The stylized lily or iris had been associated with the royal family of France for a thousand years. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. Only that one can understand how certain speculation might have arisen. The journey of Marie-Thérèse from Paris to Vienna in 1795 was cloaked in secrecy, as were her years in the Temple. Some believe she was raped while in prison, that she was pregnant when released by the revolutionaries and had to be hidden away. Others suggest that her experiences overturned the balance of her mind, so that after her release she was either unable or unwilling to take up the kind of prominent role required of the only surviving child of the martyred King and Queen of France.”
“The theory being that an imposter was put in her place, while the real Marie-Thérèse lives out her life in seclusion in a castle in Germany?”
“That is the theory, yes. Although anyone with any sense knows that it is pure myth.”
“Why is that?”
Ambrose LaChapelle met his gaze. “Because anyone undertaking to arrange such a dangerous substitution would be certain to select an imposter with a strong mental fortitude and unshakable balance. Whereas the Marie-Thérèse the world has seen these past eighteen years . . .” He shrugged and shook his head, as if unwilling to put the rest of his thoughts into words.
“Is she mad?” Sebastian asked quietly.
The courtier thrust the splayed fingers of one hand through his hair in a typically masculine gesture. “She is damaged. No one can deny that. You’ve noticed her voice? They like to say it is the result of her refusal to speak to her jailors—that she found it difficult to make sounds once she finally began to speak again. Yet she also likes to boast of her proud responses to the revolutionaries’ taunts and questions, and she frequently recites her rosary aloud.”
“So what did happen to her voice?”
“I have heard that severe emotional trauma can permanently affect one’s vocal cords, although there are also those who suggest she screamed so long and so loud that it damaged her voice.”
“Was she raped in prison?”
“If she was, she would never admit it. But when one thinks of what was done to her brother . . .” Again, that silent, suggestive lifting of the shoulders. “I’ve heard her say she used to sit up all night, dressed, in a chair because she was afraid to undress and go to bed. Why do that unless something had happened to make her afraid? Can you really imagine that the men who did such vile things to the boy Prince would spare the Princess? An attractive but despised young woman, alone and utterly in their power?”
Sebastian shifted his gaze to the gravel carriageway. The men from the nearest deadhouse had arrived and were shifting the jeweler’s body onto their shell. He watched them lift the burden between them with a grunt.
A new explanation for Damion Pelletan’s murder, and for the attempted murder of his sister, was beginning to take shape in his imagination. He said, “The man who killed your friend . . . what did he look like?”
The courtier frowned with the effort of thought. “I didn’t see him well—he wore a greatcoat and scarf, with his hat pulled low over his forehead. All I can say with any certainty is that he was dark-haired and roughly your height, only slightly stockier.”
The description matched that of the man who had attacked Sebastian at Stoke Mandeville and again in York Street, although he had no doubt it also matched any number of other men in London. “He didn’t say anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Did you notice his eyes?”
“His eyes? No. Why?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll ask you one more time: Who would have reason to kill you?”
But Serena simply stared off across the park, as if looking for the answer in the mists that swirled among the winter-bared trees.
Chapter 45
Thursday, 28 January
The next morning, Sebastian was easing on his Hessians when Calhoun said, “You know how you asked me to look further into Sampson Bullock, my lord?”
Sebastian glanced over at his valet. “Discovered something interesting, did you?”
“You were right, my lord: Bullock spent six years in the Ninth Foot. He came back to London when his unit was reduced in 1802, after the Peace of Amiens.”
“In other words,” said Sebastian, stomping his foot into his boot, “he knows more about gunpowder than your average cabinetmaker.”
“Considerably more, I should think. He was in the artillery.”
? ? ?
Sampson Bullock was flooding a new tabletop with boiled linseed oil when Sebastian walked up to him. The fog was still so thick that a deep gloom filled the shop, and the cabinetmaker had lit the lantern suspended over his work. The air was heavy with the smell of warm oil and freshly shaved wood and rank male sweat.