The dethroned Queen of Holland was in the Passage des Panoramas, gazing at the array of fine chocolates displayed in a shopwindow, when Sebastian walked up to her.
Paris’s passages were the envy of the horde of aristocratic tourists visiting the city from London. Built in response to the wretched state of the city’s streets, the covered arcades protected shoppers from the rain, snow, traffic, and mud. Hortense Bonaparte was dressed for her outing in a walking gown of ruby sarcenet topped by a corded spencer with a Stewart neck, a high-crowned straw hat with a ruby plume, and delicate ruby kid slippers, all of which would have been ruined if she were forced to venture out into Paris’s crowded, manure-fouled streets.
Her attention was focused on the delights in the chocolatier’s lantern-lit window, so Sebastian had a moment to observe her before she turned and saw him. He watched as her lips curled into a practiced sultry smile, and she said, “I thought I’d be seeing you again. I take it you’ve heard about Napoléon?”
“Is there anyone in Paris who hasn’t at this point?”
“Probably not.” She tilted her head to one side, the smile still in place as her gaze searched his face. “And now you’re remembering the things I said to you and you’ve come to the conclusion I may have been less than honest?”
“Understandable under the circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”
“Is it?”
Rather than answer, he said, “I take it you knew of Sophia Cappello’s visit to Elba?”
Her eyes danced with what looked like genuine amusement. “Now, how would I have come to know that, hmm?”
“How, indeed.”
She turned to walk up the passage, and he fell into step beside her. “And when you went to see her that evening, was it to give her the Charlemagne Talisman?”
“Good heavens, no,” she said loudly enough to attract the attention of her two liveried footmen trailing some ten or fifteen feet behind them. “What a thought! I told you, I have no idea what happened to it—apart from which, why on earth would I give it to her if I did have it?”
“So how do you think Sophia Cappello came to have the amulet—or at least its case?”
“I’ve been giving that some thought, actually.”
“And?”
“My mother always said she’d leave the amulet to me, and I know she still had it when she took ill. Yet when she died, it was gone. Obviously she must have given it to someone, and one of the people who came to see her often in her final days was Dama Cappello.”
“Why would your mother give her the amulet?”
She looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’ve no idea.”
“I think you do.”
She laughed. “Are you calling me a liar, monsieur?”
Her voice was warm and low, seductive. This was a woman accustomed to using her sexual allure to captivate and manipulate men. After all, she’d grown up watching her mother seduce everyone from the powerful Director Paul Barras to Napoléon Bonaparte himself. After Joséphine’s failure to produce an heir led Bonaparte to divorce her (and, as he so bluntly put it, “marry a womb”), Joséphine retired to Malmaison, where, after the Emperor’s abdication, she struck up an intense flirtation with the Russian Tsar Alexander. She’d caught the cold that killed her while riding out with the Tsar in the rain.
Rather than answer, Sebastian said, “Did you ever ask Sophia Cappello if she had the amulet?”
“As it happens, I did. She said she did not.” Hortense paused beside a stationer’s shop, her gaze roving over the display of fine papers, quills, and inks. “Obviously she was being less than truthful.”
“Not necessarily. The case was empty when it was found, remember?”
“So it was.” She turned to walk on.
“Do you think Dama Cappello was planning to give the amulet to Napoléon when he returned?”
“But that would require her to know what Napoléon was planning, now, wouldn’t it?”
“So did she?”
Hortense shrugged. “Anyone who knows Napoléon would know that he could never be content to remain on that island for long. But did she know exactly when he was coming? I couldn’t say.”
“But you knew.”
She gave another of those soft laughs. “Well, the violets are blooming, aren’t they?”
“So they are.”
She paused again, her gaze fixed on him this time rather than on the shops beside them. “Did anyone ever tell you how much you resemble Marshal McClellan?”
“I believe we may be distantly related. My paternal grandmother was Scottish.”
“Ah. Then that would explain it. You know of course that he is with Talleyrand in Vienna, taking part in the negotiations at the Congress?”
“Yes.”
“How will he react, I wonder, when he hears Napoléon has returned?”
“I’ve never met the man. How do you think he will react?”
She gave a faint shake of her head. “It is a difficult choice that all of Napoléon’s officers will now be facing, yes?” She hesitated, her lips parting as she drew a quick breath. “I assume someone has told McClellan that the woman who was his wife in all but name is now dead?”
“I believe her avocat has contacted him,” said Sebastian in a flat, colorless voice.
He was aware of Hortense watching him closely. She said, “I wonder, has it occurred to you that Sophia Cappello may have been killed by someone who wanted to stop her from giving the amulet to Napoléon?”
“That had occurred to me.”
“Ah, yes, of course it has. They do say you are very clever.”
“Oh? Who says that?”
But she simply smiled and shrugged.
Sebastian was aware of the two footmen watching them from a discreet distance, their faces wooden. He said, “So tell me this: Why did you send me to Émile Landrieu?”
She opened her eyes wide as if in astonishment. “You mean to say you haven’t figured that out yet? Perhaps you need to look more closely into the museum director’s history, hmm? And now you must excuse me, monsieur; I promised an old friend I’d visit her this afternoon.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian, touching his hand to his hat with a bow.
He stayed where he was and watched her walk away, her two bodyguards ignoring him as they passed. He knew she was still lying to him, still hiding things from him, still toying with him. He knew it, and yet he was damned if he could untangle the morass of her entwined tales to understand where the truth lay.
There was no way, obviously, that this elegantly dressed, pampered ex-queen could have stabbed Sophie in the back and thrown her body over the edge of the bridge. This was a woman who never did anything for herself, who paid people to draw her bath, manicure her nails, and dress her hair.
She was more than capable of hiring someone to do her killing.