Authors: Imperial Scandal
Teresa Grant (28 page)
“I’ve long since ceased thinking I know anything when it comes to you, Chase. Or to my wife.”
George swallowed. “I deserve that. I deserve that you don’t think I have a shred of honor. In your shoes I wouldn’t believe my claim. But it’s true.”
“Your brother saw you and Julia together,” Davenport said.
George paced to the desk and drummed his fingers on its top. “I found Julia in the passage during the ball. She was obviously distressed. She confessed to me about the affair with Tony. I was comforting her. I had my arm round her at one point. I can only guess Tony saw that and misinterpreted.”
“Lady Julia didn’t deny the affair with you when your brother confronted her,” Malcolm said.
George looked up with a grimace. “I think she was looking for an excuse to break with Tony. She was obviously tormented about the affair. Concerned for what it was doing to her husband, to her child. Concerned, too, that my brother wouldn’t take her leaving him lightly.”
“Yes, everyone seems to agree that Tony is the jealous type,” Davenport said. “However incapable he may be of fidelity himself.”
George glanced between Malcolm and Davenport. “Oh no. Tony is jealous, but you can’t think—”
“What?” Davenport asked.
George drew a breath, as though even now he could not quite say it. “That Tony arranged Julia’s death somehow?”
“We’re still gathering information,” Malcolm said. “For what it’s worth, your brother says he didn’t tell us about your affair with Julia because he was protecting you.”
“Why—” A look of bitter realization crossed George’s face. “Of course. Because as her lover I’d have a motive to have been behind her death. Poor Tony. This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.”
“Did Lady Julia say anything to you that night that would give any clue as to why she was killed?” Malcolm asked.
Chase took another turn about the room. “She said she’d got herself in a dreadful mess. That she’d done Johnny an appalling wrong. That she couldn’t think how she could ever have considered leaving her child. But all the risks she saw were to her marriage and family, not to her person.” He looked from Malcolm to Davenport. “Look, if there isn’t more I can tell you—I’d like a last dance with my wife.”
Malcolm moved away from the door. “Of course.”
He stared at the door as it closed behind George Chase, then turned to Davenport.
“A plausible story,” Davenport said in an expressionless voice. “Save that it hardly fits with Julia the French agent.”
“Unless she was playing some sort of game with George Chase.” Malcolm cast another frowning glance at the door. “I’m oddly inclined to believe Major Chase when he denies the affair.”
“But?” Davenport asked.
“But I’m quite sure he’s lying about something.”
31
“
M
ay I persuade you to dance, Mrs. Rannoch?”
M
ay I persuade you to dance, Mrs. Rannoch?”
It was Raoul O’Roarke and from the look in his eyes he had information.
Suzanne stepped into his arms and into the movement of the waltz. She hadn’t known how to waltz when she first became his agent. He’d taught her. As well as teaching her how to pick a lock and decode a document and wield a dagger and pistol. It had seemed so simple then. A cause, a belief, an enemy to defeat. A clear vision that came before all else.
The clasp of his fingers, the touch of his hand on her back, the smell of his shaving soap were at once familiar and alien. Taking her back to a time when she had been a different person. A person who didn’t understand the meaning of betrayal.
“You look charming,” he said, as they glided about the room in the promenade that began the dance.
“I feel the way I did when I was first pregnant with Colin.”
“Uncertain?”
“Ill.”
“Good.”
“Good?” she said as they began to circle the floor.
He adjusted his clasp on her hand, holding her a very correct distance away from him. “One of the best ways not to break is to admit you’re on the edge of breaking.”
She fixed her gaze on the top jet button on his waistcoat. “I don’t break.”
“You’ve never been through this before. We none of us have.”
She forced her gaze to his face. “I assume you learned something or you wouldn’t have asked me to dance.”
He swung her forward, holding her facing away from him. “I haven’t been able to discover who was running Julia Ashton,” he murmured into her ear.
She drew a breath of frustration. “So we know no more than—”
“But apparently the order to kill Malcolm had something to do with Truxhillo.” He drew their hands overhead as she twirled to the side.
Fortunately the dance required her to keep her gaze locked on his. “In Spain?”
“So I would imagine.”
“But why is it important?”
He didn’t shake his head, which might have drawn attention from the other dancers, but she could read the equivalent in his eyes. “I don’t know. I was hoping you might. Or Malcolm might.”
“How the devil am I supposed to—”
“You’ve managed more complicated scenarios.”
She was silent for a measure of music. “Malcolm hasn’t said so in so many words, but I know the minute the army marches he’ll be off on some errand.”
Raoul twirled her forward and then back to face him. “Yes, I imagine he will.”
“Do you have any instructions for me?”
“Only to keep your eye out for useful information. And to look after yourself.” For a moment she caught something in his gaze that she’d never seen before. An ache that she’d almost have called regret. But he merely said, “I’ll let you know if I learn more about Julia Ashton.”
“Thank you.” She twirled under his arm. “I could swear I caught a glimpse of la Bédoyère earlier in the evening. In Belgian uniform.”
“So did I. He told me he had an ambition to shake Wellington’s hand. Young fool.”
“I could imagine you doing the same.”
Raoul gave a faint smile. “Possibly.”
They circled the floor in silence. She kept her gaze fixed on the deceptively simple folds of his cravat.
“I might have asked you to dance anyway, you know,” Raoul said. “Giving way to impulse. You’re not the only one who’s unsure about what tomorrow may hold.”
She looked up into his eyes. “But you’ll be in Brussels.”
“I’ll be where I’m needed most. Like your husband.”
Malcolm walked up to a knot of green-jacketed riflemen. “Could I have a word with you, Chase?”
Anthony Chase stared at him for a moment, then gave a curt nod and followed Malcolm to the French windows. They stood in the open frame of one of the windows, the cooler air from the garden washing over them. “Thank you,” Malcolm said.
Tony gave a bleak smile. “I want to find out what happened to Julia. However things ended between us, I—What else do you have to ask me about?”
“The man who was seen going into your house late the night before the ball,” Malcolm said. It was the story he and Davenport had agreed would serve best. Neither wanted to tell Tony his wife had betrayed him if they could help it.
Shock reverberated through Tony’s eyes. “What makes you think—”
“There are informants all over Brussels. I understand you’d engaged this man’s services. I’m not entirely clear what for.”
Tony grimaced. “God, what a bloody farce. It’s as though events are conspiring to make you waste time on me.”
“The sooner I have an answer, the sooner I can sort out what’s important.”
“If you must know, I’d been concerned about Julia. Something had seemed different the last few days. I was as jealous as only a man desperately in love can be. So I—” His mouth twisted with self-derision. “I hired a man to follow her.”
“What did he report to you?”
“Nothing. He didn’t start his work until the day of the ball, and he didn’t see her leave Stuart’s. He was the first person I went to after she died. Bloody useless.” Tony stared at Malcolm for a moment, his face half lit by the warm candlelight, half washed by cool moonlight. “I saw you leave the ballroom with my brother.”
Malcolm settled his shoulders against the window frame. “He denies that Lady Julia was his mistress.”
“But Julia said—”
“Your brother thinks she was using that as an excuse to end her affair with you.”
Tony’s brows drew together. “Do you believe him?”
“I’m not sure,” Malcolm said.
Suzanne stared up at Raoul as they circled automatically in the pattern of the waltz. She’d been used to him facing danger in the Peninsula, but somehow she hadn’t expected it here. “But you’re—”
“Willing to do whatever it takes.”
A knot of panic tightened round her throat. “You can’t—”
A burst of applause near the door cut into her words. The musicians stopped playing. She turned to the doorway, knowing whom she’d see there. The Duke of Wellington stood surrounded by a crowd of blue-coated staff officers. Georgiana ran off the dance floor to him, dragging Lord Hay by the hand. “Do put an end to the suspense,” she said, her voice carrying clearly in the suddenly still room. “Are the rumors true?”
Wellington looked down at her. His gaze softened with paternal tenderness, but his voice was crisp and direct. “Yes, they are true; we are off tomorrow.”
A hum spread through the ballroom as the words were repeated over and over. Raoul’s hand closed at Suzanne’s waist. “It’s nothing we didn’t already know.”
“No,” she said, forcing the breath from her lungs.
The dancers still on the floor broke apart, seeking out spouses and sweethearts, children and parents. Suzanne saw Sarah Lennox anxiously scanning the room, no doubt looking for General Maitland. The Duchess of Richmond’s gaze darted from Lord March, her eldest son, to Lord John and fifteen-year-old Lord William. Several officers were hurrying toward the door, stopping to make brief farewells. Aline, who had been dancing with Lord March, ran across the floor to her husband and Malcolm. Suzanne met Malcolm’s gaze for a moment. She almost ran to him, but that would be silly. They were not heedless young lovers, and he’d say good-bye before he went anywhere.
The musicians began playing again. Even as some moved toward the door, couples swept back onto the floor, scarlet-coated arms close round pale frocks, eyes locked on each other, heedless of propriety and the watchful eyes of mothers. Or husbands.
Cordelia slipped through the crowd to Suzanne’s side, dodging past a young lieutenant and a girl in pink, who were clutching each other’s hands, and a plumed lady of an age to have soldier sons, face buried in a handkerchief. “We knew it was happening,” Cordelia said. “But somehow it didn’t seem real until now. Oh, forgive me,” she added, catching sight of Raoul.
Suzanne performed the introduction.
“I know your husband, Lady Cordelia,” Raoul said. “Naturally you’re concerned for him.”
Cordelia looked at him for a moment. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Your husband is an impressive man,” Raoul said. Which, Suzanne knew, was the unvarnished truth. She’d more than once heard Raoul comment, with mingled admiration and frustration, on Harry Davenport’s brilliance as an intelligence officer.
“It’s odd,” Cordelia said, when Raoul had moved off. “Half the people I meet here know more about Harry’s life in the past four years than I do. I’d never have thought that Harry—”
“Was the sort for adventure? Malcolm would say intelligence work isn’t about adventure, it’s about analyzing data and calculating odds.”
“So analyzing the Punic wars is good training for analyzing French troop movement?”
“Precisely. Malcolm read history at Baliol.”
“Some of the best conversations Harry and I had were about classical history.” Cordelia cast a quick glance round the ballroom, a swirl of noise and color. “I wish—”
“Cordy.” Violet Chase ran up to them and gripped Cordelia’s arm. One puffed sleeve of sapphire gauze slipped from her shoulder and a ringlet had fallen loose from its pearl pins. “Where’s Johnny? Is he here?”
“He didn’t intend to be,” Cordelia said, “and I doubt he’d have changed his mind.”
Violet squeezed her eyes shut. “Dear God. I can’t not say good-bye.”
“Violet—”
“Don’t you see?” Violet tightened her grip on Cordelia’s arm. “I daresay he despises me after I flung myself at him in the garden two nights ago, but pride doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t even care how he feels about me. I can’t imagine he feels very much. But I need to tell him how I feel about him. Before it’s too late.”
“I’m sorry, Vi.” Cordelia squeezed her friend’s hands.
Violet drew a shuddering breath. “He’s never going to get over Julia, is he?”
“I don’t know about never, but it’s going to take time. Whatever he’s learned about her, she was his wife.”
“Damn Julia.” Violet’s eyes darkened to indigo. “Despite everything she did I can’t think about her without feeling guilty.”
“About Johnny? Vi, I wouldn’t—”
“Not just about Johnny.” Violet hesitated a moment, then looked from Cordelia to Suzanne. Her lips trembled, but her gaze was steady with determination. “The night of Stuart’s ball Tony didn’t go home with Jane and me. He said he was meeting some of his fellow officers at a café.”
“He followed John Ashton home,” Suzanne said. “He was concerned about Lady Julia. He learned she’d been killed from one of the servants. I think he spent the rest of the night in a tavern.”
Violet gave a quick, jerky nod. “That wasn’t why I told you. Tony saw Jane and me to our carriage. When he handed me into the carriage I glanced down and—” She cast a quick glance to either side, then looked back at Suzanne and Cordelia. The strains of the waltz and the buzz of excited talk echoed in the silence. “There was a stain on his sleeve. I think it was blood.”
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