The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (6 page)

“No. But I have more information to go on.” Malcolm scanned his spymaster’s face. The sharp bones, the hard spectacle lenses, the opaque gaze beneath. Carfax was not an easy father, but as Malcolm had once pointed out to David, at least he cared about his children. “Why didn’t you tell me my father was working with Harleton?”

Carfax released his breath in a long sigh, part surprise, part what might have been triumph. “You found proof?”

“So you did know?” Malcolm’s hand tightened round the arm of the chair, so hard the acanthus leaves carved on it were imprinted on his palm.

“Interesting.” Carfax regarded him for a moment. “I’d have sworn you didn’t have any illusions where Alistair was concerned.”

“Damn it, sir—”

Carfax folded the newspaper into neat quarters. “I’ve suspected Alistair for years. Unlike with Harleton, I didn’t have any proof. If I had, I don’t think I’d have let your father continue to operate. He had a considerably keener understanding than Harleton. In truth, one of the reasons I kept giving Harleton rope was the hope that Alistair would hang himself.”

Malcolm swallowed and tasted the ashes of bitterness. He thought he’d had no illusions about Alistair Rannoch. He thought he’d come to terms with this latest revelation. So why did he feel as though he was going to lose his breakfast over the oak furniture and Axminster carpet? “Since when have you waited for proof before bringing someone in?”

“Use your head, Malcolm.” Carfax slapped the newspaper down on the polished top of the table between their chairs. “Alistair wasn’t an émigré or a courtesan or a minor diplomat. If I’d taken action against the Duke of Strathdon’s son-in-law who was also a prominent Member of Parliament—”

“It’s not as though my grandfather was overfond of him.” Malcolm could rarely remember a conversation between Alistair and the duke, but he could see the contempt that had filled his grandfather’s gaze when it rested on Alistair.

Carfax gave a short laugh. “There’s nothing like an outside threat to create family unity. Trust me, Strathdon would never have stood by while I took action against Alistair.”

“It wouldn’t have had to be public action.”

“People would have asked questions if Alistair had disappeared. He was friends with half the Tory aristocracy. Your aunt Frances alone would have made a fuss I couldn’t have controlled, and she didn’t even much like him.”

And Lady Frances Dacre-Hammond numbered two royal dukes and possibly the prince regent among her bedmates. Carfax had a point. Malcolm drew a breath. “It didn’t occur to you to tell me?”

“I tell you what you need to know, Malcolm. Occasionally, I confess, what you force me to reveal. But what good would it have done for me to tell you this? When Alistair was alive, I couldn’t be sure what you’d have done with the truth.”

Malcolm’s fingers clamped on the chair arm. “What does that mean?”

Carfax adjusted one of the earpieces on his spectacles. “He was your father.”

“You think I’d have protected him?”

“I’m not sure. But I think you’d have had a hard time turning him over to face justice. You have a hard enough time doing that with some agents who aren’t related to you.”

Past incidents shot through Malcolm’s mind, but he wasn’t going to let himself be distracted. “And after Alistair died?”

“What good—”

“When you told me about Harleton?”

“I thought about it,” Carfax conceded. “But to be honest I wasn’t sure you’d believe me without proof. And I wanted to see what you could come up with on your own, without my muddying the waters by planting the suspicion.”

“By God, sir—”

“You’re in shock, Malcolm. When you can think coolly, you’ll understand why I acted as I did.” Carfax regarded him for a moment. “I’m not insensible of what you’re going through, you know. Impressions to the contrary, I am not without feeling.”

“Sir—” Malcolm swallowed. “I never suggested you were.”

Carfax’s gaze drilled into Malcolm’s own. “What have you learned?”

Malcolm drew a breath. Why did answering feel like a betrayal? “Crispin Harleton found a letter from my father to his. Talking about secrets that could ruin them both.”

Carfax’s mouth curled in a smile of satisfaction. “It’s ironic. You’re the Jacobin with the dangerous ideas that would turn society on its ear if you ever had the chance to put them into effect. I don’t think Alistair had a Radical bone in his body.”

“No. I’d have sworn his politics were much like yours.”

Carfax settled back in the chair. He was wiry and surprisingly slight, but somehow he turned the leather and oak of the chair into a throne. “I worried about you when you were up at Oxford, you know. The dangerous nonsense you’d spout off about in coffeehouses and write down in pamphlets. That you and Tanner embroiled my son in. But then I realized that for all your dangerous views, you’d never betray king and country.”

“So sure?” For an instant, Malcolm knew a savage desire to prove Carfax wrong.

“You take your loyalties seriously, my boy.”

“I never thought to find you echoing Suzette, but that’s almost exactly what she said.”

“Your wife is a perceptive woman.”

“A few minutes ago, you suggested I’d have tried to protect Alistair if I’d learned the truth while he was still alive.”

“Oh, I think you would have done. You wouldn’t have stood by and let him hang for a traitor. But you wouldn’t have been able to forgive him. Just as you find yourself unable to forgive him now. I hope your wounded feelings won’t impede your investigation.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Yes, I rather think you will. The one thing that may be stronger than your loyalty is your tenacity.”

Malcolm forced his fingers to unclench on the chair arm. He needed every ounce of self-command he possessed. “Was my father murdered?”

Carfax smoothed his fingers over the newspaper, brows drawn in what appeared to be honest appraisal. “I wondered, of course, especially as it followed close on Harleton’s death. I’d made some inquiries, but the carriage was smashed too badly to determine if it had been tampered with before the accident. I couldn’t determine who’d have gone after Alistair and Harleton at that time. Now—”

“You think they were killed by someone who wants this manuscript?”

“If so, the person was singularly unsuccessful.”

“Or by someone who wanted revenge on both of them for a past wrong? Or wanted to shut them both up because of some past secret? I haven’t seen this letter from my father to Harleton yet, but Crispin said there was a mention in it of something to do with Dunboyne. Does that mean anything to you?”

Carfax’s fingers froze on the newspaper. The look in his eyes was part surprise, part wariness, and part the scent of the chase.

“What happened at Dunboyne?” Malcolm asked.

Carfax set the newspaper on the table and cast a glance round the empty morning room. His gaze lingered on the door for a moment. “One of the drawbacks of involving you in investigations, Malcolm, is the need to reveal things to you.”

“I could investigate on my own and see what I come up with.”

“You would anyway. But I have a vested interest in you not blundering about as though this were a game of blindman’s bluff.” Carfax leaned forwards across the table in an unusually confiding posture. “Nearly twenty years ago, in July of ’98, Lord Dewhurst went from a late meeting with the prime minister to a dinner with a group of friends. He had his dispatch box with him. Containing documents relating to a secret mission he and I had just discussed with the P.M.”

“In France?” Malcolm asked, shutting his mind to the instinctive recoil at the mention of Dewhurst.

“In Ireland.” Carfax’s mouth tightened. “It was at the height of the United Irish Uprising. We’d scattered the rebels, but they were still strong. I had just received intelligence about the location where a group of the ringleaders were hiding out in Dunboyne. At our meeting Pitt had signed off on a mission to send a special force in to take them captive.”

Memory clicked into place in Malcolm’s head. “Was that—”

“Yes, when the force arrived, they found the rebels were prepared for them. We lost ten of our best men.” Carfax drew a breath that grated with frustration, but his gaze was uncompromising. “I believe the intelligence came from someone getting into Dewhurst’s dispatch box at that dinner party. Based on who was at that dinner party, that narrows it down to five men.”

“My father or Harleton?”

“No. Ironically, they were there, but they both left early. Before Dewhurst arrived. It has to be one of the five others.”

“But you think whoever it was, this person was working with my father and Harleton?”

“I’ve always wondered. This seems to confirm it.” Carfax hesitated again. His gaze shifted beyond Malcolm to the wall behind.

“You know I’ll need their names, sir.”

Carfax dragged his gaze back to Malcolm. “If asked I’ll deny I ever said any of this.”

“Isn’t that true of all our conversations?”

Carfax gave a wintry smile. “Lord Bessborough.”

Malcolm blinked. “The Duke of Devonshire’s brother-in-law?”

“Quite. You see why this is a ticklish business. Sir Horace Smytheton.”

“The patron of the Tavistock?”

“Interesting, isn’t it? Not sure what to make of the connection. Archibald Davenport.”

“Good God.” Malcolm sat forwards in his chair.

“Yes, I know you’re close to his nephew. I leave it to you how much you tell Harry Davenport, but for God’s sake use some discretion. I know Davenport was in intelligence, but we don’t need an outraged former agent defending the family honor.”

“I don’t think Harry Davenport acknowledges the existence of family honor.”

“You might well have said the same before your father was dragged into this.”

Malcolm shifted in his chair. “Who are the last two?”

“Hugo Cyrus.”

Malcolm sorted through his knowledge of past events. “Didn’t Cyrus’s brother die in the Dunboyne business?”

“He did, but he joined the mission at the last minute. Cyrus wouldn’t have known his brother was involved when he betrayed the mission. If he betrayed the mission. Though if that’s the case he now has to live with the guilt of it. Which I admit even I would find hard to bear.”

Malcolm, thinking of his brother and sisters, including the one he had lost, could not suppress a shudder.

“And the last person?”

“Dewhurst himself.”

Malcolm stared at his spymaster. “Good God.”

“Oh, that’s right. He was involved in the business in France two years ago, wasn’t he?”

“You know damned well he was.”

“I did my best to stay out of that mess. It seemed to come down to a sad tangle of personal relationships and meddling by the French authorities.”

“That was certainly the story we thought it best to put about. There was a fair amount of meddling and bungling on our own side as well.”

Carfax smoothed a corner of the newspaper. “Precisely why I thought it best to stay out of it. Besides, it all dealt with events in the Peninsula and France.”

“Which are precisely the sort of events you expertly influence. Don’t sell yourself short, sir. Suffice it to say, the events two years ago didn’t leave Dewhurst and me on amicable terms. I think it’s safe to say he blames me for his estrangement from his son.”

“But those same events should have left you with considerable leverage over Dewhurst.”

“I thought you said you stayed out of things.”

“That didn’t stop me from noting the pertinent developments. You have a hold on Dewhurst, Malcolm. Don’t be squeamish about using it. God knows Dewhurst doesn’t deserve such consideration.” Carfax shook his head. “The man was a fool. By going after Bertrand Laclos, he only roused his son’s anger. If he’d simply left his son alone, Caruthers and Laclos would have grown apart and Caruthers would have done what was expected of him as his father’s heir.”

As you’re hoping your own son will do?
Malcolm bit the words back just in time. Carfax never directly referred to David and Simon’s relationship. Malcolm sensed that not referring to it was crucial to keeping Carfax from interfering. Lord Dewhurst’s interference in his son Rupert’s relationship with Bertrand Laclos two years ago had crystalized many of Malcolm’s fears for David and Simon.

The events two years ago had also left Malcolm with a strong desire to draw Lord Dewhurst’s cork, but such an action would scarcely produce the desired results. “You strategized missions with Dewhurst.”

“Yes, I know. I watched him carefully, but he never betrayed himself. Dewhurst was in and out of France all the time in the nineties and the early part of this century. Excellent cover if he had been an agent.”

“He’s—”

“One of our most prominent diplomats. Quite.” Carfax pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “If Harleton and your father knew who was behind the Dunboyne leak and the codebook could reveal that man’s identity, it’s likely that man is also behind their deaths.” He laid his hand, palm down, on the newspaper, pressing out the wrinkles. “Whether Dewhurst leaked the information himself or left his dispatch box where someone else could get at it, I should never have trusted him with the information. The Dunboyne leak is one of my worst failures, Malcolm. I’ve wanted to find out who was behind it for almost two decades. This codebook could be the break we need to unearth the agent, but it’s an investigation that will require the utmost discretion. All of these men have powerful friends. Even with proof, it won’t be easy to bring the agent to justice.”

“And accusing the wrong person could be a catastrophe.”

“Quite. Even the questions have to be asked delicately.”

“A lot of feathers could be ruffled.”

“Precisely.” Carfax tightened a spectacle piece behind his ear. “Which is why you’re perfectly placed to conduct the investigation. Whatever your politics, your pedigree is impeccable. And I know I can rely upon your discretion. Especially with your father involved.”