He knew something of Lady Peter’s story. She’d been born Julia Durant, in the dying days of the Ancien Régime. Her father, the younger son of a minor Rh?ne Valley nobleman, had trained as an artillery officer at the prestigious école Militaire in Paris. When the people of Paris rose up and overthrew the Bourbons, Georges Durant did not flee France. Rather than join the forces of the counterrevolutionaries, he remained loyal to the land of his birth, eventually becoming a trusted general, first under the National Convention, then under the Directory.
But General Durant never had much use for a certain cocky young Corsican named Napoléon Bonaparte. When Napoléon declared himself emperor in 1804, Georges Durant tried to stop him—and only narrowly escaped with his life.
Fortunately, he’d had the forethought to send his wife and children out of the country first. And before he died, the old French general managed to marry his beautiful daughter, Julia, to the younger son of an English duke.
When Sebastian walked up to her, Lady Peter was seated on an iron bench near the Lodge. She wore a thick dusky pink pelisse and a close bonnet trimmed with a delicate bunch of velvet and silk flowers and was smiling faintly as she watched her orphaned eight-year-old brother toss a ball to his friend. Then she saw Sebastian, and her smile faded.
“No, don’t run away,” he said as she surged to her feet, eyes wide, one hand clenching in the fine velvet cloth of her pelisse. “I take it you know why I wish to speak with you?”
She was nearly a decade younger than her husband, in her mid-twenties now, with luminous green eyes and rich brown hair that curled softly around a heart-shaped face. Her nose was small and delicately molded, her lips full, her bone structure as flawless as one of Fra Filippo Lippi’s madonnas. But her eyes were red rimmed and swollen, and Sebastian had no doubt that she’d been crying. For Damion Pelletan? he wondered. Or for some other reason entirely?
He watched as a succession of conflicting emotions flitted across her lovely face, a lifetime of carefully inculcated good manners at war with an instinctive urge to snatch up her little brother and run.
Good manners won.
“Lord Devlin,” she said, graciously inclining her head, although the agitation of her breathing was obvious in the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders.
“Walk with me a ways, Lady Peter?” Sebastian suggested.
She threw a quick, uncertain glance toward the two little boys and their attendant nursemaid.
“We won’t go far. I’m told you knew Damion Pelletan as a child, in Paris.”
“I did, yes.” The native French inflections were still a soft purr in her gently modulated voice. “We grew up next door to each other. But . . . that was years ago. How could those days possibly have anything to do with Damion’s death?”
“I don’t know that they do. At the moment, I’m simply attempting to find out anything that might help explain what happened to him.”
She turned to walk with him along the graveled path, the flounced hem of her walking dress brushing the clipped rosemary hedge that grew beside it. “What would you like to know?”
“When did you last see Dr. Pelletan?”
She hesitated a moment too long, and he had the distinct impression she was tempted to deny having seen Pelletan recently at all.
Sebastian said, “Your husband told me he saw Dr. Pelletan a week or so ago. I assume you did, as well?”
“Yes. As I said, we were old friends. He contacted me shortly after he arrived in London, and Lord Peter invited him to dinner one evening.”
“When was this?”
“As my husband said: a week or so ago.”
“And that was the only time you saw him?”
“No. He paid us several afternoon visits as well.”
Sebastian noted her emphasis of the word “us” but decided not to press it. “Did he tell you why he was here, in London?”
She cast him a hooded sideways glance, obviously hesitant to betray her childhood friend’s confidences, even after his death. “Do you know?” she asked.
“About the delegation? Yes.”
She nodded, a soft breath of relief escaping her parted lips. “I don’t want you to think Damion told me about the peace initiatives himself, because he did not. But my father knew Harmond Vaundreuil, in Paris. He has always been Bonaparte’s creature. So when I heard Damion was here with Vaundreuil . . .” She shrugged. “It was supposed to be a secret, but the truth is often not difficult to guess.”
“Why was Pelletan included in the delegation?”
“Vaundreuil has a delicate heart. He worries obsessively about his health, fretting over each and every lump and pain, and is in constant need of reassurance. They thought it best that he travel with his own physician. And then of course there is Vaundreuil’s daughter.”
“Madeline, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You know about her?”
Sebastian shook his head.
“She was married to a young cavalry captain, Fran?ois Quesnel. He was killed last December, in Spain, leaving her with child.”
“Ah,” said Sebastian.
They turned to walk back toward the Lodge, their gazes on the two boys, who had lost interest in the ball and now appeared to be vying to see who could hop the farthest on one foot, their shouts and laughter echoing across the park. Unlike his sister, No?l Durant was surprisingly fair headed. But he had his sister’s heart-shaped face and large green eyes.
Sebastian said, “How old is your brother?”
She gave a soft smile. “He is eight.”