The Paris Affair (29 page)

“You think he had second thoughts about taking Gui into his family after his sons died?” Harry asked.

“Or perhaps the opposite. Perhaps he wanted to protect Gui’s position as his heir.”

“Which Rivère’s knowledge could threaten,” Cordelia said.

“Quite. If Gui were exposed as an impostor, the next heir would be Christian Laclos.”

“Who is a bit of a bumbler,” Suzanne said.

“Precisely. And who grew up away from the comte. The comte might well prefer Gui, whom he’s come to think of as a son. Of course it’s all supposition. We don’t know that the comte knew Gui was an impostor or that he knew about Rivère threatening Gui. Or that Gui is a Laclos by-blow. That’s the problem with pretty theories. One errant fact can knock them down like a house of cards.”

“We need more information,” Harry said. “I suggest a return to Christine Leroux.”

Cordelia managed a smile. “You look entirely too cheerful about it.”

Harry reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Christine Leroux is a clever woman. But you’re brilliant.”

“Harry seemed to take Cordy’s concern for Gui quite well,” Suzanne said to Malcolm, closing the door of their bedchamber.

“Harry’s testing himself. But so far I’d say he’s passing the test.” Malcolm tossed his coat over a chairback and struck a flint to steel to light the tapers on her dressing table and the escritoire. “I always knew Cordy had nerves of steel, but I must say even then she impressed me tonight. She’s taken to intelligence work almost as quickly as you did.”

Suzanne’s fingers froze behind her neck on the silver filigree clasp of her pearl necklace. Because of course when Malcolm met her she’d been far from a novice at espionage. Just as she’d been far from a novice in the bedchamber. One of her greatest challenges in the early days of her marriage had been not to reveal that extent of her expertise in either area. “Cordy’s a clever woman who hasn’t had an outlet for her cleverness. Though I hate for her to see the ugliness of what we do. She got a taste of that uncovering Gui’s secrets.”

“Married to Harry, she can’t hide from it. And God knows she saw enough of that ugliness in Brussels.” Malcolm dropped down on the edge of the bed and began to unwind the folds of his cravat. “Talleyrand put Tatiana up to the affair with Étienne Laclos. To keep an eye on the plot.”

Suzanne stared at her husband. She’d been so caught up in her own confrontation with Fouché and then Cordelia’s revelations about Gui that she’d missed the shadows that drew at Malcolm’s face. “He admitted it?”

“With surprising celerity for Talleyrand. But he claims he and Tania weren’t the ones who betrayed the plot.” Malcolm frowned at the crumpled linen in his hands. His voice was stripped of expression. “He says Tania insisted that they stop the plot without betraying Étienne.”

“Darling.” Suzanne set the necklace she had just unclasped down on the dressing table and moved to sit on the bed beside him. “That could very well be the truth. I don’t see why Talleyrand would make it up.”

“Talleyrand could have any number of reasons for making it up, each more complicated than the last. But it is possible Tania genuinely cared for Étienne.” Malcolm frowned at the cravat, then tossed it across the room to the chair where he’d left his coat.

“Gabrielle Caruthers told me she had the impression her cousin was in love with someone much more—well, I suppose, innocent for want of a better word—than Tatiana,” Suzanne said. It was hours since she and Malcolm had been able to talk in private, and those hours were thick with revelations. “That he seemed desperately in love and that he tended to fall for young, helpless females.”

Malcolm continued to frown, as though trying to piece together his sister’s past from a miasma of half-truths. “Love can take one by surprise.”

“That’s what I said to Gabrielle.” Suzanne hesitated. For all her deceptions, she knew one couldn’t comfort a man like Malcolm with half-truths. But there was honest comfort she could offer. She curved her fingers round his arm. “As I said, the fact that she became pregnant indicates she lost control enough that she forgot to take the usual precautions.”

“Love isn’t the only reason one loses control.”

“But it is one possibility.”

Malcolm frowned at the buttons on his waistcoat as he unfastened them. “Tania always claimed not to believe in love.”

“So did you.”

He shrugged out of the waistcoat and threw it after the cravat. “I stopped after I met you.”

“Darling.” She made her voice playful to hide a host of emotions that shot through her at his words. “Don’t tell me you made a heartfelt confession of your feelings to anyone. I don’t think you were remotely aware of them at the time.”

“Quite. But I was aware enough of the conflict to stop making any claims about love at all.” He fumbled with his shirt cuffs, avoiding her gaze. “Later—certainly by this winter in Vienna and then in Brussels—if Tania had still been alive . . .”

“You’d have talked to her?”

“Perhaps.” He gave a reluctant grin. “Tania would have seen it and forced me to talk.”

“And you think you’d have seen it if she’d fallen in love with Étienne Laclos?”

“I’d like to think I would have. But—” He shook his head. “She was my sister. I admitted things to her I didn’t admit to anyone else. And she—I think she trusted me more than she did most people. But in many ways I didn’t know her. I’ve realized that more and more since she died.”

“Malcolm.” Suzanne ran her fingers down his arm. “The fact that she didn’t confide in you doesn’t reflect any lack in you.”

The muscles in his arm tensed beneath her touch. “You can’t know that, Suzette.”

“I know what you were to her. If she’d wanted to confide—if she’d felt able to—she’d have turned to you.”

“Which doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t.” He kicked off his shoes. “I don’t know why the possibility that she betrayed a man she loved bothers me.”

Suzanne swallowed a welling of bitterness. She could feel Fouché’s gaze slicing into her. “But it does.”

“I’m not exactly clear-sighted when it comes to Tania. I know her capacity for betrayal. But everyone has their limits. Or perhaps it’s just that I like to believe so.”

“That’s because your own limits are so very clear.” Suzanne curled her fingers round his wrist.

Malcolm gave a twisted smile. “Does any Intelligence Agent have clear limits?”

“You do.” It was a large part of why she loved him. It was also why she could never fully feel she deserved him. And why she was sure he’d never be able to forgive her if he knew the truth about her past and her reasons for marrying him. “Malcolm.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “We don’t know that Tatiana did betray Étienne. But if she did, it doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t love him. It’s amazing how contradictory feelings and loyalties can coexist.”

He turned his head and brushed his lips across her brow. “You’re kind, Suzette.”

“Kind?” It was the last thing she thought of in relation to herself. But then the woman Malcolm saw and loved wasn’t really the real her.

His mouth slid to her temple. “I know how you felt about Tania during her life. And yet here you are trying to see things from her perspective.”

“During her life my own perspective was distinctly colored by the fact that I thought she was my husband’s mistress.”

Malcolm grimaced. “And you didn’t believe me when I denied it.”

She swallowed. “I wasn’t sure what to think. You don’t lie easily, but—”

“No agent can avoid lying.”

“Dearest—” She drew back and looked up at his granite-set profile beneath the shadows of the canopy. “I was jealous, but I knew I hadn’t any right to be. I think the truth is I’d been half-expecting to learn you had a mistress ever since our wedding.”

He swung his head round to stare down at her. “In God’s name why—”

“You offered me so much when you offered me your name, but fidelity wasn’t part of it.”

“Did you expect me to spell it out? It’s part of the marriage vow.”

The sound of Malcolm’s voice repeating those vows in the cramped sitting room that stood in for a chapel at the British embassy in Lisbon echoed in her head. It had been a shock of cold fire, realizing how seriously this man she had tied herself to—never expecting it to last—took those vows. “So were words like ‘obey,’ ” she said. “Which I don’t think either of us took seriously.”

He grinned unexpectedly. “There are vows and then there are vows. But I never thought I needed to say—Sweetheart—” He looked away, and she could tell he was fumbling for the right words. He always did so on the rare occasions he tried to express his feelings, but as she watched the tension in his face, for the first time she realized he was terrified of putting a foot wrong. Of making a demand on her that would violate what he saw as the terms of their marriage. “I never thought much of marriage as an institution,” he said, his gaze fixed across the room on a patch of candlelit blue and gold carpet between her dressing table and the chest of drawers. “But having decided to enter into it, I couldn’t but feel an obligation to fulfill my side of the bargain.”

“Because you take your obligations far more seriously than most people do.”

“Perhaps. But—” He swallowed. To her surprise, he turned his head and looked her full in the face. His eyes were open and so vulnerable she felt she could smash them with an ill-chosen word. “The truth is that obligation scarcely enters into it. One could hardly claim I had a varied career in the bedchamber at any point, but since I met you, other women hold singularly little interest for me.”

Her throat went tight, driving the air from her lungs. Something prickled in her eyes that might have been tears. “That’s one of the loveliest things you’ve ever said to me, darling. But you can’t fail to notice that other women are—”

“Beautiful? Desirable? Brilliant? No, of course not. But they aren’t you.”

One of the things that had shocked her, that morning in Lisbon when she’d bound her life to Malcolm’s, was the realization that for the foreseeable future she wouldn’t share another man’s bed. A novel concept to one who was used to variety. And if that variety came in the service of her work, she could not deny that she enjoyed it. More than that. It had always been a form of escape. Even as her feelings for her husband had grown, her fidelity had been a practical part of her masquerade and later a mark of respect for the husband she had betrayed in so many ways. It hadn’t really been a word in her vocabulary. Which of course had given her no right to feel jealousy but hadn’t made the jealousy go away.

“Darling—” She leaned forwards and covered his mouth with her own. The surest escape when her feelings threatened to overwhelm her, the surest way to reach him.

His arms came round her with the force of still-unvoiced emotions. But when his lips slid to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her temple, he said, “Suzette? What is it? You’re crying.”

“No. Yes. Damn it, Malcolm, you barely let on you’re feeling anything and then you open up like smashed crystal.”

“It’s not the sort of thing—”

“That comes easily to you? No, I know. That’s why it touched me so much.” She kissed him again, lightly. “You’re a remarkable man, Malcolm. I don’t deserve you.”

“I wasn’t asking for a like declaration. If you’re thinking of Frederick Radley—”

“Radley makes my skin crawl,” she said truthfully. “I can’t imagine what I ever saw in him.” But she could not deny that at one time Radley had stirred her, in the crude way cheap wine or raw spirits could provide an escape. Lovemaking was never so complete an escape with Malcolm. He took it too seriously for that.

“It’s not the sort of thing I could very well have said before,” he said, in that same tone that indicated he was picking his way through a treacherous landscape of possible words. “It would have been putting another demand on you. And whatever was between us, I wanted it to have as little as possible to do with demands.”

She moved back into his arms and put what she couldn’t say, wouldn’t ever be able to properly say to him, into her kiss. She dragged his shirt over his head with clumsy fingers, while he found the strings on the back of her gown. They fell back against the coverlet. His kiss was urgent, yet tempered as always by care. She gave a laugh that was half a sob, or the other way round, and lost herself in his embrace.

She would have sworn sleep would elude her tonight, but she must have slept, because suddenly a burst of sound jerked her awake, all senses alert to respond to whatever crisis had woken her. Not a cry from Colin. Not gunfire. Pounding. On the door.

CHAPTER 24

“Forgive me, sir. Madame.” It was Valentin outside the bedchamber door.

Malcolm was already out of bed. “Dressing gown,” Suzanne said, throwing his to him, for he was stark naked. As was she. She fished her dressing gown from its spot at the bottom of the bed, beneath the tangle of their discarded clothing. She ran to the door, fumbling with her satin sash, as Malcolm opened it.

“Forgive me,” Valentin said again. His eyes were sleep flushed above the candle he carried. “But the Comtesse Talleyrand has called and says it’s a matter of urgency. She’s in the salon.”

A faint gray light leached between the curtains. Four o’clock, perhaps four-thirty. “Thank you.” Suzanne touched Valentin’s arm. “Perhaps you could have coffee sent in.”

Dorothée was on her feet in the salon, pacing back and forth. She wore a spring green pelisse with the frogged clasps askew and a French bonnet of satin straw tied in a lopsided bow. As they stepped into the room she ran towards them and gripped each of them by the arm. “Thank God. I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you. I couldn’t think who else to turn to. It has to be stopped.”

“Of course.” Suzanne took her friend’s hands in a firm clasp. Dorothée’s pulse beat wildly. “But first you must tell us what.”

“It’s all my fault. I should have kept them apart. I should have stayed in Vienna. I should never have let Karl—”

“Com—Doro.” Malcolm touched her arm. “Has your husband challenged Clam-Martinitz to a duel?”

Dorothée’s gaze jerked to his face. “I never said, did I? How did you—”

“It seemed the sort of idiocy to account for your concerns.”

“I never thought Edmond would go so far. I never thought he cared that much—at all—Why? Why would he care about whose bed a woman shares when he has no interest in the woman herself?”

“Some men consider it a question of pride,” Malcolm said. “Or honor, which is much the same.”

“If only Karl had refused the challenge—”

“ ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much’—” Malcolm shook his head. “That would have marred his own honor.”

“Of all the impossible idiots.” Dorothée spun away, hands pressed to her face, then turned back to Malcolm. “I’m so afraid he’ll kill Karl.”

“We won’t let that happen.” Malcolm drew Dorothée to the sofa and pressed her to sit down. “Do you know where the duel is to happen? And when?”

“The Bois de Boulogne.” Dorothée’s fingers worked at the clasps on her pelisse. “This morning. I’m not sure when precisely. Karl left me a note in case—in case he doesn’t return. My maid gave it to me before he told her to. Thank God.”

“Does Talleyrand know?”

“Not from me. He wouldn’t interfere.” Dorothée swallowed. “As you say, it’s an affair of honor. I should never have let Karl—”

Suzanne dropped down beside Dorothée on the sofa and gripped her friend’s wrist. “Karl is a brave and able man. He makes his own decisions.”

“If it were Malcolm you’d be just as worried.”

“Probably more so,” Malcolm said. “I imagine Clam-Martinitz is considerably more skilled with weapons than I am.” He glanced at the window. The sliver of sky visible between the curtains was still only pale charcoal. “We have a bit of time, but we’d best be off. Suzette—”

“Don’t you dare suggest I stay at home, Malcolm.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I suspect it will take all of us to stop this lunacy. I was going to suggest you and Doro drink some coffee while I order the carriage.”

Dorothée looked at Malcolm as he moved to the door. “I didn’t think—Castlereagh and Wellington won’t look kindly on your interfering in a French and Austrian quarrel, will they?”

Malcolm gave her one of his unexpectedly warming smiles. “Perhaps not. But it’s a family matter.”

Valentin brought in the coffee as Malcolm left the room. Suzanne stirred liberal amounts of cream and sugar into a cup and pressed it into Dorothée’s hand. “You need something bracing.”

Dorothée forced down a sip. “I’ve been appallingly selfish.”

“Seeking happiness isn’t selfish.” Suzanne gulped down a swallow of coffee herself. Black. She needed a good strong jolt.

“It is when one does it at the expense of others.”

“For what it’s worth, I’d never have expected Edmond to behave so.”

“Of course not. You aren’t a man.” Dorothée stared into her coffee cup. “I was living in some mad sort of dreamworld. I used to worry about scandal. Now all I want is to see Karl again alive. I’ll never forgive myself if he comes to harm.”

For a moment visions of what might happen to Malcolm if the truth about her was revealed swam before Suzanne’s eyes. The circumstances were different. The fear was the same.

A quarter hour later the three of them were settled in the barouche. Paris, so active in the early hours of the morning, had gone silent now, just before dawn. Street sweepers moved through the gray world and hawkers were beginning to set out their tables in the boulevards. Mist hung over the Bois de Boulogne, swirling round the tree trunks, giving the wood a desolate aspect for all the soldiers encamped among the trees.

Dawn light began to rend the gloom. Dorothée sat bolt upright, her gaze fixed out the window. Malcolm seemed to have given the coachman a predetermined route to follow. They wound along the paths, slowing occasionally. At last Dorothée gave a cry, and then Suzanne saw it as well. The gathering light clung to the white shirts of two men moving over the green and glinted off the sabres in their hands. Three other men stood to one side, one with a surgeon’s bag by his feet.

Malcolm rapped on the roof of the carriage. The coachman drew up. Dorothée fumbled for the door handle before the steps could be let down and sprang onto the grass. Malcolm jumped after her and caught her arm before she could run forwards.

Suzanne jumped from the carriage after Dorothée and Malcolm. The sabres clanged, scraped, disengaged, met again. The duelists were too intent on each other to have noticed the new arrivals. Clam-Martinitz’s arm shot forwards. His blade slid along Edmond’s and broke Edmond’s guard. The tip of Clam-Martinitz’s sabre darted to Edmond’s cheek. Edmond parried the blow, but blood dripped from his face.

Dorothée screamed, wrenched herself away from Malcolm, and ran forwards.

Clam-Martinitz spun round. “Doro, for God’s sake—”

Edmond lunged towards Clam-Martinitz, sabre poised to drive into his opponent’s back. Malcolm, already running flat out, landed on Edmond in a flying tackle and took him to the ground.

“Rannoch?” Edmond said in disbelief as Suzanne ran forwards. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Stopping you from committing murder.” Malcolm kept Edmond pinned with his body.

“This is an affair of honor.”

“Not very honorable to stab a man in the back.”

Dorothée was clinging to Clam-Martinitz, sobbing. “For God’s sake, my darling,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come. I’ll never forgive Brigitte for giving you the note early.”

“Thank God she did. Oh, Karl, how could you be so foolish?”

“This is nothing to do with—”

“Don’t say it’s nothing to do with me. You were fighting
over
me. Do you know how wretched that makes me feel?”

Edmond got enough purchase to land Malcolm a blow to the face.

Malcolm sat up, nose streaming crimson. “Satisfied now you’ve drawn blood?”

“You bastard—” Edmond pushed himself to his feet, looming over Malcolm.

“Don’t be an idiot, Talleyrand.” Malcolm sprang to his feet, putting himself between Edmond and Clam-Martinitz. “Don’t you realize it makes you look more an idiot to fight a duel over a woman who has no interest in you?”

“She’s my wife.”

“A fact of which you’ve seemed singularly unaware.”

Edmond took a step forwards, blood spurting from the cut in his cheek. “By God, Rannoch, I’ll—”

“What? Challenge me? I won’t accept. Believe me, I have no fear of being branded a coward.”

“You—”

“You’ve fought,
monsieur le comte
.” Suzanne moved between the men and gave a handkerchief to Malcolm. “Surely you can consider honor satisfied.”

“Madame Rannoch, you can have no conception—”

Suzanne fished another handkerchief from her reticule and gave it to Edmond. “All that blood is making a mess of your coat. I suggest you let this very capable-looking surgeon tend to you.”

Dorothée pulled away from Clam-Martinitz and took a step towards her husband. “Do let the surgeon see to you, Edmond. Before the cut becomes infected.”

“What do you care?” Edmond faced his wife, sword dangling from his fingertips.

Dorothée looked into his eyes, chin lifted. “You’re the father of my children. I never wanted you hurt, Edmond.”

Edmond gave a short laugh. “That’s a damned—”

“I never thought I had the power to hurt you.”

His gaze locked on hers for a moment, angry and at the same time puzzled. Then he turned away. But he thrust his sword back into its scabbard and moved towards the surgeon. Dorothée breathed a sigh of relief. Clam-Martinitz moved to her side and touched her arm.

“There’s no way this will stay secret,” Suzanne said, going to stand beside them. “Not with the cut on Edmond’s face, and the way gossip spreads in Paris. You shouldn’t be seen leaving the park together.”

Clam-Martinitz nodded. “Very wise, Madame Rannoch.” His gaze moved to Malcolm. “Rannoch—”

“I’ll see the comtesse safely home.” Malcolm took the handkerchief down from his nose, glanced at the fresh blood, then pressed it back to his face. “As far as anyone need know, she and my wife and I merely went out for an early drive. Eccentric perhaps, but hardly scandalous.”

“Thank you.” Clam-Martinitz looked down at Dorothée. “I never meant to embroil you in scandal.”

Dorothée reached up and touched his face. “I’m only relieved you’re unhurt. You are unhurt, aren’t you?”

“Not a scratch.”

“I’ll see you at Wellington’s ball tonight.”

“Are you sure—”

“It’s imperative, my love. Suzanne’s right. Talk will be all over Paris. We have to brazen it out.”

Clam-Martinitz gave a quick nod. “See her home safely, Rannoch.”

Malcolm helped Suzanne and Dorothée back into the carriage. Dorothée folded her arms, gripping her elbows. “
Sacrebleu
. If I hadn’t distracted Karl—”

“If you hadn’t been there, the duel wouldn’t have ended when it did,” Malcolm said. “And God knows what the outcome would have been.”

She flashed a smile at him. “I always wanted a brother.”

Rays of sunlight slanted into the carriage as they pulled out of the park. They’d be home before Colin was up for breakfast, Suzanne thought.

The carriage came to an abrupt halt, throwing them against the squabs. “What on earth—?” Dorothée said.

Malcolm opened the window and leaned out. Thuds and raised voices streamed into the carriage. Suzanne heard her husband draw a sharp breath. “Stay here,” he said over his shoulder, then opened the door and sprang to the ground. Suzanne poked her head out the open window. She could only see a portion of the street ahead, but she could see enough to tell that some sort of brawl was in progress. She watched her husband run into the fray and take a blow to the chin.

“Stay here,” she said to Dorothée, and sprang to the ground herself.

Five men seemed to have turned on one, a fair-haired young man who had lost his jacket and had blood spattered on his shirt. Malcolm had at least momentarily distracted them. “For God’s sake—,” he said.

“Stay out of this,” a burly sandy-haired man said. “He’s a Bonapartist.”

“Then he’s been dealt far worse a blow than you can deal him.” Malcolm edged between the attackers and the fair-haired man.

“Filthy spy. God knows what he’s plotting.” A tall dark-haired man lunged towards the fair-haired man. Suzanne stuck out her foot and tripped him.

“What the devil—”

“Watch how you speak to a lady,” another mumbled.

“Doesn’t look like a lady.”

“I fought for my country,” said the fair-haired man.

“You fought for that tyrant.”

Malcolm took a step forwards and took another fist to the jaw. He went reeling backwards and caught himself against the wall of the house.

“Stop.”

It was Dorothée’s voice. Suzanne looked over her shoulder to see her friend run up.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the men demanded.

“My uncle is the prime minister of France,” Dorothée declared.

The claim did not have the desired effect. “Your uncle’s the turncoat Talleyrand?” the burly man said.

Dorothée drew herself up. “Talleyrand is not a turncoat.”

The burly man gave a low laugh.

“Prince Talleyrand is a patriot,” the fair-haired man said.

The burly man lunged again. Malcolm moved between them. The burly man stumbled. His blow caught Dorothée on the shoulder and sent her reeling to the cobblestones.