Secrets of a Lady (aka Daughter of the Game)
Secrets of a Lady: Chapter 4

Mélanie Fraser pushed herself to her feet and crossed to the girl’s side. “It’s all right, Polly, we’re all overset. Sit down and tell us what happened.” She put her arm round Polly and steered her to the sofa.

Polly sank down on the sofa and drew a shuddering breath. She was scarcely more than a child herself, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. She looked at Mrs. Fraser out of wide, troubled hazel eyes. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Well, I was flattered, truth be told. And he was so…so…”

“He?” Charles Fraser’s voice was surprisingly gentle, though Roth could feel the force of his impatience.

Polly raised her anguished gaze to him. “I didn’t know him for a criminal, sir, truly. Well, I still don’t rightly know it. Only Officer Dawkins, he was asking us questions and I had this dreadful thought of a sudden—”

“And very clever of you to make the connection.” Mélanie Fraser pressed a cup of coffee, liberally laced with milk and sugar, into the girl’s trembling hand. “And brave of you to tell us.” She paused for a moment. Roth applauded her technique. You never got far flustering a witness. “Who was he, Polly?” Mrs. Fraser asked.

“A deliveryman from Hatchards. I saw him in the mews when I was hanging out the laundry. He tipped his hat—ever so much the gentleman—and then he said wasn’t it a fine day and it would have been proper rude not to answer—”

“Just so.” Mélanie Fraser’s hands were white-knuckled, but her voice was coaxing. Roth stayed silent. She was handling this interrogation much better than he could have done. “What then?” she said.

Polly took a gulp of coffee, sloshing it into the saucer. “He asked me was this a pleasant house to work in and how long had I been here and was the family large. Then he said he’d best be off, but—” She drew a breath and spoke in a rush. “He said did all the houses hereabouts have gardens because he was afeared the gate might be locked. I said—I said I couldn’t answer for the other houses, but our garden gate was always unlocked.”

“It’s all right, Polly.” Mrs. Fraser put her hand over Polly’s own. “All you did was tell him the truth. Did you see him again?”

“A week later. Just two days since. He said he was going a bit out of his way, but”—she colored—“he couldn’t help stopping in the hopes I’d be out with the laundry again. He said he’d had a hard morning, he’d had to take a load of books up to a schoolroom clear in the attics and why was it children were always packed away out of sight. And I said—Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry.”

Mélanie Fraser swallowed, but her voice and gaze remained soothing. “You said it wasn’t that way in our house?”

“I said you and Mr. Fraser liked to have the children nearby. I—God forgive me, I pointed out Master Colin’s and Miss Jessica’s windows.”

Roth saw the full realization register in both Frasers’ eyes—one of the men who had taken their son had been so close they could have stepped into the garden and looked him in the face. Instead, he’d had all the information he needed handed to him on a silver salver.

Charles Fraser looked at Polly and smiled, the first genuine smile Roth had seen from him. It lit his cool eyes with unexpected warmth. “They’d have learned what they wanted one way or another, Polly. At least this way we know how they came by the information.”

“Can you tell me what he looked like, Polly?” Roth asked.

Polly raised her head and fixed her gaze on him. The Frasers’ tacit forgiveness had wiped some of the strain from her face. She was a pretty girl and her eyes, cleared of weeping, were bright with intelligence. “He was tall. Not so tall as you or Mr. Fraser, but taller than Mr. Addison.” She nodded toward Fraser’s valet, who was sitting quietly on the sidelines.

“Hair?” Roth asked. “Eyes?”

Polly’s level brows drew together in an effort of memory. “His hair was brown—darker than yours, Mr. Roth, but a bit lighter than Mr. Fraser’s. I suppose his eyes must’ve been brown, too—No, they were blue.” She colored again. “I remember thinking they looked just like a bed of larkspur in the spring.”

“Right.” Roth jotted down the description and gave her an encouraging smile. “Anything else? How old would you guess he was?”

She frowned again. “Older than William and Michael, but younger than Mr. Addison.”

“William and Michael are one-and-twenty or thereabouts,” Charles Fraser said. “Addison’s thirty-two, like me.”

Polly stared down at her hands, still frowning. “He had a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled. And his voice—I don’t think he was London-born. He had a bit of the sound of a Welshman.”

“Does it sound like anyone you know of?” Fraser asked Roth.

“No, but even I can only boast acquaintance with a fraction of London’s criminal class. We’ll circulate a description and offer a reward for information. I’ll make inquiries at Hatchards, though I’d lay you money he’s no deliveryman.” Roth nodded at Polly. “This is a good start. You’ve done well.” He returned his notebook and pencil to his pocket, then added, “Mr. Fraser is right, Polly. They’d have got the information they wanted, one way or another. There’s no way you could have known what they were planning. No one could.”

Polly gave him a tremulous smile, got to her feet, and dropped a quick curtsy before Addison escorted her back to the kitchen.

“I’d best be off,” Roth told the Frasers. “I want to get this description circulated as soon as possible.” He took a last swallow of coffee and stood up. “You’ll tell me what you learn from Carevalo?”

Both the Frasers were silent for a moment. “I didn’t say I was going to see Carevalo,” Fraser said.

“But you are, aren’t you? It’s what I’d do in your place.”

Mélanie Fraser rose from the sofa and went to stand beside her husband. “We’re both going to see him.”

Roth looked into her eyes and caught a glimpse of iron beneath the porcelain surface. He nodded. “You know Carevalo, you’ll know to handle him. Did you think I’d try to stop you? I don’t see how I could. Besides, if Carevalo is behind the boy’s disappearance, he’ll scarcely admit it to a Bow Street Runner. But presumably he’ll admit it to you. I only ask that you keep me informed. No rash heroics, Mr. Fraser.”

For an instant the coolness in Fraser’s eyes cracked like a sheet of ice. Beneath lay a white-hot rage that was one step short of violence and a self-recrimination that went bone-deep. “I’m not a fool, Roth.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

Mélanie Fraser reached for her husband’s hand. “Charles wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardize Colin’s safety. Neither of us would.”

Which, Roth thought as he left the house, answered his question without promising anything at all. Charles Fraser might be a master at control, but sooner or later the fury roiling beneath the cool surface was bound to break free. Roth wondered if the Marqués de Carevalo had the least idea what he’d unleashed.

“Ah, Mr. Fraser.” The desk clerk at Mivart’s Hotel turned his head between his well-starched shirt points. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Oh, Christ. It was true. “Expecting us?” Charles said.

“The Marqués de Carevalo thought you might call.” If the clerk thought it odd that they had done so at half-past six in the morning, he gave no sign of it.

Charles barely refrained from reaching across the polished counter and grasping the clerk by the well-tailored lapels of his coat. “Where is he?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, sir. The marqués left this morning.”

“Left?” Mélanie’s voice shook, frayed to the breaking point. “But he was at the Princess Esterhazy’s only a few hours ago.”

“The marqués returned to the hotel at about four this morning, madam. A short time later he settled his account and departed.” The clerk’s face was carefully wooden. “He said if you or Mr. Fraser asked for him I was to direct you to Mr. O’Roarke in room 212.”

“O’Roarke?” For a moment Charles wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Raoul O’Roarke?”

“I believe that is the gentleman’s name. He arrived at the hotel yesterday evening.”

Charles didn’t even stop to look at Mélanie. There was no point. They crossed the lobby and made for the stairs without speaking.

Raoul O’Roarke. A name from the past, a force to be reckoned with, a piece that shook the emerging pattern of the puzzle. O’Roarke and Carevalo had both been leaders in the Spanish resistance to French occupation, but O’Roarke’s hard-headed pragmatism was the antithesis of Carevalo’s extravagant intensity.

Charles had known Raoul O’Roarke since boyhood. O’Roarke’s five-times-great-grandfather had fled to Spain from Ireland after ending up on the losing side in a struggle with the English in the time of Elizabeth. Successive generations of O’Roarkes had intermarried with Spanish noble-women, but Raoul O’Roarke’s mother was an Irish Catholic aristocrat. O’Roarke had grown up in both countries and had been educated in Dublin. Charles had childhood memories of O’Roarke as one of the throng of guests always overflowing his grandfather’s Irish estates. O’Roarke had been friendlier than most, with a kind word to spare for the curious Fraser children and a genuine interest in their activities. Charles still had a copy of Rights of Man that O’Roarke had given him for his tenth birthday, and he could still remember the thrill not only of the present but of the fact that O’Roarke had made time to discuss it with him.

In those days, O’Roarke had been one of the young Irish radicals who spoke and wrote against British rule. Just how much O’Roarke had had to do with the United Irish uprising of 1798 was still open to debate. No formal charges had been laid against him, but O’Roarke had slipped out of the country in the aftermath of the uprising and returned to Spain.

O’Roarke’s letter of condolence, after Charles’s mother’s death, had been one of the least sentimental and most comforting Charles had received. When Charles joined the British embassy staff in Lisbon, he met O’Roarke again, a clever man, committed to his cause, willing to be ruthless when necessary. O’Roarke had made it clear that he remembered Charles as a boy, but at the same time had been quick to treat Charles as an adult and an equal. Yet though O’Roarke had fought alongside the British as part of the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, he had no liking for the English and never pretended otherwise.

“I didn’t know Raoul O’Roarke was in England.” Mélanie spoke when they were halfway up the first flight of stairs.

“Nor did I. He must have just arrived.”

“He and Carevalo were never particular friends.”

“No. I’ve heard O’Roarke call Carevalo a romantic fool on more than one occasion. But they were allies against the French and they’d be allied now in their hatred of the Spanish monarchy. It’s not surprising to find they’re working together. Perhaps O’Roarke thinks he’ll have more luck than Carevalo’s had mustering support in London for Spanish liberalism. Or perhaps he was forced to leave Spain. Last I heard he was setting Madrid on its ear with his antimonarchist pamphlets.”

Mélanie paused on the first-floor landing. Beneath the blue velvet brim of her bonnet, her eyes looked enormous. “Charles, you don’t think O’Roarke—”

“I don’t know what I think. Except that I’m going to kill Carevalo when I get my hands on him. Let’s see this message he left for us.”

He started for the next flight of stairs. She caught at his hand. “Charles.”

He scanned her face. “What?”

She drew a breath, then gave a slight shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters if they have Colin. Let’s go.”

They half ran up the stairs and down the second-floor corridor to room 212. Charles turned the handle without bothering to knock. The door was unlatched. “O’Roarke?” he called, pushing the door open.

“Fraser?” A familiar voice, light with mockery, carried into the narrow entryway from the sitting room beyond. “Come in and tell me what the devil’s going on.”

The air in the sitting room smelled of toast and marmalade and coffee. O’Roarke was seated at a linen-covered table, his long fingers curled round a cup, a newspaper spread before him. He wore an immaculate white shirt and a rich paisley silk dressing gown. He had always been elegant, even in the blood and grime of the field.

“Look here, Fraser—” O’Roarke broke off as his gaze fell on Mélanie. “Mrs. Fraser.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I didn’t realize.”

“Where’s Carevalo?” Charles said.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” O’Roarke tightened the belt on his dressing gown. “He hammered on my door at an ungodly hour this morning to say he was leaving and I was to deliver a letter to you if you called. Very cloak-and-dagger. Typical Carevalo.”

Charles’s gaze had already fallen on the letter, leaning against a black basalt candlestick on the mantel. He crossed to the fireplace, snatched up the letter, and broke the seal. Mélanie was beside him.

It was a single page, written in English in a flowing black hand.

My dear Fraser,

Congratulations. How long did it take you to work it out, I wonder? But that’s neither here nor there, as you British say. You know now of course. I have the boy. I want the ring. You have until this Saturday evening. When you are ready to hand over the ring, place an advertisement in the Morning Chronicle. I will respond with instructions. If you value your son’s life half as much as I think you do, you won’t fail me.

Carevalo

P.S.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t mean what I say. I’m not the man you knew in Lisbon. I can play the cheerful boon companion when it serves my purpose. But believe me, antagonist is a role to which I am much better suited.

Charles opened his fist, dropped the letter, crossed to the table, and grabbed O’Roarke by the shoulders. “Where is he?”

O’Roarke stared at him. “Don’t be an idiot, Fraser. I told you—”

“Goddamnit, O’Roarke.” Charles pushed him up against the wall. The plate-glass windows rattled in their frames. “Where’s Carevalo?”

The early-morning light flickered over the finely molded bones of O’Roarke’s face. “What’s Carevalo done?” he said.

“He’s taken Colin.” Mélanie spoke from across the room. “He wants us to give him the Carevalo Ring.”

“Oh, Christ.” O’Roarke closed his eyes for a moment. “Oh, sweet Jesus. The damned fool.”

Charles tightened his grip. “I need answers. I’ll beat them out of you if I have to.”

“That would be a lamentable waste of time for us both, Fraser. I don’t have answers to give you, however many of my bones you manage to break.” O’Roarke drew a breath. “For God’s sake, Charles. You’ve known me all your life. Do you really think I’d be party to abducting a child?”

“If you thought it was the only way to further your cause.” Charles stared hard into O’Roarke’s eyes. The man was more than capable of lying. Charles had seen him do so with great agility. But he realized, too, that Carevalo would know the lengths to which he would go to get information. So unless Carevalo was more fool than Charles thought, he’d make sure O’Roarke didn’t have any information to give. O’Roarke was most likely telling the truth.

Charles released O’Roarke and took a step back. “Tell us what you know.”

“I arrived in London last night and came straight to the hotel.” O’Roarke’s voice had the rifle-shot crispness Charles remembered from moments of crisis in the Peninsula. “I expected to meet with Carevalo this morning. Instead he woke me sometime after four and said he’d been called away on private business. He wouldn’t say what business or where he was going.”

“Did you ask?”

“Of course.” O’Roarke took a quick turn round the room. “I had no particular desire to twiddle my thumbs waiting for him. He refused to tell me anything else. Had I been a little more awake I might have pressed him further, but I doubt I’d have been successful. He gave me the letter and said you’d probably call for it sometime today.” O’Roarke whirled round and faced Charles across the breakfast table. “I had no idea how important the letter was. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry—” Mélanie said.

“Where would he go?” Charles asked.

“Somewhere none of us will be able to trace him.”

“And he probably doesn’t have Colin with him in any event. He’ll have left the messy bits up to his hirelings.” Charles pressed his hands over his eyes. “Whom does Carevalo know in England?”

“Lord and Lady Holland. Lord John Russell. The Lydgates. You and Mrs. Fraser. A score of others, I imagine.”

Charles moved to the table, keeping O’Roarke within striking distance. “Does he have a mistress?”

“I expect he has more than one. But he’s of far too jealous a disposition to share their names with anyone, let alone me.”

“Damn it, O’Roarke.” Charles slammed his hand down on the table. “He’s your friend. He must have written to you.”

“Don’t break the china, Fraser, it won’t get us anywhere. He’s not my friend, he’s my ally. There’s a world of difference.”

“Allies write to allies,” Mélanie said.

“Oh, Carevalo wrote to me.” O’Roarke rested one hand on a chair back with the deceptive nonchalance of a panther. “He wrote to me about the stubborn loyalty of the British government to the monarchy in Spain. About the arrogant contempt British soldiers have for their former Spanish comrades. About the way the liberals at Holland House lectured him on the virtues of British constitutionalism. He didn’t include personal details.” O’Roarke looked at Charles, his expression not unkind. “You don’t have the ring?”

“Of course I don’t have the ring.”

“There’s no of course about it, Fraser. The ring disappeared in the ambush. The men who had it were killed. The French soldier claims the French never got their hands on it.”

“They must be lying.”

“Or you are. Carevalo has evidently decided you are.”

Something snapped inside Charles. He reached out to grab O’Roarke. O’Roarke caught his arm. “Steady, Fraser. For what it’s worth, I’m inclined to believe you. Though I can’t for the life of me say why. There was little to choose between your side and the French. In the end you both used us. You used Spain as a private battleground to fight your war. You used our people as cannon fodder, you used our women as whores, you used our land for pillage. And when it was over, you threw your support behind our incompetent tyrant of a king.”

Charles wrenched his arm away. “I’m no supporter of King Ferdinand. I never have been.”

“Your country is. The government you served are doing their damnedest to keep Ferdinand in power while he rips to shreds any of the reforms that came out of the war. That’s what Carevalo would say.”

Mélanie, who had been watching in silence, moved to the table. “You seem to be forgetting that I’m half-Spanish,” she said. Her hands closed hard on a chair back. “Just as you are, Mr. O’Roarke.”

O’Roarke turned his gaze to her. His eyes were hard and unyielding. “But you’ve clearly decided your loyalties lie with your husband’s country, madam.”

Mélanie looked back at him, as though she could cut through to his soul. “He’s six years old. He still worries about ogres under the bed, though he won’t admit it. He can’t go to sleep without his stuffed bear. He woke screaming from a nightmare only last week and I had to go sit with him. He—”

“Mrs. Fraser—” O’Roarke stretched out his hand to her, then let it fall to his side. “If I hear anything from Carevalo, I’ll let you know.”

“You expect us to believe that?” Charles said.

O’Roarke’s mouth lifted in a faint smile. “About as much as you can expect me to believe you know nothing about the ring.”

Charles looked at him a moment longer, then gave a brief nod. “Quite. Mel? There’s no sense in wasting any more time.”

“Charles,” O’Roarke said as they turned to the door.

They both turned round. O’Roarke was still leaning against the chair, but despite the languid drape of the silk dressing gown, he had the unmistakable air of a commander. “Don’t underestimate Carevalo. He doesn’t make idle threats. You’ve heard how he lost his own son?”

Charles took a step closer to Mélanie. “I thought his family were killed by the French.”

“His wife and the younger children, yes. The eldest son fought with Carevalo’s guerrillero band. I met him once or twice. A boy of fourteen, who worshipped his father. Before the British were in the war—early ’08, it must have been—the French besieged Carevalo’s forces, who were hiding in a ruined castle near Burgos. Young Carevalo was carrying messages. He fell into French hands. The French commander told Carevalo to surrender if he wanted his son back alive.”

“And?” Mélanie’s voice was bone dry.

O’Roarke looked straight into her eyes. He had the look of a man with an intimate acquaintance with hell. “Carevalo sent back a message telling his son he loved him and he knew he’d die like a man. They shot the boy within view of the castle walls.”

Mélanie made a small, strangled sound. Charles reached out and gripped her hand.

“Carevalo’s not a monster,” O’Roarke said. “But he’s a man who’ll give up anything for his cause. He loved his children. He’ll never forgive himself for sacrificing his son, yet if he had to do it again, he’d make the same decision. And if he could sacrifice his own son, he won’t hesitate to sacrifice yours.”

The rain had stopped and a gray light was fighting its way through the morning mist when Charles and Mélanie emerged from Mivart’s. Charles paused on the pavement before the hotel, his senses assaulted by light and sound, his brain battered by his own anger.

A post chaise had drawn up in front of the hotel and two porters were unloading bandboxes and portmanteaux onto the pavement. A third porter was struggling to lift a hamper from the boot while a gentleman in a many-caped greatcoat abjured him to be careful not to bruise the port. The rattle of wheels and the snap of reins filled the air. More carriages were abroad than when they had arrived at the hotel. It must be getting on toward seven. More than three hours since they’d discovered Colin’s disappearance.

Rational thought came flooding back and with it a sense of purpose. Charles took Mélanie’s arm and drew her toward their waiting carriage. “Hell,” he said when they were inside the carriage and the coachman had given the horses their office. “Bloody, bloody hell. How could I have been such a fool?”

“You couldn’t have foreseen this.” Mélanie folded her arms over her stomach, as though she could physically force down a wave of fear and nausea. “Neither of us could.”

He wrapped his arm round her and pulled her against him. “Colin’s a survivor. He’s our son.” He pushed back her bonnet and put his lips to her hair. “We’re going to have to find the damned ring.”

“Yes.” He felt her tremble, felt her control the tremors. “The question is where to begin.”

He took her hand and held it between his own. “Where it was lost. In the past.”

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