“True enough,” Ariana said, sitting. “But to be dead. Here.”
“Arrangements will have to be made,” Kynaston said. “That’s what our host is implying.”
“Arrangements?”
“By a member of the family. Perhaps you will allow me to take care of it for you?”
Ariana felt she should be able to cope, but she was relieved to agree.
Kynaston looked at the innkeeper. “Can he be moved to a bedroom?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then afterward, a magistrate should be summoned. Or a coroner, if they be different people. Then an undertaker.”
“Right, my lord. And Reverend Darraclough? He’s the clergyman here.”
“An excellent suggestion.”
“He’ll need to be moved to his home for burial, I suppose, my lord.”
Kynaston looked to Ariana. “Where is your uncle’s home?”
It seemed a surprisingly difficult question. “I’m not sure. Rooms in London, probably.”
“Do you have any objection to his being buried here?”
“None at all. It seems simpler.”
“I assume he has no wife or children.”
“I don’t think so. Should he be buried at Boxstall?”
“Here will suffice,” he said firmly, and she was grateful for his decisiveness.
She wasn’t grief-stricken over Uncle Paul’s death, and in many ways she was glad he was gone, but she was unnerved by the surprise of it, and disturbed by guilt. She’d encouraged him to drink punch to shut him up, and she hadn’t protested when Kynaston had told the innkeeper to give him as much brandy as he wanted.
The innkeeper left and Kynaston sat beside her. “If he’d had any say, it’s probably how he’d have chosen to die. By a fire, drinking brandy.”
“How do you know what I was thinking?”
“Easy enough. I’m feeling some guilt myself.”
“He tried to make mischief, even then.”
“True to the end.”
“I think I have to stay here until the burial,” she said. “As family.”
“You don’t have to. I can stand in for you there as well.”
Ariana was aware of a weak desire to lean against him and be embraced, be taken care of. Instead, she sat straighter. “I’ve been weak enough. I can at least represent the family here, but I should write to Mama and my brother.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“I’ll need a room here. We both will. Two rooms,” she amended hastily.
“Of course. You might as well have this one, as it’s warm and ready.” He went to the door and called for the innkeeper, then ordered a room prepared for himself.
