by C. S. Harris
“Looking for me?” said Sebastian.
For one startled instant, the man’s gaze met Sebastian’s and his dark, heavily lashed eyes blinked as he realized just how radically the situation had suddenly altered. Not only had he lost the benefit of surprise, but it was considerably easier to knife a man in the back than to confront him face-to-face.
Sebastian took a step forward. “What’s the matter? Can’t get at my back?”
The would-be assailant turned and darted into the street.
Sebastian leapt after him.
A team of bay shires appeared out of the fog, heads bent as they leaned into their harnesses, the heavily loaded dray they pulled rattling over the uneven paving. The man drew up and spun around, his knife flashing just as Sebastian’s foot slid on the wet stones. Before he could jerk out of the way, the blade slashed along Sebastian’s forearm. Sebastian fought to regain his balance on the icy pavement, slipped, and went down hard.
The man whirled and ran.
“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian, scrambling to his feet, his bleeding arm held crimped to his chest. A whip cracked, the air filling with harsh shouts and the jingle of harness as a wide-eyed pair of grays reared suddenly in the gloom. Sebastian ducked out of the way of the horses’ slashing hooves, then swerved to dodge a lumbering dowager’s carriage.
By the time he reached the opposite footpath, the greatcoated man in the heavy scarf had disappeared.
• • •
“Your questions are obviously making someone uncomfortable,” said Gibson, laying a neat row of stitches along the gash in Sebastian’s arm.
Sebastian grunted. “The question is: Who?” He was seated on the table in Gibson’s surgery, stripped to his waist, a glass of brandy cradled in his good, right hand.
Gibson tied off his thread. “Any chance Monsieur Harmond Vaundreuil could have had his own physician killed?”
“You mean because he discovered someone—probably Kilmartin—was trying to bribe Pelletan?” Sebastian took a slow swallow of his brandy. “It’s certainly possible. It wouldn’t matter whether or not Pelletan actually accepted Kilmartin’s bribe, if Vaundreuil somehow came to hear of it. And there’s no doubt in my mind that Vaundreuil is afraid of something. I just don’t know what.”
“The other members of his delegation, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” He remembered the horror Vaundreuil had shown when told the killer had removed Pelletan’s heart. He still believed that horror was real. But it was always possible the Frenchman had simply been ignorant of his own henchman’s viciousness.
Sebastian watched Gibson smear a foul-smelling salve over the wound. “What I find difficult to understand is why Vaundreuil or one of his associates would want to plant a charge of gunpowder in Golden Square in an effort to kill Damion Pelletan’s sister. But then, that could be because Madame Sauvage is being considerably less honest with us than she could be. About a lot of things.”
He was aware of Gibson stiffening. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve discovered that Damion Pelletan was trying to convince Lord Peter Radcliff’s pretty young wife to run away with him. In fact, Pelletan and his sister were actually arguing about it just moments before he was murdered. Now, why do you suppose she neglected to tell us that?”
A woman’s voice sounded from the doorway behind him. “I’ve told you there is much I still don’t recall from that night.”
Sebastian turned to look at her. She wore the same old-fashioned gown from that morning, the smudges of black at her knees still visible from where she’d knelt beside the body of her dead servant woman. And it occurred to him that everything she owned had probably been lost in the explosion and fire.
He glanced at Gibson, who was preparing to wrap a bandage around the injured arm. A faint but clearly discernable flush of color rode high on the surgeon’s gaunt cheekbones. And Sebastian knew without being told that Gibson had offered the now homeless Frenchwoman a place to stay—and she had accepted.
He looked back at Madame Sauvage. “How long had you known?”
“That Damion wanted Julia to return with him to France? He only told me that night, as we were walking up Cat’s Hole to see Cécile.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“You mean that he had discovered Radcliff was beating her? Yes.”
“And it never occurred to you that a man violent enough to use his fists on his helpless young wife might also be violent enough to kill the man proposing to steal that wife away from him?”
“I told you, I only learned what Damion intended the night of the attack. I simply did not recall it.”
Sebastian let his gaze drift over the pale, fine-boned features of her face. Not only was she a habitual liar, but she wasn’t particularly good at it. How the hell Gibson couldn’t see that was beyond him. But all he said was, “Tell me about your father’s autopsy of the Dauphin in the Temple Prison.”
The sudden shift in topic seemed to confuse her. She stared at him, her eyes wide. “What?”
“Your father was one of the doctors who performed an autopsy on Marie-Thérèse’s ten-year-old brother, the Dauphin of France, after his death in prison. You were—how old? Twelve? Thirteen?”
“I was fourteen.”
“So you must recall something about it. I take it you were already interested in medicine at the time. Surely he discussed it with you.”
“He did.”
“Did he believe the dead boy he saw in the Temple was in fact the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette?”
She moved to stand before the room’s fireplace, her back to them, her gaze on the small blaze on the hearth. “My father saw the boy alive only once or twice, when he was called to the Temple just days before the child’s death. He never had any doubt that the boy who died in prison was that same child.”
“Yet that’s not to say the child he treated was actually the Dauphin.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I have seen the autopsy report—my father kept a copy himself. It has been years since I read it, but I remember noticing that he was very careful to state that the body was identified by the jailors as belonging to the Dauphin. He himself did not make the identification.”
“Did he believe the dead child actually was the Dauphin?”
“I honestly do not know. It’s not something he likes to talk about. I do know he was confused because the jailors insisted to him that the child’s final illness had come on suddenly. Yet the boy died of a long-standing case of tuberculosis.”
“Did he? Or was that simply the story that was put out? A fiction much less damning than to admit that he died of mistreatment or neglect.”
“No; my father told me the child whose body he autopsied most definitely died of tuberculosis.”
Sebastian looked at Gibson, who had his head bent, his attention seemingly all for the task of tying off the bandage. In the sudden hush, the buffeting of the wind against the heavy old windows and the creak of a cart’s axle in the lane outside sounded unnaturally loud.
Alexi Sauvage said, “What precisely are you suggesting? A moment ago, you would have had me believe that Lord Peter Radcliff killed my brother for coveting his wife. Now you’re saying Damion’s death is somehow linked to an autopsy my father performed nearly twenty years ago? Are you actually suggesting that the Dauphin somehow survived his imprisonment, and my father knew it? But . . . that’s absurd!”
“Is it?”
“It is, yes. My father must have believed the Dauphin died in the Temple. Otherwise, why would he—” She broke off, her chest jerking on a suddenly indrawn breath.
“What is it?” asked Sebastian, watching her. “Otherwise why would he what?”
Her tongue crept out to slide across her cracked lower lip. “At the conclusion of the autopsy, my father wrapped the boy’s heart in his handkerchief and smuggled it out of the prison hidden in the pocket of his coat. He soaked the heart in alcohol and has kept it preserved in a crystal vas
e in his office ever since.”
“Are you telling me your father was the physician who removed the Dauphin’s heart? And he still has it?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell us this? Why?”
Her jaw tightened, her eyes flashing with scorn. “My father has performed hundreds of autopsies over the course of his career. It is preposterous to think that Damion’s murder here, in London, is somehow linked to a death that occurred in Paris decades ago. My brother was killed because he was part of a delegation seeking a peace that is anathema to powerful interests here in England, both political and economic. Powerful interests that include your own father-in-law!”
Sebastian returned her hard stare. “I might be able to accept that more easily if it weren’t for one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Why would Lord Jarvis—or anyone else involved in the peace negotiations, for that matter—want to steal your brother’s heart?”
Chapter 37
“Do you think Gibson is in love with Alexandrie Sauvage?” Hero asked.
It was after dinner, and they were seated in their drawing room. Hero was petting the bored-looking black cat, while Sebastian—who saw no reason to follow the popular custom of drinking port in solitary splendor at his dining table when he could be enjoying the company of his wife—held a glass of burgundy. He was dressed in the silk knee breeches, white stockings, and buckled shoes that were de rigueur for a gentleman attending a formal London function. It was the night of his aunt Henrietta’s musical soiree, and he had suddenly discovered a very good reason for attending.
He took a slow swallow of his wine, for Hero’s question had given voice to one of his own concerns. “I’m very much afraid he might be.”
“It could be good for him.”
“Perhaps—if we were talking about any woman other than Alexi Sauvage.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about her.”
Across the room, her gaze met his, then dropped to the hand she moved slowly up and down the cat’s back.
“You don’t need to tell me,” she said quietly, her voice suddenly, oddly scratchy, so that he wondered what she had seen in his face.
He could hear the rattle of carriage wheels on the pavement outside, the whisper of ash falling on the hearth. The memory of that spring was like a frozen shiver across the skin, an incubus that stole his breath and tormented his soul. “No; I do. I should have told you before.” He found he had to draw a deep breath before he could go on. “I met her three years ago, when I was serving as an observing officer for a vain, pompous, and extraordinarily vindictive colonel named Sinclair Oliphant. Wellington’s forces were already beginning to push into Spain, and Oliphant was in charge of securing the mountain passes out of Portugal.
“One day, he ordered me to carry sealed dispatches to a band of partisans said to be camped in a small valley below the ancient convent of Santa Iria. Except it was all a hoax. Oliphant knew the partisans weren’t there, and he’d had one of his spies tip off a French force operating in the area. They were waiting for me.”
Hero stared at him. “He deliberately had you captured? But . . . why?”
“There was a large landowner in the area—Antonio Álvares Cabral—who was refusing to cooperate with Oliphant. Álvares Cabral wanted to make certain the French were gone for good before he risked throwing in his lot with the British. I didn’t know it at the time, but the dispatches I carried were false; they were written specifically to fool the French into thinking the abbess of the convent of Santa Iria was in league with the partisans.” Sebastian kept his gaze on his wine, glowing warm and red in the fire’s light. “The abbess was Álvares Cabral’s daughter.”
Hero’s hand had stilled its rhythmic motion. “Alexandrie Sauvage was with the French forces?”
“She was—although she was Alexi Beauclerc then. By that time, her first husband had died, and she’d taken up with a French lieutenant named Tissot.”
“So what happened?”
“After he read the dispatches I’d carried, the French major, Rousseau, rode off with some of his men. He was planning to torture me in the morning for whatever other information I might have, then kill me. But I managed to escape shortly before dawn—by killing Lieutenant Tissot.”
“Alexi Sauvage’s lover?”
“Yes.”
There was more to the story, of course—much more. But he wasn’t sure he was capable of talking about it. Still.
Hero had the sensitivity not to press him. She said, “You think Alexi Sauvage would deliberately hurt Gibson, just to get back at you?”
“I don’t know. But my distrust of her motives doesn’t stem only from what happened in Portugal. She’s a beautiful young Frenchwoman who attended one of the best universities in Europe. Gibson is a one-legged Irish opium eater who learned everything he knows about surgery on the world’s battlefields.”
“He’s a good man.”
“He is. But I’m not convinced Alexandrie Sauvage is the kind of woman to appreciate that. She keeps lying to us—about her father’s theft of the Dauphin’s heart, about her brother’s intentions with Lady Peter, about the fact that Damion Pelletan even was her brother.”
“Not telling you something isn’t exactly the same as lying.”
“It is in my book—at least when we’re talking about murder.”
“I can understand her lingering animosity toward you. But if she truly loved her brother . . . why be so secretive?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced at the clock, set aside his wine, and rose to his feet.
She rose with him, upsetting the disgruntled cat, who arched his back and glared at Sebastian. “I still can’t believe you’re going to ask Marie-Thérèse about her brother’s heart in the middle of your aunt Henrietta’s soiree.”
“Not Marie-Thérèse; Lady Giselle. I have it on excellent authority that Marie-Thérèse will never condescend to speak to me again, ever since I committed the unforgivable sin of daring to contradict her royal personage. It’s one of the many hazards of believing in the divine right of kings; you start equating yourself with God, which means you see your enemies as not merely annoying or unpleasant, but the literal servants of Satan.”
“What do you expect Lady Giselle to tell you?”
“Nothing, actually. But I want to watch her face when I ask her whether or not Marie-Thérèse knows about the fate of the Dauphin’s heart.”
“Surely you don’t think Marie-Thérèse killed Damion Pelletan?”
“Do I think she personally cut out his heart? No. She and Lady Giselle were closeted in prayer that night, remember? But I’d say she’s more than capable of delegating the task to one of the hundreds of sycophants hanging around Hartwell House.”
“But . . . why? Why would she want the heart of a man whose only sin was that his father performed an autopsy on a dead child?”
“Revenge? Malice? An exchange of missing body parts? I don’t know. But the connection is there, somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet.”
• • •
London might still be thin of company, but virtually everyone who was anyone appeared to have decided to attend the Duchess of Claiborne’s soiree that evening. As he pushed his way through the crowded reception rooms, Sebastian counted two royal dukes, a dozen ambassadors, and nearly enough peers to fill the House of Lords. The strains of one of Haydn’s string quartets drifted through the cavernous town house. The rendition was exquisite, although no one really seemed to be listening to it.
“Good God, Devlin,” exclaimed his aunt when she saw him. “What are you doing here?”
She was looking regal in purple satin and the magnificent Claiborne diamonds, her gray head crowned by a towering purple velvet turban sporting an enormous diamond and pearl brooch.
He bent to kiss her rouged and powdered cheek. “I was invited, remember?”
“And you turned me down. Twice. The only time you ever come to these things is when you w
ant something.” She regarded him through narrowed eyes. “What is it now?”
He lifted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and smiled. “Who. In this case, it’s definitely a ‘who.’ The Duchesse d’Angoulême and her devoted companion, Lady Giselle Edmondson. They are here, I assume? Your soiree was given as one of the reasons for their removal to London—that, and the theater. Although I’m told the latter is not such a draw now that Miss Kat Boleyn has inexplicitly chosen to absent herself this season.”
“Marie-Thérèse said that to you?”
“She did.”
“Nasty woman. I swear, if she ever does become Queen of France, they’ll have another revolution.”
“She is here, I take it?”
“She is. I saw her go down to supper just moments ago. None of the Bourbons ever miss a chance at a free meal.”
He found Marie-Thérèse seated on one of the brocade-covered chairs lined up against the wall of the dining room, where a buffet of delicacies had been spread to tempt the jaded appetites of the guests. She wore an elegant gown of turquoise silk with a plunging neckline designed to show off her mother’s famous drop pearl necklace; three white plumes nodded from the curls piled on her head, and she had a white ostrich-plume fan she waved languidly back and forth, although it was not hot.
He saw her stiffen, her gaze meeting his across the crowded room. Then she looked pointedly away.
Smiling faintly, he walked up to where Lady Giselle was awkwardly endeavoring to fill two plates, one for herself and one for the Princess. “Here; allow me to help you,” he said, relieving her of one of the plates.
“Thank you.” She gave him a wry, almost conspiratorial smile. “I saw the look she threw you just now. You ought by rights to be dead on the floor.”
“I’m told she’ll never forgive me. But you have?”
“I understand what you’re trying to do. I can appreciate that—even admire it—however much I might disapprove of some of your methods.”