"But?" prompted Sebastian.

"One of my parishioners. Mrs. c.u.mmings. She was ill. By the time I returned, the Bishop had already arrived. And it was too late."

The small, protuberant eyes blinked rapidly several times in succession. "I just keep thinking that if only Bishop Prescott could have returned with me to St. Margaret's right away, none of this would have happened!"

Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. "Did the Bishop happen to mention the nature of the appointment he had that evening?"

"No. Only that he didn't feel he could cancel it. Something about an old friend in need of counseling."

Sebastian's fist tightened around his gla.s.s. "Really?" What had Miss Jarvis said? The Bishop asked for my a.s.sistance in preparing the speech he was to give before the House of Lords this Thursday.

The Reverend nodded again, his head moving up and down in a way that reminded Sebastian of a pigeon pecking at seed.

Sebastian took another sip of his wine. "It seems a strange thing to have done-rushing off to the Bishop simply because some workmen had stumbled upon an old crypt. I mean, why the Bishop?"

"Because of the body, of course."

"You were concerned about . . . what? A scandal? Over a decades-old murder victim?"

Mr. Earnshaw's eyes bulged alarmingly. "Good heavens. Can it be that you do not know?"

"Don't know what?"

"About the ring!"

"What ring?"

"Sir Nigel's ring! I recognized it."

Sebastian set aside his drink with a click. "You're saying you recognized a ring on the body in the crypt?"

"Yes, yes. An ancient Roman profile, carved in black onyx and mounted in a setting of filigreed silver. Sir Nigel wore it always on his right little finger."

"Who is Sir Nigel?"

The Reverend stared at him. "Why, Sir Nigel Prescott. Bishop Prescott's eldest brother!"

Chapter 15.

"The imbecile never mentioned the ring to anyone," said Sir Henry Lovejoy.

They were in Hyde Park, walking along the banks of the Serpentine. The magistrate had brought a loaf of stale bread and was crumbling it up to feed the ducks. Sebastian said, "But you have heard of Sir Nigel?"

"Oh, yes. We've had constables fanning out across the entire area, asking about men who disappeared thirty to forty years ago. His name came up right away."

Sebastian watched as a plump drake, its feathers iridescent in the sunlight, waddled out of the reeds toward them. "Sir Nigel was the Bishop's eldest brother?"

Lovejoy nodded. "By some thirteen years. He went missing in July of 1782. His horse was found wandering on Hounslow Heath, so it was generally believed he must have fallen victim to highwaymen. But his body was never found."

"How long was this before the crypt of St. Margaret's was bricked up?"

"Unfortunately, there was a fire in the sacristy some years ago that destroyed many of the church's records. We're still trying to ascertain the exact date of the closure." Lovejoy threw a chunk of bread to the drake, who caught the morsel out of the air. "Sir Nigel's widow, Lady Prescott, still lives at Prescott Grange. A son inherited the estate."

"Sir Peter Prescott," said Sebastian.

Lovejoy kept his gaze on the task at hand. "You know him?"

"We were at Eton together."

The magistrate tossed the drake another handful of crumbs. "I understand he was a posthumous child, born some months after his father's disappearance."

Sebastian nodded. "He suffered a fair amount of grief over it at school-you know what boys can be like. But he always took it well." Sebastian watched the drake waddle away, tail feathers flashing in the sun. "I'm told there were originally five Prescott brothers. The middle three were all killed in the wars of the last century."

"Good heavens. I hadn't heard that. A most unfortunate family, indeed." Lovejoy emptied the rest of his bread on the gra.s.s. "If Bishop Prescott learned that his brother's body had been discovered, it would certainly explain why those who saw him after Earnshaw's visit described him as agitated."

"True. Except that William Franklin also described the Bishop as troubled. And he saw Prescott on Monday."

"It's my intention to take the victim's clothing, watch, and fob out to Lady Prescott this afternoon. Hopefully she'll be able to make some sort of identification without actually viewing the remains."

"What I want to know is, what happened to the ring?"

Lovejoy glanced over at him. "It wasn't on the body?"

Sebastian shook his head. "Earnshaw says he brought the ring up to London, to show the Bishop."

Lovejoy's lips flattened into a disapproving line. "Seems a ghoulish thing to have done-tugging a ring off a corpse's finger."

"Given the state of the body, I imagine it came off easily enough."

Lovejoy cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yes, well . . ."

"According to the Reverend, he gave the ring to Bishop Prescott. But I checked with London House, and no such ring has been found in the Bishop's chambers. Gibson says it wasn't in the Bishop's pockets, or in his hand, when the bodies were delivered to him."

"I suppose the Bishop may have dropped it in the crypt," said Sir Henry, dusting the last crumbs of bread from his hands. "I'll send some of the lads to give the place another going-over."

"There is one other possibility."

Lovejoy raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

Sebastian said, "The killer could have taken it."

Later that afternoon, after she'd coaxed her mother out on a visit to one of Lady Jarvis's oldest friends, Hero settled on the window seat in her bedchamber and withdrew the Bishop's schedule from her reticule.

She ran through it quickly, relieved to see that there was nothing in the Bishop's calendar-except, of course, for his frequent meetings with Hero herself-that might betray her to Devlin. Satisfied of that, she went back to the beginning.

There, indeed, was the visit from Lord Quillian, just as she had suspected, on the afternoon of the Monday before the Bishop's death. "Ha. You see?" she said aloud, as if Devlin himself were actually in the room with her. Then she frowned as she studied several other curious names on the schedule.

She might be nine-tenths convinced of Quillian's guilt in the Bishop's murder, but Hero liked to consider herself an open-minded person, which meant she had to remain receptive to other possibilities.

Pushing up from her window seat, she went in search of paper and pen. At the top of the page, she wrote, Lord Quillian, and below that, William Franklin. For a moment, she reconsidered and started to cross out his name, for the man was aged and infirm. But she reasoned that it did not require excessive strength or agility to hit someone over the head with an iron bar, so she left the American's name in place.

She glanced through the Bishop's schedule again, but came up with only one other interesting item: Sir Peter Prescott. Why, she wondered, would Sir Peter make an appointment to see his own uncle? She wrote his name on the list, then circled it in frustration.

One of the more tedious aspects of being an unmarried female was the extent to which it circ.u.mscribed her movements and activities. Having recently suffered a bereavement, Sir Peter was unlikely to attend any social functions. And try as she would, Hero could not come up with a sufficiently plausible excuse to visit him.

Decorum could, at times, be exceedingly aggravating.

That night, Sebastian made a rare appearance at his aunt Henrietta's rout.

One of London's most sought-after hostesses, the d.u.c.h.ess of Claiborne never failed to send her nephew an invitation to each of her many functions. Recognizing the summonses for what they were-thinly veiled attempts to introduce him to an endless line of suitable young debutantes-Sebastian invariably but politely refused.

As a result, the sight of her disreputable but still highly eligible nephew actually appearing in her drawing rooms that evening was such a shock that Henrietta staggered slightly, one hand groping for the quizzing gla.s.s that hung from a riband around her neck. "Good heavens," she said. "It is you, Devlin. Don't tell me you've finally decided to live up to the expectations of your house and look about you for a wife?"

"No," he said baldly, cupping her elbow to steer her toward a small withdrawing room. "I want to hear what you can tell me about the Prescotts."

"Ssshh," she whispered, shutting the door behind them with a snap. "I don't want Lady Christine to overhear."

"Who?"

"The Earl of Lumley's daughter. She really is lovely, Sebastian. But while I can a.s.sure you she is quite one of your admirers, it might be better if she didn't hear that you've once again involved yourself in murder-"

"I didn't involve myself in this murder; you did."

"Nevertheless, I'm afraid her sensibilities are such that-"

"Aunt," he said sternly. "I am not here to be enchanted by your latest ingenue, however lovely she may be. I'm here because I want to know what you can tell me about Sir Nigel Prescott."

"Sir Nigel Prescott? Why on earth would you want to know-" She broke off, her eyes widening. "Good heavens. Is he the decades-old body in the crypt?"

"In all likelihood, yes."

She sat down on a nearby swan-shaped pink silk settee with an inelegant thump. "Good heavens," she said again.

"You knew him, I presume?"

"Of course I knew him." The d.u.c.h.ess of Claiborne not only knew everyone-she knew all their dirty little secrets, too. And she remembered them forever. "A most disagreeable man," she said with a tut-tut. "Very bad ton. Nothing at all like his brother."

"Sir Nigel was the eldest?"

She nodded. "Yes. Of five brothers. He inherited the t.i.tle while still up at Oxford. He was always a big man-tall, like the Bishop, but much bigger boned, and fleshy. He married a lovely woman by the name of Mary Mayfield, and made the poor dear miserable. She hadn't been dead of consumption a year when he married again-to Lady Rosamond, the second daughter of the Marquess of Ripon."

"When was this?" said Sebastian.

She frowned. " 'Seventy-six? 'Seventy-seven? Something like that."

"Sir Peter was his only son?"

She nodded. "There were no children at all from the first marriage. He was wed to Lady Rosamond for some five or six years before Sir Peter was born-and he was a posthumous child, born after his father disappeared."

Sebastian pulled forward a chair with gilded crocodile-shaped legs and sat down opposite her. "You say Sir Nigel was a disagreeable man. In what way?"

"He had a vicious temper. And a nasty reputation." She dropped her voice, even though they were alone and no one could hear. "h.e.l.lfire Club, you know."

Interesting, thought Sebastian; Squire Pyle had also mentioned the h.e.l.lfire Club. A notorious secret society of the previous century, the h.e.l.lfire Club had been dedicated to black magic, orgies, and political conspiracies. Meeting in the ruins of an ancient abbey, the "monks" specialized in defiling virgins, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and incest. At one time, its powerful members included the Prime Minister of England, the Lord Mayor of London, the Prince of Wales . . . and a certain home-spun American named Benjamin Franklin.

The d.u.c.h.ess kept her voice low. "When he disappeared the way he did, it was a.s.sumed the club was somehow involved-an unG.o.dly ritual gone awry, perhaps, or some poor young girl's family seeking their own revenge. There'd been other mysterious deaths and disappearances linked to that crowd-although mostly of young girls from the nearby villages." She paused to give him a significant look. "And a few young boys."

"What did you think happened to him at the time?"

"Me?" Henrietta sat back, her fierce blue St. Cyr eyes narrowing. She was a shrewd woman, able to see clearly through all the pretenses and flummery of her society. "Personally, I thought it more than likely that someone quietly slit his throat and dumped the body down an old well or some such thing. I told you: He was a disagreeable man. I don't think anyone was sorry to see him gone-least of all his wife."

"Tell me about her."

"Lady Prescott? There's not much to tell, really. She married Prescott at the end of her first season. There was talk of another suitor, but he was said to be a second son with no prospects. Her father, Ripon, was always badly dipped in those days. Gambling, you know. Most of the members of the h.e.l.lfire Club drifted pretty far into dun territory."

"Ripon and Prescott were both in the h.e.l.lfire Club?"

"So I'm told. All I know is that when Prescott offered for Lady Rosamond's hand, Ripon accepted."

"Sold to the highest bidder, was she?"

"Essentially. Ripon had half a dozen sons to see established in careers; he couldn't afford to let Lady Rosamond be picky. Particularly as there were rumors that Ripon had dragged her back from the border when she and her unsuitable suitor made a bolt for Gretna Green."

"Really? Who was this unsuitable suitor?"

"I'm not quite sure. It was all kept very hush-hush."

"It must have been, if you didn't hear about it," said Sebastian with a smile. "What can you tell me about Lady Rosamond's marriage to Sir Nigel?"

"I don't think she was ever very happy, poor dear. She went from being a rather vivacious, carefree woman to something quite squashed. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. After Sir Nigel disappeared, she essentially withdrew from society. He was eventually declared dead after the requisite number of years so that his son could inherit the t.i.tle and estate, but she never remarried. If there's been any scandal attached to her name since that time, I've never heard of it."

Sebastian nodded. If the d.u.c.h.ess of Claiborne hadn't heard of any scandal, then there hadn't been any scandal. He said, "What about the Bishop? How well did you know him?"

Henrietta let out her breath in a long, troubled sigh. "He was a great favorite of the Archbishop's."

"But not yours?"

She pulled a face. "You know me; I've little patience for earnest clerics."

Sebastian smiled. "The Archbishop of Canterbury himself being the notable exception."

A rare bloom of color touched his aunt's cheeks. "John is different," she said, and looked away.