Why Kings Confess

by C. S. Harris

  “What’s all this?” asked Sebastian, walking up to him.

  “They’re leaving—what’s left of ’em, that is. Guess they figure they’d best get out while the getting is good. You heard another of ’em was found dead? Had his eyes gouged out. Who’d do something like that? Ain’t no Englishman, if you ask me.”

  “Are you saying Harmond Vaundreuil is returning to France?”

  “Well, can’t say I know for certain where he’s going. But I can guess, can’t I?”

  Sebastian watched the workmen maneuver the desk into the back of the dray. “I wonder: Are you familiar with a cabinetmaker by the name of Sampson Bullock?”

  “Bullock?” Mitt paused, his saggy-jowled face going blank as he pondered the question. “Don’t believe so, no.”

  “He’s a giant of a man, tall and big boned, with curly black hair he wears long. Ever see him hanging around the inn?”

  Mitt shook his head. “Not so’s I recall, no. Why? You think he may be the one doing all this?”

  “At this point, I don’t really know.”

  Mitt grunted, his protuberant eyes watering in the cold wind. “All I hope is that word don’t get out, linking these goings-on to the inn. Won’t do to have folks thinking the place is hexed. Won’t do at all.”

  Sebastian watched the two porters head back into the hotel. “Is Monsieur Vaundreuil about?”

  “Aye. In the coffee room, last I saw him.”

  Sebastian walked into the coffee room to find Vaundreuil and his clerk, Bondurant, standing beside one of the tables near the front windows. They had a tan leather case open on the tabletop and appeared to be verifying the papers it contained. Bondurant glanced over at Sebastian, then silently thrust the last of the papers into the case, buckled it, and left the room.

  “I hear you’re leaving,” said Sebastian, staring after the clerk.

  Vaundreuil swiped one hand across his lower face. His eyes were red rimmed and puffy. “You blame me?”

  “No. But what about the negotiations?”

  The Frenchman shrugged. “They weren’t exactly going anywhere.”

  Sebastian went to stand with his back to the fire. “When I saw you yesterday morning, you were determined to stay. What changed your mind?”

  “My daughter. She insisted I needed some slippery elm for a sore throat I’ve been complaining of, and walked down to the apothecary’s yesterday afternoon to get it. Someone followed her.”

  “Did she see him?”

  “No. The fog was too thick. All she heard was footsteps, and then a man’s cough. But she had no doubt he was following her. He stopped when she stopped, then started up again when she moved on. She ran the rest of the way back to the inn.”

  Sebastian studied the other man’s drawn face. “Who do you think is doing this?”

  “The Bourbons, perhaps? Some industrialist or financier like that Scotsman, Kilmartin? Who can say? All I know is, I’ve had enough.”

  “What about Jarvis? Any chance he could be behind the killings?”

  “No.”

  “So certain?”

  Vaundreuil turned toward the window, his gaze on the workmen, who were now loading a pile of bandboxes into the wagon. “Am I certain? No, I suppose not,” he said after a moment. “There’s no denying that Jarvis plays a deep game—a deep and dangerous game. It’s reached the point I don’t trust anyone anymore.” He gave a humorless huff of laughter. “And pray don’t bother to point out the irony of my saying that because, believe me, I see it. The only person with nothing to be ashamed of in all this is Madeline. And I want her safely out of it.”

  “When does your ship sail?”

  “At ten this evening.”

  “Then if you’ll take my advice, you will get your daughter aboard quickly and stay in your cabin until the ship has cleared Greenwich.”

  The sound of a woman’s footsteps on the stairs drew Vaundreuil’s gaze to the entrance passage. “But why would anyone want to harm my daughter? Who would do such a thing?”

  Madame Madeline Quesnel appeared at the entrance to the coffee room. She wore a black wool carriage gown and carried a traveling reticule in her hand. Her gaze went from her father to Sebastian.

  Sebastian said, “When the destinies of nations are at stake, some men will stop at nothing.” Some men, and some women. He swept her a bow and smiled. “Have a safe voyage, madame.”

  Chapter 55

  The last of the light was leaching from the sky when Charles, Lord Jarvis, crossed the forecourt of Carlton House toward his waiting carriage.

  He was feeling mildly pleased with the recent progression of events. There would be no peace negotiations with the impudent upstart, Napoléon; that avaricious little opportunist, Vaundreuil, was at that very moment scurrying toward home with his tail between his legs. The war in Europe would continue to its proper end, with a triumphant host of British troops marching down the Champs-Élysées and the forces of radicalism utterly crushed. Not for a century or more would any nation rise up to threaten Britain’s global dominance, nor would any populace again dare to overthrow their betters and proclaim the rights of the vulgar masses.

  He paused while a footman hastened to open his carriage door and let down the steps. Settling comfortably on the plush seat, Jarvis was spreading the carriage robe across his lap when the door opened again and Viscount Devlin leapt up to take the seat opposite.

  “Mind if I ride along?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  The Viscount smiled. “I won’t stay long. I take it you’ve heard that Monsieur Harmond Vaundreuil is leaving London?”

  “I have.”

  “Was that your doing?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “But you did send someone to follow his daughter.”

  Jarvis leaned back in his seat and simply raised his eyebrows.

  Devlin said, “Vaundreuil thinks you killed Pelletan and Foucher.”

  “Harmond Vaundreuil is a venal, foolish man. Why would I bother to indulge in such ghoulish theatrics when I already had the head of the delegation on my payroll?”

  “Perhaps Pelletan and Foucher threatened to expose Vaundreuil to Paris.”

  “Ah. In that case they most definitely would have needed to be eliminated. However, to my knowledge, Foucher at least remained blithely ignorant of Vaundreuil’s treasonous activities. And as you know, my knowledge is quite extensive.”

  Devlin stared out the carriage window at a ragged young crossing sweep leaping out of their way. “You told me once that you had a man watching the Gifford Arms the night Pelletan was killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me again what he saw.”

  Jarvis sighed. “Really, Devlin; this obsession of yours is becoming rather tiresome.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Very well. Let’s see . . . An unidentified man and a veiled woman arrived by carriage; for reasons doubtless understood better by you than by my informer, Pelletan elected to speak with them outside the inn rather than inside. The exchange was heated, but since my agent unfortunately lacks your acute hearing, the subject of that conversation remains unknown.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “The man and woman returned to their carriage, leaving Pelletan on the pavement in something of a passion. He was still standing there when Alexandrie Sauvage arrived. They also quarreled. Pelletan then returned to the inn and came out again wearing a greatcoat and gloves, after which he and Sauvage went off in a hackney.”

  Jarvis was aware of Devlin sitting forward, his lips parted.

  “What?” asked Jarvis, looking at him with disfavor.

  “And the man and first woman? You said they returned to their carriage. When did they drive away?”

  “Immediately after Pelletan and his sister left in a hackney.”

  “You’re certain?”

  Jarvis was known for his flawless memory. It was one of his greatest assets, for he could recall conversations and reports, verbatim
, long after their occurrence had faded from other men’s minds. At the Viscount’s question, he simply curled his lip in contempt.

  Devlin said, “Tell your coachman to pull up.”

  “Gladly.”

  The Viscount started to jump down, then paused with his hands braced against the doorframe to look back and ask, “Are you by chance familiar with a young French émigré named the Chevalier d’Armitz?”

  “Vaguely. Why?”

  “Can you describe him for me?”

  “Above medium height. Stocky. Dark hair.”

  “What do you know of him?”

  “Very little. He forms one of that horde of émigrés attached to the Bourbons. He killed a man once—and I don’t mean in a duel. Some captain in the Home Guard accused Armitz of cheating, and later that night was found stabbed in the back.”

  “Interesting. He’s tried to kill me twice.”

  “What a pity that he didn’t succeed,” said Jarvis.

  But Devlin only laughed.

  • • •

  Hero stood at the nursery window, one hand resting on the crest of her belly, her gaze on the dark storm clouds gathering over the city. She had come here often over the past six months, to supervise the workmen preparing the rooms, to indulge in some uncharacteristically maudlin reveries, and, lately, in search of quiet solace.

  But tonight she was smiling.

  She had spent fifteen to twenty minutes every two hours for the better part of two days on her knees, telling herself she was a gullible fool and yet doing it anyway. And then, when she’d been about to give it up in disgust, she felt a sensation akin to a giant fish doing a somersault in a tight barrel. Over the past several months she’d become familiar with the movements of her child. And so she knew even without being told that Alexi Sauvage’s bizarre suggestion had worked; the babe had finally turned, and her chances of surviving the coming birth with a living child had just soared.

  Hero knew no one would ever describe her as a humble woman; she was proud, impatient, and opinionated. But she was also not above owning up to an error. And as she watched the last of the daylight fade from the sky, she knew she owed Sauvage both an apology and a heartfelt expression of gratitude.

  Intent on ordering her carriage and setting out for Tower Hill, Hero was about to turn from the window when a movement caught her eye. A man stood in the shadow of a cart drawn up across the street. He was a big man, tall and broad shouldered, dressed in the clothes of a tradesman, with a battered hat pulled low over dark curly hair worn too long. In the gathering gloom, his features were indistinct. Yet she could not shake the impression he was staring at the house with a level of malevolence that was almost palpable.

  “Claire,” she said to the Frenchwoman who was folding clothes into a chest in the small room off the nursery. “Do you see that man—there, near the cart? Do you know who he is?”

  Claire Bisette came to stand beside her, a chemise held in her hands. “No. I’ve never seen him before. Why?”

  But Hero simply shook her head, unwilling to admit to a sense of foreboding for which she had no real basis.

  Leaving the nursery, she sent word to the stables to have her barouche brought around, then changed into a carriage dress of green gros de Naples with a vandyked shoulder cape trimmed in black. By the time she left the house, an icy wind had kicked up, the lamplighter and his boy hurrying to touch flame to the last of the oil lamps that stretched in a line toward Grosvenor Square.

  They caught her eye as the footman was handing her up into her carriage. And for a moment, she saw the man again, tall and dark, with long black hair and a scar across one cheek, standing near the corner of Davies Street.

  Then he drew back, the wind fluttering a torn page of newspaper in the gutter and bringing her the scent of the coming rain.

  Chapter 56

  By the time Sebastian reached the French chapel on Little George Street, a fine cold rain had begun to fall from out of a heavy black sky.

  He paused in the shadows cast by the jutting angle of the nearby stables. The night smelled of wet pavement and fresh horse droppings and hot oil from a distant streetlamp flickering in the wind. A faint light spilled from the church facade’s three high windows and from the carriage lanterns of the lone barouche drawn up before the chapel portal; a coachman wearing the livery of the Comte d’Artois dozed on the carriage’s high seat. But otherwise, the narrow street lay dark and deserted beneath the coming storm.

  Settling his hat low against the rain, Sebastian gently tried the front doors of the chapel. They were locked. He glanced again at the sleeping coachman, then slipped around the side of the chapel to the narrow passage that led to the sacristy door. The rain was falling harder now, sharp, needlelike drops with the sting of sleet. He’d almost reached the short flight of steps when he heard the stealthy footsteps of someone entering the passage behind him.

  Sebastian whipped around.

  A young man dressed in an unbuttoned greatcoat and a top hat drew up abruptly with a faint, nervous laugh. He looked to be perhaps twenty-five years of age, his features unremarkable except for a pair of large dark eyes as thickly lashed as a girl’s.

  “The Chevalier d’Armitz, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were being very quiet,” said Sebastian. “You weren’t by chance trying to sneak up on me, were you?”

  “Now, why would I want to do that?” The Frenchman held his left arm straight down at his side, his hand half-hidden by the folds of his coat. In the deep shadows of the passage, he must have been confident that no man could possibly see the dagger clenched in his fist. “Just thought you ought to know that the church is closed.”

  “I see candlelight.”

  The Chevalier advanced one step, then another. “It’s a private ceremony.”

  “Oh? And what sort of ceremony might that be?”

  “A funeral.”

  “Yet there is no hearse.”

  “The body has already been buried elsewhere.” The rain drummed around them. The Chevalier kept coming, the knife held out of sight, his features composed in an affable expression as if they were engaged in a pleasant conversation. “It’s the practice amongst certain émigré families to preserve a loved one’s heart separate from the body. The urns are kept in a vault here, in the chapel, for the day when they may be returned to France.”

  “In this case, to the Val-de-Grâce?”

  “As it happens, yes.” He drew up perhaps four feet from Sebastian, his smile slowly fading into something intense. “You are a difficult man to kill, Monsieur le Vicomte.”

  “Yet you keep trying.”

  “The odds are better this time, I think.”

  “Oh? Because you have a knife in your hand and I don’t?”

  A faint cloud of surprise followed by uncertainty drifted across the Chevalier’s face, then cleared. “I’ve heard you have the eyes and ears of a cat. I never credited it, myself.”

  “Your mistake.”

  He shook his head. “I think it’s an image you cultivate.”

  “I’ve heard you have a fondness for stabbing men in the back. Literally. Yet my back is not turned.”

  “I’m adaptable,” said the Chevalier. Still smiling, he lunged forward, the knife flashing up toward Sebastian’s heart.

  Sebastian pivoted to grab the Chevalier’s outthrust arm with one hand while grasping his fist with the other. Gritting his teeth, Sebastian twisted the fist hard, the knife handle giving him leverage. He saw the flash of shock in d’Armitz’s face as the Frenchman realized just how badly he had miscalculated.

  The knife slid from the Chevalier’s helplessly limp hand into Sebastian’s own. Yanking up the Frenchman’s arm, Sebastian drove the blade straight into his heart.

  “But . . . ,” sputtered the Chevalier, eyes widening as he smacked into a reality he could not finesse, an opponent he could not cheat, a fate he could not elude. Then fury replaced astonishment, an indignant rage made all the more
acute by the realization that his luck had finally run out.

  “Not quite as adaptable as you thought,” said Sebastian, wrenching the blade free.

  The rain poured around them, wetting the Frenchman’s upturned face and mingling with the blood soaking his white waistcoat. The light of comprehension was already fading from his eyes. Yet the rage remained, like a fiery hot coal doomed to extinction in an unforgiving darkness.

  • • •

  The door to the sacristy opened soundlessly to Sebastian’s touch. The space beyond was small and untidy, the air thick with the smell of dampness and stale incense and a musty odor often associated with old men’s clothes. A narrow band of flickering candlelight spilled into the dark room through the door to the chapel itself, which stood slightly ajar.

  Sebastian paused in the shadows. From here, he could see most of the two rows of empty benches and the wooden west gallery built above the main entrance. The church appeared deserted except for the old priest, clothed in his white alb with the gold-embroidered black stole draped around his neck. He stood before one of the wall-mounted monuments, open now to reveal a shallow niche containing a row of urns. He had his hands raised, the low drone of his voice echoing through the stillness.

  “Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine.”

  Sebastian heard a rustle of cloth, a light step, and Lady Giselle Edmondson moved into his line of vision. She wore a high-waisted gown of black cashmere scalloped and edged with crepe. A black lace veil draped her head, the delicate folds accentuating the fair luster of her hair without hiding her face. In her hands she held a clear rock crystal urn mounted with two silver handles and a silver lid and base. Within lay a red-brown heart he suspected had once belonged to Damion Pelletan.

  “Et lux perpetua luceat ei . . .”

  She stood with her head bowed, her eyes closed, her beautiful features composed into a study of intense concentration and reverence as the words of the priest washed over her.

  “Requiescat in pace . . .”

  Sebastian shifted so that his view took in the rest of the chapel. He half expected to find Marie-Thérèse here, as well. But the church was utterly empty except for the aged priest and Lady Giselle.