The Duke's Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  "The timing's right," Raoul said, "but it's difficult to see how. Bella seems to have intercepted the papers. Likely from the League, though we can't be sure. Whoever or whatever the Wanderer is, it's unlikely it has to do with Gisèle's parentage."

  "No, but the man she took the papers from could be Gelly's father."

  Raoul's eyes narrowed as though he was sifting through the facts. "She took the papers from her lover, then climbed out the window and back in through Fanny's room so it would seem like the thief came from outside? It's possible. In fact, it sounds damnably like Bella."

  "It's still only a theory, as you say." Something to ponder during sleepless nights at inns, as he and Andrew tracked Gisèle and Tommy Belmont. Malcolm moved to the door, but turned back, his hand on the doorknob. "Father? I couldn't leave as easily if you weren't here."

  Raoul went still. Only then did Malcolm fully realize what he'd said. He gave a faint smile. "I've never said it, have I? I've thought of you that way for some time. But it's what I called Alistair. So I didn't—But damn it, I'm not going to let Alistair own a word you're much more entitled to."

  "My dear Malcolm, that means—a great deal." Raoul drew a breath like that of a man stepping onto uncharted ground. "Now, find your sister and try not to worry about the rest of us."

  Chapter 4

  Mélanie carried the valise she'd packed for Malcolm downstairs. She found Andrew in the study writing with a quick hand. "Malcolm's gone up to speak to the duke," he said. "I'm just writing out instructions for Tim." Tim Gordon was Andrew's assistant in running the estate. "He's been in charge before, when Gelly and I've been in London, and when we went to Italy last autumn." Andrew set down the pen. "You saw a fair amount when you and Malcolm visited in the past couple of years. Obviously, you can speak for Malcolm in his absence."

  "I'll do my best," she said. Running a large estate was far outside her field of expertise. On the other hand, when she married Malcolm she hadn't known anything about managing a large household or being a diplomatic and political hostess, and she'd become quite adept at both.

  Andrew nodded and sealed his letter for Tim. Mélanie set down the valise and moved to a shield-back chair beside the desk. Andrew's drawn face and the set of his shoulders betrayed the appalling strain he was under. But her investigator's instincts had been racing ahead from the moment they’d learned Gisèle was missing. This was her last chance to put those to use. And to ask questions Malcolm might not be prepared to ask.

  "Andrew—" Mélanie hesitated.

  Andrew set down the Dunmykel seal and studied her, his face gray in the morning light. "You're wondering if I'm not telling you something."

  "Of course not. I know how you feel about Gisèle. It's plain you're desperate to find her."

  "But you're wondering if I knew she was unhappy. If I have some reason to suspect she might have run off."

  The torment of doubt in one's spouse. For all they had battled through, neither she nor Malcolm was a stranger to it. "I saw you and Gelly together. Unless I've completely lost my ability to read people, you love her, and she loves you. I also know love is a complicated thing. So is marriage."

  Andrew glanced through the mullioned panes of the windows at a snow-flecked line of birch trees. "I still remember the moment I looked at her and realized she wasn't my friend's little sister anymore. That first evening I kissed her. She was wearing a white wool cloak and snowflakes dusted her hair." He drew a harsh breath. "I'm thirteen years older. I should have known."

  "Not to let yourself fall in love?"

  "It was too late for that. On my side, at least. But I took shocking advantage of her. She'd scarcely had a chance to explore her options."

  "As I heard it, you insisted Gisèle go back to London and go about in society before you'd let her commit to anything. Gelly claimed you were so scrupulously honorable it drove her mad, but at the same time that she loved you for it."

  Andrew gave a twisted smile. "None of which changes the fact that in the end I gave way to impulse and let her tie herself to me when she'd seen little of the world and was far too young to be sure of what she wanted."

  "I imagine Gisèle would say growing up in this family she'd seen a great deal of the world. And, as I recall, she was quite sure she wanted you."

  "At the time." Andrew glanced out the window again, the look in his eyes both sweet and wistful. "And after. But it's damnably hard at nineteen to know what one wants for the rest of one's life."

  "I was nineteen when I married Malcolm."

  Andrew met her gaze across the oak and leather and chased silver of the desktop. He knew something of her past now, but not the full story. At least, she and Malcolm were convincing themselves he and Gisèle hadn't worked it all out. "You'd been through more than Gelly had," he said.

  Mélanie studied him. "I think perhaps you're having one of Malcolm's overprotective moments. Perhaps having known Gisèle since she was a child, you find it hard to believe she's grown up."

  Andrew gave a bleak smile that nevertheless told of past joys. "Believe me, I'm very aware she's grown up."

  "In some ways. But perhaps in others you aren't giving her enough credit. You haven't changed since you married. Why should she?"

  "I was older. I'd seen more of the world. And I suppose—" He returned the cap to the sealing wax with unwonted care. "A part of me could never quite believe she loved me."

  "I know something about that."

  Andrew's gaze shot to her face. "For God's sake, Mélanie. It's plain Malcolm adores you."

  "Malcolm's not the type to adore. I do think he loves me. But that doesn't stop the thoughts about 'what if he sees the real me?'"

  "My dear girl." For all his own crisis, Andrew's face was warm with concern. "You have nothing to worry about."

  "Relationships can be so precariously balanced. For a long time I don't think I gave Malcolm enough credit. Perhaps that's what you're doing with Gisèle."

  He watched her for a moment. "You're kind, Mélanie. And remarkably reassuring. But I know what you've been thinking. You can't help but wonder. Malcolm doesn't like to think it about Gelly. I don't think Lady Frances and O'Roarke do either. But you saw the possibilities at once."

  "Seeing the possibilities doesn't mean I believe them."

  "But you don't think we should ignore them."

  "I think we need more information. But whatever Gisèle's done, I'll never believe she doesn't love you."

  "And yet I think you're well aware of just how complex love can be."

  "And what it can endure."

  Andrew drew a hard breath. "Surely there are things you want to ask me. Things Malcolm wouldn't ask."

  Mélanie swallowed. But she had wanted to seize her chance. This was it. "Did you have any reason to think Gisèle was unhappy?"

  "Unhappy? No. If I'd thought that, I'd have—" He shook his head. "I'm not sure what. Tried to fix it somehow. Asked her. But she's seemed—" He drew a breath as though fumbling for words the way he might hunt for a lost child's toy under the sofa. "Preoccupied. I'd catch her in unexpected moments, staring off into space. And then she'd turn to me with a bright smile as though she hadn't a care in the world."

  Mélanie knew that look all too well. It was one she gave Malcolm loweringly often.

  Andrew returned the pen he'd been using to its silver holder. "I thought she might be worrying about Malcolm and you. And not want to talk about it because perhaps Malcolm had confided in her but not in me. Which I'd understand. But it went on after you came here. And she seemed—restless somehow." He looked up quickly and met Mélanie's gaze before she could armor herself. "You saw it too."

  "Perhaps. It could mean a lot of things. I'm restless at times myself."

  Andrew aligned a stack of writing paper on the ink blotter. "Gelly loves Dunmykel, but I don't know that she'd ever have chosen life here on her own. It's yet another reason I worried about her marrying me too young. She grew up in London, in Lady Frances's household. She c
ould have reigned over society like her aunt. Like her mother."

  "Gisèle isn't Frances or Arabella. In any way."

  Andrew settled a bronze paperweight on the writing paper. "She told me once that Dunmykel was a haven. The place she'd been happiest as a small child and was happiest now. But I'm not sure a haven is a place one wants to stay forever, all the time. Not if one has Gelly's appetite for life."

  The villa on Lake Como shot into Mélanie's memory. White walls. Tile floors. Flowers spilling over the balustrade. A sense of being cut off from the world that was at once soothing and terrifying. "Wanting more from life doesn't mean wanting life away from you."

  Andrew drew a breath. When he spoke, she had the sense he was at last voicing a fear he'd been terrified to utter. "Gelly always liked Belmont."

  Innocuous words. Which turned a phantom hanging in the air into a tangible reality, hovering before them. "With this family," Mélanie said, "the obvious explanation very often isn't the correct one."

  "Very often," Andrew agreed. "But not always."

  Malcolm found his grandfather, the Duke of Strathdon, in the sitting room of the suite the duke occupied on his visits to Dunmykel, pacing the floor. In his one-and-thirty years, Malcolm could not recall a time he had seen his grandfather pace.

  "Wanted to stay downstairs," the duke said, turning to the door as Malcolm came into the room. "Had some illusion that I could be doing more at the heart of the house. But thought it would be easier for us to talk here."

  "Thinking like an agent, sir." Malcolm advanced into the room. "My compliments."

  Strathdon waved a hand, brows drawn together. "You think they've gone to London?"

  "That's my best guess, from the way they tried to obscure their trail. I could well be wrong. But I think I'll be able to read clues along the way. Tommy's good at covering his tracks, but I'm more than passably good at uncovering them."

  Strathdon gave a crisp nod. "Why the devil—"

  "I don't know, sir." Malcolm clasped his hands behind his back. His fingers were taut with strain. "At a guess, I'd say she thinks she can do something to help Mélanie and me return to Britain."

  Strathdon's frown deepened. "She didn't know my plan. Not the whole of it. I wanted to keep her out of it."

  "So did I. But that may only have piqued her interest." In fact, three weeks ago, on the night of Jessica's birthday, Gelly had expressed her frustration to Malcolm at all the family secrets she didn't know. A conversation that in retrospect haunted him. "It's folly to blame yourself, sir," Malcolm said. "More information may have made her more inclined to involve herself." He hesitated a moment, but his recent exchange with Raoul echoed in his head. "O'Roarke and Aunt Frances also think it's possible Gelly's searching for information about her father."

  Strathdon went still.

  "You knew Alistair wasn't her father," Malcolm said. It wasn't quite a question.

  "Credit me with a bit of sense, lad. By the time Gisèle was conceived, I'd have been shocked if Arabella and Alistair got within ten feet of each other, let alone close enough to make a child."

  "But you don't—"

  "Good God, Malcolm. You can't imagine Arabella would have confided such a thing to me. Or that I'd have asked."

  "That doesn't mean you didn't have suspicions. You did about my father."

  Strathdon met Malcolm's gaze, his own blue eyes more open than usual. "True enough. But what was between your mother and O'Roarke was fairly obvious." He hesitated, glanced at the fire in the grate for a moment, coughed, looked back at Malcolm. "I don't think—"

  "O'Roarke and Mama were apart when Gelly was conceived. He doesn't know who Gelly's father is. Nor does Aunt Frances. She says Mama told her not to ask."

  Strathdon's gaze clouded, genuine concern overlaying the awkwardness of the subject. "You know I always let my daughters go their own way, for better or worse. One can argue I should have paid more attention—"

  "Arabella was very good at keeping secrets, however hard you'd have tried. This may have nothing to do with why Gelly's disappeared." Malcolm hesitated, then touched his fingers to his grandfather's arm. "I know how difficult it can be to wait, but I beg you, try not to worry too much, Grandfather."

  "Don't waste your energies on me, Malcolm," Strathdon said, in more of his usual tones. "I may have pretended to ill health to get you back from Italy, but I am perfectly fit and hardly likely to be overset by worry. However serious the situation. I may not be an agent, but life in this family has taught me to expect the unusual."

  "That I know full well, sir." Malcolm held his grandfather's gaze. "Mélanie, O'Roarke, and Laura may have to take the children back to Italy before I return. Should they think it necessary to do so, please do everything you can to assist them."

  "My dear boy, we may disagree on the possibility of your returning to Britain, but I would hardly attempt to stop your wife or your father or the charming Lady Tarrington from doing what they thought they must. Not that I have any illusions I could do so if I tried."

  "No. Though I wouldn't care to put it to the test."

  Strathdon's gaze flickered over Malcolm's face. "You'll be safe in London?"

  "You were convinced enough I should be able to go back there."

  "Talleyrand hasn't tried to bargain with Carfax yet."

  "There's no evidence Mel's past is generally known. Even if it were, it doesn't implicate me unless they think I was working with her. And even in the worst case, it wouldn't be the first time I've got out of enemy territory."

  The duke continued to frown. Malcolm touched his arm again. "Don't look so grave, sir. You've got your wish. I'll be on British soil a bit longer." He hesitated a moment after he said it, aware of the sudden rigidity of his fingers on the dark blue cassimere of his grandfather's coat sleeve.

  Strathdon's brows snapped together in a very different way from his frown of concern a moment before. "You think Gisèle and I orchestrated this to get you and Mélanie to stay in Britain?"

  "The thought could not but at least occur to me, sir."

  "By God." Strathdon ran a hand over his smooth white hair. "I can't say for a certainty I wouldn't have tried it. But in truth, the thought never even occurred to me."

  "I'm relieved to hear it."

  "Do you believe me?"

  "I think so, sir." Malcolm stepped back, prepared to turn to the door. "Which, coming from me, is a fair degree of certainty."

  There were two other people Malcolm needed to speak with before he went downstairs to join Andrew. He left his grandfather's suite and crossed the central upstairs passage to the bedchamber allotted to Prince Talleyrand. Talleyrand opened the door himself. He was fully dressed, in a frock coat and diamond-buckled shoes, his wig powdered and securely in place on his head, though after a brief appearance at breakfast he had retreated upstairs. As befitted a guest in the wake of family tragedy. And yet, Talleyrand had been friends with the Duke of Strathdon long before Malcolm was born. He had come to Dunmykel in secret because and he and Strathdon had concocted a gambit they claimed would allow Malcolm and Mélanie to return to their life in Britain. A gambit far too dangerous to risk.

  All of which suddenly seemed irrelevant in the wake of recent events.

  "I assume you're off to look for Gisèle," Talleyrand said.

  "With Andrew. And our search will most likely take us to London. Where a week ago, on Christmas night, I told you I wouldn't risk returning to, despite your kind offer. The irony isn't lost on me."

  "The board has shifted."

  Malcolm surveyed the prince. He had first met Talleyrand as a boy of five, when the prince sought refuge in England from the Reign of Terror. They had crossed diplomatic swords at the Congress of Vienna and in Paris after Waterloo, though Malcolm had also found Talleyrand an ally who went out of his way to protect Mélanie. "I don't know how long I'll be gone, but I suspect you'll have left for France by the time I return."

  "Possibly." Talleyrand cast a glance at the connecting doo
r to the room occupied by his nephew's wife, Dorothée. "I don't wish to leave so long as our presence can give support to your grandfather. I'm quite fond of your sister as well, you know. And I know Dorothée will be concerned about Mélanie."

  "You've been a good friend to our family," Malcolm said with truth. He stepped forwards, where the light gave him a better view of Talleyrand's face. One needed all the help one could get to read the prince's expression. "Aunt Frances and Raoul wonder if Gelly may have run because she's trying to learn who her father is."

  "And you think Arabella might have told me, when she didn't tell her sister or her longest-term lover?"

  "She told you about Tatiana."

  Talleyrand had helped conceal the birth of Tatiana, Malcolm's illegitimate half-sister, and had looked over her childhood in France and later made her his agent. "Actually, your grandfather told me about Tatiana," Talleyrand said. "Or, rather, told me Arabella was with child, at seventeen and unwed, and they needed my assistance. Which, of course, I was happy to give. There'd have been no such reason for Arabella to confide in me about Gisèle's parentage."

  Malcolm held the prince's gaze with his own. "Which wouldn't stop you from having suspicions."

  "True enough." Talleyrand's gaze was as shrewd and inscrutable as across the negotiating table, yet tinged with warmth. "I counted your mother a friend, Malcolm. I flatter myself that she shared things with me that she didn't with many others. And I with her. Perhaps more than I should have. But she wasn't in the habit of talking about her lovers. And yet—"

  Malcolm knew that look in the prince's eyes. Weighing information, weighing how much to say. "What?" he asked. His voice came out sharper than he intended.

  Talleyrand glanced down at the diamond buckle on his shoe, sparkling in the light from the fire blazing in the grate. "I was busy with France's concerns at the time your sister would have been conceived. But I did see Arabella once when she was pregnant with Gisèle. Arabella came to France in secret to see Tatiana, as she did frequently. She stopped to see me. She wanted to talk about Tatiana. And she had concerns about the uprising that was brewing in Ireland. She wanted my assurance that I'd help O'Roarke if he needed to flee the country. Which, some time later, he did indeed need to do."