The Duke's Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  "And it's to do with why Malcolm's sister's disappeared?"

  "It seems to be."

  Manon shook her head with regret. "I wish I could help."

  "There's a man who broke into Dunmykel a fortnight before Christmas in search of papers relating to the Wanderer. He seems to have hired some of the locals to help him, so he was a stranger to Dunmykel. They describe him as tall, thin, 'middle years'—the men describing him are young, so that could mean thirties to sixties—and one thought he had a French accent, though the others claimed he was English. Keeping in mind these were people who mostly hadn't been out of the Highlands, so even an Edinburgh or Glasgow accent might sound foreign. Does that remind you of anyone? It's not a very detailed description, though the height seems to rule out Julien."

  "I wouldn't put it past Julien to change his height by some sort of alchemy. But of all the disguises I've seen him in, I've never seen him tall."

  "Nor have I. Anything that makes one taller makes action challenging. And Julien would have had to make himself a lot taller to appear tall to these young men—they're a tall lot themselves."

  Manon frowned. "It's true it's not a detailed description. I probably wouldn't connect it if I hadn't just seen him. But as it is—it could be Thomas Ambrose."

  "He's an agent? I don't think I've ever heard of him."

  "No, you didn't work in Paris much, so it's not surprising you didn't cross paths with him. He was an agent for hire, much like Julien, though not at Julien's level. Few are. But quite capable. I crossed paths with him once on a mission involving some Royalist papers I was trying to intercept—did intercept. Our encounter was—interesting. Enough for him to linger in my memory. So when I saw a man who resembled him crossing the street near Covent Garden, I was quite sure it was he. I actually let out a gasp. Which, of course, confused Crispin. And given the nature of my past connection with Thomas, I didn't quite like to offer up a great many details to him. Not to mention that the girls were with us as well, and though they certainly know I have a past, there's no need to flaunt it in front of them."

  "When was this?" Mélanie asked.

  "The day after Boxing Day. We were taking Roderick to the Tavistock to show him off."

  "So there'd have been time for Ambrose to get here from Dunmykel."

  "Yes, I would think so. I did wonder at his presence in London, but who am I to worry at another agent seeking refuge here? Of course, it occurred to me that he could be here on business, but I told myself I was much better off not knowing." Her gaze flickered over Mélanie's face. "I'm sorry."

  "You couldn't have known. I try to stay out of things myself these days."

  "Ha."

  "I said 'try,' not 'succeed.' How old is Thomas Ambrose?"

  "We never shared birthdays, but I'd say about a decade older than I am. So, mid-forties now."

  "Do you have any idea whom he might be working for?"

  Manon shook her head. "He always laughed at the idea of any sort of ideology or loyalty. And that was during the war, when sides were a bit clearer than they are now. All I can say is that it must be someone who can pay well. Which means someone with a great deal of power."

  A young woman with smooth fair hair, delicate features, and calm green eyes answered the door of the rooms in Fenchurch Street to which Lumley conducted Malcolm and Harry. Her eyes widened in alarm.

  "It's all right, Faith," Lumley said. "Mr. Rannoch and Colonel Davenport are trying to learn the truth about what happened to Miranda."

  The young woman drew a sharp breath, but the gaze she turned to Malcolm and Harry was appraising.

  "Miss Harker." Malcolm inclined his head. "I understand you've been raising Miss Dormer's child ably." Lumley had told them that Faith Harker, Miranda Dormer's maid, had accompanied Miranda when she ran away from home, and had looked after Miranda's baby since he was born.

  Miss Harker drew a breath, as though sifting risk with her desire to seek justice for her friend. "I’d gladly speak with you, but it's not the best time—"

  A child's cry cut the air of the narrow hall behind her. Not fear or anger but pure glee. "Do it again!"

  "Of course, Danny," a man's voice said. "But you need to hold still. You'll knock it over."

  Malcolm, who had recognized the man's voice at once, pushed past Miss Harker and flung open the door behind which the voices had come. A small boy with curly blond hair knelt on the hearthrug watching a man spin a blue and yellow top. The man's back was to Malcolm, but he looked round at the opening of the door and confirmed what Malcolm had been almost sure of when he heard the voice.

  "Is this your son?" Malcolm asked Lord Beverston.

  "My son?" Beverston pushed himself to his feet. "What do you take me for?"

  Malcolm drew a breath, then realized the little boy was staring at him. Curious, not afraid. Not yet. Malcolm smiled at the child. "Good day, Danny. My name is Malcolm."

  Danny gave the grin of a child used to finding adults friendly and the world a safe place. Beverston stood frozen for a moment, then took a half step towards the boy. Danny smiled and hooked an arm round one of Beverston's highly polished boots. "Grandpapa."

  Chapter 22

  Malcolm and Beverston stared at each other, neither willing to put more into words in front of Danny. The door opened to admit Faith Harker, Gerald Lumley, and Harry.

  "Lord Beverston?" Lumley said with an amazement that suggested he had told the truth when he claimed not to know the identity of Miranda's lover.

  "Lumley, isn't it?" Beverston said, his voice unwontedly rough. "Perhaps you and Faith could take Danny into the other room? I need to speak to Mr. Rannoch and Colonel Davenport."

  Faith Harker met Beverston's gaze for a moment, with the look of a woman who recognized his authority but was also used to trusting him. She nodded and scooped up the little boy. "Come on, Danny. Uncle Gerald and I will show you more tricks with the top."

  Lumley picked up the top and held open the door for Faith and Danny. Danny waved goodbye over Faith's shoulder.

  Beverston watched the door close behind his grandson, Faith, and Lumley. His face was a study in conflict, from a man accustomed to being decisive.

  "I should have realized," Malcolm said. "John abused his wife. She likely wasn't the first or only woman he treated in that way."

  "I didn't know." Beverston's voice was low and still rough. "I had no notion until Miranda disappeared. Even when her father told me he couldn't find her trail. I don't think even Dormer knew the name of the man she'd run off with. John"—his mouth tightened—"gave no hint of anything. I heard he was keeping a woman in London, but that was hardly surprising." He hesitated a moment, gaze on the hearthrug where he'd been playing with his grandson. "It was a year later when my valet repeated a chance comment he'd overheard from one of the Dormer servants, and I pieced it together. I tracked Miranda down in London." He didn't elaborate on how, but then Beverston, as a senior Elsinore League member, would have considerable resources at his disposal. "I found her living in a garret with Faith and the baby. Scraping by with what she could earn by her needle. And on the streets." His mouth tightened. "She was terrified to see me. She thought I'd lead John to her."

  "Did you know how John treated Diana?" Malcolm asked. His hands curled into fists at his side as he said it.

  Beverston met his gaze. "No. That's the truth. I knew the marriage wasn't ideal, but what marriage is? And one doesn't like to think of one's son—" He took a turn about the room, moving with something like his usual brisk purposefulness. "I had to find somewhere for Miranda to be safe from John. The options were limited. That was when I went to Rosamund."

  "You could have set her up in rooms of her own or in the country where she could have raised her child and not had to earn her keep in a brothel." Harry's voice was level but held an undercurrent of ice.

  "And when John tracked her and Danny down?" Beverston asked. "She'd have had no protection beyond her maid. Rosamund keeps a tighter watch on the Barqu
e of Frailty than many generals I've known on their command posts. No one gets in whom she doesn't vet."

  "Including a number of members of the Elsinore League," Malcolm said.

  "But John certainly wouldn't." The contempt in Beverston's voice told volumes, and tallied with John Smythe's account of his father's attitude towards him. "Rosamund wouldn't have let him within a hundred feet of the place."

  "Miss Dormer went out," Harry said. "I assume Mrs. Hartley didn't send a bodyguard with her."

  "Mostly she went out with me," Beverston said. "Those outings were cover for her to visit Danny. Needless to say, Miranda and I did not have an amorous relationship."

  "I don't see why that necessarily follows," Malcolm said. "You're clearly a man willing to cross a number of lines."

  Beverston's gaze clashed with Malcolm's own. "I draw the line somewhere. Unlike O'Roarke."

  "A palpable hit." Malcolm kept his voice even. Though the sting was less strong than it once would have been. "But you've rather proved my point about the lines people will cross."

  "Perhaps." Beverston folded his arms across his chest. "Regardless, Miranda was never my mistress."

  "No." Malcolm held Beverston's gaze with his own. "She was your agent, wasn't she?"

  "My what? My dear Rannoch, I've never been a spy."

  "That rather depends how one defines spying. You had Miss Dormer collecting information for you for the Elsinore League, didn't you?"

  Beverston raised a brow, but his face remained impassive. "At the Barque of Frailty? A number of the clients were members of the League, as you yourself said."

  "And the League don't always act in concert, as you've admitted more than once. You could well have your reasons for keeping an eye on your confederates. Then, of course, there are the other men who patronized the Barque of Frailty."

  "In fact, that would be quite a good use of it." Harry regarded Beverston, arms folded across his chest. "Your fellow League members could bring men into the Barque of Frailty about whom you wanted to acquire information. Or on whom you wanted to gain a hold."

  Beverston returned Harry's gaze. "The most careful men will reveal things across the pillow they wouldn't dream of saying anywhere else. Tell me both of you haven't made use of that in your work as agents."

  Malcolm swallowed. He had with Rachel Garnier. Harry, he was sure, had in other circumstances. Though neither of them had ever put a woman into a brothel to work for them. Still, the tang of self-disgust he'd tasted when they first visited the Barque of Frailty bit him in the throat again. "Why was Carfax in the Barque of Frailty?"

  Beverston's brows snapped together. "I would very much like to know that myself."

  "You didn't lure him there for the reasons Davenport just enumerated?"

  "My dear Rannoch. Surely you realize one doesn't lure Carfax anywhere?"

  "Not in the general way of things," Malcolm agreed. "But then, in the general way of things, Carfax isn't arrested for murder either."

  Beverston's mouth tightened. "If you're implying Miranda's murder was a ploy to entrap Carfax—"

  "For the present, I'm doing you the credit of thinking you'd at least draw the line there." Which wasn't entirely true. Malcolm wasn't at all sure he had Beverston's limits. "Did you know Carfax was talking to Miranda?"

  "Can you imagine I wouldn't have taken action if I had?"

  "That would depend on whether or not you'd tasked her to uncover information from him."

  Beverston gave a grunt of acknowledgment. "I knew Carfax had asked Waitley to bring him to the Barque of Frailty. We didn't have a lot of notice—Carfax saw to that. But Waitley sent word to Rosamund and Rosamund sent word to me. She pointed out it would be difficult to keep Carfax out, which I agreed with. And, truth to tell, I wanted to see what he was after. I told Miranda if he approached her not to try to avoid him. To listen to what he had to say and not reveal anything. I told her I had the greatest faith in her. Which was true." A muscle twitched beside his jaw. "To own the truth, I was relieved when I saw him go over to her. I wanted to know what the devil he was doing at the Barque of Frailty, and Miranda was my best chance."

  "And then?" Harry's voice was level, but taut as a bowstring.

  "I went to the Barque of Frailty that night, as you know, but stayed as far away from Miranda as I could and pretended to interests elsewhere. I wanted Miranda to learn what Carfax was up to, and I had no reason to think Miranda was in danger." Beverston drew a sharp breath. "I'll never get over the sight of her."

  Malcolm watched Beverston closely. That fit with Daisy Singleton's account of his reaction. And, as he and Harry had discussed, didn't necessarily mean he hadn't killed her. "Did you take her jade pendant to keep her identity a secret?"

  "Did I—No. I confess, I didn't even think about the pendant until you asked me about it the first time."

  "You don't have an idea what Carfax asked her?" Malcolm said.

  "I didn't see her after she left the room with him until—until I saw her body. Obviously I didn't ask Carfax." Beverston's hands were curled into fists at his sides. "She was the mother of my grandson."

  "And your agent," Harry said.

  The gaze Beverston turned to Harry was surprisingly open. "Surely it's not news to you that one may care for an agent, Davenport. By God, if Carfax killed her—"

  "Hardly logical if he came there for information," Malcolm said.

  "That," Beverston said, "is the only reason I'm cooperating with your investigation."

  "I thought that was because we tracked you down and learned who Miss Dormer was and gave you no choice," Harry said.

  Beverston's gaze hardened. "Believe me, Davenport, if I didn't want to talk to you, I wouldn't."

  "If Carfax didn't kill her, who do you think did?" Malcolm asked.

  Beverston's brows drew together in genuine inquiry, but also in wariness. "I thought it was your job to uncover that. From what I hear, you're both quite good at it."

  "By questioning those close to the victim. Until now, our chief suspect was Miss Dormer's seducer, but I think being in a grave is a fairly unshakable alibi."

  Beverston grimaced. "I own she felt a degree of relief with John gone."

  "Did any of her family know where she was?" Harry asked.

  "Not that I know of. She said they'd washed their hands of her and she had no desire to expose herself to their scorn. And I've had no hint in my dealings with Sir George that he has any idea where she is."

  "Surely—" Harry bit back the words.

  "You're supposed to be a cynic, Davenport."

  "If being shocked that a man doesn't wonder at the fate of his daughter makes me less than a cynic, then guilty as charged."

  Beverston regarded Harry for a moment. "In his eyes, she'd ceased being his daughter. And no, I can't imagine doing the same with one of my daughters. I imagine you're shocked to find us agreeing about anything."

  "On the contrary," Malcolm said. "I've learned I can see eye to eye with my greatest enemies over certain things. And quite fail to do so with my dearest friends over others."

  Beverston met his gaze in a moment of measured acknowledgment. "If her family had learned where she was, I'd be shocked if they'd come to see her. Let alone had anything to do with her death. The only person from her past she was in touch with, besides Faith, was Gerald Lumley. I was a bit nervous when Miranda told me she'd seen him, but it seemed to comfort her to know someone from her old life. I don't think he'd have harmed her."

  "Nor do I," Malcolm said. Though one could never rule anything out. "Whom else did you have Miss Dormer spying on?"

  Beverston's mouth tightened. "She wasn't—"

  "For God's sake, Beverston." Malcolm took a step forwards. "You said it yourself. She was the mother of your grandchild. I'm not happy to be standing here talking to you either, but for the moment we're allies in wanting to learn who killed Miranda. At least, I think we are."

  Beverston let out a rough sigh. "Hugh Derenvil."

&
nbsp; Malcolm frowned. Somehow he'd been expecting a cabinet minister or a crony of the prince regent. Hugh Derenvil was a generation younger, but an up-and-coming young Tory. He'd been a year ahead of Malcolm at Harrow, a serious young man and a good scholar. Not one for the usual public school hijinks. Not one, judging by rumors, to visit the girls in the village with whom a number of students experimented. He'd then gone into the army. Malcolm had seen him a few times in the Peninsula and Brussels. And more recently in the House of Commons. He pictured Derenvil sitting on the Tory benches, face focused and intent, eyes on whoever was speaking, actually listening, which was rarer than one would think among MPs. Not the sort of man one would think to find in a brothel. Though by now, Malcolm thought, perhaps he should realize there was no particular type.

  Derenvil was a protégé of Lord Castlereagh. Rumor had it Derenvil might be in line for a minor cabinet post. And—

  "He's sponsoring a fishing rights bill," Malcolm said. He might be away from Parliament, but he followed the news closely in the English papers. "Which I assume you take more of an interest in than I would have thought."

  "No comment," Beverston said. "Save that I have extensive property in Derbyshire."

  "Which would be impacted by the bill."

  "Derenvil's also about to marry Caroline Lewes," Harry said. "It's the social event of the winter season."

  Malcolm looked at Harry. So did Beverston.

  "My wife still follows such things," Harry said. "And occasionally I listen."

  Caroline Lewes was the eldest daughter of Lord Thorsby, whose grandfather had made a sizable fortune in shipping and been elevated to the peerage. His daughter was a considerable heiress and Thorsby was a force in the Tory party himself, well positioned to assist Derenvil's career. "And his involvement with Miss Dormer put you in a position to disrupt the marriage," Malcolm said to Beverston.

  Beverston lifted a brow. "I know you both are known for your attachment to your wives, but visiting the Barque of Frailty was hardly unusual behavior."

  "No, but it might have bothered a young woman who had not yet committed herself to marriage," Harry said. "In some ways, a woman has power as a fiancée that she doesn't have as a wife."