Why Kings Confess (24 page)

B
efore he rang the bell of Lord Peter Radcliff’s town house in Half Moon Street, Sebastian loosened his cravat, tousled his hair, and splashed his face with some of the contents of the brandy bottle he held. Then he leaned one elbow against the doorframe, affected a slightly befuddled smile, and waited.

Radcliff’s butler was a small, slim man with a mouthful of large, crooked teeth and a long, sharp nose. He gazed at Sebastian with watery gray eyes and sniffed.

“Ah, there you are,” said Sebastian, staggering slightly as he straightened. “I’m here for Radcliff.”

The butler sniffed again. “I’m afraid Lord Peter is not presently at home to visitors.”

“Still abed, is he?” Smiling cheerfully, Sebastian pushed past the startled butler and crossed the entrance hall toward the stairs. “That’s quite all right. He won’t mind me waking him.”

“But— My lord! You can’t do that!”

Sebastian took the steps two at a time. “Not to worry. I can guarantee he’ll be delighted to see me.” Pausing halfway up the stairs, Sebastian swung around to hold the bottle aloft as if it were a rare prize. “What you see here is some of the best brandy never to pay a penny of tax into the coffers of good ole King George.” He pressed one finger to his pursed lips and winked. “But
shhh
; mum’s the word, eh?”

“My lord, please!”

“That will be all,” called Sebastian gaily, running up the rest of the stairs.

At the top of the second flight, he threw open the doors of two rooms before finding the right one. The chamber lay in darkness, the heavy drapes at the windows closed tight to exclude all light. The space was large and square, furnished with a high tester and delicate Adams chests, its pastel-hued walls accented with beribboned moldings picked out in cream. The air reeked of stale sweat and despair and the alcohol-tinged exhalations of the man who snored loudly from the depths of the bed.

Sebastian closed the door behind him and locked it, then crossed the room to do the same to the door leading to the dressing room.

The man in the bed did not stir.

Radcliff’s clothes lay scattered across the floor where he had obviously discarded them on his wobbly path to the bed. First the cravat, then a meticulously tailored coat dropped on the floor with its sleeves inside out. Sebastian saw a waistcoat, its crumpled, white silk front splattered with dried blood, and he felt a surge of rage that was like a hum in his ears.

It was Julia’s blood.

The bottle still gripped in one fist, he went to stand beside Lord Peter.

Sprawled on his back in a tangle of sheets, he had one bare leg dangling off the edge of the bed, his nightshirt rucked up around his hips. He lay with his face turned to one side, his golden hair plastered to his forehead with dried sweat, his lips pursed so that his breath whistled softly on its way out.

Sebastian stared down at him for a moment, then crossed to the window and yanked open the drapes.

The cold light of midmorning flooded the room. Lord Peter gave a strangled half snore, then resumed his previous cadence.

Setting aside the bottle, Sebastian fisted both hands in the frilled front of the man’s nightshirt. “Come on; up with you, then,” he said as he hauled the drunken man’s limp body out of the bed and swung him around to slam his back against the carved wooden post of the bed with enough force to rattle the frame.

“Wha—?” Radcliff wavered, his eyes fluttering open, his mouth foolishly agape as his legs crumpled and he slid down against the side of the bed.

Closing one hand around the brandy bottle’s neck, Sebastian smashed it against the carved bedpost, raining down brandy and broken glass on the drunken man’s head and shoulders.

Radcliff shook his head like a dog coming in out of a storm. “What the devil?”

Crouching low, Sebastian grabbed another fistful of Radcliff’s nightshirt with one hand and pressed the sharp edge of the broken bottle up under the man’s chin. “Give me one good excuse to slit your throat,” he said, enunciating each word with awful clarity, “and believe me, I will. I’ve just had a surgeon to tend your wife’s injuries. It’s no thanks to you she’s not dead.”

“Julia? Wha’d the bitch say? If she told you—”

Radcliff let out a yelp as Sebastian increased the pressure on the sharp edge held against his throat.

“
Don’t.
Don’t ever let me hear you use a word like that to describe your wife again. Do I make myself understood? I have no mercy for a man like you. There’s a special place in hell for a man who uses his fists on his own wife, and I’ll be more than happy to send you there.”

Lord Peter stared up at him with bulging eyes. He might not be entirely sober, but he was now wide-awake. “You’re mad.”

“I may well be. I’m beginning to suspect that we all are, each in our own way.”

“You can’t come in here, threatening me, acting like I’m some—”

Sebastian shifted his weight in a way that made Lord Peter break off and draw a quick, shallow breath.

Sebastian said, “In case you haven’t noticed, I am already here. Where you made your mistake was in lying to me. You told me you spent last Thursday night at home with your wife. You didn’t. You got into a row with her. You were angry about her renewed acquaintance with an old childhood friend—”

“He wasn’t simply some ‘old friend’! He was her lover.”

“Nine years ago. Not now.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Yes. And I believe her.” Sebastian let his gaze drift over the other man’s face, slick with sweat and slack now with the aftereffects of too much alcohol and too little sleep. “Is that why you followed Pelletan to St. Katharine’s and stuck a knife in his back?”

“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t. I won’t deny I was angry; what man wouldn’t be? I even went to the inn where the bastard was staying. I was going to tell him that Julia is my wife and he’d better stay the hell away from her. But I didn’t even do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because when I got there, he was standing on the footpath outside the inn, talking to Lady Giselle.”

Sebastian stared at him. “Are you telling me you saw Damion Pelletan talking with Lady Giselle Edmondson?”

Radcliff looked puzzled by Sebastian’s vehemence. “That’s right. Why?”

“How do you know the woman you saw was Lady Giselle?”

“Because I recognized her. How do you think? She was wearing a hat with a veil, but she’d pushed back the veil and the light from the oil lamp beside the door was falling full on her face.”

“Did you hear anything of what was said?”

“No; of course not. What the bloody hell do you think I am? I don’t go around eavesdropping on other people’s private conversations.”

“Was there a man with her?”

“There was, but I couldn’t tell you who. He stayed in the background.”

“So then what happened?”

“I don’t know. I left.”

“You left? Why?”

“At first I’d planned to wait in the shadows until she went away, and then confront him. But the longer I stood there, the more I realized that would be a mistake.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because I’m not a killer, whatever you may think. And I realized that if I approached him then, in the rage I was in, I might very well murder him. So I left. I won’t say I’m sorry the bastard is dead because I’m not. But he didn’t die at my hand.”

“Where did you go after you left York Street?”

“I don’t know. I wandered the streets for a while—I couldn’t say for how long. I ended up in a low tavern someplace in Westminster. At one point I got into a brawl with a drunk who drew my cork. Then I spent what was left of the night in a back room with a whore I wouldn’t even recognize if I saw her again.”

Sebastian studied Lord Peter’s haggard face. He’d said he had no mercy for men like Radcliff, but that wasn’t exactly true. If not mercy, then he at least acknowledged a measure of pity even though he knew it was probably misplaced. In his own way, Lord Peter was a victim. A victim of a society that valued show above substance, birth above real worth. A victim of a hereditary system that brought up younger sons in an indulgent, pampered atmosphere even as it tormented them with the knowledge that the vast estates and palatial homes they’d enjoyed as children would never be theirs. And he was a victim of his own weakness, the recognition of which led him to strike out in anger and frustration at his wife when what he really wanted more than anything else was to be admired and indulged and loved.

Sebastian said, “Listen to me carefully because I’m going to say this only once. Your wife is going to leave you, and you are going to let her.”

“
What?
You’ve no right to—”

Radcliff made a strangling sound as Sebastian subtly shifted the broken edge of the bottle against his throat.

“If your debts are as pressing as I suspect they are, you might consider fleeing the country. I hear America is a good place for people looking to start over.”

Radcliff’s face contorted with revulsion.
“America?”

“Frankly, I couldn’t care less where you go. But you will make no attempt to contact your wife or her son again. And if I ever hear of you laying a hand on her, I’ll kill you. It’s that simple. Do I make myself clear?”

“What does it matter to you, what happens to her?”

“It matters,” said Sebastian, and let him go.

Sebastian walked back down the stairs and out of the house, only dimly aware of the butler, two housemaids, and a footman peering at him wide-eyed from around the doorframes as he passed.

Outside, the air smelled of coal smoke and the coming rain. He paused on the footpath, his gaze on the jumble of rooftops and chimney stacks that jutted up dark against a gray sky. Was Radcliff lying? Sebastian doubted it. Men like Radcliff were basically cowards; they beat their wives because it gave them a sense of power and control so sorely lacking in other aspects of their lives. Sebastian couldn’t see a man like that somehow finding the courage to stalk a rival through the cold, dark alleys of St. Katharine’s and then cut out his heart in some twisted ritual of symbolism and revenge.

But what occupied Sebastian’s thoughts as he turned toward the home of the Comte d’Artois in South Audley Street was the vital piece of information Lord Peter had unknowingly provided. Sebastian had believed that Marie-Thérèse and Lady Giselle passed the night of Damion Pelletan’s murder closeted together in prayer for the martyred King Louis XVI. He’d thought their role in Pelletan’s death—if it existed at all—had been limited to directing their minions from afar.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

S
ebastian wouldn’t have been surprised if Lady Giselle refused to see him. But he underestimated her. She sent word that she would be down in a few moments, although, instead of having him escorted to the drawing room, she met him in a small, book-lined chamber on the ground floor that looked as if it might be devoted to the use of a steward or man of business.

She wore a simple gown of dove gray wool trimmed with black ribbon. Her fair hair fell in gentle curls about her delicate face; a plain band of black velvet encircled her long, delicate neck. Her only jewelry was a small gold watch pinned to her breast, and a dainty pair of pearl earrings.

“Lord Devlin,” she said, holding out her hand to him, her smile one of warmth that hinted at a secret shared. “Forgive me for receiving you here, but Marie-Thérèse is in the drawing room. I fear the very mention of your name is still enough to send her into spasms.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me—particularly under such circumstances.”

“Please, have a seat. Have you discovered something of interest?”

He took the seat she indicated, a red leather desk chair with worn wooden arms. “I have, actually. I was wondering: Where did you and Marie-Thérèse spend a week ago Thursday? I know you devoted the day to prayer for her father, the King. But were you here, in London, or at Hartwell House?”

A vague shadow passed her face. It was there and then gone so quickly he couldn’t identify it. Apprehension, perhaps? Calculation? Or simply remembered sorrow?

“Here,” she said. “We had come up to London several days before, so that Marie-Thérèse might consult with Dr. Pelletan. We left for Hartwell House again early Friday morning.”

“I should tell you that I now know why Marie-Thérèse was so anxious to consult with Damion Pelletan. It had nothing to do with his reputation as a physician and everything to do with the fact that his father first brought Damion home the very summer the little Dauphin died in the Temple Prison. I think the Princess knew about the rumors that he might be the Lost Dauphin, and she wanted to see him so that she could judge for herself whether or not he was her brother.”

There was a long pause, during which Lady Giselle’s face showed not a hint of consternation or alarm. She simply gave a small, sad smile and said, “You are right, of course. Marie-Thérèse has never given up hope that her brother might one day be found alive. You’ve no notion the number of pretenders she has interviewed over the years, each time working herself into a frenzy of anticipation, only to be cast down with disappointment at the realization that she has once more been deceived.”

“But Damion Pelletan never claimed to be the Lost Dauphin.”

“He did not, no. Which is one of the reasons she was particularly anxious to see him.”

“And what was her conclusion?”

“To be frank, she found him so much like her dead mother that she was overcome with emotion. It had been her intention to ask him a series of probing questions about his past, but she was so distraught that she found she could not. I had to take her away.”

“Is that why you went back to see Pelletan again on Thursday night?”

He expected her to deny it, but she was too clever for that. And he realized she’d probably guessed from the beginning what his questions were leading up to, and why.

She tilted her head to one side, her gaze intent on his face. “How did you know?”

“You were recognized.”

“Ah.”

When she remained silent, he said, “You told me you spent the day in prayer with Marie-Thérèse. Why not tell the truth?”

“It seemed best at the time. Now I realize it was a mistake. Forgive me.”

“Am I to understand that for the first time in eighteen years you deserted the Princess on the anniversary of her father’s death?”

She shook her head. “No. I fear there are times when Marie-Thérèse’s grief simply becomes too much for her. When she reaches that point, she is impossible to calm and can make herself ill. In such situations, sleep becomes the only reasonable recourse.”

In other words, Lady Giselle had dosed the hysterical Princess with laudanum.

Now she sat with her fingers laced together in her lap, her features composed in an expression of calm beatitude that would have done justice to St. Louis himself. She said, “Marie-Thérèse had asked me to return and see Pelletan—to ask the questions she herself had been unable to broach. And so I did.”

“What did you discover?”

“Very little, actually. He became quite angry when he realized why I was there and refused to discuss the subject any further. So we left.”

“We?”

A faint note of exasperation crept into her voice. “You don’t seriously think I would undertake such a visit alone, do you? My mother’s cousin, the Chevalier d’Armitz, was kind enough to accompany me.” Again, that charming tilt of the head as her pretty forehead crinkled with a show of confusion. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Because you and your cousin were amongst the last people to see Damion Pelletan alive. What was he doing when you left the inn?”

She shrugged. “The last I saw, he was standing on the footpath outside the inn, staring up at the night sky. As I said, the conversation visibly disturbed him. He may have been trying to compose himself before returning inside.”

“Did you see anyone else while you were there?”

“We spoke to a servant in the coffee room, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t recall noticing anyone else.”

“What about your cousin, the Chevalier d’Armitz? He might have noticed someone. Would it be possible for me to speak to him?”

“I’m sorry, but I believe he is away from London at the moment.”

“A pity,” said Sebastian.

“Yes. It is, isn’t it?”

“Tell me about him.”

She smiled and gave a little shrug. “What is there to tell?”

“Has he been in England long?”

“Most of his life.”

“He’s young?”

“In his twenties, yes.” She glanced at the watch pinned to her bodice. Sebastian had outstayed his welcome, and she was not hesitant to let him know it. She rose to her feet. “And now I fear you must excuse me, my lord. We plan to return to Hartwell House in the morning, and Marie-Thérèse has expressed an interest in making one last expedition to Bond Street.”

Sebastian rose with her, his hat in one hand. “Best hurry, then,” he said. “It looks as if it is liable to come on to rain.”

“Hopefully not until after midnight,” she said, smiling sadly. “I’ve a private service at the chapel to attend this evening.”

He studied her delicate, fine-featured face. She was a beautiful woman, still young enough to bear children and well dowered enough to attract suitors, had she wanted them. Instead, she had devoted her life to the support of a fragile, damaged princess regarded by the indulgent as haughty and high-strung, and by the less charitable as half-mad.

Aloud, he said, “Why have you stayed with Marie-Thérèse all these years?”

“Because she needs me,” Lady Giselle said simply. “When she was released from prison eighteen years ago, I promised I would stay with her until the Bourbons are restored to their rightful place on the throne of France. I am a woman of my word.”

“And if there never is a Bourbon restoration?”

She looked at him with the clear, steady conviction of a Joan of Arc, or the kind of officials who once burned witches at the stake. “There will be. It is God’s will.”

“Divine right of kings and all that?”

Her jaw tensed. “You can scoff if you like. But the fact remains that God has bestowed earthly sovereignty on the Bourbons, just as He has given spiritual sovereignty to His Pope. That is why no monarch can be subject to earthly authority, for his right to rule derives from God’s own will, not from his subjects. Any attempt by those subjects to depose their lawful king or curtail his power in any way is an affront to God and thus cannot long endure.”

“The United States of America seem to be enduring just fine.”

“Yet the French Revolution endured for how long? Little more than a decade. I doubt Napoléon will last much longer.”

“Napoléon’s mistake is the same as the Bourbons’: He is trying to stand against the tide of history. The age of monarchs is passing. Even if Napoléon is defeated and the Bourbons restored by the armies of Russia and Britain, they won’t last for long.”

She held herself stiffly. “I’d no notion you were so radical in your thinking, my lord.” Somehow, she managed to turn the ‘my lord’ into a mockery—which he supposed in a way it was, although she didn’t know that. “What do you believe in, then?
The Rights of Man
?”

“Actually, there’s very little I believe in.”

He had been deliberately trying to provoke her, and he had succeeded far better than he had anticipated. But now she seemed to become aware of the extent to which she had betrayed herself. She blinked, and the steely moral certainty that had inspired the likes of Cotton Mather, Oliver Cromwell, and Maximilien Robespierre slid behind the careful assumption of calm good humor that typically characterized her.

She said, “I think you believe in far more than you give yourself credit for, my lord.”

“Perhaps.”

She walked with him to the entrance hall, nodding quietly to the butler, who moved to open the front door.

“Tell me, my lord,” she said, pausing beside him. “Are you any closer to discovering who is behind these dreadful murders?”

“I believe I may be, yes.”

“Indeed? Then hopefully soon we may all sleep better in our beds.”

“Have you been afraid?” he asked, his gaze on her face.

“Fear has been our constant companion for many years.”

“I don’t think you need worry about this.”

“Yet you will let us know if you discover anything more?”

“Of course.”

A woman’s voice floated down from upstairs. “Giselle?
Où es-tu?
”

“You must excuse me, my lord.” She gave a slight bow. “And thank you again.”

He watched her move away, her tranquil self-possession once more firmly in place. He did not for an instant believe that she was losing sleep due to fear of some brutal murderer prowling the streets of London. But he could believe she was worried.

For a very different reason entirely.