by C. S. Harris
“It is forbidden for a man to marry his brother’s widow. Besides . . .” She paused, and had to swallow before continuing. “After what happened to Nigel, there was no question of our continuing to see each other. Francis married a young woman several years later, although as Peter’s uncle, he was able to play an important role in the boy’s life.”
Sebastian nodded. What was it the Chaplain had said? Sir Peter was like a son to him. Aloud, he said, “How did Jack Slade come to know the truth about Sir Peter?”
He saw the flare of fury and fear in her eyes. “That beastly man. He kept following Francis. Watching us. He heard us talking one day, after Peter was born. It was right before he killed his wife. Francis went to visit him at Newgate, to pray with him, and Slade said if Francis didn’t petition the court to have his sentence commuted to transportation, he’d tell everyone my son was a bastard.”
“He might not have been believed.”
The coloring in her cheeks darkened. “There were already whispers in the village. Not about Francis and me, but about Peter. No one knew Sir Nigel had been in America, but they knew he’d been traveling until the middle of July. I’d given out that the child was due to be born in April, but . . . Well, he didn’t look like a seven-months child.”
“Did you know the Bishop gave Slade money, after he came back from Botany Bay?”
The light filtering down through the canopy of oaks cast dappled shadows across the planes of her face. She said, “I knew. He did it for Peter. But it troubled him. I think he told Slade he wasn’t going to pay anymore, and threatened Slade that if he tried to do anything about it, he’d have him prosecuted for blackmail. That’s why Jack Slade killed him.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Sebastian.
She lifted her blue eyes to his face, and he saw there a mother’s deepening fear. “Then who did?”
Rather than answer her, Sebastian said, “Did Francis Prescott know about your father’s letters?”
“I told him about them that night. But he never saw them.”
“So what happened to them?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always assumed Sir Nigel had them on him when he died.”
“You didn’t look for them?”
“No. I was . . . I was in such a state. And with the crypt bricked up, what did it matter?”
The mare raised its head, eyes blinking as it swung to nuzzle its mistress. Lady Prescott stroked the horse’s velvet nose. “After Sir Nigel’s death, I went to my father and told him I knew what he’d been doing, and that if he didn’t leave London I would take the Alcibiades letters to the King. He didn’t know I no longer had them. He left for Derbyshire the next day. We have never spoken to each other since.”
“He’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
Along the millstream, a mist had begun to form. Sebastian could feel a new chill in the air, smell the tang of wood smoke on the breeze. Lady Prescott gathered her horse’s reins and prepared to mount.
“The funeral is the day after tomorrow,” she said. “The Church wanted Francis interred at St. Paul’s, but Peter thought it only right that he be buried here, in the crypt. He and Sir Nigel both. And then it will be sealed again. Forever, this time.”
Sebastian gave her a leg up, watched her settle the velvet train of her riding habit about her.
“Why did you tell me this?” he said.
“I think you know why,” she said, and set her heel to her horse’s side.
He watched her clatter away, her body bending low over the horse’s withers as she wove beneath the oaks, the short veil of her shakolike hat fluttering in the breeze.
Then he turned toward the Dog and Duck.
Chapter 41
“Do you believe her?” asked Gibson.
Sebastian sat sprawled in one of the cracked old leather armchairs in Gibson’s parlor. He had a brandy cradled in his one usable hand and was watching Gibson stuff a haversack with notebooks, pencils, measuring tapes, and all manner of other paraphernalia.
“I’m not certain,” said Sebastian, taking a long drink of his brandy.
“It fits with the wounds on Sir Nigel’s body. Two shallow stab wounds, badly placed. And a third that slid home.”
“True,” said Sebastian. “But she could actually have crept up behind him in the crypt and stabbed him in the back.”
“From all that we’ve heard, I’m not sure I’d blame her if she did.” Gibson glanced over at him. “Are you going to tell the authorities?”
Sebastian took another swallow of brandy. “No.” He watched Gibson add candles to his rucksack and said, “What the devil are you preparing for?”
Gibson reached for a tinderbox. “Sir Henry tells me they’ll be sealing up the crypt of St. Margaret’s again after the funeral. I mentioned I’d be interested in taking a wee look around, and he said he’d square it with the proper authorities. I’ll be heading out there first thing in the morning. I hear some of those bodies date back to before the Conquest, and I’ll not be having much time to study them all.”
“To study them for what?”
“Comparative purposes.”
Sebastian set his teeth against a new wave of pain rolling up from his arm and took another drink.
Watching him, Gibson said, “Hurting, is it? Aren’t you glad you let Tom drive out to Tanfield Hill today? If you had any sense, you’d be in bed.”
Sebastian grunted and took another sip of brandy.
Gibson said, “She didn’t need to tell you anything. Why tell you a lie?”
It was a moment before Sebastian realized Gibson was still talking about Lady Prescott. He said, “She may think she’s protecting her son.”
“She thinks Sir Peter killed the Bishop? But . . . why? Granted, he may have been a wee bit annoyed with the man for lying to him for the past thirty years. But you don’t kill a man for just that.”
“Actually, Sir Peter had the same reason to kill Francis Prescott as his mother had to kill Sir Nigel.”
Gibson cinched the top of his haversack and looked over at Sebastian with a frown. “He did? What reason?”
“His grandfather’s letters.”
“But…surely Sir Peter would have no reason to fear the Bishop might betray him now? At this late date?”
“I don’t know. From what we’ve heard, the Bishop’s passions ran pretty strong when it came to the American Revolution. And if they quarreled?” Sebastian drained his glass in one long pull and pushed to his feet. “Who’s to say what might have happened?”
That night, Sebastian dreamt of bloodstained winding sheets, of ancient, splintered coffins and gleaming skulls. The voices of men long dead whispered to him, their hushed words mingling with the moan of the wind that thrashed the naked branches of dark trees silhouetted against a starless sky.
A row of coffins stood in a misty glen. His throat tight, his footsteps echoing in the stillness, Sebastian approached the open caskets.
In the first lay Sebastian’s tiger, Tom, his eyes closed, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose standing out stark against his pallid skin. With dawning horror, Sebastian realized the next casket held Paul Gibson, his hands folded over a rosary at his chest. Beyond him lay a woman, her face hidden by the lace frill of the coffin’s satin lining. As Sebastian took a step toward her, he heard the crack of a rifle and awoke with a start, heart pounding, mouth dry.
It was a long time before he slept again.
THURSDAY, 16 JULY 1812
Early the next morning, Hero Jarvis climbed the stairs to the old nursery at the top of the house, where she and her brother, David, had passed so many happy hours of their childhood.
The low, narrow beds were draped in Holland covers, the hobbyhorses, tin soldiers, and drums battered and coated in dust. She ran her fingertips across the well-worn surface of the old schoolroom table and found the place where she and David had once carved their names when their governess wasn’t looking. She smiled at the memory. Then the smile f
aded, leaving an ache of want.
She went to stand beside the grimy, cobweb-draped window overlooking the square. As a little girl, she had whiled away many a rainy afternoon curled up here on the window seat, lost between the pages of a book. Her favorites were always tales of adventure and travel. In her imagination, she had followed the Silk Road with Marco Polo, sailed the South Seas with Captain Cook, crossed the desert highlands of Anatolia with Xenophan. Someday, she used to tell herself. Someday, when I am grown, I will hear the warm winds of Arabia whispering in the date palms, watch the rising sun glisten on the snow-covered slopes of the Hindu Kush.
It had never happened. Lately she’d been thinking that once the child was born, she would have to go away. She could not imagine giving up her child and then simply going on with her life as before, as if none of it had ever happened. And then it occurred to her: Why not go away now? Why not bear the child in some distant land and keep it?
She knew a pounding rush of excitement. She could return to England in a few years and simply present the child as an orphan she’d adopted in the course of her travels.
Why not?
That morning, Sebastian revolted his tiger by once again summoning a hackney carriage.
“Ye don’t like the way I ’andled the chestnuts on the way to Tanfield ’Ill?” said the boy, his street urchin’s face pinched tight with suppressed emotion.
“It’s not that,” said Sebastian. “It’s—” He broke off, unwilling to vocalize the faint wisps of unease left by the previous night’s dreams. He slipped his dagger into its sheath in his Hessians and said simply, “I know how much yesterday’s drive hurt my arm, and I know it must have pained you as well. I want you to rest another day. That’s all.”
The boy’s face cleared a little, but he still looked mulish. “My shoulder’s fine.”
“It’ll be even better after another day’s rest. Now go find me a hackney.”
Sir Peter kept his opera dancer in Camden Town, in a small house just off Brompton Road. It was a respectable if unfashionable street of tidy houses with shiny, freshly painted doors and window boxes spilling pelargoniums and heartsease against carefully pointed redbrick walls.
Sebastian’s knock was answered by a flat-chested, sharp chinned lass of perhaps thirteen who wore a starched white cap and a startled expression. This was obviously a household that received few visitors. “Gor,” she whispered, expelling her breath in wonder.
“Amy,” called a woman’s voice from inside the house. “Is that the—Oh.”
Sir Peter’s opera dancer appeared behind her young maid, one tiny hand flying up to her lips in consternation when she saw Sebastian. She had thick, dark ringlets and twinkling eyes and a Devonshire-cream complexion that must have made her the darling of the opera once. Now, from the looks of the bulge beneath the high waist of her simple sprigged muslin gown, she was at least six months heavy with child.
“I beg your pardon for the intrusion, madam,” said Sebastian, removing his hat. “I was looking for Sir Peter.”
“He’s taken Francis down to Whitehall, to watch the Changing of the Guard.”
“Francis?”
“Our son.” She smoothed her left hand over her swelling stomach in a self-conscious gesture, and Sebastian saw the morning sun glimmer on the gold of the simple band on her third finger.
“She’s not my mistress,” said Sir Peter. “She’s my wife. She has been for nearly four years now, since before Francis was born.”
They stood together at the edge of the Horse Guards parade, where a flaxen-haired lad of about three clambered over the barrel of a Turkish cannon captured a decade earlier in Egypt. “She’s lovely,” said Sebastian.
A soft smile lit the other man’s features as he watched his son. It faded slowly. “Her lineage is respectable. Her father was a physician. But when he died, the family was left penniless. She came to London looking for work.” He paused. “You know how that goes.”
Sebastian stared off across the parade, toward the Hyde Park Barracks. A warm sun bathed the park in a golden light, but he could see the threat of dark clouds building again on the horizon.
“Of course,” Sir Peter was saying, “her birth makes no difference now. Not after she’s trod the boards. What kind of a man marries his mistress?”
“The kind of man with the courage to follow his heart,” suggested Sebastian.
“Courage?” Sir Peter gave a harsh laugh. “If I had courage, Arabella would be living openly with me as my wife at the Grange, rather than being hidden away in Camden Town.”
They could see the new guard now, dark horses advancing in majestic solemnity, sun shining on the red-coated men’s helmets and white plumes. “The Bishop knew of your marriage, did he?” said Sebastian. “Is that why you quarreled?”
Prescott narrowed his eyes against the sun. “Initially, yes.”
The little boy, Francis, slid off the cannon and ran toward them. “They’re coming, Papa!”
Sebastian said, “I know Jack Slade paid you a visit last Monday night, and I know why.”
Sir Peter kept his face half turned away, his gaze on the approaching Life Guards, their dark mounts moving in flawless precision. “It’s no easy thing discovering that your entire life has been a lie.”
Sebastian stared off across the field and said nothing.
After a moment, Prescott continued. “Slade wanted me to give him money. Two thousand pounds.”
“Did you oblige him?”
“I told him I needed time to gather such a sum.”
“Would you have given it to him?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced sideways at Sebastian. “I hear you killed him. I must say, I’m glad.”
Sebastian watched the royal standard snap in the breeze. “He had no proof of anything. Only his word.”
Prescott huffed a soft, humorless laugh. “That, and the fact that my uncle had been paying to keep him silent for years.”
Sebastian watched the trumpeter lift his instrument for the royal salute. “You told me you were here, in Camden Town, the night Francis Prescott died. But that’s not true. You rode out to Tanfield Hill that evening to see Bessie Dunlop.”
Prescott turned to face him. “What the devil are you suggesting, Devlin? That I saw the Bishop in St. Margaret’s churchyard when I was riding through the village and decided to follow him down into the crypt and bash in his brains? What the bloody hell would I do that for? Because he cuckolded my mother’s husband? Because he didn’t like my own marriage?”
“Ever hear of the Alcibiades letters?”
“No.”
Sebastian studied his old schoolmate’s flushed, angry face, the soft blue eyes and disheveled fair curls that fell across his brow. If it was an act, it was a good one.
The notes of the salute drifted across the parade. “Toot-toot,” said Master Francis, marching in place, hand raised as he blew into an imaginary trumpet.
Sebastian watched the sun glint on the boy’s flaxen curls and finely featured face. “Your son looks amazingly like you,” he said. “And your mother.” For a moment, the shrill notes of the trumpet and the shouts of the small crowd faded. He was thinking of another man with fair curls and soft blue eyes and the delicate bone structure of a scholar.
Or a priest.
As if from a long way off, he heard Sir Peter say, “The Ash leys always breed true.”
Sebastian swung to face him. “Ashley is your mother’s family name?”
Sir Peter’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Yes. Why?”
“And Dr. Simon Ashley—the Bishop’s chaplain—is what? Your mother’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian.
“Why didn’t Uncle Simon come with us to watch the Changing of the Guard?” demanded Master Francis, following the drift of their conversation in that disconcerting way of children.
“He had someplace else he was supposed to be,” said Sir Peter.
S
ebastian knew a sudden chill. “You saw him today?”
“It was rather curious, actually. He said he’d heard tales of the Prescott brothers playing in the crypt of St. Margaret’s as children, and he wanted to know if Uncle Francis ever told me the secret hiding place they’d had there.”
“Had he?”
Sir Peter nodded. “There’s supposed to be a small altar niche in the western wall of the crypt. One of the stones at the base of the niche is loose.”
“When was this?”
“That we saw him? Shortly before Francis and I left the house. Perhaps half an hour ago. Why?”
Sebastian thought about Paul Gibson, shoving notebooks and candles into a haversack last night in gleeful anticipation of a day to be spent inspecting and analyzing the moldering remains of centuries of his fellow men. An ambitious churchman who had already killed twice in his attempt to secure the evidence of his father’s treason would not hesitate to kill a one-legged Irish surgeon with an abiding fascination with the human body.
“Papa!” said Master Francis, tugging at his father’s coattails. “Do you see—” The boy let out a whoop as Sebastian scooped him up and took off at a run across the parade grounds.
“Quickly,” he shouted over his shoulder to Sir Peter. “I need to borrow your horse.”
Prescott struggled to keep up with him. “But I don’t understand—”
“I don’t have time to go back to Brook Street. And I’ll need you to take a note to Bow Street. It is very important that you deliver it personally into the hands of Sir Henry Lovejoy. Can you do that?”
“Yes, but—Hell and the devil confound it, Devlin! What the devil is going on?”
“Simon Ashley murdered your father. Your real father. And if I don’t make it out to Tanfield Hill in time, he could very well kill a friend of mine. Paul Gibson.”
Chapter 42
Sebastian spurred Sir Peter’s neat chestnut gelding hard, his left hand sweaty on the reins, his injured right arm hugged in tight to his body. A stiff wind scurried the growing banks of clouds overhead, hiding the sun and thrashing the limbs of the oaks and elms that shadowed the road to Tanfield Hill. By the time he reached Hounslow Heath, the pain in his sliced arm was a searing, white-hot agony that kept his breathing quick and shallow and dulled his thoughts. He pushed on.