Why Kings Confess

Chapter 13

“I ain’t ne’er seen nothin’ like them stables,” said Tom, his voice hollow with disgust. “They only got two ridin’ ’orses in there. Two! An’ one of ’em is reserved special fer the Princess. ’Alf the stalls ’ave been turned into rooms and ’ave people livin’ in ’em. There was some old woman kept tryin’ t’sell me a straw ’at she’d made, all the while claimin’ she was the Comtesse de somethin’eranother.”

“She probably was,” said Sebastian, turning his tired team toward the nearby village of Stoke Mandeville, where he intended to make his next change.

“Huh. Queer lot, if ye ask me, even fer foreigners. Most o’ them stableboys is French too. I ne’er seen such a close-mouthed set. Couldn’t get no one t’ give me the time o’ day.”

“Unfortunate, but probably predictable,” said Sebastian.

He couldn’t begin to understand how Marie-Therese’s consultation with Dr. Damion Pelletan might possibly have anything to do with the physician’s death. But neither could he get past the haunting coincidence that Pelletan’s murder had fallen on the anniversary of the execution of the last crowned King of France.

Tom said, “I thought this Marie-Therese is s’posed to be a princess?”

“She is. The only surviving child of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI of France.”

“So why’s she called a duchess?”

“Because she’s married to a duke, although at the moment he’s off with Wellington in Spain.”

“’E’s a duke, even though ’e’s the son of a count? And ’is da is a count, but also a prince-the son of a king?”

“I know it’s rather confusing. But that’s the way the French do it. They aren’t quite as tidy about titles and ranks as the English.”

“Makes no sense, if ye ask me,” said Tom. “No wonder they can’t even talk English proper-like.”

The near leader stumbled, and Sebastian steadied his horses. He could see the mossy gray roof of the medieval church of Stoke Mandeville soaring above the treetops in the distance. The road was narrow here, a copse of beech undergrown with hazel closing in around them as he nursed the tired team up the slope. And he felt it again: a sensation of being watched that came on suddenly and intensely.

He swept around a sharp bend to find the roadway blocked by a fallen limb. He reined in hard, the team of grays coming to a snorting standstill. Tom was about to jump down and run to their heads when Sebastian said in a low voice, “Don’t.”

A man stepped from behind a thick stand of brush. He wore greasy canvas trousers and a threadbare brown corduroy coat and had an ugly horse pistol thrust into his waistband. His gaunt face was unshaven, his accent that of the streets of London as he said, “’Avin’ a spot o’ trouble there, yer lordship?” He reached up to grasp the leaders’ reins above their bits. “’Ere, let me ’elp.”

Rather than being calmed by his presence, the grays whinnied and tossed their heads, nostrils flaring.

Sebastian’s hand tightened on his whip. “Stand back.”

“Now, is that any way to respond to my friend’s most generous offer of assistance?” asked a second man, this one mounted astride a showy chestnut that he nudged forward until he came to a halt some five or six feet from the curricle. He held a fine dueling pistol in his left hand; the gleaming wooden grip of its mate showed at his waist. Unlike his companion, this man wore buckskin breeches and an elegant riding coat, and his accent was pure Oxbridge. He had a rough wool scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, so that all Sebastian could see was his dark eyes, their lashes as thick and long as a young girl’s.

For a moment, his gaze met Sebastian’s. Then the horseman blinked and extended the muzzle of his pistol toward Sebastian’s face.

“Run!” Sebastian shouted at Tom. Surging to his feet, he sent the lash of his whip snaking out to flick the chestnut on its flanks.

The horse shied badly, its rider lurching in the saddle, the pistol exploding harmlessly into the treetops.

“You bastard,” swore the horseman, dragging his mount back around as he reached for the second pistol.

This time Sebastian’s lash struck the chestnut’s withers. The horse reared up just as its rider squeezed the trigger.

The shot sent Sebastian’s beaver hat tumbling end over end into the lane. “Bloody hell,” Sebastian swore, and jerked his own small double-barreled flintlock from his coat pocket.

The horseman’s eyes widened above the scarf, his hands tightening on his reins as he kicked the chestnut into a plunging gallop that carried him down the hill and around the bend, chevrons of mud flying up from the frenzied horse’s hooves.

With an ugly snarl, the brown-coated ruffian stepped back from Sebastian’s team and pulled the horse pistol from his waistband.

Sebastian thumbed back the hammer on his flintlock and shot him right between the eyes.

The man turned a slow, ungainly pirouette, then fell hard.

“Gor,” whispered Tom, creeping from behind a nearby clump of hazel to stare down at the man’s sprawled, still form. “Is he dead?”

“I told you to run,” said Sebastian as the tiger leapt to calm the now frantic, plunging horses. “You all right?”

“Aye,” said Tom, whispering soothing words that the grays seemed to understand. “Who ye reckon that lot were?”

“I don’t know.” Sebastian jumped down from the curricle’s high seat to drag both the dead assailant and the downed limb from the roadway. He hesitated a moment, then yanked off the dead man’s coat and threw it over his face in case someone with delicate sensibilities should happen to drive past before he made it back with the proper authorities. “But whoever sent them obviously wants me dead.”