Anglessey went to tip a careful stream of water along the roots of a line of ferns. “I was never able to consummate my marriage with Guinevere.” A faint line of color touched his sharp, high cheekbones and stayed there. “She tried. We both tried very hard. She knew how much it meant to me to have a son. But it eventually became obvious that it wasn’t going to happen.”
He hesitated, then pushed on. “Two years ago, I suggested she take a lover, someone who could father the heir I couldn’t.” He swung his head to look back at Sebastian. “You think it a vile thing, for a man to push his wife into infidelity, to seek to disinherit his own nephew by putting another man’s bastard in his place?”
“I know Bevan Ellsworth,” said Sebastian simply.
“Ah.” Anglessey moved on to a shelf of orchids. “It’s the only time I can remember Guinevere ever being truly angry with me. It was too much to ask of her—too much for any man to ask of his wife. She made me feel as if I’d asked her to prostitute herself, which I suppose in a way is precisely what I had done.
“But then, last winter…’’ His voice trailed away as he gazed out over the lush groupings of exotic ferns and jasmines, gardenias and tender China roses. He tried again. “Last winter, she came to me. She said…”
“She said she would do it?” Sebastian prompted when it became obvious the old man could not go on.
“Yes.” It was little more than a whisper.
Sebastian stood in the center of the conservatory, breathed in the hot, fetid air. From the far corner came the sound of a fountain bubbling into a small pond with flickering goldfish. Beside it, a caged canary filled the morning with a song that should have been cheerful, but instead sounded mournful, despairing.
“The name of her lover. What was it?”
Anglessey emptied his watering can, then simply stood there, staring down at the moist, dark earth before him. “I thought it better never to ask. I didn’t want to know.”
“Could it have been the man she was in love with before you married?”
He was silent for a moment. It was obvious the possibility had occurred to him. “Perhaps. But I honestly don’t know.”
By last winter, Sebastian thought, the Chevalier would have completed his studies at Oxford. Had the two former lovers met again in London and decided to begin a physical relationship? A relationship to which her husband had already consented?
“Do you know where they used to meet?” Sebastian asked.
“No. Of course not.” Anglessey paused. “You think this man—the one Guinevere took as her lover—is the one who killed her?”
“It’s possible. Can you think of any other reason your wife would go to Giltspur Street in Smithfield?”
“Smithfield? Good heavens, no. Why?”
Sebastian held the old man’s gaze. “She took a hackney there the afternoon she was killed.”
There was no sign of dissembling, no indication that Anglessey had known of his wife’s visit to Smithfield but had hoped to keep it concealed. Sebastian tried another tack. “Did your wife have much interest in the affairs of government?”
“Guin?” A faint smile touched the old man’s lips. “Hardly. Guin was passionate about many things, but government wasn’t one of them. As far as she was concerned, one crowned puppet is pretty much the same as the next. It’s the sycophants and thieves with which they surround themselves that you need to watch out for.” His smile deepened as he studied Sebastian’s face. “Does that surprise you?”
Sebastian shook his head, although if truth were told, he was surprised—not so much by the sentiment itself as by who had aired it. It was hardly a typical opinion for a woman who was the gently bred, privileged daughter of an earl and wife to a marquis. More unexpected still was the realization that the Marquis himself found his wife’s opinion amusing, even endearing. Such an expression of heresy would have thrown Hendon into an apoplectic fit.
“What about your nephew, Bevan Ellsworth? What are his politics?”
“I would be seriously surprised if Bevan has ever given a thought to politics in his life. His mind is occupied with far weightier matters, the chief amongst them being women and wagers and the set of his coat. Why?”
Sebastian walked over to where the Marquis stood, the watering can hanging empty at his side. “What can you tell me about this necklace?”
Anglessey’s gaze dropped from Sebastian’s face to the silver-and-bluestone pendant he now held in his hand. “Nothing,” said Anglessey, his age-spotted brow wrinkling as if the sudden change of topic confused him. “Why? Where did it come from?”
“Your wife was wearing it when she died. Do you know where she got it?”
Confusion had given way to mild puzzlement and a blank stare of ignorance that was utterly convincing. “No. I’ve no notion. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
SEBASTIAN WALKED THE STREETS OF LONDON, from Oxford to Edgeware Road and beyond, to where the neat town houses and paved streets gave way to massive construction sites and, beyond that, the green fields and market gardens of Paddington.
As incredible as it seemed, he’d found no one who’d known Guinevere Anglessey who would admit to ever having seen the triskelion. Not only that, but according to her abigail, Tess Bishop, the gown chosen by the Marchioness on the afternoon of her death had sported a neckline that would have made the wearing of the ancient piece impossible. Obviously, like the satin gown, the necklace had been clasped around Guinevere’s neck after her death. But why? And by whom?
Although Sebastian doubted it, he supposed it possible that Charles, Lord Jarvis, had dangled the necklace before Sebastian simply to entice him into the investigation. Yet even if that were so, it still begged the question: how had a necklace that should have been at the bottom of the English Channel suddenly reappeared?
The explanation suggested by Hendon, that the necklace had been sold by some peasant who’d found the Countess’s body washed up on a distant beach, remained plausible. But Sebastian could not avoid confronting the more likely explanation, that Sophie Hendon had not died in that long-ago boating accident, but had simply sailed away, leaving a husband, a married daughter, and an eleven-year-old son to mourn her.
Sebastian stared off across a mist-filled meadow to the line of elms that could be seen edging a stream in the distance. Even as a child, he had nourished few illusions about his parents’ marriage. It was the way of their world, husbands busy with Parliament and their clubs while their wives were left to amuse themselves with other things. In Sebastian’s memories, Sophie Hendon was a golden presence, her touch soft and loving, her gay laughter still echoing to him down through the years. Yet his school days had been punctuated with fisticuffs, fought to defend his mother’s honor. For in a society where infidelity was commonplace, the Countess of Hendon had been known to be particularly promiscuous.
A crow rose from a nearby field, its voice raucous, its wings dark against the cloudy sky. Sebastian paused, then turned his steps toward the New Road. He had never thought of his mother as unhappy, yet he realized now, looking back, that it might well have been unhappiness that drove her restlessness, that brought that brittle edge to her smile. Had she been unhappy enough to simply sail away and leave them all? To leave him?
He remembered the aching loss of that summer. He hadn’t believed it when they’d told him of the tragic end to the Countess’s pleasure outing. He thought about the endless hot hours he’d spent on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Day after day he had stood there, his eyes dry and hurting as he determinedly scanned the sunsparkled horizon for sails that would never come. He thought about the possibility that it had all been a lie, and he knew a surge of bitter rage and a deep, abiding hurt.