The Mask of Night
: Chapter 20

Never stop questioning, my boy. There’s very little in this life that doesn’t bear being looked at from a fresh perspective.

George Bartlett to Charles Fraser,

12 August, 1812

“Darling. I thought I’d never get you to myself.” Mélanie caught Charles by the arm as he came into the Bartletts’ drawing room from the parlor. She pulled him to one side, her lips against his cheek. “Where’s Will?”

“In the parlor.” Charles stooped his head close to his wife’s own. “Talking with Harriet de Boinville.”

“Will’s going somewhere when he leaves here.” She backed him against the Grecian molding, her hands on either side of his face. “Somewhere he wouldn’t tell Pendarves about. Clara Bartlett overheard them arguing.’

Charles stroked his wife’s hair. He could see Henry Brougham grinning at their display of connubial affection. “If Will’s worried about eluding Pendarves, not to mention us, he’ll probably try to slip out the back,” he murmured into her ear.

They returned to the parlor (where Will, Charles was relieved to see, was still in conversation with Mrs. de Boinville). John Cam Hobhouse cornered them and wanted to talk about the new Parliamentary session. A quarter-hour later, when Pendarves’s attention had been claimed by Marianne Hunt, Will excused himself and wandered down the passage toward the gentlemen’s retiring room. Mélanie and Charles went down the backstairs to the kitchen and exchanged a cheerful greeting with Mrs. Ford, the Bartlett’s cook. While Mélanie darted into the hall, Charles took up a position in the shelter of an oak tree in the back garden. The rain had let up, but the air had grown colder, frosting against his skin and numbing his gloveless fingers. A few moments later, Mélanie joined him, wearing her pelisse and carrying his greatcoat.

“I left our hats,” she said. “They’d be in the way. Your gloves are in the pocket.”

“A bit like the Cantabrian Mountains.” He shrugged into the greatcoat and pulled on the gloves.

“The Cantabrian Mountains were colder. Charles, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing?“

“Trying to keep us both warm.” He tightened his arms round her.

“There are advantages to cold,” she said, her voice muffled by his cravat. “Remember—“

She broke off as the area door creaked open. Will emerged and slipped through the garden gate. They followed, with the careful, near-silent footfalls they both had perfected long since. Will went through the mews to Wyndham Place. Gusts of wind bent the leafless trees and sliced through their layers of clothing. A hackney rattled by, but Will made no attempt to flag it down. He crossed Oxford Street into the more fashionable precincts of Mayfair and then cut across Green Street to Park Lane, past mansions shuttered for the night and one or two blazing with candlelight. Charles half-expected him to go into one of the houses, but instead he turned through the Grosvenor Gate into Hyde Park.

The moon emerged from behind the clouds in intermittent flashes. The gravel was slippery underfoot. Charles kept his senses tuned to the trees and shrubs on either side. Nighttime attacks by footpads were a common occurrence in Hyde Park. An owl called in the distance. A squirrel raced up a tree trunk and along a branch, shaking loose a hail of raindrops. A dark blur that might have been a fox or a badger darted into the shelter of the trees. A couple of larger dark blurs huddled beneath the branches. Charles ran a wary gaze over them, but they appeared to be lying motionless. Even in winter, the park was a refuge for those with nowhere else to sleep.

Will left the path. They followed onto grass slippery with frosting raindrops. Twigs and fallen leaves scrunched under foot. A sound caught Charles’s attention above the whir of the wind. It took him a moment to realize it had been a human cry. They had reached the slope of ground above the Serpentine River. The undulating mass by the water’s edge was more than just wind-tossed trees. A brawl was in progress. Three men or perhaps four. Difficult to tell the numbers in the dark.

Will, a dozen yards ahead, ran forward. Charles stared at the brawlers, trying to sort out who was fighting whom. A gunshot ripped the air, closely followed by another. No one fell, but the combatants froze for an instant. It looked to be three against one. Three against two, as Will launched himself at a man’s back.

Charles exchanged a quick glance with Mélanie. “Unequal numbers,” she said. “And whatever he’s up to, I like Will.”

Charles nodded and pulled off his gloves. They ran down the slope. Will was grappling with one of the men. He seemed to have a good purchase on the man’s arm, so Charles ran to the two men who were pummeling the original victim. One was trying to pin the victim’s arms. The victim twisted away. The other attacker swung a cudgel toward the victim’s head. Charles grabbed the cudgel-bearer’s arm and spun the man round to face him. The man gave a grunt of surprise, jerked away, and swung the cudgel at Charles. Charles ducked and grabbed the cudgel. The heavy wood came away in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the second man reach for Mélanie’s throat. Mélanie tossed the contents of her scent bottle in the man’s face.

Mélanie’s attacker screamed. Charles’s original opponent hurled himself at Charles and slashed at his arm with a knife. Charles twisted away and banged into rough, crumbly tree bark. His boots skidded on the frost-crusted leaves. As he felt himself falling, he grabbed his attacker and pulled him down with him.

They pummeled each other, rolling over fallen leaves and icy ground and hard tree roots. The impact carried them to the river’s edge. The cudgel went flying. Charles’s opponent scrambled to his feet. Charles grabbed at the man’s ankles. The man stumbled to his knees, caught up the cudgel, and swung it at Charles’s head. They both fell back on the icy ground. His opponent scrambled away. Charles slipped into freezing water.

He fought his way to the surface and scrabbled for the bank. His sodden boots and greatcoat tugged him downward.

A cudgel blow caught him on the back of the head. He recovered his vision to see his opponent sent flying backward. A firm hand was extended to grip his own.

“Allow me,” said Raoul O’Roarke.

Mélanie turned on the riverbank to see her former lover pulling her husband from the freezing water. Her own opponent had run off through the trees when she wrested his knife away from him. Will, his nose bloody and spectacles askew, was holding the third man with his arms pinioned behind his back. The man looked groggy. She had seen Will bashing his head against a tree trunk.

“Here.” She threw him a ribbon she’d pulled from the neck of her chemise. “Bind his wrists.”

Raoul and Charles had found something with which to lash the wrists of Charles’s attacker before he could scramble up from the ground where Raoul had flung him. Raoul was holding him by the arm and Charles had a knife, probably recovered from his attacker, in his hand. Charles was dripping wet and shivering, but he was managing to hold his knife hand steady and she could not see any blood, though the light was too dim for a close scrutiny.

“Who hired you?” Charles said.

Raoul’s captive’s gaze flashed to that of Will’s prisoner. “Out for pickings,” he muttered.

“I don’t think so,” Raoul said. “You seemed to have a very specific target in mind.”

“Just the first rich idiot who happened by.” The man was broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, and his voice had the sound of North London.

“I’m cold,” Charles said, “and I’m tired. There are more of us than of you, and we have the weapons.” He pressed the knifepoint against the throat of the man Raoul was holding. “Let’s do this the easy way. Tell us who hired you.”

The men exchanged glances again. “You wouldn’t,” said Will’s captive. He was slighter than his companion and his voice sounded more youthful. “You don’t look like a man who’d kill in cold blood.”

“No?” Charles said. “Perhaps not. But let me put it this way. Refuse to talk and we’ll take you to our friends at Bow Street and have you up on charges of attempted murder. The penalty is hanging, and I happen to be personally acquainted with the Chief Magistrate. Tell us what you know and we’ll let you go free.”

Both men let out rough laughs. “What do you take us for?” Raoul’s captive said.

“Men who know a good bargain when they see it.”

“And what bloody guarantee do we have that you’d keep it?” the man demanded.

“My word. Who hired you?”

The pause before they spoke was long enough for a gust of wind to shake the trees overhead and douse them with shards of ice.

“Don’t know his name,” said Raoul’s captive. “Gentleman. Leastways, spoke like one. We never did see his face. Not much of it anyway. Met us in the alley behind the White Hart in St. Giles. He had his hat pulled low over his face and his coat collar turned up and he stood in the shadows. Sounded as though he had a cold.”

“When was this?” Charles asked.

“’Bout seven tonight. He told us the job and handed over the money. We were to have more sent to us tomorrow if we were successful.”

“Successful at what?” Mélanie said.

The men fell silent again. Raoul’s captive rolled his gaze toward the knife Charles was holding to his throat. “Him—the one we jumped first—wasn’t supposed to leave the park alive.”

“The man who hired you told you I’d be in the park tonight?” Raoul asked.

“Sometime between ten and midnight. Told us to wait by the Serpentine. Said we could keep all the money we found on you, but we were to bring him anything we found in writing. He made sure none of us could read.”

“Where were you to replace him again?” Raoul asked.

“We weren’t. He said he’d replace us.”

Charles reached into his pocket, pulled out his card case, and flicked it open with one hand. He removed the knife and held out a cream-colored card. “If this man ever contacts you again, you’ll let me know.”

The captive stared at him. Raoul exchanged a look with Charles and undid the man’s bonds. Will did the same for his prisoner.

“I did give you my word,” Charles said.

The two men stared at him a moment longer, as though perhaps the cloudy sky were obscuring his true motives. Then they turned and ran before Charles or any of the others could change their minds.

Will looked at Charles. “You surprise me, Fraser.”

“I take my word rather seriously.” Charles struggled out of his sodden greatcoat and squeezed the water from its folds. “Besides, I don’t think any of us fancy having to explain ourselves to Bow Street.”

Mélanie looked at Raoul. “Good evening, Mr. O’Roarke.”

“Que—Mrs. Fraser.”

If he’d almost called her Querida in front of people who didn’t know their past history, he was more overset than she’d realized. She saw that he was swaying slightly and put out a hand to steady him. Her fingers touched something damp and sticky. “You’re bleeding.”

“A flesh wound. Two of them had pistols. I managed to trick them into firing early, but one of the shots winged me. Then someone got me with a knife. Not the most organized of attacks. If my unseen enemy had hired a marksman to lie in wait in the trees with a rifle, he could have picked me off easily. Still, I suspect they’d have succeeded in the end if the three of you hadn’t happened along. I’m not as young as I once was.”

Mélanie bent down while he talked, tore a strip from her petticoat, and bound it round his chest to staunch the bleeding. She’d once seen him direct an entire skirmish with a musket ball in his side only to collapse from loss of blood when the enemy were routed. “You need to see a doctor. Charles, you look quite fetching dripping wet, but it won’t be very helpful if you catch pneumonia. We need to get inside.”

“Yes,” her husband said. “The question is where.” He looked from Raoul to Will. “Where were you meeting the others?”

“Others?” Will repeated. The fitful moonlight bounced off his crooked spectacles.

“You and O’Roarke weren’t meeting by the Serpentine. You were both on your way somewhere.

“Don’t try to argue with him, Gordon,” Raoul advised. He regarded Charles a moment. “You can do what you want with me, but do I have your word you won’t turn my other companions over to the law?”

“You know I can’t promise that,” Charles said.

“If you think they don’t pose an imminent risk.”

Charles was silent for a moment. “All right. Yes.”

Raoul nodded. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a walk.”

Mélanie put a hand on his arm.

“My dear, Mrs. Fraser,” Raoul said, “credit me with some sense. I promise I’ll give you fair warning if I’m in danger of collapse.”

Raoul led them away from the water, through a dark landscape where flashes of moonlight threw twisting tree branches into relief against a charcoal sky, to the walled Deer Pound. Two men were waiting, one a gray-haired gentleman Mélanie didn’t recognize, the other taller and younger, his clear, sharp-cut features plain in the moonlight. It was Simon Tanner. A weight like a musket ball settled in her chest.

“Good evening, Simon.” Charles’s voice betrayed no surprise, but Mélanie could hear the fear and pain beneath his level tone. “Hapgood.” He looked at Mélanie. “Mr. Hapgood, who happens to own the house in which our friend St. Juste was lodging. My wife, Hapgood. I assume the rest of you are all acquainted.”

“Jesus, Charles,” Simon said. “What happened to you?”

“Someone tried to kill O’Roarke. You damned fools, after one of your confederates was murdered didn’t it occur to you that the rest of you might be at risk?”

“Our confederates?” Simon’s voice sharpened. “Who the devil’s been killed?”

“The gentleman who was lodging with Mr. Hapgood and meeting with O’Roarke and Will in recent weeks. The gentleman we found dead in Isobel and Oliver’s garden last night.”

“You think—“

“Explanations are undoubtedly called for,” Mélanie said, “but not here. Charles—Mr. O’Roarke—do you think you can walk as far as Berkeley Square?’

“I’m soaked, not injured,” her husband said.

“I told you I’d warn you if I was about to collapse,” Raoul said.

They trudged out of the Grosvenor Gate and past the cool white town houses of Upper Grosvenor Street to the wide expanse of Grosvenor Square. A party of guests emerged from one of the candlelit houses. Of one accord they all ducked into Charles Street to avoid being seen. God help them if they encountered any of their friends. Even her and Charles’s reputation for eccentricity might not be able to live this down.

They continued along Grosvenor Street and turned down Davies Street. For once Raoul had probably spoken the truth. She rated his powers high, but if she and Charles and Will had not shown up he’d most likely be dead by now. The thought bit her throat in a way she didn’t care to examine. In a short time she was going to have to confront the truth of whatever the hell Raoul and Will and Simon had been involved in with Julien St. Juste and how Charles would react to it. And how she would react herself.

Charles had his arm round her. She could feel him shivering and his steps were a trifle erratic, but he remained upright, as did Raoul.

They were almost at the point where Davies Street met Berkeley Square when a voice stopped them. “Here now? What are you lot doing?”

It was a night watchman, lantern raised, brows drawn.

Charles seemed to have been concentrating solely on keeping his footing, but at that he raised his head. “We’re on our way home. My name’s Fraser. Charles Fraser. My wife. And some of our friends. We’ve been at an entertainment.”

The watchman gave a rough laugh. The lantern cast light over his ruddy face. “You expect me to believe—“

“Yes,” said Charles. “I do.”

The watchmen peered at them. His gaze moved past Mélanie, then came back to linger on her. There were advantages to having one’s likeness displayed in print shop windows. “Bloody he—” He coughed. “Begging your pardon, ma’am. Madam. Mrs. Fraser. Sorry to have troubled you.”

Mélanie shepherded the erratic band up the whitewashed steps to the fanlit door of the Berkeley Square house without further incident. Michael opened the door, relief evident in his face.

“Charles, you need to change before you do anything else or you’ll be ill,” Mélanie said. “Simon, take the others up to the spare room. Michael, could you have some clean clothes of Mr. Fraser’s sent in? And we’ll need to send to Hill Street for Dr. Blackwell.”

Raoul touched her arm as Simon and Charles guided the others to the stairs. “No doctor. It’s a flesh wound. You can tend to it.”

She started to argue, but it was no more than they’d done in the past. And all things considered, it might be better not to bring someone else into the scene that was no doubt about to ensue, even someone she trusted as much as Geoffrey Blackwell.

“Mrs. Fraser.” Michael held a folded paper out to her as she moved to the stairs. “Miss Dudley was obliged to go out. She left this for you.”

Mélanie took the paper, started to open it, then ran up the stairs after her husband. First things first.

“You can stop being brave now,” she said, when she and Charles were in the privacy of their bedchamber. She tugged off his coat and went to work on his waistcoat buttons with more dexterity than she’d ever shown in an amorous encounter.

“I’ll live.” He pulled his shirt over his head. ‘O’Roarke could be—“

“Dead.” She grabbed a towel from the washstand and wrapped it round him. “It had occurred to me.”

He began to undo the buttons on his breeches. “Don’t think I’m not grateful to him for fishing me out of the river. But then his courage has never been in doubt.”

“I’d say the honors on saving each other were even in this encounter.” She handed him a fresh pair of breeches.

He stepped into the breeches. “What’s the paper?” He nodded toward the note she’d put on her dressing table.

“Good God, I’d almost forgotten. It’s from Laura. I hope—” She opened the note and read it aloud.

Mrs. Fraser,

Mr. Trenor called. He’s worried about Miss Simcox, who has apparently gone after her brother. I’ve taken him to see Mr. Roth. Morag is in my room listening for the children. I will return or send word as soon as possible.

LD

P.S. I promised Colin and Jessica that you and Mr. Fraser would look in on them. Colin asked that you wake him.

“As usual, Laura appears to understand more of what’s happening than she lets on,” Charles said.

Mélanie put down the note. “Should we—“

“There’s not much we can do.” He pulled a tan waistcoat on unbuttoned over his shirt as a sop to formality. “Roth will know how to handle it. Meanwhile, we have more than enough to occupy us. You’d better get out of those clothes, you’re not exactly dry yourself.”

She frowned at the note for a moment, then began to fumble with the clasps on her pelisse. “There’s no doubt St. Juste was lodging with Mr. Hapgood?”

“Hapgood admitted as much to Roth and me this afternoon, though not that he knew who St. Juste was.”

She tossed aside her pelisse and started on her gown. “What do you think—“

“No sense in speculating until we talk to them.” He turned her round and finished undoing the hooks on her gown. “You’re going to have a bruise on your shoulder.”

“Minor damage.” She turned to face him, her damp bodice slipping down about her shoulders.

He stretched out a hand to touch her face. “We listen to the evidence and we each make up our own mind and act as we see fit. Same as we’ve always done.’

‘And if we make up our minds differently?’

‘It won’t be the first time we’ve been on opposite sides. Only this time the battle will be out in the open.’