What Remains of Heaven

by C. S. Harris

  There was nothing for it but to escort her onto the floor, where two long lines were forming.

  They faced each other across a space of perhaps six feet, he in the gentlemen’s line, she in the ladies’. She said, “You are entirely wrong in your supposition, you know.”

  The chamber orchestra struck up, the sweet notes of the violin barely filtering through the chattering roar that filled the ballroom. The row of gentlemen bowed. The ladies sank into gracious curtsies. Sebastian had to wait until it was their turn to come together in the center of the line to whisper, “I hardly think the dance floor is the place to be having this conversation.”

  Her smile widened. “Actually, I find the setting quite appropriate, under the circumstances.”

  They circled each other back-to-back, turning counterclockwise on the jeté. He said, “You know I cannot speak freely.”

  “Really?” She threw him an evil smile over her shoulder as she swayed away. “And what would you say if you could, my lord?”

  He was forced by the movement of the dance to swing away from her, a stout man in exaggerated shirt points hissing in warning when Sebastian would have turned clockwise rather than counterclockwise. He could only glare at her from across the floor until the dance brought them together again.

  He said, “You told me there were no repercussions.”

  She slid her foot daintily to the right, bending and then rising as she drew the other up to it in a graceful glissade dessous.

  “So I did.”

  He moved behind her in the chassé. “Would you have me believe that your”—he broke off, searching for an appropriate word—“situation was not the subject of the Bishop’s visit to the McCains?”

  They passed, right shoulders together, her brows drawing together in mock confusion. “My ‘situation’? Whatever do you mean, my lord Devlin?”

  “Do not play the fool with me, Miss Jarvis. I know you are anything but.”

  She spun around, foot pointing straight down in an elegant sissone. “Then you should have known better than to approach me in such a milieu, shouldn’t you?”

  He needed to be moving on. The stout idiot in the high shirt points was hissing at him again. Sebastian gritted his teeth. “Do you ride in Hyde Park tomorrow morning?”

  She swayed away from him. “I think not.”

  “Then when may we continue this conversation?”

  She dipped gracefully, moving sideways. “I see no reason to continue it at any time. Your supposition—if I understand you—is incorrect.”

  He had to wait until they came together again to growl, “Would you tell me if it were correct?”

  She swung around with a curving ronde de jambe. “Of course not.”

  The music ended, Miss Jarvis sinking with the other ladies into a deep curtsy. “Good evening, my lord,” she said, and left him there, at the edge of the dance floor, feeling frustrated and angry and deeply disquieted.

  Lord Quillian was parting from a group of friends in what was known as the Jerusalem Chamber of Brooks’s gentlemen’s club when Sebastian came upon him.

  “Lord Devlin,” said the aging exquisite, resplendent in a silk evening cape and chapeau bras. “If you’ve come to join in the fleecing of this poor repentant sinner, you’re too late. I’ve decided to retire for the evening while my estates are still unencumbered.”

  There was a chorus of good-natured ribaldry from his friends. Sebastian said, “Bad round of luck at the tables?”

  “Let’s just say, not the kind I care to continue.” Quillian cast a critical eye toward the night sky. “This dreadful rain has finally ceased, has it?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Good. Walk with me a ways, my lord?”

  “You find yourself suddenly inspired by a desire for my company, do you?” said Sebastian as the two men left the club.

  Quillian swung his ebony walking stick back and forth between two limp fingers. “Hardly. But I am curious to hear how the investigation into the murder of Bishop Prescott is progressing.”

  “Really? And what is your interest in the matter?”

  Quillian sniffed. “I know perfectly well I have been identified as a suspect. I’m hoping to hear you’ve begun to focus your inquiries elsewhere.”

  “Quite the opposite, actually.”

  Quillian’s hand tightened on the silver head of his walking stick, freezing it in midswing. “And what, precisely, is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ve discovered the identity of the mysterious benefactor who was funding Reverend Earnshaw’s construction work on the church of St. Margaret’s.”

  “Oh. That.” Quillian twirled his walking stick in a graceful arc that set it once more to swinging back and forth.

  “Yes. That.”

  They continued in silence for a moment, their footfalls echoing in the dark, wet street. Sebastian said, “It does rather beg the question: Why?”

  “I suppose it does, doesn’t it?”

  Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “I take it you knew Sir Nigel had been murdered in the crypt of St. Margaret’s and left there to molder all these years?”

  “Knew it? Hardly. But I had developed a theory, yes.”

  “You think Francis Prescott killed his own brother for the inheritance? An inheritance he then lost when his nephew was born?”

  “It seems the obvious conclusion.” Quillian glanced sideways at him. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  Quillian grunted and kept walking.

  Sebastian said, “What were you hoping to accomplish?”

  “I should think that would be rather obvious. If I were correct—if Sir Nigel’s moldering body was lying in that crypt—then suspicion would naturally fall upon the priest responsible for sealing off the crypt in the first place.”

  “Bishop Prescott.”

  “Bishop Prescott,” agreed the Baron.

  “The idea being to keep the Bishop so busy defending himself against the ensuing accusations of fratricide that he would have no time to continue pushing his Slavery Abolition Act through Parliament?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “Seems a bit of a long shot.”

  A tight smile split the aging exquisite’s face. “I am a gambler.”

  Sebastian said, “True. Although it occurs to me that the odds would shorten considerably if you knew for certain that Sir Nigel was indeed moldering down in that crypt.”

  “I hardly see how I could have known that. Unless, of course, you’re suggesting I killed Sir Nigel and left him there myself?” Quillian pulled a face. “It’s an interesting theory; I’ll give you that.” He walked on a few paces, then said, “The thing is, I had no reason to kill Sir Nigel. I barely knew the man. Dreadful bad ton, you know.”

  “You were both members of the Hellfire Club, were you not?”

  The exquisite’s eyes narrowed. “My dear lord Devlin, the Hellfire Club was hardly exclusive. It counted hundreds of members.”

  “Not in its inner circle. What were they called?”

  “The Apostles,” said Quillian. He sighed. “Much as it pains me to admit it, the truth is that I myself was not actually a member of that exclusive inner circle. At the time, I was but a poor second son just a few years down from Oxford and struggling to make my way in the world.”

  “Really? Doing what?”

  Lord Quillian drew up beside a couple of lounging sedan-chair bearers who immediately scrambled to their poles. “Oh, this and that,” he said, waving one white-gloved hand through the air in a vague gesture. “Now I fear I find I have exceeded my tolerance for the night air.” His walking stick clenched in one fist, he stepped nimbly into the chair. “Good evening to you, my lord.”

  A cool gust of wind fluttered the lapels of Sebastian’s evening coat and buffeted him with the odors of the city, the pungent scents of wet paving and hot lamp oil mixing with a faint, inescapable whiff of sewage. He stood for a moment watching the sedan-c
hair bearers heft their burden and start off at a trot.

  Then he turned toward Brook Street, his solitary footsteps echoing in the stillness of the night.

  TUESDAY, 14 JULY 1812

  The next morning, Hero was in the library, surrounded by piles of books and papers, when her father walked in the door.

  “Good God. At it again, are you?” He picked up a bound copy of dispatches and frowned. “What’s this?”

  She set aside her pen. “I’m compiling a list of all the men who were in the Foreign Office or close to the King thirty years ago.”

  Jarvis’s eyes narrowed with amusement. “Looking for Alcibiades, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Think he murdered your Bishop, as well as the Bishop’s brother?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Really? I think he’s dead.”

  “Because you never found him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you think Francis Prescott was murdered in the same crypt as his brother?”

  “Maybe someone has a sense of humor.”

  “I don’t see anything the least bit funny about it,” said Hero indignantly.

  Jarvis frowned. “I know. That’s what worries me.”

  Sebastian was looking over a report from his estate agent when a polite knock sounded at his front door. The day had dawned fine and clear, and he’d thrown open the windows to a warm breeze and the scent of fresh bread baking in the shop down the street. He heard a murmur of voices in the entry, and a moment later Morey ushered Sir Henry Lovejoy into his presence.

  “Sir Henry,” said Sebastian, rising to his feet. “An unexpected pleasure. Please have a seat.”

  His round hat gripped tightly in both hands, the little magistrate gave a jerky bow and cleared his throat. “Thank you, but no. I can’t stay long.”

  Sebastian watched Sir Henry reach into an inner pocket and withdraw a packet of worn, yellowing papers. And he knew, from the little magistrate’s somber demeanor, that his world was about to change forever.

  “I visited the Board of Trade yesterday,” said Sir Henry. “No ship named the Albatross sailed from Portsmouth in either January or February of 1782. However, an Albatross did set forth from London on the twentieth of December, 1781, bound for New York.” Lovejoy laid the packet on the edge of Sebastian’s desk. The two men’s gazes met. Lovejoy looked away first.

  A heavy silence fell. Sebastian reached to take up the Albatross ’s passenger list, the ancient parchment crackling as he spread it open. A quick glance through the names of the passengers was all it took. Charles, Lord Jarvis. Sir Nigel Prescott. A. St. Cyr, the Earl of Hendon.

  He looked up. “This is the original passenger list.”

  Lovejoy cleared his throat again. “Yes. I seem to have carried it away with me somehow. I trust I can leave it to you to see that it is kept safe?”

  Sebastian nodded, his jaw clenched tight. There was no doubt in his mind that Lovejoy had understood immediately the significance of what he had found. It was a moment before Sebastian managed to say, “Thank you.”

  The magistrate gave another of his awkward bows. “My lord,” he said, and turned away.

  He paused at the door to glance back, as if intending to say something more. Then he must have reconsidered, for he merely settled his hat on his baldhead and kept walking.

  Chapter 35

  In his memories, Sebastian’s mother was always laughing. A beautiful woman with silken gold hair and sparkling green eyes, she had set out for a few hours’ sailing one brilliant summer’s day the year Sebastian was eleven. She’d kissed him good-bye and teased him gently, the way she so often did. When her friends’ yacht pulled away from the dock, he’d stood and watched her, smiling as the sunlight gleamed for one last moment on the strange blue stone-and-silver necklace she wore so often around her neck.

  He had never seen her again.

  Drowned, they said. But Sebastian hadn’t believed them. Day after day he’d climbed to the cliffs south of town to stare out over the churning waves of the Channel and watch, waiting for her to come back. Not until seventeen years later did he learn he’d been right that summer. Sophia, the Countess of Hendon, hadn’t drowned. She’d simply sailed away, leaving a husband, a married daughter, the graves of her two dead sons . . . and Sebastian.

  For seventeen years he’d lived with the lie of her death. Now he found himself wondering, How many lies can there be? How many lies could obscure the fundamental truths of one man’s existence?

  After Lovejoy left, Sebastian stood for a time fingering the Albatross’s passenger list. He poured himself a drink, raised the glass to his lips. Only, rather than taste it, he turned and hurled the glass at the cold hearth in a savage shattering of crystal and pungent, spilled brandy.

  Then he went in search of his mother’s husband.

  He found the Earl of Hendon in the chambers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Downing Street. He was standing beside a bookcase, head bowed, a heavy tome open in his hands as if he were looking something up.

  “We need to talk,” said Sebastian.

  Hendon raised his head, jaw set with annoyance at the interruption. “Really, Devlin; if you—”

  Sebastian sent the Albatross’s passenger list spinning through the air to land with a soft thump on the open pages of Hendon’s book. “Now.”

  Setting aside the volume he held, Hendon unfolded the packet, the aged pages crackling in his hands. He studied it for a moment, then carefully folded the papers again with a hand that was no longer steady. “I’ll get my hat,” he said, and turned away.

  Sebastian barely waited until they’d reached the deserted paths and flower beds of the old Privy Garden before demanding explosively, “Why? Why did you do it?”

  He’d been afraid the Earl meant to persist in his lies. But even Hendon must have realized the time for denials was past. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, his chin sunk low between his shoulders. He looked suddenly older than Sebastian remembered him being, and very tired. “You mean, why didn’t I repudiate you when you were born? Is that what you’re asking?”

  “Yes.”

  “And proclaim myself a cuckold to the world? Not bloody likely.” Hendon squinted up at the spreading branches of the ash trees lining the avenue, pale green leaves trembling against a clear blue sky. His jaw hardened. “I was enraged; I won’t deny it. What man would not be? But I agreed to raise you as my own. I had two strong, healthy sons. No one ever expected you to be in a position to inherit.”

  No one ever expected you to inherit.

  Sebastian knew a bitter welling of disbelief, fed by rage and a disconcerting sense of being a stranger to himself. “And my real father . . . Who was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sebastian stared at the Earl’s familiar, craggy profile and wondered if it was a lie. One more lie, piled atop so many others. “What about Amanda? Does she know who he was?”

  Hendon threw him a quick, sideways glance. “She may. I don’t know. We’ve never spoken of it. Although it’s always been my suspicion she knew far more than a girl her age should of her mother’s activities.”

  “She does know I’m not your son?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the two of you . . . You both knew Kat and I were not sister and brother. Yet you let us think—” Sebastian choked, and it was a moment before he could continue. “In the name of God, how could you?”

  Hendon swiped the air with one big hand, his features hardening into a mask of stubborn determination. “I’ve spent the last twenty-nine years of my life hiding the truth from you. Do you seriously think I would suddenly give it all away? So that you could ruin yourself by contracting a disastrous marriage with a woman of the stage?”

  Sebastian threw back his head, his harsh laugh startling a nearby pigeon that rose up with a cry of alarm, wings beating the air in a frantic whirl. “My God, that’s rich. Kat is your daughter , while I . . . I�
�m just the illegitimate son of God only knows who. One would think you’d actually encourage the match. Then my sons really would be your grandsons—only through Kat, rather than me.”

  A muscle jumped along Hendon’s clenched jaw. “You are my son in the eyes of the world and before the law. I named you that nearly thirty years ago. Pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant. Nothing has changed.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said Sebastian, the shells of the walk crunching beneath his boots as he drew up abruptly. “Everything has changed. Everything.”

  And he turned and walked off into the trees.

  Sebastian sat in one of the high-backed pews that crowded the round nave of the Temple, his eyes half closed as he studied the mail-clad effigy of a medieval knight on the pavement before him. Once, when he was twenty-one and Kat but sixteen, they had come here, to the ancient church of the Knights Templar and pledged their love to each other forever.

  He heard the whisper of the door quietly opening and closing, heard her footsteps cross the pavement toward him, breathed in the sweet scent of her as Kat slipped into the seat beside him.

  He said, “How did you know where to find me?”

  A soft smile touched her lips. “I’ll admit this isn’t the first place I looked.”

  The urge to take her into his arms was so overwhelming he had to clench his fists around the back of the pew before him. He said, “You talked to Hendon?”

  “He came to see me.” She rested her own hand atop one of his. “I’m so sorry, Sebastian.”

  He let his head fall back, his throat stretching tight as he looked up at the whitewashed plaster ceiling. “I’ll not deny it’s a bit of a shock, learning I’m not exactly who I’ve always thought I was, but—”

  “Sebastian . . . No.” She shifted so that she could grip his right hand between both of hers. “You’re still the same man you have always been. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. And one day you will be the Earl of Hendon.”