What Remains of Heaven

returning to the Grange. I suspect you’ll find Lady Prescott in need of your support.”

Chapter 19

Sebastian was driving up Whitehall, headed toward Bow Street, when he spotted Charles, Lord Jarvis, coming out of the Foreign Office. The rain had eased up for the time being, leaving the gutters running and the pavement glistening with wet beneath heavy gray skies.

Sebastian drew in close to the curb. “I wonder if I might have a word with you, my lord?”

“Only if you’re willing to walk with me,” said Jarvis without breaking his stride.

“Follow along behind us,” Sebastian told his tiger, and jumped down from the curricle’s high seat.

Jarvis continued walking as Sebastian fell into step beside him. The two men shared a tangled history of animosity stretching back nearly two years. Sebastian never made the mistake of underestimating either Lord Jarvis’s intellect and power, or his malevolence.

“I hear you’re making inquiries into the death of Bishop Prescott,” said the big man. “It’s rather undignified, don’t you think? The son of a peer of the realm, continually involving himself in murder investigations like some common Bow Street Runner?”

“As long as I don’t do anything truly sordid, such as accept payment for my activities, the reputation of the house of St. Cyr should survive.”

Jarvis grunted and kept walking.

Sebastian said, “I understand you and the Bishop of London had differences.”

“Differences?” Jarvis threw him a sideways glance. “I should rather think so. You’d be hard-pressed to find a member of the House of Lords who didn’t have ‘differences’ with the Bishop of London—and that includes his fellow ecclesiastics on the Bishops’ Bench. The man was a bloody radical.”

“You mean because of his stand on slavery?”

“I mean because of his stand on everything. He even wrote a poem about peace.” Jarvis spat the word out as if it were an abomination.

“He was a man of God, after all.”

“And this country does God’s work.” Jarvis paused at the curb to let a two-wheeled cart piled high with casks and pulled by a gray mule rattle past. “Although not, of course, in Prescott’s reckoning. ‘Princes are privileged to kill, as if numbers sanctify the crime,’ ” he quoted derisively.

“Prescott was in favor of pursuing peace with the French?”

“With the French, and with the bloody Americans.”

“Despite the fact that he held both nations in considerable contempt?”

Jarvis made a rude sound. “Don’t ask me to make sense of the man’s twisted reasoning.”

Sebastian studied Jarvis’s arrogant, aquiline profile. “I understand you opposed Prescott’s translation to Canterbury.”

“I should rather think so.”

“Because of his opposition to the war, or because of his stand on abolition?”

“What do you think?”

“I think the Bishop of London seems to have accumulated a number of enemies.”

The big man drew up on the footpath outside Carlton House. “That tells you something about a man, does it not?”

His words echoed something Jarvis’s own daughter had said. “I suppose,” said Sebastian. “A lot depends on the nature of that man’s enemies.”

A gleam of amusement touched the other man’s hard gray eyes. “So it does. Good day to you, my lord.”

Sebastian waited until Jarvis was passing through the gate in the screen separating the Mall from the palace courtyard before raising his voice to say, “What about the Bishop’s brother? What manner of man was he?”

Jarvis swung slowly to face him again. “Francis Prescott had four brothers. To which are you referring?”

“The eldest.”

“Sir Nigel?” A quiver of distaste passed over the Baron’s aristocratic features. “Bishop Prescott was a tiresome, meddlesome fool. But Sir Nigel was something far worse. He was, pure and simply, bad ton. I wasn’t the least surprised when someone finally murdered him.”

Sebastian blinked. He himself had good reason to believe Sir Nigel had spent the last thirty years lying facedown in the crypt of St. Margaret’s with a dagger in his back. But that fact was as yet not well-known. He said, “Was Sir Nigel murdered? I was under the impression the man simply . . . disappeared.”

“Of course he was murdered. Do you think men of his ilk simply disappear?”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“I honestly don’t know. But if I did, I’d be inclined to buy the man a drink.” Jarvis paused as the bell towers of the city began to toll the hour, a harmonious jumble of high and low dongs ringing over the rooftops. “Now, good day to you, my lord.”

Sebastian watched the Baron cross the courtyard toward the palace steps.

“Gov’nor?” said Tom, reining in the chestnuts beside him.

Sebastian stood for a moment, frowning after the King’s powerful cousin. Then he leapt into the curricle and turned his horses toward Bow Street.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt about it,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, his features set in serious lines. “Our mysterious eighteenth-century victim is in all likelihood the Bishop’s long-missing brother, Sir Nigel. Lady Prescott identified the blue velvet coat and satin waistcoat as identical to what her husband was wearing when he disappeared. The watch and fob were his, as well.”

The two men had left the Public Office in Bow Street and were pushing through the crowds that thronged the nearby arcades fronting Covent Garden Square. By now the tumult that characterized the early morning market had died down, the heavy wagons of the merchants and traders giving way to the handcarts of the costers and strolling hawkers selling buns and oysters, knives and pocketbooks.

“And the crooked left arm?” asked Sebastian.

“She says he broke it as a boy. At Eton,” added the magistrate, watching a stout, thick-necked woman with a basket balanced on her head stagger past. The air was heavy with the scents of coffee and fresh flowers and drying horse droppings.

“How did Lady Prescott receive the news his body had been found?”

“She wept.”

“What did she tell you of the circumstances surrounding Sir Nigel’s disappearance?”

“As I understand it, the Baronet was last seen on the twenty-fifth of July. He left the estate after an early dinner, intending to pass the evening at one of his clubs. Only he never arrived.”

“His horse was found wandering on Hounslow Heath that night?”

“The next day.”

“Any blood on the saddle or horse?”

“Not that anyone remembers.”

They paused beside a medicinal stall selling everything from leeches and dried herbs to snails for a healing broth. “Yet they attributed the man’s disappearance to highwaymen?” said Sebastian. “Seems a bit of a stretch, does it not? When was the last time you heard of thieves leaving a purebred horse and saddle, and stealing their victim’s dead body?”

“The authorities assumed the horse bolted when Sir Nigel was set upon. Hounslow Heath was particularly notorious in those days.”

“Was there no suspicion at the time that the Baronet might have met with foul play at the hands of some enemy?”

“Oh, yes, there was considerable speculation. I gather Sir Nigel had a rather unsavory reputation.”