The Paris Plot (5 page)

Malcolm and Suzanne entered the house without incident to find Harry and Cordelia standing by the library fire. “I’m sorry for the late hour,” Harry said, “but something a bit unsettling’s happened. We decided to go home at the first interval so Cordelia could nurse Drusilla. We were greeted by a rock thrown through our salon window.”

S
uzanne felt Malcolm’s arm tighten round her at Harry’s words. “With a note wrapped round it?” Malcolm asked.

Harry nodded and held out a paper. “It says I—we, an unspecified ‘you’—consorted with traitors.”

Malcolm stared down at the black scrawl and pulled a second note from his pocket. The writing was identical. “Henri and Rachel received the same note two nights ago.”

“Henri Rivaux?” Harry looked down at the second note. “Why the devil would someone be targeting the two of us?”

Malcolm cast a glance at Suzanne. “Presumably because you’re both my friends.”

“But that’s—” Cordelia shook her head, her sapphire hairpins glinting in the firelight. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Save that I’m the one who got the note saying I’d pay for my crimes,” Malcolm said.

“This makes it less likely Dewhurst is behind it,” Harry said. “I can see him targeting me, but not Rivaux.”

“No, it’s more likely it goes back to something in Brussels at the time of Waterloo.” Malcolm met Harry’s gaze.

“Damn,” Harry said.

“I should have known sooner,” Malcolm said.

“I thought it was your guilt talking,” Harry said. “Or perhaps it was my own guilt that didn’t want to admit it could be true.”

The silence that followed was thick as the wax dripping from the tapers on the library table. “What?” Cordelia asked. Her voice seemed to slice through the taut air.

Harry’s gaze went to Malcolm. Suzanne looked at her husband. She should know the pain of confession better than anyone. “It’s your choice, darling. Both of yours.” She looked at Harry. “But if Cordy and I are to help you—”

“Besides, there are rocks coming through the window while my children are asleep upstairs,” Cordelia said. “I think that makes it all our business.”

“An inarguable point, Cordy.” Malcolm gave her a faint smile, then looked at Suzanne. “I’m sorry. I should have told you from the first.”

Suzanne turned to face him—an ungainly process with the weight of the child pulling her off balance. “Told me what?”

“I told myself I didn’t want to worry you, but I think the truth is I didn’t want to believe it could be connected to the attack.”

“Darling.” Suzanne touched his arm. “It can’t be so very dreadful.”

He gave a bleak smile. “You can say that after everything we’ve been through?”

She put a hand on his back. “Whatever it is, we’ll cope with it.”

He took her hand and carried it to his lips. But he hesitated a moment, and she had the oddest sense he felt he didn’t deserve the intimacy. He drew her over to the crimson velvet sofa before the fireplace.

“I’m not going to faint,” she said.

He raised a brow. In truth she had fainted more than once early in her pregnancy—it was one of the few difficulties she’d had—and she’d felt light-headed only a week ago, though she’d managed not to let Malcolm realize it. At least she thought she had.

“Perhaps I’m the one who feels better sitting down.” He dropped down beside her.

Harry and Cordy had moved to the settee that formed a right angle with the sofa. The smell of the scented wax tapers and the pine logs in the fire drifted through the air. Harry and Malcolm exchanged glances. Harry inclined his head. “It was after Waterloo,” Malcolm said. “Not long after—”

“The investigation into my sister’s murder,” Cordelia said.

“Yes.” Malcolm’s gaze held kindness but did her the credit of not shying away from uncomfortable memories that could not be avoided.

Harry reached for Cordelia’s hand. Cordelia twined her fingers round his own but kept her gaze on Malcolm.

“I was wrapping up the investigation into the Bonapartist spy ring we’d discovered just before the battle,” Malcolm said. “The one Henri Rivaux had infiltrated and Rachel had helped us gather intelligence on. Wellington sent me to talk to a lieutenant in the Ninety-Fifth who was suspected of having worked with them.”

“You didn’t tell me.” The words came from Suzanne unbidden. Though she knew perfectly well Malcolm didn’t confide every detail of his intelligence work to her. He shared a great deal but far from all. It had been a challenge when she was a Bonapartist agent herself.

“You were busy nursing the wounded soldiers we’d taken into the house. McAllister had taken a turn for the worse that day, and you were still worried about pulling him through. I could see the strain in your face. Later—It wasn’t something I cared to talk about.”

A large part of the strain had also been from the French defeat and giving up her intelligence work, but she nodded.

“And Harry was still confined to his sickbed,” Cordelia said.

“Recovered enough to be a difficult patient,” Harry said.

“What did the lieutenant tell you?” Suzanne asked. She didn’t recall knowing a lieutenant in the Ninety-Fifth who had been a French agent. If she hadn’t known of him, it was profoundly to be hoped he hadn’t known about her. It was hardly the first time Malcolm had come up against another French agent since their marriage. Every time Suzanne managed to brush through with her secrets intact. She was so used to dancing on the edge of disaster her pulse no longer quickened as it once had at the threat. Which didn’t mean that one false step couldn’t bring her world tumbling down about her.

“Nothing,” Malcolm said. “He’d flown the coop before I arrived. I’m still not sure where he went or who tipped him off.”

“But?”

Malcolm’s signet ring flashed in the candlelight as his fingers curled inwards. “I searched his lodgings. He’d obviously left in a hurry. I found a large quantity of bills from tailors and boot makers and wine merchants.”

“Which probably accounts for his becoming a spy.” Much as she liked to believe in Republican ideals, more often it was practical considerations that drove people to a life of espionage.

“Quite. I also found a cache of love letters from a Bruxelloise opera dancer—I followed up, but she didn’t appear to know anything. And then as I was about to give up, I noticed a piece of molding was loose round the door to the bedchamber. I pried it off and found a small notebook.”

Suzanne swallowed, her throat tight. She had a vague idea now where this might be leading. “In code?”

“Yes, but I was able to break it in a couple of hours over a pot of coffee at Café Renard. There were instructions for communicating with his spymaster. And a list of contacts.”

“Which you gave to Wellington.”

Malcolm scraped a hand through his hair. “I went to see Harry on my way to Headquarters. He said I could burn it and no one would be the wiser.”

“It was only a stray comment,” Harry murmured.

Malcolm met his friend’s gaze. “It was a reasonable suggestion. Harry didn’t elaborate, but we both knew that turning it over would lead to arrests and executions. Of people who didn’t represent much of a threat now the war was over.”

“There are still Bonapartist plots,” Suzanne said. “At that point France wasn’t even secure. And if there was anyone close to sensitive information—”

“That’s what I told myself.” Malcolm grimaced.

“I’d have done the same,” Harry said.

“I’m not sure. You’re better at striking out on your own and damn the consequences.” Malcolm dug his fingers into his hair. “Wellington and Castlereagh and Carfax accuse me of going my own way. And I do. But I didn’t feel I could make such a decision myself when there might be security implications. So I gave the list to Wellington. I suggested that if there wasn’t anyone on it he saw as a risk, it didn’t need to go farther. Wellington saw the need to be temperate in victory. But he also needed to negotiate with the French, and to do so he needed the Comte d’Artois not to be obstructionist.” Malcolm drew a taut breath and continued, his voice flat. “So he turned over the list to the ministry of police. Fouché was eager to distance himself from his old Bonapartist friends by industriously rounding up suspects.”

Any one of whom could have been her. Suzanne’s fingers curled into her gloved palms. So many of her former comrades had faced exile, arrest, execution, while she lived a secure life of luxury among the victors. Worse still, she was happy. She reached across the sofa and took her husband’s hand. “Any one of the agents on that list would have done the same had the situations been reversed.”

“Perhaps.” Malcolm’s fingers tightened over her own. “Perhaps not. We all make judgment calls. I made the wrong one that night.”

“It’s part of the game.”

“The damned game.” He looked down at their clasped hands. “I told myself the agents on that list could represent a risk. But the truth is I think I was too caught up in the game. One makes one’s move, one plays it out to the end for maximum advantage.”

“Not you, darling. You never lose sight of the human equation.” It was a large part of what had made her fall in love with him.

“I like to think so. But that night I did. Lives and families were destroyed. And now my own family are threatened. And those of my friends.”

“You can’t be sure that’s the reason,” Harry said.

“No, but it’s where all the evidence leads.”

“De Vedrin ran the spy ring,” Harry said. “He’s the likeliest suspect. And he didn’t have anything to do with that list.”

“His people were on it.”

“He tried to entrap my sister,” Cordelia said.

Suzanne said nothing at all. Malcolm looked at her. “Darling?”

Damp warmth pooled between her legs, soaking the folds of her gown, but it took a moment for her to realize why. “My water just broke.”

M
alcolm stared at his wife, amazed by the calm in her face. Damp stained the black gauze and champagne satin of her skirts. Dear God, all the months of waiting, wondering, choosing nursery furnishings, and this was really happening. Not unlike the moment shots had finally rung out across the field of Waterloo. Save that that moment had quite lacked the wonder that filled him now.

“Sweetheart—” He reached for Suzanne.

“I’m all right.” Her hand went to her stomach and she drew a short breath. “We have time.”

“Second babies can come a lot faster.” Cordelia was on her feet and moved to Suzanne’s side.

“I’ll send for Geoffrey Blackwell.” Malcolm moved to the library door and flung it open. “Valentin!”

 

 

Malcolm returned from giving instructions to the footman to find both Davenports beside his wife. “Cordy’s going to stay,” Suzanne said.

“Thank you.” Malcolm gave Cordelia a heartfelt smile.

“Suzanne was there when Drusilla was born.” Cordelia looked at her husband. “Dru’s going to be due for a feeding—”

“I’ll bring her here,” Harry said. “In fact, I’ll bring both the girls here. I’d feel better with everyone under one roof until we find out what’s going on.” He looked at Malcolm. “And then I’ll start making inquiries. I have some contacts with connections to Bonapartists and night is a good time to find them.”

Cordelia surveyed her husband. “You’re going to a brothel in the Palais Royale, aren’t you?”

“Only in the service of the investigation.” Harry leaned down to kiss her. “Don’t worry,” he added to Malcolm. “I won’t venture to say I’ll do as good a job as you’d do, but I’ll manage until you have time to spare.”

Malcolm touched his friend’s shoulder. “I daresay you’ll do better.” He looked down at Suzanne. Her face was pale, but she didn’t seem to be in a great deal of pain yet. Of course, she was extremely good at not showing when she was in pain. Their gazes met. For a moment, present threats and past guilt rushed away and they were both caught by the reality of the moment, a moment that would change their lives forever.

“We’re having a baby,” Suzanne said.

Malcolm dropped to her side and gripped her hands.

 

 

Malcolm glanced at the brass hands of the clock on the mantel. “Where the devil are Valentin and Blackwell?”

Suzanne turned to look up at him. They were still in the library, making another endless circuit of the Aubusson carpet. With Colin’s birth, Geoffrey had said walking helped ease the pains, or at least provided distraction, and could speed the labor. “It’s only been—”

“Too long. Harry got back with the girls more than half an hour ago.” Malcolm glanced at Drusilla, asleep in her basket after nursing. Livia had been put to bed in the nursery with Colin, with Blanca keeping watch. “Valentin wouldn’t dally, and Geoff and Allie would be home from the theatre by now.” Malcolm met Cordelia’s gaze across the library.

Cordelia moved to Malcolm and Suzanne, jade green silk skirts snapping round her. “You should go, Malcolm. Drusilla will sleep for at least a couple of hours. Suzette and I will do another circuit. And if we really need distraction, I’ll find a particularly bawdy novel to read from.”

Malcolm squeezed Cordelia’s arm and turned to his wife. They had created this baby together, but for so much of this he could do little more than hold her hand. He had never wanted to do more for her or felt so inadequate. “Darling—”

Suzanne drew in her breath and released it, a sign he had come to recognize indicated a contraction. “Whatever Cordelia says about second babies, the little one won’t come before you get back.” Her eyes held reassurance but also a flash of concern. Valentin’s delay was unsettling given recent events. Malcolm bent to kiss her. His fingers closed involuntarily on her shoulders with the reluctance to let go.

Fortunately, Geoffrey and Aline only lived a short distance away. Malcolm set off at a run, wondering if he should have sent Addison while at the same time the nagging sense that something was very wrong propelled him down the street.

A sleety rain was starting to fall. He skidded twice on the damp cobblestones, caught himself on a lamppost the first time, on the area railings of a nearby house the second, scraping his hand on the iron spikes. He reached the portico of the Blackwells’ house and started up the steps without a break in his stride, then came to a skidding halt at a high-pitched shriek from beside the steps. Even as he grasped the stair rail and swung towards the sound, his mind told him it was only a cat. A very small cat, nosing a pile of garbage.
Poor thing, out in the rain—

The garbage moved.

Malcolm vaulted over the railing. A small, damp ball of fur nuzzled him. He put out a hand to touch the crumpled form on the ground beside the kitten and met a familiar pair of blue eyes.

Valentin.

 

 

“That was two minutes,” Cordelia said.

“Three at least.” Suzanne unclenched her fingers from the sofa back, which she had clutched when the contraction hit. As with any pain, fighting it didn’t help; one had to try to lean into it, breathe, and remember one could go on. Childbirth had a lot in common with torture.

“It’s all right to scream,” Cordelia said. “The children won’t hear you upstairs.”

“It’s not that bad yet.”

“Liar.”

Suzanne pushed her sweat-dampened hair back from her forehead. Blanca’s careful ringlets were reduced to a tangled mess. “I don’t remember you screaming at this point with Drusilla.”

“I think you’ve blocked it out.”

“No, I’ve—
Sacrebleu!
” Suzanne gripped the sofa with both hands, nails digging into the velvet upholstery.

Cordelia put a hand at the small of Suzanne’s back. “With Livia I let out curse words I hadn’t realized I knew. In some ways perhaps it’s just as well Harry wasn’t there. He looked concerned enough at Drusilla’s birth and that was much easier.”

“It’s good for them to be part of it.” Suzanne willed her muscles to relax. She turned her head round and looked into her friend’s unwavering blue gaze. Memories hung between them. Drenched with rain and blood as they nursed the wounded in the streets of Brussels. Hunched round the kitchen table over steaming cups of tea, trying to keep their hands steady and not dwell on whether or not their husbands would survive the battle. Cordelia clutching Suzanne’s hand the night Drusilla had been born. “I’m glad you’re here, Cordy.”

It was an admission. Suzanne rarely admitted she needed anyone.

Cordelia rubbed her hand in circles over Suzanne’s back. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Suzanne managed a smile. “And if Malcolm isn’t back in time I’m sure the two of us can manage to deliver the baby.”

 

 

Malcolm knelt beside Valentin. The smell of blood washed over him. He touched his fingers to Valentin’s throat, felt the damp stickiness, found a pulse.

Valentin let out a groan. “What—”

“Don’t try to move,” Malcolm said. “You took a bad blow to the head. I’ll get Blackwell.”

Something sharp dug into Malcolm’s leg. The kitten. Malcolm scooped him up and tucked him inside his coat.

He hammered at the door and then realized he could ring the bell. The footman was there and then Geoffrey with Aline hurrying behind him, her hair streaming down her back. “Is it Suzanne?” Geoffrey pushed his dark hair back from his eyes as a groan came from beside the steps. “What the devil—”

“It’s our footman, Valentin. Someone seems to have bashed him over the head.”

“Why—No, never mind that for now. Best get him inside.”

Valentin made an unintelligible protest. “Suzette’s in labor,” Malcolm said. “That’s why Valentin was on his way to you.”

The sort of calculation that shot through Geoffrey’s gaze was not unlike what Malcolm had seen in the eyes of commanders juggling competing demands in the field. “Can we move him?”

“I think so. You should check.”

“C’n walk perfectly well.” Valentin attempted to push himself up on the paving stones.

“Don’t try to move, lad.” Geoffrey hurried to Valentin’s side and bent over him. After a quick examination, Geoffrey pronounced that Valentin could walk with his own and Malcolm’s assistance. “Once we’re there, I can attend to both of them.”

“Cordy’s with Suzette,” Malcolm said.

Aline gave Malcolm a quick kiss. “I’d come, but I think you have enough help. Send word if I can do anything.”

Malcolm hugged her, harder than usual. He reached into his coat to hand her the kitten, but the kitten dug in his claws and Malcolm decided to leave well enough alone.

“Monsieur,” Valentin said in a slurred voice, “I should—”

“Explanations later.” Malcolm slid Valentin’s left arm over his own shoulders. “Save your strength.”

 

 

Suzanne had been joking—mostly—when she said she and Cordelia could deliver the baby, but she was beginning to wonder if it would come to that. The last bout of cramping had brought her to her knees, and even she couldn’t deny that the pains were little more than two minutes apart now. Not that it would really come down to just her and Cordelia even if Malcolm didn’t make it back with Geoffrey. They had Blanca and Addison. None of them had delivered a baby on their own, but they were all capable adults. They could pick locks and fight off snipers and decode documents. Surely they could muddle through the birth of a baby. The really worrying thing was what had happened to Valentin and now Malcolm.

“If anyone can take care of himself, Malcolm can,” Cordelia said.

“Quite.” Experience had certainly taught Suzanne that was true. But experience had also taught her that no one was invulnerable. “If—”

Pain tore through her and drove her to her knees again. Cordelia gripped her waist. “Maybe we should go upstairs.”

“No.” The pain echoing through her and her fear for Malcolm tore the word from her lungs.

A crash sounded from the hall. Somehow Suzanne was on her feet and across the library.

“Suzette.” Cordelia ran after her. Suzanne disregarded her friend and dragged open the library door. She stumbled into the hall to see Addison and Jean, the second footman, hauling a fair-haired man through the front door.

“Madame.” Addison met her gaze. Being a man of sense, he didn’t ask what she was doing on her feet in the midst of her labor. “We caught this man throwing a rock through the window.”

Cordelia came up behind Suzanne and put an arm round her waist.

“It’s a fair warning,” the man shouted in Belgian-accented French.

“Was there a note with the rock?” Suzanne managed to ask before another contraction tore through her.

“I think so.” Addison tightened his grip on the man.

“It was a warning,” the man insisted.

“There’s blood on his coat,” Suzanne said, clarity returning as the contraction faded. The light from the chandelier caught glistening patches on the man’s torn, rain-spattered coat.

“Madame,” Addison said to Suzanne, “I think Mr. Rannoch would want—”

Before they could quarrel over what Mr. Rannoch would or would not want, the door swung open to admit Malcolm and Geoffrey, supporting Valentin between them, disheveled, dripping rainwater, blood smeared over his face.

Relief tore through Suzanne, sharp as a contraction. She ran forwards. Cordelia ran after her. The man in Addison and Jean’s grip twisted against their hold and went still as his gaze fell on Valentin.

“You.” The fair-haired man pulled free of Addison and Jean and hurled himself at Valentin, knocking him to the floor tiles. “I thought I’d finished you.”

Malcolm hauled the fair-haired man off Valentin. The fair-haired man spun round and landed a blow to Malcolm’s jaw. Malcolm staggered on the rain-slick tiles. A small bit of gray fluff leaped from Malcolm’s coat onto the fair-haired man. The fair-haired man screamed and snatched up a bronze candlestick from the hall table. Before he could move, Suzanne snatched up the matching candlestick and brought it down on the fair-haired man’s head.

The fair-haired man’s feet slid out from under him and he went crashing into the marble table.

Pain sliced through Suzanne. Her vision cleared to see her husband checking the fair-haired man’s pulse, while Geoffrey bent over Valentin.

“I’m sorry,” Valentin gasped, “didn’t mean—”

“Don’t try to talk, lad,” Geoffrey said.

“He’s breathing,” Malcolm reported of the fair-haired man, “but he’s lost consciousness.”

“I’ll have a look at him when I’ve seen to Suzanne and young Valentin,” Geoffrey said.

Clutching the edge of the table for support, Suzanne stared down at the fair-haired man. “Darling—”

“Suzette.” Malcolm looked up, rain-drenched hair falling over his forehead, and met her gaze. “I know you want to be in on the end of this. But you need to stop long enough to have this baby.”