“Do you blame him for what he did?” Hero asked.
She was seated in the armchair beside the fire in her chamber, with Sebastian on the rug beside her. “Wilkinson, you mean?” He leaned his head back against her knee and drew in a deep breath. “I’m still not convinced he went there to kill Eisler. He could have had some other scheme in mind.”
“A way to bell the cat?”
“Perhaps. Only, events got away from him—as they have an unfortunate tendency to do.”
“And then he killed himself,” she said quietly. “To spare his family the shame of the trial, and to give his wife and child a chance at a better life without him.” He felt her fingers playing with the hair that curled at the nape of his neck. “We don’t take good care of the men we ask to risk their lives and health for us, do we? We use them, and then when they’re no longer of value, we toss them away.”
“‘King George commands and we obey,’” quoted Sebastian. “‘Over the hills and far away.’” He turned to face her, his hands coming to rest on the growing swell of her belly. “Lately, I find myself wondering what the world will be like when she grows up.”
“He,” said Hero firmly.
Sebastian laughed. “You’re certain of that, are you?”
Her lips curved into a slow smile, and he thought she’d never looked more beautiful. “Yes.”
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Author’s Note
T
he theft of the French Crown Jewels from the Garde-Meuble in Paris in September of 1792 was essentially as described here, although the involvement of Danton and Roland, while suggested, has never been proven. Napoléon’s determination to recover the French Crown Jewels, as well as the ruthlessness of the methods he employed, was likewise real.
The identification of the Hope Diamond as the recut French Blue is now generally accepted. An old lead cast of the French Blue with a label saying it belonged to “Mr. Hoppe of London,” recently discovered in a drawer in the French National History Museum in Paris, was donated in 1850 by a descendant of the Archard family. Interestingly enough, Charles Archard was both a close associate of the Hopes and one of the lapidaries tasked by Napoléon to recover the French Crown Jewels. How Hope acquired the diamond is not known, although multiple theories exist. I have chosen the one best suited to my story. It is significant that Napoléon, who surely knew more than we do about the events of September 1792, always believed that the Duke of Brunswick (father of the Princess of Wales, Caroline) had been bribed with the diamond not to attack Paris. There is also considerable evidence to support the belief that Brunswick sent his jewels to Caroline when his duchy was threatened by Napoléon, and that she sold them after his death.
Hope and Co. did indeed run into financial difficulties as a result of the war and was sold to Barings in 1813.
The recut blue diamond reappeared, briefly, in London in September 1812, exactly twenty years after its original theft, when a Huguenot lapidary named Francillon drew up a sales prospectus for a London diamond merchant named Daniel Eliason. Since that gentleman did not meet a violent death (and was as far as I know nothing like the nasty character here portrayed), I have changed his name to Daniel Eisler in making him my murder victim. What happened to the diamond after September 1812 is not known, although there is considerable evidence that it was acquired by the Prince Regent and was in his possession until his death in 1830. At that point it reappeared in the possession of Henry Philip Hope, although he always refused to divulge its origins.
Numerous books have been written about the history of the Hope Diamond; arguably the most useful and current are Patch’s Blue Mystery, Kurin’s Hope Diamond, and Fowler’s Hope: Adventures of a Diamond.
Blair Beresford is of my own creation. However, Thomas Hope’s marriage to Louisa de la Poer Beresford was much as described here. After Hope’s death, she married her cousin William Carr Beresford, the illegitimate son of her uncle the Marquess of Waterford. A general under Wellington, he was eventually made Viscount Beresford. Interestingly, he was the commander responsible for the unauthorized, disastrous attack on the River Plate region in Argentina that played a part in Where Serpents Sleep.
The Walcheren Expedition and the deadly fever that resulted from it are both real.