The Mayfair Affair (23 page)

"The regrettable double standard," Suzanne said.

"Quite." Laura snatched up her cooling tea and tossed down a sip. "It's amazing how quickly one can grow into a cynic without ever having been a romantic. How disillusionment can set in, when one would swear one had never had any illusions to begin with. I flirted more and more, because it seemed the only way to get Jack's attention. Once or twice I went beyond flirting, but I was old enough to be aware of the risks. Jack was gone enough that it would have been difficult to claim a child was his, had I found myself pregnant." She returned the cup to its saucer as though willing her fingers to be steady. "Then Trenchard came out to India. On a diplomatic mission, though I think he also wanted to get a look at his son's unsuitable wife."

"Hardy unsuitable," Malcolm said.

"Not everyone is as broad-minded as you, Mr. Rannoch. It could have been worse. At least in terms of bloodlines, if one considers them important, which Trenchard does. Did. I could almost see Trenchard thinking that when we met. At least I wasn't an opera dancer or a courtesan. But I think he was surprised to find me not more of an obvious social climber. He seemed determined to dig deeper, to look for hidden secrets and motivations. That was how we began to spend time together. He sought me out. It was difficult to avoid it without out-and-out rudeness, and in truth I found I enjoyed his company. He had a keen understanding and news of places and people I'd never seen. And for all his sins, at least he treated me as though I had a brain. We were adversaries in a way, which I think added to the interest for both of us. We took to riding out together most mornings. There was no need for a chaperone. He was my father-in-law, after all." Her fingers locked on the sleeves of her gown.

Suzanne, who had been aware of where this was going almost from the first, felt the realization dawn on Malcolm. She could feel the tension shoot through him.

Laura must have felt it as well. "I've shocked you, Mr. Rannoch," she said. "I told you I don't like the person I am very much."

"I think you're blaming yourself for Trenchard's sins," Malcolm said.

Laura shook her head. "Sin is too simple a word. One day he helped me from my horse, as he had dozens of times, but his hands lingered at my waist. Our gazes locked. Say what you will of Trenchard—and I could say a lot—that first time was mutual." She loosed her fingers and stared down at her hands, perhaps studying the place she had once worn a wedding band. "I don't know enough of your history, Mrs. Rannoch, but have you ever been in a situation where you knew something was wrong, where you couldn't even precisely say you enjoyed it, yet you couldn't bring yourself to stop?"

"Yes," Suzanne said, aware of the pressure of her husband's gaze.

"Of course, it was also the ultimate revenge on Jack," Laura continued. "I've wondered, often, how much that played into my actions. In retrospect. At the time, I fear I didn't think at all."

"One doesn't."

"Jack seemed oblivious. He was in and out of Fort Arthur with his regiment, and pursuing a fellow officer's wife. I knew I was playing with fire, but a part of me didn't care. I felt alive after having felt numb for so long." Laura reached for her tea again and curled her hands round the cup. "When I found myself pregnant, I knew Trenchard was the father, but the times were close enough that Jack believed it was his. He was more excited than I expected by the prospect of fatherhood." A shadow crossed her face. "Whatever Jack did, I wronged him."

"He wronged you first."

"So I told myself." She took another quick swallow of tea. "I wasn't sure whether or not to tell Trenchard, but in the end he guessed. He told me not to be squeamish. If I held my tongue, Jack would be perfectly happy with his heir."

It was so close to Suzanne's own experience that the memories clawed at her throat. Though Raoul had never said anything so blunt. Of course, Suzanne hadn't realized that the man who was giving a name to her child was the son of the child's biological father. Beside her, Malcolm sat as one turned to stone.

"Shortly afterwards, Trenchard left on an extended visit to Madras. For my sins I missed him. But in his absence, I was actually able to imagine raising the child with Jack. He was more attentive than he'd been the whole of our marriage. Trenchard would go back to England, I told myself. Of course eventually Jack and I would go there as well. But by then, I hoped we'd have settled into something like domesticity. I didn't have any illusions of love or even fidelity—I know Jack wasn't faithful during my pregnancy, and I didn't necessarily intend to be in the future myself—but I thought we could learn to rub along together as parents. Find a sort of common ground in caring for the child. I'd never thought I wanted children particularly—I'd feared pregnancy before I was married, and even after I was ambivalent about something that would tie me more to Jack. Given this child's conception, you'd think I'd have been even more ambivalent. But somehow, I was keenly aware of the life growing within me, independent of Jack or Trenchard. Whatever the past, it gave me a focus for the future, instead of wallowing in self-destructive self-disgust."

"It was much the same for me," Suzanne said. Perhaps an unwise admission, but it won a look of fellow feeling from Laura.

"I knew I'd have to live with the fear of the truth coming out," Laura said. "But I also knew Trenchard couldn't risk mentioning it. Whatever he felt about Jack or me, he cared too much for the family line. So I thought I was safe. Or as safe as one can be in those circumstances." She gripped her elbows, fingers digging into the gray fabric. "Then Trenchard returned to Fort Arthur, when I was almost eight months pregnant. I told myself we'd manage. I'd avoid him as much as possible. And surely there couldn't be much between us with my advanced state of pregnancy. And there wasn't. Trenchard kept his distance, for the most part. But one evening when Jack was dining with his regiment, Trenchard came home early from his own engagement, and we found ourselves alone together. He touched my stomach and the next thing we both knew, he was leaning in to kiss me in a way that was clearly not fatherly. And of course Jack walked into the room at just that moment." Her fingers whitened against the charcoal fabric. "I would have sworn Jack and I didn't have a marriage to be destroyed. But there was something left. Because in that instant, it was smashed to bits."

"Did he realize about the baby?" Suzanne asked.

"He suspected. Trenchard and I both denied it. But of course Jack didn't believe us. He wouldn't have even if we'd been speaking the truth."

Malcolm's bleak gaze in the yellow light of a dusty theatre three months ago hung in Suzanne's memory. Beside her now, Malcolm was watching Laura in utter stillness. "And then?" Suzanne asked.

She could see equally bitter memories clustering in Laura's eyes. "Jack stormed out of the house. Trenchard took my hand in an iron grip, said there was nothing Jack could do without making a fool of himself, and warned me not to do anything foolish. He then went up to bed and left me with little choice but to do the same, though I couldn't sleep. I didn't see Jack until the next evening. We passed each other in the corridor. He gripped my arm for a moment and said, 'This isn't over.' Which was more or less stating the obvious. For the next fortnight, I was left to wonder what he might be planning. We existed in a sort of limbo, but a limbo in which one dances on a knife's edge. Then one night I woke—as one does so often in the late stages of pregnancy—and couldn't get back to sleep. I went downstairs to get a book and heard Jack and Trenchard quarreling. I couldn't make out the substance, save that Trenchard accused Jack of trying to destroy him, and Jack said, 'What did you expect?' To which Trenchard replied he was being self-indulgent and shortsighted and he'd only ruin the family. Jack said he didn't much care anymore. Those words will stick with me forever." She straightened her spine. "I tried to hear more. I had the instincts of a spy even then. But Trenchard stormed out of the library, and I had to hurry back upstairs. I was determined to confront Jack and find out what was going on. I was trying to work out how to do it the next night, as we drove to what promised to be an interminable dinner. And then our carriage overturned."

For a moment, Suzanne wasn't sure Laura would be able to continue. The look in her eyes told not so much of painful memories welling up but of the blankness of memories that were too painful to face. When she spoke, her voice was almost without inflection. "There's a week or so of which I have only the vaguest memories. Impressions. Pain. Screams—perhaps my own. Sinking into a blessed escape I now know was laudanum. Eventually, I realized the baby was no longer within me. When I asked questions and they wouldn't answer, I got hysterical. Then they sedated me again. When the fog cleared, Trenchard was sitting beside my bed. An airy room hung with mosquito netting though it was winter. I later learned we were at a summer house in the hills. Trenchard said he was glad to see me recovered. He actually sounded as if he meant it. The bastard. Then he told me that Jack was dead, and that as far as the world was concerned, I was as well. I asked about the baby. I actually dragged myself out of the bed and grabbed him. He said I'd gone into premature labor but that the baby had been born alive. It was a girl."

"Emily," Suzanne said.

"Emily. That was the name I'd chosen for a daughter. Trenchard said he'd given it to her. And that she'd been placed where she'd be well looked after. So long as I cooperated. I railed. I clawed his eyes. They sedated me again. And again the next time I woke up and attacked him. Trenchard didn't try to get a word in edgewise until the third time. Then he actually sat still while I slapped him and wouldn't let them sedate me. Finally he said he advised me to listen if I valued my daughter's safety. That got my attention. I raked his face with my nails. I drew blood." Faint satisfaction tinged her voice. "I think he thought I would spend myself but I didn't. At last he caught hold of my wrists. Then he said Emily would be safe and well looked after, so long as I didn't create problems. I couldn't go back to my old life. He claimed Jack had told several of his friends about seeing the two of us together. They might hold their tongues as long as they thought I was dead to spare my father's feelings, but if I turned up alive I'd be ruined and bring disgrace on my father as well. I had two choices. He could arrange for me to live quietly in a nearby village and make me an allowance. Or I could make myself useful and serve my country by going to work for him."

"And he told you about the Elsinore League?"

"Not by name. But yes, that was my introduction to it. Though he made it seem more as if he was a sort of British spymaster, like Lord Carfax." She looked at Malcolm. "Not that I was in much condition to evaluate any of it, at first."

"What did you tell him?" Malcolm said.

"At first that I would take nothing from him and wanted nothing to do with him ever again. That I'd find my daughter somehow. It's amazing what a blind idealist I turned into."

Her arms were curled over her stomach. Suzanne could feel the ache of a lost child. She felt twinges of it when she away from Colin or Jessica for a few too many hours. "Your fortitude is amazing."

"Or my stupidity. Trenchard pointed out that he controlled Emily's well-being and her very life, and I mustn't think he was too sentimental to use his leverage. Parental scruples only went so far. It was in the silence after he said it that I realized he'd been responsible for the carriage accident. And that his intent had been to kill Jack."

Suzanne had seen it coming. And little could shock her. But to try to have one's own child killed—

She felt the horror radiating off Malcolm, yet,oddly, he didn't seem as shocked as she was. Perhaps because the thought of Alistair Rannoch trying to kill him didn't seem completely out of the question. "Did you accuse Trenchard of deliberately having killed Jack?" Malcolm asked.

"Oh, yes. Trenchard didn't come right out and admit it, but he didn't deny it, either. I think he realized it was to his benefit to have me understand just how ruthless he could be."

"What do you think was his motivation?"

"Whatever Jack was threatening to reveal in his anger over my affair with his father. I asked Trenchard. Of course he just laughed at me and said if I really believed he was capable of filicide, surely I didn't think he would break down and confess his reasons. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand and smiled." Laura's nails dug into her hands, as though her skin crawled at the memory. "He said there was no reason for any of this to touch Emily. She'd be well looked after, and she'd have a good life. Far better than the life I could give her as a woman alone, with no fortune to protect her and no name to offer her. Did I really want to consign her to the life of a penniless bastard? I said 'Set against a mother's love—' And Trenchard laughed, and said such sentimental twaddle was beneath me."

"Damn the man." The words burst from Suzanne's lips unbidden.

"That was much my reaction. And yet the logical part of my brain told me he was right. It didn't make the ache go away. And I've wondered— But that's neither here nor there. Tempted as I was to walk away, he was my last remaining link with Emily. At least he knew where she was. I'd be closer to her somehow working for him than going off on my own or retreating into a village. And—-"

"You needed occupation," Suzanne said.

Laura's eyes widened in surprise. Then she met Suzanne's gaze in a moment of understanding. "I have myriad regrets about going to work for Trenchard. But I think if I hadn't, I might have gone mad."