Why Kings Confess (14 page)

“How do you know they didn’t show her the dead Dauphin?”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“What if they did show her the child’s body, only she was so horrified by his condition that she blocked the sight from her mind?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but you might be right.”

He went to pour himself a glass of brandy. “I think both the Comte de Provence and Marie-Thérèse were perfectly aware of the fact that Damion Pelletan was the son of the man who treated the Dauphin at the time of his death in the Temple.”

“Surely you can’t think that’s the reason Pelletan was killed? Who would murder a man for something his father did nearly twenty years ago?”

“Isn’t that what the revolutionaries did? They killed a ten-year-old boy for the sins of his forefathers.”

“But . . . Provence is far too fat and crippled to have done something like this.”

“I’m not suggesting he did it himself. But he could certainly have hired someone. Someone such as the gentleman who tried to kill me outside of Stoke Mandeville.”

“I can’t believe it of him.”

“I notice you don’t say the same thing about Marie-Thérèse.”

She started to say something, then stopped and bit her lip.

“You can’t, can you?” said Sebastian.

Hero shook her head. “There is much about Marie-Thérèse that I admire. She survived a terrible ordeal and suffered a brutal succession of heart-wrenching sorrows. That she came through it with anything even vaguely resembling sanity is truly remarkable. But for all that, I still cannot like her. It isn’t just the haughtiness, or the rigidity, or the ostentatious, intolerant piety. Someone once described Marie-Thérèse to me as a consummate performer, and I suspect that she truly is. To my knowledge, no one has ever seen her looking happy, although you also never see her appear anything but calm in public. Yet I’ve been told that in reality she is anything but calm. She has hysterics. She’s been known to faint at the sight of a barred window, and she trembles violently at the beat of a drum or the peal of a church bell. She has never really recovered from what was done to her. And while no one could ever in any way hold that against her, I still—”

“Don’t trust her?”

“I wouldn’t trust either her sincerity or her sanity.”

Sebastian was silent for a moment. Then he said, “LaChapelle told me something else. He said that as part of the autopsy, the boy’s heart was removed.”

Hero’s gaze met his. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “You think
that’s
why Damion’s killer stole his heart? In some twisted kind of revenge?”

“I don’t know. But what are the odds that Philippe-Jean Pelletan would participate in an autopsy that removed the dead Dauphin’s heart, only to have the heart of his own murdered son taken some twenty years later? What are the odds?”

Monday, 25 January

B
y morning, the
temperature had risen a few degrees above freezing, the thaw turning the snow-filled streets of the city into thickly churned rivers of brown slush. But the wind was still icy cold, with a pervasive, bone-chilling dampness that sent market women scurrying down the footpaths with shawls drawn up over their heads and their shoulders hunched.

Sebastian turned up the collar of his greatcoat and resisted the urge to stomp his cold feet. He was standing on the pavement outside the French Catholic chapel near Portman Square. The church had no bell tower, under a decree of King George III himself; only a simple Latin cross set back into the facade helped differentiate it from the two stables flanking the plain brick building. But he could hear a rustling from within, and a moment later, as the Anglican church bells of the city began to chime the hour, a small huddle of older men and women, their bodies portly and dressed almost uniformly in black, exited the church’s plain doors and drifted away.

Sebastian stood with his hands clasped behind his back and waited.

He’d heard it said that every morning of her life, Marie-Thérèse rose with the dawn, made her own bed, and swept her own room, before devoting the next hour to prayer. It was what she had done each day of the more than three years she’d spent in a lonely prison cell in Paris, and she had never lost the practice. At Hartwell House, she attended daily mass with her own chaplain. But in London she came here, to the French chapel, to pray with her fellow exiles.

There were some who found the story of a king’s daughter continuing to make her own bed admirable, and in a way it was. But to Sebastian it also spoke of the kind of deep and lingering trauma only too familiar to any man who had ever been to war.

Somehow, alone in her prison cell in the tower of the Knights Templar’s ancient monastery, Marie-Thérèse had convinced herself that the daily practice of this homely ritual would keep her sane. It had. And so, even though she had now been free for nearly twenty years, she’d never dared to relax her self-imposed regime. It was as if the very act of making her bed and sweeping her room still kept the demons of madness at bay. Perhaps it did.

The bells of the city had long since tolled into silence. But it was another ten minutes before Marie-Thérèse herself made an appearance, trailed by her long-suffering companion, the Lady Giselle Edmondson.

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said the King’s daughter, her half boots making soft, squishy noises in the slushy footpath. “This is unexpected.”

He swept a gracious bow. “Your uncle told me you had decided to spend a few days in town.”

“Yes. As much as I enjoy the country, I find that I do miss the theater.” She cast him a speculative sideways glance. “Although I was disappointed to hear that Kat Boleyn is not treading the boards this season. She is always such a joy to watch. Don’t you agree?”

An observer might have thought the remark entirely innocent—might have believed her ignorant of the fact that the actress Kat Boleyn had for many years been Sebastian’s mistress. But he saw the spiteful gleam in her eyes, and he knew better.

The jibe was both deliberate and breathtakingly malicious.

“It is a pity, yes,” he said, keeping his own voice bland with effort. “But understandable, given the circumstances of her late husband’s recent death. One can surely appreciate her need to spend a few months away from the city, recovering from such a loss.”

“True.” She sucked in her cheeks. “You wouldn’t by chance know where she has gone?”

“No,” he said baldly.

He did not, in truth, know where Kat had sought refuge. But wherever it was, he hoped she was finding the peace of mind she so desperately needed.

A faint frown of disappointment pulled down the corners of the Princess’s lips, then was gone. She smoothed a hand over her pelisse. “So many murders! The streets of London are very dangerous, are they not?”

“They certainly can be. I’ve been wondering, did you know that Dr. Damion Pelletan was the son of Philippe-Jean Pelletan, the physician who treated your brother in the Temple Prison?”

Her lips flattened, and she shook her head determinedly from side to side. “No; I did not.”

For someone who had spent a lifetime dissembling, she was a terrible liar. He said, “That’s not the real reason you decided to see Pelletan?”

“You dare?”
A vicious snarl twisted her lips and quivered the tense muscles of her face. “You dare to contradict me, daughter of a king of France? Me, a descendant of the sainted Louis himself?”

Sebastian held her gaze. “Whoever killed Damion Pelletan also removed his heart. Do you have any idea why they would do that?”

The violence of her reaction both surprised and puzzled him. Her eyes widened, and she gasped, one fist coming up to press against her lips.

“Madame,” said Lady Giselle, rushing forward to slip an arm around the
duchesse
’s thick waist and urge her toward the waiting carriage. “Here, let me help you.” She paused only to throw a piercing, furious glare over her shoulder at Sebastian. “You are despicable.”

A soft clapping of gloved hands echoed in the sudden stillness.

Sebastian turned to find Ambrose LaChapelle slowly descending the steps from the chapel, his hands raised as if he were applauding a fine performance, the crook of a furled umbrella slung over one forearm.

“Congratulations,” said the courtier. “She’ll never forgive you for that, you know. You have just broken one of the cardinal rules. One does not contradict a member of the French royal family, no matter how ridiculous or patently false their utterances may be. Fifteen years ago, a certain Madame Senlis ventured within Marie-Thérèse’s hearing to correct the Comte de Provence’s faulty memory of some trivial incident from their youth. Marie-Thérèse has still not forgiven the unfortunate woman—and she never will.”

“Madame Rancune,” said Sebastian, watching as, in the distance, Lady Giselle tenderly tucked a fur-lined robe around the
duchesse
.

“You have no idea.”

The two men turned together to walk up the street toward Portman Square.

Sebastian said, “Why did you attend Damion Pelletan’s funeral?”

“I am not sure. Out of respect, I suppose.”

“Is that all?”

LaChapelle cast him a quick, sideways glance. “Eighteen years ago, the boy who was destined to be King Louis XVII of France died in a filthy prison cell at the age of ten. Yet even before his body was consigned to an anonymous grave in some forgotten churchyard, the rumors had already begun to fly. There is no denying that while the boy lived, there were several plots hatched to spirit the Dauphin away and replace him with another boy, a mute, dying of consumption. So after his death, it is inevitable that some would cling to the hope that one of those plots succeeded—that a switch was made, that the child who died in the Temple was an imposter, and that the Dauphin himself still lives.”

“What does any of this have to do with Damion Pelletan?”

“Few people alive today know the truth of what happened in the Temple Prison. Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan may be one of them. But the senior Pelletan is in France, beyond the Bourbons’ ability to question him. There was hope that Damion Pelletan, the son, might know some of the events of those dark days. But he claimed he did not.”

“Did the Bourbons believe him?”

“Frankly? I doubt it.”

The two men walked on in silence for a moment. Then Sebastian said, “You do realize that, depending on where the truth lies, the House of Bourbon could conceivably have had two distinct motives for killing Damion Pelletan?”

“Two?”

“The first, obviously, would be to disrupt the delegation from Paris, thus putting an end to the possibility of any peace accord that would leave Napoléon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.”

“Such a peace will never come to pass, with or without Pelletan’s murder.”

“Perhaps. But why take the chance?”

LaChapelle snorted. “To even suggest that the French royal family would stoop to murder is absurd.”

“To recover their kingdom? What is one more man’s death when millions have already died?”

The Frenchman’s jaw tightened. “And your second so-called motive?”

“Revenge.”

“Seriously? For what?”

“Damion Pelletan’s father was brought to the Temple to treat the critically ill Dauphin. But the boy died anyway. One could conceivably fault the physician for his death.”

“One would need to be brutal and cruel beyond measure to kill an innocent young man simply to avenge oneself on the man’s father.”

“And to cut out his heart?” said Sebastian.

They drew up at the edge of the square and Sebastian turned to face the courtier. But the Frenchman simply shook his head and shifted his gaze to the elliptical gardens at the center of the square, where children laughed and frolicked in the snow.

Sebastian said, “What are the chances that a substitution was made in the prison? That the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lives?”

Ambrose LaChapelle shook his head. “There is no Lost Dauphin. I told you this tale to explain the interest of Provence and Marie-Thérèse in Dr. Pelletan. But there is no doubt in my mind that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette is dead. He died eighteen years ago in prison and lies buried in a pauper’s grave in the churchyard of Ste. Marguerite. Believe me,
monsieur
: If you seek Damion Pelletan’s murderer, there is no need to delve so deeply into the events of the dark and distant past. There are plenty of motives to be found in the life the man was living here and now.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“You have heard, I assume, of the fighting within the delegation from Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Have you never wondered why Damion Pelletan agreed to come to London as Harmond Vaundreuil’s personal physician? I have heard it was for love.”

“For love?” repeated Sebastian.

“Mmm. Vaundreuil’s daughter, Madame Madeline Quesnel, is a very attractive woman.”

“She is with child. By her dead husband.”

“She is, yes. But some women are never more beautiful than when they are with child. And she is, as you say, a widow.”

“What precisely are you suggesting? That Pelletan was murdered by a rival for Madame Quesnel’s affections?”

“You suggest that Damion Pelletan’s heart was removed because his father may once have removed the heart of the dead Dauphin. I find it more likely that he fell victim to a rival in an
affaire de coeur
.”

Sebastian studied the courtier’s long, delicate face. The faint traces of last night’s rouge were still visible in the pores of his skin. “Why should I believe you?”

LaChapelle shrugged, as if whether Sebastian believed him or not was a matter of supreme indifference to him. “Look into it. I think you might be surprised by what you learn.”

Then he turned and walked away, his furled umbrella twirling around and around as he softly hummed a familiar tune. It took Sebastian a moment to place the song.

It was the
Marseillaise
.

M
itt Peebles was sweeping the melting snow from the footpath before the Gifford Arms when Sebastian walked up to him.

“You again,” said Mitt, wagging a finger at Sebastian. “I know who you are now. And I know why you was asking me all them questions.”

“Oh? Who told you?”

“Nobody told me!” He tapped his finger against his forehead, his head cocked sideways as if pondering a great philosophical problem. “Done figured it out all by meself, I did.”

“Impressive.” Sebastian lifted his gaze to the inn’s symmetrical facade.

“If you’re looking for Harmond Vaundreuil, he ain’t here. Went off with the other two early this morning, he did. Most likely won’t be back before midafternoon.”

“What about Monsieur Vaundreuil’s daughter, Madame Quesnel?”

“Oh, she’s here, all right.” Mitt jerked his head toward the rear of the inn. “There’s a private garden out the back; gate’s by the stables. That’s where you can usually find her. She likes to walk more’n anybody I ever did see, and it don’t matter the weather.”

“Thank you,” said Sebastian, passing the man a coin.

Mitt’s face split into a huge grin. “Anytime, your lordship. Anytime.”

Tucked away between the row houses of York Street and the Recruit House that faced onto Birdcage Walk, the garden was irregular in shape, with its western end divided into four sections by paths that met at a wooden arbor covered with the thick, bare branches of an old wisteria. He found her there, one hand resting on the weathered wood beside her as she stared off over closely planted beds still blanketed white by last night’s fall of wet snow. She stood utterly still, and he had the impression her thoughts were far, far away, in both time and place.

She wore a heavy black wool cloak that swelled gently over her rounded belly, and a close bonnet with a black velvet poke shielding her face. But at the sound of his approach, she turned, her features registering surprise but not alarm.

“Madame Quesnel?” he asked, bowing. “My apologies for intruding. My name is Devlin.”

She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four, with milky white skin and pretty, even features. “I know who you are,” she said in a softly lilting accent. “My father pointed you out to me the other day. He says you are looking into the death of Damion Pelletan. Is that true?”

“I am, yes.”

“Good.”

“Somehow I get the impression your father doesn’t exactly share your sentiments.”

“No; of course he does not. If anything, he is furious with Dr. Pelletan for getting himself killed—as if he did it deliberately to sabotage Father’s mission.”

Something of his reaction must have shown on her face, because she gave a wry smile and said, “You are surprised that I would mention Father’s mission? I see no point in continuing a fiction when you already know the truth.”

“Thank you for that, at least.”

They turned to walk along a brick path that led toward the distant park. “How long had you known Dr. Pelletan?” Sebastian asked.

“Two—perhaps three years. Father began seeing him shortly after he developed heart problems. He credits Dr. Pelletan with keeping him alive, so he is taking this death quite personally.”

“But not so personally as to try to help catch his physician’s killer?”

“My father’s priorities are . . . elsewhere.”

Sebastian studied her half-averted profile. “What manner of man was he?”

“Damion Pelletan? I doubt you will find anyone with anything harsh to say about him. He was everything you could wish for in a physician, and more. Gentle, kind . . .”

Her words were admiring. But he could detect nothing of the attitude of the lover in her manner.

“Do you know anything of his family, in Paris?” Sebastian asked. “Does he leave a wife?”

She shook her head. “No. He never married.”

“What about a fiancée? Was he betrothed?”

“No.” A faint smile touched her eyes, then slowly faded, as if the memory his words had provoked was too sad to hold. “He told me once that he fell in love at the age of eleven and swore never to love another.”

“As did many of us,” said Sebastian. “It seldom endures.”

“Perhaps. Although in Dr. Pelletan’s case, he actually did remain faithful.”

“What happened to the object of his love? Did she die?”

“No. Her father was forced to flee France, and she had to go with him. She swore she would wait for Damion. But she did not.”

Sebastian stared out over the snow-covered garden, its careful plantings invisible beneath the anonymous hollows and bumps of the blanketing white. “I take it she married someone else?”

“Yes. Some years ago.”

“And yet he loved her still?”

“He did. Always.”

Sebastian kept his voice level. “Do you know the woman’s name?”

“Only her first name. He called her ‘Julia.’”

The gate slammed behind them, a sharp clang of metal against metal. Sebastian turned to see Harmond Vaundreuil striding toward them, his gloved hands curled into fists that swung at his sides, his feet splayed out to keep from slipping on the slushy path.

“You!” he shouted, his voice booming out when he was still some twenty or more feet away, one pointed finger coming up to punch the air between them. “What are you doing here? You stay away from my daughter, you hear? You stay away from her!”

Sebastian touched his hat and bowed to the young widow. “Thank you for your assistance.”

He saw no shadow of fear in her eyes. Vaundreuil’s noisy bluster obviously did not frighten her. “I’d like to help in any way I can,” she said quietly. “I want Damion Pelletan’s killer brought to justice.”

Harmond Vaundreuil’s voice cut across the snow-filled garden. “Why are you here? What do you think my daughter can tell you that could possibly be of any use to you? Pelletan was set upon by footpads; you want to find his killers, go search for them in the stews and gutters of London. Not here!”

Sebastian touched his hat again.
“Monsieur.”

The Frenchman drew up, his puffy face red, his breath coming in wheezy gasps that billowed white around him as he glared silently back at Sebastian.

Sebastian brushed past him on his way to the gate.

“You stay away from my daughter!” Vaundreuil shouted after him. “You hear? Do you hear me?”

Sebastian pivoted to face him again. “You’re afraid of something. What is it?”

But Vaundreuil only clenched his jaw, his eyes bulging like those of a man who has just seen his worst nightmare come true.

•   •   •

“So Lady Peter lied to you,” said Hero, one hand tucked through the crook of Sebastian’s arm. It was just before noon, and they had come here, to Hyde Park, for the kind of brisk walk Richard Croft frowned upon. What with the cold and the wet snow and the unfashionable hour, they essentially had the park to themselves. But the pathways were slippery enough that she was being very careful where she put her feet. “Damion Pelletan and his Julia were considerably more than mere childhood friends.”

“They were indeed. Although it’s always possible she didn’t realize just how deeply his affections were engaged.”

“She knew. She promised to wait for him.”

“True. But that was long ago. She may not have known that he was still in love with her. It’s been nine years since her family was forced to leave France. That’s a long time.”

“Not for some men,” Hero said quietly, and Sebastian felt his face grow hot, for he had loved Kat Boleyn for eight long years and more, and Hero knew it.

After a moment, she said, “You think that is why Pelletan decided to come to London? To see her again?”

“I’d say it’s a strong possibility. Although it doesn’t reflect well on him, given that she’s been happily married for some years now.”

“You don’t know that she’s happily married.”

Sebastian thought about the bruises he’d seen on her arm, the black and blue imprints of an angry man’s punishing fingers. “You’re right; I don’t know. In fact, given what I know of Lord Peter Radcliff, I suspect she’s been
unhappily
married for most of those years.”

Hero looked over at him. “I wonder if Damion Pelletan knew that?”

Sebastian met her gaze. “That’s a question I intend to ask her.”

•   •   •

Lady Peter Radcliff was in Clifford’s Lending Library in the Strand, reaching to put a slim blue volume back up on a high shelf, when Sebastian took it from her and slipped it into place.

“Allow me,” he said.

“Thank you.” She twisted her gloved hands around the strings of her reticule, her lovely eyes darting this way and that, as if in fear that they might be observed.

Today she wore an elegant walking dress of jaconet muslin, with three piped flounces and a purple velvet spencer. But the gown was not quite in the latest style, and it occurred to Sebastian, looking at her, that Lord Peter’s finances might not be in the best of order.

He said quietly, “I’ve discovered you haven’t been truthful with me, Lady Peter.”

Her lips parted with a quickly indrawn breath. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”

“Damion Pelletan wasn’t simply your childhood friend. He was once in love with you, as you were with him. When you left Paris, you promised to wait for him. Forever.”

He expected her to deny it. Instead, she dropped her gaze to her hands and sank her teeth into her lower lip. “Forever is a long time,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Especially for a woman.”

“Did you know he was still in love with you?”

She shook her head slowly back and forth. But he saw the telltale flush deepening in her cheeks and knew it for a lie.

He said, “I’m told Damion Pelletan came to London because of a woman. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“No! Please,” she said hoarsely, her gaze lifting to his, pleading. “If my husband hears I’ve been seen talking to you, he’ll—”

“Beat you?”

All color drained from her face. “No!”

“Damion Pelletan came to London to see a woman. If not you, then who was it?” he pressed.

She backed away from him, her head still shaking from side to side. “His sister,” she whispered. “He came here to see his sister.”

“His sister? What sister?”

She stared at him as if his lack of knowledge took her by surprise. “Alexi.”

Sebastian could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. “Are you telling me that Alexandrie Sauvage is Damion Pelletan’s
sister
?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No. No, I did not.”