“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Sebastian. I’m so sorry.”
He drained his brandy and set the empty glass aside. “If you’re imagining our quaint family circle as some grand tragedy, don’t. In the end, that discovery—as sordid and shocking as it was—turned out to be only the first act in what has since come to resemble nothing so much as a tawdry farce.”
“You don’t look to me as if you’re laughing.”
“Yes, well . . .” He would have said more, for there was so much else he needed to tell her. Only, at that moment Morey appeared in the doorway to say, “Your carriage is ready, my lord.”
He hesitated.
She reached out to touch his arm lightly. “Go on, Sebastian. I understand.”
And so he left her there, the black cat held cradled in her arms like a child.
Chapter 40
H
e found Kat curled up on the sofa before a fire in her drawing room, her left arm resting in a sling.
“Please don’t get up,” Sebastian said, as she struggled to do so.
She sat up anyway, her small stockinged feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her muslin gown. “I asked Hendon not to carry this tale to you. But he obviously didn’t listen.”
Sebastian came to rest his hands on her shoulders and stare down into her upturned face. “How are you? Truly.”
“Gibson says it’s nothing serious—a sprain only. One of the men grabbed hold of my arm and I must have twisted it in my attempt to get away.”
“What the bloody hell happened? And why the devil did you go to Hendon rather than to me?”
“Stop glowering, Sebastian. I didn’t go to Hendon. He stopped by this evening by chance to see how I was doing, and I made the mistake of giving him an honest answer when he asked how I came to injure myself.”
“Did you give him an honest answer?”
She smiled. “For the most part. I have no idea who those two men were. But I don’t think their intent was to kill me—at least, not right away. They were trying to drag me to a cart they had waiting nearby.”
Sebastian walked away to stand at the window overlooking the darkened square below. “Did you act on the question I asked you this afternoon?”
“I did, yes. But I only sent a vague message to someone requesting a meeting. I didn’t go into detail on why.”
He glanced over at her. “They might know why.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe this individual would harm me.”
“So certain?”
She smoothed her free hand down over her lap and did not answer him.
He said, “I think Napoléon’s men are still looking for that diamond. If they didn’t kill Eisler but believe that Yates did, they might think he has it.”
“So why snatch me?”
“To use as a bargaining chip, perhaps?”
“As in, ‘You give us the diamond and we will give you your wife’?” She considered it a moment, then said, “I believe one of the men who tried to grab me may have been French.”
Sebastian frowned. “Thin? With a pockmarked face?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I tangled with him in Seven Dials last night.” He paused. “Did you have a chance to speak to Yates?”
She nodded. “You were right about Beresford and Tyson. They are mollies.” She kept her gaze on his face. “That’s significant; why?”
“Eisler liked to collect information on people.”
“You mean for blackmail?”
“I don’t think he extorted actual cash payments in return for his silence. He used what he knew to influence people, to force them to do what he wanted them to do.”
“I’d call that blackmail.”
“In a sense, I suppose it is.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “According to Yates, Blair Beresford is the younger son of a small Irish landowner. What could he possibly have that Eisler either wanted or could use?”
“I wasn’t thinking about Beresford.”
“You mean Tyson?” She was silent for a moment, as if considering this. Then she said, “He’s also a younger son.”
“He is. But he had gems he was selling to Eisler. Eisler may have tried to use the information he had to drive a hard bargain.”
“You’re suggesting this gives Tyson a motive for murder?”
“I’d say it does, yes. Although if Eisler tried to use threats to pressure Matt Tyson, he was a fool. Tyson is the kind of man who would as soon slit your throat as look at you.”
“Where does he say he was last Sunday evening?”
“Beresford claims they spent the evening in Tyson’s rooms in St. James’s Street.”
She raked the curls off her forehead with a hand Sebastian noticed was not quite steady. “We’re running out of time, Devlin. Yates’s trial has been scheduled for Saturday.”
He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and hold her in comfort. It occurred to him that if she were, in truth, his sister, then he could have done so and no one would have thought twice about it.
And that suddenly struck him as the cruelest irony of all.
He said, “The person you sent your message to—who was it?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”