Page 19 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

S ebastian walked out of Plimsoll’s small but respectable town house and paused for a moment on the top step, his head falling back as he stared up at the heavy gray clouds pressing down low on the city.

Was it possible? he found himself wondering. Was it possible that a massive volcanic explosion on the far side of the world could be doing… this ? Could be causing this unseasonably bitter cold and rain? Ruining grain and hay harvests from Turkey to Ireland and probably beyond? Sending endless rains to flood the low-lying fields of the Netherlands and the high mountain valleys of Switzerland alike? Killing people—killing untold tens of thousands of people—who’d never heard of Mt. Tambora?

Who probably didn’t even know what a volcano was?

Before taking his final leave of Lancelot Plimsoll, he had asked the geologist if he thought all that volcanic dust and ash—if it really was stuck up there high in the sky—would eventually fall back to earth, allowing the world’s weather patterns to return to normal. But the geologist had simply shaken his head and said, “Only time will tell.”

?The rain was still falling half an hour later when Sebastian pulled up before the sprawling Park Lane home of the Dowager Duchess of Claiborne.

She’d been born Lady Henrietta St. Cyr, the elder sister of Alistair St. Cyr, the current Earl of Hendon. She was a large woman, built much like her brother, with a stout body, broad, plain face, and the famous intensely blue St. Cyr eyes. Although she had never been beautiful, even when young, she possessed an exquisite sense of style and had long reigned as one of the grandes dames of Society. She also had a knack for hearing—and remembering—every scandal and on-dit that had rocked the ton for the last sixty or more years. She would always be one of Sebastian’s favorite people and he still called her “Aunt” even though he now knew that Hendon was not in fact his father. It was a technicality that neither of them heeded.

Now, splendidly gowned in purple satin with a fine paisley shawl draped over her shoulders, she was seated at her breakfast table, a piece of toast half-forgotten on her plate as she studied the copy of the Morning Chronicle spread open before her. “Viscount Devlin,” intoned Her Grace’s butler in a colorless voice that nevertheless managed to effectively convey the weight of his disapproval.

She looked up.

“Good morning, Aunt,” said Sebastian, going to kiss her cheek. “This is a surprise. It’s barely eleven o’clock and you’re down already?”

“That’s your fault, you unnatural child,” she told him, leaning back in her chair. “The night soil men woke me at dawn, and I was so convinced I was going to be the recipient of one of your ungodly early-morning visits that I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“I was being considerate,” he said, pouring himself a cup of tea before going to sit in one of the chairs beside her.

“Gammon. If you were truly intent on letting me sleep, you wouldn’t have come before one.”

He laughed and took a sip of his tea.

Her eyes lightened with a smile that faded as she folded her newspaper and set it aside. “I’ll confess I never cared for Lord Preston Farnsworth, but this murder is beyond nasty.”

“That it is,” said Sebastian. “Why do you think someone did that—posed him hanging upside down in a posture from the tarot, I mean?”

“Good heavens, I couldn’t begin to imagine.”

“So tell me why you didn’t care for him. Most people considered him a paragon.”

“True. But then, as you know, I’ve never had much patience for paragons.” She paused. “Of course, there’s more to it than that.”

She paused again, and he waited while she smoothed the crease of her newspaper and then folded it once more into a neat rectangle. “Lord Preston was well-liked partially because he was a Farnsworth but also because he came across as an amiable, good-natured man with a dry, self-deprecating wit. And even though he was known to be religious, he somehow managed to cultivate a reputation for being devout without embarrassing anyone with his pious excesses the way so many of that sort do.”

That was important in Society, Sebastian knew; most members of the ton found excessive displays of religiosity embarrassingly gauche—although he’d noticed that had begun to change.

“But…” she began.

“But?” he prompted.

“Let’s just say that while I don’t in any way condone what Lady Tess did, I still find Farnsworth’s reaction to it appalling.”

“Which aspect of his reaction?”

“All of it, frankly, but particularly the crim. con. case. And yes, I know Henry Wellesley did essentially the same thing, and I found that beyond distasteful, as well.”

The Wellesley-Paget case was one with which Sebastian was very familiar. Henry Paget, a decorated British cavalry officer who was now a marquis but until recently had been the Earl of Uxbridge, had in 1809 eloped with Lady Charlotte Wellesley, wife of Henry Wellesley—who was of course the brother of Paget’s commanding officer, the Duke of Wellington. Refusing to ever let her see their children again, Wellesley divorced Charlotte by an act of Parliament on the grounds of adultery, then sued Paget for criminal conversation and was awarded the staggering sum of twenty-four thousand pounds. After several years of disgrace, Paget had been brought back to serve as Wellington’s second-in-command at Waterloo—although the relationship between the two commanders remained decidedly chilly.

“And then, on top of it all,” Aunt Henrietta was saying, “Farnsworth refused to divorce Tess, which in my mind was simply being petty. If he was spiteful enough to want to keep her from marrying Chandler, he could have had the prohibition inserted in the divorce decree. But by refusing to divorce her, he prevented her from ever marrying anyone. At least now—” She broke off, her troubled gaze meeting Sebastian’s.

“Just so,” he said, and let it go at that. “Tell me this: Did Lord Preston keep a mistress?”

“I’ve never heard even a hint of rumor to that effect, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Partially, I suppose, because he was still a relatively young man and, since he refused to divorce Tess, he couldn’t remarry, either. But also because…” Once again she hesitated, and he waited. She was not normally so circumspect. “There is a certain aura that some men have about them. Don’t ask me to explain it any more than that. I know it sounds fanciful, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Lord Preston always struck me as being unpleasantly…shall we say aware of any attractive young woman in his company.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“I have no idea, but I suspect whoever did it had a very good reason.”

Caught in the act of sipping his tea, Sebastian choked and fell to coughing. When he could, he said, “Do you know anything else about him that might explain why someone would want to see him dead?”

She frowned. “Well, I assume you know about the breach of promise case?”

He stared at her. “No. He sued someone for breach of promise?”

“Technically, he didn’t; he simply assisted Lady Hester in her suit.” The Duchess frowned in thought. “It was years ago, probably when you were up at Oxford. Hester was about twenty-five at the time. By that point it was largely taken for granted that she would be left on the shelf, which some considered surprising given that she wasn’t unattractive and old Eversfield had left her a handsome portion. But she never ‘took,’ for obvious reasons.”

“What obvious reasons?”

The Duchess looked at him. “You have met her, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she was exactly the same then, at age twenty-five, as she is now in her forties. Not in looks, of course; she was much prettier before her disposition began showing on her face. But in every other respect. I could never understand what possessed the man to offer for her in the first place, but in the end he obviously thought better of it and cried off. A most ungentlemanly thing to do, but one can nevertheless sympathize.”

“And Lady Hester sued him for breach of promise?” It was one of the rare legal advantages of being a woman: A jilted woman could sue for breach of promise, but a jilted man could not. Of course, any woman who broke her betrothal would severely damage her reputation, usually irreparably. But women were nevertheless afforded the privilege—legally, at least—of changing their minds.

“She not only sued him,” said Henrietta, “she won ten thousand pounds. The suit asked for fifteen, so they didn’t get quite as much as they wanted out of him. But his family has never been particularly plump in the pocket, so it was a massive financial blow. It’s obvious he’s still bitter about it.”

“Who? Who was the man?”

“Didn’t I say? It was Quinton-Thomas.”

“Mallory?”

“That surprises you?”

“It does, yes. A great deal.”