Secrets of a Lady (15 page)

The coachman pulled up as close to the Thistle as he could. Charles jumped down and nearly skidded on a rotted cabbage leaf. The smell of overripe oranges and a babble of hawkers’ cries filled the air. Two women with liberal amounts of rouge on their cheeks and scant covering on their bosoms were leaning against the wall of the tavern. They moved toward him, then subsided against the wall as he handed Mélanie from the carriage. He kept hold of Mélanie’s arm and steered her past a trio of young men in grubby corduroy jackets who were warming their hands at a fire laid in the street. One man’s gaze slid sideways toward Mélanie’s shot-silk reticule.

The Thistle was a narrow brick building, with a wood-faced lower story and brightly polished brass lamps flanking the door. The air in the common room smelled of sour ale and freshly brewed coffee. Charles scanned the dozen or so customers who lounged about the tables. Two gray-haired men were bent over a backgammon board. A man in a green-grocer’s apron was gulping down a mug of coffee and eating a paper-wrapped sausage, one eye on the mantel clock. A woman in a low-cut gown and a tattered lace shawl was slumped at one of the tables, listening to the attentions of a stringy young man in a flashy coat as though she was too tired to shoo him away. A potboy threaded his way between the tables with a pot of foaming ale.

Charles signaled to the potboy, but as he did so, Baxter himself came through the doorway from the room beyond and let out an exclamation of pleased surprise. “Good God, it’s Mr. Fraser. And Mrs. Fraser. An honor, ma’am.”

Charles subdued his impatience and shook the tavern-keeper’s hand, pleased to find his own hand relatively steady. “Could we have a word in private, Baxter?”

“Of course, of course.” Baxter led them up a narrow staircase to the family quarters and opened a door onto a cheerful, floral-papered room with dried flowers on the mantel and a child’s building blocks strewn over the hearth rug. “Tea? Or a spot of ale? No? I suppose it is a bit early. Just let me light the fire.”

Mélanie sank down on a black horsecloth settee. Charles moved to a straight-backed chair several feet away from her. Baxter’s gaze flickered at the seating choice. He busied himself adjusting the cabbage rose fire screen. He had grown a bit thicker about the waistline, but otherwise he was unchanged since their days in Spain. “Well, now. Very kind of you to call, but it can’t be just to chat about the past.” He turned to face them. “What’s amiss?”

Charles told him, as succinctly as possible, omitting only Mélanie’s revelations. Baxter’s eyes went wide with surprise, then dark with anger. “By God, sir. Begging your pardon, ma’am, but Mrs. Baxter and I have three little ones of our own. What kind of fiend would do that to a child?”

“Someone willing to go to any lengths to achieve his objective.” Charles was relieved to find that his voice still sounded rational. He was putting to use every lesson he’d ever learned about self-control in a crisis, every trick mastered in boyhood to hold feelings at bay.

Baxter unclenched his hands. “Carevalo wants the ring that much?”

“Apparently. My mistake was not to realize it sooner.” “Mistake” was a woefully inadequate way to describe such a sin of omission. But there would be time, later, to curse himself for the fool he’d been. Time to remember that whatever sins Mélanie had committed, he was the one who had failed their son.

Baxter stared at Charles, a dawning realization on his face. “You think I’m the British soldier who had the ring all along?”

Charles watched him with an unwavering gaze. “We don’t know what to think. We’re investigating every possibility.”

“No, you’re right to wonder.” Baxter slicked his sparse dark hair back from his forehead. “It would have to be me, wouldn’t it. That would explain why the ring didn’t turn up on any of the dead men. But as God is my witness, Mr. Fraser—”

“‘Saint-seducing gold,’” Mélanie murmured. “It would have been a great temptation. After all, the British would still get the ring. Why shouldn’t you gain by the transaction?” She was tugging off her gloves, as though she couldn’t bear to be still. A pearl button snapped off and rolled to the floorboards.

Baxter bent down and retrieved the button. “I’m not a liar, ma’am. I don’t know how to prove it to you, save to say it plain out.” He held out his hand to her.

Mélanie leaned forward and took the button from him. “Truthfully, I never thought you were, Mr. Baxter.”

Baxter’s shoulders relaxed. He stared at his broad hands, smeared with soot from lighting the coals. “It’s odd, I don’t talk about the war much as a rule—don’t like to upset Mrs. Baxter. Don’t think about it much neither, truth be told. It was an ugly time. Hard sometimes to believe it really happened.” He looked at the children’s blocks on the hearth rug for a moment, then turned his gaze to Charles. “So that ring was the reason we were in the mountains. I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe the gentleman who was here last week.”

Charles gave a jerk of surprise. “What gentleman?”

Baxter looked up at him. “A gentleman by the name of Lorano came to see me last week. He told me this same story about the ring. I assumed he’d have been to see you, too.”

Charles glanced instinctively at Mélanie. “What did the man look like?”

“Nothing very much to speak of, sir. About your years. Tallish. Dark hair. Not too heavy. Seemed to be a Spaniard. Leastways he had the coloring and a bit of an accent and the name sounds Spanish. I had no reason to think he wasn’t who he said he was.”

“No, of course not.” Mélanie scrunched her gloves in her lap. Her nails pressed into her palms. “What did this Mr. Lorano say to you?”

“That he was trying to trace the ring. I insisted the French must have got it, but he said he had doubts. Asked if there was a chance we buried it with any of the dead. I assumed he was a friend of this Marqués de Carevalo, though come to think of it he didn’t come right out and say so.” Baxter rubbed at the soot on his hands. “Do you think it was my answers made Carevalo decide you must have the ring yourself?”

“I doubt it,” Charles said. “Carevalo’s been convinced I have the ring ever since he talked to the French soldier. If he was going to make inquiries, he’d have come himself. I doubt this Lorano is his friend, or even working with him.”

“Who the devil is he, then?”

“I’m not sure. But we may have competition in finding the ring.” Charles leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “
Is
there any chance we buried it with the dead after the attack?”

“I don’t see how, sir. I went through their pockets careful as can be, in case there was anything to send on to their families.”

“What did you take out?”

Baxter frowned. “The Spaniard asked me the same thing. One fellow had a watch. Another had a lock of his sweetheart’s hair. I think that was all, except that Lieutenant Jennings had a letter on him.”

Charles straightened up. “What sort of a letter? How many pages?”

“I couldn’t rightly say, sir. But it must have been longish. It was a fair fat packet.”

“Fat enough for the ring to be tucked inside?”

Baxter’s eyes went wide. He nodded slowly. “Aye. More than fat enough.”

Charles regarded him for a moment. “You didn’t say anything about it at the time.”

Baxter glanced down at the scuffed toes of his boots. “Well, no, sir, I didn’t quite like to. It—ah—the letter wasn’t addressed to Mrs. Jennings at their house in Surrey. Seemed more discreet just to send it on to the lady quiet-like. If I’d known—”

“But you couldn’t have, of course. Did you tell Lorano about the letter?”

“I mentioned it, sir. Didn’t see any reason not to. I’m not sure he put it together that the ring might have been inside. I didn’t myself properly until just now.”

Charles sat forward in his chair. “Do you remember the lady’s name?”

Baxter’s face screwed up with concentration. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw Mélanie twisting her gloves round her fingers.

“Ellen something,” Baxter said at last. “No, Helen, that was it.” His face cleared. “Helen Trevennen. Like Helen of Troy, I thought. I suppose that’s why it stuck in my head.”

Charles released his breath and gave thanks to a God he had long since ceased to believe in. “Did you mention her name to Lorano?”

“No. I said I couldn’t remember—which was true until just now. Seemed best to leave well enough alone.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you remember her direction as well?”

“Oh, I remember that right enough. She must have been an actress or a dancer or something of the sort. The letter wasn’t directed to her lodgings. It was sent to the Drury Lane Theatre.” He shook his head. “Fancy my remembering after all these years.”

Chapter 10

M
élanie gripped the edges of the carriage seat to steady her hands. It was not far to the Drury Lane Theatre, but the narrow streets were thronged with carts and drays going to and from the market. They were crawling along at a maddening pace. “Seven years is a long time,” she said. “I don’t recall seeing a Helen Trevennen on the program at the Drury Lane since we’ve been back in Britain.”

“No.” Charles turned his gaze to her. He’d been staring out the window with a fixed expression. “The odds are she’s not at the theater anymore.”

Don’t let your hopes carry you away,
his voice said. It was difficult when hope and fear churned within her, clogging her throat, tearing at her chest. “What about this man Lorano who asked Baxter about the ring?” she said. “Who do you think he’s working for?”

“The royalists most likely, perhaps even the Spanish embassy. If there’s a rebellion in Spain, the royalists could make as much use of the ring as Carevalo and the liberals.”

“Wouldn’t they have to return it to the Carevalo family?”

“Why?” He scanned her face with a cold gaze. “Your people weren’t planning to turn the ring over to Carevalo seven years ago. All the royalists need to do is dig up a Carevalo relative who supports the monarchy and parade him about with the ring. They could repeat the legends about the ring with a strategic emphasis on the links between the ring’s power and the Spanish throne. Like most legends, the story of the Carevalo Ring can be bent to serve a multitude of purposes.”

She couldn’t argue with that. It was much the same thing Raoul had said to her seven years ago. “And if the people on Carevalo’s lands saw a pro-royalist Carevalo cousin with the ring, they might side with him rather than Carevalo and the liberals.”

“Precisely. If the royalists get their hands on the ring, there’s not a chance in hell they’ll surrender it to Carevalo, even if we could explain what that means for Colin.”

“We’ll just have to hope Mr. Lorano hasn’t traced Helen Trevennen to the Drury Lane.”

“Yes.” Charles pushed his hair back from his forehead. She caught a telltale tremor in his hand. For a moment his controlled expression wavered. It was like looking into a glass at the reflection of her own terror.

“So Lieutenant Jennings found the Carevalo Ring,” she said, recapitulating what they had learned thus far in the hope it would still the panic welling up in her chest. “It must have been hidden in some village or town the British occupied. Jennings heard the legends about the ring and realized how valuable it could be to the British. But he knew his superiors in the army wouldn’t pay him for it. In fact, given Wellington’s strictures against pillaging, he might get asked some uncomfortable questions about how he’d acquired the ring. So he hired the bandits to sell the ring to the British for him. Somehow he arranged to lead the detachment of soldiers who traveled with you when you went to buy the ring from the bandits. He wouldn’t trust the bandits with the ring until the last minute, so he carried it with him and hid it in a letter he’d written to his mistress, Helen Trevennen.”

“It’s largely conjecture,” Charles said, “but it’s the only explanation that fits the facts as we know them.”

“What do we tell them at the Drury Lane?” Mélanie said. “The truth?”

“The truth?” Charles’s voice cut like ice. “Surely not. Do you even know how to tell it? Besides, it might frighten Helen Trevennen or her friends into silence. I think Lieutenant Jennings had better have been a good friend of mine. I was going through a trunk of his belongings recently and I found a letter from him leaving a bequest to Miss Trevennen. I didn’t want to tell his wife, so I’m seeking out Miss Trevennen myself.”

“That’s simple and fairly plausible.” She adjusted the brim of her bonnet, as though she could anchor herself. “What time is it?”

He pulled his watch from his pocket and opened it. “Just past ten.”

“There’s sure to be a rehearsal starting by now. The stage manager’s a better bet for information than the manager. Stage managers know everything.”

He nodded, returned his watch to his pocket, then swung his head round to look at her. “How long were you an actress?”

Even now, even with his mind on Colin, he missed nothing. She tightened the ribbons on her bonnet, tugging harder than was necessary. The ribbon cut into her skin. “My father had a traveling theater company. I was performing before I was Jessica’s age. I went on doing so until I was fifteen.”

“And then?”

He deserved an answer. She gave him the bare minimum. “He died.”

Charles’s eyes asked a great deal more and, she feared, saw more than a glimmering of the answers, but he merely said, “Evidently he taught you well.”

A rich voice, smiling eyes. A hand ruffling her hair, a challenging question, a love she had never doubted. “My father was a man of integrity,” she said. “I think he’d have liked you. I expect he wouldn’t be very happy with what I’ve become.”

“If he was a man of integrity,” Charles said, “I can’t imagine he would be.”

His cool words cut her to the quick, because she knew he was right. Her father, like Charles, could never have made sense of letting the ends justify the means.

The porter at the stage door of the Drury Lane greeted their entrance with a frown, which changed to a look of surprise when Charles produced his card. It was not politic for a theater to offend influential politicians. He waved them in.