C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

She wore a heavy black wool cloak that swelled gently over her rounded belly, and a close bonnet with a black velvet poke shielding her face. But at the sound of his approach, she turned, her features registering surprise but not alarm.

“Madame Quesnel?” he asked, bowing. “My apologies for intruding. My name is Devlin.”

She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four, with milky white skin and pretty, even features. “I know who you are,” she said in a softly lilting accent. “My father pointed you out to me the other day. He says you are looking into the death of Damion Pelletan. Is that true?”

“I am, yes.”

“Good.”

“Somehow I get the impression your father doesn’t exactly share your sentiments.”

“No; of course he does not. If anything, he is furious with Dr. Pelletan for getting himself killed-as if he did it deliberately to sabotage Father’s mission.”

Something of his reaction must have shown on her face, because she gave a wry smile and said, “You are surprised that I would mention Father’s mission? I see no point in continuing a fiction when you already know the truth.”

“Thank you for that, at least.”

They turned to walk along a brick path that led toward the distant park. “How long had you known Dr. Pelletan?” Sebastian asked.

“Two-perhaps three years. Father began seeing him shortly after he developed heart problems. He credits Dr. Pelletan with keeping him alive, so he is taking this death quite personally.”

“But not so personally as to try to help catch his physician’s killer?”

“My father’s priorities are. . elsewhere.”

Sebastian studied her half-averted profile. “What manner of man was he?”

“Damion Pelletan? I doubt you will find anyone with anything harsh to say about him. He was everything you could wish for in a physician, and more. Gentle, kind. .”

Her words were admiring. But he could detect nothing of the attitude of the lover in her manner.

“Do you know anything of his family, in Paris?” Sebastian asked. “Does he leave a wife?”

She shook her head. “No. He never married.”

“What about a fiancee? Was he betrothed?”

“No.” A faint smile touched her eyes, then slowly faded, as if the memory his words had provoked was too sad to hold. “He told me once that he fell in love at the age of eleven and swore never to love another.”

“As did many of us,” said Sebastian. “It seldom endures.”

“Perhaps. Although in Dr. Pelletan’s case, he actually did remain faithful.”

“What happened to the object of his love? Did she die?”

“No. Her father was forced to flee France, and she had to go with him. She swore she would wait for Damion. But she did not.”

Sebastian stared out over the snow-covered garden, its careful plantings invisible beneath the anonymous hollows and bumps of the blanketing white. “I take it she married someone else?”

“Yes. Some years ago.”

“And yet he loved her still?”

“He did. Always.”

Sebastian kept his voice level. “Do you know the woman’s name?”

“Only her first name. He called her ‘Julia.’”

The gate slammed behind them, a sharp clang of metal against metal. Sebastian turned to see Harmond Vaundreuil striding toward them, his gloved hands curled into fists that swung at his sides, his feet splayed out to keep from slipping on the slushy path.

“You!” he shouted, his voice booming out when he was still some twenty or more feet away, one pointed finger coming up to punch the air between them. “What are you doing here? You stay away from my daughter, you hear? You stay away from her!”

Sebastian touched his hat and bowed to the young widow. “Thank you for your assistance.”

He saw no shadow of fear in her eyes. Vaundreuil’s noisy bluster obviously did not frighten her. “I’d like to help in any way I can,” she said quietly. “I want Damion Pelletan’s killer brought to justice.”

Harmond Vaundreuil’s voice cut across the snow-filled garden. “Why are you here? What do you think my daughter can tell you that could possibly be of any use to you? Pelletan was set upon by footpads; you want to find his killers, go search for them in the stews and gutters of London. Not here!”

Sebastian touched his hat again. “Monsieur.”

The Frenchman drew up, his puffy face red, his breath coming in wheezy gasps that billowed white around him as he glared silently back at Sebastian.

Sebastian brushed past him on his way to the gate.

“You stay away from my daughter!” Vaundreuil shouted after him. “You hear? Do you hear me?”

Sebastian pivoted to face him again. “You’re afraid of something. What is it?”

But Vaundreuil only clenched his jaw, his eyes bulging like those of a man who has just seen his worst nightmare come true.

• • •

“So Lady Peter lied to you,” said Hero, one hand tucked through the crook of Sebastian’s arm. It was just before noon, and they had come here, to Hyde Park, for the kind of brisk walk Richard Croft frowned upon. What with the cold and the wet snow and the unfashionable hour, they essentially had the park to themselves. But the pathways were slippery enough that she was being very careful where she put her feet. “Damion Pelletan and his Julia were considerably more than mere childhood friends.”

“They were indeed. Although it’s always possible she didn’t realize just how deeply his affections were engaged.”

“She knew. She promised to wait for him.”

“True. But that was long ago. She may not have known that he was still in love with her. It’s been nine years since her family was forced to leave France. That’s a long time.”

“Not for some men,” Hero said quietly, and Sebastian felt his face grow hot, for he had loved Kat Boleyn for eight long years and more, and Hero knew it.

After a moment, she said, “You think that is why Pelletan decided to come to London? To see her again?”

“I’d say it’s a strong possibility. Although it doesn’t reflect well on him, given that she’s been happily married for some years now.”

“You don’t know that she’s happily married.”

Sebastian thought about the bruises he’d seen on her arm, the black and blue imprints of an angry man’s punishing fingers. “You’re right; I don’t know. In fact, given what I know of Lord Peter Radcliff, I suspect she’s been unhappily married for most of those years.”

Hero looked over at him. “I wonder if Damion Pelletan knew that?”

Sebastian met her gaze. “That’s a question I intend to ask her.”

• • •

Lady Peter Radcliff was in Clifford’s Lending Library in the Strand, reaching to put a slim blue volume back up on a high shelf, when Sebastian took it from her and slipped it into place.

“Allow me,” he said.

“Thank you.” She twisted her gloved hands around the strings of her reticule, her lovely eyes darting this way and that, as if in fear that they might be observed.

Today she wore an elegant walking dress of jaconet muslin, with three piped flounces and a purple velvet spencer. But the gown was not quite in the latest style, and it occurred to Sebastian, looking at her, that Lord Peter’s finances might not be in the best of order.

He said quietly, “I’ve discovered you haven’t been truthful with me, Lady Peter.”

Her lips parted with a quickly indrawn breath. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”

“Damion Pelletan wasn’t simply your childhood friend. He was once in love with you, as you were with him. When you left Paris, you promised to wait for him. Forever.”

He expected her to deny it. Instead, she dropped her gaze to her hands and sank her teeth into her lower lip. “Forever is a long time,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Especially for a woman.”