The Mayfair Affair (7 page)

Suzanne hesitated before the white-painted door to the room between the night and day nurseries that had been Laura's since they moved into the Berkeley Square house. "It feels like an invasion. The servants have so little privacy." Even now, after six years married to a duke's grandson, she was sometimes brought up short by the idiotic masquerade of master and servant.

"I know," Malcolm said, though she knew he would never know it quite the way she did. "But Laura rather abrogated that when she refused to explain what she was doing in Trenchard's study. Besides, her life is at stake." He turned the brass handle of the door.

The room smelled of lavender-scented soap. Laura never wore perfume, at least not in her role as governess. The walls were a pale gray with a hint of blue. Suzanne had asked Laura to choose a color when they were redoing the house. Laura had first demurred that it really didn't matter and that Suzanne should choose, as it was her house. When pressed, she had at last selected this paint. Seemingly as neutral and demure as her clothing and demeanor. But when the light of the brace of candles Malcolm carried fell on the walls, they glowed with unexpected vibrancy.

Malcolm set the candelabrum down and lit a lamp. The room was scrupulously tidy and almost entirely bare of personal items. A low bookshelf held the books Suzanne and Malcolm had given Laura on various occasions through the years—a set of Shakespeare; copies of
Pride and Prejudice
and
Sense and Sensibility
; Ludlow, because Laura had once mentioned an interest in seventeenth-century history. The cedarwood jewel box on the dressing table beside the looking glass had also been a gift from them.

"I'll take the desk," Malcolm said. "Suzette, why don't you look through her clothes? O'Roarke, search for hiding places."

The jewel box proved to contain a single strand of pearls, which Suzanne had seen Laura wear on Christmas and other special occasions, a lapis lazuli brooch they had given her, and a cameo pendant Suzanne had never seen her wear. Suzanne held the cameo to the lamplight. "J.H." was engraved on the gold filigree frame. Laura's mother's name, perhaps? The fine-featured profile had a bit of a resemblance to Laura, though the hair seemed more contemporary than what one would expect of her mother. The dressing table drawer contained gray and black gloves, handkerchiefs, hairpins, a steel-framed reticule.

The clothing in the white-painted wardrobe was equally innocuous. Serviceable gowns of kerseymere and merino, two pelisses, a dark blue spencer with black braid that was the most fashionable item, plaited straw hats. The clothing of a governess. Yet it seemed oddly impersonal, as though it belonged to the role and not the person. Suzanne moved to the books but found no sign of anything sewn into the binding or tucked between the pages, save a pastel drawing tucked into
Pride and Prejudice
. The work of a very young child, but someone older than Jessica. Colin's? Or a memento of one of Laura's former charges?

"Nothing in the writing desk," Malcolm said. "No indication she ever wrote letters." He glanced at Suzanne. "Where did she go on her days off?"

"I have no idea." Suzanne tucked the drawing back into the book. "She never volunteered any information, and I never asked. Trying again to let her keep what privacy she could."

"She never mentioned family?" Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "Damn it, you're right. I should have paid more attention."

"She told me her family were all gone." Raoul turned from examining the molding.

Suzanne stared at her former spymaster and felt Malcolm do the same.

"Last December," Raoul said. "In the midst of the
Hamlet
investigation. I came to see the two of you and found Miss Dudley in the square with the children. We talked for a bit."

Malcolm regarded Raoul for a moment. "In a brief encounter you learned more about Laura than I did in over a year."

Raoul gave a faint smile. "As I said, I like Miss Dudley. But I confess I also had an ulterior motive. She intrigued me. She always struck me as more than a governess."

"Why?" Suzanne asked.

"Her performance as a governess was flawless. Perhaps a shade too flawless. She had the knack of blending into the background. But she noticed everything."

"That could have indicated a budding novelist," Malcolm said.

"It could. But remember I had reasons to be wary where all of you were concerned. Reasons you at least did not yet know of."

"But I knew," Suzanne said. "I should have seen it."

"You were more concerned with Miss Dudley's impact on your children. Which seems to have been nothing but positive, from everything I've observed."

Suzanne drew a sharp breath, picturing her children asleep in their beds and the questions the morning would almost certainly bring. "It won't be positive if they lose her."

"She said she'd had nothing to come back to in England," Raoul said. "But from her hesitation, I'd say she had mixed feelings about returning to her homeland." He turned back to the molding and ran his fingers along it. A few minutes later a piece of the molding fell away in his hand and a packet of papers tied with buff-colored ribbon fell to the floor. "Everyone has secrets." Raoul said, stooping to pick them up. "But somehow with Miss Dudley I assume these are more than just love letters."

He carried the papers over to the dressing table and set them in the light of the candles. Suzanne moved to stand beside him, aware of an unexpected dread coiling in her chest. Malcolm joined them and undid the first of the papers.

10 February. Lord Worsley and Mr. Tanner came to dine along with the Davenports. They were discussing the possibility of a bill mitigating the penalties against the northern machine breakers. They were still talking about it when I brought the children into the drawing room. Mr. Rannoch and Lord Worsley seemed to disagree about tactics.

11 February. Mrs. Rannoch went to a china warehouse today with Lady Cordelia and the children. Mr. Rannoch is speaking in the House. They've gone to a reception at the Austrian embassy this evening. All I overheard was a comment on the Esterhazys' chef having a heavy hand with the cream.

It continued in the same vein. Dates and notes on where they had gone, whom they had had to dine, what they had discussed. Malcolm lifted his gaze to Suzanne. She felt the same realization shoot through both of them. Trust was a fragile thing, as they both knew well. And so easily broken.

Malcolm said it first. "It seems Laura was spying on us."

Malcolm turned to Raoul. "Your instincts were right, O'Roarke."

Raoul's mouth twisted as he looked down at the paper in his hand. "On the contrary. I'd decided Miss Dudley could be trusted."

Suzanne stared at the paper and saw the face of the woman she'd trusted with her children. "I engaged her. I brought it into our home. Of all the idiotic—"

"It's amazing how the cleverest agent can be deceived," Malcolm said.

Suzanne met her husband's gaze. "Dearest—"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Suzette. At least you weren't sleeping with her." He looked at Raoul. "Was she your—"

"You think I'd set a spy in your household?"

"I can imagine more surprising things."

Raoul's mouth lifted. "At the risk of ruining my reputation, I do have some scruples."

Suzanne folded her arms over her chest. "Trenchard was an Elsinore League member, Trenchard knew about me. And hated Raoul."

"It does seem likely." Raoul grimaced. "Odd. I'm less disappointed that Miss Dudley is a spy than with whom she was working for. Assuming it's Trenchard."

"It would explain why she won't talk to us," Suzanne said.

Raoul touched her arm. "Don't torture yourself until you know more,
querida
."

They examined the rest of the room but it yielded no further clues. "I have some contacts I can use to make inquiries about the Elsinore League," Raoul said. "Discreetly," he added at a look from Malcolm. "I presume you'll both be busy talking to Miss Dudley. I'll see you at the Carfax musicale. If you need to reach me before, you can leave word at Mivart's."

Malcolm nodded, but when Raoul reached the door, he said, "O'Roarke."

"Yes?" Raoul turned back, gripping the door handle.

"If they know about Suzette, they probably know about you. Have a care."

A rare, unironic smile crossed Raoul's face. "I always do, Malcolm. But thank you."

Suzanne dropped down on her dressing table bench, hugging her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry."

Malcolm studied his wife. He felt oddly as he had when she'd first stumbled out of the trees in the Cantabrian Mountains, smeared with blood and dirt, eyes bright with determination. "It isn't your fault, Suzette."

"I didn't say it was." Her voice was steady, but she was hugging herself as though she had a chill.

"No, but I can tell what you're thinking."

"Damn it, Malcolm, do you have to read me so well?"

"Making up for all the things I missed." He dropped down on the bench beside her. "You said it yourself. This was always a risk."

Her gaze shot to Jessica asleep in her cradle and then to the closed door that led to the night nursery. "We're all at risk, thanks to me."

"We all wouldn't be here if it weren't for you." He reached for he hand. He wondered sometimes if he would find it harder to forgive her if he we weren't so worried that she wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

Her fingers tightened round his own, though her hand was cold. "And now Raoul's involved."

"Given the circumstances, I think it's just as well. Annoying as he can be, I can't deny he's helpful."

She looked at him, her gaze unexpectedly fragile. "It can't but—"

"Raise issues? Given everything, we'd be fools to imagine we could avoid him for a month together."

"Malcolm—"

He folded her hand between both his own. "I'm doing my best, Suzette. We'd be mad to pretend any of this is going to be easy. But we're managing to make it work. We both know there really isn't any alternative. O'Roarke is so tangled up in both our lives, we're going to have to manage to make it work with him. And even if we avoid him, I don't think either of us could really manage not to think about him."

"I'm sorry." She drew back a fraction of an inch. "I'm sure I'm the last person you want to talk to about this. I just wish you had someone to talk to."

He bit back a laugh, trying to imagine confiding in anyone about Raoul O'Roarke. Even David, with whom he had shared secrets from boyhood. Or Harry Davenport, his companion at Waterloo, who had made his own bitter confidences to Malcolm about his past and marriage. "The truth is, I don't know what I think or feel myself when it comes to O'Roarke. If I did know—I don't know that I'd tell you."

Suzanne inclined her head. The fragile moment was gone. Hard reality had settled in her eyes. "This is going to be a test, isn't it? Of how well we can manage to go on with the truth in the open."

"We've been managing to go on for three months."

"But we haven't had an investigation. We haven't been thrown into the world of Carfax and Raoul and the Elsinore League. I always knew we'd have to eventually, but I was hoping it wouldn't be so soon. It's one thing to trust each other planning dinners and writing speeches and taking the children to the park. It's another looking into secrets of people close to us."

"We've both always been good at meeting a challenge."

Her smile was bright as armor. "Quite." She pushed a hairpin into the hasty knot she had twisted her hair into when they left for the Brown Bear. "Darling— have you considered that there's one person this new information gives an excellent motive to have killed Trenchard?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand or make the instinctive denial he would have three months ago. "Trenchard had just written the letter. You couldn't have known."

"Unless I learned some other way." She adjusted another hairpin. "Or Trenchard decided to summon me instead."

"You were in bed with me when Trenchard was killed."

"I expect I could have slipped out without waking you." She took another pin from a heart-shaped enamel box, a gift from Simon and David at Christmas. "In fact—"

"You've done it before."

She touched her fingers to the enamel. Malcolm had a clear memory of David telling him he had never thought to see Malcolm so happy. "Yes."

Malcolm inclined his head. "Fair enough. For that matter, it's possible Trenchard was also trying to blackmail me with the truth about you and that he'd already made contact." He leaned back, hands braced on the satin-covered bench. "I expect I could also slip out without waking you."

She twisted towards him. "Darling—"

"Let's at least dispense with pretending that either of us can be entirely certain of what the other might or might not do. At least I can dispense with it. You presumably never had such illusions."

"I know there are some things you aren't capable of, dearest."

Malcolm kept his gaze steady on the face he could trace from memory. "Then you're as blind as I once was, my darling."

Simon Tanner watched David in the gathering pre-dawn light as David finished recounting the events of the night. Simon knew better than anyone how to read the signs of strain in David's face. The tension in the set of his mouth, the lines about his eyes. He hadn't seen such strain on his lover's face since their time in Brussels during Waterloo, bringing wounded soldiers back from the battlefield and watching many of them die along the way. And even then, David's eyes hadn't had the haunted look they now held.

Silence filled the sitting room when David finished speaking. The sitting room they had shared since they came down from Oxford, which usually held the sound of his pen scratching, a newspaper rustling, the pages of a book turning, the clink of glasses, friends' voices.

A piece of coal fell hissing against the grate, breaking the stillness. "I've always liked Laura Dudley," Simon said. "Though I can't claim to know her very well. In fact, it was that very self-contained quality of hers that intrigued me. She managed not to lose herself in the role of governess."

"Malcolm and Suzanne are convinced she's innocent."

"And you aren't?"

David frowned at the signet ring on his left hand. "The circumstances are against her. But— I remember her with Colin and Jessica and find it hard to think of her as a murderer."

"My dear David. You'd find it hard to think of anyone as a murderer."

David lifted his head to meet Simon's gaze. "I've been about Malcolm and Suzanne enough to see what the most seemingly guileless people are capable of."

"And yet Suzanne and Malcolm think she's innocent. Of course, it would be difficult to accept that the woman they'd engaged to look after their children was capable of such an act."

David shot a look at him. "I thought you'd agree with them."

"I don't know enough to agree or disagree." Simon took a sip of whisky. "How was Mary when you left?"

"Stoic. As you'd expect Mary to be."

"Mary could be crumbling to bits and she wouldn't let you see it."

David reached for his own glass. "For someone who despises everything she stands for, you've always had a good understanding of her."

"I don't despise Mary. I admire her singleness of purpose. Though, if anything, I feel sorry for her. I'm not sure she's happy with the choices she's made." Mary and Simon were creatures of different worlds, with little in common save David. Yet Simon had caught the restlessness in Mary's gaze and the occasional flash of brilliance. She had, in his view, too keen an understanding for the life she had chosen.

"You don't think she wanted to be a duchess?"

Simon swirled the whisky in his glass. "I think she
wanted
to be. I'm not sure she found everything in it she had hoped for. She'd have made a splendid general or politician if the world allowed it. Or a spymaster like your father."

David shuddered. "God save us from another like Father. I don't know that it was being a duchess that disappointed Mary, it was the man Trenchard was."

"Whom she chose because he was a duke."

David scraped his hands over his face. "If—"

Simon pushed himself to his feet and put a hand on his lover's shoulder. "David, you can't blame yourself. Despite all your instincts."

David gave a wry grimace. "That's much what Malcolm said."

"Malcolm knows you well." Simon stared down at David's tousled dark hair, wondering how much to say and how to frame it. Part of him wanted not to stir the conversational waters. It could be damnably difficult to take words back once they were spoken. And yet he owed David his support, and with that went honesty. "David—I know this is an intolerable situation."

"Yes, I think my sister's husband being murdered qualifies as intolerable."

"On its own." Simon dropped down on the sofa beside David. "And then there's your father putting his own stamp of interference on it. And your best friend running the investigation."

"Malcolm will manage things well for Mary."

"But it also complicates your own choices."

David shot a look at him. Simon met the look and stepped forwards onto uncomfortable ground. "How much did you tell Malcolm?"

David held his gaze for a moment, as though seeing five steps ahead in the conversation. But when he spoke, it was an opening gambit, not the endgame. "I told him the truth."

"All of it?" Simon got to his feet and moved to the drinks trolley.

"I told him I was convinced Trenchard had struck Mary. That I had told Father about it. That I realized it gave both Father and me a motive to have killed Trenchard."