the children when she had to put a particularly harsh truth to them. “A real wedding night was the least I owed you.”
He had thought nothing she could say could sicken him further. He had been wrong. “I see,” he said, over the bitter bile of memories turned to ash. “So it was payment.”
“I prefer to call it reparations.”
“Dear Christ.” Moonlight shimmering through the linen of her nightdress. A hand trembling in his own. Eyes that shone with fear and trust. A communion that seemed absolute. A lie that cut deeper than any words. The fragile woman he’d held in his arms that night had staged the whole scene. It was a fitting start to their marriage.
“Charles—”
“Don’t. Whatever it is, don’t say it. We’re going to get Colin back. And then so help me God I never want to see you again.”
Her eyes turned as impenetrable as a fathoms-deep sea. “I didn’t expect that you would, darling,” she said.
He wrenched his gaze away. He didn’t let himself look at her again until they reached Covent Garden. He was shaking as though with a fever. Rage choked his throat, flayed his skin, clawed at his vital organs. He had a sudden image of his mother hurling a crystal scent bottle against a silk-hung wall. The memory of her scream echoed in his head.
No. Damn it, no. He wasn’t his mother. He could control this. He could control anything if he put his mind to it. His marriage might be over, but his son still needed him.
The coachman pulled up as close to the Thistle as he could. Charles jumped down and nearly skidded on a rotted cabbage leaf. The smell of overripe oranges and a babble of hawkers’ cries filled the air. Two women with liberal amounts of rouge on their cheeks and scant covering on their bosoms were leaning against the wall of the tavern. They moved toward him, then subsided against the wall as he handed Melanie from the carriage. He kept hold of Melanie’s arm and steered her past a trio of young men in grubby corduroy jackets who were warming their hands at a fire laid in the street. One man’s gaze slid sideways toward Melanie’s shot-silk reticule.
The Thistle was a narrow brick building, with a wood-faced lower story and brightly polished brass lamps flanking the door. The air in the common room smelled of sour ale and freshly brewed coffee. Charles scanned the dozen or so customers who lounged about the tables. Two gray-haired men were bent over a backgammon board. A man in a green-grocer’s apron was gulping down a mug of coffee and eating a paper-wrapped sausage, one eye on the mantel clock. A woman in a low-cut gown and a tattered lace shawl was slumped at one of the tables, listening to the attentions of a stringy young man in a flashy coat as though she was too tired to shoo him away. A potboy threaded his way between the tables with a pot of foaming ale.
Charles signaled to the potboy, but as he did so, Baxter himself came through the doorway from the room beyond and let out an exclamation of pleased surprise. “Good God, it’s Mr. Fraser. And Mrs. Fraser. An honor, ma’am.”
Charles subdued his impatience and shook the tavern-keeper’s hand, pleased to find his own hand relatively steady. “Could we have a word in private, Baxter?”
“Of course, of course.” Baxter led them up a narrow staircase to the family quarters and opened a door onto a cheerful, floral-papered room with dried flowers on the mantel and a child’s building blocks strewn over the hearth rug. “Tea? Or a spot of ale? No? I suppose it is a bit early. Just let me light the fire.”
Melanie sank down on a black horsecloth settee. Charles moved to a straight-backed chair several feet away from her. Baxter’s gaze flickered at the seating choice. He busied himself adjusting the cabbage rose fire screen. He had grown a bit thicker about the waistline, but otherwise he was unchanged since their days in Spain. “Well, now. Very kind of you to call, but it can’t be just to chat about the past.” He turned to face them. “What’s amiss?”
Charles told him, as succinctly as possible, omitting only Melanie’s revelations. Baxter’s eyes went wide with surprise, then dark with anger. “By God, sir. Begging your pardon, ma’am, but Mrs. Baxter and I have three little ones of our own. What kind of fiend would do that to a child?”
“Someone willing to go to any lengths to achieve his objective.” Charles was relieved to find that his voice still sounded rational. He was putting to use every lesson he’d ever learned about self-control in a crisis, every trick mastered in boyhood to hold feelings at bay.
Baxter unclenched his hands. “Carevalo wants the ring that much?”
“Apparently. My mistake was not to realize it sooner.” “Mistake” was a woefully inadequate way to describe such a sin of omission. But there would be time, later, to curse himself for the fool he’d been. Time to remember that whatever sins Melanie had committed, he was the one who had failed their son.
Baxter stared at Charles, a dawning realization on his face. “You think I’m the British soldier who had the ring all along?”
Charles watched him with an unwavering gaze. “We don’t know what to think. We’re investigating every possibility.”
“No, you’re right to wonder.” Baxter slicked his sparse dark hair back from his forehead. “It would have to be me, wouldn’t it. That would explain why the ring didn’t turn up on any of the dead men. But as God is my witness, Mr. Fraser—”
“‘Saint-seducing gold,’” Melanie murmured. “It would have been a great temptation. After all, the British would still get the ring. Why shouldn’t you gain by the transaction?” She was tugging off her gloves, as though she couldn’t bear to be still. A pearl button snapped off and rolled to the floorboards.
Baxter bent down and retrieved the button. “I’m not a liar, ma’am. I don’t know how to prove it to you, save to say it plain out.” He held out his hand to her.
Melanie leaned forward and took the button from him. “Truthfully, I never thought you were, Mr. Baxter.”
Baxter’s shoulders relaxed. He stared at his broad hands, smeared with soot from lighting the coals. “It’s odd, I don’t talk about the war much as a rule—don’t like to upset Mrs. Baxter. Don’t think about it much neither, truth be told. It was an ugly time. Hard sometimes to believe it really happened.” He looked at the children’s blocks on the hearth rug for a moment, then turned his gaze to Charles. “So that ring was the reason we were in the mountains. I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe the gentleman who was here last week.”
Charles gave a jerk of surprise. “What gentleman?”
Baxter looked up at him. “A gentleman by the name of Lorano came to see me last week. He told me this same story about the ring. I assumed he’d have been to see you, too.”
Charles glanced instinctively at Melanie. “What did the man look like?”
“Nothing very much to speak of, sir. About your years. Tallish. Dark hair. Not too heavy. Seemed to be a Spaniard. Leastways he had the coloring and a bit of an accent and the name sounds Spanish. I had no reason to think he wasn’t who he said he was.”
“No, of course not.” Melanie scrunched her gloves in her lap. Her nails pressed into her palms. “What did this Mr. Lorano say to you?”
“That he was trying to trace the ring. I insisted the French must have got it, but he said he had doubts. Asked if there was a chance we buried it with any of the dead. I assumed he was a friend of this Marques de Carevalo, though come to think of it he didn’t come right out and say so.” Baxter rubbed at the soot on his hands. “Do you think it was my answers made Carevalo decide you must have the ring yourself?”
“I doubt it,” Charles said. “Carevalo’s been convinced I have the ring ever since he talked to the French soldier. If he was going to make inquiries, he’d have come himself. I doubt this Lorano is his friend, or even working with him.”
“Who the devil is he, then?”
“I’m not sure. But we may have competition in finding the ring.” Charles leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “
“I don’t see how, sir. I went through their pockets careful as can be, in case there was anything to send on to their families.”
“What did you take out?”
Baxter frowned. “The Spaniard asked me the same thing. One fellow had a watch. Another had a lock of his sweetheart’s hair. I think that was all, except that Lieutenant Jennings had a letter on him.”
