When Gods Die

Again, that genteel sniff. “I’ve heard him referred to as a handsome man, although personally I’ve no use for redheads. But there’s no denying the old Earl, his father, cut up quite warm. And Portland himself’s not one for wasting the ready at the gaming table. Claire did quite well for herself. I wouldn’t say Portland’s one to sit in his wife’s pocket, but then he hasn’t set up a mistress, either, that anyone knows of. He seems to spend most of his time at Whitehall.”

“And the lady Portland? Has she established herself as something of a political hostess?”

“I doubt she has either the inclination or the intelligence to carry it off.”

Sebastian came to take the chair opposite her. “She seems surprisingly close to Morgana Quinlan.”

“Well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it, given the close proximity of their fathers’ estates?”

“I would have said the two women were of starkly different temperaments.”

“Yes. But sometimes friendships are like marriages: the best couplings are between opposites.”

Sebastian was silent for a moment, his thoughts on his own parents’ marriage. That was one instance when a coupling of opposite temperaments had definitely not prospered. But all he said was “Lady Quinlan seems to nourish a particularly bitter animosity toward her sister. Do you know why?”

“Hmm. I suspect she had her nose put out of joint when her younger sister succeeded so much better than she in the Marriage Mart. Frankly, I was surprised Lady Morgana went off at all. The woman’s not only a shameless bluestocking, but a dead bore to boot, which is far worse. I once made the mistake of attending one of her scientific evenings. Some gentleman lectured us interminably on Leyden jars and copper wires. Then he killed a frog and reanimated it with electric shocks. It was quite revolting.”

Sebastian leaned forward. “How did he kill the frog?”

Aunt Henrietta drained her chocolate cup and set it aside. “Poison, I believe.”

THE HOME SECRETARY, the Earl of Portland, was sitting in a coffeehouse just off the Mall, a steaming cup on the table before him, when Sebastian slid into the opposite seat.

“I don’t recall inviting you to sit,” said Portland, regarding Sebastian through narrowed eyes.

“You didn’t,” said Sebastian cheerfully.

The air filled with the steady beat of a drum and the tramp of feet as a troop of soldiers marched past. Fresh cannon fodder, thought Sebastian, on their way to Portsmouth and the war on the other side of the Channel. No one in the coffee shop even looked up.

Portland leaned back in his seat, a faint smile touching his lips. “My wife tells me she met you in Lady Quinlan’s drawing room yesterday.”

“You didn’t tell me you were brother-in-law to the dead lady’s lover.”

“You mean Varden?” Portland raised his cup to his lips and took a thoughtful sip. “I know there was an attachment of long standing between them, but I wouldn’t care to hazard on its present nature.”

“Tell me about him.”

Portland shrugged. “A likable enough lad, I suppose, if a bit too hotheaded and impulsive for my taste. But then he’s half-French, so I suppose that’s to be expected.”

“What can you tell me about his politics?”

Portland gave a sharp laugh and took another sip. “The pup is twenty-one years old. He’s interested in wine, women, and song. Not the composition of the Prince’s cabinet.”

“How about dynastic disputes? Might they interest him?”

Portland lowered his cup, his face suddenly drawn and serious. “What are you talking about?”

Sebastian let the question slide past him. “The lady who asked you to convey the note to the Prince, what can you tell me about her?”

Portland glanced down at his cup, his sandy red eyebrows drawing together in a thoughtful frown. “She was young, I would say. At least that’s the impression I had. If I could see the color of her hair, I don’t recall it.”

“Definitely a lady?”

“I would have said so, yes.” He hesitated. “I think she was tall, but I can’t be certain. Perhaps I simply imagined that afterward, when I assumed it was Lady Anglessey who had handed me the billet-doux.”

Sebastian leaned back in his seat, his gaze on the other man’s face. It struck him as too much of a coincidence that the note used to lure the Prince to the Yellow Cabinet had been given to the Home Secretary, rather than to one of the sycophants with which the Prince typically surrounded himself. Then again, it was always possible that the woman in green had singled out Portland deliberately.

Aloud, Sebastian said, “Do you remember the dagger that was in Lady Anglessey’s back?”

Portland turned his head to stare out the shop’s bay window to the street beyond, empty now in the bright sun. His throat worked as if he had to fight to swallow, and his voice, when he spoke, was strained. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget, now, is it? The way it stuck out of her like a—”

“Had you ever seen it before?”