Chapter 30: : Chapter 29

Mélanie looked up at her husband. The moonlight fell over his face, sharpening his nose and cheekbones, accentuating the angry line of his mouth, deepening his eyes to blue-black. ‘Wasn’t it obvious what I was doing? Obtaining information.’

‘A little more information and a few less bruises would speak better for your sense.’

‘If I hadn’t been bruised, Mr. Wheaton wouldn’t have talked to you.’

‘Even you couldn’t have foreseen how that would play out, Mel.’

‘Not exactly. But I knew playing along was our best chance of getting information. For God’s sake, Charles, I wasn’t in any real danger. You know me, I never let myself get trapped. I had the bonds on my wrists loosened and I knew exactly where the windows were. I could always have run.’

‘And taken Andrew with you?’

‘Andrew did complicate things, but—’

‘But what?’ His gaze sliced into her own. ‘Even if you’d told them who you were, they might have decided it had gone too far and they were better off killing you.’

‘It wouldn’t have—’

‘Come to that? You can’t possibly know that.’ His grip on her tightened. Something had broken in the depths of his eyes, releasing a molten torrent from a part of him she rarely glimpsed. ‘Jesus, Mel, you might remember that you have children.’

‘I never forget that I have children.’

‘No? Then you’ve got to stop thinking you can heap any abuse on yourself without fear of the consequences.’

‘I’ll stop whenever you do.’

‘What the devil’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Charles. You got shot the night we met Francisco, you nearly got knifed in Covent Garden, and then you were shot at again last night. And that’s just the past fortnight.’

‘Are you suggesting we should have ignored Manon’s message?’

‘No. I’m saying you didn’t have any choice. Just as I didn’t have a choice tonight.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘Not one I’d ever have made. I’m not Honoria Talbot. I never will be.’

‘Don’t bring Honoria into this.’

‘She’s already in the middle of it. One way or another she’s been at the heart of everything that’s happened for the past fortnight, and you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t thinking about the life you might have had with her—’

‘Damn it, Mélanie, don’t try to change the subject. I never wanted a life with Honoria.’

‘I know, you never wanted to be married at all or you never thought you deserved to be—’

‘As you pointed out, I haven’t exactly been a model husband.’

‘Charles—’

He released his grip on her. ‘Tommy’s a bloody impertinent bastard,’ he said in a low, harsh voice. ‘But sometimes he sees too damned much.’

‘Too much of what?’

‘The truth.’

‘About?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He glanced away and drew a long breath. ‘We make choices. We have to live with them.’ He turned, wrapped his arm round her again, and drew her after the others.

She made no reply, because to Charles’s words there was really nothing to be said. That, after all, was what their marriage had been about from the first. Learning to live with choices. Or trying to do so.

They followed Andrew, Gisèle, and Tommy along winding paths past the birch coppice to the lodge. Andrew fished a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked a side door onto a vaulted kitchen filled with cool shadows and the smell of peat and lemon oil. He lit a lamp on the deal table in the center of the room, went to light another, gripped the edge of the table, and dropped down heavily into one of the straight-backed chairs.

‘Sorry. ‘Fraid I’d better sit down. Charles, there’s some whisky on the sideboard.’

Gisèle felt his forehead. ‘I’m not sure a drink would be good for you after that blow to the head.’

‘Fine, I won’t drink. Offer some to everyone else.’

‘I’ll make tea. We’re all chilled.’ Gisèle shrugged out of Andrew’s coat, draped it over a chair back, and went to the range. The iron doors squeaked and the embers hissed to life as she stirred them with the poker.

Charles pressed Mélanie into a chair and finished lighting the lamps. Tommy added some peats from a basket beneath the stove to the fire in the range.

Andrew stared across the table at Mélanie, his gaze moving over her wool coat and linen shirt and cloth cap. ‘You are dressed like a boy. I thought it was just the blow to the head playing tricks on me. What in God’s name were you doing?’

‘Trying to find out what the smugglers were up to.’ Mélanie tugged off her cap and shook out her matted hair. She looked from Andrew, sitting statue-still at the end of the table, to Gisèle, slender and straight-backed, her muddy white dress outlined against the black iron of the range as she filled the kettle. ‘I think I have it sorted out. Wheaton has a smuggling operation in the south. His men ferry goods up here, goods that men on the estate have been hiding in the caves and then distributing. But a couple of Dunmykel men started their own operation bringing contraband from the south. It got bad enough that Wheaton came up here to investigate. Last night the rogue smugglers had a run-in with his men. One of them was shot. He and his confederate—who they thought I was—got away and are hiding somewhere on the estate.’ She paused a moment. ‘The smugglers thought the two men must have had help last night.’

Andrew regarded her with a steady blue gaze over the lemon-scoured deal of the table.

Gisèle turned from the range, a blue enamel tin of tea in her hand. ‘His name’s Ian. He’s Marjorie—my maid’s—younger brother.’

‘Marjorie told you he was in trouble?’ Charles struck a spark to the last of the lamps.

Gisèle set down the tin and reached for the teapot. The brown glaze gleamed in the lamplight. ‘Marjorie woke me last night in a panic. She said Ian had been shot and he was hiding in the secret passage. I woke Andrew. Ian couldn’t be moved far, but we had to get him somewhere where he could be warm and dry and out of sight for a few days.’

‘The Old Tower,’ Charles guessed.

Gisèle’s eyes widened in acknowledgment. ‘Yes.’

‘How badly hurt is he? We saw blood in the passage.’

‘It’s only a flesh wound, but it’s in his leg, so it’s difficult for him to walk. We bandaged the wound and took him some blankets and food. Then Andrew saw me back to the house. That part of the story I told you was true.’

Andrew looked up at her. ‘What story?’

Gisèle began to spoon tea into the teapot. ‘Charles found out you used the secret passage last night. He was suspecting all sorts of things and probably ignoring other things that might actually have to do with who killed Honoria, so I had to give him an explanation. I told him you were in the passage last night because you were seeing me back to my room because I’d gone to your room because I wanted to get your attention which of course I did—want to get your attention, that is, at least I used to—but even at my silliest, I’d never—’

Andrew’s fingers clenched on the edge of the table. ‘Gelly, you didn’t have to—’

Gisèle measured another precise spoonful of tea. ‘I know it sounds absurd, but I had to tell him something, and Charles actually believed me.’ She cast a sidelong glance at her brother. ‘You see why I had to wake Andrew last night, Charles. I knew I’d need help with Ian and I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.’

Charles leaned against the table, arms folded across his chest. ‘Some sisters would turn to their brothers.’

Gisèle snapped the lid of the tea tin shut. ‘I knew Andrew would be sympathetic to Ian. He’s always worrying about the tenants and he knows how difficult Father’s Clearances have been for everyone—’

‘And you thought I wouldn’t be sympathetic?’

The kettle began to whistle. Gisèle picked it up and poured water into the teapot. Her hand jerked, sending a cloud of steam and droplets of scalding water into the air. ‘I don’t know what you think about much of anything, Charles. You know me so little you believed I’d fling myself at the head of a man who’s made it clear he doesn’t want me.’ She dropped the lid onto the teapot with a clang. ‘After nine years the normal rules for siblings don’t apply to us anymore.’

‘Point taken,’ Charles said. ‘You and Andrew were meeting tonight?’

Andrew, who’d been staring at Gisèle like a man who’d had his soul ripped out, jerked his gaze to Charles. ‘No, we weren’t meeting. I took a parcel of food to Ian’s confederate Jamie, who’s hiding in an abandoned cottage. I arrived to find Gisèle had already been there.’ He cast a grim glance at Charles’s sister. ‘Though we’d agreed I’d take care of visiting Jamie and she had no business running round the estate in the middle of the night with a murderer lurking about.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Gisèle said. ‘Honoria was murdered in the house. I was probably safer outside.’

‘You could have been—’

Gisèle grabbed a tin of sugar off the shelf above the range and plunked it down on the table. ‘You don’t have any right to tell me what to do, Andrew.’

‘No.’ Andrew drew a long, hard breath. ‘Fair enough. In any case, I was on my way home when I saw a light by the smugglers’ cottage. I thought the men were mad to be meeting so close to the house, especially with you—’

‘Snooping about,’ Charles finished for him.

‘To put it bluntly. I went to warn them and—you know the rest.’

‘Did either of you see anyone else in the secret passage last night?’

They shook their heads without hesitation.

Gisèle picked up the teapot and poured tea into black lustre mugs. Tommy passed them round.

‘Did the smugglers say anything else before we got to the cottage?’ Charles asked Mélanie.

Mélanie reached for the milk jug. ‘Nothing of substance.’

She carefully avoided looking at Andrew, but she felt his gaze on her. ‘You’re a generous woman, Mrs. Fr—Mélanie. But I’m quite sure they must have said more after they knocked me unconscious.’

Mélanie added a dollop of milk to her tea. ‘If there’s more to be said, I think it’s your story to tell, Andrew.’

Andrew curved his hands round the mug Tommy had given him. ‘Knowing Wheaton, I imagine he made some comment about my predilection for untimely entrances.’

Charles watched his friend without speaking. Gisèle gave a soft gasp. Andrew looked briefly at her. ‘Oh, yes. There was a time when I knew Wheaton rather well.’ He blew on the steam from the tea, dispersing it like a cloud of memories. ‘With the Clearances more of the Dunmykel men have become involved—men like Stephen Drummond, who only got pulled in recently. But the smuggling operation has gone on for years. I suspect my father deliberately turned a blind eye to it. My father was—a good man.’

‘So he was.’ Charles dropped into a chair. ‘I can’t tell you how often I envied you your fortune in parentage. It was only later that I realized having a saint for a father can have its own drawbacks.’

Andrew hunched his shoulders. ‘I never could seem to be what he wanted. Or perhaps I didn’t try hard enough. Perhaps I didn’t want to try.’ He glanced sideways at Charles. ‘Remember how I used to say that it was all very well for you to love Dunmykel, when you spent two-thirds of the year at Harrow? It was different to be marooned here all the time.’ He lifted the mug and took a deep swallow that must have burned his throat. ‘I started working with Wheaton’s gang when I was sixteen.’

Charles twisted his own mug on the table before him. ‘I’d have been fourteen… so you were working with them when I was home from Harrow for the holidays?’

‘You weren’t much more than a child, Charles. I at least had enough sense to know it was nothing I could involve you in. But I did boast about it to Donald Fyfe one night when we’d filched some of Father’s whisky. Donald insisted I introduce him to Wheaton.’

‘Donald?’ Gisèle said. ‘He was the Fyfes’ eldest son, wasn’t he? The one who—’ Her eyes filled with the knowledge even as the words died on her lips.

‘Who died in a fishing accident,’ Andrew supplied in a flat voice. ‘Only he wasn’t fishing, he was sailing back down the coast with me after delivering a load of contraband to Arbroath. And it wasn’t an accident.’

‘What happened?’ Gisèle said in a small, intent voice.

Andrew studied the condensation on the lip of his mug. ‘The excisemen were swarming about that summer. We should have known—’ He bit back the words with the self-recrimination Mélanie knew all too well from the aftermath of a failed mission. ‘They surprised us on the beach after we made our delivery. We managed to get the boat out to sea, but they shot at us from the mainland. Donald fell overboard.’

Gisèle sat very still, her eyes round and dark.

‘And then?’ Charles said in a soft voice.

‘I jumped in after him, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t even get his body back onto the boat. I managed to sail home. The excisemen were hovering round Dunmykel, too. I got to Giles McGann’s cottage. He hid me.’

‘McGann?’ Tommy leaned forward with sudden interest. ‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No. I wish I did. I hope to God he hasn’t—he kept me from falling to pieces when Donald died. I wanted to unburden my soul and confess to everyone. McGann pointed out that it would be scant comfort to my parents if I was hauled off to prison and that it would be kinder to Donald’s family to let them believe he died in a fishing accident. I stuck by the story, but I think my father guessed the truth. When the excisemen came about asking questions, he lied and said I’d been at home, as though he knew my whereabouts that night wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. He never confronted me with what had happened, but I don’t think he ever forgave me.’

‘Oh, Andrew,’ Gisèle said.

‘I’m sorry, Gelly. I told you once I wasn’t the man you thought I was. Perhaps I should have made it clear just how true that was.’

‘Was that when you stopped working for Wheaton?’ Charles asked.

Andrew nodded. ‘The smugglers were forced to cut back their operation for a bit. I went off to university in Edinburgh.’

‘And your visits to Dunmykel became scarce,’ Charles said. ‘I thought it was the lure of university life. But when we were both at Dunmykel for holidays I never guessed—’

‘I’m better at dissembling than you give me credit for.’ Andrew gave a smile that didn’t touch the ghosts in his eyes. ‘Besides, when I was with you I could pretend it had never happened. I couldn’t do that when I had to look Donald’s family in the eye. Or see the unspoken censure in my father’s gaze. I took to spending as much time as I could in Edinburgh. Then Father became ill and I realized I couldn’t keep—’

‘Running away?’ Charles said.

Andrew met his gaze in a moment of unspoken understanding. ‘Yes. So I took over managing the estate and found myself turning a blind eye to the smuggling, just as my father had once done. One’s conscience can’t be troubled by what one doesn’t know about. Or so I thought.’

Gisèle tore her gaze from Andrew and looked at her brother. ‘What does all this have to do with whatever the Elsinore League are and why is Father smuggling people out of France?’

Tommy took a sip of tea. ‘Those would seem to be the pertinent questions.’

‘I know you aren’t supposed to tell us things,’ Gisèle said, ‘but honestly, Charles, I think we can be more help to you if we understand what’s going on.’

Charles glanced at Tommy. ‘She has a point,’ Tommy said. ‘They’ve overheard enough at this point that they might as well hear the rest of it.’

Charles nodded and gave his sister and Andrew a brief outline of what they knew about Le Faucon de Maulévrier and the Elsinore League.

Gisèle frowned into her tea. ‘Charles, you aren’t trying to tell me Father was secretly a revolutionary, are you?’

‘I seriously doubt it,’ Charles said. ‘For any number of reasons.’

‘So why was Mr. Fraser helping these people?’ Andrew asked.

‘I’d like to know that myself,’ Tommy muttered.

Mélanie turned her mug between her hands. ‘Suppose we’ve got the information twisted about? Suppose the Elsinore League weren’t Le Faucon’s organization? Suppose they were some sort of club to which Mr. Fraser and Lord Glenister and their friends belonged?’

‘You mean like the Hellfire Club?’ Gisèle said. ‘Drinking and carousing and unspeakable orgies?’

‘Aunt Frances hasn’t neglected your education, has she?’ Charles said. ‘Yes, I think that’s the sort of thing Mélanie means. It’s true that the ancient Greek masking a relatively simple code seems more like something that might have been invented by a bunch of clever undergraduates than the work of seasoned agents.’

‘That’s all very well,’ Tommy said, ‘but Castlereagh told me Le Faucon began the Elsinore League—’

‘Le Faucon, whoever he is, may have been one of the founding members,’ Mélanie said. ‘But not for the purposes of intelligence gathering.’

‘You think Le Faucon was a drinking and wenching companion of Kenneth Fraser and Lord Glenister?’

‘Why not? They traveled on the Continent. They had a number of foreign-born friends. And as you yourself pointed out, Le Faucon might have been English.’

‘But what would that have to do with Father smuggling people out of France now?’ Gisèle asked.

‘Because your father may well have had French friends who wound up on the opposite side in the war,’ Mélanie said. ‘And those friends are now blackmailing their former companions into helping them escape France, using the seal of the Elsinore League for their documents.’

‘Blackmailing them over what?’ Andrew said.

Charles flicked a glance at Mélanie. ‘Their own past. Or possibly that Cyril Talbot actually was involved with Le Faucon.’

‘Lady Frances described a man—supposedly Irish—who was present when Lord Cyril died who seems to resemble the man Wheaton brought to Britain,’ Mélanie said.

‘So you think this man with the cold eyes was Le Faucon?’ Andrew asked.

‘Very likely,’ Charles said. ‘Unless Cyril Talbot was Le Faucon himself.’

‘Good Christ,’ Tommy said.

‘Sorry, old man,’ Charles said. ‘We hadn’t had time to share that theory.’

Gisèle spooned more sugar into her tea and stirred it without seeming to see what she was doing. ‘You think Father and Glenister were being threatened with Honoria learning the truth about all of this?’

‘That would fit what Francisco said and what Manon told us.’

‘It might fit with something else I remember.’ Gisèle folded her hands in her lap. ‘It was after Mama died. More than a year later. A few weeks after my tenth birthday.’

‘Just after I left for the Continent,’ Charles said.

‘Yes.’ She took a sip of tea and made a face, perhaps because it was too sweet. ‘I was living with Aunt Frances, but she’d gone to a house party and I was spending a fortnight at Dunmykel. For once Father was in residence. Lord Glenister came to see him, which cheered me up because he brought Honoria and Evie. One night we all sneaked downstairs. We were hanging about on the terrace outside the windows of the billiard room. Father and Glenister were playing billiards and arguing. Glenister said something like ‘We never should have involved the members in something so personal.’ ‘

‘ ‘The members’?’ Charles said.

‘Yes, it stuck in my mind because I never could work out what they were members of. I thought he must be talking about Brooks’s or the Jockey Club or something. And then Father said, ‘It was your mess, Glenister, I just helped you tidy away the pieces.’ ‘

‘What did Father say?’ Charles asked, gaze trained on his sister.

‘ ‘We did what had to be done. We made use of the best resources at hand.’ And then something about ‘If we’re lucky, they’ll all die in the war.’ ‘

‘They?’ Tommy asked.

‘I couldn’t work out who he meant from what I heard.’

‘What happened then?’ Mélanie asked.

‘It was getting cold on the terrace and Father and Glenister were mumbling, so it was hard to hear any more, but Honoria didn’t want to leave. Evie and I had to drag her back upstairs.’

‘Did you talk about it afterward?’ Charles asked.

‘Of course. I thought Lord Glenister had broken a Sevres vase or something and Father’d helped him tidy away the pieces. I asked Honoria what her uncle had broken and she just gave me one of those odious superior looks of hers.’ Gisèle sucked in her breath. ‘Oh, poison, I keep forgetting she’s dead. But it was odious. Evie tried to distract me by offering to play lottery tickets, but I asked Honoria what the conversation really meant. She said, ‘I don’t know. Yet.’ ‘

Tommy released his breath. ‘Judging by her talk with me yesterday, she was trying to find out up until her death.’

‘Unless she did finally find out and mat’s why she died,’ Charles said. ‘And why Colonel Coroux met his death in the Conciergerie.’

‘Something to do with Cyril Talbot’s death?’ Tommy asked. ‘Or his supposed death?’

Possibilities hung in the air like the smell of peat from the fire in the range. Tommy stared straight ahead, face unreadable. Andrew’s mouth hardened. Gisèle shivered.

‘There’s little more to be learned tonight,’ Charles said. ‘Tommy, your cover’s blown. You might as well come home with us.’

Tommy stretched his arms. ‘Loath as I am to accept favors from you, Fraser, I can’t say I’ll quarrel with a night in a featherbed rather than camping out in the Highland wilderness.’

Gisèle pulled Andrew’s coat round her shoulders. ‘I need to check on Ian.’

Andrew got to his feet. ‘I can—’

‘I want to see him.’ Gisèle met Andrew’s gaze with a hint of the defiance she frequently showed Charles. ‘You can come, too, if you like.’

Charles pushed his chair back from the table. ‘I’d like to talk to him. And Mélanie should have a look at his wound.’

In the end, they all decided to visit the wounded smuggler. Andrew suggested they go through the underground passage, which would be faster than the route aboveground.

‘I’m sorry, Charles.’ Gisèle turned to her brother by the kitchen table while Andrew was hunting for the torches. She lifted her gaze and looked him full in the face, equal parts schoolgirl confessing to a peccadillo and soldier owning up to a breach of conduct. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you.’

‘I’m sorry, too.’ Charles looked down at her, face serious but eyes soft. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could tell me the truth. But I’d be an even greater idiot than I’ve already proved myself if I blamed you for that.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad you felt able to confide in Andrew.’

Gisèle fingered the lapel of Andrew’s coat. ‘Andrew’s a good Mend. He’s always been kind to me.’

Tommy lifted his brows at Mélanie, as though to say I can’t for the life of me make sense of what’s going on between those two. Mélanie was inclined to agree.

Equipped with torches lit at the kitchen fire, the five of them went through the concealed opening in the lodge’s book room and along the passage to the main house. The library was the only room in Dunmkyel that was actually built into the original thirteenth-century keep. It jutted into what had once been the Great Hall on the keep’s first floor. A side door in the library gave onto the turnpike stairs that led to the next level of the keep. Charles opened it, holding his torch aloft. They stepped into close air, heavy with the expected smell of dust and damp and inactivity. And another, unexpected smell—sickly, sweet, choking. The smell of battlefields and hospitals and scenes from her own past that Mélanie would never be able to blot out.

‘What the devil—’ Andrew said.

Charles shifted his torch. The light spilled over the steep granite stairs and onto a crumpled form lying at their base.

Gisèle gasped.

‘Stay here, Gelly.’ Charles gripped her arm, but Gisèle pulled away from him and ran forward. Charles followed her. Something made Mélanie hang back, as did Tommy and Andrew. Brother and sister bent over the body.

It was Gisèle who spoke, in the same flat voice Charles used when emotions threatened to overwhelm him. ‘It’s Father.’