The Paris Affair (14 page)

He checked the instinctive denial. His fingers dug into the coverlet. His mother had trained him to secrecy when it came to his sister. But she was Wilhelmine’s sister as well, and he knew Dorothée felt a responsibility towards her. Tania and Dorothée did not share a biological father, but the man Dorothée had grown up calling father had fathered Tania. Questions of parentage and sibling relationships were complicated among the aristocracy. “You think they’d want to know?” he asked, his voice harsh to his own ears.

“I think so. I think I would in their place. And I think they could help.”

“We don’t—”

“Help can always come in useful, dearest. I think one’s wise if one learns to accept it when it’s offered. I know I’m trying to do so. There’ve been a lot of secrets where Tatiana’s concerned. Perhaps it’s time—”

“For honesty? That’s what I was just saying to Wellington and Castlereagh.”

Suzanne drew back against the bedpost as though to give him space to make his choice. “It’s your decision, darling. There’s no right answer. But for what it’s worth, I think you can trust Willie and Doro. I think we learned that in Vienna. After all—”

“I owe Wilhelmine my liberty and quite possibly my life.” Malcolm saw the heavy door of his Vienna prison cell swing open to let in his wife and the Duchess of Sagan. And Prince Metternich. “And without Wilhelmine and Dorothée we might not have been able to save the tsarina. You’re right. One should be grateful for help where one finds it.”

“I know I’ll be forever grateful to them.”

For a moment in Suzanne’s eyes he saw the fear of the time he had spent in prison. It was still odd to think of such fear being focused on him. Of his safety mattering so much to someone.

Suzanne leaned forwards, her dark ringlets stirring about her face, her silk gown rustling. The roses and vanilla and exotic tang of her perfume teased his senses. Her hand slid behind his neck and her lips met his own.

He closed his arms round her and returned her kiss with an urgency that took him by surprise. With the portion of his brain that could still think, he knew that she was trying to comfort him for his discoveries about Tatiana. Part of him rebelled against needing comfort, while another part craved it as a wounded man craves laudanum.

His fingers sank into her hair. She pushed his dressing gown off his shoulders and slid her hands over his back with familiar witchcraft. They fell onto the coverlet and pillows, and the last vestiges of coherent thought fled.

 

Stewart strolled across Wilhelmine’s salon. “Damned fine evening. Though I thought Count Nesselrode would never stop talking. And Emily should do something about the quality of the brandy.” He picked up a decanter from the lapis lazuli–inlaid table and splashed cognac into a glass. “I must say you looked particularly lovely, my dear.”

Wilhelmine dropped her velvet cloak over a chairback. “You aren’t seriously going to try to pretend it didn’t happen, are you?” she asked her lover.

Stewart had the grace to flush, but he merely said, “What didn’t happen?”

“For heaven’s sake, dearest. Suzanne Rannoch is a very beautiful woman and over a decade younger than me. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t notice her. I can scarcely blame you. But I do take issue with your pawing one of my friends. Or any woman for that matter.”

His chin jerked up. “I didn’t—”

“I saw you.” Her hand closed on the giltwood of the chairback. “Plainly.”

“My darling, you misinterpreted—”

“You had one hand on her bottom and the other down her dress. You’re lucky Suzanne didn’t choose to take stronger evasive action. She can be quite lethal.”

Stewart lurched towards her. Cognac spattered on the delicate blue and pink of the Aubusson carpet. “Those things don’t mean anything. You know that. You aren’t an innocent. You must realize it’s nothing to do with you, my dear. Men are different from women. We have our . . . harmless amusements.”

Wilhelmine stepped back out of the way of his hands and his brandy-laced breath. She had every intention of reconciling with him before the end of the evening, but she wasn’t prepared to do so yet. “Women are quite capable of harmless amusements. What I object to is your amusing yourself with women who don’t find the flirtation welcome.”

“Mrs. Rannoch is—”

“Suzanne Rannoch is very much in love with her husband.”

Stewart’s chin jutted out and his eyes hardened. “Perhaps you don’t know your friend as well as you think, Willie. Mrs. Rannoch knows how the game is played. I would think you’d understand that.” He gave a brief laugh. “If you could have heard Radley’s stories back in Vienna—”

Wilhelmine grimaced at the mention of the British officer who was one of her lover’s friends. Frederick Radley was a handsome man, with his golden hair and well-made body, but he rated his charms rather higher than the reality. “I have no particular desire to hear any more from Frederick Radley than I have to.”

“Radley knew Suzanne Rannoch,” Stewart said with deliberation. “In Spain. Before she was married. When she was supposedly an innocent victim of war. Knew her quite well to hear him tell it.”

That was interesting, though not altogether surprising. Wilhelmine had long suspected Suzanne Rannoch had a more complicated past than she admitted to. “That’s Suzanne’s business. But I’m quite sure that now she has no interest in any gentleman other than her husband.”

Stewart flung back his head and gave another, deeper laugh. “Lord, Willie. Who’d have taken you for a romantic? Don’t tell me you’re taken in by the perfect-wife veneer. You of all people.”

Wilhelmine pulled the folds of her scarf about her shoulders. “I think I’m enough acquainted with both the Rannochs to see beneath the veneer.”

Stewart tossed back the last of the cognac and put the glass down on the lapis table with a clatter. “You can’t expect me to believe a woman like Suzanne Rannoch is satisfied with a cold fish like Malcolm Rannoch.”

“Perhaps you’re the one who isn’t seeing Malcolm Rannoch properly.”

Stewart regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Good God, Willie. Did you—”

Her fingers tightened on the delicate silk of the scarf. It had been a gift from Alfred von Windisgrätz. “No, I have no personal reason to know about Malcolm Rannoch’s skills in the bedchamber. But I’ve seen the way he looks at his wife in unguarded moments.”

“It takes a lot more than looking to satisfy a woman.” Stewart closed the distance between them and reached for her. “Cry friends, Willie. The night is still young.”

She leaned into him and lifted her face, because kissing was something he did quite well. And all the accompanying acts that proceeded from it.

Much later, when they were lying in her bed in a tangle of Irish linen sheets and embroidered coverlet, Stewart turned his face into her hair and said, “Suzanne hasn’t said anything to you about this investigation of her husband’s, has she?”

Wilhelmine pushed herself up on one elbow. “The investigation into Antoine Rivère’s death?”

“Er—yes.” Stewart sat up in bed and reached for the half-full glass of brandy on the night table.

“Why on earth should you—Oh.” Wilhelmine propped a pillow behind her shoulder and studied her lover. “Because of the accusations Rivère made about the Laclos affair? You were the one who ordered Bertrand Laclos’s death, weren’t you?”

Stewart tossed down half the remaining brandy. “The man was a traitor.”

“Not according to Antoine Rivère. Or Malcolm Rannoch now.”

Stewart’s fingers tightened on the glass. “Rannoch was sure enough at the time.”

“He feels guilty about it.” Wilhelmine studied Stewart in the light of the single candle they’d left lit. At times like this, she thought she could mold her lover into something interesting. “Is that it? Do you feel guilty?”

Stewart drained the last of the brandy. “I’m not the sort to brood on the past like Rannoch.”

“It wouldn’t bother you if you were wrong?”

“We weren’t wrong, damn it.” He pushed himself from the bed and padded naked across the room to refill his brandy glass from the decanter on a pier table.

Wilhelmine sat up straighter so she could watch him. “You never once questioned it?”

“No.” He clunked the decanter down and drained half his second glass.

Wilhelmine watched him through narrowed eyes, his body outlined by the candlelight. The body she knew intimately. A chill shot through her that had nothing to do with her bare skin. Stewart was not a complicated man. Which at times was useful. She could read him well.

And just now, she was quite sure he was lying.

CHAPTER 11

Malcolm relaxed his hands on the reins, letting his mare, Perdita, lengthen her stride to a trot. He cast a sidelong glance at his wife beneath the shadows of the overhanging branches in the Bois de Boulogne.

Suzanne returned his gaze. “Are you sure about this?”

“Not in the least. But then that’s true of most important decisions.” Off to the side he could see the tents where British soldiers were encamped and flashes of red uniform coats, but this path was open for riding and largely empty at this unfashionably early hour of the morning. Up ahead he glimpsed a lady in a blue riding habit on a white horse and another in a green habit on a chestnut, galloping with the abandon afforded by the empty path. Malcolm exchanged another look with his wife, and they touched their heels to their horses and galloped forwards.

Wilhelmine and Dorothée looked round at the sound of the approaching horse hooves and slowed their own mounts. “Well met,” Wilhelmine said. “How pleasant to find only friends abroad.”

“You’re out early after last night,” Malcolm said, reining Perdita in beside the Courland sisters.

For a moment, Wilhelmine seemed to grimace, though it might have been the way the shadows fell over the blue velvet brim of her riding hat. “Sometimes early morning air is just the thing to clear one’s head after a night of dancing and dignitaries.”

“It often seems to be the only time of day one can have any peace,” Dorothée added. “Worth getting up early for.”

“And yet,” Wilhelmine said, her gaze moving between Malcolm and Suzanne, “somehow I don’t think it’s entirely coincidence that you happened to ride up beside us.”

Malcolm felt a smile cross his face. “You’re a perceptive woman, Wilhelmine. I’ve been hoping to speak to you.” He glanced at Dorothée. “Both of you.”

Wilhelmine regarded him with amusement tinged with wariness. “More about this business with Antoine Rivère? I scarcely knew him. And Doro’s already told Suzanne all she knows.”

“No. At least not directly.” Malcolm hesitated. Once he spoke there was no going back. The instinct to hold his family’s secrets close was ingrained from childhood. And yet he and Wilhelmine and Dorothée shared a sister. Willie and Doro came from a different world, the majestic, feudal world of Courland. Yet in a sense they were family. He could feel Suzanne’s gaze on him, steady but without pressure. He knew she’d say nothing if he chose to turn the conversation and make for home. He drew a breath. The air was crisp and redolent of damp grass. “Just before he was killed, Rivère made a number of claims involving information in his possession. The first concerned the Laclos affair, which Suzanne asked Dorothée about because Laclos was friends with Edmond Talleyrand. But he also claimed to have information more personal to me.”

Wilhelmine and Dorothée exchanged glances. “And you’re telling us because—?” Wilhelmine said.

“He claimed Tatiana had a child.”

Wilhelmine went stone still.

Dorothée drew in her breath. “Do you believe him?”

“I wasn’t sure at first. But I’ve since spoken with Annina and with your uncle. And what I’ve learned confirms it.”

Wilhelmine’s gloved hands tightened on the reins. She had borne a child in secret herself, Malcolm had learned in Vienna, at the age of eighteen. A little girl her family had compelled her to surrender to her lover’s relations in Finland. A child she was desperately, and so far unsuccessfully, seeking to have restored to her. “Did she have contact with the child?”

“I don’t know. She seems to at least have sent gifts.”

Wilhelmine nodded, her gaze clouded with her own regrets. “How old—”

“Probably about eight as far as I can tell.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Dorothée asked.

“I don’t know. Any more than I know who the father is. Tania was at some pains to keep everything secret.”

“You’re going to find the child,” Wilhelmine said.

It wasn’t a question. “Whatever it takes,” Malcolm said.

Wilhelmine nodded. “I’ll render any assistance you need.”

“Thank you. I don’t know—”

“Malcolm, please.” Wilhelmine leaned across the gap between their horses and put a hand on his arm. “My family—my father—treated Tatiana abominably. And I can’t bear to think of a child who shares my blood alone in the world. I’m sure I seem like a frivolous woman to you, but I assure you I can be remarkably resourceful.”

Malcolm looked into her eyes, bright and steady behind the black lace veil on her hat. “I saw that in Vienna. And I don’t think you frivolous at all. But you must know I don’t know where this investigation will take us. Or whom it will anger.”

Wilhelmine’s chin jerked up, fluttering the veil. “You think I’d abandon my sister’s child to keep a man?”

“I think you’re entitled to know the risks you’re running.”

“Leave Lord Stewart to me. Unless you have reason to think he fathered Tatiana’s child.”

“No. Though knowing Tatiana, I can’t rule anything out.”

Wilhelmine inclined her head. “What have you learned?”

“Don’t keep me out of this, Willie,” Dorothée said. “Just because I had a different father doesn’t mean I don’t feel a sense of obligation. I think of myself as a Courland. Tatiana was our responsibility. Besides, we’re talking about a child.”

“That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it?” Wilhelmine said. “One’s own concerns scarcely matter beside a child’s safety.”

Dorothée looked from Suzanne to Malcolm, her fingers curled tight round the reins. “What does my uncle know about this?”

“He arranged for Tatiana to leave Paris,” Malcolm said. “Presumably to have the child. He says she wouldn’t tell him the father’s identity.”

“Says,” Dorothée repeated.

Her gaze was wide and steady, worldly wise and yet vulnerable as that of a schoolgirl. Malcolm reached between their horses and touched her wrist between her kid glove and braided cuff. “I know Talleyrand was fond of Tatiana.” It was more than he’d always been willing to admit, but in that moment Dorothée might have been his teenage sister home in England and his first impulse was to offer comfort.

“But that doesn’t stop him from playing games with people,” Dorothée said, her gaze on his face.

“No, it doesn’t.”

Dorothée nodded, fingers flexing on the reins. “I’ve always known it,” she said in a low voice. “But it’s different when it comes to a child. I’ll learn what I can to help you.”

“Talleyrand is important to you. I’d never ask you to risk your relationship with him.”

Dorothée lifted her chin. She seemed to be aware of her sister watching her. “You didn’t. I’m risking it myself.”

 

Lord Stewart set down his smoking pistol and studied the point where his bullet had pierced the target.

“A capital shot,” Malcolm said from the sidelines in Napier’s shooting gallery.

“Could have been worse, I suppose. Come to try your hand, Rannoch? My brother says you’re a crack shot.”

“Then Castlereagh exaggerates, which isn’t like him. I do better when faced with necessity.”

Stewart ran his gaze over Malcolm, as though it had only just occurred to him that while Malcolm might not be a soldier he wasn’t a stranger to action. “Just pretend the target’s a Bonapartist agent.”

“Actually, I was hoping for a word with you, sir.”

Stewart set the pistol in its tooled leather case. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“It’s common knowledge you frequent Napier’s.” In fact, Wilhelmine had told him, but however unworthy Malcolm thought Stewart was of her, he saw no reason to create trouble between them if it could be avoided.

“More about this Rivère business?” Stewart asked.

“In a roundabout sort of way.”

“Oh, well, I could do with a glass of wine. The café across the street serves a decent Tokay and the Parisian girls tend to show a bit of ankle.”

Malcolm had a great deal of respect for Stewart’s brother, Castlereagh, despite the fact that they were diametrically opposed on many of the major issues of the day, from Catholic Emancipation to the future of Poland. Still, he recognized Castlereagh’s keen understanding and dedication to his work. Stewart possessed neither the understanding nor the dedication. And it didn’t help Malcolm’s opinion of the man that he had a tendency to ogle Suzanne.

Stewart chose a table in the café with a good view of another table where three Parisian girls sat with shopping parcels round their feet. He ordered a bottle of the most expensive Tokay the café offered, then flung himself back in his chair. “All right. I suppose we must turn to work.”

“Your brother told you Antoine Rivère made accusations about the Laclos affair just before his death?”

Stewart gestured to the waiter to hurry with the wine. “He mentioned it. Rivère was the sort to say anything if he thought it would get him what he wanted.”

“But in this case he appears to have been telling the truth. Talleyrand says Bertrand Laclos wasn’t reporting to the French.”

Stewart stared at him. The waiter set a bottle of Tokay and two glasses on the table. Stewart continued to stare while the waiter uncorked the bottle and filled their glasses. Then he snatched up his glass and took a long swallow. “Talleyrand may not have known.”

“Very little goes on in France about which Talleyrand doesn’t know.”

“It’s possible—”

“According to Talleyrand, the revelation that Bertrand Laclos was working for us sent shock waves through French intelligence. Someone would have spoken up if he’d really been working for the French.”

“If—”

“For God’s sake, sir.” Malcolm slammed his hands down on the table, rattling the glasses and bottle. “I gave you the information. I thought it was incontrovertible, too.”

“It was.” Stewart steadied the bottle and his glass. “It was incontrovertible. Damn it, Bertrand Laclos was a traitor. Every moment he was on the loose he was endangering British lives. We had to deal with him as soon as possible.”

“Was there a particular reason you were quick to rush to judgment?”

“I didn’t rush.”

Stewart had taken immediate action against Laclos while Malcolm had urged caution, but there was nothing to be gained from arguing that now. “Sir, we were all taken in. But did you have any reason to be suspicious of Laclos before?”

Stewart’s gaze strayed to the few inches of ankle displayed below the flounced muslin skirt of a blond girl at the adjoining table. “Laclos never quite fit in. He was French, of course. But it was more than that. He was a good sportsman, but he didn’t seem to enjoy it much. Wouldn’t take more than a drink or two. Always thought he didn’t have the head for it. And he wasn’t much of—”

“A womanizer?”

Stewart’s gaze shifted from the ankles of the blond girl to the low-cut, lace-edged bodice of a brunette. “Didn’t even seem to enjoy the girls at the opera. Odd, that.”

“Perhaps he had a mistress he loved.”

“No reason for that to—” Stewart bit back the words.

“Are you saying all this made you more inclined to believe in his treason?”

“No.” Stewart swung his gaze back to Malcolm’s face. “I believed in his treason because of the evidence you brought me.”

“Fair enough.” Malcolm took a sip of wine, guilt raw in his throat. “Did you talk to anyone before you decided Laclos had to be eliminated? Did anyone encourage you to make that decision?”

“There was no other decision to make. Even after I saw that letter—”

Malcolm clunked his glass down, sloshing the wine.
“What letter?”

Stewart snatched up his glass and took a long drink. “Doesn’t amount to anything.”

“I think you should let me be the judge of that.”

“Damn it, Rannoch—” Stewart splashed more wine into his glass and took another swallow. “After Laclos was killed a letter from him was delivered to me at Headquarters. Sent before his death.”

“And?” Malcolm held Stewart with his gaze.

He set the glass down with a sigh of frustration. “Laclos said he was going to abandon his mission and return to his family in England.”

 

Dorothée pushed open the door of Talleyrand’s study. The smell of fresh ink, leather, hair powder, and eau de cologne wrapped her in familiar comfort. She stepped into the room to meet his gaze. He was looking up, pen clutched in one hand, as though he’d been aware of her step on the stairs. For a moment, the air between seemed to tighten with something she could not put into words save that it reminded her of an experiment she’d once seen with an electrical current. “Did you enjoy your ride?” he asked.

She pushed the door to and paused, fingering a fold of her green velvet riding habit. “Willie and I met Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch in the Bois de Boulogne.”

For an instant she’d swear she saw a flicker of concern in Talleyrand’s eyes. Then it was gone and he said, “Always pleasant to encounter friends. Malcolm has been a superb rider from childhood.”

Dorothée drew a breath. For a moment every nerve in her body rebelled against putting it into words. An illustration of Pandora opening the box from a favorite nursery book hung before her eyes. Once spoken, the words could not be called back any more than Pandora could stuff the evils back into the box. She would have to live with the consequences. “Malcolm told us.” She crossed the room to stand in front of Talleyrand’s desk. “About Princess Tatiana’s child.”

“I see.” Talleyrand leaned back in his chair, the pen tilting between his fingers. “That was a great admission for him to make. Malcolm holds his family’s secrets close.”

“He recognizes that Princess Tatiana is our family, too. Of course Willie and I said we’d help them.”

His gaze skimmed over her face, watchful as always. “You have a kind heart, Doro.”

“I recognize my responsibilities.”

“And you have the courage and the kindness not to shirk them.” Talleyrand’s eyes softened in that way they sometimes did when they rested on her. It was very different from the glow she saw in Karl’s gaze when it met her own, yet it stirred her in a way Karl’s gaze did not. A way that was less easy to define but that cut deeper.