Stolen Remains by Christine Trent Page A

will swarm around and cause me no end of irritation. I prefer to keep this quiet.”
    Violet frowned. “First of all, Inspector, you are saying this in front of Lord Raybourn. It is horribly rude.”
    Hurst’s eyes bulged. “Mrs. Harper, are you even aware that this man is dead? Deceased? Gone to the after—”
    “Furthermore, sir, my responsibility is to undertake for Lord Raybourn and his family. That includes not only preparing this gentleman’s body, but performing services that will comfort the family. Bunting on the windows lets the world know the family is grieving, and I intend to have it installed as quickly as possible.”
    “Surely a small delay won’t bring disaster upon the family.”
    Violet crossed her arms, her own irritation rising. “Nevertheless, I’ll not shirk my duties to save you a small bit of inconvenience.”
    “Small? The press are parasites. They cause endless damage to our investigations, with their prying questions and slanderous articles posing as journalism.”
    “Perhaps we can agree, Inspector, that the Raybourn patriarch’s gruesome death by a multibarreled pistol is a bit more inconvenient than the scribbling of a newspaper reporter. Therefore, it is the family’s needs I will respect. I cannot bury Lord Raybourn yet, but there is much else I can do to serve the Fairmonts. The windows will be covered as soon as possible.”
    Hurst opened his mouth twice to say something, then turned on his heel once again, with Pratt right behind him. Violet heard him muttering complaints about the “Bedlamite ghoul” the queen had foisted on him.
    She’d heard worse.
    Finally alone, she could get now to work in making Lord Raybourn appear to be serenely at rest, which would bring great comfort to the family. As for her other duty to the queen, looking for “anything unusual,” well, she was far less serene and comfortable about her ability to accomplish that .

8
    W ith the heavy curtains between the dining room and the drawing room, plus those between the dining room and the hallway, pulled closed, Violet only vaguely heard Mrs. Peet come back down the stairs and pass by on her way to the kitchen, breaking out in muffled tears anew, what with Lord Raybourn’s covered body having taken one step closer to interment.
    Violet focused her attention on the task at hand—her craft, her livelihood. Whenever she did this, the entire world receded.
    She started by removing the chairs that surrounded the oblong table, except for one that she left nearby. She retrieved her bag and set it on the chair, opening the top as wide as possible. She always began by speaking to the dead person, as it not only soothed her personally, but it enabled her to deal as respectfully as possible with the deceased.
    “Lord Raybourn, I am so sorry for this terrible thing that happened to you. Who did this? Chief Inspector Hurst says you probably committed suicide, but is that really true?”
    Violet folded the bloodstained blanket and placed it on the floor. Mrs. Peet would have to decide whether to wash it or burn it. Sometimes families kept gruesome mementos.
    Where to begin? Violet had cared for many off-putting corpses, from poisoning victims to those ravaged by disease and accidents to those hobbled by old age. Never, though, had she been asked to prepare someone whose face was so horribly disfigured. She bent over the body and sniffed it at various points.
    Lord Raybourn was already decomposing, but it wasn’t intolerable yet. The queen had instructed her to delay the funeral. The only way she could possibly do that would be to embalm his body.
    But many families took offense to such an idea. Although it had become common practice in the United States since the Civil War, it was still frowned upon in England as an unnatural and un-Christian practice.
    Why, most people argued, would you fill a person full of chemicals and then commit the body to the ground where those toxic ingredients could leach into the