“We will hope it doesn’t come to that,” Fergus said thoughtfully. “But it’s as well to be prepared.”
Roger stopped abruptly and grabbed Fergus’s sleeve, bringing him to a halt.
“Would you care to tell me just who we’re going to see? And how many of them?”
“Only one, so far as I know,” Fergus assured him. “His name is Percival Beauchamp.”
That didn’t sound like the eighteenth-century version of a gangster, a dangerous pirate, or a smuggler of uncustomed goods, but names could be deceiving.
“A soldier brought me a note last week,” Fergus said, presumably in explanation. “He was not in uniform, but I could tell. And I think he was from the British army, which I considered to be unusual.”
Very unusual. Though there were occasional red-coated soldiers to be seen in Charles Town now and then, these usually being messengers bound for General Lincoln’s headquarters, presumably with threatening missives urging the general to consider his situation.
Fergus waved the matter of the note-bearing soldier aside for the moment.
“The note was from Monsieur Beauchamp, saying that he was in residence in Charles Town for a short time and would request the honor of a brief visit at his hôtel.”
“Do you know this Beauchamp?” Roger asked curiously. The name rang a faint bell. “He can’t be a relative of Claire’s, can he?”
Fergus gave him a startled glance.
“Surely not,” he said, though his tone wasn’t quite that sure. “It isn’t an uncommon French name. But, yes, I know him.”
“I gather it isn’t altogether a cordial acquaintanceship?” Roger touched the knife on his belt; it was the Highland dirk that Jamie had given him, an impressive foot-long bit of weaponry with a carved hilt bearing the name of St. Michael and a small image of the archangel. He rather admired the capacity of Catholics to sincerely seek peace while pragmatically acknowledging the necessity for occasional violence.
A brief look of amusement flitted across Fergus’s saturnine features.
“Non,” he said. “But let me tell you. This Beauchamp has tried to speak with me several times, offering assorted things—but chiefly, offering me the truth—or what he says is the truth—about my parents.”
Roger glanced at him.
“Even an orphan must have had parents at one time,” Fergus said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “I have never known anything about mine, and I take leave to doubt that Monsieur Beauchamp does, either.”
“But if that’s the case, why pretend he does?”
“I don’t know, but I suppose we’re about to find out.” Fergus sounded grimly resigned to the prospect. He squared his shoulders, preparing to go on, but Roger’s hand hadn’t left his sleeve.
“Why?” Roger said quietly. “Why talk to him at all?”
The Adam’s apple bobbed in Fergus’s lean throat as he swallowed, but he met Roger’s eyes straight on.
“If I must lose my livelihood here, if I can no longer be a printer—then I must find a new place, or a new way to support my family, to protect them,” he said simply. “It may be that Monsieur Beauchamp will show me such a way.”
THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR Beauchamp’s address was a grand house on Hasell Street, and Fergus’s knock upon the door was answered by a butler whose livery probably cost more than Bonnie the printing press. This worthy gave no sign of wondering why two vagabonds should have appeared on his master’s doorstep, but upon hearing Fergus’s name, bowed low and ushered them inside.
It was a hot day outside, and the thick velvet drapes at the windows were drawn to keep as much heat out as possible. They kept out all daylight as well, and the parlor into which they were shown was so dark that the single lamp on a table near the window glowed like a pearl inside an oyster.
Roger thought it was rather like being inside an oyster himself: surrounded by a slick, oppressive moistness, the constant touch of mucus on the skin. Granted, the room in which they had been shut was not as searing as the glaring cobblestones outside, but it wasn’t a hell of a lot cooler, either.
“Like being poached, instead of fried,” he whispered to Fergus, mopping his face with the lace-trimmed handkerchief he’d forgotten to exchange for a workman’s bandanna. Fergus blinked at him in momentary confusion, but before Roger could explain, the door opened and Percival Beauchamp walked in, smiling.
Roger didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this chap wasn’t it. Beauchamp wasn’t French, for one thing. When he greeted them—with great courtesy—accepted Fergus’s introduction of Roger, and thanked them effusively for coming, his voice was that of an educated Englishman—but not one educated at Eton or Harrow. Roger thought that the traces of an underlying accent came from somewhere near the edges of the Thames—Southwark, or maybe Lambeth? He was dressed in the height of Paris style—or at least Roger assumed that must be what it was, with six-inch cuffs, a yellow silk waistcoat embroidered with swallows, and a lot of lace. He wore his own hair, though, dark and very curly, casually tied back with a plum-colored silk ribbon.
“I thank you for your kind attention, messieurs,” he said again. “Allow me to send for wine.”
“Non,” Fergus said. He pulled an ink-stained handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat pooling in his deep eye sockets. “This place is like a Turkish bath. I have come to hear what you have to say, monsieur. Say it.”
Beauchamp pursed his lips as though about to whistle, but then relaxed, still smiling, and gestured them to a pair of ornately brocaded chairs near the empty hearth. He also went to the door and, in spite of Fergus’s refusal, ordered some refreshments to be brought.
When a tray of pastries with a decanter of iced negus had been delivered, he asked the butler to pour out a glass for each of them and then sat down facing them. His eyes flicked over Roger, but all his attention was for Fergus.
“I said to you on a previous occasion, monsieur, that I wished to acquaint you with the facts of your birth. These are … somewhat dramatic, and I am afraid that you may find some of them distressing. I apologize.”
“Tais-toi,” Fergus said roughly. Roger didn’t understand all of what he said next, but it seemed to be an invitation to Beauchamp to shit something or other—possibly the truth?—out of his backside.
Beauchamp blinked, but sat back, took a sip of wine, and patted his lips.
“You are the son of le Comte Saint Germain,” he said, and paused, as though expecting a reaction. Fergus just stared at him. Roger felt a small rivulet of sweat run down the seam of his back like water from a melting ice cube.
“And your mother’s name was Amélie Élise LeVigne Beauchamp.” Roger heard Fergus’s sudden intake of breath.
“You know that name?” Beauchamp sounded surprised but eager. He leaned forward, his face intent, nacreous in the lamplight.
“J’ai connu une jeune fille de ce nom Amélie,” Fergus said. “Mais elle est morte.”
THERE WAS A moment’s silence, broken only by the distant, bustling hum of the house’s domestic staff.
“She is dead.” Beauchamp’s voice was gentle, but Fergus jerked a little, as though stung by a wasp. Beauchamp drew a long, careful breath, then leaned forward.