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Lying some blocks to the east of Bond Street, Golden Square had never been particularly fashionable. Built in the waning days of the Stuarts, its varied rooflines were more reminiscent of eighteenth-century Parisian h?tels or the decorative gables of Amsterdam than of London town houses. Once, it had been home to foreign ambassadors and artists. But a dull, dingy look had long ago settled over the area, with many of the seventeenth-century brick and stucco houses broken up into lodgings.
Sebastian spent some time talking to vendors and shopkeepers around the square, including a butler, an apothecary, and one stout, middle-aged woman with a gummy smile who sold eel pies from a stall. Madame Sauvage seemed to be a well-liked figure in the neighborhood, although no one knew much about her.
“She’s a deep one,” said the eel seller, giving Sebastian a wink. “Friendly enough, but keeps herself to herself, for all that.”
The Frenchwoman’s rooms lay on the attic floor of a four-story, gable-fronted house near the corner of Upper James Street. Sebastian’s knock was answered by a plain, heavyset woman with iron gray hair and a knobby nose who peered at him suspiciously, her gaze traveling over him with obvious disapproval.
“Madame Sauvage is not here,” she said in a heavy accent typical of the Basque region of France, and made as if to close the door.
Sebastian stopped it by resting his forearm against the panel, then softened the aggression of the move with a smile. “I know. My friend Paul Gibson is caring for her at his surgery.”
The woman hesitated, her instinctive wariness at war with an obvious desire to obtain information about her mistress. Concern for her mistress won. “You know how she does?”
“The surgeon is hopeful she will recover, although she’s not yet out of danger.”
The woman’s lips parted and she exhaled sharply, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Why has she not been brought here, to me, so that I may care for her?”
“I’ve no doubt you’re more than capable,” said Sebastian. “Unfortunately, she can’t yet be moved.”
The woman folded her arms beneath her massive bosom. “Well, you tell that surgeon that as soon as she’s well enough, he’s to send her home to Karmele.”
Sebastian said, “Have you been with the doctoresse long?”
He saw a flicker of surprise, followed by a return of her earlier wariness. “How do you know she is a doctoresse?”
“Madame Bisette told me. I’m trying to find out who might have wanted to harm her or Dr. Pelletan, the man who was with her last night.”
“And why should you care, a fine English gentleman such as yourself?”
“I care,” he said simply.
She pursed her mouth and said nothing.
“When did you last see her?” he asked.
“Five—perhaps six o’clock last night. She left to visit some patients.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, of course.”
From one of the floors below came a child’s shout, followed by a trill of delighted laughter. Sebastian said, “Do you know if she had any enemies? Someone with whom she might have quarreled recently?”
The woman was silent, her lips pressed tightly together, her nostrils flaring on a deeply indrawn breath.
“There is someone, isn’t there? Who is it?”
Karmele cast a quick, furtive glance around the dark corridor, then beckoned Sebastian inside and quickly shut the door behind him.
“His name is Bullock.” She dropped her voice as if still wary that she might somehow be overheard. “He’s been watching her. Following her.”
“Why?”
“He blames her for his brother’s death; that’s why. Said he was going to make her pay, he did.”
“She treated the man’s brother?”
Karmele shook her head. “Not his brother, no. His brother’s wife.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
Sebastian let his gaze roam the attic’s low, sloped ceiling and dingy, papered walls. The space was fitted out as a small sitting room, but judging from the rolled pallet in the corner and the cooking utensils near the hearth, it also served as the kitchen and Karmele’s bedroom. Through an open door on the far side he caught a glimpse of a second chamber, barely large enough to hold a narrow bed and a small chest. The few pieces of furniture in the two rooms looked old and worn; a thin, tattered carpet covered the floor, and the walls were bare of all decoration except for one small, cracked mirror.
As if aware of Sebastian’s scrutiny, the woman said, “C’est domage—” She caught herself, then carefully switched to English. “It is a pity, what she is reduced to. She was born to better than this.”
“I understand she came to London last year?” said Sebastian in French.
The woman blinked in surprise but answered readily enough in the same language. “October 1811, it was. She came with her husband, the English captain.”
“She was married to an English officer?”