When Falcons Fall (30 page)

S
ebastian had just passed the outskirts of the village when Lucien Bonaparte came thundering toward him mounted on a magnificent dapple-gray Arabian.

“My lord,” said Napoléon’s brother, the gray sidling and tossing its head as he reined in hard beside Sebastian. “I was coming to see you.”

“Oh?” Sebastian kept walking. He was in no mood to deal with the Emperor’s spoiled, self-indulgent brother.

“Is it true what they’re saying? That Daray Flanagan is dead?”

Sebastian glanced up at the Corsican’s pale, slack face. “Why? Are you admitting you knew him?”

“So it is true? He is dead?
Mon Dieu.
This is dreadful.”

“It’s certainly dreadful for Flanagan.”

The Corsican kicked his feet from the stirrups and dropped awkwardly to the ground. “There is something I must tell you,” he said, tugging at his rucked-up waistcoat as he fell into step beside Sebastian.

“Yes?”

“I fear I was not quite truthful when I said I am not in contact with Paris. Not with Napoléon, you understand, but with my mother.”

“I’d already figured that.”

Bonaparte’s jaw sagged. “You had?”

“I take it Flanagan was sent here as a courier?”

“He was, yes. But . . . how did you know?”

“Call it a good guess. You met with him on Monday? At the priory?”

The Corsican nodded miserably. “At three o’clock.”

Sebastian drew up abruptly and swung to face him. “Who was with him?”

Whatever Bonaparte saw in Sebastian’s face caused him to take a quick step back. “No one.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“Who arrived at the priory first? You or Flanagan?”

“Flanagan.”

“So he was waiting there for you?”

“He was, yes.” Bonaparte looked puzzled. “That’s important. Why?”

Sebastian said, “And you saw no sign there of Emma Chandler?”

“No, nothing. And now Flanagan is dead, and I’ve just learned that young woman was at the priory that afternoon as well, and—”

“You didn’t know that?”

“That she was there? No! Not until just now, when I heard Lady Seaton discussing it with her steward.”

Emma’s presence at the priory that afternoon was known by everyone who had attended Emma’s inquest. But then, Lucien Bonaparte hadn’t been present at the inquest; he’d sent his son in the company of Lady Seaton and Samuel Atwater.

Bonaparte sucked in a quick, nervous breath
.
“Is it someone sent by Whitehall who’s doing this? I know that man, Hannibal Pierce, was their creature—”

“How do you know that?”

“Flanagan warned me. I wondered why he always insisted on passing me the packets from Paris in broad daylight rather than under cover of darkness. But he said anyone I met at night would immediately be suspect, whereas we might briefly encounter each other during the day without attracting undo attention.”

“Did you order Pierce killed?”

“No! I haven’t ordered anyone killed! I don’t kill people. I have never killed anyone. Never.”

“The message from Paris; what was it?”

“I can’t tell you that!”

Sebastian suppressed the urge to grasp the Corsican by the lapels of his coat and shake him. “Bloody hell. At least four people are dead because of that message—if not six.”

“You don’t know that!”

“You know it too. It’s why you’re here.”

Napoléon’s brother brought up two shaky hands to swipe them down over his face. “My mother wrote to say that if the armies of this new alliance continue to march against us, France will surely fall. Even the world’s most brilliant general needs an army, and there simply aren’t enough men between the ages of fourteen and sixty left to defend our borders. She wants to know if London would be agreeable to Napoléon abdicating in favor of his infant son, the King of Rome.”

“I could answer that question for her.”

Lucien nodded sadly. “I fear the time for such an action has passed. But I have sent out feelers to Castlereagh.”

Sebastian understood why Lucien had been reluctant to divulge the contents of his mother’s message. It was one thing for malcontents on the streets of Paris to whisper about Napoléon abdicating in favor of his son. But it was something else entirely for the Emperor to actually be considering it.

“The other French agent here in Ayleswick,” said Sebastian, “who is it?” It was a question he was afraid he already knew the answer to, but he found he was still hoping to be proven wrong.

Lucien Bonaparte chewed the inside of one cheek and gave Sebastian a glassy stare.

“God damn it; who is it?”

“I don’t know. Flanagan always called him ‘our friend.’ But I never learned his identity. It’s the way these things are structured; you must know that. The messages are sent in a sealed packet from Paris to the ship. Then, once the ship arrives off your shore, the packet is handed to whoever is in charge of the horses that collect the cargo from the beach. They carry it here to Ayleswick.”

“And give it to whom? Weston?”

“Pphff.”
Bonaparte pushed a derisive breath out between his front teeth. “The man is an idiot content to pocket a few dollars here and there. Who would trust him?”

“So who? Who took delivery of the packets and passed them to Flanagan to carry to you? He’s the man who’s actually been running Weston’s little smuggling operation from the very beginning, isn’t he? From long before you were sent to Shropshire.”

“I don’t know who he is! You must believe me.”

“Why the bloody hell should I?”

“Because it’s the truth.” Bonaparte’s horse began to sidle, and he tightened his grip on its reins. “I don’t understand the reason for all this killing. Why is it happening?”

“Because Emma Chandler was at the priory sketching when Daray Flanagan and the man you call your ‘friend’ arrived. She must have accidently seen or heard something that betrayed their links to Paris, and they killed her for it.”

“But Flanagan’s friend wasn’t there!”

“Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. You say Flanagan knew about Hannibal Pierce. If that’s true, his ‘friend’ probably came along that day for the sake of security.”

“And you’re saying this man has now killed Flanagan? But why?”

“Because he’s afraid of being exposed. Flanagan was expendable, but his ‘friend’ isn’t; another courier can always be brought in.”

“But all this killing! It’s too much. Too much.”

“You’re certain you don’t know who he is?”

“No!”

“Then you’d best hope he believes that.”

Lucien Bonaparte gave him a strange look. “Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t put it past him to kill you too.”

“Me?”

“Why not?”

The Corsican opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again.

Sebastian said, “Still certain you don’t know who he is?”

Lucien Bonaparte gave a short, jerky shake of his head, his forehead beaded with sweat, his lips twitching with fear.

And in spite of himself, Sebastian believed the man.

T
he hollow
twunk
of an axe slicing into wood echoed in the sultry stillness of the afternoon as Sebastian approached the small stream that led to the old priory.

He followed the sound around the side of Heddie Kincaid’s cottage, to a dirt yard where Jenny Dalyrimple was chopping lengths of wood into kindling. Her face was flushed and sheened with sweat, and she threw him a quick glance over one shoulder before reaching for another section of wood to rest on the block before her.

He came to a halt some distance from her. “Tell me about your cousin, Sybil Moss.”

Jenny swung her axe, and the wood on the block shattered. “What about her?”

“Do you know the name of the gentleman she was seeing at the time she died? The one who put a babe in her belly?”

“Course I know it.”

“Tell me about him.”

She reached for another length of wood but simply held it, her gaze on his face. “You really want to hear it?” The words were like a challenge thrown at him.

“Yes.”

She set the section of wood on the block and swung again, splitting it neatly, the lean muscles in her shoulders and arms working beneath the thin cloth of her dress. Then she turned to face him, her breath coming hard and quick from her exertion. “All right; I’ll tell you, then. It was Leopold Seaton—the present Lord Seaton’s father.”

Sebastian searched her tightly held, sweat-sheened features, looking for some sign of calculation or deception. But he found only contempt and an old, old anger.

He said, “Is it possible Lord Seaton killed her?”

For a long moment, Sebastian didn’t think she meant to answer him. Then she set her jaw and shook her head. “No. Not in the way you mean.”

“What about Lady Seaton? Could she have done it?”

Jenny tilted her head to one side. “Why you care how Sybil died?”

“Because I don’t believe she threw herself off the cliffs of Northcott Gorge, just as I don’t believe Hannah Grant drowned herself in the millpond or Leopold Seaton simply fell off his horse coming home drunk one night from the Blue Boar. I think they were murdered. And I think whoever killed them is now responsible for the death of Emma Chandler and all the other killings that have followed on from it.”

Jenny swung her axe to sink the blade deep into the chopping block beside her. “You’re wrong. Sybil did throw herself off the cliffs of Northcott Gorge.”

“How can you be so certain?”

She swiped her sweaty face with the sleeve of one crooked elbow. “Because I was there.”

“At the gorge?”

Jenny lowered her arm, her hands dangling loose at her sides as she silently stared back at him.

He said, “Tell me what happened.”

She continued to stare at him, and there was something about her face in that moment that reminded him so much of the last time he’d seen Jamie Knox that it tore at his gut.

“Why?” she said at last.

And he thought,
Because I don’t want to believe that the man who was like a brother to Jamie is a killer, although I am very, very afraid that he is.

But all he said was, “It’s important.”

She twitched one shoulder. “Sybil never made any secret of the fact she was lying with his lordship—had been for months. She was so pretty, no one was surprised when she caught his eye. He went after all the pretty girls.”

Sebastian studied the flaring line of Jenny’s cheekbones, the gentle curve of her lips. She was still an extraordinarily attractive woman. And he found himself wondering if she herself had once attracted Leopold Seaton’s attentions. If so, Seaton must have quickly realized that this woman was far too dangerous to trifle with.

She drew a painful breath. “But Sybil . . . Somehow she convinced herself things were different with her. She was so excited when she realized she was carrying his child. She thought once he knew, he’d set her up in a fine house in Ludlow with servants and a carriage and fancy clothes and jewels. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Said I was jealous and didn’t want her to be happy.”

“So what happened?”

“She told him about the baby on Midsummer’s Eve, during the bonfires. At first he just laughed at her for thinking he’d acknowledge one of his bastards. But she didn’t take it well, so then he flew into a rage. Told her if she tried to claim he’d fathered her brat, he’d have her taken up for being a whore and whipped through the village at the cart’s tail.” Jenny swiped at her forehead again. “He was like that. He could be smiling and oh so handsome one minute, and then, just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“he’d turn mean and ugly. In the end, he pushed her away from him hard enough to send her sprawling. Then he just walked off and left her there on the ground.”

She fell silent. Sebastian held himself very still, waiting for her to continue.

She said, “I went to help her up; put my arms around her and told her everything was gonna be all right. But she wouldn’t stop crying. She was talking wild, about what a fool she’d been and how she just wanted to die—that she ought to go throw herself off Monk’s Head. Then she pulled away from me and ran off into the night.”

He could picture the scene all too well. The hellish glow from the bonfires lighting up the darkness and reflecting on the young girl’s tears. The warm night air heavy with herb-scented smoke. The laughter and excitement of villagers drunk on cider and a primitive tradition older than anyone knew.

“What did you do?” he asked quietly.

“What you think I did? I found Jude, and we went after her.”

“To Northcott Gorge?”

Jenny nodded. “Jude, he didn’t think she’d really do it, even though she was standing at the edge of the cliff when we got there. The wind was whipping at her skirts and blowing her hair across her face. I begged her to get back from the edge, and Jude, he told her not to be such a damned fool. She looked over at us—didn’t say anything, just looked at us in a quiet, steady way that scared the hell out of me. There was a full moon that night, and I could see the determination in her eyes. Then she just . . . stepped over the edge into nothing.”

Jenny fell silent again, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on the distance, and Sebastian knew she was seeing again the young woman’s skirts billowing in the moonlight, hearing the bone-breaking thump and tumble of her body hitting the rocks as she plummeted into the gorge.

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

Her features hardened. “Why would we? So they could bury her at the crossroads with a stake through her heart? That’s the last thing we wanted. We told anyone and everyone who’d listen to us that she was laughing the last time we’d seen her, that she was
happy
. That there was no way she’d deliberately kill herself. But the coroner’s jury didn’t believe us.”

“When Lord Seaton died a few months later, did you never think someone might have killed him?”

“I figured maybe Miles Grant—the blacksmith—got him.”

“Was Hannah also carrying Seaton’s child?”

“I don’t know. But she was lying with him. That I do know.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told—” Jenny broke off, her nostrils flaring on a sudden intake of breath.

“She told—whom? You? Or someone else?”

“I don’t remember,” she said, staring boldly back at him, not caring that he knew she was lying.

“Was Hannah Grant your cousin as well?”

“No. Her people moved down here from Ludlow.” She lifted her chin. “So you see, there’s no connection between Sybil’s death and what’s happening in the village now.”

Sebastian wondered if she actually believed that, or if she was simply trying to convince him, the way she’d tried to convince the village that her cousin had fallen to her death. He said, “Did you know Daray Flanagan is dead?”

Her lips parted, the sinews of her throat tightening. “When?”

“Sometime last night or early this morning.”

He expected her to say,
Why would anyone kill Daray Flanagan?
He waited for her to say it, because it was the logical, inevitable response to such an announcement.

But she didn’t say it. Then he saw the stark bleakness in her eyes and knew with a sinking certainty that she didn’t ask because her mind was quick. She already knew why someone would kill Daray Flanagan, just as she had a pretty good idea as to who had done it.

It wasn’t obvious or easily discernible, the twisted, thin cord of anger and revenge that connected one untimely death to the next. But it was there, the passion and outrage of youth leading to a mature and ruthless instinct for self-preservation.

And Sebastian wondered, had it begun on that long-ago Midsummer’s Eve, when Jude Lowe watched the young niece he’d known and loved all his life step off a cliff into oblivion? Or had the origins of that murderous fury begun earlier, with the tarred, blackened body of a childhood friend hung up to rot in the cold embrace of a gibbet’s iron cage?

He wondered, too, if Hannah Grant really had drowned herself in that millpond, or if the last thing she’d known was the angry, brutal grasp of a jealous young man. A man who’d once loved her, only to be rejected when she turned from him to a wealthy lord he knew to be both selfish and cruel.

“I was more’n a bit sweet on Hannah myself when I was a lad,”
Jude had told him.
“More’n a bit . . .”

The wind gusted up, shivering the leaves of the elms edging the stream and bringing with it the scent of coming rain. It was all conjecture, of course. Sebastian knew only too well that just because an explanation fits neatly doesn’t mean it’s true. Never in his years of solving murders had he so desperately wished to be wrong. But he felt the rightness of it like a sick certitude deep in his gut.

He was aware of Jamie Knox’s twin staring at him, her fine, intelligent eyes flat and still, as if she could will from their depths any betraying glimmer of the truth. And he wanted to say to her,
You know, don’t you? You might not have known it before, but you’ve figured it all out now. You know the secret, violent soul of the man who’s always been more like a second brother to you than an uncle. You know he swore to kill Leopold Seaton all those years ago. You know where he gets the fine brandy that he hides in his cellars and the inexplicable wealth he must be careful not to show to anyone he doesn’t trust. You know he was the one who supposedly urged Daray Flanagan to stay when the Irishman so conveniently came riding through town on the day of Alistair Coombs’s funeral, and you’ve always suspected why, even if you never admitted it to yourself. Just as you’ve always suspected that the flames that consumed Maplethorpe Hall had nothing to do with a candle and a windblown curtain and everything to do with that tar-soaked gibbet and a government informant brought in specifically to end the subversive protests against George Irving’s ruthless Bill of Enclosure.

“Whatever happened to him?” Sebastian asked, and she shook her head, not understanding his question. “Wat Jones, I mean. The squatter you told me lied at Alex Dalyrimple’s trial.”

“He went away.”

Which he undoubtedly did. Although Sebastian suspected he didn’t get far.

He stared across the stream at the stile Emma Chandler had climbed the afternoon of her death—but only once, not twice. And the irony of her fate struck him suddenly as both cruel and heartrendingly senseless. She had come to Ayleswick to uncover the truth about her parents in the hopes of better understanding who and what she was. And all she had found was her own death.

He said, “Is there another way to get to the priory ruins besides following the stream here?”

“You can come at it from Northcott. And there’s a footpath starts across from the village church and cuts through the wood.”

“Thank you,” he said, touching his hand to his hat.

“Did it never occur to you,” she said as he turned away, “that if you hadn’t interfered—if you’d let that young woman’s death be ruled a suicide—then Hannibal Pierce, Reuben Dickie, and Daray Flanagan would all still be alive today?”

He paused to look back at her. “Are you suggesting their deaths are my fault?”

“Death follows you,” she said, her hands coming up to grip her upper arms and hug them to her. “You brought it here.”

He forced himself to meet her gaze. “Ayleswick was no stranger to violent death long before I arrived, and you know it.”

He thought she might deny it.

But she didn’t.