Sebastian was standing in their private parlor, their small son in his arms. A portmanteau packed by his valet, Calhoun, stood near the door, and a message had been sent to Tom to bring round the curricle. He planned to leave for Little Stretton on the hour. “Seems wise,” he said. “Why bury her amongst strangers if someone can tell us who she is?”
“Crispin Seaton says Emma Chance—or rather, Chandler—didn’t know anything about her family.”
“No. But her school must.”
“So why not go to Miss Rowena LaMont’s Academy in Tenbury?”
“I intend to. But first I want to know what Emma was doing here, in Ayleswick, and I’m hoping this Miss Jane Owens can tell me.” He smiled as Simon reached out one splayed hand to explore his father’s nose. “Hopefully I won’t be gone more than a couple of days.”
Hero said, “I’m thinking I might spend some time looking into those two earlier suicides the vicar’s wife was telling me about.”
“What about your interviews for the article on the effects of the enclosure movement?” He worried sometimes that marriage to him was distracting Hero from the life she’d once intended to have.
She met his gaze, her face solemn. “Finding this killer is important to me too, Devlin—particularly if Emma Chandler isn’t the first young woman he’s murdered.” She paused, her nostrils flaring on a deeply indrawn breath. “Were they buried at the crossroads, do you think? Those other young women who were thought to have committed suicide, I mean.”
It was the practice in England to bury those convicted of the crime of felo-de-se at the crossroads, with a stake driven through their hearts—the idea being that both the stake and the constant traffic above would keep their restless souls from wandering. He shook his head. “I don’t know, but probably. Superstitions die hard in areas like this.”
He saw her jaw harden, saw the glitter of outrage in her eyes. To steal a young woman’s life was bad enough. But to convince others that a murder victim was responsible for her own death, thus condemning her to an ignoble burial, added another vile outrage to an already despicable act.
His gaze fell to the pile of women’s clothing delivered that morning by Constable Nash. All were now neatly folded. He said, “You looked at her clothes?” Hero had declined to attend that morning’s inquests.
“I did.”
“Anything interesting?”
She went to where the clothes rested on a straight-backed chair. “It’s a lovely walking dress, probably made by a modiste in Ludlow and quite new. I did notice this—” She picked up the dress and turned its back toward him. “It looks as if dirt has been ground into the shoulders.”
He carried Simon over to study the delicate cloth. “Makes sense, given how she was killed.” He shifted the baby’s weight so he could finger the slightly abraded cloth. “It probably also explains the faint scrapes on her back. Her killer was pinning her down, and she was struggling.”
“How perfectly ghastly.”
“It is, yes.”
Hero set the dress aside. “I don’t think she was wearing her spencer when she was killed. It’s not dirty at all.”
“The day was quite warm. The spencer was found folded beside her.”
“The back of her hat is smashed, though; I’d say she was wearing it when she was killed.” Hero reached for a soft kid glove. “And there’s this,” she said, holding it out to him.
“What about it?”
“There’s only one.”
Sebastian remembered noticing a glove lying with Emma’s hat and spencer in the meadow. Had its mate been there too? He couldn’t recall. He said, “Knowing Constable Nash, he probably dropped the other one somewhere. But you might ask Archie to look into it if you should happen to see him while I’m gone.”
From the lane in front of the inn came the jingle of harness and the sharp cockney accents of Tom cajoling the chestnuts.
Sebastian brushed his lips against his son’s cheek and breathed in the sweet baby scent. “For days now—ever since Hannibal Pierce was shot—I’ve been thinking this is all somehow connected to the presence in the neighborhood of Napoléon Bonaparte’s brother. God help me, I was even willing to entertain the idea that Emma might be an agent sent from Paris. Now I’m wondering if I made a mistake assuming the two murders are connected. They may not be at all. Or Pierce could have been killed simply because he saw something that endangered whoever murdered Emma.”
Hero reached to take the child from his arms. “But why kill an innocent young artist?”
He expelled a long breath. “Hopefully this Miss Jane Owens can help answer that question.” He cradled her cheek in one hand and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”
“That’s my line,” she said, and he laughed.
Chapter 28