“How do you reduce such a vital, complex man to just a few words? He was . . . he was the most intensely compassionate, caring man I have ever known.”
“I’ve heard he was an advocate for reform.”
A strange, sad smile hovered about her lips. “I am an advocate for reform. Francis Prescott was that, and so much more. I’ve seen him give his own coat to a woman he found freezing in the street, and stop his carriage to personally take into his arms the filthy, starving child someone had abandoned at the side of the road.”
“He sounds like a veritable saint.”
“A saint?” She thought about it. “No, not a saint. He was a man, like anyone else.”
“So he had faults.”
“We all have faults, my lord Devlin.”
“And what were Bishop Prescott’s faults?”
She looked vaguely troubled. “I suppose he could at times be accused of behaving uncharitably toward those of French or American origins.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Because of those two countries’ revolutions? But . . . I thought Prescott was an advocate of reform?”
“Reform, yes; revolution, no. The violence of the French and American revolutions horrified him. Although I think there was more to it than that. He lost three of his own brothers in the wars of the last century—one fighting the French in Canada, one fighting the French in India, and the third fighting the American rebels.”
“A very martial family, for a bishop.”
She glanced over at him. “It’s what younger sons do, is it not? Take the cloth, or buy a pair of colors.”
Sebastian gave a wry smile. As the youngest of three sons born to the Earl of Hendon, Sebastian himself had been destined for a career in the Army, before the deaths of his two older brothers thrust him into the position of heir. Once he became Viscount Devlin, there’d been no more talk of his making a career of the military. Hendon had been furious—and terrified—when Sebastian went off to spend some six years fighting the French anyway.
He said, “Did you know Prescott was planning to drive out to Tanfield Hill last night, after your meeting with him?”
She shook her head. “He never mentioned it.” They were almost back to where Dr. McCain and Hero’s maid waited patiently beside the doors to the chapel. She slowed and swung to face him. “Now you really must excuse me, my lord. There is nothing more I can tell you.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
She raised one eyebrow in an expression that was disconcertingly evocative of her father. “Does it matter?” she said, and brushed past him, her parasol tilted at just the right angle, her chin held high, her back uncompromisingly straight and rigid.
Chapter 10
Sebastian had no doubt Miss Jarvis was more than capable of tossing the Prince Regent’s well-dressed friend Lord Quillian to the proverbial lions if that was what it took to distract attention from whatever she herself was trying to hide. But on the off chance the middle-aged exquisite might indeed have been involved in the Bishop of London’s untimely demise, Sebastian spent the better part of the afternoon tracking the dandy through the fashionable male shopping precincts of Bond Street, Jermyn Street, and Saville Row.
He finally ran Quillian to ground in the discreet premises of Schweitzer and Davison on Cork Street. A slim man of medium height with lean cheeks, an aquiline nose, and heavily lidded green eyes, Lord Quillian was of the same generation as the Prince. Born a second son, he had come into his inheritance late in his twenties, on the death of his older brother. Like so many of the Prince’s cohorts, the Baron was addicted to games of chance, to free-flowing wine and free-spirited women. But his ruling passion was fashion, the vast majority of his time—as well as much of his considerable fortune—being expended on the arrayment of his person.
When Sebastian came upon him, Quillian was dressed in fawn-colored breeches of the finest doeskin and a flawlessly tailored coat with silver buttons. He had a silver-headed ebony walking stick tucked up under one arm, and was pensively debating with his tailor the rival merits of superfine and Bath coating.
“I hear the Beau swears by the Bath coating,” said Sebastian.
“True,” said Quillian. “But then, Brummell began his career as a Hussar. Once a military man, always a military man.” Glancing sideways, the Baron frowned at Sebastian’s own well-tailored but nonchalant rig. “I daresay you order your coats from Meyer’s on Conduit Street, and always in Bath coating.”
“Frequently, yes.”
“Well, there; you see?” He nodded to the tailor. “Let’s say the superfine, shall we?”
Mr. Schweitzer gave an obsequious bow, and withdrew.
“Walk with me a ways,” said Sebastian, falling into step beside the exquisite as they left the shop.
The aging roue cast a dubious eye at the sun shining brightly from the clear sky. “Well, I can walk with you to the end of the street, I suppose. But then I fear I really must call a chair. I’m frightfully susceptible to the sun, you know; if I’m not careful, I quickly turn as brown as a savage.”
Sebastian blinked at the exquisite’s creamy white complexion. “Just so.” He waited while the dandy paused to inspect the tray of buttons displayed in a nearby shop window, then added, “I assume you’ve heard of the death of the Bishop of London?”
The Baron gave a delicate shudder and moved on. “Who, pray tell, has not? The description in the
“Yet I’ve heard it said you fought two duels yourself, when you were younger.”
Quillian gave a tight smile, the sleepy eyes suddenly looking considerably less lazy. “Surely you don’t mean to conflate what happened to Prescott with a duel conducted under the gentleman’s code? I mean, to have one’s head bashed in is so, well,
“Not to mention fatal.”
“I suppose.” Quillian sniffed. “Although it’s Prescott’s own fault, really. He should have thought of the consequences before.”
“Before . . . what?”
“Why, before he set about putting up the backs of half the men in town, of course.”
“I hear you quarreled rather publicly with the Bishop yourself. Last Saturday, was it not? In Hyde Park,” Sebastian added, when the exquisite continued to stare at him blankly.
“Oh, that.” Quillian waved the incident away with the flap of one slim hand gloved in snowy white kid.
“Yes, that. Over abolition, I assume?”
Quillian sniffed. “The bloody, righteous idiot was trying to push a Slavery Abolition Act through Parliament. If you ask me, even to suggest such a measure in time of war is tantamount to treason. The financial repercussions from that kind of foolishness would be ruinous.”
“For you.”
“For
“I suppose the Bishop believed he labored in the service of a higher power.”
“The man was a fool.”
Sebastian watched the Baron’s hand tighten around the silver head of his walking stick. Sebastian owned a similar piece; the ornate handle unscrewed to reveal a long, slim dagger.
He said, “I’ve heard speculation that someone may have been trying to blackmail Prescott. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Blackmail? Truly?” Quillian’s lips stretched into a thin, tight smile, but his eyes were hard. “Are you suggesting there was something in His Righteousness’s past that could have left the man open to blackmail? How very . . . entertaining. If only one had known of this sooner, one might have made use of it.”
Sebastian studied the exquisite’s carefully powdered face. “You’re saying you don’t know of anything in the Bishop’s past that might have made him vulnerable to blackmail?”
“Blackmail is so . . . sordid. Don’t you agree?”
