Page 7 of What Cannot Be Said

“Oh? Did they say anything about how Sir Ivo and his wife got along?”

Tom nodded. “Not weery well, accordin’ to Jem—Jem’s the footman, ye know. From what ’e said, it sounds like Sir Ivo ’as the devil’s own temper.”

“That I can believe.”

“ ’Andy wit ’is fives, too, says Jem.”

“Oh? Likes to knock the servants around, does he?”

“Aye.”

“And does Jem have any idea who might’ve been interested in murdering his mistress?”

“Nobody other than Sir Ivo ’isself.”

“He said that?”

“Yup.”

“Interesting. Did either Jem or the coachman happen to notice anyone in the area when they dropped off Lady McInnis and the children?”

“Nobody ’cept some old codger walkin’ ’is dog.”

“And what time was that?”

“Jist after eleven, Jem reckons.”

“Did they have anything else to say?”

“Well, Jem in particular don’t think much o’ young Master Percy. Says the lad’s a real handful. Never know what ’e’s gonna do next.”

Sebastian guided his horses through the park’s gate. “It can be a difficult age, thirteen. I suspect what happened today will sober the lad considerably.”

Tom was silent, his face expressionless as he stared out over the fields of ripe wheat flashing past, lit now by the rich light of approaching evening. “Why would somebody do that? Lay them out like they was statues on some old tombs in a church?”

“That I can’t begin to explain.”

“Seems to me, whoever done it ain’t right in the ’ead.”

The same thought had occurred to Sebastian, and he found it a disquieting possibility. What if there was no logical, discernible link between Lady McInnis or her daughter and whoever had shot them dead? What if the link was the park itself?

The park, and the mother-daughter relationship that helped tie this killing to that of Julia and Madeline Lovejoy fourteen years before.

Chapter 5

And I want a grand display of fireworks,” announced George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales and—thanks to the ever-deepening madness of his father, King George III—Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. “At least two hours’ worth.”

The remark was addressed to Charles, Lord Jarvis, the King’s powerful cousin and the acknowledged stabilizing force behind the Prince’s fragile regency. The two men were in the Prince’s porcelain room, Jarvis standing with his shoulders propped against a silk-hung wall while the Prince looked over a new shipment of Ming vases and jade carvings laid out on a long table for his inspection. The skinny, nervous dealer hovered nearby.

“Two hours, sir? You don’t think that might be... excessive?” said Jarvis. He was a man in his early sixties, still strong and healthy. His physical appetites were robust but, unlike his cousin the Prince, he managed to carry his added pounds without drifting into the realm of obesity. He also still preserved a measure of his good looks, with fine, piercing gray eyes, an aquiline nose, and a surprisingly charming smile he could use to both cajole and deceive. He was a complex man, brilliant, uncannily prescient, utterly ruthless, and feared throughout the land. But he was also genuinely devoted to the preservation and the aggrandizement of both Great Britain and its monarchy. Without his wisdom and guidance, the Hanovers would in all likelihood have lost their heads along with the Bourbons across the Channel.

They certainly wouldn’t be celebrating the one hundred and first anniversary of their accession to the throne.

“Excessive?” The Regent turned up his nose at a copper red bowl and set it aside, his corset creaking with each movement. Once, he had been beloved by his people and cheered wherever he went; once, he had been handsome, with thick auburn hair, a fine figure, and pleasing features. Now, weeks shy of his fifty-third birthday, his hair was gray, his body fat and bloated, his good looks lost long ago to rampant pleasure seeking. As for his once-adoring subjects, they’d come to hate him, both for his expensive self-indulgence and for the petty cruelty with which he treated his wife and daughter. Now, whenever they saw him, they booed.

“Excessive?” he said again. “Hardly. It isn’t every day a country is given the opportunity to celebrate the one hundred and first anniversary of the accession of their monarch’s family to the throne and a crushing victory over a monster like Napoléon. I’d say the people deserve an extravaganza befitting the occasion.”

“Some are suggesting it might be prudent to wait and celebrate after we’re certain that Napoléon is securely in our hands—or dead,” said Jarvis.

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