“That isn’t your handwriting?”
“No.” Varden shook his head, as much in confusion as in denial. “It looks like it, but it’s not. I tell you, I didn’t write it.”
If it was a lie, it was a very good one. Yet Sebastian had known people who could lie with such ease and apparent sincerity that it would never occur to the unwary to suspect them. Kat could lie like that. It was a gift that served her well on the stage.
“Would you say the writing is similar enough that it could have deceived Lady Anglessey?” Sebastian asked, reserving judgment.
Varden read through the note again. “It must have done so, obviously. This hotel—the Norfolk Arms. Is that where she went? The afternoon she died?”
Sebastian nodded. “And the letter she was supposed to bring with her?”
“I have no idea,” said Varden, meeting Sebastian’s gaze and holding it unblinkingly.
This time Sebastian thought, That line was delivered less well, my friend. Turning the curricle in through the gates to Hyde Park, he said aloud, “Tell me again about your quarrel.”
A faint flush darkened the Chevalier’s lean cheeks. “What more is there to say? She wanted to leave—”
“No,” said Sebastian, anger putting a tight edge on his voice. “That’s pitching it too rum by half. Anglessey is dying, and his wife knew it. She had no reason to leave him and every reason not to.”
Sebastian thought for a moment that Varden meant to brazen it out. Then he pursed his lips and expelled his breath in an audible gust, as if he’d been holding it. “All right. I admit I made that up.”
“The quarrel,” pressed Sebastian. “What was it about?”
Varden set his jaw. “What happened that night was between Guin and me. It has nothing to do with her death.”
“This note suggests otherwise.”
“I tell you, it has nothing to do with her death.”
“So certain?”
“Yes!”
Sebastian doubted it, but he decided for the moment to let it go. Whoever had sent that note—whether Varden or someone else—had obviously known about the quarrel. Had known about it, and used it to lure Guinevere Anglessey to her death.
“Tell me,” said Sebastian, his attention seemingly all for his driving, “who do you really think killed her?”
Varden fixed his gaze on the horses’ heads, their manes tossing lightly with the late-morning breeze and the smooth action of their gait. After a moment, he said, “When I heard she was dead, I naturally assumed Bevan Ellsworth was responsible. Then I heard she’d been found in the Prince’s arms, and I thought he’d done it. A part of me still suspects Ellsworth, although you say it couldn’t have been him, that he was otherwise occupied that day.” He swiped an open hand across his face, rubbing his eyes. “Now? I don’t know. I just don’t know,” he repeated softly.
Sebastian drew the bluestone necklace from his pocket and held it out. “Have you ever seen this before?”
The Chevalier stared at the necklace, his nostrils flaring with a sudden intake of breath, his eyes opening wide with what looked very much like horror. “Good God. Where did you get that?”
Sebastian threaded the silver chain through his gloved fingers. “It was around Lady Anglessey’s neck when she was found in the Pavilion.”
“What? But that’s—” He broke off.
“Impossible? Why? You have seen it before, haven’t you? Where?”
Varden stared off across the Park. Even this early in the day, the Park was crowded. The morning had dawned clear, the sun warm in an open blue sky. But dark clouds could be seen building again on the horizon, threatening more rain before nightfall. “The summer when I was twelve or thirteen, my mother took us to the south of France. There was a peace then, if you’ll remember. It didn’t last long, but my mother missed France, and she wanted us to see it. We took Guinevere with us.”
“Just Lady Guinevere?”
Varden shook his head. “Morgana, too. We stayed with some people who had a château near Cannes. Somehow or another they’d managed to survive the Revolution, although they’d fallen on hard times. We came to know a woman there—an Englishwoman who was another of their guests. The necklace was hers. She told us a strange story about it, how it had once belonged to a mistress of James the Second, and how the necklace always chose the next person it was to go to by growing warm in their hand.”
He leaned back against the curricle’s seat, his arms crossed at his chest. “I didn’t believe any of it, although it made a wonderful story. But when the woman took the necklace from around her neck and handed it to Guinevere…’’ His voice trailed away.
“It grew warm?”
“Yes. It was practically glowing.” He let out a ragged half laugh. “I know it sounds unbelievable. I remember Morgana was so jealous she practically snatched the necklace from her sister’s hand. But it immediately went cold again.”
Sebastian looked at him sharply. When Sebastian had described the necklace to Morgana, she’d disclaimed all knowledge of it. Had she simply forgotten the incident? Or remembered it all too well? “And this woman…she gave Guinevere the necklace?”
“No. That’s just it. The last time I saw the necklace, it was still around the Englishwoman’s neck. And that was eight or nine years ago.”
“What was her name?” The question came out sounding harsher than Sebastian had meant it to. “Do you remember?”
Varden shook his head. “They said she was mistress to a Frenchman—one of Napoléon’s generals, I believe. But I don’t remember her name. I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like.”
“Was she fair?” said Sebastian, his chest so tight he found himself scarcely able to breathe. “Fine-boned and fair?”
“I’m sorry,” said Varden, the sun golden on his face as he turned to look directly at Sebastian. “I don’t remember.”
Chapter 57
Kat’s gowns were made by London’s most fashionable modistes, her slippers of the finest silk and kid, her chemises trimmed with delicate Belgian lace. But there had been a time when she had been intimately familiar with London’s booming secondhand clothing trade. She’d known who would fence a silk handkerchief, just as she’d known who would give the best price for a stolen watch.
Not all the goods in the secondhand clothing trade were stolen. Men and women fallen on hard times with nothing left to sell could still sell their own clothes, their appearance becoming ever more ragged as they spiraled down into the gutter. Yet such a huge traffic in used items also created a ready market for thieves. Having once been a thief, Kat knew exactly where to go when she decided to track down the dealer who had sold Lady Addison Peebles’s green satin ball gown to Guinevere Anglessey’s killer.
Many of the secondhand clothing dealers had stalls in the Rag Fair in Rosemary Lane, while others sold their goods from barrows in Whitechapel, with the occasional purloined round of cheese or bacon hidden away beneath the tattered petticoats and breeches. But the finest quality goods could be found in a little shop kept by Mother Keyes in Long Acre.
There, in her elegantly bowed front window, Mother Keyes displayed delicate silk handkerchiefs and nightdresses of linen and lace, snowy white kid gloves and ball gowns fit for a queen. All looked new, although they were not. Some had been sold by their owners or the servants to whom they had been given. Others had come into the shop by more nefarious channels, with any initials or marks carefully removed before the items were put on display.
The bell on the front door jangled pleasantly as Kat entered the shop, bringing with her the warm scents of sun and morning breeze. Mother Keyes looked up from behind her counter, her sharp hazel eyes narrowing as they traveled up the length of Kat’s fringed and embroidered poult-de-soie walking gown, assessed the package she carried, and came to rest on her face.