The Mask of Night
: Chapter 27

At the risk of turning maudlin, without you and David and Simon, I don’t expect I’d have survived the past three years.

Charles Fraser to Oliver Lydgate

25 May 1808

John, the Lydgates’ footman, once again admitted Mélanie with no surprise. His gaze flickered briefly when he realized the greatcoated, beaver-hatted man who accompanied her was not Charles, but he merely took their outer garments and said that Mr. Lydgate was in the study.

In this apartment they found not only Oliver but Isobel, David, and Simon. Conversation stopped abruptly at their entrance. Oliver stood behind his desk. David and Simon were seated on the sofa. Isobel sat in a wing-back chair, shoulders very straight, face drawn.

Oliver went still at the sight of Raoul.

“Charles is in Chelsea with Mr. Roth,” Mélanie said. “Mr. O’Roarke has been assisting me with the investigation.”

“But if this is a personal matter, I can make myself scarce,” Raoul said.

“No.” Oliver’s hands curled on the ink blotter. “That is, yes, but you’d best stay. Simon’s been telling us about the attack on you last night. It seems you’re in the middle of this.”

“I told them about the pamphlets,” Simon said. “It seemed best.”

“But that isn’t why I asked you all to come here today.” Oliver straightened his shoulders and unclenched his hands. “I have something to tell you. To explain. To confess. No, not murder. Though in its own way you may think it just as bad.”

David’s gaze moved over his brother-in-law, grave and wary. “You don’t want to wait for Charles?”

“I don’t think I can afford to. I want you to hear this from me before you hear it from anyone else.”

Mélanie moved to the matching armchair beside Isobel. Raoul pulled a straight-backed chair away from the wall. Coals snapped behind the satin stitched fire screen.

Oliver clasped his hands behind his back, paced to the fireplace, turned to face them. Claudio repentant, Hamlet at Ophelia’s graveside. “When we all met—when David and Simon and Charles and I met at Oxford. It’s no secret that I didn’t have any fortune. I was there on a scholarship lucky to be able to attend university at all.”

“And obliged to be far cleverer than the rest of us to do so,” David said.

“The rest of you could have had scholarships if you’d needed them. But— It wasn’t always easy. Letting my friends pay for tavern meals and hackneys, sending my clothes home to my mother for refurbishment instead of ordering news ones, listening to conversations about sports I’d never been able to play and places I’d never visited. I expect I took it harder than I should have done.”

“That’s all ancient history,” Isobel said.

“But unfortunately relevant.” Oliver turned his head. The firelight caught the tangled emotions in his eyes. “Times were unsettled then, though I fear one can’t say much better for the present day. The French Revolution was fresh in everyone’s memory, Bonaparte was running amok on the Continent, we were battling the French. All too many people were ready to believe that any quarrel with the way the world was ordered was an incitement to revolution. I don’t think it will come as a surprise to any of you that Lord Carfax was receiving reports on Radical activity.”

David grimaced. “You mean Father had spies at home as well as abroad?”

“Yes.”

“For what it’s worth,” Simon said, “he wasn’t the only member of the Government to do so. Everyone knows Sidmouth has had a network of informants for years, not to mention agents provocateurs. Not that I’m excusing it.”

“How do you know?” Isobel asked, watching her husband. “About Father having informants?”

“He told me,” Oliver said. “He told me one afternoon my first year at Oxford when he came upon me leaving a lecture. He took me to dinner in a nearby tavern and asked me to work for him.”

A coal fell from the grate behind the silk and canvas of the fire screen and hissed against the wrought metal.

“Work for him?” Isobel was on her feet. “Do you mean spy for him? On whom?”

“On us, I presume.” Simon’s voice was light and pleasant, but his gaze had turned to tempered steel. “My God, I never knew what a damnably good actor you are.”

“You were spying on us,” David said. The words seemed to stick in his throat. “My father was paying you to report on our activities?”

“Yes,” Oliver said.

“Why would you—“

“Because he wanted to marry Sylvie de Fancot,” Isobel said.

Oliver met his wife’s gaze. “Quite.”

“But—“ David said.

Simon gripped his arm. “You’ve never been poor, David.”

“Neither have you if it comes to that.” David jerked away from him. “Are you saying you condone this?”

“No. I’m saying I understand how it could have happened. Perhaps.”

David pressed his fingers over his face. The signet ring on his left hand caught the candlelight. “In God’s name why did Father care? He couldn’t have thought we were plotting revolution.”

Oliver swallowed. He was very pale but had yet to look away from his friends. “Some of your—our—pamphlets called for radical change. There was that one Charles wrote advocating universal suffrage and the abolition of the House of Lords.”

“Quite cogently argued, that one,” Simon said. “Eventually he even brought David round.”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “But I kept trying to tell Lord Carfax—“

“That is was all theoretical and we really didn’t mean anything?” Simon asked.

“In a nutshell.”

“So you saw through us.”

“I didn’t—” Oliver tugged at his neckcloth. “I didn’t not believe in liberty and equality and a just world and all the other things we talked about.”

“Betraying ideals is an odd way of showing belief in them,” David said.

“My God, if all that drove me was naked ambition don’t you think I’d have become a Tory? Then at least I’d have had a chance at office. But how the devil was a country lawyer’s son going to make himself heard in the world? I believed all right. I just—“

“Needed the money,” Mélanie said.

“Yes.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “An odd world, isn’t it? We want to redistribute wealth and we have to acquire wealth ourselves in order to do so.”

“And in order to marry beautiful but penniless French émigrée aristos,” Isobel said.

Oliver looked into her eyes, taking the full force of the fire in her gaze. “That too.”

“If you’d come to me—” David said.

“And begged for charity?”

“Yes, damn it. Better that than turning informant.”

“I thought my reports would just convince Carfax—“

“Of how laughable a threat we really were?” Simon said.

“Did it go on?” Isobel said in a small, dead voice. ‘Have you been making reports to Father all these years?’

“No. I stopped after we left university. Charles went to the Peninsula, and—“

“I went into Parliament and moderated my views,” David said. “I assume he considered Simon a lost cause.”

“Oliver.” Isobel was still on her feet, staring at him. “What happened between us—that was different. The rules were different. But David and Simon and Charles were your friends.”

“I know. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m trying to explain.”

“Why?” Raoul spoke up for the first time. “Why try to explain now, Lydgate?”

Oliver turned to him. When he spoke, it sounded as though his mouth was dry. “Because I was afraid Carfax would reveal the truth before I could.”

“What made you think he would?” Simon said.

“He held it over my head today. He wanted me to keep track of Charles’s investigation.”

“Into the murder,” David said. He had gone a shade whiter.

“Yes.”

The study door opened onto the silence that followed his words. Charles came into the room like a soldier walking blithely into crossfire.

“You’re just in time,” Isobel said, in a voice that had the brightness of smashed crystal. “Oliver’s been telling us how he spied on all of you at Oxford.”

Charles’s gaze went straight to Oliver. “For Carfax?”

“Convenient that you’re so bloody quick.”

“Because he was worried our activities were too radical?”

“As I said you were always quick.”

“And probably because he feared his son was being corrupted,” Simon said. “In more ways than one.”

“But that isn’t all you did for Carfax, is it?” Charles said.

Oliver blanched, like an actor who has suddenly found the performance diverging from the script. “What do you mean?”

“Roth and I have just been to Chelsea. Does the name Frederick Harris mean anything to you?”

Oliver stared at Charles. “Oh, good God. That was years ago.”

“What was years ago?” Charles’s voice was as even as a steel blade in a firm grip.

“Carfax was stuck at a meeting at Castlereagh’s country house. He sent me a message in town asking me to go to Carfax House, pick up a parcel from his desk, and deliver it to this Harris in Chelsea.”

“What was in the parcel?”

“I don’t know. I delivered it to Harris who seemed to be expecting it.”

‘Harris appears to have been blackmailing Lord Carfax,’ Charles said.

David pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Harris told you that?’

‘Harris was killed in a tavern brawl three days ago.”

‘Not an accident?” David asked.

“Probably not, though we can’t be certain. We visited the tavern. The men who started the brawl hadn’t been seen in Chelsea before. Or since. One matched the description of Billy Simcox.”

“Where’s Roth?”

“He’s gone to talk to some of his contacts. I found a note from Mélanie in Berkeley Square so I came here.”

David swallowed. ‘How can you be sure about the blackmail?’

“Harris received regular payments from the time he left the army. Mrs. Harris was under the impression they came from Carfax. She let us examine Harris’s papers. We found some letters your father had written to Harris. They were couched in vague terms that didn’t give anything away. We also found drafts of some letters Harris had written to your father. He either must have copied them over to send or decided not to send them at all. They were dated about five years ago. Harris seems to have been pushing your father to pay him more. There are thinly veiled threats implying that he can still make things very uncomfortable for Carfax. He doesn’t specify details. But he does refer to ‘Skælskør’ as though it’s part of what he might reveal.”

“Skælskør?” Isobel repeated.

“It’s a place in Denmark,” Mélanie said. She could feel Raoul beside her, his gaze cool and neutral. “A British schooner was surprised by a French vessel there in 1794. All the British were killed.”

“Not our most shining moment,” David said. His eyes were dark with a fear he wouldn’t yet articulate.

‘The British were completely taken by surprise,’ Charles said. ‘Somehow the French knew precisely where they were. A breakdown in intelligence.” He looked at Mélanie, eyes filled with questions.

“Mélanie,” David said in a voice that sounded as if he were being strangled, “you said you and O’Roarke had been investigating today. Where?”

Mélanie curved her fingers round the soft silk velvet of the chair arms. She didn’t need to look at Raoul. She knew what she’d see in his eyes. “Carfax House.”

“You searched my father’s things?”

“Yes. We—“

“You broke into my parents house?” Isobel said. “Good God, Mélanie—“

“We needed to know—“

“The truth,” David said in a flat voice. “So do I. Tell me.”

She undid the steel clasp on her reticule and drew out the paper she and Raoul had decoded. “You’d all best look at this.”

For a few moments, the room was completely silent, save for sharp breaths and the rustle of paper in clenched hands. Mélanie looked from David to Isobel to her husband and Oliver and watched something die in whitened lips, numb eyes, drawn brows.

“I don’t understand,” Isobel said in a thin voice.

David looked up from the paper he held. “Father was committing treason. Only a few years before he hired Oliver to spy on us because he claimed we were a threat to Britain.”

“David—” Oliver took a step toward him.

“What the hell is there to say? Are you going to claim you understand because you were ready to commit betrayal for cold silver as well?”

“I could hardly fail to understand, could I?”

“My God,” David said. “Of all the contemptible—“

“It’s damaging,” Charles said. “But we have to be sure—“

“Damn it, Charles, don’t start making excuses for him.’

“There isn’t any chance Father isn’t the person involved?” Isobel said.

“Yes.” Raoul was on his feet, hand resting on his chairback. “There is actually, Lady Isobel. We have a letter from Colonel Renaux to an unnamed agent in England, a letter which we found in your father’s possession, but we didn’t find any letters to Renaux in Carfax’s hand.”

“But we know Harris was blackmailing Father,’ David said, ‘and we know it had something to do with Skælskør. This letter is about troop movement near Skælskør.’

“David.” Isobel went to stand before him. “I know Father can be difficult. But the man who raised us, the man we’ve known all our lives—“

“He betrayed his country, Bel. People died because of him. He sat snug in Mayfair talking about honor and duty and loyalty while English sailors took bullets to the heart because he couldn’t get by on more money a year than nine-tenths of the population.”

Isobel whirled round to look at her husband. “Did you know?”

“Good God, no.” Oliver’s face was numb. “I told you, I only met Harris once, and I was just delivering papers. Lord Carfax doesn’t trust me enough to let me in on anything like this.”

“After everything you’ve admitted today, why the devil should I believe you?

“I don’t know,” Oliver said.

Charles surveyed his friends. ‘There was another development last night. It looks as though the Elsinore League may be mixed up in this.”

“The what?” Oliver said. David and Simon had learned about the Elsinore League three years ago, but Oliver and Isobel knew nothing of it.

Charles briefly explained about the Elsinore League and the note Roth had found on Billy Simcox.

“So that’s who Ger-St. Juste was working for?” Isobel said. “This Elsinore League?”

“Possibly. He may have had more than one employer.”

“Suppose it’s personal,” Mélanie said. ‘What if whoever employed St. Juste is someone who learned the truth of what Carfax did and wants revenge. Perhaps one of the Elsinore League members died at Skælskør.”

Simon was leaning against the desk, arms folded, gaze on the carpet. He looked up, started to speak, bit back the words.

“What?” David said.

“Skælskør.” Simon hesitated a moment. “I knew it was familiar. I’ve just remembered where I heard about it before.”

“Where?”

“At school.” Simon unfolded his arms and pressed his hands against the edge of the desk. “Pendarves’s elder brother was a junior lieutenant. He was killed at Skælskør.’

“He’s hardly the only one,” Charles said.

“Yes,” Simon said. “But Pendarves happens to have been at the ball at which St. Juste was killed. Though he’s the wrong age to belong to the Elsinore League, and his father’s dead long since.”

“Why would someone who wanted revenge on Lord Carfax kill Captain Harris?” Oliver asked. “He had evidence they could use against Lord Carfax.”

“But Father had good reason to want Harris out of the way.” David’s face was grim.

‘Let’s have another look at the paper,’ Charles said.

They gathered round the desk and examined the letter, which Mélanie and Raoul already knew well. Raoul moved to the bookshelves and studied the volumes. Mélanie wandered across the room. She stopped in front of a glass-fronted cabinet. One shelf held snuffboxes, another Venetian glass, a third miniatures. She bent down to examine them. Isobel as a young teenager with serious eyes and a shy smile. Cecilia Mallinson as a ravishing debutante. Lucinda at about three with startlingly blonde hair and a string of jade beads round her throat. David in his mid-teens, his eyes heavy with responsibility, his mouth curved in a smile that made her wonder if Charles had been present to distract him when the portrait was taken.

In the rows behind were others. A handsome man in regimentals who she realized with a jolt was Lord Carfax, before he became earl. A heavy man with similar features who must be his late elder brother. A fair-haired young man—

She froze, told herself it was impossible, looked again. Her mouth went dry and her pulse hammered in her throat. Her mind must be playing tricks on her. But— She unlatched the door of the cabinet and reached behind the first row for the miniature, knocking over two others because her hand was not quite steady.

“What is it?” Isobel’s voice came from the desk.

“Who is this?” Amazing how level her voice was.

Isobel came to stand beside her. “That’s my cousin Arthur. He’d be Earl Carfax now, except he died when he was seventeen.”

Mélanie stared down at the picture. She was clutching it so tightly the ridges in the silver frame were imprinted on her fingers. The cheekbones. The nose. The full-lipped mouth. The curve of the brows. Her mind automatically thickened the brows, added years and flesh.

She could feel both Charles and Raoul looking at her.

“What is it, Mel?” Charles said.

She stared at the picture a moment longer, then lifted her gaze to her husband’s face. “I think it’s Julien St. Juste.”

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.