They moved into place as the music began. Together, they wove through the stately patterns of the dance, pas simples alternating with pas doubles, feet gliding, hands touching and releasing, bodies dipping and swaying in an age-old allegory of advance and retreat. She surrendered herself to the music and the all-too-fleeting pressure of his palm against hers.
And then the music ended and, with it, the moment.
They arrived back at Brook Street sometime later to find a sealed billet addressed by an unfamiliar hand. While Hero hurried upstairs to Simon, Sebastian tore open the seal and glanced through the brief note.
There is something I must tell you. I shall be at home this evening, awaiting your visit.
Sterling
“When did this come?” he asked Morey.
“Only moments after you left, my lord. I asked the lad who brought it if it was urgent, but he assured me it was not.”
Sebastian glanced at the clock and said, “Damn.”
Chapter 26
Thursday, 25 March
T he next morning, Sebastian was preparing to leave for Chatham Place when an angry peal sounded at the front door.
“Who’s that?” he asked, settling a length of starched cravat around his neck.
His valet—a slim, fair-haired, dapper man in his thirties named Jules Calhoun—glanced out the window. “Judging by the crest on the carriage door, I’d say it’s your lordship’s sister, Lady Wilcox.”
Sebastian kept his attention on the delicate task of tying his cravat.
Calhoun said, “Shall I tell Morey to deny you?”
A woman’s determined tread sounded on the stairs.
“I don’t think Lady Wilcox intends to allow herself to be denied.” Sebastian reached for his coat. “There’s a hussar captain named Hugh Wyeth staying at the Shepherd’s Rest in Knightsbridge. He was wounded in Spain last November and is still recuperating, although he could be exaggerating the lingering effects of his injuries for my benefit. He presents himself as genial, uncalculating, and even tempered; I’d be interested to know if he truly is.”
The valet smoothed the set of the coat across Sebastian’s shoulders. Calhoun was a genius at repairing the ravages that the pursuit of murderers could sometimes wreak on Sebastian’s wardrobe. But he also possessed other, considerably more unusual talents that made him especially valuable to a gentleman with Sebastian’s interests.
Amanda’s footsteps sounded in the hall.
“If he’s not,” said Calhoun, “the staff at the inn should know it. I’ll see what they have to say.”
“I’d also be interested in learning more about his movements last Sunday. But be careful,” Sebastian warned as Calhoun moved to open the door. “If Wyeth is our killer, the man is dangerous.”
A roguish gleam showed in the valet’s eyes. “He’ll never know I’ve been asking about him; never you fear.” He opened the door and bowed as Amanda swept past him. “Lady Wilcox.”
Amanda ignored him.
“Dear Amanda,” said Sebastian, reaching for his driving gloves as Calhoun quietly withdrew. “What a distinctly unfashionable hour for a social visit.”
Amanda’s nose quivered with the intensity of her dislike. “This isn’t a social visit.”
The eldest of four children born to the Countess of Hendon, Amanda was twelve years Sebastian’s senior. She’d been blessed with their mother’s slim, elegant figure and glorious golden hair. But she had inherited the Earl’s rather blunt features instead of the Countess’s famous beauty, and a lifetime of angry resentment had by now etched a permanently sour expression on her face.
“You’re at it again, I hear,” she snapped. “Dabbling in a murder investigation like some common Bow Street Runner.”
“I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘dabbling,’ exactly.”
“You know this is the beginning of Stephanie’s second season, yet you accost the Home Secretary in the middle of Countess Lieven’s ball? Countess Lieven, of all people? One might almost suspect you of deliberately attempting to ruin my daughter’s chances of securing an advantageous alliance.”
Sebastian studied his half sister’s haughty, angry face. She had never made a secret of her dislike of him, even when they were children. But it was only recently that he’d come to understand why.
Had she been born male, the title of Viscount Devlin, heir to all the Earl of Hendon’s vast estates, would have been hers. But because she was a girl, that coveted position had gone instead to Hendon’s firstborn son, Richard. After Richard’s death, Hendon’s second son, Cecil, had become Viscount Devlin. And with Cecil’s death, the mantle had passed to Sebastian—the boy child who was not even Hendon’s own son, but a by-blow produced by an illicit liaison between the Earl’s lovely Countess and some nameless, unknown lover.
“As it happens, I like Stephanie,” said Sebastian, drawing on his gloves.
“Then one can only assume you are doing this in some vicious attempt to harm me.”