It was an odd comparison. Mullins had replaced Sergeant McIver, shot in the hip and invalided home. Both Sergeants had come up through the ranks, where the heavy attrition of the Battle of the Somme had given men seniority overnight, prepared for it or not. Mullins was a seasoned soldier, careful, gruff, and humorless. He had been a butcher by trade, and could determine at a glance whether a wound was likely to see a man relieved or just patched up at the nearest aid station and returned to the lines. Sentiment seldom played a role.

Lord Sedgwick had that same quality of practical reality that had carried Mullins through the War. He took his world in stride and dealt with it without sentiment.

And yet Rutledge had sensed something else in this man, a wistful desire to be the local squire, as the Chastains had been before him. But he was tainted by his father’s roots, and villagers were often greater snobs than their betters. Money could buy some loyalties, but blue blood brought respect.

“That explains,” Rutledge answered Hamish’s line of thought, “why Sedgwick was eager to put up a reward for Father James’s killer. The Chastains would probably have done the same.”

Still, the Sedgwicks had, in two generations, gone from the streets of London to an inheritable title and weekends at Sandringham with the royal entourage. The first Lord Sedgwick, Ralph, whose antecedents had probably been of questionable bloodlines, had had to settle for an American bride for his only son. But his grandsons, with any luck, would find themselves wed to daughters of the old aristocracy, and their sons fully accepted as titled gentlemen with no lingering odor of trade about them.

Three generations, that was what it took to bridge the social gap. . . .

The future of the dynasty now rested on Arthur’s shoulders, and his brother’s.

Unless Lord Sedgwick was indeed considering a second— and far more advantageously connected—bride, to better their chances through a stepmother’s connections.

It never hurt, in present royal circles, to have a very presentable wife.

Coming into Osterley again, Rutledge turned his thoughts to his own role here.

He was expected not to tread on Blevins’s toes. The Inspector had already made that clear. But the more Rutledge learned about the people who lived in Osterley, the better he saw the dead priest—and was finding himself drawn into the theory that the man’s life had some bearing on his death.

His fingers gently massaged the scar on his chest, stilling the dull ache.