by Teresa Grant
If you wish to recover the paper in question, meet me in the embassy garden by the statue of Diana at midnight in three days’ time. I will surrender the paper in exchange for a certain book of yours. You will know the one I mean.
Do not fail if you value your reputation.
Malcolm scanned the paper, then raised his gaze to Linford’s white face. “Do you know the book the blackmailer means?”
“Er—yes.” Linford began to pace over the Turkish rug.
“And?”
“It’s a notebook.”
“Your own?”
“Yes.” Linford spun round in front of the fireplace. “A—a personal record.”
Malcolm stared at him. Good God, the man wouldn’t be fool enough to commit to paper—
“I can’t surrender it, Rannoch. It could be more damaging than the letter.”
He could. “Haven’t you ever seen Don Giovanni, Linford ?”
“What’s that to say to anything?”
“Stay away from statues. Or not—it would make life easier for the rest of us. When you detailed your amorous conquests in writing did you put them in any sort of code?”
“I never thought the book would fall into the wrong hands.”
“No, it’s quite evident you never thought at all.”
“If you’re going to be bloody clever—”
“You’re right, we need to consider options. I hope you have the book secured.”
“Yes, it’s in my rooms. I can’t surrender it—It wouldn’t just be Flores who would be after my head. Christ, the number of husbands—”
“Besides it would be uncomfortable for the ladies involved.”
Linford tugged at his cravat. “Er—yes, of course.”
“How long would it take you to make a dummy copy?” Malcolm asked.
“A dummy?”
“A new version in a similar notebook with made-up names, names no one can connect to any actual women.”
Linford stared at him. “You think that would work?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. You create the book—”
“And take it to the rendezvous?”
“No, I’ll take it for you.”
“Oh.” Linford hesitated, as though unsure whether to be affronted or relieved. Relief appeared to win out. “Probably just as well. You’re used to dealing with this sort of thing, and my temper might get the better of me. Wellington wouldn’t like it.”
“Indeed.”
“And if it doesn’t work?’
Malcolm moved to the door. “I have three days to figure that out.”
3
Suzanne dropped down on a bench on the edge of the plaza. The sky was slate gray, heavy with the promise of rain. Few people were abroad on this December morning. After she left the embassy, she had exchanged her mulberry velvet bonnet and pelisse for a brown cloak and a black lace mantilla. Often the simplest disguises were the most effective. But even were she recognized, there was no reason Suzanne de Saint-Vallier should not be walking in this plaza or that she should not happen to engage in conversation with an acquaintance who happened by. She spread her palms in her lap. Her fingers trembled. Delayed reaction?
Malcolm Rannoch’s words reverberated in her head. The first proposal of marriage she had ever received. She bit back a desperate laugh. Agents made the best of unlooked-for opportunities. Her masquerade as a victim of war and the real details of her personal life had combined to create one of those unlooked-for opportunities. An opportunity that sent a chill of dread through her. Along with a jolt of anticipation.
Boot heels clicked on the tiles. The man she had come to meet dropped down beside her in a swirl of charcoal greatcoat. “What’s happened?” he asked in a sharp voice.
Suzanne turned to look directly into Raoul O’Roarke’s incisive gray eyes. “Am I that transparent?”
“Not in the least, but I’m rather good at reading you.” Raoul scanned her face. “Do you think you’ve been discovered? We can pull you out.”
“Quite the reverse.” She drew a breath. For some reason, she hesitated to put it into words. Perhaps because that would be the first step into an uncertain future. “Malcolm Rannoch asked me to marry him.”
Shock reverberated through Raoul’s gaze. “I pride myself on my skill at chess. But that’s a move I didn’t see coming.”
“Malcolm isn’t a chess piece, Raoul.” Her voice cut with a sharpness she hadn’t intended. “He’s a decent man who wants to help a pregnant war victim.”
“I know. That’s why I should have seen it coming.” Raoul settled back against the bench. “What do you want to do?”
“Since when does what any of us wants to do matter? We’re trying to win a war.” It was the thing she had clung to since Raoul had found her, an angry, bitter fifteen-year-old, scarred inside and out, in a brothel in Léon. Her world had been shattered when she saw her father and sister killed. Raoul had reminded her of the ideals she’d been raised on, restored her to a sense of purpose, given her an outlet for her anger and a direction for her life.
“It has to be part of the equation with a decision like this,” he said in a quiet voice.
She spread her fingers in her lap, pressing the creases from her black merino gown. “You can’t deny it’s an amazing opportunity.”
“So you are thinking about it.” His voice could only be that neutral with an effort.
She shot a quick look at him. His eyes were even more veiled than usual. “How could I not? I’d be the wife of a British diplomat. More than that—the wife of a British agent. I’d be part of Wellington’s inner circle. The information I could gather—”
“It’s not like the sort of masquerade you’re used to.” His voice was quiet and steady, the voice that had kept her on an even keel for the past three and a half years. “It’s one thing to play a part for a few hours or a few days. This would have no limit.”
“I know.” She tried to visualize it, sharing rooms and meals, entertaining, going about together in society. Making a life, even if it was a life built on lies. “It would be a challenge.”
“And that’s part of what appeals to you.”
“No. Oh, all right, yes, that’s part of it. You know I can’t bear to walk away from a challenge.”
His mouth curved. “Full well. It’s been known to get you into trouble.”
“And it’s proved extremely useful. Damn it, Raoul, a part of me will always be an actress, and you can’t deny it would be the role of a lifetime.”
His gaze flickered over her face, though it still gave nothing away. “And the child?” Again his voice was so stripped of inflection she could hear the tension that underlay it.
Her hand curved over her abdomen. “I’m not going to go off to France as you suggested and be shunted out of the fray. You can’t ask me to turn my back on my cause and comrades. You of all people should know what that would mean.”
“I didn’t ask it of you. I merely said it was an option. But you have to consider the child’s welfare. This would at least ensure you’d both be safe.”
She swallowed, tasting fear and anticipation. “So you’re saying you want me to do it?”
“No. There are risks on both sides. But the child has to be part of the equation.”
She looked into his eyes. They could dance round it, they could choose their words with the care of those walking round mines. But they couldn’t deny that this child, this accident, this error of judgment, this twist of fate, was both of theirs. Spies weren’t supposed to have children. Raoul, a spymaster with an estranged wife in Ireland, was even less suited to fatherhood than Malcolm Rannoch.
“We can’t—” she said.
“No,” Raoul agreed. Because of course he wasn’t going to turn his back on his cause and comrades, either. The single word sounded unexpectedly rough, like a knife scraped over rock. “I’ve known Malcolm Rannoch since he was a boy,” he continued after a moment.
Raoul had known Malcolm’s
parents and grandfather in Ireland. Friendships cut oddly in this world. But it was unlike Raoul to let that interfere. “Are you saying you want me to leave him alone?”
“I’m saying I know he’d be a good father.”
Malcolm Rannoch’s gray eyes, at once concerned and cool, danced in her memory. “He’ll be gone much of the time.”
“Make no mistake, querida.” Raoul’s quiet voice turned hard as granite. “You won’t be able to do this and remain emotionally detached.”
“Perhaps not. But I’m good at keeping my life in separate boxes. You trained me well.”
“You’ve crossed paths with British soldiers and diplomats you might encounter if this continues. Frederick Radley for one.”
“I can handle Radley.”
“What have I said to you about overconfidence?”
“It’s worth the risk.”
He started to speak and bit back whatever he had been going to say. He watched her a moment longer, then inclined his head.
“There’s more,” she said quickly. “I mean in addition to Malcolm’s proposal. I have some information that may be of use.” She hesitated a moment, Isabella Flores’s voice echoing in her ears, then pushed forward. She couldn’t afford to grow soft. Not now of all times. “I found the Marquesa de Flores crying in the ladies’ retiring room at the embassy three nights ago.”
“The general’s wife?”
“The general’s young, pretty, restless wife, who is cooped up in Lisbon. It seems she found comfort with a British officer.”
“Interesting.” Raoul shifted his shoulders against the back of the bench. “You learned his name?”
“Can you doubt me?”
“Purely rhetorical.”
Isabella Flores’s anxious voice echoed again in her memory. Again she suppressed it. “It’s Edward Linford.”
“Oh, good God. The damned fool.”
“Quite, as Malcolm would say, though Linford doesn’t impress me as particularly clever. Isabella wrote Linford an indiscreet letter that’s gone astray. If it falls into her husband’s hands, he’s likely to challenge Linford to a duel. Apparently Sir Charles Stuart has tasked Malcolm with recovering the letter.”
“Interesting.” Raoul stretched his legs out in front of him. “I imagine Malcolm will be able to recover it.”
“And you want me to make sure he doesn’t?” Pitting her wits against Malcolm would be a challenge. And she should get used to the bite of guilt.
“No.” Raoul crossed one booted foot over the other. “I want you to help him get the letter back.”
Suzanne stared at her spymaster. “If the Marques de Flores and Linford fought a duel it could bring about a breach between Wellington’s forces and the Spanish. What am I missing?”
Raoul tented his fingers. “We want to protect Edward Linford.”
“Because—Sacrebleu. He’s one of ours?”
“Not brilliant, but an excellent source of information. And with gambling debts that make him willing to betray his country for the right price. The last thing we need is the Marques de Flores putting a bullet through him or running him through with a rapier.”
“So you want me to help Malcolm.” She shook her head at the irony. “Perhaps it’s a fitting start to our betrothal.”
Raoul’s gaze moved over her face. She could not have put a name to what lay behind it, but she felt its force against her skin. “You’ve decided then?”
She hadn’t realized until that moment that she had. She gathered the folds of her cloak tight about her. The wind seemed to have sharpened. “You told me once that we could only win by taking advantage of every opportunity offered. How could I do anything else?”
Raoul O’Roarke watched the slender figure vanish into the distance along the side of the plaza. Nerves of steel and reckless brilliance wrapped in black lace and dun-colored wool. It should be a question of odds and probabilities. He should be able to remove the personal element from the equation, weigh the benefits and dangers, calculate the odds.
But if there was an equation for the tangle of personal relationships, it was one too complicated for him to master.
The truth was he’d never been as detached as most credited. And certainly not where Suzanne was concerned.
For a moment a vision hovered before his eyes, like the bright lights that warn of a migraine. Brazil, Venezuela, the Argentine. Somewhere they could make a fresh start. If he couldn’t legally marry Suzanne, at least there there’d be no one to know they weren’t married. His wife, whom he hadn’t lived with for years and who had never forgiven him for his actions in the United Irish Uprising, would be relieved to be rid of him. He could attempt to be a father. And a husband.
And turn his back on the cause he’d fought for and the game he’d been playing for a quarter century. From his student days at the University of Paris through the first heady days of the Revolution. The time in Les Carmes prison when he’d fully expected to go to the guillotine. The fervor of the United Irish Uprising and the ashes of defeat. The reforms Bonaparte spread across the Continent even as his own government turned more monarchical. Through it all Raoul had believed in the possibility of change, the possibility of making a difference. Suzanne believed in it. Even if he was ready to leave, he wasn’t sure she’d go with him.
And then there was Malcolm Rannoch to consider. The man he’d known since he was a boy, whose childhood he’d helped guide. For a host of reasons, Malcolm had to be part of the equation. And the damnable thing was, Suzanne might be the making of him.
A gust of wind shot through the plaza. Raoul watched Suzanne vanish down a side street, then pulled the folds of his greatcoat round him and turned in the opposite direction.
A military band blared “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” outside the embassy. So very English. The antithesis of her world. The core of the world she was about to start living in. They must be practicing for Christmas Day. Which was little more than three weeks away, Suzanne realized. Somehow in the press of the past weeks she hadn’t realized how close the holiday season was. It was a long time since she’d had much leisure to celebrate. Mostly the holidays signaled a frustrating delay in work, as both armies took time off. Though holiday entertainments could offer excellent intelligence-gathering opportunities (including one notable year when she and Raoul infiltrated a regimental party). Which should be doubly true this year.
Suzanne drew a breath and continued down the passage toward the attachés’ sitting room. No sense in delaying further. Foolish to pause and think. She’d made her decision.
She rounded a corner in the passage and nearly walked full tilt into Malcolm Rannoch. He put a hand on her elbow to steady her, his fingers warm through the sarcenet sleeve of her gown, then quickly released her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t—”
“No, I was the one who wasn’t attending.” She swallowed. She was playing the part of a girl who was much more innocent and uncertain than she was herself, yet in truth she felt as though she was stumbling through an alien landscape. “As it happens I was coming to look for you. But it can wait. Are you—”
“No. That is, I’m perfectly at leisure.” The erudite Malcolm Rannoch also seemed quite at a loss for words.
“Perhaps we could go into the sitting room?”
“Yes. No.” He ran a hand over his hair. “That is, Belmont and Vaughn are there, so it might—”
“Yes, that would defeat the purpose.” Oh, poison. She was being a fool. Better to say it straight out. “I’m making a mull of this as you British would say. The thing is, Mr. Rannoch, if your very generous offer still stands, I should like to accept it.”
She heard him draw a breath, but she could not have said if it signified relief or fear. The blare of the band reverberated off the paneling. “You do me great honor, Miss Saint-Vallier.”
At least he didn’t commit the travesty of the conventional “you have made the happiest of men.” “Are you sure?” she asked. “I know propriety says a gen
tleman can’t withdraw his offer, but I’d understand—”
“No.” His voice rang unexpectedly strong in the tiled passage. “Believe me. Any concerns I have are for your happiness, not my own.”
“I owe you a great debt.” Her voice shook, more than she had intended. What she really meant was she had done him a great wrong, but of course she couldn’t say so.
“Let there be no talk of debts. That’s a poor foundation for a marriage.”
“Well then.” She looked up at him. The dark hair that fell over his forehead, the gray eyes, the lines that bracketed his mouth, the curve of his mouth itself. “It seems we’re betrothed.”
She put out her hand, because some gesture seemed to be required. How odd, when she was accustomed to make use of all manner of intimacies in the course of a mission, that the smallest physical gesture felt like a step into open country with snipers lurking behind every rock.
His fingers closed round her own. He hesitated a moment, then raised her hand to his lips. He had held her in his arms when she’d woken with a nightmare on their journey to Lisbon. She could still remember the careful way he had held her, stiffly at first, then with greater ease, and the touch of his fingers on her hair. But somehow this brush of his lips on her hand now seemed more intimate. Perhaps because of the implications of what they had just pledged.
When he lifted his head their gazes held for a moment. The blaring of the band outside seemed to reverberate though them. She was conscious of the heat of the candles in the wall sconces, the cold of the tiles beneath her feet, the scent of beeswax in the air.
She had to do something to break the tension. So she leaned forward and drew his head down to her own.
For a moment he went still beneath her touch. Then his mouth brushed over her own. Light, tentative. The barest whisper of contact. As first kisses went it was awkward and uncertain. Yet it sent a shock straight through to the soles of her half boots.