What Remains of Heaven

beginning.

There, indeed, was the visit from Lord Quillian, just as she had suspected, on the afternoon of the Monday before the Bishop’s death. “Ha. You see?” she said aloud, as if Devlin himself were actually in the room with her. Then she frowned as she studied several other curious names on the schedule.

She might be nine-tenths convinced of Quillian’s guilt in the Bishop’s murder, but Hero liked to consider herself an open-minded person, which meant she had to remain receptive to other possibilities.

Pushing up from her window seat, she went in search of paper and pen. At the top of the page, she wrote, Lord Quillian, and below that, William Franklin. For a moment, she reconsidered and started to cross out his name, for the man was aged and infirm. But she reasoned that it did not require excessive strength or agility to hit someone over the head with an iron bar, so she left the American’s name in place.

She glanced through the Bishop’s schedule again, but came up with only one other interesting item: Sir Peter Prescott. Why, she wondered, would Sir Peter make an appointment to see his own uncle? She wrote his name on the list, then circled it in frustration.

One of the more tedious aspects of being an unmarried female was the extent to which it circumscribed her movements and activities. Having recently suffered a bereavement, Sir Peter was unlikely to attend any social functions. And try as she would, Hero could not come up with a sufficiently plausible excuse to visit him.

Decorum could, at times, be exceedingly aggravating.

That night, Sebastian made a rare appearance at his aunt Henrietta’s rout.

One of London’s most sought-after hostesses, the Duchess of Claiborne never failed to send her nephew an invitation to each of her many functions. Recognizing the summonses for what they were—thinly veiled attempts to introduce him to an endless line of suitable young debutantes—Sebastian invariably but politely refused.

As a result, the sight of her disreputable but still highly eligible nephew actually appearing in her drawing rooms that evening was such a shock that Henrietta staggered slightly, one hand groping for the quizzing glass that hung from a riband around her neck. “Good heavens,” she said. “It is you, Devlin. Don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to live up to the expectations of your house and look about you for a wife?”

“No,” he said baldly, cupping her elbow to steer her toward a small withdrawing room. “I want to hear what you can tell me about the Prescotts.”

“Ssshh,” she whispered, shutting the door behind them with a snap. “I don’t want Lady Christine to overhear.”

“Who?”

“The Earl of Lumley’s daughter. She really is lovely, Sebastian. But while I can assure you she is quite one of your admirers, it might be better if she didn’t hear that you’ve once again involved yourself in murder—”

“I didn’t involve myself in this murder; you did.”

“Nevertheless, I’m afraid her sensibilities are such that—”

“Aunt,” he said sternly. “I am not here to be enchanted by your latest ingenue, however lovely she may be. I’m here because I want to know what you can tell me about Sir Nigel Prescott.”

“Sir Nigel Prescott? Why on earth would you want to know—” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Good heavens. Is he the decades-old body in the crypt?”

“In all likelihood, yes.”

She sat down on a nearby swan-shaped pink silk settee with an inelegant thump. “Good heavens,” she said again.

“You knew him, I presume?”

“Of course I knew him.” The Duchess of Claiborne not only knew everyone—she knew all their dirty little secrets, too. And she remembered them forever. “A most disagreeable man,” she said with a tut- tut. “Very bad ton. Nothing at all like his brother.”

“Sir Nigel was the eldest?”

She nodded. “Yes. Of five brothers. He inherited the title while still up at Oxford. He was always a big man— tall, like the Bishop, but much bigger boned, and fleshy. He married a lovely woman by the name of Mary Mayfield, and made the poor dear miserable. She hadn’t been dead of consumption a year when he married again—to Lady Rosamond, the second daughter of the Marquess of Ripon.”

“When was this?” said Sebastian.

She frowned. “ ’Seventy-six? ’Seventy-seven? Something like that.”

“Sir Peter was his only son?”

She nodded. “There were no children at all from the first marriage. He was wed to Lady Rosamond for some five or six years before Sir Peter was born—and he was a posthumous child, born after his father disappeared.”

Sebastian pulled forward a chair with gilded crocodile-shaped legs and sat down opposite her. “You say Sir Nigel was a disagreeable man. In what way?”

“He had a vicious temper. And a nasty reputation.” She dropped her voice, even though they were alone and no one could hear. “Hellfire Club, you know.”

Interesting, thought Sebastian; Squire Pyle had also mentioned the Hellfire Club. A notorious secret society of the previous century, the Hellfire Club had been dedicated to black magic, orgies, and political conspiracies. Meeting in the ruins of an ancient abbey, the “monks” specialized in defiling virgins, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and incest. At one time, its powerful members included the Prime Minister of England, the Lord Mayor of London, the Prince of Wales . . . and a certain home-spun American named Benjamin Franklin.

The Duchess kept her voice low. “When he disappeared the way he did, it was assumed the club was somehow involved—an ungodly ritual gone awry, perhaps, or some poor young girl’s family seeking their own revenge. There’d been other mysterious deaths and disappearances linked to that crowd—although mostly of young girls from the nearby villages.” She paused to give him a significant look. “And a few young boys.”

“What did you think happened to him at the time?”

“Me?” Henrietta sat back, her fierce blue St. Cyr eyes narrowing. She was a shrewd woman, able to see clearly through all the pretenses and flummery of her society. “Personally, I thought it more than likely that someone quietly slit his throat and dumped the body down an old well or some such thing. I told you: He was a disagreeable man. I don’t think anyone was sorry to see him gone—least of all his wife.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Lady Prescott? There’s not much to tell, really. She married Prescott at the end of her first season. There was talk of another suitor, but he was said to be a second son with no prospects. Her father, Ripon, was always badly dipped in those days. Gambling, you know. Most of the members of the Hellfire Club drifted pretty far into dun territory.”

“Ripon and Prescott were both in the Hellfire Club?”

“So I’m told. All I know is that when Prescott offered for Lady Rosamond’s hand, Ripon accepted.”

“Sold to the highest bidder, was she?”

“Essentially. Ripon had half a dozen sons to see established in careers; he couldn’t afford to let Lady Rosamond be picky. Particularly as there were rumors that Ripon had dragged her back from the border when she and her unsuitable suitor made a bolt for Gretna Green.”

“Really? Who was this unsuitable suitor?”

“I’m not quite sure. It was all kept very hush-hush.”

“It must have been, if you didn’t hear about it,” said Sebastian with a smile. “What can you tell me about Lady Rosamond’s marriage to Sir Nigel?”

“I don’t think she was ever very happy, poor dear. She went from being a rather vivacious, carefree woman to something quite squashed. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. After Sir Nigel disappeared, she essentially withdrew from society. He was eventually declared dead after the requisite number of years so that his son could inherit the title and estate, but she never remarried. If there’s been any scandal attached to her name since that time, I’ve never heard of it.”

Sebastian nodded. If the Duchess of Claiborne hadn’t heard of any scandal, then there hadn’t been any scandal. He said, “What about the Bishop? How well did you know him?”

Henrietta let out her breath in a long, troubled sigh. “He was a great favorite of the Archbishop’s.”