The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (29 page)

“That’s an honest admission. Amazing we have any honesty left between us.” His hand curled round the edge of his chair. His fingers were shaking. “Is Jessica—”

“She’s your child, Malcolm. In every sense of the word. You may not believe me, but you can see it in her face.”

“Given my relationship to O’Roarke, that doesn’t really prove anything.”

“Raoul and I didn’t—We weren’t lovers after I married you. As it happens, there wasn’t anyone else after I married you.”

He stared at her. His eyes were like those of a wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s. Or a dead man. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“No.” She leaned forwards, bracing her hands on the step behind her. “But if you won’t take my word, look at it like an agent. It’s true ‘fidelity’ wasn’t really a word in my vocabulary when I married you. To own the truth, even after I came to care for you, what mattered to me was that fidelity was important to you, that I owed it to you out of respect. But you know the longer one is on a mission, the more deeply one has to enmesh oneself in a role, Malcolm. I was playing the part of a faithful, supportive wife. Sleeping with another man would have been completely at odds with the role.”

“Playing.” Bitterness danced through the word.

“In the beginning.”

His gaze moved over her face as though he was looking for hidden messages in a deciphered code. “Fidelity in the service of a larger goal. I can believe that. You’re a good enough agent. And obviously ruthless enough. You sacrificed a great deal to marry me.”

She could see it in his eyes, the memory of their wedding night and all the nights that had followed, the realization that the woman he’d taken to bed had been playing a part even when they were at their most intimate. So much couldn’t be mended, but it would mean something if she could at least make him believe this. “I’d be lying if I said I’d never even thought of another man in that way since I met you. One doesn’t stop noticing. I’m sure you haven’t stopped noticing beautiful women. But it was no sacrifice.”

He gave a short laugh. “You can stop pandering to my ego. That isn’t part of your job anymore.”

“Darling—” She sprang to her feet and crossed to his side. She would have taken his face between her hands, but he jerked back. “You can’t believe it was all pretense.”

“I’d have sworn not. But I’d also have sworn I knew you, Suzette. Any faith I had in my own instincts is entirely destroyed.” He pushed his chair back, scraping it over the boards of the stage, and stood to face her. “You made yourself into the perfect wife.”

“I’ve never been in the least—”

“Not the perfect wife in general. The perfect wife for me. The man who never thought he’d marry. You anticipated my every need, without letting me realize how much you catered to me. You shared my adventures. You helped draft my memoranda and dispatches, God help me. Do you have any notion how many people lost their lives—”

“It was war.”

“And that excuses it?”
He closed the distance between them and seized her by the arms.

The last time they’d been this close they’d been moments away from a kiss. Probably their last. Oddly, as she confronted the full force of his anger in the grip of his hands and the fury of his gaze it was easier to maintain her resolve. “I’d never claim my actions were excusable, Malcolm. But in war no one’s hands are clean. If my actions took British lives, they also saved French lives.”

She saw the flinch in his eyes. “Is that how you justify it to yourself?”

She didn’t let herself jerk away from his touch or the anger in his eyes. “I have nightmares, Malcolm.” She could feel the comforting pressure of his fingers on the nape of her neck in the dark of the night. “As you know better than anyone.”

“Are you asking me to believe your nightmares are real?”

“I’m hardly in a position to ask you to believe anything. But as it happens they are.”

He was still gripping her arms but not quite so tightly. For all his anger, he was trying to puzzle it out. How very like Malcolm. “So you’re saying people would have died in any case?”

“That’s a gross oversimplification. But I suppose in a way I am.”

“And that you were acting in the service of your country as I was of mine.”

“That’s what agents do.”

“Except when they’re taken in and betray their own people through their blind idiocy.” He flung himself away from her and stepped back. “Whatever may be on your conscience is now doubly on mine.”

She’d always known Malcolm would never be able to forgive her if he knew the truth. She saw now that it was much worse. He would never be able to forgive himself. “Malcolm—” She took two steps towards him, then checked herself. She had no right to touch him. But she had to find a way to reach him. “Direct your anger where it belongs. At me.”

“Believe me, I feel no lack of anger.”

“Because it’s folly to blame yourself.”

His gaze clashed with her own. “Meaning that I’m a dupe who had no hope against you?”

“Meaning the circumstances were entirely stacked against you.” She swallowed. “You’re a brilliant agent, Malcolm. But I think you’re too honest a person to suspect this level of duplicity.”

“The perfect mark. How fortunate for you.” He stared at her for a long moment, as one might contemplate a lost illusion. Then he turned on his heel without another word and strode from the theatre.

CHAPTER 25

The stage door slammed shut, echoing through the wings. An exclamation point, marking the moment the unthinkable had come to pass. Suzanne stared at the greasy light on the boards of the stage, the crumpled folds of her gown, her bonnet, pelisse, gloves, and reticule lying forgot on a chair.

The door creaked again, the stage manager returning. Through the sick tumult, thoughts began to form in her brain. That was the thing about the unthinkable. The world didn’t stop. It might shift and crack, but one had to stumble on through the wreckage. And so she shook out the folds of her skirt, moved to the chair, put her bonnet on her head and managed to tie the ribbons in a bow, slid her arms into her pelisse and did up the frogged clasps, pulled on her gloves, and slipped her reticule over her wrist.

One thing at a time. That was the only way she would get through this. She made her way the mercifully short distance back to Berkeley Square, even managing to stop and exchange greetings with Henry Brougham on the edge of Green Park. She smiled at Valentin in the entry hall, relinquished her bonnet, pelisse, and gloves, and climbed the steps to the nursery.

Blanca looked round at the opening of the door to the night nursery. She was beside the chest of drawers, pinning a nappy round a wiggling Jessica, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet, clutching Blanca’s shoulder. “You’re just in time,” Blanca said with a smile. “I’m almost done changing her.”

Suzanne closed the door and leaned against the cool panels. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Blanca went still for a moment, then adjusted the last pin and lifted an insistent Jessica to the floor. “More threats?”

“Worse. Malcolm knows.”

The stunned silence was broken by a shriek from Jessica, the sort of gleeful way she announced her presence, as she crawled across the nursery carpet, one leg tucked under her, one hand held aloft clutching a stray sock. “You told him?” Blanca asked.

“He discovered it.”

In Blanca’s gaze, Suzanne saw her friend’s world shatter much as hers had done. But Blanca merely nodded. “We always knew it was a risk.”

Jessica caught Suzanne’s skirt in her fists and pulled herself to her feet. Suzanne automatically reached down and lifted her daughter into her arms. Jessica pressed her face against Suzanne’s throat and wrapped her arms round Suzanne’s neck. Suzanne tightened her hold, wanting to lose herself in the fresh baby smell and resilient baby laugh. “I’m not sure when Malcolm will be back. You should tell Addison as soon as possible.”

Blanca’s gaze locked on Suzanne’s own. “You know that Addison and I—”

“I’m not blind. Neither is Malcolm.”

Blanca jabbed a strand of hair behind her ear. “It was always Addison who wanted to be discreet. It isn’t the done thing for valets and ladies’ maids to have lives of their own. But a fortnight ago—He asked me to marry him.”

“Blanca—” Happiness, grief, and guilt washed over Suzanne in quick succession. Jessica had looped one arm round Suzanne’s neck and seized Suzanne’s pearls in her other hand. “I’m so sorry. I dragged you into this. I locked you into a role and into a set of lies. You shouldn’t have to pay the consequences for my sins.”

Blanca lifted her chin. “No one forced me to go along with it. I wanted to fight the British as well.” Blanca’s family had been killed during the British retreat after Corunna in which Suzanne had also lost her own family, though they hadn’t known each other at the time. “And later I wanted to keep the secrets to preserve my relationship with Addison just as you did with Mr. Rannoch. I made my own choices.”

“If I hadn’t married Malcolm—”

“I wouldn’t have had a chance to become Addison’s lover.” Blanca shook her head. “It took long enough to get past his scruples.”

Jessica wriggled in Suzanne’s arms. Suzanne set her on the floor.

“How many others know?” Blanca asked.

“No one that I know of.” Suzanne watched her daughter crawl over the pastel carpet, crab-style, one leg tucked under her, the other foot flat on the floor, a silver rattle in her hand now instead of the sock. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think we’ll have to flee the country. Obviously, you’ll always have a home wherever I do.”

Blanca picked up the towel spread over the chest of drawers and shook it out with a crisp snap of her wrists. “Mr. Rannoch isn’t going to turn you over to the authorities or throw you out.”

“Mr. Rannoch is never going to forgive me.” Malcolm’s rage echoed in her head.

“Right now he’s been felled by a boulder. Even he can’t know what he’ll be feeling in a few hours, let alone days or months. But he won’t want the scandal—”

“Malcolm doesn’t care about scandal.”

Blanca folded the towel and dropped it in the clothes hamper. “He won’t want the scandal for the children.”

Jessica was engaged in one of her favorite games, pulling out the contents of the rubbish bin and strewing them over the floor. Suzanne wanted nothing more than to catch her daughter up in her arms and hold her tight. She glanced towards the door to Laura’s room. Colin would be doing lessons with Laura in the adjoining day nursery. “He won’t—”

“Whatever he does or feels, he won’t take the children from you,” Blanca said. “And you won’t take them from him. Everything may have changed, but I don’t see us going anywhere.”

Jessica had pulled a note card from the rubbish bin and was turning it over in her hands, examining it with great interest. “Malcolm has never confronted anything like this before. It’s difficult to know what he’ll do.”

“Difficult but not impossible.”

“I don’t—”

Blanca crossed the room and seized Suzanne’s hands. “Stop wasting time worrying about what you do or don’t deserve and think about what you need to do for your children. Not to mention your husband.”

Jessica was now gnawing on a corner of the note card. Suzanne forced herself to look into the torn wreckage of her life. “What might be best for Malcolm is to be free of me.”

“Rubbish, but even if you think that way Colin and Jessica come first.”

That was true. It was what was going to get her through this. That and her own instinct for self-reliance. She wanted to barricade herself in the house that might not be hers anymore and hug her children to her, but that wasn’t what was called for at present. She squeezed Blanca’s hands. “Laura can watch Jessica so you can speak with Addison. I need to go out.”

“To look for Mr. Rannoch?”

Where had Malcolm gone? Folly to repine on that. “No, he wouldn’t speak to me right now.” Suzanne waved at Jessica, who had heard the words ‘go out’ and was waving good-bye. “To warn the other person whose life has been turned upside down. I need to speak to Raoul.”

 

Malcolm pushed his way through the stage door of the Tavistock, grateful he was at least gone before Simon or any of the others returned, and walked blindly, the buildings a blur of brick and plaster and ironwork, the sounds of bridles jangling, horse hooves clopping, and ironbound wheels rolling over the cobblestones a dull cacophony that could not drown out the relentless deluge of his thoughts. Fortune’s fool indeed. No, his folly was owed not to fortune but to his own stupidity. Had he been so eager to believe a woman like Suzanne—or the Suzanne he thought he’d known— could love him that he’d been willfully blind? Because there must have been clues. And it was his training to pick up on such clues. To weigh, to sift, to never take things at their face value.

Suzanne had betrayed him. But it had worked because she was brilliant at her job and he had woefully failed at his.

His pace quickened. His chest was tight with the sort of exertion that came from running from a foe, as though he could outpace the hell the revelations had unleashed. He gave no thought to where he was headed until he found himself in Marylebone, before a shiny blue door with a neat brass knocker and late primroses in a brilliant yellow spilling from the window boxes. He stared at the door in surprise for a moment, thinking he should turn and leave. But perhaps it made sense. He rang the bell.

Gavin, the manservant, a cheerful man of middle years with receding hair and a wry gaze, admitted him with a friendly smile and waved him towards the back of the house. “She’s in her study.”

Malcolm stepped round a stack of books, a tumble of brightly colored blocks, a tangle of wool scarves and boots, a dog’s ball, and a skein of yarn that looked like a cat toy. The smell of paint drifted down the stairs from Paul St. Gilles’s studio two floors above.

“Malcolm.” Juliette Dubretton turned round at her desk when he knocked at the door of the study. “Are Suzanne and the children with you?”

“No, just me this time.” The answer came easily from his lips, seconds before the reality slammed into him that Suzanne would never again be such a natural, automatic part of his life. How long would it be before the new reality smashed the old one to bits and became settled fact? It had taken him a long time to adjust to being married, to remember that his life was bound up with another person’s and he had obligations to her. Would it take an equally long time to adjust to his marriage being over? “I found myself in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop in.”

“I’m glad you did. Paul’s upstairs painting and the children are in the garden.” Juliette gestured towards the window in front of her desk. Redheaded ten-year-old Pierre was pushing Rose, a three-year-old with her mother’s dark hair and strong features, in the swing that Malcolm had helped Paul hang from the old oak tree. Eight-year-old Marguerite, fair-haired like her father but with Juliette’s sharp blue gaze, threw a stick for Daisy, an energetic King Charles spaniel.

“You must tell Suzanne how much I appreciate her notes on my latest draft,” Juliette was saying. “She has a wonderful eye for clarity.”

“Yes, she’s remarkable at editing my speeches.” Malcolm managed to keep the grim edge out of his voice.

“And for a woman with a remarkably happy marriage, she has a keen understanding of the potential pitfalls of matrimony.”

“My wife is a woman of many talents.” Hard to avoid the irony, but perhaps he only heard it because it fairly leaped from the context.

Juliette turned her chair round and waved him towards a frayed blue velvet armchair. “Is it true that Simon Tanner’s discovered a lost
Hamlet
manuscript?”

Malcolm sank into the chair, relieved at the shift to safer conversational ground. “He’s certainly discovered a manuscript that’s an alternative version of
Hamlet
. Whether or not it’s by Shakespeare remains to be determined.”

Juliette’s blue eyes lit with the same sense of magic Malcolm remembered feeling when he first heard of the manuscript. “I confess it gives me chills.”

“I’m sure Simon would be happy to have you stop by a rehearsal. And I’d welcome your thoughts on it.”

“I’ll be sure to take you up on it.” Her gaze shifted over his face. “It’s more than a Shakespeare manuscript, isn’t it?”

“It may be.”

“Knowing you and Suzanne, I imagine that’s a mixed blessing. Not that your lives aren’t complicated enough, but I can’t but think you’ve both missed having something to investigate.”

“How well you know us.” The words again came automatically. It was what he would have said in response to her comment a few hours before. Now it brought a reminder that even Juliette, for all her skill at reading people, didn’t know the real Suzanne. Unless—No, he couldn’t start jumping at shadows.

“I won’t pretend I’m not intrigued, but nor will I tease you to reveal things that aren’t your secrets to share. It goes without saying that Paul and I will do whatever we can to help should our assistance ever prove useful.”

“You’re too kind.”

“We owe you a great deal.” She grinned. “And you aren’t the only one who misses adventure. Though I can’t claim ever to have experienced it on your level.”

“The events you lived through in France were their own sort of adventure.”

“Though not one I’m eager to repeat.” Juliette got to her feet. “Come out into the garden. I’m at a stopping place, and the children would like to see you.”

The day was cool, but a hint of sun peeped through the gray clouds and the children seemed undimmed by the weather. Marguerite ran over to give Malcolm a hug, Daisy frisking at her heels. “Oncle Malcolm. Where are Colin and Jessica?”

Malcolm touched his fingers to Marguerite’s bright hair. “I’ll bring them next time.”

“Jessica gets bigger every time I see her. Is she walking yet?”

“Not quite steadily. To her endless regret. And frustration.” He blinked away the image of Jessica taking careful steps holding Suzanne’s hands. He bent down to pet Daisy, who was nuzzling his boots.

“She will be soon. Rose walked just after her first birthday.”

Pierre carefully brought the swing to a stop and lifted Rose, who was crowing with excitement, into his arms. Rose wriggled to be put down and ran over to throw her arms round Malcolm’s knees.

“It’s good to see you, Oncle Malcolm.” Pierre crossed the garden at a more dignified pace and reached out for Malcolm. At ten he was, blessedly, not too old for hugs.

Malcolm embraced his sister’s son and then looked down into the blue eyes that were so like Tania’s it still stopped the breath in his throat.

You have the mind of a brilliant agent, Malcolm.
Tania’s voice echoed in his head.
But not the temperament. You haven’t learned that collateral damage is inevitable. Sometimes there are no good choices. Merely a choice of which is least damaging. And whom to try to avoid hurting. You do so much better in this business if you can accept it’s a game.

What would Tania have made of Suzanne? Malcolm wondered, his hand on her son’s head. Close on the thought came his sister’s voice again, speaking words she’d never spoken but that he knew instinctively were what she would say to him now.
Shocked, Malcolm? Hurt? She’s beaten you at your own game. You always claimed to admire ability in women. Or is it that you thought she loved you? But you knew she didn’t when she married you. Are you angry with yourself for being deceived into thinking there was something real between you?