by Tracy Grant
She nodded. "I look at you and I'm certain. And you're never going to forgive me now for doubting you, are you?"
"I don't think what's between us is what's crucial, at the moment." Will gripped her hands where they clung to his waistcoat then detached himself and turned to Mélanie and Simon. "Do you think the mole killed Thornsby?"
"It's certainly something we have to consider," Mélanie said. She hesitated, because Will didn't yet know the mole was his cousin.
"But—" Letty was hugging her arms round herself, digging her fingers into the folds of her shawl, as though Will's moving away had left her physically bereft. "Why did Lewis say I'd feel differently about those I cared about when I knew the truth? Was he trying to mislead me and make me think it was Will?"
"It's possible he was," Mélanie said. "I suspect he sensed what Will meant to you and was jealous."
"But when the truth came out, I'd have known. Of course, just about everyone in the Tavistock company is a friend. But I'm not sure I'd call them the people I'm closest to. Although—" She met Will's gaze for a moment in a look that had nothing to do with the romantic tangle between them.
"We share everything," Will said. "We create characters and worlds together. We speak our own language. What else is a company of players?"
Letty nodded. "Yes, precisely. Perhaps that's what Lewis meant. Perhaps he was even jealous—not of an individual person, but of what I share with the company."
"That's very insightful," Mélanie said. "I suspect he may well have been. But as it happens, we know who the mole is. And it isn't Will or any member of the Tavistock company."
Letty looked at her, at once hopeful and wary. Will raised a brow. "Who?"
Suddenly Will was the one Mélanie longed to comfort. "It was Donald."
While Will went white, she told him quickly what Carfax had told her.
Will scraped a hand over his hair. "Christ. I should have known his coming to see me in London was suspect."
"You couldn't possibly have done."
"After a childhood in which we were strikingly lacking in sympathy, I'm a fool that I didn't. I suppose that's why he hasn't been about the theatre the last day or so. I can't believe I didn't see it, never suspected—"
Letty reached for his hand. "Perhaps you wanted a reminder of your home. You couldn't talk to any of us about it."
Will looked at her. "You aren't surprised?"
"About who you are? I mean, I knew you had a family somewhere, and I've wondered, but with everything else going on, that scarcely seems the thing to focus on."
Will gave a faint smile. "Quite right." He squeezed her hand and looked back at Mélanie and Simon. "Why was Thornsby planning to confront Donald? Why not simply tell Simon? Or Kit or Roger?"
"Probably because Thornsby had his own loyalties outside the Levellers," Malcolm said. "He appears to have been working for a group called the Elsinore League. Who were also opposed to the Levellers' activities."
"So Lewis was a mole?" Letty said.
"We don't know quite what he was reporting, but yes, he seems to have been," Mélanie said.
"Oh, my God," Letty said. "All my suspicions of Will, and Lewis was doing the exact same thing. I should be shocked and sickened and say I can't believe it of him. But—I liked Lewis. I wasn't in love with him, but I truly did like him. But the thing is, I can believe it of him. Because he didn't believe in what he was doing, the way Will did. The way you do," she added, looking at Simon. "And Kit and Roger and even Brandon. Lewis was playing at it. I'm an actor. I can tell acting. Especially acting that doesn't have conviction behind it."
"You're an astute woman, Letty," Simon said.
"Did Thornsby know Donald was my cousin?" Will asked.
"I don't know," Mélanie said, "but perhaps that's what he meant when he told Letty it would impact those she cared about."
"There's more," Letty said. "Lewis told me he'd uncovered something dangerous. That he couldn't be sure what would happen, but that he wanted me to believe he was trying to do the right thing. He said that, when he proposed. Do you know what he meant?"
Mélanie cast a quick look at Simon. "No. It's possible he was trying to say he was doing the right thing in betraying the Levellers. But it's also possible he was betraying the people he was working for."
Letty shook her head. "I didn't know him at all. I suppose that makes it all the worse that I actually contemplated marrying him."
"Choices in life are complicated," Will said. "One makes them for different reasons. I shouldn't have blamed you for what you wanted. You shouldn't blame yourself."
Letty met his gaze. "The problem was I didn't know what I wanted. And now, of course, I can never be sure if I'd have gone through with it."
"We can never know what any of us might have done in different circumstances," Will said. "It's not a play where we can write alternate endings."
"No," Letty said. "We're just left to wonder."
Will touched her cheek. "No sense in dwelling on what didn't happen. We have enough to do to take care of the future. We have a villain to catch. And a show to open."
"Malcolm." Amelia Carfax spoke from the stairs as the footman admitted Malcolm to Carfax House. She was midway down the stairs, gowned in bronze-green silk, her hair immaculately curled. She had been greeting ball guests at the head of those stairs for over twenty years. "It's too long since we've seen you. And Mélanie. I imagine she's busy with her play."
"She's at the theatre now." Malcolm gave his hat and gloves to the footman.
"We're looking forward to the opening." Lady Carfax descended the stairs. "I understand Mr. St. Juste married Mrs. Ashford at your house last night."
Macolm met the gaze of his childhood friend's mother. "Yes. We're very happy for them."
"David told me." Lady Carfax smoothed a crease from her full sleeve. "He said he was happy for them as well. He said he was happy about a number of things. I am endeavoring to emulate him."
Malcolm met her gaze. Even when he'd been a child, she hadn't been the sort to invite hugs, but he had a sudden impulse to give her one. "This must have been a great shock."
"In some ways. In others, I've been preparing for it for a long time." Lady Carfax smiled and touched his arm. "You can't get in the middle of this, Malcolm. The Mallinson family will have to sort it out." She stepped back and glanced down the hall. "You'll find Hubert in his study. I think he's expecting you."
On his way to the study, Malcolm paused to glance at the painting of Arthur and Pamela. Arthur had been about the same age Leo was now. It would be good for Julien and Kitty to be in this house with the children. It should be theirs. But it was very odd to imagine Carfax House without the present Lord and Lady Carfax.
"Glad you're here, Malcolm." Carfax looked up from his desk and for once actually pushed his papers aside and gestured Malcolm to a chair. "I've seen Donald McDevitt," he said, when Malciolm was seated. "When I confronted him with Miss Blanchard's story, he admitted he met Thornsby at the Tavistock the evening Thornsby was killed. He says Thornsby claimed to know he—McDevitt—was a mole working for me and that he'd been setting up agent provocateur operations. McDevitt says he denied it and stalked out of the theatre. He said he didn't tell me because he didn't want to admit he'd been found out. Also I suspect because he didn't want to put himself at the scene of the murder. He claims Thornsby was alive when he left. That he had the sense Thorsnby was waiting to see someone else."
"Do you believe him?"
Carfax twirled his pen between his fingers. "He certainly has a motive. But I'm inclined to think he's telling the truth. For one thing, according to Julien, Thornsby's murder looks like the work of a professional. Which McDevitt isn't."
Malcolm nodded. "So we're still looking for Thornsby's killer."
"Most likely. I can't be sure about McDevitt, of course. I'm having him watched, and we may learn more. But I doubt he'll go back to the theatre."
"Do you know anything that would make Horac
e Smytheton of interest recently?"
"Smytheton?" Carfax's brows rose. "The last time I was him was in the grand salon at the Tavistock during the interval for Twelfth Night, telling Tanner how he'd have staged the production. I must say Simon was very patient. What's Smytheton got to do with this?"
"The day before Thornsby was killed, he asked Beverston about Smytheton's role in the League."
Carfax set his pen on the blotter. "Smytheton was quite a capable agent in France, for all bumbling façade. I watched him and Jennifer Mansfield for quite a while after they settled in Britain. But there's nothing I know of that he's been involved in lately."
"That you know of," Malcolm said.
"Quite," Carfax said.
Chapter 41
"Lewis Thornsby seems to have changed in the last days of his life." Malcolm adjusted the last fold in his cravat and glanced in the looking glass on the chest of drawers beside his shaving kit. After all, tonight was the opening of his wife's play. His appearance warranted a bit more care than usual.
"Yes." Mélanie was at her dressing table, fastening her earrings. "He told Beverston he was changing his mind about what was important. He told Letty he wanted her to think well of him. And Donald McDevitt said Lewis told him he'd finally made up his mind about what he had to do. Oddly, for all Donald's lies, I'm inclined to think that was the truth."
"So am I." Malcolm reached for his black cassimere coat and pulled it on. "I thought at first it was that Lewis had decided to propose to Letty. Now I'm wondering if there was more to it. If he was turning on the League."
Mélanie fastened her second earring. "If that was the case, something must have changed in the past few days. Or he learned something new. But what?"
"What indeed?" Malcolm said. "He knew about the papers. He was obviously more than willing to go along with that."
"Perhaps he drew the line when they decided to have Kitty killed. No, that doesn't work. Kitty's meeting with Simon and Kit and Hapgood wasn't set up until after Lewis was murdered, so they couldn't have set the attack in motion before."
Mélanie turned from her dressing table. She was wearing a new gown of rose-violet silk with lavender lace overlaid on the bodice. Her hair was pinned back and threaded with a slender pearl bandeau, but loose curls still tumbled down her neck.
"You look beautiful," he said.
Mélanie smiled. "I'll admit I'm not averse to flattery. I need all the confidence I can muster tonight. But how I look is hardly the chief concern."
Malcolm turned to the dressing table and picked up a black velvet jewel box he'd fetched from Asprey's that morning. "Something to commemorate the occasion," he said, holding it out to her.
He watched closely as she opened the box, wondering if he'd chosen right. He usually chose delicate jewelry, and not always the most expensive stones. But this wasn't a jewel at all, but a simple circular gold medallion inscribed with F & G, the initials of her two main characters.
A smile broke across Mélanie's face. "It's perfect."
He crossed to her side and kissed her. "Happy opening, sweetheart."
"I'm glad you could be here, Jeremy."
Roth grinned. He was in unaccustomedly formal attire, a dark evening coat and trousers, and a gray silk waistcoat. "I wouldn't want to miss it."
Malcolm cast a gaze round the passage behind the boxes at the Tavistock. It seemed as though everyone he'd known in his life in the beau monde and the diplomatic corps was in the theatre now. "There's no reason to expect anything to go wrong. The assassination plot was a fabrication never meant to become reality. Thornsby's murder doesn't seem to have had anything to do with the play."
Roth put up a hand to his neckcloth, tied tighter than the loose style he usually affected. "But you're worried."
"Difficult not to be."
"For what it's worth," Roth said, "I'll own to being a bit so myself. And also to realizing there's no reason we should be. Let's try to enjoy the evening for Mélanie. And then tomorrow we can return to the puzzle of Thornsby's death."
Malcolm smiled and went into their box, while Roth went off to join his sister and his sons. Laura, Raoul, Kitty, and Julien were already in the Rannoch box with the children. Harry and Cordy and Frances and Archie and their children were to the right, and Rupert and Bertrand to the left with Rupert's wife, Gabrielle, and her lover, Nick Gordon, and Gaby and Rupert's son, Stephen, who had just come up to London from their country house, as well as Blanca and Addison. Nerezza and Ben had remained in Berkeley Square, as they still couldn't be sure how safe Nerezza was in public. Aline and Geoffrey were supposed to be in the Davenports' box, but hadn't yet arrived. Paul and Juliette and their children were sitting with Manon's husband, Crispin. Malcolm saw Kit with his mother and his younger sister, Selena, further along the line of boxes with Roger and his wife, Dorinda, though Sofia wasn't with them. And Carfax and Lady Carfax with two of their daughters and sons-in-law, Mary and Gui, and Isobel and Oliver. David was in the next box with the children and his youngest sister, Lucinda. Amy and Teddy were waving at Colin and Emily, while David tried to subdue Jamie. Malcolm waved to his friend and wondered if Lady Carfax's gaze had drifted to Julien and Kitty and, if so, what she thought.
Malcolm waved to his young friends, Sandy Trenor and Bet Simcox, then glanced across the theatre and caught sight of Lady Shroppington. Not surprising, perhaps. Everyone who wielded any sort of influence in Mayfair seemed to be there. There was a ripple through the crowd as the prince regent took his place in the royal box with a large party. Including Sir Horace Smytheton, Malcolm noted. Perhaps not surprising. Sir Horace had been a crony of the prince in his younger days, and he was the Tavistock's patron.
"I understand he made a considerable effort to get Prinny here," Frances said, leaning over the rail from her own box. "Horace is very excited about Mélanie's play."
"Sir Horace has always been a good judge of literature," Malcolm said with a grin. "I wonder—"
He broke off as the curtains at the back of the box stirred and Aline's husband, Geoffrey, stepped into the box. Claudia was tugging at his hand, but there was no sign of Aline.
"Allie sends her apologies," Geoffrey said, as Claudia ran to sit by Chloe at the rail. "She and Sofia were making crucial progress on the coded papers and didn't want to leave it. She insisted we come. In truth, I think she wanted us out of the way so they could focus. Sofia sent me with a message for Kit."
Mélanie slipped into the Rannoch box just before the curtain. Her face was taut, but also alight with excitement. She pulled Jessica onto her lap. Jessica, who even at three found the theatre magical, went still as the play began, caught by its spell. As was Malcolm. For all the worries he had confided to Roth, he felt himself escape into the world his wife had created.
The intervals passed in a whirl of visits to the box, getting ices for the children, ordering and opening champagne. One could feel the excitement in the air. It was going splendidly, but he didn't dare say that to Mélanie. All he could do was smile and press her hand and press his champagne glass to hers.
They were partway through the third act when the curtains stirred at the back of the box. Malcolm looked over his shoulder to see Aline and Sofia. He pushed himself to his feet and went to meet them at the back of the box. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it."
Aline gripped his hand and nearly crushed his bones. As she turned her face into the light, he saw the tension in her gaze. Behind her Sofia was pale as bleached linen. "We decoded the papers," Aline said. "You should see them at once."
Malcolm followed them into the anteroom without a word.
Aline opened her reticule and pulled out three sheets of closely written paper. She held them out wordlessly.
I don't know where this will go. But I want to leave a record. I'm afraid that the League want to make use of the assassination plot that was only ever meant to be pretend. Not to assassinate the regent. To get rid of one of his party. Sir Horace Smytheton.
Chapter 42<
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Malcolm looked from Aline to Sofia. "Allie, get Harry and Archie and Rupert and Bertrand and Addison. Sofia, get Roth."
He looked back into the box and gestured to Mélanie. She came at once, as did Raoul and Laura and Kitty and Julien. Malcolm held out the paper. "We have to move the regent's party," he said. "As quickly as possible, without a full panic. Take Frances, Mel. The two of you should be able to do it."
Mélanie ran into the passage without further speech.
Malcolm looked at Julien. "Which box would they shoot from?"
Julien pulled back the curtain to the box, glanced round the theatre. "Third from the end would be best."
Malcolm studied the box. It was full, as were all the boxes. In fact, Emily Cowper and Lord Palmerston were in it with her brother, William Lamb, and his wife, Caroline.
"How they devil would they manage it?" Kitty asked, standing beside Julien and Malcolm. "I think everyone in the boxes with the right angle is someone Malcolm knows."
Malcolm was scanning the boxes with his opera glasses. "Yes. Of course, I can't swear none of them is working for the League, but I can't see someone known to society taking this risk."
"No, it would take a marksman," Julien said. "They'll have hired a professional. My guess is the assassin has the rifle already hidden in the antechamber. He—or possibly she—will slip through the curtains while people are looking at the stage. Probably disguised as a footman. Take the shot, drop the rifle, run, shedding the footman's costume as he goes. At least, that's the way I'd do it."
"Right." Malcolm turned to the others. "So, while Mélanie's clearing out the royal box, we fan out in the passage behind every box that has a possible angle. Stop anyone we don't know from going in. And hope there aren't a lot of orders for champagne. Oh, Archie, good," he added as Archie and Harry came into the anteroom, closely followed by Rupert and Bertrand. "I need you to get the regent's carriage to meet him at the side entrance. Mélanie and Frances will bring him there."
