Chapter 17
The late-winter sun was sinking low in the sky by the time Sebastian drew up in the Place Dauphine.
“Stable ’em,” he told Tom, hopping down to the worn cobblestones of the old square.
“Aye, gov’nor.”
Sebastian watched the boy drive away toward the livery stables. Then, instead of entering the house, he turned to make his way down to the grassy point at the end of the island. The air was cooler closer to the Seine and damp, the dark gray water gurgling as it flowed swiftly past. He stood there for a moment, the breeze off the river buffeting his face and ruffling his hair as he watched a man in a navy coat and beret row a skiff upriver. Then he drew his mother’s letter from his pocket and broke the seal.
“Mon cher Sébastian,” she had written. “If you are reading this, then it must mean that I am dead. If only you knew how I’ve ached to see you again, even if it could only be a brief glimpse from afar. But perhaps it is best this way.”
He paused, his throat so thick it hurt, his gaze lifting to stare almost blindly at the barge moored on the opposite quay. The letter was written half in English, half in Italian and French, as if the use of her native tongue no longer came easily to her and she kept unconsciously slipping out of it. It was a moment before he could bring himself to continue reading.
I did see you once, some years ago. It was in Italy and you were dressed as a paysan, but I was certain it was you. Then I learned from Hendon something of what you did in the army and I knew I was right.
He wrote to me once a year, giving me news of you, Amanda, and her children. It was part of the Grand Bargain we made when I left England. And so I know you have by now discovered so many painful truths—that I did not die that wretched, long-ago summer, and that other truth, the one that would be unwise to commit to paper.
Do you judge me harshly for my actions in the past? I ache for the pain I know these discoveries must have caused you. I regret much of what I did in the course of my long, miserable marriage, but not that one fateful winter. How could I, when the result was you?
Hendon tells me you have seen your way to forgive him for the past, and I hope nothing I say here damages that. The fault for the tensions between us was as much mine as his, if not more so. I know that now, although I did not then. We were not “well suited,” as they say. What a disastrous brew of misery and despair those simple words can disguise.
I hope you can somehow find it within you to forgive me for leaving you that long-ago summer and for the lies you have been told. I wish this not for my sake, but for yours, for anger and resentment corrode the soul. I would have taken you with me if I could, but Hendon said no, you were legally his heir and he was determined to claim you as such. After all, I am a St. Cyr through my grandmother, and you know how important that has always been to him. By English law all children belong to their legally recognized fathers. But even if that were not the case, how selfish it would have been of me to take you with me into my unknown future—to take you away from the wealth and titles that will someday be yours. I could not do it, any more than I could stay.
And so we made our bargain, Hendon and I. I would leave England, never to return. It would be given out that I was dead, although of course neither of us would ever truly be free to remarry. Every year he would send the letter, along with a stipend. There have been times of late when I considered telling him I’ve no need of his financial support, but I feared that without the stipend he would no longer send the annual letter. If you knew how much that letter has meant to me these last twenty and more years, perhaps you would understand. Plus I will admit to taking a certain satisfaction in continuing to force him to pay, although I acknowledge that as petty and unworthy of me. I have not changed entirely, it seems.
He tells me you have married, that you are happy in your marriage, and that I have a grandson named Simon. Your happiness is all I could ask for—yours and Amanda’s, although she has always been a troubled soul. I’ve often regretted I did not make more of a push to prevent her match with Wilcox; perhaps with a different husband she would not have grown so bitter. But it’s difficult to say. Hendon’s mother was a hard, unpleasant woman, and I fear Amanda resembles her too much. She is my daughter and I love her, but she will do you harm if she can. Please beware.
There is so much more I would like to say, but I have been writing this letter off and on now for days, and the time has come when I must go. Please believe me when I say I love you more than life itself, and always have.
Je t’embrace,
Sophie
He didn’t know how long he stood there, the letter half crushed in one hand, the sound of the rushing river loud in his ears, and the wind whistling through the branches of the untidy tangle of trees beside him. He was aware of the last of the daylight leaching from the cloudy sky, of the rattle of carriage wheels on the bridge above and the scent of woodsmoke that came with every breath. But all he could think was She didn’t tell me.
How could she not have told him the name of his father?
How?
Rather than turning back toward the Place Dauphine, Sebastian walked across the southern arm of the Pont Neuf to the Hôtel Vert-Galant. The hotel stood on the Left Bank at the corner of the quai des Augustins and the rue de Thionville. Built of stucco and brick, with a steeply pitched mansard roof, it was a pleasant, respectable hostelry that looked as if it dated to the time of Henri IV, the first and most popular Bourbon king.
He ordered a glass of wine and sat for a time beside the fire in the public room, observing the establishment and its patrons and trying to figure out why Sophie had chosen this particular inn to come to that night. Because it was so close to the island? Or for some other reason entirely?
Some reason that might help explain her death?
The innkeeper was an older man in his sixties with wispy white hair, a round pink face, and a protuberant belly that strained against his leather waistcoat. Sebastian had little difficulty drawing him into conversation about the woman who’d been found dead on the Île de la Cité, for he was a gregarious man with what was obviously an intense lifelong interest in his fellow beings. Perhaps as a result, he seemed to find nothing either peculiar or suspicious in Sebastian’s questions on the subject.
“Ah, oui, she was here last night,” said the Frenchman, his eyes wide with the excitement of it all. “Must’ve been not too long before she was killed, the way I figure it. Poor woman.”
“She came for a meal?” said Sebastian.
“Non, a glass of wine only. Took it in a cabinet particulier, of course. You won’t find a lady of her quality drinking wine in the common room.”
“She was alone?”
“When she came in? Oh, yes. Left alone, too.”
“And what time was that?”
“When she left?” The innkeeper pursed his lips with thought. “Seven? Half past, perhaps?”
It had been shortly after nine o’clock when Sebastian found her. My God, he thought with a sickening lurch in his gut. Had she lain there in the dark, alone, afraid, and in pain for as much as two hours? Then he remembered Pelletan saying that the bruises on her arms had been made at the same time as her other injuries, within an hour or so of her death. So where had she been between the time she left the Vert-Galant and the encounter with her killer an hour or so later?
Aloud he said, “She left walking?”
“Non. Asked me to call a fiacre, she did.”
Sebastian knew a glimmer of hope. All fiacres were licensed by the Parisian police, which meant that theoretically they ought to be able to track this one down—if the police were willing. “Did you notice the number?”
“No, sorry; can’t say I recognized the driver, either.”
“Did you hear her give him directions?”
“Non.” The innkeeper obviously regretted this lack of attention to and personal knowledge of such important details in the drama, and added reluctantly, “But I suppose he might know where she was going.”
The innkeeper’s emphasis on the word “he” struck Sebastian as peculiar. “He? I thought you said she was alone.”
“He didn’t come with her. Walked in just as she was leaving. Greeted her like an old friend, he did.”
“Do you know who he was?”
A strange mixture of revulsion and fear came over the innkeeper’s face, and he shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t think you’ll find anyone in Paris who doesn’t know who he is.”
“Oh?”
The innkeeper cast a quick look around, then leaned forward, his voice dropping as if he were imparting a terrible secret. “Le bourreau.”
It took Sebastian a moment to grasp what the innkeeper was saying. Bourreau meant “executioner,” and in Paris it was generally used to refer to one man and one man only. “You mean Sanson? Henri Sanson?”
The innkeeper made a rude noise and jerked his head toward the inn’s old-fashioned entrance hall. “Stood right there and chatted for a good five minutes, they did.”
Sebastian found that baffling. The office of public executioner was both hereditary and lucrative, and a Sanson had served Paris in that capacity for generations. But despite their wealth, the family had long been considered social pariahs. During the Revolution, Henri Sanson and his late father, Charles-Henri, had beheaded thousands. Their victims ranged from unlucky commoners to nobles, princes, and royals—including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. No one wanted to associate with the Sansons in any way. So why and how had Sophie come to befriend such a man? And why had she been meeting with him last night of all nights?
Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. “Did they leave together?”
“Non. After she left, he came in and had a glass of wine.”
“Did she meet or speak with anyone else?”
The innkeeper thrust out his lower lip and shook his head. “Non. Only Sanson.”
“Did she strike you as afraid or nervous in any way?”
“Non. She was tired, though; I could see that. And perhaps a bit preoccupied with something she had in her reticule.”
“What was that?”
“A small red leather case of some kind. Fancy thing, it was. Don’t think she wanted me to see it—tucked it away quick enough when she realized I was coming with her wine.”
Sebastian raised his own glass to his lips and drained it. There had been no red leather case, either in Sophie’s reticule or on the ground near it. But its absence might explain why her reticule was open when it was thrown from the bridge.
And why she was killed.