The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (36 page)

“The verse makes it easier to remember English words. And at the risk of offending the country of my birth—not that I care for that—there’s more real-life messiness in the verse and in the characters than in Racine or Corneille. One is constantly surprised, by the meter and by the plot.”

Strathdon’s gaze warmed, like that of a man looking at a beautiful woman, though in this case Suzanne suspected it had more to do with Manon’s words than with her physical attributes. “Well put, mademoiselle. Hope you know what you have here, Harleton.”

“Indeed, sir.” Crispin dropped down on the settee beside Manon and reached for her hand. “Always liked Shakespeare,” he added. “Wasn’t the best student, but the thing is they’re cracking good stories. Couldn’t decide as a boy if I wanted to be Prince Hal or Hotspur. And then there’s the family connection.”

“Francis Woolright has always intrigued me,” Strathdon said.

“Forgive my abysmal ignorance,” Cordelia said, “but who is Francis Woolright?”

“One of the original actors to create Shakespeare’s characters.” Strathdon took a sip of champagne, warming to the subject. “There’s a bit of a mystery about Francis Woolright. As the story goes, Woolright joined the company comparatively late for those days. He was in his early twenties when he turned up at the Chamberlain’s Men, as the company was called then, and asked for an audition. Burbage was going to send him packing, but Shakespeare was intrigued by his brazenness and agreed to hear him read. According to legend, Woolright launched into Richard the Third’s opening monologue. Apparently Burbage cursed him for doing it better than he did himself and hired Woolright on the spot.”

“What’s known about Woolright’s background?” Crispin leaned forwards to top off Strathdon’s glass. “I’ve never heard.”

“Nothing. He seemingly had no history. There were rumors even then. Everything from a bastard half-brother of Shakespeare to a bastard son of Mary Queen of Scots to a former King of the Underworld. I’ve always suspected the truth was probably much more prosaic, but Woolright knew the value of good publicity.”

“Some things never change,” Manon murmured.

“How did Woolright meet Eleanor Harleton?” Suzanne asked Crispin.

“I’ve no idea, though I’ve always assumed it must have been a performance at court.”

Strathdon set down his champagne glass. “No idea when she and Woolright met, but the Chamberlain’s Men performed at her betrothal ball.” Strathdon set down his champagne. “They dusted off
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
”

Crispin whistled. “Wonder how far back the affair went. So you think it makes sense that they made notes on the
Hamlet
manuscript?”

“It’s certainly plausible.” Strathdon took a sip of champagne. “Woolright is thought to have played Laertes when
Hamlet
was first performed. That would have been before the Essex rebellion and before—”

“Eleanor ran off with him,” Crispin said cheerfully. “I’m glad they found a bit of happiness.”

“You can’t know they were happy,
chéri,
” Manon murmured.

“Unlike Eleanor and her first husband, they had no reason to stay together if they weren’t.”

“She actually married him, didn’t she?” Strathdon said. “Quite a love story. Odd she left the manuscript behind.”

“She probably had more pressing things on her mind,” Malcolm said. “Her husband attainted, the estates forfeited. And her own family may not have been best pleased she was running off with Woolright.”

“Though she did manage to keep her Harleton daughter with her,” Crispin said.

“She didn’t have any sons with Harleton?” Suzanne asked, absurdly comforted by the thought that Eleanor Harleton had not lost custody of her child.

“No, they just had the one daughter. At the time of Harleton’s death there was no estate or title to pass on, but Harleton’s younger brother’s son eventually got both restored. Eleanor Harleton and Francis Woolright had a son and two more daughters, I believe.”

“I confess it sounds on the surface as though they had an agreeable life,” Manon said. She took a sip of champagne. “But of course we all know appearances can be deceiving.”

 

Jessica stretched and opened her eyes as Suzanne bent over her bassinet in the night nursery. She smiled in anticipation of her late-night feeding, a spit bubble forming on her lip. Malcolm smoothed the covers over Colin and tucked his stuffed bear, Figaro, back into the crook of his arm. Laura Dudley would have been listening for both children from her room next door, but she discreetly never bothered Suzanne and Malcolm at night when the children were sleeping. Suzanne hoped Laura was asleep herself.

Suzanne carried Jessica through the door into their own bedchamber. Once again she wasn’t sure what Malcolm would do, but he adjusted the tin shade on the night-light and followed. Suzanne settled in the worn green velvet armchair, unfastened her net overdress, and undid the strings that held the nursing flap on her gown in place (Jessica’s birth had necessitated a whole new wardrobe). First things first, and it was for Malcolm to speak.

Malcolm lit the Argand lamp, just as he always did when they returned from an evening out. The hiss and flare of light brought the comfort of the familiar and the ache of its loss. “Addison’s going to marry Blanca.”

She nearly gripped Jessica too tightly as relief coursed through her. “Thank God.” Blanca had been bright-eyed and surprisingly cheerful when she had helped Suzanne dress for the evening. She must have been waiting for Addison to tell Malcolm before she shared the news with Suzanne. Suzanne studied her husband. The futures of so many different people depended on him. “Do you—”

Malcolm shrugged out of his coat. “I want Addison to do what makes him happy. God knows he’s been tailoring his life to suit my humors long enough. I’ve told him we’ll find rooms for them. Perhaps we can rearrange the guest suite. I thought you’d have a better idea about that than I would.”

“Malcolm—” Suzanne stared at his shadowed eyes in the wash of lamplight. “You want them both to stay here?” Even without the recent revelations it was an unorthodox arrangement.

“I think at this point it’s a question of both of them or neither.” He kept his gaze on his cravat as he unwound it. “Did you think I’d revert to aristocratic type and refuse to have a valet who was married? Or that I’d refuse to allow Blanca to continue under this roof when you’re here?”

“No.” She cradled Jessica closer. “That is—”

He met her gaze, a bitter challenge in his eyes. “You weren’t sure. Once again I find myself wondering if you knew me any more than I knew you.”

“Addison and Blanca were unsure enough that they put off their betrothal.”

Malcolm tossed the cravat down. “Addison takes the forms seriously. But then as a valet he has to.” He started on the jet buttons on his waistcoat. “Even granted I’m the prisoner of my world that you think me, I don’t think I’d ever have been so barbaric or so shortsighted as to tell Addison and Blanca they couldn’t marry and keep their employment.”

Her heart turned over. “No. I do realize that, darling.”

He tossed the waistcoat after the coat and cravat. “I probably should have realized Addison would have these scruples and have told him straight out they were ridiculous. But that would have meant stepping onto personal ground Addison and I avoid.” He unfastened a shirt cuff. “Addison’s ability to see the situation from Blanca’s viewpoint is remarkable.”

Jessica was still suckling industriously, though her eyes were closed, her arm curled over Suzanne’s breast with comforting familiarity. “Blanca was swept into the masquerade along with me. She never meant to entrap Addison. Addison saw where to place the blame.”

“That’s much what he said.” Malcolm pulled his shirt over his head and quickly wrapped himself in his dressing gown, as he would have done in the early days of their marriage, when they were still physical strangers. “But not the part about placing the blame. In fact, I’d say he saw the situation from your perspective better than I did. Of course he wasn’t wallowing in his own stupidity.”

She swallowed. “Malcolm, if I could—”

“I doubt it.” He tied the belt on his dressing gown and leaned against the bedpost. “I doubt you’d do anything differently. You’re too good at your job. At least Addison’s going into his marriage with his eyes open. And it’s what he wants. I owe it to him to do my best to help him make it work.”

“Thank you.” She swallowed. How could a few feet of their bedchamber seem an uncrossable gulf? “That is, I know you didn’t do it for me, of course, but I’m very happy for them. You know how much they both mean to me.”

He looked at her for a moment, his gaze not so much angry as remote. “No, I don’t really. I know you’ve seemed fond of them, but then you’ve seemed a lot of things. I’m still adjusting to the fact that I don’t know you at all.”

Jessica stirred in her sleep and threw her head back, kicking her legs. Suzanne coaxed the baby’s head back to her breast. “Sometimes I’m not sure I know myself.”

“I can well imagine it after living a lie for so long.” Again it was a statement of fact rather than an accusation. Which somehow cut deeper than a dagger thrust.

“Darling—Malcolm—You can’t think it was all—”

“I think you made yourself into the perfect wife for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, turning the burgundy silk of the dressing gown into armor. “Who knew just what I needed, just what I would respond to.” He glanced round the room, the sconces with crystal girandoles she’d chosen, the gray and cream wall hangings, the moss green and burgundy embroidered silk coverlet she’d purchased in Lisbon, the theatrical prints she’d hung on the walls. “You created the perfect home.” His gaze went to the door behind which Colin slept. “The perfect nursery—”

“You can’t think the children are part of it.” The words were stung out of her.

“The children are at the heart of it.” He looked at Jessica in her arms, then studied Suzanne herself as though she were a text written in code. “You used me. You used yourself. That’s what spies do. But you dragged Colin into the game before he was even born. What in God’s name were you thinking?”

“Of the spring campaign.” She could feel the insistent tug of Jessica’s mouth on her nipple and the weight of the baby’s arm across her breast. “How vital it would be to the course of the war. I could barely think ahead to June, when he’d be born.”

“That’s no way for a parent to think.”

“No.” She looked down at Jessica’s profile. In the warm lamplight, the bones of her face stood out beneath the baby softness, showing the woman she would grow into. God knew what that woman would think of her mother. “I wasn’t a parent then. And even now I still sometimes think like an agent. In many ways I’m not a very nice person.”

“Don’t, Suzette.” His voice was like a shock of cold water.

“Don’t what?”

“Take the easy way out.” He watched her a moment longer, the way he’d look at a code when a pattern began to form in his head, but the data remained tantalizingly out of reach. “All right. With Colin you responded tactically. I can even perhaps understand that. But what in God’s name were you thinking when you told me you wanted to have Jessica?”

Instinctively she pulled the baby closer. Miraculous, the boneless way they melted into you. “That I wanted another child with you.”

He gave a harsh laugh, then stared at her. “So I’d be tied to you? Because you thought you owed it to me? So Colin would have a sibling?”

“I’m not sure.”

His gaze shot over her face, hard and level. “Well, that’s honest at least.”

“I think I wanted—” She stumbled, picking her way through an unfamiliar landscape. “A child that we created together. That wasn’t part of past deceptions.”

He gave a rough laugh that bounced off the freshly painted plasterwork. “Christ, Suzette. Everything between us is mired in past deceptions. And always will be.”

She smoothed a tuft of Jessica’s hair that curled up at the back of her head. “I know I wanted Jessica. For reasons that had nothing to do with being an agent.”

“You can’t possibly be sure of that.” He glanced away, then looked back at her face. “But it’s hard for me to quarrel with events that gave me Colin and Jessica. I just want to be sure they don’t suffer for our sins.”

“My sins.”

“And mine, at least of omission. If I were halfway good at my job, I’d have had the wit to see what was going on.” He grimaced. “I knew I wasn’t cut out for marriage. I told myself you needed me”—he gave a wry laugh—“and that gave me license to try.”

“Malcolm, no.” She leaned forwards, then checked herself because of Jessica and because she saw the recoil in her husband’s eyes. “Whatever I’ve done to you, don’t doubt yourself. You’re a wonderful husband. And father. Don’t let me prevent you from caring for others.”

“Thank you. I think you can leave it to me to manage my personal relationships.” He watched her for a moment as though he were looking through a telescope at an object receding into the distance. “I was going to move my things into the dressing room, but I don’t want to alert the servants to anything being amiss between us. The next thing we know there’ll be talk and ten to one it will get back to Carfax. So we’ll have to muddle through in the same room.”

“I’ve never objected to sharing a bed.” She wondered when, if ever, he’d touch her again. After all, anger and lust were far from mutually exclusive. But with Malcolm, passion had always been inextricably linked to tenderness.

His look told her it would be a long time. “For Colin and Jessica’s sake, we have to find a way to live together without hating each other. I’ve seen what it does to children to grow up with parents with nothing but contempt for each other. I’d give anything to spare Colin and Jessica that fate.”

“I could never hate you, Malcolm. But I don’t know that you’ll ever be able to stop hating me.”