Sebastian studied the Baronet’s flushed, strained features. The two men had known each other for some twenty years, first as schoolboys, then as young men on the town. But after that, their lives had diverged. While Sir Peter settled down to the management of the ancestral estate that had been his since birth, Sebastian’s days had filled with the tramp of red-coated soldiers and the howl of artillery shells he sometimes still heard exploding in his dreams.
Sebastian took a sip of ale, his gaze on his old friend’s familiar face. “I was always under the impression you and your uncle were quite close.”
“Close.” Sir Peter gave a peculiar shudder. “I suppose. I mean, it worked out well, didn’t it? He didn’t have a son, and I didn’t have a father. A match made in heaven, you might say. Or in hell.”
“I take it you quarreled recently?”
“I didn’t know he was going to die,” said Sir Peter, scrubbing a shaky hand across his lower face. “You try having the bloody Bishop of London as your bloody uncle. If I had aspirations toward sainthood I’d have become a bloody priest, like him.”
“No, I never thought you had any aspirations for sainthood.”
A ghost of a schoolboy’s grin lifted the edges of the other man’s lips. “Me? I may be the one who loosed that goat in the old headmaster’s bedchamber, but you’re the one who dreamt up the prank in the first place.”
Sebastian gave a soft laugh. The truth was, Bishop Prescott should have had little to complain of in his nephew. The ebullient schoolboy had matured into a good-natured but responsible landowner far more interested in his herds and the latest strain of oats than in the turf or the dice box. Sebastian could think of only one way in which the Baronet strayed from the path of respectability: Like Sebastian, Sir Peter had never taken a wife, preferring to allow his mother to continue as chatelaine of his estate’s ancient, rambling house while he himself divided his time between the Grange and a certain dark-haired, dark-eyed opera dancer he kept in rooms in town.
Sebastian leaned back in his seat and stretched out his boots to cross them at the ankles. “Heard about your opera dancer, did he?”
Sir Peter hunched forward to wrap one fist around his tankard, and sniffed. “To listen to him, you’d have thought I was a bloody Turkish pasha with a harem. Didn’t look good, I suppose, for the nephew of the bloody Bishop of London to be consorting with a low woman—especially when the Bishop of London has a shot at becoming the next Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“Is that what he wanted to talk to you about on Tuesday?”
Sir Peter looked up in surprise. “How’d you know about that?”
“The Bishop’s diary secretary.”
He took a deep draught of ale. “Says something, don’t it, when a man needs to make an appointment to see his own bloody uncle?”
“How was he when you saw him?”
Sir Peter’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did he seem . . . unusually distressed by anything?”
“No. Why would he be?”
Sebastian raised his tankard and took a slow sip. Both Miss Jarvis, who saw the Bishop at six that evening, and William Franklin, who met with Prescott the previous afternoon, had described the Bishop of London as unusually agitated about something. Either Sir Peter was a particularly insensitive nephew, or he was being less than truthful. “So tell me,” said Sebastian, “who do you think killed him?”
“Me? What would I know of it?”
“You must have some thoughts on who might be responsible.”
Sir Peter cast a quick glance sideways, then leaned forward, one forearm pressing into the tabletop between them as he dropped his voice. “Seems to me, what the authorities ought to be asking is, Who would have the most to gain from the Bishop of London’s death?”
“Good question,” said Sebastian. “What would you say is the answer?”
Sir Peter flopped back in his seat. “That’s where it gets tricky. Uncle Francis wasn’t afraid of making enemies of the kind of men who can be dangerous.”
“Did he ever mention anyone in particular?”
Sir Peter gave a sharp laugh. “What, you mean besides everyone from Jarvis and Quillian to Liverpool and Canning?”
“He sounds like a quarrelsome man.”
“Quarrelsome?” Sir Peter frowned, then shook his head, some of the anger and resentment seeming to be leeched out of him. “No. He wasn’t particularly quarrelsome. He simply believed passionately in the ideals of his faith. Justice. Charity. Peace.”
“In other words, an admirable man.”
“Yes.” Sir Peter drew in a deep breath. Suddenly, he didn’t look so drunk. “Yes, he was.”
Sebastian glanced across the taproom, to where he could see raindrops chasing one another down the old leaded glass panes of the windows. “Where were you Tuesday evening?”
Sir Peter’s eyes darkened. “In Camden Place. Why?”
“Camden Place?”
“I keep rooms there.”
“Ah.” Sebastian studied his former schoolmate’s trembling hand, the day’s growth of beard shadowing his normally ruddy cheeks. From the looks of things, Prescott had been drinking steadily since hearing the news of his uncle’s death. Sebastian said, “When was the last time you saw Lady Prescott?”
“M’ mother?” Sir Peter frowned. “Yesterday. Why do you ask?”
By now, Sir Henry Lovejoy would have made the awkward journey out to Prescott Grange bearing a tattered coat of blue velvet, a stained satin waistcoat, and an old-fashioned gold pocket watch and fob. If their supposition was correct, if the decades-old corpse in blue velvet was indeed Sir Nigel, then Lady Prescott had just learned she was a widow.
Sebastian said, “You do know they found another body in the crypt with your uncle—the body of a man who was apparently murdered there thirty years ago?”
The Baronet went suddenly still. “You say thirty years ago?”
“That’s right.”
Whatever color Sir Peter had left drained from his face. “What are you saying?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet and dropped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m saying you might consider 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?”