What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

swallowed. There were bruises there, he realized, nearly hidden by the lace edging of her dress. Four bruises in the shape of a man’s fingerprints. “What time was this?”
    “From half past five until just before eight.”
    It must have taken a considerable effort, Lovejoy thought, for Captain John Talbot’s beautiful young wife to convince Lord Devlin not to kill her abusive husband. But if she were telling the truth, it would have been virtually impossible for Devlin to have made it to the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields in Westminster in time to kill Rachel York either before or after his meeting with Mrs. Talbot.
    If she were telling the truth.
    Lovejoy fixed her with a hard stare. “What made you decide to come forward with this now?”
    A hint of color touched her pale cheeks. “I should have told you the truth before. But Sebastian had sent me a note, through my sister.” Opening her reticule, she drew forth a torn, creased piece of paper and handed it to Lovejoy. “He warned me to keep silent. I kept hoping you’d realize that it was all a mistake, your thinking Sebastian was somehow involved in that woman’s death, that I wouldn’t need to say anything. That John need never know. . . .”
    Lovejoy stared down at the hastily written words on the scrap of paper. The ink was smudged, as if with tears. “There is no need for you to say anything.”
    “What?” She shook her head, her eyes wide, not comprehending. “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that there is no point for you to put yourself at risk by coming forward with this information. Thanks to the duel, your association with Lord Devlin is well known and the worst possible implications have been read into it. It will simply be assumed that you’ve made this story up, that you are lying to protect the man you love.”
    “But it’s the truth.” Her narrowed eyes searched his face. “You believe me, don’t you?”
    “As a man, here and now, I would probably say yes. But as a judge, weighing your testimony against the other evidence in court?” He shrugged. “I think not.”
    “But that’s absurd.”
    Lovejoy tucked the Viscount’s note into his pocket. “That’s the law.”

Chapter 51
     
     
    L ord Frederick’s butler seized the brass handle of the library door, his eyes going wide. “It’s locked.”
    Sebastian thrust the man aside and kicked out hard. The wood splintered beneath his boot heel and the door slammed open against the wall with a shattering crash.
    The room beyond lay in semidarkness. The fire in the grate had been allowed to burn low, and someone had drawn the heavy brocade drapes across the windows. The only light came from a flickering brass oil lamp on the desk, the frosted glass shade casting a soft glow over what was left of Lord Frederick Fairchild.
    He lay sprawled back at an unnatural angle in his desk chair, one hand dangling limply toward the carpet. Blood was everywhere—on the polished wooden desktop, on the tufted leather chair, the bookcases and paneled walls beyond. Sebastian thought, at first, that the man who had killed Rachel York and Mary Grant must somehow have made it here to this house before him. Then his gaze fell on the neat little ivory-handled pistol still gripped in Lord Frederick’s clenched hand, and he understood.
    Swiping a trickle of mingling rainwater and sweat from his face, Sebastian crossed the room’s Oriental carpet to jerk open the drapes at the windows overlooking the rear garden. The pale light of a rainy winter’s afternoon suffused the room. Fairchild had held the pistol’s muzzleagainst his temple, shattering the right side of his head into a bloody, pulpy mess. Sebastian was just turning from the window when the man’s chest jerked, his mouth opening as he sucked in air and breathed. He’d blown away the better part of the side of his skull, so that Sebastian could see the shiver of the man’s brain beneath the white bone of his skull and the torn, bloody flesh of his scalp. But he wasn’t dead yet.
    “ Merciful heavens ,” said the butler with a startled gasp, one fist pressing against his lips as he fled the room. From the hall came the sound of someone violently retching.
    Lord Frederick took another labored breath. “Should have put the damned muzzle in my mouth,” he whispered.
    Sebastian hunkered down beside him. “Do you know who I am?”
    A flicker of recognition showed in the man’s eyes. “He had one of my letters.