He said, “You know him?”
“I believe I may have seen him before.” She hesitated, then added, “In London.”
What she didn’t say was, He works for my father.
Half an hour later, Hero was in their private parlor at the Blue Boar, a branch of candles at her elbow and Emma Chance’s sketchbook open on the table before her, when Devlin walked in, bringing with him the scent of meadows and mud and country mist.
“Find what you were looking for?” she asked.
“No. Not a bloody thing.” He took off his hat and whacked at the leaves and twigs still clinging to his breeches. “What are you studying there?”
She turned the sketchbook around to face him. “This.”
He came to lean his outstretched arms on the table, his features intent as he gazed at the portrait of a man wearing a beaver hat and fashionably tied cravat. The face was rugged and big-boned, with a prominent jawline and a long, aquiline nose. Hero had seen the portrait before, when she first glanced at the sketchbook. But she hadn’t thought to associate this sketch with the man she’d occasionally seen in London. Now she realized that either Emma Chance had been an incredibly intuitive portraitist or she’d known the man. He was drawn as if staring at the viewer; yet there was something about his demeanor that struck one as secretive, almost furtive.
“Who is he?” asked Devlin.
Hero leaned back in her chair. “His name is Hannibal Pierce and he used to be a captain in the dragoons. He now works for my father—doing the sort of things men like Pierce do for Jarvis.” Jarvis was famous for his network of spies and informants.
Devlin frowned. “Pierce is here? In Ayleswick?”
“He is. I saw him. According to young Charles Bonaparte—who is quite the clever and engaging young chap, by the way—he’s here to keep an eye on their family.”
“Interesting.” Devlin pushed away from the table to walk over to the chest near the door that held glasses and a bottle of Bordeaux. “Although I’m not surprised to hear that Jarvis is keeping an eye on Lucien. He is Napoléon’s little brother, after all.”
Hero said, “Hannibal Pierce is one of the few people whose portraits Emma Chance didn’t identify by name.”
Devlin poured himself a glass of wine. “Perhaps she didn’t know it.” He went to stand with one arm resting along the mantel, his gaze on the cold hearth.
“What?” she asked, watching him.
He looked over at her. “We keep asking why anyone would want to kill a young widow who came to their small, rural village simply to sketch. But what if her interest in Ayleswick’s charming old buildings and landscape vistas was merely a ruse? What if she was here for a different reason entirely? Something that has to do with Lucien Bonaparte.”
Hero closed the sketchbook and set it aside. “It fits with what the abigail, Peg Fletcher, told you—that she didn’t think her mistress’s name was actually Emma Chance.”
“Your father has women working for him, I assume?”
“He does, yes—although I doubt I’d recognize any of them.” She hesitated, then said, “Of course, she could also have been sent by Napoléon. He must surely have someone here as well, watching his brother.”
“More than one, I should think. He must be nervous, having a brother under English control.” Napoléon’s popularity, like his rise to power, had always depended on his brilliance as a general. But after two brutal decades of nearly endless war, France was running out of soldiers. The loss of some half a million men in his disastrous invasion of Russia had reduced the Emperor to filling his ranks with schoolboys and old men. And with all of Europe turning against him, it was surely only a matter of time before the Allies reached the frontiers of France itself.
Hero said, “I have heard . . .”
“Yes?”
“There are whispers on the streets of Paris that the only way for Napoléon to save France is to abdicate in favor of his infant son. Some are suggesting the Allies are grooming Lucien to act as the child’s regent.”
“Good God. Did you get that from Jarvis?”
Hero smiled. “Not directly.”
Hero’s mother, Annabelle, Lady Jarvis, had always been considered more pretty and vivacious than clever, even before she suffered a severe apoplectic fit in the wake of her last, disastrous pregnancy. The incident had left her ill and incapacitated and easily dismissed by her husband as an imbecile—which she was not. It had always struck Hero as odd that her father—normally the most wise and insightful of men—had never understood or appreciated the complexities of his own wife.
Hero said, “If Napoléon has heard the rumors—which I’ve no doubt he has—and if he thinks Lucien is behind them . . .”
Their gazes met.
Devlin said, “You’re suggesting Napoléon could have sent Emma Chance here to kill his own brother?”