Sebastian had settled on the hearthrug beside her, his back propped against the side of her chair, a glass of wine in one hand. “And?” he asked, looking up at her.
“He says the tomb of Charles I was discovered just last week in St. George’s in Windsor Castle, when the workmen constructing a new passage to the royal vault accidentally stumbled upon it. Needless to say, he was not at all pleased by the possibility that someone might have made off with the royal coffin strap.”
Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. “Interesting. Especially when you consider that Stanley Preston was an avid collector with a special interest in items from the Tudor and Stuart periods. He even has Oliver Cromwell’s head.”
“His actual head?”
“The actual head—along with those of Henri IV and the Duke of Suffolk.”
“How ghoulish—not to mention suggestive, given how Preston died.” She cautiously readjusted the sleeping child’s weight. “What manner of man was he?”
“Preston? Proud. Socially ambitious. Quarrelsome. Although, according to a rather interesting spinster I met, he was also a devout and devoted family man. The sort, she says, one could like in spite of himself.”
“If one could overlook the fact that he owned hundreds of slaves,” said Hero.
“Yes. But it never ceases to amaze me the number of otherwise decent members of our society who can overlook it without any difficulty at all. I suppose it’s because the institution is both legal and biblical—not to mention highly profitable. So it never occurs to most people to question the custom any further.”
He realized she was staring at him with an oddly intent, unreadable gaze. “What is it you’re not telling me?” she said.
He paused in the act of raising his wineglass to his lips. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a trickle of dried blood on your left temple.”
“There is?” He pushed to his feet and went to inspect his forehead in the mirror over the washstand. “So there is. That shot obviously came closer than I realized.”
“Someone shot at you? Tonight?”
He wet a cloth and dabbed at the cut. “Just as I was turning onto Brook Street. They must have been lying in wait for me.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to mention it to me?”
“They missed.”
“No, they didn’t.”
He dabbed at the dried blood again, his gaze still on his reflection in the mirror. “I’ve obviously stirred someone up. The problem is, I haven’t the slightest notion whom. The only vaguely possible suspects I’ve found so far are a hussar captain who’s been showing an unwelcome interest in Preston’s daughter—unwelcome to Preston, that is—and a banker who publicly quarreled with Preston the night he died. But the banker is by all reports out of town, and I haven’t even tracked down the captain yet.”
“Someone must see you as a threat,” said Hero, her voice oddly tight. “They tried to kill you.”
“It could have been meant as a warning.” The babe stirred and let out a soft cry, and Sebastian set aside the bloodstained cloth and turned to reach for the child. “Here; let me have him for a while.”
She hesitated, and he saw something flare in her eyes, something that was there and then gone, as if quickly hidden away from him. They’d grown so much closer in the months since their marriage, yet he knew she still kept many of her thoughts and feelings from him.
“What?” he said.
“Just . . . be careful, Sebastian. I don’t understand what’s happening. But whatever it is, it’s ugly. Very ugly.”
“My dear Lady Devlin,” he said teasingly as he eased the now squalling infant from her grasp. “Are you worried?”
He expected her to answer with one of her typically wry, flippant responses.
Instead, she reached up to touch her fingertips to the flesh beside the still raw wound on his forehead and said, “Yes.”
Chapter 13
T he royal residence of Windsor Castle lay in the provincial town of Windsor, some twenty miles to the west of London on the southern bank of the river Thames. Jarvis had dispatched one of his men that morning with a message warning the Dean to prepare for a visit to the royal vault. But by the time he arrived, the sun had long since slipped below the western walls of the castle.