Secrets of a Lady Page 5

  Her fingers clenched tight in her lap. Her gaze shifted toward the painting on the overmantel. Roth followed the direction of her gaze. The painting had only registered before as a blur of colors. Now the candlelight seemed to cluster about the luminous whites and pastels the painter had used. It was a portrait of Mélanie Fraser and the children. They were sitting on a wrought-iron bench in the same garden where Roth had looked for clues to Colin Fraser’s disappearance. In the painting it was not a November night but a spring afternoon. The linden trees in the background were thick with leaves, not stark and barren. Mélanie Fraser’s face was bright with laughter, not shadowed with fear. A little girl of perhaps eighteen months sat in her lap, reaching for the rose-colored ribbons on her dress. A small boy stood beside her, leaning against her arm.

  Colin Fraser must have been about five when the portrait was painted, Roth guessed, judging by his own sons. The boy wore a shirt and breeches, not ruffles and velvet. His hair was dark, almost as dark as his mother’s. His face was fine-boned and serious, but curiosity sparkled in his eyes and a hint of mischief danced in the slant of his brows.

  Roth’s throat closed unexpectedly. “He looks like a bright lad.”

  “He is.” Mélanie Fraser’s voice broke, like crystal hurled against a rock. She drew a sharp breath. “He’ll keep his head. I keep telling myself that.”

  Charles Fraser took her hand and gripped it between his own. “He has his mother’s nerves of steel as well as her looks.”

  In truth, the boy did look very like his mother. Roth studied the picture a moment longer, searching for some echo of Charles Fraser in his son. You could see it in the little girl—the strong, determined bones of the face were visible even beneath the baby fat. But the boy was pure French-Spanish, with no hint of the Celt. Not that it was surprising for a child to take strongly after one parent. And yet—

  Roth turned a page in his notebook and jotted down a random note, to give himself a moment to think. The Frasers seemed a happy enough couple, but Charles Fraser was a damned cold bastard and fidelity was rare in their set. Some women of fashion made it a matter of pride to have each of their children by a different father. It was rare for an eldest son and heir to be illegitimate, but accidents could happen to even the cleverest woman. If another man had fathered Colin Fraser, if that man knew or guessed and wanted to lay claim to his child…Roth scribbled over the page. It would explain Mélanie Fraser’s startling combination of self-possession and fear if she suspected who had taken her child and why.

  It was nothing he could pursue with the Frasers, but he could make discreet inquiries later. No doubt it would be damnably difficult. What the polite world did and what they were willing to talk about were two very different things. “Anything else either of you can think of?” he said. “Anything anyone might pressure you to do, not to do, anything anyone might want from you—”

  “We’ve had our share of adventures in the past,” Charles Fraser said, “but nothing—Oh, Christ.” Fraser stared across the room, as though he had been slapped hard across the face.

  “Darling?” Mélanie Fraser squeezed her husband’s hand.

  Charles Fraser pushed his fingers into his brown hair. “It’s absurd. But—”

  “What?” His wife’s voice was tense with strain.

  Fraser looked at her. “The Carevalo Ring.”

  Mélanie Fraser’s eyes widened. “Why—”

  “What ring?” Roth asked.

  Fraser drew a breath. “You’ve heard of the Marqués de Carevalo?”

  “Spanish nobleman. War hero.”

  “Yes. He was one of the guerrillero leaders whose forces were allied—somewhat uneasily at times—with Wellington’s troops in driving the French from Spain. Carevalo was reckless to the point of insanity, but he was a brilliant enough commander that his crazy risks paid off more often than not. The Carevalos are an old Spanish family. Carevalo saw his service to Spain as part of his family’s tradition. He was inclined to view the royal family as incompetent upstarts, with little understanding of what was due to the Spain he believed in. Like many Spaniards who opposed the French, Carevalo isn’t best pleased with the course his country has taken under the restored monarchy. He’s now working with the Spanish liberals, who are in increasingly vehement opposition to the king.”

  Roth nodded. In his view, the British government had woefully betrayed their Spanish allies. Many of the Spaniards had seen the struggle against Napoleon’s occupation as a time to enact long-needed reforms in their own country. At the end of the war, the Spanish king had been restored under an extremely progressive constitution. But the restored King Ferdinand had promptly repealed the reforms made in his absence, restored the Inquisition, stifled all freedom of speech and discussion, and refused to honor the constitution. All the while, the British government continued unwavering in their support of him.

  “Carevalo’s in England now, isn’t he?” Roth said. “Trying to turn British opinion against the Spanish monarchy.”

  “Yes, he—No, I’ll have to start at the beginning. It’s a hell of a long story.” Fraser looked as though the last thing he felt like doing was telling it while more time ticked by with his son missing.

  “If there’s any chance it has a bearing on your son’s disappearance—”

  “Quite.” Fraser pushed himself to his feet and took a turn about the room. “To understand what the ring means today, you have to understand its history. What came to be known as the Carevalo Ring is a gold signet ring, a lion with rubies for eyes. It was forged in Andalusia in the eleventh century, when Spain was divided between Moorish and Christian princes who fought each other and often fought on the same side, in a complex web of shifting alliances. Ramón de Carevalo was a friend and comrade in arms of El Cid. Like El Cid, he fought in the service of both Christians and Moors.”

  Fraser continued to pace, speaking with the crisp precision Roth imagined he would use to outline a strategy for steering a bill through the House of Commons. “There are different stories about how Ramón de Carevalo came to possess the ring. The ring was commissioned by Princess Aysha, wife of Tariq ibn Tashfin. She and her husband presided over a court that was known for its tolerance and artistic achievements. The ring represented what was best in the court. A Jewish sculptor designed it, a Christian gem-cutter cut the rubies, a Moorish goldsmith forged it. According to some versions of the story, Aysha commissioned the ring as a gift for her husband. After Prince Tariq was killed in battle, Carevalo stole the ring and abducted Aysha. According to other versions, Aysha commissioned the ring not for her husband but for Carevalo, who was secretly her lover. After her husband’s death the two of them ran off together.”

  Fraser’s mouth tightened for a moment, perhaps with impatience. “Whether it was an abduction or an elopement, they were pursued by Aysha’s brother. Carevalo and the brother fought. Supposedly the magical power of the ring protected Carevalo. Less fanciful versions of the story say that Carevalo put up his hand to ward off a death blow and the sword point glanced off the ring. Or perhaps Carevalo was simply a better swordsman. What does seem certain is that Carevalo survived and he and Aysha escaped to an estate he had been given in Léon.

  “Whatever the reasons for the marriage, apparently it was a success. Carevalo more or less retired from fighting. Aysha brought a small but talented group of artists to their estate from various cultures and religions. The castle they built is still standing today. It has some of the most beautiful frescoes and metalwork in Spain. They—”

  The crisp voice broke off. Fraser stopped pacing and drew a sharp breath. He stood stock-still, his back to Roth and his wife, his fingers pressed over his eyes, as though he could not remember what he had been saying or the point of the conversation.

  Mélanie Fraser watched her husband for a moment, then turned her gaze to Roth. “Aysha and Ramón’s great-great-grandson wore the ring on the Third Crusade,” she said, her own voice taut with self-control, “which is decidedly ironi
c, considering the spirit of tolerance in which the ring was forged. He was the only one of his party to return alive. He came home to find that his younger brother had usurped the title and estate in his absence. An armed guard awaited him, but when he rode up to the castle, the peasants rose up on his side.”

  “Because he showed them the ring?” Roth said.

  “According to the legend,” said Mélanie Fraser. “Whether the ring had come to the Carevalos through conquest or as a gift to a beloved, it had come to symbolize power. People often find it easier to follow a symbol than a person.”

  “That certainly seems to have been the feeling in the Carevalo family.” Charles Fraser strode back into the center of the room. “In the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, a Carevalo cousin stole the ring and then apparently had the current Carevalo heir murdered and usurped the title. He went on to become the first Marqués de Carevalo. His grandson, the third marqués, failed to wear the ring when he went off to fight in the Spanish Armada. Not only did he perish at sea, so did all the other men from the Carevalo region who went with him. So, of course, did a number of other Spaniards who were part of the Armada, but that minor historical detail hasn’t dimmed the legend of the ring’s power. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the eighth marqués and his son supported rival claimants to the throne. They stole the ring back and forth from each other several times in the course of the conflict. The loyalty of the people in the Carevalo region seems to have gone to whoever possessed the ring.”

  Roth leaned forward. “You know a great deal about the history of the Carevalo family.”

  Fraser grimaced. “I’ve had reason to learn. Sometime in the middle of the last century, the ring disappeared. No one is sure exactly when—it was a while before the Carevalos admitted it was no longer in their possession, and no one wanted to take credit for being the one to have lost the ring. One story is that it was taken by bandits but the Carevalos were too proud to admit it. Another is that one of the Carevalo sons lost it in a card game and then was afraid to tell his father. Or that a Carevalo secretly presented it to his mistress as proof of the extent of his devotion. But the ring’s loss only seemed to make the legend stronger. The story grew up that whoever recovered it would be invincible in battle. Which brings us to November of 1812.”

  Fraser paced the carpet, as though mapping out the terrain of a battlefield in its scrolls and medallions. “Wellington’s troops were wintering in cantonments near Ciudad Rodrigo, just beyond the Portuguese border. The French were spread about Spain. It was clear that the real push of the war would come with the spring thaw. I was on the staff at the British embassy in Lisbon. We got word that a group of bandits in the Cantabrian Mountains had stumbled across something that looked like the Carevalo Ring in the course of plundering a village.”

  Fraser stopped pacing and met Roth’s gaze across the room. “You can understand the significance. The current Marqués de Carevalo was a noted guerrillero leader, but the people of his own region were slow to rally to the Spanish cause. Or perhaps I should say the British cause. We’d rather taken over their war.”

  “And it seemed the recovery of the ring would rouse the populace to battle?”

  “That was our hope. The Carevalo lands were strategically situated for the spring campaign.” Fraser strode to the fireplace. “The bandits were willing to turn the ring over to us, but only for a substantial payment in gold. Carevalo was away fighting in the south. The ambassador wanted to act quickly before the French got wind of the ring. There were a fair number of French sympathizers in the Carevalo region. If the French had recovered the ring it might have turned the tide in their favor. The ambassador thought the fewer people who heard the story, the better. So he sent me to retrieve the ring.”

  “You’d undertaken such missions before.” It wasn’t a question.

  “From time to time. When they found it convenient to use someone without direct links to the military.” Fraser leaned his arm on the marble mantel as though to anchor himself. “I went off to the Cantabrian Mountains. I had a detachment of soldiers with me, but none of them knew the point of our mission. I was half-convinced I was on a wild-goose chase.”

  “We still don’t know for a certainty that you weren’t,” Mélanie Fraser said.

  Roth swung his head round to look at her. “You and Mr. Fraser were already married at the time?”

  “No.” She was worrying the narrow ruffle on her sleeve with her left hand. The lace had frayed between her fingers. “We met on his journey into the mountains. I’d been stranded. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when a gallant British gentleman came to my rescue.”

  She looked at her husband. His eyes went dark with an emotion Roth couldn’t put a name to, save that for a moment there was nothing cold or self-contained in his gaze.

  Fraser turned back to Roth. “We continued on to the rendezvous point. The morning we were to meet with the bandits we were ambushed by a French patrol.” He picked up the poker and jabbed it into the fireplace, though the fire was burning briskly. A puff of smoke gusted through the room. “When the bullets stopped flying, our whole party was dead, save Mélanie and me, a sergeant, and our servants. The two bandits who had come to make the exchange must have been caught up in the crossfire. We found their bodies. The ring was gone. We thought one of the escaping Frenchmen must have made off with it.”

  The firelight caught the stark weight of failure in his eyes. He returned the poker to its stand. “We made our way back to Lisbon,” he said after a moment. “Wellington’s forces were victorious in the spring campaign. The French were driven out of Spain altogether. Napoleon was crushed in Russia and forced to abdicate. The ring seemed irrelevant.”

  “Until?” Roth said.

  Fraser turned to look him full in the face. “Until three weeks ago. Antonio de Carevalo came to see me and demanded I hand it over to him. He said the ring was his family’s birthright.”

  Roth frowned. “But—”

  “But I don’t have the ring. I tried to tell Carevalo that. He refused to believe me. He said now the war was over he’d managed to track down one of the French soldiers who attacked us. The Frenchman claimed the ring never found its way into French hands.”

  “The French never used it to rally support on the Carevalo lands?”

  “No.” Fraser glanced down at the fire, his thick, dark brows drawing together. “We kept expecting them to. I rather suspect one of the French patrol appropriated the ring for himself.”

  “Why wouldn’t Carevalo believe you?”

  “I’m not sure, save that the war left him with little trust in anyone British. He was adamant that I must have kept the ring for myself. He refused even to consider other possibilities. You can see why he wants to get his hands on it. If Carevalo and the Spanish liberals rise up against the king, the ring could be just as valuable a symbol now as in 1812.”

  “What did he say when you insisted you didn’t have the ring?”

  “That I’d be sorry.” A muscle tightened along Fraser’s jaw. “I took it for bluster. He was half-drunk at the time, which isn’t unusual for Carevalo. When I saw him a few days later, he acted as though nothing had happened.”

  Roth tapped his pencil against his notebook. “Has Carevalo ever seen your son?”

  “Oh yes. Carevalo dined with us occasionally when we lived in Lisbon.”

  “Alliances shift. Friends turn into enemies.”

  Fraser was looking into the coals again. “Yes, but—”

  “Honor among gentlemen?” Roth tried to keep the irony from his voice.

  Fraser lifted his head. “The war taught me that men of all ranks can find honor elastic, Mr. Roth. I was going to say I knew Carevalo. I thought I knew him.”

  Mélanie Fraser stared at the unraveled mess she had made of the once pristine lace on her sleeve. “We saw Carevalo at the reception this evening.”

  “Did he say anything that could relate to your son’s disappearance?” Roth asked.

/>   “Not in the least. He flirted with me.” She shivered, as though the memory made her feel unclean. “Why didn’t you tell me he’d asked you for the ring, Charles?”

  “I didn’t see any point in dredging up the past.”

  Their gazes met. Roth couldn’t begin to guess at the memories that echoed between them, but the intimacy of that look went far beyond what he expected from husbands and wives or even lovers.

  A rap at the door broke the stillness. Fraser turned from his wife. “Come in.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, sir.” A slender man with straight fair hair and pale blue eyes stepped into the room. It was Addison, Fraser’s valet, who had shown Roth the footprints in the primrose bed. “Polly has something you and Mrs. Fraser and Mr. Roth had best hear.” He looked at Roth. “I told Officer Dawkins I’d bring her in. She’s a bit upset.”

  It was a classic bit of British understatement. The girl who followed Addison into the room was pale with fright and red-eyed with weeping. Roth would swear her legs were shaking beneath the printed cotton skirt of her gown. Her arms were folded across her stomach as though she was going to be sick.

  Her gaze went from Charles Fraser to his wife. “Oh, sir. Ma’am. I’ll never forgive myself. It was all my fault.”

  Chapter 4

  M élanie Fraser pushed herself to her feet and crossed to the girl’s side. “It’s all right, Polly, we’re all overset. Sit down and tell us what happened.” She put her arm round Polly and steered her to the sofa.

  Polly sank down on the sofa and drew a shuddering breath. She was scarcely more than a child herself, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. She looked at Mrs. Fraser out of wide, troubled hazel eyes. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Well, I was flattered, truth be told. And he was so…so…”

  “He?” Charles Fraser’s voice was surprisingly gentle, though Roth could feel the force of his impatience.

  Polly raised her anguished gaze to him. “I didn’t know him for a criminal, sir, truly. Well, I still don’t rightly know it. Only Officer Dawkins, he was asking us questions and I had this dreadful thought of a sudden—”