“Oui, mademoiselle,” he replied. He stood perfectly erect and formal and immaculate, but Vitor had attention only for her. Intelligent, lovely, brave, forthright—she commanded the drawing room.
“You had the keys to the entire house,” she said. “You gave me entrance into the armory when I was searching for the dagger.”
“Oui, mademoiselle.”
“I suspect you locked away the dagger in a safe hiding place? The butler’s pantry, perhaps?”
“Oui, mademoiselle. I washed it then stored it in my cupboard. I will be glad to show it to you now, if you wish.”
“Why did you kill him?” Vitor said.
“I meant no harm to le gentilhomme anglais, monseigneur. I mistook him for his royal highness.”
Sebastiao backed a step away from his butler now, horror slipping over his face. “You mistook him for me?”
“Oui, your highness.” Monsieur Brazil bowed. “Monsieur Walsh wore upon his breast several medals of superior quality and garish display. I believed them to be your highness’s. He was of a size and weight with your highness, as well, and he was insensible from drink and dressed in a ridiculous costume.”
“You killed him because you thought he was me?”
“I took the dagger to him only to remove the offending organs. It was an unfortunately hurried affair.” He shook his head regretfully. “I felt I must act quickly, lest your highness awake and find me at my task. You might have cried for assistance.”
“I would have indeed!”
“You did considerably more damage than what you say you intended, Brazil,” Vitor said.
“Monsieur Walsh did not remain asleep. It seems that he was not unconscious but merely resting. He struggled. The dagger . . . slipped.” A furrow dug its way between his brows. “I did not open the visor of the helmet until he grew still. I regretted the mistake énormément.”
“Well, one doesn’t like to kill a man,” Sir Henry said, eyes round as his daughter’s.
Monsieur Brazil turned his attention upon Sir Henry. “I regretted it, monsieur, because it was not his highness whom my blade had dismembered.”
A horrified hush rippled through the party, a shocked recoil from the brutality he so calmly recounted.
“Why did you wish to harm me, Brazil?” the prince asked, his cheeks stark. “After all these years? And in such a manner?”
“Two years ago,” the butler said stiffly, “your highness celebrated here at Chevriot the recapture of l’Empereur and the finale of the war with a cadre of your amis peu honorables.”
Sebastiao’s brow knit. “I don’t recall . . . Vitor . . . ? Ah. Yes. You were at San Antonio at that time. I came here alone on that occasion.”
“Oui,” Monsieur Brazil confirmed. “Monseigneur would not have borne with those men your highness brought to this house.” His chin rose. “He is a man of honor.”
“What did I do, Brazil?” Sebastiao’s voice quavered. “What could I have done to make you despise me so?”
“It was not your highness but one of your disreputable friends. He enjoined my daughter, my young Clarice, to serve him in a manner she did not like. When she protested, he forced himself upon her. The following spring she gave birth to a son.”
Gasps again sounded throughout the drawing room, but Vitor cared only for Ravenna’s response. She had accused him of trying to use her because he believed her to be a servant. Now her starlit gaze came to him, but unreadable.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sebastiao said to Brazil. “I would have had him horsewhipped.”
“I informed you of the wrongdoing. Your highness, however, was too intoxicated to understand me.”
“For the entire month?”
“Oui. Then your highness departed.”
Sebastiao’s mouth opened without sound.
“You chose to punish the prince because of the dishonor he had brought to your family,” Vitor said.
“His highness dishonored Chevriot.” Brazil’s chest puffed out. “I did not wish to murder anyone.”
A murmur of disbelief arose from the guests all about the room. Disbelief with good cause. The artery had been severed.
“Didn’t you intend it, Brazil?” Vitor said.
The butler’s chin jerked around. “I only wished to make his highness suffer for the villainy he had allowed his friend to commit. I regret, however, that my act of justice harmed an innocent man.” He turned to Lady Grace and placed his fist over his heart. He bowed. “Mademoiselle, je suis navré.”
She turned her face away.
“Monsieur Brazil,” Ravenna said. “What became of your daughter and the babe?”
“Clarice wed,” he said stonily.
“Who?” Lady Iona asked.
“Cet imbécile, Sepic. She is”—his lips pursed—“amoureuse. And he with her, as well as the child he believes to be his son. It is dégo?tant.”
Sir Henry said, “Well, in the name of Zeus, that seems to settle it!” He looked at the disoriented faces all around, then at Vitor. “Doesn’t it?”
Vitor turned to Sebastiao’s guard. “Go to the village. Bring Monsieur Sepic but do not tell him the reason he has been summoned. We will leave that for his wife’s father to impart.” The guard nodded and went. “Monsieur Brazil, take me to the place you hid the dagger.”
“I have your back, Courtenay,” Lord Whitebarrow said.
“The mistake of the aristocracy,” Monsieur Brazil said with an arch sniff, “is to believe that the common man has no honor.” He turned his back on Lord Whitebarrow and spoke to Vitor. “Monseigneur, you are safe with me.”
Vitor nodded. Brazil’s mind was clearly damaged. He would be hanged for the murder of Oliver Walsh, at best deported to a penal colony. Only a man possessed by an ungovernable passion would pursue a dangerous course without first considering all potential pitfalls.
He accepted Whitebarrow’s offer. For years he had put himself in harm’s way without concern for the future. Now he had a powerful wish to remain alive.
THE DAGGER WAS retrieved, and the butler sent off with Sepic and two of the palace guards to the village jail. The party dispersed, to muse upon the bitter and the absurd, and to rest in the relief that the murderer no longer dwelled among them.
Lord Whitebarrow took Vitor aside. “Penelope assures me that the guards acted against you and Lord Case independent of her instructions. She paid them only to frighten you away from investigating the murder, but not to harm you. She suspects they intended to blackmail her and Grace into theft of the others’ jewels and such, but when they accidentally shot Case, they panicked and fled.”
“Do you believe her?”
Lord Whitebarrow’s face remained grave. “I believe that she is as cold as her—” His nostrils pinched. “She would say anything if she believed it to be to her advantage. I do not, however, believe she has the courage to intentionally cause a man’s death, Walsh’s or anyone else’s. But you have my word, as a man of honor, that she will be punished. I’ve a remote property in Cumbria near Workington that will suit the purpose.”
“Mining country, isn’t that?”
Whitebarrow’s eyes narrowed. “Precisely.”
Vitor went searching for Ravenna, but she had disappeared. In neither house nor stables could he find her.