by Tracy Grant
“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 Tr
evennen 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.”
Helen Trevennen folded her hands in her lap with the grace of a trained performer. “It’s true I knew a Lieutenant Jennings once, a long time ago. I was—I was very fond of him. He was killed in the Peninsula.”
“And shortly before he died he wrote you a letter that you received after his death.”
She lowered her gaze to her hands. “Yes.”
“And enclosed in the letter was a ring. Come now, Mrs. Constable, your friend Violet Goddard saw it.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and compelling. “Mr. Fraser, I assure you—”
“We will pay whatever you ask for it.”
“Believe me, Mr. Fraser, when it comes to William Jennings it is not a question of money.”
“I understand the ring must have great sentimental value.”
Her hands clenched. “Mr. Fraser, he didn’t send me a ring.”
“Miss Goddard saw—”
“I’ll show you what Violet saw.” She sprang to her feet and ran from the room.
Edgar groaned. “She sounds as though she’s telling the truth.”
Charles stood and took a turn about the room. “She’s a very good actress.”
“Because she worked at the Drury Lane?”
“Because she sounds as though she’s telling the truth.”
“We’re threatening everything she has,” Mélanie said. “She’ll work hard to defend it.”
Charles looked at her, ignoring the echoes of their own life that reverberated through the room. “Then her defenses have to be broken.”
Helen Trevennen hurried back into the room, her color high and her breathing rapid, as though she had been running. “This is what Will—Lieutenant Jennings—sent to me with his final letter.” She extended her hand. In her palm lay a garnet brooch set in gold of a Spanish design. “Not very valuable, I believe, but I treasure it.”
Gold with a red stone. It fit Violet Goddard’s description. Charles could feel Mélanie’s certainty waver, as did his own. “Mrs. Constable, you don’t—you can’t—realize how important this is,” he said. He told the story of Colin’s kidnapping in the brisk outlines he now had memorized.
“Dear heaven.” Helen Trevennen put her hand to the cross at her throat.
“You have children of your own,” Mélanie said.
“Yes.” She picked up the yarn-haired doll that lay beside her on the settee. “Jane will be three in March and Benjamin’s just turned one.”
Mélanie leaned forward, in that attitude that could win confidences from anyone. “Mrs. Constable, as a mother—”
Helen Trevennen looked into her eyes. “I wish I could help you, Mrs. Fraser. I can’t.” She smoothed the doll’s yarn hair. “I’ve never seen this ring. If Will had it, he said nothing about it.”
“What was in the letter?” Charles asked.
The knots of gold ribbon on her sleeves snapped as she drew herself up. “Mr. Fraser. It was a letter from my—from the man I loved. It was not meant to be read by anyone else. Nor did it contain anything that others could find of interest. Nothing about a ring or a Marqués de Carevalo or even about Spain.”
“Sergeant Baxter said it was a long letter.”
A faint smile drifted through her eyes. “Will could be very ardent.”
“Do you still have the letter?”
“No, I—” She glanced at her hands, then looked back at him. “I’m embarrassed to say so, but I burned it before my marriage. I did not want to risk my husband finding it. My husband is the best of men, Mr. Fraser, but I don’t think he’d understand about Will.”
Charles leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Violet Goddard and Jemmy Moore said you were frightened when you left London seven years ago. Why?”
She drew a breath. He thought she might be sorting through her story, but he couldn’t be sure. “I’m not proud of my actions,” she said. “I was going to begin a new life. It is difficult to escape one’s past—particularly so for a woman. I knew that the only way to do so was to cut myself off from…from my former friends and associates. I thought saying I was afraid was the best way to assure this.”
“Where did you get the money to begin this new life in Brighton?” Charles asked.
“Will sent it in his letter. He said he’d recently come into a windfall and he wanted to share it with me. He didn’t explain further.”
Charles folded his arms across his chest and watched her for a long moment. “It’s a good story, Mrs. Constable. Now please tell us the truth.”
Her eyes widened with a perfect look of wounded outrage. She was almost as good an actress as Mélanie. “I have told you the truth, Mr. Fraser.”
“I think not, though you’ve told the lies brilliantly.”
“Mr. Fraser—”
“Mrs. Constable, I said we had no intention of telling your husband what we’ve learned of your past. That is true in and of itself. But if you persist in these denials, I fear we shall have no choice but to lay the whole matter before him.”
“That is blackmail, Mr. Fraser.”
“Call it what you will. The ring, Mrs. Constable?”
“Mr. Fraser.” In the light from the branch of candles beside the settee, her eyes were luminous with tears. “If I had this ring it would take no threats to make me give it to you. I would do so happily for the sake of your child.” She stood in one swift, fluid motion, hesitated, then moved about the room, adjusting the shade of a lamp, realigning the score on the piano. Mélanie had done much the same in the library last night. Laying claim to the home she feared losing?
“It goes without saying that you could do great—I fear irreparable—harm to my marriage.” Helen Trevennen stared at a framed silhouette on the wall with a faint, wistful smile. “I’m afraid my husband’s view of me is sadly idealized. I perhaps deserve that he should know the truth, but he does not deserve the pain it would cause him.”
“There is a simple way to spare him such pain,” Charles said.
Helen Trevennen turned to face him, with the tragic dignity of Desdemona refuting Othello’s accusations of infidelity. “All I can do is beg you not to speak to him of the past, for it will avail you nothing. I do not have the ring.”
Her eyes held a compelling plea, yet thanks to his wife, Charles knew something about resisting the pull of a pair of beautiful eyes. He stared at her for a long moment. He did not glance at Mélanie, but he felt her making the same calculations he made himself. “You’re a parent, Mrs. Constable. If you can understand my fear for my son, you must believe I will use this.” He reached inside his coat and drew out a pistol. “The ring.”
Helen Trevennen went very still. Her gaze fastened on the barrel of the gun. Fear radiated off her like waves of heat.
Charles pulled back the hammer. He heard Edgar gasp, felt Mélanie go tense.
Helen Trevennen lifted her gaze to his face. The flutter of the lace at her throat betrayed her trembling. “Mr. Fraser, I cannot help you. I don’t have it.”
Charles held the gun steady and measured the look in her eyes. The metal was cold and heavy in his hand. It would be so easy to pull the trigger and give vent to the scream of frustration that had been building inside him for almost forty-eight hours. So easy, so deadly, and so completely useless. If he shot, even a warning shot, the servants would come running into the room. Helen Trevennen, no doubt, would continue to deny she had the ring. And just possibly, she was telling the truth.
He lowered the pistol and got to his feet. Helen Trevennen let out a rough, gasping s
igh.
Charles held out his hand to Mélanie. “You have my card, Mrs. Constable. If by any chance you discover you are mistaken and have the ring after all, send word to us at once. You can have whatever you ask for it. Otherwise, there seems to be nothing more to be said.”
Chapter 28
A s they descended the front steps of the Constable house, Mélanie could feel the weight of failure pressing on her husband, as heavy as the soot-laden night air that seeped through their outer garments. When they reached the pavement, she put a hand on his arm. “You couldn’t have done anything else. All other considerations aside, shooting her wouldn’t have got us anywhere.”
Edgar stopped and looked up at his brother. The lamplight glowed in his wide eyes. “You really might have shot her, mightn’t you?”
“Possibly.” Charles scowled into the dark street.
“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that she might be telling the truth?”
“It could hardly fail to occur to me.” Charles started along the pavement toward Russell Square. “It was one of the most compelling performances I’ve ever witnessed.” He didn’t glance at Mélanie, but she felt him add, Though no more so than the one you gave for seven years, as surely as if he had said it. “But if Jennings didn’t put the ring in his letter to her, what the hell happened to it?”
Edgar’s boots clicked on the pavement. “Perhaps Jennings never had it at all.”
“One of the soldiers did, or at least told the bandits he did when he employed them. Jennings is the only one who had anything removed from his body.”
Edgar frowned at the paving stones. “Suppose Sergeant Baxter’s lying and he had the ring himself?”
“If Baxter had the ring, why didn’t he try to sell it again after the debacle with the French?” Mélanie said. “He had nothing to gain from hanging on to it.” She tried to sound as though she was analyzing chess moves, but the words came out with a tight strained sound, perhaps because her chest and throat felt as if they were being squeezed raw. “Helen Trevennen’s performance may have been grounded in truth, as all good performances are, but I think she has the ring. And what I want to know is why she’s so determined to keep it rather than sell it to us.”