Lord John and the Private Matter (Lord John Grey #1) 7

Would Trevelyan have bolted, had Grey not confronted him? Or would he have stayed—married Olivia, gone on running his companies, dabbling in politics, moving in society as the intimate of dukes and ministers, maintaining his facade as a rock-solid merchant—while privately carrying on his passionate affair with the widow Mayrhofer?

Grey cast a sidelong glance at his companion. The Cornishman’s face was still dark, but that brief glimpse of despair had vanished, leaving his jaw set with determination.

What could the man be thinking? To flee as he had, leaving scandal in his wake, would have disastrous consequences for his business affairs. His companies, their investors, his clients, the miners and laborers, captains and seamen, clerks and warehousemen who worked for the companies—even the brother in Parliament; all would be affected by Trevelyan’s flight.

Still, his jaw was set, and he walked like a man making for a distant goal, rather than one out for a casual stroll.

Grey recognized both the determination and the power of will from which it sprang, but he also was beginning to realize that the facade of the solid merchant was just that; beneath it lay a mind like quicksilver, able to sum up circumstances and change tack in an instant—and more than ruthless in its decisions.

He realized with a lurch of the heart that Trevelyan reminded him in some small way of Jamie Fraser. But no: Fraser was ruthless and quick, and might be equally passionate in his feelings—but above all, he was a man of honor.

By contrast, he could now see the deep selfishness that underlay Trevelyan’s character. Jamie Fraser would not have abandoned those who depended on him, not even for the sake of a woman who—Grey was forced to admit—he clearly loved beyond life itself. As for the notion of his stealing another man’s wife, it was inconceivable.

A romantic or a novelist might count the world well lost for love. So far as Grey’s own opinion counted, a love that sacrificed honor was less honest than simple lust, and degraded those who professed to glory in it.

“Me lord!”

He glanced up at the cry, and saw the two Byrds hanging like apples in the rigging just above. He waved, glad that at least Tom Byrd had found his brother. Would someone think to send word to the Byrd household? he wondered. Or would they be left in uncertainty as to the fate of two of their sons?

That thought depressed him, and a worse one followed on the heels of it. While he had recovered the requisitions, he could tell no one that he had done so and that the information was safe. By the time he reached any port from which word could be sent, the War Office would long since have been obliged to act.

And they would be acting on the assumption that the intelligence had in fact fallen into enemy hands—a staggering assumption, in terms of the strategic readjustments required, and their expense. An expense that might be paid in lives, as well as money. He pressed an elbow against his side, feeling the crackle of the papers he had tucked away, fighting a sudden impulse to throw himself overboard and swim toward England until exhaustion pulled him down. He had succeeded—and yet the result would be the same as though he had failed utterly.

Beyond the ruin of his own career, great damage would be done to Harry Quarry and the regiment—and to Hal. To have harbored a spy in the ranks was bad enough; to have failed to catch him in time was far worse.

In the end, it seemed he would have no more than the satisfaction of finally hearing the truth. He had heard but a fraction of it so far—but it was a long way to India, and with both Trevelyan and Scanlon trapped here with him, he was sure of discovering everything, at last.

“How did you know that I was poxed?” Trevelyan asked abruptly.

“Saw your prick, over the piss-pots at the Beefsteak,” he replied bluntly. It seemed absurd now that he should have suffered a moment’s shame or hesitation in the matter. And yet—would it have made a difference, if he had spoken out at once?

Trevelyan gave a small grunt of surprise.

“Did you? I do not even recall seeing you there. But I suppose I was distracted.”

He was clearly distracted now; his step had slowed, and a seaman carrying a small cask was obliged to swerve in order to avoid collision. Grey took Trevelyan by the sleeve and led him into the lee of the forward mast, where a huge water barrel stood, a tin cup attached to it by a narrow chain.

Grey gulped water from the cup, even in his depression taking some pleasure from the feel of it, cool in his mouth. It was the first thing he had been able to taste properly in days.

“That must have been …” Trevelyan squinted, calculating. “Early June—the sixth?”

“About that. Does it matter?”

Trevelyan shrugged and took the dipper.

“Not really. It’s only that that was when I first noticed the sore myself.”

“Rather a shock, I suppose,” Grey said.

“Rather,” Trevelyan replied dryly. He drank, then dropped the tin cup back into the barrel.

“Perhaps it would have been better to say nothing,” the Cornishman went on, as though to himself. “But … no. That wouldn’t have done.” He waved a hand, dismissing whatever his thought had been.

“I could scarcely believe it. Went about in a daze for the rest of the day, and spent the night wondering what to do—but I knew it was Mayrhofer; it had to be.”

Looking up, he caught sight of Grey’s face, and a wry smile broke out upon his own.

“No, not directly. Through Maria. I had shared no woman’s bed since I began with her, and that was more than a year before. But clearly she had been infected by her whore-mongering bastard of a husband; she was innocent.”

Not only innocent, but clearly ignorant as well. Not wishing to confront her with his discovery at once, Trevelyan had gone in search of her doctor instead.

“I said that she had lost a child, just before I met her? I got the doctor who attended her to talk; he confirmed that the child had been malformed, owing to the mother’s syphilitic condition—but naturally he had kept quiet about that.”

Trevelyan’s fingers drummed restlessly on the lid of the barrel.

“The child was born malformed, but alive—it died in the cradle, a day after birth. Mayrhofer smothered it, wishing neither to be burdened by it nor to have his wife learn the cause of its misfortune.”

Grey felt his stomach contract.

“How do you know this?”

Trevelyan rubbed a hand over his face, as though tired.

“Reinhardt admitted it to her—to Maria. I brought the doctor to her, you see; forced him to tell her what he had told me. I thought—if she knew what Mayrhofer had done, infecting her, dooming their child, that perhaps she would leave him.”

She did not. Hearing out the doctor in numb silence, she had sat for a long time, considering, and then asked both Trevelyan and the doctor to go; she would be alone.

She had stayed alone for a week. Her husband was away, and she saw no one save the servants who brought her meals—all sent away, untouched.

“She thought of self-murder, she told me,” Trevelyan said, staring out toward the endless sea. “Better, she thought, to end it cleanly than to die slowly, in such fashion. Have you ever seen someone dying of the syphilis, Grey?”

“Yes,” Grey said, the bad taste creeping back into his mouth. “In Bedlam.”

One in particular, a man whose disease had deprived him both of nose and balance, so that he reeled drunkenly across the floor, crashing helplessly into the other inmates, foot stuck in a night bucket, tears and snot streaming over his rutted face. He could but hope that the syphilis had taken the man’s reason, as well, so that he was in ignorance of his situation.

He looked then at Trevelyan, envisioning for the first time that clever, narrow face, ruined and drooling. It would happen, he realized with a small shock. The only question was how long it might be before the symptoms became clear.

“If it were me, I might think of suicide, too,” he said.

Trevelyan met his eyes, then smiled ruefully.

“Would you? We are different, then,” he said, with no tone of judgment in the observation. “That course never occurred to me, until Maria showed me her pistol, and told me what she had been thinking.”

“You thought only of how the fact might be used to separate the lady from her husband?” Grey said, hearing the edge in his own voice.

“No,” Trevelyan replied, seeming unoffended. “Though that had been my goal since I met her; I did not propose to give it up. I tried to see her, after she had sent me away, but she would not receive me.”

Instead, Trevelyan had set himself to discover what remedy might be available.

“Jack Byrd knew of the difficulty; it was he who informed me that Finbar Scanlon seemed an able man in such matters. He had gone back to the apothecary’s shop, to inquire after Mrs. O’Connell’s welfare, and had become well acquainted with Scanlon, you see.”

“And that is where you met Sergeant O’Connell, returning to his home?” Grey asked, sudden enlightenment coming upon him. Trevelyan already knew of O’Connell’s peculations, and certainly had more men than Jack Byrd at his beck and call. He would have been more than capable, Grey thought, of having the Sergeant murdered, abstracting the papers for his own purposes regarding Mayrhofer. And those purposes now fulfilled, of course he could casually hand the papers back, uncaring of what damage had been done in the meantime!

He felt his blood rising at the thought—but Trevelyan was staring at him blankly.

“No,” he said. “I met O’Connell only the once, myself. Vicious sort,” he added, reflectively.

“And you did not have him killed?” Grey demanded, skepticism clear in his voice.

“No, why should I?” Trevelyan frowned at him a little; then his brow cleared.

“You thought I had him done in, in order to get the papers?” Trevelyan’s mouth twitched; he seemed to be finding something funny in the notion. “My God, John, you do have the most squalid opinion of my character!”

“You think it unjustified, do you?” Grey inquired acidly.

“No, I suppose not,” Trevelyan admitted, wiping a knuckle under his nose. He had not been recently shaved, and tiny drops of water were condensing on the sprouting whiskers, giving him a silvered look.

“But no,” he repeated. “I told you I had killed no one—nor had I anything to do with O’Connell’s death. That story belongs to Mr. Scanlon, and I am sure he will tell it to you, as soon as he is at liberty.”

Trevelyan glanced, as though despite himself, at the door that led to the quarters below, and then away.

“Should you be with her?” Grey asked quietly. “Go, if you like. I can wait.”

Trevelyan shook his head and glanced away.

“I cannot help,” he said. “And I can scarcely bear to see her in such straits. Scanlon will fetch me if—if I am needed.”

Seeming to detect some unspoken accusation in Grey’s manner, he looked up defensively.

“I did stay with her, the last time the fever came on. She sent me away, saying that it disturbed her to see my agitation. She prefers to be alone, when … things go wrong.”

“Indeed. As she was after learning the truth from the doctor, you said.”

Trevelyan took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders, as though setting himself for some unpleasant task.

“Yes,” he said bleakly. “Then.”

She had been alone for a week, save for the servants, who kept away at her own request. No one knew how long she had sat alone, that final day in her white-draped boudoir. It was long past dark when her husband had finally returned, somewhat the worse for drink, but still coherent enough to understand her accusation, her demand for the truth about her child.

“She said that he laughed,” Trevelyan said, his tone remote, as though reporting some business disaster; a mine cave-in, perhaps, or a sunken ship. “He told her then that he had killed the child; told her that she should be grateful to him, that he had saved her from living day after day with the shame of its deformity.”

At this, the woman who had lived patiently for years with the knowledge of infidelity and promiscuity felt the bonds of her vows break asunder, and Maria Mayrhofer had stepped across that thin line of prohibition that separates justice from vengeance. Mad with rage and sorrow, she had flung back in his teeth all the insults she had suffered through the years of their marriage, threatening to expose all his tawdry affairs, to reveal his syphilitic condition to society, to denounce him openly as a murderer.

The threats had sobered Mayrhofer slightly. Staggering from his wife’s presence, he had left her raging and weeping. She had the pistol that had been her constant companion through her week of brooding, ready to hand. She had hunted often in the hills near her Austrian home, was accustomed to guns; it was the work of a moment to load and prime the weapon.

“I do not know for sure what she intended,” Trevelyan said, his eyes fixed on a flight of gulls that wheeled over the ocean, diving for fish. “She told me that she didn’t know, herself. Perhaps she meant to kill herself—or both of them.”

As it was, the door to her boudoir had opened a few minutes later, and her husband lurched back in, clad in the green velvet dress which she wore to her assignations with Trevelyan. Flushed with drink and temper, he taunted her, saying that she dared not expose him—or he would see that both she and her precious lover paid a worse price. What would become of Joseph Trevelyan, he demanded, lurching against the doorframe, once it was known that he was not only an adulterer but also a sodomite?

“And so she shot him,” Trevelyan concluded, with a slight shrug. “Straight through the heart. Can you blame her?”