at Covent Garden sought to do? Why not take me, force me to hand over the diamond, and then kill me?”
He studied her pale, beautiful face. “I don’t know. Have you managed to learn anything about the agent tasked by Napoléon to recover the French Blue?”
She shook her head. “My friend claims not to have been told. From what he said, I suspect the individual involved is English, although a second person was recently dispatched from Paris to assist him.”
“Him?”
“Or her. My contact did not specify which.”
She fell silent, her gaze drifting back to Yates’s pallid face.
Sebastian reached out to take her hand in his. “I’m so sorry, Kat,” he said. “I know how much Yates had come to mean to you.”
She drew in a deep breath that shuddered her chest. “In the past, I never allowed myself to be frightened. But . . . I’m frightened now.”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “I will always stand your friend, Kat. Always. No matter what happens.”
Her gaze met his. “Will you, Sebastian? And if Jarvis was behind this?”
“I told Jarvis a year ago that if he harms a hair on your head, I’ll kill him. That hasn’t changed.”
“And what will it do to your marriage, do you think, if you kill your wife’s father?”
He said nothing, but there was no need. For they both knew the answer to her question.
Chapter 53
C
harles, Lord Jarvis, was with the Regent in a gaming hell near Portland Place, his bored gaze fixed on a spinning roulette wheel, when Sebastian walked up to him and leaned in close to say, “I understand you made a visit to Cavendish Square this evening.”
Jarvis shifted his gaze to the Prince. “You refer, I take it, to my condolence call on Yates’s devastated young widow?”
“A condolence call? Is that how you would describe it?”
“You would describe it differently?”
Sebastian studied the big man’s full, arrogant face. “A year ago, I warned you that if you made a move to harm Kat Boleyn, I would kill you. Understand this: My marriage to your daughter changes nothing. If I discover that you were behind tonight’s attack, you’re a dead man.”
Jarvis turned to look directly at him, the gray eyes that were so much like his daughter’s narrowed and hard. “Likewise, I presume you understand that your marriage to Hero in no way protects you. You interfere in any way with what I deem necessary for the preservation and prosperity of the realm, and I will eliminate you. Without hesitation or regret.”
The two men’s gazes met, clashed.
Sebastian gave a slow, measured bow and walked away.
Hero returned to Brook Street to find Devlin sprawled in a worn leather armchair beside the library fire, his gaze on the glowing embers, the black cat stretched out on the hearthrug beside him.
He looked up when she paused in the doorway. A nearby brace of candles cast a harsh pattern of light and shadow across his lean features. “Have you seen your father?” he asked.
“No; why? Have you two been at swords and daggers again?”
“Something like that.”
She went to rest one hand on his shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort. “I heard about Yates. I’m sorry; I know you liked him.”
He covered her hand with his own. “He was an interesting man. I’d like to have known him better. And now . . . he’s dead.”
“Kat Boleyn was unharmed in the attack?”
“Yes.”
“Thank goodness for that, at least.” She hesitated. “Surely you don’t think Jarvis had something to do with what happened tonight?”
“Honestly?” His head fell back, his gaze meeting hers. “I don’t know.”
She could feel the anger and determination that twanged through him. And she knew the heartache and deep disquiet of a woman who loved two men—a father and a husband—who hated each other.
She said, her voice quiet but steady, “He’s my father, Devlin. I cherish no illusions as to what manner of man he is. But I still love him dearly.”
“I know.”
“And it doesn’t make any difference, does it?”
“It does. But . . .”
“But not enough.” She moved to scoop up the black cat and cradle him against her for a long, silent moment. Then she looked up. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”
A soft whisper of ash falling on the grate filled the sudden hush in the room.
He said, “Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
Their lovemaking that night had an edge to it, a raw desperation that hadn’t been there before.
Neither spoke again of that day’s events, or of the shadow it had cast between