Secrets of a Lady

by Tracy Grant

  “That he was trying to trace the ring. I insisted the French must have got it, but he said he had doubts. Asked if there was a chance we buried it with any of the dead. I assumed he was a friend of this Marqués de Carevalo, though come to think of it he didn’t come right out and say so.” Baxter rubbed at the soot on his hands. “Do you think it was my answers made Carevalo decide you must have the ring yourself?”

  “I doubt it,” Charles said. “Carevalo’s been convinced I have the ring ever since he talked to the French soldier. If he was going to make inquiries, he’d have come himself. I doubt this Lorano is his friend, or even working with him.”

  “Who the devil is he, then?”

  “I’m not sure. But we may have competition in finding the ring.” Charles leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “Is there any chance we buried it with the dead after the attack?”

  “I don’t see how, sir. I went through their pockets careful as can be, in case there was anything to send on to their families.”

  “What did you take out?”

  Baxter frowned. “The Spaniard asked me the same thing. One fellow had a watch. Another had a lock of his sweetheart’s hair. I think that was all, except that Lieutenant Jennings had a letter on him.”

  Charles straightened up. “What sort of a letter? How many pages?”

  “I couldn’t rightly say, sir. But it must have been longish. It was a fair fat packet.”

  “Fat enough for the ring to be tucked inside?”

  Baxter’s eyes went wide. He nodded slowly. “Aye. More than fat enough.”

  Charles regarded him for a moment. “You didn’t say anything about it at the time.”

  Baxter glanced down at the scuffed toes of his boots. “Well, no, sir, I didn’t quite like to. It—ah—the letter wasn’t addressed to Mrs. Jennings at their house in Surrey. Seemed more discreet just to send it on to the lady quiet-like. If I’d known—”

  “But you couldn’t have, of course. Did you tell Lorano about the letter?”

  “I mentioned it, sir. Didn’t see any reason not to. I’m not sure he put it together that the ring might have been inside. I didn’t myself properly until just now.”

  Charles sat forward in his chair. “Do you remember the lady’s name?”

  Baxter’s face screwed up with concentration. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw Mélanie twisting her gloves round her fingers.

  “Ellen something,” Baxter said at last. “No, Helen, that was it.” His face cleared. “Helen Trevennen. Like Helen of Troy, I thought. I suppose that’s why it stuck in my head.”

  Charles released his breath and gave thanks to a God he had long since ceased to believe in. “Did you mention her name to Lorano?”

  “No. I said I couldn’t remember—which was true until just now. Seemed best to leave well enough alone.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you remember her direction as well?”

  “Oh, I remember that right enough. She must have been an actress or a dancer or something of the sort. The letter wasn’t directed to her lodgings. It was sent to the Drury Lane Theatre.” He shook his head. “Fancy my remembering after all these years.”

  Chapter 10

  M élanie gripped the edges of the carriage seat to steady her hands. It was not far to the Drury Lane Theatre, but the narrow streets were thronged with carts and drays going to and from the market. They were crawling along at a maddening pace. “Seven years is a long time,” she said. “I don’t recall seeing a Helen Trevennen on the program at the Drury Lane since we’ve been back in Britain.”

  “No.” Charles turned his gaze to her. He’d been staring out the window with a fixed expression. “The odds are she’s not at the theater anymore.”

  Don’t let your hopes carry you away, his voice said. It was difficult when hope and fear churned within her, clogging her throat, tearing at her chest. “What about this man Lorano who asked Baxter about the ring?” she said. “Who do you think he’s working for?”

  “The royalists most likely, perhaps even the Spanish embassy. If there’s a rebellion in Spain, the royalists could make as much use of the ring as Carevalo and the liberals.”

  “Wouldn’t they have to return it to the Carevalo family?”

  “Why?” He scanned her face with a cold gaze. “Your people weren’t planning to turn the ring over to Carevalo seven years ago. All the royalists need to do is dig up a Carevalo relative who supports the monarchy and parade him about with the ring. They could repeat the legends about the ring with a strategic emphasis on the links between the ring’s power and the Spanish throne. Like most legends, the story of the Carevalo Ring can be bent to serve a multitude of purposes.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. It was much the same thing Raoul had said to her seven years ago. “And if the people on Carevalo’s lands saw a pro-royalist Carevalo cousin with the ring, they might side with him rather than Carevalo and the liberals.”

  “Precisely. If the royalists get their hands on the ring, there’s not a chance in hell they’ll surrender it to Carevalo, even if we could explain what that means for Colin.”

  “We’ll just have to hope Mr. Lorano hasn’t traced Helen Trevennen to the Drury Lane.”

  “Yes.” Charles pushed his hair back from his forehead. She caught a telltale tremor in his hand. For a moment his controlled expression wavered. It was like looking into a glass at the reflection of her own terror.

  “So Lieutenant Jennings found the Carevalo Ring,” she said, recapitulating what they had learned thus far in the hope it would still the panic welling up in her chest. “It must have been hidden in some village or town the British occupied. Jennings heard the legends about the ring and realized how valuable it could be to the British. But he knew his superiors in the army wouldn’t pay him for it. In fact, given Wellington’s strictures against pillaging, he might get asked some uncomfortable questions about how he’d acquired the ring. So he hired the bandits to sell the ring to the British for him. Somehow he arranged to lead the detachment of soldiers who traveled with you when you went to buy the ring from the bandits. He wouldn’t trust the bandits with the ring until the last minute, so he carried it with him and hid it in a letter he’d written to his mistress, Helen Trevennen.”

  “It’s largely conjecture,” Charles said, “but it’s the only explanation that fits the facts as we know them.”

  “What do we tell them at the Drury Lane?” Mélanie said. “The truth?”

  “The truth?” Charles’s voice cut like ice. “Surely not. Do you even know how to tell it? Besides, it might frighten Helen Trevennen or her friends into silence. I think Lieutenant Jennings had better have been a good friend of mine. I was going through a trunk of his belongings recently and I found a letter from him leaving a bequest to Miss Trevennen. I didn’t want to tell his wife, so I’m seeking out Miss Trevennen myself.”

  “That’s simple and fairly plausible.” She adjusted the brim of her bonnet, as though she could anchor herself. “What time is it?”

  He pulled his watch from his pocket and opened it. “Just past ten.”

  “There’s sure to be a rehearsal starting by now. The stage manager’s a better bet for information than the manager. Stage managers know everything.”

  He nodded, returned his watch to his pocket, then swung his head round to look at her. “How long were you an actress?”

  Even now, even with his mind on Colin, he missed nothing. She tightened the ribbons on her bonnet, tugging harder than was necessary. The ribbon cut into her skin. “My father had a traveling theater company. I was performing before I was Jessica’s age. I went on doing so until I was fifteen.”

  “And then?”

  He deserved an answer. She gave him the bare minimum. “He died.”

  Charles’s eyes asked a great deal more and, she feared, saw more than a glimmering of the answers, but he merely said, “Evidently he taught you well.”

  A rich voice, smiling eyes. A
hand ruffling her hair, a challenging question, a love she had never doubted. “My father was a man of integrity,” she said. “I think he’d have liked you. I expect he wouldn’t be very happy with what I’ve become.”

  “If he was a man of integrity,” Charles said, “I can’t imagine he would be.”

  His cool words cut her to the quick, because she knew he was right. Her father, like Charles, could never have made sense of letting the ends justify the means.

  The porter at the stage door of the Drury Lane greeted their entrance with a frown, which changed to a look of surprise when Charles produced his card. It was not politic for a theater to offend influential politicians. He waved them in.

  The smell was instantly recognizable. Not the scented candles, French perfume, and ripe oranges one smelled in the audience, but a sharper scent composed of cheap gilt paint, musty costumes, thick greasy cosmetics, and rehearsal tea brewed over a spirit lamp. Her father’s company had never played in a theater half so grand, but some things were universal, whatever the size of the house.

  The slither of booted feet on floorboards and the clang of foils came from the stage.

  “‘Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives,’” a voice muttered in desultory tones.

  “No, no.” Another voice interrupted from beyond the stage. “You’re supposed to be the best swordsman in Verona, Tony. Try to look confident. Crispin, Mercutio should swagger. You look as though you’re a stripling trying to remember the steps of the waltz.”

  Mélanie hesitated for the barest fraction of a second, teetering on the edge of a forgotten world. She’d long since severed this play from the demons of her past, but being behind the scenes was different from watching it comfortably seated in a box or even saying the lines herself in amateur theatricals.

  No one noticed their entrance at first. Murky, strong-smelling rehearsal lamps cast giant shadows over the wings, the slotted scene panels, the stage itself. Two men in their shirtsleeves were dueling across the stage. Two women—Juliet and the nurse, from the sound of it—were running lines in the upper stage left corner. A girl in an apron hurried by, holding a brocade robe that rattled as if it were full of pins. Two stagehands staggered out of the wings, carrying an enormous canvas flat that smelled of fresh paint. Mélanie stopped them with a smile and a question. Five minutes later, a tall, thin man in a paint-smeared smock appeared beside them.

  “I’m Ned Thurgood, the stage manager.” He wiped his hands on his smock. “Mr. Fraser? Mrs. Fraser? What brings you to the Drury Lane?” His manner was polite, even deferential, but though he looked them in the eye, his attention seemed to dart about the theater, taking in the movements of the duelists, the young man bent over a prop table, the voices running lines, the pounding of nails echoing through an open door at the back of the stage.

  Charles shook Thurgood’s hand. “It’s a delicate matter, I’m afraid, Thurgood. We’re looking for a woman named Helen Trevennen who was employed at this theater seven years ago.”

  Mélanie was torn between the hope that Thurgood would say Miss Trevennen was even now in the theater and the fear that he would claim never to have heard of her. Instead, his bushy brows shot up. “Helen. Good lord. Yes, she was one of our actresses, though she left the company some time ago. Was she—No, we’d best speak in private. Tim,” he shouted to the young man at the prop table. “Make sure the paint’s dry on the fountain. We need it this afternoon. Balcony scene,” he explained to Charles and Mélanie as he ushered them round coils of rope, a rack of costumes, a thronelike chair with the upholstery stripped off, and a stack of papier-mâché rocks. “Supposed to give the effect of spring and young love. Weighs a ton. We have enough pulleys on this production to rig a ship. Artistic vision’s all very well, but sometimes ideas that sound perfectly good on paper prove dam—devilish hard to execute.”

  “‘O! for a Muse of fire,’” Charles murmured. Somehow he made the words friendly and conversational, though Mélanie knew he must be as desperate for information as she was herself.

  Thurgood turned his head, as though he was really looking at Charles for the first time. “Quite. Unfortunately, I have to make do with a crew of all-too-human stagehands.” He opened a door onto a small office that seemed to contain a desk and two rickety chairs, though it was difficult to tell, as every surface was stacked with scripts, musical scores, playbills, and odd scraps of paper. Thurgood shifted some papers to the floor, waved them to the two chairs, and perched on the edge of the desk. “Sorry for the chaos. We open in less than a week and it’s a new production. I’ll do what I can to help you, Mr. Fraser, but I haven’t seen Helen Trevennen since she left the company.”

  In as few words as possible, Charles outlined the story of his friend Jennings’s death, the trunk of his belongings, and the paper leaving a bequest to Helen Trevennen.

  Thurgood scratched his hair, which was of the curly variety that never quite lies straight. “Helen wasn’t a woman one forgets easily.” A reminiscent smile crossed his face, then was quickly erased. “Begging your pardon, Mrs. Fraser. This is an unpleasant business for a lady.”

  “Please don’t hesitate out of concern for my sensibilities, Mr. Thurgood.” Mélanie calculated her tone and expression to strike a balance between refined wife and woman of the world. “I wouldn’t have accompanied my husband if I wasn’t prepared for the realities of the situation.”

  “Ah—quite.” Thurgood coughed.

  “Where did Miss Trevennen go when she left the theater?” Charles asked, impatience breaking through in his voice.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know, Mr. Fraser.” Thurgood fidgeted with the papers on the desk beside him. “It’s odd. I haven’t thought of Helen—Miss Trevennen—in years. But another gentleman was asking about her only a few days ago.”

  Mélanie could almost hear Charles’s silent curse. “Oh?” he said. “Another acquaintance from the past?”

  “So he claimed. Foreign gentleman. Spanish. Said he met Helen on a visit here during the war.”

  “Do you remember his name? It might help us in tracing Miss Trevennen.”

  Thurgood smiled. “Iago. Can’t expect anyone who works in a theater to forget that. Iago—was it Morano? No, Lorano, that was it. Iago Lorano.”

  “Midthirties?” Charles asked. “Black hair? Tallish?”

  “Yes, that sounds right. More a Cassio than an Iago. A bit too stiff for Romeo. Might have made a good Harry Five, he had the right military bearing. Do you know him, Mr. Fraser?”

  “I think I may have met him once in Spain.” Charles leaned back against the sagging slats of the chair, as though willing the tension from his body. “What were you able to tell him about Miss Trevennen?”

  “Not a great deal. I—”

  The door was jerked open. “Mr. Thurgood—” A young man with carrot-red hair poked his head through the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we can’t find either of the poison flasks.”

  “I think Rosemary took them to make sure they fit in the costume pockets.”

  “I’ll ask her. Oh, and Dobson wants to know if the musicians are stage left or right at the ball?”

  “Left, last I heard.”

  “Thanks.” The carrot-haired man ducked out.

  “Sorry,” Thurgood said. “You’d think they could keep track of things themselves. Oh, thunder.” He jumped to his feet and pulled open the door. “Tim! Make sure Friar Laurence’s prayer book is on the prop table.” He closed the door. “Damn fool can’t ever remember to put it back himself. We spent an hour hunting for it yesterday. Sorry, Mr. Fraser, where were we?”

  “You were telling us about Iago Lorano.”

  “Oh, yes.” Thurgood returned to the desk. “I wasn’t able to tell him much, but I introduced him to Violet Goddard, our current Juliet, who was friendly with Helen—Miss Trevennen.” He pulled a pencil from behind his ear and jotted a note on a nearby script. “Must remember to make sure the tombs are anchored properly. Yesterday they went
slithering and nearly toppled Romeo and Juliet into the pit.” He looked up at them. “I can ask Miss Goddard to have a word with you.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, “in a moment. I’d like to ask you one or two questions first.”

  Thurgood, who had started to get up, leaned back against the desk.

  “When did Miss Trevennen leave the Drury Lane?” Charles asked.

  Thurgood folded the paper he’d written on and tucked it in his sleeve. “Must be five or six years ago. No, more than that. We were doing the new As You Like It, with the Forest of Arden after the style of Turner. So that would make it…early 1813. Nearly seven years.”

  Just about the time she would have received Jennings’s letter. Charles shot Mélanie a glance. “Why did she leave?” he asked Thurgood.

  “I wish I knew. She simply didn’t show up one night. Very unprofessional. Phebe had to play Celia, and Audrey had to play Phebe, and one of the seamstresses actually went on as Audrey.” He shuddered at the memory. “Miss Trevennen was no saint, but she’d always been punctual before.”

  “What about her friend Miss Goddard or others in the company?” Charles asked. “Did she contact them?”

  Thurgood thumbed his finger through a loose sheaf of music on the desk beside him. “I never heard that anyone had had news of her. I didn’t ask questions, if that’s what you mean. We engaged another actress and that was the end of it.”

  Mélanie disentangled her skirt from a bit of rough wood on the chair. “Did she have other particular friends in the company? Besides Miss Goddard?”

  Thurgood scratched the side of his face. “Helen Trevennen was the sort of woman more likely to be in the company of men than women. And no,” he added, in response to the unspoken question in Mélanie’s eyes, “she wasn’t—ah—entangled with any of the men in the company. She set her sights higher than actors and stagehands.” He got to his feet. “Miss Goddard may be able to tell you more. If you wait a moment or two, I’ll bring her in.”

  “Hell and damnation,” Mélanie said, when the door had closed behind Thurgood. “How the devil did Iago Lorano or whatever his name is find his way here? Baxter didn’t even tell him Helen Trevennen’s name.”