Joanna Bourne: The Black Hawk

Noblemen are born knowing how to freeze impertinence. He’d had to learn. “I beg your pardon.”

“Your knives. I’ve seen them, you murdering little—”

“Enough.” He rapped it out. He lifted ice from inside his belly and put it in his voice. “I’ve had enough of this. Silence!”

Reams didn’t dare—didn’t quite dare—to answer back.

“There’s a superficial resemblance to knives used in overseas operations a decade ago. If you had military experience in the field,” he looked deliberately up and down the uniform, “or if you’d taken two minutes to examine the knives, the differences would be obvious.”

“I’ll be damned if—”

He cut it off. “That’s enough, Colonel. If one of my men went off half-cocked like that, I’d break him to sergeant. Be glad you don’t answer to me.”

He turned his back on Reams. “The knives are the crux of the matter.” He gathered the group with his eyes. They were all listening. “The blades are marked L’Atelier de Paris. That makes them very possibly French Military issue. French steel.” He glanced scathingly at Reams. “Not British.”

Reams wasn’t in a position to contradict, not knowing French steel from Italian sausage.

“A quarrel between Frenchmen?” Liverpool offered.

“Not as simple as that, unfortunately. The knives are engraved on the hilt, yes. But not AH . The letters are N and B —”

Castlereagh understood instantly. “The devil you say.”

“ NB for Napoleon Bonaparte . The knives were left at the scene as a warning. These are undoubtedly political murders. We’re looking at French revolutionary groups operating in London. There are still fanatics out there.”

There were murmurs of agreement. Significant glances back and forth. Napoleon might be an old man, embittered and sick, exiled to a remote outpost in the North Atlantic, but his name was still imperial. Every one of these powerful lords had been afraid of Napoleon’s Grande Armée.

Cummings knew he’d been outmaneuvered. What he’d seen in the evidence boxes at Bow Street was gone now. The face under the graying hair was pale as a fish belly. His mouth stretched in a tight smile, holding back rage.

Let’s finish this before he gets his balance back.

Time to frown and look serious. “I’ve sent word to our branch in Paris. We hope . . .” He was judicious for a second or two. “We hope this is some old revenge against two particular men, but we have to take into account the possibility of a larger plot.” His gesture spoke of a hundred secrets not told. “We’re investigating.”

One man nodded to the next. Before dawn, half the ton would know there was a plot to free Napoleon from St. Helena. Prime Minister to ten-year-old schoolboy, everyone loved plots.

Reams said, “Damn it! I know what I saw.”

Cummings knew when to retreat. “That’s enough, Colonel.” Whatever wormwood was, Cummings had bitten off a wad of it. “You were mistaken, obviously.”

Liverpool said, “It would be best to avoid such mistakes in the future.” From him, in this company, that was enough.

Castlereagh wanted to know if there was blood on the knives still. Fortunately, he was able to say, “There is. Yes.” Nothing like attention to detail.

It could have gone the other way. He could have been the one humiliated. He could even have been removed from the British Service. That quick. That easy. Whoever wanted to ruin Adrian Hawkhurst had found a fine instrument in Lord Cummings.

“Give me a few minutes with Sir Adrian.” Liverpool glanced around.

Men separated off in groups. Doyle chatted with Melbourne, who was with him at Cambridge. Reams stalked off muttering about “that upstart foreign bastard,” Hawkhurst, who was “half a Hindu, probably,” till Cummings put a lid on him.

Liverpool’s grandmother was Indian. Melbourne was, famously, Egremont’s bastard. Somebody should have shared this with the colonel.

When they were alone, Liverpool said, “I dislike settling quarrels between my intelligence departments.” That was both support and a warning. Liverpool was the consummate politician and, above all, a practical man. They understood each other reasonably well. “I don’t want to know what you did with those knives. Will the government be embarrassed in the newspapers?”

“It will not.”

“Cummings says there’s a Frenchwoman living at your headquarters. The implication is she’s a spy and involved in those murders.”

“A spy?” He allowed himself a wry smile. “Hardly. Markham’s foster daughter, Séverine, is staying with us while he’s in London. Also her sister, Mademoiselle Justine DeCabrillac. She goes by the name DuMotier in England.”

“DeCabrillac . . . ?”

“Daughters of the last Comte DeCabrillac.”

“Ah. Killed in the Revolution, wasn’t he? Terrible business for the daughters. I know the current comte. They’d be DuMotiers on the mother’s side. Some kind of cousin to Lafayette.”

That was the nobs for you. Always knowing who was related which way. “As to being spies . . . I’ll ask you to keep this sub rosa, but those two gathered intelligence in France during the war.” Which was true enough. No need to say who Justine had been working for.

“Admirable.” Liverpool ran eyes over the reception room, knowing everyone, noticing who was talking to who. “Someone asked me, the other day, if you were one of the Kent Hawkhursts. Nobody knew. You’re quite the mysterious figure.”

“I have never attempted to be. Merely . . . private.”

“Quite so. In your position, it’s natural.” Liverpool pursed his lips. “Markham took in a three or four French orphans, didn’t he, back during the Terror? Séverine DeCabrillac and one of the Villards—the old duc’s heir. There were some others. You’re a protégé of Markham, yourself, I understand.” He added delicately, “Another of those French orphans?”

“I’ve known Lord Markham a good long while. The DeCabrillac daughters are here tonight. Over there by the—”

“One of the difficulties with the French war was the pack of hungry émigrés that washed up in England. French second cousins we’d never heard of, mostly. A few turned out to be worth their salt. Some of them made fine army officers. I suppose Markham steered you in the direction of his own service.”

“You might say that.” Doyle had been persuasive about joining the British Service back when he was a kid. There’d been some mention that the other choice was hanging.

Liverpool nodded. “You know there are rumors about your background? Someone mentioned the translation of Hapsburg into English is Hawkhurst.”

I didn’t know that when I made the name up. “A coincidence. Speaking of émigrés who settled in England, both the DeCabrillacs are interesting women. Very independent. The older one keeps a shop in Exeter Street.”

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FOYER, CUMMINGS COLLECTED his overcoat. A footman helped him into it, handed him hat and cane, and went to attend three men who’d walked in the front door and were shedding belongings.

Hawker didn’t glance in that direction. He’d humiliated the man in public. Dealing with him was now dangerous as hand-feeding a rabid dog. Next week or next month he’d need to work with Military Intelligence again.

Or maybe not. Cummings and his happy lads had been brought back to England to enforce order upon an unruly populace. The papers were already calling it “England’s secret police.” Letters to the editor talked about dissolving Military Intelligence for good.

Cummings definitely had the wind up. Whoever wrote the letter that sent Cummings off to Bow Street understood his lordship right down to the ground.