What Darkness Brings

Chapter 32



F

inding himself unexpectedly free, Collot took off in a stumbling trot down the alley, his hands splayed out awkwardly at his sides, the tails of his tattered coat flying in the damp breeze.

Sebastian let him go.

He was remembering a dark carriage looming out of the night, a frightened young man running toward those whom he believed were his allies, the deadly spurt of flame from the end of a darkened rifle barrel. Who would do something like that?

The obvious answer was, people without conscience or scruples.

People who see their own agents as expendable.

People with far more at stake than a mere diamond, however big and rare.

Still turning Collot’s revelations over in his mind, Sebastian emerged from the alley into the raucous turmoil of the street beyond. Someone was scraping on a fiddle, and half a dozen Irishmen were dancing a jig, cheered on by a circle of laughing, ragged women. Beyond them, he could see a lithe, pockmarked man wearing a small-brimmed, dented hat and standing by himself on the far side of the street. He had one shoulder propped against a rough brick wall, his hands thrust in his pockets, his gaze seemingly directed toward a saucy redheaded bit o’ muslin who was smiling at him. But when Sebastian turned south, toward Covent Garden, the man readjusted his hat and pushed away from the wall to follow him.

As he wound his way up the crowded street, Sebastian was aware of the pockmarked man behind him. The man hung well back, always careful to keep some distance between them. But when Sebastian paused to gaze through the misted window of a coffeehouse, his shadow paused too. The man had a lean, sharp-boned face with a small nose, a pointed chin, and dark hair. His clothes were those of a day laborer or apprentice. . . .

Or someone considerably more unsavory.

Whistling softly, Sebastian continued on.

The pockmarked man fell into step behind him.

As they neared Long Acre, the crowds became more scattered, the neighborhood less depraved. Sebastian quickened his pace, his footsteps and those of his shadow echoing dully in the narrow streets. He turned right onto Long Acre, then immediately drew back into the darkened doorway of a button shop. The pockmarked man rounded the corner and continued past Sebastian some three or four paces before becoming aware that his quarry had suddenly vanished. He abruptly drew up.

Sebastian stepped from the doorway into the light of a street lamp and said, “Who are you and why the hell are you following me?”

The man whirled. Rather than dissembling or startling in any way, he whipped a nasty knife from beneath his coat and lunged forward to slash the blade across Sebastian’s stomach with enough force to have disemboweled him if the steel had cut flesh. Instead, the knife ripped through the covering of the bolster Sebastian had used to pad his torso. A cascade of white feathers spilled around them, fluttering in an airy flurry to the wet pavement.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” For one unguarded moment, the man stared at him, confused.

“You son of a bitch,” swore Sebastian, his boot lashing out to smash into his assailant’s wrist.

The impact sent the knife careening into the darkness. Sebastian followed the kick with a jab of his right fist that caught the man high on the cheekbone and spun him half around. A second blow glanced across his ear and knocked the dented hat flying.

With an angry roar, the assailant lowered his head and charged, fists flailing. But the feathers were slick underfoot, the soles of his shoes slipping, throwing him off balance. Sebastian landed another punch against his assailant’s temple. The man broke and ran.

Leaping off the flagway into the street, he nearly collided with a hackney drawn by a skittish chestnut. The horse reared, neighing in alarm as the man dashed down the narrow lane that led to St. Paul’s and Covent Garden Market.

Sebastian pelted after him.

They erupted out of the lane into the broad market square, its stalls now shuttered in the darkness. During the day, the piazza before St. Paul’s was the site of London’s largest produce market. But at night, it was given over to the city’s demimonde. Painted women in low-cut gowns hissed and whistled as the two men pelted across the square, sliding awkwardly on the mushy cabbage leaves and smashed rotten fruit underfoot.

The man was lithe and agile and amazingly fleet-footed. Rather than gaining on him, Sebastian soon found himself having a hard time keeping up. They raced between rows of shuttered stalls, leapt over piles of refuge, and dodged sleepy, ragged little boys who crawled out from beneath the dark counters to holler at them. On the far side of the square, an aged landau pulled by a mismatched team of bays dashed past, its gray-bearded coachman clad in worn livery, its sole passenger a turbaned dowager either too financially pressed or too cheap to employ a footman to ride up behind her. With a running jump, Sebastian’s assailant leapt up to catch hold of the rear bar, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the platform.

“God damn it,” huffed Sebastian as the landau bowled on up the street, carrying its uninvited hanger-on away with it. The pockmarked man pivoted agilely, one hand still grasping the bar, the other raised to his forehead in a mocking salute.

Sebastian sprinted after the landau for another two blocks. Then the carriage turned onto the Strand, picking up speed as it rolled away toward the west.

He gave it up.

Hunching over, he braced his hands against his thighs, his body shuddering as he drew air into his aching lungs. A few last feathers fluttered down around him like the downy flakes of winter’s first snow.



“So who was he?” asked Hero, pausing in the doorway to Sebastian’s dressing room.

The house was quiet around them, the room lit only by a brace of candles on the dressing table. He pulled the ruined shirt off over his head and unwound the bindings that held what was left of the padding around his waist. “I don’t know. But he was French.” He frowned down at the flesh revealed beneath the bindings. The tip of the man’s blade had cut through the padding enough to leave a long, angry weal across his lower abdomen.

“You’re acquiring an impressive collection of cuts on your torso,” said his wife, pushing away from the doorframe. “All you need now is a slice along the right side of your ribs and the symmetry will be complete.”

“Huh,” he grunted, and tossed the shredded padding at her.

She ducked, laughing, then went to uncork a flask of alcohol and liberally soak a folded cloth. “Whoever he was, he must have been watching Jacques Collot rather than you; otherwise, he would have known your protuberant belly began life as a feather pillow.”

“You’re probably right. In which case the question then becomes, who is watching Jacques Collot? And why?”

She came to press the alcohol-soaked pad to his cut. He sucked in his breath in an audible hiss.

“Stings, does it?” she said, her voice pleasant.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you of deriving some sort of fiendish delight from this.”

She grunted, her head bent as she focused on her task. “Tell me again what Collot said about the theft.”

He told her. He watched the way the flickering light from the nearby candles danced across her face, watched as she gripped her lower lip between her teeth while she worked.

He said, “Why do I get the distinct impression that none of this is exactly news to you?”

She set the pad aside and carefully recorked the flask. “How much do you know about Princess Caroline’s father, the Duke of Brunswick?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.”

“He was a surprisingly accomplished and unusual man—very much a student of the Enlightenment. They used to call his court at Wolfenbüttel the ‘Versailles of the North.’ It was a center for poets and artists and men of letters, and filled with an exquisite collection of books, paintings, and fine furnishings.”

“Sounds like Daniel Eisler would have loved it,” said Sebastian.

“Napoléon certainly did.”

“He ransacked it?”

“I think ‘stripped it’ would be a more accurate term.” She perched on the edge of the bench while he poured warm water in the basin. “Napoléon had something of a grudge against the Duke. You see, in addition to being the brother-in-law of the King of England, father-in-law to the Prince of Wales, and a patron of artists and scholars, he was also considered one of Europe’s best generals. When the American colonists revolted against us, good ole King George actually asked Brunswick to lead Britain’s forces. He refused.”

Sebastian looked over at her. “Any particular reason?”

“Some say it was because he wanted King George to fail—that he was sympathetic to the Americans’ cause.”

“Was he?”

“I suspect he was. In 1792, the French revolutionary government in their turn approached Brunswick and asked him to take command of their army. He refused them as well, but not without expressing his support for the reforms they were enacting.”

Sebastian scrubbed at his face and hair, rinsing away the ashes and grease. “So why did he agree to take command of the combined armies of Austria and Prussia instead?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps they gave him no real choice. But his distrust of the Austrians was well-known, as was his belief that the Prussian King—also his cousin, by the way—was a fool.”

Sebastian reached for a towel. “According to Collot, Brunswick’s army was within a hundred miles of Paris at the time of the theft of the French Crown Jewels.”

She nodded. “That’s right, at Valmy. It’s well-known that the revolutionary government tried to negotiate with Brunswick—to persuade him to withdraw. A meeting was actually held.”

“And?”

“Supposedly, the negotiations failed.”

Sebastian frowned. “But Brunswick still didn’t attack Paris.”

“No, he didn’t. And every day he held off was one more day the French were able to use to build up their own forces. Did you know that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was with the Prussian Army at Valmy?”

“I did not.”

“His account of those days makes interesting reading. He was convinced some sort of treachery was afoot. He says there was no conceivable reason why an attack on Paris wasn’t launched immediately.”

“But there was eventually a battle.”

“Eventually. Although it was more in the nature of a small skirmish. And after that, Brunswick simply . . . withdrew. The next day, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic. And barely four months after that, Louis XVI was beheaded.”

“You’re saying Collot was right—that Brunswick was bribed?”

“According to the rumors, his price was five million livres.”

“With part of the payment being delivered in the form of the French Blue?”

“That’s the rumor.”

He looked over at her. “And is the rumor true?”

“I’ve never been told.”

Which did not, he realized, exactly answer his question.

Their gazes met. And he knew it again, that awareness that no matter how close they might become, Jarvis’s shadow—and Hero’s loyalty to her father—would always be between them.

She said, “After everything you’ve learned about Eisler—the blackmail, the financial exploitation, the sexual debauchery—you still think the mystery surrounding this blue diamond is somehow involved in his death?”

“Somehow, yes.”

She nodded as if coming to a decision and rose to her feet. “Then you might find it useful to speak to a certain colonel in the Black Brunswickers named Otto von Riedesel. He was in Spain with Wellington up until a few months ago, when he was wounded. But before that he served the old Duke of Brunswick.”

Sebastian swiped the towel at a drop of water running down his cheek, then tossed it aside. A corps of volunteers raised by the current Duke of Brunswick to fight against Napoléon, the Black Brunswickers were known for their brutality.

And for their fierce desire for revenge.