Page 84 of What Angels Fear

“That’s right. There’ll be no Whig government, no peace negotiations with the French, no reform of Parliament, no Catholic emancipation.”

“I wouldn’t have thought even Prinny could be induced to turn from his friends so easily.”

Jarvis let out a sharp laugh. “The Prince’s friendship with the Whigs has always stemmed more from a petulant son’s desire to spite his father than from any real dedication to Whiggish causes.”

Sebastian knew it for the truth. Beneath his veneer of easygoing modernity, the Prince of Wales was essentially the same Catholic-hating, autocratic-minded monarchist as his father, George III.

Jarvis shifted closer to the hearth, as if drawn to the warmth. A large canvas heavily framed in gilded wood hung over the mantel, a group portrait of Lord Jarvis with his wife and mother and daughter. Sebastian had seen this portrait before, as a small study in the studio of Giorgio Donatelli.

“You say you had no reason to want to see Rachel York dead,” said Sebastian. “Yet she knew enough to expose all your clever machinations for what they were.”

“Not without exposing herself.”

Sebastian kept his attention, seemingly, on the dramatically swirling colors of Donatelli’s canvas. All the jagged, inconsistent pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place: Leo Pierrepont, patiently spinning a web in which to ensnare the man everyone expected to be the next Whig prime minister, while Lord Jarvis schemed to keep the Whigs from gaining control of the government in the first place. And Rachel York—fiercely passionate, badly frightened—had been caught between them.

“The way I see it,” said Sebastian, “whether you killed her yourself, or had her killed, or simply created the set of circumstances that led to her death, you’re the one who is ultimately responsible for what happened to Rachel York.”

“Am I expected to be overcome with remorse?” Jarvis lifted his brandy glass to his lips. “What difference does the life or death of one stupid little whore make when the future of an empire hangs in the balance?”

Sebastian knew a flash of sheer, potent rage. “It makes a difference to me.”

“Only because you’ve been foolish enough to allow yourself to be saddled with the blame for it.”

Sebastian nodded toward the family portrait over the mantel. “And the commission to Giorgio Donatelli? Was that a part of the payment?”

There was a step in the hall, the soft whisper of a woman’s slippers over marble tiling. Jarvis’s hand inched toward the bell cord. Sebastian drew back the pistol’s safety with a click that reverberated loudly around the room. “That would fall under the heading of Stupid Things to Do, my lord.”

Jarvis froze, just as the door from the hall swung open.

“Your carriage has been brought round, Papa,” said a young woman, stepping into the room. “Do you wish me to tell Coachman John to—”

She was a tall young woman, almost as tall as her father, with ordinary brown hair she wore slung back in an unbecoming bun. One hand still on the knob, she drew up just inside the room with a small gasp that jerked Sebastian’s attention away from the man by the hearth for one, disastrous moment.

And in that moment, Jarvis fell on the bell rope and gave it a hard yank.

Chapter 54

Sebastian leapt toward the woman. Catching her by the arm, he spun her around in front of him just as the first footman appeared in the door. His fingers digging into her arm, Sebastian pressed the flintlock’s muzzle against the side of the woman’s head. “Tell them to back off,” he said to Jarvis.

Consternation, fury, and a whisper of what might have been fear chased each other across Jarvis’s normally impassive face. His jaws clenched tight, only his lips working as he glared at the wide-eyed men piling up in the open doorway and spat out, “Stay back, you fools.”

Arms spread, his gaze fixed on Sebastian, the lead footman took a step back, then another, his fellows falling back with him.

“Miss Jarvis here—” Sebastian glanced questioningly at the woman he held. “That is, I assume you are Miss Jarvis?”

Maintaining awesome composure, she slowly nodded her head.

“I thought so.” Sebastian edged through the door and out into the hall, dragging the woman with him. “Miss Jarvis here is going to provide me with an escort to safety. I do trust you will all have the sense not to attempt anything heroic.”

The hall seemed suddenly full of servants, white-faced men and women who fell silently back as Sebastian edged Jarvis’s daughter toward the front. From the doorway of the library, Jarvis nodded to the stony-faced butler, who rushed to open the door.

An eerie, opaque darkness loomed beyond, what was left of the day having been swallowed by the fog that curled through the open door and drifted into the hall, bringing with it a foul, acrid stench that pinched the nostrils and tore at the throat.

Sebastian glanced down at the woman who held herself so stiff and straight in his grasp. “You did say there’s a carriage outside, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” she said in an admirably clear, steady voice.

“I rather think you did.” He glanced at one of the maids, a big-boned, ruddy-faced woman who stood just inside the front door, her arms wrapped around her head, her eyes squeezed shut so tight, her entire face contorted with the effort.

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