C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

“Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I believe it myself. But that doesn’t mean the possibility has not been suggested by others.”

Sometimes a piece of information was like a solitary candle kindled in a dark, empty room, burning bright but useless. Yet there were times when its light made sense of what had until then remained subtly inexplicable or unseen. Sebastian said, “So that’s why both the Comte de Provence and Marie-Therese went out of their way to consult with Damion Pelletan. It had nothing to do with their health at all; they wanted to see for themselves how much he resembled the dead Prince. And what was their conclusion?”

The Frenchman shrugged. “In my experience, we tend to find resemblances where we look for them-whether in truth they exist or not. After so many years, who could say with any certainty?”

Sebastian thought about the body he’d seen lying on Gibson’s slab, the high, sloping forehead and prominent nose so much like Marie-Therese’s-or a thousand other people’s. If Provence and Marie-Therese had gone looking for a resemblance, they would have found it. He said, “How did the Bourbons come to know the details of Damion Pelletan’s childhood?”

“You think we have no contacts in Paris?”

“I’ve no doubt you do-although as I recall, the Comte de Provence would have me believe those ‘contacts’ somehow failed to tell him the purpose of Harmond Vaundreuil’s visit to London.”

LaChapelle simply gave a faint smile and shrugged.

The plash of a wherryman’s oars carried to them through the fog. When it came to powerful motives for murder, Sebastian suspected that preserving one’s position in the line of succession to a throne probably ranked right up there near the top-even when the throne in question was temporarily occupied by a Corsican usurper. The reappearance of the Lost Dauphin would completely overthrow the claims of the current aspirants to the French crown-and Marie-Therese’s chances of someday becoming queen.

“Of course,” LaChapelle was saying, “there is no real proof, one way or the other.”

“To your knowledge.”

“To my knowledge,” LaChapelle conceded. “However, given what is at stake, the mere possibility might have been enough to put Pelletan’s life in danger.”

Sebastian watched the courtier shift his gaze to the piers at the base of the bridge, where the river churned and swirled in deadly eddies. If the Comte d’Artois had been in London, Sebastian would have suspected him in an instant, for the youngest of the three Bourbon brothers could be as cruel and vicious as he was vain and self-indulgent. But Artois was far away, in Scotland, while if the wheelchair-bound, uncrowned King himself were involved, Sebastian found it difficult to understand why LaChapelle would have believed himself the target of the attack in Birdcage Walk.

Sebastian said, “Why try to kill you? I can understand killing Foucher-and mutilating his body-in the hopes of frightening Vaundreuil into abandoning the peace negotiations. But why you?”

“Perhaps because of what I know-or suspect.”

“Someone told me of a child born to Lady Giselle during the Terror-an infant that did not survive. How did that baby die?”

LaChapelle lifted his gaze to meet Sebastian’s. He was a man who had witnessed life at its most barbaric, who had no illusions about his fellow men or the depths of depravity of which they were capable. Yet Sebastian caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes-the kind of fear instinctive to all men when confronted with evidence of a certain kind of callous inhumanity that bordered on madness.

“She smothered it.”

A lexandrie Sauvage was hunkered down beside the entrance to Gibson’s surgery when Sebastian walked up to her. She had her head bent, her attention focused on the bandage she was wrapping around a ragged child’s finger. He knew she saw him, for she stiffened. But she didn’t look up, saying to the child, “Next time, Felicity, remember: Geese bite.”

The little girl giggled, thanked her prettily, and ran off to join the gang of urchins waiting for her in the shadows of the Tower.

Alexandrie Sauvage rose slowly to her feet and turned to face him. “Why are you here?”

“We need to talk.”

The wind fluttered the locks of dark red hair framing her face, and she crossed her arms at her chest as if she were cold. She made no move to step into the surgery, but simply stared back at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

He said, “Why didn’t you tell me that Damion was only your half brother?”

“‘Only’? You say that as if our different mothers should make him somehow less important to me. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“No. I’m suggesting the fact that some people believed him to be the Lost Dauphin of France might have had something to do with his murder. Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Mother of God; why would I bring up some ridiculous, decades-old rumor? Damion was my brother-my half brother, if you will. He was no Bourbon.”

“Are you so certain?”

“Yes!”

“How old were you when your father brought Damion home?”

Her eyes glittered with animosity. “Fourteen.”

“Yet you had never seen him before?”

“No. I did not even know he existed.”

“You didn’t find that odd?”

“Then? Of course. Now?” She shook her head. “No. His mother was a noblewoman. The birth would have been seen as something shameful, something to be hidden. Her parents cut off all contact between her and my father.”

“Did your brother ever talk to you about his mother?”

“Not really. He remembered little of their life before prison. When the trauma of one’s life becomes too great to deal with, the mind sometimes ceases remembering it.”

“Was his ordeal traumatic?”

“He and his mother spent years in prison, without light or proper food, in conditions considerably worse than those endured by Marie-Therese. Then his mother was torn from his arms and killed. He never completely recovered from the experience, either physically or mentally. He had dreadful nightmares, and his legs were always weak-it’s why he was never able to serve as a physician in the French army.”

“And why he hated the dark?”

“Yes.”

The implications of that fear and the knowledge of how he had met his death weighed heavily in the silence between them.

Sebastian kept his gaze on her face. “Your father has never said anything to suggest that he might have been involved in an attempt to save the Dauphin from the Temple Prison?”

“Good God, no! How many times must I tell you? Damion was my brother. ”

“Did your brother know about the speculation that he might in fact be the Lost Dauphin?”

“Of course he knew. Nothing would make him more furious.”

“Sometimes anger is a product of a refusal to believe the truth.”

“Not in this case.”

She went to stand beside an ancient stone watering trough set in front of the stepped-back facade of the neighboring house. She still had her arms crossed, as if she were hugging herself, and her features had taken on the flatness of those who look into the distant past.

She said, “When my father performed the autopsy on the body of the boy in the Temple, he removed his heart. For nearly twenty years now he has kept that child’s heart in a crystal vase in his study. Why would he do that if he knew the boy was an imposter? If he knew that the real Dauphin was alive and masquerading as his own son?”

“Perhaps he feared that he himself might have been deceived. I doubt the plan of substitution was his own. Knowing that he was simply one player in a much larger plot, he may not have known whom to trust. Whom to believe.”