London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

"It was vile." Teddy's hands curled into fists on the splintery wood of the table. "They can say what they like about me, but my mother wasn't—she wouldn't—"

  "Impugning the honor of someone's mother is a sadly commonplace insult," Malcolm said. "It doesn't mean anything except that your tormentors displayed a lack of imagination."

  Teddy's brows drew together. "Do you really think so?"

  "As I said, I was a schoolboy myself." Save that in Teddy's case, as in Malcolm's own, those casual aspersions on their mothers' honor had a grain of truth. In Malcolm's case, Arabella Rannoch's reputation had accounted for the rumors. But there was no reason to think anyone, outside a very small, trusted circle, should know about Louisa Craven's tragic love affair. It certainly shouldn't be common knowledge among schoolboys at Harrow. Who knew? Who had talked?

  "I couldn't tell Uncle David," Teddy said. "I couldn't repeat those things about my mother. And then they said—" He drew a sharp breath.

  "Teddy?" Malcolm watched the boy's conflicted face. "Did they say something about someone else? About your father? Or Uncle David?"

  Teddy's face confirmed the latter. Schoolboy slights again welled up in Malcolm's memory, still fresh as the blood from a blow to the nose. This was at once more and less fraught. Because while Malcolm hoped to God Teddy never learned the truth about his mother, at some point he was going to grasp the truth about David and Simon Tanner, and it was vitally important that he do so in the right way.

  "I'm sure anything that was said to you is something Uncle David has heard before and is well used to deflecting," Malcolm said.

  Teddy's gaze slid to the side. "Yes, but—"

  "Teddy." Malcolm spread his hands on the table. "Your uncle David is a good man. Young as you are, I think you're old enough to understand that. And I think you know Simon Tanner is a good man as well."

  Teddy's gaze snapped to Malcolm's face. "They said—"

  "It doesn't really matter what they said. It matters what you think of David and Simon."

  Teddy's brows drew together. He was silent for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

  "Why did you choose this part of town to hide in?" Malcolm asked.

  Teddy cast a glance round the warehouse. The lamps Roth had lit cast giant shadows on the rough walls. "I couldn't think where to go at first. Then I thought the warehouse might be a good hiding place."

  "You were coming here deliberately?"

  Teddy nodded. "It's my father's."

  Malcolm cast a glance round the warehouse. "Whateley & Company," he said, reading a placard fastened to one wall.

  "My uncle. Eustace Whateley. He's married to my aunt Cecilia. My father's sister."

  "And your father was his partner." Something of the sort came back to Malcolm from their research into Craven's affairs after his murder.

  Teddy nodded. "He didn't talk about it much. I don't think he liked that Uncle Eustace was in trade. I don't think Aunt Cecilia likes it much either. But I came here once with him. I thought it would be safe. And I suppose—"

  Malcolm caught a flash of yearning in Teddy's blue eyes. "It reminded you of your father?"

  Teddy nodded.

  "Nothing wrong with that. It's good to find ways to hold on to people we've lost."

  Teddy gave a tentative smile. "What happens now?"

  "If I have anything to say about it, you don't have to go back to school. But I very much hope you'll let me take you home."

  "To Uncle David."

  "And your sister and brothers."

  "And Uncle Simon."

  Malcolm reached across the table and touched his fingers to Teddy's hair. "And Uncle Simon."

  Chapter 2

  Suzanne Rannoch lifted the hood of her cloak and stepped from the carriage. The cobblestones were rain-slick beneath her satin evening slippers. She pulled the black velvet of her cloak close over the pomegranate gauze and sarcenet of her gown. The sign over the building before her swayed in a gust of wind. A gold needle and thimble, indicating a dressmaker's. The dark windows, now shuttered, would display gleaming bolts of fabric, bright lengths of ribbon, and sample gowns during the day. Suzanne had called here often enough for a fitting or to order a new gown. But tonight she didn't go through the blue-painted front door with its shiny brass knocker. Instead, she opened a door to the side of the windows that had been left unlatched for her and climbed a narrow flight of stairs, lit by a single glass-enclosed candle. The stairs gave onto another door. She rapped three times.

  Almost at once the door opened. A tall woman with reddish-brown hair stood before her. Marthe Leblanc. For all they had been through, she looked little changed from when they had first met in Lisbon, over five years ago.

  "Thank you for coming." The relief in Marthe's voice showed how concerned she had been.

  "Of course." Suzanne met the other woman's gaze. They said a woman had few secrets from her dressmaker. That was doubly true when both had been French agents working together against Britain while living among the British.

  Marthe stepped aside and gestured Suzanne into the sitting room. "I've ruined your evening. And it's your little boy's birthday."

  Suzanne smiled at her friend. "You're sweet to remember. After Colin fell asleep, Malcolm went to a meeting at Brooks's, and I looked in at a rather dull reception I was regretting I'd agreed to attend." She moved into the room. It smelled of potpourri and Marthe's violet scent. A lamp was lit on a table covered with a flowered silk shawl. "What is it?"

  "I had a message from Bertrand. He's bringing someone in tonight. And it sounds as though medical help is needed."

  Suzanne's gaze went to the brassbound box on the shawl-covered table, similar to her medical supply box at home. Bertrand Laclos rescued those who needed to flee France, which had once meant Royalists and now, three years after the Battle of Waterloo, meant Bonapartists who had been proscribed by the restored Bourbon government.

  "I don't like to involve you," Marthe said. "You have more to lose than the rest of us."

  Suzanne undid the ties on her cloak. "I'm better positioned than many of our friends. My husband knows the truth of my past now. Bertrand brought one of his refugees to our house less than two months ago. We were in the midst of giving a ball. Malcolm took it quite in stride."

  "I know how you worry for him."

  Malcolm's face shot into her mind, laughing with their son and daughter on his lap at Rules three hours ago. Leaning in to kiss her before he went to his meeting at Brooks's. She saw his dispatch box, which she had once ransacked for information, and which now held the travel documents prepared should they and their children have to flee Britain at a moment's notice. Malcolm had been nothing but sanguine about the preparations, but she could not but be aware of what she had brought him to. "Malcolm can take care of himself, as he'd be the first to say."

  "Your husband is a remarkable man."

  "I'm more aware of it every day."

  Marthe had two young daughters and a sympathetic solicitor who wanted to marry her and who hadn't the least idea she had been a French agent. Suzanne, protected by her husband's fortune and his position as a Member of Parliament and the grandson of a duke, was in an enviable position, all things considered. Set against that, the fact that she was tearing herself in two over what she'd done to Malcolm shouldn't be held to matter.

  An owl hooted outside. Marthe gave an answering call and a few moments later opened a concealed door in the paper-hung wall. Bertrand Laclos staggered into the room, his auburn hair dusted with gray powder, his nose and jaw disguised by expertly applied putty, half supporting, half carrying a fair-haired man wrapped in a greatcoat.

  "Take him into the bedchamber," Marthe said, hurrying to open the door.

  Suzanne snatched up the medical box and ran after. "He was shot on his way to meet me at Calais," Bertrand said, once he had laid the man on the clean sheets in the bedchamber. "I didn't realize how bad it was until we had set sail. I cleaned and bandaged the wound as best I could, but we were de
layed in the Channel, and I fear he's turned feverish."

  Suzanne put a hand on the man's head. It was burning to the touch. He seemed to have passed out, which was just as well, given the pain he'd been in. "Bring some brandy in case he wakes," she told Marthe, opening the supply box.

  "He kept talking on the crossing," Bertrand said. "He seemed to be trying to tell me something, but I couldn't make head or tail of it."

  "Who is he?" Suzanne peeled back Bertrand's makeshift dressing.

  "His name is Louis Germont. At least that's the name he gave me. I don't ask questions. He was a clerk in the foreign ministry, suddenly facing questions about his past."

  The man who called himself Louis Germont appeared to be in his late twenties. His blond hair was cut fashionably long and the softness of his hands said he did not live by manual labor. He woke in the midst of her cutting away the makeshift bandage from his infected flesh. Marthe came in with the brandy and poured some down his throat. He grimaced but stayed still with the stoicism of a trained agent. By the time Suzanne had a fresh dressing secured over the wound, he seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness again. But when Bertrand and Marthe had left the room, Suzanne heard him mutter something unintelligible. "It's all right," she said, smoothing his hair as though he were one of her children. "You're safe."

  His fingers closed round her wrist. "Have to warn."

  "Have to warn who?"

  "Message." His fingers tightened on her wrist. "Someone needs to know."

  "We'll make sure the message gets through." With her free hand, Suzanne pressed him gently against the pillow, afraid he would pull on his wound. "When you feel better you can tell us—"

  "Heard them. No doubt." He twisted from side to side against the pillow, lapsing back into his feverish delirium. But before he lost consciousness, she heard him murmur quite clearly, "The Phoenix."

  Suzanne drew a harsh breath. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed in Marthe's neat spare bedchamber, with the blue-flowered quilt and the cross-stitched sampler hanging over the bed. But her world had tilted on its axis. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick.

  Because she knew what The Phoenix meant. It was a code name. Not for an agent. For a plot.

  A plot to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Chapter 3

  The footman who admitted Malcolm and Teddy to the Craven house in Brook Street was the same man Malcolm had shouldered past three months ago when he ran up two flights of stairs to be greeted by the report of a gun that signaled Louisa Craven's suicide. The footman looked older now, the bones of his face sharper, his eyes more deeply set. The last three months had left their mark on all of them.

  David stepped out of the library before Malcolm could address the footman. "Malcolm, did we forget something at Colin's party—" David stopped short, catching sight of his nephew.

  "Teddy was obliged to leave school unexpectedly," Malcolm said. "He's had quite an adventure. I'm sure you're eager to hear of it, but perhaps you could have some food sent in directly."

  David gave a quick nod and turned to the footman.

  "Sandwiches and lemonade," the footman said. "Right away."

  "Thank you," David said. "And have Master Teddy's bed made up for him."

  David reached out and touched Teddy on the shoulder, quickly, a little awkwardly. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Jamie's finally down for the third time," Simon said, his gaze over the rail on David, the only one visible from his vantage point. "I thought he'd never—" He broke off as he came round the bend and saw Malcolm and Teddy.

  To Malcolm's relief, a smile crossed Teddy's face. "Uncle Simon. I'm glad you're here."

  "So am I," Simon said. "I don't know why you left Harrow, but I suspect you showed a great deal of good sense."

  They repaired to the library. Malcolm let David pour him a whisky, which gave Teddy a couple of minutes to settle in. The footman came in with hastily cut roast-chicken-and-watercress sandwiches and a large glass of lemonade. Teddy took a swallow as grateful as a man gulping a drink, wolfed down half a sandwich, and at last looked at his two uncles and launched into his story. Once he began to speak, he talked quickly and surprisingly coherently, putting in enough detail to flesh out his story. He had the makings of a good agent. He confronted the accusations about his mother in a firm voice, but skipped over any comments on David and Simon.

  David's face went shuttered as he listened, a clear sign to Malcolm of the depths of the emotion he was feeling. At the mention of the dead body in the warehouse, his eyes widened and he shot a quick glance at Malcolm, then turned back to Teddy. Simon listened in silence, a little drawn back in his chair, though Malcolm saw his friend's fingers curl round the carved arms of the chair. By the end of Teddy's story, Simon's knuckles were white.

  David got to his feet and dropped down in front of Teddy's chair when the boy had done. "You handled it well, Teddy. Better than I would have done at your age."

  Teddy's gaze skimmed over his uncle's face. "You're not angry?"

  "I wish you'd sent to me rather than running away. I'll own to feeling a distinct chill at what you went through. But I can understand why you ran away. School can be the loneliest place on earth."

  Something lightened in Teddy's eyes. "That's it precisely. It seems odd, because one never has a moment alone. But—"

  David nodded. "I was lucky to meet Uncle Malcolm."

  "Which meant we were lonely together," Malcolm said.

  Teddy looked from Malcolm to David. "I can't go back."

  Malcolm drew a breath. Oh, David, don't be stupid.

  David touched Teddy on the shoulder. "You don't have to, for this term at least. I'll send an express to the headmaster in the morning. They'll be concerned."

  Teddy's face relaxed a trifle. "I can help teach George and Amy."

  "You'll do lessons yourself, scamp." David ruffled his hair.

  "Yes, sir," Teddy said, but he grinned, looking more like a nine-year-old boy than he had all evening.

  Bridget, the nursery maid, who struck Malcolm as a sensible young woman, rapped at the door to say that Master Teddy's bed was made up, and if he promised not to wake them he could peep in at his brothers and sister before he went to bed. Teddy grinned, took a last sip of lemonade, and got to his feet. He hesitated a moment, then gave David a quick, awkward hug. "Thank you, sir." He stepped back. "Thank you, Uncle Malcolm."

  "I'm glad I was there," Malcolm said.

  "Me too." Teddy turned to Simon. Simon gave a quick grin and an answering smile broke across Teddy's face.

  "Well done," Malcolm said, when the door closed behind Teddy and Bridget.

  Gaze fixed on the closed door, David grimaced and ran a hand over his hair. "I didn't know—I thought it was better to disrupt his routine as little as possible."

  "It was a good assumption," Simon said.

  "I forgot what a hell school can be." David strode across the room, picked up his whisky, and tossed down a swallow. "He can stay here until the next term. But what the devil are we going to do then?" He glanced at Simon. "Do you think he'd do better at Winchester?"

  "Based on my experience?" Simon got to his feet and splashed more whisky into his glass. "No. Save that I wasn't very happy in my grandfather's house, I'd have much preferred to forgo school altogether."

  "That's all very well for you, but—" David bit back his words.

  Simon regarded his lover, the decanter held in one hand. "But Teddy's destined to be a viscount, not a Radical playwright?"

  "Of course not. Damn it, Simon, you know—"

  "We don't plan to send Colin to school," Malcolm said.

  "You've already decided that?" David asked.

  "To own the truth, I don't think Suzette would stand for it," Malcolm said with a grin. "I see no reason to put my son through what we went through. Besides, I'd miss him."

  David took another swallow of whisky. "I just want him to be prepared for the life he's going to lead."

  Simon w
ent still for a moment. There it was, Malcolm saw. The life of a peer that Teddy was destined for, that David himself was destined for. The life that threatened to divide Simon and David. But Simon merely took David's glass and splashed some more whisky into it. "One could argue a life that gave him a bit more perspective would better prepare him for the life of a viscount. We can find him a good tutor. And George, and Jamie when he's old enough. Amy too."

  David stared at Simon. "How long have you been thinking this?'

  Simon shrugged and went to refill Malcolm's glass. "I think my feelings on public school are fairly clear."

  "You never said."

  "You had a good point that it made sense to disrupt Teddy's life as little as possible. Besides, you're their uncle."

  David opened his mouth as though to argue, then took a drink of whisky and dropped down on the sofa. "Who was this dead man found in the warehouse?"

  "He appears to have broken in," Malcolm said.

  "To steal money?"

  "Unclear. Just as it's unclear if he was killed by a fellow conspirator with whom he had a falling out or someone else who broke in."

  David and Simon stared at him. "You think two different people broke into Whateley & Company tonight?" David asked.

  "It looks possible. What do you know about Whateley & Company?"

  "Very little," David said.

  "Eustace and Cecilia Whateley came to our ball in April, but I can't say I got much sense of either of them," Malcolm said.

  "I've only met them a handful of times. Cecilia seems kind, if a bit colorless. I remember Whateley more from Harrow than recently."

  "So do I," Malcolm said. Eustace Whateley had been a couple of years ahead of him and David. "He always seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. But I don't think I had the least appreciation of how hard it was to be at Harrow as a banker's son whose grandfather had been a tin miner."

  "Refuses to hide the fact that he's in trade," Simon said. "I rather admire that. Not easy when one's married into the beau monde."

  David swirled the whisky in his glass. "To own the truth, I rather forgot Craven had invested in the business. But then Craven was enough of a snob not to make a big point of it." He looked at Malcolm. "You're going to assist Roth in the investigation?"