The Mask of Night (52 page)

Roth was sipping a pint of the quite decent home brew and playing his third chess game against himself when he heard footsteps in the entry hall. He went to the door with no very real hope of learning anything. The last two arrivals had been a local farmer stopping to get out of the rain and a couple who’d lost a wheel from their carriage. But this time he saw Will Gordon in the entrance hall, rain dripping from his beaver hat and caped greatcoat.

Roth crossed the hall in two strides and griped his arm. “Good day, Gordon.”

“Roth. What the devil—“

“In here.“ Roth steered Gordon into the private parlor, ignoring the interested gaze of the serving maid.

He pushed the door shut and stood with his back to it. Gordon tossed his hat onto the table and struggled out of his drenched coat. “I suppose you’re here because of the man you had following me. I thought I’d given him the slip.”

“Addison is used to tricks.”

“I was afraid of that. In any case, I’m damned glad to see you. I’m afraid I’m in a bit over my head.”

“You’re having second thoughts?”

“In a sense. At least about the way I went about it. I should have told someone first.”

“Told someone what precisely?”

Gordon stared at him. His hair was plastered to his forehead and dripping water down the bridge of his nose. Roth was put in mind of his sons.

“You think— Look here,” Gordon said, “I know you had people following us because you thought someone must have betrayed O'Roarke the night before last. But you can’t seriously think that I—“

“Last night you were seen conferring with Mr. Vickers.”

“Damned right I was conferring with Vickers. That’s how— Oh.”

“Start at the beginning.”

Gordon scraped his wet hair back from his forehead. “You know about Vickers’s work. And you think I’m working with him.”

“A not unreasonable assumption based on the evidence.”

“No, I can see that. God, this would be a farce if it wasn’t so bloody serious.“ Gordon dropped into a ladder-back chair. “I’ve heard rumors about Vickers for weeks. I never mentioned it to anyone because I couldn’t be sure. I’m not the sort to claim my word is my bond, but for what it’s worth, you have my word I never worked with him.”

Roth moved to a chair opposite Gordon. “I’m not the sort to take anyone’s word as their bond. Go on. Why were you meeting with Vickers last night?”“Because he asked me to.

I thought he was going to threaten me or try to subvert me. But that wasn’t it at all. He pointed out that we both happen to have romantic attachments to two people who are married to each other and suffering qualms of conscience. He wanted to see if we could arrive at an amicable solution.”

Roth stared at him.

“I know. I’d always thought him a bit stiff-necked, but it seems I misjudged him.“ Gordon leaned forward, hands clasped together. “See here, Roth. I don’t give a damn about my own reputation and even Pendarves can take care of himself. But it’s harder for women. Caroline Pendarves is a sheltered woman with a horror of scandal. I don’t care to do her any more harm than I’ve done already.”

“Point taken. If that’s really what you spoke to Vickers about there’s no need for the conversation to go farther than this room. But in that case why did you try to ditch pursuit right after your talk with Vickers?”

“Because something he said—after one too many glasses of Bordeaux—gave me the impression he was leaving London on secret business this morning.”

“What sort of business?”

“I couldn’t tell. It was all too vague. That’s why I decided to follow him myself before I bothered the Frasers or Simon Tanner or you with it.”

“And?”

“I followed him down here. He stopped at this inn. I took a room and then followed him when he left the inn. He went to Spendlove Manor. It’s a house belonging to Lord Carfax.”

“Yes, I know. What did you see there?”

“It was the damndest thing. There were British soldiers all round. I saw Vickers go into the house. They seemed to be expecting him.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

Gordon shook his head. “But—”

He was interrupting by the opening of the door. “Roth, the maid said you were—“ Addison stopped on the threshold. “Mr. Gordon. Good evening.”

“Mr. Addison. You’re very skilled at following, I must say. But it turns out I’m not the enemy.”

“Gordon was meeting with Vickers about personal business,” Roth said.

“I’m relieved to hear it.“ Addison advanced into the room. “You saw the soldiers at Spendlove Manor?”

"Vickers is an agent for Carfax,” Gordon said. “At least according to rumor. And Spendlove Manor is on the coast. Perhaps Vickers is meeting with someone from the Continent about secret operations. The same secret operations that account for St. Juste being in London and the attack on O'Roarke.”

Roth took a swallow from his tankard. “You’re suggesting that whatever St. Juste was up to was a plot set in motion by Carfax in concert with the French?”

“Or someone in France. Or another country, though France seems likeliest.“ Gordon leaned forward. “Vickers isn’t powerful enough to have ordered those soldiers out on his own. So I want to know who did.”

Tommy Belmont’s face was in shadow, but the hair, the posture, and the voice were unmistakable. Mélanie took a step forward, pistol steady. “Put your hands in the air, Tommy.”

“Mélanie—“

“Now. I don’t like killing, but I’m less squeamish about it than Charles is.“

Tommy raised his hands. “You can spare us all the melodrama. For once I want to talk things over as much as you do.”

She tugged open the door to the dining parlor. “You first.”

Tommy complied with only a faint lift of his mouth for commentary. He went still on the threshold, gaze on the room's occupant. "Hortense Bonaparte, unless my eyes deceive me. The plot thickens."

Mélanie pushed the door shut without turning her gaze or the pistol away from Tommy. "Hortense, I don't know if you've ever been formally to introduced to Thomas Belmont. He used to be a colleague of my husband's. These days I don't trust him an inch."

Tommy's gaze flickered between the two women. "You know each other. Mélanie, you never cease to surprise me."

"Mrs. Fraser and I met after Waterloo, Mr. Belmont," Hortense said.

"When—"

"Sit," Mélanie said. "Hands on the table."

The rain pounded on the roof like hammer blows. Tommy settled into a chair. So did Hortense. Mélanie sat opposite Tommy, her pistol trained on him across the age-darkened oak. “Talk.”

“We used to do this over drinks. Sherry in the embassy library, Rioja in a farmhouse kitchen—”

“That was before you killed Charles’s father.”

“You mean Kenneth Fraser?”

“I don’t know whom else I’d mean.”

Tommy’s eyes glinted cobalt in the candlelight. “My dear girl, we’re on the same side this time.”

“Which side would that be?”

“I want to stop what’s going on as much as you do.”

“What is going on?”

“Haven’t you worked it out?”

“Have you?”

“Some of it.“ Tommy leaned back in his chair. "Julien St. Juste came to England to do a particularly nasty job. But someone murdered him at your friends the Lydgates’ two nights ago before he could carry it out.”

“What do you know about Julien St. Juste?”

“I met him once in the Peninsula in the course of a mission he undertook for our side—forgive me, Madame Hortense."

"No offense taken, Mr. Belmont."

"I think I crossed paths with him a couple of times when he was working for the French. One couldn’t always tell what mischief he was behind.”

“Do you know who he really was? Other than Julien St. Juste?”

“No.“ Interest flashed in Tommy’s eyes. “Damn it, Mélanie, you are good. Have you learned his identity?”

“I’m asking the questions, Tommy. Did you kill St. Juste?”

“I wouldn’t have been foolish enough to try. I wasn’t anywhere near the garden, and I thought it prudent to melt away once the murder was discovered.”

“You were at the Lydgates’ ball?” Hortense said.

“Of course. Charming event. Bel always had good taste.“

“I might have known it," Mélanie said. "Everyone else seems to have been there. What were you doing?”

“Following St. Juste. I told you, we decided he had to be stopped.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

He spread his fingers on the table. The candlelight gleamed off the gold of his signet ring. “I thought you’d worked that out two and a half years ago.”

“The Elsinore League.”

“No point in denying it now, I suppose.”

“Which didn’t die with Kenneth Fraser and which was more than a club of roués."

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“You’re still working for Le Faucon de Maulévrier.”

"What?“ Hortense swung her gaze from Tommy to Mélanie. "That butcher from the Revolution?"

"I'll explain later," Mélanie told her. She looked back at Tommy. "Did Le Faucon and the Elsinore League know about the Wanderer?”

Tommy scanned her face. "The men I work for don’t like seeing the balance of power disrupted. At least not by hands other than their own.”

“Who did hire St. Juste to extract the Wanderer?”

“I’m still not sure. Though I started to get a glimmering from those papers I found in his rooms.”

“You’re the one who attacked Charles and Roth.”

“I was trying to get away. They interrupted me.”

“Going through St. Juste’s papers.”

“Which they were about to go through themselves.”

Mélanie sat watching Tommy. The circle of candlelight between them on the table created an island of intimacy “What brought you to Spendlove Manor?”

“The other paper I found among St. Juste’s things. The one I took with me when I escaped. It took me a bloody long time to decode it. I must say, Charles used to have his uses.”

“What did it contain?”

“The reason for the meeting here today."

"To blackmail Lord Carfax into supporting the Dauphin's restoration," Hortense said. "I already told Mélanie."

"You're more involved than I realized, Madame Hortense. But if that's what you were told, they deceived you. Tonight's meeting had a purpose that had nothing to do with the Dauphin.”

"What?" Mélanie said.

“To blow up Spendlove Manor.”

Charles opened his eyes and found the world about him still shrouded in darkness. He shifted his position. Pain shot through his temple like the slice of broken glass. He tried to clutch his head and found that he couldn’t move his hands. They seemed to be tied behind his back.

Oh, Christ, yes. The passage. Soldiers at either end. The blow to his head. Where the devil had they put him? He seemed to be lying against stone, though there was something softer under his head. The air had the dank, sour smell of underground.

“Charles?”

The voice came out of the darkness. Somehow he knew the inflection without thinking twice about it. “O'Roarke.“ With a part of his brain he knew he would feel relieved if he wasn’t too damned sore to feel anything at all. “You’re alive.”

“More or less,” O'Roarke said. At least Charles thought he caught the words as he closed his eyes and sank back into a different kind of darkness, one in which he was blessedly free of feeling anything at all.When he came to again, a hand was smoothing his hair and moving lightly over his forehead as though checking for bruises. Mélanie and her efficiency. No, not Mélanie. A finger landed on one of the bruises. “Ouch!”

“Try to stay with me, Charles. Do you know what day it is?”

“January 9
^th
, unless I’ve been unconscious longer than I think.”

“Do you know what year—“

“1820. I could tell you how many fingers you’re holding up if I could see a damned thing. My name’s Charles Fraser. Yours is Raoul O'Roarke. You’re a spymaster, you used to be my wife’s lover, and you set her to marry me. Oh, and you also happen to be my father.”

“Obviously no serious damage to your brain. If you can roll over, I’ll untie your hands.”

Charles complied and found the movement didn’t hurt quite as much as he’d expected it to. His face was pressed against soft cloth that smelled faintly of sandalwood. A coat. O'Roarke’s coat, folded neatly beneath his head.