What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery)

346 Pages·2005·1.1 MB·English

by  C.S. Harris

13287.FM WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:30 PM Page i
What Angels Fear
13287.FM WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:30 PM Page iii
W
HAT
A F
NGELS EAR
A Historical
Mystery
X
C. S. H
ARRIS
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are
used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.
What Angels Fear
A NAL Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005 by The NAL Publishing Group.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by
mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes
copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to
criminal and civil liability.
For information address:
The NAL Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com
ISBN: 0-7865-6080-0
A NAL BOOK®
NAL Books first published by NAL Publishing Group,
a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
NAL and the "NAL" design are trademarks belonging to
Penguin Putnam Inc.
Electronic edition: October 2005
13287.FM WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:30 PM Page v
For my husband,
Steven Ray Harris,
for more reasons than I could name
13287.FM WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:30 PM Page vii
No place so sacred from such fops is barred,
Nor is Paul’s Church more safe than Paul’s Churchyard;
Nay fly to altars; there they’ll talk you dead,
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
—Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Criticism
T
13287.01 WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:31 PM Page 1
Prologue
Tuesday, 29 January 1811
S
he blamed the fog. She wasn’t normally this nervous. This afraid.
It was such a foul, creeping thing, the yellow fog of London. Even
without the fog it would have been dark at this hour. Dark, and January-
cold. But the murky vapor made it worse, wrapping around her lantern in
wraithlike drifts that had Rachel stumbling as she cut across the
churchyard.
A loose stone rolled beneath the delicate sole of one kid half-boot,
the clatter sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. Paus-
ing, Rachel threw a quick glance over her shoulder, her gaze raking the
faint, mist-shrouded outlines of the graveyard’s scattered monuments and
tombstones. From the distance came a clacking rattle and the fog-
muffled voice of the charley, calling out the time. Rachel drew in a deep
breath of frosty air tinged with the scent of wet earth and leaves and a
stale, musty hint of old death, and hurried on.
The heavy stone bulk of St. Matthew of the Fields loomed before
her. Rachel clutched the satin-lined velvet folds of her evening cloak
more closely about her. She should have told him to meet her at half past
eight, she decided. Nine at the latest. It was the usual time, half past
eight.
Only, this wasn’t a usual transaction.
She hadn’t expected to be so edgy. It was a sensation she didn’t like.
1
13287.01 WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:31 PM Page 2
C. S. Harris
Being nervous made her feel like a victim, and Rachel York refused to
play the role of victim. Never again. It was a promise she’d made to her-
self at the age of fifteen, and in the three years that had passed since that
fateful night when she’d seized control of her own life, it was a promise
she’d never broken. She wasn’t about to break it now.
At the steps leading up to the north transept door, she paused again.
Beneath the deep round arch of the side portal, the darkness was nearly
complete. Lifting the lantern high, she let the narrowed beam of light
play over the door’s weathered old oak. Through the thin kid of her
gloves the iron key felt cold and heavy in her hand. To her annoyance,
her fingers shook when she thrust the toothed end into the lock.
With one twist, the mechanism clicked smoothly and the door
swung silently inward before her on oiled hinges. The Reverend McDer-
mott was careful about such things. But then, he needed to be.
Rachel pushed the door open wider, one artfully curled lock of
golden hair fluttering against her cheek in the sudden outward gush of
air. Familiar church smells engulfed her, the scent of beeswax and damp
stone and ancient wood. She whisked herself inside, carefully closing the
door behind her. She did not lock it.
She dropped the key into her reticule, felt its weight heavy and solid
against her thigh as she crossed the transept. The cold silence of the
church closed around her, the light from her lantern wavering over
candle-blackened stone walls and the scattered, recumbent figures of en-
tombed ladies and long-dead knights lying still and cold in the empty
hush.
They said it was close on to eight hundred years old, St. Matthew of
the Fields, with molded sandstone arches that sprang from thick, cylin-
drical piers, and small high windows that now showed only blackness be-
yond. Rachel’s father had been interested in such things. Once, he had
taken her to see the cathedral in Worchester and talked to her for hours
about arcades and triforiums and rood screens. But her father was long
dead; Rachel shut her mind against the memory, unsure what had
brought such a thought to her now.
The Lady Chapel lay at the far end of the apse, a tiny fourteenth-
century jewel of white marble and slender columns and delicately carved
2
13287.01 WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:31 PM Page 3
WHAT ANGELS FEAR
screenwork. Rachel set her lantern on the steps before the altar. She was
early; he would not be here for another twenty minutes or more. The
emptiness of the ancient church seemed to press in upon her, cold and
dark. She found her gaze returning, again and again, to the blessed can-
dles clustered together on the snowy linen of the altar cloth. For a mo-
ment longer, she hesitated. Then, kindling a taper, she began to light the
candles, one after the other, their golden flames leaping up warm and
bright until they seemed to merge into one comforting glow.
Rachel gazed up at the massive canvas that hung above the altar, a
darkly swirled depiction of the Virgin Mother ascending gloriously into
the heavens against a background of triumphant angels. Once, Rachel
might have murmured a soft prayer.
Not now.
She didn’t hear the transept door open and close, only the faint echo
of stealthy footsteps along the choir. He was early. She hadn’t expected
it of him.
Turning, she shoved back the hood of her cloak and forced her lips
into a practiced smile, ready to play her role.
She could see him now, a faint shadow, the outline of his greatcoat
and top hat just visible through the Lady Chapel’s intricately carved
stone screen.
Then he moved into the candlelight.
She took a quick step back. “You,” she whispered, and knew she’d
made a terrible mistake.
3
13287.01 WhatAngelsFear 8/22/05 2:31 PM Page 5
Chapter 1
Wednesday, 30 January 1811
S
ebastian could hear the tolling of the city’s church bells, counting
out the hour; dull echoes of sound muffled by distance and the acrid fog
that, even here, hugged the open ground and shrouded the bare, reach-
ing branches of the stand of elms that grew at the edge of the field. Dawn
had come, but it brought little warmth or light. Sebastian Alistair St. Cyr,
Viscount Devlin, only surviving son and heir to the Earl of Hendon,
propped his shoulders against the high side of his curricle, crossed his
arms at his chest, and thought about his bed.
It had been a long night, a night of brandy fumes and cigar smoke, of
faro and vingt-et-un and a promise made to a sad-eyed woman—a promise
that he would not kill, however much the man he had come here to meet
might deserve killing. Sebastian tipped back his head and closed his eyes. He
could hear the sweet call of a lark at the far end of the field and, nearer, the
steady swish, swish of wet grass as his second, Sir Christopher Farrell, paced
back and forth in the roadside’s verge. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped.
“Maybe he won’t show,” said Sir Christopher.
Sebastian kept his eyes closed. “He’ll show.”
The pacing resumed. Back and forth, boot heels squelching in the
damp earth.
“If you’re not careful,” said Sebastian, “you’re going to get mud on
your boots.”
5