C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

“Did you know he was still in love with you?”

She shook her head slowly back and forth. But he saw the telltale flush deepening in her cheeks and knew it for a lie.

He said, “I’m told Damion Pelletan came to London because of a woman. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“No! Please,” she said hoarsely, her gaze lifting to his, pleading. “If my husband hears I’ve been seen talking to you, he’ll-”

“Beat you?”

All color drained from her face. “No!”

“Damion Pelletan came to London to see a woman. If not you, then who was it?” he pressed.

She backed away from him, her head still shaking from side to side. “His sister,” she whispered. “He came here to see his sister.”

“His sister? What sister?”

She stared at him as if his lack of knowledge took her by surprise. “Alexi.”

Sebastian could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. “Are you telling me that Alexandrie Sauvage is Damion Pelletan’s sister ?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No. No, I did not.”

S ebastian’s loud knock at the surgery on Tower Hill was met with silence.

Smothering an oath, he pounded on the house next door, expecting Gibson’s housekeeper, Mrs. Federico, to answer. Instead, Gibson’s door was opened by Alexi Sauvage herself.

She stood with one hand on the latch, her face set in hostile lines, so that he thought for a moment that she might slam the door in his face.

He said, “Where is Gibson?”

“At St. Bartholomew’s.”

He let his gaze rove over her. She wore the same worn gray walking dress from the night of her attack, although someone had obviously made an effort to clean the stains from its cloth. “You appear to be much better.”

“I am. I told Gibson this morning that I am well enough to go home.”

“Yet you’re still here,” he said, pushing past her into the passageway.

She closed the door with a snap and swung to face him. “He disagrees.”

Sebastian searched her face, the delicate, cinnamon-dusted nose, the dark brown eyes, the high cheekbones, looking for some resemblance to the man he’d seen so briefly on Gibson’s slab.

He couldn’t find it.

She put one hand on her hip, “I understand you consider Paul Gibson your friend.”

“He is my friend, yes. Why?”

“Do you know your friend is an opium eater?”

This was not the conversation Sebastian had come here intending to have. “I know he takes laudanum from time to time.”

“He has moved far beyond that.”

When Sebastian remained silent, she said, “You knew, yet you’ve done nothing?”

“What would you have me do? He’s in pain-severe, soul-corroding pain. As a physician, you of all people should understand that. Opium is how he deals with it.”

“It’s killing him.”

“The pain would kill him.”

“There are things that can be done to help.”

“With the pain, or with his opium ad-” He started to say “addiction” and changed it to “-problem.”

“Both.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about Gibson. I want to know why the bloody hell you didn’t tell us that Damion Pelletan was your brother.”

She held herself painfully straight. “How did you find out?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” She gave a small, peculiar shrug. “I recognized your voice that first night. I didn’t tell you any more than I had to because I don’t trust you.”

“Because of Portugal?”

“Of course; does that seem so difficult to believe?”

He studied the signs of strain around her nostrils, the dark shadows in her eyes. But whether they were because of her recent illness or because of the bitter memories his presence aroused, he could not have said. “Have you remembered anything more about what happened in Cat’s Hole?”

“Some-but not all.” She swallowed. “I remember leaving Madame Bisette’s room and walking back up the lane, toward the Tower; we were hoping to find a hackney there. It was so cold and dark, and Damion was. . nervous.”

“Nervous? Why?”

“From the time he was a little boy, Damion always hated the dark.”

“So what happened?”

“I thought I heard footsteps behind us. At first they were some distance away, but they kept getting closer. I turned to see who it was and-” She broke off and shook her head. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

He said, “Tell me about Sampson Bullock.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. “How do you know of him?”

“I know he threatened to kill you. Why the hell didn’t you think to mention him?”

“But I did-at least to Gibson. Bullock threatened me , not Damion. How could he possibly have anything to do with what happened?”

“He holds you responsible for the death of his brother. And now I discover that Damion was your brother. We’re talking about a man who grew up in the kind of family that names its children Sampson and Abel. I can see him harboring some rather nasty, biblical attitudes toward revenge.”

“An eye for an eye and a brother for a brother? Is that what you’re suggesting?” She tipped her head to one side as if considering it. “But. . Bullock had no way of knowing that Damion was my brother. No one knows.”

“I know. So does the person who told me. Bullock could have found out.”

She shook her head. “No. Damion was killed because of his association with the delegation from Paris.”

“The number of people who knew about the peace negotiations is small.”

“Then that should make it easier to find those responsible.”

He searched her thin, pale face. He could see the lines left there by the harsh life she’d lived, by her recent injury and the lingering fever she was still fighting. They had not moved from the passageway, but simply stood beside the door, old adversaries facing each other in the narrow, confined space. She leaned back against the wall. And though she would never admit it, he knew that simply being on her feet this long had tired her.

She said, “Damion told me he was approached by a man who tried to bribe him.”

“Bribe him? To what end?”

“Something to do with the delegation. He was frightened by the encounter-he feared both what the man might do to him for refusing, as well as what might happen if the others found out he’d been approached.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

When she simply stared back at him, he said, “Your brother refused to cooperate?”

A fierce light flared in the dark depths of her eyes. “ Mon Dieu ; of course he refused! What sort of man do you think he was?”

“Who tried to bribe him?”

She frowned. “I can’t recall his name precisely. I believe he was Scottish. Something like Kilmer, or Kilminster, or-”

“Kilmartin?”

“Yes, that was it,” said Damion Pelletan’s sister. “Kilmartin.”

N o man was a more reliable presence at the various soirees, balls, and breakfasts given by London’s fashionable hostesses than Angus Kilmartin. Sebastian suspected Kilmartin worked such gatherings in much the same spirit as a pickpocket worked the crowds at a hanging, ever on the lookout for a new connection or a stray tidbit of information he could use to increase his personal wealth. Or perhaps he was simply driven by the need to show the world that a humble Glaswegian merchant’s son was now wealthy and powerful enough to be invited almost anywhere.

That afternoon’s most fashionable, must-attend event was a lavish winter wonderland-themed breakfast given by the Countess of Morley at her vast Grosvenor Square town house. Society “breakfasts,” like “morning visits,” were actually afternoon affairs, due to the fact that very few residents of Mayfair rolled out of bed before noon.