What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

decided she needed to get away and she came up with a plan of her own—to take the rest of Fairchild’s letters, and the document about my mother, and God knows what else, and sell them to the interested parties.”
    “Huh,” said the doctor, easing back down in his chair. “If you ask me, the killer could be any one of them—Pierrepont, Gordon, Donatelli—even bloody Jarvis himself.”
    “You’re forgetting Bayard,” said Sebastian, going to stand beside the hearth. “He might have been falling down drunk when his father took him home at nine. But we have only Amanda’s word for it that he stayed there. It’s not beyond belief that he went out again, looking for Rachel. He could have followed her to that church and killed her.”
    “But why would Bayard go after the maid, Mary Grant? Pierrepont and Gordon both had a good reason to want to get their hands on therest of those documents. Even Donatelli admits he went looking for them. But Bayard knew nothing of them.”
    “True,” said Sebastian, his gaze on the glowing coals on the hearth. “Yet of them all, Bayard is the one I’d say is unbalanced enough to slake his lust on a woman’s dead body.”
    “How well do you know the others? Mmmm? When it comes right down to it? We know Hugh Gordon is prone to violence against women, while Pierrepont must have witnessed enough horrors during the Revolution in Paris to turn anyone’s mind. In fact, of them all, the only one I can’t see committing such an act of unbridled emotion is Lord Jarvis. He’s too damnably cool and calm and in control.”
    “Rather like his daughter,” Sebastian said wryly.
    A hint of amusement eased the worried lines on the Irishman’s forehead. “You know what they say: the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.”
    Sebastian spun around. “Say that again.”
    “What? Say what?”
    “ Apples and trees ,” said Sebastian, crossing the room to snatch up the crumpled goldsmith’s sketch. “Good God. Why didn’t I see it before?”

Chapter 56
     
     
    T he Black Dog stood on the far edge of Walworth, to the south of London. A half-forgotten coaching inn nearly hidden by an encroaching beech forest and the swirl of fog that wrapped around its redbrick walls, it was known for the discreetness of its keeper and the fine French wines that paid no customs on their way into its cellars.
    Wearing a warm velvet habit and a heavily veiled hat, Kat reined in her mare beneath the flickering torches in the inn’s yard. A coach and four, well loaded and ready for travel, stood waiting near the arch. “Walk the horses,” she said to her groom. “I won’t be long.”
    She found Leo in a private parlor on the low-ceilinged first floor, at a small table where he sat hurriedly writing, a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
    “How did you manage to get away?” Kat said, shoving back her veil and closing the door behind her with a snap.
    He looked at her over the rims of his spectacles. “How do you think?”
    “You were warned.” It was a statement rather than a question. “Why?”
    He stood up, then reached to shuffle his papers into order. “You’ve heard the whispers, surely? About Lord Frederick’s suicide and all sorts of dark plots implicating the Whigs?”
    “But none of it’s true.”
    “Of course not. Which is why it is in the best interests of thosesurrounding the Prince that I not be caught. Hence, the warning.” He peeled off his eyeglasses and tucked them into a pocket. It occurred to her that she hadn’t realized he wore them.
    She watched him walk over to thrust his papers into a small leather case and snap it shut. “How long have they known about you?”
    Something in her voice made Leo glance back at her and smile. “Worried they know about you, too, ma petite ?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. You may still give valuable service to France.”
    “I don’t give a damn about France.”
    He laughed. “I know you don’t. But you do hate England with a commendable—and very useful—passion. In my experience, those with an emotional motivation always make the best agents. A man who betrays his country for money, or because he has been caught in some foolish indiscretion, can all too frequently turn on you.” Leo puffed out his cheeks and let go a long, painful breath. “I should have realized it sooner.”
    Kat shook her head. “Realized what?”
    “There were four sets of documents taken from me