? ? ?
Sebastian tried to remember what Alexandrie Sauvage had told him about Lady Peter Radcliff. But when he thought about it, he realized he couldn’t recall having discussed the beautiful, sad-eyed Frenchwoman with Damion Pelletan’s sister at all. When she’d been fighting for her life in the aftereffects of concussion and possible pneumonia, he could understand the omission. But he found it difficult to believe that a woman truly interested in finding her brother’s killer would fail to disclose his dangerous interest in another man’s wife.
Lady Peter’s reasons for failing to reveal the true extent of her involvement with the young French doctor were considerably easier to understand.
? ? ?
Lord Peter Radcliff’s beautiful French-born wife was watching her little brother race two gaily colored wooden sailboats across the narrow strip of ornamental water in Green Park when Sebastian walked up to her. A blustery wind scuttled a tumble of gray clouds overhead, sending shifting patterns of light and shadow across the ruffled surface of the water and billowing the cloth sails of the crudely fashioned boats. “No?l,” Lady Peter called, laughing. “I think the blue one is going to win.” Then she froze, the merriment dying from her eyes as she turned her head to see Sebastian.
She wore a fur-trimmed pelisse of dark hunter green wool made high at the throat and long in the sleeves. And it occurred to Sebastian that even on balmy days she invariably stayed away from styles that revealed too much of her skin.
But nothing could disguise the livid bruise that rode high on her left cheekbone.
Chapter 35
Lady Peter stood very still, only her shoulders jerking with the agitation of her breathing as she watched Sebastian walk up to her. And he found himself wondering why she feared him so much.
She said, “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
“Only some information about Damion Pelletan.” He shifted his gaze to the mock naval race before them. “Who made the boats? Lord Peter?”
She shook her head. “No?l. He has ambitions to go to sea.”
“It can be a lucrative career,” said Sebastian.
“It can also be a deadly one—even when England is not at war, as it is now.”
“England will always be at war with someone, somewhere.”
“True.” He was aware of her gaze lifting from the boats to his face. “But you didn’t come here to discuss my brother’s future career options, did you, Lord Devlin?”
He watched the two boats skim across the choppy surface of the water. “You told me you grew up next door to Damion Pelletan, in Paris.”
“Y-yes,” she said warily, obviously unsure where he was going with this.
“How well did you know his sister, Alexi?”
“Alexi?” She let out her breath in a soft sigh, as if relieved by the seemingly innocuous direction of the conversation. “Not well. She was six years older than I, and very serious. She always dreamt of becoming a physician. She had little use for dolls or needlework or silly little girls like me.”
“She went to the University of Bologna to study?”
Lady Peter nodded. “She was just sixteen. Dr. Philippe had an uncle there, and she went to stay with him.”
“What do you know of her first husband—Beauclerc, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. He was a physician as well. I never knew him; I believe they met in Bologna. When he joined the Grand Army, Alexi went with him.”
“He was killed?”
“Yes.” She watched No?l run along the water’s edge, shouting encouragement to first one boat, then the other. “Why are you asking me these questions about Alexi?”
“I’m wondering why she would take such care to preserve your secret.”
Lady Peter turned her head to look at him, her breath leaving her body in an odd, forced laugh. “Secret? What secret?”
“Damion Pelletan didn’t come to London to see his sister, did he? He came to see you. Did he come here intending to try to convince you to leave England and go back to France with him? Or was that a decision he reached only after he saw you?”
The new bruise stood out starkly against the ashen pallor of her face. “No! I’ve no idea what you are talking about!”
“You said Damion Pelletan came to dinner one evening and paid you a few formal calls.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did he come to know No?l?” Children traditionally made no appearance at formal meals or visits.
She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“You told me that on the morning of his death, last Thursday, you saw Pelletan in the park arguing with Kilmartin. You said No?l called out to Damion and would have run to him if you hadn’t stopped him. That suggests that No?l not only knew Damion Pelletan, but that he considered him a friend. How did your little brother come to know him so well?”