Why Kings Confess (9 page)

T
he inrushing tide brought with it all the familiar, evocative scents of the distant sea and a cold, briny mist that wet Sebastian’s cheeks and beaded like unshed tears on the ends of his lashes.

He stood on the ragged, unfinished arc of the new stone bridge that would someday span the Thames. The river was a foam-flecked turgid rush far below, the city quieting and slowly sinking into darkness around him. He found himself unconsciously rubbing his wrists, where the old scars still showed as white lines against his skin. He’d thought in his confident naïveté that he was somehow coming to terms with those events of three years ago. But he realized now that he’d simply fallen victim to a comfortable illusion wrought by the passage of time and the joy an unexpected, enduring love could bring.

He tried to focus on the swirling black waters of the river below. But what he saw instead were soul-destroying images from a different time, a different place. And as he turned toward shore, he could have sworn he caught the distant echo of children’s laughter and the faint scent of orange blossoms overlain by the heavy stench of old blood.

•   •   •

Some hours later, Hero paused in the doorway to the darkened library. The soft light from the streetlamp fell through the open curtains to show her the man who stood with his back to the room, his gaze on the empty street beyond. She could feel the intensity of the tension thrumming through him, see it in every line of his tall, lean body.

She’d moved quietly, but of course he heard her. Even after six months of living with this man, she still found the acuity of his senses disconcerting. He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, and a humming silence stretched out between them.

She said, “I’ve watched you work to solve murders before. I know how personally you take what you do, how deeply troubled you can become. But there’s something more going on here, isn’t there, Devlin?”

He shifted his gaze, once again, to the window, so that she could see only his profile. He said, “I saw someone tonight who reminded me of an incident I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget.”

“Someone you knew in the Peninsula?”

“Yes. The injured woman in Gibson’s surgery.”

She went to him then, sliding her arms around his waist and laying her cheek against his strong, taut back. He brought his hands up to lay them over hers at his waist and tipped back his head until it rested against hers. But he didn’t say anything, and neither did she.

She knew something had happened to him during the war, something that had shattered the already frayed remnants of his youthful idealism and made a mockery of so much that Englishmen of his station traditionally held dear. It had driven him to resign his commission and plunged him into a downward spiral that came perilously close to destroying him.

But that was all she knew. And she feared what might happen if the toxic events swirling around Damion Pelletan’s murder forced him to confront the unresolved demons of his past.

Sunday, 24 January

The next morning, Sebastian was easing his coat up over his shoulders when his valet said, “I believe I have discovered the individual in whom you expressed an interest.”

Sebastian straightened his cuffs. “Oh?”

“His name is Sampson Bullock, and he’s a cabinetmaker. He lives over his workshop on Tichborne Street, not far from Piccadilly. I took the liberty of making a few inquiries.”

Sebastian glanced over at him. “Learn anything interesting?”

“It seems Mr. Bullock is not what you might call well liked in the area.”

“I take it I am to infer that is an understatement?”

“Indeed. From the sound of things, he’s a quarrelsome brute with a nasty temper. Most of his neighbors were reluctant even to speak of him. He has a reputation for being rather vindictive—lethally so.”

“Hear anything about his brother?”

“Only that the two were much alike—both big, brawny, and foul tempered. The brother’s name was Abel.”

“Sampson and Abel? How very biblical. Did you discover what happened to the brother?”

“I did, my lord. He died two weeks ago.”

“Under Alexandrie Sauvage’s care?”

“No, my lord. He died of gaol fever. In Newgate.”

•   •   •

A curving sweep of pubs, small shops, and tradesmen’s establishments, Tichborne Street lay to the south of Golden Square, just off Piccadilly. It was a middling area, neither fashionable nor wretched. Sebastian found Bullock’s shop near the corner. The shutters were up, yet the door opened to his touch—which was unexpected, given that it was early Sunday morning.

He entered a shadowy, cavernous space smelling pleasantly of freshly cut wood, linseed oil, and turpentine. An inquiry addressed to a half-starved, frightened-looking apprentice sweeping up a scattering of sawdust led Sebastian to a back room, where a massive man with a head of thick, curly black hair and a pronounced jaw was planing a long board. He had his head bent, his shoulders hunched, his arms moving in long, rhythmic sweeps.

“Sampson Bullock?” asked Sebastian, pausing on the far side of the board.

The cabinetmaker straightened slowly. He stood half a head taller than Sebastian and must have weighed nearly twenty stone, with a heavily muscled body and broad, solid chest. He was one of those men whose neck was so thick that it appeared even wider than his head. His dark eyes were unnaturally small and set close over a small nose, so that when one looked at him, the overall impression was of black hair, bulging muscles, and a red, weal-like scar that disfigured one cheek.

His eyes narrowed with obvious suspicion as he took in Sebastian’s inimitably tailored dark blue coat, the snowy crispness of his cravat, the suppleness of his doeskin breeches. Then he returned to his work, the curls of wood shavings blooming beneath the plane. “We’re closed. It’s the Lord’s day; didn’t ye know?”

“It looks to me like you’re working.”

“Wot ye want from me? Yer kind don’t buy furniture from the likes of me.”

“I understand you know Alexandrie Sauvage.”

Bullock tossed aside his plane. “That’s wot ye’re here for, is it? I heard wot happened to her—her and that French doctor.” He raised one hand to point a meaty finger at Sebastian. “Think yer gonna lay the blame for that on me, do ye? Well, I ain’t been near St. Katharine’s. Nowhere near it.”

“So where were you last Thursday night?”

“I was home in me bed, asleep. Where else would a good, God-fearin’ workin’man be on a Thursday night?”

Sebastian studied the cabinetmaker’s mulish, set features and watched his eyes slide away.

Sebastian said, “I understand you had a dispute of sorts with Madame Sauvage.”

“Dispute? That wot ye want to call it? The bloody bitch killed me brother.”

“How?”

“Wot do you mean,
how
?”

“Are you suggesting she poisoned him?”

“I ain’t never said no such thing.”

“It’s my understanding he died of gaol fever, in Newgate. Was she treating him?”

“Of course she weren’t physicking him! It were because o’ that interfering little strumpet that Abel was in Newgate in the first place.”

“Oh? What was he accused of having done?”

Bullock’s small eyes grew dark and hard. “I ain’t got nothing t’ say t’ ye,” he muttered, and reached for his plane.

Sebastian said, “You do realize you’ve been seen hanging around Golden Square. Following her. Threatening her.”

Bullock thrust out his heavy jaw, the puckered flesh of his scar darkening from red to an angry purple. “I got nothin’ t’ hide. I ain’t denying I spoke me mind t’ her—and why the hell shouldn’t I? But I ain’t never threatened her, and anyone tells ye I did is a bloody liar.”

“You didn’t threaten to make her pay?”

“Who told ye that? Her?”

“No.”

Bullock curled his lip in a sneer. “Me, I think ye got the wrong idea about the bitch. T’ hear people talk, she’s some bloody angel of mercy or some such thing. But she’s no angel, not by a long shot. She’s got a temper on her, that one. Why, I’ve heard her threaten t’ gut a man with a fish knife, I have, jist because she didn’t like the way he were lookin’ at his own wife.”

Sebastian thought about the fiercely passionate woman he had known in Portugal and had no difficulty imagining such a scene.

“I can tell ye plenty o’ things about that woman I bet ye don’t know,” Bullock was saying. “There’s a fair number o’ Frogs live about here, ye see. I’ve heard ’em talking about her—about how she was with Boney’s army in Spain, and about how her lover was a French lieutenant. Not her lawful
husband
, mind you. Her lover.”

“I know about the Peninsula,” said Sebastian simply.

Bullock grunted, the sound reverberating deeply in his massive chest.

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the workshop, with its carcasses of half-finished cabinets, its piles of lumber, its rows of tools kept well oiled and carefully honed. “I’m still not exactly clear on the reason behind your animosity toward Madame Sauvage.”

“I told ye! It was because o’ her that me brother Abel was in Newgate.”

“What had he done?”

“He didn’t do a bleedin’ thing.”

“So what did she accuse him of doing?”

“Why don’t ye ask her?” snarled Bullock. Then he turned pointedly back to his board, the muscles in his strong shoulders and arms bunching and flexing as he ran the plane over its surface, again and again.

Sebastian watched the curls of wood shavings scatter in fragrant drifts. If Alexandrie Sauvage had been found with her head brutally beaten to a pulp, Bullock would have seemed the obvious suspect. But she was not the main target of Thursday night’s attack, and there was nothing to tie this brutish cabinetmaker to Damion Pelletan.

Sebastian should have been able to discount the possibility of the hulking tradesman’s involvement out of hand, for he could think of no logical reason why Bullock would have allowed Alexandrie Sauvage to live, only to vent his wrath on her unknown French companion, instead.

Yet Sebastian could not discount him. There was a rank odor of malevolence about the man, an ugly gleam in his small black eyes that Sebastian recognized, for he had seen it before. Men like Sampson Bullock didn’t simply exploit their extraordinary size and strength; they reveled in the fear it inspired in others, and they used that fear to bully and intimidate their way through life. And when the intimidation failed to achieve its intended result—or sometimes when they were simply feeling particularly mean—they killed.

And they enjoyed it.

A
t five minutes after ten, Sebastian stood near the gates of the Carlton House Gardens and watched as the French clerk, Camille Bondurant, strode purposefully up the Mall, his arms swinging, his features wearing the blank expression of a man whose thoughts are far, far away. He wore a heavy, drab greatcoat with a thick scarf knit of shockingly blue wool wrapped around his throat; his exhalations left little white puffs in the cold air that drifted away into nothing.

Once a long sweep of crushed shells where the kings of England were fond of playing a French game called
palle maille
, the Mall lay to the north of St. James’s Park. A broad gravel walkway planted with rows of lime and elm, it was mirrored on the far side of the park by what was known as Birdcage Walk. Due to its proximity to the Gifford Arms, Birdcage Walk would have seemed the more logical choice for a resident of the inn in search of exercise. But that walkway had a reputation that must have inspired Bondurant to avoid it.

“Bracing day for a walk,” said Sebastian, falling into step beside him.

The Frenchman cast Sebastian a quick glance and kept walking. He was a tall, cadaverously thin man with greasy black hair and a rawboned face. His eyes were nearly lashless and squinted, either from habit or in an effort to see Sebastian more clearly. “Do I know you?” he asked, his English guttural and heavily accented.

“I was at Damion Pelletan’s funeral.”

“I do not recall seeing you.”

“Probably because you were reading,” said Sebastian pleasantly.

The clerk drew up and swung to face him. “What do you want from me?”

“You do realize that Pelletan was murdered, don’t you?”

“Of course I realize it! What do you take me for? A fool?”

“Do you know why he was killed?”

“Because he was unwise enough to venture into a dangerous section of an unfamiliar city at night? Because he was French? Because someone took exception to the cut of his coat? How should I know? And I fail to see how it is any of your affair anyway.”

“Had he quarreled with anyone recently?”

“Pelletan? With whom would he quarrel? The man had no opinions on anything of importance that I could discern. Try to engage him in a discussion of Rousseau or Montesquieu, and all he would do is laugh and say that the philosophical speculations of dead men were of no interest to him.”

“So what did interest him?”

“The sick—especially the poor ones.” Bondurant’s face twisted with contempt. “He could become quite maudlin.”

“You’re not fond of philanthropy, I take it?”

“No, I am not. The sooner the poor are allowed to die off, the better for society. Why encourage them to procreate?”

“Kings and emperors need to get their soldiers from somewhere,” said Sebastian.

“True. The lower orders are at least good for cannon fodder.”

“Something the Emperor Napoléon seems to go through at an astonishing rate.”

Bondurant pursed his large mouth into a terse expression. “What has any of this to do with me?”

“You know of no one who would want to kill Pelletan?”

“I believe I already answered that question.” He tightened his scarf around his neck. “Now you must excuse me. You have interrupted my constitutional.”

And he strode off, arms swinging, head down, as if battling a strong wind or reading a book that was no longer there.

•   •   •

Sebastian’s next stop was the Sultan’s Rest, a coffeehouse on Dartmouth Street popular with the military men of the area.

He found the comfortable, oak-paneled room thick with tobacco smoke and filled with red-coated officers all talking and laughing at once.

The French colonel, Foucher, sat by himself in one corner, inconspicuous in his dark coat and modest cravat. His head was bent over a newspaper opened on the table before him; a cup of coffee rested at his elbow. But Sebastian knew by a certain subtle alertness about his person that the Frenchman’s attention was focused more on the conversations swirling around him than on the page before him.

Working his way across the crowded room, Sebastian pulled out the chair opposite the colonel. “Mind if I have a seat?”

The colonel looked up, his hazel eyes blinking several times. “Would it stop you if I did?” he asked, leaning back in his own chair as Sebastian sat down.

The Frenchman was tall and well built, although illness and injury had left him thin and his face sallow. Sebastian could see scattered strands of white in his sandy hair and thick mustache; lines dug deep by weather and endured pain fanned the skin beside his eyes.

Sebastian cast a significant glance around the crowded room. “Popular place.”

“It is, is it not?”

“I assume that’s why you come here?”

A slow gleam of amusement warmed the other man’s gaze. “I find I enjoy the company of military men, whatever their uniform.”

“I hear you were in Russia.”

“Yes.”

“There aren’t many who staggered out of that fiasco alive. With the exception of Napoléon himself, of course.”

“No.”

Sebastian rested his forearms on the tabletop and leaned into them. “Let’s get over rough ground as quickly as possible, shall we? I know why Vaundreuil is here. What I don’t know is why someone would stab Damion Pelletan in the back and cut out his heart. The most obvious reason would be to disrupt your mission. The mutilation of the corpse seems rather macabre, but it could be a subtle warning directed at Monsieur Vaundreuil, who I understand suffers from a heart condition.”

The colonel took a slow sip of his coffee and said nothing.

“Then again,” said Sebastian, “Pelletan could have been killed because he had in some way become a threat to the success of your mission.”

“Is that why you are here? Because you consider me a reasonable suspect?”

“You don’t think you should be?”

Foucher eased one thumb and forefinger down over his flaring mustache. “If he had simply been killed, I could see that, yes. But the very flamboyance of his murder tends to work against such an argument, does it not?”

“It does. Unless the killer were fueled by anger or the kind of bloodlust one sometimes sees on the battlefield.” Sebastian let his gaze drift around the noisy room. “We’ve both known men who enjoy mutilating the bodies of their fallen enemies.”

Again the colonel sipped his coffee and remained silent.

Sebastian said, “There is of course a third possibility: that Pelletan was killed for personal reasons. It’s unlikely, given that he was only in London for three weeks. But it is still an option.”

The French colonel reached for his cup again with a care that suggested his lingering injury might be to his right arm or shoulder. “You know about the woman, I assume?”

Sebastian watched the other man’s face, but Foucher was very good at giving nothing away. “What woman?”

“The wife of some duke—or perhaps it is the son of a duke.”

“You mean Lord Peter Radcliff?”

“Yes, that is it; his wife is very beautiful. So you do know her?”

“Yes.”

The Frenchman drained his coffee and set it aside. “The husbands of beautiful women are frequently subject to passionate fits of jealousy; jealousy and possessiveness. If you seek a personal motive, that might be a good place to start, yes? Particularly given the removal of Pelletan’s heart.”

“Did you know that Pelletan was killed on the twentieth anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI?”

“No, I did not. You believe that to be significant?”

“Rather a coincidence if it is not, wouldn’t you agree?”

The colonel wiped his mustache again and rose to his feet. “Life is full of coincidences.”

He started to turn.

Sebastian stopped him by saying, “Why do you think Ambrose LaChapelle attended Pelletan’s funeral mass?”

“Perhaps you should ask him,” said the colonel.

Then he pushed his way through the laughing, jostling crowd, a tall, erect man with the bearing of a military officer surrounded by his nation’s enemies.