Secrets of a Lady

“You expect us to believe that?” Charles said.

O’Roarke’s mouth lifted in a faint smile. “About as much as you can expect me to believe you know nothing about the ring.”

Charles looked at him a moment longer, then gave a brief nod. “Quite. Mel? There’s no sense in wasting any more time.”

“Charles,” O’Roarke said as they turned to the door.

They both turned round. O’Roarke was still leaning against the chair, but despite the languid drape of the silk dressing gown, he had the unmistakable air of a commander. “Don’t underestimate Carevalo. He doesn’t make idle threats. You’ve heard how he lost his own son?”

Charles took a step closer to Melanie. “I thought his family were killed by the French.”

“His wife and the younger children, yes. The eldest son fought with Carevalo’s guerrillero band. I met him once or twice. A boy of fourteen, who worshipped his father. Before the British were in the war—early ’08, it must have been—the French besieged Carevalo’s forces, who were hiding in a ruined castle near Burgos. Young Carevalo was carrying messages. He fell into French hands. The French commander told Carevalo to surrender if he wanted his son back alive.”

“And?” Melanie’s voice was bone dry.

O’Roarke looked straight into her eyes. He had the look of a man with an intimate acquaintance with hell. “Carevalo sent back a message telling his son he loved him and he knew he’d die like a man. They shot the boy within view of the castle walls.”

Melanie made a small, strangled sound. Charles reached out and gripped her hand.

“Carevalo’s not a monster,” O’Roarke said. “But he’s a man who’ll give up anything for his cause. He loved his children. He’ll never forgive himself for sacrificing his son, yet if he had to do it again, he’d make the same decision. And if he could sacrifice his own son, he won’t hesitate to sacrifice yours.”

The rain had stopped and a gray light was fighting its way through the morning mist when Charles and Melanie emerged from Mivart’s. Charles paused on the pavement before the hotel, his senses assaulted by light and sound, his brain battered by his own anger.

A post chaise had drawn up in front of the hotel and two porters were unloading bandboxes and portmanteaux onto the pavement. A third porter was struggling to lift a hamper from the boot while a gentleman in a many-caped greatcoat abjured him to be careful not to bruise the port. The rattle of wheels and the snap of reins filled the air. More carriages were abroad than when they had arrived at the hotel. It must be getting on toward seven. More than three hours since they’d discovered Colin’s disappearance.

Rational thought came flooding back and with it a sense of purpose. Charles took Melanie’s arm and drew her toward their waiting carriage. “Hell,” he said when they were inside the carriage and the coachman had given the horses their office. “Bloody, bloody hell. How could I have been such a fool?”

“You couldn’t have foreseen this.” Melanie folded her arms over her stomach, as though she could physically force down a wave of fear and nausea. “Neither of us could.”

He wrapped his arm round her and pulled her against him. “Colin’s a survivor. He’s our son.” He pushed back her bonnet and put his lips to her hair. “We’re going to have to find the damned ring.”

“Yes.” He felt her tremble, felt her control the tremors. “The question is where to begin.”

He took her hand and held it between his own. “Where it was lost. In the past.”

Chapter 5

The Cantabrian Mountains, Spain

November 1812

Even in winter, their rocky slopes dusted with snow, the mountains looked parched. The sight reminded Charles that he could do with a drink. Perhaps it was in keeping with the barren waste he had made of his life that he was riding along a barren waste of a mountain track, in the midst of what increasingly seemed to be a barren waste of a war.

The track was so narrow that they had to go single file. Lieutenant Jennings led the way, his shoulders set with weary nonchalance. Charles’s valet, Addison, Sergeant Baxter, and five soldiers of the 43rd Foot tramped behind Charles, their booted feet thudding rhythmically against the frozen, rocky ground.

The track widened a bit. Jennings fell back beside Charles. “We should look for a place to make camp. There’s little more than another hour of daylight.” He squinted at the slate-gray sky. “And it looks like we may have snow.”

Charles nodded. “There are wine caves a mile or so on.”

Jennings lifted his brows. “You know these mountains well.”

“I’ve been here once or twice.”

Jennings regarded him for a moment. His blue eyes held a glint of mockery. “I suppose you still wouldn’t care to tell me why the devil we’re traipsing across the mountains in the middle of winter?”

Charles smiled and shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Jennings.”

Jennings gave a laugh that was sharp with the cynicism of the hardened soldier. “Very likely not. As I suspect the last thing you’d tell me would be the truth. You’re a damned cold bastard, Fraser.”

“I don’t know about the bastard part,” Charles said without inflection, “but I’d have to be inhuman not to be cold in this weather.”

In truth, the cold was so intense you could taste it on your tongue. It sliced like a knife blade through the wool of his greatcoat and the Cordoba leather of his top boots. Patches of snow littered the ground, though none was falling at the moment, thank God for small mercies. He wondered what Jennings would have said if he’d told him they’d come all this way, in the chill of oncoming winter, in search of a piece of jewelry.

Charles turned up the collar of his greatcoat. If he were warm and dry before a fire in Lisbon, the search for the Carevalo Ring would be an excuse for a good laugh. Even now, cold and tired and saddle-sore, he suspected he ought to see the humorous side of the situation.

He flicked a sidelong glance at Jennings. Tempers were frayed to the breaking point. None of the soldiers were happy at having been sent on this mission when they had expected to be snugly bivouacked for the winter. It was understandable that they were curious about what Charles expected to receive in exchange for the gold they were escorting north.

Charles tightened his grip on the reins. The leather of his riding gloves crackled in the chill air. As missions went, this was not a particularly complicated one. Perhaps if it presented more of an intellectual challenge, he would care more.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it was untrue. Long before he reached adulthood he had developed a personal code of sorts, based on the idea that one’s actions mattered, that though the world might be a bleak and unfair place, with perseverance one could make a difference. The events of the last few months had shattered that code. Guilt gnawed away at him until nothing was left but numbness.

The track curved sharply, snaking round a lichen-crusted wall of rock. Charles pulled up to let Jennings go first. Spiny bunches of rosemary and thyme and gorse clung to the ground above. Pine trees towered over them, misshapen by the wind, an endless mass of gray and green. And suddenly, in the midst of it, an unexpected flash of white.

Something crackled in the bushes. A musket rattled behind Charles. He flung out an arm to stop the soldier from shooting. “No.”

A cry came from the hill above. The white flashed again.

Jennings had wheeled his horse round. “Don’t shoot,” Charles said, both to Jennings and to the men behind. “They’ve got a white flag.”

“We’re unarmed.” A voice, speaking in accented English, came from the mountainside. A woman’s voice, sharp with desperation. More crackling in the bushes, tearing cloth, slithering feet.

Charles swung down from his horse. Two figures burst through the pine trees, half running, half tumbling down a break in the rock in a swirl of dark hair and wool cloaks. Charles caught the first woman as she slid to the track. She fell hard against him in a shower of loose pebbles. Sergeant Baxter steadied the second woman.