Sebastian could think of another very good reason for Major Weston to have disappeared. But he kept that possibility to himself as he drove back to the village.
“See the chestnuts taken care of,” he told Tom as they drew up before the Blue Boar. “Then I want you to find Squire Rawlins and suggest that it might be a good idea to send his constable out to nose around Maplethorpe’s carriage house.”
The boy scrambled to take the reins, his sun-reddened face sharpening with sudden understanding. “’Oly ’ell! Ye think the major might be dead?”
“His wife certainly thinks it.”
“’Oly ’ell,” said Tom again. “What’ll I tell the Squire if ’e asks where you’ve gone?”
“Tell him . . . Tell him I’ve gone for a walk.”
Chapter 56
Sebastian had just passed the outskirts of the village when Lucien Bonaparte came thundering toward him mounted on a magnificent dapple-gray Arabian.
“My lord,” said Napoléon’s brother, the gray sidling and tossing its head as he reined in hard beside Sebastian. “I was coming to see you.”
“Oh?” Sebastian kept walking. He was in no mood to deal with the Emperor’s spoiled, self-indulgent brother.
“Is it true what they’re saying? That Daray Flanagan is dead?”
Sebastian glanced up at the Corsican’s pale, slack face. “Why? Are you admitting you knew him?”
“So it is true? He is dead? Mon Dieu. This is dreadful.”
“It’s certainly dreadful for Flanagan.”
The Corsican kicked his feet from the stirrups and dropped awkwardly to the ground. “There is something I must tell you,” he said, tugging at his rucked-up waistcoat as he fell into step beside Sebastian.
“Yes?”
“I fear I was not quite truthful when I said I am not in contact with Paris. Not with Napoléon, you understand, but with my mother.”
“I’d already figured that.”
Bonaparte’s jaw sagged. “You had?”
“I take it Flanagan was sent here as a courier?”
“He was, yes. But . . . how did you know?”
“Call it a good guess. You met with him on Monday? At the priory?”
The Corsican nodded miserably. “At three o’clock.”
Sebastian drew up abruptly and swung to face him. “Who was with him?”
Whatever Bonaparte saw in Sebastian’s face caused him to take a quick step back. “No one.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Who arrived at the priory first? You or Flanagan?”
“Flanagan.”
“So he was waiting there for you?”
“He was, yes.” Bonaparte looked puzzled. “That’s important. Why?”
Sebastian said, “And you saw no sign there of Emma Chandler?”
“No, nothing. And now Flanagan is dead, and I’ve just learned that young woman was at the priory that afternoon as well, and—”
“You didn’t know that?”
“That she was there? No! Not until just now, when I heard Lady Seaton discussing it with her steward.”
Emma’s presence at the priory that afternoon was known by everyone who had attended Emma’s inquest. But then, Lucien Bonaparte hadn’t been present at the inquest; he’d sent his son in the company of Lady Seaton and Samuel Atwater.
Bonaparte sucked in a quick, nervous breath. “Is it someone sent by Whitehall who’s doing this? I know that man, Hannibal Pierce, was their creature—”
“How do you know that?”
“Flanagan warned me. I wondered why he always insisted on passing me the packets from Paris in broad daylight rather than under cover of darkness. But he said anyone I met at night would immediately be suspect, whereas we might briefly encounter each other during the day without attracting undo attention.”
“Did you order Pierce killed?”
“No! I haven’t ordered anyone killed! I don’t kill people. I have never killed anyone. Never.”
“The message from Paris; what was it?”
“I can’t tell you that!”
Sebastian suppressed the urge to grasp the Corsican by the lapels of his coat and shake him. “Bloody hell. At least four people are dead because of that message—if not six.”
“You don’t know that!”
“You know it too. It’s why you’re here.”
Napoléon’s brother brought up two shaky hands to swipe them down over his face. “My mother wrote to say that if the armies of this new alliance continue to march against us, France will surely fall. Even the world’s most brilliant general needs an army, and there simply aren’t enough men between the ages of fourteen and sixty left to defend our borders. She wants to know if London would be agreeable to Napoléon abdicating in favor of his infant son, the King of Rome.”
“I could answer that question for her.”
Lucien nodded sadly. “I fear the time for such an action has passed. But I have sent out feelers to Castlereagh.”