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“Do sit down, John,” he said. “You look a trifle pale, if you will pardon my mentioning it.”
Feeling somehow foolish, and resenting both that feeling and the weakness of his knees, Grey lowered himself slowly onto the proffered stool, and picked up the roll of paper.
There were six sheets of rough paper, hard-used. Torn from a journal or notebook, they bore close writing on both sides. The paper had been folded, then unfolded and tightly rolled at some point; he had to flatten it with both hands in order to read it, but a glance was sufficient to tell him what it was.
He glanced up, to see Trevelyan watching him, with a slightly melancholy smile.
“That is what you have been seeking?” the Cornishman asked.
“You know that it is.” Grey released the papers, which curled themselves back into a cylinder. “Where did you get them?”
“From Mr. O’Co
The little cylinder of papers rolled gently to and fro with the motion of the ship, and the cloud-shattered light from the stern windows seemed suddenly very bright.
Trevelyan sat sipping his own drink, seeming to take no further notice of Grey, absorbed in his own thoughts.
“You said—you would tell me whatever I wished to know,” Grey said, picking up his own cup.
Trevelyan closed his eyes briefly, then nodded, and opened them, looking at Grey.
“Of course,” he said simply. “There is no reason why not—now.”
“You say you have killed no one,” Grey began carefully.
“Not yet.” Trevelyan glanced at the woman in the bed. “It remains to be seen whether I have killed my wife.”
“ Yourwife?” Grey blurted.
Trevelyan nodded, and Grey caught a glimpse of the fierce pride of five centuries of Cornish pirates, normally hidden beneath the suave facade of the merchant prince.
“Mine. We were married Tuesday evening—by an Irish priest Mr. Scanlon brought.”
Grey turned on his stool, gawking at Scanlon, who shrugged and smiled, but said nothing.
“I imagine my family—good Protestants that they’ve all been since King Henry’s time—would be outraged,” Trevelyan said, with a faint smile. “And it may not be completely legal. But needs must when the devil drives—and she is Catholic. She wished to be married, before . . .” His voice died away as he looked at the woman on the bed. She was restless now; limbs twitching beneath the coverlet, head turning uncomfortably upon her pillow.
“Not long,” Scanlon said quietly, seeing the direction of his glance.
“Until what?” Grey asked, suddenly dreading to hear the answer.
“Until the fever comes on again,” the apothecary replied. A faint frown creased his brow. “It is a tertian fever—it comes on, passes off, and then returns again upon the third day. And so again—and yet again. She was able to travel yesterday, but as you see . . .” He shook his head. “I have Jesuit bark for her; it may work.”
“I am sorry,” Grey said formally to Trevelyan, who inclined his head in grave receipt. Grey cleared his throat.
“Perhaps you would be good enough, then, to explain how Reinhardt Mayrhofer met his death, if not by your hand? And just how these papers came into your possession?”
Trevelyan sat for a moment, breathing slowly, then lifted his face briefly to the light from the windows, closing his eyes like a man savoring to the full the last moments of life before his execution.
“I suppose I must begin at the begi
A faint smile flitted across his face, as though he saw the occasion pass again before his eyes. He opened them, regarding Grey with an easy frankness.
“I never go to such things,” he said. “Never. But a gentleman with whom I had business dealings had come to lunch with me at the Beefsteak, and we found we had more to speak of than would fit comfortably within the length of a luncheon. And so when he invited me to go with him to his further engagement, I did. And . . . she was there.”
He opened his eyes and glanced at the bed where the woman lay, still and yellow.
“I did not know such a thing was possible,” he remarked, sounding almost surprised. “If anyone had suggested such a thing to me, I would have scoffed at them—and yet . . .”
He had seen the woman sitting in the corner and been struck by her beauty—but much more by her sadness. It was not like the Honorable Joseph Trevelyan to be touched by emotion—his own or others’—and yet the poignant grief that marked her features drew him as much as it disturbed him.
He had not approached her himself, but had not been able to take his eyes off her for long. His attention was noticed, and his hostess had obligingly told him that the woman was Frau Mayrhofer, wife of a minor Austrian noble.
“Do go and speak to her,” the hostess had urged, a worried kindness evident in her ma
He had crossed the room with no notion what he might say or do—he had no knowledge of the language of condolence, no skill at social small talk; his metier was business and politics. And yet, when his hostess had introduced them and left, he found himself still holding the hand he had kissed, looking into soft brown eyes that drowned his soul. And without further thought or hesitation had said, “God help me, I am in love with you.”
“She laughed,” Trevelyan said, his own face lighting at the recollection. “She laughed, and said, ‘God help me, then!’ It transformed her in an instant. And if I had been in love with La Dolorosa, I was . . . ravished . . . by La Allegretta. I would have done anything to keep the sorrow from returning to her eyes.” He looked at the woman on the bed again, and his fists curled unconsciously. “I would have done anything to have her.”
She was Catholic, and a married woman; it had taken several months before she yielded to him—but he was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. And her husband—
“Reinhardt Mayrhofer was a degenerate,” Trevelyan said, his narrow face hardening. “A womanizer and worse.”
And so their affair had begun.
“This would be before you became betrothed to my cousin?” Grey asked, a slight edge in his voice.
Trevelyan blinked, seeming slightly surprised.
“Yes. Had I had any hopes of inducing Maria to leave Mayrhofer, then of course I should never have contracted the betrothal. As it was, though, she was adamant; she loved me, but could not in conscience leave her husband. That being so . . .” He shrugged.
That being so, he had seen nothing wrong with marrying Olivia, thus enhancing his own fortunes and laying the foundation of his future dynasty with someone of impeccable family—while maintaining his passionate affair with Maria Mayrhofer.
“Don’t look so disapproving, John,” Trevelyan said, long mouth curling a little. “I should have made Olivia a good husband. She would have been quite happy and content.”
This was doubtless true; Grey knew a dozen couples, at least, where the husband kept a mistress, with or without his wife’s knowledge. And his own mother had said . . .
“I gather that Reinhardt Mayrhofer was not so complaisant?” he said.
Trevelyan uttered a short laugh.
“We were more than discreet. Though he would likely not have cared—save that it offered him a means of profit.”
“So,” Grey hazarded a guess, “he discovered the truth, and undertook to blackmail you?”
“Nothing quite so simple as that.”
Instead, Trevelyan had learned from his lover something of her husband’s interests and activities—and, interested himself by this information, had set out to gain more.