Secrets of a Lady

head. “I told you I didn’t ask if she was going off with another man. That’s not strictly true, though I don’t like to remember it. I did ask in the end. Couldn’t help myself. Nelly just laughed and said, ‘Not exactly. But I’ll be well taken care of, thanks to poor Tom.’”

“Tom? Do you know who that was?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea. Probably just one of Nelly’s jokes. I never knew when she was being serious or when she was funning.”

Melanie pressed his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Moore. My husband is right. Your help has been invaluable.”

“We can’t get into the Marshalsea at this hour,” Edgar said as they descended the stairs. “The gates will be locked until morning.”

“The gates will be locked, but we’ll manage to get in.”

“Christ, Charles, you aren’t going to break into a prison?”

“Only as a last resort. I’m going to pull rank as I never have before.”

They had reached the street. “Should we travel separately?” Edgar asked as Charles hailed a hackney.

“Now?” Charles said. “Velasquez is in no fit state to follow us. I admit it’s possible there’s someone else after the ring, but I’m more concerned with not wasting time.”

The streets round the docks were relatively free of traffic at this hour, but the drive to Southwark still seemed to take far too long. The porter at the Marshalsea was disinclined to let anyone in or even listen to their story. It took a quarter hour to persuade him to show them into a small, airless sitting room and summon the jailer and another quarter hour for the jailer to appear. Charles, in his most biting tones, proceeded to invoke the names of his ducal grandfather, the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition. Melanie contributed the most winning smile she could muster and a discreet display of the clocks embroidered on her silk-stockinged ankles.

At length, they were escorted down a passageway to another room, given a lantern, and set free to seek out Hugo Trevennen.

“I say,” the jailer exclaimed. “What’s become of the other gentleman?”

What indeed. Melanie realized she hadn’t seen Edgar since they’d left the sitting room.

“I daresay we’ll find him,” Charles said. “Very enterprising of Edgar,” he murmured to her as they started down the walkway. “He’s either learning from us or being corrupted by us, depending on one’s view.”

The walkways that had been full of activity yesterday afternoon were dark and still. Light shone behind a few windows and occasionally voices drifted through the glass, but for the most part the Marshalsea had settled down for the night.

Charles knocked once on Hugo Trevennen’s door, turned the knob, and walked in without waiting for a reply. “Trevennen? Edgar?”

The smell of tallow candles hung in the air. The wavering light made shadows out of the cracks in the wallpaper and bounced off the grimy glass that covered the theatrical prints. Trevennen stood in the center of the room, wrapped in a brocade dressing gown, eyes wide with amazement. Edgar was in front of the fireplace. He held one of the fireplace tiles in his left hand. With his right hand, he was reaching into a gap where the tile had stood.

Melanie froze and felt Charles do the same. Trevennen started, turned round, gave a smile, and broke the wax-thick silence. “‘But soft, the fair Ophelia.’”

Edgar swung his head round.

“For God’s sake, Edgar.” Charles strode across the room. “What have you found?”

Edgar withdrew his hand from the aperture, clutching a handful of papers. Melanie hurried after Charles. Edgar glanced up at them, then unwrapped the papers without speaking. The tallow light caught the glint of gold. Melanie felt a film of sweat break out on her forehead.

Charles reached into the paper wrappings. He lifted out an oval pendant set with carnelians. No lion, no rubies, no ring. Disappointment rushed through her, leaving her dizzy.

Charles had gone completely still. For a moment, his gaze met Edgar’s. Some sort of silent communication passed between them that she could not begin to fathom.

Charles turned the pendant in his hand. Melanie started to speak, then checked herself. Charles ran his fingers over the pendant and pressed two of the carnelians. The front of the pendant fell open, revealing a small pocket. Nestled within that pocket was the gleam of darker gold and a bloodred glow that could only be rubies.

Charles lifted it out. A circle of gold and a lion’s head with ruby eyes.

Chapter 32

For a moment, all Melanie could do was stare. The ring shimmered before her. The ring Princess Aysha had commissioned for her husband or her secret lover. The ring Ramon de Carevalo had taken as plunder or received as a gift of love. The ring that had been the cause of victory and betrayal and murder. The gold had a luminous sheen, perhaps because of its age or the fineness of the metalwork or perhaps because one saw it through layers of history.

Melanie put her fingers to the cold metal to be sure it was really there. She looked into Charles’s eyes and saw a relief so profound it could not be put into words. For all that the ring had been coveted throughout the centuries, surely no one could have valued it as much as they did in this moment.

Edgar wadded up the paper wrappings and tossed them onto the fire.

“I take it you’ve found what you needed?” Trevennen said.

“Yes,” Charles said. “Oh, yes.”

“And to think I never knew it was there. Extraordinary. But why on earth did she think it necessary to hide it? The necklace is a pretty thing and the ring might have fetched her a tidy sum.”

“We may never know.” Charles unhooked his watch chain, strung the ring on it, and rehooked it.

Trevennen shook his head. “Nelly always was one for freakish starts. But I would never expect her to hide away something of value. She didn’t exactly agree with the Bard that ‘The purest treasure mortal times afford / Is spotless reputation.’ Quite the reverse, in fact.”

Edgar didn’t speak until they were back in the hackney. “I don’t believe it,” he said then. His voice was faint, as though he was still in shock. “To own the truth, I don’t think I really believed you’d find it.”

“You found it, brother,” Charles said.

“Only because I was there first.” Edgar’s voice shook with the remnants of disbelief. “So we now have to wait until morning to place an advertisement in the Morning Chronicle and then wait on Carevalo?”

“Damnable, I know. But I don’t think Carevalo will want to wait any more than we do. We should hear from him early tomorrow.”

“Will he give Colin back?”

Charles was silent for the distance between two street lamps. “He’ll agree to meet us. We’ll make sure he gives Colin back.”

Melanie rubbed her hands over the velvet of her cloak. Her palms were damp. The first euphoric rush of the ring’s discovery had faded. The constant need to think and plan was gone, leaving a hollow void inside her. All the fears she had forced herself to hold at bay during the search crowded into that void.

Her legs felt unsteady beneath her as they climbed the front steps in Berkeley Square. Her arms quivered, as they did after she’d carried Jessica back from a long walk. She was conscious of aches in her muscles that she hadn’t been aware of before.

“Mr. O’Roarke arrived a short time ago,” Michael told them as he took their cloaks. “He’s in the library.”

They hurried into the library. Raoul was standing over the chessboard, a pawn in one hand. “Melanie. Fraser. You’ll forgive me, but—” He scanned their faces. “You’ve found it?”

Charles paused just beyond the threshold. One gray gaze met another. In that moment, Melanie thought that she was a fool not to have seen long since that they were father and son. Charles unhooked his watch chain and held out the ring.

Raoul stared at it. “My compliments.”

“It was Melanie who steered us in the right direction, and Edgar who actually found it. You remember my brother?”

“Captain Fraser.” Raoul inclined his head.