The Mask of Night

Darling, Charles, do say you’ll come down to Carfax Court next week. I can’t imagine our family without you.

Lady Isobel Mallinson to Charles Fraser,

23 July, 1805

“Charles, thank God.“ Isobel came toward him in a stir of stiff skirts and violet scent as he stepped into the Berkeley Square library. Her bonnet was askew and she had pulled off one of her gloves. “I’ve been going mad. Is Mélanie with you?”

“No, she’s not back yet. Will I do?”

“Charles, I’ve done a dreadful thing.”

He regarded her for a long moment, mind filled with the memory a long-legged, freckle-faced twelve-year-old sliding from the back of her horse or bending over a picnic hamper. “You knew St. Juste was Arthur.”

Her blue eyes went very wide. “How did you—?”

“Know you knew? I didn’t. But I had a hard time believing you could have spent so much time with him and not realized. And at the opera last night you didn’t seem as desperate for the truth as I’d have expected if you hadn’t already known your lover’s identity.”

“I didn’t know at first.“ She tugged off her second glove with quick jerks. “It was the last time I saw him. The last time before the ball. I’d taken him— It will sound mad, but I’d taken him to Father’s house in Kent. Spendlove Manor. Last Monday. It’s empty at this time of year, only a caretaker at the lodge. I thought—“ She swallowed. “That we could have some privacy instead of sneaking about in carriages.”

“Was it your idea to go there?”

“Yes, of course. That is— Gerard—Arthur—poison, I can’t think of him that way. He’d said it was a pity we couldn’t run off to the country for the afternoon since the weather was fine. I thought of Spendlove Manor.”

“Which he might have guessed you’d do.”

“But I don’t see—“

“It depends on what he was after. Go on.”

Isobel began to pace. “I don’t know if it was being in a house I’d seen him in as a child or the family portraits on the walls or something he did or said— He was standing by the windows, outlined against the sunlight. I found myself staring at his profile, and suddenly I knew. Or I thought I did for an instant. Then I told myself I must be mad. All the drive back into town I kept watching him. I’d have myself convinced it was just a trick of my mind, and then I’d catch a twinge—an inflection, the turn of his head, the way the light fell over his face. Enough to make me uncertain.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Not then. I kept going over it. Finally I decided I had to talk to him. At the ball.”

“So you did speak with him?”

“Yes.“ She lifted her chin above the starched white ruff at her throat. She might have been Mary Stewart, facing down an English officer. “We met in the garden at a quarter to midnight. I lied about that too.”

“And?”

“I asked him straight out. He didn’t deny it.”

“He admitted he was Arthur?”

“No. ” She fingered the satin cuff of her pelisse. “He said we couldn’t talk about it there. He’d explain everything later, and I had to trust that there was a good reason for what he’d done. That was why— Charles, yesterday I really did wonder if perhaps he was Mrs. Robinson’s son by my uncle.”

“And then? After you saw him in the garden?”

“I went back into the ballroom. He stayed in the garden, so we wouldn’t be seen together.”

“Nothing else?”

Her cheeks flushed with color. “He kissed me. It must have been only a few minutes later that he—“

“Yes. You didn’t know he was St. Juste?”

“I’d never heard the name Julien St. Juste. I had no notion he was an agent until after he was murdered. I should have told you the truth then—”

“Are you telling the truth now? The whole of it?’

“Of course.”

“My dear girl, there’s no ‘of course’ about it. You’ve lied from the beginning. You lied the night of the murder when you pretended not to know who the dead man was, you lied when you fed Mélanie a tissue of half-truths, you lied last night when you claimed St. Juste couldn’t be Arthur Mallinson.”

‘I wanted to think it through before I said anything.’

‘Think it through? “ Charles crossed the room in two strides and gripped her shoulders. ‘Damn it, Isobel, I don’t have a hope in hell of learning the truth if even the people closest to me aren’t honest.’

‘That’s just it, Charles. I realized last night that I can’t think of you as my friend anymore. Not in this.”

“What do you have to be afraid of?”

“The implications. The ones you saw the moment you realized my father wasn’t the rightful Earl Carfax until Arthur’s death.”

“Do you seriously think anyone in your family might have killed Arthur?”

“You do, don’t you?”

“I think it’s a possibility we have to consider. Not a likelihood.”

“But a possibility. Some things go deeper than a need to find the truth, Charles.”

“Billy Simcox was murdered too. O’Roarke may be next if we can’t get the bottom of this.”

“I’m sorry.“ Her eyes had the hardness of a naked blade. “I suppose one has an instinct to protect one’s family.”

“Yes.“ Charles dropped his hands from her shoulders. “I suppose one does.”

The doors opened behind him. He knew from the crisp footfalls and familiar scent that his wife had come into the room. “Charles—“ Mélanie broke off and closed the doors with precision.

“I came to make a confession,” Isobel said.

“You saw St. Juste in the garden just before he was killed.”

“How—“

“Caroline Pendarves saw you go into the garden,” Mélanie said. “About a quarter-hour before the murder.”

“I didn’t realize.“ Isobel put her hand to her throat. “I didn’t realize Caroline had seen me.”

“Or you wouldn’t have tried to lie about it?”

“Yes. No. I already explained to Charles.“ Isobel repeated her confession.

“Do you think Arthur could have been looking for anything at Spendlove Manor?” Mélanie asked.

“I didn’t see him searching. But then I suppose he was an expert at deception.“ Isobel glanced between them. “You must need to talk. Can I— Do you need to ask me anything else?”

“Not now,” Charles said.

She gave a quick nod and left the room. She didn’t hug Mélanie or hold out her hand to Charles and lean in for him to kiss her cheek. A number of things had been broken in the past two days that might never be mended.

Mélanie stared at the closed doors. ‘Isobel and Hortense. Two of my closest friends. They’ve both been telling lie upon lie for days, and I couldn’t tell.’

‘What did Hortense say to you this morning?’

‘Nothing. She didn’t keep the appointment. So something prevented her or she doesn’t want to talk to me.’

‘Carfax and Flahaut seemed to think she was a victim in all this.’

‘A few days ago I’d have agreed. But I’ve been too quick to see Hortense as a victim. It can be a fatal mistake to underestimate someone. She’s tougher than she looks. Tougher than I gave her credit for. Either way we should find her.’

Charles took her arm and drew her over to the sofa. ‘What about Lady Pendarves? Was it her earring?’

“Yes.” She quickly recounted her talk with Caroline Pendarves and then her visit to the Home Office. “As best I could make out—without coming right out and asking Teddy, which would have betrayed how little I knew—Vickers is some sort of agent for Carfax. Last night Vickers met with Will Gordon and now he’s gone off somewhere.”

“I have a difficult time seeing Will Gordon as an informer.”

“I don’t like to think it of him.“ Mélanie unhooked the clasps on her pelisse with rifle-fire precision. “But he’s a very good actor. You’d be surprised at what a good actor can pull off.”

“My dear girl. I lived with you for seven years.”

“Someone betrayed that Raoul would be in the park the night before last. We have a limited number of candidates—Simon, Raoul, Hapgood, Will.”

“Or some as yet unknown person who somehow managed to overhear them.”

“Without their realizing it.”

“Will fought the attackers just as much as O’Roarke and you and I did.”

Mélanie shrugged out of her pelisse. It slithered about her on the sofa in a pool of gray velvet and rose-colored silk. “Once you and I arrived on the scene, the odds of Raoul getting away were greater. Will might have changed his tactics.”

“He hurled himself into the fray before we arrived.”

“But only just. Suppose he’d tumbled to the fact that we were following him. If it were you, darling, if it was too late to divert the people following you, and you knew they could turn the tide of the fight— What would you have done?”

“Adapted,” Charles said. “Point taken.”

“Suppose Vickers was running the agent provocateur operations on the list you found in St. Juste’s things. Suppose he brought St. Juste in. He may have known who St. Juste really was. Lady Pendarves said he was at school with her husband, which means he’d also have been at school with Arthur Mallinson.”

“They all went to Winchester.“ Charles dug his fingers into his hair. “Where are you hypothesizing Will fits into this?”

“One of Vickers’s agents. Planted in the theatre, probably to get close to Simon. We still don’t know where Will came from before he appeared to audition at the Tavistock.”

“What about Will’s relationship with Pendarves?”

“It could have been part of a plan, though I can’t work out how at the moment. Or it could have just happened. Romantic attachment can bloom in the midst of scheming.”

“So I’ve heard tell.”

“Though I find it a bit suspicious that Vickers and Will seem to be working together and happen to be having affairs with a husband and wife.”

Charles shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Mel. It fits the facts but not what we know about the people involved.”

“Sometimes you have to ignore what you think you know about people.”

“I wouldn’t—“

“You were wrong about me.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“You did what you did because you believed in it.”

“Perhaps Will believes this is the only way to save the country from revolution.”

“If you’d heard him arguing his beliefs two nights ago—“

“A good agent has to be able to argue the opposite side.”

He looked into her bright, hard eyes. “Damn it, Mel, stop treating this like a game. These aren’t chess pieces, these are our friends.”

“You think I’ve forgotten that?”

“I think you can get so caught up in solving the equation that you forget—“

“What’s at stake? I haven’t forgotten that for a moment, Charles. I’m trying to hold everything else at bay so I can solve the equation as quickly as possible. Before Raoul gets killed.”

Her gaze had turned to shattered crystal. He grasped her shoulders. “I know— No, I don’t know, but I can guess.“ He slid his grip down her arms and gathered her hands in his. “But you aren’t—“

“Don’t say I’m not objective. We’re neither of objective in this. But I’ve always been good at setting aside my feelings. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“You’re not the only one concerned about O’Roarke. Or the only one who shares a history with him.”

Mélanie’s gaze flickered over his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s the least of what you should be thinking about just now.”

She looked down at her hands, still clasped in his own. “That’s just it, though. We can’t be sure of anyone. Even—“

“What?”

She pulled her hands from his clasp and gripped her elbows. “Not long after I started working for Raoul I helped him on a mission. He was posing as a French deserter. I was traveling with him, posing as his mistress. He was pretending he wanted to sell information to the English, in order to get some English soldiers to confide in him. But they started to suspect him. He needed to allay their fears long enough to put to use the information he’d uncovered. So one day in the village tavern he had men in French uniforms grab me in front of one of the English soldiers and send word to Raoul that he had to turn himself over to them or they’d cut my throat. Raoul arrived, the French men tied him up and marched him off. The English soldiers said he was a romantic fool. It must have been weeks before they realized he’d betrayed him.”

Charles watched her. He felt as though he’d swallowed ashes. “That doesn’t prove this is a trick.”

“No,” Mélanie said. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

Before he could reply a rap sounded at the door followed by Roth’s entrance. He held a sealed paper in his hand. “I arrived on your doorstep just as a messenger was delivering this. It looks to be from Mr. Addison.”

He handed Charles the paper, which did indeed bear Addison crisp handwriting. Charles slit it open.

Sir,

Last night I followed Mr. Gordon from his rehearsal at the Tavistock to his lodgings and then to Rules in Covent Garden. He appeared to have an appointment with a dark-haired gentleman whom I believe to be Mr. Vickers, attached to the Home Office. They supped at the back of the restaurant (I could not unfortunately, sit close enough to overhear their conversation, but it appeared to be of a serious nature, though not contentious). Mr. Gordon slipped out through the back door. I suspect he had determined that he was being followed and was attempting to give me the slip, though I managed to pick up his trail without too much difficulty.

When he left Rules, he went to a livery stable, hired a horse and left London by the Dover road. I followed him. I am writing this from the Leather Bottle in Clobham where Mr. Gordon stopped to change horses. I will leave word for you at post houses along the way in the event that you wish to follow.

Yours in haste,

M.A.

“Will wouldn’t like being followed,” Charles said. “If he realized what was happening, he might have tried to give Addison the slip purely to make a point.”

“But that doesn’t explain his meeting with Vickers. Or why he left London.“ Mélanie gave Roth the same quick, unemotional outline of her morning she’d given Charles. “It looks as if Will may be working with Vickers,” she concluded, “though Charles has his doubts.”

Roth nodded. “The only question seems to be which of us follows Gordon and Addison?”

Mélanie exchanged a glance with Charles.

“All of us,” she said.