When Gods Die

Sebastian found Tess Bishop sitting straight-backed in one of the morning room’s silk-covered chairs, her hands in her lap, the tea service and plate of biscuits on the table beside her untouched. At the sight of Sebastian, she surged to her feet.

“No, please sit,” he said, going to the tea service. “How did you know who I was?”

Sinking back into her seat, she watched him pour a small portion of milk into a cup, then add the tea. “I saw you Monday, when you come to visit Lord Anglessey.” She gave a small sniff. “I never thought you was no Bow Street Runner.”

Caught in the middle of pouring the tea, Sebastian looked up quickly. Something of his reaction to this pronouncement must have shown on his face, because she hastened to add, “Don’t get me wrong. You done the accent and the manner real good. Only, you was too nice.”

Sebastian laughed and set aside the teapot. “Sugar?” he asked, holding out the tea.

“Oh, no, thank you, my lord,” she said, unexpectedly flustered.

“Take it.”

“Yes, my lord.” Taking the tea, she gripped the cup and saucer so tightly Sebastian wondered the fine china didn’t crack. She made no move to drink it.

Pouring himself a cup, he asked almost casually, “Why have you come to me now?”

She took a deep breath and said in a rush, “There’s some things I didn’t tell you. Some things I’ve decided you ought to know.”

“Such as?”

“Last Wednesday—when her ladyship didn’t come home—I didn’t know what to do. I kept going to her room, checking to see if she’d somehow slipped in unseen. In the end, I fell asleep there.”

“In her room?”

“Yes. On the couch. It was hours later when I awoke—two, maybe three in the morning. The candle had burned out so that at first I was confused, not quite knowing where I was. Then I remembered, and I realized that what roused me was someone trying to get in the window. Her ladyship’s room overlooks the back garden, you see, and there’s a old oak with a sturdy limb what has grown quite close.”

Sebastian went to stand with his back to the empty hearth, his cup in his hand. “What did you do?”

“I screamed. William—he’s one of the footmen—he heard and came, and whoever it was ran away. I thought at the time it was just housebreakers. Then the next day we received notice of what’d happened to her ladyship, and all thought of the previous night’s prowler went out of my head.”

She paused in a way that told him there was more to this story. “And?” he prodded.

Tess Bishop brought the tea to her lips and took a small sip. “I slept in my own bed that night, of course. But when I went into her ladyship’s room the next morning to open the windows and air things out, I found the latch on one of the windows broken.”

Sebastian frowned thoughtfully. “That would have been Friday morning?”

“Yes.”

“What was taken?”

“Well, you see, that was the strangest thing. Nothing was taken. At least, not so’s I could tell. At first glance, you wouldn’t have thought anyone had been in the room at all. But I soon realized things weren’t quite right. It was as if someone had gone through everything, then tried to put it back exactly the way it was before.”

“You mean, as if they were searching for something?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian stared down at the cup in his hands. He had never sought Anglessey’s permission to search his wife’s room, an oversight Sebastian now regretted—and intended to rectify.

He looked up to find Tess Bishop watching him. “Did you tell the Marquis?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “He’s not well. After what’d just happened to her ladyship, I was afraid something like that might overset him completely. I asked William to fix the lock and made out it must have been broken by the intruder I scared away on Wednesday night.”

“You’re quite certain it wasn’t?”

“Oh yes. I checked the locks very carefully.”

Sebastian went to stand at the long window overlooking the street below. The morning had dawned clear and still, promising another hot day.

He had no reason to doubt the abigail’s story. Yet if it were true, it suggested that whoever killed the young marchioness had believed he had cause to fear something in her rooms. Something that might have incriminated him.

“There’s something else,” said the abigail, her voice a frightened whisper.

Sebastian looked around. “What’s that?”

Tess Bishop’s tongue darted nervously across her lower lip. “You asked if I knew where her ladyship had gone that afternoon. The afternoon she was killed.”

“You mean to say you do know?”

“Not exactly, my lord. But I know who she went to see.” She hesitated, then swallowed hard. “It was a gentleman.”

“Do you know his name?”

Her thin chest jerked with her suddenly labored breathing. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. Her ladyship would never have been untrue to the Marquis. Only…his lordship, he was that desperate for an heir. And when it become obvious he couldn’t have one…” Her voice trailed away in embarrassment.

“I know about their arrangement,” said Sebastian. “Do you mean to say she discussed it with you?”