Manon set the lid on the teapot. “Who else might find out in the course of this investigation? Because if you’re exposed, Mr. Rannoch will be suspected as well.”
“That’s absurd.” Though Suzanne’s tone was sharpened because Manon had given voice to a fear that lurked at the back of her mind.
“He’s known to be a brilliant agent.” Manon carried the tea tray to the hamper before the settee, an unlikely vision of domesticity as she gave voice to the harsh reality of a spy’s life. “To believe he went on for years without suspecting—”
“I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“I don’t see how you could stop it.” Manon dropped back down on the settee. “They’d hardly take your word as a former Bonapartist agent yourself. Nor do I think Mr. Rannoch would stand by while you were accused.”
Suzanne’s hand tightened round her glass. “You’re saying I’ve put him in even more jeopardy than I realized?”
“I’m saying you have to acknowledge the risks. To both of you. It’s something you’ll be living with for the rest of your lives if you stay together.” Manon tilted her head back against the frayed damask of the settee. “If I learned that Crispin was a British agent—Well, I’d be shocked. It’s hard to imagine someone more seemingly guileless than Crispin. And of course I wasn’t working as an agent when we met. But if I had been, if I learned he’d entered into our liaison for what he could learn from me—” She turned her glass in her hand, frowning at it. “I’d be angry. At him, but mostly at myself for being so gullible. To be deceived in a lover is bad enough. For a spy to be so deceived goes to the very heart of who we are.”
Suzanne tightened her grip on her glass. “Yes.”
Manon turned her head and sent Suzanne a shrewd look. “As to whether I’d ever be able to get past it—I don’t know. I think at some point I’d recognize that Crispin had only done something I’d have been proud to pull off myself.”
Suzanne met her friend’s gaze. “Are you saying you think Malcolm could get past this?” She heard the incredulity, and the suppressed undertone of hope, ripple through her own voice.
“Is that so hard to imagine? He’s a spy himself. If he’s honest at all—and I think he is—he has to acknowledge you’ve achieved something he might have done himself.”
“Malcolm—” Suzanne took another drink of brandy. “Malcolm is a good agent. But I don’t know that he’d ever do what I did.”
“Perhaps you’re underrating his abilities.” Manon leaned forwards and lifted the teapot to pour two cups of tea. “Or overrating his scruples.”
“He’s a brilliant agent. But he’s also a British gentleman. Despite Shakespeare, he thinks that honor is more than a word. I didn’t just betray him, I betrayed his comrades through him. And in turn he’ll think he betrayed his own honor. I don’t think he’ll ever get past that.”
“Crispin’s a British gentleman as well.” Manon set a cup of tea on the chest before Suzanne. “But he can be surprisingly broad-minded.”
“So can Malcolm.” Suzanne picked up the cup. Before she married Malcolm, tea had been a rarely drunk, exotic beverage. “But the core is still there. Beneath the liberal reformer, beneath the Radical politician, beneath the spy. We come from different worlds.”
Manon poured the last of her brandy into her tea and took a sip. “Yet you believe in many of the same things. You understand him very well. I don’t think it’s out of the question that he could come to understand you.”
Suzanne set aside her brandy—she needed her wits about her—and took a sip of tea. Hot and astringent, the sort of jolt she needed. “I never told you—that night you escaped from Paris. When I went back to your house pretending to be you to draw off Fouché’s men. A man came to the door. Pushed his way into the house. Handsome, dark haired. Obviously in love with you.”
“Oh, God.” Manon groaned. “Renard. The Vicomte de Valmay. He made my last months in Paris rather entertaining, but he could be importunate. What did you do?”
“Managed to pretend to be you talking through the door, but he insisted on going to sleep in the passage.”
“That sounds like him.”
“So I climbed out the bedchamber window and in through the dressing room window and emerged in the passage in the guise of a new housemaid.”
Manon smiled. “You’re a wonder, Suzanne.”
“I have to confess I rather enjoyed it. But this man—Valmay—he obviously cared for you. He was desperate to know if you had another man in the room with you. When I finally assured him you did not, he settled down in front of the door to wait for morning.”
“He fancied himself in love with me. Or at least he was in the moment.” Manon took a sip of brandy-laced tea. “I wrote to him after I reached England. Tried to say I was sorry while making it clear the whole affair had been light for me in the hopes he’d treat it similarly.”
“Was it light?”
Manon shrugged. “I couldn’t afford for it to be anything else. I never can, and in this case given the climate I knew I might have to leave Paris. Probably as well I left before I could grow more fond of him.” She drew a breath. “I confess it was . . . difficult when I first came here. The English are . . . different.”
Suzanne smiled despite herself. “Spoken with admirable restraint.”
Manon smiled as well. “I’ve got used to it. The fact that they don’t say what they’re thinking and that wall of reserve one can never break through and the casual anti-French comments they don’t even seem to realize they’re making. And the rain—somehow rain is so much more agreeable in Paris—and the lack of a good cup of coffee, though I finally found a passable café run by an émigré.” She set down her cup and drew her feet back up onto the settee. “But even as a leading lady at the Tavistock I’ll always be an outsider here.”
“I know the feeling.”
Manon rested her chin on her updrawn knees. “The girls are losing their accents.”
Suzanne pictured her own children in the nursery that morning. “Colin and Jessica seem wholly British. With Continental polish, perhaps, but their roots are here.”
Manon nodded. The look in her eyes might have been called wistful, were that not so unlike Manon. “I confess I missed Renard dreadfully at first. Like a lovesick schoolgirl. It was all bound up in my feelings about home of course. For a time I wondered—”
“If you really had loved him?”
“Well, we can all have delusions.” She reached for her cup. “Finding work helped a great deal. I’ll forever be grateful to you for introducing me to Simon. And then meeting Crispin helped as well. In the end I realized it was probably as well I left when I did. Renard was starting to act tiresomely like a husband, and I was in danger of letting him slip under my guard.” She frowned into her cup. “As I’m afraid I’ve allowed Crispin to do. Crispin’s so cheerfully carefree one doesn’t take him seriously. Until suddenly there he is, worked into the fabric of one’s life.”
“He’s impressed me these past days.”
Manon’s fingers curved round the cup. “Yes, me as well. He’ll make some girl a good husband.”
Suzanne studied her friend, seeking clues in Manon’s contained face. “Doesn’t it—”
“Bother me?” Manon tossed down a sip of tea and brandy. “Why should it? It’s not as though I want to be married myself.”
“You may not want to be married in the general run of things, but married to—”
“To Crispin?” Manon settled the cup in its saucer. “I care enough about Crispin not to want either of us to grow bored.”
“Are you so sure you would?”
Manon gave a peal of laughter. “My dear Suzanne. When have I not?”
“People change. I never thought—”
“That one man could hold your interest?”
“That I’d believe in fidelity.”
Manon shook her head. “Crispin claims to be bored by his world, but in truth he’s so entrenched in it he can’t
see its limitations. I’m not going to turn him into a social outcast.”
“You wouldn’t necessarily have to. Malcolm and I have a young friend from Brussels—”
“Rachel Garnier. I know her story. Very touching. A whore who was also a spy who married a vicomte and is now accepted into Brussels society. But Mademoiselle Garnier was able to create a new identity for herself. Or rather your husband was able to create one for her.” Manon shot a look at Suzanne.
“It’s true,” Suzanne said. “Malcolm is good at creating cover stories.”
“So Mademoiselle Garnier passes as the daughter of a minor aristocrat. It’s different when one has reigned over the Comédie-Française. I’m never going to blend into a new identity like Rachel or—”
“Me?”
“For example.”
“I’m fortunate.”
Manon pushed her loosely dressed hair back from her shoulders. “I like my life. I like being an actress. I wouldn’t give it up. Another reason marriage to Crispin would be an impossibility. Even if he considered it. Which of course he wouldn’t.”
Suzanne considered the way Crispin looked at Manon and saw him playing with Roxane and Clarisse the day before. “I’m not so sure of that last.”
Manon shook her head. “If he has a moment of madness I shall have to talk him out of it. If he’s too persistent I’ll take another lover.”
“I think that might tear him in two.”
“He’ll recover like Renard. And thank me in the end. Renard married the younger daughter of the Comte de Lisle last month. He wrote to tell me himself. He even seems to consider it a love match.” She reached for the teapot to refill their cups.
“And it cost you a pang.”
“No. Perhaps a bit.” Manon set the teapot down. “It’s another piece of my past gone. Ridiculous how eager I am to hang on to it. Cécile Vérin, one of the opera dancers from the Comédie-Française, was in London last month visiting her sister. She stopped by the Tavistock, and we talked for hours and then met for coffee the next day. I always thought her rather a vapid little thing, but I couldn’t get enough of the news from home.”
“I know the feeling, though I never precisely had a home in the same way.” It was one of the things that would always tie Suzanne to Raoul.
Manon reached for her cup. “And then a fortnight ago it was Claude Lorraine. Do you remember him? He had a wine shop and acted as a courier. He managed to stay on in Paris during the White Terror, but recently he decided to resettle in England. We didn’t work together much, but to be able to discuss missions—” She took a sip of tea. “It never will be the same as coffee. I was quite surprised to realize Claude had worked with—” She broke off in the midst of setting down her cup.
“Manon?” Suzanne leaned towards her friend. “Whom did Claude know?”
“Oh, damn.” Manon returned the teacup to its saucer. “I keep forgetting you aren’t one of us anymore.”
“Not to hear Malcolm tell it.”
“You have conflicted loyalties.”
“Manon, this is important. If it’s to do with France and the Tavistock it could connect to the investigation and that could be important to Crispin. I won’t tell Malcolm unless I have to.”
“Crispin.” Manon’s mouth curled round his name. “You think I have conflicted loyalties as well?”
“Yes.”
“Suzanne—”
“Manon, you know what’s at stake. Who else may have been a French agent?”
Manon sat back on the settee. “Very well. Claude apparently worked with Jennifer Mansfield.”
CHAPTER 33
Malcolm stepped beneath the Doric portico into the solid sandstone environs of Brooks’s. He had joined the club because it was the haunt of Whigs (and a way to refute his Tory father’s membership in White’s). But aside from dining with colleagues or stopping in after the House rose for a drink to postmortem a vote or strategize a new bill, Malcolm wasn’t in the habit of spending much time at the club. There was something damnably odd about an atmosphere with no women. He preferred to be home with Suzanne and the children and to invite David and Oliver Lydgate and William Lamb and other colleagues home where Suzanne could be part of the strategizing. Yet many men spent more time in their clubs than they did at home, and it was almost a cliché that gentlemen sought refuge from domestic disturbances at their clubs. Irony bit him sharp in the throat.
He relinquished his hat and gloves to the footman and climbed the stairs to the Great Subscription Room. The white moldings, pale green walls, and rose-colored curtains had a restrained, slightly worn elegance. As though it would be a bit pretentious for the furnishings to be too new. Even the fire glowing beneath the pristine mantel had a subdued crackle. Groups of men were gathered round baize- or linen-covered tables playing hazard or whist. A murmur of voices, whiffle of cards, and rattle of dice rose to bounce off the barrel ceiling.
“Malcolm.” The voice came from a sofa set to one side. It was William Lamb. He set aside the copy of the Morning Chronicle he’d been reading and moved a little to the side to make room for Malcolm. “Meeting someone?”
“Actually, I came in search of your father-in-law.” Malcolm dropped down beside his friend.
“Bessborough?” William’s eyes narrowed. “He’s part of your investigation, isn’t he?”
“Caroline told you?”
“A bit. With Caro it can be hard to pick out truth from hyperbole. But I gather you have questions about some sort of club Bessborough and your father were in and it touches on your current investigation.”
“That’s it in a nutshell.” Malcolm glanced round the Subscription Room. “Is he here?”
“No, but he should be shortly if he holds true to form. My father-in-law is a creature of habit.” William grinned. “Of course you realize if you’re seen sitting here too long, you’ll ruin your reputation as the M.P. most resistant to the charms of life at the club.”
Malcolm managed an answering smile. “Good to keep people on their toes.”
William folded the paper. He had a keen mind and a good eye for detail, but he gave no sign of noticing anything amiss with Malcolm. “How’s Suzanne?”
“Well.” Malcolm settled back on the sofa, one arm draped along its back. To anchor himself. “Busy with preparations for the holidays.”
“It’s your anniversary soon, isn’t it?”
Christ. There was no escaping reminders of his marriage. “My word. I knew you had a memory for detail, Lamb, but I didn’t know it extended to social events.”
“A friend’s marriage is hardly a mere social event. I remember getting the news just before Christmas.”
“And were as shocked as the rest of my friends that I’d taken a wife?”
“Hardly.” William pressed a crease from the paper. “I wished you”—he hesitated a moment—“every happiness.” The coda that I didn’t find lingered in the newsprint-and-claret-scented air.
“It’s December seventh,” Malcolm said. In two days’ time. Her gift was stowed in his chest of drawers. He’d imagined giving it to her when they woke on the morning of their anniversary. Now he hoped it didn’t serve as a reminder of all they had lost. “I still ask myself how I had the temerity to offer for her.” That hadn’t changed.
“Always knew you were a man of sense, Rannoch.”
“We scarcely knew each other.” That was even truer than he’d thought at the time.
“Caroline and I had known each other our whole lives.” William drew a breath and set the paper aside.
“How is Caroline?”
William smoothed his fingers over the newsprint. “Tolerably well, all things considered. Calmer than she’s been. Though she’s got a fixation in her head about this play at the Tavistock. An alternative version of Hamlet?”
“That appears to be genuine.” Malcolm retreated into the safer waters of investigation. “It was in the keeping of Lord Harleton. And it seems to be connected to a club he was a member of. Th
e same one Lord Bessborough and my father were involved in. Called the Elsinore League. Ever heard of it?”
William shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought Bessborough and your father had much in common.”
“Nor would I. There may be connections to their time in Ireland. Cordy and Suzanne”—somehow he couldn’t call her Suzette now—“spoke with Caroline about Bessborough’s involvement. That probably accounts for her interest.”
“Does it?” William’s voice was dry as the best fino. “I thought it was because Caroline hoped she could use it to pique Byron’s interest.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
William shot him a smile. “You’re a good friend, Malcolm.” He glanced down at the folded newspaper. “She says it’s over. I think she protests a bit much.”
“Byron’s in Italy.”
“Oh, I think it’s over as far as Byron’s concerned. But not in Caro’s head.” William smoothed a creased corner of the paper. “Do you have any idea how much I envy you, Malcolm?”
Malcolm’s throat tightened. Was it going to be like this forever? Not being able to discuss his personal relationships with his friends? Not that he’d precisely been eager to discuss such details before, even with his closest friends. But not discussing details was different from keeping the very nature of his marriage a secret. “I think it’s often easy to envy from the outside.”
William gave a twisted smile. “I’ve seen you with Suzanne. That night a fortnight ago when we went to Berkeley Square after the House rose and hammered out the details of the Habeas Corpus argument. It’s as though your minds lock together.” His fingers curled round the sofa arm. “I love Caro. I think she loved me when we married. Perhaps she still does. But our minds couldn’t be more different. I don’t understand her.” He leaned forwards and scrubbed his hands over his face. “God knows I’ve tried.”
It was nothing anyone who had observed the tortured marriage of William and Caroline Lamb didn’t know, but it was the first time Malcolm had ever heard such words from his reserved friend. William didn’t speak about his feelings any more easily than Malcolm did himself. He touched William’s arm. “Caro’s been troubled since childhood.”
The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) Page 40