The Paris Affair (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Malcolm sprang to his feet and reached into the pocket of his greatcoat for his own pistol. A Prussian sergeant stood across the room, his arm still extended holding a smoking pistol. No one appeared to be hurt, but the shot was the signal for chaos. A Russian corporal sprang at the Prussian, knocking him to the ground. The gun went flying. Another Prussian made a dive for it. A man in civilian dress jumped on top of him, knocked his head into the floorboards, and grabbed the pistol.

Suzanne, perched on top of a chair, was sensibly standing still. She had her own pistol tucked into her corset, but Malcolm knew she wouldn’t use it except as a last resort. As he moved forwards, a table crashed to the floor and a wine bottle smashed into the wall. A girl screamed and ducked under a chair. Another sprang onto a table. A third hurled a tankard at one of the men.

Malcolm dodged past an English soldier and a Bavarian who had begun pummeling each other, took a glancing blow to the shoulder, jumped over the wreckage of a chair, ducked as a tankard sailed overhead.

Metal clanged against metal. The Prussian and the Russian had pulled out their sabres and were dueling in the middle of the room. Two men with their hands locked round each other’s throats lurched towards Suzanne. Suzanne snatched up a wine bottle and hit the nearest man on top of the head, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Malcolm skidded over the wine-soaked floorboards to his wife’s side.

“I was doing very well,” she said as he lifted her from the chair.

“Just trying to keep it that way.”

A hand closed on Malcolm’s arm and spun him round. “Bloody frogs,” a British dragoon said in a slurred voice. “Taking all the girls.” He landed Malcolm a blow to the jaw.

This was no time to try to explain about nationalities. Malcolm dealt his offensive countryman an answering blow that sent the dragoon reeling to the floor.

Suzanne screamed. Malcolm whirled round to see his wife clutching her arm. Blood spurted between her fingers. “Sabre cut,” she said as he caught her in his arms. Her voice was level, but she swayed against him. “He didn’t mean to get me.”

A Bavarian and an Austrian had also drawn their swords. Malcolm pulled Suzanne beneath the shelter of the nearest upright table, tugged off the handkerchief round his neck, and bound it round her arm. “Can you walk?”

“Don’t be silly.”

He crawled to the side of the table where the tangle of feet seemed least dense and pulled her up.

A pistol shot ricocheted off one of the hanging lamps and buried itself in the wall. Malcolm wrapped his arm round Suzanne and edged towards the back wall. Not unlike making one’s way through the press at a diplomatic reception. Save that at a diplomatic reception one didn’t encounter stray blows, broken glass, and random pistol shots. A stream of ale hit the back of his neck. Several blows glanced off his shoulders. Broken glass sliced through his coat. But he and Suzanne reached the back wall and were able to inch along the edge of the room.

A Prussian captain leaped atop one of the still-upright tables, jumped to catch hold of the hanging wrought-iron chandelier, and swung forwards to spring onto two of the sword fighters. The three of them thudded to the floor in a tangle of boots and swords.

Malcolm pulled Suzanne to the table where he’d left Rivère. No sign of Rivère. Not surprising he’d fled. No, there he was. He’d taken refuge under the table. Malcolm could see his boots. “Rivère!” he yelled.

No response. The roar from the mêlée was deafening. Malcolm pushed Suzanne into a chair and knelt beside Rivère. “Rivère. Let’s get out of here.” He reached out to tug on Rivère’s shoulder and felt no response. He ducked beneath the table to see Rivère’s staring eyes. A knife protruded from his chest.

 

Suzanne felt more than saw the tension that shot through her husband. He got to his feet with an appearance of casual ease, picked up his greatcoat and threw it round her shoulders, wrapped his arm round her, and pulled her to the door. Behind them glass shattered and sabres clanged.

A gust of wind and the stench of the river greeted them. Yellow lamplight pierced the gloom. Malcolm paused for a moment, and she knew his senses were keyed to pursuit. Then he drew her down the street, past two Prussian soldiers arguing over which tavern to visit next, past three Frenchmen defiantly singing the
Marseillaise,
round the corner, past an alley where a couple were making love urgently against a wall, through the crowds round the doors of two more taverns, and down a side street, where he pushed her into the doorway of a shuttered shop.

“Is Rivère dead?” Suzanne asked.

Malcolm nodded. “Stabbed. By a professional by the look of it.”

“So the fight was started as a diversion.”

“Probably. If—But no sense in refining on that now.”

Suzanne studied her husband’s face in the moonlight and the glow of the lamp across the street. His eyes were dark, his features set in harsh lines. “Am I going to get the lecture?”

“Lecture?” He pushed back the folds of the greatcoat and undid the spotted handkerchief he’d tied round the wound in her arm.

“Where you turn into a combination of Brutus and Hotspur and say you’re a bad husband for letting your wife go into danger.”

“Brutus and Hotspur didn’t let their wives go into danger. Though Portia ended up dead anyway.” He reached into a pocket of the greatcoat, pulled out a flask, and splashed brandy onto her arm.

She suppressed a wince. The cut wasn’t deep, but the brandy stung against her skin. “As I was saying. Portia might have done better if she hadn’t been left behind.”

A faint smile flashed through his eyes. “Never let it be said I’ve learned nothing in the past year. I have my protective instincts well under control.” He tugged a clean handkerchief from another pocket and bound it round her arm. “Will you be all right until we’ve talked to Wellington and Castlereagh?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“It might as well have been.” He knotted the makeshift bandage. “Just remember pushing the stoicism until you collapse isn’t brave, it’s foolhardy.”

“I know my limits.”

He gave her a quick, hard kiss. “My darling, I don’t think you’ve ever reached them.”

She looked up at him. There were ghosts in his eyes that went beyond the fight and Rivère’s death. “Malcolm? What did Rivère say to you?”

“He made some vague threats to shake the British delegation to its core if we didn’t help him.” Malcolm paused for a fraction of a second. She heard the catch in his breath. “And—”

“And?”

His fingers trembled where they still gripped her shoulder. “He said that Tatiana had had a child.”

Suzanne went very still, her gaze fastened on her husband’s face. “Oh, darling.”

“He could have been lying of course,” Malcolm said in a quick, level voice. “But—”

“We have to learn the truth. And find the child if there is one. Naturally.”

He released his breath and looked down at her for a moment. “You’re remarkable, Suzette.”

“Yes, well, I’d like to think I’d have said it in any case, but it’s much easier to deal with Princess Tatiana and your obligations to her now I know she was your sister rather than your mistress.”

“I’ve put you through an intolerable amount, sweetheart.”

She forced a smile to her face, swallowing the instinctive bite of guilt. For in the scales of guilt in their marriage, her own unacknowledged sins weighed far more heavily than he could imagine. “Don’t be silly, darling. But I’m glad I know the truth.”

He drew the folds of the greatcoat about her with gentle fingers. “Say nothing of this to Wellington and Castlereagh. I don’t want Tania’s child becoming a pawn. Even of my own government. Perhaps especially of them.” He paused for a moment, his fingers still on the folds of the coat. “If Tania had a child, the father could be—”

“Tsar Alexander or Prince Metternich.”

“Quite. Or Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Suzanne shivered, considering the implications of Tatiana Kirsanova’s illustrious lovers.

“Or someone else far less well known,” Malcolm added. “We have no way of knowing how old the child is. If there even is a child.”

Suzanne studied her husband’s face, haunted by unanswered questions. “But you think there is.”

He drew an uneven breath. “Yes.”

 

Lord Castlereagh, Britain’s foreign secretary, advanced into a salon in what had once been the villa of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Borghese, and was now the British embassy. He was immaculate in cream-colored knee breeches and a dark coat, his fair hair gleaming in the candlelight. He moved with his customary control but stopped short as he looked from Malcolm to Suzanne, Malcolm in his unbuttoned coat, striped crimson waistcoat, and no neckcloth, Suzanne in her spangled gown and red wig. “Good lord,” he said on a rare note of surprise.

“Your pardon, sir. Your Grace. Sir.” Malcolm nodded at the Duke of Wellington and Sir Charles Stuart, who had followed Castlereagh into the salon. “But I didn’t think this should wait for us to leave off our disguise.”

“Disguise?” Wellington said. He too wore evening dress, the civilian dress he often favored, though there was no denying his military bearing. “Oh, that’s right, you were going to meet Rivère, weren’t you?” His sharp gaze moved to Suzanne. “My dear girl, are you—”

“I’m fine.”

“Spoken like a soldier who’s just been hit by grapeshot.” Wellington studied her for a moment, with that gaze she had learned frequently saw more than one wanted, then glanced at Malcolm. “What the devil happened?”

Malcolm pressed her into a giltwood chair. His hand taut on her shoulder, he recounted the night’s events in clipped tones. Save that he made no mention of Rivère’s claims about Princess Tatiana’s child.

Wellington surveyed Malcolm from beneath drawn brows. “You going off to meet agents and the agents ending dead is becoming something of a pattern, Malcolm.”

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid tonight’s events hold more than a glancing similarity to Julia Ashton’s death in Brussels.”

“I knew things had been too quiet.” Stuart leaned against the wall, ankles crossed, arms folded across his cream brocade waistcoat. He was a decade younger than Wellington and Castlereagh and less inclined to formality in dress or speech.

Wellington took a quick turn about the white-and-gold room as though it were a field he was surveying, hands clasped behind his back. “You think Rivère was deliberately targeted?”

“That knife was wielded by someone who knew what they were doing,” Malcolm said. “And Rivère was away from the main fight. It’s hard not to draw conclusions. Especially given what he told me just before he was killed.”

“Which is?” Wellington studied Malcolm across the crystal and gilt of the salon.

“He said if we didn’t help him he’d reveal information that could shake the British delegation to its core. Then he told me to mention the Laclos affair to you and Lord Castlereagh.”

Wellington’s gaze shot to Castlereagh and then to Stuart.

Suzanne watched her husband glance between the men. Malcolm had served all of them for years, in the Peninsula during the war, in Vienna at the Congress, in Brussels at the time of Waterloo. He respected them, Suzanne knew. That didn’t mean he trusted everything they said. “What don’t I know about the Laclos affair?” Malcolm asked.

“Whatever it is, we don’t know it, either,” Castlereagh said in a clipped voice.

“For God’s sake, sir, I have a right to the truth. I was part of it.”

“Have I mentioned your lamentable tendency to assume there are secrets lurking everywhere, Malcolm?” Wellington inquired.

Malcolm met the military commander’s gaze. “Perhaps because all too often those secrets are there, sir.”

Suzanne looked from her husband to the duke to Castlereagh to Stuart. She could practically see the lines of tension in the air. “Once again I feel as though I’ve stumbled into a play in the middle. What’s the Laclos affair?”

Wellington and Castlereagh exchanged glances. Stuart drew a breath.

“If you want us to investigate,” Malcolm said, “we’re going to need to know.”

“He’s right, you know,” Stuart said.

Castlereagh shot a glance at him. “It’s not your decision.” Stuart returned his gaze. It was no secret that he wanted to be British ambassador to Paris when Castlereagh and Wellington returned to England, but he was not afraid to confront the foreign secretary. “Perhaps not. But Malcolm isn’t an easy man to keep things from.”

“No.” Wellington turned his gaze to Malcolm. “He isn’t.”

“Arthur,” Castlereagh said.

“It’s nothing Malcolm doesn’t know,” Wellington said. “Nothing he can’t tell Suzanne. And Malcolm is irritatingly right as usual. We need their help.”

Castlereagh’s mouth tightened, but he turned to Malcolm and Suzanne. “The Comte de Laclos and his family emigrated to England during the Terror. In ’07, their son, Bertrand Laclos, returned to France to fight in the French army under Bonaparte. Quite a coup for the French to have one of their own back. As you can imagine, they made much of it for propaganda purposes.”

“Save that Laclos had in fact offered his services to British intelligence.” Wellington paced to the white marble fireplace and stood staring down into the cold grate. “He returned to France as our agent.”

“For four years he provided us with excellent information,” Castlereagh said. “Our best asset. It was a very advantageous situation.”

“Too good to be true,” Stuart murmured.

“He was a double?” Suzanne asked.

Wellington gave her a bleak smile. “As usual, my dear Suzanne, you’re two steps ahead of us. Yes. In 1811 we discovered that Laclos was giving us just enough accurate information to ensure our trust while passing along false information to us. And giving information on our activities to the French.”