What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

strong man, a man who knows how to keep them in their place. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”
    Sebastian nodded, as if in agreement. “I can see how a man with a heavy hand might get carried away, sometimes. Maybe set out to teach a woman a lesson and end up going too far.”
    Gordon slammed the empty glass down on a nearby table, his nostrils flaring wide with a quickly indrawn breath. “What are yousuggesting? That I killed Rachel? What kind of a bloody fool do you take me for? Rachel owed me money . When I saw her on Tuesday afternoon, she swore she’d have it to me by Wednesday noon.” He ran one hand through his dark hair, his fingers splaying wide, gripping, his voice dropping suddenly to almost a whisper. “You can’t get money out of a dead woman.”
    Sebastian was remembering what Kat had told him, about the young man who’d been seen letting himself into Rachel’s rooms early Wednesday morning. Hugh Gordon was in his mid-thirties, but a woman in her eighties would surely describe him as young. “I’m not so sure about that,” said Sebastian. “If you know a woman has money and she’s refusing to pay what she owes, you can always go to her rooms and collect the debt yourself. If she’s dead.”
    Gordon let his hand fall. “Good God. Now I’m a thief, as well as a murderer?”
    Sebastian kept his gaze on the other man’s face. “Where were you Tuesday night?”
    “I was here. At home. Studying my lines.”
    “Alone?”
    “I work best alone.” He glanced again at the ormolu clock on the ornate mantel. “Look, I have a performance that starts at seven. We just opened last night and I need to—”
    “Relax.” Sebastian gave the man a slow, mean smile. “You’ve plenty of time.”
    Gordon met Sebastian’s steady gaze. “You’re not Rachel’s cousin, are you?” His brows twitched together. “What are you? Some sort of Bow Street Runner?”
    Sebastian smiled. “Something like that.” It was even, in a sense, true, he thought; he was certainly running from Bow Street.
    Gordon swung away to jerk the burgundy velvet drapes closed against the growing cold. “She was an unusual woman, Rachel,” he said suddenly, one hand still gripping the heavy cloth as if he were struggling to put his thoughts into words. “There wasn’t much she was afraid of. She told me once that fear made a person vulnerable and she refused to ever be vulnerable again. But I’d noticed lately that she was nervous, jumpy—as if she’d suddenly found herself over her head in something and wasn’t quite certain how she was going to get out of it.”
    Sebastian watched the other man turn away from the window. “Something like—what?”
    “Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if Rachel wasn’t passing information to the French.”
    “The French ?” It was the last thing Sebastian had expected. “What makes you say that?”
    “Look at the men she chose.” Hugh Gordon brought his hands up together in a gesture reminiscent of Moses Preaching to the Masses, and Sebastian knew then that the affectation of a confidence suddenly shared was an act, that whether it was true or not, this was information Hugh Gordon had deliberately decided to impart—probably with the specific intention of deflecting suspicion from himself. “Usually there’s a pattern with women. One will go after men with money, another likes the pretty boys, the dandies and pinks, while another is mad about any man with a title. Not Rachel. The men she selected tended to work in the Foreign Office, like Sir Albert. Or they were close to the King, like Lord Grimes. Once she even had an admiral in tow.”
    Admiral Worth. Sebastian had heard his name along with that of Sir Albert and Lord Grimes and others whispered in the streets. As he ran through the names, he realized it was true, that Rachel York’s noble lovers shared this one, common trait: all were privy to information which could prove very useful if it were to fall into the wrong hands.
    “You make no secret of having shared Rachel’s republican principles,” said Sebastian. “Have the French ever approached you?”
    He expected angry denials and heated, patriotic rhetoric. Instead, Gordon met Sebastian’s questioning gaze and said simply, “However much I might wish to see changes here, I’m still an Englishman. I would never betray my own country.”
    “But you think Rachel could?”
    Gordon lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Rachel had a lot of anger in