When Falcons Fall (8 page)

“Who is he?” asked Devlin.

Hero leaned back in her chair. “His name is Hannibal Pierce and he used to be a captain in the dragoons. He now works for my father—doing the sort of things men like Pierce do for Jarvis.” Jarvis was famous for his network of spies and informants.

Devlin frowned. “Pierce is here? In Ayleswick?”

“He is. I saw him. According to young Charles Bonaparte—who is quite the clever and engaging young chap, by the way—he’s here to keep an eye on their family.”

“Interesting.” Devlin pushed away from the table to walk over to the chest near the door that held glasses and a bottle of Bordeaux. “Although I’m not surprised to hear that Jarvis is keeping an eye on Lucien. He is Napoléon’s little brother, after all.”

Hero said, “Hannibal Pierce is one of the few people whose portraits Emma Chance didn’t identify by name.”

Devlin poured himself a glass of wine. “Perhaps she didn’t know it.” He went to stand with one arm resting along the mantel, his gaze on the cold hearth.

“What?” she asked, watching him.

He looked over at her. “We keep asking why anyone would want to kill a young widow who came to their small, rural village simply to sketch. But what if her interest in Ayleswick’s charming old buildings and landscape vistas was merely a ruse? What if she was here for a different reason entirely? Something that has to do with Lucien Bonaparte.”

Hero closed the sketchbook and set it aside. “It fits with what the abigail, Peg Fletcher, told you—that she didn’t think her mistress’s name was actually Emma Chance.”

“Your father has women working for him, I assume?”

“He does, yes—although I doubt I’d recognize any of them.” She hesitated, then said, “Of course, she could also have been sent by Napoléon. He must surely have someone here as well, watching his brother.”

“More than one, I should think. He must be nervous, having a brother under English control.” Napoléon’s popularity, like his rise to power, had always depended on his brilliance as a general. But after two brutal decades of nearly endless war, France was running out of soldiers. The loss of some half a million men in his disastrous invasion of Russia had reduced the Emperor to filling his ranks with schoolboys and old men. And with all of Europe turning against him, it was surely only a matter of time before the Allies reached the frontiers of France itself.

Hero said, “I have heard . . .”

“Yes?”

“There are whispers on the streets of Paris that the only way for Napoléon to save France is to abdicate in favor of his infant son. Some are suggesting the Allies are grooming Lucien to act as the child’s regent.”

“Good God. Did you get that from Jarvis?”

Hero smiled. “Not directly.”

Hero’s mother, Annabelle, Lady Jarvis, had always been considered more pretty and vivacious than clever, even before she suffered a severe apoplectic fit in the wake of her last, disastrous pregnancy. The incident had left her ill and incapacitated and easily dismissed by her husband as an imbecile—which she was not. It had always struck Hero as odd that her father—normally the most wise and insightful of men—had never understood or appreciated the complexities of his own wife.

Hero said, “If Napoléon has heard the rumors—which I’ve no doubt he has—and if he thinks Lucien is behind them . . .”

Their gazes met.

Devlin said, “You’re suggesting Napoléon could have sent Emma Chance here to kill his own brother?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, it’s possible.” He drained his wine and set the glass aside. “I think I need to have a talk with Captain Hannibal Pierce.”

T
he taproom of the Blue Boar had changed little from the days when devout pilgrims made the dangerous trek through the wilds of the Welsh Marches to pray at the feet of the priory’s miraculous Virgin. Heavy beams darkened by centuries of smoke supported a low ceiling; oak wainscoting covered time-bowed walls, and patrons jostled one another on crowded benches pulled up to ancient trestle-and-board tables. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and heavy with the malty-sweet scent of ale. Men’s voices and laughter rang loud.

But at Sebastian’s entry, the room hushed and faces went slack as men turned to stare at him. The conversations started up again almost at once, but voices were noticeably quieter, more circumspect than before.

After some twenty-four hours in the village, Sebastian recognized many of the Blue Boar’s patrons—burly Constable Nash and sharp-faced Alan the Ratcatcher and some of the other men who’d volunteered for that afternoon’s search along the river. But even without Emma Chance’s sketch, Hannibal Pierce would have been easy enough to identify.

He stood alone at the counter, a tall, broad-shouldered man in polished Hessians and a well-cut coat that could only have come from the hands of a London tailor. He was half turned away, seemingly focused on his own thoughts and the drink he nursed. But Sebastian knew he was alive to every conversation and interaction, every subtle nuance in the room. It was, after all, the reason Pierce was here.

Several dozen men’s gazes followed Sebastian’s progress as he crossed the room to Pierce’s side and ordered a brandy. Pierce stiffened but said nothing. Anyone who worked for Jarvis would know who Sebastian was.

Sebastian rested his forearms on the scarred old countertop. “Tell me about Emma Chance.”

Pierce paused with his glass halfway to his lips. “What makes you think I know anything about her?”

“Your portrait is in her sketchbook.”

Pierce took a slow swallow of his drink, his lips pressing into a tight wet line as he shrugged. “I’m not surprised; she was drawing everything and everyone around here.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

Sebastian turned his glass in his hand, the tawny liquid glowing gold in the flickering light. “I would think you’d know. After all, you do observe people for a living.”

Pierce cast a quick glance at the crowded room behind them and drained his drink. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Outside, the night was white with swirling mist, the air throbbing with the strange, almost metallic whine of mating frogs. The cool, moist air smelled of manure and warm horseflesh from the nearby stables and peat smoke from the chimneys of the surrounding cottages. An unnatural hush lay over the village, as if those not in the Blue Boar’s taproom were huddled behind closed doors, quiet and afraid.

“I take it Lady Devlin recognized me this afternoon?” said Pierce as they turned their steps toward the dark bulk of the old Norman church up the lane.

“You weren’t exactly making an effort to stay out of sight.”

Pierce twitched one shoulder. “In London—or even someplace like Ludlow—one can be discreet. Not in a village the size of Ayleswick. The Bonapartes know exactly why I’m here. So why play games and attempt to pretend otherwise?”

“I would think a servant placed within the Bonaparte household would be in a better position to watch them.”

Pierce hesitated an instant too long before answering, a delay that told Sebastian he was right—that Jarvis had at least one more agent in place, someone posing as a servant. “In some ways, yes,” said Pierce. “But servants’ movements are constrained by the requirements of their duties, are they not?”

“True.”

The vicarage loomed beside them out of the fog, its slate roof slick with moisture, its windows dark. Beyond it stretched the churchyard, the aged tombstones ghostly in the mist. Sebastian said, “So what about Emma Chance? Was she sent here from London? Or Paris?”

Pierce stared straight ahead. Neither his face nor his voice gave anything away. “She wasn’t working with us, I can tell you that. But could she have been sent by Paris? I honestly don’t know.”

“Yet surely Napoléon has someone here watching his brother.”

“Undoubtedly. I even have a few suspicions as to whom. But am I certain? No.”

“And Emma Chance? Did you suspect her?”

A slow smile curled the other man’s lips. “I suspect everyone.”

“Tell me about her.”

“What’s there to tell? She was a pretty little thing. Claimed she was here to sketch, although she was asking a lot of questions.”

“About the Bonapartes?”

Pierce gave a low laugh. “I wouldn’t know. She didn’t ask me anything.”

“Yet she drew your portrait.”

“I didn’t know that.” Pierce drew up abruptly and turned to face him. “Why are you doing this? Why interfere? The villagers were content to believe she killed herself. So why stir them up?”

Sebastian felt a breeze kick up, swirling the damp mist against his cheeks. “Because she didn’t kill herself.”

“So? What the hell is she to you?”

“Nothing. And everything.” Sebastian studied the other man’s big-boned face, the hard light in his eyes. Sebastian knew the kind of men Jarvis employed. He had no doubt that Hannibal Pierce was more than capable of holding down a young woman for five minutes and watching her die a slow, agonizing death. “Did you kill her?”

Pierce stared back at him, his nostrils flaring with the violence of his breathing.

In the tense silence, the shifting of the branches of the ancient yews in the churchyard sounded unnaturally loud. Sebastian could hear a trickle of unseen moisture and the rustle of some night creature—

And the metallic
snick
of a flintlock’s hammer being carefully thumbed back.

“G
et down!” shouted Sebastian, throwing himself flat as a roar of burning powder and whistling hot lead exploded from near the lych-gate.

The bullet hit Pierce high in the chest, spun him half around. He stumbled, then slowly crumpled.

“Bloody hell,”
swore Sebastian.

He could hear the shooter crashing through the churchyard, running away down the hill through the fog-shrouded tombs and crooked headstones. A shout sounded from one of the nearby cottages, then another. Sebastian pushed cautiously to his feet and went to crouch down beside the gasping man. As Sebastian lifted Pierce’s head, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Sebastian knew only too well what that meant.

“Who would want to kill you?” he asked, yanking off his cravat to press the wadded cloth against the man’s ripped and bloody waistcoat.

Hannibal Pierce sucked in a shaky breath that blew bubbles in the wet sheen of his chest. His face was full of bewilderment, his thoughts and focus turning inward.

“
Who shot you?”
shouted Sebastian. He cradled the gravely wounded man in his arms, watched the warm blood seep through the cloth to run down his fingers. And he found himself wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t moved. Because given the angle of the shot and the way the two men had been standing, the bullet could easily have been intended for Sebastian himself.

“You didn’t see anything?”

Archie Rawlins kept his voice hushed, although it was doubtful their words could wake the pallid, dying man in the bed beside them.

They were in Pierce’s room at the Blue Boar. Dr. Higginbottom had arrived, bandaged the man’s chest, pronounced there was no hope for him, and left. A single candle burned on the nightstand; the rest of the chamber lay in shadow.

“Nothing except the glow of burning powder in the fog,” said Sebastian.

“It’s bloody thick out there.” The young Squire blew out a heavy breath and brought up one hand to rub the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t understand why this is happening. We’ve never had anything of this nature in Ayleswick. I mean, every once in a while some drunk will beat his poor wife to death, or somebody will get killed in a brawl. But never anything so . . .”

“Clandestine and premeditated?” suggested Sebastian.

“Yes, that’s it.” Rawlins nodded toward the dying man. “I never could figure out what he was doing here.”

“He was keeping an eye on Lucien Bonaparte. For London.”

Rawlins looked at Sebastian, his jaw slack. “Good God! How’d you know that?”

“Lady Devlin recognized him.”

Archie Rawlins went to stand at the window, his gaze on the swirling fog. “I don’t like where things are going,” he said after a moment. “I find it difficult to believe this shooting isn’t somehow connected to the murder of Emma Chance.”

“Probably,” said Sebastian. “Although it could conceivably be completely unrelated. Pierce told me Napoléon has someone here watching his brother.”

Rawlins pivoted to stare at him. “Who?”

Sebastian shook his head. “He didn’t know. He said he had some suspicions as to whom, but he couldn’t be certain and he didn’t name anyone.”

“You’re suggesting he was shot by a French agent?
Here?
In Ayleswick!”

“Perhaps.” Sebastian watched the dying man labor to take a rattling breath. “It’s also possible Pierce was hit by mistake. We were facing each other, and I moved when I heard the shooter pull back his hammer. A good marksman with a rifled, long-barreled pistol can reliably hit a target at fifty yards. But most men’s accuracy goes all to hell beyond ten yards—and that’s without the mist.”

“How do you know the shooter was using a pistol?”

“I spent six years in the army.”

“Ah.” Rawlins frowned. “How far away would you say he was?”

“Twenty, maybe thirty feet.”

“And you heard him cock his pistol? That’s damned impressive.”

“I have good hearing.”

“I’ll say.” Archie swung away from the window, his features tightening as his gaze fell, again, on the man in the bed. “You think Higginbottom’s right? That he’s dying?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed hard. “I was planning to ride into Ludlow in the morning. See if anyone at the Feathers can tell me more about Emma Chance.”

“Let’s hope you have some success.”

“But . . . what about him? Whom do we notify if—when—he dies?”

The two men watched, together, waiting for Hannibal Pierce to draw another breath.

He didn’t. And as the minutes passed and stretched out, it was as if they could see the life seeping out of him, his body shrinking until it became no more than an empty husk.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Sebastian, and reached out to draw the sheet over the dead man’s face.

Later, Sebastian stripped off his clothes stained with the dead man’s blood and sat on the side of the bed in the darkness beside his sleeping wife. The growing wind swirled the fog outside the window and rattled the branches of the ancient chestnut out on the green. He could smell the fecund odor of the fields surrounding the village, hear a lamb bleating in the night. He rested his hands on his thighs, opened and closed his fists. And still the tension hummed inside him, a stoked furnace of anger and alertness and rising urgency.

He felt the mattress shift as Hero rolled toward him to rest her hand flat against the small of his back. She had spoken to him earlier, while Higginbottom was tending his patient and grumbling that it was all a waste of his time since the man was certain to die anyway.

“Is Pierce dead?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She was silent a moment. “You think that bullet was actually meant for you?”

“I wish I knew. If Pierce was indeed the target, it might help make sense of what’s happening in this village. Otherwise . . . it could be damnably misleading.”

“Or not.”

“Or not.”

She shifted to slip her arms around his waist and press her face against his side.

She was one of the most rational and levelheaded people he had ever known; calm and fiercely brave and utterly unflappable. Yet love makes us all vulnerable, and he felt the faint tremor that shivered through her as she let her breath ease out in a sigh.

“You will be more careful,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He saw her smile at him in the darkness, felt her hand slide across his back to his hip. He stretched out beside her, her body long and supple as she pressed against him. He buried his face in the dark, sleep-warmed tumble of her hair; breathed in the familiar scent of her, of lavender and musk and the lingering milky sweetness left by his infant son. And he felt the day’s concerns begin to ease out of him.

He traced his lips along her cheek, captured her mouth, heard her breath catch as his hand closed over her breast. She wrapped her love and her body around him, and he lost himself in the wonder that was this woman and the all-consuming intensity of their union.

They had first come together just fifteen months before, in a desperate affirmation of life in the face of looming death. But death had not come. Instead, from those raw, tentative, unexpected beginnings had come Simon and a love so powerful and uplifting that it still filled him with a shaky wonder.

He kissed her forehead, her ear, her cheek; watched her face as he moved above her in the darkness. Once, he had faced danger with a recklessness born of a careless attitude toward living. But those days were in the past. And as he held her close, felt her heart pounding against his, heard the keening of her breath, he knew a deep and all-consuming thankfulness that he was here, now, alive and in this woman’s arms.