What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

drawbreath. “I was foxed! I didn’t know what I was doing, let alone what I was saying.”
    “You were foxed the night she died, too. How do you know what you did then?”
    “I would never hurt her! I loved her.”
    “You said you were going to rip her head off, Bayard. Then a few days later, someone comes bloody close to doing exactly that. I still remember the turtles, Bayard.”
    Bayard’s mouth sagged, his eyes opening wide with horror. “Is that what happened to her? How do you know that? Oh, God, it’s not true, is it?”
    Sebastian tightened his hold on his nephew’s arms, lifting him up until his feet barely touched the floor, and holding him there. “What about the other one, Bayard? Mary Grant. Why did you go after her, too?”
    The mystification on Bayard’s face was so complete that Sebastian knew a moment of misgivings. “Other one? Who the devil is Mary Grant?”
    A woman’s voice cut through the sudden, thick silence. “Let him go,” said Amanda. “Let him go or I swear to God, Sebastian, I’ll bring the constables down on you.”
    Sebastian swung his head to stare at his sister. She stood in the doorway, a tall, middle-aged woman with the inescapably proud bearing of an Earl’s daughter. She had their mother’s coloring and slim, graceful stature, but enough of their father’s blunt, heavy features that, by the age of forty, she resembled the Earl far more than the beautiful, ethereal woman who had once been the Countess of Hendon.
    Sebastian hesitated, then eased his grip on Bayard’s arms to let the boy slump against the wall.
    Bayard stayed where he was, his shoulders pressed against the paneling, his mouth slack, his breath coming hard and fast.
    “You knew, didn’t you,” said Sebastian. “You knew he killed that girl.”
    Bayard wiped a shaky hand across his loose, wet lips. “I didn’t! Why won’t you believe me?”
    Sebastian kept his gaze on his sister’s face. “You knew, and yet you kept quiet about it. And now he’s killed again.”
    “I tell you, I didn’t kill her,” said Bayard. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
    Amanda’s gaze shifted to her son, her face set so cold and hard that for a moment, Sebastian knew a stirring of sympathy for his nephew. She had always looked at him this way, even when he was a little boy, pathetic in his hunger for her love. “Leave us.”
    “But I swear to you, I didn’t kill anyone!”
    “Leave us now, Bayard.”
    Bayard’s throat bulged with the effort of swallowing. He hesitated a moment, his mouth working as if he were trying to say something. Then he ducked his head and pushed away from the wall, brushing past his mother in an awkward, ungainly rush from the room.
    Amanda watched him stumble toward the stairs, then brought her gaze back to Sebastian. “The incident in Bond Street means nothing,” she said. “A boy’s wild talk, that’s all.”
    “Is that all it was? You know what he’s like, Amanda. You’ve always known, even if you didn’t want to admit it.”
    “You make too much of a schoolboy’s wild ways.”
    “A schoolboy ?”
    Amanda walked over to right the chair that had been knocked sideways in the struggle. “Know this, Sebastian: I will not allow my son to be destroyed as a result of the inconsequential death of some worthless little bit of muslin who deserved everything she was given.”
    “My God, Amanda. We’re talking about a human life.”
    Amanda’s lip curled in disdain. “We don’t all have such a mewling weakness for the dregs of society. One would think you’d have learned your lesson after your experience with that light-skirt who used you for such a fool six years ago. What was her name? Anne Boleyn? No wait, that was another man’s whore. Yours was named—”
    “Don’t,” said Sebastian, taking a hasty step toward his sister before drawing himself up short. “Don’t start on Kat.”
    “Good heavens.” Amanda’s eyes widened with wonder as she searched her brother’s face. “You’re still in love with her.”
    Sebastian simply stared back at her, a faint, betraying line of color heating his cheeks.
    “You’re seeing her again, are you?” She gave a shrill laugh. “You neverlearn. What does she think is in it for her this time, I wonder? A chance to play the grieving widow at your hanging?”
    “I won’t die for your son, Amanda.”
    The amusement faded from Amanda’s face. “I tell you, Bayard had nothing to do with that light-skirt’s death. He was