When Sebastian didn’t say anything, she huffed a scornful, breathy laugh. “What exactly are you suggesting? That I quarreled with my brother, lured him into a dark alley, cut out his heart, and then hit myself over the head? Oh, and then blew up my servant woman when she threatened to expose my evil deeds to the world?” Bright color appeared high on her cheeks. “I am a doctor. I save lives; I do not take them.”
It had, in fact, occurred to him that she might be far more involved in her own brother’s death than she would like them to believe. But all he said was, “The argument at the inn: What was it about?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you. It involves a secret that is not mine to reveal.”
Sebastian stared at her. “What the devil do you think I’m going to do? Shout it from the rooftops? Take out an advertisement in the Times? God damn you! Three people are already dead. How many more must die before you start being honest with me? Tell me what the bloody argument was about.”
She went to stand at the narrow window overlooking the lane. But the fog was so thick it was like trying to look through yellow soup.
She said, “Damion had discovered that I knew . . . something. That I had known it, for nine years. Something he believed I should have told him. I’m sorry, but more than that I cannot say.”
For nine years. Nine years . . .
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian. He was seeing a blond, green-eyed boy sailing two painted wooden boats across the water, while his sister watched him with a mother’s intense love and pride. “It’s No?l Durant, isn’t it? The boy isn’t Lady Peter’s ‘brother’; he’s her son. By Damion Pelletan.”
She turned to stare at him, her face slack with astonishment. “You knew?”
He shook his head. “No. I’d assumed Pelletan came to London because he’d somehow learned of Lord Peter’s treatment of his wife. But he came because of the boy, didn’t he? How did he ever happen to learn the truth?”
“From an old priest whose deathbed he attended in Paris. The priest was delirious. At first Damion thought he was only rambling nonsense. Except the more he heard, the more the old man’s words came to make sense.”
“Julia Durant knew she was with child before she left Paris?”
“She did, yes.”
“Then why the hell didn’t she tell the man she claimed to love?”
“Because she was sixteen. Because she was afraid. Because her father had assured her the family’s flight from France would be temporary. Only, it wasn’t.”
“And so she found herself a refugee in London,” Sebastian said softly. “Unwed, and growing increasingly heavy with child. The poor girl.”
Alexandrie Sauvage nodded. “Once the general and his wife realized what was happening, they kept Julia out of sight. They knew that if the truth ever became known, she would be hopelessly ruined. Madame Durant was young enough to pretend to be with child herself. I’m told she even went so far as to strap a pillow to her belly when she appeared in public. In due time, the child was born and presented as General Durant’s son.”
“He had no other children?”
“Two older sons. Both died fighting Napoléon.”
Sebastian had always wondered why the aging French general married his only daughter to a man like Lord Peter Radcliff. Yes, Radcliff was a duke’s son, handsome and brilliantly connected. But a general with Durant’s experience with men must surely have seen his son-in-law for the vain, self-absorbed dissolute he was.
Now it all made sense.
Sebastian said, “Does Radcliff know?”
“About No?l, you mean? I’m not certain.”
“Yet you knew.”
“Julia told me before she left Paris. She told me in confidence, and I swore I’d never tell anyone.”
“Did Pelletan know Radcliff beats her?”
“Before he came? No. But it didn’t take him long to figure it out. That’s when he tried to convince her to go back to Paris with him—for her sake, as well as for the boy’s.”
“How did he discover you’d been aware of the child all along?”
“Something Julia said to him. He was furious. I tried to make him understand that it was a secret told to me in confidence. How could I have betrayed it? But he wouldn’t listen.”
“Yet he went with you to St. Katharine’s, to see the sick child?”
“Damion was a physician. He would never put his own personal emotions ahead of the well-being of a patient. He went with me. But he was in a passion. We were still arguing about it after we left Hangman’s Court.”
Sebastian studied her tightly held features. It explained why, if someone were following them, they hadn’t heard the footsteps until it was too late. But while it might, believably, give Lord Peter Radcliff a stronger reason to kill his wife’s former lover, it did nothing to explain the deaths of either Karmele or Colonel Foucher.
He said, “Do you think Lady Peter was still in love with Damion?”
“I think she was, yes.”
“Yet she was reluctant to return with him to Paris?”
“She said she’d made a commitment to Lord Peter—a commitment she couldn’t go back on.”
“Despite the fact he beat her?”
“I’ve known women to make excuses for men who beat them so badly they died.”
“You mean like Abel Bullock’s wife?”