The Mask of Night (6 page)

Hortense stared at St. Juste’s body and gave a raw laugh, one step short of hysteria. "You always used to say there are as many versions of the truth as there are people telling it."

"I need your version. Without embellishment. We haven't time for games."

"Oh, Mélanie. You know what a woeful game-player I am.” In her pale, shocked face, Hortense's eyes were free of guile. "I had no notion Julien St. Juste was anywhere near England. I swear to you. On the heads of my children. If I had known, I'd have never—” She put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, God, Mélanie, it's all going to come out now. Everything I’ve tried so hard to conceal—"

"You don't know that."

"I'm being punished—"

"That's absurd.” Mélanie gripped Hortense's shoulders. "You have to keep your wits about you,
chérie
. For both our sakes. For your children's sakes.’

Hortense swallowed, hands pressed over her jeweled stomacher. "Mélanie. Did
you
know St. Juste was here tonight?

"Good God no. I didn't even know he was in England."

"But he could have been here to see you. You used to work with him—"

"So did a number of other people, several of whom were no doubt at the ball tonight. To Julien St. Juste I was always the girl he outwitted on her first mission.” The wind sent dry leaves scuttering across the water. Mélanie pulled Hortense into the concealing shadows of the elm tree. "What's happening in the ballroom?"

"The host—Mr. Lydgate, isn't it?—made a speech explaining there’d been an accident. He's asking everyone to remain calm but not leave the premises."

"A Bow Street Runner's on his way here. They'll be questioning the guests and taking statements.” Mélanie scanned the garden, the hedges and shrubs and bits of statuary, the high walls, the single vine-covered gate. "Go through the back gate. The mews opens onto St. James’s Street. You can find a hackney there or in Piccadilly."

"But—"

"You have money? Here.” Mélanie snatched her reticule from the wrought iron table and fished out her coin purse.

Hortense searched her face. "Where will I find you?"

"The Grosvenor Gate in Hyde Park. Tomorrow at three.” Mélanie closed Hortense's fingers round the purse and drew her friend along the hedged path to the gate.

"But—"

"There's no time,
chérie
.” Mélanie unlatched the gate. The vines rustled beneath her fingers. She could smell saddle soap and harness oil and horse dung. The moonlight gleamed blue-black on the cracked cobblestones. A horse whickered from one of the stalls, but she could hear no human sound. "Turn left at St. James’s Street. There'll be carriages waiting for the ball guests and hackneys looking for customers."

Hortense turned back to her, eyes dark with concern behind her pasteboard mask. "What will you tell your husband?"

"I don't know yet.” Mélanie pushed the Empress's daughter through the gate. "I'm making it up as I go along."

Charles stepped back onto the terrace. Someone had put a blue enamel lamp on the wrought iron table near the fountain. It cast a wash of warm light over two figures kneeling on the flagstones beside the corpse. One was Jeremy Roth. The other, black velvet skirts spread about her, white shoulders emerging from beaded black silk, was his wife.

"Fraser.” Roth helped Mélanie up and walked toward Charles, hand extended, greatcoat flapping in the wind. “When I said on Tuesday last that I hoped to see you again soon I was thinking more of a reciprocal dinner invitation than the scene of a crime.”

Roth's thin face was alight with friendship despite the circumstances. When they had met two months ago, due to the abduction of Charles and Mélanie’s son, Roth had treated them with the wariness of one who came from a different world and had no desire to bridge the gap. The investigation into Colin’s disappearance had changed all of them in a number of ways. And yet beneath the burgeoning friendship lurked the fact that Roth had the power to destroy him and Mélanie and all three of them knew it. Two months ago, at the conclusion of the investigation of Colin’s abduction, Roth had come into possession of a letter that revealed Mélanie’s past. He had returned the letter to Mélanie with the seal unbroken, but closer investigation had revealed that the seal had been steamed open.

Charles shook Roth’s hand. “This isn’t exactly how any of us expected to spend the evening. What have you learned?”

Roth moved to the table and picked up his notebook. Charles crossed the flagstones and took Mélanie’s hand. Her fingers closed hard about his own. He raised his brows. She shook her head slightly, a quick code for
I’ll tell you later
.

"He's been dead two to three hours, I'd judge,” Roth said, flipping through the pages of his notebook, "which means half an hour to an hour and a half before Lady Lucinda discovered him. Mrs. Fraser found a couple of threads of red fabric on his shoes that look as though they come from the carpet in the entrance hall. I'm quite sure he came into the house through the front door and I suspect the killer did as well. Mrs. Fraser and I couldn't find any hint of the victim's identity."

“His name is Julien St. Juste,” Charles said and proceeded to recount what he had learned from the Foreign Secretary and Lord Carfax.

Mélanie's expression remained beautifully neutral, as though she had never heard of Julien St. Juste.

Roth let out a low whistle. “I’m surprised I wasn’t packed back to Bow Street. They want you to investigate?”

"Yes, though that was almost the only thing they were able to agree on. One of these days those two are going to come to blows."

“I'd put my money on Carfax if it comes to that," Mélanie said. "People in intelligence are always more willing to bend the rules. I’m glad you agreed to investigate, darling. I'm far too curious to leave such an intriguing crime alone.” She gave a smile designed to deflect more than illuminate.

Roth’s gaze skimmed between them. Charles had known from the first that the runner was a master at picking up on undercurrents. He had learned that Roth was also adept at pretending to turn a blind eye to them when he deemed it appropriate. Which made him all the more dangerous.

Mélanie moved to the table. “We did make one discovery, though I'm not sure what it has to do with Julien St. Juste.” She held up a narrow graceful earring of diamonds set in antique gold.

Charles studied the rich gleam of the gold and the depth of the fire in diamonds. Like her, he could recognize craftsmanship and expense. Though given the pedigree of the guests at the ball that did not limit the field very much. “Where did you find it?”

“By the far side of the fountain. It's possible whoever lost it saw something. It's even possible the earring belonged to the killer."

“The knife he was killed with is definitely designed to be a weapon,” Roth said. “So either the killer is in the habit of going about armed or he—or she—brought it to the ball with the intention of killing St. Juste.”

“Or to protect him or herself against St. Juste,” Charles said.

“It could have been the dead man—St. Juste's—weapon.” Mélanie blew on her hands against the cold. “They could have grappled for it or the killer could have got it away from him by deceit. The killer got within a handsbreadth of St. Juste with no sign of a struggle. It almost has to be someone he knew.”

"Which could apply to any number of people present tonight, given St. Juste's history and the sort of guests at the ball.” Charles looked at Roth. "The guests are departing?"

Roth nodded. "The Regent left with his party as soon as word got out that something had happened. The other guests are leaving now. Mr. Lydgate made a brief speech explaining there'd been an accident. Dawkins, the patrol I brought with me, is taking down their names and directions as they leave, with the assistance of Mr. Lydgate's secretary. Lady Isobel is supplying me with a guest list."

"Sensible," Charles said.

Roth grimaced. "Mrs. Fraser tells me there are two royal dukes inside as well as a handful of Cabinet ministers and God knows how many MPs and ambassadors. A number of them would have refused to remain and we couldn't have stopped them from leaving. Better to acquiesce gracefully than to be over-ruled."

Charles nodded. "There’s little more to see here tonight and it’s damned cold. I suggest we go inside and discover what’s to be learned of the guests.”

They moved to the terrace. "I must say," Roth added in a lighter voice as they climbed the steps, between the glittering flambeaux and beneath the crimson Japanese lanterns, "I never thought I'd find myself investigating a murder with Romeo and Juliet."

Mélanie smoothed her full skirt. “Please, Mr. Roth, Charles and I are far too experienced to succumb to tragic twists of fate like the star-crossed lovers. We’re supposed to be Beatrice and Benedick. After they’re pretending that Hero has died.”

Roth opened the nearest French window. “Of course. I should have known not to assume the obvious with either of you.”

"So you should.” Charles stepped aside to allow his wife and Roth to precede him into the ballroom, wondering how long it would be before he could speak with Mélanie in private. And if there was the remotest chance he could get her to tell him the whole truth.

Chapter 5

Do come and dine with us next week, Mr. Roth. Though I warn you, Colin is bound to pester you with questions about Bow Street and 'how many thieves you've taken.'

Mélanie Fraser to Jeremy Roth,

27 December 1819

Mélanie glanced round the empty ballroom. It had the feel of a stage after the players have taken their last bow and gone off to drink in a Covent Garden coffee house. Red and gold medieval draperies sagged against the walls, one torn at the hem. Ferns and ruinously expensive red hothouse roses drooped in their vases. A beaded mask hung drunkenly from the corner of a pedestal, a silk fan lay abandoned on a damask settee, a stray kid glove was draped over a gilded chair arm.

She and Charles and Roth crossed the empty expanse of tiled marble, scuffed by dancing shoes and sticky with spilled champagne and rataffia and lemonade. A footman in a red and gold tunic, loading empty champagne glasses onto a silver tray, told them that Lady Isobel and Mr. Lydgate were in the library. She and Charles led the way down a carpeted corridor lined with family portraits and a couple of Renaissance oils to a pair of ornately carved doors topped by a classical frieze.

She felt Roth hesitate as Charles flung open the doors. This room was far more casual than the ballroom, but it bore the unmistakable stamp of privilege: jewel-toned Turkey carpets spread over a polished wood floor with a careless grace that concealed precise geometry, tufted leather furniture, gleaming oak wainscoting, an Italian marble fireplace flanked by Grecian pillars. When she first came to England as Charles’s wife, she too would have felt like an outsider stepping over the threshold. Now she counted the Lydgates among her closest friends. But even that friendship was dependent on keeping the truth from them.

She touched Roth’s arm. “Bel and Oliver don’t bite nearly as hard as Charles and I,” she whispered. “And you’ve quite got used to us.”

Roth gave a reluctant grin and followed her into the room.

The smell of Islay malt filled the air. Oliver, still wearing his toga and imperial purple cloak, was pouring drinks from a cut-glass decanter. Isobel sat on a leather sofa on the opposite side of the room beside her brother David. Lord Carfax’s son and daughter. David had dark hair and eyes and Isobel was a blue-eyed blonde, but looking across the room at them Mélanie was struck by how they resembled each other. Both wore blue velvet cavalier costumes, but more than that they carried themselves with the same contained self-command. They knew very clearly what they had been born to, though neither would be so ill bred as to allude to it.

Simon Tanner was leaning against the bookshelves behind the sofa. Officially, he and David shared rooms in the Albany. Unofficially, they had been lovers since they met at Oxford. She saw Roth’s gaze flicker between them. He had met David and Simon at a dinner party she and Charles gave. She suspected he might guess the truth of the relationship.

Oliver turned toward the door as the new arrivals stepped into the room. “We’re drinking,” he said, lifting the decanter with a flourish, “because there doesn’t seem to be any other possible response to finding a corpse in one’s garden in the midst—” The decanter shook, flashing in the candlelight. He clunked it down, spattering whisky on the satinwood tabletop. "Oh, Christ."

Charles clapped him on the shoulder. "The guests have all gone?"

"With surprising speed. I never thought so many carriages could assemble so bloody quickly.” Oliver drew a breath and handed Mélanie a whisky with a smile of careless warmth. Even at a time like this, his smile dazzled brighter than the candlelit crystal. He handed a second whisky to Charles. His gaze moved past Charles and lingered on Roth for a moment. His eyes narrowed. "Whisky, Roth?"

Roth inclined his head. "Thank you, Mr. Lydgate. Just a small one."