Page 55 of What Angels Fear

“You mean as a double agent, feeding selected information to the French via Pierrepont?” Sebastian tossed the blood-soaked cloth aside and poured himself a drink.

“Yes.” The Earl shoved up from his chair and went to stand before the fire. “The French will always have spies and their spy masters in London. It’s better for us if at least some of the players are known. That way, they can be watched and the flow of potentially damaging information can be managed... to some extent.”

“And Rachel York? Was she passing information to Pierrepont?”

Hendon’s face went suddenly ashen. “Good God. Who told you that?”

“The same person who told me about Pierrepont. Is it true? Was Rachel one of Pierrepont’s spies?”

“I don’t know.”

Sebastian fixed his father with a hard stare. “Are you sure? She wasn’t blackmailing you into passing government secrets to the French?”

Hendon’s blue eyes flashed dangerously, his fists clenching at his sides. “My God. If you were anyone but my son, I’d call you out for that.”

Sebastian slammed down his drink. “What else am I to think?

The Earl stood very still, his jaw working back and forth in thought. He let out a strained sigh, then said, “That morning, the Tuesday she died, Rachel York came to me. She said she had in her possession a certain document that she was willing to sell.”

“What sort of document?”

Hendon hesitated.

“What was it, damn it?”

The Earl’s face had taken on an odd, ashen quality. “An affidavit, providing detailed proof of an indiscretion committed by your mother.”

“My mother?”

Sebastian knew an odd sense of dislocation. His mother had died long ago, in a yachting accident off the coast of Brighton the summer he was eleven. A kaleidoscope of memories from that time swirled around him, of sun-sparkled sea and a woman’s sweet laughter and a deep, profound sense of loss. He pushed them away. “Were you able to obtain this document?”

“No. I told you, the girl was dead by the time I reached the chapel. I looked for it but she didn’t have it on her.”

The coals on the hearth hissed, the sound seeming unnaturally loud in the sudden, strained silence. “You do realize, don’t you,” said Sebastian, “that this document was very likely the motive for the killing?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hendon fumbled in the pockets of his dressing gown and came up with his pipe and a pouch of tobacco. “The disclosure of its contents would embarrass me, but no more.”

“How much were you willing to pay for it?”

“Five thousand pounds.”

Sebastian let out a low, soundless whistle. “There are those who would consider five thousand pounds more than sufficient motive for murder.”

Hendon didn’t say anything, just set about the business of filling his pipe. Sebastian watched him tamp down the tobacco, his features set in hard, uncompromising lines. And it came to Sebastian how little, in some ways, he really knew his own father. “And if the man who killed Rachel York has this document now? What then?”

Hendon shook his head. “I don’t think she brought it with her to the chapel. More likely than not she was planning to try to hold out for a higher price.”

Sebastian supposed it possible, but it wasn’t particularly likely, given what he’d heard about Rachel’s nervousness and her plans to flee London. A deep disquiet bloomed within him. There was too much going on here that he didn’t understand, that he needed to understand if he were to have any hope of catching Rachel’s killer. “Did she tell you how she got her hands on this affidavit?”

“No.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Of course I asked. She refused to say.” Hendon swiped one of his big, beefy hands across his lower face. “Good God. If she was working for Pierrepont, then in all likelihood she got the document from him.”

“But you don’t know.”

“No.”

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