Secrets of a Lady (44 page)

He glanced into the fire. “You weren’t the only one who was disillusioned after Waterloo. I didn’t like the future Castlereagh and the others were shaping any more than you did. Even I eventually saw how futile it was to be—how did you put it? A lone voice arguing over a glass of port?”

“Charles, I didn’t mean—”

“No, you were right. That’s why I left the diplomatic service.”

“And you came home and you did stand for Parliament.”

“Where at least my lone voice is heard by the entire House of Commons, which gives me the illusion that my arguments might make a difference.” He looked up at her. The firelight sparked in his eyes. “But I’d never have had the courage to come home without you beside me.”

She closed the distance between them in one move and took his face between her hands. “You’re the best person I know, Charles. If I have any understanding of love or trust or compassion, I learnt it from you. I’m sorry I’m not the woman you thought I was. But however tainted your view of me has become, don’t let it taint the rest of life for you.” Her fingers trembled. She looked deep into his eyes. “I have no right to ask anything of you. But for God’s sake, try to love yourself.”

For a long moment he said nothing. Then he reached up and covered one of her hands with his own. “That’s a bit much to ask of anyone, don’t you think?” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m all right, Mel. Like you, I know how to survive. Colin’s the one who’s going to need us both.”

She said nothing, because to that there could be no answer.

Colin’s heart slammed into his throat at the approaching footsteps. He flung himself to the edge of the bed farthest from the door.

The door creaked open. “Brat? Are you awake? I’ve brought your supper.”

Meg came into the room, carrying a splintery wooden tray. No sign of Jack or of a knife. Colin was tempted to put his arm over his eyes, but that seemed cowardly, so instead he sat very still. If they grabbed him again, he’d bite.

“I got Jack to bring a meat pie and some lemonade back from the tavern,” Meg said. She set the tray down on the rickety, three-legged table by the bed.

The smell of the meat pie made him gag, but even if his stomach hadn’t been twisted in knots he wasn’t going to eat anything they gave him. “I don’t want it,” he said.

“See here, brat.” Meg folded her arms over the stained linen of her shirt. “You’ve got to eat something or you’ll make yourself sick.”

Colin pulled his hurt hand closer against his chest.

Meg grimaced. “Oh, poison.” She dropped down on the edge of the bed. The straw in the mattress crackled. Colin flinched. Fear shot up his spine like lightning.

Meg sat watching him. “Look, lad, I know it must hurt like the devil. But it’ll get better, I promise you. You’re lucky to still have the rest of your fingers. I know lots of children lost two or three fingers or even a whole hand to those new machines in the cotton mills. They learn to get on, one way or another.”

Colin drew his knees up to his chest. He wasn’t inclined to believe anything Meg said, but he’d heard Mummy and Daddy and their friends talk about how bad things were for children who worked in the mills. One evening when the grown-ups didn’t realize he was listening, he’d overheard a story about a little boy who’d got his scalp pulled off. So perhaps Meg was telling the truth. Daddy’s friend Fitzroy Somerset had lost his arm at the Battle of Waterloo, and he could do all sorts of things and even still be a soldier. Colin wondered how long it had been before Uncle Fitzroy’s shoulder stopped hurting where his arm had been.

“’Least you don’t need your hands to make a living,” Meg went on. “You can still hold a fork and ride a horse and fire a gun and all the sorts of things a gentleman does.”

She smiled at him, a real smile that made her eyes crinkle up and her mouth look less sour. Colin inched back against the iron headboard. She’d done something really beastly, like a bad fairy in a storybook, but when she smiled like that she didn’t look evil at all. And she sounded as though she was trying to be nice. It was very confusing. How was he supposed to know when he could trust her and when to be afraid?

“Anyways,” Meg said, “better eat up or you won’t grow. That’s what I used to tell my little boy.”

Colin was startled into speech, in spite of his determination not to talk to her. “You have a little boy?”

Meg’s face went pinched. “I had a little boy once.”

He stared at her in the flickering glow of the rush light. She looked like she was the one who’d just been stabbed. “What happened to him?”

Meg plucked at a thread in the frayed calico coverlet. “He died.”

“Was he sick?” Colin asked.

“He caught a chill.”

“Couldn’t the doctors make him better?”

“Doctors?” Her laugh was like sandpaper. “Christ, brat, do you think we could afford—” She shook her head. “No, no one could make him better.”

“How old was he?”

“Just past three.”

“I’m sorry.” It was true. Whatever he thought of her, he was sorry for her little boy.

Meg shrugged her shoulders. “I had ten brothers and sisters. There’s only two of us left and I can’t be sure about my sister. She went to work in a mill in Yorkshire and it’s close on two years since I’ve had word of her. Life’s cheap where I come from.”

Colin frowned, puzzled by this last. “But—”

“What the hell are you doing, Meggie?” Jack yelled from the other room. “Get back out here.”

“In a minute.” Meg stood and looked down at Colin. She started to lift her hand, then let it fall to her side when he jerked back against the headboard. “Eat your supper, brat. You don’t know how lucky you are to have it.”

She turned on her heel and left the room. Colin looked after her, mulling over the things she had said. He wasn’t sure how life could be cheap or expensive, since it didn’t cost anything to be born. He wasn’t sure why she was so worried about him eating when she’d helped cut his finger off. She looked as though she really missed her own little boy. So why didn’t she understand that he wanted his mummy and daddy back?

“Jesus, Meg,” Jack said. He clunked down something heavy, like a tankard. “What’re you doing talking to the brat? You trying to make this harder than it is?”

“We’ll be in a right mess if he stops eating and makes himself sick, won’t we?” Meg’s voice sounded harder than it had when she’d been talking to Colin.

“It’s only been a day,” Jack said. “Plenty of kids go two or three without a meal.”

“Not his sort. He won’t be used to it.”

“All right, have it your own way. But you’re making it that much harder for yourself if—”

“If what?” Meg said. Something in her tone made Colin’s stomach take a dip.

“Well, hell, we still don’t know how this is going to end, do we?” Jack said.

There was a long silence. A shivery sort of silence. Colin grabbed the coverlet and clutched it round him.

“No,” Meg said at last. “But then that’s always true, isn’t it? Don’t worry, Jack, I haven’t gone soft. If it comes to it, I’ll do what needs doing. Let’s eat.”

The sand-scoured steps and polished front door glowed in the lamplight, no different from the countless other front steps and doors in the row of brick town houses with white-framed sash windows and neat area railings that lined Bedford Place.

“It looks as if Helen Trevennen got the respectability she craved,” Charles said, turning up the collar of his greatcoat.

“Not the sort of place one would think the summit of her ambitions,” Mélanie said. “But perhaps by the time she came here she was looking for a haven.”

Charles glanced at his wife, wondering if there were undertones to the statement. Beneath the green satin brim of the fresh hat she’d put on when they returned to Berkeley Square, her face was unreadable. Difficult to believe it was only Wednesday night. Their trip to Brighton had taken less than twenty-four hours. Three more days remained until Carevalo’s deadline, though that time seemed scant enough, even with Helen Trevennen’s house before them.

Edgar moved to stand beside them on the pavement. Charles glanced up and down the street. It was empty, dark save for the yellow blurs of lamplight in the soot-sticky air and quiet save for the distant rumble of wheels and clop of hooves. They’d left their hackney three streets over and walked the rest of the way.

Charles’s gaze drifted toward Russell Square, where Addison was waiting. He and Blanca had returned from their visit to Lieutenant Jennings’s widow shortly before Charles, Mélanie, and Edgar reached Berkeley Square. Mrs. Jennings had apparently been all too willing to vent her frustrations with her late husband. She had known a great deal more about him than Jennings realized, including his affair with Helen Trevennen of the Drury Lane. She admitted to talking about Miss Trevennen to a man calling himself Iago Lorano, who had called on her a fortnight before. But any secrets Jennings had shared with his mistress in his last letter, he had seemingly not confided to his wife.

Edgar stared at the house. “What if she’s out for the evening?”

Charles started up the steps. He’d left his walking stick in Berkeley Square, though the stiff soreness in his leg told him this had perhaps been more wishful thinking than wisdom. “We’ll find out where she’s gone.”

“What if she refuses to see us?”

He rang the bell. “She won’t.”

A manservant with a stiff shirt collar and an air of self-importance opened the door.

“We’re here to see Mrs. Constable,” Charles told him.

The manservant’s eyes widened. “But—”

“We apologize for the late hour. If you take her my card, I think she will agree to see us.”

The manservant glanced at the card, blinked in recognition, then cleared his throat. “If you’ll wait in the hall a moment,” he said in a voice several degrees warmer, “I’ll inquire if Mrs. Constable is at home.”

His footsteps faded up the polished stairs. Charles glanced about, seeking clues in the surroundings. The table against the wall was mahogany, and a handsome Turkey carpet covered the floorboards. The vase of dried flowers on the table had the sparkle of crystal, and the silver salver for cards did not appear to be plated. He met Mélanie’s gaze in silent acknowledgment. Either Mr. Constable’s legal practice was doing very well or the former Helen Trevennen still had an outside source of income.

Edgar paced the carpet. “What do we do if she won’t come down?”

“Go up,” Charles said.

“Oh, Christ.” His brother stared at him. “You mean it, don’t you?”

“Can you think of an alternative?”

But the manservant returned with the news that Mrs. Constable would be happy to receive them. He conducted them up the stairs and opened a door onto yellow-striped wallpaper, a gleaming pianoforte, and chintz furniture. A world of secure respectability.

“Thank you, George. That will be all.” A dark-haired woman set her tambour frame on the settee beside her and got to her feet. She wore an apricot-colored evening gown, with a demure, ruffled neck and a skirt that did not cling too close. An amber cross hung from a black velvet ribbon round her throat. Beneath her curling fringe of dark hair, she was Mélanie’s sketch come to life. The heart-shaped face, the wide, light eyes, the finely arched brows, the full, soft lips.

But what Mélanie’s sketch had not caught, what none of those with whom they had spoken about Helen Trevennen had conveyed, was the sweetness that shone behind her eyes, in the curve of her mouth, in the tilt of her brows. Helen Trevennen, or Elinor Constable, radiated simple, artless charm. But then, if Charles had ever doubted that looks could be deceiving, his own wife had given him cause to know his folly.

“Mrs. Fraser? Mr. Fraser? Captain Fraser?” Her gaze drifted politely from one of them to the other. She smiled, a gentle smile that held no hint of the hard brilliance Charles had expected to find in Helen Trevennen. “Your names are familiar to me, of course, though I don’t believe we have ever met. Perhaps you have business with my husband? I’m afraid he isn’t in. He’s dining with a colleague in the Temple.”

Charles smiled at her, as though she was any lady in her drawing room, as though it was not past ten o’clock at night and his son’s life did not depend upon the outcome of the interview. “As it happens, our business is with you, Mrs. Constable.”

“Oh?” Her brows lifted, but she was too polite to blurt out a question. “Please sit down.” She gestured to chairs, returned to the settee, and bent down to retrieve something peeking out from beneath her worktable. A doll, Charles realized, with yellow yarn hair. “My daughter’s,” she explained with a smile. “My children like to play in the drawing room after dinner and I’m afraid we haven’t managed to teach them tidiness.”

Charles leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll come to the point, Mrs. Constable. We’re looking for a ring we believe you have in your possession. We’ll pay handsomely for it.”

The blue-gray eyes widened. The delicate brows rose in what Charles would have sworn was genuine puzzlement. “A ring?” She glanced down at her hands. On her left, she wore only a simple gold wedding band. On the second finger of her right hand was an aquamarine set in seed pearls. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Fraser. I don’t have a great deal of jewelry.”

“This is a gold ring, a heavy gold band, wrought in the shape of a lion with ruby eyes.”

Charles could detect no false note in the bewilderment in her eyes. “I have no ring like that at all, Mr. Fraser. No rubies and nothing of such an old-fashioned design.”

“We believe it was sent to you by Lieutenant William Jennings.”

This time her face tensed beneath the look of confusion. “I don’t know a Lieutenant Jennings.”

“Not anymore perhaps. But you did once, Miss Trevennen.”

The words registered on her face like a slap. The blood drained from her skin, but she held her head high. “It’s a long time since I’ve heard that name.” She smoothed her hands over her lap, pulling the sheer fabric of her dress taut. “I think you’d better tell me the whole story, Mr. Fraser.”

Charles summoned a smile from his inner reserves. “You were born Helen Trevennen in Cornwall, near Truro. You came to London about fifteen years ago. You worked as an actress at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. I should say, Mrs. Constable, that we realize this is not quite the version of events you gave to your husband when you met him. We have no wish to disabuse him of the facts. That is a matter between you and him.” His voice was steady. He did not so much as glance at his own wife. “We are only interested in the ring that you received from Lieutenant Jennings in January of 1813.”