Secrets of a Lady

by Tracy Grant

  Charles watched him, noting the telltale tremor in his hand, the rattle of the decanter jerking against the glasses. It seemed there were ways in which he took after O’Roarke. “You’re saying it’s purely coincidence that Carevalo is holding my son and using you for an emissary and that you happen to have…fathered both me and Colin?”

  “I wouldn’t quite call it coincidence.” O’Roarke walked across the room and set two of the whiskies down where Charles and Mélanie could reach them. “I had nothing to do with your being sent to retrieve the ring seven years ago, but if you hadn’t been my son—if I hadn’t known all I know about you—I doubt I’d have been so quick to urge Mélanie to accept your offer of marriage.”

  Mélanie looked at him as though he had stripped the skin from his face to reveal another person beneath. “For the past two days I’ve been telling Charles that I knew your limits, that there were certain things you wouldn’t do. I don’t believe that anymore.” She glanced at the whisky. “And getting me drunk won’t change things.”

  “It takes more than half a glass of whisky to get you drunk, Mélanie.” O’Roarke returned to the table, picked up the third whisky, and took a swallow. “I’m not claiming to be proud of my actions. I don’t know that I’d do what I did again. But then I rarely play a hand the same way twice.”

  “Is that what we are to you?” Mélanie said. “Charles, Colin, me? Playing cards?”

  “No.” O’Roarke looked into her eyes. “You were pregnant. I couldn’t marry you myself, you didn’t want me to send you back to France, you wanted to keep the baby. Charles offered you marriage.”

  “And as his wife I was ideally positioned to spy for you. Don’t deny that that was why you leapt at the opportunity.”

  “Of course. But as I said, I’d had knowledge of Fraser from the time he was a child. When he was a boy, I knew him rather well.” He glanced at Charles. “I don’t know that you…”

  A hand offering ices, advice about how to hold a fishing pole, the treasured copy of Rights of Man with O’Roarke’s signature on the flyleaf. Seemingly chance encounters when Charles was out riding or walking, casually begun conversations that touched on ideas Charles barely grasped at the time, but which he drank in with youthful hunger. “I remember,” Charles said.

  For an instant, the same memories seemed to flicker in O’Roarke’s eyes. “I’m glad to hear it.” He looked back at Mélanie. “I felt—rightly, I think—that I knew the sort of man Charles was. If I hadn’t, I’d have argued against the marriage.”

  Mélanie watched him with drawn brows and an angry mouth. “So the fact that he was your son made it easier? Sleeping with a father and son is—”

  “A sin in the eyes of a church you have no use for.”

  Mélanie drew a sharp breath and turned her head away. O’Roarke reached out his hand to her, then let it fall.

  “And my mother?” Charles said. His voice shook despite his best efforts.

  “Your mother was a fascinating and troubled woman, Charles. When I was young I would have said I—” O’Roarke shook his head. “That’s neither here nor there. We were lovers off and on for a decade or so, though the affair was at its most intense in the year before you were born.” He cleared his throat. “There was no question of not pretending you were Kenneth Fraser’s son, of course. Your mother was reckless, but there were certain risks she wasn’t prepared to run.”

  “She told my brother the truth of my birth just before she put a bullet through her brain,” Charles said.

  O’Roarke’s cool gaze wavered, like ice under a hammer blow. “Poor Elizabeth,” he said, in a voice so low Charles wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Poor, stubborn, brave, tormented Elizabeth.” He looked at Charles. “She would have wanted you to know the truth. But I’d stake my life on it that her killing herself had nothing to do with you or with your brother or sister.”

  “No,” Charles said. “We weren’t important enough to her.”

  O’Roarke was silent for a moment, but he didn’t try to contradict him, which was just as well because Charles would have thrown the words back in his face. “I was always afraid—She couldn’t bear being out of control, and she was out of control far too often. I suspect that’s what finally drove her to pull the trigger.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Charles said, “so do I.”

  They regarded each other for a moment. Even in death, his mother exerted enough power to hold the attention of two men who should have been at each other’s throats. “I don’t know that I understand her looking back with thirty-some years’ perspective,” O’Roarke said. “I certainly didn’t understand her at the time. But she meant—a great deal to me. Though not as much, incidentally, as Mélanie later did.”

  Mélanie turned her gaze from a contemplation of the pastoral print on the wall. “We’ve had enough of your gambits, Raoul.”

  “That last was no gambit, querida.”

  “No,” Charles said, “that I believe.”

  O’Roarke met his gaze in silent acknowledgment. “Then surely you realize that Mélanie and the boy—and you yourself, I might add—are the last people on this earth that I’d hurt.”

  “That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t hurt us.” Without pause or inflection, Charles added, “Someone’s been trying to kill Mélanie and me.”

  O’Roarke’s gaze skimmed between them. “Hadn’t you better tell me about it?”

  As succinctly as possible, Charles recounted the events of the past thirty-six hours—the search for Helen Trevennen, the attacks, their meeting with Helen, and their discovery of her body.

  O’Roarke’s mouth hardened and his hands clenched at the mention of Colin’s severed finger, but he bit back whatever he had been going to say. When Charles finished, he went right to the point. “You think Velasquez is behind the attacks on you and Mélanie?”

  “It seems most likely. Though it did occur to me that you’d find it inconvenient if Mélanie or I told anyone of your past activities for the French.”

  “My dear Charles, I assure you I have faced the risk of discovery more than once. I have never resorted to anything as inelegant as murder to protect myself.”

  “You just said you rarely play a hand the same way twice.”

  Something glinted in O’Roarke’s eyes that might have been appreciation. “If I wanted you dead, Fraser, you would be.”

  “That’s distinctly insulting, Raoul.” Mélanie picked up her whisky and took a sip. “And not necessarily true.”

  “You really think I’d be capable of killing you?”

  “A number of people have taught me not to trust, but you certainly made your contribution.”

  O’Roarke whirled away, then spun round to face them again. “Use your heads, both of you. You have two of the finest brains I’ve ever encountered. If I thought Mélanie was a liability, I’d have had to worry about her at any time in the past seven years. I convinced you both yesterday morning that I wasn’t working with Carevalo. Surely these revelations about Fraser’s parentage make that possibility less likely rather than more so. I think you’ll understand that, Mélanie, when you stop being outraged because I didn’t tell you everything seven years ago.”

  “Don’t push me too hard, Raoul,” Mélanie said. “I admit you have a point.”

  “Progress at least. Charles?”

  “Yesterday I decided you were a safer bet than Carevalo. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Good. You both have a right to demand explanations. I’ll answer any questions you wish, though perhaps some of them would better wait until after you have the boy back. Now do you want to know what I’ve learned from Carevalo?”

  Mélanie started. “You didn’t say—”

  “You didn’t give me a chance, querida. I’ve received one message from Carevalo. He said he’d been called away by pressing business but he hoped to be back shortly with good news.” O’Roarke’s mouth curled round this last with cold contempt. “The message was given to a hotel porter b
y a young street urchin. I managed to trace the lad but he claimed that he’d received the message from a man in a brown coat, and no amount of threats or bribes could produce more information from him or anyone in the vicinity. I also tracked down two of Carevalo’s mistresses today, a Covent Garden flower seller and an equestrienne from Astley’s Amphitheatre. The flower seller claims not to have seen Carevalo for a fortnight and the equestrienne insists she broke with him a month ago when her husband caught them in her dressing room. But I have some other feelers out and I’ll make more inquiries tomorrow. Knowing Carevalo, there were more than two women in his life.” He frowned into his whisky glass. “It’s difficult to make sense of the facts, isn’t it?”

  Mélanie rubbed her hands over her face. “Distinctly. Helen Trevennen made sense up to a certain point, but I can’t think why she was so determined to hang on to the ring.”

  “It obviously had some sort of value to her, greater than anything she thought you and Charles could offer. You aren’t sure if Velasquez found the ring?”

  “I doubt it,” Charles said. “But questioning him is the next step.”

  O’Roarke nodded. “I suggest you try the Rose and Crown in the Haymarket. It’s his favorite place to drown his sorrows.”

  Little remained to be said, and they had already wasted too much time dwelling on personal revelations. He and Mélanie took their leave, engaged another hackney, and made for the Haymarket.

  They sat in silence. In the past hour, their images of each other had been stripped one level deeper. Charles rubbed his hand across his eyes. His body ached with the weariness that follows extreme exertion. Just when he had begun to feel he might make sense of his life again, the ground had been cut out from under him. For years he had wondered who his father was. Why had it never occurred to him that knowing might be infinitely worse than not knowing?

  Raoul O’Roarke was his father. What the hell did that mean? O’Roarke had never been a father to him in the sense that Charles was a father to Colin. And yet, when he was a boy, O’Roarke had attempted to maintain some sort of bond with him. And that, perhaps, was more unsettling than anything.

  “The term ‘fortune’s fool’ seems fairly accurate just about now,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter. Who went between my mother’s legs and left the spark of a child behind. It shouldn’t matter.”

  “But it does?” Mélanie said.

  “I suppose so. Yes. More than I’d care to admit.” He pressed his fingers against his temples and breathed in the damp, close air of the hackney, as musty as memories. Without looking at her, he said, “Did you love him?”

  It was a long moment before she answered. “He took me out of the brothel. He gave me a sense of purpose. He taught me that physical intimacy can be more than violence or commerce. How could I not love him?”

  Charles had an image of O’Roarke’s gaze fixed on her face. For a moment, O’Roarke’s eyes had held a bone-deep longing that he knew all too well. “And after tonight?”

  “I don’t know that tonight changed things. Living with you did.”

  He twisted his head toward her, though he couldn’t make out her expression in the shadows. “Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you married me for love, Mel. I could no more believe that than you could believe O’Roarke wanted you to marry me merely for your own protection.”

  A flash of lamplight outside the hackney window illumined her eyes. “I didn’t say I married you for love, Charles. I said I stayed with you because of it.”

  He stared into her eyes. It would be so easy to believe, and he wasn’t sure he could bear it. “‘Truth is truth / To the end of reckoning,’” he said. “The question would seem to be how to recognize it.”

  “Please let me know if you ever figure out how, darling.”

  “My dear wife, haven’t I proved that I’m the last person on earth who can recognize anything of the sort?”

  They rattled over the cobblestones in silence. Then Mélanie spoke in a voice so low he had to strain to hear her. “I loved Raoul. But I never let myself become lost in that love. I had to protect myself by keeping some part of myself separate. But you.” She shook her head. The folds of her cloak rustled. “In the end you held nothing back. So I couldn’t either.”

  “Except for that damnable truth we were just mentioning.”

  “Except for one part of the truth. Yes. But then you held back the truth about Kitty.”

  Charles stared at her for a long moment, but made no response. Too soon and too late they pulled up in the Haymarket. Lamplight issued forth from the Rose and Crown.

  Stale, ale-soaked air greeted them inside. Not one of the roughest taverns in the city, but far from one of the most respectable. They threaded their way among scarred, blackened tables, through eye-stinging smoke, hearty laughter, and overturned tankards. Fortunately at this hour most of the customers were too cheerful, too morose, or too deep in their cups to pay them much heed.

  Mélanie’s hand closed on Charles’s arm. “There. In the chimney alcove.”

  Charles followed her gaze. The man’s face was half in shadow, but the finely chiseled profile, the heavy line of the brows, the uncompromising set of the shoulders were unmistakable. He was slumped forward, elbows on the ale-stained table, gaze buried in the depths of his pewter tankard. He did not stir at their approach. They came to a stop before the table, effectively blocking any rush to the door.

  “Did you think we were dead, Velasquez?” Charles said.

  “Fraser.” Velasquez dragged his hands from his face and stared up at them. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Mrs. Fraser.” He pushed himself to his feet, staggered, and had to grip the table with both hands to keep from falling.

  Charles put out a hand to steady him. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “Why on earth should I think you were dead?” Even from a man in his cups, the words sounded forced.

  “Possibly because you’ve been trying to kill us.” Charles pushed Velasquez back into his chair, pulled out a chair for Mélanie, and sat down himself.

  Velasquez collapsed backwards with a thud. His gaze was unfocused, but there was wariness in its depths. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Fraser.”

  “Come now, Velasquez, surely the accidents can’t have slipped your mind already. The incident with the horse was really very clever. My compliments.”

  Velasquez rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Fraser—”

  “Of course, if you’d been really successful, we’d be as dead as Helen Trevennen.”

  At the name, Velasquez leapt from his chair and nearly fell across the table. Charles grabbed his arm. “Sit down, Velasquez. You aren’t going anywhere. Surely knowing what you do, you can’t be surprised that Mélanie and I were in the Constable house shortly after you left it. We found Mrs. Constable’s body.”

  Velasquez drew a breath, as though he was trying to gather his broken defenses. “Who’s Mrs. Constable?”

  “The woman also known as Helen Trevennen whom you murdered a few hours ago. I’m sure it can’t have slipped your mind, however many pints you’ve downed in an effort to forget.”

  Velasquez straightened his shoulders and jerked his head up. “I’ve never heard of either of them.”

  “Or was it an accident?” Charles continued as though the man hadn’t spoken.

  Velasquez stared at a point over Charles’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fraser.”

  “Mr. Velasquez.” Mélanie gave him one of her sweetest smiles. Her voice rang with sterling truth. “We saw you leaving the Constable house. Edgar Fraser and Charles’s valet saw you as well.”

  Her words had the effect of a chisel applied to faulty plaster. The denial in Velasquez’s eyes cracked open to reveal a sick, dark guilt. “But—”

  “She woke up while you were searching, didn’t she?” Mélanie’s gaze was steady, sympathetic, implacable. “The pistol was hers. Was there a struggle? I’m sure you didn’t mean to
kill her.”

  Velasquez seemed to have forgotten that there was any question that he’d been in the Constable house. The bravado drained from his soldier’s shoulders. His spine curled against the chair back. “I don’t know why she woke—I’d swear I was being quiet. She kept a pistol in her bedside drawer. I’ve never known a woman to do that. She didn’t scream. She just told me to get out. It was almost as though she wasn’t surprised to find someone searching her bedchamber.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t believe she’d shoot. I asked her where the ring was. The woman pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about. She jumped out of the bed and aimed the pistol at me. I tried to wrest it away from her and—” He put his hands over his face, as though he would scrape away the memory.

  “And the ring?” Charles said.

  Velasquez dragged his hands from his face. “Fraser, would I be here if I’d found it? When I realized she was dead, all I could think of was to get away from there as quickly as possible.” He stared down at his hands. The guttering candlelight flickered over the smears of dried blood. “I cut my hands to pieces on that damned rope. Oh, God, her face.”

  “You’re a soldier, Velasquez. You’ve killed before.”

  “Not a woman.” He looked up at Charles. His cousin Kitty’s name echoed between them for a moment.

  “Why the hell can’t you leave our country alone?” Velasquez demanded. “The ring was forged in Spain. It came back from the Crusades, it was spared the Armada, it survived the Inquisition and the endless War of Succession. It belongs in Spain.”

  “Carevalo is Spanish. The ring belongs to the Carevalo family. You of all people should respect that. You and Kitty had a Carevalo grandmother.”

  Velasquez’s eyes sparked at the mention of his cousin. “Carevalo would turn our country over to the rabble. He fought bravely in the war, but now he’s turned traitor to his heritage. And you’re helping him. But then betrayal’s something you know all about, isn’t it, Fraser?”

  It was an allusion to Kitty. Velasquez couldn’t know what other weight the words carried. “It’s true my sympathies are with the liberals rather than the royalists,” Charles said. “But that isn’t why we’re helping Carevalo.” He looked at Velasquez and calculated that the truth would serve him better than deception. “Carevalo took our son hostage. He’s threatened to kill Colin if we don’t produce the ring.”