“Yes, of course.”
She turned away, the wind gusting hard enough to snatch at the rim of her bonnet. She put up a hand to steady it, and the movement pulled at the sleeve of her pelisse, baring her forearm between the braided cuff and her kid gloves. Against her pale flesh, a row of four livid bruises showed quite clearly.
Bruises in the exact pattern left by an angry man closing his big, strong hand around a woman’s fragile wrist.
Chapter 21
Angus Kilmartin was seated alone at a small table near the fire in White’s somber, overheated dining room when Sebastian walked up and settled in the chair opposite.
“I don’t recall issuing an invitation for you to join me,” said the Scotsman, his voice pleasant, his face never losing its habitual expression of mild amusement.
“That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian. “I don’t intend to stay long.”
Kilmartin grunted and cut himself a slice of beefsteak.
Sebastian said, “I hear you’ve recently been awarded a new contract with the Navy.”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations.”
Kilmartin glanced up at him. “You say that as if you disagree in some way with the procedure.”
“Why would I?”
Just two decades before, Angus Kilmartin had been an obscure Glaswegian merchant. Today, there were few lucrative industries in which he was not invested. From his mills in Yorkshire rolled the cloth used to make uniforms for Britain’s soldiers and sailors. His foundries supplied them with cannon and firearms, while from his shipyards came an endless supply of the frigates and gunboats that helped Britannia rule the waves. Over the course of twenty years of war, as Britain’s artisans and craftsmen starved and sheep grazed amidst the ruined cottages of displaced Highland clansmen, Angus Kilmartin had prospered far beyond most men’s wildest dreams.
“Why, indeed?” he said, carefully buttering a piece of bread. “Is this why you are here? To discuss my business ventures?”
“Actually, I’m curious about how you came to know a French doctor named Damion Pelletan.”
Kilmartin chewed slowly and deliberately before swallowing. “You refer, I take it, to the young man recently set upon by footpads in St. Katharine’s?”
“He was certainly killed in St. Katharine’s, although I seriously doubt footpads had anything to do with it.”
“And what makes you imagine I knew him?”
“You were seen arguing with him last Thursday morning in the park. That’s the day he was killed, incidentally.”
Kilmartin only smiled faintly, his chin tucked, his eyes downcast as he worked to cut himself another slice of beef.
Sebastian watched him. “So you don’t deny it?”
The Scotsman paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, his eyes going wide. “Why should I? Pelletan was a physician. I consulted with him over a medical matter. I see no reason to furnish you with the particulars.”
“And you would have me believe you met with him in the park to argue a medical matter?”
“I didn’t exactly ‘meet with’ him. I encountered him by chance. We fell into a dispute.”
“Over a medical matter.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder, how did you come to hear of him? He hadn’t been in London long.”
“Someone recommended him to me. I don’t recall now precisely whom.”
“One of the Bourbons, perhaps?” suggested Sebastian sardonically.
Kilmartin gave a faint, tight-lipped smile and shrugged. “Perhaps. Who can say?”
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the elegant, high-ceilinged room. “I assume you’ve heard the rumors?”
“London is full of rumors. Endlessly. To which do you refer?”
“To the suggestion that the fiasco in Russia has weakened Napoléon to the extent that he is now willing to explore the possibility of making peace with England.”
“Never happen,” said Kilmartin.
“So certain?”
“Napoléon would never agree to England’s terms.”
“And if he did?” Sebastian watched the other man’s face. “You would stand to lose a lot of money.”
Kilmartin’s smile never slipped. “All good things must come to an end.”
“True. But some eventualities can be postponed. Especially by those ruthless enough to use any means possible.”
Kilmartin leaned forward, his grip on the knife and fork tightening. “What are you suggesting? That I had Damion Pelletan waylaid and murdered in some back alley in the hopes that it might disrupt the delegation from Paris? How absurd.”
“I never suggested Pelletan was part of a delegation from Paris.”
For a moment, Sebastian’s words seemed to hang in the silence between them. The Scotsman froze, his narrowed gray eyes fixed on Sebastian’s, a dark malevolence replacing the faint derision that had been there before.