Why Kings Confess

Chapter 28

Monday, 25 January

By morning, the temperature had risen a few degrees above freezing, the thaw turning the snow-filled streets of the city into thickly churned rivers of brown slush. But the wind was still icy cold, with a pervasive, bone-chilling dampness that sent market women scurrying down the footpaths with shawls drawn up over their heads and their shoulders hunched.

Sebastian turned up the collar of his greatcoat and resisted the urge to stomp his cold feet. He was standing on the pavement outside the French Catholic chapel near Portman Square. The church had no bell tower, under a decree of King George III himself; only a simple Latin cross set back into the facade helped differentiate it from the two stables flanking the plain brick building. But he could hear a rustling from within, and a moment later, as the Anglican church bells of the city began to chime the hour, a small huddle of older men and women, their bodies portly and dressed almost uniformly in black, exited the church’s plain doors and drifted away.

Sebastian stood with his hands clasped behind his back and waited.

He’d heard it said that every morning of her life, Marie-Therese rose with the dawn, made her own bed, and swept her own room, before devoting the next hour to prayer. It was what she had done each day of the more than three years she’d spent in a lonely prison cell in Paris, and she had never lost the practice. At Hartwell House, she attended daily mass with her own chaplain. But in London she came here, to the French chapel, to pray with her fellow exiles.

There were some who found the story of a king’s daughter continuing to make her own bed admirable, and in a way it was. But to Sebastian it also spoke of the kind of deep and lingering trauma only too familiar to any man who had ever been to war.

Somehow, alone in her prison cell in the tower of the Knights Templar’s ancient monastery, Marie-Therese had convinced herself that the daily practice of this homely ritual would keep her sane. It had. And so, even though she had now been free for nearly twenty years, she’d never dared to relax her self-imposed regime. It was as if the very act of making her bed and sweeping her room still kept the demons of madness at bay. Perhaps it did.

The bells of the city had long since tolled into silence. But it was another ten minutes before Marie-Therese herself made an appearance, trailed by her long-suffering companion, the Lady Giselle Edmondson.

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said the King’s daughter, her half boots making soft, squishy noises in the slushy footpath. “This is unexpected.”

He swept a gracious bow. “Your uncle told me you had decided to spend a few days in town.”

“Yes. As much as I enjoy the country, I find that I do miss the theater.” She cast him a speculative sideways glance. “Although I was disappointed to hear that Kat Boleyn is not treading the boards this season. She is always such a joy to watch. Don’t you agree?”

An observer might have thought the remark entirely innocent-might have believed her ignorant of the fact that the actress Kat Boleyn had for many years been Sebastian’s mistress. But he saw the spiteful gleam in her eyes, and he knew better.

The jibe was both deliberate and breathtakingly malicious.

“It is a pity, yes,” he said, keeping his own voice bland with effort. “But understandable, given the circumstances of her late husband’s recent death. One can surely appreciate her need to spend a few months away from the city, recovering from such a loss.”

“True.” She sucked in her cheeks. “You wouldn’t by chance know where she has gone?”

“No,” he said baldly.

He did not, in truth, know where Kat had sought refuge. But wherever it was, he hoped she was finding the peace of mind she so desperately needed.

A faint frown of disappointment pulled down the corners of the Princess’s lips, then was gone. She smoothed a hand over her pelisse. “So many murders! The streets of London are very dangerous, are they not?”

“They certainly can be. I’ve been wondering, did you know that Dr. Damion Pelletan was the son of Philippe-Jean Pelletan, the physician who treated your brother in the Temple Prison?”

Her lips flattened, and she shook her head determinedly from side to side. “No; I did not.”

For someone who had spent a lifetime dissembling, she was a terrible liar. He said, “That’s not the real reason you decided to see Pelletan?”

“You dare?” A vicious snarl twisted her lips and quivered the tense muscles of her face. “You dare to contradict me, daughter of a king of France? Me, a descendant of the sainted Louis himself?”

Sebastian held her gaze. “Whoever killed Damion Pelletan also removed his heart. Do you have any idea why they would do that?”

The violence of her reaction both surprised and puzzled him. Her eyes widened, and she gasped, one fist coming up to press against her lips.

“Madame,” said Lady Giselle, rushing forward to slip an arm around the duchesse’s thick waist and urge her toward the waiting carriage. “Here, let me help you.” She paused only to throw a piercing, furious glare over her shoulder at Sebastian. “You are despicable.”

A soft clapping of gloved hands echoed in the sudden stillness.

Sebastian turned to find Ambrose LaChapelle slowly descending the steps from the chapel, his hands raised as if he were applauding a fine performance, the crook of a furled umbrella slung over one forearm.

“Congratulations,” said the courtier. “She’ll never forgive you for that, you know. You have just broken one of the cardinal rules. One does not contradict a member of the French royal family, no matter how ridiculous or patently false their utterances may be. Fifteen years ago, a certain Madame Senlis ventured within Marie-Therese’s hearing to correct the Comte de Provence’s faulty memory of some trivial incident from their youth. Marie-Therese has still not forgiven the unfortunate woman-and she never will.”

“Madame Rancune,” said Sebastian, watching as, in the distance, Lady Giselle tenderly tucked a fur-lined robe around the duchesse.

“You have no idea.”

The two men turned together to walk up the street toward Portman Square.

Sebastian said, “Why did you attend Damion Pelletan’s funeral?”

“I am not sure. Out of respect, I suppose.”

“Is that all?”

LaChapelle cast him a quick, sideways glance. “Eighteen years ago, the boy who was destined to be King Louis XVII of France died in a filthy prison cell at the age of ten. Yet even before his body was consigned to an anonymous grave in some forgotten churchyard, the rumors had already begun to fly. There is no denying that while the boy lived, there were several plots hatched to spirit the Dauphin away and replace him with another boy, a mute, dying of consumption. So after his death, it is inevitable that some would cling to the hope that one of those plots succeeded-that a switch was made, that the child who died in the Temple was an imposter, and that the Dauphin himself still lives.”

“What does any of this have to do with Damion Pelletan?”

“Few people alive today know the truth of what happened in the Temple Prison. Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan may be one of them. But the senior Pelletan is in France, beyond the Bourbons’ ability to question him. There was hope that Damion Pelletan, the son, might know some of the events of those dark days. But he claimed he did not.”

“Did the Bourbons believe him?”

“Frankly? I doubt it.”

The two men walked on in silence for a moment. Then Sebastian said, “You do realize that, depending on where the truth lies, the House of Bourbon could conceivably have had two distinct motives for killing Damion Pelletan?”

“Two?”

“The first, obviously, would be to disrupt the delegation from Paris, thus putting an end to the possibility of any peace accord that would leave Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.”

“Such a peace will never come to pass, with or without Pelletan’s murder.”

“Perhaps. But why take the chance?”

LaChapelle snorted. “To even suggest that the French royal family would stoop to murder is absurd.”

“To recover their kingdom? What is one more man’s death when millions have already died?”

The Frenchman’s jaw tightened. “And your second so-called motive?”

“Revenge.”

“Seriously? For what?”

“Damion Pelletan’s father was brought to the Temple to treat the critically ill Dauphin. But the boy died anyway. One could conceivably fault the physician for his death.”

“One would need to be brutal and cruel beyond measure to kill an innocent young man simply to avenge oneself on the man’s father.”

“And to cut out his heart?” said Sebastian.

They drew up at the edge of the square and Sebastian turned to face the courtier. But the Frenchman simply shook his head and shifted his gaze to the elliptical gardens at the center of the square, where children laughed and frolicked in the snow.

Sebastian said, “What are the chances that a substitution was made in the prison? That the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lives?”

Ambrose LaChapelle shook his head. “There is no Lost Dauphin. I told you this tale to explain the interest of Provence and Marie-Therese in Dr. Pelletan. But there is no doubt in my mind that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette is dead. He died eighteen years ago in prison and lies buried in a pauper’s grave in the churchyard of Ste. Marguerite. Believe me, monsieur: If you seek Damion Pelletan’s murderer, there is no need to delve so deeply into the events of the dark and distant past. There are plenty of motives to be found in the life the man was living here and now.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“You have heard, I assume, of the fighting within the delegation from Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Have you never wondered why Damion Pelletan agreed to come to London as Harmond Vaundreuil’s personal physician? I have heard it was for love.”

“For love?” repeated Sebastian.

“Mmm. Vaundreuil’s daughter, Madame Madeline Quesnel, is a very attractive woman.”

“She is with child. By her dead husband.”

“She is, yes. But some women are never more beautiful than when they are with child. And she is, as you say, a widow.”

“What precisely are you suggesting? That Pelletan was murdered by a rival for Madame Quesnel’s affections?”

“You suggest that Damion Pelletan’s heart was removed because his father may once have removed the heart of the dead Dauphin. I find it more likely that he fell victim to a rival in an affaire de coeur.”

Sebastian studied the courtier’s long, delicate face. The faint traces of last night’s rouge were still visible in the pores of his skin. “Why should I believe you?”

LaChapelle shrugged, as if whether Sebastian believed him or not was a matter of supreme indifference to him. “Look into it. I think you might be surprised by what you learn.”

Then he turned and walked away, his furled umbrella twirling around and around as he softly hummed a familiar tune. It took Sebastian a moment to place the song.

It was the Marseillaise.