The clerk sniffed. “I’m afraid I really can’t say.” He started to turn away, a sheaf of papers in his hands.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
The icy menace in Sebastian’s voice brought the clerk to an abrupt halt, his chin sagging in a way that caused his mouth to gape open, his pale blue eyes widening as his gaze met Sebastian’s.
Sebastian said, “Consider your response very carefully.”
“He. . he is not in today. Truly. He was scheduled to visit one of our branches down in Hampshire this morning, and I–I can only assume he went.”
“Where does he live?”
The man swallowed hard enough to bob his Adam’s apple visibly up and down. “I don’t think I should answer that.”
Sebastian gave the young man a smile that showed his teeth. “Actually, I think you should.”
The papers the clerk had been holding slipped from his fingers to flutter to the floor. “Sloane Street. Number sixty-four Sloane Street.”
“The keeper o’ the Hyde Park Turnpike is gonna think we’re up to somethin’ ’avey-cavey,” said Tom as Sebastian turned his horses toward Hans Town for the third time that day.
“Very likely,” agreed Sebastian, guiding his pair around a slow collier’s wagon.
The Austen house lay halfway down Sloane Street, not far from Sloane Square and the narrow, haunted lane that led to Bloody Bridge. One of a long line of terraces built late in the previous century, it had neat, white-framed windows and a shiny front door and was in every respect what one might expect of a prosperous, up-and-coming banker.
The door was opened by a young and rather inexperienced housemaid who confirmed the bank clerk’s information, saying breathlessly, “I’m sorry, me lord, but the master left at the crack o’ dawn, he did.” When Sebastian then asked to see Mr. Austen’s sister instead, the girl grew so flustered she dropped the card he’d handed her.
She retrieved the card with a stammered apology and hurried away, only to return a moment later and escort him up to an elegant octagonal drawing room. The salon was expensively furnished in the latest style, with Egyptian-inspired settees covered in peach- and lime-striped silk, ornately carved gilt mirrors, and an exquisite collection of French porcelains. The only odd note came from a small, rather plain writing desk that rested on a round, inlaid rosewood table positioned before the windows so that it overlooked the garden. At Sebastian’s entrance, the woman seated beside it thrust whatever she’d been working on beneath the desk’s slanted lid so quickly that the corners of some of the pages were left protruding.
“Lord Devlin,” she said, rising from her chair to come forward and greet him.
Like the plain writing desk, Miss Jane Austen looked vaguely out of place in the room, both more comfortable and less ostentatious than her surroundings. Somewhere in her mid- to late thirties, she had an attractive, pixie face framed by short dark hair that curled from beneath a spinster’s crisp white cap. Her cheeks were abnormally ruddy, her dress neat but not particularly fashionable, her dark eyes calm and assessing in a way that told him this was a woman accustomed to observing and analyzing her fellow men.
“I’m sorry my brother isn’t here to meet with you,” she said, “but he left for Alton this morning and isn’t expected back until tomorrow evening.”
“I appreciate your taking the time to speak to me instead,” said Sebastian, settling in the chair she indicated. “I understand your brother was acquainted with Stanley Preston.”
She sank onto the edge of a nearby settee, her hands nestled together in her lap. “Yes. My sister-in-law was great friends with the late Mrs. Preston, you see.”
“She died in childbirth?”
“She did, yes. It was quite tragic. Their daughter, Anne, was only fifteen at the time. It’s a difficult age for a young girl to be without a mother, and my cousin has attempted in the years since to stand in her friend’s stead.”
“Your cousin?”
“I beg your pardon; I should have explained. My sister-in-law, Eliza, is also my cousin. Her mother and my father were sister and brother.”
Sebastian studied Miss Jane Austen’s small, expressive face. It was difficult to think of this quiet, provincial vicar’s daughter as someone whose first cousin had been married to a French count guillotined in the Revolution. He said, “You’ve met Mr. Preston yourself?”
“At various times over the years, yes.”
“What manner of man was he?”
“Mr. Preston?” She reached for a nearby embroidery frame, using the movement, he suspected, to give herself time to consider her response. “I would say his character was very much that of a devout and honest man. In truth, he had many admirable qualities. He was utterly devoted to his children and the memory of his dead wife. He was extraordinarily well-read on a number of subjects, particularly history. And he was responsible and moderate in most things-with one notable exception, of course.”
“You mean, his passion for collecting?”
Her eyes crinkled in quiet amusement. “Yes; that is what I was referring to.”
Sebastian found himself smiling. “Now that you’ve satisfied the proprieties by listing his admirable qualities, perhaps you could tell me some of his less admirable traits.”
She took up her needle. “We all have our imperfections and idiosyncrasies, Lord Devlin. But I hope I am neither so unjust as to fault a man for falling short of perfection, nor so uncharitable as to catalogue his minor failings after his death.”
“Yet if everyone persists in painting Stanley Preston as a saint, I am unlikely to ever discover who killed him.”
She focused her attention on the neat stitches she was laying in her embroidery. “Well. . I suppose you could say he had a tendency to be quarrelsome. He was also proud and socially ambitious. But in that I suspect he was not so different from most other men of his station.”
“A lowering reflection, but sadly true, I fear.”
He saw, again, that answering gleam of amusement in her eyes. She said, “The truth is, he was still a likeable man, for all that. There was no real malice in him.”
Sebastian wondered if the slaves on Preston’s Jamaican plantations would agree with that assessment. But all he said was, “Have you seen his collection of heads?” He could not imagine someone as prosaic and sensible as Miss Jane Austen fainting at such a sight.
“I have, yes. I’ve often pondered why he kept them. At first, I assumed he was driven by philosophical motives-that he derived some sort of salutary lesson from the contemplation of such tangible evidence that even the world’s most powerful men are eventually reduced to nothing but shriveled flesh and bone. But I finally came to realize that he actually collected them for essentially the same reason rustics will travel miles to see a two-headed calf, or pay a sixpence to gawk at a hairy woman displaying herself at a fair.”
“And why is that?”
“So that they may afterward boast of it to their friends-as if they are somehow rendered special by having seen something interesting. In Stanley Preston’s case, it was as if he felt his stature was enhanced by the possession of relics of important figures from the past.”
“He was impressed by wealth and power?”
“I would say there are few in our society who are not. Wouldn’t you?”
“I suspect you are right.” He let his gaze drift, again, around that fashionable, expensively furnished drawing room. “Tell me, does your brother’s opinion of Stanley Preston match your own?”
“Oh, Henry is far more charitable than I when it comes to the foibles and vanities of his fellow men. He really should have been a vicar, you know, rather than a banker.”
“So why did he quarrel with Preston at the Monster last night?”
She jerked ever so slightly, her thread snarling beneath her hands.
He said, “You do know, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.
She rested the embroidery frame on her lap, her hands idle, her gaze meeting his. “It’s a difficult subject to speak of, I’m afraid.”