The Duke's Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  "We don't know that's what's between them," Sam said.

  "Seriously, Sam?" Nan swung round towards him. "When did you start ignoring the obvious?"

  "We're dealing with people with whom the obvious answer isn't always the right one." Sam turned his mug in his hands, frowning.

  "I won't pretend it isn't an uncomfortable subject," Malcolm said. "But we haven't got time for niceties. Do you think my sister was with Belmont because they were lovers?"

  Sam drew a breath and met Malcolm's gaze for a moment. "I can't swear to what is or isn't between them. But I'm quite sure she wasn't with him just for—er—romantic reasons."

  "It's true," Nan said. "They'd talk all secret-like sometimes. Not the way lovers talk secret."

  "But you don't know what they were talking about?" Malcolm asked.

  "I try to stay out of Belmont's business," Sam said. "He has a way of being involved in trouble. Though I suppose I can't blame today's disturbance on him."

  "I'm not so sure," Malcolm said. "Did you peach on Mr. Eckert?"

  "What the devil business is it of yours?"

  "Your denials seemed singularly vehement. And if you really didn't peach on him, it looks to me as though someone set you up for the little scene that was enacted just now."

  Sam struck his palm against his knee. "And you think that has to do with whatever Belmont and your sister are involved in?"

  "I think it's possible. But then, you know more about your dealings with them than I do. Not to mention whatever else you may be involved in."

  Sam turned his mug in his hands. "I must say, when Mélanie walked in it never occurred to me it was to do with Belmont and his friend. I thought you were on the trail of St.—"

  "Bloody hell, does she know him too?" Nan asked in the silence after Sam bit back his words.

  "Never mind." Sam sought refuge in his mug again.

  But Mélanie had already jumped ahead, and she suspected Malcolm had too. "Sam, are you saying you've seen Julien St. Juste?"

  Sam clunked his mug down on the floor. "Didn't say anything of the sort."

  "If Julien was behind Eckert's men—" Mélanie said.

  "That bastard." Sam punched his fist into the chair arm. "I should have bloody well shown him the door the minute he showed up."

  "When?" Mélanie said. "When did he?"

  Sam stared at her.

  "Oh, for God's sake, Sam," Nan said.

  He wiped his hand across his face. His lip was still bleeding. "A month since."

  "What did he want?"

  "Help in hiring a crew."

  "What sort of crew?"

  "He wanted someone who knew the ropes of a break-in and how to track and fight and could read and write. And who'd know where to hire on others, if needed."

  Nan was staring at Sam with smoldering eyes. "You slimy bastard. What have you got Robby into?"

  "Robby can take care of himself," Sam said.

  "Robby?" Mélanie asked.

  "My brother."

  "You're an enterprising family," Malcolm said.

  "We know how to look out for ourselves. But," Nan added, swinging her gaze back to Sam, "that doesn't mean we can walk out of any danger unscathed."

  Sam grabbed the brandy bottle from the floor and splashed more brandy into his tea. "He was eager enough for the rhino, wasn't he?"

  "Of course he was. He's eighteen and he thinks he's as immortal as one of those Greek gods there're all the statues of in the British Museum. What good's that going to do him if he gets in over his head?"

  "Nannie, I told you—"

  "I know what you told me." She turned away from him, arms folded across her lace-vandyked bodice.

  "What did St. Juste want Robby for?" Mélanie said.

  "He didn't say," Sam muttered.

  "When did you last see St. Juste?" Malcolm asked.

  Sam took a swig from his mug, as though too tired to prevaricate further. "When he came to me a month ago. We haven't spoken since."

  "And Robby?"

  Nan chewed her nail. "He was here Monday last. Flashing his blunt and talking about his secret work."

  "Did he tell you what it was?"

  "No. I was tired of him putting on airs, truth to tell." She rubbed her forehead, eyes stricken.

  Malcolm leaned forwards. "What's St. Juste planning?"

  "I tell you, I don't know." Sam stared into his mug. "But it wasn't an isolated job. He was setting up an operation in London." He frowned for a moment. "You think someone connected to St. Juste set Eckert's men on me? To shut me up? Who?"

  "Julien himself, potentially, if he thought he'd revealed too much to you," Mélanie said. She saw Julien St. Juste at their last meeting, in Malcolm's study in the villa in Italy. These days Julien just might be an ally, but she had no illusions about what he was capable of, and she knew Sam didn't either. "Someone trying to stop Julien, though it's difficult to see how they'd think attacking you would do that. Or whomever Julien is working for, if they were trying to tidy away loose ends."

  "I didn't say—"

  "But you had to have known he was working for someone," Mélanie said. She looked at Nan. "Why are you so worried about your brother?"

  Nan started to speak, then bit her lip and looked at her lover.

  "Why were you so afraid to tell us the truth, Sam?" Mélanie said.

  "Mélanie—"

  "Whoever sent Eckert's men at you, I helped you escape them."

  Sam stared at her for a long moment. She remembered much the same look in his eyes once in Spain, when he'd been trying to decide how to tell her that the barn they were hiding in was surrounded by British soldiers. At last he set his mug down and turned to Malcolm. "Rannoch, could you leave the room for a minute?"

  "Certainly, if you wish it."

  "For God's sake, Sam," Mélanie said. "Haven't we established that Malcolm is to be trusted?"

  "It's not that." Sam drew a long breath, gaze fixed on the cracked floorboards. "It's—"

  "If you tell me alone, I'll just turn round and tell Malcolm."

  "But that's a decision you can take for yourself." Malcolm started to get up.

  Mélanie gripped her husband's arm. "Better for us both to hear it at once. Who's St. Juste working for, Sam?"

  "Christ. Have it your own way." Sam snatched up his mug, took a long swig, and stared at her over the chipped enamel rim. "St. Juste is working for the man we all used to work for. The man you used to sleep with. Raoul O'Roarke."

  Chapter 16

  Mélanie stared at Sam. Beside her, she felt Malcolm go still as ice. "Did St. Juste tell you he was working for Raoul?" she asked.

  "Course not. Since when does that bastard tell anyone anything?" Sam took a swig of tea and brandy. "I said I hadn't spoken with St. Juste since he came to see me a month since. Which is true. But I caught a glimpse of him in the Chat Gris last night. Sitting at a table towards the back. With O'Roarke."

  "Did you speak with them?" Mélanie said.

  "What kind of a fool do you take me for? If there was any profit in it, they'd come to me. Otherwise, I give them a wide berth, same as I did in Spain."

  "So you don't know for a certainty that they're working together."

  "What the devil in this life is a certainty? St. Juste is working for someone. He used to work for O'Roarke—"

  "Among others," Mélanie said.

  "—and now here they both are in London, conferring together. I didn't think O'Roarke was supposed to be in London."

  "He's been in Italy. With us." Mélanie smoothed her hands over her cherry-striped skirt. "He arrived in London with me yesterday. When Julien first came to see you, Raoul was in Scotland with us."

  Sam frowned. "I seem to have missed some developments. But it wouldn't be the first time O'Roarke engaged someone's services from afar."

  Nan was looking back and forth between her lover and Mélanie, a gathering frown on her face. "Who the devil is O'Roarke?"

  "Cove I—we—used to work f
or in Spain," Sam said.

  "And you were his mistress?" Nan asked Mélanie.

  "A long time ago."

  "And now he lives with you and your husband?"

  "He's also my father," Malcolm said.

  Nan let out a snort of disbelief. "And you were worried I'd peach about your past. No bleeding fear of that. No one would believe me if I did." She took the teapot from the spirit lamp and refilled her cup. "What would this O'Roarke be wanting with St. Juste now? Last I checked, the war was over."

  "Not for everyone." Malcolm scrubbed his hands over his face. "O'Roarke's half-Irish and half-Spanish, and a revolutionary on general principles. A William Godwin/Tom Paine sort of Radical. He sided with the French in Spain because he thought Bonaparte's regime offered the quickest route to reform. Now he's allied with the Spanish Liberals—many of whom fought against the French but oppose the restored Spanish monarchy."

  "A monarchy which hasn't exactly proven itself friendly to the rights of anyone," Mélanie said.

  "Quite," Malcolm said. "O'Roarke would like support from the British for a Liberal rebellion in Spain."

  Nan added milk to her tea, then splashed in some brandy. "I don't see why he'd need St. Juste for that."

  "No," Malcolm agreed.

  Nan took a sip of tea. "So you think O'Roarke set Eckert's men on us?"

  "Doesn't make a lot of sense," Sam said. "Not that O'Roarke's not cold-blooded enough to do so, in the right circumstances, but he should know I don't blab. Besides, he always tended to look after his own. He tried to make sure his agents were safe out of it after the war. Helped me get settled in London. It could have been St. Juste himself who wanted us out of the way, as Mélanie said. Or someone else. Even someone connected to Belmont."

  "Could Belmont be involved in the same plot?" Nan asked.

  "I doubt it," Malcolm said. "He's linked to O'Roarke's enemies."

  "Wouldn't be the first time enemies have become allies," Nan said. "If—"

  She broke off as a rap fell on the door. Trenor poked his head in and asked if they were done talking for the moment. As the questions about Raoul were exhausted, and she wasn't sure she wanted to reveal more to Sam and Nan, Mélanie nodded. Bet and Trenor entered the room with a parcel of warm pies and a pitcher of ale. Bet produced plates, in a variety of transfer-ware patterns, and served the pies while Trenor poured the ale into an assortment of cups and glassware.

  "You'll have to lie low." Bet looked from her sister to Sancho. "You're no match for Mr. Eckert, Sam, and don't go thinking you are."

  Sam grimaced and nodded. "We'll go carefully for a bit."

  "We can't leave London, though," Nan said. "Robby might need us."

  "Oh, poison." Bet clunked down her glass of ale. "Is this to do with that job you got Robby? Is he in danger?"

  "We're not sure," Sam said round a mouthful of pie.

  Trenor cast a quick glance from Sam to Malcolm, then looked at Bet. "If your brother's mixed up in something dangerous and those are the people who came after Sam and Nan, then you could be in danger as well. This settles it. You're coming with me."

  Bet shook her head. "Stop talking like you're on stage at the Tavistock, Sandy. How'm I supposed to make a living?"

  "You won't need to. It's high time we changed things anyway."

  Bet turned to Mélanie. "Is Robby in danger?"

  "We can't be sure," Mélanie said. "Do you have any idea where your brother might be?"

  "Not in his old lodgings. He'd had to skip out just before Sam found him the job and when he was here last week, he told me he'd be hard to find as long as the job went on."

  Malcolm pulled his card case from inside his coat. "Can you let us know if you hear from him? Trenor knows how to find me."

  "I can read." Bet took the card he was holding out and frowned at it.

  "It's all right, Betty," Nan said. "We can trust them. As much as we can trust anyone."

  Bet tucked the card into her bodice. "If Robby's in trouble, it'll take more than Nannie and me to talk sense into him. I'll let you know if I hear from him."

  "Thank you," Malcolm said. He handed another card to Nan, then turned to Sam. "If you hear from Belmont—"

  Sam inclined his head. "I'll let you know. And do my best to keep him and your sister here if they show their faces again."

  "That's good of you," Malcolm said.

  "And you're not entirely sure you can take my word, given that I've been working with Belmont and taking his money. But Belmont's a client. Mélanie's saved my life more than once, including perhaps today. I may be flexible in my loyalties, but I don't forget a thing like that."

  Malcolm nodded.

  "One more thing," Sam said. "O"Roarke has his own loyalties as well, but if he's working with St. Juste, God knows what he's up to. Go carefully."

  "Thank you," Malcolm said. "I always do."

  Malcolm leaned back against the greasy squabs of the hackney he had flagged down. "Just when I think I know him, he surprises me."

  "I don't think he'll ever stop." Mélanie kept her voice level, but she could hear the worn places beneath the polished veneer.

  "I assume he didn't say anything to you about St. Juste?"

  "No." Mélanie smoothed the folds of the scarlet cloak Bet had lent her. The yellowed ivory of her borrowed gloves pulled over her taut fingers. "Raoul went to see a woman named Charlotte Leblanc yesterday." She cast a quick glance at Malcolm. "That's why we're in London. Tommy wrote to her—"

  "Yes, Laura and Cordy told me."

  "Raoul said he found her in the Chat Gris last night. He could have simply happened across Julien there. Though that strains coincidence. Julien could have sought him out." She shivered, because the Elsinore League had wanted Julien to kill Raoul, and though Julien had refused, one never knew what could change. "Or Raoul could have got wind that Julien was in London and gone looking for him. He'd have wanted intelligence about the papers in Julien's hand about the Wanderer that your mother hid twenty years ago. But whatever the reason, he didn't say anything to any of us about seeing Julien."

  She saw Raoul coming home last night, dropping down on the drawing room carpet with the children. Updating her, Laura, Cordy, Frances, and Archie. This morning teasing the children, kissing Laura before he went out. There'd been no hint of anything to do with Julien in his words, no hint he was keeping secrets in his manner. But then, with Raoul one could rarely detect secrets.

  "He might not have done," Malcolm said. "If he was trying to figure out what St. Juste was doing and wanted to keep you out of it. At least until he knew more."

  "Perhaps. Though he's shared other information about Julien."

  "That would rather depend on what St. Juste is involved in. What Raoul thinks he's involved in."

  "Or Raoul really could be working with him." She forced herself to say it.

  "It's possible." Malcolm's voice was even. "He doesn't tell us everything about his work in Spain. I wouldn't expect him to. He could have found reason to work with St. Juste. Even to employ him."

  "Yes, but Julien's in the middle of the fight against the League. Which we all share." She hugged her arms over her chest, fighting off a chill.

  "True enough. But we'd be fools to think we can always share everything." He looked at her for a moment across the shadows of the carriage. "I told you in Italy that I choose to believe O'Roarke won't betray us. Because the alternative is unthinkable. That still holds true."

  She swallowed. Hard. Sometimes the unthinkable had to be put into words. "I used to think I didn't know his limits. In the past year—"

  "I know. He's a friend. He's my father. We're a family. I'd swear I know him. I've told him things I'd probably say to no one else but you." Malcolm drew a breath as though biting back further words.

  Mélanie studied her husband in the shadows of the hackney. Sharp-boned face, intense eyes, shoulders curved, dark brown hair disordered where he'd pulled off his beaver hat. At once hardened agent and vulnerable sc
hoolboy. "But you can't really fully trust anyone, can you? Thanks to me."

  Malcolm met her gaze, his own at once open and uncompromising. "I'm an agent. I should have always known I couldn't fully trust anyone. But I refuse to live my life that way. I refuse to always suspect the people I care about. That doesn't mean I automatically believe everything they say, either. You and I both acknowledge we might have reason to keep things from each other."

  "We wouldn't—"

  "I'm not sure I'd hire St. Juste without telling you. But I might hire someone. Potentially someone we're both connected with."

  "Raoul is—"

  "I'm not fool enough to think that because O'Roarke's my father, because he raised me without admitting it and we've actually remembered how to interact as father and son, because he's Emily's father, maybe even Colin's father, Jessica's grandfather—that any of that means he's stopped being a spymaster. Mostly, I've been worried about the danger that puts him in, but it also could put him against us. Or, at least, against me."

  "Malcolm, I wouldn't—"

  "I'm not going to put you between the two of us, sweetheart."

  "You can't think—"

  "I think it would depend on the circumstances, and you'd decide accordingly. Depending on what Raoul's objective was and what mine was. You aren't really sure what you'd have done if the Phoenix plot had been real, are you? Or what O'Roarke would have done?"

  Mélanie could hear Raoul's voice, as they had stood by the Serpentine watching the children, unsure if the plot to free Napoleon Bonaparte was real or a trap to catch former agents. I want what's best for France. And I want you as far away from it as possible.

  "That was more than six months ago. I don't think he would risk getting involved with something like the Phoenix plot now. At that point, he hadn't quite acknowledged what Emily was to him. Now he's her father and he's about to have another child."

  "And, like most parents, I think he wants the best world possible for his children. As you and I do. And fundamentally we all agree about that world. But we're not always going to agree about how to get there."

  "But after our time in Italy—"

  "We've been running for the past six months. We still are. That's made us allies."