C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

When Sebastian walked up to him, Angus Kilmartin was contemplating the exquisite ice sculptures decorating Lady Morley’s long buffet table. The Scotsman threw Sebastian a brief glance, then turned his attention to the array of delicacies spread out before him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” said Kilmartin, helping himself to foie gras and toast.

Sebastian lifted a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“You aren’t exactly known for your fondness for social gatherings.”

“I do occasionally put in an appearance.”

“But not, I suspect, without an ulterior motive. Am I to infer that I am your purpose?”

Sebastian took a slow sip of his champagne. “As a matter of fact, you are. You lied to me.”

To call a gentleman a liar was the supreme affront to his honor, an insult that was traditionally met with a challenge to a duel. But Kilmartin merely let his gaze drift over the assembled throng, a bland smile on his comical, freckled face. “I lie all the time. I’ve never subscribed to the pathetic belief that we owe our fellow men the truth.”

“An interesting philosophy.”

“At least I’m honest about it.”

Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “True. I’m curious: What was Damion Pelletan’s reaction when you tried to bribe him?”

Kilmartin brought his gaze back to Sebastian’s face. His smile never slipped. “Heard about that, did you? Well, if you must know, he leapt at my offer. What did you think? That he became righteously indignant and threatened to expose me, so that I saw no option but to creep up behind him in a darkened alley and cut out his heart? Not his tongue, mind you-surely a more fitting punishment for one with a tendency to talk too much-but his heart? Please; spare me this drivel.”

Sebastian took another sip of his champagne and somehow resisted the impulse to dash the contents of his glass into the man’s self-satisfied face. “What, precisely, did you want Pelletan to do for you? He wasn’t formally a part of the delegation; he was simply a physician.”

Kilmartin rolled his eyes. “You don’t have much of an imagination, do you?”

Sebastian studied the Scotsman’s bland smile. He could think of two services Pelletan might have provided Kilmartin, one considerably nastier than the other. Kilmartin could have paid the physician to eavesdrop on the various members of the delegation and report their conversations back to him.

Or he could have pressured Pelletan to poison his own patient.

“And did he perform as well as you anticipated?” Sebastian asked.

Kilmartin heaved a heavy sigh. “Unfortunately, no. Someone else obviously got to him first.”

“A statement meant to implicate-whom? Harmond Vaundreuil himself?”

Kilmartin’s smile spread into something wide and toothy. “Far be it for me to encroach on your self-appointed avocation as a crusader for justice, but you do seem to require a helpful nudge in the right direction.”

“Your generosity overwhelms me.”

Kilmartin splayed one hand over his chest and gave a mocking bow. “I must confess, that’s not something I hear every day.”

“Philanthropy, like honesty, not being a belief to which you subscribe?”

“Exactly.” Kilmartin’s pale eyes glinted with malice masquerading as amusement. “But I seem to be feeling unusually generous today, so I’ll give you another little hint to the wise: Don’t make the mistake of giving too much credence to Pelletan’s sister; she has her own secrets she’s most anxious to hide.”

“How do you know Damion Pelletan had a sister?”

Kilmartin laughed. “Information is a valuable commodity. And I like to trade in valuable commodities.”

“Information can also be quite dangerous.”

For one intense moment, the Scotsman’s smile slipped. Then he pressed his lips together, the ends of his mouth curling up, his chin dimpling as he pulled it back in a grimace. “Only to those without the resources to use it correctly.” He gave a low, mocking bow and said, “My lord.”

Sebastian was watching Kilmartin weave his way through the crowd when he became aware of a stout, gray-haired, fierce-eyed dowager bearing down upon him.

She was the Dowager Duchess of Claiborne, born Lady Henrietta St. Cyr, sister to the current Earl of Hendon and, as far as the world knew, Sebastian’s aunt. Now older than seventy, Henrietta had never been a beauty. But she had a regal presence, a brutal will, and a tenacious memory that made her a force to be reckoned with in Society. By far her most attractive feature was the startlingly vivid eyes that were the hallmark of her family-the blue St. Cyr eyes so noticeably lacking in Sebastian.

“Aunt,” said Sebastian, stooping to brush her cheek with a kiss. She was wearing a puce satin gown trimmed in pale pink, with an extraordinarily hideous headpiece of towering striped satin ornamented with a bouquet of pink and puce-colored feathers. He stepped back, eyes widening as if in rapt admiration. “What a particularly fetching turban. You’re one of the few women I know who can carry off the color puce. And with pink, no less.”

She swatted at him. “Huh. Think to turn me up sweet, do you? Well, let me tell you right now, it won’t work. I know why you’re here.”

“You do?”

“I do. Hendon told me you’ve involved yourself in this dreadful new murder.”

Sebastian held himself very still. “What does Hendon know of it?”

“More than you might think,” she said vaguely.

“What does that mean?”

She worked her lips back and forth in a way that reminded him of her brother. “He’s worried about you, Devlin.”

“I see no reason why he should be.”

“He heard about the attack near Stoke Mandeville.”

“Oh? And then he saw fit to edify you with the tale?”

“No; that was Claiborne.” Claiborne was Henrietta’s long-suffering son and the current Duke of Claiborne.

“How very busy of him.”

“Claiborne has always been very busy. It’s a tendency he inherited from his father.”

Sebastian laughed out loud, for he’d known few men more taciturn than Henrietta’s late husband, the Third Duke of Claiborne. Henrietta, on the other hand, rivaled Jarvis in her ability to ferret out the secrets and scandals of the various members of the haut ton-although unlike Jarvis, she was driven solely by a boundless curiosity about her fellow beings.

She fixed him with a level stare. “I take it you’re not coming to my soiree on Tuesday night. As usual.”

“No.”

She sniffed. “How does your wife?”

“She is well, thank you. Quite well.”

“I chanced to see her in Berkeley Square a few days ago. Any possibility she might be carrying twins?”

Sebastian gave a laugh that sounded hollow even to his own ears. “No; no chance of that.”

“No? That explains a few things,” she said cryptically, then deliberately moved away before he could challenge her on the statement.

P aul Gibson trudged up the hill toward home, his gaze on the somber bulk of the Tower looming before him. The light was fading rapidly from the sky, leaving the ancient battlements silhouetted against the darkening clouds. He could feel the temperature dropping with each step, the icy wind chafing his cheeks and freezing his nostrils as he sucked in air. But that didn’t stop a thin layer of sweat from forming on his forehead. The sense of unease that had dogged him for blocks was growing ever-more oppressive with each step. It was as if he could feel someone behind him, their eyes boring into his back.

Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he whipped around. “Who’s there?” he cried to the nearly empty street, only to feel more than a wee bit foolish as he looked into the beady eyes of a dirty white hen that stopped midpeck to raise her head and stare at him.