Who Buries the Dead

Chapter 15

Sebastian was sitting down to a solitary breakfast after a hard ride in the park when he heard the distant peal of the front bell, followed by a young woman’s voice in the hall.

“A Miss Anne Preston to see you, my lord,” said Morey, appearing in the doorway. “She says it’s urgent.”

“Please, show her in.”

Stanley Preston’s daughter came in with a quick step and a determined, almost fierce expression that faded to chagrin as she drew up just inside the doorway. “I’ve interrupted your breakfast. I do beg your pardon. I’ll go-”

He pushed to his feet. “No. Please, come in and sit down. May I offer you some tea? Toast, perhaps?”

“Nothing, thank you.” She took the seat he indicated, both hands gripping her reticule in her lap as she leaned forward. “I’m sorry for coming so early, but I spoke to Jane Austen last night, and she says she told you about Hugh-I mean, Captain Wyeth. I. . I don’t think she realized that when you heard about Father’s argument with Mr. Austen, you might leap to some unfortunate conclusions.”

Sebastian suspected that Jane Austen had been perfectly aware of the implications of what she’d told him. But all he said was, “Conclusions about what?”

“About H-Captain Wyeth, and Father.”

Sebastian reached for his tankard and calmly took a sip of ale, his gaze one of polite interest.

When he remained silent, she said in a rush, “I won’t deny that Father was displeased when he learned Captain Wyeth had returned to London. But there was never any confrontation between them. Truly there wasn’t.” She looked at him with a pinched, earnest face, as if she could somehow will him to believe her.

She was an appallingly bad liar.

Sebastian cut himself a slice of ham. “Yet your father quarreled with Mr. Austen over a simple statement of regret voiced by the man’s wife from her sickbed?”

“Father never could abide having his judgments questioned or being told he was wrong-about anything.”

“Oh? And what, precisely, led your friend to change her mind about Captain Wyeth?”

Anne Preston threaded her reticule strings between her fingers. “When she opposed the match between Hugh and me six years ago, Eliza was very much governed by material considerations. She thought at the time she had my best interests at heart. But. .”

“Yes?” prompted Sebastian.

“She says her illness has altered her perception, that she now sincerely regrets the part she once played in helping to deprive me of the happiness I could have enjoyed all these years.”

“Your father found that objectionable?”

“Father always hoped to see us-that is, my brother and me-marry well. It was extraordinarily important to him.”

“So Captain Wyeth has renewed his quest for your hand?

“Oh, no. No. We. . we’ve only met a few times since his return to London-as old acquaintances. Nothing more.”

Sebastian noted the telltale stain of color on her cheeks. But all he said was, “I understand Captain Wyeth has taken a room in Knightsbridge. Where, precisely?”

She stared at him. “But. . I’ve just explained there is no reason to involve him in any way.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to speak with him.”

He watched her nostrils flare in panic as she realized her bold attempt to shield the captain from suspicion had failed utterly. She dropped her gaze to her clenched hands and said quietly, “He’s at the Shepherd’s Rest, in Middle Row.”

“Thank you,” said Sebastian.

She fiddled again with the strings of her reticule. “You asked yesterday if there was anyone with whom Father had quarreled recently.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been giving your question some thought, and it occurs to me that there is someone. I don’t know if you could say Father quarreled with him precisely, but Father was definitely afraid of him. His name is Oliphant. Sinclair Oliphant.”

In the silence that followed her words, Sebastian could hear himself breathing, feel the slow and steady beat of his own pulse. He cleared his throat and somehow managed to say, “You mean, Colonel Sinclair Oliphant?”

“Yes, although he’s Lord Oliphant now. He inherited his brother’s title and estates, you know.”

“Yes; I did know. Although it was my understanding he’d been posted as governor of Jamaica.”

“He was, yes. But he recently surrendered his position and returned to England. He’s taken a town house in Mount Street for the Season.”

Sebastian reached for his ale and wrapped both hands around the tankard. Three years before, in the mountains of Portugal, Sinclair Oliphant had deliberately betrayed Sebastian to a French major known for his inventive and painful ways of inflicting death. Sebastian had survived. But what the French major had done after that would haunt Sebastian for the rest of his life.

He took a long, slow swallow of the ale, then set the tankard aside with a hand that was not quite steady. “Why was your father afraid of Oliphant?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I mean, I know Father was furious with Oliphant’s behavior as governor. In fact, Father went out there last year precisely to try to do something about him.”

“Your father was in Jamaica last year?”

“Yes.”

“Did you go with him?”

“Oh, no; I stayed with the Austens. I’ve never actually been to Jamaica at all. Father always said it wasn’t a healthy place for a woman.”

“It isn’t a healthy place for anyone.”

He studied her smooth, seemingly guileless young face. He wanted to ask if it bothered her to know that the clothes on her back, like the pearl drops in her ears and the food she ate every day, were paid for by the labor of enslaved men, women, and children. But all he said was, “Do you know if your father had anything to do with Oliphant’s decision to return to England?”

“No; Father never discussed such things with me. But last Friday, he was out for several hours in the afternoon, and when he returned home, he looked positively stricken. I asked what was wrong, and he said that he was afraid he’d made a mistake-that Oliphant is far more dangerous than he’d realized.”

“Your father was right. Oliphant is dangerous. Very dangerous.”

Something in his voice must have given him away, for she looked at him strangely, her lips parting, a faint frown line creasing her forehead. “You know him?”

“I did. Once,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.

After she had gone, he went to stand before the long windows overlooking the terrace and the gardens below. The neatly edged parterres showed a vibrant green in the fitful sunshine, the newly turned earth a warm brown. But he saw only ancient stone walls burned black and a child’s doll lost in a drift of orange blossoms.

There are moments in the course of a man’s life that can irrevocably alter its path and sear his soul forever. Sebastian had encountered such a pivotal moment one cold spring in the mountains of Portugal, when he had obeyed the orders of a colonel he knew to be both vicious and deceitful, and dozens of innocent women and children had paid with their lives for his gullibility. Another man might have sought refuge in a string of excuses: I didn’t know. . I was simply obeying orders. . I was too late to save them. But not Sebastian. Their spilled blood had irrevocably colored his sense of who and what he was.

Once, he had sworn to avenge their deaths, sworn to kill Oliphant even if it meant he had to die for it himself. But, with time, he had come to realize that the drive for vengeance was his own, that it was his own pain he sought to ease, his own guilt he hoped to redeem. Those gentle, religious women who had dedicated their lives to the care of others, and died because of it, would have prayed for Sinclair Oliphant’s salvation. Not for his death.

Sebastian would not violate their memory by killing in their name. But there was a difference between vengeance and justice, and he was determined that the innocents of Santa Iria would have justice.

One way or another.

The elegant house on Mount Street so recently hired by Sinclair Oliphant for his gently bred wife and their five children rose five stories tall, its shiny black door flanked by polished brass lanterns, its marble front steps freshly scrubbed. Sebastian stood for a time on the footpath, his gaze on that stately facade, his thoughts on the man he’d last seen in a rough campaign tent in the mountains of Portugal. Colonial governorships were coveted, lucrative positions seldom surrendered voluntarily. If Stanley Preston was, in fact, behind Oliphant’s sudden, unexpected return to London, then Preston had made himself a dangerous enemy indeed.

Still thoughtful, Sebastian mounted the house’s front steps. His knock was answered by a somber butler who provided the information that his lordship was breakfasting that morning at White’s. But Sebastian had to trail Oliphant from the clubs of St. James’s through several exclusive shops in Bond Street before he finally came upon his former colonel at Manton’s shooting gallery in Davies Street.

Leaning against a nearby wall, Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and waited while Oliphant methodically culped wafers with one of Manton’s sleek new flintlock pistols. The man looked much as Sebastian remembered him. In his mid-forties now, he was trim, broad shouldered, and tall, with the erect carriage typical of a career military officer. His jaw was strong and square, his cheeks lean, his lips habitually curled into a smile that hid a capacity for self-interest that was brutal in its intensity.

Sebastian had no doubt that Oliphant was aware of his presence. But the colonel simply went on calmly hitting the rows of paper targets attached to an iron frame at the far end of the long, narrow room. After each shot, he paused, reloaded his pistol, and fired again, the acrid smoke billowing around them, until the last wafer went down. Only then did he turn to face Sebastian, his movements graceful and untroubled, almost bored.

It was the first time Sebastian had seen the colonel since he’d sent Sebastian on a mission deliberately calculated to end in so much innocent death. Now Sebastian searched the man’s clear blue eyes for some sign of guilt or regret or even discomfort. But he saw only the familiar self-satisfaction edged faintly with contempt. And he knew then that the events of that faraway spring-the deaths that had shattered Sebastian’s soul and marked him for life-had troubled the man who caused them not at all.

Sebastian felt a powerful surge of rage pulse through him. He wanted to smash his fist into that complacently smiling face. He wanted to feel flesh split and bone shatter beneath his driving knuckles. He wanted to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and crush it until he saw the life ebb from those hated eyes. And he had to clench his hands at his sides and force himself to take a deep, steadying breath before he could bring the surging bloodlust under control.

“I didn’t realize shooting had become a spectator sport,” said Oliphant, calmly passing the pistol to a waiting attendant.

Sebastian held himself very still. “Practicing in case someone should challenge you to a duel?”

Oliphant’s smile never slipped. “I like to keep my hand in.” He stripped off the leather sleeves he wore to protect his starched white cuffs and went to wash his hands at the basin. “You’re not here to shoot?”

“Not today.” Sebastian watched him splash warm water over his face and reach for the towel. “How long have you been back from Jamaica?”

“Not long,” said Oliphant, his attention seemingly all for the task of drying his hands.

“I understand you knew a man named Preston. Stanley Preston.”

Oliphant glanced over at him. “As it happens, I did. Why do you ask?”

“Someone cut off his head and used it to decorate a bridge near Five Fields.”

“So I had heard.”

“I’m told he was afraid of you. Why?”

“Who told you that?”

“Are you saying he wasn’t?”

Oliphant tossed the towel at the washstand and turned away to ease his coat up over his shoulders with the attendant’s help. “Some people frighten easily.” He adjusted his cuffs. “They say you came down from the hills in Portugal swearing to kill me on sight.” He pivoted to face Sebastian, his arms spread wide, his eyebrows lifted as if in inquiry-or challenge. “Change your mind?”

“Not exactly.”

The man’s handsome smile slipped ever so slightly, then broadened. “What do you have in mind? Pistols at dawn? Or a knife wielded in darkness from a fetid alley?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Three years ago, an innocent Portuguese nun was raped and tortured to death because of you, while thirty-two children and the simple, pious women who cared for them were put to the sword or burned alive. No English court will ever convict you for what you did to the convent of Santa Iria. But if you murdered Stanley Preston, I’m going to personally watch you hang for it.”

Then he turned and strode from the room, before the urge to kill the man with his bare hands overwhelmed him.