Why Kings Confess

by C. S. Harris

  “Did Damion Pelletan seem at all . . .” Sebastian paused, searching for the right word. “Troubled by his meetings with the Bourbons?”

  She turned to face him. “He did, yes. He tried to laugh it off, but I was surprised he even mentioned them to me. I thought perhaps it was because of his father’s brief and rather tragic interaction with the family.”

  “That the Bourbons consulted him? Or that he was troubled by his meeting with them?”

  “I meant that his father’s history with the family was the reason the meeting troubled him, of course.” She looked puzzled. “Why would the Bourbons have decided to consult with Damion because of something his father did twenty years ago?”

  If her imagination wasn’t that active, Sebastian wasn’t about to enlighten her. He said, “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”

  “Damion? Good heavens, no. He was a good, gentle, caring man who devoted his life to helping others. He’d only been in London a few weeks. Why would anyone want to kill him?”

  “How did he get along with Harmond Vaundreuil?”

  “Well enough, I suppose. After all, Vaundreuil chose him to come here, did he not? Damion had a knack for humoring the man—calming his fears, rather than fanning them, the way so many physicians are wont to do in order to make themselves more necessary to their patients.”

  “And the others? Foucher and Bondurant? Did he have trouble with them?”

  She frowned, as if considering the question. “I would say he was wary of both Colonel Foucher and the clerk, Bondurant. But I do not know if he ever quarreled with them.”

  “What about someone he might have met in England?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t meet many people here in London. That was one of the main reasons the delegation hired that hotel in York Street, was it not? To avoid having to interact with many Englishmen?”

  She paused, her lips parted as if with a sudden thought.

  “What?” asked Sebastian, watching her.

  “Last week—I think it was early Thursday morning—Noël and I were walking in Hyde Park. We saw Damion and another man there, near the Armoury. It was obvious their words were heated, so I stopped Noël when he would have run up to them.”

  “Did Damion see you?”

  “He did, yes. Noël called out ‘Bonjour!’ before I could hush him, so Damion glanced over at us. But I knew from the expression on his face that he wanted us to stay away.”

  “What sort of expression? Annoyance?”

  “Not annoyance. More like an odd mixture of anger and fear.”

  “Do you know who the man was?”

  “I don’t number him amongst my acquaintances, but I doubt there is anyone in the West End of London who would fail to recognize him. It was Kilmartin. Angus Kilmartin.”

  Sebastian had a sudden clear recollection of having seen the small, bowlegged Scotsman descending the stairs from Jarvis’s apartments. “Do you have any idea why Damion would have been meeting him?”

  “No; none at all.” She looked beyond him, to where the nursemaid was now trying to separate the two squabbling boys. “Truly, monsieur, I must go.”

  He touched his hand to his hat and bowed his head. “Thank you for your assistance, Lady Peter. If you think of anything else that might be useful, you will let me know?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She turned away, the wind gusting hard enough to snatch at the rim of her bonnet. She put up a hand to steady it, and the movement pulled at the sleeve of her pelisse, baring her forearm between the braided cuff and her kid gloves. Against her pale flesh, a row of four livid bruises showed quite clearly.

  Bruises in the exact pattern left by an angry man closing his big, strong hand around a woman’s fragile wrist.

  Chapter 21

  Angus Kilmartin was seated alone at a small table near the fire in White’s somber, overheated dining room when Sebastian walked up and settled in the chair opposite.

  “I don’t recall issuing an invitation for you to join me,” said the Scotsman, his voice pleasant, his face never losing its habitual expression of mild amusement.

  “That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian. “I don’t intend to stay long.”

  Kilmartin grunted and cut himself a slice of beefsteak.

  Sebastian said, “I hear you’ve recently been awarded a new contract with the Navy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations.”

  Kilmartin glanced up at him. “You say that as if you disagree in some way with the procedure.”

  “Why would I?”

  Just two decades before, Angus Kilmartin had been an obscure Glaswegian merchant. Today, there were few lucrative industries in which he was not invested. From his mills in Yorkshire rolled the cloth used to make uniforms for Britain’s soldiers and sailors. His foundries supplied them with cannon and firearms, while from his shipyards came an endless supply of the frigates and gunboats that helped Britannia rule the waves. Over the course of twenty years of war, as Britain’s artisans and craftsmen starved and sheep grazed amidst the ruined cottages of displaced Highland clansmen, Angus Kilmartin had prospered far beyond most men’s wildest dreams.

  “Why, indeed?” he said, carefully buttering a piece of bread. “Is this why you are here? To discuss my business ventures?”

  “Actually, I’m curious about how you came to know a French doctor named Damion Pelletan.”

  Kilmartin chewed slowly and deliberately before swallowing. “You refer, I take it, to the young man recently set upon by footpads in St. Katharine’s?”

  “He was certainly killed in St. Katharine’s, although I seriously doubt footpads had anything to do with it.”

  “And what makes you imagine I knew him?”

  “You were seen arguing with him last Thursday morning in the park. That’s the day he was killed, incidentally.”

  Kilmartin only smiled faintly, his chin tucked, his eyes downcast as he worked to cut himself another slice of beef.

  Sebastian watched him. “So you don’t deny it?”

  The Scotsman paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, his eyes going wide. “Why should I? Pelletan was a physician. I consulted with him over a medical matter. I see no reason to furnish you with the particulars.”

  “And you would have me believe you met with him in the park to argue a medical matter?”

  “I didn’t exactly ‘meet with’ him. I encountered him by chance. We fell into a dispute.”

  “Over a medical matter.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder, how did you come to hear of him? He hadn’t been in London long.”

  “Someone recommended him to me. I don’t recall now precisely whom.”

  “One of the Bourbons, perhaps?” suggested Sebastian sardonically.

  Kilmartin gave a faint, tight-lipped smile and shrugged. “Perhaps. Who can say?”

  Sebastian let his gaze drift around the elegant, high-ceilinged room. “I assume you’ve heard the rumors?”

  “London is full of rumors. Endlessly. To which do you refer?”

  “To the suggestion that the fiasco in Russia has weakened Napoléon to the extent that he is now willing to explore the possibility of making peace with England.”

  “Never happen,” said Kilmartin.

  “So certain?”

  “Napoléon would never agree to England’s terms.”

  “And if he did?” Sebastian watched the other man’s face. “You would stand to lose a lot of money.”

  Kilmartin’s smile never slipped. “All good things must come to an end.”

  “True. But some eventualities can be postponed. Especially by those ruthless enough to use any means possible.”

  Kilmartin leaned forward, his grip on the knife and fork tightening. “What are you suggesting? That I had Damion Pelletan waylaid and murdered in some back alley in the hopes that it might disrupt the delegation from Paris? How absurd.”

  “I never suggested P
elletan was part of a delegation from Paris.”

  For a moment, Sebastian’s words seemed to hang in the silence between them. The Scotsman froze, his narrowed gray eyes fixed on Sebastian’s, a dark malevolence replacing the faint derision that had been there before.

  He kept his voice low and even, his knife suspended in the air between them. “If I proposed to put an end to Boney’s somewhat tentative peace feelers, I would do it by killing that fat former priest masquerading as a diplomat. Not his doctor.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Too obvious. Why kill Vaundreuil when you can get rid of him in a different way? The man is morbidly obsessed with his own health. It’s conceivable that without his doctor, he might decide to abandon his attempts at diplomacy and scuttle back across the Channel.”

  The humor was back in the other man’s eyes. “Really? Then Pelletan’s killer was more clever than I realized. I’d like to take credit, but I’m afraid I can’t.”

  Sebastian watched the Scotsman set down his knife and reach for his ale.

  “Why did you really meet with Pelletan in the park last Thursday morning?”

  Kilmartin rolled his ale around on his tongue, his lips pursed, his eyes alive with mischief. But he only shook his head, as if hugging to himself some secret too amusing to share.

  • • •

  Sebastian was crossing the vestibule, headed toward the street, when he heard himself hailed by a mountain of a man being pushed in a wheeled chair by a flamboyantly dressed dandy.

  “Sir,” said Sebastian, changing direction to walk up to him. “I didn’t expect to see you in London.”

  The Comte de Provence smiled, his cheeks bunching with rosy good cheer. “Marie-Thérèse wanted to come into town for a few days—go to the theater, maybe buy a new hat—that sort of thing. And then there’s the Duchess of Claiborne’s soiree Tuesday night.” He gave Sebastian a studied look, as if trying to recall an elusive fact. “She’s some relative of yours, is she not?”

  “My aunt.”

  The small frown cleared. “Ah, thought so. Then perhaps we shall see you there.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Provence gave one of his belly-shaking laughs. “Not a fan of that sort of thing, are you?” His laugh turned into a cough. “Can’t say I blame you at your age.”

  “Do I take it you’re staying in South Audley Street?”

  “Indeed, indeed. Artois is up chasing some light-skirts around Scotland, so if he doesn’t like it, there’s not much he can do about it, now, is there?”

  Sebastian glanced over at Ambrose LaChapelle. But the courtier turned his head and looked away, as if distrusting his ability to maintain a straight face.

  “I’ve discovered something interesting about the young French doctor who was killed,” said Sebastian.

  The uncrowned King of France let his eyes go wide in a clumsy pantomime of astonishment. “Oh?”

  “It seems Damion Pelletan was the son of Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan—the same Dr. Pelletan who treated the young Dauphin in the Temple Prison.”

  “Indeed? What an odd . . . coincidence.”

  Sebastian studied the Bourbon’s plump, self-indulgent face. One couldn’t exactly call a monarch—even an uncrowned one—a liar. “You mean to say you didn’t recognize the name?”

  “Well, I recognized the similarity in the names, of course,” blustered the Bourbon. “But I’d no notion they were . . . His son, you say? How very intriguing.”

  “Not to mention coincidental.”

  “Yes, yes; to be sure, to be sure.”

  “I wonder: Would you happen to know why Damion Pelletan was in London?”

  The Comte de Provence fixed Sebastian with an unexpectedly hard stare. And it occurred to Sebastian that however jovial his features or good-natured his demeanor, it would never do to forget that this man was the grandson of King Louis XV, or that he had grown to manhood surrounded by all the splendor and intrigue of the French court at Versailles. “Now, how would I know that?” he asked. “We don’t all have the network of informants and spies available to someone such as, say, your own father-in-law.”

  Sebastian was aware of the courtier, LaChapelle, sucking the flesh of one inner cheek between his teeth. It was obvious that Ambrose LaChapelle realized, even if Provence himself did not, that he’d just inadvertently revealed he knew exactly why Damion Pelletan was in London.

  Sebastian said, “Tell me about your nephew, the Dauphin.”

  The shift in topic seemed to confuse the aging Bourbon. “My nephew? What is there to tell? He was a sweet boy. Just seven years old and the picture of health when he was thrown into prison.”

  “What happened to him?

  The old man sighed. “Nothing, at first. For some months after the execution of his father, the King, the boy was allowed to remain with his mother, aunt, and sister. But then one day the guards came and took him away. Seems the revolutionaries had ordered the jailors to remove all traces of what they called ‘arrogance’ and ‘royalty’ from him.” A pinched look came over his features. “They treated him . . . very badly.”

  “When did he die?”

  “The eighth of June, 1795.”

  “And Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan performed the autopsy?”

  “He was one of the doctors present, yes.”

  “There were others?”

  “Two or three, I believe. Although Pelletan may have been the only one who had actually seen the boy just a day or two before, when he was brought to the prison to treat his illness.”

  “Did he identify the body as belonging to the Dauphin?”

  “Mon Dieu.” Angry, purple color suffused the normally placid royal’s plump features. “I hope to God you are not suggesting that those ridiculous old whispers are true?”

  “Which whispers?”

  “As if you do not know! The idea that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple—that he was spirited away from prison while the body of some other poor lad was left in his place.”

  The persistence of the myth that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had not actually died in prison was an obvious source of embarrassment and chagrin to the two uncles and cousin who dreamt of someday occupying the dead Dauphin’s vacant throne. When Sebastian simply remained silent, Provence said, “Please to God you won’t say anything of this to my niece, Marie-Thérèse. You’ve no notion the distress these rumors cause her—or how many charlatans have presented themselves to her over the years, claiming to be her long-lost brother. I’ve seen her made ill for days by one of those encounters.”

  Sebastian frowned. “She did not see the Dauphin’s body after his death?”

  “No. Nor had she seen him for nearly two years before that. The boy was torn from his mother’s arms in the summer of ’ninety-three; Marie-Thérèse never saw him again.”

  “Seems curious that the revolutionaries didn’t show the body to the boy’s sister—if for no other reason than to remove all doubt as to his fate, once and for all.”

  “I wish they had,” grumbled Provence, shifting his considerable weight in his chair. “They would have saved us all a great deal of bother.”

  “Are you certain the boy actually is dead?”

  He expected the Bourbon to bluster and heatedly deny the very possibility of any suggestion the Dauphin might still live. Instead, he blinked, his eyes swimming with a sudden uprush of emotion, his skin looking mottled and prematurely old. “If by some miracle the boy did survive— I’m not saying I believe he did, mind you! But if by some miracle my poor nephew is truly alive out there, somewhere, he would not be fit to be king. What those animals did to him in that prison . . . Let’s just say it would have destroyed him, both physically and mentally.”

  “What did they do to him?” asked Sebastian.

  To his surprise, it was the courtier, Ambrose LaChapelle, who answered him. “You don’t want to know,” he said softly. “Believe me; you don’t want to know.”

  Chapter 22

  A sharp, bitter
wind slapped into Sebastian’s face as he walked up St. James’s Street toward Piccadilly. Settling his hat more firmly on his head, he became aware of an elegant town carriage drawn by a beautifully matched team of dapple-grays slowing beside him. He heard the snap of the near window being let down, saw the crest of the House of Jarvis proudly emblazoned on the door panel.

  He kept walking.

  “I had a troubling conversation this morning with a certain overwrought and somewhat choleric Parisian,” said Charles, Lord Jarvis.

  “Oh?” Sebastian turned onto Berkeley. The carriage rolled along beside him.

  “You simply cannot leave well enough alone, can you?”

  Sebastian gave a low, soft laugh. “No.”

  His father-in-law was not amused. “With any other man, I might be tempted to hint at all sorts of dire consequences to life and limb—your life and limb. But in this case, I realize such tactics would be counterproductive. Shall I appeal instead to your better nature?”

  Sebastian drew up and pivoted to face him. “My better nature? Do explain.”

  The liveried coachman brought his horses to a standstill.

  Jarvis chose his words carefully, obviously conscious of the listening servants. “I’ve no doubt that by now you know what’s at stake here. Given your oft-stated attitudes toward this war, I should think you would be anxious not to do anything that might interfere with a process that could save lives. Millions of lives.”

  “Oh? And when have you ever cared about saving lives?”

  Jarvis’s face lit up with what looked like a genuine smile. “Seldom. However, I am well aware of which arguments are most likely to appeal to you. And what is at stake here is real.”

  Sebastian studied his father-in-law’s arrogant, self-satisfied face, the aquiline nose and brutally intelligent gray eyes that were so much like Hero’s. Sebastian knew of no one who was a more ardent supporter of the institution of hereditary monarchy than Jarvis. In Jarvis’s thinking, Napoléon Bonaparte was an upstart Corsican soldier of fortune whose ambition-fueled ascension to the throne of France threatened to undermine every foundation of civilization and the social order. All of which made it exceedingly difficult for Sebastian to believe that Jarvis would countenance any peace treaty that might result in Britain’s retirement from the field of battle, leaving Napoléon still enshrined as Emperor.