C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

“Madame Sauvage is not here,” she said in a heavy accent typical of the Basque region of France, and made as if to close the door.

Sebastian stopped it by resting his forearm against the panel, then softened the aggression of the move with a smile. “I know. My friend Paul Gibson is caring for her at his surgery.”

The woman hesitated, her instinctive wariness at war with an obvious desire to obtain information about her mistress. Concern for her mistress won. “You know how she does?”

“The surgeon is hopeful she will recover, although she’s not yet out of danger.”

The woman’s lips parted and she exhaled sharply, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Why has she not been brought here, to me, so that I may care for her?”

“I’ve no doubt you’re more than capable,” said Sebastian. “Unfortunately, she can’t yet be moved.”

The woman folded her arms beneath her massive bosom. “Well, you tell that surgeon that as soon as she’s well enough, he’s to send her home to Karmele.”

Sebastian said, “Have you been with the doctoresse long?”

He saw a flicker of surprise, followed by a return of her earlier wariness. “How do you know she is a doctoresse ?”

“Madame Bisette told me. I’m trying to find out who might have wanted to harm her or Dr. Pelletan, the man who was with her last night.”

“And why should you care, a fine English gentleman such as yourself?”

“I care,” he said simply.

She pursed her mouth and said nothing.

“When did you last see her?” he asked.

“Five-perhaps six o’clock last night. She left to visit some patients.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, of course.”

From one of the floors below came a child’s shout, followed by a trill of delighted laughter. Sebastian said, “Do you know if she had any enemies? Someone with whom she might have quarreled recently?”

The woman was silent, her lips pressed tightly together, her nostrils flaring on a deeply indrawn breath.

“There is someone, isn’t there? Who is it?”

Karmele cast a quick, furtive glance around the dark corridor, then beckoned Sebastian inside and quickly shut the door behind him.

“His name is Bullock.” She dropped her voice as if still wary that she might somehow be overheard. “He’s been watching her. Following her.”

“Why?”

“He blames her for his brother’s death; that’s why. Said he was going to make her pay, he did.”

“She treated the man’s brother?”

Karmele shook her head. “Not his brother, no. His brother’s wife.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.”

Sebastian let his gaze roam the attic’s low, sloped ceiling and dingy, papered walls. The space was fitted out as a small sitting room, but judging from the rolled pallet in the corner and the cooking utensils near the hearth, it also served as the kitchen and Karmele’s bedroom. Through an open door on the far side he caught a glimpse of a second chamber, barely large enough to hold a narrow bed and a small chest. The few pieces of furniture in the two rooms looked old and worn; a thin, tattered carpet covered the floor, and the walls were bare of all decoration except for one small, cracked mirror.

As if aware of Sebastian’s scrutiny, the woman said, “C’est domage-” She caught herself, then carefully switched to English. “It is a pity, what she is reduced to. She was born to better than this.”

“I understand she came to London last year?” said Sebastian in French.

The woman blinked in surprise but answered readily enough in the same language. “October 1811, it was. She came with her husband, the English captain.”

“She was married to an English officer?”

“She was, yes. Captain Miles Sauvage. Met him in Spain, she did.”

“And where is Captain Sauvage now?”

“He died, not more than six weeks after we came here.”

“You were with her in Spain?”

“I was, yes.” Her tone was once again guarded, her jaw set hard.

Rather than press her on the point, Sebastian shifted to a different tack. “Tell me more about this man you say has been threatening her.”

“Bullock?” Her heavy brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. “He’s a tradesman-has a shop somewhere hereabouts. Big bear of a man, he is, with curly black hair and a nasty scar running across his cheek, like this-” She brought up her left hand to slash diagonally from the outer edge of her eye to the corner of her mouth.

“And apart from Bullock, can you think of anyone else who might have wished her harm?”

“No, no one. Why would anyone want to hurt her?”

“And did you know Dr. Damion Pelletan?”

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “Non.”

“You’re certain?”

“How would I know him?” she demanded, staring belligerently back at Sebastian.

“Do you know if Madame Sauvage had any contact with the exiled Bourbons?”

A slow tide of angry red crept up the woman’s neck. “Those puces ? What would the doctoresse want with them? She hates them.”

“Really?” It was an unusual attitude for a French emigre.

“Well,” said the woman hastily, as if regretting her harsh words, “I suppose the Comte de Provence is not so bad, when all is said and done. But Artois?” Her face contorted with the violence of her loathing. “And that Marie-Therese! She is not right in the head, that one. She lives still in the eighteenth century, and she wishes to drag France back to the past with her. You know what the doctoresse calls her?”

Sebastian shook his head.

“Madame Rancune. That’s what the doctoresse calls her. Madame Rancune.”

Rancune. It was a French word meaning grudge or rancor, and it carried with it more than a hint of vindictiveness and spite. He’d heard Marie-Therese called it before.

Madam Resentment.

B y the time Sebastian left Golden Square, the weak winter sun was disappearing fast behind a thick bank of clouds that bunched low over the city, stealing the light from the afternoon and sending the temperature plummeting.

He walked up Swallow Street, trying to make sense of a murder investigation that seemed to be going in three different directions at once. The next logical step would be to speak to Marie-Therese, the Duchesse d’Angouleme, herself. But the daughter of the last crowned King of France was currently living at Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, nearly forty miles to the northwest of London. Under normal circumstances, he would have driven out there without a second thought. But a journey of that length presented logistical problems for a man whose wife was heavily pregnant with their first child.

After careful calculations, he decided that if he left London at dawn, driving his own curricle but with hired teams changed at twelve- to fourteen-mile intervals, he could make it there and back by early afternoon.

He altered his direction and turned toward the livery stables in Boyle Street.

“Six teams?” said the livery stable’s owner, a gnarled little Irishman named O’Malley who’d made quite a name for himself as a jockey some decades before. “To go less than eighty miles? Ye don’t think that might be a wee bit excessive, my lord?”

“I plan to make it there and back in six hours,” said Sebastian.

O’Malley grinned. “Well, if anyone can do it, you can, my lord.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I reckon I’ve just the team fer your first stage-real sweet goers they are, all four as creamy white and well matched as two twins’ breasts. And, if ye’ve a mind to it, I could send one of me lads on ahead tonight to make sure ye get the best cattle at every change, there and back.”