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eyebrow. “Is that what you believe?”
    Portland expelled a harsh breath and shook his head. “No.”
    They walked along in silence for a moment, Portland worrying his lower lip with his teeth. At last he said, “I feel somehow as if this were all my fault.”
    “How is that?”
    “If I hadn’t given the Prince that note—”
    Sebastian swung to face him. “ You gave the Prince the note from Lady Anglessey?”
    “Yes. Although, of course, I’d no notion who she was. She was veiled.”
    “When was this?”
    “Shortly after the Prince’s chamber orchestra began playing last night. I was approached by a veiled young woman who handed me a sealed missive and asked that I pass it on to the Prince.” Portland hesitated, his fair skin coloring. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve been approached in such a way.”
    Sebastian kept his thoughts to himself. Over the years, the Prince’s paramours had ranged from common opera dancers and actresses such as Mrs. Fitzherbert to some of the grandest dames of the ton—Lady Jersey and Lady Hertford among them. It wasn’t uncommon for those close to the Prince to find themselves thrust into the role of procurer.
    “I actually know Guinevere Anglessey rather well,” Portland was saying. “She is—was—a childhood friend of my wife, Claire. It never occurred to me that’s who I was dealing with.”
    “You weren’t.”
    Sebastian watched the man’s light gray eyes widen, watched the first shock give way to some other emotion, something that looked oddly like fear. “I beg your pardon?”
    “By the time the Regent’s chamber orchestra began playing last night, Lady Anglessey had already been dead perhaps as much as six to eight hours.”
    Portland stopped short. “ What? But…that’s impossible.”
    “The human body undergoes certain predictable changes after death. Temperature and the manner of one’s dying can accelerate or retard the process, but not by that much. I’m afraid there’s no mistake.”
    “But I tell you, I saw her . She gave me the note.”
    “You saw a woman, veiled. Do you remember how she was dressed?”
    Portland stood very still, as if drawing into himself with the effort of memory. But in the end he simply shook his head. “No. I’m not certain of anything anymore. I mean, I’d have said she wore a green satin gown like Lady Anglessey. But if what you say is true, then that’s not possible, is it?”
    “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
    The Home Secretary shook his head again, his features pinched with confusion. “I don’t understand. Who could she have been?”
    “I don’t know yet,” said Sebastian, his gaze lifting to the gulls wheeling above the Strand. “But whoever she was, she was obviously involved in Lady Anglessey’s murder.”
     
     
     
    S EBASTIAN SENT A FOOTMAN RUNNING FOR HIS CURRICLE, then stood on the Pavilion’s gravel sweep and watched as his tiger, Tom, brought Sebastian’s matched pair of blood chestnuts to a stand.
    It wasn’t a practice that particularly appealed to Sebastian, this current fashion among the sporting gentlemen of the ton for entrusting prime horseflesh to young boys decked out in the yellow-and-black-striped waistcoats that had earned them the nickname tigers. But Tom had taken to his new profession with an innate talent that had caught Sebastian by surprise. Plus Tom had other talents not normally encountered in a gentleman’s tiger, talents Sebastian had at times found particularly useful.
    A dark-haired, sharp-faced lad of twelve, Tom looked even younger, his slight frame still wiry and small despite the new bloom of health in his cheeks. Up until four months ago he’d been one of the thousands of nameless urchins scratching out a precarious living on the streets of London, a pickpocket with a murky past and a secret passion for horses. His loyalty to Sebastian now was fierce.
    Aware of Sebastian’s gaze upon him, the boy drew up with a neat flourish. “They’re feeling their oats