The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (13 page)

“He certainly lived lavishly,” Harry said. “I can’t claim to be privy to his finances. For what it’s worth, he managed my inheritance rather well.”

“Your uncle’s no fool. Whatever he may let on. Always seemed proud of you.”

Harry gave a short laugh. “I believe you were the one who said to spare the niceties, sir. Not to mention the out-and-out lies.”

Cyrus stretched his legs out. “I don’t waste time on niceties or lies, my boy. Certainly not the polite variety. I remember your uncle showing off an essay you’d written at Eton in the coffee room at White’s.”

The flash of surprise in Harry’s eyes was quickly masked. “He must have been in his cups.”

“No more so than usual. Have to admit I never felt the impulse to wave Hugh’s essays round over the claret and beefsteak. But then I don’t recall any of Hugh’s efforts being particularly worth showing off.”

“Tell us about the Elsinore League,” Malcolm said.

He expected Cyrus to dismiss the club as undergraduate foolery. Instead, Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know?”

“My father and Harleton began it at university. You were all members. It was a sort of hellfire club.”

Cyrus gave a short laugh. “Nothing like bawdy secrets to mask other secrets.”

“What sorts of secrets?”

“You don’t know? Interesting.” Cyrus’s gaze turned to the rippling water of the Serpentine again. “It was before the Revolution when all this started. Young men slipping over to the Continent for the Grand Tour. No one making too much of a fuss about what they brought with them when they returned.”

“The Elsinore League were smugglers?” Harry asked.

A slow smile crossed Cyrus’s face. “I think they saw themselves more as clever businessmen. Or agents who worked for themselves.”

“Crates of brandy?” Malcolm said.

“And champagne. And works of art. Acquired by a variety of means. They had the art of looting down long before Bonaparte began to move across the Continent.”

Malcolm recalled the Rubens portrait and Cellini bronze in Harleton’s study. Crispin had said his father hadn’t been an art collector. But Alistair had. An image of Alistair’s study flashed into Malcolm’s mind. Another Cellini bronze that served as a paperweight. The Titian portrait and Canaletto landscape that hung on the walls. The Venetian decanter and glasses. A world of art treasures that were now Malcolm’s own. “For themselves?”

“For themselves and to sell. Your father had a taste for expensive works of art without the funds to support collecting, which I think is what started it. But they quickly realized it was lucrative. And a dangerous game. Dangerous games aren’t only seductive in the bedchamber.” Cyrus stretched his booted feet out in front of him. “I confess to having one or two pieces in my possession from that time. Off-the-record.”

“Did it stop when we went to war with France?” Harry asked.

“On the contrary. The danger increased and so did the seduction. What could appeal to bored young aristocrats more than slipping into Revolutionary and Directoire Paris? A dangerous world where marriage had become passé and women went about without their petticoats. Smytheton and Dewhurst practically lived in Paris in the nineties, and we all visited. I’ll own to some pleasant memories of my own from those days.”

“Did it go beyond smuggling?”

Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “You mean did they smuggle information? Dewhurst and Smytheton were Royalist agents.”

“Smytheton was?” Malcolm said, picturing the Tavistock’s patron expounding on Shakespeare.

“Carfax didn’t tell you?” Cyrus asked. “I daresay he had his reasons.”

“Smytheton’s an unassuming sort,” Harry said. “Those can make for the best agents.”

“And he got involved with that pretty actress of his. Pity when all that ended. Jennifer had some very lovely friends.”

“Jennifer Mansfield?” Malcolm saw the auburn-haired actress who had prevailed upon Smytheton to take her out for lemonade during the break in the rehearsal. “I didn’t realize she was French. Or if I did know I’d forgot.”

“I daresay she didn’t broadcast it, as we were at war with France when she came here,” Cyrus said. “Took an English name. But when I first saw her across the footlights at the Comédie-Française, she was Geneviève Manet. Smytheton brought her here in the midnineties.”

“And the others?” Malcolm asked, filing away this information about Smytheton and Jennifer Mansfield.

“You mean were any of them British agents?”

“That’s one possibility.”

“French agents?” Cyrus’s brows rose. “Not that I know of. That would be . . . interesting.” He drummed his fingers on the bench, seemingly more intrigued than shocked.

“Have you ever heard of the Raven?” Malcolm asked.

“Not that I recall.” Cyrus’s blue gaze betrayed neither recognition nor alarm. But then Cyrus betrayed little. “Is it a novel?”

“It appears to be a code name. I found mentions in my father’s and Harleton’s letters.”

Cyrus snorted. “Very likely a name they gave to one of their women.” His gaze sharpened. “Or do you think your father and Harleton were dealing in information?”

“One of their friends dealt in information by ’98.”

“So they did.” Cyrus’s gaze hardened. “Thomas had just been promoted to captain. I can still see him the day he found out.” His gaze followed a leaf as it drifted to the water. “Of course I didn’t know then that he’d volunteered for military intelligence. I’d have tried to talk him out of it for any number of reasons. Ireland was an ugly business.”

“Did my father ever talk about it?” Malcolm asked.

“Ireland? Of course. Your grandfather had estates there. Alistair was worried about them. Alistair didn’t have much use for rabble anywhere.” Cyrus stirred a pile of fallen leaves with the toe of his boot. “I remember drinking with Alistair at White’s when we got the news that Raoul O’Roarke had escaped to the Continent after the Uprising. Alistair swore.” Cyrus cast a sideways glance at Malcolm. “O’Roarke was friendly with your family, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but more with my mother and grandfather than with Alistair.” Malcolm kept his gaze on Cyrus’s face, though he could feel Harry watching him.

Cyrus nodded. “Alistair had mentioned O’Roarke before. With venom verging on contempt.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Because as I said, Alistair had no use for the rabble. And to his mind O’Roarke was the worst sort of rabble-rouser. So it wasn’t so much the swearing when he heard of O’Roarke’s escape that was unusual as the fact that his sangfroid was quite shattered. He snapped the stem of his glass and spilled claret all over the carpet. While the waiter was mopping it up, Alistair apologized to me and said he wasn’t much of a believer in justice, but just once it would be nice to see the guilty punished.”

“I remember my parents’ quarreling during the Uprising,” Malcolm said. “Not that it was unusual for them to quarrel. But in this case Alistair accused my mother of being a traitor to her class.” It made Alistair the most improbable French agent. And perhaps therefore the best.

“Were any of the men at that dinner party sympathetic to the United Irish cause?” Harry asked.

“I wouldn’t have said so,” Cyrus returned. “But then, as you must know better than anyone, if they were good agents, they wouldn’t have appeared to be sympathetic to the cause for which they were working.”

“Quite.” Malcolm studied Cyrus. He was shocked by how open the other man was being. He suspected Cyrus would only be so if he was hiding something. “When did you know your brother was part of the Dunboyne mission?”

Cyrus’s mouth twisted. “When it failed and I got news of his death.” He shot a look at Malcolm. “I know that makes me a suspect. Though I’d hardly have had to go through Dewhurst’s things to learn military secrets.” He shook his head. “It was a bloody mess. I’m not one to sympathize with revolutionaries, but I’ll be the first to admit our own side didn’t manage things well, either. I lost friends, including one or two among the United Irishmen. And then in the midst of all that I had to tell Anne about Thomas.”

“Anne?” Harry asked.

“His fiancée. They’d been childhood sweethearts and had got engaged that summer. I can still see Anne’s face when I told her—wanted to be the one to break the news and rode all night to her parents’ house. She’s always been pale—that sort of fair Irish complexion that’s so dramatic with dark hair—but I’d swear every ounce of blood drained from her skin. I caught her as she fainted. For several months I wasn’t sure she’d ever recover, emotionally if not physically.”

“Did she ever marry?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh yes.” Cyrus flicked a leaf from the bench. “She married me. The next summer.”

Malcolm heard Harry draw in his breath. His own gaze was fixed on Cyrus.

Cyrus picked up another leaf and twirled it between his fingers. “Hugh’s mother had died two years before. I could say the tragedy of losing Thomas brought Anne and me together. And it did in a way. But the truth is I’d loved Anne since were children. I only offered for my first wife because I knew I hadn’t a prayer with Anne, for all she was still in the schoolroom. She didn’t look twice at me until Thomas was gone. Even now I’m quite sure of the choice she’d make were Thomas to walk back through the door.” He shook his head. “Not that I’m complaining. I have what I wanted. Which I suppose gives me a motive to have leaked the information to get rid of my brother. Save that I didn’t know Thomas would be involved.”

“So you say,” Malcolm replied, holding Cyrus with his gaze.

“Oh, quite.” Cyrus returned his gaze. “But then all of this comes down to what we each say, doesn’t it? Until you find proof.”

 

The smell of books always brought Suzanne comfort. Even at incongruous times, such as when, disguised as a parlormaid, she had slipped into the library of a Spanish commander in order to retrieve a coded document, full-well aware that the commander could walk into the room at any moment. Compared to that, today was child’s play. All she was doing was stepping over the threshold of Hookham’s Lending Library. Save that the knowledge that her husband was trying to unmask her reverberated through her.

She nodded to the bespectacled man behind the circulating desk. He inclined his head in response. She was a frequent visitor here, usually for purely literary reasons. She made her way past the aisle of novels she often browsed, past travel books, to a shadowed corner slightly mustier than the others, filled with volumes of classics. Harry Davenport would approve. And it wasn’t as though she never read Latin or Greek.

She picked up a volume of Suetonius and turned the pages, though she couldn’t force herself to go so far as actually to take in the words.

A whiff of sandalwood shaving soap alerted her to Raoul’s presence before his shadow fell over the page.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

She looked up from the Julio-Claudian emperors and met the concern in his gray eyes. “Am I that transparent?”

“No, but you asked for another meeting after only a day.”

She closed the book over her hand, hoping it would control the trembling of her fingers. “Do you remember when I went after the code in General Ribero’s library?”

“I still get chills at the memory.”

“You never said.”

“That would hardly have helped the situation.”

“When he came into the room, I pretended I was a maid caught borrowing a book. He was amused. And impressed that I could read.”

“You still got the code.”

“While I let him steal a kiss.” She pulled her hand free of the book. “More was at stake than now. And less in some ways.”

His gaze skimmed over her face. “What is it,
querida?
”

“Malcolm went to Harleton’s Richmond villa yesterday. He found correspondence between Harleton and Alistair Rannoch mentioning the Raven.”

Raoul bit back his curse before he uttered a sound, but she could feel the unvoiced words reverberating through the air. “How the devil did they find out?”

“Alistair referred to the Raven’s identity creating problems for him. I think he knew it was his son’s wife.”

“But Malcolm doesn’t know that.”

“No, for the moment Malcolm thinks it may refer to the mole who betrayed the Dunboyne business. But—”

Raoul’s fingers closed on her wrist. “Malcolm is brilliant,
querida
. But even brilliant agents can’t uncover every secret.”

“You’re saying I can outwit him?” She could hear the tension in her own voice beneath the low murmurs and discreet rustles from the rest of the library.

“I’d be hard-pressed to bet on either of you. Save that you have one advantage in this over your husband.”

“Your help?”

“Without question. But what I was thinking is that you know precisely how high the stakes are.”

CHAPTER 11

The tapers on the dressing table wavered at the opening of the door. Suzanne’s spirits lifted, as they always did, as her husband’s image appeared in the looking glass. And then the memory of risk pulled taut beneath her corset laces and ruched bodice.

“You look lovely.” He closed the door and leaned against the panels. “Though that dress has a distinct air of Yuletide about it. Must we begin celebrating the holidays already?”

“It’s December now. And last year you admitted you enjoyed them.” She fastened her second garnet earring, chosen to go with her gown of claret
gros de Naples
. The color and the gold cording at the waist did give it a holiday air.

“Last year I was basking in the glow of new parenthood and enjoying Colin’s glee. This year we’re back in the bosom of my family.”

“You like your family.”

“Some of them.” He advanced into the room and shrugged out of his coat. “What is it tonight?”

“You’re impossible.” Warmth shot through her at the simple triviality of the conversation. “Who kept track of your engagements before you had a wife?”

“Addison.” He tossed his day coat over a chairback and began to loosen his cravat. “But we were in Lisbon in the midst of a war. It was simpler.”

“Tonight is Emily Cowper’s rout.”

He tossed the crumpled cravat after the coat. “Good, that should give me a chance to corner Dewhurst.” He perched on the edge of the chair and regarded her. “Not an unproductive day so far. How about you?”

“The same.” She swung round on the dressing table bench to face him. Their eyes met with the familiar challenge of a shared investigation. “You first.”

“Hugo Cyrus claims the Elsinore League smuggled works of art out of the Continent. Which fits with what I saw in Harleton’s study. And with Alistair’s art collection.” His gaze rested for a moment on the Boucher oil on the wall over her dressing table.

As with the Berkeley Square house, Suzanne knew Malcolm’s conflicted feelings about his father had warred with his genuine admiration for Alistair’s collection. “Even if they were acquired illicitly, you not keeping them would hardly have rectified the situation, darling.”

“Quite,” Malcolm said, though his tone betrayed the lingering bad taste in his mouth. “Cyrus also admitted that his wife had been betrothed to his brother Thomas. And that he’d long loved her, though she didn’t look twice at him until after Thomas was killed at Dunboyne.”

“Interesting. He didn’t need to admit that last.”

“No. It was confessed with a touch of bitterness that hinted at genuine guilt. But it could have been a clever feint. I suspect Hugo Cyrus is a very clever man.” Malcolm began to undo his waistcoat buttons. “He also mentioned Alistair’s distaste for the United Irishmen. Hardly a revelation, though it makes it even harder for me to reconcile Alistair as a French agent.”

“Perhaps his distaste over the Irish rebellion was part of his cover.”

“Perhaps. According to Cyrus, Alistair snapped a glass in two when he heard Raoul O’Roarke had escaped to the Continent after the Uprising.”

“Of course,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “If O’Roarke was friendly with your mother and grandfather, he’d have known your father.”

Malcolm nodded. “I knew Alistair despised O’Roarke’s politics, but I didn’t realize how deep it went.” A shadow flickered in his eyes, but whatever it was, he wasn’t ready to discuss it with her. As she had trained herself to do, she bit back the questions that rose to her lips.

“In any case, we know it wasn’t Alistair who was behind the Dunboyne leak,” she said.

“Cyrus said none of the men at the dinner party were particularly sympathetic to the United Irishmen as far as he knew.” His gaze flickered to her. “Harry went with me and was quite a help with Cyrus. He claimed—protesting a bit too much perhaps—not to be concerned by his uncle’s possible role in the affair. And he said Cordelia would be better at talking to his uncle than he was.”

“Cordy said much the same. She took me to visit Archibald Davenport. Along with the children, of whom Mr. Davenport is obviously quite fond. Cordy says he was very supportive of her after the scandal. He evidently cares for her.”

“And?” Malcolm’s gaze brightened with the scent of information.

“Apparently your father and Lord Harleton left the dinner party early because Lord Harleton challenged your father to a duel.”

Malcolm let out a whistle. “Good work, Suzette. Over?”

“A lady with whom they had both formed a liaison. At least ostensibly. Mr. Davenport thought there might be more behind it. Apparently Harleton made some comment about Alistair taking ‘it,’ too, if he had the chance. In light of what Cyrus said, I wonder if the ‘it’ could be a piece of smuggled art?”

“Perhaps. Did Davenport know the lady’s identity?”

“He claimed not to, and I don’t think he was lying.”

Malcolm frowned at his shirt cuff as he unfastened it. “Interesting. It could mean nothing. But anything that connects Alistair and Harleton is of interest. I’ll talk to Aunt Frances again. God knows they didn’t like each other, but they moved in the same set, and she’s a keen observer.” He grimaced.

“You hate poking into personal secrets,” Suzanne said. It was a statement, not a question.

“With a passion.”

“Difficult to separate the personal from the political in this world.”

“And one often has to ferret out the secrets before one can tell the difference.” He pulled his shirt over his head and went to take his shaving kit from atop the chest of drawers. “Time to get to work.”

 

“Malcolm.” David Mallinson touched Malcolm’s arm as Malcolm emerged from the card room at Emily Cowper’s. “I’ve been wanting to thank you.”

Malcolm grinned at his friend. It seemed an age since they had spoken, though it had only been a few days. David’s calm good sense was just the leavening Malcolm needed. “You’re the most generous of friends. For what?”

“The men posted at the Tavistock.” David scanned Malcolm’s face. “How worried should I be?”

“They’re likely to come after the manuscript again. I’d like to say we’ll stop them, but of course I can’t be sure. They may come to Berkeley Square instead of the Tavistock, though the manuscript isn’t at either.” It was in fact at his aunt Frances’s, where Aline could work on it, though the plan was to move it every day.

“Good God,” David said. “The children—”

“Trust me, we’re prepared. And it would be a mistake to try to persuade Simon to stop the production.”

David grimaced. “How did you know I was considering that?”

“Because it’s what I would do if Suzette were the one in danger. And it would equally be a mistake.”

David passed a hand over his face. “I know it. And it’s not that I’d want him to. That is—A part of me would like nothing better than to pack up for Paris for a month.”

“You and me both.”

“You? You have an investigation again. You’ve come alive.”

Malcolm gave a reluctant smile. “Perhaps.”

David’s gaze darted over his face. “I won’t ask you what my father told you—”

“David—”

“No, it’s all right, I know he tells you things he doesn’t tell me. I don’t envy you. It’s difficult enough being his son, but he’s even more ruthless as a spymaster than as a father. But is there any way he can turn this against Simon?”

Malcolm had been giving that possibility honest consideration from the moment Carfax had arrived on his doorstep two nights before. “I don’t think so. But you can be sure I’ll warn you if things change.”

David nodded. “I need to find Simon. He’s trying to charm Lord Thanet into giving the Tavistock money, and if I leave him alone too long he’ll get too clever for his own good. Are you looking for Suzanne?”

“For Dewhurst actually. Have you seen him?”

“He ducked into the library.”

Malcolm half-expected Dewhurst to be closeted in a secret meeting, but instead he found the earl alone with a copy of
Debrett’s
. Dewhurst’s ruddy face darkened to purple as Malcolm came into the room. “What the devil are you doing here?”

Malcolm dropped into a wing-back chair beside the one Dewhurst occupied. “Haven’t you heard about my habit of escaping into the library at entertainments?”

Dewhurst’s scowl deepened. “I hear you sought Carfax out at White’s. Are we safe from you nowhere?”

Malcolm leaned back in the chair. “I thought if I called upon you at home you’d refuse me entrance.”

“Damn right I would.” Dewhurst slammed his book closed. “It’s only respect for Emily that has me still sitting here.”

“Precisely why this is where I sought you out.”

Dewhurst snatched up the glass on the table beside him and took a long swallow of cognac, then set it down. “If Rupert sent you, I have no desire to listen to an emissary.”

Was there a touch of hope beneath Dewhurst’s acerbic tone? “Why would Rupert send me?”

“Because my son isn’t speaking to me. Thanks to you.”

Despicable as Dewhurst’s actions had been, it was hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for a father who had lost his son. “Lord Dewhurst—You credit me with too much influence if you think anything I did or said is responsible for your son’s actions. Rupert is his own man.”

Dewhurst reached for the glass of brandy. “If it weren’t for you, Rupert would never have learned—never got such a pack of lies into his head. If it weren’t for you—”

“Bertrand Laclos would still be presumed dead?”

Dewhurst’s fingers tightened round his glass as though he wished it were Malcolm’s throat. “In my judgment, Wellington and Castlereagh made a grave error forgiving Laclos for his crimes and permitting him to return to England. You can’t tell me you didn’t have a hand in that.”

“If you mean I had a hand in Bertrand’s name being cleared of wrongful accusations of treason, I’m happy to say I did.”

“Arrogant puppy.”

“Me or Bertrand?”

“Both of you.” Dewhurst clunked down the glass. “What do you want, Malcolm?”

“It’s odd, I’ve known you since boyhood, but I didn’t realize you and my father were friends.”

Dewhurst gave a short laugh. “We weren’t, particularly.”

“You were in a club together.”

Dewhurst’s gaze narrowed. Then he raised his glass and took a drink of brandy. “It was scarcely the sort of thing we’d discuss with children. Not uncommon for young men to form such societies at university.”

“I understand the Elsinore League is still active.”

“Perhaps. I haven’t been involved for some time.”

“You were at a dinner with a number of the members nineteen years ago.”

Dewhurst stared at him for a moment. Then he clunked his glass down again, sloshing brandy onto the tabletop. “Out with it, Malcolm. What do you want?”

“Tell me what happened at that dinner.”

“You know damned well what happened or you wouldn’t be asking these questions. Papers were leaked that led to the regrettable blunder that was the Dunboyne affair. From my dispatch box, to my eternal shame. If you’re asking about it now, new evidence must have come to light.”

“We think we may be able to figure out who gave out the information.”

“ ‘We’?” Dewhurst drew his handkerchief across his mouth. “Carfax sent you. I’d have thought he’d have had the wit to realize you aren’t the best emissary. If there’s one man in London I’m not inclined to talk to—”

“Sir—” Malcolm sat back and studied Dewhurst. “I think you’d rather talk to me than Carfax.”

Dewhurst picked up his glass as though he wished it were a dagger. “Carfax told you to use the events of two years ago to get me to talk, didn’t he?”

Malcolm regarded Dewhurst in the light of the tapers burning on the mahogany table between them. “You know Carfax.”

Dewhurst tossed down a swallow of brandy. “And are you going to do so?”

“If I threatened you, would you believe me?”

Dewhurst looked up and regarded Malcolm with what might almost have been a hint of appreciation. “An hour ago, I’d have said you didn’t have the guts. Now I’m not so sure. You’re tougher than I thought, Rannoch. And God knows I already knew you could stab a man in the back.” He leaned back in his chair and reached for his glass. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary that night?”

Dewhurst turned the glass between his fingers. “Do you know about the duel?”

“Father and Harleton, yes. Ostensibly over a lady.”

“Ostensibly. Quite. I always thought there was more to it as well. Seemed to come out of nowhere. I did my best to make myself scarce. No desire to get caught up in their quarrel.”

“You didn’t wonder about it?”

“Not a great deal. Neither your father nor Harleton held a great deal of interest for me.” Dewhurst took a sip of brandy. “Of course once we knew about the Dunboyne information being leaked it overshadowed everything else that happened that night. Carfax insisted on talking to all of us. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended that Carfax thought the leak might have come from me.”

Malcolm regarded him without speaking.

Dewhurst took a sip of cognac. “Given that you accused me of framing Bertrand Laclos as a traitor, I imagine you’d find a certain poetic justice in me being the culprit. But even granted I were entirely lacking in morality—which seems to be your opinion—why would I have risked my fortune and my family honor helping the Irish rabble?”

It was, Malcolm had to admit, a point, especially given the lengths Dewhurst had gone to perpetuate the family line. “The allure of risk? The challenge? Loyalty to your friends among the United Irishmen?”

“Any friends I had who joined the United Irishmen ceased to be my friends by doing so. I saw all too clearly in France that the Jacobins and their successors would bring about the end of our way of life. Unlike others who tend to romanticize them.”