by Tracy Grant
Roth picked up his cup again and stared at it for a moment. The firelight shone through the porcelain, turning the ecru a molten orange. “Why do you think Miss Trevennen left London just after she got Jennings’s letter and the ring?” He looked up at Mélanie with the glint of a chess player puzzling over a new gambit. “Coincidence?”
“I doubt it.” Mélanie unfastened her heavy earrings and rubbed her earlobes. The jerky shimmer of the diamonds betrayed her shaking fingers. “I suspect she was blackmailing someone.”
Charles replaced the poker and gave her a sharp look.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it, darling,” she said.
“No, it occurred to me during our talk with Susan Trevennen.” He rested his arm on the mantel. His hand closed on the marble, so hard that he felt the imprint of the carved oak leaves on his palm. “I’d have said something, but—”
“We got distracted.”
“Here now.” Edgar set down his teacup with a clatter. “Mind telling us mere mortals why this blackmail business is so obvious?”
Mélanie plucked at the spangled fabric of her scarf. “I wouldn’t call it obvious. But if you think about it…She told Violet Goddard and Jemmy Moore that her fortune had been made but she’d be in danger if anyone knew where she was. That would make sense if she was blackmailing someone but was afraid of what might happen to her if that person found her.”
“Well, yes—I suppose so.” Edgar shook his head. “Couldn’t Moore’s first idea be right? That she was going off with a man—perhaps even eloping—and wanted to cut herself off from her past?”
“Possibly.” Charles took a turn about the room, but movement couldn’t hold at bay the images that kept tugging at his mind, images of his son under a stranger’s knife. Had Colin screamed? He was a brave lad, but—“That doesn’t explain why she ran off right after Jennings’s death. If she’d found a wealthy lover or potential husband, I can’t see her letting Jennings stand in her way.”
He stopped and stared down at the onyx and alabaster of the chess set. A single pawn stood between the white king and checkmate. His fingers clenched with the impulse to sweep the pieces onto the carpet. The screams of men suffering amputations in field hospitals echoed in his head. Had they drugged Colin, tied him—“The night she received Jennings’s letter she told Violet Goddard that her fortune had been made. The next day she disappeared from the face of London. As Roth pointed out, it’s a stretch for the timing to be coincidence.”
Roth sat forward in his chair. “So the blackmail was based on something in Lieutenant Jennings’s letter? I admit it’s by far the neatest explanation. Any idea what that something might be?”
“None.” Charles moved behind the sofa and drummed his fingers on the coffee-colored velvet.
“A military scandal?” Mélanie said. “Was there anything Jennings was involved in or might have known about? You knew him a bit, didn’t you, Edgar?”
“We were nodding acquaintances. I wish—There were scandals enough among the officers. Duels that had to be hushed up. Liaisons with Spanish and Portuguese women.” Edgar avoided so much as a flicker of a glance at Charles as he said this last. “Jennings could have learned someone’s secrets, but I know of nothing definite.”
Roth slumped back in his chair and frowned up at the heavily molded ribs of the ceiling. “If someone’s been paying her to keep this secret for seven years, it must be something fairly explosive. She’d need some sort of proof. Love letters? Possible, I suppose.”
“Perhaps Jennings stumbled upon a procurement fraud,” Mélanie said, in the crisp voice she used when she was trying desperately to focus her mind. “There was a shocking amount of that sort of thing going on. Suppose Jennings found some incriminating papers?”
“Yes.” Roth blew the steam from his cup. “Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I find it easier to imagine a man paying money for seven years to cover up fraud than to cover up a love affair.” He sipped the tea. “Or suppose Jennings had uncovered proof that someone was involved in espionage?”
He said this last casually. Charles thought he meant it casually. Probably. Mélanie did not react with so much as the tremor of a finger.
“Fraud and espionage are both possibilities.” Charles perched on the arm of the sofa beside his wife. “Jennings could have stumbled upon all sorts of secrets—his game with the ring certainly proves he was devious and had an eye for the main chance.”
“Or suppose—” Mélanie broke off and stared up at him. Her face had gone white. “My God, we’re sitting here speculating, while Colin—”
“We’re speculating so we can get him back,” Charles said. The words came out with a harsh rasp he hadn’t intended. He had a sudden impulse to fling his Sèvres teacup into the fireplace, as though destroying something would ease the knot of frustration in his chest.
Roth’s gaze moved from Charles to Mélanie, missing little. “Quite a pair, Jennings and Miss Trevennen. A gift for survival, though in the end it seems to have failed Jennings.” Roth stared at the chewed end of his pencil. “I stopped at Raoul O’Roarke’s hotel this afternoon, but he was out. You’re sure he can’t tell us more?”
“As sure as we can be,” Charles said.
“Because from what you’ve described, the ring would benefit his cause as much as Carevalo’s.” Roth doodled on the blank page before him. “You think he’d cavil at using a child where Carevalo would not?”
“I don’t know about that,” Charles said. “But he knew I’d break his neck this morning if he didn’t tell us the truth. More to the point, Carevalo would know it. He’d never have let O’Roarke meet us if O’Roarke had been able to betray him.”
“Sound reasoning.” Roth closed the notebook and looked up at Charles. His gaze was mild, pleasant, and as sharp as a knife. “So why did O’Roarke come to see you this morning so soon after you called on him?”
“My dear Roth, have you been having us followed?” Charles said.
“Hardly.” Roth smiled, but the sharpness didn’t leave his eyes. “I made some inquires about O’Roarke while I was at his hotel. One of the clerks heard him direct a hackney here an hour or so after you left the hotel this morning.”
“Yes, he did.” Mélanie’s voice was the most normal it had been in the entire interview. “He wanted to assure us again that he would do whatever was in his power to help.”
Roth leaned forward, hands between his knees. “Mr. Fraser. Mrs. Fraser. It would be redundant to say that this is a serious matter. Carevalo has made sure we know that. I’ve seen enough today to realize that you love your son as much as any parents could and that you know full well the jeopardy he’s in. Is there anything you haven’t told me?”
“I say, Roth,” Edgar said, “that’s a damned—”
“It’s all right, Edgar. Roth’s just doing his job thoroughly.” Charles looked at Roth, aware of Mélanie’s stillness beside him. “We’d have to be fools to hold anything back, Roth. Whatever else my wife and I are, neither of us is a fool.”
Roth regarded him for a moment. “No. You certainly aren’t that.” He got to his feet. “I won’t keep you. I know you’re eager to be on your way to Brighton. Thank you for the tea.”
At the door, he turned back, one hand resting against the polished panels. “I hope you realize how seriously I take this. No harm will come to your son if it is within my power to prevent it.” He inclined his head and left the room.
Edgar shook his head. “What the devil was that about?”
“Roth questions everything.” Charles got up from the sofa. “It’s what makes him a good investigator.”
“I suppose so. Still, to be questioning you, of all people—You have told him everything, haven’t you?”
“As Charles said, we’d be fools not to.” Mélanie picked up her gloves and earrings. “I’m going up to change.”
Charles accompanied her upstairs. Addison and Blanca were both waiting in the bedchamber, with valises packed, traveling
clothes laid out, and a multitude of questions that they heroically did not voice. But explanations were the very least they deserved, so while they helped him and Mélanie into traveling clothes, he and Mélanie recounted the most recent events.
Addison and Blanca listened without comment until it came to Colin’s severed finger. At that, Addison went very white and dropped one of Charles’s top boots, and Blanca launched into a tirade in furious Spanish.
“What do you want us to do?” Addison said at last, gripping Blanca’s arm. “Make more inquiries about the ring?”
Charles shook his head. “I think we’ve done what we can. Go to Surrey and call on Mrs. Jennings. Find out if Victor Velasquez has been to see her and what if anything she knew about Helen Trevennen. And sound her out about any possible information her husband may have had that Miss Trevennen could be using for blackmail.”
Addison and Blanca both nodded. They were standing side by side. For the first time, Charles noticed that their hands were clasped. Addison had been in Charles’s employ since Charles was at Oxford, and in all those years, Blanca was his first serious love—or at least, the first Charles had known of. Addison still didn’t know that the woman he loved had been in the employ of French Intelligence. Poor devil. For a moment, Charles found himself wishing that Addison and Blanca, at least, could be left free of this hell. But now that the truth was out, they could none of them hide from it.
Blanca and Addison took the luggage downstairs. Charles picked up his walking stick. “Do you think we can look in on Jessica without waking her?”
“Let’s risk it.” Mélanie picked up a pair of doeskin gloves from her dressing table. “He’s right, you know, Charles.”
“He?” Charles was at the door.
“Roth.” Mélanie pulled on the gloves, tugging each finger smooth. “How can we justify keeping anything secret in the face of what’s happening to Colin?”
Charles strode across the room, dropped the walking stick, and took her by the shoulders. “For God’s sake, Mel, are you losing your grip? It would hardly help Colin if you and O’Roarke were hauled into Bow Street and questioned as foreign spies.” He released her and took a step back. “They’d probably decide I was one, too. They’d never believe I could have been married to you for so long and not have known the truth.”
Something flinched in the depths of her eyes. “If they thought that, they’d be woefully underestimating my abilities, darling.”
“Or overestimating mine.”
Mélanie picked up her bonnet by its gray silk ribbons. “You’re right, of course. I was being silly. But Roth suspects something. And he doesn’t strike me as a man who’ll abandon his suspicions.”
“Even if he could guess at the truth—which I doubt—I don’t see how he could possibly prove it.”
“Oh, darling, he wouldn’t have to prove it. He’d just have to drop a word of his suspicions in the Home Secretary’s ear. Can you imagine the kick-up? I don’t—” She unwound the ribbons, which had twisted round her fingers. “I don’t want your parliamentary career to be hurt, Charles.”
“You might have thought of that before you started this farce. If you’d been caught during the war, we both could have been shot as spies.”
Denial flashed in her eyes. “I’d never have let them accuse you.”
“How? Do you imagine your word would have meant anything? You can control a lot, Mel, but you couldn’t control that. It was an implicit risk from the moment you married me.”
She swallowed, but she didn’t try to deny it. She was too honest. “It was a risk,” she admitted.
“But probably a small risk. Without proof, they’d have hesitated to execute the Duke of Rannoch’s grandson as a spy. I’d never have been trusted again, of course. At best I’d have been branded a fool. At worst a man who destroyed his honor. One could make a good argument that both are true.”
She shook her head. “The gentleman’s code again. ‘What is honor? A word.’”
“Words can have a lot of power.”
“And they can mask the truth. My God, Charles, you know better than to think honor has any chance of surviving in the midst of a war. It gets drowned in blood in the first battle.”
“One can still live by one’s own code, even then. Especially then.” He looked into her eyes, feeling the slash of her earlier accusations. “But I suppose you’d claim that my own actions in the war violated my code long before I met you.”
“Only if you make that code so simple that everything’s reduced to clear-cut choices,” Mélanie said. “And you’re not a man to do that. You see all sides of a question better than anyone I know. But ultimately you had to make a choice or let all your thoughts ‘be nothing worth.’ You had a loyalty to your country and your allies and that loyalty came first. So you swallowed your scruples and deceived people for the information they could give you, information which your side could turn against theirs.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t have?” he demanded.
“I’m saying you didn’t have any choice, given where your loyalty lay. Any more than I did.”
“Damn it, Mélanie—”
“Tell me you don’t know what it is to look into the eyes of the deceived and see trust, Charles. To draw innocent confidences from people, knowing all the while that you’re going to use those confidences against them.”
Her clear gaze cut through to a painful welter of memories. The family of afrancesados who had given him shelter and the boy with hero worship in his eyes. A Jesuit priest who had confided his hopes for Spain under Joseph Bonaparte to the disguised Charles and had quite unwittingly betrayed the disposition of the local French garrison. A young French sentry who had shared a flask of brandy with Charles and confessed his fear of battle, until the laudanum Charles had put into the brandy knocked him out, and Charles was able to steal the dispatches from his coat. “You’re saying I forced others to betray their friends even as you forced me to betray mine?” he said.
“You picked up military secrets from drunken soldiers in taverns. You gave out false information about British troop movements. You stole documents from people whose trust you’d won. If the people you deceived knew how you used them, I expect they’d be just as sick with self-disgust at what they’d colluded in as you are at the things you confided to me.”
The impulse to give the lie to everything she had said choked his throat, but he could not speak the words. She had thrown a glass up to his face. As ugly as the reflection was, he could not look away from it.
“So we’re equally tainted by our actions?” he said. His voice was harsh, but he couldn’t have said whether the anger was directed more at her or at himself.
“I don’t think anyone could have emerged from the hell of the war untainted. But equally? Oh, no, my darling. In my case I deceived and betrayed the man to whom I’d sworn vows of fidelity, which makes the betrayal a hundredfold worse.”
But did it change the nature of the betrayal? He looked into her eyes and found he could not answer his own question. Every qualm, every doubt, every twinge of guilt he’d ever felt, turned aside at the time by the exigencies of the moment, now echoed through his mind and senses.
Mélanie tugged at the stiff lace of her collar. “I suspect Roth’s remark about Jennings stumbling across espionage was just a random shot, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“Nor could I.” He regarded her for a moment, his keen-eyed stranger of a wife. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“That Helen Trevennen is blackmailing someone who was a French spy? Of course it’s possible. I can vouch that it’s not the sort of thing one likes to have bandied about.” She stared at him. “Sacrebleu, Charles, did you think she was blackmailing me?”
He looked back at her without flinching. “At this point, nothing would surprise me.”
She swallowed. “I deserved that. She wasn’t blackmailing me. Any chance you’ll believe me?”
He let his gaze move over her face. “Ye
s, as a matter of fact. Once you knew she had the ring, I think you’d have admitted the truth.”
She released her breath, a faint, harsh scrape of sound. “Thank you.”
Charles retrieved his walking stick which he’d leaned against her dressing table. “If not you, who else?”
“I didn’t know the identity of every French agent in the British army, darling.”
“Does O’Roarke know?”
“He’d know more than I do.”
“Good. When we come back from Brighton I’ll have a talk with him.” He moved to the door. “Ready?”
They walked down the corridor and eased open the door of Jessica’s room. She was curled up beneath her rose-patterned quilt. The cat, Berowne, had settled himself next to her on the pillow. Her cheek was pressed against his gray fur. Her left hand rested on the white spot on his stomach, as though she had fallen asleep stroking him.
Charles looked down at his daughter. Her porcelain skin, the short curve of her nose, the long lashes veiling her cheeks. The delicate fingers resting against the cat’s fur. The rage he had held in check throughout the scenes in the library and bedchamber slammed against every cell of his body, like a storm striking the rocky Perthshire coast.
Mélanie bent down, smoothed the quilt, brushed her lips across Jessica’s brow, touched her fingers to Berowne’s head. Charles did the same, committing the moment to memory. Jessica’s brow furrowed, then relaxed. Berowne purred softly. After a long moment, without looking at each other, he and Mélanie left the room.
“Charles.” Mélanie stopped midway down the empty, candlelit corridor. Her gaze was fixed on a watercolor on the wall opposite. “If you want a divorce, I’ll give you grounds as long as you don’t keep the children from me. Or the cat.”
The words were like a fistful of snow down his back. “When did I say I wanted a divorce?”
“You said you never wanted to see me again.” She turned her head. The light from the candle sconces fell at a sharp angle across her drawn face. “The least I owe you is the right to start over again.”