C. Harris: Who Buries the Dead

“Yet if everyone persists in painting Stanley Preston as a saint, I am unlikely to ever discover who killed him.”

She focused her attention on the neat stitches she was laying in her embroidery. “Well. . I suppose you could say he had a tendency to be quarrelsome. He was also proud and socially ambitious. But in that I suspect he was not so different from most other men of his station.”

“A lowering reflection, but sadly true, I fear.”

He saw, again, that answering gleam of amusement in her eyes. She said, “The truth is, he was still a likeable man, for all that. There was no real malice in him.”

Sebastian wondered if the slaves on Preston’s Jamaican plantations would agree with that assessment. But all he said was, “Have you seen his collection of heads?” He could not imagine someone as prosaic and sensible as Miss Jane Austen fainting at such a sight.

“I have, yes. I’ve often pondered why he kept them. At first, I assumed he was driven by philosophical motives-that he derived some sort of salutary lesson from the contemplation of such tangible evidence that even the world’s most powerful men are eventually reduced to nothing but shriveled flesh and bone. But I finally came to realize that he actually collected them for essentially the same reason rustics will travel miles to see a two-headed calf, or pay a sixpence to gawk at a hairy woman displaying herself at a fair.”

“And why is that?”

“So that they may afterward boast of it to their friends-as if they are somehow rendered special by having seen something interesting. In Stanley Preston’s case, it was as if he felt his stature was enhanced by the possession of relics of important figures from the past.”

“He was impressed by wealth and power?”

“I would say there are few in our society who are not. Wouldn’t you?”

“I suspect you are right.” He let his gaze drift, again, around that fashionable, expensively furnished drawing room. “Tell me, does your brother’s opinion of Stanley Preston match your own?”

“Oh, Henry is far more charitable than I when it comes to the foibles and vanities of his fellow men. He really should have been a vicar, you know, rather than a banker.”

“So why did he quarrel with Preston at the Monster last night?”

She jerked ever so slightly, her thread snarling beneath her hands.

He said, “You do know, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

She rested the embroidery frame on her lap, her hands idle, her gaze meeting his. “It’s a difficult subject to speak of, I’m afraid.”

“Why’s that?”

“It. . it involves Anne.”

“Yet it will come out eventually, whatever it is.”

Miss Austen drew a troubled breath and nodded, obviously choosing her words with care. “Some years ago, when Anne was just seventeen, she formed an attachment to a certain hussar cornet. The man himself was also quite young-only a year or so older, I believe-and utterly penniless.”

“But very dashing in his regimentals?”

“Devastatingly so, I’m afraid.”

“Her father objected to the match?”

“What father would not? She was so very young. Even my cousin Eliza agreed that to allow a girl to attach herself at such a young age to a man with nothing but himself to recommend him would be folly.”

“So what happened?”

“The young man’s suit was denied. Fortunately for all concerned, his regiment was sent abroad not long afterward, and that was the end of it-or so everyone supposed. It was assumed by all who knew her that Anne had forgotten him-indeed, she lately seemed to be on the verge of contracting a promising alliance. But then, a month or so ago, the young man reappeared in London-a captain now, but still virtually penniless, I’m afraid.”

“He’s sold out?”

“Oh, no. He was badly wounded in the Peninsula and has been sent home to recuperate further.”

“I take it Mr. Preston was still not inclined to favor such a match?”

She shook her head. “If anything, I’d say he was more opposed to it than ever before.”

“And Miss Anne Preston?”

Jane Austen began to pick at her snarled thread. “I’m afraid I can’t speak for another woman’s heart.”

Sebastian studied her carefully bowed head. “I still don’t precisely understand how your brother came to fall into a quarrel with Preston last night.”

Miss Austen kept her attention on her work. “Now that Eliza’s illness has confined her to her rooms, Anne comes nearly every day to sit and read to her or, when my cousin feels up to it, simply to talk. It was during one of Anne’s recent visits that Eliza confided that she’d decided she made a mistake six years ago in counseling Stanley Preston to refuse the young man’s offer, and that she regrets having played a part in denying Anne the happiness she might otherwise have found with someone she loved.”

“I take it Anne was unwise enough to repeat her friend’s words to her father?”

“Yes. And since he couldn’t confront poor Eliza about it, he shouted at Henry instead.”

Sebastian thought he understood now why Jane Austen had mentioned Stanley Preston’s quarrelsome tendency as one of his less admirable traits. “What is the name of this unsuitable young man?”

“Wyeth. Captain Hugh Wyeth.”

“And where might I find Captain Wyeth?”

“I believe he has taken a room in the vicinity of the Life Guards barracks. But I’m afraid I can’t give you his precise direction.”

“Do you know his regiment?”

“No; I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” said Sebastian, pushing to his feet. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Perhaps my brother will be able to tell you more when he returns to town,” she said, rising with him, her expression one of earnest concern.

“Hopefully,” said Sebastian. Although when he looked into those dark, intelligent eyes, he couldn’t shake the conviction that this self-contained, quietly watchful woman actually knew considerably more than she’d been willing to divulge.

Sebastian spent the better part of the next hour making inquiries about Captain Hugh Wyeth at the various inns and taverns in the lanes and courts around the Life Guards barracks in Knightsbridge. But when the bells of the city’s church towers began to chime six, he abandoned the search and turned his horses toward home.

“Ye thinkin’ this hussar cap’n might be the one done for the cove at Bloody Bridge?” asked Tom as they rounded the corner onto Brook Street.

“I’d say he’s certainly a likely suspect.” The heavy cloud cover had already robbed most of the light from the day, so that the reflected glow of the newly lit streetlamps spilled like liquid gold across the dark, wet pavement. Sebastian guided his horses around a dowager’s cabriole drawn up at the front steps of a nearby town house. And then, for reasons he could not have explained, he was suddenly, intensely aware of the solid length of the leather reins running through his hands, of the throbbing of the sparrows coming in to roost on the housetops above, and of the scattered drops of cold rain blown by a gust of wind against his face as he lifted his head to study the jagged line of roofs looming above.

“What?” asked Tom, watching him.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said, reining in hard just as an unseen force knocked the top hat from his head, and a rifle shot cracked from somewhere in the gathering gloom.

“Get down,” Sebastian shouted at Tom.

“’Oly ’ell,” yelped the tiger, tumbling from his perch as Sebastian fought to bring the squealing, plunging pair under control. Then, rather than duck for cover down the nearest area steps, the boy leapt to the frantic horses’ heads.