“Oh?”
“That surprises you? My cousin Eliza likewise fears that you may still suspect Henry.”
“I don’t think your brother has anything to worry about either,” he said. “How is Mrs. Austen today?”
A pinched, bleak light came into Miss Austen’s face. “I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time.”
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked rapidly and nodded, her throat working as she swallowed.
He said, “You wouldn’t by chance know a man named Diggory Flynn—a somewhat disheveled character with an oddly crooked face?”
“I don’t believe so, no. Why? You think he could be involved in what happened here?”
“He may be.”
She tipped her head to one side. “May I ask why you’ve changed your mind about Captain Wyeth?”
“Largely because I’ve come to believe he is precisely the honorable, conscientious man he appears.”
“That is good to hear,” she said with a soft smile. “Anne deserves to be happy.”
“Let’s hope she will be,” he said, just as the bells of the distant country chapel began to toll.
Chapter 51
S ebastian’s next stop was the Rose and Crown, where he discovered that Cian O’Neal had never returned to work in the stables.
He finally found the former stableboy hoeing rows of newly sprouting vegetables in the kitchen gardens of Chelsea Hospital. At the sight of Sebastian, he froze, his fists tightening around the handle of his hoe and his chest jerking on a quickly indrawn breath.
“What ye want wit’ me?”
“I need to ask you a few questions,” said Sebastian, pausing some feet away when the boy looked as if he might bolt.
“I already told that other feller, I didn’t see nothin’. Nothin’!”
Sebastian studied the lad’s tight, strained face. “What other fellow?”
“The feller from Bow Street.”
“The one who spoke to you before?”
“No. A different one.”
“Did he ask about the Dullahan?”
Cian stared at him, eyes wide and afraid.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” said Sebastian.
“Nobody sees the Dullahan and lives.”
“So perhaps what you saw wasn’t the Dullahan. Perhaps it was simply a man.”
“But he was carryin’ a h—” Cian broke off and dropped his gaze to the ground, his cheeks flaming with his shame.
“A head? Is that what you saw? Not the severed head at the end of the bridge, but another head?”
The boy wiped one ragged cuff across the end of his nose and nodded. “Won’t nobody believe me, but ’tis true.”
“I believe you,” said Sebastian. “Where was this man when you saw him?”
Cian kept his gaze on his feet, his voice barely more than a whisper. “The other side of the bridge. Not far from the barn we was goin’ to.”
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno. It was dark, and he was wearin’ some sort of flowin’ black robes with a floppy hat on his head.”
“You mean, on the head attached to his own shoulders? Not on the head he carried?”
The color in the boy’s cheeks deepened. “Aye.”
“So it couldn’t have been the Dullahan. It was simply a man dressed in a black cassock and carrying a head.”
The boy looked up, his features contorted with a swirling inner agony of confusion and a nameless fear that wasn’t going to go away. “But whose head? You tell me that. Ain’t no other body missin’ a head that I heard of.”
“Did you see anyone else at the bridge that night? Perhaps nothing more than a shadow moving in the shrubbery edging the stream?”
The boy took a step back, then another. He was sweating now, although the day was cold, the wind flattening the thin cloth of his smock against his chest. “I don’t know what I seen no more! I told that fellow from Bow Street: It was dark, and the wind was blowin’ the trees somethin’ fierce.”
Sebastian frowned. “This man from Bow Street; when was he here asking you questions?”
“I dunno. Some days ago.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dressed fine, he was, like a gentleman. Not flashy; but real fine.”
“How old?”
The boy shrugged. “Older’n you, I s’pose. But not by too much.”
“Dark or fair? Tall or short? Thin or fleshy?”
The lad’s features contorted with the effort of memory. “’Bout as tall as me and dark headed, but I wouldn’t say he was either overly thin or fleshy.”
Sebastian knew all of Lovejoy’s constables, and the boy’s description fit none of them. “He told you he was from Bow Street?”
“Aye.”
“Did he ask you anything else?”
“Only if Molly seen anythin’.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said no. If she’d seen what I seen, she wouldn’t be laughin’ at me. She wouldn’t be goin’ around tellin’ folks I’m simpleminded.”
“I don’t think you’re simpleminded. But the man who asked you those questions wasn’t from Bow Street.”
The boy’s face went slack. “What you sayin’?”
“I’m saying that if you see him again, you need to be careful.”