The Heart That Lies

by April Munday

  Anna drew the shawl tightly over her breasts then changed her mind and let her arms fall to her sides.

  “No,” she said, “I don’t have two fiancés... I have.... I have tried, but I can’t sleep.”

  Bemused by the change of subject, Meldon glanced at the clock that stood in the corner of the room. It was just after midnight.

  “You haven’t been trying very hard.” Her expression hardened. “Doubtless the prospect of marrying Mr Carstairs, or Mr Finch or whoever your next conquest might be is so exciting it chases sleep away.”

  “You don’t know anything. Please let me talk to you.”

  Uncertainly, she stretched her arms out to him. He caught them and pulled her to his chest. To his surprise she nestled against him with a sigh of contentment. This was not a woman happily engaged to the man she loved, whichever man it might be.

  “You turned him down,” he ventured.

  “I did.”

  All was not lost, then, as Finch seemed willing to put his own claim aside.

  “Then you are not here to talk about Mr Carstairs,” he hazarded.

  “I think I am. He... he said something very strange this afternoon.”

  “Said something strange?”

  This seemed a weak reason for a woman not to accept a proposal and a weaker reason to come to his room in her nightgown.

  He felt her nod against his chest, but she said no more. Happy though he was to hold her like this, he knew that she would soon be as aware of his desire as he was and his hands already ached from the effort of keeping them still.

  “Tell me what it is that worries you about him.”

  She put her arms around his waist and pulled herself closer to him and he wondered whether Carstairs had ever threatened her physically. It was only when Anna pulled away from him that he realised he had growled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “your hesitation made me think of some of the ways that a man can mistreat a woman and I wondered what Carstairs might have done.”

  “It’s not that,” she said as she moved back to him. Certain that he would kill Carstairs without a second thought the next time that he saw him, regardless of the general’s orders, Meldon stroked Anna’s back, soothing himself almost as much as her.

  “You came here to tell me something,” he reminded her, although he could have held her like this forever.

  “I’m not sure I did.” It was a whisper. “I came here to talk to you; I’m not sure it was about Mr Carstairs after all.”

  “What worries you, Anna?”

  It was the first time he had used her name.

  “It’s not... He spoke to me about the blue moon.”

  Meldon stiffened. Carstairs knew something about the blue moon?

  “The blue moon?”

  “He said the weather is good after a blue moon rises, but it wasn’t...”

  “He said that did he?” Meldon interrupted her. He made his decision immediately. “I have to go out.”

  Anna’s face was confused when she looked up at him. The temptation was too much; he kissed her swiftly, then released her. He put his boots on and retrieved his jacket from the floor where he had dropped it. It was only when he heard her gasp as he took up a pistol that he realised that she was still in the room.

  “You will be careful, my lor... George, won’t you?”

  He turned back to her, as she must have intended. This time his kiss was deep and possessive. It was only when he realised that he was losing himself in it that he let her go and rested his forehead against hers.

  “We will talk of this when I return.”

  The touch of her hand against his cheek was as welcome as it was unexpected.

  “Yes, please.”

  Even before she left the room, his thoughts were back with Carstairs.

  “I see Miss Smith delivered my message,” said Carstairs as Meldon was shown into the same room in which Meldon and Anna had been received a few days earlier. He did not rise from his chair, or even put down the glass he held. Meldon was unmoved by his lack of manners, but the knowledge that the man had been using Anna would make it easier to kill him.

  “Yes, she did.” Meldon saw no point in pretending that he had come here at this late hour on a social call.

  “She has played her part well.”

  Meldon ignored the implication that Anna was Carstairs’ to command; they both knew it wasn’t true.

  “And your purpose in calling me here?” Meldon tried to regain the ground he had lost. He appeared to have walked into a trap of some kind. Finch was right; he had become stupid of late. If he survived, he would have to give up spying before he caused the deaths of more of his friends.

  “I want you to tell me what the message means.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  Stupid again, thought Meldon, of course Carstairs didn’t know what it meant. He would not have needed Anna if he had known.

  Carstairs shook his head.

  “No, Lord Meldon, I don’t. But you will soon tell me.”

  He pointed a pistol at Meldon’s knee. “I wish I could pretend that you will leave here alive, but you must know already that you won’t. I was told that you were a clever man, but I see your mistress has made you foolish.”

  Meldon took a step forward, but stopped as Carstairs aimed the pistol at his heart.

  “Do you think any woman who was my mistress would even look at you?” The words hurt more than he thought they would, but he had to stop him talking about Anna. He could not concentrate on getting out of here alive, if he were distracted.

  “But she did, my lord. It is the gossip of Meldon Sturgis. You brought your mistress with you from London, but you neglected her.” His expression became smug. “When your friend found us together on the terrace, it was she who instigated it, not I.”

  What had Anna instigated? Why? No, Meldon straightened his back; this was not about Anna, but about the traitor who stood before him. He had been stupid to come here alone and without a plan and against General Warren’s instructions. The man who had been clever enough to trick Vincent into going to a brothel had had no difficulty in drawing Meldon out. His mind raced as he tried to work out what to do. His pistol was still tucked into his breeches and he could not reach it before Carstairs shot him. The same applied to the knife in his boot. Then he would probably die, as Carstairs had said.

  “You will talk about Miss Smith no more. Tell me what you want and get it over with.”

  “I want to know what ‘Blue moon rises’ means.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you do. I’m quite capable of torturing you until you tell me.”

  “As you tortured Vincent?”

  “Yes, I tortured him. He bore a lot of pain before he died. How much pain can you bear?”

  “Very little, I fear. But I cannot tell you what I don’t know, so I shall die in peace.” Except that Anna would never know that he loved her. That thought worried him. He should have told her, even if it meant the end of their friendship. Would Finch tell her after he was dead? Would it cause her more pain or make her happy? He must stop thinking about her.

  “Vincent went to you. He left you a message that he expected you to understand. Why should I believe that you didn’t understand it? He was a spy and you were the man he gave his secrets to.”

  “No.” Meldon lied through force of habit. “He was my friend. He came to me for help and I wasn’t there.”

  “Then I shall kill you as I killed your friend.”

  He fired the pistol. Meldon felt the pain in his leg before the surprise that Carstairs had acted. He fell back onto the floor then watched as Carstairs crossed the room to stand over him, another pistol in his hand. Carstairs had been right; he wasn’t going to leave this room alive.

  “Do you still say you don’t know what it means?”

  Meldon didn’t even have to think about it. “You’ll never know what it means from me.”

  Meldon heard a shot, then ther
e was nothing.

  Chapter Eleven

  Anna ran in through the open door and dropped her still smoking pistol next to Meldon’s body. Then she knelt by him and put her cheek to his lips. His breath was faint, but warm against it. Satisfied that he was still alive, she began to pull Carstairs off him. Carstairs was dead; her shot had gone into his head as she had intended. Although not a large man, Carstairs was heavy enough to make moving him difficult and she had no wish to cause more injury to Meldon. There was already a pool of blood on the rug beneath his leg.

  “What has happened here?” Anna didn’t even turn to look at the servant who had come running into the room, although she wondered why he was only appearing now, after the second shot had been fired.

  “Mr Carstairs has shot Lord Meldon and Lord Meldon has killed Mr Carstairs. Bring me water and bandages. Send to Meldon Hall and tell Perkins to bring whatever he needs to deal with Lord Meldon’s wound and to send the carriage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The servant disappeared, to be replaced by another one.

  “Help me get Mr Carstairs off him.”

  With the man’s help, Anna managed to remove Carstairs. She gave the man she had just killed little thought, except that he was preventing her from helping Meldon. Waving the servant away she undid Meldon’s breeches and eased them carefully down so that she could get to the wound without making it worse. There was a great deal of blood, but it looked as if the ball had gone through the fleshy part of his thigh without encountering any bones. An old scar reminded her that this was the leg where he had received his earlier wound. The scar was a large puckered mess under the fresh blood.

  The first servant returned with the water and bandages. Anna cleaned the wound carefully and inspected it. It continued to bleed, so she bound it as tightly as she could and hoped that it would keep until Perkins arrived. All the time she was conscious of where the first servant was. She wondered what exactly it was that Carstairs had paid him to do.

  Once again she checked that Meldon was still breathing and pulled his shirt down so that he was covered. When she looked up she saw that she was alone with the first servant. She made sure that Meldon’s loaded pistol was in easy reach and then settled down to wait.

  It took longer than she had hoped for Perkins to arrive and she was afraid that she must at any moment be asked to give an explanation for her presence here. When he had entered the house Meldon had been alone, surely the servants would remember that. She had found a window open at the back of the house and followed the sound of voices. Since Meldon had come armed, so had she and she had had sense enough to have her pistol in her hand when she had come into the room.

  “Mr Smith, if you would allow me to get where you are, I should be able to help his lordship.”

  “Perkins. Thank God!” She had had her back to the door and hadn’t heard him enter.

  Anna stood so that Perkins could take her place. Someone grabbed her arm and she swung round angrily, pistol in hand. It was Finch.

  “This is no place for you to be,” he said, trying to lead her out of the room.

  “This is exactly where I should be,” she hissed. “Let me go.”

  “There’s a dead man here and Meldon is practically naked. And you’re covered in blood.” Anna looked at her hands, they and the sleeves of her shirt were indeed red with Meldon’s blood. She looked Finch squarely in the face so that he would know that she was not going to faint or become hysterical.

  “Mr Finch,” said Perkins gently from the floor. “I think Mr Smith is correct. His help would be invaluable.”

  Finch released her, although he looked unhappy about it. Anna knelt by Meldon.

  “You have done a good job with the bandages, sir,” said Perkins. “Was it a clean shot?”

  “Yes, I could see no sign of bone in the wound.”

  “You washed it?”

  “Yes. The water was clean.”

  “And the ball?”

  “There are two wounds. I didn’t look for the ball, but I’m sure it’s not inside him.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you have done well.”

  Perkins smiled and inclined his head slightly and Anna accepted this high praise. Perkins held his master in the highest esteem and regarded any injury to him as worse than an injury to himself.

  “It looks as if the bandages are secure.” He inspected them once more. “I see no reason why I should remove them here. It would be better to do it once we get his lordship home. As soon as the carriage arrives we can leave.”

  Finch paced while they waited and Anna and Perkins made Meldon as comfortable as they could. Now that she was no longer alone, Anna was fighting off the urge to cry. Only the necessity of keeping up her disguise prevented her.

  The carriage arrived eventually and Finch carried Meldon out. Anna got into the carriage first, then Finch and they stretched Meldon out between them so that Finch kept Meldon’s leg still while Anna rested his head in her lap.

  Perkins sat outside with the coachman, so they were alone in the carriage.

  “What happened?” asked Finch quietly, his earlier anger apparently forgotten.

  “Lord Meldon came to see Mr Carstairs and I followed him. They talked for a bit, but I didn’t hear the first part of the conversation. When I got there Mr Carstairs was threatening Lord Meldon; he wanted some information from him. But Lord Meldon refused to tell him whatever it was he wanted. Then Mr Carstairs shot Lord Meldon and I killed Mr Carstairs.”

  “Good God!”

  “I’m a very good shot, Mr Finch and I was only about six feet away. But I think we should say that Lord Meldon killed him.”

  “I think you’re right. And how do we explain your presence?”

  “Lord Meldon discovered that Mr Carstairs had assaulted me on the terrace, so he went to have it out with him. I followed to try to calm him down.”

  “Dressed like a man. That won’t do, it won’t do at all.” Finch tapped his fingers against the carriage door.

  “Do we need an explanation just now?”

  “The boy you sent roused the whole house. Lady Meldon and Lady Caroline are expecting me to bring back his body. They’ll have noticed by now that you’re gone. Carstairs’ servants might eventually realise how very alike Mr and Miss Smith are.”

  “I can’t think about anything now, except that he’s wounded.”

  “I know. I’ll think up a good story, don’t worry about it.” Finch turned away and looked out of the carriage window into the blackness outside.

  “There’s one other thing I think you should know, Mr Finch.” Anna was hesitant, but Meldon trusted Finch and she thought she could do the same.

  Finch turned back to her absently. “What’s that?”

  “I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but I think Mr Carstairs must have been a spy for the French and possibly that servant who was in the room when you arrived.”

  She had Finch’s full attention now.

  “I see. Very well, I’d better do something about that.”

  “I might be wrong.”

  “You might be. You might be right. Meldon said you notice things, so you’re probably right.”

  He turned back to the window, but not before Anna had seen the look on his face, which was one of frustration.

  As the carriage arrived at Meldon Hall, Lady Caroline ran down the steps from the main door. The carriage door was open and Finch was already getting out.

  “Is he...?”

  “He’s badly wounded, but Perkins thinks he’ll be alright.”

  “Anna! What...? Never mind. We were worried about your absence. We should have known you’d be with George.”

  Anna followed Finch into the house and up to Meldon’s bedroom. Lady Caroline and her mother went with them. Perkins suggested tactfully that they should all leave so that he could redress the wound. Lady Meldon protested, but Lady Caroline led her from the room.

  The three women and Finch stood in
the room where Anna and Meldon had played cards together so often. They waited in silence, not looking at one another.

  The door opened and Perkins came out. He addressed Lady Meldon. “It is not a life-threatening wound, my lady. He will sleep a while and then he must rest, but he will recover, provided there is no fever.”

  “Thank you, Perkins. I shall go and sit with him.”

  Lady Caroline took a step towards Lady Meldon. “Mother, perhaps it would be better if Anna sat with him.”

  “Anna?” The old lady turned to her, her eyes widening as she saw for the first time what her guest was wearing. Then she paled. “Yes, I’m sure he’d prefer it at that. Very well, go, but Anna...”

  “Yes, Lady Meldon?”

  “Wash George’s blood off your hands first.”

  Anna looked again at her hands and nodded.

  Although Perkins had been perfectly clear that Meldon’s life was not in danger, Anna had remained by his bedside through the night and into the next afternoon. Shortly after dawn he had shouted her name and she had taken his hand and smoothed his forehead before kissing it and whispering, “I’m here.” He had sighed and dropped into an easier sleep.

  Feeling that he had invited her to do so, she retained his hand in hers. Even when Mrs Whittaker came in to pull back the curtains she stayed as she was.

  When the daylight had revealed her sitting in breeches and a bloodied shirt the housekeeper had tutted, then sighed and asked whether she wanted breakfast. Although Anna had said no, one of the housemaids appeared shortly thereafter with tea, toast and some cake. Only then did Anna realise that she was both hungry and thirsty and the meal vanished quickly.

  Late in the afternoon Meldon stirred. Even before he opened his eyes he squeezed Anna’s hand and smiled.

  “I’m still alive then.”

  “You are. Mr Carstairs was a worse shot than you.”

  “Miss Smith,” he said, “would you mind helping me to sit up?”

  “Perkins said you should not exert yourself.”

  “Then help me, so that I won’t have to.”