Secrets of a Lady (20 page)

A knock sounded at the door. Charles went to open it. A woman’s voice, cheerful and with a faint Yorkshire accent, said, “I made you some tea and sandwiches, Mr. Fraser. Is your poor lady recovered? Are you sure we shouldn’t send for a doctor?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, thank you. But the refreshment is much appreciated.”

“Never you mind that, Mr. Fraser. We don’t get much company, not since my poor husband lost everything on the Exchange after Waterloo. Even the children don’t come above once a quarter. It’s a treat to have someone to fuss over.”

Charles came back into the room, carrying a second tray, this one bearing a chipped cream lustre tea service and a plate of sandwiches. Mélanie started to protest, but the part of her mind that had learned to survive at all costs reasserted itself. Neither of them had had anything to eat since the lobster patties at the Esterhazys’ sometime before three in the morning. It was now the middle of the afternoon and God knew when they would have a chance to eat again. They needed sustenance if they were to keep going, and for Colin’s sake they had to keep going. She pulled off her gloves, accepted the cup of tea Charles held out to her, and bit into a salty fish paste sandwich.

Charles walked to the fireplace, teacup in one hand, sandwich in the other. “There’s another possibility,” he said, as though there’d been no pause in the conversation. He set his teacup on the mantel and looked at her. “Your friend O’Roarke may have decided it’s safer to eliminate us than to risk the chance that we’ll tell Carevalo he was once a French agent.”

She straightened up, so suddenly that the tea spattered into the saucer and pain slashed through her side. “No.”

“Damn it, Mel.” Charles slammed his hand down on the mantel, sending a bit of cracked plaster into the grate. “Just because you made the beast with two backs with the man doesn’t mean you know him, any more than I know you.”

She forced a mouthful of the strong, bitter tea down her throat. “Sleeping with him is the least of it, Charles. And don’t assume you don’t know me just because you weren’t aware of all my activities.”

He picked up his cup with whitened fingers, but didn’t drink. “I’m not assuming. I’m stating a fact. The woman I thought I knew, the woman I married, the woman I—loved—wouldn’t have done the things you’ve told me you’ve done. O’Roarke may not be the person you think he is, either.”

She cupped her hands round the warmth of the teacup. “Raoul’s capable of a lot. I expect he’d be capable of killing me, if the stakes were high enough. He might even be capable of sacrificing Colin. But not simply to protect himself from Carevalo.”

“No?” Charles’s eyes were chips of gray ice. “If Carevalo learned the truth about O’Roarke, he’d probably kill him. He could certainly ruin him in Spain, with the royalists and the liberals alike.”

“But Raoul would never act out of fear of a man like Carevalo. He’s much too proud. He’d be sure he could outwit him. Besides, I told you he has his own code. If he did sacrifice me or Colin—or anyone else—it wouldn’t be simply to save his own skin. He’d never—”

“For God’s sake, Mélanie. Have you forgotten how to think?”

Given the value Charles placed on intellect, it was just about the most scathing thing he might have said to her. “It’s not a question of thinking, darling, it’s—”

“Stop it, Mel. Stop sounding so damned all-knowing.” He stalked across the room, then whirled to face her. She could see the urge to destroy something in his eyes. “You may have run rings round me for seven years, but you don’t understand what the hell’s happening now any more than I do. It’s criminal folly to pretend otherwise. If you’d been thinking about Colin from the first—”

“I wouldn’t have married you. I’d have turned my back on anything that smacked of espionage and devoted myself to my child.” She flung the words at him. “I’m no bloody Madonna, Charles.”

“No, by God you aren’t.” He stared down at her, his face white with anger. “You lied to me from the moment we met, you used your son to get me to marry you, you betrayed our friends. You played me like a damned pianoforte—with, I’ll grant you, every bit as much skill as you show at the keys. If you owe me nothing else now, you owe me honesty. If you’d been honest with me sooner—”

“Then Colin might not have been taken?” She gave herself the sharpest cut before he could do so.

“If I’d known the French—if I’d known your people never got the ring, I’d have taken Carevalo’s threats more seriously.”

“If you’d told me Carevalo was demanding the ring—”

“Yes? What then?” His voice battered the stone walls. “You’d have told me the truth about your past?”

“How can I know—” Shame washed over her in a cold deluge. “No, probably not. I was too afraid of losing you.”

“I hadn’t realized you valued me so highly. How can you lose what you only had under false pretenses?”

She set her cup down with a clatter. “This isn’t about what’s between you and me, Charles. I know you must be fearfully jealous of Raoul—”

“
Jealous?
You give yourself too much credit, madam. I can’t feel anything for you anymore. Why should I care what you feel for another man?”

“Whatever I felt for Raoul—”

“Don’t.” The word was like a hand slammed across her mouth. “I don’t want to know. When this is over the two of you can run off to Spain or Ireland or South America and plot revolutions to your hearts’ content. But meanwhile, don’t think I’m going to stand by if he’s trying to kill us.”

“Charles, if Raoul was behind the attack—”

“You’d deny it even as he stuck the knife in your ribs. The man’s obviously bewitched you.”

“Damn you, Charles, don’t you dare shrug off what I did as romantic infatuation.” She gripped the arms of her chair, heedless of the pain in her side. “Call me whatever names you like, but at least credit me with the wit to make decisions for myself. Do you think I’d have run the risks I’ve run and blackened my soul simply for the love of a man?”

“Hardly. I’d be shocked you know the meaning of the word.”

“Five minutes ago you said you didn’t know me at all.”

“I know love doesn’t act the way you’ve acted.”

“Charles, you can’t—”

“Can’t
what
? You’re not in any position to dictate to me, madam.”

“If you can’t be rational—”

“Who the hell are you to talk? If you’d thought anything through, if you’d had a scrap of sheer common sense, decency and honor aside—”

“Yes?” she stared at him, willing him to give her the coup de grâce.

“Damn it, Mélanie—” He caught himself up short, breathing hard, like a winded boxer. “Christ, listen to us. I thought I’d had my fill of parents who put their own problems before their children.”

The anger drained from her body, leaving her sick with guilt and disgust. “You’re right. If you’d known the truth about the ring, you’d have taken Carevalo’s threats seriously and Colin wouldn’t have been taken.”

He fixed his gaze on a faded print of a waterfall on the wall opposite. “I should have taken Carevalo more seriously, regardless. That’s my sin.”

That last word hit her like a blow. “If it wasn’t for me—”

“No sense repining on the past. Not now.” He strode across the room again, stirring a cloud of dust from the threadbare red carpet. “In a sense it doesn’t matter who was behind the attack. It doesn’t change our objective. We have to find the ring, only now we have the added complication that we have to manage not to get killed while doing so.”

She picked up her sandwich and stared at the thin, crustless triangle. What were they feeding Colin? Were they feeding him at all? She forced down a wave of nausea. “At least we should be able to find Helen’s sister at the Gilded Lily.”

“And we can only hope she’s not as estranged from Helen as their uncle thinks.” Charles prowled about the room, picked up another sandwich, set it down untasted. “Before we go to the Gilded Lily, we should stop by Bow Street and see Roth.”

“And tell him about the attack?”

“It’s possible he can learn something about Iago Lorano. And it won’t hurt to have more people hunting for Helen Trevennen. He can have someone help Addison and Blanca with the inquiries among the jewelers.” He picked up a spool of thread from the tray with the bandages. “Give me your pelisse. I’ll mend the rent. If you keep it fastened, your gown will be all right.” He held the needle up to the meager light from the window and threaded it.

She moved, with care, to the edge of the chair and eased the pelisse out from under her. “Charles. You realize the fact that no one’s heard from Helen Trevennen in seven years could mean she’s dead?”

“It could.” He took the pelisse from her, dropped down in a ladderback chair beside the window, and began to stitch up the rent made by the knife. “But she had the ring, and the quickest way to find it is to find out what happened to her.” He held out the pelisse. “There. It might not pass muster with Blanca, but it’ll do from a distance. Can you walk?”

“It’s my side that’s hurt, Charles. My legs are fine.” She stood up quickly to convince him and regretted the motion at once. But as long as she didn’t move her right arm too much, the pain was tolerable.

Charles slipped the pelisse over her arms and did up the frogged clasps that ran down the front. “Do you want more brandy?” he asked. “Or some laudanum?”

“Stop fussing, darling. Just put my bonnet back on.”

He looked at her for a moment, then set the bonnet on her head and tied the ribbons. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “don’t you think it’s a bit ridiculous to go on calling me darling?”

“I can’t help it,” she said, an unexpected lump in her throat. “It’s the way I think of you.”

Charles went to open the door without making any reply.

Chapter 14

T
he lad Charles had employed to watch Trevennen’s rooms reported that no one had approached Trevennen since Mélanie was attacked. Charles pressed some coins into the boy’s hand and asked him to take a message to their coachman. Randall was to remain by the Marshalsea for another quarter-hour and then return to Berkeley Square.

Mélanie could feel Charles’s appraising gaze on her as they made their way along the rain-splashed maze of cobblestone alleys. Finally, as they neared the prison gates, she answered his unvoiced concerns. “Darling, don’t even think about not taking steps to throw off pursuit. I won’t collapse on you, I promise. Thank goodness you had the sense to beg an umbrella along with the brandy and bandages.”

Charles cast a brief glance at the sky, which if anything had grown even darker. Then he nodded and tilted the umbrella farther over her head.

They encountered a large family party by the gates. A stoop-shouldered man who kept checking his watch as though he was late for an appointment; a lady in a well-worn pelisse with the cuffs turned; a teenage girl whose legs were several inches too long for her bombazine skirt; and two boys who kept asking their parents why Grandpapa couldn’t come home with them.

She and Charles slipped out of the prison in the family’s wake. Outside they rounded two street corners, flagged down a hackney, then at the last minute waved it on, rounded another corner and did the same, then finally hailed a third hackney (no easy task in the rain), climbed in, and directed the driver to Bow Street.

Mélanie fell back against the squabs. The umbrella had not kept out all the rain and she was more chilled than she cared to admit to her husband.

Charles looked at her for a moment, but he merely said, “There’s no reason to hold anything back from Roth. Except the fact that you and O’Roarke were French agents. Not to mention lovers.”

“Good God, no. Being arrested would be nearly as debilitating as being killed.” For a moment, the future crowded in on her, a myriad of unpleasant possibilities that drove the air from her lungs. Charles could turn her in to Bow Street as a French spy. One part of her mind said that he never would, but another shouted back,
How can you be sure?
How could she really know how far hurt and anger and an outraged sense of honor might drive him? He might not know himself.

Even if he didn’t expose her as a spy, he had every right to want his freedom. She owed him that at the very least.

Her breath stuck in her throat, as she forced herself to confront what lay before her. Separation. Annulment. Divorce. A friend of theirs who had been sued for criminal conversation by her husband had lost all access to her children. The woman’s drawn face flickered before Mélanie’s gaze, a ghost of what was to come.

She should be prepared for this. The threat of exposure had always been there, a constant tension beneath the polished surface of her life. Sometimes she had been able to bury the fear so deeply she was scarcely aware of it herself. But a trick of memory, a turn of phrase, a look into Charles’s trusting eyes would bring it welling to the surface. Shame and guilt and sheer, bloody terror would wash over her in a cold sweat. And then she would force them all back to a place deep inside, because that was the only way she could continue with her life.

Now there could be no hiding from Charles or from herself. She had lived on borrowed time for seven years, and she would have to take the consequences.

They had crossed back over the bridge, but traffic had slowed to a maddening crawl. She rubbed at the condensation on the glass and peered out the window. A curricle had locked wheels with a brewer’s dray on the rain-soaked cobblestones. The patter of rain and the curses of other drivers echoed through the windows.

“Do you have a sister?” Charles said.

The question was as unexpected as a knife cut. She turned her head to look at him. “I had a sister. A younger sister.”

“She died.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” It would have been better if she could have kept looking at him as she spoke, but instead she stared down at her hands. The remembered stench of blood invaded the moldering air of the hackney. “Eleven years ago.”

“When your father died.” The angry edge that had been in his voice when he asked his first questions about her life was gone. Something in his quiet tone was close to Charles her husband and she shied away from it. There were some things she hadn’t spoken about to anyone, not even Raoul.