London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  Bertrand, who had nearly died of injuries in Spain and been wounded numerous other times, nodded.

  Suzanne hesitated. Damnable she hadn't been able to learn more last night. "I couldn't make out what he was talking about last night, but from what I did hear he may have thought he had a message he needed to deliver." She couldn't say more. Not yet. Not to Bertrand, whose lover sat in Parliament with Malcolm, nor to Marthe, who was building a secure life here. "Did he know anyone else in London?"

  "He didn't know anyone in Britain," Bertrand said. "Supposedly. I'm questioning a lot about him now. Suzanne—"

  "I'll talk to some of my contacts." Which was true, as far as it went. It just didn't include precisely what she would talk to them about. "I'll let you know when I know more."

  "Suzanne," Marthe said, "you don't need to—"

  "I'll be careful," Suzanne assured her friend. "I wouldn't have survived this long if I hadn't learned to be very careful indeed."

  Bertrand, who she suspected understood more than Marthe, gave a slow nod.

  "Ah, Malcolm." Hubert Mallinson, Earl Carfax, looked up from the papers strewn over his desk and regarded Malcolm over the top of his spectacles. "I was wondering when you'd get here."

  Malcolm pushed the door of Carfax's study to behind him and moved to one of the two straight-backed chairs that faced the desk. His spymaster. His best friend's father. A force in his life since boyhood. The man who could destroy his wife. "How much do you know?"

  Carfax set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. "My grandson ran away from Harrow and took refuge at Whateley & Company. He stumbled over the dead body of a man who seemingly broke into the warehouse."

  Malcolm dropped into a chair. It would be wasted breath to ask where Carfax got his information. "Young Teddy showed great presence of mind."

  "Something to be grateful for. He seems to have more wit than his father. According to the word I have from David, he's doing as well as can be expected this morning. David makes for a far better father than Craven."

  "He's good with the children. So is Simon Tanner."

  Carfax frowned, the way he always did over Simon. "Yes, I have to admit David's taking them on was probably the best solution." A shadow crossed his face. He was always gaunt and always hard to read, but since his daughter Louisa's death and the revelations about her life, he seemed to have sunk in on himself. His wit cut sharper, but sadness lurked in the back of his unfathomable eyes.

  Sympathy, so unexpected when it came to Carfax, welled up on Malcolm's tongue. But as always, it was hard to know how to express it. Save that he knew Carfax, like he himself, would prefer not to dwell in uncomfortable areas. "How much did you know about Whateley & Company?"

  "As little as possible." Carfax adjusted his spectacles. "As I've told you, I found Craven's doings of little interest."

  "He was your agent."

  "He reported to me," Carfax said. "I made use of his information from time to time."

  "You could say the same for me."

  "Craven didn't have a tenth of your wit. Though he was easier to control. At least I thought he was."

  "Between his working for you and his being married to Louisa, don't tell me you didn't investigate him."

  "If I'd investigated him a fraction as well as I should have done, don't you think I'd have made sure—" Carfax drew a sharp breath. "It's folly to refine upon the past."

  "But speaking as one with perhaps more experience of regret, it's also impossible not to do so," Malcolm said.

  Carfax gave a wry smile. "As often as I've lamented your conscience, perhaps I should have been taking lessons." He tapped his fingers on the chair arms. "I looked into Craven's associates when he offered for Louisa. Craven's younger sister Cecilia married Eustace Whateley, the eldest son of a banker whose father began life working in a Cornish tin mine. It only took two generations for the Whateleys to marry into the beau monde."

  "I thought you admired enterprise."

  Carfax snorted. "Whateley got the idea for the shipping company and talked Craven into investing. Craven always had pockets to let."

  "Hence his willingness to work for you."

  "Quite. Until—" Carfax drew a breath but apparently he wasn't ready to refer, even obliquely, to the ten thousand pounds he had paid Craven to accept Louisa's illegitimate child, and the tragedy that had ensued.

  "What was Whateley & Company's business?"

  "Imports from the Continent. With the blockade, they turned to tea and iron."

  "Above board?"

  "More or less. There was talk Whateley had invested in a slave ship, but it seems to have been an attempt by his rivals to tarnish his reputation."

  Malcolm grimaced. Britain had banned the slave trade over a decade ago, though the slaves held in British colonies in the West Indies had yet to be emancipated. He was drafting an emancipation bill for the new parliamentary session.

  "Lamentable," Carfax agreed. "And messy. But even assuming some believed the smears, unless you think abolitionists broke into the warehouse for proof—"

  "It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely." Malcolm sat back in his chair. "Do you think Craven could have kept papers in the warehouse?"

  A shadow crossed Carfax's face, though from the flash in his eyes Malcolm knew his spymaster had wondered about this since he first heard of the break-in. Carfax leaned forwards and adjusted his pen on the desktop. "Obviously I didn't think so, or I'd have seen to it the warehouse was torn apart after Craven's death."

  "You didn't?"

  "You think I'd have missed something?" Carfax demanded.

  "It doesn't seem likely."

  Carfax tugged a piece of paper smooth. "Are you going to ask the other obvious question?"

  "Were you behind last night's break-in?"

  "The murdered man doesn't sound like the sort I'd hire."

  "You hire all sorts. And either he was working with someone else who killed him, or someone hired by a different person broke into the warehouse and killed him."

  "A messy business either way. You know I try to avoid mess."

  "And we both know the most seemingly simple mission can turn messy."

  Carfax took his spectacles off and folded them. The gaze he turned on Malcolm was—perhaps deceptively—unarmored. "I didn't hire either of them. I didn't have the least idea that anything of import might be hidden at Whateley & Company. To my chagrin." He set the spectacles down. "Do you believe me?"

  "I'm not sure," Malcolm said.

  Carfax gave a wry smile. "I'd be disappointed in you if you said otherwise. I trust you and Suzanne will again be assisting Jeremy Roth."

  "You want us to? Because you think there's a connection to Craven?"

  "I'd be a fool not to realize there might be. But whether there is or not, there was something in that warehouse that someone thought worth killing for."

  "Suzanne. Laura." Lady Cordelia Davenport threw down her pen and hurried towards Suzanne, Laura, and the children. "What a welcome interruption. I'm trying to reply to a letter from my mother, which always seems to bring on a headache." She stopped to ruffle Colin's and Emily's hair as they ran towards her daughters Livia and Drusilla, who had a wooden castle, the twin of the one Colin had in Berkeley Square, set up on the hearthrug.

  Suzanne set Jessica down so she could toddle after the older children. The three women moved to a cream-and-tan satin sofa. "What's happened?" Cordelia asked in a low voice, one eye on the children. "It's plain from both your faces that something has."

  Suzanne had stopped in Berkeley Square on her return from Marthe's to collect Laura and the children. She needed to make inquiries into Louis Germont and the Phoenix plot, but she also needed to follow up on the events at Whateley & Company. She and Malcolm had updated Laura that morning and now she and Laura told Cordelia about the events of the previous night. At least those that concerned Teddy Craven and the break-in and murder at Whateley & Company. "Poor Teddy." Cordelia's gaze moved to the children again.
Emily was putting a new crown on a princess doll while Livia and Colin raised the drawbridge, and Jessica and Drusilla galloped horses round the castle. "Poor little Teddy. Do you know, I was relieved both my children were girls, and it was partly because it meant I wouldn't have to send them to school."

  "We aren't sending Colin," Suzanne said.

  "Yes, now with your example I've realized that's an option if Harry and I ever have a son. Odd, considering how I always was known for flouting convention, that I didn't consider some of the more sensible ways to flout it." Cordelia looked at Suzanne for a moment. "I suppose you're helping Inspector Roth again? Is it quite horrid of me to be excited at the prospect of an investigation?"

  "I felt much the same," Laura said.

  "So did I," Suzanne said. "How well do you know Eustace and Cecilia Whateley, Cordy?"

  Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "I didn't number Eustace among my conquests unfortunately. Or fortunately. There's a limit to how far I should push Harry's extreme tolerance when our investigations involve my ex-lovers. But Cecilia Whateley—Cecilia Craven that was—came out the same year I did. One sees those girls over and over. At Almack's. At one another's coming out balls. At the Queen's Drawing-rooms. Driving in the park. It's a bit like being in the same class at Harrow or Eton. Or Oxford or Cambridge."

  "Sometimes I'm grateful to have grown up in India," Laura murmured.

  "A debutante season can be its own sort of hell," Cordelia said. "Though I confess to feeling the appeal. One's so sheltered, but one still has so much more freedom than in the nursery."

  "Cecilia Craven was a friend of yours?" Suzanne asked.

  "Not precisely." Cordelia adjusted one of the profusion of tasseled sofa cushions. "I thought she was a bit stuffy—which is to say, she wasn't nearly as wild as I was. But our mothers were friends, and I saw her enough to be more than acquaintances. She was quite taken with a young lieutenant that first season. I can't remember his name, but I can still see them dancing together with eyes for no one but each other. It made an impression because—" Cordelia's fingers tightened on the gilded arm of the sofa. "It was the way I looked at George in those days. I don't know what happened, but he shipped out for the Peninsula at the end of the season and the next spring she married Eustace Whateley."

  "I take it she didn't have a large dowry," Laura said. "I assume that's why she married a banker's son. Unless she was madly in love with him, and it sounds as though she was madly in love with someone else."

  "For someone who didn't grow up in the beau monde, you know us well, Laura," Cordelia said. "Yes, the Cravens have an old name, but the fortune was depleted. Something I know more than a bit about myself. I remember Eustace Whateley watching Cecilia on the dance floor with her lieutenant that spring. Thinking back now—I imagine it wasn't unlike the way Harry later looked at me. I was at their wedding. No expense spared, thanks to his father. Cecilia was as pale as her gown. Eustace looked—terrified."

  "Of marriage?" Laura asked.

  "Of what he had to lose, I think. Or perhaps of never really having it in the first place. I hope they've managed. It's not easy when one person's more in love than the other."

  "I talked to her at our ball in April," Suzanne said, and quickly described Cecilia's accidentally picking up the letter. Laura already knew much of the story. Cordelia knew about the letter but not that it had been from Hortense Bonaparte.

  "Hearing what you say now, I wonder if this lieutenant was the man she was talking to that night," Suzanne concluded.

  "It sounds like it," Cordelia said. "I wish I could remember his name. But I do know Cecilia enough that I can take you to call on her and give it the illusion of a social call."

  Suzanne smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

  Laura picked up her gloves. "While I can take the children to the park."

  "You're not a governess anymore," Cordelia said.

  "Of course not. I'm a mother who missed out on too much time with my daughter and enjoys being with her and her friends, of whom I also happen to be exceedingly fond. Does it really surprise you that I find the children better company than most of Mayfair society?"

  "On the contrary," said Cordelia, once known as a social butterfly. "It shows admirable sense. Only an investigation could tear me away."

  Chapter 6

  Whateley's Bank was in Fenchurch Street. Malcolm had almost started his search at the Whateley house in Upper Grosvenor Square or at White's. If Whateley were as eager to be seen as a gentleman as his father had been to groom him as one, he might avoid his offices as much as possible. But the clerk took Malcolm's card, vanished into an inner office, and returned a few moments later to say Mr. Whateley would see him.

  He conducted Malcolm to an office with windows looking out on Fenchurch Street. Polished walnut furniture that was handsome but functional, an Axminster carpet, and bookcases filled with enough ledgers to show this was a working office.

  "Rannoch." Eustace came forwards to shake his hand. He was a well-built man with dark hair and mobile features. A rower at Harrow and he'd kept himself fit. "I've been expecting you."

  "You always were quick, Whateley, but—"

  "Your friend Roth was by the house late last night to inform me of the break-in. He said you'd likely be by today. I know you've worked with him before. To own the truth, I was relieved. Much rather talk to you." He waved Malcolm to a chair covered in tufted burgundy leather. "Coffee? Or something stronger?" He gestured towards a table by the window. A set of decanters glittered in the fitful morning light.

  "Thank you, no."

  "I keep them mostly for clients." Eustace gave an unexpected grin. "Cecilia would frown to hear me use the word, especially with you. But might as well call a spade a spade. Not as if you don't know full well where I came from and what I do."

  Malcolm dropped into the chair. "Coming from a family that built this"—he gestured to the building round them—"is something to be proud of."

  "Spoken like a man whose family go back to the Conquest." Eustace sat, not in his desk chair, but in a burgundy leather chair that matched the one Malcolm had taken. "Roth said you took young Teddy home. He didn't volunteer further details. I don't think he felt it was his place."

  "Teddy ran away from Harrow. Some unfortunate comments about his parents, apparently, particularly his mother."

  Eustace grimaced. "Appalling how cruel the young can be. Though perhaps it's simply that when one's older one can pretend some of the subtler comments go over one's head."

  "Was it very bad for you at Harrow?" Malcolm asked. Putting Eustace at ease was not a bad tactic, but the question was genuine not planned.

  Eustace shrugged. "Was Harrow easy for anyone? Even the bullies were mostly bullied at one point, though it took me years to realize it. I suppose there were a few of the golden sort who were good at sport and decent at academics and had impeccable lineages and managed to sail through, but mostly I think it's a place one remembers more fondly in retrospect. Or is glad to have survived."

  "Are you glad?"

  "That I survived?"

  "That you went."

  Eustace crossed one leg over the other and contemplated the glossy polish on his black kid shoe. "It gave me the right accent. It taught me how to navigate a ballroom. It allows me to converse with my clients while preserving at least the illusion of equality. It got me admitted to White's. And Brooks's. Don't laugh, Rannoch. Only men who don't need clubs can sneer at them."

  "I wasn't. I'm very grateful not to need them. Though as a politician I have a more than passing need for Brooks's."

  "Yes, I suppose you do." Eustace curved his fingers round the tufted leather of the chair arm. "And of course, without all that, Cecilia would never have looked twice at me, no matter how paltry her dowry, no matter how padded my father's bank account."

  "It's not easy to marry into the British aristocracy," Malcolm said. "My wife reminds me of that."

  Eustace shrugged again, a defensive gesture that put Ma
lcolm in mind of Harrow and a boy with a chip on his shoulder that the younger Malcolm hadn't precisely understood. "Father had his heart set on my marrying at least an earl's daughter. Liked the idea of his daughter-in-law being styled Lady even if I lacked a title myself. But in the end I think he was very pleased that I was brother-in-law to a viscount."

  "And you?" Malcolm had only seen the Whateleys in company at large entertainments, and almost by definition fashionable couples didn't spend a great deal of time in one another's presence.

  Eustace dragged the toe of his other shoe across the carpet, tracing a line of gold in the rich pattern. "I could hardly fail to be pleased, could I? It's not as though I didn't share my father's ambitions, though, having been to Harrow and Cambridge, I had a more realistic sense of what was possible. Men making their way in the world don't have the luxury of falling in love."

  "Love isn't always so easy to control."

  Eustace gave a short laugh. "You underestimate ambition, Rannoch. Ask your friend Oliver Lydgate. Though he didn't even have a fortune to offer Bel."

  Oliver Lydgate had been friends with Malcolm, David, and Simon from their days at Oxford and was married to Lord Carfax's third daughter, Isobel. They were close friends of Malcolm and Suzanne's. Suzanne, Malcolm, suspected, would quickly leap to the defense of the Lydgates' marriage, but Malcolm steered round the question.

  "And your own wife?" Malcolm asked.

  "What about Cecilia?"

  "Would it have been so difficult to fall in love with her?"

  "Thinking about the Lydgates?" Eustace raised a brow. "I suppose Isobel must love Lydgate. Hard to see why she married him otherwise. But I don't think Cecilia would have welcomed a declaration of love from me. In fact, it would probably have sent her screaming in the other direction. In our case the transaction was very simple."

  "Was a partnership with her brother part of it?"