What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

him.”
    “You’re certain?” said Sebastian, frowning. What was it Hugh Gordon had said at the Green Man? I haven’t spoken to her for six months or more .
    Bayard nodded vigorously. “I’d have recognized his voice even if I hadn’t seen him.”
    “They were quarreling?”
    “I don’t know about that. But I could see he had her by the arm and he was leaning into her, all threatening-like. I was about ready to go in there and ask him what the devil he thought he was doing, treating a lady that way, when he gave her a little shake and let her go.”
    “You didn’t hear anything he said?”
    “Not so’s I remember. Except at the very end, right before he turned away. He said—” Bayard broke off, a strange, arrested expression narrowing his eyes and slackening his jaw.
    From somewhere at the back of the room came a sharp breaking of glass, followed by an outburst of laughter. “What?” said Sebastian, his gaze on his nephew’s face. “What did Gordon say?”
    “He said he’d make her pay.”

Chapter 26
     
     
    S ir Henry Lovejoy stared at the man who stood in the center of the office. The Earl of Hendon was built big and powerful, with a barrel-like torso and a thick head, his nose broad and flat in a slablike, plain-featured face. If there was any resemblance between this man and his son, Lovejoy couldn’t see it. “You, my lord? You’re confessing to the murder of Rachel York?”
    “That’s right. She went to that church to meet me.” The Earl fixed Lovejoy with a fierce blue stare, as if he could somehow compel the magistrate to believe him. “And I killed her.”
    Lovejoy sat down so fast, his chair made a little thumping noise. He had been expecting some kind of trouble from Viscount Devlin’s influential father, but never in Lovejoy’s wildest imaginings could he have anticipated this. He shook his head, his voice coming out even higher pitched than usual. “But . . . why?”
    It was a question the Earl didn’t seem to have expected. “What do you mean, why ?”
    “Why did she meet you in St. Matthew’s?”
    Hendon pressed his lips together and sucked in a deep breath that flared his nostrils and expanded his chest. “That is none of your damned business.”
    “Forgive me, my lord, but if you expect me to accept your confession, it is very much my business.”
    Hendon swung away to take a quick turn across the room and back. “What the bloody hell do you think I went there to meet her for?” He glowered at Lovejoy, heavy eyebrows furrowed, as if daring Lovejoy to disbelieve him. “A girl like that?”
    The implications were as inescapable as they were unbelievable. Lovejoy met the Earl’s challenging gaze without flinching. “In a church, my lord?”
    “That’s right.” Hendon rested his hands flat on the desk and leaned into them. “What are you saying? That you don’t believe me?”
    Lovejoy sat very still. It was obvious what the Earl was trying to do, of course. This was hardly the first time Lovejoy had been confronted by an anxious father willing to do anything, say anything to save a beloved son. When it came to a father’s love for his child, Lovejoy supposed it made no difference, after all, whether the father was a blacksmith or a peer of the realm.
    A heavy, sad sigh escaped Lovejoy’s chest. “There is the matter of Lord Devlin’s pistol, which was found on the body.”
    “That’s just it. It’s not Sebastian’s pistol. It’s mine.”
    Reaching for the wooden box he’d set on the desk, Hendon flipped open the brass clasps and flung back the lid. It was a dueling pistol case, Lovejoy realized. And there, nestled in green baize, lay the mate to the flintlock Constable Maitland had found on Rachel York’s body. The molded cradle for the pistol’s twin was conspicuously empty.
    “They were given to me by my father,” said Hendon, “the Fourth Earl, shortly before his death. When I was Viscount Devlin.”
    There was a small engraved brass plate affixed to the front of the box. Lovejoy leaned forward to read it. TO MY SON , ALISTAIR JAMES ST . CYR , VISCOUNT DEVLIN .
    Lovejoy knew a moment of deep disquiet. “This proves nothing,” he said slowly. “You could have given these pistols to your own son at any time these past ten years or more.”
    “My son has his own dueling pistols.” The Earl’s mouth curled up into a hard smile. “As a matter of fact, he was using them the very morning after that girl’s murder.”
    “So I had