“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.
The first drops of rain began to fall as he clattered over the millstream’s bridge and spurred the gelding up the hill. Rain streaked the quiet tombstones with splashes of wet and pattered softly in the long grass of the churchyard. Reining in beneath the ancient bell tower, Sebastian slipped from the saddle, one hand coming up to cup the gelding’s nose when it would have whickered softly. The churchyard was deserted. If either Gibson or Simon Ashley were here, they had stabled their horses at the Dog and Duck before descending into the crypt.
Cradling his aching arm close to his body, Sebastian worked his way around the church. At the gaping entrance to the crypt’s stair vault, he slowed, alert to any sound of movement. Someone had torn away the weathered boards from the broken opening and thrown them aside. He could see the narrow, steep steps plunging down into a dark void faintly lit as if by a distant flickering flame.
Chill, dank air wafted up from below, bringing him the smell of old, old earth and death. Painfully conscious of the soft crunch of debris beneath the soles of his boots, Sebastian crept down the worn stairs. His feet found the last step, then the sunken, uneven paving of the crypt’s floor. Flattening his back against the coursed, rough stones of the wall, he drew in a deep, steadying breath.
The flame of a single candle glowed at the far western end of the crypt, sending the long, distorted shadow of a man stretching out across the worn paving and rows of crude columns. Then the shadow moved, and Sebastian saw Simon Ashley, the hem of his black cassock brushing the dusty floor. He had his back turned, his shoulders working as he used an iron bar to pry up the stones at the base of a crude niche in the back wall.
Gibson was nowhere to be seen.
Sebastian reached down with his left hand to slip the dagger from his boot. Moving cautiously, he crept past shadowy bays stuffed with dusty, cobweb-draped caskets stacked five and six high, some banded with iron in an attempt to foil grave robbers, others pitifully small and painted white, as denoted a child. As his eyes adjusted to the sepulchral gloom, more details began to emerge: the ruched frill of a coffin lining peeking through split wood, its lace edging threaded with tattered ribbon; a casket handle shaped like a cherub; the tarnished brass of a lozenge-shaped end plate that read, Mary Alice Mills, died 1725, aged 16 years . . .
The toe of his boot bumped against something lumpy and yielding. Looking down, Sebastian saw Gibson’s haversack, a jumble of notebooks and tape measures and calipers spilling across the worn paving stones.
Paul Gibson lay just beyond it, sprawled facedown at the base of a towering wall of ancient coffins warped and crushed by the weight of the ages. Crouching beside him, Sebastian pressed his fingertips to his friend’s neck. Gibson’s pulse was faint, but there. At Sebastian’s touch, he let out a soft moan.
The Chaplain jerked around, his fist clenched on a yellowing packet of letters, his eyes widening at the sight of Sebastian. “Devlin. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet, the dagger held low at his side. “Give it up, Ashley,” he said evenly. “A Bow Street magistrate and half a dozen runners are already on their way here.”
The Chaplain shook his head, the flickering light from the candle he’d wedged atop a nearby casket dancing over his pale face and the stark white of his ecclesiastical collar. He slipped the letters inside his coat and wrapped both fists around the iron bar. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that.”
Sebastian was hideously aware of his right arm hanging useless in its sling, of Gibson lying unconscious beside him, of the time it must have taken Sir Peter to find Lovejoy. How long, he wondered, would it take Lovejoy and his constables to make the journey out to Tanfield Hill? An hour? More?
Too long.
He said, “I know about your father and the Alcibiades letters. What I don’t understand is how you came to hear of them. You must have been a child at the time this all happened.”
“Rosamond told me. Years ago, when I was taking her to task for never visiting Father. She said Sir Nigel had the letters on him when he died. So when I heard the crypt had been opened and his body found, I thought I needed to act quickly, before the letters could be brought to light.”
“So Prescott did tell you about the crypt.”
Ashley nodded. “Right after Earnshaw left. I thought I had more than enough time to get here, retrieve the letters, and be gone long before the Bishop arrived. But my horse picked up a stone in its shoe and went lame. By the time I came down the steps, he was already crouched over his brother’s body. He had some papers in his hands. I assumed they were the Alcibiades letters. I’d picked up an iron bar the workmen had left at the top of the steps, and when he turned, I just . . . hit him. I didn’t want to kill him. I swear I didn’t. But I had to get those letters.” The Chaplain’s jaw sagged, and he swallowed. “Only, it wasn’t the letters. Just some old estate papers.”
“But . . . Francis Prescott was your friend; your sister was once married to his brother. You don’t think he would have kept quiet about your father’s treason? For Lady Prescott’s sake, if not yours?”
Ashley frowned. “For Rosamond’s sake? Why would he?” Sebastian studied the other man’s puzzled features. Lady Prescott might have told her priestly little brother about their father’s treason, but she’d obviously kept quiet about her own infidelity.
Ashley said, “You think I should have taken that chance? Risked seeing my father tried and hanged for treason?”
“Rather than kill a man? Yes.”
Ashley’s lips twisted. “My father’s life depended on my acting quickly. His life, and my future. It’s easy for you to stand there, secure in your position as your father’s heir, and judge me. You have no idea what it’s like to be a younger son, to have to make your own way in the world. No idea. These letters would destroy any chance I ever had for advancement in the Church. Believe me, sons of traitors don’t rise very far in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.”