Teresa Grant (36 page)
Authors: Imperial Scandal
Cordelia, who would have no such past history, worked beside her with brisk determination, as did Aline. The morning’s panic was gone from the streets. Bruxellois and British expatriates worked side by side, as though present need had pushed their fears to the background.
In the chaos, it was an easy matter for Suzanne to slip off and make her way to Madame Longé’s. Wounded men lay on the floor of the dressmaker’s, and Madame Longé and her assistants were cutting bolts of pristine muslin into bandages. Their sympathies might be Bonapartist, but that did not stop them from doing what they could for the wounded. Lucille, the seamstress who was Suzanne’s chief contact, scrambled to her feet and hurried to Suzanne’s side.
Suzanne put a message for Raoul into Lucille’s hand. “I don’t know when he’ll be back in Brussels.” Or if, but that was something she wouldn’t let herself think about. “But I know he’ll check here. This is important.”
Lucille nodded. “I’ll make sure he gets it, madame.”
“Thank you.” Suzanne squeezed Lucille’s hand and returned to the street where she and Cordelia and Aline were working, armed with a pile of fresh bandages.
Early in the afternoon—at least she guessed it was so, though she’d rather lost track of time—she returned to the Comtesse de Ribaucourt’s for more water and saw a familiar figure outside the door. Rachel Garnier’s hair was drawn back in a simple knot and she wore a gray muslin round gown, but her face was unmistakable.
“Madame Rannoch,” she said, coming toward Suzanne. “Are you going inside? Could you see if they have any lint to spare? I’ve quite run out.”
“Of course. Come in with me. You can sit for a moment.”
Rachel shook her head. “I hardly think I’d be well received.”
They might be at war, but the divide between a prostitute and a lady of fashion was greater than that between the British and the French. Suzanne bit back an hysterical laugh at the thought of what the comtesse would think should she know of Suzanne’s own past. She had been an outsider when she married Malcolm, an émigrée war bride who had snagged a wealthy husband. Slowly she was coming to be accepted in Malcolm’s world. But they would shun her in an instant if they had the least idea of her true origins. And there were times when she thought it wasn’t her work for the French that would be the most shocking to Malcolm’s friends.
She went inside and returned quickly, flasks of water replenished and more rolls of lint gathered up for Rachel. Rachel smiled in gratitude. “Is Monsieur Rannoch still with the army?”
Suzanne nodded. “He returned to Brussels last night, but he’s gone back.” She scanned Rachel’s tense face. “Have you had news of Lieutenant Rivaux?”
Rachel shook her head and made a show of tucking the lint beneath her arm. “There’s no reason for anyone to let me know. I don’t have any right to be concerned.”
“Concern isn’t a matter of rights.”
Rachel gave a faint smile. “Concern isn’t supposed to be something I have time for. But yes, I am. Terribly.”
Over Rachel’s shoulder Suzanne saw another familiar figure coming down the street. Jane Chase.
“Mrs. Rannoch.” Jane’s face was drained of color and her cambric morning dress was caked with dirt about the hem and splashed with blood, but then that was true of Suzanne and Rachel and everyone else tending the wounded.
Suzanne introduced Rachel. Jane shook hands with no appearance of shock. Either she didn’t know who Rachel was or she was more unconventional than Suzanne had at first supposed.
“I came in search of more brandy,” Jane said.
“I’ll go in with you,” Suzanne offered.
Jane faltered climbing the steps to the door. Suzanne took her arm and steered her past the footman into the front salon. “Sit down for a moment.” She pressed Jane into a chair. “You look ready to drop.”
It was true, though her reasons for asking Jane to sit were hardly disinterested. But then what did she ever do that was wholly disinterested?
Suzanne poured a cup of the tea the comtesse had set out and put it into Jane’s hand. “In truth I’ve been wanting to speak with you.”
Jane took an automatic sip and looked at Suzanne with confused eyes.
“Lady Frances Webster heard you quarreling with Julia Ashton at Stuart’s ball.”
Jane’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t quite as ready to drop as she appeared. “I passed Julia in the passage outside one of the salons, but we merely exchanged greetings. Lady Frances must have been mistaken.”
“And then today Georgy Lennox said you went quite pale at the news about the Highlanders.”
Jane’s fingers tightened round the teacup. “The news was dreadful. So many of the soldiers who danced for us at the duchess’s ball are dead.”
“It’s horrible. But Georgy didn’t mention anyone else going pale. Are you close to anyone in the regiment?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“Because when I put the two things together, the oddest thought occurred to me.” Suzanne looked into Jane Chase’s hazel eyes. “Mrs. Chase, do you have a lover among the Highlanders?”
40
T
he cup tumbled from Jane Chase’s fingers, spattering tea over her already-stained skirt and shattering into shards of rose and gold porcelain on the carpet. Jane stared down at the wreckage as though looking into hell, then raised her gaze to Suzanne’s face. “How in God’s name do you do it?”
he cup tumbled from Jane Chase’s fingers, spattering tea over her already-stained skirt and shattering into shards of rose and gold porcelain on the carpet. Jane stared down at the wreckage as though looking into hell, then raised her gaze to Suzanne’s face. “How in God’s name do you do it?”
“Putting puzzle pieces together. And then shifting the puzzle to look at it in a different way.”
Jane put her hands over her face.
“I must say after what your husband put you through, I’m rather relieved at the thought you had a lover,” Suzanne said.
Jane gave a harsh laugh. “I never meant—I had mad revenge thoughts when I first realized Tony had strayed, but they soon faded. I thought I was better than he was. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Not in the least, considering I suspect you cared for your lover more than Captain Chase cared for any of his.”
“Then I met Will. Captain William Flemming. At a review last month. Violet was overcome by the heat, and he offered to fetch us lemonade.” She drew a strained breath, though for a moment remembered happiness flashed in her eyes. “He looked at me as though I was a woman. More than that. He looked at me as though I was a person, which is an even rarer thing.”
“Infinitely,” Suzanne said, thinking of Malcolm.
Jane’s fingers twisted in the folds of her skirt. “It was completely mad, yet in Brussels these past few weeks one didn’t think of the future. Despite everything hanging over us, I think I was the happiest I’ve been in years.” She stared down at the broken cup. “If it wasn’t for Will perhaps I’d have taken the children back to England.”
“It does no good to refine upon the past. Or to blame yourself.”
“And yet despite it all—” Jane hugged her arms round herself. “I thought Tony couldn’t hurt me more, but the affair with Julia Ashton did hurt. And when I said good-bye to him at the duchess’s ball—Mrs. Rannoch, does it sound utterly mad to love two men at once in entirely different ways?”
Suzanne remembered her wash of panic at the thought of Raoul going off to battle. “No. Merely hellishly uncomfortable.”
Jane stared at her hands. “I don’t think Tony knew. Knows. I don’t think it ever even occurred to him it was possible.”
“Men can be so damnably obtuse.” Or in Malcolm’s case hearteningly naïve in his faith in humanity, not to mention in his wife. “But Lady Julia learned of it.”
“I’m still not sure how. Will and I wrote to each other occasionally, but we were careful.” Jane drew a shuddering breath. “At Stuart’s ball, I danced with Will—Tony didn’t even notice of course—and I was overcome by how utterly impossible our liaison was. Julia found me in tears. She told me she’d ended things with Tony and that she’d have thought I had the wit to know things weren’t always what they appeared. I mumbled something. Then Julia took me by the shoulders and said—” Jane’s eyes went dark not with guilt but with anger.
“What?” Suzanne asked in a gentle voice.
“She said I was a fool to think it could possibly be worth it to throw away my husband and children for an idle fancy.”
“That must have been galling.”
“For a moment I was struck dumb.” Jane pushed herself to her feet. “When I was able to speak, I said how dared she of all people offer me advice and especially advice of that sort. Julia said it was precisely because of her own mistakes that she understood what I was risking. She seemed so serious that for a moment I actually found myself nodding my head. Then the full, horrid absurdity struck me. And so I struck her.”
“I can understand the impulse.”
“I shouldn’t have let myself sink to that level. But in that moment—” Jane shook her head, mouth drawn into a taut line. “All my anger at everything that’s happened since my marriage was focused on Julia.”
Jane spun away, suppressed violence in the snap of her skirts and the taut line of her shoulders. Before Suzanne could respond, the front door opened and Sarah and Georgiana Lennox’s voices sounded in the hall. Jane hurried to join them, and Suzanne knew she had pushed her as far as she could for now. Suzanne spoke briefly with the Lennox sisters, who were pale and drawn at what they had seen but determined. They were the daughters and sisters of soldiers.
A few minutes later they all left the house armed with fresh supplies and separated to return to where they’d been working. Jane Chase had recovered her equanimity remarkably well. Suzanne struggled to rearrange the puzzle pieces in light of this new information. The depth of Jane’s anger at Julia was plain, and however blatant Tony Chase’s philandering, a woman stood to lose far more than her husband if her love affair was discovered. But it was difficult to imagine Jane having the resources and the time to arrange the ambush. Although—
“Madame Rannoch.” It was Lucille, hurrying down the street toward her. “I was hoping I could find you. I thought you’d want to know. Your friend stopped by the shop. She said she’ll be at home this afternoon.”
Suzanne drew a breath of relief, while at the same time tension shot through her. Raoul was alive. And what she had to discuss with him could shake her world to the core.
Cordelia snipped off a length of linen and knotted her bandage. “There. I’m afraid I’ve mangled it horribly. Thank you for being so forbearing.”
“On the contrary, ma’am.” The Highland sergeant was pale and a sheen of sweat showed on his forehead, but he spoke in a cheerful voice. “I’ve known more than one surgeon with hands that were less steady.”
“You’re very kind.” Cordelia pulled a flask of water from her pocket. “Were many of your comrades killed?”
His eyes, a pale, clear blue, darkened at the memories. “Only five of us were left standing.”
Cordelia shivered as she uncorked the flask. “I saw some of your comrades dance at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.” She slid her arm beneath his shoulders and lifted him to take a sip of water. “It seems horrid now that we all stood about applauding entertainment right before you marched off to battle.” Betraying tears sprang to her eyes as she eased him back down on the cobblestones. She adjusted the folded coat that formed a makeshift pillow.
“Is your husband in the army, ma’am?”
She nodded, eyes on the frayed wool of the coat.
“He’s a lucky man to have you to come back to.”
Cordelia choked, torn between a laugh and a sob. She could only hope that having her in Brussels didn’t make Harry less eager to return.
Today was entirely beyond her experience. In her childhood, even minor scrapes and bruises had been tended to by the nursery maids. The closest she’d come to actually dealing with an injury was when Julia had fallen and banged her knee. Cordelia had run ahead to alert their nurse while George carried Julia back to the house. Since Livia’s birth, Cordelia had learned to cope with scraped knees and runny noses and the occasional cut finger. But nothing like this. When they’d first stepped into the street from the comtesse’s, she’d nearly doubled over and been sick on the cobblestones.
Suzanne Rannoch’s fingers had closed round her wrist in an iron grip that was somehow reassuring. Suzanne was so amazingly calm. Snipping bandages, bathing wounds and packing them with lint, even stitching cuts and digging out bullets with no laudanum to keep the men from screaming. Cordelia couldn’t hope for a quarter of Suzanne’s sangfroid, but she could at least copy some of it. And somehow, though the smells and cries were still there, they had become part of her accepted reality. It was not that the horror had lessened, simply that it was difficult to imagine anything else. There was something almost commonplace about going through the motions of bathing wounds, cleaning out bits of cloth and debris from torn flesh, snipping bandages, wiping foreheads, offering sips of water, judging which wounds she could treat herself and when it was necessary to summon one of the Belgian doctors moving tirelessly among the wounded.
The first time she had looked up from fumbling with a flask of brandy to see the young private she was treating staring back at her with the fixed glassiness of death, she’d nearly been sick again. For a moment she’d been thrown back four nights to Stuart’s ball, looking down at Julia’s lifeless body. But now closing the eyes of the dead was another accepted part of her reality.
“Cordelia.” The sound of her name stopped her as she turned from putting the sergeant into the care of two young boys who were going to help him back to his billet. It was Violet Chase, side curls plastered to her forehead and cheeks, India muslin gown spattered with gray and black and red, sash lost somewhere along the way. “Do you have any more lint?” Violet asked. “I was on my way back to the comtesse’s to ask for some.”
Cordelia handed her a packet of lint. Violet took it but hesitated a moment, glancing round the street. Wounded men lined either side. “Do you remember the time Tony hit George in the head with a cricket ball? I think that’s the most blood I’ve ever seen. Until today.”
Cordelia nodded. “You look as though you’re bearing up.”
“No alternative.”
“Collapse and have hysterics.”
“Too tiresome. And there’d be no one to listen.”
Cordelia smiled at her childhood friend. “How’s Jane?”
“Working feverishly. So’s Annabel. I shall have to take back every time I ever called her missish.”
Cordelia gave a twisted smile. “I knew that when Annabel put up with everything George and I put her through.”
Violet fingered a fold of her skirt. “Why does it take something so dreadful happening for one to realize what’s important?”
“My dear Violet, if we were more rational creatures, life would be much simpler. But perhaps less interesting. Here now, don’t cry.” Cordelia flung her arms round her friend as Violet gave a choked sob. They clung together as they hadn’t since they were in the schoolroom. Before Julia and Johnny, George and Harry, and all the circumstances that had put distance between them.
At length Violet drew back, rubbing her eyes. “I’ll do now. I didn’t mean to be a watering pot.”
Cordelia smiled. “What are old friends for?”
Violet nodded, turned away, then looked back over her shoulder. “Cordy? Do you think I could possibly manage to be a passable wife?”
“I think there’s always been very little you couldn’t do with enough determination.”
A smile broke across Violet’s face. Then she bit her lip, no doubt at the fear that she’d never get the chance to put Cordelia’s words to the test.
George Chase stared at Malcolm through the pelting rain that dripped from the overhanging branches. “Now you think I’m a double agent?” he demanded in a furious whisper.
Malcolm kept his hands steady on the reins. French lancers had come up at the end of the British withdrawal from Quatre Bras, so he hadn’t been able to seek out George for some time. He had found George at last delivering a message to the cavalry protecting the long column from French pursuit as the Allied army fell back to maintain communications with the Prussians. At Malcolm’s suggestion, he and George had withdrawn to a copse of trees that bordered the road. George had been ready enough to talk, but at Malcolm’s questions anger flared in his eyes, swift as the lightning that broke the sky.
“Information you had access to fell into French hands,” Malcolm said in response to George’s question.
George cast a quick glance toward the road, but the relentless torrent of rain, the thud of boots slogging through the mud, and the jangle of bridles and neighing of horses provided better cover than stone walls. “I was hardly the only one who had access to it.”
“And you slipped out of Stuart’s ball in company with your brother the night Lady Julia was killed.”
“That’s what makes you think I’m working for the French?”
“Given that your brother is, it’s not a surprising conclusion.” Someone fired off a pistol not far away. The French kept dancing close to the column but pulled back as soon as the Allied cavalry threatened engagement. “As I calculate it, you and Tony would have had time to set up the ambush that killed Lady Julia. Or possibly to have ridden to the château and killed her yourselves.”
George pulled his horse to the side as a burst of rainwater broke through the leaves above. From the distance came the sound of round shot thudding into the mud. “The explanation is much more prosaic. Tony confronted me about seeing me with Julia earlier in the evening. We went out into the garden and then into the mews so no one would hear us.”
“You told me he didn’t speak to you about seeing you with Lady Julia.”
George passed a weary hand over his face. “Because I knew the more I said the more it would lead to just this type of question.”
“Did you tell him you knew Julia was his agent?”
“No, of course not. I was still protecting her cover. And my own.”
It was barely plausible. Plausible enough that Malcolm knew he wouldn’t be able to shake George Chase. So he fell back on his next best option and switched tacks without pausing to give George time to reflect. “You visited Carfax House quite a bit growing up. It’s not surprising you ended up working for Carfax.”
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