“I don’t know. But it’s telling the inscription reads, ‘King Charles’ rather than ‘Charles I,’ and 1648 rather than 1649. Where exactly is Charles I buried? I’ve realized I have no idea.”
“No one does. After the execution, there was talk of interring him in Westminster Abbey. But Cromwell refused to allow it, so the King’s men took the body away at night and buried it in secret. There are conflicting reports about what they did with him. I’ve heard speculation he may be somewhere in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. But no one knows for certain.” She frowned. “What were Preston’s politics?”
“I’d be surprised if he nourished any secret nostalgia for the Stuarts, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She ran her fingertips over the scrolled engraving, her features composed but thoughtful. “Do you mind if I show it to Jarvis?” she asked, reaching for her pelisse again.
“He’s not going to like my involving you in another murder investigation.”
“Don’t worry,” she said as Sebastian took the pelisse from her hands to help her with it. “I seriously doubt he could dislike you more than he already does.”
He laughed at that. Then he turned her in his arms, his hands lingering on her shoulders, his laughter stilling.
“What?” she asked, watching him.
“Just that . . . whoever killed Stanley Preston was either driven by a rage bordering on madness, or he is mad. And of the two, I’m not certain which makes him more dangerous.”
“Madness is always frightening, I suppose because it is so incomprehensible. Yet I think I’d fear more the man who is brutal but sane, and therefore capable of shrewd, cold calculation.”
“Because he’s clever?”
“That, and because he’s less likely to make mistakes.”
Chapter 6
S ebastian ordered his curricle brought round and came out of the house half an hour later to find Tom walking the grays up and down Brook Street. It had rained again sometime in the early morning hours, leaving the pavement wet, with dull, heavy clouds that pressed down on the city’s crowded rooftops and soaring chimneys. The horses’ breath showed white in the cold.
“If you fall asleep and tumble off your perch,” said Sebastian, taking the reins, “I won’t stop and pick you up.”
But Tom simply laughed and scrambled back to his place.
They headed south, curling around the edge of Hyde Park, where faint wisps of mist still drifted through the trees and the distant clumps of shrubs were no more than blurred shadows.
There’d been a time not so long ago when Knightsbridge and Hans Town were sleepy, pleasant villages lying several miles beyond the sprawl of London. Now, neat terrace houses of three and five stories—plus basements and attics—lined spacious squares and a broad thoroughfare called Sloane Street that stretched from Knightsbridge down toward Chelsea and the Thames. This was a district favored by prosperous barristers, physicians, and bankers, with a scattering of respectable lodging houses and workshops and a few more modest but comfortable homes for tradesmen.
Reluctant to disturb Preston’s grieving daughter so early in the day, Sebastian went instead to the Rose and Crown. A well-tended inn built of brick in the last years of the eighteenth century, it had a freshly whitewashed arch leading to a bustling yard and a public room that smelled of bacon and wood smoke and hearty ale. A buxom, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of perhaps sixteen was wiping the tables when Sebastian walked in.
“You’re Molly?” he asked.
She turned, a smile lighting up her pretty face as she let her gaze rove over him in frank assessment. “I am. Who’re you?”
“Devlin. I wonder if I might ask you a few questions about last night?”
The smile disappeared and she retreated behind the gleaming oak counter that stretched along one wall. “What you want t’ know fer? You don’t look like no beak t’ me.”
“I’m not.” He laid a coin on the counter between them, the metal clicking softly against the polished wood. “I’m told you recognized Mr. Preston last night. Did he come here often?”
Her hand flashed out, and the coin disappeared. “Sometimes. Though he mostly favored the Monster.”
“The Monster?”
She jerked her head toward the west. “It’s just off Sloane Street.” She wrinkled her little button of a nose. “The place is so old you have t’ walk down a couple of steps to get in the front door.”
Sebastian let his gaze wander around the taproom, with its neat round tables and straight-backed chairs and gleaming wainscoting. “Did Mr. Preston come in here last night?”
“Nah. Ain’t seen him for a fortnight or more.”
“When he would come in, what did he drink?”
“Ale, mostly. But he weren’t no lush, if that’s what you’re askin’. Usually, he’d just pop in for a quick pint of an evenin’, then leave.”