Who Buries the Dead

The grisly murder of a West Indies slave owner and the reappearance of a dangerous enemy from Sebastian St. Cyr’s past put C. S. Harris’s “troubled but compelling antihero”* to the ultimate test in this taut, thrilling entrée in the acclaimed, national bestselling historical mystery series. London, 1813. The decapitation of a wealthy plantation owner at Bloody Bridge draws Sebastian St. Cyr into a macabre and perilous investigation. The discovery near the body of a lead coffin strap bearing the inscription KING CHARLES, 1648 suggests a link between this killing and the beheading of the seventeenth-century monarch. Equally troubling, the victim’s kinship to the current Home Secretary draws the notice of Sebastian’s father-in-law, Lord Jarvis, who will exploit any means to pursue his own clandestine ends. Working with his wife, Hero, Sebastian amasses a list of suspects who range from an eccentric curiosity collector to the brother of a brilliantly observant spinster named Jane Austen. But as one murder follows another, it is the connection between the victims and ruthless former army officer Lord Oliphant that raises the stakes. Once, Oliphant nearly destroyed Sebastian in a horrific act of betrayal. Now he poses a threat not only to Sebastian but to everything--and everyone--Sebastian holds dear.

“This riveting historical tale of tragedy and triumph...will enthrall you!”—Sabrina Jeffries, New York Times bestselling author of If the Viscount Falls
 
“With such well-developed characters, intriguing plot lines, graceful prose, and keen sense of time and place based on solid research, this is historical mystery at its best.”—Booklist*
 
“Unbearably exciting, filled with historical details, multiple suspects and, unexpectedly, Jane Austen, the reader will not be able to put this down.”—RT Book Reviews
 
“Harris is one of the best historical mystery writers I’ve read, capturing the reader’s interest and imagination from the first page . . . A most enjoyable read.”—Historical Novel Society

Autorentext

C. S. Harris

Leseprobe

The Sebastian St. Cyr Series

Chapter 1

Sunday, 21 March 1813

T hey called it Bloody Bridge.

It lay at the end of a dark, winding lane, far beyond the comforting flicker of the oil lamps of Sloane Square, beyond the last of the tumbledown cottages at the edge of a vast stretch of fields that showed only black in the moonless night. Narrow and hemmed in on both sides by high walls, the bridge was built of brick, worn and crumbling with age and slippery with moss where the elms edging the rivulet cast a deep, cold shade.

Cian O’Neal tried to avoid this place, even in daylight. It had been Molly’s idea to come here, for on the far side of the bridge lay a deserted barn with a warm, soft hayloft that beckoned to young lovers in need. But now as the wind tossed the elms along the creek and brought the distant, mournful howl of a dog, Cian felt the hard, pulsing urgency that had driven him here begin to ebb.

“Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, Molly,” he said, his step lagging. “The barn, I mean.”

She swung to face him, dark eyes shiny in a plump, merry face. “What’s the matter, Cian?” She pressed her warm, yielding body against his, her voice husky. “You havin’ second thoughts?”

“No. It’s just . . .”

The wind gusted up stronger, banging a shutter somewhere in the night, and he jerked.

To his shame, he saw enlightenment dawn on her face, and she gave a trill of laughter. “You’re scared.”

“No, I ain’t,” he said, even though they both knew it for a lie. He was a big lad, eighteen next month and strong and hale. But at the moment, he felt like a wee tyke frightened by old Irish tales of the Dullahan.

She caught his hand in both of hers and backed down the lane ahead of him, pulling him toward the bridge. “Come on, then,” she said. “How ’bout if I cross first?”

It had rained earlier in the evening, a brief but heavy downpour that left the newly budding leaves of the trees dripping moisture and the lane slippery with mud. He felt an icy tickle at the base of his neck and tried to think about the sweet warmth of the hayloft and the way Molly’s soft, eager body would feel beneath his.

They were close enough to the bridge now that Cian could see it quite clearly, its single arch a deeper black against the roiling darkness of the sky. But something wasn’t quite right, and he felt his scalp prickle, his breath catch, as the silhouette of a man’s head loomed before them.

“What is it?” Molly asked, the laughter draining from her face as she whirled around and Cian started to scream.

Chapter 2

Monday, 22 March, the hours before dawn

T he child lay curled on his side in a cradle near the hearth, his tiny pink lips parted with the slow, even breath of sleep. He had one tightly clenched fist tucked up beneath his chin, and in the firelight the translucent flesh of his closed eyelids looked so delicate and fragile that it terrified his father, who stood watching him. Someday this infant would be Viscount Devlin and then, in time, the Earl of Hendon. But now he was simply the Honorable Simon St. Cyr, barely seven weeks old and oblivious to the fact that he had no more real right to any of those titles than his father, Sebastian St. Cyr, the current Viscount Devlin.

Devlin rested the heel of one outthrust palm against the mantelpiece. His breath came harsh and ragged, and sweat sheened his naked flesh despite the air’s chill. He’d been driven from his sleep by memories he generally chose not to revisit during daylight. But he could not stop the images that came to him in the quiet hours of darkness, visions of dancing flames, of a woman’s tortured body writhing in helpless agony, of soft brown hair fluttering against the waxen flesh of a dead child’s cheek.

The past never leaves us, he thought. We carry it with us through our lives, a ghostly burden of bittersweet nostalgia threaded with guilt and regret that wearies the soul and whispers to us in the darkest hours of the night. Only the youngest children are truly innocent, for their consciences are still untroubled, their haunted days yet to come.

He shuddered and bent to throw more coal on the fire, moving carefully so as not to wake the sleeping babe or his mother.

When Sebastian was a child, it had been the custom for the infants of the aristocracy and the gentry to be farmed out to wet nurses, often not returning to their own families until they were two years of age. But it was becoming more common now for even duchesses to choose to nurse their own offspring, and Hero, the child’s mother and Sebastian’s wife of eight months, had been adamantly against hiring a wet nurse.

His gaze shifted to the blue silk–hung bed where she slept, her rich dark hair spilling across the pillow. And he felt it again, that nameless wash of apprehension for this woman and this child that he dismissed as lingering wisps from his dream and fear born of a guilt that could never be assuaged.

A clatter of hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels over granite paving stones carried clearly in the stillness of the night. Sebastian raised his head, his body tensing as the carriage jerked to a halt and a man’s quick, heavy tread ran up his front steps. He heard the distant peal of his bell, then a gruff, questioning shout from his majordomo, Morey.

“Message for Lord Devlin,” answered the unknown visitor, his voice strained by a sense of urgency and what sounded very much like horror. &#8…