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Authors: Imperial Scandal

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“Somehow I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
Davenport turned his gaze to a young Dutch-Belgian lieutenant and a girl in a Flemish lappet cap holding hands beneath the lacy ironwork of an overhanging balcony. “Illusions are a dangerous thing.”
“Speaking as someone who once had them?”
“If I did, it’s so long ago I don’t speak the language anymore. I suppose you want to look in at home.”
“You think I’m tied to my wife’s apron strings?”
“No, I think you want to consult with her. An excellent idea. Mrs. Rannoch’s a clever woman. I’ll look into some things myself and call on you later in the afternoon.”
 
Malcolm returned to the Rue Ducale to be informed by Valentin that Madame Rannoch was in the garden with a guest. He made his way to the back salon. Through the French windows that opened onto the garden he saw his son kneeling on the flagstones, pushing a trowel into an empty patch of earth beside a bed of primroses with great concentration. Suzanne sat at the wrought-metal table beneath the lilac tree with Blanca and a lady with fair curls escaping a violet bonnet. The fair-haired woman turned her head, and Malcolm realized he was looking at Harry Davenport’s wife.
He opened the French window and stepped into the garden, silently applauding his wife’s celerity in taking Lady Cordelia into her confidence.
“Darling.” Suzanne sprang to her feet. “I’m so glad. Lady Cordelia called in the hope of being able to speak to you.”
Malcolm bent to hug Colin, who tugged at his boot as he walked past, then moved to the table and bowed to Lady Cordelia. “Lady Cordelia. I’m sorry we meet again under these circumstances. My sympathies on the loss of your sister.”
“Thank you.” Cordelia Davenport got to her feet. She was shorter than Suzanne, but she carried herself with an air of command. Her voice was tranquil, but beneath the brim of her bonnet her face was pale and her eyes bleak. “I remember you were always kind as a boy.”
“You flatter me. I fear I was remote. And damnably self-absorbed.”
“As most of us are at that age.” Cordelia smiled and Malcolm caught a flash of the mischievous girl in the white dress he’d met at Carfax Court all those years ago.
“I am at your disposal,” he said. “Shall we go into the salon?”
Lady Cordelia cast a glance at Suzanne. “Would you—Mrs. Rannoch, might I prevail upon you to come with us?”
“Certainly, if you wish it.”
Malcolm held open the French window, and the two ladies preceded him into the salon. Suzanne dropped down on one of the sofas, but Lady Cordelia remained standing, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Mr. Rannoch, I understand you’ve been charged with investigating my sister’s death.”
Malcolm stood opposite Cordelia Davenport where the light spilling through the French window gave him a good view of her face. “Wellington and Stuart have asked me to look into last night’s tragic events.”
“And you think my sister’s death was an unfortunate sidelight to those events. That she was quite literally caught in the cross fire.”
Malcolm hesitated. He wasn’t yet ready to share what he had learned from Rachel. “We know too little at this point to be entirely sure what happened.”
The light flashed in Cordelia’s eyes as she lifted her chin. “But you think my sister was a foolish woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I hope I’ve learned not to make such swift judgments about anyone.”
Her gaze moved over his face, and he had the oddest sense he was being put through a test. “Yes, you look like someone who examines the evidence. But I can guess where the evidence thus far must have led you. A spoiled, pampered woman who was betraying her husband. Whose love affair would cause more problems if it became public.”
Malcolm took a step forward. “Are you suggesting I don’t want to get to the truth of your sister’s death, Lady Cordelia?”
“I’m suggesting that Wellington and Stuart might prefer that you not get to the truth of Julia’s death.”
“And yet you came to see me.”
Lady Cordelia’s gaze flickered to Suzanne and then back to Malcolm. “I decided it was worth a chance.”
“What was?”
“That you’d believe me.” Cordelia Davenport drew a breath and clasped her hands together. “Mr. Rannoch, I came to Brussels because Julia wrote me a letter a fortnight ago.” Cordelia undid the clasp on her reticule and drew out a creased sheet of hot-pressed paper.
Malcolm took the paper and unfolded it. A faint hint of jasmine clung to the single sheet. An elegant loopy hand, similar to the writing on the note the Prince of Orange had received at the ball but without the painstaking care and retracing of the letters that Davenport had noted on the forgery.
Rue Royale
22 May 1815
Cordy darling,
Why, oh why, aren’t you in Brussels? You’re always at the center of everything. It’s an odd thing at my age to realize one needs one’s elder sister, but I find myself wishing desperately that you were sitting on the chaise-longue, sipping champagne and offering me advice. Advice which I was often not sensible enough to take, yes, I confess it. And don’t say you’re the last person who should be offering advice. You’ve always been much better at sorting out other people’s problems than managing your own.
I’m in trouble. Quite ghastly trouble, the sort I never thought I’d encounter in my lovely perfect life. I’m not sure how I managed to do it. I’ve always been so good at organizing things, at least on the surface. Far better than you if truth be told. I’ve always known what I wanted from life. And I had it. The life I was supposed to have, the perfect polished life that was everything I’d aspired to. It was years before I realized it wasn’t what I wanted at all. At least not the sum total of what I wanted. Even then I thought I had things under control, but it’s all gone terribly wrong.
I can’t say more, not in writing. But if you should hear that anything befalls me—I know it will sound nonsensical, but promise you won’t be too quick to believe what you’re told should you hear ill news of me. And that you’ll look after Robbie. He’ll always have Johnny, of course, but you have a knack for talking to children.
The thing is—Oh, poison, I must go, I have to dress for a military review, and I want to get this in the post.
The thing is, Cordy, outrageous as it sounds, I fear for my life.
Your distracted sister,
Julia
11
M
alcolm read the last paragraph over three times, then looked up and met Cordelia’s taut gaze. “May I show this to my wife?”
Surprise flickered through Cordelia’s eyes, but she nodded. Malcolm held the letter out to Suzanne. She came to his side and drew a quick breath of surprise as she scanned Julia Ashton’s words.
“My sister wasn’t given to dramatics or hysterical fits,” Cordelia said in a tight voice.
“Was she in the habit of confiding in you?” Suzanne asked.
“When we were girls. In recent years she’s ceased to do so much at all.”
Malcolm glanced at the closing paragraphs again. “Perhaps not, but she wanted you to come to Brussels.”
“She doesn’t ask me to.”
“No, but she says she can’t tell you more in writing. With the clear implication that she
could
talk to you in person.”
A glint of appreciation lit Lady Cordelia’s eyes. “I drew the same conclusions myself. And it certainly had that effect on me. If I had been able to talk to her—Oh, the devil.” She pressed her hands to her face. “I know it’s folly to refine upon the past, but I can’t seem to stop doing it.”
Suzanne went to Lady Cordelia and put her arm round her. “Won’t you sit down? Then we can all talk about this properly.”
Cordelia permitted Suzanne to pull her down on one of the sofas, though her spine remained taut. Malcolm sat in a chair opposite them.
“Do you have any idea what your sister meant?” he asked. “What she thought she hadn’t managed properly and what had gone so horribly wrong?”
Lady Cordelia smoothed her hands over her lap, pressing the sheer lilac fabric of her gown smooth. “As I said, Julia hadn’t been in the habit of confiding in me in recent years. We move in quite different circles these days.”
And Julia was the one who had pulled away. Malcolm read that clearly in Lady Cordelia’s eyes. Cordelia Davenport’s scandal had created distance between the incomparable Brooke sisters.
Cordelia tugged at the ribbons on her bonnet and lifted it from her head. “Given what Johnny told me last night about her affair with the Prince of Orange, one might suspect the possible repercussions of the liaison were what concerned Julia. But while a love affair can do incalculable damage, one wouldn’t think it would make Julia fear for her life.”
“Could she have feared the consequences if her husband learned of the affair?” Malcolm asked.
“Of course she’d have been worried, Johnny would have been devastated. Is devastated. He adores Julia. But that doesn’t—” Cordelia’s gaze froze on Malcolm’s own. “You think Julia feared for her life because of
Johnny?”
“Husbands have been known to lose control. Like most Shakespeare plays,
Othello
is grounded in reality.”
“Yes, but—” Cordelia frowned for a moment as though trying to conjure the possibility in her mind, then shook her head. “No. Not Johnny. I’ve known him since we were children. He’s not violent.”
“He’s a soldier.”
“On those grounds, most of the men in Brussels right now would be capable of murder.”
“But wouldn’t have the motive.” Malcolm leaned forward, holding her gaze with his own. “I was in the Peninsula during the war. I saw men who seemed the soul of honor—men who fought on all sides—commit the most unspeakable acts. One can never be sure what a person might be capable of under the right circumstances.”
Cordelia’s hands locked on her elbows. “Perhaps. Perhaps Johnny would be capable of snapping in a moment of rage. But for Julia to foresee it, weeks before she was killed—”
She broke off as the French window opened with an almost soundless click, and Harry Davenport strolled into the salon. “Forgive me for coming in unannounced,” he said as he pushed the window to. “I’ve got used to avoiding front doors, and I thought it might be prudent for us not to be seen too much in conversation. I—” His gaze fell on his wife. Something flashed in his eyes, too quick for Malcolm to put a name to it. “Cordelia. My skills must be failing. I didn’t predict this.”
Lady Cordelia lifted her chin. “I needed to speak to Mr. Rannoch.”
Davenport rested his shoulders against the window, his face tilted back into the shadows. “Perhaps it’s as well. You may be able to shed some light on what I’ve discovered. Rannoch?”
“By all means,” Malcolm said. “Lady Cordelia’s insights are proving invaluable.”
“Pray be seated, Colonel Davenport,” Suzanne said.
Cordelia was staring at her husband. “You’ve learned something about Julia? How?”
Davenport flung himself down in a chair beside Malcolm. “I should hope I’ve learned something. I’d be slipping if I went through someone’s things without making some sort of discovery.”
“You—” Cordelia stared across the sofa table at him. “Johnny let you into the house?”
“It seemed better not to bother Ashton.” Davenport stretched out his legs and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. “I climbed in through her bedchamber window.”
“What—”
“I am a spy after all. Didn’t see a need to change tactics just because we’re among friends.”
Malcolm leaned back in his chair. “You make me look positively orthodox, Davenport.”
“Never that, Rannoch.” Davenport let his shoulders sink into the green satin chairback. “I thought we should go through Julia’s things as quickly as possible, and I wasn’t sure you’d agree to my methods.”
Cordelia was studying her estranged husband as though he were a stranger wearing a familiar mask. Davenport cast a glance at her. “I’ve acquired some new skills since last you saw me, Cordelia. Though I fear my Latin’s got a bit rusty.”
“Out with it, Davenport,” Malcolm said. “I know the look of an agent back from a successful mission.”
Davenport grinned. This, Malcolm suspected, was the closest the other man came to enjoying himself. “Nothing hidden in Julia’s dressing table beyond the usual powders and paints and jewels. Her writing desk was more informative. A number of cards of invitation. Bills from her dressmaker and milliner. Calling cards—her own and those of others, though no one particularly surprising.” He reached inside his coat and drew out a folded paper. “A half-finished letter to her sister.”
Lady Cordelia snatched the paper from his fingers. She started to unfold it, then looked up at her husband. “Did you—”
The mockery left Davenport’s gaze. “I had to read it, Cordy. It’s my job. It seems to follow upon another letter. The reason, I assume, that you came to Brussels?”
The paper crackled between Cordelia’s fingers as she unfolded it. She glanced through the contents, drew a sharp breath, then held it out to Suzanne. “We can’t afford secrets.”
Malcolm rose and went to read over his wife’s shoulder.
Rue Royale
7 June 1815
Dearest Cordy,
What must you think of me after that last letter? I don’t know what possessed me to write it, save that I haven’t been sleeping well. Blame the letter’s outrageous contents on laudanum drops and one too many glasses of champagne the night before. I’ve fallen prey to fancies. Not like me, I know, but then I think everyone in Brussels is on edge with war drawing ever nearer. Johnny will actually be going into battle. I can’t quite comprehend it. I knew I’d married a soldier, of course, but I think I thought he’d always be stationed in London, looking dashing in his uniform and defending St. James’s Palace from invaders.
In any case, please forgive my sad lapse into lending library novel language. I trust you’re too sensible to have worried, and that you’ve treated that letter as the fiction it was. Hopefully entertaining fiction, though I fear I’m no novelist.
I am quite well and perfectly safe. That is, as well and safe as anyone in Brussels just now, with Bonaparte only a few days’ march away and my husband in uniform. But do not fear. The duke is calmness itself, and should it prove necessary, he assures me there will be plenty of time to disembark for home. Not that he even admits the possibility of defeat, of course. Johnny’s been inclined to fuss, but Robbie and I shall be quite all right, as I’ve told him more than once.
One way and another I hope to see you soon, though I confess to quite longing to see Paris. If—when—our forces achieve victory—
The writing broke off. A streak of black ink across the bottom of the paper suggested Lady Julia had flung down the pen.
Cordelia picked up the earlier letter her sister had sent her and held it out to her husband without speaking.
Davenport met her gaze for a moment with raised brows, then glanced through the much-creased paper. “Julia should have known you’d be halfway across the Channel long before she could post the second letter.”
“The first letter wasn’t a fancy,” Cordelia said.
Davenport folded the letter. “You seem very sure.”
“I knew my sister that well.”
He handed the letter back to her. “For what it’s worth I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“She protests a bit too much about her husband in the second letter,” Suzanne said.
Davenport turned his gaze to her. “Insightful as usual, Mrs. Rannoch.”
Cordelia pushed herself to her feet as though too impatient to sit still. “She was frightened, she wanted me to come to Brussels. And then she changed her mind. Which either means she wasn’t frightened anymore—”
“Which is rather belied by the fact that she did lose her life,” Davenport said.
“—or she decided she was more afraid of the consequences of me coming to Brussels than of whatever caused her to write the letter in the first place.” Cordelia paced to the fireplace. “Why?”
“Perhaps because you knew her so well,” Suzanne said. “She knew she couldn’t keep secrets from you.”
“But I’d have helped her whatever was wrong.” Cordelia spun round, her lilac gown vivid against the white marble of the mantel. “Julia should have known I’d never betray her.”
Davenport tilted his head back to study his wife. “You know, Cordy, from you idealism is either deeply ironic or oddly touching.”
Cordelia shot a look at him.
“A love affair wouldn’t have shocked you,” Davenport said. “At least, I don’t think it would?”
Cordelia paced to the windows. “Don’t be clever, Harry.”
“That’s one of the nicer things you’ve called me. So if adultery wouldn’t have done it, what might Julia have done that would strain your sympathies to the breaking point?”
“She was my sister.”
“What if she’d killed someone?”
Cordelia spun toward her husband, skirts snapping about her. “What else did you find in Julia’s room?”
“Nothing to suggest she even contemplated murder. I’m just trying to gauge your moral limits. As relates to Julia, of course.”
“Whatever it was, she wanted Lady Cordelia to come to Brussels and then she changed her mind,” Malcolm said, stepping into the cross fire between the Davenports. “So either the situation changed, or her analysis of it did.”
Davenport reached inside his coat and drew out a cream-colored square of paper. “What sort of terms was Julia on with Violet Chase?”
Cordelia took a quick step toward him. “You said none of the calling cards was surprising.”
“I said none of the calling cards was
from
anyone surprising. I don’t see anything particularly surprising in Julia receiving a card from Violet Chase. I know perfectly well how close your family has always been to the Chases. What’s surprising is what’s written on the back.” Davenport turned the card over between his fingers. “ ‘The Allée Verte. 10:00 tomorrow.’ ”
Lady Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. “You might have mentioned this from the first.”
“I wanted to see your reaction to Julia’s letters without this to cloud the issue.”
“Damn you, Harry—”
“From an investigative standpoint.”
Cordelia swallowed. “Dear God. I knew Violet was in Brussels, but—”
“I remember the Chases,” Malcolm said, thinking back to his boyhood visits to Carfax Court in Derbyshire. “They have the estate neighboring your family’s, Lady Cordelia?”
Cordelia nodded. “We grew up with them. With them and the Ashtons. We were always in and out of each other’s houses as children. Violet and Johnny were betrothed—well, betrothed in all but name—before Johnny married Julia.”
Davenport’s eyes narrowed. “Julia took Ashton from her?”
“I don’t know that it was quite so simple. From childhood, everyone always assumed Johnny and Violet would marry. Then one night at Lady Cowper’s Johnny asked Julia to dance. He must have danced with her a score of times in the past, starting with our first attempts in the schoolroom with me at the piano. But something was different that night. I saw it when he crossed the room to us and asked Julia for the next waltz. Johnny danced two waltzes with Julia, took her in to supper, and followed her with his gaze all evening. I don’t think he had eyes for anyone else after that.”

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