The Mask of Night (36 page)

Bet and Trenor came in a few minutes later. Bet hesitated on the threshold, but Trenor took her arm and drew her forward. Mélanie introduced the children.

“That looks like one of Laura’s dresses,” Jessica said, running over to Bet and studying her high-necked dark blue gown.

“It is.” Bet bent down to Jessica’s level. “Miss Dudley lent it me.”

“It’s pretty. I like your hair.” Jessica caught Bet’s hand and pulled her over to the table. “Look at the boat Mr. Gordon made for me.”

Charles was midway through his second cup of coffee and beginning to feel almost like a member of the human race when Michael entered the room. He crossed to Charles’s side and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“Lord Carfax has called, sir. I’ve shown him into the library.”

Charles put his hand to his chin. He hadn’t shaved, but it couldn’t he helped. He glanced at Mélanie. A dozen questions flickered in her gaze, but all she said was, “Straighten your cravat, darling.”

Carfax was standing by the library windows. He had relinquished his greatcoat and hat but was holding his gloves clutched in one hand.

Charles pushed the library doors to. "I was planning to call on you."

"I thought I'd save you the trouble. Good God, you look worse than you did after a week in the Cantabrian Mountains.”

“Yesterday was a long day. May I offer you some coffee, sir?”

Carfax slapped his gloves down on the library table. "Don't prevaricate, Charles."

"St. Juste had been in England for at least a fortnight. He'd taken lodgings in Rosemary Lane."

If Carfax had employed the man Charles and Roth had caught searching St. Juste's rooms, not a muscle in his face betrayed it. "What did you find there?" Carfax asked.

"Some coded papers that I'm going to need a code book to break. And this.” Charles pulled the list of Radical disturbances from his coat pocket.

Carfax took out his spectacles and scanned the paper. "I always wondered if these events were orchestrated."

"You didn't orchestrate them yourself by any chance?"

Carfax regarded him from over his spectacles. "Certainly not. Agents provocateurs have their uses, but this would be going too far."

"Not that you'd tell me if you had been behind them."

"No, I daresay I wouldn't.” Carfax's gaze returned to the paper. "St. Juste seems to have been trying to discover who planned these incidents."

"Quite."

"What else have you learned?"

"St. Juste had hired a young ruffian from Seven Dials named Billy Simcox."

"To do what?"

"I'm not sure. But when Simcox realized what it entailed, he couldn't go through with it. He turned on St. Juste over something that happened in Chelsea involving someone named Harris. The Captain Harris who used to be your aide retired to Chelsea, I believe."

Carfax set the paper down on the table. "Your memory has always been remarkable. You couldn't have been more than thirteen at the time. Yes, Harris lives in Chelsea. At least that's where he went when he sold out of the army."

"When did you last hear from him?"

"It must be close to five years. He came to me a couple of times requesting loans for business ventures. He made some imprudent decisions and his marriage was unfortunate. I thought it best not encourage the connection."

"Did his work for you involve intelligence?"

"He was my chief aide. His work could scarcely have failed to involve intelligence."

"Why did he leave your employ?"

"He married. As you should understand, it gives some men a desire for a more domestic life."

"Have you engaged his services on any missions since he left the army?"

"Certainly not. He was a desk man, not an agent."

"But he must have had knowledge others might find useful."

"Very out of date knowledge."

"St. Juste seems to have had an interest in him. And in you."

"Why me in particular?" Carfax asked.

"He sought out your former aide."

"Possibly. You don't know how Harris fits in or even if it’s the same Harris.” Carfax removed his spectacles and folded the wire frames shut. "If you suspect St. Juste had an interest in me, I think you've discovered more you aren't telling me about.” He tucked the spectacles back into his pocket. "You know about Isobel."

Charles looked from Carfax's hooded gaze to his steady fingers. "When did you find out?"

"Just over a week ago. Talleyrand wrote to me. He'd got wind of it in Paris. A friendly warning, he said, for old time's sake.” A muscle tightened along the earl's jaw. "I didn't believe him at first. So I had Bel followed. I received confirmation the day of the ball. Even then I wasn't sure Talleyrand was right about it being St. Juste until I saw him lying dead in the garden.” He looked Charles straight in the eye. "I know what you're thinking. Given the chance, I might have killed St. Juste with my bare hands. But someone else did it first."

"Why?" Charles asked. "Why target Bel?"

"I've asked myself that a dozen times. St. Juste should have known I wouldn't reveal information to her."

"Did he know she was your favorite?"

"I don't have a favorite child."

"You're closest to Bel."

"Perhaps. What are you getting at?"

"Could St. Juste have been after revenge?"

"I can't recall that I ever did anything to cause St. Juste to harbor that type of animosity toward me. Besides, he wasn't the sort to waste time on revenge."

"Then I can only conclude that he wanted a hold over you. He seduces your daughter. He decodes a list of activities he may have—"

"My dear Charles."

"May have
thought
you were behind. Why?"

"I believe that's what you're investigating. You've questioned this Billy Simcox?”

"Roth tracked him down last night. Someone shot Simcox in the head before Roth could question him."

"Simcox is dead?"

"Very much so."

"Any idea who shot him?"

"No, but he'd been meeting someone in the tavern. We found a note on him with a seal I recognized. The Elsinore League."

Carfax regarded Charles across the table. "Still tilting at windmills, Charles?"

"When I find clues to them in the midst of a murder investigation."

"I know it's difficult to get past your father's death. But to turn an undergraduate club into some sort of conspiracy—"

"Undergraduate club or not, someone associated with the Elsinore League had an appointment to meet Billy Simcox at the Running Hare and may have killed him. And Le Faucon de Maulévrier was a league member and is very likely still in England."

"We don't have definitive proof of ¿that."

"You've had men killed on less definitive evidence."

Carfax's brows snapped together. "I don't deny there may be some sort of connection," he said at last. "But don’t turn this into something it isn't because you want to refight an old battle."

"Believe me, sir, I'm not the one who has trouble seeing the playing field's changed in past twenty years."

"Spare me the political debate.” Carfax picked up his gloves and ran them through his fingers. "When did you last hear from Raoul O'Roarke?"

Charles's senses quickened, as though he'd heard a telltale creak in territory beset with snipers. "A letter before Christmas. I believe he was in Paris."

"I've had reports that he's back in London. One of my informants thought he caught a glimpse of him at the ball.” Carfax began to pull on his gloves. "If by any chance you did know he was in London, I can understand your not wanting to tell me. He's an old friend of your family, and I know he used his Spanish contacts to help you get Colin back last autumn."

"For which Mélanie and I will be forever grateful to him. But we're hardly on such terms that O'Roarke would confide secrets to me. Are you saying you think O'Roarke may be the one who hired St. Juste? Because of something relating to Spain? Or Ireland?"

"It's a bit more complicated.” Carfax flexed his hands, smoothing the leather of the gloves. "O'Roarke employed St. Juste in the past."

"In Spain? For the Spanish resistance?"

"In Spain. But not for the Spanish resistance.” Carfax rested his gloved hands on the marble table. "O'Roarke's work with the Spanish resistance to the Bonaparte regime was only a cover. He was a double for years. He was working for the Bonapartists. He ran one of their best networks."

For a moment, Charles felt every drop of blood in his body go cold. "How long have you known?"

"Since fairly early in the Peninsular War."

"O'Roarke was in and out of Lisbon throughout the war."

"Mingling with our people at embassy parties and military reviews. I thought several times about trying to take him into custody, but it would have compromised too many of our own assets. And he'd only have been replaced with someone we couldn't identify. I'm sorry, Charles. Because of your personal history it's something I wanted to keep from you."

"To spare my feelings? Or because you didn't trust me with the information?"

"A bit of both. Raoul O'Roarke is a brilliant man who would like nothing better than to bring down the monarchies in France and Spain and very likely England as well. I daresay he still has agents here. I'm sure he's in touch with a number of former Bonapartists. And his connections with St. Juste go back to the
Directoire
."

"How do you know?"

"Because St. Juste is the one who told me O'Roarke was a Bonapartist spy."

Mélanie was holding Jessica in her lap and telling Bet about the mock medieval tournament at the Congress of Vienna when Michael re-entered the breakfast parlor to tell her that Isobel Lydgate had called.

“She didn’t wish to join you here, madam. I’ve shown her into the small salon.”

Jessica, inured to such interruptions, stretched her arms out to Bet, who gathered her up with the competence of a woman used to children. Mélanie took a last sip of coffee and murmured an apology to her guests. She could feel Raoul and her son looking at her with sharp eyes as she left the room.

Isobel sprang up from the sofa when Mélanie entered the small salon. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t face Charles or anyone else. Am I interrupting?”

“Nothing that can’t be interrupted.” Mélanie surveyed her friend. Beneath the stark white silk of her bonnet, Isobel's face was the pale, unfamiliar mask from yesterday. "I was going to call on you this morning in any case."

"You want an explanation."

"I'm afraid in the circumstances I need an explanation."

"Of course."

Isobel returned to the sofa. Mélanie sat in a chair opposite. They looked at each other across the room in which they had discussed children’s illnesses, debated transcripts from the House of Commons, struggled with seating arrangements, shared advice on settling disputes among staff. “I think yesterday is the first time I've managed to shock you," Isobel said. "Haven't three years among the
beau monde
taught you that not everyone’s marriage is as idyllic as your own?”

Mélanie choked back a laugh that stung. “I don’t think anyone’s marriage is idyllic, outside of fairy tales and lending library novels.”

"The rules are different for different couples.” Isobel folded her hands in her lap. “As I said yesterday, it began last autumn when Lucinda and I were staying in the south of France with our sister Cecilia and her husband. I met Gerard—the man you call Julien St. Juste—one morning when I was out sketching. He was—” Isobel’s gaze froze, fixed on the rain-streaked glass of the windows. “Attentive. Interested. Interested in me, interested in life. Like no one I’d ever known before.”

Memories shot through Mélanie’s mind. That was not the way she’d have described Julien St. Juste. And yet—

“When he first started flirting with me, I was startled, then amused," Isobel said. "But I flirted back. I never used to know what to say to gentlemen. Suddenly with him I tossed back repartee without thinking twice about it. He started appearing when I went on my morning rides."

"You didn't introduce him to your sisters?"

Isobel shook her head. "He told me he was rusticating to recover from an unhappy love affair. I didn’t tell Cecy or Lucy that I’d met him. Partly to preserve his privacy, partly because even then I knew there was something illicit about the acquaintance. We’d ride together or Gerard would keep me company while I sketched. He was far too much the gentleman to importune me, but I could see he—“

“Wanted you.”

“Yes.” Isobel met Mélanie’s gaze. For a moment Mélanie caught a glimpse of the Bel she had thought she knew. "I didn’t realize I’d made a conscious decision until I found myself agreeing to meet him alone at his château. I knew full well what would happen. What I wanted to happen. I felt— Mad. Powerful. Criminal. Free.”

“Freedom can be very seductive.”

“And dangerous. When Gerard started talking about running off to Vienna, I knew it couldn’t go on. Whatever scandal I might risk on my own, I have three children. I broke it off and returned home.”

Mélanie thought back to calling on Isobel shortly after her return to England. Exclaiming over the Lyon scarf Isobel had brought her, chattering about the Comédie Française and mutual friends in Paris. It had been shortly after Colin’s abduction and recovery and she’d been consumed with the damage to her own family and the impossibility of admitting much of it to Isobel. But how could she not have seen the turmoil her friend must have been in? “And St. Juste—Gerard—followed you to England?”