What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

sentence unsaid. “But he wouldn’t. So tell me, Sir Henry; is that the kind of man who rapes a woman in front of an altar?”
    “I don’t know,” said Lovejoy, meeting her tortured gaze. “I don’t know what kind of men do such things. But they do exist.” He nodded toward the snowy darkness. “One of them is out there right now, walking around. Perhaps it’s Lord Devlin. Perhaps it’s someone else—some man buying a sausage at his local pub, or perhaps sitting down to dinner with his wife and family. And no one— no one —who knows him thinks he’s capable of such a terrible thing. But he is. He is.”

     
    Lovejoy removed his hat and hung it on the hook beside his office door, then simply stood there for a moment, lost in thought, his gaze focused on nothing.
    They were back again, all those niggling little doubts about Lord Devlin’s guilt, that feeling that there was more going on in the death of Rachel York than any of them had yet grasped. He knew it was unscientific, unempirical, maybe even irrational. But his intuition had been right too many times in the past for him to ignore it now.
    With a shrug, he jerked his mind away from the sad-eyed woman he’d just met and set to work unwinding his scarf. He had his coat half-unbuttoned when his clerk, Collins, stuck his head around the corner.
    “What is it?” asked Lovejoy, looking up.
    “It’s about the Cyprian who got herself killed in that church, sir—that Rachel York. Constable Maitland thought you might like to know.”
    Lovejoy paused with his coat half on, half off. “Know what?”
    “We’ve just heard from the sexton of St. Stephen’s, sir. They’ve had grave robbers. Last night. And it was her grave what they hit.”
    “Are you telling me someone has stolen Rachel York’s body?”
    “Yes, sir. Constable Maitland, he thinks it’s just a coincidence, but—”
    Collins let his voice trail away into nothing, for Sir Henry, his coat gripped distractedly in one hand, was already gone, leaving his hat and scarf still swaying on their hooks beside the door.

Chapter 33
     
     
    B y the time Sebastian neared Half Moon Street, the darkness was complete, the snow a heavy, dirty white blanket that seemed to smother the city. But at the French émigré’s elegant townhouse, golden light blazed from every window. Thick straw buried the granite setts that paved the street, and a red carpet stretched down the entry steps to the footpath. It was just past six, but already a crowd had begun to gather, ragged men and women and children huddled together against the cold. Some murmured darkly, but most were laughing and joking in excited anticipation. They were something of a spectacle, these grand galas put on by the ton ; not quite as entertaining as a hanging, but considerably more magnificent than a balloon ascension.
    “Monsieur Pierrepont’s having a ball tonight, is he?” asked Sebastian, snagging a half-grown lad in livery who came rushing past, his face flushed with self-importance.
    “Aye. A masquerade,” said the boy, his eyes bright with as much excitement as if he were to be one of the guests.
    Sebastian watched the boy dash off, then stood for a moment as a part of the crowd, his gaze drifting from one blazing window to the next.
    He kept turning over in his mind what Hugh Gordon had told him, that Rachel York might have been passing information to the French through Leo Pierrepont. If it was true, if Rachel York had been involvedin some kind of underhanded game with the French, then it cast her killing in a different light entirely.
    And if it was true, then what was Sebastian’s father doing meeting with her, in secret, in the dark, deserted Lady Chapel of an out-of-the-way Westminster church?

     
    It was just minutes to curtain time. Kat was hurrying down a backstage corridor when a strong hand closed around her arm from behind, drawing her back into the shadows.
    “ Sebastian .” Kat cast an anxious glance up the hall. “Why are you here? Someone might see you.”
    “I need a costume.”
    In the dim light of the oil lamp at the end of the corridor, she could see the rough cut of his coat, the touches of gray he’d added to his dark hair. “I’d have said you were already fairly effectively disguised.”
    “I had something a bit more elegant in mind. Something in silk or satin.”
    “Satin? Going to a ball, are you?”
    “Something like that.”

     
    He waited until just before midnight, when the crowd of