Sounds pretty simple to me," said Gibson, his head bowed as he worked to carve a slice of meat from the serving of pork ribs on the table before him. "The Bishop obviously murdered his brother, then bricked up the crypt to hide the body."

"I suppose it's possible," agreed Sebastian, leaning back in his seat. They'd come here, to an old inn near the Irishman's surgery on Tower Hill, so that Gibson could grab something to eat. Sebastian wasn't hungry. "By all accounts, Sir Nigel was unpleasant enough to provoke even a saint to murder. And while the Bishop might have been a far more pleasant individual than his brother, he doesn't exactly sound even-tempered himself."

Gibson glanced up. "Yet you're not convinced. Why?"

"There are other possibilities."

"Such as?"

"That Sir Nigel met with foul play on Hounslow Heath after all, and his killer shifted the body to the crypt to hide it, knowing the crypt was about to be sealed."

Gibson's brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. "Sounds like a risky thing to have done, if you ask me. There are nasty penalties for those caught lugging bodies around churchyards in the dark."

"True. But those types are generally taking bodies out, not bringing them in."

The surgeon gave a soft laugh. "Still. What if the workmen had decided to take one last look around the crypt before brick ing it up? The body would have been found thirty years ago."

"At which point suspicion would have fallen on the priest in residence-namely Sir Nigel's brother. Actually, when you think about it, it would have been a clever way for someone with a grudge against the Prescotts to get back at both brothers: kill Sir Nigel, and then set up Francis Prescott to take the blame."

"Except that the body wasn't found."

"No. It wasn't."

"The problem with that scenario," said Gibson, working on his pork with a surgeon's thoroughness, "is that Sir Nigel was a big man-not an easy burden to shift when you're dealing with a deadweight. If you ask me, he was killed in that crypt."

Sebastian watched his friend's flawless dissection of his pork ribs with something approaching awe. "Two men could have lifted the body. Two strong men."

"They could have," Gibson acknowledged.

"The problem with having Sir Nigel killed in the crypt is that it then begs the question, What the devil was a forty-year-old baronet doing down in the crypt of the village church in the middle of the night?"

Gibson took a drink of ale. "What if someone he loved had recently died? Someone who was buried in the crypt? He could have been grief-stricken enough to want to be near them."

"From what I've heard of Sir Nigel's character, it seems unlikely. Although I suppose it could be possible." Sebastian thought about those moldering stacks of coffins, the dark-stained bones and grinning skulls. "Ghoulish, but possible."

"You did say he was a member of the h.e.l.lfire Club, did you not? Black magic rituals and all that."

"Yes. Except . . ."

"Except what?"

"It occurs to me that the gate at the top of the stairs would have been kept padlocked. If he broke the lock, it would have been remarked upon. So he must have had a key."

"The living was in his patronage, right?" said Gibson. "He may well have had a key. If he left the gate to the crypt open behind him, his killer could have followed him down, killed him, then taken the key from his body and secured the padlock again when he left, with none being the wiser."

Sebastian sat for a time, drinking his ale in thoughtful silence. "There is one other aspect to all this we've yet to consider."

Gibson looked up questioningly.

"There were originally five Prescott brothers, with Sir Nigel the eldest and the Bishop the youngest. The three middle brothers all chose to make the Army their career. By 1782, all three were dead, leaving Francis Prescott as his brother's heir presumptive."

"What are you suggesting? That the Bishop killed his older brother for the inheritance?"

"It does happen. Although I must admit, it sounds decidedly out of character in this case."

Gibson finished picking the ribs clean and shoved his plate away. "If it is true, it must have been something of a shock to the Bishop when Lady Prescott gave birth to a posthumous heir some months later."

Sebastian drained his tankard. "And none of it explains who killed the Bishop himself, or why."

"Could have been the son, Sir Peter. He discovered his uncle killed his father for the inheritance, so he killed his uncle in revenge."

"I don't think so. I know Sir Peter."

"You knew him as a boy. People change." Gibson watched Sebastian push to his feet. "What do you plan to do next?"

"Drive out to the Grange in the morning and talk to Lady Prescott."

"What do you think she can tell you?"

"I'm not sure. What her husband was doing down in that crypt would be a nice place to start."

That evening, Sebastian took a copy of Aeschylus's The Libation Bearers from his shelves and settled down to read with a brace of candles and a gla.s.s of port at his elbow.

The second in the famous Athenian playwright's b.l.o.o.d.y trilogy on the curse of the House of Atreus, The Libation Bearers told an agonizing tale of murder and vengeance and hints of madness. But Sebastian could find nothing in that ancient Greek myth that seemed of any relevance to the death of the Bishop of London. He was halfway through the third act when Kat came to him.

Ushered into the drawing room by Morey, she brought with her the scent of beeswax and oranges and the cool air of the night. She paused just inside the door, one hand pushing back the hood of her cherry velvet cloak while she waited for the majordomo to discreetly bow himself from the room. The light from the candles gleamed over her pale cheeks and the shiny dark fall of her hair, and she was so beautiful she took his breath.

"I have an answer to your question," she said.

The book slid to the floor as he rose to his feet. He did not step toward her. "And?"

"There has been speculation for some time that the Bishop of London hid a secret of some sort from his past. But none of the attempts by various agents to discover the nature of that secret were successful."

Sebastian met the brilliant blue intensity of her gaze. "You're certain?"

"Yes." She turned to go.

He stopped her. "May I offer you something? A cup of tea? A gla.s.s of wine?" What he was really saying was, Stay.

She hesitated, a sad smile playing about her lips. "No, thank you." You know that would not be wise.

He stared at her from across the room. Yes, you're right. But he still couldn't stop himself from saying, "How are you, Kat? In truth? Does Yates treat you well?"

She gave a faint shrug. "He is never anything but a gentleman. We go our own ways."

As hard as it was for Sebastian to imagine her with another man, it was even harder for him to think of her trapped in a loveless marriage. He said, "It doesn't sound like much of a marriage."

"It's the kind of marriage I want. We are friends."

"I would like to see you happy, and in love."

She gave a sad smile. "And you, Sebastian? Hendon is desperate for an heir."

"I will take no woman to wife unless I can give her a whole heart." Or unless I must, he thought, to preserve her honor.

She nodded, and drew her hood back up over her hair.

"Thank you," he said with a painful formality that hurt him almost as much as anything else.

"I spoke to Gibson," she said, her hand on the door, as if she knew she should leave but could not quite bring herself to go. Through all that had happened in the past ten months, she and the Irish surgeon had remained friends. "He told me about Obadiah Slade." She hesitated. "Please be careful, Sebastian."

Somehow, he managed to give her a jaunty smile. "I'm always careful."

"No. You're not. You're never careful. That's what worries me."

After she had gone, he retrieved his book from the floor. But the words swam before his eyes and he imagined the scent of her lingered still in the room, like a sweet memory just beyond his grasp.

The Reverend Malcolm Earnshaw sank before the high altar of St. Margaret's, his hands clasped in supplication before him as he let out a low moan.

Beneath his aching knees, the worn stone paving of the aisle felt cold and cruelly hard, but he welcomed the pain as a kind of penance. The jewel-toned stained gla.s.s of the soaring windows of the apse before him showed only black against black, while the distant recesses of the church were lost in the gloom of the night. He let his head fall back, his throat working to swallow as he stared up at the intricately carved groins of the ancient vaults above him, alive now with strange, ghostly shadows cast by the flickering flames of the two heavy candles flanking the altar.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his lips moving in a soundless prayer. Oh, Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my lying down and my rising up; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. . . .

It was so difficult to know what to do in such a situation. One shrank from accidentally implicating the innocent, but what if . . . What if the innocent were not truly innocent? How was one to know? Never had Earnshaw felt more in need of guidance and wisdom.

" 'Thou compa.s.sest my path and my lying down,' " he whispered, finding solace in speaking the words aloud. " 'Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence?' "

At some point, the rain had started up again. He could hear it beating on the slate roof above him, and he shivered with the cold and the damp and a quick leap of unaccountable fear.

" 'Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O G.o.d,' " he said, his voice rising shrilly. " 'Depart from me therefore, ye b.l.o.o.d.y men.' "

From somewhere startlingly near came a soft thump.

The Reverend pushed to his feet, his knees creaking, his breath bunching hot in his throat as he whirled about to peer helplessly into the gloom. "Who's there?"

His own voice echoed back at him. He swallowed hard, feeling an odd mixture of foolishness and terror. "Is anybody there?"

The urge to bolt toward the west door was strong. But the fat beeswax candles flanking the altar were atrociously dear; he never should have lit them. It had been a foolish extravagance, however spooked he might be.

Bent on extinguishing the flames quickly, he lurched up the step toward the altar, stumbling in his haste. Then he threw another frightened glance toward the nave and whispered, "Oh, my G.o.d."

Chapter 22.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 11 JULY 1812.

The next morning, Sebastian drove out toward Prescott Grange, intending to speak to the widow of Sir Nigel Prescott. But when he pa.s.sed through Tanfield Hill, he found the village green crowded with men fanning out under the direction of the Squire, Douglas Pyle.

"What's all this?" asked Sebastian, reining in beside him.

"That fool priest," said the Squire. "He's gone missing. According to Mrs. Earnshaw, he went out last night, saying he couldn't remember if he'd locked the sacristy door. n.o.body's seen him since."

Sebastian glanced over at the ancient church, its heavy sandstone walls looking dark and brooding beneath the cloudy sky. "Did you check the crypt?"

The Squire drew in a deep breath that lifted his broad chest, and blew it out slowly. "Aye, we did. He's not there, thank G.o.d. Although we did find this." He slipped something from his waistcoat and held it out.

Sebastian found himself staring at a black carved cla.s.sical profile mounted on a heavy silver setting. "Sir Nigel's ring?"

The Squire nodded. "One of the lads found it in the rubble near those old collapsed coffins. Musta got kicked back there somehow, which is why we didn't see it before."

Sebastian handed the ring back. "Does Earnshaw do this often? Visit the church at night, I mean?"

"His wife says sometimes. When he's troubled."

"He was troubled?"

"She says he seemed to be."

"Does she know about what?"

The Squire shook his head. "He's been acting queer ever since he found the bodies in the crypt. But then, who wouldn't?"

"True," said Sebastian. He studied the Squire's pleasant, fleshy face. "How well did you know Sir Nigel Prescott?"

"Sir Nigel? Not all that well. He was a good bit older'n me." The Squire rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "I hear they're saying the fright in blue velvet was him."

"So it would seem."

The Squire shook his head. "It's unsettling to think about it, him lying there with a knife stuck in his back right beneath our feet, every Sunday, for close onto thirty years. And no one knew it."

Sebastian watched the men moving off in all directions. "I understand he was an unpleasant man."

"Unpleasant?" The Squire grunted. "You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone around here with something nice to say about him."

"It's not often you see brothers so unlike each other."

The Squire rubbed a hand over his jaw and looked away, as if choosing his words carefully. "I've heard tales about old Lady Prescott-Sir Nigel's mother-if you know what I mean? There wasn't a strong family resemblance between Francis Prescott and the rest of his brothers and sisters."

"Yet Prescott Grange would have pa.s.sed to the Bishop, would it not, if Sir Peter hadn't been born?"

"Aye, that it would," said the Squire, shaking his head. "Who'd have thought, with five sons?" He shook his head again, as if to underscore the point. "Five sons. And if not for that wee posthumous babe, the youngest would have inherited it all."