C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

Collot sniffed. “He knew because I wanted him to know. He cheated me, you see-in Amsterdam. It might have been twenty years ago, but Collot does not forget these things. I brought him my share of the gems from the Garde-Meuble. We agreed on a price. Then, after I handed them over, he paid me a third of what he had promised. Said if I set up a squawk, he would tell the authorities I had tried to rob him. He was a respected merchant; I was a known thief. What could I do? He said I was lucky he had given me anything at all for the jewels. I should have killed him right there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Collot squared his shoulders with a strange kind of pride. “I am a thief, not a murderer.”

“So what did you hope to accomplish by going to him now, after all these years?”

“I told him I wanted the rest of the money he owed me, and that if he did not give it to me, I would tell the French he had the diamant bleu de la Couronne .”

Sebastian was aware of a burst of laughter from the throng of drunken men in the street behind him. The last of the light had vanished from the evening sky, leaving the narrow lane dark and windswept. “And? What did he say?”

“The old bastard laughed at me. He laughed! Then his face changed, and suddenly he was shaking with rage. It was as if he had been possessed by a demon. He said if I ever thought of breathing a word to Napoleon’s agents, he would see me buried alive in an unmarked grave. Who talks like that? Hmm?”

“When was this?”

“Friday.”

“So what did you do?”

Collot rolled his shoulders in an expansive Gallic shrug. “I told.”

“Who? Who did you tell?”

“Why, the agent of Napoleon, of course. Who else? Eisler did not think I would do it. He did not believe I would have the courage. But I did. He should never have said those things to me.”

Sebastian studied the Parisian thief’s mobile, beard-shadowed face. “Are you telling me that you know the identity of one of Napoleon’s agents in London?”

Collot’s elastic mouth curved into a grin. “Like I said, I know things.”

“So who is it?”

The old thief gave a deep, husky laugh. “Believe me, you do not want to know.”

“But I do.”

Collot shook his head, his smile still wide, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “I could tell you it is someone you know. More than that: It is someone you trust.” He laughed out loud. “But I won’t.”

Sebastian resisted the urge to grab the man and shake him. “Tell me this: Were you handsomely compensated for your information?”

Collot’s face fell.

“No?” said Sebastian, watching him. “Why not?”

“They said they already knew. They said they had known for weeks.”

Sebastian was aware of a dark carriage being driven slowly up the street. He said, “You do realize that they are probably the ones watching you? They killed Eisler, and now they’re going to kill you.”

“Non.”

“Yes. Tell me who they are.”

“Non.” Collot started to back away, his head shaking from side to side, his wayward eye going wild. “You are trying to get me killed! What do you take me for? A f-” He broke off, his expressive face going slack with shock as the explosive crack of a rifle echoed in the narrow street and the front of his coat dissolved into a pulpy sheen.

“God damn it!” swore Sebastian, barreling the crumpling French-

man deep into the fetid, protective darkness of the old archway. He caught the man’s falling body beneath the arms, propping him upright so he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. But it was already too late.

He saw Collot’s eyes roll back into his head, heard the rattle in his throat, felt the essence of his life ease away, leaving Sebastian holding a silent, empty husk that seemed to collapse and diminish before his eyes.

Some hours later, after a tense and unpleasant interlude with the local constabulary, Sebastian walked into Kat’s dressing room at the Covent Garden Theater. The curtain had just fallen. He was still covered in blood, and he wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Devlin,” said Kat, starting up from her dressing table. “You’re hurt!”

She still wore the elaborate stomacher and velvet gown of her character, and he stopped her before she could get too close to him. “Careful. You’ll ruin your costume. And I’m fine. It’s not my blood.”

She drew back, her gaze on his face. “Whose is it?”

“An old Parisian thief named Jacques Collot. He was one of the original gang who stole the French Crown Jewels from the Garde-Meuble. He found out Daniel Eisler was handling the sale of Hope’s diamond and tried to use his knowledge of the stone’s origins to weasel money out of Eisler.”

“How?”

“By threatening to tell Napoleon’s agent where to find the French Blue. Eisler made the mistake of laughing at him.”

“Collot went to the French?”

“He did.”

She turned away to fiddle with the hairpins and combs scattered across the surface of her table, her heavy dark hair falling forward across her face as she asked with what struck him as studied casualness, “And was he able to tell you the name of the person Napoleon has charged with the stone’s recovery?”

He kept his gaze on her half-averted profile. “No. He was killed before I could get it out of him. Shot, probably by the same person who killed the young thief in the alley behind Eisler’s house Monday night.”

He waited for her to make some response. When she didn’t, he said quietly, “Is it you, Kat? Are you working for the French in this?”

She’d sworn she’d severed her association with the French well over a year ago now. But that had been before. Before their lives and their future together had unraveled in a morass of long-buried secrets and Hendon’s self-serving lies. Before she married Russell Yates, and Sebastian married the daughter of Charles, Lord Jarvis, the man who’d sworn to see her die an ugly, painful death.

She looked up, her eyes going wide, her mouth forming an O of surprise and hurt as she drew in a quick breath. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

He looked into her beautiful, beloved face, saw the hurt that pinched her features, saw her eyes film. He said, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, blinking rapidly as if she were fighting back tears. “I suppose I should be flattered that you still trust me enough to believe I’d give you an honest answer.”

“Kat-”

He reached for her, but she pulled away. “No. Let me finish. My love of Ireland is unchanged. I would do anything to see her free of this murderous occupation-anything, that is, except go back on the pledge I made to you.”

He felt as if he’d just sliced open his own chest and torn out his heart. “I should never have doubted you.”

“No.” To his surprise, she reached up to press her fingertips to his lips. “People are dying. I can understand why you felt you needed to ask. I kept the truth of my association with the French a secret from you when I should not have, and that will always be between us. It’s not good for a man and woman to keep things from each other. Secrets destroy trust. And without honesty and trust, love is just. . a shifting mirage.”

He took her hand in his, pressed his lips to her palm, then curled his fingers around hers. “My love for you was never a mirage.”

They stood face-to-face, nothing touching except their hands. He could feel the tiny shudders trembling through her, breathed in the familiar theater scents of greasepaint and oranges, looked into the deep blue eyes that were so much like those of her father. He said, “Do you ever think what would have happened to us if you hadn’t listened to Hendon all those years ago? If you had listened instead to your heart and married me when you were seventeen and I was twenty-one?”