C. Harris - Who Buries the Dead

She set aside her gloves. “You’ve seen him?”

He nodded. “Anne Preston came to me this morning. I think her main purpose was to try to convince me of Captain Wyeth’s innocence, but she also told me her father was afraid of Oliphant. It seems Preston objected to Oliphant’s actions as governor of Jamaica, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he used his influence with his cousin the Home Secretary to have Oliphant recalled.”

“You’re suggesting Oliphant might have hacked off Preston’s head and set it up on Bloody Bridge in revenge?”

“Personally? Probably not. Sinclair Oliphant has always preferred to let other people do his dirty work.”

She watched him square the flint to the frizzen and begin to tighten down. He was a man comfortable with violence, willing to use it when necessary and perhaps sometimes even welcoming it. But she did not believe he would take it upon himself to simply execute Oliphant, as he might once have done.

Then she wondered if he sensed the drift of her thoughts, because he said, “I’m not going to kill him out of hand and hang for it, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he has already tried to have me killed.”

She stared at him. “You think he was behind last night’s shooter? But. . you didn’t even know about his involvement with Preston until this morning.”

Devlin closed the frizzen and brought the flint gently down on it. “If Oliphant sent that shooter, it was because of Santa Iria, not because of Preston. As soon as Oliphant made the decision to return to London, he knew he was going to need to deal with me. And the people Oliphant deals with generally end up dead.”

“Then perhaps you should kill him,” she said. “As long as you can be certain you won’t hang for it, of course.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement, for he thought she spoke in jest. Except that she hadn’t. She loved him with a fierceness that could steal her breath and freeze her heart with the fear of losing him. But while she admired Devlin’s moral code, she did not completely share it. In many ways, she was still very much her father’s daughter.

He slipped the pistol into his pocket and rose to his feet. “If Oliphant was behind Stanley Preston’s murder, I’m going to see him hang for it.”

“And if he didn’t have Preston murdered?”

Devlin smiled again, this time with lethal purposefulness. “Then I’ll kill him when he comes to kill me.”

Half an hour later, Sebastian was walking out of the house toward his waiting curricle when a stylish barouche drawn by a team of blood bays and emblazoned with the Jarvis crest rounded the corner and drew up close to the kerb.

The carriage’s near window came down with a snap. “Ride with me around the block,” said Jarvis as one of his liveried footmen rushed to open the carriage door.

Sebastian paused at the base of the house steps. “Why?”

“Do you seriously expect me to discuss it in the street?”

Sebastian exchanged looks with Tom, who was standing nearby at the chestnuts’ heads. Then he leapt up into Jarvis’s carriage and took the forward bench.

“What you are about to hear is told in the strictest confidence,” said Jarvis as his team moved forward with a jerk.

Sebastian studied his father-in-law’s full, complaisant face. “Sent one of your minions out to Windsor Castle, did you?”

The other man’s eyes glittered with an animosity he made no attempt to disguise. “As it happens, I went myself.”

“And?”

“Charles’s I’s burial vault has been violated. The inscribed section of the lead band that once encircled the coffin has been removed, as has the King’s head.”

“The head?” Sebastian stared at him, his attention well and truly caught. “Was anything else taken from the crypt?”

“That has not yet been determined, although I have instructed the Dean and his virger to make a thorough investigation.”

“Did you open Charles’s coffin when you first inspected the vault for the Prince Regent?”

“I did not.” The carriage swung onto Bond Street, and Jarvis reached up to grasp the strap that dangled beside him. “It is the Prince’s wish that he be present at the coffin’s opening, with the contents to be inspected not only by himself, but by a number of other important individuals.”

“So if you never actually opened the coffin, before, how can you be certain the head was ever there? King Charles might have been buried without it.”

“The depression where the head once rested within the folds of the cerecloth is quite obvious. Apart from which, all the accounts we have of the events that occurred immediately after the execution state quite clearly that Charles’s head was sewn back onto the body before the dead King’s remains were put on display.”

“Was he put on display?”

“Of course he was. It would have been vitally important to the usurpers that the populace be convinced their King was indeed dead.”

Sebastian stared thoughtfully out the window at a costermonger with a gaily painted donkey cart, the boy beside him shouting, “Turnips, penny a bunch!”

“The princess Augusta is not expected to live out the day,” Jarvis was saying. “Her funeral will doubtless take place sometime next week, and the Regent is determined to hold the formal opening of Charles’s tomb immediately thereafter.”

Sebastian brought his gaze back to his father-in-law’s face. “I take it no one has told His Highness that someone already beat him to it? No wonder you didn’t want to discuss this in the street.”

Jarvis tightened his grip on the strap. “It’s conceivable the theft has political implications. Was Stanley Preston an admirer of the Stuarts?”

“The Stuarts certainly interested him. But I don’t know if you could say he admired them.”

“You’re certain?”

“No. At this point, I’m not certain of anything.”

“And you’ve learned nothing that might suggest who was behind the violation of the royal vault?”

Sebastian found himself faintly smiling. “No.”

Jarvis studied him through hard, narrowed eyes. “You find my question amusing?”

“Amusing? Not exactly. Two days ago, a man was murdered in a particularly brutal fashion by someone who is still out there, walking our streets. Yet your only concern in all this is how it might lead to the recovery of some moldering old head?”

“This is not simply some random ‘moldering old head’ we’re talking about,” snapped Jarvis in a rare show of irritation. “And as for whatever fears have been aroused amongst the populace by the grisly manner of this murder, they will be easy enough to assuage with a swift public hanging.”

“Whether the hanged man is actually guilty of the murder or not?”

“Fortunately, we don’t all share your maudlin obsession with guilt and innocence.”

Sebastian met his father-in-law’s hard, ruthless gaze and wondered why it had never occurred to him just how much Jarvis and Oliphant had in common.

The carriage swung back onto Brook Street, and Jarvis signaled his coachman to pull up. “I want that head.”

“If I should happen to come across it, I’ll see it’s returned to you.” Sebastian opened the door without waiting for the footman. Then he paused on the step to look back and say, “What do you know of Sinclair, Lord Oliphant?”

“The man who was until recently governor of Jamaica?” Jarvis frowned. “Very little. Why?”

“Colonial governors are appointed by the Crown, are they not?”

“Officially. But they’re handled by the Home Office.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Sebastian, stepping down.