When Gods Die

His eyes narrowed, his breath catching in his throat as he hunkered down beside her. His hand reached out as if to touch the necklace, only to curl back into a fist that he pressed against his lips.

It was an ancient piece, wrought of silver in the shape of a closed triskelion and set against a smooth disk of the same darkly mysterious bluestone found so often in the enigmatic old stone circles of Wales. There was a legend that this necklace had once been worn by the Druid priestesses of Cronwyn. They said it had been passed down through the ages, from one woman to the other, the necklace itself choosing its next caretaker by growing warm and vibrating when the right woman held the old stone in her hand.

Sebastian had been fascinated by this necklace as a child. He used to climb up beside his mother and listen to her soft, melodious voice reciting the old tale. He could remember holding the curiously wrought piece in his hand, willing it to turn warm and vibrate for him. He’d last seen the necklace at his mother’s throat, its burnished silver shining brilliantly in the sun as she waved good-bye to him from the deck of the neat little two-masted yacht a friend had hired for a lark one summer’s day when Sebastian was eleven.

The afternoon had been unusually hot, the sea breeze a gentle breath of fresh air. But then the day had turned rough, dark clouds scuttling across the sun, the wind kicking up strong. The two-masted craft had floundered in heavy seas and gone down with all on board.

The body of the Countess of Hendon—and the necklace she’d worn that day—had never been recovered.

Chapter 5

“It can’t be the same necklace,” said Sebastian.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Lord Jarvis answered him. “But it is,” said Jarvis, coming to stand beside him. “Look at the back.”

Moving carefully, Sebastian flipped the triskelion, his fingertips just brushing the woman’s cold flesh. In the flickering light from the wall sconces he could see where the initials A. C. had been artfully entwined with a second set of initials. J. S.

The engraving was old—not as old as the necklace itself, but still worn with the passage of the years. It had been well over a century and a half since Addiena Cadel had marked the necklace with her initials and those of her lover, James Stuart—the same James Stuart who later assumed the British throne as James II.

Sebastian sat back on his heels, his splayed hands gripping his thighs. “How did you know?” he asked after a moment. “How did you know my mother once owned this necklace?”

“She showed it to me one day when I happened to admire it. Its story is an intriguing one. Not the sort of thing you forget.”

“And did you know she was wearing it the day she died?”

A faint widening of the eyes was Jarvis’s only sign of reaction. “No. No, I didn’t. How…curious.”

The memory of that cold brush of dead flesh against his hand nagged at Sebastian. Curious, he leaned forward to study the woman before him. Her fingertips were already turning blue, the muscles of her neck stiff with the rigor of death. Yet the skin of her face seemed unnaturally pink. “How long has it been?” he asked Jarvis.

“How long since what?”

“Since the Prince was found with the Marchioness in his arms. Two hours, would you say? Less?”

“Less, I’d say. Why?”

Reaching out, Sebastian rested his palm against Lady Anglessey’s smooth young cheek. It was cool to the touch. “She’s cold,” said Sebastian. “She shouldn’t be this cold.”

He glanced over at the glowing coals on the hearth. His years in the army had taught him only too well what the passage of time does to a dead body. Heat could accelerate the processes of death, he knew. But it should at least have kept the body warm.

Jarvis took a step closer. “What are you suggesting?”

Sebastian frowned. “I’m not certain. Have either of the Prince’s physicians seen her?” The Regent had two personal physicians, Dr. Heberden and Dr. Carlyle. They were rarely far from his side.

“Naturally.”

“And?”

A derisive smile twisted the other man’s full lips. “Both supported the magistrate’s conclusion that she committed suicide.”

Sebastian let out a humorless huff that was not quite a laugh. “Of course.”

He rose to his feet. She still lay as he had found her, awkwardly curled on one side. Reaching out, he gently rolled her body toward him.

The disarrangement of her satin gown had left her back essentially bare. There was something violently sexual, almost intimate, about the way the dagger’s blade disappeared into her dark, livid flesh. Sebastian drew a quick breath.

Beside him, Jarvis was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Good God. She appears to have been badly beaten.”

Sebastian shook his head. “That’s not bruising. I’ve seen it happen before, with soldiers left on the battlefield. It’s as if all the blood in a body collects at its lowest points after death.”

“But she was lying on her side, not her back.”