Beneath a Silent Moon by Tracy Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

considering the
way
she—" Miss Talbot's gaze skimmed over Mélanie's face. "Oh, dear Lord. He hasn't told you?"
    The weight of unmade confidences pressed against Mélanie's chest. "Only that his mother died just before he left Oxford. I assumed it was illness or an accident."
    "Charles doesn't make confidences easily. But I was sure—usually he'll confide in those he's closest to—but then you were abroad, away from the family. It must have seemed easiest to him to ignore it." Miss Talbot reached for her cup. "When I was a little girl, I thought Lady Elizabeth Fraser was the most beautiful woman in the world. I remember her coming into the nursery to say good night to us once during a house party in Scotland. She was wearing a dress embroidered with silver acorns and a diamond tiara. She looked like a fairy princess. But her marriage to Mr. Fraser wasn't happy. She used to have dreadful bouts of the blue devils and then at other times she'd be quite giddy and—well, I don't suppose the rest matters and I hate to repeat gossip." The little silver teaspoon trembled in Miss Talbot's fingers. "Lady Elizabeth didn't die of illness or an accident. She shot herself in the head a week before Christmas when Charles was nineteen."
    Mélanie's images of her husband's childhood shifted and tumbled in her head. She'd guessed, from his careful reticence, that his mother's death was still a raw pain, but not the full extent of the reason. "Dear God."
    "Charles's brother—Edgar—was in the room with her when she did it. I don't know the particulars, but I know that he and Charles haven't been the friends they once were since."
    Edgar was one of the few members of Charles's family Mélanie had met in the early days of her marriage. A soldier in Wellington's army, he'd been in and out of Lisbon on leave, in Brussels before Waterloo, and now was stationed in

Paris, where Charles and Mélanie had lived themselves until a few months ago. Edgar had welcomed Mélanie to the family with laughing good humor and was a devoted uncle to Colin and Jessica, but he and Charles always treated each other with careful constraint. Mélanie, used to being able to read people, was baffled by the relationship between the Fraser brothers. Miss Talbot's revelations went some way toward explaining it. "It must have been hell for all of them."
    Miss Talbot nodded. "Charles finished up at Oxford and then took a post as an attache and went off to Lisbon. Gisèle was only eight. She went to live with Frances Dacre-Hammond, Lady Elizabeth's sister. I suppose the last thing any of them dreamed was that Mr. Fraser would marry again one day."
    "I'm sure they all want their father to be happy."
    Miss Talbot's mouth curved with unexpected irony. "Now who's talking like a diplomat, Mrs. Fraser?" She set her tea down again. This time the spoon clattered against the saucer. "Does Charles despise me?"
    "I can't imagine why he would do so."
    "I don't think I've become the woman he thought I could be."
    "Charles isn't one to pass judgment on anyone."
    "No. That's what I—that's why his good opinion matters so much to me." Miss Talbot reached for her gloves and reticule. "You're a lucky woman, Mrs. Fraser. There aren't many men like Charles."
    "And his father?" Mélanie said before she could think better of it.
    Miss Talbot smoothed on her gloves, one finger at a time. "Kenneth Fraser is the choice I've made. For better or worse."

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Chapter Five

     
    Charles paused beside the black metal of the Berkeley Square railing, beneath the spring-green late-afternoon shade of the plane trees. A nursemaid and two small boys were descending the steps from one of the houses, and a smart yellow racing curricle with a showy pair of bays was drawn up near the pavement. Otherwise, the square was empty, most of the residents no doubt out paying calls or making a circuit of Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five o'clock.
    He stared at his father's house, to which he'd been summoned