The Mayfair Affair (18 page)

"And even after Jack's death, he still had an heir from his first marriage. With James's two sons, and then Bobby, there was little chance another child would fall heir to the title even if it were a boy. According to many versions of the rules of our world, I should have had license to indulge myself. Not that I ever expected to, precisely. I'm not like—"

"Me," Cordelia said.

Mary flashed a bleak smile at her. "You were willing to go after what you wanted without caring about the consequences, Cordy. I can admire that, in a way. Though I suppose, in some ways, that's what I did myself when I married Trenchard. I was just wrong about what I wanted."

Cordelia reached across the tea table to touch Mary's hand. "So was I," she said, obviously thinking of her first love who had later become her lover and had come close to destroying her marriage.

Mary pressed down the lace ruffle on her sleeve. "As I told Mrs. Rannoch yesterday, I had no illusions that I was in love with Trenchard when I married him. I'd been in love, with the younger son of the curate at Carfax Court. We were foolish enough to become secretly betrothed when I was seventeen. I should probably be grateful to Father for putting an end to it before we could fall out of love, though for close on half a year I thought my life would end." She tugged at a snagged thread. "I don't think David ever knew. He was at Harrow. Louisa knew. Odd to think we were once close enough I confided in her. My other sisters were too young to confide in, though I've sometimes thought Bel suspected. In any case, by the time I made my debut, I'd decided love was a trap for the unwary to fall into. Love and everything that went with it. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I didn't appreciate everything that went with it."

"That can take a while," Suzanne said. It had in her case, though that was because of the brutal nature of her introduction to physical intimacy.

"I quite enjoyed the attention of being a reigning beauty. I'm sorry, I daresay that sounds arrogant, but that's what I was. But by the time I was twenty, it was time I was married, and Trenchard could offer me position, fortune, and title greater than my father's."

"And the safety of not risking love," Cordelia said. "Oddly enough, that's what I thought when I married Harry."

The duchess frowned for a moment, in what seemed to be genuine consideration. "You were more fortunate in your choice than I, Cordy, though I wouldn't have said so at first. I enjoyed settling into life as Duchess of Trenchard. I enjoyed my children when they came. Trenchard's affairs piqued my vanity a bit, but didn't seriously disturb me. Whatever one thinks of one's husband, one doesn't like the idea that—"

"One isn't enough for him," Suzanne said. She'd expected, when she married Malcolm, that he wouldn't necessarily be faithful. She'd have said she was sanguine about it. But even from the first, she knew it would have driven her mad.

"Precisely. But there were enough other men to admire me to soothe my vanity. And admiration is all I really wanted. Then."

"What changed things?" Cordelia asked.

A faint smile curved her mouth. "To say 'meeting the right person' sounds unbelievably trite, doesn't it? I've never been able to bear the idea of being a cliché. And I don't really know that that's what it was. Perhaps it was something in me. I'd mastered my life as a duchess. I'd had children. Perhaps I was looking for distraction. Save that he was much more than that."

The air in the room tightened, like the pause in a symphony before a shift into a new theme.

"'He'?" Suzanne asked.

"Oh no, Mrs. Rannoch." Mary Trenchard locked her gaze with Suzanne's own. "I may be foolish enough to confess on my own account, but I won't betray him. Suffice it to say, many of my blind assumptions about what mattered in life and what I needed went out the window."

It sounded oddly like how Suzanne might describe falling in love with Malcolm. "Falling in love can do that."

Mary drew a breath as though to protest, then swallowed. "Yes, I suppose I did fall in love. Am in love with him." Her mouth curved with irony but something like wonder trembled beneath her dry tone.

"Does he know about the child?" Cordelia asked.

The duchess shook her head. "It didn't seem fair to burden him. Or to put him at risk. The last thing either of us needs is him attempting to ride to the rescue. There's no easy rescue from a situation such as this."

"The duke didn't know your lover's name?"

"I'm quite sure not." Mary Trenchard pressed her hands over her lap. "I knew I was running risks, but it's no more than many women in our set do once they've given their husband an heir and spare. Sometimes, before that. Provided the succession isn't at stake, husbands like Peter Cowper lend their name to other men's children with every appearance of equanimity. Old Lord Melbourne even made the best of it when Peniston died and William became his heir, though he must know William isn't his by blood. I didn't want Trenchard to find out, but I didn't think he would kick up such a fuss." She gripped her elbows. "He said I could sleep with whom I chose—though he used a cruder word for it—but he had no intention of giving his name to my bastard."

"What did he suggest?"

"He didn't so much suggest as command." Mary Trenchard's pale fingers tightened against the dull black fabric. Her wedding band gleamed in the morning sunlight. "He said I would go abroad to have the baby—France or Italy, I could choose, as long as it was somewhere secluded. Then he would arrange for a home for it. I would give up the baby and return to England. He seemed to think I should be grateful to him for having things so tidily planned out."

Suzanne swallowed, the memory of the weeks before her marriage, when she had known she was pregnant with Colin, sharp in her throat. "Unconscionable."

The duchess shot a look at her. "You think so?"

"To ask a woman to give up her child? Yes."

Mary Trenchard's hand slid to her stomach. "I told him as much. I've always been the sort to do what's required to preserve the forms, but in this case I couldn't do so. I told Trenchard nothing would prevail upon me to give up the child. He could divorce me if he chose. He stared at me as though I'd gone mad. Because of course he didn't want to go through the scandal of a divorce."

"And he'd have found it difficult to prove the child wasn't his," Cordelia said.

"Quite. As my husband at the time the child was conceived, he'd be the legal father. He was well aware of that, and it made him all the more angry."

"And then?"

"Trenchard said if I pushed him, I'd regret it. He could keep Bobby and the girls from me. Did I want to trade them for my bastard?" A flinch showed in her eyes. "I may not be the most effusive mother, but I couldn't bear the thought of losing any of my children. Of course Trenchard couldn't deny them to me without a scandal. I pointed out as much. That we seemed to be at point-non-plus. That made him all the more angry." Her hand came up to her cheek. "He struck me. It's the only time he's done so. A hard enough blow that I fell to the carpet." Her eyes darkened at the memory. "I don't think I knew what it was to hate until I lay there staring up at him."

That hatred shone from Mary's eyes now. Strong enough to kill her husband? Very likely, Suzanne would have said. Whether or not the duchess had done so was another question. "Did you think about going to your father?" Suzanne asked.

"And telling him I was pregnant by another man? Oh, he'd have been furious with Trenchard for striking me. But I think he'd have agreed with the plan of my going abroad and giving up the baby. Sweeping mistakes under the carpet is very much my father's modus operandi, after all." She loosed her fingers and took a sip of Madeira with iron determination, then put a hand to her mouth, as though the drink had sickened her.

Cordelia picked up the plate of biscuits. "Eat one of these. It helps with the nausea."

Mary gave a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You'd think I'd remember from my other pregnancies." She took an almond biscuit and chewed a mouthful as though forcing herself to do so.

Cordelia returned the plate to the sofa table. "What happened next?"

"We avoided each other. I could see the threat in Trenchard's eyes, but he didn't try to speak to me in private. It was like walking on glass. Or perhaps knives would be more accurate."

"What did you plan to do?" Suzanne asked.

"I didn't. I couldn't see a viable move. I'm not sure he could either. It was as though we had each other in check." Mary wiped the crumbs from her fingers with meticulous care.

Cordelia cast a glance at Suzanne, then looked back at Mary. "And now that the duke is dead—"

"The world will assume the baby to be his." Mary dropped her napkin on the table as though it burned her. "Quite. It's odd, that wasn't the first thing that occurred to me when I heard the news. But of course it's true. I'll live a lie the rest of my life and be fortunate to do so. Which, I suppose, gives me an excellent motive to have murdered him." She looked at Suzanne over the Madeira decanter, defiance sharp in her eyes.

"A motive doesn't necessarily make a murderer," Suzanne said.

"It didn't, in my case, though I can scarcely expect you to believe that."

"I believe your husband was a complicated man and may have had any number of enemies." Suzanne took a sip of Madeira. "Speaking of which, do you know of any reason why he'd have quarreled with Frederick Hampson recently?"

"Colonel Hampson? Jane's father?" Mary's brows rose with something more of her habitual expression. "They hadn't seen each other for a year or more. That is, I suppose they might have crossed paths at White's or something—"

"Lady Tarrington heard them quarreling in this house a month ago."

Seemingly genuine surprise filled Mary's gaze. "What on earth was Hetty— Oh, I suppose that was the day she brought her boys over to play with Lucy and Emma. I was helping my mother with cards of invitation for her musicale. But I can't imagine what Trenchard would have had to discuss with Hampson. Trenchard wasn't particularly happy about the connection to the Hampsons. Mrs. Hampson's father keeps a shop in Grace Church Street. Trenchard did what was polite, but he seemed eager to let the connection go. Trenchard was a ridiculous high stickler. David said that was half the reason he was so angry about the baby—"

She broke off. Suzanne set down her glass. "David knew you were pregnant?"

"He noticed the bruise on my cheek. I tried to spin a story, but the whole wretched thing came out."

"You can scarcely be blamed for confiding in your brother. I'm glad you had someone to confide in."

Mary nodded. But her gaze said that she knew full well that by confiding her predicament to her brother, she had also given him an excellent motive to have murdered Trenchard.

"Memories." Cordelia tightened the ribbons on her bonnet as she and Suzanne descended the steps of Trenchard House. "The suffocating horror of knowing one is trapped. By what should be a cause of joy."

Suzanne fought against every instinct to agree with her friend. And after all, their cases were not the same. She hadn't been married when she first learned she was pregnant.

"And I was fortunate in that Harry accepted Livia," Cordelia continued. "Though when I wrote to tell him I was pregnant, I wasn't sure he would."

"That must have been beastly."

Cordelia glanced up and down the street. "Hell. The hell I deserved, given what I'd put him through. I told him I was expecting a child, that I wasn't sure who the father was, and I didn't expect him to do anything for either of us. I could have been kinder. Harry wrote back a very formal letter saying he trusted I was in good health, and I could draw on his banker for anything I needed. I was relieved. Though, to my shame, I told myself that he simply wanted to avoid the scandal. It was months, perhaps years, before I could acknowledge how generous he'd been. How we got from there to here— But even at my lowest, I don't think it occurred to me he'd try to offer me the choice the duke gave the duchess."

When she first learned she was pregnant, with Raoul caught up in the war, Suzanne had been prepared to raise the child alone. But it was one thing to flout convention when one was a social outcast already, and quite another when one was at the heart of society. And she hadn't had other children to think of.

"I don't know that I'd be capable of killing," Cordelia said in a low voice. "But if anything could push me to it, it would be the safety of my children."