Page 81 of What Cannot Be Said

The brothers looked at each other, their faces drawn and tense. Then Harry sucked in a deep breath and said, “Of course, my lord.”

Sebastian took them through it all—their arrival at the park; their talk and careless laughter as they drank wine beneath the clear blue sky; the shocking, unmistakable crack of first one pistol shot, then the next.

“I know you said you thought the shots were so close together that they must have come from a double-barreled pistol because there wouldn’t have been time for anyone to reload. But are you quite certain the shots came from the same gun?”

Harry stared at him. “You mean, could we have heard one man firing two different guns, or maybe two men firing two guns, rather than one man firing a double-barreled pistol?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Harry swallowed. “I suppose it is possible, my lord. Although I never thought... I mean, I guess I assumed...” His voice trailed away.

“Can you try to think back? See if you can recall what the two shots sounded like?”

Harry closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring as he fell silent for a moment. Then he opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t remember clearly enough to say for certain.”

Sebastian looked at the younger brother. “How about you, Ben?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“That’s all right,” said Sebastian. He was painfully aware of the stricken look on the brothers’ faces, but he couldn’t stop yet. “Tell me about after you found the bodies, when the children came up.”

Harry cupped one hand over his nose and mouth, then let it fall. “Oh, God. I wish... I really wish we could have stopped them sooner than we did. I’ll never forget the expression on that girl’s face when she stared across the meadow and saw... that.”

“How close did they get?”

“Close enough to see the bodies, I’m afraid, sir. And then the girl... She opened her mouth like she was going to scream, even though she couldn’t seem to make a sound. That’s when Ben and I realized we needed to keep them from getting any closer.”

“So neither one came close enough to touch the bodies of their aunt or cousin?”

The boys looked shocked at the suggestion. “Oh, no, sir.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Sebastian, “but I wanted to be certain. I know their father is very grateful that you took care of his children the way you did.”

Harry dropped his gaze to the ground. “I think we could have done better, sir. I mean, if only we could have stopped them from seeing it at all.”

Sebastian reached out to rest his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t even know the children were there until they appeared, so how could you have stopped them? You did what needed to be done.” He gripped Harry’s shoulder, then let him go. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me again, and I’m sorry to have had to ask you to remember a day I know you’d much rather forget.”

“We’re never going to be able to forget that day, my lord,” said Ben softly. “Never.”

Chapter 49

Sebastian was in the mews, handing the tired mare over to his groom, Giles, when Tom came skittering into the stables.

“Gov’nor! Yer back! I been talkin’ to some more of Rhodes’s servants, like ye asked.”

Sebastian patted the mare’s neck, then turned. “And did you learn anything?” he said as Giles led the Arabian away, muttering something under his breath.

Tom shook his head. “Not a blessed thing, gov’nor. None o’ the ones who’ve been willin’ t’ talk t’ me ’as seen ’im meetin’ with any young coves in the past week or so. And nobody seems t’ know where ’e took ’isself off to last Sunday. Fact is, they’re in a bit of a puzzle about that themselves. You want I should keep tryin’?”

“No, never mind that for now. There’s something else I need you to do.”

?“I don’t believe it,” said Hero some time later when she and Sebastian took the boys for a walk along the Thames at Millbank, the low-lying rural area to the southwest of Westminster where a new iron bridge was going up that would someday join these open fields to Vauxhall on the far bank. Out here away from the city, the air was fresh and clean, with a soft breeze that lifted the green leaves of a nearby stand of chestnuts against the clearing sky. “I simply can’t believe it. Percy and Arabella are children. It isn’t only a matter of how could they do such a thing; it’s also why. Why would they want to kill anyone, let alone their own aunt and cousin—not to mention all the others?”

They paused as Simon squatted down beside Patrick to see what the older boy had spotted in the shallows where the river lapped against a sandy stretch of the bank. Watching them, Sebastian himself found it hard to believe he was suggesting that a child barely ten years older than these two boys could have done something so monstrous. “I can’t begin to explain why. And the truth is, I haven’t figured out all the hows, either. But the inconsistencies and coincidences have mounted to the point that I can no longer ignore it as a possibility.”

“You can’t think that boy broke into Major Finch’s room and stole his pistol.”

“I know it sounds unbelievable.”

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