The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (20 page)

“At that point you were unlikely to get French help,” Malcolm said. “You have to have known the odds were against you.”

Raoul sat back in the high-backed chair. “Oh yes.”

“Speaking of romantic idealists who can be foolhardy.”

“Your mother said something similar to me at the time. I maintain that I’m a pragmatist. Who’s willing to run risks.”

“That sounds the sort of thing a romantic idealist might say,” Malcolm said. “Go on.”

Suzanne said nothing. She had heard Raoul tell the story of the United Irish Uprising often before, but it was different hearing him relate the events to Malcolm.

“After the March arrests, martial law was imposed on most of Ireland. The country was seething. The pressure to act was enormous. It seemed as though if we didn’t, all of us would be crushed. A matter of calculating the odds.”

“You could have calculated the odds and decided you’d be safer in South America.”

“I could have done. I didn’t.”

Malcolm gave a faint smile, his gaze not leaving Raoul’s face. “As I said.”

Was there just a trace of an echo in Malcolm’s smile of her own hero worship? Raoul drew you in that way. It was the bone-deep commitment to a cause beneath the veneer of hardheaded pragmatism that made one willing to risk anything for him. After all, he was willing to do the same.

“I think you know how matters unfolded,” Raoul said in a neutral voice. “Fitzgerald was again betrayed, this time by Francis Magan, and taken into custody only a few days before the planned rising.”

“So you were the only leader not in custody by the time of the actual rising,” Malcolm said.

“Hardly the only. The one with the most notoriety perhaps. And then, only an hour before the rising was set to begin, government troops occupied our planned assembly points in Dublin. Our men dispersed, strewing the surrounding lanes with their weapons.” Raoul’s eyes darkened.

“More informants,” Malcolm said.

“Quite. I was outside Dublin at the time organizing support in the surrounding counties. I remember being not best pleased to be away from the heart of things, but that probably saved me from arrest myself. On 24 May the rising began. We actually got control of much of county Kildare for a time.” A faint glow lit his eyes at the memory. The candlelight softened the lines in his face, and Suzanne had a sense she was seeing him as he had been at the time of the Uprising, not much older than Malcolm was now. “But we lost at Carlow and Tara Hill, and in Wicklow rebel suspects were massacred. Sir Edward Crosbie was executed for treason. We fought a guerrilla campaign at Wicklow that in many ways prepared me for Spain. I went back and forth between there and Wexford in the next few weeks,” he continued, neatly sidestepping that his true loyalties in Spain had not been with the
guerrilleros
. He paused a moment. “After France, I could scarcely have been called a romantic when it came to rebellions, but any lingering illusions I had fled in those weeks. Perhaps it’s folly to talk about degrees of brutality, but those months in Ireland were particularly savage. On both sides.”

Suzanne had heard the stories, enough to shake even her hardened sensibilities. Both sides had burned prisoners alive.

“It was a waste. Brutality combined with incompetence. The blunders I’ve lain awake replaying—” Raoul’s mouth turned grim. Suzanne well knew he hated incompetence and waste. “Finally in August we received help from the French. About a thousand troops landed at county Mayo. We had some success fighting with them, but we were soundly defeated at Ballinuck by government forces. And when a larger French force arrived in October, they surrendered after a naval battle without even landing in Ireland.” Raoul passed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m giving you more detail than you probably wanted.”

“No.” Malcolm was watching Raoul as though processing details Suzanne couldn’t quite understand. “It’s good to have a full picture.”

Raoul inclined his head in an odd sort of silent communication. “By October things were falling apart, though some guerrilla fighting went on for years. The French who were taken prisoner were packed back to France. But the Irish were considered traitors rather than prisoners of war.”

“Because Ireland wasn’t—isn’t—acknowledged as a separate country,” Malcolm said. “The source of the problem.”

“Quite. So the rebels were executed as traitors. And because I’d been one of the original ringleaders, arresting me became a matter of some moment for the British authorities.”

“As I’ve heard tell there were times you kept the rebellion alive in parts of Ireland by sheer force of will,” Malcolm said.

Raoul shook his head. “No man—or woman—can really do that. Not without popular support. But I was a hunted man. I’d been wounded—not badly but enough to need treatment. Poor Fitzgerald had died of his wounds back in June when the British denied him proper attention. I managed to take refuge with a family in Tipperary, but I had no safe route to the coast, and it was only a matter of time before government troops found me.”

“I remember,” Malcolm said. “Mama’s face was white. As it was when you were in Les Carmes during the Terror.”

Raoul shifted slightly to the side, his face more in shadow. “Your mother was kind to be concerned for me. She came to see me in secret where I was hiding. She told me not to do anything foolish, that she could get me to France if I gave her a few days. I probably should have surrendered then to avoid letting her run risks, but as I said, I’m a pragmatist.”

“Or you have respect for women’s intelligence.” Malcolm flicked a glance at Suzanne. “Go on.”

“She returned with your father. I was as surprised as you were on hearing their plan. To own the truth I more than half-expected to be betrayed, but I had few alternatives at that point, so I went with them. Horace Smytheton had a smugglers’ boat ready. Much to my own surprise, after an uneventful crossing, I found myself safely in France.”

Malcolm sat watching Raoul. Suzanne would swear he hadn’t moved a muscle during the last part of the story. “My mother risked a great deal for you.”

“So she did. Arabella was a good friend.”

“I remember seeing the two of you walking together. Watching you toss her up on her horse. Seeing her open your letters.” Malcolm drew a raw breath. Suzanne had the sense he was hesitating on the edge of a precipice, aware of the irrevocable nature of the next step. It was oddly similar to Raoul’s own hesitation before he admitted Lady Arabella’s role in his escape.

Malcolm released his breath and leaned forwards. “Sir, are you my father?”

CHAPTER 17

Suzanne couldn’t control her indrawn breath. Fortunately, Malcolm and Raoul were so focused on each other she doubted either was even aware she was in the room. She was a spectator to the revelations. And yet in some ways they could not have affected her more.

The rattle of carriage wheels from the street echoed through the stillness, though the air was so fraught she could almost have sworn the sound was the press of emotions hanging between the two men.

“That’s a rather extraordinary question.” Raoul settled back in his chair as though they were discussing chess moves or cricket play. “What makes you think so?”

“It’s not so very extraordinary.” Malcolm’s voice was even and measured, though she could hear the tension that underlay it. “I’ve long suspected Alistair Rannoch wasn’t my father. I think it first occurred to me when I was twelve. I was in London—one of my rare visits here—after winning a history prize at Harrow. My parents had dinner guests—hard now to remember they actually managed to give dinner parties together—and the schoolroom party came into the drawing room after dinner. One of Alistair’s friends—I think it was Lord Bessborough—said he must be very proud of me. And Alistair replied that he could take no credit for his heir’s accomplishments.”

Raoul’s eyes remained steady on Malcolm’s face. Suzanne caught a wince in the depths of his gaze. “That can’t have been easy to hear.”

Malcolm shrugged and gave a wry grimace. “To own the truth, it felt less like a shock than confirmation of something I’d known all along. It was almost a relief to be able to make sense of why my father—Alistair—had never much seemed to like me. Though to be fair he never seemed overfond of Edgar or Gisèle, either.”

“Malcolm—” Raoul swallowed. “No one should have to grow up with that.”

“It’s hardly a unique burden. Most people know William Lamb is Lord Egremont’s son. It’s a fairly open secret in the family that only Aunt Frances’s eldest is her husband’s child. Judith and Christopher like to speculate that their fathers were royal. I never went so far as to voice my suspicions. Perhaps out of concern for my mother. But I could hardly be devastated that a man I didn’t like wasn’t my father.”

“Very rationally put,” Raoul said.

“But you think it’s bluster? I’ve had a long time to consider it.” Malcolm sat back on the sofa, mirroring Raoul’s posture. “I saw my mother less than Aunt Frances’s children saw her. I didn’t know the names of most of her lovers. I tended to shy away from the gossip.”

“Understandable.”

“I should have suspected about you sooner,” Malcolm continued in the same level tone. “You were always very kind to me. But you’d fled to France the autumn before I overheard my father’s exchange with Bessborough. I think something stopped me from fully articulating the question, even to myself.”

“Also not surprising.”

“But I think I wondered all along about you without ever quite acknowledging it.” Malcolm’s words were still measured, but they tumbled from his lips more freely. Almost, Suzanne thought, as though it was a relief to finally speak of it. “The first I consciously voiced the question to myself was two years ago in Paris when you helped us get the St. Gilleses out of France. And then, as with realizing Alistair wasn’t my father, it was less surprising than like something I should have known all along. I learned then that my mother had told you about Tatiana, a secret she jealously guarded. Now I learn the lengths she went to to save you after the Uprising.”

“There could have been a great deal between your mother and me without my being your father.”

“There could.”

Malcolm’s gaze locked on Raoul’s own, gray eyes once again meeting gray.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Malcolm said. “Are you my father?”

Suzanne felt the breath tighten in her throat, as though she could choke on the possible implications.

Raoul was silent for seconds together. The wind must have shifted, because she could hear Colin calling to Berowne in the square garden.

“Yes,” Raoul said.

Malcolm released his breath in a rough sigh.

“Your mother . . . meant a great deal to me.” Raoul seemed to be searching through an infinite verbal landscape for the right words. “As I think you know, your parents’—Arabella and Alistair’s—marriage was problematic from the first. By the time your mother and I were involved, they were openly estranged, though they hadn’t been married long. But there was no question of doing anything but treating you as Alistair’s son, of course. Your mother was unconventional but not to that degree.”

“And Alistair couldn’t have disowned me without casting himself as the cuckolded husband.”

“Quite.” Raoul’s fingers curled round the chair arm, his only indication of disquiet. “A few years later I married myself—an error in judgment. Margaret and I were—are—spectacularly unsuited. Your mother and I drifted back together. It wasn’t what one would call an exclusive relationship, but it endured.”

“She was involved with Archibald Davenport in ’98.”

“Was she? I didn’t know. But while I wouldn’t say I was jealous, I also wasn’t precisely overeager to learn the names of her lovers.” Raoul hesitated. Suzanne saw his knuckles whiten. “I couldn’t do a great deal for you. I certainly didn’t do what a father should. But I was selfish enough to want some relationship with you.”

“Your interest . . . meant a great deal.” Malcolm drew another breath. “You were always kind to me.”

“Malcolm—” Raoul’s voice was rough, as though he had difficulty forming the words. “You deserved a great deal more.”

“Many men would have done less.” Malcolm still spoke in the careful voice Suzanne recognized as a sign that all his energy was being concentrated to keep a lid on his feelings. “One isn’t considered to owe anything to a bastard child.”

“Damn it, Malcolm.” Raoul sat forwards, hands taut on the carved arms of the chair. “I won’t have you using such words about yourself.”

Malcolm leaned back on the sofa. “It’s a statement of fact.”

“You know better than to speak dismissively about someone based on his or her birth.”

“I hope so. I learned as much from you.”

Raoul gave a faint smile. “If you learned anything at all from me, I’m immeasurably grateful.”

Malcolm’s gaze flickered round the oak and gilt and marble of the library. “But it doesn’t change the fact that by the rules of our world I’m illegitimate and have no right to my handsome inheritance.”

“You know better than to give any credence to the rules of this world.” Raoul’s voice was even, but his knuckles showed white. “But if you did, the fact that your mother was married to Alistair Rannoch makes you his son.”

“Something that never made either Alistair or me very happy.” Malcolm glanced at the glass-fronted bookcase that held Alistair Rannoch’s first editions. “Did he know?”

“That he wasn’t your biological father? I think so. That I was? I’m not sure. He and Arabella—”

“Despised each other. That wasn’t your fault.”

“I’d have liked—” Raoul drew a breath. “I’d have liked to do more.”

“And you were busy saving the world.”

Raoul’s mouth twisted. “Hardly that. Trying to make a difference round the edges. It seemed of all-consuming importance at the time. Looking back—I wonder about the nature of obligations and where one is needed most and owes the greatest loyalty.”

Malcolm met Raoul’s gaze in what seemed a moment of understanding. “In Brussels two years ago, it seemed vitally important to me to be there for the battle. Even though it wasn’t really my fight.” He turned his gaze to Suzanne for a moment. “I even told Suzette she couldn’t ask me to stay back, and being Suzette she said of course she wouldn’t. But in the midst of Waterloo, with my friends dying all round, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps my greatest loyalty wasn’t to her and Colin.”

Raoul leaned forwards, hands clasped together. “Loyalty is never simple. I thought I was needed. But looking back, one could argue I didn’t accomplish much.”

To Suzanne’s surprise, the gaze Malcolm turned on Raoul reminded her of the way he looked at Colin. So that for a moment it was as if he were the parent and Raoul the child. “You accomplished a great deal, O’Roarke. And in any event, you tried, which you always taught me is the important thing.”

Something leaped for an instant in Raoul’s eyes, quickly masked with a wry smile. “You’re remarkably understanding. I wish I could make up for the past years.”

“You needn’t apologize.” Malcolm had his armor well in place. “You didn’t owe me anything.”

“You can’t mean that.” Raoul’s gaze flickered to the windows and the square garden. “I’ve seen you with your own son.”

“But then I chose to be Colin’s father. You were rather stuck with me.”

“No.” The word was quick and hard, like a hand slammed down on a marble table. Raoul swallowed. “I’m proud of few enough things in my fifty-some years, Malcolm. But when I read your speeches, I’m conscious of a pride I have no right to feel.”

For a moment, Suzanne thought Malcolm’s armor would crack. Then he said, “That’s good of you.”

“That’s the truth.”

Malcolm shifted on the sofa. “You said you weren’t sure if Alistair knew you were my father. Not even after he helped you escape?”

“Perhaps particularly then. I’ve never seen someone so careful to give nothing away.”

“And Smytheton?”

“Alistair brought Smytheton into it. Your mother wasn’t happy about it, but Alistair said they needed his help and Smytheton wouldn’t dare go against him.”

“So Mama was blackmailing Alistair and Alistair was blackmailing Smytheton.”

“So it would appear.”

“Do you think Fa—Alistair was an Irish sympathizer?”

“I’m quite certain he wasn’t. He said little to me on that voyage to France, but he did quite clearly say that at least we were getting my dangerous, subversive views out of Britain.”

“But then he was a French spy.”

“But I’d swear he wasn’t a revolutionary at heart. Alistair had a conservative soul.”

Malcolm inclined his head. “And you didn’t learn anything else? Anything that could shed light on what Alistair was doing? Or Smytheton?”

“I’ve been thinking back over it in the past few hours. But no.”

“Did you ever hear about a club called the Elsinore League?”

Raoul leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Only vaguely, as a sort of hellfire club.”

Malcolm nodded. “And the leak that led to the betrayal at Dunboyne?”

“I told you I didn’t know where it came from.”

“And I’m asking again.”

Raoul gave a faint smile. “As I would in your shoes. But other than that it was obviously someone with inside knowledge of the operation, I don’t know.”

“You must have wondered.”

“Of course. Further intelligence of that sort might have turned the tide for us. I made what inquiries I could in the midst of the rebellion.”

“Even in the midst of a rebellion you’re an intelligence expert, O’Roarke.”

“I’m flattered. But regardless, I wasn’t able to learn anything before circumstances forced me to run.”

“Alistair didn’t refer to it?”

“No, he—” Raoul frowned. “It was just before we set sail. Alistair said he wouldn’t be such a hypocrite as to wish me luck, save that it was to both our benefits that I make it safely to France. Then he added that if it weren’t for his friends things might have ended at Dunboyne.”

 

The sound of the front door closing as Valentin showed Raoul from the house echoed through the stillness in the library. Suzanne touched her husband’s hand. Shaken as she was, she had to remember he had endured the more soul-shaking revelation. “Darling—”

“I’m all right.” He squeezed her fingers and gave her a quick smile. “It’s a relief in a way. I can’t say it cuts me free of Alistair, but it loosens the ties. I can’t imagine someone I’d more like not to be tied to. And O’Roarke’s right. To object to the term ‘bastard’ makes a mockery of everything I stand for.”

“Words can sting even when one knows they shouldn’t.”

“If so, it’s a sting I’ll learn to live with.” He carried her hand to his lips and brushed his mouth across her fingers. “Besides, I like O’Roarke. I always have. Not that—”

He broke off, as though whatever he felt about Raoul was still too personal to share. Perhaps because he was still sorting it for himself.

She tightened her fingers round his own, wanting to hold on to the warmth. “You never told me. That you suspected Mr. O’Roarke might be your father.”

He glanced down at their clasped hands. “I suppose—I was still working it out for myself. As I said, the idea was formed in my head before I was even properly aware of it.”

“And you weren’t ready to share it. It’s all right, darling. As I’ve said, marriage shouldn’t wholly deprive one of privacy.” Though it was so easy for emotional confessions to become proofs of love and secrets to seem barriers to it.

“I think perhaps I was afraid to make too much of it.” Malcolm spoke slowly, as though picking his way through a verbal landscape, searching perhaps for the safest path, perhaps for the most honest one. “It shouldn’t matter—who fathered me in the crudest sense of the word. It goes against everything I believe in to lay such stress on bloodlines. And yet . . .” He hesitated, as though afraid of what he might say next. “O’Roarke was more to me than just a biological sire. I don’t have the words for quite what he was. I don’t want to make it into more than it is in some sort of maudlin search for the father I’ve managed without for years. But I think perhaps it was far more than I understood at the time.”

Thank God Malcolm had let go of her hand, because her fingers were chilled to the bone. Beneath her husband’s matter-of-fact words was an undertone that might have been longing. And it sliced her in two.

“He went through hell in Ireland,” Malcolm continued. “He risked everything for something he believed in. In a way I’ve never quite done.”