“You come here every day to write?” asked Sebastian, his attention shifting to the folly beside them. Although built as a ruin, the temple’s roof was more than solid enough to provide a poetically minded guest with shelter from sun and rain. Through the single row of thick Doric columns, Sebastian could see that Lady Seaton had even softened the temple’s stone benches with mounds of plump cushions in delicate shades of teal and peach.
“Every day except Sunday, from ten to one,” said the Senator with obvious pride. “And sometimes, as today, I return again to work in the late afternoon.”
“Art requires dedication.”
“It does, it does.” Lucien’s good-humored smile remained in place, but his eyes were shrewd and watchful. The man was no fool; he knew Sebastian wasn’t here to discuss his epic poem on Charlemagne. “So tell me, my lord; how is your investigation into these dreadful murders progressing?”
“It’s interesting, actually. I’ve just discovered that a shipment of French spirits passed through Ayleswick the very day Emma Chandler was killed.”
Lucien Bonaparte kept his face admirably blank. “Oh?”
“Mmm. And it occurs to me that a message may have come with it—say, from Napoléon to you?”
In the sudden, tense silence, Sebastian could hear a thrush singing in a nearby stand of beech and the gentle slap of the wind-ruffled water lapping against the reeds edging the lake. The Corsican cleared his throat. “My brother and I are estranged. That is why I fled the Continent.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you quarreled. Napoléon has quarreled—sometimes violently—with every one of his brothers and sisters multiple times over the years. But yours is still an extraordinarily close family. You always seem to make up your differences and come to each other’s aid when threatened. And Napoléon has never been more threatened than he is now.”
Lucien Bonaparte brought up a hand to tug at his earlobe, his dark eyes hooded, his gaze on the lake.
“What worries me,” said Sebastian, “is the thought that Emma Chandler might somehow have stumbled upon a meeting between you and your brother’s messenger, and that’s why she was killed.”
“But there is no communication between my brother and me.”
“What about between you and your mother?”
Bonaparte fiddled with the chain of his pocket watch. “I am allowed to send letters to my mother through the commissioner.”
“And if you wish to say something you don’t want the commissioner—and everyone at Whitehall—to read?”
“Unfortunately, that is one of the inescapable trials of being a prisoner.”
“Not so inescapable, surely?”
Bonaparte drew himself up to his full height. “Monsieur! One of the conditions of a gentleman’s parole is that he not communicate with anyone except through the commissioners. I have given my word. You insult me.”
“Do I?” Sebastian met the Senator’s outraged gaze. He’d learned long ago that the rulers of this world operate on a different moral plane than other mere mortals. Their decisions—whether careless or calculated—often wreaked suffering and death on a scale unimaginable to anyone else. Taken all together, Sebastian figured the Bonaparte brothers were collectively responsible for the deaths of anywhere between three and six million people. When set against that level of carnage, what difference would the murder of one insignificant young woman make to someone like Lucien Bonaparte? And as he studied the Corsican’s swarthy, Mediterranean features, so similar to those of his more famous, older brother in his prime, Sebastian knew a rush of raw anger and revulsion that he controlled with difficulty.
“If your presence in Ayleswick has anything to do with these murders,” said Sebastian, “anything, then the deaths of both Emma Chandler and Hannibal Pierce are on your head and on your soul. Think about that while you wrestle with your recalcitrant muse,” said Sebastian.
And he walked off and left Bonaparte there, beside the wind-ruffled lake and its pillow-filled folly.
Chapter 46
That evening, Sebastian and Archie met to compare notes over brandy in the Grange’s ancient, oak-paneled hall. A relic of a bygone era, the hall was a cavernous space with a soaring, trussed-oak roof, thick walls, and flagstone paving. Even on an August night, it was chilly enough to warrant a small fire on the vast, old-fashioned hearth.
Archie listened, his face grim, while Sebastian told what he’d learned of Emma Chandler’s determination to identify the man who had raped her mother. “My God,” said the young Squire when Sebastian had finished. “Could my own father have done something like that? His name was on her list.”
Sebastian took a slow sip of his brandy. “What color was your father’s hair?”
“Lighter than mine. Why?”
“Because whoever raped Lady Emily was dark. It’s probably why Emma crossed off his name—she somehow discovered your father was fair.”