When Gods Die (2 page)

He took a step toward her only to stagger, one plump hand flinging out to grasp the curving back of a nearby chair. It was his ankle, of course. The thing was always giving way beneath him like this. He could hold his wine. Better than most men half his age. Everyone said so.

The candles in the gilded wall sconces flared golden bright, then dimmed. He didn’t remember sitting down. But when he opened his eyes he found himself slumped in the chair beside the fire, his chin sunk deep into the elaborate white folds of his cravat. He could feel a line of spittle trickling from one corner of his mouth. Swiping the back of his hand across his jaw, George raised his head.

She lay as before, one bare foot dangling off the edge of the settee’s yellow velvet cushion, the shimmering emerald green of her gown sliding seductively from naked shoulders. But she was staring at him with wide, curiously blank eyes.

She was such a beautiful woman, Guinevere Anglessey, the gently molded curves of her half-exposed breasts as white as Devonshire cream, her hair shining blue-black in the candlelight. George slid from the chair to his knees, his voice catching on a sob as he took her cold hand in his. “My lady?”

George knew a tingle of alarm. He hated scenes, and if she’d had some sort of fit there would be a hideous scene. Slipping his hands beneath her bare shoulders, he drew her up to give her a gentle shake. “Are you—oh, my goodness, are you ill?” This new and even more horrifying possibility sent a shudder coursing through him. He was very susceptible to infections. “Shall I call Dr. Heberden?”

He wanted to move away from her immediately, but she lay at such an awkward angle, half on her side, that he had a hard time maneuvering her. “Here, let me make you more comfortable, and I’ll have someone send for—”

He broke off, his head jerking around as the double doors to the salon were thrown open. A woman’s gay voice said, “Perhaps the Prince is hiding in here.”

Caught with the Marquis of Anglessey’s beautiful, insensible young wife clasped clumsily in his arms, George froze. Hideously conscious of his ludicrous pose, he licked his suddenly dry lips. “She’s fainted, I daresay.”

Lady Jersey stood with one hand clenched around the doorknob, her cheeks going white beneath their rouge, her eyes wide and staring. “Oh, my God,” she said with a gasp.

The doorway filled with shrieking women and stern-faced men. He recognized his cousin, Jarvis, and Lord Hendon’s murderous son, Viscount Devlin. They were all staring. It was a moment before George realized they were staring not at him but at the jeweled hilt of a dagger protruding from the Marchioness of Anglessey’s bare back.

George screamed, a high-pitched, feminine scream that echoed strangely as the candles dimmed again and went out.

Chapter 2

A
cooling breeze skimmed across the Steyne, bringing with it the salty scent of the sea. Sebastian Alistair St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, paused on the flagging outside the Pavilion and drew the sweet air deep into his lungs.

All around him, the dark streets echoed with panicked shouts for carriages and the running feet of sedan-chair bearers as bejeweled ladies and gentlemen in evening breeches streamed from the Pavilion’s open doors into the night. A few threw Sebastian frightened, speculative glances. All gave him a conspicuously wide berth.

“The fools,” said a harsh, angry voice from behind him. “What do they think? That
you
killed that woman?”

Sebastian swung around to look into the heavy, troubled features of his father, Alistair St. Cyr, the Fifth Earl of Hendon. Sebastian gave a wry smile. “Presumably they find that a more comforting explanation than the alternative, which is that their regent just stabbed a beautiful young woman in the back.”

“Prinny’s incapable of that kind of violence, and you know it,” snapped Hendon.

“Well, someone certainly killed her. And I, at least, know it wasn’t me.”

“Let’s walk,” said Hendon, waving away his carriage. “I need the air.”

They turned together toward their hotel on the Marine Parade. Neither spoke, their footsteps echoing softly in the darkness. The familiar scents of sea-bathed rocks and wet sand hung heavy in the warm night air, and the moon-flooded streets were haunted by shared memories neither father nor son cared to confront. For years now they had both avoided Brighton whenever possible. But Hendon’s position as Chancellor of the Exchequer combined with the present visit to England by the dispossessed French royal family had made the Earl’s presence here in Brighton unavoidable. Sebastian himself had driven down only for the occasion of Hendon’s sixty-sixth birthday. The Earl’s other living child, Amanda, had stayed away for reasons that were not discussed.

“That woman…” Hendon began, only to pause, his jaw working back and forth as it did when he was thoughtful or concerned. In the faint glow of the nearby streetlamp, his face was pale, his hair a shock of white in the moonlight. He cleared his throat and tried again. “She looked oddly like Guinevere Anglessey.”

“It was the Marchioness of Anglessey,” said Sebastian.

“Good God.” Hendon wiped a splayed hand across his grief-slackened face. “This could be the death of Anglessey.”

For a moment, Sebastian kept his silence. It was a common enough occurrence in their world, beautiful young women marrying wealthy and titled older men. But even amongst the ton, the forty-five year difference in age between the Marquis and his young wife was considered excessive. “I must admit,” said Sebastian, treading carefully in deference to the long-standing friendship between Hendon and Anglessey, “I wouldn’t have thought her the type to join the ranks of Prinny’s paramours.”

Hendon’s eyes flashed. “Don’t think it for an instant. She was no easy tumble. Not Guinevere.”

“Then what the devil was she doing in his cabinet?”

Hendon expelled a harsh breath. “I don’t know. But this isn’t good. Not for Anglessey or for Prinny—or for you, either,” he added. “The last thing you need is to have your name linked with another murdered woman.”

Sebastian frowned, his gaze caught by the royal crest emblazoning the panel of a carriage drawn up before their hotel. “Believe me, I have no intention of taking the fall for this one.”

Hendon looked at him in surprise. “What makes you even suspect such a thing?”

Wordlessly, Sebastian lifted his chin in the direction of the liveried servant standing beside the carriage’s restless team.

“What is this?” said Hendon.

The footman stepped forward and bowed. His livery was unmistakable; the man, like the carriage, came from the Prince’s household. “My lord Devlin? Lord Jarvis would like a word with you, my lord. In his chambers at the Pavilion.”

Officially, Lord Jarvis was no more than a distant cousin of the King, a wealthy nobleman with a ruthless reputation for shrewdness and a legendary omniscience that came from his wide network of private spies. But in practice, Jarvis was the royal family’s brains, a Machiavellian intriguer fiercely devoted to both England and the monarchy with which he identified it. “At this hour?” said Sebastian.

“He says it’s most urgent, my lord.”

Given his previous interactions with Jarvis, Sebastian at first wanted to send the servant back to his master with the curtest of messages. Then he thought about Guinevere Anglessey lying pale and lifeless in the Prince’s candlelit cabinet, and he hesitated.

“Tell your master Lord Devlin will receive him in the morning,” snapped Hendon, his jaw working back and forth in annoyance.

Sebastian shook his head. “No. I leave for London at first light.” Wary but intrigued, he leapt into the carriage before the steps were let down. “Don’t bother waiting up for me,” he told his father, and sank back into the plushly upholstered seat as the footman closed the door.

Chapter 3

C
harles, Lord Jarvis, occupied a suite of rooms at the Pavilion reserved specifically for his use by his cousin, the Prince Regent.

The Prince’s love of the small coastal town of Brighton stretched back thirty years or more, to the days when he’d been young and handsome and even—although it bemused Jarvis to remember it now—popular with the people. The Prince still came here whenever he could, to bathe his bloated body in seawater and host an endless round of musical evenings and card parties, and plan a new series of extravagant extensions and decorating schemes for his Pavilion.

At the moment, Jarvis’s rooms were fitted out with dragon-encrusted chandeliers, faux bamboo furniture, and peacock blue wallpaper decorated with gold-leafed exotic beasts. But before the end of the summer, the look might well have changed, perhaps taking on the lush aura of a sultan’s harem or a maharaja’s temple. Jarvis himself had little affection for the oriental styles with which the Prince was so enamored. But Jarvis understood better than most that the Pavilion—like Carlton House, the Prince’s residence in London—was the equivalent of an ornate set of building blocks in the hands of a fat, overindulged child. The endless rebuilding projects might be expensive, but they amused the Prince and kept him safely occupied so that wiser, saner men could get on with the business of running the country.

Standing well over six feet tall and now, in his fifty-eighth year, comfortably fleshy, Jarvis was an imposing man. His size alone would have been impressive. But it was the power of Jarvis’s intellect that intimidated most men—his intellect, and the amoral ruthlessness of his dedication to king and country. The position of prime minister could have been his in an instant, had he wanted it. He did not. He knew well that power was far more effective and satisfying when wielded from the shadows. The current Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, understood precisely how things stood, as did most of the other members of the cabinet. Only two men in the government ever dared to stand against Jarvis. One was the Earl of Hendon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The other was this man, the Earl of Portland.

Drawing a delicately carved ivory snuffbox from his pocket, Lord Jarvis eyed the nobleman now pacing back and forth across the chamber’s green-and-gold Turkey carpet. A tall, loose-limbed man with an abundance of nervous energy, Portland had been Home Secretary for the past two years. He was generally considered a clever man. Nowhere near as clever as Jarvis, of course, but clever enough to be difficult.

“Why are you doing this?” demanded Portland, the candles in the wall sconces gleaming on his auburn head as his long-legged stride carried him across the room again. “The magistrate has cleared the Prince of all involvement. Let that be the end of it! The longer this thing drags out, the harder it will be on the Prince. The doctors have already had to sedate him.”

Jarvis lifted a delicate pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed. The Prime Minister, Perceval, had taken himself off to the chapel to pray, content to leave the sordid affair in Jarvis’s hands. But not Portland. The man was becoming more than a nuisance; he was becoming a problem.

“The magistrate is an imbecile,” said Jarvis, closing his snuffbox with a snap. “As is anyone who seriously thinks the people will believe Lady Anglessey committed suicide by stabbing herself in her back.”

Portland had unusually fair skin, nearly as fair as a woman’s, with a faint dusting of cinnamon-colored freckles across his high cheekbones. His skin often betrayed him as it did now, flushing with annoyance. “It is theoretically possible. If she positioned the dagger just so and then fell on it—”

“Oh, please,” Jarvis shot back. “Half the people out there tonight already believe the Prince killed that woman. If we let the magistrate release this finding, all we’ll do is convince the other half.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. No one could actually believe the Regent capable of…” Portland’s eyes widened as if on a sudden thought, and his voice trailed away.

“Precisely,” said Jarvis. “Everyone will be reminded of Cumberland’s valet. The inquest on his death returned a verdict of suicide as well, if you’ll remember. Only how many people do you suppose actually believe the poor sod slit his own throat? From left to right. When he was left-handed.”

“Cumberland is a dangerous man with a violent temper. No one could deny that. But whatever else you can say about Prinny, he’s nothing like his brother.”

Jarvis lifted one eyebrow in silent incredulity.

Again, that faint flush of color showed beneath Portland’s pale skin. “Very well. Your point is taken. But why send for Devlin? He was cleared of all suspicion in those ghastly murders last winter.”

“Officially,” said Jarvis, turning as his footman appeared in the doorway and bowed.

“Viscount Devlin, my lord.”

Jarvis could see him now: a tall, lean young man with dark hair and strange, almost animalistic eyes that reputedly had the power to see in the night with the uncanny penetration of a cat. Jarvis knew a moment of quiet satisfaction. He’d half expected Devlin not to come. He was a most unpredictable man, this Viscount; wild and dangerous and utterly, intriguingly brilliant.

Jarvis cast a meaningful glance at the Home Secretary. “If you will excuse us, Lord Portland?”

Portland hesitated, as if tempted to insist he stay. Then he bowed and said curtly, “Of course.”

He strode toward the door, his lips pressed together into a thin line. But Jarvis caught the unexpected, speculative gleam in the man’s eyes before he nodded his head and said curtly, “Lord Devlin.”

Chapter 4

“D
o come in, my lord,” said Jarvis, sweeping one arm through the air in an expansive gesture. He’d been blessed with a charming smile that was both disarming and often amazingly effective, and he used that smile now as the Viscount paused just inside the chamber’s doorway. “You’re surprised, doubtless, by the invitation. If I remember correctly, the last time we met, you held a gun to my head. And abducted my daughter.”

Devlin stood very still, his face inscrutable. “I trust she suffered no lasting ill effects.”

“Hero? Hardly. The maid, however, has never been the same since.” Lifting the crystal decanter from its tray, Jarvis held it aloft. “Brandy?”