When Blood Lies Read online

  Hero leaned forward. Breathe! she was silently screaming, her fist tightening around that limp hand. Please breathe!

  Then she heard Devlin say, his voice sounding as if it came from a long way off, “She’s gone.”

  Chapter 4

  The physician arrived some ten minutes later.

  They were still seated beside the Countess’s deathbed when a housemaid brought word of Dr. Pelletan’s arrival. A small fire crackled on the hearth, but the bedroom was in heavy shadow, and for one long moment, Sebastian could only stare at the servant. He felt numb inside, so numb he wondered if he’d ever feel anything again. A part of him knew that somewhere beneath the numbness must, surely, lie pain and grief.

  Surely?

  He felt Hero’s hand touch his arm, heard her say to him quietly, “Would you like me to go down to thank him and tell him he’s no longer needed?”

  “No.” Sebastian pushed to his feet. He had the strangest sensation, as if he were moving through someone else’s life, or as if he were outside of himself, watching his own actions with a wooden sense of detachment. “No. I’ll see him.”

  He found Philippe-Jean Pelletan standing near the window at the front of the house’s small salon, his gaze on the darkly shifting, wind-tossed trees beyond. The physician was a slim man of just above average height, his thick dark hair mingled with gray, his long, thin face dominated by a prominent jaw, his dark eyes deeply set. Although Sebastian knew the man must be somewhere in his sixties, he looked and seemed younger, his movements quick and energetic.

  “Monsieur le vicomte,” said the doctor, turning from the window with a bow, “I came as soon as I could. Is the patient—”

  “She’s dead.”

  Pelletan was silent for a moment, his gaze on Sebastian’s face in a way that made Sebastian wonder what the physician saw there. He had met the Frenchman the week before in a courtesy call, for Pelletan’s daughter now lived in London and was known to Sebastian. But that had been a social occasion, whereas this was a professional visit and therefore quite different.

  “It’s a pity. You know this woman?” said Pelletan.

  Sebastian walked over to where a decanter and collection of crystal glasses stood on a tray. “May I offer you a drink?”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  Sebastian splashed a hefty measure of brandy into a glass. “I hope you don’t object if I have one?”

  Pelletan shook his head.

  Sebastian replaced the stopper in the decanter with studied care. “For some years now she has called herself Dama Cappello. But her real name is the Countess of Hendon.” He paused, then looked over at the French doctor. “She is—was—my mother.”

  Pelletan pursed his lips, his brows lowering in a way that suggested Dama Cappello was not unknown to him, at least by reputation. “Please accept my sincere condolences on your loss, monsieur.”

  “Thank you.” The brandy glass cradled in one hand, Sebastian went to stand at the window, his gaze on the small triangular-shaped Renaissance-era square below. For one shuddering moment, the physical ache of his grief was almost unbearable, so that he had to force himself to go on. “The circumstances surrounding her death are . . . confused. I would like to ask you to examine the body, perhaps give us some idea as to the cause and circumstances of her death. She was found lying in the grass beneath Pont Neuf in a way that suggests she might have fallen from above. There are significant head wounds, but I don’t know if they are the result of the fall or if she was perhaps struck before being thrown from the bridge.”

  Pelletan stared at him. “You’re asking me to perform an autopsy? Here? Now?”

  “Not an autopsy precisely. More along the lines of a preliminary examination and analysis.” He hesitated and, when the doctor still looked reluctant, added, “If you would be so kind?”

  In France a man could be both a physician and a surgeon, for the professions were not separated here the way they were in England by centuries of custom and prejudice. Thus Dr. Pelletan was both a longtime professor at the Faculté de Médecine de Paris and chief surgeon at the ancient hospital known as the Hôtel-Dieu, positions he’d held for the past twenty years. And it occurred to Sebastian as he watched Pelletan consider his request that the man was both a respected professional and a consummate survivor, for he’d somehow managed to maintain his places despite the Restoration, despite having served as consultant-surgeon to the Emperor Napoléon, despite having once performed the autopsy on the body of the ten-year-old uncrowned boy king, Louis XVII.

  Pelletan thoughtfully swiped one long, fine-boned hand down over his mouth and chin, his palm rasping against the blue shadow of his day’s growth of beard. “Very well. Perhaps you could send Lady Devlin’s abigail to assist if there is a need to remove her ladyship’s clothing?”

  Sebastian sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, of course.”

  * * *

  It was more than an hour before Pelletan came back down the stairs from the guest bedroom, his features grim. He was in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, for he’d stripped off his coat, and he apologized to Hero for forgetting and moved quickly to draw it on again as he entered the salon.

  “There’s no doubt she fell from a great height,” he said, adjusting the collar of his coat. “Presumably, as you suggest, from the bridge near which she was found. Her right femur and right humerus are broken, along with several ribs and perhaps several vertebrae. I presume there is also considerable internal damage, although without a more invasive examination there’s no way to know for certain.”

  Sebastian held himself quite still. “And the blows to her head?”

  “The injury to her right temple is, I believe, a result of the fall. It’s difficult to be certain about the more severe blow to the back of the head. But the knife wound in her back was obviously not caused by the fall.”

  “She was stabbed?” How could he have missed that?

  “She was, yes. By a stiletto, most likely. It’s a small but deep wound that bled very little, at least on the outside. I suspect the internal damage was considerably more severe.”

  “She was stabbed only the once?” said Hero.

  Pelletan glanced toward her. Another man in his position might have resented being questioned by a woman. But Pelletan’s own daughter had studied to become a physician in Italy, and he answered without hesitation. “Just the once, yes, my lady.”

  “Would a more invasive examination provide any additional insights?” asked Sebastian.

  “Probably not.” Pelletan paused, his gaze on the cuffs of his shirt, which Sebastian now noticed were stained with blood. “But I did notice one other thing. . . .”

  “Yes?” prompted Sebastian when the physician’s voice trailed off.

  “There are bruises on her arms that were not caused by the fall.”

  “Show me,” said Sebastian.

  * * *

  She looked so small lying in the center of the heavy old-fashioned bed, the white coverlet drawn up over her chest, her bare arms resting outside the covers and straight down at her sides. A delicate gold chain with a single pearl pendant lay around her neck; in her earlobes were simple pearl drops. Her eyes were closed, her features composed, almost at peace. With the help of Hero’s abigail, Pelletan had removed and set aside her clothing and washed the worst of the blood from her face and head. In the dim light cast by the flickering candles, she might have been sleeping.

  Might have been.

  “If you look at the bruising here, on her forearm,” said Pelletan, going to lift one arm gently and turn the delicate inner flesh to the light, “and there, on the other”—he paused to nod to where her right arm still rested at her side—”you can see quite clearly the marks left by a man’s fingers digging into the flesh. The bruises are not old; they were made essentially at the same time as her other injuries, within an hour or so of death. Going by
these marks, I’d say it’s highly probable someone stabbed her in the back, either before or after possibly striking her on the back of the head. He then left these bruises while lifting her up to throw her over the bridge’s parapet.”

  Sebastian stood with his arms crossed at his chest, his breath backing up tight and painful in his throat. The dark purple oval-shaped bruises showed quite clearly against Sophie’s pale skin, and he felt a rush of rage so hot and powerful that he was shaking with it.

  Pelletan laid her arm down and said quietly, “Have you notified the police?”

  Sebastian cleared his throat and somehow managed to say, “Yes. But we haven’t heard from them yet.”

  Pelletan nodded as if he found this unsurprising. “How much do you know about Sophia Cappello?”

  Sebastian felt himself stiffen. “Why do you ask?”

  “She was . . .” The Frenchman hesitated as if searching for a delicate way to phrase it, then settled on “quite close to General McClellan, one of Napoléon’s marshals.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said Sebastian.

  Alexandre McClellan was something of a legend. The descendant of a proud old Scottish Jacobite family that had taken refuge in France after the disaster of ’forty-five, he’d long been considered one of Napoléon’s most brilliant generals.

  “Like most of the former Emperor’s marshals, McClellan has now sworn allegiance to the Bourbons,” Pelletan was saying. “I believe he’s in Vienna, working with Talleyrand to secure the best possible terms for France from the Congress.”

  Sebastian studied the French doctor’s solemn profile. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  Pelletan snapped his bag closed and turned to face him. “I’m saying there may be more to this death than a simple robbery somehow gone terribly wrong. It’s not easy to unite a country again after so many years of trauma and bloodshed. In the past quarter century, France has seen half a dozen different governments come and go—absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic, directorate, consulate, empire. Now here we are once again, back to monarchy. In the past eleven months, we’ve torn down the tricolor and raised the white Bourbon flag, chipped the Emperor’s bees and eagles off our buildings, renamed squares and bridges, and replaced the prints of Napoléon in our shopwindows with those of Louis XVIII. Such external changes are easy. But beneath it all, resentments and hatreds linger. Fester. And unfortunately, certain powerful people are far more interested in retribution than in reconciliation.”

  There was no need for him to mention any names. The newly restored King Louis XVIII might be genuinely interested in compromise, but he was lazy and weak. The real power in the family lay with the King’s younger brother and heir presumptive to the throne, Charles, the comte d’Artois, and with their niece, Marie-Thérèse, the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Both were filled with bitterness and wrath and an unquenchable thirst for revenge.

  “What does any of this have to do with my mother’s death?” asked Sebastian.

  “I don’t know that it does. But . . . I would advise you to be careful, my lord. Be careful what questions you ask and be very careful whom you trust.” He reached for the hat he’d set on a nearby bureau. “There. I’ve probably said more than I should have. Good luck to you, monsieur. You’re going to need it.”

  Chapter 5

  Marie-Thérèse, Duchesse d’Angoulême—niece of the newly restored Bourbon King, Louis XVIII; wife of his nephew and presumed eventual heir; and daughter of the martyred King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—sat on an elevated thronelike chair at one end of a salon in the southern pavilion of the Tuileries Palace. It was a long, narrow room, aggressively opulent and dripping with gilded carvings, tall pier mirrors, red velvet hangings, and massive Rococo paintings of heroic Classical scenes. A string quartet played Vivaldi out of sight behind a screen. The sweet melody was virtually the only sound beyond the discreet rustling of silken skirts and a quickly stifled cough.

  As was her habit, the King’s niece worked her needle in and out of the canvas in her lap with quick, aggressive strokes. Her longtime huissier du cabinet and premier valet de chambre—a lanky, dark-haired, monkish man with a hawklike face and the eyes of a fanatic, named Xavier de Teulet—stood just behind her chair and slightly to one side, staring woodenly into space. Two long rows of expensively dressed, stony-faced ladies stood on each side of the red carpet that led to Madame Royale; but there was no conversation. This was the protocol for Marie-Thérèse’s receptions: The ladies lined up strictly according to rank and endured the honor of their attendance in rigid boredom while the Duchess attacked her needlework and ignored them.

  As was typical of her, the thirty-six-year-old Madame Royale wore a somber black dress with a severe high neckline and Renaissance-like ruff. Only occasionally would she acquiesce to the entreaties of her uncle the King that she “please try to look a little less ghoulish” and wear colors. Marie-Thérèse was in a perpetual state of mourning for her murdered family and she wanted everyone, especially the people of France, to know it. She also wanted them to know that she held them responsible for her loss and endless suffering, and that she would never, ever forgive the ways in which they had individually and collectively let her down. As a result, most of the residents of the country who had once pitied her had learned after less than a year to heartily despise her.

  “We expected you nearly an hour ago,” she said imperiously to the man now approaching her along the carpet edged by those two rows of rigid ladies.

  His name was Charles, Lord Jarvis, and he was a distant cousin to the poor old mad British King George III and his son the Prince Regent. But that simple description was deceptive. A ruthless, eerily omniscient man with an enviable network of spies, informants, and assassins, Jarvis was generally acknowledged as the real power behind the Hanovers’ wobbly throne. It was the reason Marie-Thérèse had called him here today.

  “My apologies, madame,” said Jarvis, bowing low.

  He was a large man, well over six feet tall, big-boned, and tending toward flesh now in late middle age. In his youth he had been an attractive man; he was still handsome, with an aquiline nose, a deceptively winning smile, and gray eyes that blazed with a rare and piercing intelligence.

  “You know why we wished to see you?”

  “Not exactly, madame.”

  The Duchess lifted her voice and said, “Leave us,” to the two rows of ladies in attendance. She waited while the air filled with the swish of silk gowns, the quick patter of slippered feet, the breathy little sighs of what Jarvis suspected was profound relief. Then she said, “We understand there are disturbing rumors on the streets of Paris—rumors that the Beast, Napoléon, may attempt to escape from the isle of Elba and return to France.”

  Jarvis threw a quick glance at the Chevalier de Teulet, but the Duchess’s huissier du cabinet did not meet his gaze. Such speculation had been common for months, and Jarvis found himself wondering why someone had chosen to tell Madame Royale about it now.

  “It remains a possibility, madame,” said Jarvis with another bow.

  She stabbed her needle down through her canvas with enough force to make a loud popping sound. “He should have been executed. If he’d been shot—or, better yet, hanged—we would not have this worry now.”

  It was on the tip of Jarvis’s tongue to suggest that executing a monarch whose coronation had been blessed by the Pope might not be a wise practice for royals to encourage, but he swallowed the temptation. Anything that reminded Marie-Thérèse of her own parents’ executions twenty-some years before was liable to set her off into a bout of hysterical weeping and prostrate collapse that could last anywhere from hours to days.

  He was aware of the Duchess’s brittle blue eyes upon him. She was not a particularly intelligent woman, and she was far from wise. But the blood of murderous generations of Bourbons, Hapsburgs, and Medicis flowed through
her veins; one underestimated her at their peril.

  “You have heard nothing from London regarding Buonaparte?” Her lips curled into a sneer as she gave the Corsican’s name its original Italian pronunciation.

  “Only that he resents the French King’s failure to pay the annual two million francs as agreed to in the Treaty of Fontainebleau.”

  “Does he find himself in straitened circumstances?” The sneer turned into something like a smile. “What a pity.”

  “Men in straitened circumstances can become desperate. Perhaps desperate enough to make a push to recover their lost thrones.”

  “He can try.” Her needle flashed in and out with a vengeance. “It would give us the opportunity to hang him, as he should have been hanged last year.”

  He thought she might press him for more details of Napoléon’s sequestration on Elba and of the guard the British had set upon him. Instead she surprised him by saying, “I hear your daughter, Lady Devlin, is in Paris.”

  “She is, yes,” said Jarvis, wondering where she was going with this.

  “She must come to one of our receptions.”

  Somehow, Jarvis managed to suppress a smile at the thought of Hero meekly taking her place in those hierarchically correct rows of silent, bored ladies. “I have no doubt she would be honored.”

  The needle flashed in and out, in and out. “And what do you hear from the Congress of Vienna?”

  “Only that they are close to agreement.”

  “That would be welcome news. Except that there are those who suggest Napoléon may be waiting until the Congress breaks up before attempting his return—the idea being that the Allies would find it more difficult to unite in opposition to him once the Congress is no longer in session.”

  Once again Jarvis found himself wondering who had told her this and why. The truth was, any knowledgeable person advising the exiled Emperor would probably tell Napoléon to make his move soon. Dissatisfaction with the Bourbon restoration in France was growing steadily and might easily erupt in a revolt that could end by putting the more popular Orléans branch of the French royal family on the throne. But Jarvis had no intention of explaining that to the wife of the man who expected to someday, after the deaths of his childless uncle and father, be king.