Teresa Grant (47 page)
Authors: Imperial Scandal
“Nor did I,” Suzanne said.
Suzanne met Malcolm in the hall on his return to the house half an hour later. “Darling. Amelia Beckwith. I think I know—”
He nodded. “So do I. I need you to come with me. I can’t take Davenport in his condition.”
“No,” Suzanne agreed. “But we need to take Cordelia.”
George Chase looked from Malcolm to Suzanne to Cordelia across the confines of the sitting room in his house in Brussels. In the early evening light spilling through the windows, Suzanne could see the pulse beating in his forehead. His eyes had a hurt, bewildered look one would swear was genuine. “I told you, Billy—”
“Billy swears he and Miss Beckwith weren’t lovers in the physical sense,” Malcolm said.
“And you believe him?”
“In this case, yes.”
George spun away and strode across the room, boot heels thudding against the Aubusson carpet. “The more fool you.”
“You called me
bienne aimée,
” Cordelia said. Her voice was as raw as an oozing wound.
bienne aimée,
” Cordelia said. Her voice was as raw as an oozing wound.
“Of course I did.” George turned to look at her, gaze open and desperate. Despite everything she knew and suspected, for an instant Suzanne almost felt sorry for him. “I meant it.”
“You’d never called me that before. And you only did it in your sleep. When you were tossing with troubled dreams.” Cordelia drew a hard breath. “I don’t think you were talking to me at all.”
“That’s absurd—”
“She threatened everything you’d built for yourself.” Cordelia stared at her former lover as though she scarcely recognized him. “Annabel, your secure fortune, your position in society, your military career—”
“For God’s sake, Cordy, no.” He lurched across the room and seized her shoulders. “It wasn’t Annabel at all. I’d seen you. At your parents’ house, before you and Davenport left for the Lake District. I knew I had to have you back. I couldn’t let anything stand in the way.”
Cordelia jerked out of his hold and took a stumbling step backward, eyes dark with revulsion. “Oh, my God.”
“Cordy—”
Cordelia spun away and threw up into a Chinese vase on the table by the door. Suzanne put her arms round her friend’s shoulders. Cordelia shuddered, as though her body could scarcely contain the horror of the realization.
“Billy was with his parents and then at a house party,” Malcolm said, voice cool and controlled . “Amy was probably anxious, afraid he’d throw her over. You were there to comfort her. You were probably at Carfax Court a great deal to confer with Carfax. Amy told Violet real love wasn’t a fairy-tale prince, it was finding a man one couldn’t live without. Billy was the fairy-tale prince. You were the man she couldn’t live without. And then she told you she was pregnant.”
“And you—” Cordelia pulled away from Suzanne and spun round to face George. For a moment she simply stood there, holding him with her gaze. Something turned to ashes in the air between them. Not just an old love, but bonds that stretched back to childhood. “You killed her because she threatened the perfect life you’d built for yourself.”
“No.” The word seemed to be ripped from George Chase’s throat. He stumbled toward Cordelia and stopped a hand’s breadth away. “I told Amy we’d have to keep it secret, that there was no way out of my marriage to Annabel. Amy was distraught. When I tried to comfort her, she jerked away. She slipped. There’d been frost the night before. The ground was slippery. I reached for her, but she fell into the lake.”
“And you didn’t try to rescue her.” Cordelia’s voice was flat as hammered metal.
“I couldn’t—”
“Don’t, George.” Cordelia gripped her elbows. Her gaze was sick with self-disgust.
“Amy had confided in Julia that she was pregnant,” Malcolm said in the same calm voice. “I think in Brussels these past weeks Julia somehow realized you must have been the father. Did Julia threaten to reveal what she knew when she wanted out of the spy business?”
George drew a breath but bit back whatever he had been about to say.
“But Julia was wrong about one thing,” Malcolm said. “I wasn’t the other person Amy had confided in about her predicament.”
Fear and surprise flickered in George’s gaze. “I never—”
“You told your brother I knew about Truxhillo.”
“I thought—”
“You couldn’t have thought anything of the sort.” Malcolm took a step toward the other man. “Because I didn’t know about it. But you wanted to get rid of me.”
George stared at him, face set in hard lines. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“It makes sense of the facts. Julia told her husband I was the only other person Amy had confided in. But I wasn’t.”
George squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t play games, Rannoch. Julia said Amy had told David’s best friend.”
“Oh, dear God,” Malcolm said.
Suzanne sucked in her breath. “Simon.”
“Of course. That’s how Amy would have thought of him.” Malcolm looked at George. “And based on that you decided to have your brother get me out of the way. So you told Tony I knew about Truxhillo. And when Tony tried to embroil Julia in his efforts to get rid of me, you told Julia to play along. That you’d make sure I wasn’t actually killed. But Julia decided she wanted out. So you decided to get rid of both of us.”
George returned Malcolm’s gaze, his own as well defended as an infantry square. Beneath his desperation was a hardened agent. And a killer. “You can’t possibly prove any of that.”
“Not in a court of law perhaps.”
Cordelia was still staring fixedly at her former lover. “I don’t know why I never saw how weak you are,” she said in a low voice. “You always took the easy way out. Marrying Annabel. Letting me convince you to go back to her. I don’t know whether or not I could have survived in genteel poverty. But I’m quite sure you couldn’t.”
George’s gaze jerked back to Cordelia. Something broke in the depths of his eyes. Suzanne had seen that look in the eyes of the wounded when they realized they were dying. “Cordy, I know I’ve lost—”
“I don’t know if this makes things easier for you, George.” Cordelia folded her arms in front of her. Her voice was harsh, the voice of one stripped of her last illusions. “God knows I don’t want to make things easier for you. But for what it’s worth, you lost me long since. I’m in love with my husband.”
David pushed himself to his feet, spun away, and slammed his fist down on a mahogany table, sending two books thudding to the floor. “I’d like to kill him.”
“But you won’t.” Malcolm got to his feet and went to his friend’s side. “I know how you feel, David. Believe me. I felt much the same when we learned the truth about Tatiana Kirsanova’s death last autumn. But I didn’t act on those feelings, and you won’t, either.”
“Because I’m better than that?” David’s mouth twisted.
“Yes. And because there’s no point in compounding the tragedy by ruining your life and bringing scandal on your family.”
David drew a breath of frustration. “My family—”
“And because you wouldn’t do that to Simon.”
David cast a quick glance at his lover. Simon looked steadily back at him.
Cordelia pushed herself to her feet. They were in Harry’s bedchamber, gathered round his bed. Suzanne remained seated beside the bed and watched Harry and Simon, their gazes trained on Cordelia and David.
“I wanted to kill him myself,” Cordelia said, touching David’s arm. “You have no idea how badly. But it would have served little purpose. And we’ll never know for a certainty if George set up the ambush that killed Julia or if it was Tony manipulated by George.”
“And that matters?” David demanded.
“I’m afraid if Johnny thought George was responsible for Julia’s death he wouldn’t be able to refrain from violence. He’d ruin his life. And any chance he and Violet have of salvaging something from the tragedy.”
David swallowed. His hands were curled into fists, but his shoulders were a fraction less tense. “So you want Ashton to blame Miss Chase’s other brother?”
Cordelia moved back to the bed. “Tony died saving Johnny. That will make it easier for all of them to live with.”
Harry twined his fingers round her hand.
David strode back to the bed and stood beside Simon. “I can’t bear the thought of him getting away with it.”
“He won’t.” Harry exchanged a look with Malcolm. “We’ll make sure Wellington knows. And your father.”
David shook his head, his jaw set. “There’s not enough proof to bring him to justice.”
“But his career will be over,” Malcolm said. “You know how your father works. When Chase shows his face in England, he’ll find himself quietly blackballed in society.”
David’s mouth curled. “So being thrown out of White’s constitutes punishment?”
“For a man who values his position as much as George does,” Cordelia said.
“Chase will be assigned to a backwater with no chance of advancement or sent into danger,” Harry said. “Or both.”
Malcolm put a hand on David’s shoulder. “It may not be your idea of justice, David. Or mine. But between them your father and Wellington will see to it Chase’s life isn’t worth living.”
51
Tuesday, 20 June
C
ordelia dropped into a leather armchair in the study beside Suzanne and reached for the teapot. “I’m not sure what happened to the man I married. He seems to have vanished. There’s a damnably optimistic stranger lying in my bed upstairs.”
ordelia dropped into a leather armchair in the study beside Suzanne and reached for the teapot. “I’m not sure what happened to the man I married. He seems to have vanished. There’s a damnably optimistic stranger lying in my bed upstairs.”
Suzanne watched as Cordelia poured a cup of tea with fierce concentration. “What’s Harry saying?”
“A lot of nonsense about the past not mattering. And that he wants me despite everything.” Cordelia set down the teapot, spattering drops of tea on the tabletop.
“War can change people.”
“In Harry’s case it seems to have driven him mad.” Cordelia grabbed the milk jug. “The idea that we could ever forget—”
“Perhaps you’ll find you don’t mind remembering.” Suzanne thought back to her own wedding day. The close air in the embassy sitting room that served as a chapel, Malcolm’s hand shaking slightly as he slid the ring onto her finger, her own hand trembling as she signed the marriage lines. Despite her torn feelings about why she had entered into her marriage, it was not an unhappy memory.
“Nothing can change the fact that our marriage was badly begun.” Cordelia stirred her tea, clattering the spoon against the eggshell porcelain. “I took dreadful advantage of Harry. I married him for his money.”
“A number of people marry for love and fall out of it. I don’t see why the reverse can’t be possible.”
Cordelia drew a sharp breath. “And if Livia ever learns that George might be—”
“Her father?” Suzanne’s fingers tightened round her teacup. Difficult to believe their confrontation with George Chase had been only yesterday. “Given what you’ve already been through, I think you and Harry will be able to handle that.”
Cordelia flung down the spoon. “I don’t—”
“Deserve him?” Suzanne bit back a bitter laugh. “Dearest, haven’t you learned that no one gets what they deserve? Which is a very good thing for some of us.”
Cordelia reached for her teacup. “Yes, but—”
The door from the passage was flung open. Rachel pushed through, then slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against the panels. “Henri’s gone mad.”
Cordelia set down her teacup. “Him too?”
“What’s he done?” Suzanne asked.
Rachel’s fingers curled against the polished mahogany of the door. “He says he wants to marry me.”
Despite everything, Suzanne found herself smiling. “I knew Lieutenant Rivaux was a sensible man.”
“It’s insane.” Rachel stalked across the room and flung herself into a chair beside Cordelia. “The Vicomte de Rivaux can’t marry a whore. He’d be ruined.”
“Hardly ruined.” Cordelia poured a cup of tea with the ceremony of a hostess in her drawing room. “He might not be received certain places, but it’s more you who’d be given the cut. It’s amazing what a man can get away with.”
Rachel shook her head. “It’s not the life I want for him.”
Cordelia handed the cup of tea to Rachel. “What sort of life does he want for himself?” She frowned, as though caught up short by her own words.
Rachel tossed down a swallow of tea. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s a mistake,” Suzanne said, “thinking one knows what’s best for one’s lover better than he does himself.”
Rachel stared at her, brows fiercely drawn. “Don’t tell me you think I should accept him?”
What could she say?
I was once a whore myself, and I don’t think it’s any bar to successful matrimony? I know better than anyone that a marriage can be flawed and still succeed? I need to believe you can be happy to have a shred of hope for myself?
“You’d be beginning with honesty,” Suzanne said. “That’s a great deal more than most people have.”
I was once a whore myself, and I don’t think it’s any bar to successful matrimony? I know better than anyone that a marriage can be flawed and still succeed? I need to believe you can be happy to have a shred of hope for myself?
“You’d be beginning with honesty,” Suzanne said. “That’s a great deal more than most people have.”
Rachel shook her head, eyes armored against hope.
“Do you love him?” Cordelia asked.
“What’s that to say to—”
“Do you—”
“I’m a whore.”
“How many men a woman sleeps with has nothing to do with whom she loves. Believe me, I know.” Cordelia tossed down a quick sip of tea. “Do you love Lieutenant Rivaux?”
“Of course,” Rachel said as though the words were torn from her. “But—”
“Well then.” Cordelia smiled again, a sudden, infectious, girlish smile, with none of her usual cynicism. “My husband just asked me what I wanted. I think you might ask yourself the same.”
Cordelia leaned back in her chair, gaze on her husband. If someone had told her a month, even a week, ago that she’d feel an absurd rush of contentment simply watching Harry sleep, she’d have laughed in their face.
Harry’s gaze flew open with that same lightning quickness with which his brain could dart from topic to topic. “I hate that I sleep so much. But I love waking up. It’s such an amazing illusion to have one’s wife look at one with such wonder.”
“Who says it’s an illusion?”
“I’m not a fool, Cordy.”
An iron band squeezed her chest. “You’ve been the one who’s been arguing that things could ... that it could ... that we could”—the words seemed to be stuck in her throat—“make it work.”
His gaze shot over her face. “But I’m not fool enough to think you’d look at me with wonder after the first fortnight or so. Tolerant affection would be a great deal.”
She swallowed. “I told George—” Her voice caught on his name.
“You don’t have to talk about him.” Harry’s voice was rough. He reached for her hand.
“Yes, I do. I need you to know this. However disgusted I was to learn he was behind Julia’s and Amy’s deaths, whatever was between George and me ended long before. Because, as I told him, I’m in love with my husband.”
For a moment, it was as though the breath had stopped in Harry’s throat. Then his fingers tightened round her own. “You’re sounding dangerously like a romantic, Cordy.”
She returned the pressure of his hand, though she feared touching him was taking unfair advantage. “Harry, I can’t promise you anything. That is, I can promise you’d be the only man in my bed, and I can promise that I’ll try. But I can’t promise that I won’t make a hopeless mull of things. But—”
“Yes?” His gaze was trained on her face.
“But nothing would make me happier than if Livia and I could come and live with you.”
Something sparked in his eyes that seared through the jaconet of her gown. “I don’t see how anyone could object to a wife and daughter coming to live with a husband and father.”
“No.” Cordelia sucked in a breath, feeling as though she might shatter into a million pieces. “Harry—”
He had pushed himself up and was leaning forward, arm extended, in danger of falling off the bed. “I’ve been making a remarkable recovery. Especially after what you just said. Come here.”
Moving to the edge of the bed and into the circle of his arm was the surest way to prevent him from tumbling off the edge of the bed.
His arm tightened round her. His breath brushed her skin and then his mouth closed over her own with a naked need that went beyond artifice and pretense, fear and uncertainty, forgiveness and betrayal.
“I’m terrified, Harry,” she said a few moments later, her voice muffled by his dressing gown.
“So am I, my darling.” His lips moved against her temple. “But I’m more terrified of life without you.”
Suzanne cast a glance round the hall. Angus was finally winning the battle against infection, and Christophe would soon be well enough to return to his regiment. The rest of the remaining wounded looked as though they’d pull through. Upstairs Harry and Edgar were both mending. She went down the passage to the kitchen, and put the kettle on the range. Simon and David would be back soon from their visit to Fitzroy Somerset, and Malcolm would return from his call on Stuart. Tea was always welcome.
Over the whistling of the kettle, she didn’t hear the opening of the door. The first she realized someone else had come into the kitchen was when Malcolm came up behind her and slid his arm round her waist. She released her breath and leaned back against him, seeking solace in the brush of his cravat against her cheek, the pressure of his arm round her waist, the stir of his breath against her hair. This was real, as real as her betrayal, and as much a part of who she was as being a French agent. The past might still hang over her, but she’d made her choice, and she knew where she belonged.
“Rachel’s going to marry Rivaux,” Malcolm said.
“I’m glad.” She lifted her head and turned round to look at him. As well as she knew him, she wasn’t entirely sure of his response to the news. She needed to look into his eyes, and she was terrified of what she might see.
Malcolm grinned. “I’m glad, too. I’ve never been much of a believer in young love, but they’re enough to shake a cynic.”
“Darling.” Suzanne put her hands on his chest. “You’re good at creating cover stories. Couldn’t you create one for Rachel? So no one need know she ever worked at Le Paon d’Or? So she isn’t ostracized?”
“I’m already working on the details. I was hoping you’d help me.”
She reached up to press a kiss against his cheek. “You’re wonderful, Malcolm.”
“Why wouldn’t I help Rachel? I’m very fond of her. Not to mention that I probably owe her my life.” He set his hands on her shoulders. “I saw Stuart. It looks as though we’ll be going to Paris once things are sorted here.”
Paris under Allied occupation. She forced down a wave of anger at the image of foreign soldiers swarming over the Place du Carousel, the Bourbon flag flying, white cockades replacing the tricolor. She would manage. God knows she’d managed in the past.
She studied his face. His features were still scored with exhaustion. But it was his eyes that caught her. The gaze of a man who’d seen into hell and was clawing his way back to sanity.
“Men were dying all round me,” he said in a quiet voice. “All I could think about was you and Colin. Getting back to you.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t my war, but I’ve spent so much of my life caught up in it. I had this sense that I needed to be there, to see it through to the end. But a part of me can’t but wonder if I was wrong. If my first duty was to be with the two of you.”
Her throat tightened. How odd that for all that divided them, in the midst of the battle their thoughts had been much the same. “It’s difficult sorting out where one’s duty lies,” she said. “And often there’s no clear answer.”
His gaze moved over her face. “We live in a mad world and these past years it’s been madder than usual. And yet somehow in the midst of it all I got you.”
She linked her hands behind his head, using a playful smile to mask the feelings tearing through her. “Got stuck with me, you mean.”
“I know I don’t deserve you, sweetheart. And I know I don’t say it often enough. But I’d be lost without you.”
Tenderness and fear and wonder welled up in her throat. She took his face between her hands, memorizing the curve of his lips, the crinkles round his eyes, the bone-deep tenderness in the eyes themselves. Committing them to a memory she’d always carry with her, whatever was to come. “Well then,” she said. “It’s a good thing you have me. And I hate to break it to you, darling, but I don’t see how you could get rid of me.”
“You’ll be the toast of Paris, you know.”
The Bourbon court, ultra-Royalists in power, her friends imprisoned. It was going to be difficult, but she’d have him beside her. That counted for a lot. “Paris is going to seem positively tame after Brussels.”
“I suspect adventure will find us. It always seems to, one way or another.”
She kept a bright smile on her face.
For she knew his words were all too true.
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