Point of Honour (41 page)

Before she could recover herself, Folle was on her, his face snarling into hers and his hands around her throat. Miss Tolerance was briefly aware that Lord Balobridge had recovered from his paralysis and was clinging uselessly to Folle’s arm, attempting to prise him loose; she tried her own strength against Folle, but this close, without weapons, and with her dress pinned to the floor by her own weight and Folle’s, she was not his match.
Damn,
she thought. She tried to pull his hands from her throat, but the leverage was wrong; she tried to tear at his face, but her hands were curiously weak.
Damn it, somebody come!
Her thoughts grew more disordered; she knew she must not stop fighting, but she was tired. Her ears were ringing and she saw sparks before her eyes.
My first ball, and I cannot hear the music anymore.

When Folle was pulled off her, Miss Tolerance fell backward against the wall, taking gulps of air. For a moment it was all she could do to realize that she was not dead, nor likely to be; Folle’s arms were pinned behind his back by one of Versellion’s footmen, with Sir Walter Mandif just behind. In the doorway Miss Tolerance saw Versellion himself, and beyond him, the Prince of Wales. Sir Walter was saying something.

“ … of the Crown, in the murders of Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Matthew Etan, and …” He paused and looked at Miss Tolerance. “Mrs. Fanny Virtue?”

Miss Tolerance nodded. She saw that Balobridge had effaced himself against the wall. Mandif followed her gaze and stated that Lord Balobridge must be taken into custody as well, upon suspicion of complicity in an attempt upon the life of the Earl of Versellion. The old man nodded tiredly.

Sir Walter looked from Miss Tolerance to Versellion. “Perhaps, my lord, you have another chamber in which Miss Tolerance can recover herself? I should like, if it is convenient, to hold these gentlemen here until the Runners arrive to take them into custody.”

Everything seemed out of her hands now, and Miss Tolerance was content to have it so. As she started for the door, she heard Folle burst into accusations and recriminations: Balobridge had masterminded all, that bitch—by which she assumed she was meant—was putting him up for a murder he had not committed, she was in Balobridge’s pay as well as Versellion’s, his cousin had connived with Balobridge … the rest of Folle’s ravings were lost to her.

In the doorway Miss Tolerance found herself flanked by Versellion on one side and the Prince of Wales on the other. The Prince said something about bravery and gallantry, and bowed over her hand. Miss Tolerance attempted a curtsy from which she could barely rise; her knees were weak.

“You will excuse me, sir?” Versellion said hurriedly to the Prince. When Wales nodded his dismissal, the earl led Miss Tolerance through the crowd of the curious which had inevitably gathered in the hallway, and up the stairs to the salon she had waited in before. He hovered over her as if she were enfeebled and barely able to walk; at the door to the salon, he dispatched a maid to bring back wine.

“Not wine, please. Tea?” Miss Tolerance said.

The maid went at once. Versellion settled Miss Tolerance upon a sofa and sat beside her. After a few minutes, she looked up at him.

“You must return to your party,” she said.

“Not while you are—”

“Just tired, Edward. The tea will help. But the Prince is still below; ought you go back to him?” She had seen his sideways glance at the door and understood the pull between love and politics.

“I should not stay away long,” he promised.

“Go. I shall do as Sir Walter suggests and recover myself. I have much to think about.
Go.”

Versellion’s smile bespoke his appreciation, and the kiss he placed upon her palm suggested something rather warmer, but he did not linger. As he passed from the room, the music and the low murmur of the crowd sounded from the ballroom downstairs—the party was going on, doubtless as a tactful cover for the evening’s events. Miss Tolerance leaned back on the sofa and looked down at her hands, which, she noted, were still trembling quite badly.

Twenty

A
fter a time, Miss Tolerance got up and examined herself in the mirror to see what damage Folle had done. Her hair hung about her head and bruises were already ringing her throat. Thankful there was no need to pass under the eyes of the respectable crowd below, Miss Tolerance settled in a deep chair and sat for a time with her eyes closed. She was aware that the maid returned with the tea and a plate of cakes from the buffet downstairs; after the girl left, she roused herself sufficiently to pour a cup of tea, but she did not remember to drink it. Slumped in the corner of the chair and lulled by the distant sound of the music, she dozed.

When she woke, it was well past one. The music still played, buoyed by the pleasant murmur of many voices. There would be dancing until four or so, she thought, leavened with excited murmurs about an incident in one of Lord Versellion’s withdrawing rooms that very night. Then the remaining guests would be fed breakfast before they went home. Thinking of breakfast, she realized how hungry she was: she drank a cup of cold tea and ate the cakes. Then, unable to sleep again, she began to pace the room. She spent a long time examining the portrait of Versellion and his parents, and then a small print of the Folle crest with
impavidus fiducia
inscribed below it:
terrible responsibility.
She thought about her own position in her aunt’s house. And she thought about Sir Henry Folle’s confessions that evening.

After an hour or so, she tidied her hair and stole along the corridor to the back stairs and down to the servants’ hall, where she pressed a note, and a coin, upon one of the kitchen boys, instructing him to deliver it without delay. To his protests about the time, she replied that it was urgent—and that she would give him another shilling when he came back. That sent him off at a run, and Miss Tolerance returned to the room upstairs, noting that the party was thinning as to company, but by no means over.

She dozed again. When she woke, the music had stopped, and the light through the windows was the gray that comes before dawn. She stepped to the window to observe carriages drawing up, collecting passengers, and departing in a dozy line. She watched for a long time, and so saw a hackney carriage draw up, leave several passengers, and depart again. Miss Tolerance nodded to herself but stayed by the window.

The door opened behind her. “You are awake,” Versellion said. “How do you feel? I’m sorry I was kept away so long … .”

“I shall have some bruises, but bruises fade.”

“I’m glad you did not go. I was afraid you would.”

Still watching the carriages, Miss Tolerance shook her head. “What happened at your conference with the Prince?”

The earl had come to stand behind her, not quite touching. “We had just begun when one of the footmen arrived to tell me that Cousin Henry was strangling a lady, and a magistrate was attempting to break the door down,” Versellion said. “You may imagine how this intrigued the Prince. He insisted upon accompanying me, as you saw. After that, of course, mere politics paled in comparison with your adventures.”

“But you returned to him,” Miss Tolerance said. “You spoke further.”

“You might say so,” Versellion said, a little bitterly. “I do not know that anything we said was to the purpose. His Highness is playing a deep game, and I’m not sure he will commit himself to anyone until he has the Regency in his pocket. I thought to play the Prince to my party’s ends, but it appears he may have thought to play me, too.”

“Lord Balobridge said he could never make out whether Wales was a smart man playing a deep part, or an inspired fool,” Miss Tolerance said.

“Lord Balobridge’s view is colored by his party; Wales is no fool. And Balobridge now has a good deal more to worry about than the Prince’s moods. You neatly took two rivals out of the game tonight, and I don’t think that will hurt my cause.”

“Your cause?” Miss Tolerance asked.

“My party’s cause. The same thing.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.”

Versellion looked at her quizzically. “Do you doubt me? I don’t seek power for myself, Sarah. But without power, nothing can be accomplished. With power—”

“With power, the object becomes maintaining or amassing more power, I believe. Ask the Prince of Wales; I suspect he understands that far better than you think.” She stepped away from him and turned back into the room. “I discovered the secret of the fan yesterday.”

“My God!” Versellion held a chair for her, then took one for himself. “My God, after all that has happened? What is it?”

“Not an it. A who. I was waiting to tell you until after the ball: the fan was a woman. Mrs. Virtue, Fanny Virtue.”

“What, the old whore?”

“Whore
is a hard word, Edward. Particularly a hard word to use for your mother.”

V
ersellion began a thunderstruck protest, but Miss Tolerance put up a hand to stop him. Her voice was cool and thoughtful, meant to soothe rather than excite.

“In a sense, you might say that the letter in the fan indeed led me to the secret you sought. When I met with the botanist Dr. Hawley, he said something about eye color, had I ever seen two blue-eyed parents produce a brown-eyed child. I don’t know if I have or not—Dr. Hawley is in dead earnest about his botanical experiments, but I saw nothing to demonstrate that he’s correct. But his question lodged with me, and every time I saw this picture”—she gestured at the family portrait on the far wall—“it nagged. It was not until yesterday, when I learned that your father’s pleasant name for Mrs. Virtue was his ‘Italian Fan,’ that it began to fall into place. You look like your father, Edward, but your eyes are exactly like your mother’s in their shape and their color. Did you know the secret when you hired me?”

Now Versellion leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at her with intensity. “You’re sure of this? I can’t believe—
Why
? Why raise me as his son when—And my mother! Lady Versellion. How she must have felt, raising me as her own … .” He ran his hands over his face. “My father …”

“I imagine he determined to keep his brother from inheriting the title, even if it meant passing his bastard son off as legitimate get,” Miss Tolerance finished. “Politics and family, the two great passions of the Folles. And the family temper makes it easy for those passions to overrule all other concerns. I should like to think you killed Mrs. Virtue in passion, not cold blood.”

“Good God, what are you saying?” Versellion dropped his hands and sat upright. “What are you saying?”

Miss Tolerance frowned. “Please do not be coy, Edward. I think there can only be honesty between us now, no matter how used to prevarication your political life has made you. I admit I thought it was Folle. He killed Mrs. Smith and poor Matt—and I don’t like him. It was easy for me to believe he killed your mother as well.” Versellion twitched away from the word mother as Miss Tolerance went on.

“But he swore—when he was in custody, and had nothing to gain by it—that he knew nothing of Mrs. Virtue’s death. He didn’t know her name until I told him. And I remembered later that … a friend of mine at Mrs. Brereton’s house had been with him at the time he would otherwise have been killing Mrs. Virtue.”

Versellion appeared to collect himself. He smiled forgivingly. “If it is not my cousin, it could still be anyone else. It might have been one of Folle’s agents, the man who attacked you.”

“Hart? Would he have had access to your signet? When you struck her, you left a mark on her cheek with your ring.”

“You cannot tell me a signet left a clear enough mark to convict me! And you seem very eager to believe me capable—”

“The mark was not as clear as the one your cousin left in the wax at Mrs. Smith’s, but it was highly suggestive of your ring. When I put that together with motive, and once I knew he could not have done it, I realized that your cousin had no reason to want Mrs. Virtue dead. Indeed, had he imagined her existence, do you not think he would have guarded her life with his own? She had the secret he could use to undo you.” She asked again, “Edward, how did you come to kill your mother?”

“Don’t call her that! Sarah …” Versellion reached out a hand to her, but Miss Tolerance regarded him with a cool eye and did not extend her own. After a moment he let his hand drop. When he spoke again, it was quietly, his eyes fixed upon the floor as if seeing the whole played out before him there.

“All right, if you will have it. It was an accident. I went there—you said she knew nothing of the fan, and then I got a note from her bidding me come. We were looking for a secret about my family, and she knew one. There was no danger from the secret, she said, but I should know what it was. She told me to come to the house disguised, ask for a girl, then excuse myself and find her. I swear to you, Sarah, I had no idea. I found her lounging on her sofa, for all the world as if she were a goddess receiving on Olympus. She told me to take off my hat and scarf and let her see me. Then she said I looked just like
him.
The longer she looked at me, the more agitated she became, murmuring to herself. She began to weep a little, then came at me. I swear, I felt as though she were attacking me. Threw her arms about my neck.”

Miss Tolerance nodded sadly.

“I pushed her away—she was drunk or sick, sloppy with it. Disgusting. I asked her why she’d summoned me … and she told me. She wept all over me.
Figlio mio,
she kept saying. She wanted to kiss me, embrace me. She wanted me to kiss her. I couldn’t even draw a breath, she would not give me a moment to think.”

Miss Tolerance looked at her lover pityingly. In a few words his world, his self, had unraveled, and the clever Mrs. Virtue had been too addled with opium and sentiment to see it.

“She told you she was your mother.”

“She told me I was her son. She kept pressing in on me. I had to push her away, she kept grabbing at me until I finally struck her. Only once, I swear it. Then she sat down again and told me the whole story. At the end she looked at me as if this must be welcome news. She tried to embrace me again, this raddled old woman pawing at me, claiming me over and over—My God.” His voice shook. “She wouldn’t stop! I was in such a rage and she wouldn’t stop and there was a candlestick—”