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 faded, 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?