C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

The sudden shift in topic seemed to confuse her. She stared at him, her eyes wide. “What?”

“Your father was one of the doctors who performed an autopsy on Marie-Therese’s ten-year-old brother, the Dauphin of France, after his death in prison. You were-how old? Twelve? Thirteen?”

“I was fourteen.”

“So you must recall something about it. I take it you were already interested in medicine at the time. Surely he discussed it with you.”

“He did.”

“Did he believe the dead boy he saw in the Temple was in fact the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette?”

She moved to stand before the room’s fireplace, her back to them, her gaze on the small blaze on the hearth. “My father saw the boy alive only once or twice, when he was called to the Temple just days before the child’s death. He never had any doubt that the boy who died in prison was that same child.”

“Yet that’s not to say the child he treated was actually the Dauphin.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I have seen the autopsy report-my father kept a copy himself. It has been years since I read it, but I remember noticing that he was very careful to state that the body was identified by the jailors as belonging to the Dauphin. He himself did not make the identification.”

“Did he believe the dead child actually was the Dauphin?”

“I honestly do not know. It’s not something he likes to talk about. I do know he was confused because the jailors insisted to him that the child’s final illness had come on suddenly. Yet the boy died of a long-standing case of tuberculosis.”

“Did he? Or was that simply the story that was put out? A fiction much less damning than to admit that he died of mistreatment or neglect.”

“No; my father told me the child whose body he autopsied most definitely died of tuberculosis.”

Sebastian looked at Gibson, who had his head bent, his attention seemingly all for the task of tying off the bandage. In the sudden hush, the buffeting of the wind against the heavy old windows and the creak of a cart’s axle in the lane outside sounded unnaturally loud.

Alexi Sauvage said, “What precisely are you suggesting? A moment ago, you would have had me believe that Lord Peter Radcliff killed my brother for coveting his wife. Now you’re saying Damion’s death is somehow linked to an autopsy my father performed nearly twenty years ago? Are you actually suggesting that the Dauphin somehow survived his imprisonment, and my father knew it? But. . that’s absurd!”

“Is it?”

“It is, yes. My father must have believed the Dauphin died in the Temple. Otherwise, why would he-” She broke off, her chest jerking on a suddenly indrawn breath.

“What is it?” asked Sebastian, watching her. “Otherwise why would he what ?”

Her tongue crept out to slide across her cracked lower lip. “At the conclusion of the autopsy, my father wrapped the boy’s heart in his handkerchief and smuggled it out of the prison hidden in the pocket of his coat. He soaked the heart in alcohol and has kept it preserved in a crystal vase in his office ever since.”

“Are you telling me your father was the physician who removed the Dauphin’s heart? And he still has it? ”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell us this? Why?”

Her jaw tightened, her eyes flashing with scorn. “My father has performed hundreds of autopsies over the course of his career. It is preposterous to think that Damion’s murder here, in London, is somehow linked to a death that occurred in Paris decades ago. My brother was killed because he was part of a delegation seeking a peace that is anathema to powerful interests here in England, both political and economic. Powerful interests that include your own father-in-law!”

Sebastian returned her hard stare. “I might be able to accept that more easily if it weren’t for one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Why would Lord Jarvis-or anyone else involved in the peace negotiations, for that matter-want to steal your brother’s heart?”

“D o you think Gibson is in love with Alexandrie Sauvage?” Hero asked.

It was after dinner, and they were seated in their drawing room. Hero was petting the bored-looking black cat, while Sebastian-who saw no reason to follow the popular custom of drinking port in solitary splendor at his dining table when he could be enjoying the company of his wife-held a glass of burgundy. He was dressed in the silk knee breeches, white stockings, and buckled shoes that were de rigueur for a gentleman attending a formal London function. It was the night of his aunt Henrietta’s musical soiree, and he had suddenly discovered a very good reason for attending.

He took a slow swallow of his wine, for Hero’s question had given voice to one of his own concerns. “I’m very much afraid he might be.”

“It could be good for him.”

“Perhaps-if we were talking about any woman other than Alexi Sauvage.”

“Maybe you’re wrong about her.”

Across the room, her gaze met his, then dropped to the hand she moved slowly up and down the cat’s back.

“You don’t need to tell me,” she said quietly, her voice suddenly, oddly scratchy, so that he wondered what she had seen in his face.

He could hear the rattle of carriage wheels on the pavement outside, the whisper of ash falling on the hearth. The memory of that spring was like a frozen shiver across the skin, an incubus that stole his breath and tormented his soul. “No; I do. I should have told you before.” He found he had to draw a deep breath before he could go on. “I met her three years ago, when I was serving as an observing officer for a vain, pompous, and extraordinarily vindictive colonel named Sinclair Oliphant. Wellington’s forces were already beginning to push into Spain, and Oliphant was in charge of securing the mountain passes out of Portugal.

“One day, he ordered me to carry sealed dispatches to a band of partisans said to be camped in a small valley below the ancient convent of Santa Iria. Except it was all a hoax. Oliphant knew the partisans weren’t there, and he’d had one of his spies tip off a French force operating in the area. They were waiting for me.”

Hero stared at him. “He deliberately had you captured? But. . why?”

“There was a large landowner in the area-Antonio Alvares Cabral-who was refusing to cooperate with Oliphant. Alvares Cabral wanted to make certain the French were gone for good before he risked throwing in his lot with the British. I didn’t know it at the time, but the dispatches I carried were false; they were written specifically to fool the French into thinking the abbess of the convent of Santa Iria was in league with the partisans.” Sebastian kept his gaze on his wine, glowing warm and red in the fire’s light. “The abbess was Alvares Cabral’s daughter.”

Hero’s hand had stilled its rhythmic motion. “Alexandrie Sauvage was with the French forces?”

“She was-although she was Alexi Beauclerc then. By that time, her first husband had died, and she’d taken up with a French lieutenant named Tissot.”

“So what happened?”

“After he read the dispatches I’d carried, the French major, Rousseau, rode off with some of his men. He was planning to torture me in the morning for whatever other information I might have, then kill me. But I managed to escape shortly before dawn-by killing Lieutenant Tissot.”

“Alexi Sauvage’s lover?”

“Yes.”

There was more to the story, of course-much more. But he wasn’t sure he was capable of talking about it. Still.

Hero had the sensitivity not to press him. She said, “You think Alexi Sauvage would deliberately hurt Gibson, just to get back at you?”