When Gods Die

“Well, let me see…. ’’ His aunt went to settle herself in a comfortable chair beside the empty hearth. “She was wellborn on her father’s side. He was the Earl of Athelstone, you know. A LeCornu. The family goes back to the Conqueror.”

Sebastian smiled. Bright, caustic, and irrepressibly inquisitive, Aunt Henrietta was one of the grandes dames of society. She might have been in mourning for two years, but nothing short of her own death would interfere with her ability to keep abreast of the latest on-dits. “And her mother?”

Aunt Henrietta frowned. “I don’t know much about her. She was the Earl’s second wife, I believe. Or was it his third? At any rate, she didn’t survive long enough for him to bring her to London.”

“Good God. How many wives did he have?”

“Five. The man was a regular bluebeard. The first four all died in childbirth. Gave him nothing but girls, too, which is why, I suppose, he kept at it. Managed it in the end, though. The new Earl’s about ten, I believe.”

Sebastian thought about the vibrant, brilliant young woman he had met at Hendon’s dinner table. What must it have been like for her, he wondered, growing up with a succession of stepmothers and a father desperate for a son?

“Lady Guinevere came out the same year as Emily’s eldest, you know,” his aunt was saying. At the mention of her daughter Emily, Aunt Henrietta’s lips pursed into a frown. As far as Aunt Henrietta was concerned, Emily had not married well, an act of folly for which her mother had never forgiven her.

“She was quite the sensation of the Season—I mean Lady Guinevere, of course, not Emily’s eldest. I’m afraid that poor child takes after Emily far too much to ever have had much of a chance of going off well, even if she had been well dowered, which, of course, she was not. But Guinevere! She was quite the toast of the town. Not much of a fortune there, either, I must admit, but the girl was a regular diamond of the first water, with plenty of spirit. A bit too willful, perhaps, for some, but then I’m not one who’s partial to these mealymouthed misses one encounters far too often these days.”

“Any scandal attached to her name?”

“None that I ever heard of.”

“None? A beautiful, vivacious twenty-one-year-old woman, married to an unwell, sixty-seven-year-old man? No whispers of a young lover?”

The very suggestion seemed to affront his aunt. “I should think not. Headstrong and unorthodox Lady Guinevere might have been, but she was no shameless hussy, however I hear things looked on Wednesday last in the Pavilion. She knew what was expected of a woman of her station, and it’s a shabby creature indeed who indulges in that sort of thing before she has managed to present her lord with an heir.”

Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. “You say she has sisters?”

“Two who survived, each from different mothers. The youngest must still be in the schoolroom in Wales. But you may know the eldest, Morgana. She was never the beauty Guinevere was, I’m afraid, and she has the disposition of a Rottweiler. It’s amazing she managed to marry at all, let alone do it as well as she did.”

Sebastian smiled. “Who’d she catch?”

“Lord Quinlan. Of course, he’s a mere baron as opposed to a marquis, and his fortune can’t begin to compare to Anglessey’s, but still. Until Guinevere married so splendidly, Morgana was considered to have done quite well for herself. Athelstone’s estates were never particularly extensive, and he didn’t manage them as well as he might have. Neither of the girls had much in the way of a dowry. I believe Athelstone settled everything he could on the boy.”

Again, her words hinted at a less-than-idyllic childhood. What kind of animosities must have brewed in the schoolroom of that death-haunted estate on the coast of Wales, Sebastian wondered; three girls from three different mothers, the eldest plain and ill natured, the middle one beautiful and appealing? He suddenly wanted very much to hear what Morgana might have to say about her sister.

“Where would I be likely to find her tomorrow?” he asked. “Lady Quinlan, I mean.”

Aunt Henrietta drew her chin back against her fleshy neck in a way that made her look more like Hendon than ever. “Well, let’s see. Morgana considers herself something of a bluestocking—she’s forever attending lectures at the Royal Academy and prosing on about electrical currents and steam engines and such nonsense. I should think she’d be likely to attend this balloon ascension we’ve been hearing so much about.”

“Balloon ascension? Where?”

“Good heavens, as if I would know.” Draining her wine, she set the glass aside and pushed to her feet. “Now you must be off. I’ve a party to attend.”