“And you would have me believe you met with him in the park to argue a medical matter?”
“I didn’t exactly ‘meet with’ him. I encountered him by chance. We fell into a dispute.”
“Over a medical matter.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder, how did you come to hear of him? He hadn’t been in London long.”
“Someone recommended him to me. I don’t recall now precisely whom.”
“One of the Bourbons, perhaps?” suggested Sebastian sardonically.
Kilmartin gave a faint, tight-lipped smile and shrugged. “Perhaps. Who can say?”
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the elegant, high-ceilinged room. “I assume you’ve heard the rumors?”
“London is full of rumors. Endlessly. To which do you refer?”
“To the suggestion that the fiasco in Russia has weakened Napoleon to the extent that he is now willing to explore the possibility of making peace with England.”
“Never happen,” said Kilmartin.
“So certain?”
“Napoleon would never agree to England’s terms.”
“And if he did?” Sebastian watched the other man’s face. “You would stand to lose a lot of money.”
Kilmartin’s smile never slipped. “All good things must come to an end.”
“True. But some eventualities can be postponed. Especially by those ruthless enough to use any means possible.”
Kilmartin leaned forward, his grip on the knife and fork tightening. “What are you suggesting? That I had Damion Pelletan waylaid and murdered in some back alley in the hopes that it might disrupt the delegation from Paris? How absurd.”
“I never suggested Pelletan was part of a delegation from Paris.”
For a moment, Sebastian’s words seemed to hang in the silence between them. The Scotsman froze, his narrowed gray eyes fixed on Sebastian’s, a dark malevolence replacing the faint derision that had been there before.
He kept his voice low and even, his knife suspended in the air between them. “If I proposed to put an end to Boney’s somewhat tentative peace feelers, I would do it by killing that fat former priest masquerading as a diplomat. Not his doctor.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Too obvious. Why kill Vaundreuil when you can get rid of him in a different way? The man is morbidly obsessed with his own health. It’s conceivable that without his doctor, he might decide to abandon his attempts at diplomacy and scuttle back across the Channel.”
The humor was back in the other man’s eyes. “Really? Then Pelletan’s killer was more clever than I realized. I’d like to take credit, but I’m afraid I can’t.”
Sebastian watched the Scotsman set down his knife and reach for his ale.
“Why did you really meet with Pelletan in the park last Thursday morning?”
Kilmartin rolled his ale around on his tongue, his lips pursed, his eyes alive with mischief. But he only shook his head, as if hugging to himself some secret too amusing to share.
• • •
Sebastian was crossing the vestibule, headed toward the street, when he heard himself hailed by a mountain of a man being pushed in a wheeled chair by a flamboyantly dressed dandy.
“Sir,” said Sebastian, changing direction to walk up to him. “I didn’t expect to see you in London.”
The Comte de Provence smiled, his cheeks bunching with rosy good cheer. “Marie-Therese wanted to come into town for a few days-go to the theater, maybe buy a new hat-that sort of thing. And then there’s the Duchess of Claiborne’s soiree Tuesday night.” He gave Sebastian a studied look, as if trying to recall an elusive fact. “She’s some relative of yours, is she not?”
“My aunt.”
The small frown cleared. “Ah, thought so. Then perhaps we shall see you there.”
“Perhaps.”
Provence gave one of his belly-shaking laughs. “Not a fan of that sort of thing, are you?” His laugh turned into a cough. “Can’t say I blame you at your age.”
“Do I take it you’re staying in South Audley Street?”
“Indeed, indeed. Artois is up chasing some light-skirts around Scotland, so if he doesn’t like it, there’s not much he can do about it, now, is there?”
Sebastian glanced over at Ambrose LaChapelle. But the courtier turned his head and looked away, as if distrusting his ability to maintain a straight face.
“I’ve discovered something interesting about the young French doctor who was killed,” said Sebastian.
The uncrowned King of France let his eyes go wide in a clumsy pantomime of astonishment. “Oh?”
“It seems Damion Pelletan was the son of Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan-the same Dr. Pelletan who treated the young Dauphin in the Temple Prison.”
“Indeed? What an odd. . coincidence.”
Sebastian studied the Bourbon’s plump, self-indulgent face. One couldn’t exactly call a monarch-even an uncrowned one-a liar. “You mean to say you didn’t recognize the name?”
“Well, I recognized the similarity in the names, of course,” blustered the Bourbon. “But I’d no notion they were. . His son, you say? How very intriguing.”
“Not to mention coincidental.”
“Yes, yes; to be sure, to be sure.”
“I wonder: Would you happen to know why Damion Pelletan was in London?”
The Comte de Provence fixed Sebastian with an unexpectedly hard stare. And it occurred to Sebastian that however jovial his features or good-natured his demeanor, it would never do to forget that this man was the grandson of King Louis XV, or that he had grown to manhood surrounded by all the splendor and intrigue of the French court at Versailles. “Now, how would I know that?” he asked. “We don’t all have the network of informants and spies available to someone such as, say, your own father-in-law.”
Sebastian was aware of the courtier, LaChapelle, sucking the flesh of one inner cheek between his teeth. It was obvious that Ambrose LaChapelle realized, even if Provence himself did not, that he’d just inadvertently revealed he knew exactly why Damion Pelletan was in London.
Sebastian said, “Tell me about your nephew, the Dauphin.”
The shift in topic seemed to confuse the aging Bourbon. “My nephew? What is there to tell? He was a sweet boy. Just seven years old and the picture of health when he was thrown into prison.”
“What happened to him?
The old man sighed. “Nothing, at first. For some months after the execution of his father, the King, the boy was allowed to remain with his mother, aunt, and sister. But then one day the guards came and took him away. Seems the revolutionaries had ordered the jailors to remove all traces of what they called ‘arrogance’ and ‘royalty’ from him.” A pinched look came over his features. “They treated him. . very badly.”
“When did he die?”
“The eighth of June, 1795.”
“And Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan performed the autopsy?”
“He was one of the doctors present, yes.”
“There were others?”
“Two or three, I believe. Although Pelletan may have been the only one who had actually seen the boy just a day or two before, when he was brought to the prison to treat his illness.”
“Did he identify the body as belonging to the Dauphin?”
“Mon Dieu.” Angry, purple color suffused the normally placid royal’s plump features. “I hope to God you are not suggesting that those ridiculous old whispers are true?”
“Which whispers?”
“As if you do not know! The idea that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple-that he was spirited away from prison while the body of some other poor lad was left in his place.”
The persistence of the myth that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had not actually died in prison was an obvious source of embarrassment and chagrin to the two uncles and cousin who dreamt of someday occupying the dead Dauphin’s vacant throne. When Sebastian simply remained silent, Provence said, “Please to God you won’t say anything of this to my niece, Marie-Therese. You’ve no notion the distress these rumors cause her-or how many charlatans have presented themselves to her over the years, claiming to be her long-lost brother. I’ve seen her made ill for days by one of those encounters.”