What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

appearances were everything.
    She found him alone, in his dining room, just sitting down to a table laid for one with fine china and gleaming silver and the sparkle of old crystal. He was a slim, delicately built man upon whom the passing years, however difficult they might have been, nevertheless seemed to have rested easily. His face was largely unlined, his light brown hair barely touched with gray. Kat had never known his precise age, but given thathe’d been almost thirty when driven from Paris by the Reign of Terror, she knew he must be in his late forties by now.
    “You shouldn’t have come,” Leo said, his attention seemingly all for his soup.
    Kat jerked off her gloves and tossed them with reticule, pelisse, and hat onto a nearby chair. “Whose reputation are you afraid will be compromised, Leo? Mine, or yours?”
    He glanced up, gray eyes gleaming with a faint smile. “Mine, of course. You have no reputation left to lose.” He signaled for the servants to leave them, then sat back. The smile faded. “You’ve heard what happened to Rachel, I suppose?”
    Kat pressed her flattened palms against the tabletop and leaned into them. Beneath the silk bodice of her gown, her heart thudded hard and fast, but she managed to keep her voice calm, steady. “Did you do it?”
    If he had, he wouldn’t admit it; Kat knew that. But she wanted to watch his face while he denied it.
    Leo dipped his spoon into his soup and brought it carefully to his lips. “Come now, ma petite . Even if I had wanted Rachel dead, do you seriously think I would have killed her in such a spectacular fashion? In a church ? From what I understand, the walls were practically painted with her blood.”
    Kat watched his long, slim hands reach for a piece of bread. “One of your minions could have got carried away.”
    “I choose my minions more carefully than that.”
    “So who killed her?”
    A shadow touched the Frenchman’s features, a brief ghost of concern that Kat almost— almost —believed might be genuine. “I wish I knew.”
    Kat turned away, her quick, long-legged stride carrying her across the room and back again.
    Leo shifted his weight in his chair and watched her. “Ring for another glass,” he said after a moment. “Have some wine.”
    “No thank you.”
    “Then at least stop pacing up and down the room in that fatiguing way. It’s not good for my digestion.”
    She hesitated beside the table, but she did not sit. “Who was Rachel scheduled to meet last night?”
    Picking up a knife, Leo calmly spread his bread with butter. “No one that I’m aware of.”
    “What would you have me believe then, Leo? That she went there to pray ?”
    “It’s what people generally do in a church.”
    “Not people like Rachel.” Kat went to stand before the hearth and stare unseeingly at the glowing coals. There was always danger in this game they played; they all knew that. But whoever had met Rachel last night was more than dangerous; he was evil. And what he’d done could threaten them all. “They’ll be looking into her death—the authorities, I mean. They could stumble across something.”
    “Careful, ma petite ,” said Leo, reaching for his glass. “The walls have ears.” He took a slow swallow of his wine, then frowned. “But no, I don’t think the authorities will learn anything that need concern us. I went past her lodgings this morning as soon as I heard what had happened, but the constables were there. I’ll go back tonight and make certain she left nothing that could be incriminating.”
    “You could be too late. They might have found something already.”
    Leo huffed a soft laugh. “You can’t be serious. This is London, not Paris. They’re fools, these Englishmen. So afraid of the danger to their liberties posed by a standing army that they’d rather see their cities overrun with thieves and murderers than establish a proper police force. Those constables won’t have found anything. Besides”—He thrust another piece of bread in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed—“they think they already know who did it.”
    Kat swung to face him. “You said you didn’t know who killed her.”
    “I don’t know who killed her. But the London authorities think they do. He’s doubtless under arrest even as we speak. Some viscount with a reputed propensity for slaughtering his fellow men. He has a strange name. Something like Diablo, or Devil, or—”
    “Devlin?” Her breath coming uncharacteristically