C Harris: Where Shadows Dance

Sebastian saw Foley’s shoulders bunch, saw the flash of the knife blade in the man’s hand. “ Look out! ” he shouted and came from behind the chapel at a run.

He was too late.

Reaching out, Foley grabbed the Frenchwoman by her upper arm and plunged the knife into her breast.

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian. Then he swore again, throwing himself flat as the booming explosion of a pistol echoed around the burial ground.

Foley turned a strange, slow pirouette, his body tense, a look of shock and surprise on his face, the front of his white silk waistcoat a sheet of dark shiny wetness. He took one step. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell in a limp sprawl against the side of the tomb.

Sebastian’s gaze jerked back to the Frenchwoman. She still had one hand in her reticule. He could see the charred hole in the side of the cloth and realized she must have hidden a small pistol there. For a moment, her startled gaze met his.

She crumbled slowly.

He pushed up, aware of the patter of running feet as Miss Jarvis rushed forward. Sebastian reached the fallen woman first.

He gathered her gently into his arms. She was still conscious, her eye filming with tears, one hand coming up to grip his forearm.

“How did you come to be here?” she asked.

“I followed Foley.”

“Ah.” There was a pause. “You heard?”

“Yes.”

“It’s true, what he said. We killed de La Rocque and Lindquist, too—both were agents of the enemies of France. But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with the death of Alexander Ross.” She coughed, and a trickle of blood spilled down her chin. “Je ne regret rien ,” she said softly. “We are at war.”

He was aware of Miss Jarvis drawing up at the edge of the tomb. She made no move to come any closer.

Angelina’s grip on his arm tightened. She said, “I never did tell you about your mother.”

Sebastian felt his breath catch in his throat. “Tell me what?”

She shook her head. “You look so like her. Except for the eyes. She told me you had his eyes.”

“What? Whose eyes?” But he realized she had slipped beyond hearing him.

He held her as she breathed her last, as her heart slowed and stopped and the life eased from her body. Then he laid her gently into the long grass and turned his head to fix his betrothed with a hard stare.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

She returned his gaze steadily. “I followed her.”

“You what ? Why?”

“I thought you were wrong about Foley—”

“I was. Partially.”

“And it occurred to me that Madame Champagne may have heard far more of Ross’s argument with de La Rocque than she led you to believe. I thought I might try speaking to her myself, only she was just leaving as I drove up. I thought she looked . . . strangely furtive. So I followed her.”

Sebastian stared down at the Frenchwoman’s limply curled hands. The calluses on the fingertips were plainly visible.

Miss Jarvis followed his gaze.

He said, “She told me once that she loved music, but ... surely she’s too small to have strangled anyone.”

“She did say, ‘we,’ did she not? Somewhere, she must have a confederate. The gray-bearded man who worked for her at the coffee shop, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.” That would be for the authorities to deal with. Sebastian pushed to his feet. “What have you done with your maid?”

“She’s in my grandmother’s landau. I thought it would be less conspicuous than the barouche.”

“Is that why you changed your dress? So you’d be less ‘conspicuous’?”

“Under the circumstances, peacock feathers seemed somewhat inappropriate.”

He found himself smiling. Then his gaze fell to the dead woman beside them, and his smile faded.

“Her death saddens you,” said Miss Jarvis in a tone that told him she was both confused and disapproving.

“I liked her.”

“She was a traitor—”

“Not to France.”

“And a killer.”

“That’s what people do in war. We kill.”

“This was different.”

Sebastian shook his head. “No. Only less indiscriminate.”

She nodded to the sprawled, bloody body of the Undersecretary. “One could say the same of Foley. He killed the agents of his country’s enemy.”

“Foley didn’t kill for Britain’s sake. He murdered to protect himself—to cover up his betrayal of his own country. Madame Champagne was right: In a sense, he killed de La Rocque and Lindquist, even though he didn’t actually tighten the garrote or wield the cudgel. It was his vain, self-indulgent indiscretion that led to their deaths.”

Her gaze drifted back to the Frenchwoman’s now serene features. Sebastian saw two frown lines form between Hero’s eyes. She said, “I don’t understand how she could have been working for France. After what the Revolution did to her. To her son. Her husband ...”

“That was the France of 1792, of Robespierre and the Jacobins and the Terror. Not the France of Napoléon and the Grand Empire. It’s not unusual for those who love France to see the Emperor as a savior rather than—”

“A monster?”

“Well, yes.” Sebastian found himself wondering for how long Angelina had been an agent of the French. Since the days of the Directoire, perhaps? When she’d been in Venice and Spain?

When she’d known his mother?

“It still doesn’t make sense,” said Miss Jarvis. “If Angelina Champagne killed Lindquist and de La Rocque, and Sir Hyde killed Yasmina, then who killed Alexander Ross and Ezekiel Kincaid?”

“Ross’s Russian friend, Colonel Dimitri Chernishav. The problem is, I can’t prove it. And even if I could, the bastard has diplomatic immunity.”

By the time Sebastian had finished with all the inevitable unpleasantness attending the violent deaths of an Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and a French spy, a stormy, windblown darkness was falling over the city.

Arriving at Colonel Dimitri Ivanovich Chernishav’s lodgings in Westminster, he found a two-wheeled covered cart drawn up in the pool of fitful light cast by the oil lamps mounted high on the walls of the Adingdon Buildings. Dressed in a long, flowing cape and with a silver-headed walking stick tucked up under one arm, the Russian was supervising the loading of a small ship’s desk onto the back of the mule-drawn cart.

“Going someplace?” asked Sebastian, eyeing the pile of portmanteaux, bandboxes, and trunks that still littered the flagway.

Chernishav looked around. “I’ve been recalled to Russia.”

“Oh? Problems?”

“My father. I fear he is gravely ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Chernishav acknowledged his condolences with a small bow. “There is a ship leaving for St. Petersburg with the morning tide. The Staryy Dub .”

“How fortuitous.” Sebastian studied the Russian’s florid, pleasant face. “You’ve heard about the deaths of Sir Hyde Foley and Angelina Champagne, I presume?”

“I have heard the dozen or so different versions of the tale making the rounds of the clubs, yes. None of them entirely accurate, I’ve no doubt, although one can of course guess at the truth. Poor Alexander. Who’d have thought he’d fall victim to the French here, in London, of all places?” Chernishav shook his head, his lips pressed into a sad smile. “At least you have brought him a measure of justice.”

“Not quite. You see, neither Foley nor Angelina Champagne killed Alexander Ross.” Sebastian paused. “You did.”

The Russian gave an incredulous laugh and turned to hand a bandbox up to the waiting man in the cart. “What possible reason could I have to kill Alexander?”