The Mask of Night

Of course Father wants you home for Christmas. It’s just not the sort of thing he’d ever put into words.

Lady Isobel Mallinson to David Mallinson

18 November, 1800

David cast a glance at Simon as they made their way along the Haymarket. The pavement was crowded with theatre-goers, beggars, hawkers of all imaginable wares, ladies of easy virtue in every price range, pickpockets at every level of skill. “Will Pendarves confide in you?” David asked.

“Perhaps. I don’t have Mélanie’s knack for it, but I’ll do my best. Will St. Ives confide in you?”

“That depends if there’s anything to confide about. But I think I can tell if he’s lying.”

The traffic on the pavement was stopped by two Cyprians in feather-trimmed cloaks alighting from their carriage in front of the theatre. David studied his lover. Droplets of rain glistened on the curling brim of Simon’s silk hat and lent a sheen to his skin.

“Simon—“

“If you aren’t sure you can trust me with an ex-lover after thirteen years, I don’t know that you’re ever going to be.”

“You can’t turn everything into a clever bit of dialogue.”

“Probably not, but I can always try.” Simon swung his head round and met David’s gaze. “Look, we’ve both kept things from each other. But there are certain things I’d never lie to you about. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” David said.

It was almost true.

The crowd surged forward and they moved with it, borne inexorably into the lobby of the King’s Theatre and up the stairs. No sign of his parents and Lucinda, though they were stopped four times by acquaintances.

“St. Ives will be in his box,” David said as they climbed the stairs. “Do you know about Pendarves?”

“He and Lady Pendarves are likely to be sitting with the St. Iveses. Sylvie and Caroline have been inseparable from the schoolroom.”

“Of course. We’d best—“

“Yes.”

David opened the door to the box onto the sound of a crisp male chorus accompanied by the pop of a champagne cork. The first act was well underway, but St. Ives was in the antechamber, back to the velvet curtains that led to the seats, opening a bottle of champagne. Sylvie St. Ives sat on a chaise-longue, staring off into space. Neil Vickers, a Home Office clerk who was St. Ives’s cousin, was also present, as were Caroline Pendarves, and a third lady whom David recognized with a start as his sister. “I decided I didn’t want to stay home tonight,’ Isobel said.

She had changed into a gown of poppy red silk, cut lower than usual, and the defiance in her eyes sparkled like the rubies round her throat.

“Good to see you,” St. Ives said. “Someone find a footman and get some more glasses.”

Vickers went about this task. “Where are you sitting?” St. Ives asked.

“Actually,” David said, “I was hoping for a word with you.”

“Oh?“ St. Ives set down the champagne bottle. “Well, a chat sounds more agreeable than listening to this caterwauling. Pendarves is the only one actually paying attention to the music. Care to stroll to the Long Bar with me, David?”

“Thanks. That’s just what I had in mind.”

David exchanged a brief glance with Simon. No problems, save for possibly Bel’s presence. And the fact that he’d never before left Simon to confront an old lover. That he knew of. He’d never before known the identity of any of Simon’s old lovers.

In the Long Bar Pendarves sent one of the footmen for another bottle of champagne and poured two glasses. “Thank God. We can settle in here until the bloody thing’s over. Never could stomach opera, but one must make an appearance and Sylvie likes it. What did you want to talk to me about?”

David leaned back in his chair. The bar, so crowded at the interval, was eerily quiet. “It will seem a bit odd.”

“No odder than that racket out there.”

“My cousin.”

“Which cousin? Good God, not Honoria. Damned shame that she died like that, but—“

“Not Honoria. Arthur.”

No visible change of expression crossed St. Ives’s face and yet for a moment, David would have sworn that that was due to conscious effort on his childhood friend’s part. “What about Arthur? It’s a damned shame about him too.”

David saw the miniature again. Mélanie’s face when she claimed it was St. Juste. Isobel’s when she claimed it could not be. It was mad. But he had to be sure. “You were with him when he died.”

“Just before actually.“ St. Ives took a swallow of champagne. “Bad business that. I keep thinking I should have been able to stop it.”

“But you didn’t see him go into the water?”

“No. I was in the cabin. If I’d been on deck— Why are you bringing this up now?”

“I found myself thinking about it.”

“Does it have anything to do with the murder at Bel and Oliver’s two night’s ago?”

David tried to keep his countenance completely neutral. Evidently he failed because St. Ives said, “Doesn’t take a lot of brains to put two and two together. Your father and Charles Fraser—who happens to be your best friend—have been looking into the murder. Mrs. Fraser called on Sylvie yesterday. Sylvie wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was about—which isn’t at all unusual—but she seemed distressed. Suddenly you’re asking questions too.”

“Not about—“

“The murder? Well, no, not obviously. I just can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection. I know I’m not brilliant, but I think I see a bit more than you give me credit for.”

“St. Ives—“

“For instance, I’ve known for years that my wife is, and I imagine always will be, in love with your brother-in-law.”

David stared into the viscount’s usually lazy eyes. What was his earliest memory of St. Ives? Lying on a blanket while St. Ives and Arthur tossed a ball on the lawn? Sitting at a nursery table spread with jam tarts and treacle pudding for someone’s birthday? He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t known St. Ives, and yet this was the first conversation he could remember between them that touched below the surface.

St. Ives took a sip of champagne. “To be fair to Sylvie, she never pretended to feel anything for me that went deeper than my coronet pressing into that lovely blonde hair of hers. Terribly unfashionable to be in love with one’s own wife and positively comical when she doesn’t love you back. Still, one learns to get by. Can’t be hurt by what one doesn’t deign to notice.”

“I’m sorry,” David said.

“Don’t be, others are worse off. The truth is, I probably ought to have married Bel. Don’t look so surprised. I thought about it, when it seemed I hadn’t a prayer of Sylvie. Damned fine girl, your sister. I imagine I’d have made her a deal happier than Lydgate, and I wouldn’t have to worry— What did you want to ask me about Arthur?”

“You were there when they recovered his body?”

“No.“ St. Ives refilled his two-thirds empty glass of champagne and topped off David’s almost full one. “They didn’t find him until a week later. You didn’t know?”

“They never told us the details”

“There’s a lot to be said for protecting children.“ St. Ives returned the champagne bottle to its silver cooler. “I try to protect my own children from a number of truths about the lives their mother and I lead.”

“You and Arthur were alone on the boat?” David said, just to make sure he was clear on this.

St. Ives twisted his champagne glass on the linen tablecloth, his gaze on the thin stream of bubbles. “No actually. We’d sailed down the coast and picked up a friend. He’d ducked out of his lessons and wasn’t supposed to be with us, so we—I—never spoke of it.”

“A friend?”

St. Ives looked up. “Pendarves.”

Charles returned Carfax’s gaze. “I think you’d better tell us what you know first.’

“I told you—“

“I’d advise you to rid yourself of the delusion that you can order me about. Unless you wish my questions to reach ears other than your own.”

Carfax scraped his hands over his face. He looked so tired that even after all the revelations of the day, Charles nearly put a hand on his shoulder.

“We already know a great deal,” Charles said. “We know you set Oliver to spy on David and Simon and me at Oxford—“

“For God’s sake, that wasn’t spying, that was—“

“What else do you call sending reports on one’s friends’ private conversations? We know Captain Harris was blackmailing you. We know about the information Colonel Renaux purchased. We can guess at what you did.”

“What I— Oh, my God.”

“It appears you committed treason. If there’s any other explanation you’d best give it us.”

“I don’t—“

Charles took two steps forward. “Tell us about St. Juste.”

Carfax sank into a chair, heedless of the fact that Mélanie was still standing. “Tell me who you think he is.”

“One theory is that he’s your brother’s by-blow by the actress Mrs. Robinson.’

“My brother’s— Yes, that’s a plausible explanation. Perhaps I could have—“

“But that’s not it, is it?” Mélanie said.

“No. Julien St. Juste was my brother’s son and heir. Arthur Mallinson.”

“You’re sure?” Charles said.

‘Of course I’m sure. I’m the one who recruited him.’

Charles looked down at the exhausted face of the man who had been ten steps ahead of him more times than he cared to admit. ‘You’re saying you sent your nephew, your brother’s son and heir, to be an agent in France when he was still in his teens? Why in God’s name?”

Carfax stared back at him as though even now he could not frame the words.

“Because Arthur was going to be exposed for committing treason,” Mélanie said.

Carfax turned to her, almost, Charles thought, with relief. Mélanie dropped down on her knees in front of the earl. “It wasn’t your own treason Captain Harris was blackmailing you over, was it? It was Arthur’s.”

Watching Mélanie look up at Carfax, her hands on his knees, Charles knew how right he’d been to insist she be present for the scene. He’d made an appalling number of confidences to her himself, at a time when he should have had his defenses in place for more reasons than one.

“It was Arthur’s.“ Carfax laid his hands over Mélanie’s own. “Though I should have caught it. Should have realized he’d picked the lock on my dispatch box, should have guessed— It was Harris who worked out the truth. He came to me and had the audacity to ask for money to cover up my nephew’s perfidy. At first I couldn’t believe it. It was all still circumstantial. I went down to Spendlove Manor and talked to my brother. We went through Arthur’s things and found a coded letter from a French man—“

“Renaux,” Charles said.

“Yes. We spent the night and a good part of the morning talking about what to do. My brother was adamant that Arthur had to pay for his crimes. I kept trying to point out that there were family issues to think of, but he’d have none of that. At last we decided we’d confront Arthur when he returned in the evening. He was out sailing with young St. Ives. He never returned.”

“You must have wondered—“

“Of course we wondered. Then a week later a body washed up. Badly mangled but wearing Arthur’s clothes and his signet ring. We buried him as Arthur.’

‘But you suspected.’

‘Wouldn’t you? Arthur covered his trail well. It took me over a month to track him down in France. He’d already found employment as an agent for Fouché.’

‘And so you recognized his talents?’ Mélanie said, still on her knees before Carfax.

‘How could I not? My first impulse was to drag him home, though I’d probably have had to tie him up and render him unconscious.’

‘Neither of which is beyond your capabilities,’ Charles said.

‘Not if the situation calls for it. But if I had got him home, my brother would have insisted on turning him over to the crown. A sad waste.’

‘So you recruited him,’ Mélanie said.

‘Even then I couldn’t control him exclusively, but the fact that I had a paper proving his original treason gave me a certain leverage.’

‘Which enabled you to get him to tell you things he wouldn’t reveal to any of his other employers,’ Charles said.

‘To a degree,’ Carfax didn’t so much as glance as Mélanie as he said it. It was impossible to read how much he knew.

‘You’re the one who set him to seduce Josephine de Beauharnais,’ Charles said.

‘I thought she could prove useful. She was Barras’s mistress, and Bonaparte soon began to show an interest in her. Not that I for a moment believe Arthur told me everything he learned from her.’

‘When was your last communication with St. Juste?’ Charles asked.

‘Last summer. He procured a document I needed from the Russian Embassy in Vienna.’

‘Did you know he was in England?’

‘Not until Talleyrand wrote to me about St. Juste’s affair with Bel. And as I told you this morning, I wasn’t sure until I had Bel followed.’

‘You must have been shocked,’ Mélanie said. ‘And furious.’

‘A massive understatement.“ Carfax’s shoulders straightened against the gilded chairback. ‘I also wanted to know what the hell he was up to. I still can’t work it out.’

“It’s beginning to look as though personal matters may have brought him back to England,’ Charles said.

Carfax’s gaze had hardened. ‘No sense dancing round it. Arthur was the rightful Earl Carfax. Technically, my title and estate and fortune belong to him. Or did until someone stuck a knife in him. But if you think I’d stab my brother’s son to death—“

‘Your brother’s son who had committed treason and seduced your daughter and whom you’d been using as an agent for twenty-five years while occupying the title that was his by birth. Who else knew about Arthur’s treason?”

“Only my brother. And Harris.”

“Who met his death three days ago in a Chelsea tavern brawl.”

Carfax’s eyes widened in what was either genuine surprise or a very good counterfeit. “I didn’t know. His papers—“

“Are now in my possession. At least the ones I could find in his study. But there was nothing conclusively damning, certainly nothing to implicate Arthur.”

“Then someone else got to them first.”

“So I suspect. I can think of two explanations for why Arthur came back to Britain. He was hired to do a job here. Or he decided to reclaim his heritage.”

“He couldn’t. Not without—“

“Getting rid of the evidence. Which would account for Harris’s death. If you’re telling me the truth about who knew of his past, the only other person he’d have had to get rid of is you.”

‘I appreciate the warning. But while Arthur may have contemplated taking back his heritage, I’m quite sure that isn’t the reason he came to England.“ Carfax got to his feet, strode to the door, and called to one of the footmen in the corridor. He spoke to the man in muffled tones for a few moments. Then he closed the door and turned back to Charles and Mélanie. ‘Charles, when I told you this morning that Raoul O’Roarke might be in London, I didn’t tell you everything I knew.’

‘What a surprise.’

‘I assume you’ve told Mélanie what I told you. If not, I imagine you’ll catch up quickly, my dear. O’Roarke went to visit Hortense Bonaparte in Arenenberg in December.’

‘Hardly surprising if he was a Bonapartist spymaster as you claim,’ Charles said. ‘Besides, it’s no secret that O’Roarke was close to Josephine Bonaparte. They were imprisoned together during the Terror.’

‘O’Roarke went to see Hortense Bonaparte in secret, which again is perhaps not surprising given the nature of his work. But a fortnight later, Talleyrand’s agents intercepted a message from Queen Hortense to O’Roarke. Yes, I know, she might have had a dozen reasons for writing to him. But this was in code. And it made reference to locating ‘the Wanderer’.’

Charles employed every trick he knew to keep his face from betraying the least flicker of response. ‘The Wanderer?’

‘The term goes back to the days of the Directoire. It was used to describe the Dauphin.’

‘Are you saying—’

‘There’ve been rumors for years that Barras replaced the Dauphin with a double and that Josephine was involved in the plot. I’ve always suspected that if there was such a plot St. Juste was involved. He vehemently denied it of course.’

Carfax began to pace the carpet. ‘When Talleyrand wrote to me about St. Juste’s liaison with Bel, my deepest fear was that whatever St. Juste was up to in England somehow involved the Dauphin, though I couldn’t work out how. When St. Juste was murdered, I was even more convinced. Quite frankly, Charles, due to your connections to O’Roarke and my connections to St. Juste, I’d have preferred to keep you out of the investigation, but Castlereagh wanted you involved.’

‘I imagine you had me followed,’ Charles said in a pleasant voice.

‘It seemed a sensible precaution.’

A rap fell on the door. ‘Ah, good,’ Carfax said. ‘Come in.“ And then, as the door opened, ‘I believe you are acquainted with Charles Fraser and his wife?’

‘Of course,’ said a smooth, lightly accented voice. ‘Fraser. Mrs. Fraser.“ The Comte de Flahaut stepped into the room and pulled the door to behind him.