

A shadow shifted in the depths of his tawny eyes. He turned away abruptly. “She said it would keep my mother safe.”

Kat came to slip her arms around his waist and press her cheek against his broad back, hugging him close. “It didn’t keep Guinevere Anglessey safe, either, did it? She was wearing it when she died.”

His hands gripped hers where they lay entwined against his satin waistcoat. After a moment, he turned in her arms, and whatever she’d seen earlier in his eyes was gone—or carefully hidden away. “It seems a strange piece for a woman to wear with an evening gown, is it not?”

“I’d have said so, yes.” She held the necklace out to him. “What color was the gown?”

“Green.” He took the necklace and slipped it into his pocket.

“That makes it even more strange. How does Anglessey say his wife came to have the necklace?”

“Somehow it didn’t seem the right time to ask.”

Kat nodded. “I remember when she married him. It caused quite a stir. She was so young and beautiful.”

Devlin’s lips curled up into an ironic smile. “Whereas he was simply very rich. And a Marquis, of course.”

“Do you think he killed her…or had her killed?”

“If she was playing him false with the Regent, it would seem to give him a motive—not only to murder his wife, but to leave her body in a way that would implicate the man who was cuckolding him.”

“If she was playing him false with the Regent.”

“Or if he thought she was.”

“Anglessey didn’t need to agree to allow Paul Gibson to perform an autopsy on his wife’s body,” Kat pointed out. “The fact that he did would seem to suggest that he has nothing to hide.”

“Perhaps. We’ll know more when Gibson’s had a chance to do a thorough postmortem.” Devlin went to pick up his driving coat. “Anglessey himself claims to suspect his nephew, Bevan Ellsworth.”

“Now, there’s a man who’s capable of murder.”

He glanced at her in surprise. “You know him?”

“He had one of the chorus girls from the theater in keeping last year. She found him charming—and unpredictably vicious.”

“That sounds like Ellsworth, all right.” He threw his coat over his arm, then hesitated in a way that was unusual for him.

Kat tipped her head, a smile playing about her lips as she studied his face. “Out with it.”

His eyes widened in a parody of innocence. “Out with what?”

She came to take his hat and set it at a rakish angle on his head. “Whatever it is you’re circling around to asking me to do.”

He smiled and caught her to him to nuzzle her neck in a way that made her laugh. “Well, there is one little thing….”

Chapter 14

They were called the Upper Ten Thousand, that small cadre of men and women of birth and fortune who formed the top crust of English society and occupied the manor houses and grand estates that were the sine qua non of English respectability. Bound to each other by ties of blood and marriage, they rode to hounds together, belonged to the same clubs and subscription rooms, and sent their sons to the same schools—to Winchester and Eton, Cambridge and Oxford.

Like Sebastian, the Marquis of Anglessey’s nephew and heir presumptive, Bevan Ellsworth, had been sent to Eton. Sebastian had vague memories of a sporting lad with a ready laugh and a well-hidden but savage will to get his own back at anyone he thought had wronged him. But the two years that separated them had been enough to limit their interaction at that age. And whereas Sebastian went to Oxford, Ellsworth had gone to Cambridge. He’d eventually become a barrister, although he was said to spend considerably more time in the gaming hells around Pickering Place than in court.

Being a barrister was considered a respectable occupation for a gentleman. Because barristers could only be engaged by solicitors rather than directly by clients, barristers were not considered to be in trade, with all the vulgar associations that entailed. Thus, a barrister’s wife could be presented in court, whereas the wife of a solicitor could not—a subtle but important distinction for a man who expected to become the next Earl of Anglessey.

Sebastian ran across the Marquis’s nephew sharing a glass of wine with a friend in Brooks’s late that afternoon. Pausing just inside the entrance to the club’s red drawing room, Sebastian took a moment to study the man Bevan Ellsworth had become.