The Paris Affair (31 page)

His quarry stood across the ballroom. In the shadows as usual. Raoul was far too seasoned an agent to feel a chill at the mere sight of Fouché’s gaunt figure. At least in theory. Though he couldn’t admit it even—perhaps especially—to Suzanne, he couldn’t help but feel as though the wind in the Cantabrian Mountains had cut through him at the sight of the minister of police.

Fouché noticed him coming. Of course. But he didn’t actually turn his head until Raoul was a handsbreadth away. “Monsieur O’Roarke. I trust you are enjoying your return to Paris.”

“Paris will always be one of my favorite places on earth.” Fouché’s gaze skimmed over him. “Indeed.”

“Where’s your lovely fiancée?”

Fouché glanced at the couples swirling before them. “On the dance floor, I believe.”

“You aren’t dancing with her yourself.”

“No. I prefer to observe.”

Raoul leaned against a pillar at an angle that gave him the best view of the minister of police’s face. The candlelight accentuated Fouché’s thin nose and the tight line of his mouth. “I haven’t yet had the chance to offer you my felicitations.”

“Thank you.”

“Remarkable seeing you now to remember that once the Jacobins found you a moderating influence against Bonaparte’s rage.”

“We all shift with the times.”

“Indeed. Fascinating where people have ended after the last two months.”

“I wouldn’t say anything is ended.”

Raoul shifted his shoulders against the pillar, holding Fouché’s gaze with his own. He remembered standing in a similar pose talking to Fouché on the edge of a dance floor in the spring of 1794. Two days later Raoul had been arrested and thrown in the Conciergerie. “I understand you spoke with Suzanne Rannoch at the theatre last night.”

Fouché raised a brow. “I spoke with a number of people at the theatre.”

“I don’t imagine you can have forgot this conversation. Unless you now threaten so many people with ruin that they all run together.”

Fouché flexed one white-gloved hand. “My dear O’Roarke. Are you admitting to a particular interest in Madame Rannoch?”

“I’m not admitting to anything.” Raoul maintained his casual pose against the pillar, gaze locked on Fouché’s own. “What are you afraid of coming to light about Antoine Rivère?”

“Rivère was insignificant.”

“So I would have thought. And yet you threatened Madame Rannoch to get her husband to stop his investigation.”

“I don’t like a British agent poking his nose into our business.”

“That I can well believe. Because anyone poking their nose into anything concerning you is likely to uncover a rat’s nest of corruption.”

“Scarcely the way to talk to an old friend, O’Roarke,” Fouché said in a mild voice.

“We were never friends. Allies perhaps, but by no means always.”

“By no means indeed.” Fouché’s gaze moved to Suzanne, her dark ringlets and silver net gown stirring as she waltzed with Granville Leveson-Gower. “It was Madame Rannoch you had break into the ministry of police to retrieve the information about Queen Hortense’s child, wasn’t it?”

“You can hardly expect me to answer. But for old times’ sake, I advise you to leave Madame Rannoch alone if you value your own safety.”

“You intrigue me. I’m sure she’s an able agent, but I assure you I am quite well able to take care of myself.” Fouché gave a thin smile.

Raoul recalled learning, imprisoned in the Conciergerie, that Robespierre had had Fouché expelled from the Jacobin Club. When that happened to most men, arrest and execution soon followed. But in Fouché’s case, it was Robespierre himself who had fallen not long after. “I don’t doubt it,” Raoul said. “And like all of us who’ve survived the past quarter century, you have a healthy instinct for self-preservation. Which is why you will leave Madame Rannoch alone. Because if you do not I will make public exactly how much you had to do with the execution of the Duc d’Enghien.”

Fouché didn’t move a muscle, but Raoul saw the jolt of tension run through him and settle in his eyes. “My dear O’Roarke.” Fouché’s voice was even, but Raoul could hear the effort that underlay the tone. “Even if you choose to propagate lies about me—”

“You forget. I have a number of facts at my disposal that could not but give credence to my words.”

“Even if you choose to do so, you can scarcely speak without exposing your own role as a Bonapartist agent.”

Raoul let his shoulders sink deeper into the fluted wood of the pillar. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”

“You’d be proscribed at once. You’d have to flee France. England would be barred to you, as would your beloved Ireland. You couldn’t return to Spain without facing the wrath of your supposed
guerrillero
colleagues who would now know you’d in fact been fighting against them. You’d have to flee to South America. Assuming you could escape with your life.”

“It would certainly be a challenge,” Raoul conceded.

“You’re not the sacrificial type, O’Roarke.”

“No. But then we’ve all changed in the past two months. Priorities shift.”

“Mon Dieu
.
”
Fouché gave a short bark of laughter. “How are the mighty fallen. You and Talleyrand both bewitched by women young enough to be your daughters.”

“Madame Rannoch is another man’s wife.”

“At your instigation. Much like Talleyrand and his niece-by-marriage.” Fouché’s gaze darted over Raoul’s face, probing like an instrument of torture. “What game are you playing, O’Roarke?”

“You just claimed I was bewitched.”

“No.” Fouché’s gaze was now that of a chess player trying to see the logic behind a seemingly irrational gambit. “Talleyrand may be, but you’re not a lovesick fool. Or a defender of innocence. Not that Madame Rannoch is innocent. Does she have a hold on you?”

“I shouldn’t waste your energy on my motives, my dear Fouché. But make no mistake, I mean what I say.”

“You’re going to throw your life away.”

“Only if you throw away yours.”

 

“Wellington should thank Edmond Talleyrand and Count Clam-Martinitz,” Caroline Lamb said. “They’ve quite distracted attention from his own peccadillo.” She looked from Wellington, standing with Lady Frances Webster on one side and Lady Shelley on the other, to Dorothée across the ballroom leaving the dance floor on Lord March’s arm. “The comtesse looks as if this were merely another ball. If I could have learned that knack life would have been so much simpler.”

“Yes, but Dorothée’s trying to deflect attention,” Cordelia said. “You’ve always wanted to provoke it.”

Suzanne, looking on, was a bit startled by Cordelia’s bluntness, but Lady Caroline gave a rueful laugh. “One can’t hide things from friends one’s grown up with. But you have to admit no one’s ever fought a duel over me.”

“Are you saying that with pride or disappointment?”

“Perhaps a bit of both.”

“Well, I’m hardly one to talk,” Cordelia said. “I liked to pretend I didn’t care what people thought, but the truth is I was desperate to make some sort of mark on the world.”

“You look as though you could carry it off, Mrs. Rannoch.” Caroline turned to Suzanne. “Somehow I always have the sense you don’t care in the least what anyone thinks of you. That is, you don’t seem to mind in the least—” She broke off.

“That people claim I’m a foreign adventuress who snagged Malcolm for his fortune?”

“No, of course not.” The scandalous Lady Caroline Lamb looked like an abashed schoolgirl. “That is—”

“It’s all right. I can hardly be deaf to the talk. Mostly I laugh at it.” Mostly.

Lady Caroline’s wide-eyed gaze turned unexpectedly shrewd. And a bit wistful. “That’s a wonderful knack, being able to laugh at life. Oh, I see both your husbands coming. You’re going to be unfashionable and eat supper with them, aren’t you? I must be off before things become too domestic.”

Malcolm and Harry were indeed both approaching from opposite ends of the ballroom. Malcolm reached them first. “What happened to Lady Caroline?” he asked.

“She’s afraid domesticity is catching,” Cordelia said. “Poor Caro.”

“William adores her,” Malcolm said in a quiet voice. He didn’t normally talk about his friends’ private lives. It was a sign of how well he had come to know Cordelia.

Cordelia met his gaze. “Yes, I know. And Caro adores him in her way. Yet they’re spectacularly unsuited. As much, I used to think, as Harry and I were.”

“You and Davenport aren’t unsuited.”

“I hope not. Darling.” Cordelia flashed a bright smile as her husband joined them. “You look as though you’ve learned something.”

“I have.” Harry looked from his wife to Malcolm and Suzanne. “I just received a message from Christine Leroux. She wants us to meet her tomorrow night. At Café de la Reine in the Palais Royale. She says she has information.”

Cordelia shot a look at her husband. “Do you trust her?”

Harry’s gaze flickered to Malcolm. “As much as I trust anyone in this business. Not that I’m advocating we not take precautions.”

Suzanne slid her hand through the crook of her husband’s arm. “I find I’m rather averse to staying behind this time.”

He smiled at her. “What a surprise. As a matter of fact, I think the presence of a lady will render us less conspicuous in the café.”

“Then two ladies will render you even more so,” Cordelia said.

Harry regarded her but said nothing.

“I know I’m not an expert,” she said. “But I’m part of this. And I think I’ve done enough to prove myself.”

“More than enough.” Harry took her hand and quite unexpectedly raised it to his lips.

 

“Mrs. Rannoch.” Raoul stepped aside as Suzanne came through the archway from the supper room. Cordelia, up ahead, was speaking with Dorothée and Clam-Martinitz, and Malcolm and Harry had been detained in the supper room by Stuart.

“Good evening, Mr. O’Roarke. Are you enjoying the ball?”

“Very much. I’ve just had a word with the tiresome young man who was importuning you. Young officers often don’t know when they’ve crossed the line with a pretty woman. You needn’t worry he’ll be troubling you again.”

Relief shot through her, followed by concern. Because she couldn’t believe Fouché could be so easily neutralized. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. Life is complicated enough, Mrs. Rannoch. This is one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

He moved through the doorway past her. Suzanne cast a look over her shoulder at him before she went to join Cordelia. Damn Raoul. It was no accident he’d told her in the midst of a crowd instead of finding a few moments for private conversation. This way she couldn’t question what had transpired between him and Fouché. Or what it had cost him.

CHAPTER 26

Candlelight, gilding, and blue damask curtains looped with gold cord predominated at Café de la Reine. Tables clustered in the center of the room, beneath the diamond-bright chandelier, but more tables stood in curtained alcoves round the edge of the room. Like boxes at the theatre and just as inviting to amorous encounters. The curtains had been drawn across several.

“Quite like Vauxhall,” Cordelia murmured, as a waiter showed them to a table in one of the alcoves. She had applied her eye blacking and rouge with a heavy hand and her sapphire shot-silk gown was cut even lower than her dresses were in general. Or perhaps she’d had her maid alter it. Suzanne wore a claret-colored satin with a silver-spangled overdress that she kept for occasions such as this.

“One drawback with the two of you being present,” Malcolm said, holding out her chair. “Everyone’s looking at us.”

“Yes, but they aren’t seeing agents.” Suzanne dropped into the chair and settled the folds of her skirt. “And the two of you have an obvious reason for being here that has nothing to do with secret meetings.”

Cordelia let her beaded shawl slither down about her shoulders. “I’ve always suspected courtesans have more fun than ladies of the ton. Even when I was a social outcast, the restrictions could be exhausting. Though I suppose I shouldn’t speak so blithely when they have to share a man’s bed for their living.”

Harry settled back in his chair, easing his bad arm. “Some would say that’s precisely what wives have to do.”

Cordelia met her husband’s gaze without blinking. “How very true. What a good thing it is Suzanne and I both have such enlightened husbands.”

“And how lucky for us both that you deigned to enter matrimony, given the legal definition,” Malcolm said.

“Talk about a mark of trust,” Suzanne said. It was quite true. She remembered the moment, not when she agreed to be his wife nor even at their wedding but some days later, looking at him across their rooms in Lisbon, when she realized precisely what power she had given to this man by becoming his wife. Of course, at that time she had still thought she could walk away. “Juliette Dubretton would agree,” she said. “In
Les Règles du Mariage
she argues quite cogently that marriage is akin to slavery, at least in legal terms.”

“I wish I’d been with you when you met her,” Cordelia said. “Talk about a woman with a daring mind.”

“I suspect that’s why she refused to marry Paul St. Gilles for so long,” Suzanne said. “Not because she didn’t trust the sort of husband he’d be, but because she disapproves of the whole institution.”

Malcolm’s gaze drifted round the café. Seemingly idle, but Suzanne knew he was scanning the uniforms, evening coats, and spangled gowns for anything out of the ordinary and searching the curtains for unseen watchers. “Manon Caret used to hold court here after the theatre,” he said in conversational tones. “But she’s left Paris abruptly. Rumor has it just ahead of Fouché’s agents.”

“So she did leave for political reasons.” Cordelia cast a glance at Suzanne. “She was a Bonapartist agent?”

“So it’s being said now,” Harry said. “I never heard any rumors about her in the past, even when I was in Paris last year. But of course if she was that good I wouldn’t have.”

Suzanne forced herself not to succumb to the temptation to pluck at her gown or fiddle with her hair or make any other obvious effort to divert attention, which with men like Malcolm and Harry would likely have just the opposite effect.

A full-throated giggle sounded from the drawn curtains of the alcove beside them. Malcolm ordered champagne. Just after the waiter had poured it, Christine Leroux approached their table. She wore a gown of bronze green satin, her hair was carefully arranged, and she had removed her stage makeup and replaced it with subtler cosmetics, but there was taut tension beneath her movements and wariness in the angle at which she held her head.

The tension palpably increased as she took in Suzanne and Cordelia at the table.

“Mademoiselle Leroux.” Malcolm pushed back his chair and got to his feet, as did Harry. “May I present my wife, Suzanne Rannoch, and Lady Cordelia Davenport?”

Christine Leroux’s gaze swept over Suzanne and then Cordelia. First with disbelief, then with appraisal and dawning wonder. “People are always saying the British are eccentric, but I never had the sense that meant that the ladies frequent raffish cafés. Or that their husbands escort them there.”

“Cordelia and I rather push the bounds of eccentricity,” Suzanne said, standing as well. “More to the point, we assist our husbands in their work.”

“More and more surprising. But perhaps not quite as surprising as it would be had I not met your husbands.” Mademoiselle Leroux sank into the chair Malcolm had pulled out for her.

Malcolm poured another glass of champagne and handed it to Christine Leroux. “Thank you for contacting us. You said you had information.”

Mademoiselle Leroux took a careful sip of champagne, as though still debating the wisdom of speaking. “You asked me to think over everything Antoine had said to me. I’ve been going over it. I had been doing so in any case. One does when—” She ran her white-gloved fingers down the stem of her glass.

“When one has lost someone one was close to,” Malcolm said.

She met his gaze for a moment, and the diamond armor in that blue gaze slipped. “Yes.” She tossed down a sip of champagne. “Antoine and I didn’t go out together in public a great deal. And when we did it was generally in the evening. This was one of his favorite cafés.” She cast a glance round the room, eyes bright with memories. “But a fortnight ago, he suggested we visit the Louvre. He said with all the debate about returning works of art to their rightful owners and countries of origin, who knew when we’d have another chance to see the collection. But I still suspected there was more to it. I teased him, but he wouldn’t tell me more. When we got to the museum, I kept trying to figure out what had drawn him there. We wandered through the galleries, but there was one painting he studied in great detail. Almost covertly, as though he didn’t want me to see what it meant to him.”

“Which painting?” Malcolm asked in a quiet voice.

“
The Daughters of Zeus
by Paul St. Gilles.” Mademoiselle Leroux cast a glance round and took a quick sip of champagne. “St. Gilles and Princess Tatiana Kirsanova were intimate.”

“Yes,” Malcolm said. “My wife and I spoke with him recently.”

“I was rather put out that Antoine had dragged me along on this outing and then wouldn’t tell me what his purpose was. I told him he was making such an elaborate pretense of ignoring the painting that it was perfectly plain to me that the painting was the reason he’d dragged me to the Louvre and what on earth was so important about it.” A faint smile curved her mouth, easing the lines of strain. “Antoine looked almost rueful. He said he should have known better than to think he could deceive me, and I said let this be a lesson to him. Then he looked at the painting for a long moment and said it was quite striking in and of itself. And that you’d never guess it contained a princess’s secrets.”

Suzanne felt the jolt that ran through Malcolm, though they weren’t so much as touching. “And then?” he asked, voice even.

“I said did he mean Princess Tatiana and was she one of the women in the painting, for I couldn’t place her in it—though I knew St. Gilles had painted her. But Antoine went quiet—it was as though he feared he’d revealed too much. When I teased him, he simply took my arm in an iron grip and steered me away. And when I continued to ask questions, he said I was too wise a woman to wade into dangerous waters. Of course that made me all the more curious. But nothing I said could shake him.” Her brows drew together.

Malcolm met Suzanne’s gaze for the briefest moment, then looked back at Mademoiselle Leroux. “That could be . . . extremely helpful. Thank you.”

Christine Leroux shrugged her shoulders as though to deny the force of her feelings. “I want to know what happened to Antoine. Anything that helps you unravel the mystery—”

Malcolm reached across the table and touched her hand. “Quite.”

Mademoiselle Leroux pushed back her chair. “I must go. I have an early rehearsal tomorrow. I know most people don’t credit it, but I do rely on my voice for my living.” Her gaze swept them, then returned to Malcolm. “You’ll let me know if you solve this?”

“My word on it.” Malcolm got to his feet, as did Harry.

Mademoiselle Leroux inclined her head. “Madame Rannoch. Lady Cordelia. Colonel Davenport. You almost make me think the attractions of marriage might in some cases outweigh the drawbacks.”

With a swish of satin, Christine Leroux swept into the passage between the alcoves and the main dining room.

“It appears you aren’t the only one to see the freedom enjoyed by Cyprians as having advantages over marriage, my darling,” Harry murmured, dropping back into his chair.

“But even the wary Mademoiselle Leroux recognized that you and Malcolm are exceptional husbands.” Cordelia touched his hand. Her voice was playful, but the look in her eyes was not.

“A discerning woman in a number of ways,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, her information is interesting.” Malcolm’s gaze followed Mademoiselle Leroux round the passage. “To say the least.”

“Do you think she’s right that there’s some sort of clue in the painting?” Cordelia asked. “Or something hidden in the painting itself.”

“That was my first thought,” Suzanne said.

“Mine as well,” Malcolm agreed. But for all the excitement of the discovery, his voice had the note it took on when his mind was elsewhere. His gaze shot from along the upper gallery that encircled the café. “There’s a man up there who’s been watching Mademoiselle Leroux since she got up from our table,” he said, in the same conversational tone. “Fair hair. Side-whiskers. Prussian uniform.” His gaze moved back to Christine Leroux. She had stopped to lean over the railing of one of the alcoves and speak with a gold-ringleted lady and a gentleman in a Dutch-Belgian uniform who were dining there. “And someone’s following Mademoiselle Leroux. Sticking to the shadows, but I can see the movement.” Malcolm was on his feet. “Suzette, Cordelia, go round to the left and intercept Mademoiselle Leroux. Move quickly, but try to act as though it’s still a social occasion. Harry, see what the Prussian’s up to.”

“Right.”

They were already all on their feet. Suzanne slid her arm through Cordelia’s and they slipped into the passage and circled to the left, while Malcolm moved to the right and Harry made for the stairs.

“Who?” Cordelia murmured, her tone admirably conversational.

“Perhaps merely a jealous lover. Or someone who thinks Mademoiselle Leroux knows too much.”

“You think there’s danger?”

“Danger’s always a possibility.” Suzanne’s head was turned toward Cordelia, as though she was lost in a tête-à-tête with her friend, but she managed to keep her gaze angled to take in the room. Harry was moving along the upper gallery toward the Prussian. Mademoiselle Leroux was leaning over the partition that separated the alcove where her friends were dining from the passage, laughing, dark ringlets stirring about her face. Malcolm was a shadowy form moving along the passage. The man he was following was little more than a dark blur beside a pillar near Mademoiselle Leroux.

Three more boxes to pass and she and Cordelia would reach Mademoiselle Leroux. Suzanne cracked open the steel clasp on the reticule that dangled from her wrist and closed her fingers round the silver handle of her pistol.

Mademoiselle Leroux straightened up and blew a kiss to her friends. With a graceful swirl of skirts and ringlets, she turned and moved along the passage. The shadowy form by the pillar suddenly moved, still in the shadows, closing the distance between them. Suzanne’s fingers tightened on her pistol. Two more boxes to pass now. Malcolm quickened his pace. The follower was a few feet from Christine Leroux. Movement cut the shadows, as though he had perhaps raised his arm. Malcolm hurtled through the shadows and slammed the man to the ground.

The thud of two men hitting the polished floorboards rose above the stir of conversation and the clink of glasses. A woman screamed. Suzanne dropped Cordelia’s arm and ran to Christine Leroux’s side.

“Madame Rannoch—”

“Get down.” Suzanne pulled Christine to the floor. “Someone was trying to kill you.”

Malcolm was grappling with Christine’s would-be attacker, still a dark blur, on the floor of the passage. The man got his arm free and landed Malcolm a blow to the jaw. Malcolm hung on. Two waiters ran up and grabbed Malcolm by the coat, pulling him off his opponent. The man scrambled to his feet and ran the other way down the passage.

A shot whistled through the air from above.