Chapter 21: : Chapter 20

Mélanie’s words of a few minutes before played through Charles’s head with the clear precision of notes struck on a harpsichord. If she wanted to stay in control, she could only safely risk taking a lover who had more to lose from the affair becoming public than she did. And who would have had more to risk than Andrew, dependent on Honoria’s fiance for his employment and the house that was home not just to him but to his widowed mother? If Kenneth Fraser had so much as suspected Andrew was Honoria’s lover, he’d have dismissed him without a reference.

Charles drew a breath. He felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach.

‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ Mélanie said.

‘No. But we should talk to Andrew. Did Morag notice anything else, Blanca? Was Andrew alone? Did she notice anything out of place in the library?’

Blanca shook his head. ‘Mostly her worry was to get back to her room without being seen herself. She didn’t put together the pieces until this morning when she heard about Miss Talbot.’

‘A quick-thinking young woman.’

They started back for the house. Mélanie glanced at the watch pinned to her bodice. ‘I should go to the nursery,’ she said in a voice that was just a bit too brisk. ‘Jessica will be hungry. And I think you’ll do better with Andrew on your own.’

Charles nodded. He could see the embers of their quarrel in her eyes and taste the bitter ashes in his own mouth. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wanted to shake her and tell her that she couldn’t understand events at Dunmykel the way she understood Continental politics. Above all, he was aware of a craven relief at escaping her relentless gaze.

Alec was still on duty in the hall. As a bright-eyed boy of ten, he had always known the doings of Dunmykel village and the other tenant families. At nineteen, two feet taller and garbed in green Fraser livery and a powdered wig, he was still an excellent source of information. Mr. Thirle, he said, had left the house half an hour since and gone to the gardener’s bothy.

Charles descended the steps to the gardens once again, turned away from the formal gardens, and made his way along a primrose-bordered path to the stone bothy. As boys, he and Andrew had often gone to the bothy in search of Andrew’s father, who had frequently conferred with the head gardener. It took a staff of twelve to look after Elizabeth Fraser’s gardens, as well as the herb and kitchen gardens, the orchards, the orange and lemon houses, and the pinery.

The griffin-and-dragon crest was etched in the stone door of the bothy, along with the family motto. Veritas est Alicubi. It would have helped, Charles thought as he pushed open the door, if his ancestors could have been a bit more specific.

He stepped into a room filled with cool shadows and damp, loamy air. Andrew and Leith, the head gardener, were bent over a table spread with plans of the grounds. ‘Master Charles.’ Leith straightened up, hair a trifle whiter and face a trifle more lined than in Charles’s boyhood memories. ‘We’ve heard about Miss Talbot. I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you.’ Charles closed the door. ‘I’m afraid I need a word with Andrew.’

‘Stay here,’ Leith said. ‘I have to check on the lads in the orangery.’ He paused a moment, tugging at his rolled-up linen sleeves. ‘Your pardon, but I’m afraid work can’t stop in the face of tragedy.’

The door closed behind him. Andrew and Charles regarded each other across the stone room. The walls were painted blue to drive out the flies. Perhaps the color accounted for why Andrew’s face looked so shadowed and drawn.

‘Dear God, Charles,’ Andrew said. ‘I just heard an hour ago. Your father sent for me to discuss the funeral arrangements.’

‘They’ve decided about the funeral?’

‘Tomorrow. David convinced Lord Glenister to have her buried here beside her father. At first he wanted to take her home, but David said there could be no question of leaving until—’

‘We know who killed her,’ Charles said.

‘Yes. Christ, I can’t believe—have you discovered anything?’

‘Nothing conclusive.’ Charles advanced into the room. Spades and trowels hung from wooden hooks all round. Hoes and rakes leaned against the walls. Harmless garden implements that were also tools of destruction. ‘Did you use the secret passage last night?’

‘Did I what?’ Andrew said.

‘One of the housemaids caught a glimpse of you in the library.’

Andrew let out a sigh. ‘Damnation.’

‘Did you use the secret passage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘Try me.’

‘To get a book from the library.’

Charles stared at the face of the man whose word he had relied on since they were children. ‘You’re right. I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s not the first time I’ve done it. My parents had a decent enough collection of books, but nothing to compare to your father’s library.’

‘You’re at Dunmykel every day.’

‘You know what your father’s like about his first editions.’

‘That never stopped you when we were boys.’

‘I’ve learned prudence.’

Charles folded his arms. ‘For Christ’s sake, Andrew, couldn’t you come up with a more convincing story than this?’

Andrew aligned the blue-inked plans of the grounds on the table before him. ‘I daresay I could have done if it were a story.’

Charles studied his friend’s hands. ‘You always fidget when you’re lying. That time your father caught us in the wine cellar, you tore a handkerchief to shreds before he got the truth out of us.’

Andrew glanced down at the plans. The edges of the paper were frayed and smudged. ‘You’ve always been good at seeing into dark corners, Charles, but sometimes there’s nothing in the shadows but shadows.’

Charles rested his hands on the water-stained wood of the table. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do my damndest to keep it quiet. Better you tell me than that I stumble on it in some other way.’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘You weren’t meeting with the smugglers by any chance, were you?’

‘The what?’

‘There are smuggled goods being stored in the cave at the end of the passage. You didn’t know?’

‘If I’d known there was smuggling on the estate, don’t you think I’d have gone to your father?’

‘No, I think you’d have done your best to turn a blind eye to the business. Especially given conditions since Father began the Clearances.’

‘But surely you don’t think I’d have been working with them.’

Charles surveyed his partner in fishing expeditions and cricket games, whisky drinking, exploring tide pools, and arguing the finer points of Adam Smith and David Hume.

Andrew’s blue eyes held scars that hadn’t been there ten years ago. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘Besides, I wouldn’t have gone to the library to meet smugglers who were using the cave.’

‘So what were you doing in the library?’

‘Borrowing your father’s copy of The Wealth of Nations.’ Andrew walked to the seed cabinet and pushed one of the metal drawers closed.

‘You’ve read The Wealth of Nations.’

‘I wanted to read it again.’

‘Were you her lover?’ Charles said.

Andrew’s back stiffened. ‘Whose?’

‘Honoria Talbot’s.’

Andrew turned slowly to face him. The light from the window set high in the wall spilled over his shoulder but didn’t illumine his face. ‘What the devil have you heard?’

‘What is there for me to hear?’

‘Nothing. She joined me on my morning rides a couple of times. She stopped by my office once or twice to ask me to explain things about the estate. It’s understandable. It was to be her home. For Christ’s sake, Charles, do you really think a girl like Honoria Talbot would look twice at a steward? Especially her fiancees steward?’

‘She might if he was handsome and clever and rode like the devil.’

‘Very funny.’

‘If she rode with you and visited you in your office, she obviously looked more than twice at you.’

‘She was kind and remote and she saw me as one step removed from a servant.’

‘And you? How did you see her?’

‘As a beautiful girl who was about to become the wife of my employer. Besides—’

‘What?’

Andrew looked straight into Charles’s eyes. ‘When we were young it was clear I wasn’t the one she was interested in.’

Charles decided to ignore this. Andrew knew too much of the past. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Were you Miss Talbot’s lover?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Damn it, Andrew, I could always tell when you were lying.’

‘You think I’d seduce an unmarried girl and risk ruining the pair of us? You have a poor opinion of my chivalry, not to mention my common sense.’

But I can’t be certain of what you might do under every possible set of circumstances. Mélanie’s words echoed in his head. God knew Charles hadn’t shared a fraction of his own hie in the past ten years with Andrew. Or even of the events before he left Britain. ‘I didn’t say you were lying about Honoria. But I’d swear you’re lying about something.’

For a moment, looking into Andrew’s eyes, Charles thought he’d got through to him. Then Andrew walked back to the table and began to roll up the plans. ‘My dear Charles, even you are wrong upon occasion. I don’t imagine any of us are thinking too clearly this morning.’

That, at least, was true. Charles tried another tack. ‘Did you see or hear anything last night when you were in the library getting this book?’

‘If I had, I’d have told you. You should know that.’

‘At the moment I can’t afford to let myself think I know anything. Or anyone.’

Andrew sucked in his breath, but he said nothing until Charles had turned to the door. ‘Charles?’

‘Yes?’ Charles looked back at his friend.

Andrew’s face closed. He had the look of a man doing battle with physical pain. ‘Nothing. Just—I’m sorry you’re in this mess.’

‘I’m sorry for us all.’

Jessica pushed against Mélanie’s breast with her small hands. Mélanie leaned back against the nursery window seat, cradling her daughter. She’d given Jessica’s nurse a few moments to herself, and Miss Newland and Miss Dudley had taken the older children for a walk. Mélanie acknowledged a cowardly relief at this last. They would have to talk to Miss Newland about Lord Quentin’s revelations, but she needed a moment to sort through her own thoughts.

In some ways you don’t know me at all. Her husband’s words hung in the air, pressed against the ash wood walls and mullioned windows, hovered over the well-worn carpet. She stroked her fingers over Jessica’s golden-brown hair. She and Charles had knit themselves together in this small person in her arms. How odd that one could take a man into one’s body and create a new life with him and yet wonder if one really knew him in the ways that mattered.

Unlike her first pregnancy, this one had been planned. She had told Charles she wanted another baby and she had longed for her second child with a fierceness even she could not explain. To bind Charles to her? To prove their marriage was bom of more than impulse and necessity? To show her own commitment, a commitment that even now she could not put into words?

How ironic that she and Charles, in defiance of the custom for couples in the polite world, shared a bedchamber. It caused raised brows among those who were aware of the arrangement. A sign of intimacy. Or wantonness. The truth was, they had begun to do so out of necessity, because Charles’s rooms in Lisbon hadn’t allowed for more than one bedchamber. But neither of them had made any effort to alter the arrangement in Vienna or Brussels or Paris or now in Britain. And yet while that intimacy continued, the distance between them seemed greater than ever.

She had once thought that if she could only sort out her own loyalties, their oddly begun marriage had a chance of success. For all her supposed skill at reading people, she hadn’t understood the depths of the problem. Charles had committed his trust, his honor, and his fortune to her with scarcely a second thought, but the innermost core of who he was remained locked in a code to which it seemed she would never have the key. She wasn’t even sure she had the right to search for it. Marriage was a shocking invasion of privacy.

‘Mélanie?’

Simon’s voice sounded from beyond the door panels. He turned the handle and stepped into the room. He didn’t blink at the sight of her with her bodice unbuttoned and the child at her breast. ‘The perfect Madonna. If I was a painter like my father, I’d capture the image on canvas.’

Mélanie glanced down at her unfastened gown and her happily suckling daughter. ‘If you captured this image on canvas, you’d cause quite a scandal.’

Simon crossed the room, skirting a basket of toys, a wooden train, and a rocking horse with half the hair torn from its mane. ‘Causing scandal is my stock in trade.’ He dropped down beside her on the window seat. ‘I rather think, in another life, it might be yours.’

Simon had a way of looking at her and seeing things that no one else did. Perhaps because, like her, he was an outsider in this world. ‘I’ve caused more than enough talk already by the way I choose to bring up my children. Most people put it down to Continental eccentricity. I haven’t bothered to say that feeding one’s baby oneself would be considered just as eccentric among the first circles in France or Spain as it is here.’

Simon leaned back and crossed his legs. ‘I understand you’re setting quite a fashion. The most stylish young matrons are to be seen breast-feeding their children in Hyde Park or while they stop for an ice at Gunter’s or even behind the potted palms at balls. But then most things you do set a fashion. I imagine it drove Honoria Talbot mad.’

Jessica’s head flopped back against Mélanie’s arm. Mélanie lifted the baby to her flannel-draped shoulder and patted Jessica’s back. ‘Rubbish. Honoria Talbot had no reason to be jealous of anyone, least of all me.’ Unless, of course, she had harbored feelings for Mélanie’s husband.

‘False modesty doesn’t become you, Melly mine. Miss Talbot had beauty and polish, it’s true. You have both, plus originality, which is ten times more rare. And ten times more valued by the beau monde.’

‘Until they grow tired and toss you aside like last year’s gowns. Good girl,’ Mélanie added as Jessica gave a burp.

‘But the more original you are, the longer you can fascinate. I shouldn’t think you’ll ever go out of fashion, my sweet. Miss Talbot would have been stepmother-in-law to the most intriguing woman in London. I can’t imagine it’s a prospect she relished.’

Mélanie settled Jessica on her lap and tried to button her bodice one-handed. Simon held out his arms. ‘I’ll take her.’

Jessica leaned against him and looked up at him with a gurgle, a spit bubble forming on her lip. Simon coaxed her to grasp hold of his finger. ‘David would make a good father,’ he said, his gaze on the baby.

Mélanie did up the last button on the flap on her bodice. ‘So would you.’

‘Perhaps.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘I’m not half as patient as David. As it hardly seems a likely prospect, in truth I’ve never considered it.’

‘Nor did I, until I found myself pregnant.’ Too late, Mélanie realized that this was not the best wording for a loving wife who was eager to give her husband children. Simon gave no sign that he had noticed, but she was sure he had. He was devastatingly accurate with language.

‘Ma-ma,’ Jessica said. Unfortunately, she reached for the floor rather than for Mélanie as she said it.

Mélanie settled her daughter on the carpet with one of the window seat cushions at her back. She sat on the floor herself and Simon sat beside her, curling his long legs under him.

‘How’s Charles holding up?’

Mélanie’s hands stilled for a moment, balancing Jessica against the cushion. Her gaze fastened on her wedding band. ‘He won’t break, though he may wear himself ragged. He’d feel worse if he wasn’t doing anything.’ She glanced at the white-painted table where Charles and Honoria Talbot had no doubt shared porridge and chocolate and jam tarts; at the sun-faded shelf of books beneath the window that Charles might have read to his young Mend; at the golden-haired, china-headed doll that had probably been Gisèle’s but conjured images of another little girl who might have played with it. ‘Miss Talbot was—important to him.’

Simon didn’t question her word choice, though again she could tell he had seen more than she’d voiced. ‘David’s taken her death hard as well. He didn’t know her all that well growing up—she lived with the Talbots more than with his family—but he takes his family responsibilities seriously. I sometimes think it would be easier if he’d seen more of her. As it is, he’s inclined to view her as purer than snow and fairer than a lily.’

Mélanie scanned Simon’s frowning face. ‘Did you come to talk about Miss Talbot?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’ He looked down at Jessica, who was reaching for the shiny brass buttons on his coat. ‘I was hoping I’d never have to tell anyone this, because God knows it won’t make David happy. But in the circumstances—it may be relevant.’

‘What?’

‘The night we arrived at Dunmykel, I went to my room to find Honoria lying in my bed.’

Mélanie stared at him, her image of Honoria Talbot once again fallen to bits in her mind.

‘It’s not the first time a woman’s hidden in my bed,’ Simon said. ‘You’d be amazed at the lengths some actresses will go to for a part. And one or two women of fashion have thought I represented a unique challenge.’

‘Not to mention the fact that you’re an indecently attractive man. But I would have thought—’

‘That my devotion to David was protection enough? Does your devotion to Charles keep men from flirting with you?’

‘No, but they aren’t in the habit of hiding in my bedchamber.’

Simon’s face turned grim. ‘This is the first time it’s happened with an unmarried girl. Not to mention one who was David’s cousin. And in her fiance’s house. I didn’t know her well. I’m not generally invited to family gatherings—to own the truth, I was a bit surprised to be included in this house party. I now suspect it may have been Honoria who convinced Kenneth Fraser to invite me. David insisted we get here as quickly as possible—he was worried about Honoria after the business in London. The night we arrived there was dancing, and Honoria contrived to waltz with me and—’

‘Pressed closer against you than was necessary?’

‘Yes. I thought it must have been an accident or a bit of girlish mischief. I don’t shock easily, but I have to say I was shocked to find her in my bed later that night.’

Mélanie looked at her daughter, wriggling on the brightly patterned nursery carpet in happy ignorance of the conversation taking place above her head. ‘What in God’s name did Miss Talbot say when you walked into the room?’

‘Nothing at first. The room was dark. I put down my candle and lit a lamp. There she was sitting up in my bed. She let the coverlet slither down about her. She wasn’t wearing a nightdress. I think I was supposed to be overwhelmed at the sight and crush her to my manly bosom.’

‘What did you do instead?’

‘I said, ‘Dear me, I was under the impression that this was my room. Whom were you expecting?’ ‘

‘I don’t imagine that went over very well.’

‘No. She looked quite cross. Then she opened those cerulean blue eyes very wide and said, ‘Oh, please don’t be angry.’ I said I wasn’t angry, but I was a bit old-fashioned and I thought she should leave. Her eyes filled with tears—it’s a pity she couldn’t have trained as an actress, I could have made something of her—and she said something along the lines of she’d loved me for years and soon she’d be married and this was her last chance. I said I was afraid it wasn’t a chance at all and if she’d loved me for years she’d been damned quiet about it. That was when she jumped out of the bed and flung herself into my arms.’

‘Stark naked?’

‘Stark naked. I started to worry that it was some sort of a setup and someone was going to burst into the room and catch us, only I couldn’t imagine why she’d go along with such a plan. All the same, David was right next door and the last thing I wanted was for him to hear. I grabbed the coverlet and wrapped it round her and said thanks very much but it was time for her to go back to her room.’

‘Did she?’

‘God, no. She twined her arms round my neck—she had a grip like a vise—and kissed me. I rather take exception to being kissed against my will. I caught her by the wrists and told her that even if I ever considered bedding someone of the female sex, she was the last woman on earth I’d choose. That got the point across.’

‘So I should think.’

‘She jerked out of my hold and slapped me. Raked her nails across my cheek, too. I’d never thought I’d see such rage on that porcelain face. It made her quite unattractive. I saw her dressing gown lying on the floor. I tossed it to her and suggested she go back to her own room and we could forget about the whole thing. She glared at me. And then—I couldn’t hear very well, because she was wrapping the dressing gown round her—but she mumbled something about ‘That’s all very well for you to say, but what the devil am I going to tell him?’ ‘

‘Him?’

‘That’s what it sounded like. I can only assume someone put her up to it—that it was some sort of dare. But whatever was going on, she didn’t mean to stop with a kiss. And no one learns how to use her tongue and teeth to that effect without practice. At the time I thought it was no business of mine if she’d slept with half of London. She was to be married in a couple of months and she and Kenneth Fraser seemed well suited. I saw no point in dragging David into a family imbroglio. But now that she’s dead—’ He looked at Mélanie, eyes gone serious. ‘I thought you and Charles should know. It’s up to you what you do with the information.’

Mélanie thought of her husband’s tormented face when he refused to discuss Honoria Talbot. She could offer him the truth now, at least a version of it. She wondered if he’d ever forgive her. ‘Yes. Thank you, Simon.’

Jessica stretched out a hand for Mélanie, lost her balance, and toppled to one side. Mélanie caught her just before she hit the floor and swung her up in the air. Jessica’s cry of distress changed to a gurgle of delight. ‘Simon?’ Mélanie said, helping Jessica to stand up on her lap. ‘This isn’t a question I’d normally ask a friend, but did you and David sleep together last night?’

‘Dear Lord, what we’ve come to, though I knew you were bound to ask sooner or later. Unfortunately, we both slept alone. David’s a bit of a prude when he’s under the same roof as his relatives.’ He reached out to tickle Jessica in the stomach. ‘If you have to tell David about Honoria’s visit to my room, will you let me explain first?’

‘Oh, yes. But it isn’t David I need to talk to now.’

Charles opened the door of the old drawing room, the oak-ceilinged chamber in the north wing that had always been reserved for private family gatherings. Oddly enough, this room with its canvaswork furniture and faded carpets had been one of his mother’s favorite spots at Dunmykel. He walked to her Broadwood grand pianoforte and began to pick out a melody at random. He could still tell a hawk from a handsaw. Probably. But could he judge the veracity of his oldest friends? Could Honoria have been in love with Andrew? If so, why had she been so determined to marry Kenneth? Because Kenneth was the father of her baby? Or because Kenneth or Glenister knew who the father was and was using that knowledge to force her hand? It didn’t fit Quen’s version of an Honoria determined to be in control of any situation. It didn’t fit the girl he had grown up with, the girl he remembered from Lisbon, the woman who had appealed to him for understanding on the terrace less than four-and-twenty hours ago.

He stared at his hands and realized, with a shock of surprise, what he was playing.

The door clicked and his wife slipped into the room.

‘ ‘Per pietà ben mio per dona,” she said. ‘Perhaps more apt than you know.’ She closed the door behind her. ‘Charles, six years ago in Lisbon, did you find Honoria Talbot hiding naked in your bed?’