The Mayfair Affair (12 page)

Raoul descended the steps of Newgate. A damp wind tugged at his greatcoat. Ironbound wheels clattered by, sending up a spray of muddy water from the gutter. A newsboy hawked a paper in a hoarse voice. A law clerk pushed past him, shoving papers into a sheaf of foolscap. Part of his mind noted his surroundings as he had trained himself to do, but shock glazed his senses. He prided himself on being a hardheaded realist prepared for the worst to happen. But it was one thing to tell oneself that. And quite another to actually confront the reality.

His hands had curled into fists. Stupid. This was no time to give way to sentiment. He had to keep his wits about him. If he'd managed it after Waterloo, he could manage it now.

He grimaced as he skirted two tradesmen arguing on the street corner. Not the best analogy, perhaps. But he'd managed to see to the safety of most of his agents after Waterloo. He could do damage control now.

What had he thought? That he could send Suzanne on one of the most difficult missions possible, and have both her and Malcolm escape unhurt? Even when Malcolm learned the truth, Raoul had been more confident than Suzanne that they'd find a way to go on. Yes, it was difficult. Yes, there were hurts that still hadn't healed. But if he hadn't acted, they would never have met. Or so he had told himself.

He'd have said he was no stranger to guilt. That he'd learned to live with the acrid bite in his mouth, to make his move in the chess game of life and go on. But the truth was he'd been hiding as much as anyone. Somehow he had been able to avoid fully confronting the ugly truth of what he had done to the two people who meant more to him than anyone else on earth. Anyone else, with the exception of their two children.

Talk about living in a fairy tale. There were times when he'd thought neither of them would speak to him again. But at least he'd known they were safe.

He stumbled on the slick paving stones, gripped a lamppost to steady himself. It was folly to dwell on his own delusions. What mattered now, as he so often told Suzanne, was moving forwards.

And all things considered, it would be easier to do that if he didn't let Malcolm or Suzanne see quite how worried he was.

Malcolm dropped down on a black metal bench in the Berkeley Square garden. "Apparently, Trenchard was trying to write Mary out of his will."

One eye on Colin and Jessica, who were playing on the square flagstones, Suzanne listened as her husband recounted his interview with James, the new Duke of Trenchard. "The timing is similar to when David first noticed the bruise," she said.

"Yes." Malcolm's mouth tightened. "If Trenchard was abusive, it's likely that wasn't the first time he struck her, but something particular seems to have happened in the last month."

And if something particular had gone wrong between Trenchard and Mary recently, it gave Mary a stronger motive. Malcolm didn't say that, but she could see the fear in his eyes. "Difficult to know whom it might give a motive to, until we know what they quarreled about." Including Carfax. And David.

Malcolm nodded, his gaze on the children. Jessica was tugging a pink-painted wooden rabbit by a string. She gave a howl of protest as Colin tried to steady it. "Let her try on her own, old chap," Malcolm said. And then, without turning his gaze from the children, "Did you hear any gossip?"

"About Trenchard and Mary? You mean, did I hear rumors in the ladies' retiring room that the Duchess of Trenchard had a lover?"

He turned his head to meet her gaze. "You'd be more likely to have heard it than I. And you have a good ear for ferreting out information."

"Spoken with tact, dearest. But I had no reason to ferret out information about the Trenchards."

"Still—"

"The only talk I heard about Mary Trenchard was some disparaging comments on her choice of gown or the way she was wearing her hair. Which I think stemmed from jealousy of a beautiful woman with the fortune to dress in the first style of elegance and the taste to make impeccable choices. A love affair isn't the only reason for a marriage to fall apart." There were other things, such as the wife being a French agent.

"No. But—"

The wooden rabbit toppled over. Jessica screamed. "Pick the bunny up, darling," Suzanne said. "Let Colin hold her while you pull." For a moment she thought she was going to have to get up and intervene, but Jessica's cries abated, Colin righted the rabbit, and Jessica consented for him to hold the rabbit steady while she tugged the string. "For what it's worth, if Cordy had heard any gossip about the Trenchards, I think she'd have told me."

"You brought Cordy into the investigation?"

"She rather brought herself in. She came to see me. And she took me to call on Henrietta Tarrington. That is, the new duchess."

Malcolm's gaze sharpened. "And?"

Suzanne recounted her and Cordelia's interview with the new Duchess of Trenchard.

"Interesting about Hampson," Malcolm said, when she had done. "Though it's hard to imagine him knowing about the secret passage."

"That depends," Suzanne said. "What if he and Trenchard knew each other better than everyone thinks. Suppose he was an Elsinore League member, too."

Malcolm's gaze sharpened. "Intriguing. It could explain why Trenchard didn't raise more of a fuss about the marriage. But most of the Elsinore League members we know about came from more powerful backgrounds."

"Your—Alistair didn't. Not when the club started."

"A point." Malcolm's brows drew together.

"There's no proof," Suzanne said. "But obviously there was still some connection between the two men. The likeliest is that it was to do with Jane Hampson, but we don't know that for a certainty."

"No. If—"

Malcolm broke off. A tall figure was approaching along the side of the square. His hat shadowed his face, but Suzanne recognized that quick, loose-limbed gait immediately. From Malcolm's sudden stillness, she knew he had recognized it as well.

"Uncle Raoul!" Colin sprang up and ran to the square gate.

Suzanne stole a glance at Malcolm. Colin called their family friends "uncle" and "aunt," and Raoul now was a frequent enough visitor to their house that Colin had fallen into the habit of using "uncle." The first time he had done so, Suzanne had asked Malcolm if he minded. "Why should I?" he'd said. Then, as now, his face was set against betraying any emotion.

"Are you helping Mummy and Daddy help Laura?" Colin asked.

Raoul froze, his hand on the latch of the gate. "You're a very perceptive boy, Colin."

"La'ra." Jessica's voice rose to a wail. As Raoul came through the gate, she toddled over to fling her arms round his boots.

Raoul bent down to touch her wispy hair. "We'll have her back with you soon, poppet."

Suzanne scanned his face as he crossed to the bench where she and Malcolm sat, seeking clues. There was a sense of contained energy about him, accounted for by the challenge of the investigation. Not necessarily anything more. And yet—

"What?" she asked.

Raoul leaned against the gnarled trunk of a plane tree, so that to face him she and Malcolm both had to turn away from the children. Raoul looked between the two of them. "Miss Dudley knew about Suzanne."

Suzanne stared at her former spymaster. "How did you find out?"

"I asked her."

Suzanne's gaze flickered to the children. Their attention was back to the wooden rabbit. "Doing it much too brown, Raoul."

"On the contrary. It took a bit of persuading, but I flatter myself that Miss Dudley and I have always understood each other tolerably well."

Malcolm dropped his arm round Suzanne's shoulders. "Did Laura tell Trenchard?"

"No, he told her. He seemed to think she was too fond of the pair of you. It doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. Her work aside, Miss Dudley appears to be more loyal to people than to countries or causes."

Malcolm's arm bit into Suzanne's shoulders. "If she knows—"

"This may sound odd in the circumstances, but I think we can trust her. At least as far as we can trust anyone."

"Damn it, O'Roarke, the risk—"

"Don't you think I'm well aware of the risk?" Raoul's voice was low, but it cut like glass.

Malcolm pulled Suzanne closer. "It was bad enough when just we knew. Trenchard, Miss Dudley—"

"It's a risk."

"And you think—"

"That you needn't pack up for Italy just yet." Raoul lifted a hand to acknowledge Colin, who was holding up Berowne, the cat. "I have every faith that you can make it out of the country ahead of Carfax's agents, should it come to that."

Malcolm's arm relaxed a fraction. "Damn you, O'Roarke."

Suzanne kept her gaze on her former spymaster as he watched the children. "Does Laura know about you as well?"

"Oh, yes."

"You're more at risk than we are."

"I'll manage." He was still watching the children.

Suzanne gave a desperate laugh. "And to think I congratulated myself on having found the perfect governess when I interviewed her."

"In a way, you have done," Raoul said.

"Someone who was spying on us?"

"She isn't spying on you now, and you know what she knows. It makes the secrets easier to negotiate."

Suzanne watched her son swing her daughter round. "I trusted her."

Raoul touched her arm. "And I think you were right to do so."

Malcolm shook his head. "If she talks—"

"It's a risk," Suzanne said. "But we live with risk. Careful, darling," she called to Colin as he ran after Jessica. "Remember she's a lot smaller if you bump into her." She looked back at Malcolm. "This is the life I've dragged you into."

"No time for guilt, sweetheart."

Suzanne looked at Raoul. "Laura trusts you."

"We understand each other. I don't think she came close to telling me the whole. She's trying to protect the two of you, and Colin and Jessica, but there's more she's trying to protect, and I'm damned if I can see what it is."

Malcolm gave a wry smile. "I own I'm relieved you aren't two steps ahead of us."

"I said much the same to Miss Dudley. She's a formidable woman." Raoul moved to the bench and sat beside them, at a careful distance. "But I don't imagine I'm the only one to have learned something new."

Malcolm flicked a glance at Suzanne, and the two of them updated Raoul on their discoveries of the day.

"Interesting," Raoul said. "We can ask Archibald Davenport if he ever heard of Colonel Hampson in connection with the Elsinore League. Whatever made Trenchard attempt to cut his wife out of his will, he was obviously angry enough that he was willing to risk Carfax's ire."

Malcolm nodded. "Of course, if Carfax knew—"

"You don't know that he did. Or that Worsley did. Or even that the duchess did. Perhaps this Emily isn't a by-blow. Perhaps Trenchard fancied himself in love with her."

"You think Trenchard tumbled into love?" Malcolm demanded.

"The most seemingly hardened people are capable of it. And it isn't solely a folly of the young. The Carfaxes haven't canceled the musicale this evening, have they?"

"I was half expecting them to," Suzanne said, "but we haven't heard anything."

"Carfax knows parties are the best place to uncover information," Malcolm said. "And with Carfax, information gathering trumps just about everything else. He just doesn't realize we're going to be gathering information about him."

Suzanne cast a sharp glance at her husband. Spying on his spymaster was enough to shake even his equanimity. But he merely said, "I need to go round to Bow Street and give Roth an update. I'll be back in time to dress for the musicale, Suzette. We'll see you there, O'Roarke."

And he was gone, crouching down on the flagstones to speak with Colin and Jessica, then striding along the edge of Berkeley Square.

Raoul stayed still on the bench beside her, though his taut watchfulness reminded her of doing surveillance with him. "I'm sorry," he said, gaze on Malcolm moving down Berkeley Street.

"Sorry?" Suzanne asked.

"I'm the last person in the world you and Malcolm should have to deal with just now."

"If it weren't for you, Jeremy Roth and God knows who else would know I was a French spy. On balance, I think we owe you our thanks."

He leaned his arm along the back of the bench and turned sideways to look at her. "How bad has it been?"

Malcolm had given Colin a string that Colin was now dangling for Berowne. Berowne rolled on his back, batting at it. Jessica crowed with glee. "We're getting by. Which is really all anyone can ask for. I stopped believing in happily-ever-after before I met you."

She thought her tone achieved the right balance of brightness and hardened realism, but his gaze darkened with concern. "
Querida
—"

"I have more than I ever thought would be possible between Malcolm and me if he learned the truth, Raoul. Far, far more than I deserve. Set beside that, the fact that it's never going to be the same shouldn't matter."

"Have you considered that it might be better?"

"Without the lies?"

"I haven't tended to have much respect for truth. But there is something to be said for it."

Colin swung the string in an arc. Berowne darted across the flagstones. "Sometimes it is a relief not to pretend. Not to have to think everything through from a dozen angles when I'm talking to him. I suppose that should help make up for—"

"What?" Raoul asked.

"For the fact that I'm not at all sure he'll ever fully trust me again. That I'll never really know if we're together because he loves me, or because we have children together and he doesn't have any choice."

"My dear girl. You can't possibly think that."

"No?" She turned from the laughing children and playful cat to meet her former spymaster's gaze. "He'd never have married me if he'd known the truth."

"Well, no. He's too good an agent to have knowingly married someone bent on spying on him. If you mean he wouldn't have married someone who wasn't from his world— I think you may be doing him a disservice. But what matters is how he feels now."

Suzanne shrugged, a defensive gesture. "It scarcely matters now. We need to make it work. Gentle, darling," she called, as Jessica rolled on her stomach to pet Berowne.

"She's remarkably good with him," Raoul said.

"She has good instincts."

"Like her mother."

Suzanne gave a smile that hurt her face. But, after a moment, she again turned to look at him. "Raoul? You're right, this does complicate things. And God knows I wish none of this had happened—for Laura, for Malcolm, for myself. But I'm not sorry you're here. I've missed you."

His answering smile brought a comfort that had nothing to do with romance. "I've missed you too,
querida
."