Secrets of a Lady (58 page)

It was a moment before she could speak. “You’re a much better person than I am, Charles.”

“Am I?” His mouth was against her forehead. “You put your talents to use fighting for something you believed in. I employed my energies in a war over which I had increasing doubts, for a government I opposed, who later did exactly what you feared for Spain.” His fingers moved against her arm. “Edgar accused me of not knowing what it means to be a British gentleman. You accused me of taking the gentleman’s code too seriously. In the end I think you were both right. At the same time I was rejecting the values of my world, I was bound by them in ways I didn’t even realize.” He kissed her hair. “Can you forgive me?”

She jerked in his arms. “My God, Charles, forgive you for what?”

“For judging you so completely. For viewing everything you’ve done as though it centered round me. Look, my darling. I realized I’ve been looking at this the wrong way round.”

“How?”

“I’ve been thinking of you as my wife.”

“I am your wife, Charles. That’s the point.”

“But you aren’t just my wife.” His breath brushed her skin as he framed the words. “You had your own loyalties, your own code before you met me. You put your loyalty to your allies and your cause first. Which is much what I might have done in similar circumstances.”

His words held an absolution she had never thought to find. She realized her fingers were clenched on the linen of his shirt. She forced a touch of lightness into her voice. “Charles, that sounds suspiciously like ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov’d I not honor more.’”

“An apt sentiment.”

“Since when have you taken to quoting Richard Lovelace?”

“I didn’t, you did. But the man does have a point.”

She stared up at the leaf pattern on the damask canopy. “You wouldn’t have married someone knowing you would betray her.”

“No? I think you were right earlier. We never know what we’re capable of until we actually commit an act.” He stroked her hair. “You accused me of marrying you to pay a debt to Kitty and avenge myself on my father. The truth is, I can’t say where guilt and duty and wanting to replay my own childhood left off and love began. Yet surely—Sweetheart, after seven years surely why we got married matters far less than why we want to stay married.”

She turned her face into his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you, Charles.”

She felt him smile against her hair. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Charles,” she said after a long moment, her cheek pillowed on his chest, “do you think they were happy?”

He was twining his fingers in her hair. “Who?”

“Princess Aysha and Ramón de Carevalo. Do you think he abducted her or that they eloped because they’d been lovers all along?”

“Who knows?” He tugged another lock of hair free of its pins. “Perhaps they were soulmates who shared a love of poetry. Perhaps he carried her off for purely political reasons. Perhaps she was an intelligence agent and she arranged the whole thing so she could spy inside his court.”

Mélanie reached up and laced her fingers through his own. “Perhaps she told him the truth eventually.”

“Perhaps he believed her.” Charles brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “Perhaps, just possibly, they ended up being happy anyway.”

Mélanie curled her fingers against his face. “It may not be the truth,” she said, “but it’s a lovely story.”

Chapter 37

C
olin took a sip of milk. His fingers were curled tight round the blue-flowered mug, as though he was afraid to let go of it. Charles felt much the same about his son. He sat back and studied his children across the nursery breakfast table. The toast crumbs on the white cloth, the steam curling above the porridge bowls, the silver gleam of the butter knife. Hallmarks of normality in a world that had not yet returned to normal. He glanced sideways at Mélanie. Her gaze was fastened on Colin as though making up for lost time.

Too much had happened in the past three days for Charles to begin to comprehend it. He knew better than to try. Every so often, the pain or fear or sorrow would break through, like glass slicing into his brain. For a moment, he would be unable to think or even breathe. And then everyday life would close the wound over and the feeling would recede to a dull ache on the edge of his consciousness.

Laura Dudley was sewing by the window. Berowne, the cat, was curled up on the hearth rug, as though this was a normal morning. But of course it wasn’t anything of the kind. The children didn’t know about Edgar yet. He and Mélanie would have to find a way to tell them. Roth would call soon, wanting answers. Blanca was closeted with Addison in one of the parlors, telling him she had been in the employ of a French agent. It would not be easy for them, but Charles had great faith in his valet’s innate good sense winning the day.

Jessica pushed her spoon through her porridge and looked at her brother. “Will your finger grow back?”

Charles’s breath caught in his throat. He sensed Mélanie’s do the same.

A shadow crossed Colin’s face. He shifted his mug in his hands. “No,” he said. “Fingers aren’t like hair and nails.”

“Oh.” Jessica regarded him with wide, appraising eyes. “So you’ll be a hero like Uncle Fitzroy.”

Jessica was very fond of Fitzroy Somerset, who had lost his arm at Waterloo. Colin took another sip of milk. To Charles’s intense relief, his son’s face lightened a trifle. “Not quite,” Colin said. “A finger isn’t nearly as bad as an arm.”

Jessica added another spoonful of sugar to her porridge. “I think you’re a hero.”

Colin looked from Charles to Mélanie. “What’s going to happen to Meg?”

It was a shock to hear Colin use her name, a shock to realize she and Evans were people to him, however monstrous their actions. “She’s being held at Bow Street,” Charles said. “She’s going to go to prison for a long time. You don’t ever have to see her again.”

He expected to see relief or the remnants of fear on Colin’s face, but instead Colin frowned, the way he did when he was puzzling through a problem in the schoolroom. “She was beastly,” he said. “But not all the time. She brought me food and made sure I had enough blankets.”

Charles heard Mélanie draw in her breath, as though to say Meg was the lowest form of humanity possible. Then she checked herself, her gaze on Colin.

Colin bent down to pet Berowne. “Meg had a little boy who died. She missed him.” His scowl deepened. “I don’t understand her.”

Mélanie reached across the table and touched their son’s hand. “It’s never easy to understand another person, Colin. But it’s important to try, even when the people are beastly. Maybe especially then.”

Jessica, who hated to be ignored for more than a minute or two, tugged at Colin’s sleeve. “Can we play knights later? With the sword and battle-ax?”

Colin set down the mug of milk. A genuine smile broke across his face. “All right. But we have to be careful.”

“I won’t cry if you hit me this time. Well, not unless it
really
hurts.”

Charles’s shoulders relaxed, as though a weight had been lifted from them. He heard Mélanie release her breath.

The door eased open. “I’m sorry, sir, madam.” Michael stepped into the room. “Mr. Roth and Mr. O’Roarke have called. Shall I—”

“No, we should see them.” Charles got to his feet.

“We’ll be back.” Mélanie knelt between the children’s chairs. “As soon as possible.” She kissed both of them. Charles ruffled their hair. Laura moved to the table.

Michael had shown Roth and O’Roarke into the small salon. A wash of sunlight lent warmth to the cool sea green of the walls. Or perhaps the warmth came from the circumstances rather than the light. Roth walked forward as they entered the room. His face had the gray, worn quality that comes from a string of sleepless nights, though he had shaved and changed his linen in the few hours since they had seen him. “How’s the boy?” he said without preamble.

“Remarkable, all things considered.” Charles closed the door. “It will take time, but he’s going to be all right.”

Relief showed in Roth’s eyes. “Children are remarkably resilient. When my wife left, I thought it would take my boys years to grow accustomed to it, but they seem to have adjusted far more quickly than I have.”

It was a surprising personal admission, and in its own way an offer of friendship. Charles held Roth’s gaze for a moment, acknowledging the offer and responding with a like one.

“I asked Mr. O’Roarke to come with me,” Roth continued. “I thought it would be simplest if I talked to all three of you at once, since you were all bound up in the events of last night.”

“Of course,” Charles said.

O’Roarke had waited by the fireplace throughout this exchange. They joined him and seated themselves round the warmth of the fire.

Roth settled himself in a chair and crossed his legs. He looked far more at ease in the room than he had a mere three days before. “Margaret Simmons has made a full confession. Carevalo hired her and Evans a fortnight ago. He promised them five hundred pounds to take Master Fraser and keep him until the matter was resolved. Meg Simmons thought the job was worth four times that. She figured once they had the boy in their hands they could extract the money from Carevalo.”

“Did she know about the ring?” Mélanie asked.

“She doesn’t seem to have done.” Roth frowned. “She asked if Master Fraser was all right. She sounded as though she meant it.”

Mélanie tugged at the ruffle on her sleeve. “That didn’t stop them from cutting off Colin’s finger.”

“No.” Roth pulled out his notebook, opened the cover, flipped through the pages, then closed it again. “Victor Velasquez turned himself in at Bow Street in the early hours of the morning. He made a full confession to the murder of Elinor Constable, also known as Helen Trevennen, though it sounds as if it was more accident than murder.” He took his pencil from his pocket and chewed the tip. “So that would seem to tie up all the loose ends.” He looked up at Charles. “Except for your brother’s death.”

“Yes.” Charles leaned forward and drew a breath. He was prepared, but the words still stuck in his throat for a moment. Such revelations seemed to belong to the cloaking, whisky-scented shadows of night, not the clear, revealing light of morning. Mélanie reached out and took his hand. Her presence beside him on the sofa was like a touchstone. He let himself meet her steadying gaze for a moment. Then he recounted his surmises about Edgar in as straightforward a manner as possible, neither dwelling on unnecessary detail nor shirking what needed to be said.

When he finished, silence hung over the room, punctuated by the reassuring crackle of the fire. O’Roarke sat very still, his gaze intent. Roth sucked in his breath and released it in a long sigh. His shoulders slumped against the chair back.

“There’s no way to prove any of it, of course,” Charles said. “But it’s the only way I can make sense of my brother’s actions.”

Roth nodded and stared down at his notebook. He smoothed his fingers over the worn brown leather of the cover. He had made no notes during the story. “I asked Velasquez about the ring this morning. I said we had reason to suspect it had been in his cousin Kitty’s possession.”

“And?” Charles said.

“He was surprised. But not as surprised as I would have expected. He said his great-grandfather must have decided the ring was more a curse than a blessing. The great-grandfather’s two sons were fighting over it, and there was a history of duels and even murder in the Carevalo family to gain possession of it.”

“Not to mention its role in the Crusades,” Mélanie murmured.

“Quite,” Roth said. “Velasquez said his great-grandfather must have decided the family would be better off if the ring disappeared, but he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. So he gave it to his daughter, Kitty Ashford’s grandmother, and charged her to watch over it but to tell no one she had it.”

“And she gave it to her daughter, Kitty’s mother,” Charles said. “I suspect Kitty’s mother gave it to her when Kitty married or when she turned twenty-one or perhaps on the mother’s deathbed. I remember Kitty saying that it was when her mother died that she understood just how much she owed to her family.”

Roth leaned back in his chair, frowning. “I can see how that could have gone on for years. Generations. But if the ring could have meant what you say to the war—”

“Politics mattered a lot less to Kit than family loyalties,” Charles said. “She told me once that a vow to a blood relative came before all else. If she’d promised her mother to keep the ring for”—his voice went unexpectedly tight; Mélanie’s fingers tightened round his own—“for her daughter, she wouldn’t have gone back on her word.”

Roth shook his head, as though he would never understand the inner workings of such a code. “If this whole story comes out, it can only tarnish your brother’s memory and hurt his widow and the rest of your family. Not to mention embarrassing the army and government.”

“Very true,” Charles said.

Roth looked up at him. “There was a lot of confusion last night. Who’s to say the exact sequence of events? The only people who were actually present at the shooting were you and Mrs. Fraser and the boy and Evans.”

“Evans was dead.”

“Was he? Or did that happen later?” Roth spun his pencil between his fingers. “Perhaps Evans had a gun.”

“Your men know otherwise,” Charles said.

Roth gave a half smile. “That won’t be a problem.”

Mélanie pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “From the angle of the shot that killed Edgar it’s plain it didn’t come from the roof.”

“I think we can account for that.” Roth turned his head. “Mr. O’Roarke? Do you have any objections?”

“Certainly not. I saw none of it, after all.”

“Good.” Roth inclined his head. “What do you mean to do with the ring?”

Charles looked at O’Roarke. “I assume I can count on you to convey it to Carevalo’s heir?”

“Who is his heir?” Roth asked.

O’Roarke smiled for the first time since Charles and Mélanie had come into the room. “A first cousin. Not as active as Carevalo, but with similar political ideals. And a much less volatile personality.”