Secrets of a Lady

by Tracy Grant

  Mélanie’s gaze drifted over the room. Her lip-rouge-stained glass of whisky stood abandoned on the dressing table beside the rouge pots and perfume flasks and jewel boxes. Her throat closed at the sight. Little more than an hour ago, she and Charles had been laughing in this room in blithe unconcern. Little more than an hour before that she had been fending off the Marqués de Carevalo’s attentions and eating overrich lobster patties, as though this night were no different from any other.

  Colin, her son, was missing, taken from his bedchamber and spirited into the dark London night. The knowledge reverberated through her with a force that bone and muscle could scarcely contain.

  Logic said that whoever had taken Colin was long gone and the best way to help him was to wait for the Bow Street officers, but her body screamed with the impulse to run from the house and scour the streets of Mayfair shouting her son’s name.

  Yet beneath the fear and disbelief, guilt twisted her guts. She had thought she was safe in this beautiful house, with her beautiful children and her brilliant if self-contained husband. She had thought she had put the past behind her. There were moments when she had feared otherwise, when she had known that one couldn’t separate what one had been from what one was now and what one would become. But never, sacrebleu, never, had she thought her children would pay for her crimes.

  Jessica made a protesting sound. Mélanie willed the tension from her arms. Was that why Colin had been taken? Because of who his mother was? She could not make sense of it, yet the fear that it was true gnawed at her insides.

  The knife’s edge on which she had balanced for so many years turned inward, slashing through elaborate layers of defense and pretense, laying bare the cold, hard fear that had always lurked at the heart of her marriage. Should she tell Charles the whole? Would the truth serve any purpose? Or would it merely smash their marriage to bits without doing Colin any good?

  “Mel.” Her husband’s voice came from the doorway.

  She jerked her head up. She looked into the deep-set gray eyes that could see so much and yet from which she had kept her deepest secrets hidden for seven years. For a moment, she doubted her own ability to dissemble.

  “The Bow Street officers are here,” Charles said. “They’ve gone outside to look at the garden. They made it clear I wasn’t to get in the way. Since I’d already drawn my own conclusions, I left them to see if they come up with anything different.” His mouth hardened, and she could feel the need for action rippling through him. He walked toward the bed. “Jessica asleep?”

  She was, Mélanie realized. Her head had flopped against Mélanie’s arm, and her breathing was deep and even. “At last. I think she should stay in here. The Bow Street men will want to go through the nursery rooms.”

  Charles turned back the covers. Mélanie uncurled Jessica’s fingers from the collar of her gown and laid her on the Irish linen sheet. Jessica stirred but didn’t open her eyes.

  Mélanie straightened up to find Charles looking down at their daughter, his face knit in a fierce combination of love and fear and rage. She touched his arm. “She was asking for Colin. She knows something’s wrong. We’ll have to find a way to explain.”

  He nodded, the muscles in his arm bunched tight beneath her fingers. She studied his face. His hair was damp and he had got a smudge of soot on his cheek, marks of the investigating he had done himself while they waited for Bow Street. “What conclusions did you draw?” she said.

  He lifted his gaze to her. “I couldn’t find anything outside, except the footprints in the primrose bed. There were two of them. One man’s feet are longer by a good two inches. Inside—they definitely climbed in through the window, but it looks as though they left by way of the kitchen.”

  Mélanie started. “But the scrap of fabric on the windowsill—”

  “Doesn’t match Colin’s nightshirts. I compared it to one in his wardrobe. The scrap must have come from one of the thieves’ shirts. I found a faint scrape of dirt on the carpet in the corridor and more on the back stairs.”

  “You mean they climbed in through Colin’s window and then carried him down to the kitchen?”

  “I think it’s more likely Colin went downstairs on his own.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Midnight hunger pangs.”

  “Quite. When the thieves didn’t find him in his room, they guessed the kitchen was the likeliest place to look. They found him there and went out through the kitchen door into the garden.”

  The image flickered before Mélanie’s eyes with the blinding pain of sunlight striking snow-covered ground.

  Berowne stirred on the coverlet, stretching a paw toward them. Charles reached down to give the cat an absent pet. “I told the Bow Street Runner—Roth is his name—that we’d be in the small salon.”

  “Then we should go down.” Mélanie rubbed at the smudge on his face. “I’ll ask Laura to sit with Jessica.”

  He caught her hand and pressed it to his lips. Mélanie took a deep breath, gathering her forces for the interview with the Bow Street Runner. Questions had to be asked. God knew questions needed to be asked.

  How they were to be answered was another matter entirely.

  Chapter 3

  J eremy Roth, runner in the employ of the Bow Street Public Office, stepped through a swan-pedimented doorway into an airy room with sea-green walls and pristine ivory moldings. The small salon, the footman had called it. You could fit two of his own parlor quite neatly beneath the coffered ceiling and not even scrape the paint.

  The Frasers were standing in front of the veined cream marble fireplace, flanked by matched silver candlesticks, the porcelain mantel clock between them. Mélanie Fraser had her back to the door, her dark head held at a proud angle, the pin-tucked skirt of her pale blue gown falling in perfect folds round her. Charles Fraser had one hand on his wife’s shoulder, the other on the mantel, his claret-colored coat an unexpected jolt of color among the cool tones of the room.

  They could have been posing for a portrait of a typical Mayfair couple, at home in their perfect jewel box of a world. Save that this was an hour when no fashionable couple would be awake. Unless, of course, they had failed to go to bed, in which case they would probably not be in each other’s company.

  Charles Fraser lifted his gaze to the doorway. “Oh, Roth, good. Come in.” The rough Scottish lilt in his voice was more pronounced than it had been when Roth arrived. Otherwise he sounded perfectly in command of himself. Roth marveled, as he had on his arrival, at Fraser’s composure. The result of training from the cradle, no doubt. In his place, Roth would have been tearing his hair out and smashing things.

  “You haven’t met my wife,” Fraser said, as Roth advanced into the room.

  “Mrs. Fraser.” Roth inclined his head, then felt the breath catch unexpectedly in his throat. He had heard Mélanie Fraser described as beautiful. He had seen an engraving of her once, in a print shop window. Neither the description nor the picture had done her justice. He had seen women with more perfect features, more flawless complexions, more voluptuous bodies, but there was a radiance about Mélanie Fraser that made it impossible to look away. His inner defenses slammed into place. His own wife had taught him not to trust beauty.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Roth.” Her voice was as well-modulated as her husband’s, but she had a slight accent that, while not obviously French or Spanish, betrayed that English was not her native tongue. She moved toward a green satin sofa, her gown rustling softly. The only sign that she had dressed hastily was the few strands of dark hair that had escaped about her face—that, and the absence of any jewelry. She looked like a woman who always wore earrings. “I’ve had coffee sent in,” she said. “I imagine you could use it as much as we can.”

  Roth glanced at the sofa table, where a silver coffee service and an array of porcelain cups were set out on an intricately patterned blue-and-white tray that was probably Wedgwood. He wasn’t sure what startled him more, the fact that Mélanie Fraser was composed enough to mak
e such an offer or that she had been thoughtful enough to do so. In truth, the coffee would be welcome. He’d been questioning a trio of robbery suspects in the Brown Bear Tavern until past three in the morning. He had just returned to the Public Office to write up his notes when Charles Fraser’s message arrived.

  He crossed to a chair opposite the sofa, a spindly thing upholstered in a shiny cream-colored fabric. He found himself wondering how they managed to keep the upholstery clean. Perhaps they simply had it recovered every year.

  Charles Fraser dropped down on the sofa beside his wife. He moved with the loose-limbed elegance of one bred to command. “You saw the garden and Colin’s room?”

  Roth nodded. “I was hoping there’d turn out to be some mistake. But I’m afraid there’s no doubt your son was taken.”

  Mélanie Fraser set down the coffeepot with a thud that echoed through the room. Coffee spattered onto the glossy surface of the table and the delicate folds of her gown. “We know that.” Her voice shook, cutting through the cinnamon and cloves of the potpourri-scented air. “We wouldn’t have sent for you otherwise.”

  Charles Fraser put a hand on his wife’s arm. She drew a harsh breath, stirring the pleated muslin at the neck of her gown. “I’m sorry.” She jabbed the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “It’s just so bloody awful.”

  The light from the branch of candles on the sofa table fell full on her face, revealing what Roth hadn’t been able to see from the doorway. Her posture might be perfect, her voice controlled, her manners impeccable—but her eyes held a raw anguish that Roth had seen in the eyes of Billingsgate fishwives and Oxford Street milliners and Covent Garden harlots. The sick terror of a mother who fears for her child was a universal language, whatever the woman’s accent. He felt a rush of cold shame. Mélanie Fraser might not deserve more consideration than a woman of lower station, but neither did she deserve less.

  “There’s no need to apologize, Mrs. Fraser. Bloody awful sums it up very well.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “You have a good eye, Mr. Fraser. It looks as if it happened just as you guessed. They came through the garden gate and probably tossed a rope up over the ledge of the window to your son’s room. I found a few strands of rope stuck to the wall.”

  Mélanie Fraser tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it over the spilled coffee. “You’re sure they meant to take Colin? They couldn’t have been after the silver and simply stumbled across him?”

  “I’m not sure of anything, Mrs. Fraser. But they entered the house through your son’s bedchamber window, a silly thing to do if they were bent on robbery. And as far as we can tell, nothing else is missing from the house. So yes, I’d say it’s likely your son was their target.”

  She twisted the coffee-soaked handkerchief in her hands, as though she could knead answers out of the damp linen.

  Fraser was looking at his wife. Lines were etched deep into the sharp Celtic planes of his face, but otherwise his control hadn’t faltered. “They didn’t go to all this trouble to take Colin in order to do him a mischief, Mel.”

  It was not the sort of comfort most husbands would offer their wives, but Mélanie Fraser nodded. “No. There is that.” She picked up the coffeepot again and poured out three cups with painstaking care. “Cream, Mr. Roth?”

  “Black.” He leaned forward to accept the silver-rimmed cup she was holding out, close enough to catch the spicy floral scent of her skin and to see the smeared traces of blacking round her eyes.

  Charles Fraser stared into his own cup. “London is full of boys it would be all too easy to snatch off the street. So whoever took Colin must want him to extract money from us or to use as leverage against one or both of us.”

  Roth took a welcome sip of the strong, hot coffee. “That seems the likeliest explanation.” He balanced the fragile cup in his hand. “To own the truth, I’ve never come across a case like this nor heard tell of one. Young heiresses are sometimes abducted in the hope of forcing a marriage, but this is obviously something very different. As I said, the men were professionals, probably hired for the job. I don’t believe in false reassurance. But if they’ve taken your son for ransom or to use as a bargaining chip, they’ll keep him safe and healthy.”

  Fraser gave a quick, contained nod. Mélanie Fraser’s fingers whitened round the ecru porcelain of her cup.

  Roth set down his coffee cup, reached into the frayed pocket of his brown wool coat, and drew out a notebook and a pencil. “I know it’s difficult to think clearly at a time like this—”

  Fraser set his own cup down with a clatter. “My wife isn’t given to hysterics, Roth. I’ll do my best not to succumb to them myself. For God’s sake, don’t waste time sparing our sensibilities.”

  Roth met the other man’s gaze. Fraser’s gray eyes had the hard glint of tempered steel. Roth recalled that before he had been a politician, Charles Fraser had been posted at the British embassy in Lisbon, where he had earned fame for exploits beyond the usual diplomatic line. A man of action with a cold intellect. A volatile combination.

  “It was carefully planned,” Fraser continued, in a tone that made Roth wonder just who was conducting the interview. “They’d have learned the routine of the house, the arrangement of the rooms.” He looked at his wife. “My wife and I were discussing who we’ve seen about in the last few days. Tradesmen making deliveries. Hackney drivers. Coachmen and grooms. It would be easy enough for a stranger to blend in.”

  Roth nodded. “Judging by the break-in, they’re too accomplished to have drawn attention to themselves, but the patrol I brought with me is having a word with the servants in case anyone noticed anything. Which brings us back to the question of the motive.”

  Fraser picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without touching it. “Money would seem likeliest. Isn’t it at the root of most crime?”

  “It is indeed, Mr. Fraser. And it’s surprising how often the culprit proves to be a family member.” Roth looked from husband to wife. “Any relatives who’ve applied to you for a loan or whom you know to be in debt?”

  Roth expected shocked denial at this accusation against one of their own. In his experience, the higher one moved up the social ladder, the more people wanted to believe that crime was something that only existed in the dark reaches of the underworld.

  But Fraser merely said, “My brother’s a captain in the Horse Guards. Fraternal feelings aside, he married an heiress. Their income is probably larger than ours. My sister and her husband live in Scotland and they’re too proud to ask for money, let alone extort it. I have an aunt and uncle who are in Paris at the moment and a widowed aunt in Brighton. She has a taste for amorous intrigue, but she’s far too well off to indulge in anything this sordid. None of my cousins is in straitened circumstances. Oh, and there’s my grandfather. But he hasn’t left Scotland in years and he’s quite comfortably situated.”

  This last was a wild understatement. Charles Fraser’s maternal grandfather was the Duke of Rannoch. Roth inclined his head. “I appreciate your frankness.” He made some notes. “Mrs. Fraser?”

  Mélanie Fraser plucked at the skirt of her gown, her nails scraping against the sheer fabric. “I’m an only child. Both my parents were killed during the war in Spain. Between the war and the revolution, I don’t have any family left that I know of.”

  Roth, ardent supporter of the French Revolution, more than passingly sympathetic to Napoleon, looked into the eyes of this blue-blooded woman and found himself smiling in an awkward attempt to ease her fears. “Friends, then.” He jotted down a note. “Hangers-on. Former servants, though it would have to be someone with the resources to carry out such a plot.”

  The Frasers exchanged glances again. “No one I can think of,” Mrs. Fraser said. “The only servant who’s left recently is our little girl’s nurse who got married last summer. My husband and I were at the wedding.”

  “My friends aren’t all saints,” Fraser said. “But if they wanted money they’d simply ask
for it.”

  “Of course it’s possible he was taken for ransom by someone unknown to you,” Roth said. “But while money’s the likeliest motive, it’s not the only one. You’re a prominent politician, Mr. Fraser. Perhaps the culprit wishes to force your hand in the House of Commons.”

  “You can’t have followed my career too closely. It’s highly improbable that any of my proposals will be enacted in the immediate future. It’s more likely I’d take someone hostage as leverage.”

  “You ruffled a lot of feathers with your speeches against suspension of habeas corpus. Suppose someone took the boy to force you to be silent. Or to get you to change your vote.”

  “Unfortunately, they’re hardly in need of my vote to suspend habeas corpus.”

  “No, but it would make a powerful statement to silence critics if you changed your position.”

  Fraser leaned back on the sofa, his eyes narrowing.

  “I do read the papers,” Roth said. His voice was mild, but there was an edge to it.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Fraser watched him a moment longer. “You’re an unusual man, Mr. Roth. You work for the chief magistrate of Bow Street, who works for the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary is a government minister. Yet you’ve just suggested that someone allied with the government’s interests may have been behind the disappearance of our son.”

  “It’s my job to explore all possibilities, Mr. Fraser.” Roth shifted his gaze to Mélanie Fraser. “Mrs. Fraser? Is there any reason you can think of why your son might have been taken to target you?”

  She shook her head, strands of hair stirring about her face. “No. I’m sometimes accused of being too outspoken, but I can’t see anyone going to this much trouble to quieten me.”