Beneath a Silent Moon (13 page)

Mélanie waited until they were in a hackney bound for South Audley Street before she voiced the concern she hadn't wanted to mention in front of David. "You didn't tell me David and Miss Talbot visited you in Lisbon."

"Didn't I?" Charles was looking out the cracked glass of the window. "There was no reason for it to come up, I suppose."

Most people would have been deceived into thinking his tone was perfectly normal. Most people didn't know him like she did. "I thought you hadn't seen her since she was a child."

"Does it make a difference?"

"There's quite a difference between fourteen and seventeen." The difference between a girl and a woman.

"David's father was sent to meet with Wellington and the ambassador. Honoria and David and Val came with him. They weren't in Lisbon long. I didn't see a great deal of them."

"Charles, I'm stumbling in the dark if you won't tell me everything you know about Miss Talbot."

Charles swung his head round. His gaze met hers, black and impenetrable. "I don't know anything about Honoria Talbot that could connect to any of this. Trust me."

"It's not a question of trust, Charles. I think you're being blinded by—"

He continued to stare at her, an aristocrat who wouldn't dream of being so ill bred as to suggest a commoner has been overly familiar.

"Your feelings," she said.

He gave a brief laugh. "A novel argument, considering a lot of people think I don't have them."

"Don't talk rubbish, Charles."

He turned his gaze away. "I know her, Mel. You don't." He didn't sound angry. It would have been better if he had.

"You knew her once, Charles. You don't necessarily know her anymore. Unless you know her better than you've admitted."

"I know her enough to know that whatever game she's involved in, she's a pawn."

"Damn it, Charles." She caught his hand and gripped it. "We don't even know what the bloody hell the game is that's being played."

He looked down at their hands. He didn't attempt to extricate himself from her grip, but nor did he return the pressure of her touch. "You're not sounding much like yourself either, Mel. You're not usually so quick to rush to judgment."

Mélanie bit her lip and released his hand. "I'm not making a judgment, Charles. I don't know enough to do so. I'm trying to make sure we have all the facts at our disposal."

"And I'm telling you that we do."

She stared down at the hackney seat. Their hands were now inches apart on the water-stained leather. Only the night before last his fingers had moved over her flesh and she had licked the sweat from his skin and wrapped herself round him and taken him into her body. For a moment, when he shuddered in her arms, his self-control shattered like crystal, she had been able to delude herself that he was hers.

But that was folly, of course. People didn't belong to other people. If one was lucky, one could touch a proffered fraction of another's soul, like fingers twining together across an expanse of cool sheet in the dark. But these days, no matter how tightly she gripped her husband, she seemed to touch less and less of him.

They pulled up in South Audley Street and climbed the steps without speaking. Difficult to believe they had left the house a scant twelve hours ago. Colin would be upset that they had missed breakfast in the nursery, and Jessica would have had to make do with one of her silver feeding bottles.

The pull of her bloodstained gown across her chest reminded Mélanie that she was still a nursing mother. If she'd known they'd be out all night, she'd have used her breast exhauster before she left the house.

They'd faced danger before. They'd always been able to protect the children. Surely they still could.

"You have a visitor," Michael said when he opened the door. "A Mr. Barrington. He insisted on waiting. I've shown him into the sitting room."

She and Charles looked at each other, the constraint between them forgotten. The name was unfamiliar and that, coupled with the events of the past thirty-six hours, was enough to set them both on edge.

Charles opened the sitting room door and cast a glance inside before stepping aside to allow her to precede him. A man stood by the windows. A slight, sandy-haired man of middle years, dressed in tan breeches and a dun-colored coat. Mélanie, used to choosing clothes for their effect, decided that he had dressed with the intention of creating as little notice as possible.

His gaze flickered over them, reminding her of the blood and coffee spatters on her gown, the smears of dirt and green vegetable stains on Charles's coat, the scrapes and stubble on his face.

"Mrs. Fraser." He gave her the briefest of nods, then turned to Charles. "I don't believe we've met, Fraser. I was at Oxford before you, and then I spent some years posted in Brazil. Like you, I've only recently returned to Britain." He fixed Charles with a cool, level gaze. "The Foreign Secretary sent me. He wants to see you immediately."

"Sit down, Charles."

Charles closed the door of the Foreign Secretary's office, crossed the worn carpet, and lowered himself into a ladder-back chair. The use of his given name was a reminder that the Foreign Secretary had known him since he was a boy, but he suspected Castlereagh had employed it more to put him in his place than to reassure him.

"Why am I here, sir?" he asked.

Castlereagh surveyed him across the surface of his desk, which was uncharacteristically disordered, piled high with papers and sheaves of foolscap, ledgers, and today's edition of the
Morning Post
. His brows rose slightly at the picture Charles presented. Charles's hand was still bandaged, and he had a bruise to the jaw from the fracas in the coffee stall at Covent Garden. He'd taken the time to shave and change before he left South Audley Street, but he'd nicked himself twice with the razor. Haste and lack of sleep. Not to mention nerves.

"I understand you and your wife were involved in an incident last night," Castlereagh said.

Charles tensed. This was quick even for Castlereagh. "Where did you hear that?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. But I am aware that your friend Francisco Soro was shot yesterday evening."

"Do you know who shot him?"

"No. Though I may perhaps know more about the matter than you do." Castlereagh aligned the papers on the desk before him so the tops of each stack were level. "I don't think you quite realize what you've got involved in, Charles."

Charles looked from the Foreign Secretary's aristocratic face to the slender hands creating order out of the chaos on the desktop, much as Castlereagh would like to impose his vision of order on the rest of the world. Charles had worked closely with him at the Congress of Vienna. Castlereagh had been quick to employ Charles's talents, both official and unofficial, before the peace negotiations had been brought to an abrupt halt by Napoleon's escape from Elba. But when it came to the course that was best for Britain and Europe, they had sharply divergent views.

Dissatisfaction with a view of the world that placed paramount importance on stifling all dissent for fear of revolution was a large part of why Charles had left the diplomatic service. In fairness, Castlereagh had always listened to Charles's arguments, though he had never given the least sign of being persuaded by them.

"Perhaps you'd care to enlighten me about what I'm involved in?" Charles said.

Castlereagh tightened the buff-colored ribbon that held a sheaf of foolscap closed. "You were in Paris until recently. You know the situation there is still anything but calm, for all that the war's officially over. The Comte d'Artois and his followers have been somewhat—ah—excessive in the zeal with which they've sought retribution against members of the former regime."

"Revenge might be a more appropriate word."

"Perhaps. Semantics aside, it would be foolish to deny that Bonaparte's followers and Bonaparte himself still constitute a threat." Castlereagh replaced the lid on a jar of ink. "A few weeks ago, I received reports from Paris concerning a secret organization with the unlikely name of the Elsinore League. An organization of former Bonapartist officers, some in prison, some still free."

"Reports from whom?"

"Agents of mine." Castlereagh wiped a trace of ink from the side of the jar. "You didn't know every agent in my employ, Charles."

"I never thought I did, sir."

"Two of my agents had managed to infiltrate themselves into the fringes of the Elsinore League some months since. It's risky work, as I'm sure you appreciate based on your own experience."

Charles nodded. "Risky" was no doubt a massive understatement. "Where does Francisco fit into this?"

Castlereagh moved a paper from one stack to another. "I know Soro was a friend of yours and mat he was very useful to us in the Peninsula. But since the war he seems to have found himself at loose ends. He went to Paris last autumn and apparently fell in with the Elsinore League. A bit surprising when he'd worked against the French in Spain, but perhaps his quarrel was more with French occupation of his country than with Bonapartist ideals. You'd agree?"

Charles shifted his position in his chair, his gaze on Castlereagh. "Yes," he said in a guarded voice.

"According to my agents, Soro was acting as a courier. He probably wasn't aware of the full extent of what the group was planning."

"What were they planning?"

"We haven't been able to determine that, not for a certainty. At first we thought it was simply the rescue of former Bonapartist officers from prison, but now we suspect they have something bigger in mind." Castlereagh picked up his penknife and picked at a piece of sealing wax on the tooled green leather of the desktop. "As you well know, the alliances between the French monarchy and our government and the Russians and the Prussians are not entirely harmonious. We've done our best to paper over the cracks, but if something were to happen to disrupt things, the sort of incident that would have everyone blaming everyone else and demanding someone pay—"

Charles straightened his shoulders. "An assassination attempt? That's what you're afraid of? On whom?"

"A member of the French royal family. A foreign ambassador. We haven't been able to determine with certainty." Castlereagh pried the wax loose with a vicious twist of the knife. "Soro may have learned what the group was planning. He came to England to hand over information on their activities. To you, it seems. One of the group followed him and killed him last night. And very nearly killed you and your wife as well. My God, Charles, what were you thinking?"

Castlereagh fixed him with a firm, parental stare. Either his words were true or he was a very good actor or he believed the lie. His story fit the facts. Almost. It didn't account for how the devil Honoria Talbot fit in with Francisco's activities in France.

Charles hesitated, searching for time, answers, a way out. "Can you show me evidence of any of this?"

"My dear Charles. You worked in intelligence. You understand about secrecy. My word as a gentleman will have to suffice."

"With all due respect, my lord, without seeing the evidence myself, I can't be sure that you haven't been misled."