Chapter 16
Henri Auberge was a squarely-built man, not very tall, with graying hair and a bayonet scar high on his left cheekbone. One would not find him remarkable in a crowd, and yet, as he gazed steadily at the Deveres with cool hazel eyes, they grew subdued and watchful.
When I’d first met Major Auberge, he’d told me that Gabriella had become enamored of a young man of whom he did not approve. I later learned that this young man was Emile Devere, but obviously Auberge had grown to accept him.
Emile was such an innocuous lad that I assumed Auberge’s initial hesitation a father’s suspicion of any gentleman who showed interest in his daughter.
Now, I wondered whether Auberge objected not to Emile’s person but to the older generation of his family. The Deveres were well-respected, yes, but they were also proving to be collective bullies.
Auguste, Emile’s father, pressed forward, earning himself a scowl from Fernand.
“Henri, this is nothing to do with you.” Auguste spoke calmly but with a pleading note. “The captain, he does not understand. He must go, before—”
“It has nothing to do with the young people either,” Auberge interrupted. “Shall we punish them for what is in the dust of the past?”
“It must stay in the dust,” Fernand said sharply. “He stirs it. I want Emile to have nothing to do with him.”
“You are a fool.” Major Auberge stated this flatly, and Fernand blinked. “The wedding will go forward. Captain Lacey will return to England immediately afterward, and we will say nothing more about it.”
Carlotta had told me, when I’d gone to the farm seeking Emile, that she and her husband had contemplated postponing or forbidding the match altogether because of Claude’s arrest. Under Auberge’s steely gaze, I wondered how much of what Carlotta had said was true.
Or perhaps Auberge did not like others making decisions about his family for him.
Emile’s father nodded contritely. “It shall be as you say. No,” he said as Fernand drew a breath to argue. “We will unmake all if we continue. Stillness is best.”
“Heed your brother, Fernand,” Auberge said, the stern military man in him evident. “Calm yourself, change nothing, and go back to work. Captain, with me.”
Major Auberge had no business ordering me to do anything, any more than the Deveres did, but I saw sense in his decision.
I bowed formally to the Deveres and sent Emile a reassuring nod. “Good day, gentlemen,” I said, striving to keep my tone neutral.
None of them responded. They watched, rigid, Emile despondent, as I turned to follow Auberge.
Brewster fell into step beside me. While he understood little French, he’d have comprehended what had happened. “Tough bloke is the major, ain’t he?” Brewster whispered to me. “Put them in their place right sharpish.”
I could only nod in agreement.
Auberge had drifted toward my hired coach that waited at the gate. I expected him to watch me climb into the carriage and go, but to my surprise, he ascended behind me once Brewster had helped me in. Brewster swung the door shut for us before he took his place on the back of the carriage.
I found myself facing a man I’d spent many years of my life furious at, as the carriage creaked from the yard.
Auberge had reconciled himself a bit to me when he and I had hunted for a missing Gabriella in the dark quarters of London.
Even so, I was not comfortable riding with him in a closed carriage.
“Will you enlighten me?” I asked as we bumped along. “I agree with you that if Fernand had remained silent I’d not have stormed here to demand what he was on about.”
“No, I will not,” Auberge answered. “It is none of your affair, and nothing to do with Gabriella and Emile. Please give me your word that you will pry no further.”
His response stirred my curiosity even more, but it was clear I’d obtain no information from him.
“I must warn you, I first came across the name that has so many incensed in Signor Gallo’s lodgings,” I said.
“The same Signor Gallo who was found dead on the Pont Tilsit on Thursday morning. Whatever Gallo knew, there is no telling who he passed the information to. Perhaps one of the Deveres feared it so much that they silenced Gallo forever.”
“They did not,” Auberge said. “Fernand became enraged and tried to break off the betrothal only after he heard that you had asked questions this morning. I’m certain the Deveres had nothing to do with this Italian’s death.”
Auberge spoke stiffly, a man reassuring himself at the same time he tried to convince me.
“You seem very certain of that.”
Auberge studied me with calm assessment. “Lyon is not London. We have the gendarmerie, not your Runners. No one here likes the interference of the police, but we have learned to avoid them and live with them.”
“Someone killed Gallo and left him on that bridge.”
“Someone did, but it was not Fernand Devere. I can say this with certainty because Fernand was at our home Wednesday night, discussing many things. He did not leave until the small hours of the morning, and walked home. He did not go into Lyon and meet this Signor Gallo.”
“That you know of. He could very well have gone to find Gallo after he left you.” I made a conceding gesture.
“However, Fernand was shocked when he saw Gallo’s body.
I know he feared very much that his nephew, Claude, had committed the deed in a fit of passion.
Fernand was a man more afraid than guilty. ”
“There you are.” Auberge opened his hand.
“Then, if Fernand is innocent, and Claude is as well, why the devil is Fernand and his brothers so angry with me, now?”
Auberge’s expression turned stubborn. “As I told them, the past should remain there.”
“If whatever occurred in the past will make trouble for Gabriella, I want to know what it is. Or I will take her back to England and keep her far from it. She’ll be safe in Oxfordshire, with my wife’s family.”
“There will be no trouble.” Auberge spoke firmly.
I’d observed the way in which Fernand and his brothers had quickly backed down from Auberge, though they’d clearly wished to thrash me for my impertinence.
Auberge had protected Gabriella from danger in all the years she’d lived with him, keeping her alive and well.
When she’d at last come to London and met me, she’d fallen into peril, which had not helped reconcile me with him and Carlotta.
“I will hold you to that, Major,” I said.
Auberge gave me a nod. “As you should.”
He rapped on the carriage roof as it approached the gate to his farm. He climbed down when the coach halted, sending me on toward Lyon with only a steady gaze as a farewell.
By the time the carriage reached the heart of the city, I was hungry, tired, and angry. I bade the coachman take me across to the Presqu’?le and made my way once again to Beaumont’s tavern for refreshment.
I wasn’t certain I’d be welcome, but I refused to retreat to our villa and bar the door. If Beaumont did not want me there, he’d tell me, and I would simply find another shop in which to assuage my healthy appetite.
Brewster walked inside with me, ready to defend me if the elderly gentlemen within made ready to push me out. No one objected when I entered, however. The regulars only silently watched me take a seat at the table that had become my usual one.
Beaumont’s scowl, when he emerged from the back room, was as fierce as Fernand’s had been. I thought he’d tell me to remove myself, but then he trudged to me with his dusty carafe of strong red wine.
He fetched Brewster a pot of ale and brought us a loaf of bread and the beef stew he served most days. When I thanked him, Beaumont glowered at me, then he scraped a stool to the table and sat on it, planting his elbows on the board.
“He was an evil man,” Beaumont said without preliminary. “Evil. There are those who fear that uttering his name will return him to us. Which I say is nonsense.” He sent his glare to the rest of the room. “He must be dead by now.”
I assumed we were speaking of Lucien Potier, the man whose moniker had evoked such antagonism.
Brewster eyed Beaumont, who spoke no English, with some impatience, but he chewed his bread and held his peace.
“I am sorry to have upset everyone,” I said to Beaumont. “I truly know nothing of the man.”
“He came after the siege,” Beaumont went on. “When we were a conquered people. He made many arrests and conducted executions. Didn’t matter if a man were loyal to the king or to the republic.”
“I have heard something of that unfortunate history,” I said in sympathy.
“The one you asked about was the worst of the lot. Arresting, torturing, shooting in cold blood. Even his own men hated him. Most of us here lost someone to him—father, mother, sister, brother. It was more than twenty years ago, but we haven’t forgotten.”
“Nor should you,” I said. “I do apologize. I did not mean to stir up such troubling memories.”
“You didn’t know,” Beaumont said coldly. “I am telling you so you do not mention it again.”
“What became of the fellow?” I asked. “Did someone kill him? It sounds as though he’d deserve it.”
“That would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? No, one day, he was simply gone. Recalled, they say. He might have faced his own execution in Paris—they were turning on each other there by then. We never heard. Bonaparte came a few years after that, and we were Lyon again.”
The men in the shop had turned to listen, nodding along, some with tears gleaming in aging eyes. The atmosphere in the room was heavy, laden with past sorrow.
Fernand and his brothers would have been a young men at the time of the events Beaumont described, in their twenties. The Deveres’ father had been executed by the new regime, and I wondered if Potier had been directly responsible for the death. Perhaps the Deveres blamed Potier for it, regardless.
I let out a breath. “Thank you for telling me,” I said to Beaumont. “I will cease discussing him.”
“Bien.” Beaumont started to rise, then he thrust a hand into the threadbare coat he wore every day. “The colonel stopped in after you left this morning and asked me to give you this.”
He held out a neatly folded piece of cream-colored paper, which I took without question.
I thanked Beaumont, and he marched away into his kitchen. The other inhabitants turned from me, resuming their usual repasts.
I assumed Beaumont meant Colonel Moreau, and I saw that this was true when I skimmed the note, which was short and to the point.
“Moreau wants to meet,” I told Brewster.
Brewster only grunted in response. He still thought me mad for being civil to the man.
We finished our repast then rose and made for the door. I tipped my hat to the collective company. “Messieurs,” I said cordially before we exited.
A few nodded back, but the rest studiously ignored me.
“Got a bit chilly in there,” Brewster rumbled as we headed for the bridge that would take us to Moreau’s meeting point. “You have a gift for disturbing people, don’t ye?”
“You’ve known that for a long time,” I answered without offense.
In a low voice I related what Beaumont had explained, making certain passersby did not overhear.
All of Lyon would have been affected by Potier’s actions and not want to be reminded of them.
Gallo likely hadn’t understood what a storm he’d release by bantering that name about.
He’d very possibly been killed for doing so.
Brewster let out a whistle when I’d finished. “Sounds like a right evil bastard. You give some blokes a bit of power, and they enjoy making everyone’s lives a misery. I’ve known plenty of toughs like that, but this one had his own government cheering him on.”
“Or, possibly, those in charge didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Hence, he was recalled.”
“Good riddance.” Brewster frowned as we made our way across the Pont Tilsit. “So why did Gallo have the man’s name on a piece of paper? To wave it in front of people to rile them?”
“Could be someone wrote it down for him, suggesting he use the name to gain money or favors. A dangerous idea. You saw how furious people grew when we merely mentioned it. Perhaps Gallo upset someone so much it drove them to murder.”
“Why, though?” Brewster asked. “If this bloke were gone twenty and more years ago, and is probably dead himself now?”
“Yes, it is curious. I will have to find out exactly what happened to him.”
Brewster sent me a look of exasperation. “Instead of leaving well enough alone as all and sundry have asked ye to do?”
“I will be discreet,” I promised.
“God help us,” was his enlightened response.
Moreau had directed me to the plaza in front of the cathedral. He was there when we arrived, seated on a stone bench placed so the viewer could study the beauty of the lofty building.
The colonel rose when we approached, waiting calmly. I’d noted that same calm years ago, when he’d stoically witnessed the soldiers beating me to a bloody pulp.
Moreau gave me his perfunctory bow when I reached him, and I nodded in return.
“Thank you for coming,” Moreau said in his careful English, and gestured to the bench. “Please, sit. I have found out much about this Lucien Potier, and it might be useful.”