Secrets of a Lady

by Tracy Grant

  “Have you got Colin?” Jessica asked, her face squished against Mélanie’s skirt.

  “Not yet, querida.” Mélanie sat down on the window seat and settled Jessica in her lap. How to offer reassurance without lying? “But we know what we need to do to get him back.”

  Jessica drew back and looked at her. “Your dress is wet and your hair’s all crooked.” She stared at Mélanie for a moment. Her eyes seemed bigger than usual and her face thinner. She picked at embroidery on the falling collar of Mélanie’s gown. “I don’t want to go away like Colin did.”

  Mélanie looked into her daughter’s face. Charles’s eyes and jaw, her own nose and mouth, and something about the cheekbones that was pure Colin. “You won’t, love.” Her voice shook with the fierceness of it. “I promise.” As she spoke the words, she heard an echo of a similar promise made to another little girl, a sister, not a daughter. The taste of bitter failure welled up on her tongue.

  “Jessica—” She stroked Jessica’s tousled hair. “What happened to Colin was very bad and it shouldn’t have happened, but we’re going to get him back and make sure it never happens again.”

  Jessica nodded with a simple, breathtaking trust that closed round Mélanie’s heart like a fist. Eyes smarting, Mélanie reached for the storybook to finish reading the story Blanca had started. Jessica slithered down and sprawled against her, feet stretched out on the window seat, head flopped against Mélanie’s arm, in that boneless way that made it difficult to tell where her body left off and one’s own began. Her wide, sleep-tinged gray eyes were fixed on Mélanie’s face with that same terrifying trust. When Mélanie finished the story, Jessica let her tuck her into bed. She did not even protest too vigorously when Mélanie said she had to go back downstairs. “Bring Colin,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed.

  Mélanie shut the door of her daughter’s room and leaned against the cool panels. Even if—when—they got Colin back, the children’s lives would not return to normal. She could not imagine circumstances under which Charles would want to continue with their marriage. The best she could hope was that they could establish some sort of truce for Colin and Jessica’s sake. A fiction of a marriage within which they led separate lives, as did many couples in the beau monde. The worst—

  Charles had every right to throw her out of the household in which she had been living under false pretenses for seven years. It would not be in his character to do so. And yet she had never pushed him this far. They were on uncharted ground.

  She drew a breath and walked down the corridor to the room she and her husband shared, unlike most couples in their set. The bed where they had made love only two nights ago loomed before her. Their dressing gowns lay together in an untidy heap on the chaise longue. Berowne, whom she and Charles had rescued from the streets as an orphaned kitten, was curled up on top of some notes for a speech she was supposed to give on women’s education.

  She took a step forward and found her vision blurred and her cheeks damp. Tears were streaming down her face. A sob tore through her, squeezing her chest, pulling painfully on the wound in her side. She gripped the bedpost, her face pressed into the fluted wood, her body wracked by shudders.

  Something soft brushed her leg. Berowne. He gave a mew, half plaintive, half concerned. She dropped to her knees and ran her fingers through his warm fur.

  The tears still spilled down her face. She knew from experience that it would be a waste of much-needed energy to try to stop them. She sank down at her dressing table, slid her fingers into her hair, and pressed the palms of her hands over her eyes.

  When she finally lifted her head, her splotched, tear-streaked face was reflected back at her in the looking glass panels. If one discounted the faint lines about her eyes, the plucked arch of her brows, the fashionably cropped curls falling over her forehead, it was the same face she had always had. The face of the girl who had known Shakespeare and Molière and Beaumarchais backwards and forwards but had understood nothing of the world; of the child whore whose life had been reduced to survival; of Raoul O’Roarke’s most trusted agent; of Charles Fraser’s wife and dearest friend; of Colin and Jessica’s mother. Mélanie Fraser, who could speak to a reform society in the morning and take her children out for ices in the afternoon and give a dinner for fifty in the evening, without ever looking flustered or forgetting to wear the right shoes and earrings.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” her friend Isobel Lydgate—herself the enviably competent mother of three and wife of a rising young Member of Parliament—had said only last week. “I often feel like I’m failing on three fronts at once.”

  “Oh, darling, that’s inevitable,” Mélanie had replied with a laugh. “The trick is not minding when you do fail.”

  But that was only part of it, of course. Isobel was one of her closest friends, but she hadn’t the least idea how truly precarious Mélanie’s life was. The trick was bundling your life into neat, separate little boxes and believing your own deceptions. The trick was smiling and sipping champagne even though you knew the boxes might break apart and come tumbling down about your ears at any moment. The trick was acknowledging the inner scream of panic that welled up all too often but never, ever letting anyone else hear it.

  She remembered waking the morning after her wedding and turning to look at the tousled oak-brown head on the pillow beside her. A knot of terror had closed her throat as she realized that her performance as Mrs. Charles Fraser would not be rounded by the span of a play or the length of a specific mission but would stretch for the foreseeable future.

  If her life had taken a different turn, if she had made different choices, she might be preparing to open a new production of Romeo and Juliet, like Violet Goddard. Or dying of consumption in a brothel, like Susan Trevennen. Instead, she lived an aristocratic life that was at odds with the principles she claimed to believe in, whatever the comfortingly reformist politics of her husband. She was admired and sought after by a society that would shun her if they had the faintest idea of her origins. She was the wife of a man who would never believe she loved him, the mother of children whom she could never tell the truth about their heritage.

  If she were honorable in the best British tradition, no doubt she would disappear onto the Continent and leave her husband and children to get on with their lives. But even in the guise of Mrs. Charles Fraser she had never fully embraced the values of her husband’s world. Custody of the children would go to Charles if their marriage was legally ended. And yet Charles had no grounds for divorce or separation. He could not reveal her treachery without damaging his own reputation and career and hurting the children. He might risk himself, but he’d never risk Colin and Jessica. It was leverage of a sort.

  Sacrebleu. That she should be thinking of leverage on Charles. But she wouldn’t have survived this long if she hadn’t learned to employ whatever means were necessary to win. Just as she would fight heart and soul to get Colin back from Carevalo, she would battle to the death to keep Charles from taking their children from her.

  She looked down at Berowne, now curling himself into a ball beside her chair. “I won’t leave,” she promised, to the cat, to Colin and Jessica, to herself.

  She poured water from the rose-patterned ewer into the matching basin and splashed her face. Her breathing was steadier, as though having acknowledged this decision eased the tumult inside her. She unhooked her gown, stripped off her ruined chemise, unlaced her sodden half-boots, and began to pull on fresh clothing.

  Charles’s makeshift bandage was still in place, and the wound hadn’t started bleeding again, but it still hurt to move her arm, which made dressing an awkward business. She chose a gown with a waistcoat bodice that buttoned down the front, but she had still only managed two of the buttons when Blanca slipped into the room.

  “Jessica’s asleep.” Blanca crossed the room and began to finish the buttons, without making any comment on Mélanie’s tear-streaked face. “You told him, didn’t you?” she said after a moment, as
though they were discussing something perfectly ordinary, as though both their lives hadn’t been turned upside down.

  “I didn’t have any choice.” Mélanie swallowed. “I’m sorry, Blanca, I made the decision for both of us.”

  “Dios, Mélanie, of course you had no choice. I knew that when you told us about Colin.” Blanca did up the last button. “I’ll talk to Addison as soon as—I’ll talk to him when we have Colin back. I don’t think Mr. Fraser will say anything to him until then.”

  “I’m sure he won’t.” Mélanie looked at her friend, the one person who had known her secret all these years. “Addison can hardly accuse you of seducing him for information. I was already getting any information we could possibly need from Charles.”

  “Addison is a man of honor. He won’t—” Blanca shook her head. Her inky hair slipped loose from its knot and fell about her face. “He wanted to marry me.”

  “Oh, Blanca.” Mélanie checked the words of congratulation that sprang to her lips. They were hardly in order now. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Blanca made a wry face. “Addison was worried about what Mr. Fraser would think. It isn’t usual for valets and ladies’ maids to marry.”

  “Sacrebleu, as if Charles would care a rush for such things.”

  “I know.” Blanca jabbed her hair behind her ears. “But Addison cares. He’s very particular about the forms. At any rate, I don’t suppose it matters now.”

  Mélanie squeezed the younger woman’s hands. “Querida—”

  Blanca shook her head. “We both went into this with our eyes open, Mélanie. We made our beds, and now we have to face the fact that our men may throw us out of them.”

  A desperate laugh escaped Mélanie’s lips. She flung her arms round Blanca. They clung together for a moment while the reality of their situation washed over them. At last Blanca pulled back, sniffed, and rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “No sense in crying over spilt tea.”

  “Milk,” Mélanie said, dashing fresh tears from her face.

  “Bah, what Englishman drinks milk?” Blanca pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and blew her nose. “Are you going to tell me why you have a bandage wound round your ribs?”

  Mélanie gave a brief account of the day’s events. Blanca listened without comment. Her tendency to chatter disappeared when there were important matters at hand. She was even persuaded not to examine Mélanie’s wound when Mélanie pointed out that the doctor was on his way. “Do you want me to help with Mr. Fraser?” Blanca asked.

  “No, stay upstairs in case Jessica wakes.” Mélanie gave Blanca a quick hug and went back down to the library.

  Charles ran a sharp gaze over her face, but said nothing. He was sitting with his leg propped up on a footstool and another glass of whisky in his hand. He had apparently managed to recount the events at the Gilded Lily, because the normally unflappable Laura was white-faced with shock, and Edgar was pacing up and down in front of the fireplace, raging against the immorality of Victor Velasquez.

  “Velasquez doesn’t know about Colin,” Mélanie pointed out. “Charles, don’t you think—”

  “We can talk about it later.” Charles stared into his whisky instead of meeting her gaze.

  “The library?” said a high, carrying voice from the hall. “No, no, I’ll announce myself.”

  Dr. Geoffrey Blackwell swept into the room, black-haired, wiry, and intense, his evening cloak billowing about his shoulders, his medical bag clutched in one hand. His gaze went straight to Charles. “Here now, what have you been doing with yourself, my boy? Haven’t I patched enough of you young men up on the battlefield?” He set down his bag, unclasped his cloak, and tossed it over a chair back. “Hullo, Mélanie. Glad you sent for me.”

  “Thank you for coming, Geoffrey. I’m sorry to disrupt your evening.”

  He waved his hand. “We were supposed to dine with the Whartons. Damned dull affair. I told Allie to go on without me.” He nodded at Edgar and Laura, acknowledging their presence and dismissing them as irrelevant to the matter at hand in the same motion. “Let’s have a look at you, lad.” He picked up his bag and dropped down beside Charles’s chair. “Dear heaven, what have you been up to? No, don’t try to talk. Tell me later. Mélanie, civilian life hasn’t turned you squeamish, has it? Good, I’m going to need your help.”

  Geoffrey Blackwell’s brisk manner never varied, whether in the ballroom, on the battlefield, or on the nights he had delivered Colin and Jessica (on which occasions he had informed Charles that if he had the stomach for the business, he was welcome to stay, more power to him, and he could hold the hot water basin while he was at it). Geoffrey had been an army surgeon all through the war in the Peninsula, frequently bemoaning the fact that he stitched young men up only to see them cut to ribbons. After Waterloo he’d left the army and settled in London with his young wife and daughter. He claimed to be relieved to return to a more civilized practice, but Mélanie thought that he sometimes missed the excitement of the war.

  He worked at Charles’s wound in silence, except to ask Mélanie to hand him various implements, and at one point to suggest that Edgar pour Charles some more whisky. Mélanie had stood by on another occasion when Charles had a bullet dug out of him, after he’d returned to Lisbon from one of his “errands” for the embassy with his arm in a sling. She’d held his hand then. She didn’t think he would welcome such a gesture tonight. He got very white and at one point she thought he might have fainted, but he made no sound beyond his labored breathing.

  “There,” Geoffrey said at last. “Neat enough stitching even my old nurse would approve.”

  “Good.” Charles’s clenched jaw relaxed a trifle. “Now you can take a look at Mélanie and see how badly I botched it patching her up.”

  Geoffrey cast a swift glance at Mélanie. His eyes narrowed. “Your side. I should have seen it sooner.”

  He drew in his breath at the sight of her wound, which was rare for Geoffrey, but he made no comment other than that if Charles must insist on dressing wounds himself, he hadn’t done a bad job of it.

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you both to rest for the next few days,” he said, when Laura was refastening Mélanie’s gown. He snapped his medical bag shut. “Is whatever got you into this over and done with?”

  “No,” Charles said. “We have to go out again in a few hours. Tell us how best to go on. We’d as soon not collapse in the street.”

  Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not wise, but I’ve stitched up men in worse shape than both of you in the midst of battle and seen them hurl themselves back into the fray. Change the dressings twice a day. Get to a doctor—any doctor—if you see signs of infection. Elevate the leg when you can, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

  Charles’s mouth lifted in a quick smile. “Thank you, Geoffrey. I—”

  “Spare your breath, lad.” Geoffrey clapped him on the shoulder, a rare gesture of intimacy. “If you haven’t got time to recuperate from your injuries, you certainly don’t have time to be talking to me.” He glanced at the mantel clock. “Looks as if I’ll make it to the Whartons’ after all, more’s the pity.”

  Mélanie brought him his cloak. “Give my love to Allie.”

  He took the cloak from her and laid his hand over her own for a moment. “Don’t hesitate to send for me again if you need to, whatever the hour.” He swung the cloak round his shoulders and fastened it. His gaze moved from her to Charles. “You’ve both always been quite good at taking care of each other. I trust you’ll keep it up. No, don’t bother to ring for the footman, this is no time for formality.”

  He nodded at Edgar and Laura and went out of the library, leaving silence in his wake.

  “See here, Charles.” Edgar crossed the room in three strides and dropped down in front of his brother. “You’ve got to rest. So does Mélanie. Let me go to Mannerling’s and see this Jemmy Moore.”

  “No.” Charles’s voice was firm. “Edgar, I’m sorry. I don’
t discount your abilities and I know how much you love Colin, but I’m his father. And Mélanie’s his mother.”

  Mélanie turned her head away for a moment. Her throat constricted and she felt a prickle behind her eyelids.

  Edgar stared at his brother, face knotted with frustration. “You’ll drop.”

  “I think not.”

  The two brothers regarded each other. Mélanie watched them, the sharp cheekbones, the strong noses, the finely molded mouths. So alike and so different. At thirty, Edgar still had an open, sunny countenance. Charles, she knew from a painting of the Fraser children, had had lines of experience etched in his face at fourteen.

  Edgar got to his feet and turned to poke up the fire. “And to think I get accused of being the reckless one. You’re a damned fool.”

  “Quite possibly,” Charles said.

  Edgar jammed the poker into the coals. “And you are too, Mélanie.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Mélanie turned to Laura. “Could you see what Mrs. Erskine can manage for us in the kitchen? Something simple and nourishing and easy to get down, like soup. And plenty of coffee.”

  “Yes, of course.” Laura slipped from the room.

  Charles spoke to his brother’s back. “Come with us tonight and make sure we don’t take our foolery too far. You’ve been to Mannerling’s before?”

  Edgar spun round. “Confound it, Charles, can’t I have any secrets from you?”

  “Elder-brother intuition.” Charles grinned, in the way he probably had when they were boys. Mélanie thought the grin was a sort of apology. “I know you’ve always been fond of roulette. There aren’t that many places to play it in London. Will we have trouble getting in?”

  “Not if the porter recognizes me.” Edgar returned the poker to its stand. “I haven’t been there all that often. It’s run by a Julia Mannerling, a widow. Supposedly her husband was an army officer, though frankly I have doubts that he ever existed. It’s a sight more raffish than Waitier’s was.” His gaze flickered in Mélanie’s direction.