Beneath a Silent Moon (61 page)

Evie drew a long, harsh breath. "Mrs. Fraser, I grew up in Glenister House. I'm scarcely naive. But I don't know whether to be more shocked or offended at what you've just implied about my mother. Not to mention my uncle Cyril."

"It takes something shocking to motivate a murder."

"But even if this fantastic story were true, why should it have motivated me or anyone else to kill Honoria?"

"Because Honoria had been curious about her father's death for years and she'd stumbled upon the truth. Probably in papers Mr. Fraser kept hidden. Papers that we have yet to discover. Papers you tried to find in Mr. Fraser's dispatch box."

"How on earth could I—"

"Someone picked the lock on the dispatch box. It can be done with a hairpin, though it's a bit time consuming. But these papers aren't in the dispatch box. You believed me when I suggested they might be in the secret rooms."

"Of course I believed you. It would never have occurred to me that you were playing such a fantastical game." Evie regarded Mélanie in much the way Rosencrantz or Guildenstern might stare at Hamlet when he spouted his most fantastical nonsense. "I still don't see why you think I killed Honoria."

"Because Honoria, who turned all information to her own ends, threatened to reveal the story if you wouldn't go along with her plan and hide in David's bed. Which would have led to you and David being forced into an unhappy marriage of convenience. And Honoria would have had a hold over you forever and a way to bring unhappiness to those you loved."

"Honoria wouldn't have dared reveal such a story even if it were true."

"Could you risk that?" Mélanie pressed up against the hairline cracks in Evie's composure with a relentlessness that was as automatic as the cut and parry of a sword fight. "Your mother's happiness, your uncle's, your own…"

"There's no risk if the story isn't true."

"Your uncle feared the truth of the past coming out. That's why he fled rather than face Charles's questions."

"It's absurd." Evie spun away, then turned back to face Mélanie. "I scarcely know where to begin, the story is so absurd. All other things aside, how could I have known Honoria would be in Mr. Fraser's room?"

"Because she told you." Mélanie turned her deductions against Evie like the edge of a blade. The words came easily, but nausea bit her in the throat, like last night when the smugglers had beaten her. She wondered if Charles would forgive her for destroying another of his childhood friends. She wondered if she'd forgive herself. "Other than Val, you're just about the only person Honoria might have confided in about her plans to seduce Mr. Fraser. I suspect she did come to your room the night of the murder. Or summoned you to hers. Not to borrow your coral earrings, but to talk about her plans for David. She may have meant for you to slip into David's bed that night or that may have been a plan for the future. But I'm quite sure she told you she meant to go to Mr. Fraser's room herself later that evening. Perhaps she knew he'd gone off with Lady Frances and she said she planned to be waiting for him when he returned. If so, you'd have known she'd be alone in Mr. Fraser's bedchamber."

The slash of the accusations showed in Evie's eyes, but her gaze did not waver. "Honoria was drugged."

"With laudanum. Probably the laudanum she kept in her own room. You must have known about it—it was part of the plan for David. Either you managed to drug her brandy in her room two nights ago, or you'd done so earlier."

"And then I went to Mr. Fraser's room and strangled her with the bellpull? My cousin? My almost-sister?"

"Who couldn't be stopped in any other way," Mélanie said.

Evie stared at her with a gaze that was battle worn and bleeding but still defiant. "You're mad, Mrs. Fraser."

"Quite possibly. That doesn't mean I'm not right."

The heavy oak door thudded open.

"Mélanie, thank goodness." Gisèle ran into the library, a candle tilting in her fingers. "It's Charles. I went to check on him and he's not in his room. He didn't come into the main corridor, so he must have gone down the back stairs in the north wing. Do you think he went to the secret rooms to look for the papers?"

Hell and the devil. Mélanie had been trying to draw Evie out with her theory about the papers, but the papers could well really be in the secret rooms. Charles must have concluded as much. Damn the man, why had he gone off without her?

Mélanie moved to the panel. "I'll check."

"I'll go with you," Evie said.

Mélanie looked into Evie's bright, steady gaze, checked her instinctive retort, and nodded. Better to keep the girl where she could watch her. And if Charles had discovered the papers and they contained what Mélanie suspected, better to confront Evie with the proof away from the others.

"Shall I come, too?" Gisèle asked.

"No, stay and help keep watch upstairs. Let David and Simon and the others know where we've gone."

Gisèle's gaze skimmed over Mélanie's face. "Charles will be all right, won't he?"

"I should think so. Charles can take care of himself." Mélanie pressed her fingers to the crest and released the panel. "Most of the time," she added under her breath.

Charles parried Tommy's sword thrust and spun to the side. Pain screamed through the cut in his shoulder. He brought his sword up in a counterattack. Blade whipped against blade. The world shrank down to the point of a sword, the flick of another man's wrist, the advantage of a foot of ground, a split second of time, an inch of steel.

Tommy pressed the attack, driving Charles against the table. Charles fell back as though he had stumbled, snatched the pewter lamp from the table behind him, and hurled it at Tommy's head.

Glass shattered. Metal struck flesh. The room was plunged into darkness, filled with the smell of coal oil and singed hair. Charles lunged forward, sword extended to slash at where Tommy had been standing. His blade met something solid. Tommy gave a muffled curse, followed by a stir of movement and then the slice of his blade against Charles's own.

Charles could barely pick out the darker form of his opponent in the shadows. They dueled the length of the room again, but this time it was like fighting a phantom, relying not on the treacherous evidence of one's eyes but on the stir of booted feet on the Aubusson carpet, the whip of a blade through the air, the smell of the other man's sweat.

Charles stepped to the side, round where he thought the sideboard stood. The second it took him to judge the distance gave Tommy the opening he needed. He flung himself forward, pinning Charles to the wall with his body. Their blades twanged together overhead. White fire ran down Charles's shoulder.

He pressed his arm against Tommy's, scrabbling for an inch of advantage. Steel whined against steel. Then candlelight spilled through the open door. Tommy stumbled back, blade still aimed at Charles.

"I suggest you stop trying to run a sword through my husband, Tommy, unless you want a bullet through the heart," Mélanie said.

Mélanie looked into Tommy's brilliant blue eyes. He was watching her with much the same flirtatious mockery as when he was about to ask her for a waltz. Damn it to hell, she'd
liked
him. But then she should know friendship was no guarantee of anything. "Drop your sword on the ground, Tommy. And step away from it."

"My dear Mélanie—"

"Now. You know at this range I could choose between shooting you through the heart or between the eyes. Or in the stomach and watching you die slowly."

Tommy uncurled his fingers from the rapier hilt and let the weapon clatter to the ground. With the leisurely grace of a man crossing a ballroom floor in search of champagne, he took a half-dozen steps away from the fallen weapon. Out of lunging distance. His gaze moved to Evie. "Quite a gathering. I didn't realize you had a taste for intrigue, Miss Mortimer."

"Are you all right, Evie?" Charles asked. Sweat dripped from his forehead and plastered his shirt to his chest, but he didn't, to Mélanie's sharp eyes, appear to be seriously hurt.

Evie nodded. She was standing by the door, hands clasped together. Charles shot a brief look at Mélanie. Mélanie flickered back an it's-too-complicated-to-explain-now look.

Gun trained on Tommy, Mélanie set her candle on the table. It cast a small circle of warmth on the unbleached cloth. The four of them stood in the blue-black shadows on the edges of the light. Mélanie glanced at Tommy. He was standing quite still, but even unarmed she knew he was as dangerous as a lit cannon. "What exactly is Tommy's interest in the matter?"

"I'm not sure," Charles said. "He's been working for Le Faucon and the Elsinore League. Or perhaps ultimately for one against the other. I'm quite sure he killed my father and Francisco and hired the man who attacked Manon in Covent Garden." Charles's voice was cool, but his eyes sparked with molten rage in the darkness. Her fair-minded husband wanted nothing better than to run his sword through Tommy Belmont. "He came back here tonight for papers Father hid in these rooms. He has them tucked inside his coat."

"My, you have learned a lot, haven't you?" Tommy studied the pistol in Mélanie's hand, like an archaeologist examining a potsherd he'd never seen before. "I must say, this is an interesting dilemma."

"There's no dilemma at all." Evie pulled a pistol from the pocket of her gown. "The papers, Mr. Belmont."

"Evie—" Mélanie said.

"Put your pistol down, Mrs. Fraser. I don't want to hurt anyone, but if what you suspect about me is true, you know I'll use this."

The room went still. Confusion, fear, and the dawning of understanding shot through Charles's gaze. "Evie," he said in the quiet voice Mélanie had heard him use under sniper fire, "whatever else has happened, we're all on the same side when it comes to Tommy."

Evie spared him a brief glance. Memories flickered between them for a moment, the way they only can between people who've shared hobbyhorses and cambric tea in the nursery and first ponies. Then her gaze went hard in a way Mélanie would not have thought possible, even during their confrontation in the library. "We haven't been on the same side since Honoria learned how to twist you round her finger, Charles."

"For God's sake, Evie, this isn't about Honoria."

"Oh, Charles, haven't you learned anything? Everything's about Honoria. Even in death. She always saw to that." Evie's hand tightened on the trigger. "Mrs. Fraser." Her voice cut with insistence. Her fingers trembled. Her eyes glittered with the look Mélanie had seen on the faces of soldiers about to rush into the breach at the end of a siege.

Fear could make people do crazy things. Five years ago, Mélanie might have defied Evie's ultimatum and played dice with her own life. Five years ago she hadn't been a wife and mother. She looked from Evie's shaking fingers to her overbright eyes and then set her own pistol down on the table.

"Step away," Evie said.

"Evie, we aren't—"

"I mean it, Mrs. Fraser."

Mélanie moved away from the table, toward her husband.

"Throw your sword down by Mr. Belmont's, Charles."

"You've known me all your life, Evie," Charles said. "You must know I'd never—"