He could be lying, of course, but I doubt it. Such a lie would be too easily disproved.”
“He was there,” she said, taking a dainty sip of her tea. “But he didn’t arrive until shortly after ten.”
Sebastian reached for his own cup. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. My father was also with the Prince that night, and my father is very observant.”
When Sebastian said nothing, her eyes narrowed. “Good heavens. Surely you don’t suspect my
“Personally? No. Lord Jarvis never does his own dirty work.”
“He also favors the subtle over the flamboyant. If someone had slipped arsenic into the Bishop’s wine, you might with reason suspect him. But to set someone to bash in the Bishop’s head in a crypt full of moldering bodies? I don’t think so.”
Sebastian raised his tea to his lips and took a deep swallow. “He might have been less than wise in his choice of agents.”
“My father is never less than wise.”
“We are all less than wise at times,” he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing her color.
He went to lean one arm along the marble mantel of the fireplace. “You are aware,” he said, “that the decades-old murder victim discovered in the crypt the day of Bishop Prescott’s death was actually the Bishop’s own brother, Sir Nigel Prescott?”
“Yes.”
“So what are you suggesting? That Lord Quillian—having somehow discovered the existence of Sir Nigel’s body in the crypt—funded the renovations on the church of St. Margaret’s in order to lure the Bishop out to Tanfield Hill and kill him?”
“Not exactly. I am suggesting that Lord Quillian knew Sir Nigel’s body was in the crypt because Lord Quillian is the one who put it there.”
“You do realize, of course, that Lord Quillian was a young man of some twenty-two or twenty-three years at the time of Sir Nigel’s disappearance? What possible reason could Quillian have had for murdering a forty-year-old baronet he barely knew?”
She drained her teacup and set it on the table beside her with a sharp click
She must have obtained that little gem of information from her father. Sebastian studied her face, wondering what else Jarvis had told her. It was a moment before he could trust himself to answer. “Yes.”
“You also know that while Sir Nigel was in America, he discovered evidence of a traitor? Someone in a position to pass important information on to our enemies?”
“Yes,” said Sebastian in that same noncommittal voice.
She leaned forward impatiently, her hands coming up together. “It seems to me that the traitor must somehow have discovered that Sir Nigel was onto him, and killed the Baronet before he could reveal the traitor’s identity.”
“That is certainly one possibility.”
She sat back, her brows drawing together in a suspicious frown. “What other possibility is there?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
She stared at him in dawning indignation. “You what?”
It was one thing for Sebastian to entertain suspicions regarding Lady Prescott’s fidelity to her late husband, and something else again for him to spread such rumors amongst the ton. Pushing away from the hearth, he strolled over to the tea tray and raised the pot invitingly. “May I offer you some more tea, Miss Jarvis?”
“No, thank you,” she said, coming to her feet and reaching to retrieve the reticule that had tumbled unnoticed to the floor.
“Miss Jarvis, we must talk,” he said, watching her. “And I don’t mean about the murder of the Bishop of London.”
She swung to face him, the dusky skirts of her walking dress swirling gracefully about her ankles. “If you are referring to our conversation of the other night, the matter is settled.”
“Settled? How is it settled?”
She simply stared back at him in silence, her lips tightly pressed, her gray eyes hard. They had come together, essentially, as strangers; she knew little of him beyond the fact that he was her father’s enemy. She had no reason to trust him and every reason not to, and there was nothing he could think of to say that would change that.
He said, “You would have me think the Bishop’s visit to the McCains last Monday a . . . what? A coincidence?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, remember?”
“Whether you believe his visit was a coincidence or not is immaterial.” She jerked open the strings of her reticule. “You are right; I never should have come here.”
“So why did you?”
“A few hours of simple research enabled me to draw up a list of the names of those who were either close to the King or in the Foreign Office at the time of the American revolt.” She drew out a sheaf of papers and handed them to him. “Here.”
He took the pages from her and glanced through them. “This is quite a list.”
“It is. However, thirty years is a long time. I have gone back over the list and eliminated the names of those who are either dead, infirm or otherwise incapacitated, or currently removed from London.” She held out another, smaller sheet. “As you can see, the list of those left for consideration is markedly shorter.”
There were only some half a dozen names on the second list, three of which immediately leapt out at him: the Earl of Hendon. Charles, Lord Jarvis. And Lord Quillian.
“
“Quillian. Thirty years ago he was a younger son, just beginning what was to be a career in the Foreign Office. It wasn’t until a few years later that his older brother died and he inherited the title and estates.”
“You’re certain?”
She turned toward the door. “Feel free to duplicate my efforts.”
He said, “I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“Bishop Prescott was my friend.”
He shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”
“What else could there be?” she asked, lowering her veil into place. “Good day, my lord.”
Chapter 37
Lord Quillian’s elegant townhouse on Curzon Street was a bachelor residence. He had never married, always claiming whenever asked that he simply found households containing women and children too noisy and fatiguing to be endured.
Living in solitary state, he’d had one of the bedchambers on the second floor turned into a massive dressing room, hung with burgundy-and-navy-striped silk and fitted with vast stretches of dark cherry cupboards and drawers. When Sebastian plied the knocker at the barbaric hour of eleven that morning, he was shown up to this vast chamber.
Clothed in fawn-colored breeches, a white shirt open at the neck, and a paisley dressing gown, Lord Quillian had his hands soaking in two bowls of sudsy water. “What an unfashionable hour for a call,” he said, not looking up. “I take it therefore I can safely assume you are here for an unfashionable purpose?”
Tossing his hat and gloves on a side table, Sebastian went to lean against the frame of the tall window overlooking the street, his arms crossed at his chest. “You didn’t tell me you were in the Foreign Office thirty years ago.”
Quillian glanced over at the small, plump valet hovering nearby with a hand towel. “Leave us.”
The man bowed, laid the towel beside his master, and withdrew.
