by C. S. Harris
Sebastian shifted his gaze to the gravel carriageway. The men from the nearest deadhouse had arrived and were shifting the jeweler’s body onto their shell. He watched them lift the burden between them with a grunt.
A new explanation for Damion Pelletan’s murder, and for the attempted murder of his sister, was beginning to take shape in his imagination. He said, “The man who killed your friend . . . what did he look like?”
The courtier frowned with the effort of thought. “I didn’t see him well—he wore a greatcoat and scarf, with his hat pulled low over his forehead. All I can say with any certainty is that he was dark-haired and roughly your height, only slightly stockier.”
The description matched that of the man who had attacked Sebastian at Stoke Mandeville and again in York Street, although he had no doubt it also matched any number of other men in London. “He didn’t say anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Did you notice his eyes?”
“His eyes? No. Why?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll ask you one more time: Who would have reason to kill you?”
But Serena simply stared off across the park, as if looking for the answer in the mists that swirled among the winter-bared trees.
Chapter 45
Thursday, 28 January
The next morning, Sebastian was easing on his Hessians when Calhoun said, “You know how you asked me to look further into Sampson Bullock, my lord?”
Sebastian glanced over at his valet. “Discovered something interesting, did you?”
“You were right, my lord: Bullock spent six years in the Ninth Foot. He came back to London when his unit was reduced in 1802, after the Peace of Amiens.”
“In other words,” said Sebastian, stomping his foot into his boot, “he knows more about gunpowder than your average cabinetmaker.”
“Considerably more, I should think. He was in the artillery.”
• • •
Sampson Bullock was flooding a new tabletop with boiled linseed oil when Sebastian walked up to him. The fog was still so thick that a deep gloom filled the shop, and the cabinetmaker had lit the lantern suspended over his work. The air was heavy with the smell of warm oil and freshly shaved wood and rank male sweat.
Sebastian stood for a moment, arms crossed at his chest, and watched the cabinetmaker turn the pale raw wood a deep, rich brown as the oil soaked into the surface. Bullock glanced up at him, then dipped his cloth into the tin of oil and went back to rubbing the piece.
“Wot ye want from me?” he demanded after a moment. “I got nothin’ t’ say t’ ye.”
“I understand you were in the Ninth Foot. The artillery, to be precise.”
“Aye. Wot of it?”
“I would imagine you know a fair bit about gunpowder, don’t you?”
Bullock kept his gaze on his work, although Sebastian noticed his movements had become slower, more deliberate. “Suppose I do? Wot of it?”
“You heard about the explosion in Golden Square?”
“Ye’d be hard pressed t’ find a body hereabouts who hasna heard of it.”
“Did you know the charge was set directly beneath Madame Sauvage’s rooms?”
“Now, how would I know that?”
“I thought you might have heard. After all, it’s not often someone tries to blow up a London house with gunpowder.”
The cabinetmaker flung down his cloth with enough force to send thick golden globules of oil flying in all directions. “Wot ye sayin’? That I done it? Is that wot yer sayin’?”
Sebastian subtly shifted his weight, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. “You did threaten to kill her, remember?”
“Yeah? Well, she weren’t killed, now, was she? It was that Basque bitch wot bought it.”
Sebastian studied the man’s small black eyes. The scar across his cheek had darkened to a deep, vicious purple. “A mistake, I wonder? Or a deliberate attempt to hurt Alexi Sauvage by killing someone she loved?”
When the cabinetmaker remained silent, Sebastian said, “She didn’t kill your brother; he died of gaol fever, in prison.”
“She put him there!”
“You mean, by having the courage to stand up and say what everyone in the neighborhood knew to be true? That your brother was a brutal wife beater?”
“Why, ye—”
His face twisted with raw savagery, Bullock grabbed a long, sharp awl and lunged around the table to come at Sebastian with the tool clutched in his fist like a stiletto.
Sebastian yanked his own knife from the sheath in his boot, the carefully honed blade winking in the lamplight as he settled into a street fighter’s crouch.
The cabinetmaker drew up, his lips twitching, his fist still tight around the awl’s worn wooden handle.
“What’s the matter?” said Sebastian. “Does the idea of a fair fight give you pause? Do you prefer stabbing men in the back and blowing up women in their homes?”
A strange, eerie smile lit up the cabinetmaker’s face. “Ye think yer real smart, don’t ye? High-and-mighty lord that ye are, livin’ in that big fancy house, surrounded by all them other grand nobs. Think ye can come in here and talk t’ me like yer still a captain and I’m jest some swadkin? Think I gotta play by yer rules?”
“How do you know I was a captain?”
The man’s smile widened. “Think yer the only one can ask questions? I know all about ye—about ye and yer wife, and about the child she’s carryin’ in her belly. I even know ’bout that black cat you fancy.”
Sebastian was careful to keep all trace of his instinctive reaction off his face and out of his voice. All that remained was a cold, lethal purposefulness. “You stay away from my wife.”
“Wot’s the matter, Captain? Ye scared?”
“I see you anywhere near my wife, my house, or my cat, and you’re a dead man. You understand?”
Bullock laughed. “Ye sayin’ ye’d risk hangin’ fer killin’ the likes o’ me?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, the man’s self-satisfied smile slipped. Then it slid wide again. “I reckon maybe ye mean it, after all. But ye gots to see me comin’, don’t ye, Captain? And I can move real quiet when I wants to. Quiet as a raindrop runnin’ down a windowpane, or a dog dyin’ somewhere alone in the night.”
“I have extraordinarily good hearing,” said Sebastian.
And then he left Bullock’s workshop before he gave in to the temptation to kill the bastard then and there.
It was only afterward that Sebastian found himself wondering if he’d just made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 46
Sebastian had long ago come to the conclusion that there were two types of madmen in this world. Places like Bedlam were full of those society labeled as insane: men and women who heard voices, who lurched between mania and despair, or who were so tormented by life’s vicissitudes or their own demons that they simply disengaged from the world. Many were undoubtedly crazy enough to commit murder. But they seldom got away with it.
More dangerous by far, in Sebastian’s estimation, were those like Sampson Bullock: men with a solid grasp of reality who seemed sane, yet whose thought processes were breathtakingly brutal in their single-minded self-interest. Easily enraged and never forgiving of the most insignificant of perceived slights or injuries, they moved through life with an utter disregard for the wants and desires of those around them.
But there were times when Sebastian wondered if he was wrong, if perhaps people like Bullock weren’t actually mad, after all. Perhaps they simply lacked a fundamental component of what we like to believe it means to be human. The problem with that theory was that Sebastian had known dogs and horses capable of the very love and compassion such individuals seemed to lack. Utterly without conscience or empathy, they saw others not as fellow beings but as targets or opportunities. Not all were violent or lethal. But those who were could kill without guilt, convinced that their victims either brought death on themselves or were too inconseq
uential to merit consideration.
A man like Bullock could easily have killed both Alexi Sauvage’s brother and her aging, faithful servant as part of a twisted plan to avenge himself on the woman he held responsible for his own brother’s death. For the same reason, Bullock was also more than capable of cutting out a man’s heart. Sebastian had no evidence to suggest that Bullock knew about the relationship between the young French doctor and the woman Bullock hated, but it was certainly possible that in the process of following and watching her, Bullock had somehow learned of the connection. And yet . . .
Why would Bullock also kill and mutilate Colonel André Foucher— or try to kill Ambrose LaChapelle? That implied a connection to the Bourbons or an interest in the peace negotiations that Bullock lacked. The connection between LaChapelle and the peace delegation was tenuous, but there.
Still thoughtful, Sebastian turned his steps toward the Gifford Arms.
• • •
Monsieur Harmond Vaundreuil was feeding the ducks beside the Ornamental Water in St. James’s Park when Sebastian walked up to him.
“There was another murder last night. Just over there, on Birdcage Walk,” Sebastian said. “Did you know?”
The Frenchman scattered a handful of bread crumbs, his attention seemingly all for the ducks quacking and jostling around him. “According to what I am hearing, the attack was on one of the mollies who frequent the walk. What could it possibly have to do with me?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“Perhaps you see connections where none exist.”
“I don’t think so.”
The Frenchman smiled faintly and scattered more bread crumbs.
Sebastian said, “I’ve been listening to some interesting whispers. Whispers that tell me Damion Pelletan discovered you’re playing a double game; that while you pretend to serve the interests of France, you’re actually cooperating with Lord Jarvis to ensure that the peace negotiations come to naught.”
Vaundreuil puffed out his chest and lowered his heavy dark brows with an admirable display of moral outrage. “That’s preposterous! Why would I do such a thing?”
“Material reward is the most typical reason. That, and revenge. For some previous slight, perhaps? Then again, there’s always the possibility of securing a prestigious position in the restoration government—although if that is your motive, you can’t be aware of Marie-Thérèse’s scathing opinion of you.”
Vaundreuil threw away the last of the bread crumbs in a swift, angry gesture. “What are you suggesting? That I killed Damion Pelletan because he discovered I’m an English agent of influence? What about André Foucher? Am I to have done away with him for the same reason? And why, precisely, would I steal their hearts and eyes? As grisly mementos of their past faithfulness and service?” He swiped one hand through the air before him as if brushing away an annoying fly. “Bah! This is ridiculous!”
Sebastian studied the Frenchman’s red face and thrusting jaw. He had no trouble believing Harmond Vaundreuil capable of killing two of his colleagues, if he thought it necessary to protect himself. But the conviction that something else—or at least something more—was going on here remained.
Sebastian said, “Did Damion Pelletan ever speak to you of his father? Specifically, of his father’s visits to the Temple Prison in the summer of 1795?”
The Frenchman looked confused, his mouth hanging open, so that he had to swallow before he answered. “What?”
“His father, Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan, visited the Temple Prison at least twice in the summer of 1795. He treated the little Dauphin before his death, and he may have seen Marie-Thérèse, as well. Damion Pelletan never said anything about it to you?”
“No. But . . . surely you don’t think something that happened so long ago could have anything to do with the murders here in London today?”
“I don’t know. How much time did Pelletan spend with Colonel Foucher?”
Vaundreuil frowned. “Some. They would sit together of an evening, drinking brandy. Talking.”
“Talking about what?”
“Foucher’s time in the army. Women. Their hopes for the future . . .” He shrugged. “What do young men speak of when they drink? I never paid much attention to them.”
“So Pelletan might have told Foucher of his father’s observations of the Orphans in the Temple?”
“I suppose so, yes. But . . . what are you suggesting?”
Sebastian watched the ducks waddle away across the wet grass, quacking contentedly as their bulbous bodies lurched comically from side to side. What was he suggesting? That Marie-Thérèse had been brutally raped by her jailors in the Temple Prison? That she had been impregnated—or so badly injured that they’d summoned a physician to her? That the possibility of what had happened in the Temple—of what had really happened there—becoming known had so horrified her that she’d dispatched her minions to kill and kill again, in the hopes of keeping the truth quiet? Sebastian had no doubt she was capable of ordering the deaths of any number of men, if she thought it necessary to preserve what she saw as her divine family’s honor. But was she mad enough to order her henchmen to steal her first victim’s heart and gouge out the eyes of the second?
He wasn’t sure.
Vaundreuil said, “Are you suggesting these killings are somehow related to the death of the Dauphin? But . . . that is madness!”
Sebastian met the Frenchman’s gaze and held it. “Cutting out a man’s heart is madness.”
Chapter 47
Claire Bisette came to see Hero shortly before eleven that morning.
The Frenchwoman was pale and wraithlike, with hazel eyes set deep in a gaunt face and dull, dark blond hair drawn back in a severe knot. Her old-fashioned dress was hopelessly faded and darned at the elbows, cuffs, and collar, although she’d obviously tried hard to present a clean, neat appearance. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in a fortnight.
She brought with her the names of “respectable” people who could vouch for her integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness, although she admitted she had never held such a position as the one for which she was applying. Her only qualification was having cared for her own two children, both of whom were now dead.
Hero took the list of names, sent for tea and sandwiches, and slowly coaxed the anxious, stiff woman to talk. They spoke not only of children, but of Voltaire and Rousseau, of the concept of limited monarchy and the recent attempts to launch an expedition to the North Pole. After half an hour, Hero said, “I’ll have Morey show you to your room in the nurseries. You can make arrangements with him to have your things brought over.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “But . . . you can’t mean to engage me without checking my references!”
“I will check them, of course. And if they tell me you are a charlatan, I shall let you go. Only, I hope I am not such a poor judge of character.”
Claire Bisette was surprised into a soft laugh. It was the first laugh Hero had heard from her. Then the woman cocked her head to one side and said, “The child is due when?”
Hero’s hand tightened around her cup, but she said calmly enough, “Soon.”
“There is a problem?”
When Hero simply stared at her, Claire Bisette hastened to say, “I beg your pardon, my lady; I should not have asked.”
Hero shook her head. “No. As it happens, you are right. The babe is lying breech.”
“Ah. My first child, Henri, was stubborn in that way. But a good friend of mine turned him in the womb.”
“Do you mean Madame Sauvage?”
“I do, yes.”
“And what she did worked?”
“It did, yes. I knew the instant he turned—it felt just like a giant fish flopping inside me.”
Hero set aside her teacup. “How long have you known her?”
“Madame Sauvage? We were children together, in Paris.”
“So you knew Damion Pelletan, as well?”
�
�No. My family had moved to Nice by the time Dr. Philippe-Jean brought Damion home.”
Hero shook her head, not understanding. “What do you mean, brought him home?”
“Damion Pelletan was Alexi’s half brother. She didn’t know he existed until she was nearly grown.”
“When was this?” Hero asked sharply—more sharply than she had intended.
Claire Bisette frowned with the effort of memory. “I do not recall precisely. It was sometime after the Terror. The summer of 1795, perhaps?”
Chapter 48
The Dowager Duchess of Claiborne was famous for never leaving her bedchamber before noon or one o’clock. She was still sipping her hot chocolate in bed when Sebastian walked into the chamber and tossed his hat and driving coat on a chair.
“Do I take it my useless excuse for a butler has simply abandoned all attempts to exclude you?” demanded Henrietta, sitting up straighter.
“Give the man credit; he tried.”
She put up a hand to adjust her bed cap. “What do you want now?”
Sebastian went to warm himself before the fire. “I want to know what you can tell me about Lady Giselle Edmondson.”
“Lady Giselle? Good heavens; whatever for?”
“Humor me.”
“Well, let’s see . . .” She frowned thoughtfully. “Her father was the Third Earl of Bandor. Handsome man, but sadly emotional and far too taken with the works of the French philosophes. He moved to Paris shortly after he came down from Oxford, and refused to return home even when his father died and he inherited the title and estates.”
“He married a Frenchwoman?”
“He did. One of Marie Antoinette’s ladies. Giselle spent much of her early childhood at Versailles. She and Marie-Thérèse were essentially raised together.”
“And then came the Revolution.”
Henrietta set down her chocolate cup with a soft chink. “Yes. Foolish man. He could have left. So many did. But he was convinced he was witnessing something extraordinary.”
“And so he was. Only, not quite what he had anticipated. He and his countess were killed?”