know how they came by the information.”
“Can you tell me what he looked like, Polly?” Roth asked.
Polly raised her head and fixed her gaze on him. The Frasers’ tacit forgiveness had wiped some of the strain from her face. She was a pretty girl and her eyes, cleared of weeping, were bright with intelligence. “He was tall. Not so tall as you or Mr. Fraser, but taller than Mr. Addison.” She nodded toward Fraser’s valet, who was sitting quietly on the sidelines.
“Hair?” Roth asked. “Eyes?”
Polly’s level brows drew together in an effort of memory. “His hair was brown—darker than yours, Mr. Roth, but a bit lighter than Mr. Fraser’s. I suppose his eyes must’ve been brown, too—No, they were blue.” She colored again. “I remember thinking they looked just like a bed of larkspur in the spring.”
“Right.” Roth jotted down the description and gave her an encouraging smile. “Anything else? How old would you guess he was?”
She frowned again. “Older than William and Michael, but younger than Mr. Addison.”
“William and Michael are one-and-twenty or thereabouts,” Charles Fraser said. “Addison’s thirty-two, like me.”
Polly stared down at her hands, still frowning. “He had a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled. And his voice—I don’t think he was London-born. He had a bit of the sound of a Welshman.”
“Does it sound like anyone you know of?” Fraser asked Roth.
“No, but even I can only boast acquaintance with a fraction of London’s criminal class. We’ll circulate a description and offer a reward for information. I’ll make inquiries at Hatchards, though I’d lay you money he’s no deliveryman.” Roth nodded at Polly. “This is a good start. You’ve done well.” He returned his notebook and pencil to his pocket, then added, “Mr. Fraser is right, Polly. They’d have got the information they wanted, one way or another. There’s no way you could have known what they were planning. No one could.”
Polly gave him a tremulous smile, got to her feet, and dropped a quick curtsy before Addison escorted her back to the kitchen.
“I’d best be off,” Roth told the Frasers. “I want to get this description circulated as soon as possible.” He took a last swallow of coffee and stood up. “You’ll tell me what you learn from Carevalo?”
Both the Frasers were silent for a moment. “I didn’t say I was going to see Carevalo,” Fraser said.
“But you are, aren’t you? It’s what I’d do in your place.”
Melanie Fraser rose from the sofa and went to stand beside her husband. “We’re both going to see him.”
Roth looked into her eyes and caught a glimpse of iron beneath the porcelain surface. He nodded. “You know Carevalo, you’ll know to handle him. Did you think I’d try to stop you? I don’t see how I could. Besides, if Carevalo is behind the boy’s disappearance, he’ll scarcely admit it to a Bow Street Runner. But presumably he’ll admit it to you. I only ask that you keep me informed. No rash heroics, Mr. Fraser.”
For an instant the coolness in Fraser’s eyes cracked like a sheet of ice. Beneath lay a white-hot rage that was one step short of violence and a self-recrimination that went bone-deep. “I’m not a fool, Roth.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Melanie Fraser reached for her husband’s hand. “Charles wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardize Colin’s safety. Neither of us would.”
Which, Roth thought as he left the house, answered his question without promising anything at all. Charles Fraser might be a master at control, but sooner or later the fury roiling beneath the cool surface was bound to break free. Roth wondered if the Marques de Carevalo had the least idea what he’d unleashed.
“Ah, Mr. Fraser.” The desk clerk at Mivart’s Hotel turned his head between his well-starched shirt points. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Oh, Christ. It was true. “Expecting us?” Charles said.
“The Marques de Carevalo thought you might call.” If the clerk thought it odd that they had done so at half- past six in the morning, he gave no sign of it.
Charles barely refrained from reaching across the polished counter and grasping the clerk by the well-tailored lapels of his coat. “Where is he?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say, sir. The marques left this morning.”
“Left?” Melanie’s voice shook, frayed to the breaking point. “But he was at the Princess Esterhazy’s only a few hours ago.”
“The marques returned to the hotel at about four this morning, madam. A short time later he settled his account and departed.” The clerk’s face was carefully wooden. “He said if you or Mr. Fraser asked for him I was to direct you to Mr. O’Roarke in room 212.”
“O’Roarke?” For a moment Charles wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Raoul O’Roarke?”
“I believe that is the gentleman’s name. He arrived at the hotel yesterday evening.”
Charles didn’t even stop to look at Melanie. There was no point. They crossed the lobby and made for the stairs without speaking.
Raoul O’Roarke. A name from the past, a force to be reckoned with, a piece that shook the emerging pattern of the puzzle. O’Roarke and Carevalo had both been leaders in the Spanish resistance to French occupation, but O’Roarke’s hard-headed pragmatism was the antithesis of Carevalo’s extravagant intensity.
Charles had known Raoul O’Roarke since boyhood. O’Roarke’s five-times-great-grandfather had fled to Spain from Ireland after ending up on the losing side in a struggle with the English in the time of Elizabeth. Successive generations of O’Roarkes had intermarried with Spanish noble-women, but Raoul O’Roarke’s mother was an Irish Catholic aristocrat. O’Roarke had grown up in both countries and had been educated in Dublin. Charles had childhood memories of O’Roarke as one of the throng of guests always overflowing his grandfather’s Irish estates. O’Roarke had been friendlier than most, with a kind word to spare for the curious Fraser children and a genuine interest in their activities. Charles still had a copy of
In those days, O’Roarke had been one of the young Irish radicals who spoke and wrote against British rule. Just how much O’Roarke had had to do with the United Irish uprising of 1798 was still open to debate. No formal charges had been laid against him, but O’Roarke had slipped out of the country in the aftermath of the uprising and returned to Spain.
O’Roarke’s letter of condolence, after Charles’s mother’s death, had been one of the least sentimental and most comforting Charles had received. When Charles joined the British embassy staff in Lisbon, he met O’Roarke again, a clever man, committed to his cause, willing to be ruthless when necessary. O’Roarke had made it clear that he remembered Charles as a boy, but at the same time had been quick to treat Charles as an adult and an equal. Yet though O’Roarke had fought alongside the British as part of the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, he had no liking for the English and never pretended otherwise.
“I didn’t know Raoul O’Roarke was in England.” Melanie spoke when they were halfway up the first flight of stairs.
“Nor did I. He must have just arrived.”
“He and Carevalo were never particular friends.”
“No. I’ve heard O’Roarke call Carevalo a romantic fool on more than one occasion. But they were allies against the French and they’d be allied now in their hatred of the Spanish monarchy. It’s not surprising to find they’re working together. Perhaps O’Roarke thinks he’ll have more luck than Carevalo’s had mustering support in London for Spanish liberalism. Or perhaps he was forced to leave Spain. Last I heard he was setting Madrid on its ear with his antimonarchist pamphlets.”
Melanie paused on the first-floor landing. Beneath the blue velvet brim of her bonnet, her eyes looked enormous. “Charles, you don’t think O’Roarke—”
“I don’t know what I think. Except that I’m going to kill Carevalo when I get my hands on him. Let’s see this message he left for us.”
He started for the next flight of stairs. She caught at his hand. “Charles.”
He scanned her face. “What?”
She drew a breath, then gave a slight shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters if they have
