by Tracy Grant
"Have you told Mélanie?" Julien asked, his voice almost too casual.
"Not yet." Malcolm hesitated. "I think a part of me didn't truly believe it until I talked to you."
Julien turned his head and lifted a brow. "A bit ironic isn't it? With all my pose of independence, I was Carfax's creature."
"I don't think you were ever Carfax's creature."
"Not entirely. But more than I'd like."
"Did he help you stage your death?" There was still so much Malcolm didn't know about Julien St. Juste. Arthur Mallinson.
"Oh, no. I did that. I needed to. Father was going to have me arrested for treason."
For all the shocks of the day, for all the mysteries of Julien's life, Malcolm stared at the other man.
"Not that there weren't plenty of advantages to disappearing," Julien said. "But I'm not sure it would have occurred to me without that." He stared at a rare splash of mud on his immaculate boots. "You remember the Unicorn Rebellion in Barbados?"
Even at the age of seven, Malcolm had heard of it. A group of escaped slaves had commandeered a British naval ship, the HMS Unicorn, and sailed her to freedom in Canada. They had taken the ship when most of the crew were onshore, but most of those who had been on board had been killed, including the captain, as had a number of people on the plantations the slaves escaped. "It was the talk of London," Malcolm said. He remembered his mother and Raoul bent over a newspaper account together, his mother's exclaiming over the loss of life, Raoul's saying, How many lives would have been lost if they hadn't escaped?
Julien stared across the dry winter flowerbeds. "My father had invested in munitions. He was shipping them to the Caribbean. My mother's maid was still in our household, and she was in communication with slaves on my grandfather's plantation—which my father owned by then—who were among the ringleaders in the rebellion. I figured out how to smuggle them a message to let them know where the weapons were stored. The house my mother grew up in burned down that night. My grandfather's brother's son—my cousin—was managing the plantation for my father. He and his wife and two of his sons died. I have enough of a conscience that that will haunt me forever. But some of the slaves who escaped to Canada were my cousins as well. I exchange letters with one of them. She has five children who are growing up and able to forge their own lives. I'm sorry for a lot of things I've done. But I'm not sorry for my actions over the Unicorn."
"Raoul would agree with you. I rather think I do."
Julien shot a look at him. "Loss of life weighs more with you than with anyone I know."
"Without the weapons, the rebels would have been massacred. And an unconscionable number die in the course of everyday life on plantations."
Julien fixed his gaze on a leafless tree branch. "I'd like to say I did it out of a deep-seated belief in abolition. Which I certainly support, to the extent I support anything, and I support rather more than I'd have admitted to even a few months ago. But the truth is it was at least half to get back at my father. He killed my mother, you know."
Malcolm felt himself go still. "He—"
"Oh, he didn't do it with his own hand. He didn't even order someone else to do it. But she was miserable. From the start of the marriage, I suspect. Certainly for as long as I could remember. England was cold and damp. She missed home. I remember her talking about it. The warmth of the sun. The beaches where the water was actually warm. Josephine talked about the same things when she talked about Martinique."
"I never thought—" Bits and pieces of what Malcolm knew about Julien St. Juste merged with bits and pieces of what he knew about Arthur Mallinson. "You and Josephine had the Caribbean in common."
"Not precisely. I'd never been to the Caribbean. But I'd heard enough from my mother that I could understand what Josephine was talking about."
"Did she—"
"Did Josephine know who I was? No. I'd have been mad to reveal it. But I think her being from the Caribbean helped me understand her and that understanding infused our relationship." He said it so easily, this man who was accustomed to disdain any references to any sort of human relationship. "She'd been in an arranged marriage as a young girl, just as my mother had. She talked about being an outsider when she first came to Paris. My mother was an outsider who had to navigate an alien society, just as Josephine did. It was years later before I really understood how hard that must have been for her." He swung his head round to look at Malcolm. "I suspect it's been hard for Mélanie as well."
"Yes," Malcolm said. "It has been. Harder, I think, than I realized for a long time."
Julien nodded. "Hard for Kitty as well, I would imagine. Living in British society after she married Ashford. Living here now." His gaze swept the square like that of one scouting terrain. "You know the beau monde. Outsiders never really belong. You can sip tea with them. You can dance at their balls. You can marry their children. But you're never really one of the club."
"No you aren't." Moments from his life with Mélanie shot through Malcolm's memory. Walking into a ball with her on his arm. Driving in a carriage. Taking their place in a box at the theatre. Looks he hadn't really registered because he'd never cared what anyone thought of him and never had to, because whatever he thought of the beau monde, his place in it was assured. "But I wouldn't discount what Kitty can manage."
"I wouldn't discount Kitty in any way. But managing isn't the same as being happy."
"I think Mel would say she's happy now. Especially now we're not playing so much at trying to belong." Why the devil had they, for so long? Simply because they thought they should?
Julien shot a glance at him. "Mélanie at least has you. My father never really tried to disguise that he'd married my mother for her fortune. He'd make the most cutting remarks to her. In front of me. In front of guests. I'm not sure which embarrassed him more, the fact that her mother was African or the fact that her father made his fortune in trade. He enjoyed the fortune, but he wasn't proud of how they came by it. I don't know it for a certainty, but I suspect he hit my mother. She certainly had more bruises than one would expect in the normal course of life." He drew a breath. His fingers had curled inwards. "When I was five, she almost ran away with a footman she'd fallen in love with. She only stayed because of me. At least that's what I gather from the servants' gossip I pieced together later. Apparently she was actually on the point of slipping out of the house when I woke up and called out and she changed her mind." He shook his head, his gaze locked on the distance. "Funny the difference a childish nightmare could make. I remember how she'd smile at Gavin—the footman—and how sad she seemed after he left. Then she died trying to have another baby. Which of course wouldn't have happened if she'd had the sense to run off."
"Julien." Malcolm put a hand on the other man's arm. "It isn't your fault that your mother didn't want to leave her child. All of us who are parents would probably have made the same decision."
Julien gave a quick nod, though he didn't quite meet Malcolm's gaze. "I understand that a bit better now I'm—now I've got close to Kitty's children. But the fact remains if she'd left, she might well still be alive. Or at least have been happier in her last few years."
"Or miserable because she was separated from her son."
"Perhaps. In any case, her marriage was a misery, and I blamed Father. All his self-righteousness and he couldn't keep his hands off the maids. Or my governesses. Or pretty much any available female who wasn't protected by rank and fortune. Or any with rank and fortune who was willing. I'd been trying to attack him for years."
"You weren't even sixteen."
"I think I was thirteen when I started picking the lock on his dispatch box, looking for information I could use against him"
"You had a lot to be angry at him for. And your mother—"
"My mother was never a slave. But her mother was one until my grandfather freed her. My grandmother's mother was the mistress of the man who owned her. Assuming one can use the word 'mistress' to describe someone who could scarcely
have said no. Assuming she had even the illusion of choice and he didn't simply force her into his bed when they made my grandmother. For that matter, I don't know that one could say my grandmother went to my grandfather willingly, considering that I doubt he'd have freed her if she hadn't agreed to be his wife."
"I know what it's like to have an ugly history." Malcolm said.
"And out of it, I was born to a world of privilege. I could have focused my efforts on combating my father's slave holdings. Or I could have bided my time until I could inherit from him and free his slaves. Instead I was focused on a way to bring him down."
Malcolm regarded Julien as he completed this dispassionate statement. "You also struck a blow for freedom. I know your abilities, but even so, that's quite something to have pulled off before your sixteenth birthday."
"Yes, well, I didn't precisely pull it off. Uncle Hubert figured it out. He came down to Carfax Court and told Father. They were closeted together for hours. Uncle Hubert was ready to hush the whole thing up. Father insisted I had to face the consequences. For the good of Britain, supposedly. And maybe because he was afraid of what I might expose about him. He'd been overcharging the war office for guns for years. Ask your friend Palmerston to look into the accounts In any case, it seemed prudent to remove myself from their control. I slipped out of the house and took out a sailboat."
"You did all of this alone?"
Julien hesitated. "No, Sylvie helped me."
"Sylvie St. Ives?"
"She was Sylvie de Fancot then. She and her family were staying at Carfax Court. She helped me set up the whole thing."
"She'd only have been—"
"Thirteen. And quite brilliant already."
"You were friends."
"Of a sort. We both knew what it was to be outsiders. We weren't lovers yet, by the way. That came later. But Sylvie helped me set up my supposed drowning. I got to France on a smuggler's boat. I knew all the local smugglers, that's where I'd get my brandy. I managed to take some money and some candlesticks and three of my father's snuffboxes to sell. For a month it was rather a lark. I met a woman about twenty years older than I was who was happy to help with my bills and happy to share other things. She's the one who taught me how to dye my hair. Her own was a quite spectacular gold."
"As one who's struggled with dyed hair undercover, I'm in awe of how you've managed."
Julien gave a twisted smile. "I started to turn gray early. That's made it easier. In any case, after a month's idyll, I walked into the local café one day to see Uncle Hubert. He said he hadn't come to drag me back to Britain. He had no desire to see me put on trial. It would be bad for the family and a waste of my talents. His word."
"And your supposed death left him heir to the earldom."
"My being hanged would have done the same, but yes, it did. I'd never had much interest in being Lord Carfax—I wanted to be as far as possible from the man my father was, so why should I want his title?—so that didn't much concern me. Uncle Hubert said he'd keep my secret."
"If you went to work for him."
"Once a spymaster…Though even then it was clear it wouldn't be an exclusive arrangement. He gave me an initial assignment—to retrieve some papers from the local garrison—and he helped me get credentials to set myself up in Paris. But from the start it was clear I'd choose my employers. I didn't share information about Josephine with him. At least, not all of it. As I got older and took on more jobs, his control lessened. But he could still reel me in when he wanted to. He had papers that proved what I'd done. Which gave him a certain control over me—tempered by the fact that I was living a different identity, in any case. Unfortunately, the papers also gave him control over Sylvie."
"I always wondered how she came to work for him," Malcolm said. "I thought it was her family's straitened circumstances."
Julien's mouth tightened. "That was only part of it. She couldn't leave if she wanted to. Sylvie has a lot to answer for, but what Carfax did to her as a girl is damnable. She's probably right that if she'd married Lydgate it would have been a disaster, but I do think she should have had a chance to try. I don't think much of what he did to Lydgate either. Though Lydgate could have broken away, at least at the start."
"Yes," Malcolm said, Oliver Lydgate's betrayal still rank in his throat, "he could have done. Though he was penniless when Carfax recruited him. That's something I've never known."
"Nor have I, precisely."
"You've been on your own, far more than I ever have, at least in terms of fortune. And so years later you and Sylvie and Oliver all wanted to break away from Carfax."
"As did other of Carfax's agents we'd come to know. Craven, of all people, gave me an idea of where we could get papers that would give us leverage over Carfax. Even I couldn't manage it on my own."
Malcolm thought back to the exchange he'd heard between Carfax and Julien in Hyde Park a year and a half ago. "So you got the incriminating evidence back."
"Most of it. Carfax still knows what I've done, so as he pointed out to me that night in Hyde Park, I'll never be entirely free. But then, I knew what he'd done, and the truth of who I am could destroy him, in a sense. I'm sorry, by the way, that I didn't get him to protect Mélanie when I was negotiating. I didn't know he knew about her. My letting it slip to Sylvie was one of my more criminally careless moments."
"It's all right." It was the obvious response, but Malcolm found he meant it. "Italy was good for us in a lot of ways. And Aunt Frances got Mel a more thorough pardon than you could have negotiated with Carfax."
"That last is true. I still can't forgive myself for telling Sylvie."
"We all have lapses."
"You're a better man than I, Rannoch. That was a lapse I shouldn't have made. In any case, I was far less under Carfax's control after I traded papers with him. But I could never entirely break free."
Malcolm studied Julien. The fine-boned face beneath the distinctive shock of fair hair he now knew was dyed was still the face of the eight-year-old boy in the painting who had been Viscount Worsley. "Don't you want it back?"
"What?" Julien gave an uncharacteristically rough laugh. "The title? Carfax Court? Can you see my presiding over an estate and sitting in the House of Lords?"
"I can see you doing just about anything, St. Juste. Arthur."
"Can you see my wanting to?"
"That depends. You, of all people, should know we can change."
Julien stretched his legs out in front of him and contemplated the toes of his boots. "I ran away for a reason. A number of reasons. To protect myself. But also because I had no desire for the life I was destined for. And little use for what my father had made of it. As I said, I wanted to be as different from him as possible."
"I can't see your being an Earl Carfax who was remotely like your father. Or like your uncle."
"I suspect they'd agree with you." Julien fixed his gaze across the square. Two young men with high shirt points had emerged from a coffeehouse and were walking along the pavement as though they'd imbibed more than coffee. "Do you know the Canaletto at Carfax Court?"
Malcolm pictured the painting of a Venetian canal that hung in the grand salon. "It's a beautiful piece. One of my favorites."
"Your—Alistair procured it for my father."
Malcolm gripped the side of the bench. The wind seemed to have shifted, cutting against his face. "St. Juste. Are you saying your father was an Elsinore League member?"
Julien met Malcolm's gaze, eyes narrowed against the sun, or perhaps against the possibilities. "I'm not sure. The last time I saw my father I hadn't even heard of the League. But Alistair came to the house. Probably more than you realized."
"I'm sure more than I realized. I was scarcely aware of my—of Alistair's activities."
"Alistair supplied my father with works of art. We know he did that for League members. He may have done it for others who weren't League members, but it's suggestive. And it might help explain Uncle Hubert's obsession with the League. I
don't think much of Uncle Hubert, but he has twice the understanding my father had. If not four or five times. If Father was a member of the League, I suspect being on the outskirts would have driven Uncle Hubert mad."
"I always thought being outside the League bothered Carfax. But I never thought of your father's being an insider."
"If the League had been sensible, they'd have made Uncle Hubert a member and co-opted him. But they obviously didn't see what he'd develop into. And he might have turned on them anyway. He's fairly focused on what's good for him, but he does give a bit more than lip service to what he thinks is good for Britain. Which is often the opposite of what actually is."
"You're sounding like a Radical."
"To hear my father and Uncle Hubert tell it, I was one before I disappeared. But as I said, I can't claim to have been driven by conviction."
"I think we're all driven by a complex mix of things." Malcolm watched Julien as the wind shifted the clouds overhead. Despite Mel's and Raoul's warnings, he'd always rather liked St. Juste, but he had at first seemed like an amoral agent for hire with quixotic personal loyalties. Odd to have got to this place where he felt a sense of kinship with the other man over some of the things that mattered most to him. "The League never told you your father was one of their number?" Malcolm asked.
"They've never admitted they know who I am."
"And Carfax? Your uncle Hubert, that is? Have you asked him about your father and the League?"
Julien hesitated. "I own I'm not fond of discussing my father. Especially with Uncle Hubert. But I did ask him once. However much I may try to say my father doesn't matter, his having a connection to the League would be significant. Uncle Hubert wouldn't give me a straight answer. Not surprisingly, as he rarely gives anyone a straight answer about anything. But his evasions can speak volumes."
Malcolm looked at Julien. Twenty-four hours ago he'd have said his personal connection to the other man had begun with his wife. Julien flashed a quick smile. "I know. I don't think much of my father, and Alistair Rannoch wasn't your father at all. But it's odd imagining a connection between them. My father was a natural League member, really. Out for his own gain, not scrupulous about how he got it. Unlike Uncle Hubert, who at least has his beliefs of a flexible sort."
