“Miss Jarvis—”
She swung to face him, her eyes dark with fear and anger and something else he couldn’t identify. “No. You know my opinion of the institution of marriage in England today.”
He was startled into giving a soft, shaky laugh. “Miss Jarvis, I can assure you that I will neither beat you nor force my unwelcome attentions upon you, nor risk whatever wealth you might bring to our union on the turn of a card. And I’m not asking you to take my word for it. I can have a marriage settlement drawn up guaranteeing —”
“No.” She brought one splayed hand to her forehead, shading her eyes. “What you are suggesting is madness. It’s madness for you, and it’s madness for me, and I won’t do it.”
“If you won’t do it for your sake, then think about the child.”
“I am thinking about the child.”
He cast a quick glance back at the maid, then leaned toward Miss Jarvis, his voice low and earnest. “You cannot mean to give this child to the likes of Dr. McCain to raise.”
“What’s wrong with Dr. McCain?”
In truth, there wasn’t anything wrong with the man except that he wanted to adopt Sebastian’s child. Sebastian said, “I suppose his wife’s harmless enough, but McCain himself is a stuffy, narrow-minded bore.”
“There are worse things than being a stuffy, narrow-minded bore.”
“That’s debatable. If you remain adamant in your opposition to marriage, then give me the child. I will raise it.”
Her nostrils flared on a quick breath. “No.”
“Why not?” He knew a powerful welling of frustration and anger, tinged with fear. “You must allow me to do
“Believe me, Lord Devlin, there is no need. I have decided I shall simply go away to have the child. Travel for some years, to Arabia, or perhaps to the land of the Hindu Kush.”
“You mean have the child
“No, I am not mad. Merely determined to keep both my child and my independence. When I return in a few years’ time, the exact age of the infant will be easily obscured. I can present the child as one I adopted during the course of my journeys, and no one will be any the wiser. Oh, there might be whispers, but so what?”
He searched her pale, strong face. “You would do that? Have him grow up believing he’s someone he’s not?” The thought of it tore at Sebastian, a painful rending of a raw wound he knew was never going to heal.
“There is no alternative.”
“Of course there is an alternative. You can marry me.”
“I will write,” she said. “Let you know the child is well. Now, you must excuse me, my lord. I have much to do.”
She made as if to brush past him, but he grabbed her arm, stopping her. “I can’t let you do this.”
She carefully withdrew her arm from his grasp. “And how, pray, do you intend to stop me?”
“I don’t know. Kidnap you, perhaps?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, and left him there, to the sun and the soft wind and the faint, lingering scent of lavender.
That night, Jarvis put in a rare appearance at his own dinner table.
He talked to Hero for a time of the war in the Peninsula, and the bellicose posturings of the young United States. As usual, Annabelle contributed little beyond the typical stray, inane remark.
They were just finishing up a nice cream of asparagus soup when Hero drew in a deep breath and said bluntly, “I’ve been thinking I might hire a companion and travel for a while.”
Annabelle dropped her spoon with a clatter. “Travel? But . . . travel where, Hero?”
“Arabia. India. Who knows?”
“Good God,” said Jarvis. “What put this idea in your head?”
She looked over at him, her face set in oddly stiff lines. “You know I’ve always wanted to see the world. I think I’ve finally reached the age that I can do so without exciting too much comment.”
“But . . .” Her mother groped for her wineglass. “Whatever will I do without you?”
“End your days in Bedlam, where you belong, no doubt,” suggested Jarvis maliciously.
“Papa,” said Hero in a low, tense voice. “You shouldn’t say that, even in jest.”
Jarvis raised one eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m jesting? Do you seriously expect me to put up with her nonsense without you here to coax and wheedle her into a semblance of normality?”
Jarvis considered himself a master at reading both men and women, but what he saw in his daughter’s drawn, troubled face confused him. She reminded him of a hunted fox backed into a corner.
“Hero?” said Annabelle in a weak, pleading voice.
Hero reached out to grip her mother’s hand, tightly, in her own. “It’s all right, Mama.” She forced her lips into an unconvincing smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It was just a thought. Don’t worry. I won’t go.”
“If you’re that bored,” snapped Jarvis, “what you need to do is to find a husband and start having babies.”
Hero glanced over at him. He expected her to make one of her usual provocative remarks on the inequities of modern English marriage laws. Instead, she gave a strange, soft laugh and said, “Perhaps I shall.”
Author’s Note
While the church of St. Margaret’s and the village of Tanfield Hill are fictional, the crypt of St. Margaret’s was inspired in both its design and the details of its rediscovery by the very real crypt of St. Wystan’s in Repton, England.
For nineteenth-century burial customs and the condition of burials in crypts, see the fascinating material published both in print and on the Internet on the archaeological excavations of Christ Church, Spitalfields, London; of St. Pancras Church, Euston Road; and the recently rediscovered crypt of the former Dominican church in Vac, Hungary.
As surprising as it may seem, the incredibly long delay in the funeral of Bishop Prescott was quite common at the time, with the average being ten to twelve days; English gentlewomen did not attend funerals until Victorian times.
The fire that forms the climax of this tale is inspired by a real event: A fire in the crypt of St. Clements in London burned for days at the end of the nineteenth century, fueled solely by its jam-packed coffins and their contents.
The person of Bishop Francis Prescott is based, loosely, on the very real Bishop Beilby Porteus, who was for many years Bishop of London. An ardent reformer and abolitionist, Porteus was one of the leading supporters of the Slave Trade Act that passed Parliament in 1807. While a vocal opponent of both the French Revolution and the republican doctrines of Thomas Paine, he also penned the antiwar, antiempire poem quoted, in part, by Lord Jarvis. He died (peacefully) at the Bishop of London’s summer residence of Fulham Palace in 1809. John Moore was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1783 to 1805, when he was succeeded by the rather colorless Charles Manners- Sutton. My thanks to Ms. Janet Laws, personal secretary and assistant to the current Bishop of London, for answering some of my research queries on the bishops’ former London residence.
Numerous sites and buildings referred to in this series, such as the first church of St. Pancras and the Temple, have been renovated or rebuilt in the past two hundred years and therefore appear differently now than they would have in 1812. I have described them as Sebastian would have seen them.
The life of William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, was much as I have portrayed it, although he actually sailed from New York in September of 1782, rather than at the beginning of June, as I have it here. Most of the comments my characters make about the American Revolution and the young United States are taken from actual letters, journals, and speeches made at the time. While they might strike some as having a modern, slightly satirical ring, they are actually very true to the period, with most gentlemen of the Regency era viewing the new American
