tapestry-draped stone walls and a massive fireplace and a decorated wooden ceiling supported by stone corbels carved into fanciful shapes.
“We’ve heard the dreadful news about Reverend Earnshaw,” she said, gripping his hand tightly for a moment before turning away to order tea. “I do hope you’re here to tell us there’s been some progress in identifying this killer?”
“I’m afraid not.” Adjusting the tails of his riding coat, Sebastian settled on a hard, stiff-backed settee covered in a faded tapestry worked in the style of the previous century. “But I had an interesting encounter this morning with your old nurse.”
The widow sank into a low chair beside a work basket and a stand supporting an embroidery frame. “Bessie Dunlop?” she asked, drawing the frame to her.
“I understand she has something of a reputation as a witch.”
Lady Prescott took up her needle. “Old women living alone in the wood often give rise to such speculation.”
“She does seem uncannily prescient.”
Lady Prescott bent her head to focus her attention on her stitches. “Bessie is unusually observant, and a good student of human nature. That is enough to make her a witch in the eyes of the villagers.”
“She’s fortunate not to have lived in a less enlightened century.”
“As are we all.”
Sebastian studied the widow’s hollow cheeks and downswept lashes. “She is very loyal to you.”
Lady Prescott looked up, her eyes twinkling with unexpected amusement. “In other words, she wouldn’t tell you what you wanted to know.”
Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “No, she wouldn’t.”
The widow tipped her head to one side. “And precisely what is it you wished her to tell you?”
Sebastian met her gaze squarely. “I understand you and Sir Nigel quarreled the night he disappeared.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” She bent over her embroidery again, her equanimity unruffled. “My husband had a violent temper. He quarreled with everyone, about anything and everything. It would have been unusual had we not disagreed that night.”
Sebastian watched the woman’s half-averted, faintly flushed face. He could hardly say to her,
He said, “I understand you rode after him that night.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Jeb Cooper told you that, did he?”
“Is it true?”
“I had Jeb saddle my mare, yes. Nigel was—” she paused as if choosing her words with care “—a very difficult man. I fell into the habit of going for a ride when I was . . . upset.”
“Even at night?”
She touched her left eyelid with her fingertips. Then, as if becoming aware of what she was doing, she curled her hand into a fist and rested it on her lap. “At such times, one has little care for one’s own safety.”
It was a remark that told Sebastian volumes about her marriage. He said, “So you didn’t follow Sir Nigel to London?”
“The last thing I wanted at that moment was to see him again.”
“Do you recall the nature of your disagreement?”
She shook her head. “Sir Nigel had a vicious temper. He could fly into a rage over the simplest of things, from a badly swept chimney to a dinner of fish or veal when he was fancying lamb. One never knew what would set him off.”
Sebastian said, “I’m told Sir Nigel returned from America with a set of papers. Letters written to the Confederation Congress by someone either at Whitehall or in close association with the King. Do you know anything about that?”
She jabbed her needle into her embroidery so violently that she pricked her finger. “Do you mean to say he had evidence of some treason?”
“So it would seem, yes.”
She brought her pricked finger to her lips and sucked on it. It was a childlike gesture, and had the effect of suddenly making her look both younger and more vulnerable. She said, “I know Sir Nigel came home from America preoccupied and surly—unusually so, even for him. But if he had evidence of high treason within the government, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I’m afraid he never discussed his affairs with me. He never even explained completely the purpose of his mission to America.”
“They left for America—when? Late January? Early February?”
Her forehead puckered with thought. “Oh, no, it was sometime in December. I don’t remember the exact date, but I know it was before Christmas.”
Sebastian stared at her. He knew a peculiar tingling sensation, as if every nerve in his body were suddenly, painfully heightened. He could hear the laughter of a housemaid in a distant room, smell the bitter tinge of stale ashes on the hearth. He felt his breath fill his lungs, and had to force himself to exhale.
He was aware of her looking at him strangely. It was an effort for him to speak, to keep his voice even, as if every facet of his life didn’t depend on her answer.
He said, “You’re certain?”
“Why, yes. I’m afraid I don’t recall the exact date, but I do know it was before Christmas. We still follow the old tradition of St. Thomas’s Day here at the Grange, when needy women are allowed to go begging from door to door for Christmas ‘goodenings.’ I remember it distinctly because that was the first year I distributed our charity to the women personally.”
“Did the entire mission sail together?”
The question seemed to puzzle her. “Of course. Why wouldn’t they?”
He pushed to his feet. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
She set aside her embroidery and stood with him. “But surely you’ll stay for tea?”
“What? Oh. No, thank you.”
Somehow, he managed to murmur the requisite polite phrases, to take possession of his hat and riding quip, and call for his horse.
He had only the vaguest memories of mounting the Arab at the worn old block in the corner of the court and setting her on the long road back to London. The wind blew in short, sharp bursts that stung his cheeks with a needlelike spray of rain. He blinked, wiped the water from his eyes, and rode on.
In three months’ time, on the nineteenth of October, Sebastian would celebrate his thirtieth birthday. But if what Lady Prescott had told him were true . . . If the Earl of Hendon had indeed left England for the American Colonies in December of 1781, then Hendon could not possibly be Sebastian’s father.
And his name should not, in truth, be Sebastian St. Cyr.
Chapter 29
A thousand recollections rode with Sebastian through the howling wind and driving rain. Raw memories of a disap proving father whose harshest words had always been reserved for his youngest child, the son so unlike all the others, the son who grew tall and lean when his brothers were built solid and big boned, and whose eyes were a strange amber in place of the vivid St. Cyr blue. The son with the preternatural hearing and vision, the quick reflexes and uncanny ability to see in the dark. The son who by some cruel twist of fate had lived to become Hendon’s heir when both his brothers died.
He remembered snatches of hushed conversations the child he’d once been was never meant to overhear. Voices raised in anger and in pleading. Words that had made no sense, until now.
The white blur of a tollgate loomed out of the mist. Sebastian reined in hard, fists clenching with impatience, the mare’s hooves churning the mud while he waited for the grumbling attendant to lumber from his cottage, head
