"Your shed?"

"I use it for the roses. Kills aphids."

Why had Beatrice not told me this? "So how did you manage to avoid arrest?"

"I was at my sister's the week before the murder. Jane brought the lotion to Mr. Francis while I was gone."

"But you could have put the nicotine in it any time before then."

"I suppose so, but I didn't." He paused. "Look, why would I want Mr. Francis dead? Or Stilleman for that matter? You pointed out yourself that I could have married Jane, and I didn't."

"Here's what I don't understand: If Jane wanted to kill her husband, why would she have killed Mr. Francis first?" I asked. "Are we to believe that she only intended to kill Mr. Francis? He was, after all, the one threatening her position. She had no way of knowing that Mrs. Francis would let Stilleman take the shaving lotion and any other toiletries he wanted."

"I don't know," he said.

"But if Jane knew the lotion was poisoned, wouldn't she have stopped him from using it?"

He stopped trimming the roses and turned to face me. "Not if she wanted him dead."

"If she wanted to be free of her marriage, she could have achieved that by simply killing Stilleman. It would have looked much less suspicious had there been only one death."

"Maybe she never thought of that. Maybe Mr. Francis had already told her he was letting her go and she panicked."

"You sound as if you think she's guilty," I said.

"Maybe I do."

"You think her capable of murdering two men?"

"All I know is that she helped me with the roses more than once. She knew all about the nicotine. Now, I didn't tell the police that, but can you see that I'm not sure what to think?"

I could indeed. Regardless, it seemed to me unlikely that these crimes were simply the result of a servant being caught in an illicit affair. Not when there were so many other things swirling around. Was I to believe that the connection between Mr. Francis and Charles Berry was, in the end, meaningless? Surely the fear of losing the throne to which he aspired was as strong a motive for murder as any Jane Stilleman could have had. Both she and Berry stood to lose everything; in this, at least, the servant and the gentleman were equals. Yet I wanted the more complicated explanation to be the correct one.

I needed to think but found that doing so served only to confuse me. Better that I should detach myself, focus on something else, and let all this simmer in the back of my mind. Back in London, I sought out Mr. Wainwright in the British Library. It took very little effort to find him; he was at his desk in the Reading Room, in danger of being buried by the badly stacked piles of books that surrounded him.

"Lady Ashton!"

"Please do not get up," I said. "I'm afraid something will fall on you if you make a sudden movement." He did not heed my warning and, as he stood, knocked over at least a dozen books.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said, bending over to retrieve them from the floor. I would have liked to help him, but a corset, even one laced loosely, makes bending over nearly impossible.

"There's no need to apologize to me. It's the books that deserve your concern." He finished stacking them, though in no less precarious a way than they'd been before. "I've been pondering for some weeks now the dauphin's escape from France during the revolution and have come to the conclusion that he must have gone to England."

"A popular theory," Mr. Wainwright said. "Certainly supported by legend. There are numerous stories of English families who helped Frenchmen flee the terror."

"Do any of them claim to have assisted the dauphin?"

"None that can prove it, but I've always thought that anyone who had aided the boy would have kept quiet. He would have been in a great deal of danger, even in England, had the revolutionaries known what became of him."

"But what about later? The monarchy was restored after Napoleon's defeat."

"Quite right. But Louis XVIII would never have been king if the dauphin had been around to inherit the throne. Would it have been safe for Louis Charles to reveal himself? If the dauphin survived, he did so anonymously. He had no band of supporters, no army, no court."

"I wonder if, after having witnessed at such a young age the brutality of the revolution, he would even want to be king," I said.

Mr. Wainwright shrugged. "I don't know. Royalty think differently than we do."

"But if he were brought up as an ordinary boy, surely he would think more like us? Do you know the names of any of the English families that aided the aristocrats?"

"William Wickham helped thousands of people escape, but he was based in Switzerland on orders of the Foreign Office. All secret, of course. The Viscount Torrington in Sevenoaks housed refugees, and a number of exiled clergy stayed at the King's House in Winchester."

"Sevenoaks? In Kent?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Mr. Wainwright. You've been most helpful." I rushed home, not to my library, but to the sitting room that Philip's mother had used when she was mistress of the house. I pulled open every drawer in the room and searched the contents but did not find that which I needed. Davis entered the room as I was in the midst of this tempest, and stood, looking more amused than he ought, waiting for me to speak.

"What is it, Davis?"

"May I help you, madam?"

"Burke's Peerage, Davis. I need Burke's Peerage."

"I don't believe that the viscount owned it."

"I figured as much. But surely his mother —"

"She took all her things to the dowager house in Derbyshire, madam. But if I may? Our own Mrs. Ockley has a copy."

"Really?"

"She was quite devoted to the viscount, and when his engagement was announced, she took it upon herself to evaluate your ancestry."

"Would she be willing to lend the book to me?" I asked, and sat, astonished, as I waited for him to inquire. He returned shortly, bearing a well-worn volume.

"It's an older edition, madam. Mrs. Ockley bought it used."

I searched through the book until I found the Torringtons and traced my finger along the page, stopping when I came to the children of the fourth viscount: Sarah Elizabeth, Catherine Jane, and Elinor Constance. The estate was in Kent, near Sevenoaks, just where Lady Elinor told me she had spent her childhood.

What, if anything, had the Torringtons known about the dauphin's escape? Had they helped the boy? And if so, what did Lady Elinor know of it? I had to consider my next move very carefully. So much for letting my thoughts simmer.

30

Ever since Sebastian told me that he hadn't stolen the silver snuffbox, I'd intended to see if it had turned up for sale anywhere, but one distraction after another had kept me from this task. Today, at last, I was determined to search for it, and by two o'clock had visited no fewer than seven shops, many of them of dubious reputation. I was not foolish enough to think that I would stumble across it on display. Rather, I hoped that one of the shopkeepers could be convinced to reveal anything he'd heard about such an item appearing for sale on the black market.

So far I'd learned nothing, although I had purchased two red-figure vases, both fifth century, one depicting the myth of Zeus and Io, the other the birth of Apollo and Artemis. And though I wrestled with the ethics of it, I also bought a fragment from a charming frieze of the three Graces dancing, their arms entwined, hair and robes flowing. The dealer selling it was notoriously unscrupulous, and the provenance he offered was laughable. I hated to do business with anyone furthering the illegal trade of antiquities, but the piece was so exquisite that I couldn't bear to leave it behind. If I owned it, it would go to the British Museum; in the hands of someone else, it might be lost forever to scholars. Not a satisfying way to reconcile such a purchase, not when I knew that, in theory, the only way to stop black-market transactions was by eliminating the demand for objects that lacked a verifiable history of acquisition and ownership.

I was musing over whether this was a realistic possibility in my lifetime as I browsed through my eighth shop, and was nearly ready to quietly approach the owner to see if he had anything else in the back, when something caught my eye: a delicate pin in the shape of a bird of paradise, set in gold with sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. I recognized it at once as the one Lady Elinor had been wearing the day Margaret and I first saw Jeremy in the British Museum. My strategy changed at once.

"What an exquisite brooch!" I exclaimed.

The shopkeeper, who had been keeping an eye on me from a distance, gave me a broad smile and walked to the counter in front of me. "Eighteen-carat gold, madam, and the finest-quality stones."

"However did you get it?"

"The same way I get most of my jewelry. If you'll pardon my saying so, you ladies tend to exceed your allowances."

"I should love to buy it, but it's awfully familiar to me. I'm afraid it belonged to a friend of mine, and it would be rather embarrassing to turn up with something of hers. I don't suppose you could check?"

"Can't do that, madam. I offer my clients absolute confidentiality."

Apparently, absolute confidentiality was worth somewhere in the vicinity of six shillings. I left the shop with the pin and confirmation that Lady Elinor had sold not only it, but several other very valuable pieces in the past few months. I may not have been able to locate the snuffbox, but I was beginning to think that I had a fair idea of who might have taken it.

If Colin had been in town, I could have asked him to make discreet inquiries with the Routledge family solicitor to determine just how dire Lady Elinor's financial situation was. His connection to the palace would be invaluable in such a situation. I would have to rely on more imaginative means, and decided to call on Lord Pembroke's mother, the only person I could think of who might have insight into the matter.

"Forgive me for being so direct, Lady Anders, but did you and your husband enter into any sort of negotiations with Lady Elinor when your son wanted to marry Isabelle?"

"Not in any formal sense. I discussed matters with her in a casual sort of way once it had become clear that Tommy was serious about the girl. As I told you before, there's not a lot of money left, so her dowry would have been very small."

"How small?"

"Nonexistent, really. I'll be quite candid with you, Lady Ashton. Lord Pembroke and I would never have allowed Tommy to marry the girl, regardless of how fond he was of her. I hinted as much to Elinor. She's been a friend, you know, and I hated to think her daughter might have her hopes set unreasonably high."

"Is it that bad? I thought Mr. Routledge was quite well off."

"He left Elinor well settled, but somehow the money's gone. Isabelle's lucky she managed to secure Charles Berry. I don't think most gentlemen would consider taking her for so little."

"Why did Berry take her, then? He's no money of his own."

"There must be a very great attachment on his side. Either that or he wants a bride with a good English heritage. Excellent thing for someone with royal blood, you know. There's hardly a monarchy in Europe without a connection to our own dear queen."

That may have been true, but to marry the penniless granddaughter of a viscount was a far cry from allying oneself with even a minor princess in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Charles Berry had no money, and he had no throne. He needed a wife who could bring him a fortune. It made no sense at all that he had agreed to marry Isabelle, unless Lady Elinor had something else to entice him. Or a way to prove that he was not who he claimed. Maybe she was blackmailing him.

I thanked Lady Anders and considered my options as I drove back towards Berkeley Square. I needed to talk to Sebastian. He surely had some way of proving that he was the true descendant of Louis XVI and was perfectly capable of stopping Mr. Berry. I would have to go, yet again, to the Times, a course of action that was fast becoming infuriating. Why must he make it so difficult for me to contact him? I stuck my head out of the carriage window and called for Waters to stop.

Sebastian had followed me on enough occasions that I thought it reasonable to surmise he was doing so now. I got out of the coach, crossed Knightsbridge, and went into the park, sending the carriage home without me, assuring Waters that I would be safe there on my own. He was not easily convinced, but I eventually managed, pointing out that his loitering outside the park would serve no purpose and refusing to have one of the footmen accompany me. I appreciated my staff's concern, but I needed to be alone.