The Mask of Night

I thought you might enjoy Figaro’s adventures. Perhaps we can talk about it and have a game of chess when next I’m in Scotland. I fully expect the chance for redemption after your victory in our last game.

Raoul O’Roarke to Charles Fraser

5 February 1796

Charles bit back a desperate laugh, but he heard the raw sound echo in his head. How sick, how absurd, how damnably inevitable. Beside him, Mélanie was still as ice. “Did St. Juste tell you he was working for Raoul?” she asked.

“Course not. Since when does that bastard tell anyone anything?” Lucan cast a sidelong glance at Charles. “I said I hadn’t spoken with St. Juste since he came to see me a month since. Which is true. But I caught a glimpse of him in the Pig & Whistle a week or so ago. Sitting at a table toward the back. With O’Roarke.”

“Did you speak with them?” Mélanie said.

“What kind of a fool do you take me for? If there was any profit in it, they’d come to me. Otherwise I give them a wide berth, same as I did in Spain.”

“So you don’t know for a certainty that they’re working together.”

“What the devil in this life is a certainty? St. Juste is working for someone. He used to work for O’Roarke—“

“Among others,” Mélanie said.

“—and now here they both are in London, conferring together. I didn’t think O’Roarke was supposed to be in London.”

“Nor did I.” Mélanie smoothed her hands over her cherry-striped skirt. “He went to Ireland before Christmas.”

“You see?” Lucan said, with the air of a don writing Q.E.D. on a proof. “He’s here on secret business. Before St. Juste got there, O’Roarke had been talking to another man—younger, longish dark hair and spectacles. No one I recognized. But I’ll lay you odds O’Roarke’s setting up a network.”

Nan was looking back and forth between her lover and Mélanie, a gathering frown on her face. “Who the devil is O’Roarke?”

“Cove I—we—used to work for in Spain,” Lucan said.

“And you were his mistress?” Nan asked Mélanie.

“A long time ago.”

“And you were worried I’d peach about your past. No bleeding fear of that. No one would believe me if I did.” Nan took the teapot from the spirit lamp and refilled her cup. “What would this O’Roarke be wanting with St. Juste now? Last I checked, the war was over.”

“Not for everyone.” Charles scrubbed his hands over his face. “O’Roarke’s half-Irish and half-Spanish and a revolutionary on general principles. A William Godwin/Tom Paine sort of Radical.” Who had once given Charles a copy of Rights of Man, but that was another story. “He sided with the French in Spain because he thought Bonaparte’s regime offered the quickest route to reform. Now he’s allied with the Spanish Liberals—many of whom fought against the French but oppose the restored Spanish monarchy.”

“A monarchy which hasn’t exactly proven itself friendly to the rights of anyone,” Mélanie said.

“Quite,” Charles said. “O’Roarke would like support from the British for a Liberal rebellion in Spain.”

“I don’t see why he’d need St. Juste for that,” Nan said.

“No,” Charles agreed. “But God knows what intrigues he may have become involved in in Spain. And his involvement in Irish protests goes back to the uprising of ’98.”

Nan added milk to her tea, then splashed in some brandy. “You know a lot about O’Roarke.”

“He’s an old friend of my family’s,” Charles said.

Which was true, though it didn’t begin to explain the complex web of ties between him and the man who had been his wife’s lover and spymaster.

Nan took a sip of tea. “So you think O’Roarke set Eckert’s men on us?”

“Doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Lucan said. “Not that O’Roarke’s not cold-blooded enough to do so, in the right circumstances, but he should know I don’t blab. Besides, he always tended to look after his own. He tried to make sure his agents were safe out of it after the war. It could have been St. Juste himself who wanted us out of the way, as Fraser said. Or someone else. Mayhap whoever killed St. Juste.”

“Where’s O’Roarke staying?” Charles asked Lucan.

“How should I know? Mélanie’d be better able to guess where he might go to earth than I would.”

Before Mélanie could reply, a rap fell on the door. Trenor poked his head in and asked if they were done talking for the moment. As the questions about O’Roarke were exhausted, Charles nodded. Bet and Trenor entered the room with a parcel of warm meat pies and a pitcher of ale.

Bet produced plates, in a variety of transfer-ware patterns, and served the pies while Trenor poured the ale into an assortment of cups and glassware.

“You’ll have to lie low.” Bet looked from her sister to Lucan. “You’re no match for Mr. Eckert, Sam, and don’t go thinking you are.”

Lucan grimaced and nodded. “We’ll go carefully for a bit.”

“We can’t leave London though,” Nan said. “Billy might need us.”

“Oh, poison.” Bet clunked down her glass of ale. “Is that the man who’s dead? The one Billy was working for? Is there still danger?”

“We’re not sure,” Lucan said round a mouthful of pie.

Trenor cast a quick glance from Lucan to Charles, then looked at Bet. “If your brother’s mixed up in something dangerous and those are the people who came after Lucan and Nan, then you could be in danger as well. This settles it. You’re coming with me.”

Bet shook her head. “Stop talking like you’re on stage at the Tavistock, Sandy. How’m I supposed to make a living?”

“You won’t need to. It’s high time we changed things anyway.”

“Sandy, that’s very sweet, but you’re not in a position—“

“Yes, I am. My father makes me a very good allowance. And he’s always telling me to take more initiative.”

Bet turned to Charles and Mélanie. “Is Billy in danger?”

“We can’t be sure,” Charles said. “Do you have any idea where your brother might be?”

“Not in his old lodgings. He’d had to skip out just before Sam found him the job and when he was here last week, he told me he’d be hard to find as long as the job went on.”

“Did he tell you anything else that might indicate his current whereabouts? Or anything to do with the job?”

Bet twisted a strand of long, fair hair round her finger. “He didn’t tell me anything. But—“

“It’s all right, Betty,” Nan said. “We can trust them. As much as we can trust anyone.”

Bet pushed the strand of hair behind her ear. “I went into the bedroom for another bottle of gin and when I came back into this room he was holding a piece of paper in his hand. He stuffed it into his pocket, but I caught a glimpse of it. At the top it said ‘17 Rosemary Lane’.”

“Thank you,” Charles said.

Bet turned back to her sister. “If the man Billy was working for is dead, where’s the danger coming from?”

“We’re not sure,” Nan said, breaking off another piece of pie. “We’re not bloody sure what the man Billy was working for was doing and we’re not sure who killed him and we’re not sure why. And there’s this man called O’Roarke who fits in somewhere—“

Trenor looked up from his mug of ale. “O’Roarke? You mean Raoul O’Roarke? I thought it was odd when I saw him last night. Didn’t have any notion he was in London.”

Another shout of bitter laughter echoed silently through Charles’s head. “You saw O’Roarke last night? Are you telling me he was at the masquerade?”

“Yes, didn’t you know? ” Trenor leaned forward. “He was in a costume that looked like something out of Thomas Malory, and he had a mask on, of course, a heavy black thing that covered most of his face. I daresay I wouldn’t have recognized him, but he collided with one of the footmen and his mask got knocked loose for a moment. I’m sure it was he. I met him when I was visiting my cousins in Ireland two years ago, and I saw him again in London last autumn. Very interesting chap. I looked for him to pay my respects later in the evening, but I didn’t see him again.”

Jeremy Roth stared through a scarlet-framed screen of rope netting at the walled, rectangular court before him. The whack of a ball striking a racket echoed off the blue-painted walls. Two men in their shirtsleeves raced back and forth at either end of the court, rackets in hand, returning volley for volley in a contest every bit as intense as a rapier duel. At last, a shot to the far corner of the court skimmed over one gentleman’s racket and bounced against the floorboards.

“Bad luck, Pendarves,” said the man who had made the shot. “My game, I believe.”

The loser inclined his head and retrieved the ball. Before they could begin a new game, Roth stepped away from the net-covered window and walked through an archway onto the court.

“Best match we’ve had in an age,” the game’s victor was saying, “we really ought— Who the devil are you?” He swung round to stare at Roth. He had thick, light brown hair, now slick with sweat against his forehead, and a strong-boned, good-natured face.

“My name’s Roth. I’m from Bow Street. I’m looking for Lord Pendarves.”

“I’m Pendarves.” The second man advanced toward Roth. He was taller than his companion, with curly, umber-colored hair and a square, serious face. “Is this something to do with the unfortunate accident last night?”

“Quite, my lord. Though it doesn’t seem to have been an accident.”

“No, I understand that. I only meant— I’m at your disposal, of course, though I don’t know what I can tell you.” He turned to his friend. “I’m sorry, St. Ives.”

The brown-haired man swung his racket over his shoulder and gave a mock groan. “Good old Pendarves. Always so devoted to duty. But would you be quite so determined to do the right thing, if you’d been leading in the set, I wonder? No, never mind, I’m due at Boodle’s in any event. My regards to Caroline.”

He took a towel from a shelf against the wall and sauntered off the court.

“You’ll have to forgive Lord St. Ives,” Pendarves said. “He has a difficult time admitting he takes anything seriously. If you’ll give me a moment to put my coat on, there’s a coffeehouse across the street where we can speak.”

He vanished down the passage for a few moments, giving Roth the time to remember that Lord and Lady St. Ives had also been on Lady Isobel’s list of the guests at the masquerade.

Pendarves reappeared in an olive drab greatcoat, hair combed into order beneath a curly-brimmed beaver, York tan gloves on the hands that had previously held a racket, umbrella tucked under his arm. He led the way across the rain-splashed street to the coffeehouse. It was filling up with a crowd of sporting gentlemen, raffish betting types, and a few obvious pickpockets, but the proprietor bowed to Pendarves with alacrity and showed them to a table in an alcove at the back of the room.

“A terrible business,” Pendarves said, settling into one of the high-backed benches. “You’re questioning everyone who was present last night?”

“I’m starting with those I think most likely to have information.” Roth fished his notebook and pencil from his greatcoat pocket. “I understand from Mr. Tanner that you and he were on the terrace last night not long before the murder took place.”

The light from the oil lamp on the table cast a yellowish glow on Pendarves’s suddenly bloodless skin. “Yes,” he said. “Tanner and I were on the terrace. Briefly.”

“How briefly?”

Pendarves began to pull off his gloves. The leather gleamed in the lamplight. The stitching was exquisitely precise. “Thirty or forty seconds. A minute at most.”

“Did the weather drive you inside? Or did you perhaps find that you didn’t have the terrace to yourselves?”

Pendarves smoothed out his gloves and laid them on the bench beside him. “Yes, as it happens we discovered we weren’t alone. It seemed prudent to remove to somewhere inside the house.”

“Was the conversation you overheard of a particularly intimate nature?”

A waiter approached their table with two cups of coffee. Pendarves waited until the man had moved off, then took a sip of coffee, free of brandy, whisky, or even cream or sugar. “You obviously know a great deal already.”

“Perhaps. What interests me now is what you know.”

Pendarves blew on the steam rising from the cup. “The couple in the garden were engaged in a conversation of such a nature that it seemed both tactful and gentlemanly to absent ourselves as soon as possible.”

“Of what nature precisely was the conversation?”

Pendarves set down his cup, spattering coffee on the deal table. “Good God, man, do I have to spell out—“

“It may have a bearing on the murder.”

“It can’t possibly—“

“You can’t know that, my lord. Nor can I. Which is why I can only gather all the information available and hope it yields some sort of pattern.”

Pendarves drew a sharp breath. “He said, ‘It can’t go on like this. You must see that.’ And she—the lady—said, ‘Yes, I know. But I don’t know that I can bear to stop.’”

Roth watched him. There was no mistaking the pain in the Pendarves’s dark eyes. “He? She?”

Pendarves turned up the wick on the lamp. The smell of coal oil wafted through the air. “You can’t know—“

“I know that without the truth I’m as likely to accuse the wrong person as the right one. I don’t think you want to see an innocent man accused.”

Pendarves took a quick swallow coffee, as though regretting he had not fortified it. “I can’t be sure. Just as I can’t be sure exactly what they were speaking about. But from the sound of the voices—“

“Yes?”

“The gentleman sounded like Lydgate.”

Roth’s fingers tightened on his untouched coffee cup. “Mr. Oliver Lydgate? The host of the evening?”

Pendarves nodded, gaze on the table.

“And the lady?”

“She—“

“I’ll find out one way or another, my lord. Easier if I find it out discreetly from you. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to question God knows how many guests which will give rise to God knows what rumors. You have my word that I’ll be discreet with the information.”

Pendarves cast a quick glance round the coffeehouse. He leaned across the table, his voice sunk to a whisper. “I think it was Sylvie.”

“Sylvie?”

“Oh, Christ, don’t you see that’s the problem? St. Ives’s wife. She and my wife have been bosom bows since the schoolroom. Her husband and I’ve known each other all our lives.”

“The Viscountess St. Ives? And she and Mr, Lydgate—“

“Have been acquainted for years. I can’t tell you what their conversation last night signified.”

“But you can make assumptions.”

“No.” Pendarves voice cut with the force of a racket swing. “That’s for you to do, Mr. Roth.”

“Fair enough.” Roth leaned back against the high wooden bench. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the interview was not the identity of the couple in the garden, but the fact that Pendarves had revealed it. Roth knew he was a good interrogator, but he had no illusions that he had the skills to get men such as Pendarves and Simon Tanner to reveal the sort of secrets they had revealed in the course of the morning. In Roth’s experience, men only divulged such closely held secrets when it suited their own purposes to do so.

When, for instance, they wanted to divert attention from other secrets far more deadly.