Beneath a Silent Moon

Aspasia Newland regarded Mélanie with a level blue gaze. ‘I should have expected this. Why is it that the secrets one most wishes to keep are always the quickest to be discovered?’

Mélanie studied the woman who had been Honoria Talbot’s governess. A heart-shaped face, which could not quite be rendered severe by the way her brown hair was scraped into a tight knot. A full-lipped mouth drawn into firm lines of self-restraint. Delicate features set with a wariness as closed as one of Portia’s caskets. ‘My husband and I have no wish to share the information with others.’

‘That’s kind of you, Mrs. Fraser. But the trouble with such secrets is that once they get about they’re fiendishly difficult to control. It wouldn’t be very good for my charges if their governess was known to have such a reputation.’

She glanced at the reflecting pool. Chloe and Colin were sitting on the stone rim sailing a boat back and forth between them, while Jessica’s nurse and Miss Dudley, Colin’s governess, sat nearby and watched Jessica in her baby carriage. Berowne, Mélanie and Charles’s cat, was curled up in a patch of sun on the lawn. Mélanie had told Colin and Chloe about Miss Talbot’s death. Colin had turned solemn and Chloe had asked a number of questions, but now they both seemed to have taken the news in stride. Neither had known Honoria Talbot well.

‘Chloe already has her mother’s reputation to contend with,’ Mélanie said. ‘And her mother’s birth and fortune to help her do so.’

‘You’re a generous woman, Mrs. Fraser. But you’re a stranger to this world. People are freer on the Continent. I wonder if you realize just how rigid the British can be about the morality of such matters.’ Miss Newland ran a finger round the stiff lace that edged her high-standing collar. ‘I don’t suppose you’d believe I’ve been debating with myself whether or not to make a confession to you about my involvement with Lord Quentin.’

‘You’d have had no reason to think the affair had anything to do with Miss Talbot’s death.’ Mélanie scanned Miss Newland’s face. ‘Unless you knew something more. Perhaps concerning Miss Talbot and Lord Valentine?’

Miss Newland’s brows lifted.

‘We’ve discovered that Miss Talbot had had a liaison with Lord Valentine for some time,’ Mélanie said, in the tone she’d have used to say they’d discovered Honoria was fond of painting watercolors.

‘I see.’ Miss Newland smoothed her hands over the dove-gray bombazine of her skirt. ‘I begin to see why your husband was given the task of investigating Miss Talbot’s murder. He’s obviously quick to discover information. As you are yourself.’

‘You knew about Miss Talbot and Lord Valentine?’

Miss Newland looked out across the garden, as elegant and whimsical as a spun-sugar confection from Gunter’s, set between the untamed wildness of the cliffs and the sea. ‘My father was a classical scholar—an Oxford don until he married my mother and was forced to resign his position. After that he eked out a living doing private tutoring. I grew up on the stories of the Greeks and Romans. The Oresteia. Jason and Medea. Paris, Cassandra, Hector, Troilus, and the rest of Priam and Hecuba’s brood. When I was a girl, I thought of those stories as fairy tales. But the longer I’ve lived in the world of the beau monde, the less fanciful they seem.’

‘Glenister House strikes me as a difficult place in which to be employed.’

Miss Newland broke off a leaf from the birch tree beside them and twirled it between her fingers. ‘One has an odd view of a household as a governess. One sees bits of everything and the whole of nothing. I knew Lord Glenister’s reputation, of course. But like most men in his position, he was careful to keep his amorous escapades well away from the sphere Honoria and Evelyn inhabited. It was my job to shelter them from their uncle’s world. In that sense, you might say my days at Glenister House were my most egregious failure as a governess.’

‘How old were the girls when you went to Glenister House?’

‘Honoria was fourteen and Evie thirteen. Honoria had joined the household at three when her father died. She was used to having her own way in everything. Evie had only been at Glenister House for three years. Her mother eloped with a half-pay officer and gave birth to eight children in quick succession. Lord Glenister took Evie in as a kindness to his sister. Evie missed her own family dreadfully, though she was fiercely loyal to her uncle and cousins. In some ways she was far better at managing things and people than Honoria was herself. Even at thirteen she was beginning to run the household.’

‘And Lord Quentin and Lord Valentine?’

Miss Newland lifted a brow with all the coolness of the most regal dowager dampening pretensions. ‘They were away at school. My involvement with Lord Quentin didn’t begin until some years later.’ She did not elaborate. But then, as Mélanie well knew, it was one thing to be honest about the facts. It was quite another to be honest about the feelings that lay beneath.

‘When did you first suspect something between Miss Talbot and Lord Valentine?’

Miss Newland frowned down at the leaf clutched between her fingers. ‘Looking back, I think I suspected the liaison for some time before I’d even admit it to myself. I didn’t want to believe it. Lord Valentine needled Honoria in a way that seemed wholly unromantic, and I couldn’t imagine a girl like Honoria running such a risk. I misjudged her.’

‘In what way?’

Miss Newland smoothed the crumpled leaf. ‘I didn’t realize that her concern for the rules of society was a sham. She wanted to succeed at the social game, but not because she took it seriously. Because it was an avenue to power. She liked to be in control—of situations, of her environment, of the people about her.’

It was a cold analysis of a girl who had been little more than a child when she was in Miss Newland’s charge. Miss Newland must have realized it, for she gave Mélanie a bitter smile. ‘You think I might betray more maternal warmth? Given what you’ve already learned about my past, I think we’re beyond appearances, Mrs. Fraser.’

Mélanie made no comment. She wasn’t at all sure they had got to the truth of Miss Newland’s relationship to the Glenister House family. ‘What convinced you of Miss Talbot’s affair with her cousin?’

‘The crudest of evidence. I walked into the library at an inopportune moment to find them engaged in an activity that had nothing to do with books.’ Miss Newland dropped the birch leaf on the ground and clasped her doeskin-gloved hands together. ‘They didn’t appear particularly embarrassed. Honoria asked me to wait for her in her sitting room. She joined me there a quarter-hour later and told me if I breathed a word of what I’d seen she’d reveal my liaison with Lord Quentin. I knew she was a strong-minded young woman, but I don’t think it was until then that I realized what nerves of steel she possessed.’

‘She put you in a difficult position.’

‘Yes. Whatever I may think of the strictures placed upon unmarried women, there’s no escaping the fact mat Honoria risked ruin.’ Miss Newland’s gaze moved to her current charge, Chloe, trailing her blue satin sash in the water as she stretched out an arm to retrieve the toy boat. ‘I could not in good conscience collude in her love affair with her cousin. Dear me, what a shocking hypocrite I sound talking about conscience. Chloe, dear,’ she called out, her voice raised, ‘be careful.’

Chloe sat up, the boat clutched in one hand, and waved to her governess. Miss Newland waved back. ‘On the other hand, if I exposed Honoria’s love affair to her guardians, I would bring censure upon Honoria and disgrace upon myself. Honoria would probably have been forced to marry Lord Valentine, which did not seem to me to be a solution that would ensure happiness for either of them. I would have been turned off without a reference.’ She turned her gaze to Mélanie. ‘I confess I also felt a certain fellow feeling for Honoria. It’s difficult for a woman, particularly an unmarried woman, to take control of her life.’

Memories clustered behind Mélanie’s eyes, threatening to turn her thoughts from the matter at hand. ‘So your only solution was to leave.’

‘Yes.’

‘It must have been difficult to leave Lord Quentin.’

Miss Newland touched the locket she wore on a black velvet ribbon round her throat. ‘Difficult enough that I knew I had allowed the affair to continue far too long.’ Her gaze lingered on a statue on the edge of the lawn, an Italian marble water nymph, her legs and arms bent in sensuous curves, an open shell clutched in one hand with blatant suggestion. ‘A sensible woman in my position learns to live without pleasure, Mrs. Fraser. I’m afraid I’m not that sensible. But I have learned one can’t afford to take pleasure too seriously or to let any one person become vital to one’s happiness.’

The words might have come out of Mélanie’s own mouth five years ago. The problem, of course, was that a person could become vital to one’s happiness without one realizing what was happening until far too late.

‘You didn’t tell Lord Quentin about his brother and Miss Talbot?’ Mélanie said over the cottony taste in her mouth.

‘No. It would have put him in an intolerable position with Honoria and Lord Valentine, and he has enough trauma in his family as it is.’ She turned to look at Mélanie, her face shadowed by the overhanging branches of the birch tree. ‘Honoria still had the power to ruin me, of course. Which I suppose gives me an excellent motive to have killed her.’

Glenister stared at Charles’s father across the gilt and leather of the study. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kenneth.’

‘You can spare us the protestations, Frederick. You aren’t a good enough actor to pull them off.’ Kenneth turned to Charles. ‘I never particularly wanted you to hear the truth of this, but I don’t see another option.’

Charles sat back on the bench, feeling as though he had stumbled into an alternate version of reality. His father, who had never in his life confided in him, was volunteering information without prompting. Signal fires of alarm went up in his head.

‘Will you tell the story,’ Kenneth said to Glenister, ‘or shall I?’

‘I don’t see what story there is to tell.’

‘As you wish. Correct me if you disagree with my version of events.’ Kenneth turned back to Charles, though every word he spoke seemed to be a dart aimed at Glenister. ‘Some years ago—you and Edgar would have been scarcely out of leading strings and it was before Quen and Val were born—Glenister and I were comparing notes on our latest amorous adventures. Which after a time do have a certain sameness, I confess. I don’t remember the names of the ladies in question, but as I recall, Glenister professed a preference for married ladies of quality over courtesans—is that how it was, Frederick?’

‘I don’t remember,’ Glenister said in a tight voice.

‘Sad what age does to the memory. In any event, Glenister remarked that while married ladies who had already produced an heir were fair game, no gentleman could or would foist a bastard heir on another gentleman. I took his words as something of a challenge. I’ve always enjoyed challenges. I wagered him—what were the stakes, Glenister? A racehorse? A yacht? Ah, yes, my new curricle team against a bronze of his I’d always coveted. The terms of the wager were that I could seduce a married lady who had not yet given her husband an heir. Glenister said he thought I’d finally set myself up for a failure. Those were your words, weren’t they, Frederick? I swear I remember correctly.’

‘Damn you to hell,’ Glenister said, his face white.

‘I’ve already seen to that on my own. I’m sure we shall meet there and find the company a great deal more convivial than in heaven.’ Kenneth looked back at Charles. ‘You’ve probably guessed what transpired next. Frederick went off to the Continent for four months. The childless married lady to whom I chose to lay siege was Frederick’s lovely young bride.’

Glenister was staring at Kenneth as though he’d wrest him limb from limb. Charles looked into the cool mockery of his father’s gaze. ‘Quen.’

‘Precisely. By the time Frederick returned to Britain, his wife was more than a month gone with child. Quen is most probably my son. Unless of course she was playing her husband false with another gentleman as well.’

Glenister jerked forward as though to strike Kenneth, then held himself back. ‘You bastard. Even now you show no remorse.’

‘What would be the point? And really, Frederick, you should have known what you were setting yourself up for when you went away for four months directly after leaving me such a challenge. Very careless.’

Glenister snatched a Limoges casket from the console table and hurled it to the floor.

‘My God,’ Kenneth said, ‘that was fourteenth-century.’

‘We’ve both got good at smashing things.’

‘Does Quen know?’ Charles asked.

‘No.’ Glenister strode through the ruined casket, grinding shards of porcelain beneath his boot heels. ‘No one does. Nothing would have pleased me more than to call Kenneth to account, but I couldn’t do so without—’

‘Making it obvious that you had horns on your head,’ Kenneth finished for him.

‘And so we continued to go on as we had before. Though I need hardly say our friendship was never the same.’

‘Until you saw a way to take your revenge.’ Kenneth’s gaze turned to ice. ‘What I want to know is, did you deliberately arrange for Honoria to be pregnant with your son’s child when I became betrothed to her or did you simply take advantage of a fortunate accident?’

‘I’d never—’ Glenister’s eyes went wide with outrage. ‘Good God, she was my ward.’

‘Whom you allowed your son to seduce.’

‘If I’d had an inkling of what was going on do you think I’d have allowed Val within a foot of her?’ Glenister wiped his hand across his brow. ‘I wasn’t happy when Honoria told me she wanted to marry you, but I could scarcely refuse without telling her the truth about Quen.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to do so?’ Charles asked.

‘I—’ Glenister strode to the far end of the room. ‘Honoria insisted it was what she wanted. Then, after the betrothal was announced, Val came to me and told me Honoria was pregnant with his child, that they’d been lovers for years—’

‘And you saw your way to revenge,’ Kenneth said.

‘All right, yes.’ Glenister spun round to face him. ‘Damn you, it was no more than you deserved.’

‘Dear Christ.’ Charles pushed himself to his feet. ‘She was little more than an object to either of you, was she? To be preserved like one of your paintings or statues and then used to make a point when you decided she was tainted.’

His father’s cold gaze raked his face. ‘What was she to you?’

‘A friend. But I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘She had to marry someone,’ Glenister said in the sort of tenacious voice used by the inebriated. ‘Whatever I think of Kenneth, she had a better chance of happiness with him than with Val.’

‘When were you planning to break the news to me?’ Kenneth asked.

‘I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have done that to Honoria. It would have been enough that I knew.’

‘And if I had found out?’

‘There was no reason—’ Glenister’s gaze jerked to Kenneth’s face. ‘Oh, my God. Did you? Is that why she died?’

Kenneth looked at him down the length of the study. ‘I gave you my word I didn’t kill her.’

‘And I have cause to know just how reliable your word is, don’t I?’ Glenister glanced out the mullioned window. ‘For years—those damnable years of pretending we were still friends—I wondered why you’d done it. And then I realized you’d always hated me. You never got over the fact that I was the future marquis and you were the poor orphan who was sent to Harrow on your godfather’s charity. You couldn’t bear it, could you? Those months of making the Grand Tour and picking out the finest treasures only to see me buy them.’

Kenneth’s gaze flickered for a moment, then went still. ‘Your timing’s a bit off, Frederick. By the time of my liaison with your wife I was quite comfortably situated.’

‘Thanks to a lucky legacy and an even luckier marriage. But it couldn’t equal a marquisate. I have a position you’ll never have and you couldn’t bear it because you thought you were so much cleverer than I was. So you went out and proved it.’

Kenneth’s gaze remained steady, though Charles noticed his lips whiten slightly. ‘You overrate yourself, Frederick. You’ve never been that central to my thinking.’

‘That’s why you wanted Honoria, isn’t it?’ Glenister said, as though the thought had only just occurred to him. ‘She was one more treasure you could take from me.’

‘My dear Glenister. Once again you’ve got it all backward.’

‘Not this time. I know you, Kenneth. Far too well.’ Glenister looked at his former friend as though he’d like to rip the truth from his throat. ‘The only thing I’m not sure of is if you smashed her the way I just smashed your precious casket.’

Miss Newland regarded Mélanie without flinching. ‘I wish I could say that I would have come to you with all this information if you hadn’t learned of my prior relationship to Lord Quentin. But in truth I can’t tell you what I would have done. Self-preservation is a strong instinct.’

And Honoria Talbot had had the power to threaten Aspasia Newland’s security indefinitely.

‘Mama.’ The exclamation from Chloe cut across the lawn. Lady Frances was sweeping down the stairs from the terrace in a swirl of lavender lustring. She paused to admire the toy boat, then crossed the lawn to join Mélanie and Miss Newland.

‘Mélanie. I should have known I’d find you being a devoted mother. Miss Newland, will you excuse us for a moment?’

‘Of course.’ Miss Newland smiled with no hint of the revelations of a few moments before and went to join the children.

‘Admirable woman,’ Lady Frances murmured, looking after the governess’s straight-backed figure. ‘I don’t know how she does it, tending other people’s children year after year. I barely manage with my own, though I think I’m doing rather better with Chloe than I did with the others. Mélanie, I need to talk to you.’ She spun round and laid a hand on Mélanie’s arm. ‘I don’t suppose Kenneth’s given any further explanation of his whereabouts last night?’

‘Only that he was in the library.’

Lady Frances snorted. ‘How idiotic. And Charles is afraid his father killed Honoria. No, don’t argue the point, one could see it in his face last night.’

‘He could hardly fail to at least wonder,’ Mélanie said.

‘In the circumstances, I suppose you’re right.’ Lady Frances removed her hand from Mélanie’s arm. ‘But Kenneth couldn’t have killed Honoria. You can take my word for it.’

Mélanie studied Charles’s mother’s sister. ‘How can you be sure?’

Lady Frances lifted a well-groomed brow. ‘My dear, isn’t it obvious? Because Kenneth spent last night with me.’