Beneath a Silent Moon
: Chapter 28

Mélanie crossed the uneven floor to her Husband. She was quite proud of her ability to keep her gait steady, but as she moved into the light, Charles’s gaze went to her jaw, where a bruise must be rising.

‘A misunderstanding,’ she said.

‘Quite.’ He put out a hand, turned her face toward him, and brushed his fingers against her cheek. His eyes turned the color of a frozen stream. ‘Who did this?’

‘Charles,’ Mélanie said, ‘in fairness, they thought I was—’

‘A boy.’ He undid the twine that bound her hands. She felt his gaze linger on her chafed wrists. She’d rubbed them raw loosening the twine. He clenched the twine in his fist and looked at the company of men. ‘Do you enjoy beating up children?’

‘He didn’t look like a boy,’ her former captor muttered. ‘He—’

‘Shut up.’ One of his friends kicked him.

The full realization of what they had done settled over the company. They had tied up, beaten, and held at gunpoint the wife of the heir to Dunmykel. The disbelief, shock, and horror sinking into their eyes might have been darkly comic if she hadn’t still been nauseated.

‘My God,’ Stephen Drummond said. ‘It was bad enough when we thought—’

‘My profoundest apologies, Mrs. Fraser.’ Wheaton had gone pale beneath his ruddy complexion, but his gaze was steady as he turned to Mélanie. ‘I need hardly say—’

Charles spun round, pushed Wheaton into his chair, and pressed his pistol into the buff-colored satin of Wheaton’s waistcoat. ‘Do you imagine an apology can settle this?’

The prizefighter took a step toward his employer.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ Tommy said, pistol drawn. ‘Fraser’s a crack shot and he has an inconvenient temper.’

Charles hadn’t taken his gaze off Wheaton. ‘Do you think I’m the sort of man who stands idly by when his wife’s been assaulted? You have a poor opinion of my sense of honor, Mr. Wheaton.’

Mélanie bit back an interjection. It was unlike Charles to go on about honor when they should be focused on getting everyone safely out of the cottage.

‘It was naturally a horrible accident,’ Wheaton said, ‘but I assure you we meant no—’

Charles grabbed Wheaton’s arm and jerked it behind his back. ‘What you meant doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. You may be in the habit of not retaliating when your women are harmed, but I assure you I am not.’

That settled it. Charles was definitely playacting. If only her head would stop spinning, perhaps she could figure out his game and play along better.

The cottage had gone silent, all attention focused on Charles and Wheaton. Qualms of conscience aside, while killing Andrew and possibly Mélanie herself had been feasible, the smugglers must realize they could never get away with killing Charles, Gisèle, and Tommy as well. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Mélanie that Tommy stood with the door at his back, his pistol trained on the prizefighter. Gisèle had pulled Andrew into her lap.

Charles released Wheaton and took a step back. Wheaton surveyed Charles with as steady a gaze as if he were facing him over a decanter of port instead of the barrel of a gun. ‘Naturally I don’t know the charming Mrs. Fraser’s reasons for wandering about the estate at midnight dressed as a boy. I hesitate to speculate on so delicate a matter. But I imagine it is something neither Mrs. Fraser nor you, sir, would wish discussed.’

Charles smashed his fist into Wheaton’s jaw. ‘There’s one thing that can save you, Wheaton.’

‘What?’ Wheaton’s voice was hoarse.

Charles leaned in and grasped Wheaton by his neckcloth. ‘Information.’

‘Of what sort?’

‘A woman was murdered last night.’

The room went so still that the scrape of wind against the chinks in the mortar echoed in the air.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Wheaton said.

‘But you may know about prior events that are linked to her death.’

‘What events?’

‘Concerning your work here on this estate and your connections in France. Do you want me to say more?’

Wheaton jerked away from Charles’s hold. ‘Talking can get a man killed, Mr. Fraser.’

‘So can not talking, Mr. Wheaton.’

Wheaton held Charles’s gaze for a long moment. The tallow light gleamed steadily on the pistol in Charles’s hand.

Wheaton gave a crisp nod and looked at the men. ‘Out. All of you.’

The men filed out of the cottage, including the man with the ledger. The prizefighter hesitated for a moment, but at a curt nod from Wheaton he, too, followed. Tommy remained by the door, pistol in his hand, keeping a wary eye on them as they left.

‘Perhaps I could have my pistol back,’ Mélanie said as her former captors moved to the door.

‘Oh—er—of course. Ma’am. Madam.’ The man who had searched her pockets pulled the pistol from his own pocket, handed it to her, stared at her for a moment, and then gave an awkward half-bow before hurrying after his companions.

Stephen Drummond paused by the door and turned back to look at her. ‘I should have stopped it, Mrs. Fraser. No matter who you were.’

‘You might have got your own neck broken,’ Mélanie said.

‘That sounds rather poor as excuses go.’ Stephen shifted his gaze to Charles. The two men regarded each other for a long moment, heavy with memory and guilt on both sides. Charles inclined his head. Stephen gave a crisp nod and followed the others from the cottage.

Charles glanced at his sister, who was sitting on the floor, Andrew’s head cradled in her lap. ‘Keep Andrew still, Gelly. We don’t want to risk moving him with a head injury. Is his breathing regular?’

Face set in determined lines, Gisèle nodded.

‘Good.’ Charles gave her a brief, warming smile.

An answering spark kindled in Gisèle’s eyes.

Wheaton pushed himself to his feet and gestured to the armchair. ‘Mrs. Fraser? Won’t you sit down?’

Mélanie sank into the chair. The feel of solid support at her back was more of a relief than she would have admitted. She reached out to smooth her skirt and then remembered she wasn’t wearing one.

Charles glanced round the room. ‘You must have some whisky or brandy about here somewhere.’

‘Both,’ Wheaton said. ‘Which do you prefer?’

‘Anything as long as it has alcohol.’

Wheaton produced a bottle from a dresser in the corner.

Charles opened the bottle, releasing the smoky aroma of Islay malt, splashed a third of the contents onto his handkerchief, and pressed the handkerchief against the corner of Mélanie’s mouth. The whisky burned like acid against her skin, but she couldn’t very well complain. It was the sort of thing she was always doing to him, and it would be very inconvenient to come down with an infection just now.

Charles smoothed her hair back from her face and let his fingers linger against her cheek for a moment. Then he perched on the arm of her chair, one hand on her shoulder, and looked at Wheaton, who was leaning against the dresser.

‘You’ve been storing goods in the cave at the end of the secret passage.’

Wheaton jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat. ‘I run a large operation in the south, Mr. Fraser. I send shipments up the coast to a number of locations, including Dunmykel Bay. The men on the estate in my employ sell to most of the local gentry. Blockades and excise taxes don’t dim gentlemen’s taste for brandy and champagne.’

‘But your operation here became more complicated.’ Charles’s tone made it a statement rather than a question.

‘Upon occasion.’

‘In what way?’

Wheaton paced across the room. ‘I assume you know your father has a fondness for collecting things.’

Face neutral, Charles nodded.

‘A number of his friends like to collect as well. Picked up a taste for it on the Grand Tour, I don’t wonder. But what with armies marching to and fro across the Continent, it hasn’t been so easy to get Italian marbles and French paintings and Spanish sculptures and the like.’

‘You’ve been smuggling works of art out of the Continent for my father and his friends?’

Wheaton turned to face Charles across the room. ‘Men in my employ on the Continent have undertaken such jobs from time to time.’

‘And the parcels came here?’

‘Sometimes. Or to other spots in England and Scotland. Even to the east coast of Ireland once. I didn’t always see the parcels for myself, but on occasion I was asked to oversee the shipments personally. For a considerable fee, of course. On one of those occasions, the wrapping came loose on a sketch. A Da Vinci. Exquisite thing. I must say, until then I’d never understood how a man could pay so much for a bit of ink and paper.’ Wheaton shook his head as though he could not reconcile the beauty of the sketch with the world of shipments and ledgers, crates of brandy and tins of tea.

Charles reached into his pocket and drew out Mélanie’s now much-creased drawing of the Elsinore League seal. ‘Do you recognize this?’

Wheaton crossed the room, a wary eye on Charles’s pistol, took the sketch, and held it to the light of the tallow candle that stood on a three-legged table beside the armchair. ‘It’s a seal,’ he said. ‘Your father and some of his friends use it on orders involving a special delivery.’

Tommy’s head jerked up. ‘Kenneth Fraser uses that seal?’

‘Which friends?’ Charles said.

‘Lord Glenister. Sir William Cathcart. A Mr. Gordon.’

‘What about Lord Cyril Talbot?’

‘Glenister’s younger brother? I’d nearly forgotten about him. Yes, I delivered packages to him once or twice.’

‘Do you think these men were part of some sort of organization?’

Wheaton gave a coarse laugh. ‘Do drinking and whoring and orgies constitute an organization?’

‘Have you ever heard of something called the Elsinore League?’

‘Elsinore?’ Wheaton frowned, then gave an unexpected laugh. ‘By God, that’s rich. I once took a parcel—a statue, I think—to Mr. Gordon personally and I heard him mutter something that sounded like ‘Elsie’s snore.’ Lord Glenister was there, too. He shut him up. Seemed quite perturbed. I couldn’t make sense of it. Thought Elsie must be a lady with a jealous husband.’

Charles swung his booted foot against the side of the chair. ‘Did you ever transport a person rather than a parcel?’

Wheaton dropped the sketch on the table. ‘Good God. How did you know?’

‘Clever deduction. Or lucky guess. Did you bring a passenger with you on your recent journey to Dunmkyel?’

‘This trip was to plug the leaks in my own operation.’

‘That wouldn’t have stopped you from taking on a passenger.’

‘But as it happens, I didn’t.’

‘But on previous trips?’

‘Mr. Fraser—’

‘This prevarication grows tiresome, Mr. Wheaton.’

Wheaton walked back to the dresser and drummed his fingers on its scarred top. ‘Recently your father wanted us to pick up a gentleman on the French coast near Calais and bring him to England.’

‘And then to Dunmykel?’

‘Not directly. We let him off in London. A few days later I got word that we were to bring him up the coast to Dunmykel.’

‘When was this?’

‘A bit over a fortnight since.’

Mélanie could feel the quickening interest radiating off Tommy. Gisèle was stroking Andrew’s hair, but her gaze said that she missed nothing of the conversation.

‘Who?’ Charles said.

‘Your father didn’t give us a name. Neither did the gentleman.’

‘You met him?’

Wheaton took a glass from the dresser and filled it with whisky. ‘I went on the run over to France. I don’t as a rule, but in this case your father requested it.’

‘Was the gentleman you transported a Frenchman?’

Wheaton took a meditative sip of whisky. ‘I assumed so at first. He spoke English with a French accent.’

‘But?’

Wheaton stared into his glass. ‘I meet a lot of Frenchmen in my line of work. After a bit, I realized there was something a bit off about his accent. Almost as though he was trying too hard to maintain it.’

‘You think he was British?’

‘I suspected as much. Though he could have been German or Russian or Swedish or Dutch-Belgian or God knows what.’

‘What did he look like?’ Tommy said.

‘About Kenneth Fraser’s years. Middling height, didn’t run to fat. Graying hair. It looked as though he’d once been fair-haired, but it was difficult to tell and I only saw him at night. Blue eyes, I think. Cold blue eyes.’

‘What did he talk about?’ Charles asked.

‘Very little. Sat in the cabin, kept himself to himself.’

Charles leaned forward. His anger had been replaced by the quiet intensity he used to draw confidences from people. ‘Surely in all the hours of a Channel crossing he said something memorable.’

Wheaton took another sip of whisky. ‘He did say one odd thing. It was just before we docked in England. He’d come up on deck and I went over to him at the rail to tell him we’d reach land soon. He kept looking out over the water and he said, ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ Then he looked me full in the face and added, ‘I’m not sure that’s the best advice, Mr. Wheaton. I’ve found old debts can come in remarkably handy.’ ‘

‘What do you think he meant by that?’

‘I haven’t the least idea. But I can tell you, I was glad to put him ashore in England and glad I didn’t have to travel up the coast with him. I’m not a fanciful man, Mr. Fraser, but he gave me the chills.’

‘Why?’

Wheaton seemed taken aback by the question. He thought for a moment, twisting the glass in his hand so the candlelight bounced off a chip near the rim. ‘He was perfectly polite. Thanked me, even. But I had the sense he could have cut my throat and barely stopped to draw a breath.’

Charles leaned back against the chair. His fingers were cool and steady on Mélanie’s neck. ‘Was Giles McGann involved in transporting this man?’

Wheaton banged his whisky glass on the dresser. ‘Good Christ, it’s a wonder you need me for information at all.’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Tommy muttered.

‘I take it that’s a yes?’ Charles said.

Wheaton blotted a spattered drop of whisky with his finger. ‘McGann came down from Scotland and escorted the gentleman to Dunmykel. On your father’s orders.’

Mélanie felt the chill that ran through her husband. ‘Where’s McGann now?’ Charles said, without a change of inflection in his voice.

‘I don’t know. The lads say no one’s seen him since he and the passenger disembarked a week since.’

‘Wheaton—’

‘That’s the God’s honest truth, Mr. Fraser.’ Wheaton tossed off the last of the whisky. ‘At least as far as I know it.’

‘Have you ever heard of Le Faucon de Maulévrier?’

‘Le who?’

‘Or seen this?’ Tommy pulled a drawing of Le Faucon’s seal from his pocket.

Wheaton shook his head. ‘The only seal I ever saw was the other one, with the castle.’

‘Did—’

A stir of movement came from the corner of the room. ‘What—’ Andrew struggled to sit up.

‘Shh.’ Gisèle gripped his shoulders. ‘Don’t try to move. You hit your head.’

He caught her hand and pulled it to his cheek. ‘Gelly? What are you—’

‘It’s all right. Everyone’s safe. Charles is questioning Mr. Wheaton.’

‘What the devil is Charles—Mrs. Fraser.’ Andrew searched the room with an anxious gaze.

‘I’m quite all right, Mr. Thirle,’ Mélanie said. ‘And under the circumstances, don’t you think it’s past time you started to call me Mélanie?’

He gave a shaky smile, tried to sit up, and fell back in Gisèle’s arms.

‘Be careful.’ Gisèle stroked his hair, her face bathed in tenderness. Andrew looked up at her, the tenderness mirrored on his own face. For a moment, Mélanie doubted either of them was aware of their surroundings or of any of the other people present.

Charles sent them an appraising glance but merely said, ‘Don’t try to move too quickly, Andrew. You had a bad blow to the head. We’ll get you home in a bit.’ He got to his feet and faced Wheaton. ‘I’m aware that conditions on the estate are difficult. I have no sympathy with my father’s Clearances. I can understand the attraction smuggling holds for the tenants. I hate to see them risking arrest and giving a cut of any profits they make to you, but if that’s the only way they can make ends meet I certainly won’t condemn them. But if anyone lays a hand on anyone on this estate, whether it’s my wife or one of the tenant lads, I’ll take it as a personal attack.’ He glanced at the pistol in his hand, then back at Wheaton. ‘Are we clear?’

‘Crystal, Mr. Fraser.’

‘Good. Wait in the cottage for a quarter-hour after we leave. After that I don’t care where you go, so long as—’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gone at first tide.’

‘On the contrary. I insist that you stay in the vicinity until the matter of Miss Talbot’s death is resolved. We may have need of your evidence. Do I have your word?’

‘Does my word mean anything?’

Tommy gave a derisive snort, but Charles merely said, ‘You’re a businessman, Wheaton. I assume you know the dangers of reneging on a bargain. Do I have your word?’

‘For what it’s worth, yes. You can reach me through your friend Drummond at the Griffin & Dragon.’

Charles nodded and turned to the corner of the room. ‘Andrew? Do you think you can walk?’

‘Of course.’ Andrew lurched to his feet, staggered, and would have fallen if Gisèle hadn’t caught him about the waist.

‘Here.’ Tommy took Andrew’s weight on his shoulder. ‘Let me, Miss Fraser. I’m a bit taller than you.’

‘I’m stronger than I look,’ Gisèle said, draping Andrew’s other arm round her shoulders.

Tommy and Gisèle helped Andrew from the cottage. Charles handed Mélanie to her feet and they followed. The five of them stood still for a moment after Charles closed the door to the cottage. The events inside the cottage reverberated in Mélanie’s mind like the click of the latch. The moon was cool and ghostly in the smudged gray of the sky. The air outside seemed to have grown colder in the past—what had it been—an hour? She could feel it pressing against all the sore places in her body.

Andrew detached himself from Tommy and Gisèle, drew a deep breath, and then looked at Tommy as though realizing for the first time that he didn’t know him.

‘His name’s Tommy Belmont,’ Gisèle said. ‘Officially he’s in Paris right now, but he’s here doing something mysterious.’

Andrew accepted this with a celerity that indicated both a keen knowledge of the workings of Gisèle’s mind and a clearing brain. He shook Tommy’s hand. ‘My thanks for your help. But what the devil—’

‘We should talk,’ Charles said. ‘But not here. The lodge?’

Andrew nodded.

‘You can’t walk all the way to the lodge,’ Gisèle said.

‘Of course I can. I’ve suffered worse taking a tumble from my horse.’ He touched Gisèle’s arm, bare below the puffed muslin sleeve of her frock. ‘Good God, Gelly, you’re shaking like a leaf.’

‘I lost my shawl.’

‘Here.’ He struggled out of his coat.

‘Andrew—’

‘I had a blow to the head, I’m not coming down with pneumonia. Don’t fuss. I have sleeves. You don’t.’ He put the coat round her. Gisèle let him do so and took his arm, which seemed to satisfy her as to ensuring he could walk. Tommy glanced at Charles and then followed close behind the couple, conveniently close should Andrew stumble, pistol drawn in case of further disturbance.

‘What about you?’ Charles said to Mélanie. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Of course I can walk.’ Not entirely steadily, but that would improve with fresh air and exercise.

‘You’re almost as bad a liar as Andrew. Put your arm round me.’

She did and winced, which earned her a sharp look from her husband. But he merely adjusted his hold to a more comfortable position and helped her along the path after the others.

‘I must say that was a very impressive performance in the cottage, Charles,’ Mélanie said when they had climbed to the top of the cliffs. ‘If I didn’t know you so well I’d have thought you really were furious.’

Charles stopped walking, spun to face her, and seized her by the shoulders. ‘What file hell did you think you were doing?’ he said, his level voice gone as sharp as the wind.

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