Secrets of a Lady (aka Daughter of the Game)

Jeremy Roth, runner in the employ of the Bow Street Public Office, stepped through a swan-pedimented doorway into an airy room with sea-green walls and pristine ivory moldings. The small salon, the footman had called it. You could fit two of his own parlor quite neatly beneath the coffered ceiling and not even scrape the paint.

The Frasers were standing in front of the veined cream marble fireplace, flanked by matched silver candlesticks, the porcelain mantel clock between them. Mélanie Fraser had her back to the door, her dark head held at a proud angle, the pin-tucked skirt of her pale blue gown falling in perfect folds round her. Charles Fraser had one hand on his wife’s shoulder, the other on the mantel, his claret-colored coat an unexpected jolt of color among the cool tones of the room.

They could have been posing for a portrait of a typical Mayfair couple, at home in their perfect jewel box of a world. Save that this was an hour when no fashionable couple would be awake. Unless, of course, they had failed to go to bed, in which case they would probably not be in each other’s company.

Charles Fraser lifted his gaze to the doorway. “Oh, Roth, good. Come in.” The rough Scottish lilt in his voice was more pronounced than it had been when Roth arrived. Otherwise he sounded perfectly in command of himself. Roth marveled, as he had on his arrival, at Fraser’s composure. The result of training from the cradle, no doubt. In his place, Roth would have been tearing his hair out and smashing things.

“You haven’t met my wife,” Fraser said, as Roth advanced into the room.

“Mrs. Fraser.” Roth inclined his head, then felt the breath catch unexpectedly in his throat. He had heard Mélanie Fraser described as beautiful. He had seen an engraving of her once, in a print shop window. Neither the description nor the picture had done her justice. He had seen women with more perfect features, more flawless complexions, more voluptuous bodies, but there was a radiance about Mélanie Fraser that made it impossible to look away. His inner defenses slammed into place. His own wife had taught him not to trust beauty.

“Please sit down, Mr. Roth.” Her voice was as well-modulated as her husband’s, but she had a slight accent that, while not obviously French or Spanish, betrayed that English was not her native tongue. She moved toward a green satin sofa, her gown rustling softly. The only sign that she had dressed hastily was the few strands of dark hair that had escaped about her face—that, and the absence of any jewelry. She looked like a woman who always wore earrings. “I’ve had coffee sent in,” she said. “I imagine you could use it as much as we can.”

Roth glanced at the sofa table, where a silver coffee service and an array of porcelain cups were set out on an intricately patterned blue-and-white tray that was probably Wedgwood. He wasn’t sure what startled him more, the fact that Mélanie Fraser was composed enough to make such an offer or that she had been thoughtful enough to do so. In truth, the coffee would be welcome. He’d been questioning a trio of robbery suspects in the Brown Bear Tavern until past three in the morning. He had just returned to the Public Office to write up his notes when Charles Fraser’s message arrived.

He crossed to a chair opposite the sofa, a spindly thing upholstered in a shiny cream-colored fabric. He found himself wondering how they managed to keep the upholstery clean. Perhaps they simply had it recovered every year.

Charles Fraser dropped down on the sofa beside his wife. He moved with the loose-limbed elegance of one bred to command. “You saw the garden and Colin’s room?”

Roth nodded. “I was hoping there’d turn out to be some mistake. But I’m afraid there’s no doubt your son was taken.”

Mélanie Fraser set down the coffeepot with a thud that echoed through the room. Coffee spattered onto the glossy surface of the table and the delicate folds of her gown. “We know that.” Her voice shook, cutting through the cinnamon and cloves of the potpourri-scented air. “We wouldn’t have sent for you otherwise.”

Charles Fraser put a hand on his wife’s arm. She drew a harsh breath, stirring the pleated muslin at the neck of her gown. “I’m sorry.” She jabbed the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “It’s just so bloody awful.”

The light from the branch of candles on the sofa table fell full on her face, revealing what Roth hadn’t been able to see from the doorway. Her posture might be perfect, her voice controlled, her manners impeccable—but her eyes held a raw anguish that Roth had seen in the eyes of Billingsgate fishwives and Oxford Street milliners and Covent Garden harlots. The sick terror of a mother who fears for her child was a universal language, whatever the woman’s accent. He felt a rush of cold shame. Mélanie Fraser might not deserve more consideration than a woman of lower station, but neither did she deserve less.

“There’s no need to apologize, Mrs. Fraser. Bloody awful sums it up very well.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “You have a good eye, Mr. Fraser. It looks as if it happened just as you guessed. They came through the garden gate and probably tossed a rope up over the ledge of the window to your son’s room. I found a few strands of rope stuck to the wall.”

Mélanie Fraser tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it over the spilled coffee. “You’re sure they meant to take Colin? They couldn’t have been after the silver and simply stumbled across him?”

“I’m not sure of anything, Mrs. Fraser. But they entered the house through your son’s bedchamber window, a silly thing to do if they were bent on robbery. And as far as we can tell, nothing else is missing from the house. So yes, I’d say it’s likely your son was their target.”

She twisted the coffee-soaked handkerchief in her hands, as though she could knead answers out of the damp linen.

Fraser was looking at his wife. Lines were etched deep into the sharp Celtic planes of his face, but otherwise his control hadn’t faltered. “They didn’t go to all this trouble to take Colin in order to do him a mischief, Mel.”

It was not the sort of comfort most husbands would offer their wives, but Mélanie Fraser nodded. “No. There is that.” She picked up the coffeepot again and poured out three cups with painstaking care. “Cream, Mr. Roth?”

“Black.” He leaned forward to accept the silver-rimmed cup she was holding out, close enough to catch the spicy floral scent of her skin and to see the smeared traces of blacking round her eyes.

Charles Fraser stared into his own cup. “London is full of boys it would be all too easy to snatch off the street. So whoever took Colin must want him to extract money from us or to use as leverage against one or both of us.”

Roth took a welcome sip of the strong, hot coffee. “That seems the likeliest explanation.” He balanced the fragile cup in his hand. “To own the truth, I’ve never come across a case like this nor heard tell of one. Young heiresses are sometimes abducted in the hope of forcing a marriage, but this is obviously something very different. As I said, the men were professionals, probably hired for the job. I don’t believe in false reassurance. But if they’ve taken your son for ransom or to use as a bargaining chip, they’ll keep him safe and healthy.”

Fraser gave a quick, contained nod. Mélanie Fraser’s fingers whitened round the ecru porcelain of her cup.

Roth set down his coffee cup, reached into the frayed pocket of his brown wool coat, and drew out a notebook and a pencil. “I know it’s difficult to think clearly at a time like this—”

Fraser set his own cup down with a clatter. “My wife isn’t given to hysterics, Roth. I’ll do my best not to succumb to them myself. For God’s sake, don’t waste time sparing our sensibilities.”

Roth met the other man’s gaze. Fraser’s gray eyes had the hard glint of tempered steel. Roth recalled that before he had been a politician, Charles Fraser had been posted at the British embassy in Lisbon, where he had earned fame for exploits beyond the usual diplomatic line. A man of action with a cold intellect. A volatile combination.

“It was carefully planned,” Fraser continued, in a tone that made Roth wonder just who was conducting the interview. “They’d have learned the routine of the house, the arrangement of the rooms.” He looked at his wife. “My wife and I were discussing who we’ve seen about in the last few days. Tradesmen making deliveries. Hackney drivers. Coachmen and grooms. It would be easy enough for a stranger to blend in.”

Roth nodded. “Judging by the break-in, they’re too accomplished to have drawn attention to themselves, but the patrol I brought with me is having a word with the servants in case anyone noticed anything. Which brings us back to the question of the motive.”

Fraser picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without touching it. “Money would seem likeliest. Isn’t it at the root of most crime?”

“It is indeed, Mr. Fraser. And it’s surprising how often the culprit proves to be a family member.” Roth looked from husband to wife. “Any relatives who’ve applied to you for a loan or whom you know to be in debt?”

Roth expected shocked denial at this accusation against one of their own. In his experience, the higher one moved up the social ladder, the more people wanted to believe that crime was something that only existed in the dark reaches of the underworld.

But Fraser merely said, “My brother’s a captain in the Horse Guards. Fraternal feelings aside, he married an heiress. Their income is probably larger than ours. My sister and her husband live in Scotland and they’re too proud to ask for money, let alone extort it. I have an aunt and uncle who are in Paris at the moment and a widowed aunt in Brighton. She has a taste for amorous intrigue, but she’s far too well off to indulge in anything this sordid. None of my cousins is in straitened circumstances. Oh, and there’s my grandfather. But he hasn’t left Scotland in years and he’s quite comfortably situated.”

This last was a wild understatement. Charles Fraser’s maternal grandfather was the Duke of Rannoch. Roth inclined his head. “I appreciate your frankness.” He made some notes. “Mrs. Fraser?”

Mélanie Fraser plucked at the skirt of her gown, her nails scraping against the sheer fabric. “I’m an only child. Both my parents were killed during the war in Spain. Between the war and the revolution, I don’t have any family left that I know of.”

Roth, ardent supporter of the French Revolution, more than passingly sympathetic to Napoleon, looked into the eyes of this blue-blooded woman and found himself smiling in an awkward attempt to ease her fears. “Friends, then.” He jotted down a note. “Hangers-on. Former servants, though it would have to be someone with the resources to carry out such a plot.”

The Frasers exchanged glances again. “No one I can think of,” Mrs. Fraser said. “The only servant who’s left recently is our little girl’s nurse who got married last summer. My husband and I were at the wedding.”

“My friends aren’t all saints,” Fraser said. “But if they wanted money they’d simply ask for it.”

“Of course it’s possible he was taken for ransom by someone unknown to you,” Roth said. “But while money’s the likeliest motive, it’s not the only one. You’re a prominent politician, Mr. Fraser. Perhaps the culprit wishes to force your hand in the House of Commons.”

“You can’t have followed my career too closely. It’s highly improbable that any of my proposals will be enacted in the immediate future. It’s more likely I’d take someone hostage as leverage.”

“You ruffled a lot of feathers with your speeches against suspension of habeas corpus. Suppose someone took the boy to force you to be silent. Or to get you to change your vote.”

“Unfortunately, they’re hardly in need of my vote to suspend habeas corpus.”

“No, but it would make a powerful statement to silence critics if you changed your position.”

Fraser leaned back on the sofa, his eyes narrowing.

“I do read the papers,” Roth said. His voice was mild, but there was an edge to it.

“I don’t doubt it.” Fraser watched him a moment longer. “You’re an unusual man, Mr. Roth. You work for the chief magistrate of Bow Street, who works for the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary is a government minister. Yet you’ve just suggested that someone allied with the government’s interests may have been behind the disappearance of our son.”

“It’s my job to explore all possibilities, Mr. Fraser.” Roth shifted his gaze to Mélanie Fraser. “Mrs. Fraser? Is there any reason you can think of why your son might have been taken to target you?”

She shook her head, strands of hair stirring about her face. “No. I’m sometimes accused of being too outspoken, but I can’t see anyone going to this much trouble to quieten me.”

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 ironic, 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.”