"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Are you? I could do anything I like to you right now. Take you prisoner; carry you off to my den of iniquity. There's no one to see or stop me."
"If I screamed, someone would come. And I imagine that your den is far enough away that it would be difficult to get me there with no one noticing."
He shrugged. "Perhaps. Fear not, though. You're in no danger with me." For the first time, I could see his face. His eyes, as I remembered, were a shocking blue, but the remainder of his features were unremarkable. Although I wouldn't have described him as handsome, there was a vibrancy about him that was most appealing.
"I've lost your mother's Bible. I'm very sorry."
"It's of no consequence to me. If I had wanted it, I would have taken it when she offered it to me."
"I believe that Charles Berry has it."
"Well, I hope it amuses him."
"How can you be so cavalier about all this? Don't you want to stop him?"
"Berry? He's a bloody boor. Why would I care to involve myself with him?"
"He's stealing your heritage." This brought a hearty laugh from my companion.
"Darling, I do adore you. Such drama! Such enthusiasm!
"I might be able to sight-read, but I'm afraid that my verbal skills are woefully lacking. Translation?"
"Let us run far away, as far as we have strength to go."
"How did you become so well educated if you were brought up as a servant?"
"I was sent to school by a benefactor."
"I see. I wondered if you had some sort of hidden trust."
He raised his eyebrows. "A hidden trust? Where would you get such an idea? Have I been misled about your character? Tell me you don't read bad fiction. I thought you were devoted to Homer?"
"Don't try to distract me. Surely you're not going to stand aside while Charles Berry ascends to the throne in France?"
"What concern is it of mine? My family has done more than enough."
This simple statement touched my heart. The pain this poor man must have suffered! I could only imagine the horror he felt from the knowledge of the brutality of his relatives' executions. To think that he'd had to live his entire life denying his identity, posing as a servant, when, by birthright, he should have been surrounded by every luxurious comfort. Despite myself, I took his gloved hand in mine and squeezed it.
"You're quite right. But you cannot allow him to claim something that is rightfully yours. Even if the monarchy is never restored, he should not be able to say he is the true heir to the House of Bourbon."
"And you think I am? Oh, this is a delight. No, no, darling, I'm no relation to the poor dauphin. If anything, I'm sick to death of hearing about him."
"But the Bible? Bernadette Capet? I know that she came to England with the dauphin."
"Yes."
"And his daughter was your mother."
"No, you've lost the story completely. Bernadette and her son, my grandfather, brought Louis Charles to England, but they did not stay with him. It was of paramount concern that his identity remain a secret, so the boy was given to the guardianship of a childless couple."
"Did they know who he was?"
"Of course, but they never told a soul."
"But Capet was the name given to the royal family."
"And dear Bernadette adopted it for just that reason. There's nothing my family is fonder of than honoring the French monarchy. You can't imagine how tedious it is."
"If that's how you feel, why have you devoted yourself to stealing things that belonged to Marie Antoinette?"
"Yes, it's quite a conundrum, isn't it? My mother was fixated on the Bourbons and the service Bernadette had done for them. From the time I could speak, she taught me the history of France."
"Is that so awful?"
"When it's done to the exclusion of all other things, yes. She had a practiced litany of all the things that had been stolen from the Bourbons. I couldn't stand listening to it. After I'd gone to school, I knew that I did not want to go back to Richmond. She was horrified that I would consider staying away. Insisted that I remain."
"She had no other children?"
"No. Just me."
"Perhaps she wanted your comfort in her old age?"
"No. She believed emphatically that it was necessary for me to stay because that, darling, is what Marie Antoinette would have wanted. Bernadette, you see, swore that she would stay near enough Louis Charles and his heirs to make sure that they were always well. Her son followed her, as did his daughter, and now I am supposed to do the same."
"You were to watch the dauphin's heir?"
"Yes. Can you imagine? It's been a hundred years since the revolution. Surely it's safe for us to move on." He picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it with some force over the flower bed across from us. "We had a terrible argument, and I left. Came to London, changed my name, started anew."
"But you took the name Capet?"
"I've never been able to resist such a fine opportunity for irony," he said. "Before I came to London, she tried to give me that bloody snuffbox, and I wouldn't take it. It was the most precious thing she owned, you see. The dauphin had given it to Bernadette, and it had been passed down since then. My mother used to show it to me when I was a boy but would never let me touch it. She told me that inside was a piece of paper on which the entire story was recorded, written in Bernadette's hand."
"Why did you refuse to take it?"
"Whoever has the snuffbox has tacitly agreed to look out for the dauphin's heir. I had no intention of doing that."
"You didn't return to Richmond, even when she died?"
"No. What would have been the point?"
"I still don't understand why you are now collecting things that belonged to the queen."
"I felt a terrible guilt after my mother died. I'd left her alone and mocked what she viewed as the sacred purpose of her life. Shortly after her death, I overheard a gentleman saying that he owned a Limoges box purported to have belonged to the French queen. I knew that my mother would have loved to own such a thing."
"And you couldn't afford to buy it from him?"
"Not at all. I'd had a difficult time earning a living in London and had discovered that I possess a certain talent for entering houses undiscovered. And that talent, once developed, offers a handy way to supplement one's income. It was simple to get the box from Lord Grantham's house."
"And the rest?"
"It's rather addictive, sneaking about like that, causing a stir. Quite exciting."
"So why did you return the pink diamond?"
"Despite my best efforts, it was impossible for me to completely rid myself of the hereditary awe for the House of Bourbon my family has passed to me. Once I realized that I'd taken the stone from the dauphin's heir, I thought I ought to give it back, particularly as it was he who paid for my schooling."
"David Francis is the true heir?" I wondered if Beatrice was aware of this. "You didn't know this when you took the diamond? Surely your mother would have told you?"
"No. That was something revealed only once a person had agreed to carry on the family business. Absurd, isn't it? So I didn't know it was Francis. Not until I read in the newspapers that he owned the snuffbox. When I'd refused it, my mother made a great show of saying that it would be gone from our family forever, that I'd left her no choice but to return it to the Bourbons."
"Who do you think killed him?"
"I've not the slightest idea. Of course this all proves my mother right. The Bourbons did still need watching."
"It wouldn't have made any difference," I said.
"No, it wouldn't have."
"How did you get Léonard's letters?"