The Mask of Night by Tracy Grant

were—“
    “Oh, yes.”
    David swallowed. He knew Simon’s past was more checkered than his own, but knowing in the abstract was different from being confronted with evidence of it.
    Simon replaced the lid on the inkpot. “It didn’t last long. One of those moments of madness as one hovers on the brink of adulthood. Pendarves has done his best to ignore me since.”
    “So what the devil happened last night?”
    Simon shot a quick glance up, laughter in his eyes. “Good God, David. You don’t think—“
    “No,” David said. He wished his voice was a bit more resolute.
    “My days of rendezvous during entertainments are long past.” Simon began to tidy the papers strewn over the table. “Pendarves has two children, a wife he cares for, and more of a conscience about infidelity than most men. Which hasn’t stopped him from wanting to seek satisfaction outside his marriage. I imagine you’d be in much the same condition if you ever married.”
    “I’m not going to get married. What does this have to do with last night?”
    Simon aligned his pen beside the stack of paper. “Pendarves needed to talk to someone about his dilemma, and I was one of the few people—perhaps the only person—he felt he could talk to openly. He was so upset, he didn’t even realize there was another couple in the garden until I noticed. Then he was mortified that we might have been overheard.”
    David studied his lover in the stormy light from the sitting room windows. “You could have said that last night at Bel and Oliver’s. Charles and Roth would have respected your confidence.”
    Simon looked up, hands resting on the scribbled over draft of his play. “Charles and Roth want to get at the truth of the murder which tends to be incompatible with respecting anyone’s confidence.”
    “You hate anyone lying about the truth of their life.”
    Simon grimaced. “Pendarves married shortly after he left university. He loves his wife and children. God knows I wouldn’t make the choices he’s made but given that he has made them I was trying to avoid causing further difficulties for his family.”
    “You could have told me—“
    “I did. Just now.” Simon moved to his side and set his hands on David’s shoulders. His eyes were bright and his smile was the one that had been able to turn David’s heart over since they first met in an Oxford production of Henry IV Part I . A dusty hall with a makeshift stage at one end. A tall, loose-limbed figure walking toward him with a careless, brilliant smile. He’d been lost in that moment, though it was weeks before he’d admitted it to himself and longer before he’d admitted it to Simon.
    “I could have spoken to Roth alone,” Simon said, his face inches from David’s own, “but I knew I’d have to give you some explanation. And you’ve always been damnably good at telling when I’m lying.”
    David stared for a long moment into the eyes of the man he thought he knew better than anyone on earth. “Yes,” he said, “so I have.
     

     
    Charles watched the silent duel of glances between his wife and Sam Lucan. Lucan walked forward, gaze still trained on Mélanie’s face, took her chin in his hand, and turned her face toward the stormy light from the casement window. “ Dios . It is you. I didn’t believe it until I saw you. You’re a sight more elegant than when we last met. Salamanca. As I recall you had blood on your face and a good portion of your gown. English blood, I think, though I couldn’t swear to it.”
    “English and Spanish if memory serves. You had your arms round one of the local girls, but she seemed willing so I didn’t interfere.”
    Lucan gave a low laugh. He had a full-lipped mouth and a gaze that said he was accustomed taking what he wanted from life and draining it to the dregs.
    The curly-harried woman walked toward them, crimson silk skirts snapping about her ankles. “Who the devil is she?”
    “Juana Murez,” Lucan said, still looking at