The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (11 page)

“And?” There was no reason for her throat to be so dry. Nothing so far suggested Harleton had known anything about her.

“They seem to be from two different men. Most are brief notes containing dates and amounts.”

“Payments from Harleton’s handlers?”
Dear God, they could be from Raoul. Would Malcolm recognize his hand?

“Perhaps. I don’t recognize one of the hands, and the notes are so brief I’m not sure I could identify it even if it were someone I knew. But the other hand is Alistair’s.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, because there’s one note from him that’s longer.” Malcolm shifted papers to make room for her to perch on the edge of his desk. “It seems Alistair and Harleton were involved in more than spying together. I stopped in to see Aunt Frances on my way back from Richmond. Apparently Alistair and Harleton and some others—including at least some of the suspects in the Dunboyne leak—were part of a hellfire club.”

Suzanne sat on the edge of the desk, as she had so often when helping him with a speech or a diplomatic memorandum. She remembered the first time, a few weeks into their marriage. She’d brought him a cup of coffee, cautious about intruding, and ended up staying far into the night and helping him draft a communiqué. Perhaps that was the moment their marriage had begun to change. “I thought the Hellfire Club ended a century ago.”

“The original one.” Malcolm leaned back in his chair. “It was founded by the Duke of Wharton in the heyday of gentlemen’s clubs. Only this club admitted ladies.”

“No wonder they had a reputation for sacrilege.” She managed a smile that was almost genuine.

Malcolm grinned. “There were rumors they practiced black magic, but from what I’ve heard it was done in the spirit of mockery. Robert Walpole, who was Wharton’s rival in Parliament, used the club against him. Walpole put forwards a bill against ‘impieties’ that was a thinly veiled reference to Wharton’s club. Wharton lost his support in Parliament and the club disbanded. Rumor has it Wharton became a Freemason.” Malcolm reached for the cup of coffee that stood amid the litter of papers. “But a number of other clubs sprang up, most notably one started by Francis Dashwood and Lord Sandwich, though it wasn’t actually called a hellfire club until later. Rather more overtly bawdy than Wharton’s. It was before Aunt Frances’s time, but she says the caves at his estate at West Wycombe were legendary. The members addressed each other as ‘brother’ and the female guests were called ‘nuns.’ ”

“So this club admitted women as members as well?”

“No.” Malcolm caught hold of her right hand and laced his fingers through her own. “I gather the women at their gatherings were more likely to be hired for the evening.”

“Not nearly so interesting.” She forced herself not to clutch on to his hand as an anchor against the threatening storm. “That club ended as well?”

“Due to the members aging and a variety of scandals. But Dashwood’s nephew started a club in his honor called the Phoenix Society. I believe it still exists.”

“You haven’t been invited to a gathering?” She summoned up another smile.

“Hardly.” He looked up at her with an answering smile. From this angle, he looked particularly boyish. “You know my reputation. Or the lack of it.”

She reached down and smoothed his thick brown hair back from his forehead. “From what I saw of your father it’s not precisely surprising he’d have started such a club.”

“No. Though the Shakespeare twist is something new. And Aunt Frances thought there might have been more to the club than met the eye. Apparently my mother suspected as much as well.”

She heard the raw catch in his voice that came when he spoke of his mother. “Malcolm—” She tightened her grip on his hand. “You were a child. She’d hardly have told you about it.”

“No, of course not.” He carried her hand to his lips and released it. “It’s just another reminder that I didn’t really know either of them.”

“Darling—Are you suggesting the club could have been a front for a spy ring?” It seemed best to confront the possibility head-on.

“It’s hard enough to see one of these men as a French spy. It seems stretching belief to imagine all of them as such. But neither Aunt Frances nor my mother was given to idle fancy. And we do have Alistair and Harleton and perhaps whoever leaked the Dunboyne information connected to the club.” He pulled a paper from the litter on his desk and held it out for her inspection. “Here’s the plaintext of the longer note I decoded from Alistair to Harleton.”

She studied the paper in the light of the candles.

“I haven’t heard of the Raven before,” he said. “I don’t know if the Raven is the source of the Dunboyne leak, but I’m quite sure it’s a code name for an agent.”

Suzanne stared at her husband in the clean light of the wax tapers. The circle cast by the candlelight enclosed them in intimacy. A Mayfair couple at home in their jewel box of a house. But this simple piece of paper had increased the threat tenfold. She knew, but could not tell her husband, that the Raven was not the source of the Dunboyne leak. She had heard the name used more than once, though she had always deplored it as overly flowery and more worthy of a lending-library novel than the espionage game. Still it had stuck through the years in French intelligence circles. Better, Raoul had said, than using an actual name.

And Suzanne had to agree.

For the Raven referred to her.

CHAPTER 9

Harry Davenport slowed his horse to a walk along Rotten Row. The fashionable promenade in Hyde Park would be crowded with riders and open carriages at four o’clock on a spring day but was all but deserted at nine on a gray morning at the start of December. “Well, well. Who’d have thought the old man had so many surprises in him?”

Malcolm turned his head to look at his friend. Harry’s face was even more strongly scored than usual with defensive lines of mockery. “Harry—”

“For God’s sake, Malcolm.” The sarcasm in Harry’s voice cut as sharp as it had two years ago, before Waterloo. “You of all people should understand there’s no sense in pretending to filial scruples when they don’t exist. And Archibald Davenport wasn’t even my father. Isn’t even my father.”

“He raised you.”

“I was raised by a series of nurses, a collection of books, and my own imagination.”

“Harry—” Malcolm glanced at the path ahead. The scattering of leaves on the gravel, the bare branches against the gray wash of sky. “I think perhaps the more detached one is from a person the harder it is to take such revelations.”

“Spare me—”

“Because that’s how it is for me with Alistair.”

Harry’s gaze fastened on Malcolm’s face for a moment. “Sorry, old man.”

“Thank you.”

Harry turned and stared through the leafless tangle of branches. “Uncle Archibald never wanted children. He told me as much when he brought me home after the funeral. Bit odd for a man in his position, but there it is. Showed me my room and the library, said he wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t bother him. All things considered it worked out quite well for both of us. Save for the occasional dinner and a few trying occasions like the time he insisted on putting me up for membership at Brooks’s, we scarcely saw each other. You should have seen the amazement on his face when I told him I was marrying Cordelia. I don’t think he could imagine how a woman like that would look twice at me. Well, I couldn’t imagine it, either.” Harry’s voice was steady, but Malcolm saw his gloved fingers tighten on the reins. “Not surprisingly, he was less than astonished when our relationship went sour. He did help me get my commission, I’ll give him that. Probably because he was relieved to see me out of England. I was shocked to receive the occasional letter from him in the Peninsula. And he looks rather stunned to see me back in London now. Not to mention back with Cordelia.” Harry was silent as their horses advanced a few more paces over the gravel-covered ground. “You’d do better asking Cordy for help. Uncle Archibald likes her better than me. But then she’s prettier.”

Malcolm studied his friend. Talking about his own feelings always felt like picking his way through a thicket. Trying to talk about such feelings with Harry was more like confronting the walls of a besieged city. “Harry—”

Harry let his horse, Claudius, lengthen his stride. “I’d be surprised to discover Archibald leaked the Dunboyne information or was an agent for the Irish or the French. I’d be surprised to discover he applied himself so much to anything. Though I can’t say I know him well enough to really have an informed opinion. And you needn’t worry I’d be devastated if it turned out he was the culprit. I think I expected rather less from him than you did from Alistair Rannoch.”

“I never expected anything from Alistair Rannoch.”

“No?” Harry’s gaze turned lance sharp in that damnable way it sometimes did. “My mistake then. Now as to the other four suspects on your list—There I think I might actually be of help. Assuming you’ll let me.”

Malcolm grinned at his friend. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“Good. Never thought I’d say it, but the scholarly life gets a bit quiet at times. Whom do you want to approach first?”

“It rather depends on whom we can find. But I was thinking of Cyrus. Apparently he’s in the habit of sketching by the Serpentine most mornings. We may be able to catch him now.”

“Sketching?” Harry shook his head. “Amazing the surprising sides one discovers to people in the course of an investigation. I was at Eton with his son if that’s of any help. Can’t say we were precisely mates. But then there are precious few about whom I could say that. Present company excepted.”

Malcolm shot his friend a look. “I’m flattered.”

“I never flatter, it’s a waste of time. What have you done with the manuscript after the failed attack?”

“It’s at Aunt Frances’s now. Aline’s going through it. But we’re going to move it every day.” Malcolm’s fingers tightened on the reins. “We took an intolerable risk leaving it in the house with the children for as long as we did.”

“Once whoever’s after the manuscript saw that Simon hadn’t given the original to the thieves, he’d assume you had it whether you did or not.”

Malcolm forced his fingers to relax with a mental apology to his horse, Perdita. “You’re annoyingly reasonable as always, Davenport. I thought I had things under control.”

“And you did.”

“Mostly. The damnable thing is I was more than passingly eager for the confrontation.”

“No need to beat yourself up about that, you managed it as adroitly as usual.”

“The man got away.” Malcolm frowned at the trees ahead, seeing the greatcoated man swallowed up by the shadows of Seven Dials.

“But no harm came to Colin or Jessica or anyone in your household. First things first. You still have guards on the theatre?”

“And the Berkeley Square house and wherever the manuscript is. I may have been slow, but I learn my lessons.” Malcolm watched a robin alight on one of the bare tree branches. “Harry—Have you heard of the Raven?”

“Let me guess. Another code name?” Harry steered Claudius round a branch that must have fallen in the wind last night. “One starts to think France’s spymasters have a fondness for gothic novels. Or is this one English?”

“French apparently. I found a reference in a coded letter from Alistair to Harleton. Supposedly this Raven being exposed could cause problems for both of them.”

“Do you think it’s the Raven who was behind the Dunboyne betrayal?”

“Possibly. Not enough to go on yet.” Malcolm gathered up the reins. “Let’s see if we can find Cyrus.”

 

Livia Davenport paused before the square plaque on Tower Green and stared at the list of those who had been executed there. “I don’t see why they had to kill Lady Jane Grey. She didn’t even want to be queen.”

“She posed a threat.” Cordelia was keeping a careful eye on fifteen-month-old Drusilla as she marched along the paving stones. “People might have rebelled in her name.”

“Like Napoleon?” Colin looked up from tossing bread to the ravens.

“Very like Napoleon actually,” Suzanne said, shifting Jessica on her hip.

“But Napoleon hasn’t been executed,” Colin said. “Even though a lot of people in France were. Like Marshal Ney.” He scowled. Clearly he remembered how angry his parents had been over Ney’s execution.

“Yes, they could have sent Lady Jane Grey to St. Helena or somewhere.” Livia traced the inscription on the plaque. “It’s not fair.”

Cordelia smiled. “What would Daddy say?”

Livia looked up at her mother. “ ‘Life isn’t fair,’ ” she said in a quite brilliant imitation of her father’s acerbic tones. “I know. It doesn’t mean I have to go along with it. Daddy would say that, too. It’s not like she was a traitor or something.” Livia frowned. “Not that I necessarily think traitors should have their heads cut off.”

Colin tossed the last of the bread to an eager raven. “Which tower was Lady Jane locked up in?”

“I’m not sure.” Suzanne looked at Cordelia, who also shook her head. “But perhaps that beefeater knows.” She nodded at the guard across the courtyard.

“Come on.” Colin tugged at Livia’s arm.

Suzanne watched the children dash across the courtyard. If she focused on details like the weight of Jessica against her hip, the cool wind tugging at her bonnet ribbons with a promise of rain, the infectious glee of the children’s laughter, she could pretend this was just another outing with her friend and their children and keep the recent revelations safely walled away inside her. She was good at walling things away after all. “A passion for history. Malcolm and Harry would be proud.”

“They’re so able to be happy in the moment,” Cordelia said, studying the children as they peppered the beefeater with questions. “It’s remarkable.”

“A gift of childhood.” Suzanne uncurled Jessica’s fingers from a lock of her hair.

Drusilla had reached the end of the hedged walkway. Three months older than Jessica, she was much steadier on her feet. She stopped and looked at Cordelia in inquiry. “Back here, darling,” Cordelia said.

After a moment’s consideration, Drusilla moved back towards the adults. “It’s so different now from how it was with Livia.” Cordelia crouched down to Drusilla’s level. “Then I felt I was making it up as I went along. Well, I still do, a bit. But it’s different.” She glanced at Suzanne. “I didn’t think I’d like being a mother, you know.”

“Nor did I, precisely. That is, I didn’t think I’d be very good at it, and I had no notion of how it would take over my life.” Suzanne thought back to the girl she had been in Lisbon five years ago. That girl seemed like a different person, some sort of barely connected distant relative.

Cordelia caught Drusilla’s hands as the little girl returned to her side. “I was afraid—We never really decided, you know. To have another one.”

“It’s hard to find the right moment.” Suzanne smoothed Jessica’s hair. Jessica, fresh from a nap, was in a snuggly mood, one arm hooked round Suzanne’s neck.

“Quite.” Cordelia’s gaze was clear and candid. “Even under the best of circumstances. But it was different for me from how it was for you. I mean, there were added layers. Harry and I didn’t talk about it. No, that’s not quite true. Harry said it was entirely up to me. That’s so like Harry. Some would say he doesn’t have any delicacy or consideration, but the truth is he’s painfully careful never to impose himself in any way.” She took a few steps down the path in response to an insistent tug from Drusilla. “Part of me wanted to have another baby right away, the moment we were back together.”

“I imagine a lot of people did after Waterloo.”

“Yes, a way of grabbing on to life after so much death. You can see the results talking with other military families. But for me it was also a way to create a bond with Harry. To prove our mad reconciliation was real whatever the skeptics said.”

“I can understand the impulse.” Suzanne pulled her pearl earring from Jessica’s exploring fingers and let Jessica take hold of one of the satin ribbons on her bonnet.

“And for the same reason I was terrified.” Cordelia turned up the collar of Drusilla’s pelisse as the wind picked up. “Because another child was one more person to be hurt if we couldn’t—If I failed.”

“I think Harry would say ‘we.’ ”

“But it’s always seemed more my failure.” Cordelia swung Drusilla up in her arms. Drusilla laughed with delight. “And then I decided anticipating failure was a poor foundation for happiness for any of us.”

“Brave.”

“I hope so.” Cordelia kissed Drusilla’s nose, then set her back down to explore. “I hope it wasn’t selfish. I still can’t quite believe—”

“That the life you live now is real?”

Cordelia nodded.

Suzanne swallowed because what Cordelia had described was so very like her own feelings in deciding to have a second child. Jessica turned her head and pointed as a raven squawked. How on earth, Suzanne wondered, had she ended up with a code name that was a type of bird associated with a place traitors were imprisoned?

Colin and Livia ran back across the courtyard. “She was in Number Five Tower Green. Over there, next to the Queen’s House.” Colin waved his hand towards the building.

“And her husband, Guildford Dudley, was in the Beauchamp Tower,” Livia said. “You can see where he carved her name on the wall. Which is a bit odd when they only got married because their parents made them.”

“Maybe they decided they liked each other anyway.” Colin caught Livia’s hand. “Let’s climb the White Tower.”

The injustice to Lady Jane momentarily forgot, Colin and Livia raced up the steep winding stairs of the castle’s central keep. Cordelia and Suzanne stood in the cool stone of the entryway with the babies.

Cordelia released Drusilla so she could explore the steps and regarded Suzanne for a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It?” Jessica was wriggling and pushing against Suzanne’s chest. Suzanne set her down beside Drusilla on the steps. “Da ba bo bo,” Jessica announced as though she had just said something very important.

“Whatever you and Malcolm are investigating.” Cordelia reached down to steady Drusilla. “I’m less clear on the details than I usually am when you embark on something, but I know something’s in the wind. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. But I’m quite prepared to help if necessary.”

“You’re the best of friends, Cordy.”

Cordelia flashed her a quick smile. “I’m a woman who loves her husband and children but could use a wider scope for her talents. Is it top secret?”

“Since when has that stopped us from appealing to you?” Suzanne watched her daughter grab the edge of the step and pull herself to a standing position with a crow of triumph, bouncing on her thin, black-stockinged legs.

“Is it something to do with the new version of
Hamlet
Simon Tanner is producing?”

Suzanne looked at her friend in surprise. “Did Simon tell you about it?” Simon and Cordelia were friendly, but Suzanne didn’t think they’d seen each other recently without her.

“No, Caro did.” Cordelia gave a wry smile.

Drusilla dropped down on the bottom step. Jessica plopped down beside her and stretched out a hand for Drusilla’s face.

“Gentle.” Suzanne bent down to pull Jessica’s hand away. “Who told Caroline Lamb about the play?” she asked Cordelia.