The Paris Affair (5 page)

The word “betrayal” echoed in Suzanne’s head as it always did. Malcolm too had given her an unimaginable amount. Even before he’d given her any portion of his heart. “That depends upon the terms of the marriage. I’d never claim to understand what goes on between any two people in such a private relationship.”

“Though a relationship played out on the public stage.” Lady Caruthers twisted the ring round her finger. “I’d been half in love with Rupert for years. His coming to my rescue like that was enough to tip me over the edge. For a few weeks I was deliriously happy. It wasn’t the most romantic of proposals. Rupert didn’t go down on one knee or clasp me to his breast. He took my hand and said he thought we could be happy together. But I thought his restraint was just typical British reticence. It wasn’t until after we were married, after the wedding journey, after we were settled in London—Rupert is . . .” Lady Caruthers hesitated, her gaze moving restlessly over the café tables and the street as she searched for the right word. “He’s kind to me.” The way she said the word “kind” held the pain of a dagger thrust. “I think he’s fond of me. I know he loves our son. But there’s a wall I’ll never break through.”

Suzanne forced her breath to stay even. It was so like a description of her own marriage to Malcolm that she felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. “British men don’t show their affections easily. As you said.”

“No, but I can read the difference.” Gabrielle looked directly into her eyes. “One learns to read one’s husband, don’t you find?”

“Yes.” Suzanne’s fingers curled round her coffee cup. Malcolm loved her. He’d said the words and miraculously she believed them. His eyes showed it when they rested upon her in an unguarded moment as did the touch of his hand when he pulled her to him in the dark. But there were different kinds of love. The wall, as Gabrielle had said, was still there. She was quite sure it always would be.

“I thought I could live with it,” Gabrielle said. “I told myself I had more than I’d ever thought to have. That Rupert had never promised me more.” She took a sip of coffee and grimaced as though it was bitter. “It was easier when he was in the Peninsula. I didn’t see him every day, and I could pretend—” She shook her head. “Now, living together, seeing each other every day, facing each other over the breakfast dishes, going to entertainments on his arm—I can’t avoid it. And I’ve discovered I need—” She frowned into her coffee cup.

“Passion?” Suzanne asked. It was often a surprisingly difficult need to admit to, despite being so basic.

Gabrielle frowned. “That too. But I was thinking of intimacy.”

“Most people need that as well,” Suzanne said in as steady a voice as she could muster.

Gabrielle picked up the silver spoon and stirred her cooling coffee. “Antoine wasn’t—It’s not that I thought he was the love of my life. But he understood me. And I didn’t have to pretend with him.” She set down the spoon. “I could be myself with him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so much myself with anyone. I miss that. I miss him.”

Sometimes, Suzanne felt she’d forgot what it was like to be herself. Or forgot who that person was. She reached out and laid her hand over Gabrielle’s own. “Did Antoine Rivère indicate to you that he had any enemies?”

“His cousin. He wanted the title and estates. Antoine was sure he was lobbying to have him proscribed.”

“Did he tell you he was trying to get out of France?”

“How could he not be?”

“Did he tell you what he was doing to get out of France?”

Gabrielle’s gaze shot over her face. “He threatened Mr. Rannoch, didn’t he?”

“Was Monsieur Rivère in the habit of threatening people?”

“No, but—” Gabrielle pulled her hand from Suzanne’s grip. “Antoine knew things.” She rubbed her arms. “He acquired information in his work. It could be useful.”

“Did he tell you whom he had this information about?”

Gabrielle hesitated, frowning. She chewed on her lower lip. “He didn’t tell me precisely. Not in so many words.”

“But . . . ?” Suzanne leaned forwards. “Lady Caruthers, any information you have may help us find the man behind Monsieur Rivère’s death.”

To Suzanne’s surprise, Gabrielle gave a laugh, sharp with irony. “I’m not sure you want the information I have, Mrs. Rannoch. Your husband will find it decidedly awkward.”

“Then perhaps there’s all the more reason we should know.”

Gabrielle snatched up her cup and took a sip of coffee. “Antoine and I exchanged a few words at the Austrian embassy reception last week. He said it was amazing how some of the most powerful people could be bent to his will.” She lifted her gaze to Suzanne’s face. “He was looking at the Duke of Wellington when he said it.”

CHAPTER 4

Harry stared up at the wrought-iron work and elaborate plaster moldings of the building before them. “Rivère was living well for a clerk in the foreign ministry.”

“Evidence perhaps that he’d been putting the information he gathered to use well before his death,” Malcolm said.

The concierge directed them to the second floor, where Rivère had occupied a spacious suite of rooms overlooking the Palais Royale. The door was unlocked. Faint thuds sounded down the entryway. They entered the central sitting room to find a dark-haired man in his shirtsleeves kneeling on the floor surrounded by boxes, in the act of filling an open box with books.

“May I help you, gentlemen?”

“Forgive the intrusion,” Malcolm said. “My name is Rannoch, Malcolm Rannoch. I’m an attaché at the British embassy. And this is Colonel Davenport. Antoine Rivère was a friend of ours.” A stretch of the truth, but the word “friend” could cover a multitude of relationships.

“I’m Duvall. I am—I was—his valet.”

Malcolm cast a glance round the room. Bare picture hooks and tabletops of marble and ormolu and polished mahogany swept free of ornaments. “You’re packing up his things already?”

“His cousin was here this morning and asked me to do so. I need to be quick about it so I can search for a new situation.” Duvall looked from Malcolm to Harry. “If either of you gentlemen knows of anyone in search of a valet—”

“I’ll put out inquiries,” Malcolm said. “However, at the moment what we do need is information.”

Wariness and calculation flickered in Duvall’s gaze. “About?”

“What may have led to Monsieur Rivère’s death.”

Calculation gave way to surprise. “He died in a tavern brawl.”

“But his death may not have been accidental.”

Duvall’s gaze widened further.

“We would of course compensate you for any information,” Malcolm said. “We understand the trouble you’d be taking.”

Duvall pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t know that I know a great deal.”

“I’m sure you underrate yourself.” Harry spoke up. “A good valet always knows his master’s doings.”

Duvall straightened his neckcloth. “I never pried. But of course one can’t help but notice—”

“Of course,” Malcolm said. “Just what did you notice?”

“Monsieur Rivère ran risks. Surprisingly so for a government clerk.”

“I see a decanter of brandy,” Harry said. “I’m sure your late master wouldn’t object to your having a glass. And perhaps sharing one with his friends.”

Duvall’s posture relaxed slightly as he poured three glasses. The aroma of good cognac wafted through the room.

Malcolm accepted a glass and took a small sip to put the witness at his ease. “Had Rivère said anything to indicate he was afraid of anyone?”

Duvall tossed down a large swallow of brandy. “Isn’t everyone in Paris with a connection to the Bonaparte régime afraid right now?”

Harry turned his own brandy glass in his hand. “You must have been concerned about your employer perhaps being thrown in jail.”

“I—” Duvall took another sip of brandy.

“Or did you have reason to think Rivère wouldn’t be arrested?” Malcolm asked.

“Why should I think that?”

“Perhaps you knew Rivère had leverage?”

“Monsieur Rivère made a habit of knowing a great deal.”

“Who else was Rivère close to?” Harry asked.

“Monsieur Rivère was discreet.”

“Meaning he had a mistress, but you don’t know her name?”

“In a word. This particular lady never came here.”

“But other ladies did?” Harry asked.

Duvall shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Any information could be of use,” Malcolm said. “We can certainly make it worth your while, as I said.”

Duvall hesitated a moment longer. “There was a lady who visited him here on occasion. Dark haired. Petite. I didn’t know her name.”

“What did Monsieur Rivère call her?” Malcolm asked.

“Christine.”

“How old was she?” Harry asked.

Another moment of hesitation, though this time Duvall seemed to be considering. “Young, but not in the first blush of youth. About five-and-twenty perhaps. She was—I use the word ‘lady’ loosely.”

“Who else visited Rivère?” Malcolm asked.

“Colleagues from the foreign ministry occasionally. Monsieur Rivère’s cousin once. They weren’t on the best of terms.”

“And—?”

Duvall splashed some more brandy into his glass. “Monsieur Rivère had a visitor late two nights before—two nights before the brawl. He let the visitor in himself, but I heard raised voices.”

“What did they say?” Harry asked.

“I couldn’t make out all of it.”

“But I’m sure you did your best.”

“I heard the visitor tell Monsieur Rivère he ‘wouldn’t get away with it.’ And Monsieur Rivère respond that the other gentleman wasn’t ‘in a position to make threats.’ ”

“And then?” Malcolm asked.

“I heard the door slam. I stepped out into the passage. I was—”

“Curious. Naturally. Did you catch a glimpse of him? Can you give us a description?”

Duvall drew a breath, as though not sure how his words would be received. “Tall. A sharp profile. I believe he would be known to both you gentlemen.” Duvall took a swallow of brandy. “It was the Duke of Wellington.”

Malcolm bit back a curse and kept his gaze level on Duvall. “Interesting.”

Duvall looked a bit dashed that his words had not produced the intended effect. Malcolm presented him with a purse and suggested he might like to retire to a nearby café for an hour or so. Duvall hesitated, glanced at the purse again, and nodded.

Harry stared after him as the door closed and his footsteps retreated down the stairs. “Wellington gave you no clue?”

“None.”

“Interesting man, our duke. Do you think Rivère approached him about the Laclos affair himself?”

“Then why Rivère’s dramatic approach to me last night?”

“Cover?”

“They wouldn’t need the cover for the Laclos affair, since Rivère brought it up to me. But if he approached Wellington about something else—”

Harry met Malcolm’s gaze for a moment. “Wellington can be ruthless.” It was a flat statement about the man they had both served for years and risked their lives for. “We considered in Brussels that he might be capable of murder.”

“But in the end he wasn’t behind Julia Ashton’s death.”

“Which doesn’t mean he isn’t behind Rivère’s death. Julia was an English lady. Rivère was a French double agent who was trying to blackmail the British.” Harry kept his gaze on Malcolm. Uncompromising, yet oddly compassionate. “War isn’t played by gentlemen’s rules. You know that.”

“Neither are politics or diplomacy.”

“Go carefully, Malcolm. Wellington can be dangerous.”

“At least I know him.”

“That’s precisely what makes him dangerous.” Harry cast a glance round the room. “You take the boxes on the left. I’ll take the right.”

The boxes contained bills, innocuous correspondence with an elderly aunt, tradesmen, a school friend who was an advocate in Provence. And books—an eclectic collection of Montaigne, Voltaire, and Rousseau, bawdy novels, and some bawdier love poetry, and a few volumes of military history. But all free of notes in the margin or papers tucked between the pages or sewn into the binding.

“Here’s something.” Harry was kneeling beside the swept-clean writing desk, the empty drawers pulled from their slots and stacked on the floor beside him. He was pulling a small drawer from the top of the desk and reaching behind it. He withdrew a crumpled paper. “Something whoever swept the room clean missed.”

Malcolm crossed the room as Harry smoothed out the paper on the desktop. It was a letter. A partial draft later rewritten or abandoned and never sent.

The writing broke off, with a stroke of black ink across the bottom of the page. “We need to find this Christine,” Malcolm said. “She seems to have been one of the few people Rivère confided in.”

“I’ll work on it.” Harry picked up the letter and tucked it into his coat. “I have contacts in the Paris demimonde. Purely professional.”

“No need to explain yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m confessing that even at the worst of our estrangement I was too obsessed with my wife to have much thought for anyone else. I’ll handle this. I suspect you have other things to keep you busy.”

Malcolm cast a sharp glance at his friend. Harry’s answering look was bland as butter. “After all,” Harry said, “you’re a busy man, Rannoch.”

 

Suzanne slipped into the high-backed bench at the back of the café. A typical sort of Parisian café, with newspapers rustling, games of chess in progress, glasses of wine and cups of café au lait circulating. The sort of café frequented by midlevel clerks and middling tradesmen. As innocuous and unremarkable as the red wine being poured or the prints of the French countryside that hung on the blue-papered walls.

Enough women were present—talking with friends, flirting with gentlemen, with children in tow, with shopping parcels beside them—that she didn’t stand out like a sore thumb. It was blessedly easier to move about on the Continent than in Britain.

She ordered a bottle of red wine and two glasses. Coffee would have been safer, but she needed the fortification. She’d sent her message on short notice, but she knew he wouldn’t fail her if he could help it. She sipped from the glass of wine the waiter poured her and waited.

He came five minutes after the appointed time, wearing a plain dark coat. Though he made no obvious effort at concealment, somehow he blended effortlessly into the crowd, so that it was a moment before even she noticed him. He approached her table without haste and at last met her gaze.

Since the day she’d told him she would no longer work as his agent in the service of Napoleon Bonaparte, she and Raoul O’Roarke had met at least a dozen times. They’d exchanged greetings at receptions in Brussels and Paris, ridden past each other in the Bois de Boulogne, sat in adjacent boxes at the theatre. He’d tipped his hat to her and Colin by the fountain in the Jardin des Tuileries and admired Colin’s dexterity with his toy boat. At Tsar Alexander’s military review last month Raoul had stopped by Malcolm’s and her carriage for a few minutes. But they hadn’t met in private. It made all the difference. Memories thickened in the air like drops of condensation.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. Her throat was surprisingly dry.

“Did you doubt that I would?” Raoul asked, with the lift of a brow.

“No. But I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

He regarded her for a moment, then dropped onto the bench across from her in one economical motion. “I don’t recall either of us imposing a rule that we could no longer meet in private. I’ll even go so far as to say I was glad to hear from you. Save that I confess I fear your running the risk means something’s wrong. Given that you’re the one with more to lose.”

“Am I? If you were discovered—”

He leaned back against the bench. “I’ve been a few days from the guillotine before.”

A chill cut through the sarcenet of her spencer and the muslin of her gown. “It’s not funny.”

“No. It’s a fact of our life now.”

She tugged at one of her gloves. “A foreign ministry clerk named Rivère was knifed in a dockside tavern last night.”

Raoul reached for the bottle and filled the second glass. “Yes, I heard. Were you and Malcolm there?”

Her fingers froze on the threadnet glove. “Don’t tell me you were following us.”

“When have I ever had you followed?”

“I don’t work for you anymore.” She set the glove down with care. As well as she knew Raoul, she’d never know his limits. “The rules have changed.”

“My dear girl. Some things are off-limits. Besides, I trained you well enough to know following you would be a waste of time.” He took a sip of wine. “Rivère was a British agent. I assumed he was in that tavern to meet with someone from the British delegation.”

She scanned his face, alert to clues. “How long had you known?”

“That he was reporting to the British?” Raoul draped one arm along the back of the bench, the wineglass held between two fingers of his other hand. “Since before Waterloo. I used him to pass along false information more than once. I assume he wanted Malcolm’s help to get out of France. His cousin’s been making things difficult for him.”

“He threatened to reveal information if the British didn’t help him. Information that could bring about renewed hostilities with France.”

“Regarding?” Raoul watched her for a moment. “Or would you rather not say?”

“I need to. I need information.” She took a sip of wine to swallow a curse of frustration. “Regarding Bertrand Laclos.”

“I see.” Raoul tilted his head back, his eyes narrowed. “That could cause complications.”

She scanned his face, seeking clues in the familiar lines and hollows, the hooded gray eyes. “You knew Laclos?”

“Rather well.” Raoul took another sip of wine. “And yet I never tumbled to the fact that he was working for the British. One of my most egregious failures.”

“When did you find out?”