“Good.” Because no matter how tempting he found her, he wouldn’t relent in getting to the bottom of this matter with his brother and Bonnaud.
To Maximilian’s surprise, Bonnaud’s lodgings turned out to be in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, an aristocratic area of the city. Either the man had done well for himself in Paris, or he had a friend in high places who’d rented to him.
But as it turned out, his street, the rue de l’Hirondelle, was mean and narrow and his rooms, situated in a slice of the block of buildings, looked deserted. When they entered using Lisette’s key, it was clear no one had lived there in some weeks. Dust lay thick upon the furniture and the carpetless floors.
“What next?” he asked. “Does your brother have a desk or safe where he might have kept notes or letters regarding his business affairs? We might trace him that way.”
“The room he used as a study is through there.” She pointed to a closed door. “I suppose we might find something in his records.”
A voice speaking French came from the doorway. “It’s about time you returned for a visit, my angel.”
Maximilian turned to see an imposingly tall man in his fifties enter the room. Despite his bushy eyebrows, the fellow was what some might consider attractive, with a sanguine complexion, eyes of bright blue, and fair, curly hair.
“Vidocq!” Lisette cried and ran over to press a kiss to the man’s cheek.
Tensing, Maximilian watched the blasted investigator, but Vidocq’s expression was more like that of an indulgent father than of an impassioned lover.
“I suppose you are looking for your brother,” Vidocq continued in French, casting Maximilian a shuttered glance.
“We are indeed,” Lisette replied. “This is Maximilian Cale. He is in something of a hurry to find Tristan.”
Maximilian was pleased that she hadn’t introduced him as the Duke of Lyons. If they could learn of Tristan’s whereabouts without having to reveal his full identity, so much the better for her reputation, especially if Vidocq could be counted on to be discreet.
“I’ve heard much of you, sir,” Maximilian said in French, holding his hand out to the man.
“How odd,” the man said in English, refusing to take Maximilian’s hand. “Because I have heard nothing of you. At least not from my little angel.”
With an anxious glance at Maximilian, Lisette switched to English as well. “Forgive me, Vidocq, but we don’t have much time. We have urgent need of Tristan. So if you know where he is—”
“I know where he was headed when he left here.” Vidocq stared hard at Maximilian. “But I will only tell you after you explain why you’re traveling alone with the Duke of Lyons.”
As Maximilian groaned, Lisette said, “You know who Max is?”
“Of course. The Cale family had dealings with the police when they came here in search of the young heir years ago. The name of their surviving son was mentioned often. It’s a hard name to forget.”
“Especially for a man rumored to have an excellent memory,” Maximilian said dully. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered the possibility that Vidocq might know of his family. Father’s investigator had probably consulted with the Paris police a number of times in the course of his search.
“Come,” Vidocq said, offering Lisette his arm, “let us go to my house where we can be more comfortable. You will join me for le déjeuner and tell me what this is all about. Then I will tell you where Tristan was headed last.” He cast Maximilian a veiled glance. “I suspect that you will both find it most interesting.”
Maximilian forced a smile. “We would appreciate any help you can give, sir,” he said, “and we’d be honored to join you for breakfast.” Even if he did feel as if he’d just stumbled onto a stage without a script.
Vidocq’s house turned out to be through a courtyard into the next building. When Maximilian shot Lisette a questioning look as they headed into the more spacious rooms, she murmured, “Tristan rents from Vidocq.”
As soon as they were seated in a small but expensively decorated dining room with servants scurrying off to arrange their breakfast, Vidocq turned to Lisette with a bright smile. “I have found a publisher for my memoirs. I don’t suppose you would consider moving back here to help me edit them, my angel?”
“Your ‘angel’ already has a position helping Mr. Manton with his business in London,” Maximilian said tightly, inexplicably annoyed at the possibility of Lisette returning to Paris to live. “I understand it’s a very good position.”
“And now you speak for her, too, Your Grace?” Vidocq said smoothly. “In addition to dragging her about the country without a chaperone and ruining her reputation so she will never be able to find a respectable husband?”
“Enough, you two,” Lisette cut in with a dark glance at Maximilian. She turned to Vidocq. “I came of my own accord. We’re traveling as a married couple: plain Mr. Kale, the land agent, and his wife.”
At that moment, one of the servants reentered the room, and Lisette said in French, “If you would please give us a few moments . . .”
The servant nodded and left.
Lisette scowled at Vidocq. “If you really do care about me, then you must maintain the fiction in front of the servants. My neighbors already think I got married. And His Grace pointed out that it will be easy for me to tell people that my husband died conveniently while we were abroad.”
At Vidocq’s snort, she added, “You are likely the only person in the world who would recognize the duke’s actual name. Not a single person has questioned our disguise.”
“Disguise!” Vidocq said. “It’s hardly a disguise when you use real names.” He cast Maximilian’s clothing a contemptuous glance. “And His Grace looks as much like a land agent as I do a duke. His fingernails are too clean, he wears fine linen beneath that fustian suit, and he speaks with an Etonian clip.”
“Oh, for God’s sake—” Maximilian began.
“You see?” Vidocq said. “Like that.”
“Stop it!” Lisette chided. “Tell me where Tristan is, before His Grace challenges you to a duel or something else absurd. He’s very volatile.”
“I am not,” Maximilian grumbled.
She merely raised an eyebrow at him, then scowled at Vidocq. “Tristan, if you please?”
“Very well,” Vidocq said. “He left two months ago, pursuing an escaped forger up north to Belgium.”
“Belgium!” Maximilian exclaimed.
“Isn’t Belgium where your brother was found dead?” Lisette asked.
Maximilian leaned forward, his eyes boring into Vidocq. “Where in Belgium was Bonnaud headed?”
“Antwerp,” Vidocq said. “Which makes it very curious that you are here looking for him, Your Grace, because Antwerp is close to—”
“I know what it’s close to,” Maximilian bit out.
Vidocq’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at Lisette, then back at Maximilian. “Tell me, does my little angel know about your family?”
Maximilian released a low oath.
That brought Vidocq’s thick eyebrows up a notch. “I thought not. And you don’t want her to know, do you?”
“But you’re going to tell her anyway, I suppose,” Maximilian countered, feeling his stomach twist into a knot.
Vidocq shrugged. “She will find out sooner or later.” His voice hardened. “Better that it be sooner if you are trying to take her into your bed.”
“Vidocq!” Lisette cried, a blush staining her cheeks. “He is not . . . we are not . . .”
“I’m not blind, my angel.” Vidocq’s gaze never left Maximilian’s face. “I see how he looks at you. I see how you look at him. And since he is a duke and marriage is not all that likely, that leaves only—”
“Tread lightly, old man,” Maximilian bit out, “or I might challenge you to that duel to uphold her honor.” He steadied a dark gaze on the man.
Vidocq sat back to stare at him consideringly, though without apparent fear.
Lisette glanced fr
om Maximilian to Vidocq. “What is it that Max isn’t telling me about his family? What is Antwerp close to?”
With this new information, there was no way to avoid telling her the truth.
“Antwerp is close to a town called Gheel,” Maximilian said, his throat suddenly tight and raw. “Gheel is sometimes referred to as the Colony of Maniacs, because it’s where many of the mad go in a last attempt to get cured.”
He gave a shaky breath. “It’s also where my insane great-uncle took my brother in the final years after kidnapping him. And where they both died in a fire.”
13
AT THAT MOMENT, the servants entered with a typical Parisian breakfast—roast beef and chicken, pastries, grapes and pears, a ragout, and some good bread and cheese, not to mention tea, coffee, and vin ordinaire.
It was an excellent distraction for Lisette, since she could hardly take in what Max had just revealed. It wasn’t only his words that stunned her, either—it was his haunted tone. He looked suddenly weary, and she wanted nothing more than to comfort him.
But not in front of Vidocq. Her old friend had already guessed too much about her and Max. And why had Max not told her this, anyway?
Because he was a duke. Dukes didn’t talk about weakness or illness. They didn’t reveal dark secrets about their families.
Still, it hurt that he hadn’t felt he could trust her with the knowledge. She remembered what he’d said when she’d asked who the kidnapper was: some blackguard. That left out an awful lot.
“So, Max,” she said flatly after Vidocq dismissed the servants, “it was your great-uncle who kidnapped your brother. Why?”
“I wish I knew. I didn’t even know he was the one to do it until the fire.” His tone hardened. “I was almost four when Peter disappeared; Father just told me he’d been stolen by a blackguard. For years, I feared that there were blackguards everywhere waiting in the bushes to steal me from my parents.”
“Oh, Max, that’s awful,” she said in a sympathetic tone that had Vidocq raising an eyebrow at her. She ignored him.
Max seemed to grow even tenser. “When I got old enough to question what I’d been told, my parents said they had investigators searching England and America for Peter. They told me they had no idea who’d taken him. That was a lie. Yet they held to that until after the fire, when they couldn’t keep it from me anymore.”
She remembered what he’d said about being lied to by his family. This was what he’d meant. “Perhaps they didn’t know that the kidnapper was your great-uncle.”
“They had to know.” Max served himself some food. “It took me years to piece together the whole tale, but apparently my great-uncle Nigel, a dashing naval captain, was rather wild. He and Father were only ten years apart, so they used to go drinking together whenever Uncle Nigel was on leave, before Father married. Or so I was able to make out from things Father said and stories I heard from other family members. It rather surprised me. Father never seemed the wild type.”
Max picked at a hot roll. “And apparently Father’s wild days didn’t last long. A couple of years after marrying Mother, Father quarreled bitterly with Uncle Nigel one night. I can only assume that Father refused to be his companion in sin anymore. Whatever provoked it, my great-uncle went back to his ship and wouldn’t have anything more to do with the family.”
He stared blankly forward as if looking into the past. “They heard nothing from him for five years. Then the Peace of Amiens came, and the war between France and England ceased. Uncle Nigel, who was in his early forties by then, requested and was granted retirement. He came to Marsbury House wanting to make amends, but I gather it didn’t go well. A few days later, he disappeared . . . and so did Peter.”
Lisette frowned as she poured tea for her and Max. “Then it was obvious who took him. If your parents knew that, why couldn’t they find your brother?”
“He left no word with the navy or anyone else of where he was going. My parents assumed he was in England somewhere. They sent investigators across the country, but my great-uncle and brother had vanished. Father would have sent men to the Continent, too, but by then the war had resumed, and no one could travel from England to France.”
“Why didn’t the authorities attempt to find him?” Vidocq asked.
“They, too, tried, but their hands were somewhat tied. My parents inexplicably refused to let them speak about my great-uncle to the press.” A faint hint of disgust entered his voice. “I think Father was mortified at the idea of a member of his family doing such a thing. And I suspect he always hoped that my great-uncle would just bring Peter home one day, when Uncle Nigel got tired of caring for a child.”
“So your great-uncle raised Peter in Gheel?” Lisette asked as she served herself some ragout.
“We don’t think so, but I never heard where he was before that.” Max ate a moment in silence. “You have to understand—when the fire happened, no one knew of their connection to us. Uncle Nigel told everyone Peter was his son and never mentioned his relations, of course. He and Peter even went by their real names. But it was Belgium during the war—who would associate Peter Cale with the missing heir to the English Duke of Lyons, especially thirteen years after the kidnapping?”
He dragged in a heavy breath. “Fortunately, after the fire, someone had the foresight to save the ring my uncle was wearing, or later they wouldn’t even have been able to identify for certain who he’d been.”
Lisette shuddered to think that Max might have gone his whole life never knowing what happened. “How did your family even learn about the fire?”
“The deaths were eventually reported in the Paris papers, which was noticed by the investigator Father had hired shortly after Napoleon’s exile to Elba. The man wrote to my father. While we were en route to Paris, the investigator went to Gheel to see what he could learn. Of course, by the time he got there, the bodies had long been buried. He questioned the residents and brought the ring back for my father.”
Max gave a long sigh. “He did learn that my great-uncle had a lawyer in Paris, and apparently my father spoke to the man, but the attorney had been entirely unaware of my uncle’s perfidy. Or so I was told.”
“Did your investigator discover anything in Gheel about why your great-uncle kidnapped your brother?” Vidocq asked.
“No. No one knew anything about that.”
“The rift between your father and your great-uncle must have provoked it,” Lisette put in. “Clearly your great-uncle did it to get back at your father.”
“That’s one explanation,” Max said tightly. “Although kidnapping Father’s heir seems rather extreme. And he couldn’t have done it for money either, since at the time he was far down the line in terms of heirs. I was second in line, so why not kidnap me, too? It’s never made any sense to me.”
Vidocq cut his roast beef into precise squares. “Your uncle might initially have acted impulsively. The way you’ve described him points to a man who rarely thinks ahead. But once the deed was done and his temper cooled, he found himself in a quandary. If he returned your brother, he would face a possible trial as a kidnapper, perhaps even execution. Perhaps he just decided to raise the boy himself to avoid the consequences of returning him.”
“I suppose,” Max said. “Then there’s always my mother’s explanation—that he was simply insane. The investigator did determine that Uncle Nigel was in Gheel for that reason. And having read some about the place, I know that they allow their madmen to live peaceably with a family who is hired to look after them. I suppose since Peter was believed to be his son, he lived with them, too.”
“Madness will cause people to do strange things.” Vidocq steadied his gaze on Max. “As you well know, Your Grace.”
Before Lisette could wonder at that, Max scowled at Vidocq. “I don’t see how any of this helps us find Bonnaud.”
“You still haven’t said why you’re looking for him.” Vidocq drank some wine. “What has Tristan got to do with your family troubles?”
“Tristan sent the duke a note implying that Peter might be alive,” Lisette explained. “He said a friend of his had Peter’s handkerchief. And given that Tristan was recently in that part of Belgium, it might even be true.”
Max eyed her askance. “Or because he was in that part of Belgium, he heard the full tale of my brother’s death and decided to capitalize on it. When we determined that Peter was dead, we said no more to the press than that he died in a fire on the Continent. That was the official story, and that’s the story your brother knew years ago when I met him.”
Broadening his gaze to include Vidocq, he added, “You said he went to Belgium in pursuit of a forger. Well, perhaps he struck a deal with the man and convinced him to produce the copy of the handkerchief in exchange for Bonnaud’s agreeing to let him go.”
Before Lisette could protest that outrageous supposition, Vidocq said, “Tristan would never do that. He is a man of character.”
“For a horse thief,” Max snapped. When Vidocq shot her a surprised glance, Max added, “Yes, I know all about his criminal past. Rathmoor sent someone to follow us, which is why Lisette had to tell me about it—so we could take measures to evade the man.”
“Then you know why Tristan stole that horse,” Vidocq countered. “To save his family. I do not blame him for that.”
“Obviously, since you hired him,” Max muttered.
“I hired him because he was clever and willing to learn. I saw potential. And I was right about him, too. He’s very good at what he does.”
“What he does is act as an agent for the secret police, which requires some degree of deception. Perhaps he thought it was time he used his talents for his own good. And with a forger in his power—”
“You claimed that the handkerchief couldn’t be copied,” Lisette said hotly.
“Bonnaud doesn’t know that,” Max pointed out. “He might have thought it possible. We never saw the end result, did we?”
“If Tristan was so convinced he could deceive you with an elaborate fraud,” she answered, “then why didn’t he show up in London?”
The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires Page 17