Edgar returned the gesture with a stiff nod. “O’Roarke.”
Raoul’s gaze turned back to the ring. “I always thought all the fuss about a bit of gold and gems was foolish. Yet it does have a certain power, if only because so many generations have endowed it with that power. Where was it?”
Charles returned the ring to his watch chain. “In her uncle’s rooms in the Marshalsea.”
Raoul lifted his brows. “Remarkable. But why hide it?”
“Insurance against a bleak future, perhaps?” Charles said. “The truth is, we don’t know and perhaps never will.”
Melanie walked into the room. “Why are you here, Raoul?” Belatedly, she remembered Edgar’s presence and realized she should have said “Mr. O’Roarke.”
Raoul set the pawn back on its black square on the chessboard. “I know where Carevalo is.”
Melanie was at his side in an instant. “What?”
Raoul squeezed her fingers and detached her hand from his sleeve, a warning in his eyes. “Earlier today— yesterday, strictly speaking—I attempted to trace a lady of Carevalo’s acquaintance who plies her wares in Soho. She goes by the name of Corinthian Nan. She has no permanent address, so it was difficult to track her down, but I left numerous messages with offers of a generous reward. She arrived at my hotel shortly after you left tonight.”
Charles closed the distance between them. “She’d seen Carevalo?”
“Not for several days. But apparently he talks to her more than to anyone else—perhaps he feels free to do so because she’s so far removed from the circles in which any of us move. He seems to have enjoyed boasting to her about his other conquests, which is about the level of finesse one could expect from Carevalo in the bedchamber. According to Corinthian Nan, Carevalo’s been much preoccupied with a Mrs. Grafton, who possesses a convenient Thames-side villa in Chiswick to which she can escape while business keeps her husband in town. The villa is kept shut up, except when the family go there in the summer. Mrs. Grafton even gave Carevalo a set of keys—he showed them to Corinthian Nan as a boast of his powers.”
Charles frowned. “That doesn’t prove—”
“No. But after Nan left, I turned to last week’s editions of the
Charles nodded. “It’s not conclusive, but it’s definitely worth investigating.”
Edgar stared at Raoul from beneath drawn brows. “You’re being very generous with your help, O’Roarke.”
Raoul turned his gaze to him. “My dear Captain Fraser.” His voice was gentle. “The boy is my grandson.”
Edgar flushed and lowered his gaze.
Charles paced the carpet. “If you involve yourself, Carevalo will know you’re working with us.”
Raoul’s mouth tightened. “At the moment that seems of little concern. I find I’m rather averse to the idea of Carevalo surviving this business.”
Charles met his gaze with the force of one sword striking another. “We get Colin back before we even think of vengeance.”
“That goes without saying. I think we can safely take one of your carriages. There seems little risk of being followed.”
Melanie saw Charles bridle at the word “we,” consider the value of help, and come to a decision. “I’ll order the carriage. We can leave in a quarter hour.”
“We’ll need to reload the pistols,” Edgar said. “I’ll fetch dry powder. You still keep it in your study?”
The Fraser brothers strode from the room. The heavy doors closed. Melanie found herself alone with her former lover.
She felt his gaze on her. He could read her like no one else—except Charles, which was odd, as she’d kept so much from Charles. “Are you going to be all right,
She walked to the fireplace, arms wrapped round herself. “If we get Colin back, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”
He followed her with his gaze. “I don’t think even you believe that’s true, Melanie. Getting Colin back of course comes before everything else, but I think your life with Charles matters very much to you.”
“Thank you, Raoul.” Her voice was so dry it cut. “I must be getting very slow. I keep forgetting that you know me better than I know myself.”
“Never that. But I may on occasion see things you miss.” He regarded her, his head tilted to one side. “It strikes me that Charles’s capacity for forgiveness and understanding is remarkable.”
Charles’s face, when the full realization of her betrayal had broken on him, was imprinted on her memory like a battle scar. “Some things are beyond forgiveness, Raoul.”
He wandered back to the chessboard and stared down at it. “Like marrying your mistress to your son?”
She watched him, the graceful hands, the loose, elegant limbs, the face that could hide more than that of any man she knew. “Among other things.”
“Most of which, no doubt, I’ve done in my life.” He picked up a knight and moved it. “Who was playing white, you or Charles?”
“I was.”
He reached for a rook and paused with the crenellated top between his fingers. “He had you quite neatly boxed in. You saw a way out?”
She stared at the board. Memory of that two-day-old game returned like the plot of some long-forgotten play. “I was going to use the pawn on the far left to block his bishop, then bring up the rook to put him in check.”
“Yes, that’s what I would have done myself. He could protect his king, but you’d have him on the run.”
She watched his elegant fingers hover over the board. Memories coursed through her with unexpected strength. Fingers brushing her cheek as she drifted into sleep. A steady hand teaching her how to fire a pistol and wield a knife. The glow of cannon fire reflected in his eyes. The feel of his hands tossing her into the saddle. The knowledge that only he could understand the way their work corroded the soul. The rush of one mind meeting another, as sweet as a caress, as intoxicating as champagne. “I knew you used me,” she said, “like you used everyone else. But I thought you were honest about it.”
He moved her rook to the attack, then moved one of Charles’s knights to protect his king. “If I’d told you Charles is my son, would you have made a different choice?”
She bit back an angry retort and forced herself to consider. “I don’t know. But I should have been able to decide for myself.”
He turned from the chessboard and looked her in the face. “Are you sorry you’re married to him?”
“Not for myself. But we did an unforgivable thing to him, Raoul. I don’t expect him ever to trust me again. I only hope he doesn’t lose his ability to trust at all.”
“Charles is too sensible a man to do that.”
“He has as many scars as the rest of us. Perhaps more. He’s just adept at hiding them.” She looked into his steady gray eyes. A painful truth burst from her lips. “Oh, God, Raoul, I probably would have married him even if I’d known he was your son. Part of me couldn’t resist the opportunity. Not just for liberty or the future of Spain. For the sheer challenge of it. What could be more difficult? To deceive my own husband.” And not just any husband. A man with whom she seemed to share her soul. With whom she did share her soul. “It was my greatest role.”
“And you played it superbly.”
“Because, as in all good performances, I found the truth within it. I learned to love Charles and that made it easier to betray him. You taught me well.”
Instead of meeting the challenge in her eyes, his gaze softened, most unfairly. “Even if Charles can forgive you, can you ever forgive yourself?”
“I don’t know.” She swallowed, aware of a bitter, empty place deep inside her. “I’ve long since faced the fact that much of what we did was unforgivable.”
He looked down at the chessboard again, the pieces frozen in the midst of plot and counterplot. “Betrayal has
