I take it you didn’t think much of Monsieur de Longchamps-Montendre?” said Devlin later as they watched the two little boys sail a wooden boat across the Grand Basin in the Tuileries Gardens. The afternoon had turned gloriously warm, with a faint breeze that stirred the fresh new leaves on the double allée of stately chestnut trees and danced shadows across the wide, sun-sparkled pond.
“Not exactly,” said Hero, smiling as the boat dipped, then righted itself, and Simon squealed with delight. “But I’ve always been instinctively suspicious of overly smooth handsome young men.”
Devlin looked over at her, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “Is he smooth and handsome?”
“Very.”
They had brought the boys here, to that long stretch of public gardens that ran along the right bank of the Seine from the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre in the east to the newly renamed Place Louis XV in the west. The gardens were hundreds of years old, having been begun by Catherine de’ Medici back in the mid-sixteenth century. The Revolution had declared them public property, and they still were, although Hero wondered how long it would be before the Bourbons tried to reassert their control here as they were doing with so much else.
“It seems an unusual match,” said Hero as the boys lifted the boat, dripping, from the water. “For a son of the grand de Longchamps-Montendre family to marry the daughter of one of Napoléon’s dead generals, I mean.”
“Not when you realize that some of Napoléon’s generals were very good at amassing a considerable fortune.”
She looked over at him as they turned to walk up the gardens’ Grand Allée, the boys running ahead of them. “Was General La Hure?”
“He was. Not only that, but he married the daughter of a Swiss banker. And Angélique was their only heir.”
“Ah. It begins to make a lot more sense.”
“It does indeed—especially when you think about how much the de Longchamps-Montendre family lost during the Revolution. And don’t forget that Antoine is a younger son. He has a grand ancient name and a host of royal and noble connections, but no real wealth—at least, he didn’t until he married Mademoiselle La Hure.”
“So that’s why Sophie didn’t want Angélique to marry him,” said Hero, watching a squirrel creep cautiously down the trunk of a nearby chestnut, ears alert and eyes scanning the area for danger. “She thought he was a fortune hunter.”
“Probably. Although it’s also possible she shared your prejudice against pretty young men.”
Hero laughed softly. They walked along in silence for a time, enjoying the fresh breeze lifting off the river and the sweet song of the birds in the trees. The gardens were bursting with new life, the long canes of the climbing roses that had been trained over a series of wrought iron arches just beginning to come into leaf. Looking at them, she said, “Did you know your mother had such a profound interest in roses?”
“I didn’t, no. But Madame Dion and Sanson also mentioned it.”
The breeze was picking up. Hero could feel the mist from the fountains in the Octagonal Pond before them, hear Simon’s laughter as Patrick slung his arm around the younger boy’s neck and leaned in close to whisper something. She said, “I wonder if Sanson is telling the truth when he claims he met Sophie at the inn that evening simply by chance.”
Devlin let out a harsh breath. “I honestly don’t know. We’re talking about someone who was helping his father break men on the wheel when he was little more than a child. I suspect he’s very good at keeping things to himself.”
They’d reached the Fer à Cheval at the end of the gardens, and Devlin drew up at the stone balustrade, his face growing solemn as he stared out over the broad sweep of the former Place de la Révolution, where so many had lost their heads. They could smell coffee and freshly baked bread from a nearby café, hear laughter from the bath barge tied up at the quay below the embankment.
After a time, he said quietly, “I remember reading somewhere that Napoléon once encountered Sanson’s father here, in the Place de la Concorde. The Emperor asked Sanson if it bothered him, knowing that he’d killed so many thousands of men and women.”
Hero looked over at him. “What did Sanson say?”
“He said it was kings and emperors, judges and tribunals, who imposed the death sentences; all he did as executioner was carry those sentences out.”
Hero was silent for a moment, her gaze on the vast square where crowds had once gathered to cheer while so many died. She couldn’t help but think of the doomed men and women who’d made the tortuous journey here by tumbrel from the Conciergerie. What must it have been like, she wondered, listening to the roar of the spectators who’d gathered for the pleasure of watching you die? She thought of the unimaginable courage and fortitude it must have taken for them to face the terror of mounting the scaffold’s steps, of being thrust facedown beneath that great slanting blade. She thought about being forced to lie there, waiting to hear the swoosh of the falling blade, to feel the cold bite of its edge and then . . . what? Before she could stop herself, she shivered.
“I suppose in a sense he was right,” she said. “And yet if no one had been willing to do the actual killing, no one could have been executed.”
Beside her, Devlin’s face was solemn, the breeze ruffling the dark hair at his neck as he stared out over the death-haunted plaza. “I think I’d have been tempted to ask Napoléon if it bothered him, knowing how many young soldiers he’d led to their deaths.”
“I’ve no doubt Napoléon would argue that everything he did was for the greater good and glory of France,” said Hero.
The light had begun to soften and the warmth fade from the day. Calling the boys away from the Octagonal Pond, they turned to walk back up the gardens along the terrace that overlooked the Seine below. She saw Devlin’s eyes narrow against the sparkling flashes thrown up by the shimmer of the setting sun bouncing off the choppy surface of the river beside them, and he said, “Are you still interested in attending the Duchess of Wellington’s reception tonight?”
“Oh, Lord,” said Hero. “Is that tonight?” The Wellingtons had taken over one of Paris’s grandest old hôtels particuliers, and Hero had long nourished a burning desire to see inside it—which was why they hadn’t sent in their regrets. “I’d completely forgotten about it. And no, of course we don’t need to go.”
He shook his head. “Actually, I was thinking this English novelist that Angélique was telling you about will probably be there. What did you say her name is again?”
“Fanny Carpenter. I take it you’ve never read any of her books?”
“No,” he admitted.
Hero smiled. “She probably will be there, although I don’t know how much she’ll be able to tell us. It doesn’t sound as if she’s seen much of Sophie since the Restoration.”
They walked on in silence for a time, the light of the day fading around them. They’d almost reached the ancient stone walls of the Louvre when Hero said, “I went into the library when I was at the rue du Champs du Repos this morning.”
She was aware of Devlin stiffening beside her, his gaze focused straight ahead. He was silent for a long, painful moment, then said, “I take it you saw McClellan’s portrait?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
He kept his face turned half away from her, his expression unreadable as he watched the boys running ahead of them. But a muscle bunched along his jawline. “Do you think he’s my father?”
“It’s obviously a possibility, but . . .” She paused, trying to find a way to put her thoughts into words. “I think most women are attracted to a certain type of man. Perhaps Sophie was attracted to McClellan for the same reason she was attracted to your father—or because he reminded her of him.”
“Perhaps.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and she said, “Would it bother you if you were to discover it’s true—that McClellan is indeed your father?”
He glanced over at her. “I spent six years of my life fighting Napoléon. McClellan was one of his most brilliant marshals.”
“You would hold it against him that he fought for the nation that granted his family a place of refuge when they were in need?”
“When you put it that way, I suppose it does sound a tad churlish.” He paused, his features intent as he watched a barge making its way down the river. “I keep thinking I could have met my own father on the field of battle and I wouldn’t even have known it.” He turned his head, his strange yellow eyes looking directly into hers. “Although at the same time I find myself circling around and coming back to what Jamie Knox and his sister told me: that according to their mother, their father was either a Welsh cavalry officer or an English lord. McClellan is neither.”
“You don’t know for certain that Knox’s father and your father were the same,” Hero said softly.
“Don’t I?” Devlin shifted his gaze to where the two little boys were now hunkered down to study something on the ground before them, their heads close together. They looked so much alike in that moment that they might have been twins, only one was slightly larger than the other. “Vidocq told me last night that he served under McClellan. He says the marshal’s eyesight and hearing are legendary.” He paused, then added with a faint twist of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile, “Like mine.”
It was something they’d noticed about the boys—that both Simon and Patrick shared Sebastian’s abnormally acute senses, as had Jamie Knox. She said, “Perhaps it has something to do with having yellow eyes.”
Devlin’s lips curved now into a smile. “I suppose that’s one explanation.” Then he turned his head as Simon shouted.
“Mama!”
Together they watched as the boy came running up to Hero, his cheeks red with the day’s sun, his amber eyes gleaming with delight. “Look what I got!”
He thrust his hand out toward her, uncurling his fingers, and Hero braced herself, anticipating anything from a bug to a tree frog. But it was simply a chestnut, its shell glowing a warm reddish brown. “Ah,” she said, “what a find!”
Beside her, she heard Devlin smother a laugh and knew he’d seen her tense. She looked over at him, saw the glint of amusement in the unusual eyes he’d gifted to their son, and found herself aching for him. Aching for the heartbreak that comes from the loss of a mother, which she understood only too well.
And for the endless pain and confusion swirling around the question of his father, about which she could only guess.