Chapter 26

Sir Henry Lovejoy stared at the man who stood in the center of the office. The Earl of Hendon was built big and powerful, with a barrel-like torso and a thick head, his nose broad and flat in a slablike, plain-featured face. If there was any resemblance between this man and his son, Lovejoy couldn't see it. "You, my lord? You're confessing to the murder of Rachel York?"

"That's right. She went to that church to meet me." The Earl fixed Lovejoy with a fierce blue stare, as if he could somehow compel the magistrate to believe him. "And I killed her."

Lovejoy sat down so fast, his chair made a little thumping noise. He had been expecting some kind of trouble from Viscount Devlin's influential father, but never in Lovejoy's wildest imaginings could he have anticipated this. He shook his head, his voice coming out even higher pitched than usual. "But... why?"

It was a question the Earl didn't seem to have expected. "What do you mean, why ?"

"Why did she meet you in St. Matthew's?"

Hendon pressed his lips together and sucked in a deep breath that flared his nostrils and expanded his chest. "That is none of your damned business."

"Forgive me, my lord, but if you expect me to accept your confession, it is very much my business."

Hendon swung away to take a quick turn across the room and back. "What the bloody hell do you think I went there to meet her for?" He glowered at Lovejoy, heavy eyebrows furrowed, as if daring Lovejoy to disbelieve him. "A girl like that?"

The implications were as inescapable as they were unbelievable. Lovejoy met the Earl's challenging gaze without flinching. "In a church, my lord?"

"That's right." Hendon rested his hands flat on the desk and leaned into them. "What are you saying? That you don't believe me?"

Lovejoy sat very still. It was obvious what the Earl was trying to do, of course. This was hardly the first time Lovejoy had been confronted by an anxious father willing to do anything, say anything to save a beloved son. When it came to a father's love for his child, Lovejoy supposed it made no difference, after all, whether the father was a blacksmith or a peer of the realm.

A heavy, sad sigh escaped Lovejoy's chest. "There is the matter of Lord Devlin's pistol, which was found on the body."

"That's just it. It's not Sebastian's pistol. It's mine."

Reaching for the wooden box he'd set on the desk, Hendon flipped open the brass clasps and flung back the lid. It was a dueling pistol case, Lovejoy realized. And there, nestled in green baize, lay the mate to the flintlock Constable Maitland had found on Rachel York's body. The molded cradle for the pistol's twin was conspicuously empty.

"They were given to me by my father," said Hendon, "the Fourth Earl, shortly before his death. When I was Viscount Devlin."

There was a small engraved brass plate affixed to the front of the box. Lovejoy leaned forward to read it. TO MY SON, ALISTAIR JAMES ST. CYR, VISCOUNT DEVLIN.

Lovejoy knew a moment of deep disquiet. "This proves nothing," he said slowly. "You could have given these pistols to your own son at any time these past ten years or more."

"My son has his own dueling pistols." The Earl's mouth curled up into a hard smile. "As a matter of fact, he was using them the very morning after that girl's murder."

"So I had heard." Standing up, Lovejoy went to stare out the window overlooking the bare branches of the plane trees in Queen Square below. Not for an instant did he believe Lord Hendon's tale. But if the Earl were to stick to this confession, if he were to insist that he and not his son had perpetrated that savage act of carnage in St. Matthew's on Tuesday night... Abruptly, Lovejoy swung back to face him. "Describe for me the disposition of the body."

"What?"

"Rachel York's body. You say you killed her. You should be able to describe for me precisely how you left her. Where she was, what she would have looked like when she was found."

Lovejoy watched, fascinated, as the nobleman's face seem to collapse in upon itself, becoming pale and almost slack with horror, as if he were being forced to look again upon that bloodied, savaged body.

"She was in the Lady Chapel," Hendon said, his voice hushed, strained. "On the altar steps, on her... on her back. She had her knees bent up, and there was blood...." He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat working with the effort. "The blood was everywhere."

Reaching out, Lovejoy wrapped his hands around the wooden back of his desk chair and gripped it hard. "What was she wearing, my lord?"

"A gown. Some satin. I don't remember the color." Hendon paused. "And a pelisse. Velvet, I think. But both were ripped. And stained dark with her blood." His eyes squeezed closed as if to block out a horrific vision, and he brought up one clenched hand to press the knuckles against his lips.

Lovejoy stared at the man standing across from him. They had been very, very careful to keep the more sordid details of Rachel York's murder from the papers. The only way Hendon could have known these things was if he had seen Rachel York's body himself... or had it described to him by someone who had seen her dead. By the man who had killed her.

Lovejoy pulled out his chair and sat down again. "You say you had an assignation to meet Miss York at St. Matthew's?"

"That's right."

Lovejoy yanked a paper pad toward him and reached for his pen. "And for what time was this meeting scheduled?"

Hendon didn't even hesitate. "Ten."

Lovejoy looked up. "Ten? You're quite certain, my lord?"

"Of course I'm certain. I arrived a few minutes late, but not by much."

Lovejoy set aside his pen and pressed his fingertips together. "So you arrived at St. Matthew's a few minutes after ten? And walked inside to meet her? Is that what you're saying?"

Hendon's heavy brows drew together in a puzzled frown. "That's right."

Lovejoy felt a sad, almost pained smile thin his lips. "I'm afraid that's impossible, my lord. Miss York was killed sometime between five and eight o'clock, which is when St. Matthew of the Fields is locked every evening."

"What are you talking about?" Lord Hendon's fleshy face turned a dark, angry color, his voice booming out so loud that he brought the clerk, Collins, scurrying to the door in alarm. "I arranged to meet that woman in St. Matthew's at ten, and the door in the north transept sure as hell wasn't locked when I got there."

Lovejoy held himself very still. "With all due respect, my lord, I believe you are attempting to protect your son by taking the blame for Rachel York's murder yourself." Reaching across the desk, Lovejoy closed the lid on the dueling pistols case and drew it toward him. "You'll understand our need to keep this, of course. No doubt it shall prove to be a valuable piece of evidence...." Lovejoy hesitated, then said it anyway. "At your son's trial."