London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  "You deserve it," Oliver said with a quick, warm smile. "I, on the other hand, probably have more good fortune than I deserve."

  Something about his tone and the look in his eyes and his earlier comment about marriage took Malcolm back to the moment in the Peninsula when he'd slit the red wax seal on David's letter and first read the news of Bel and Oliver's betrothal. He'd been happy for his friends, glad they had both found someone, glad, selfishly, that their marriage would bind them both more closely in the small circle of his closest friends. But beneath the joy had been undeniable qualms. One could put them down to his own doubts about the institution of marriage at the time. Save that he had read the same qualms between the lines of David's careful letter. Isobel had been out for a few seasons. She was pragmatic, not the acknowledged beauty her elder sisters were, and ready to get married and have her own establishment. Oliver was penniless and ambitious, for all the right reasons, eager to enter Parliament and fight for the same things Malcolm and David believed in. As an alliance it made sense in many ways. Save that Malcolm suspected Oliver's heart was still engaged elsewhere, and that Bel knew it. Which also might not have been an insuperable bar. But once or twice the look in Bel's eyes had made Malcolm suspect she was not as pragmatic when it came to Oliver as she let it appear to the world. A companionable, even a passionless marriage could succeed on its own terms. But where the balance of passion was unequal—

  "I know full well Bel has given me more than I've given her," Oliver said.

  "I've said the same about Suzanne," Malcolm said.

  Manon Caret's dressing room smelled as it always had, from the Comédie Française to the Tavistock Theatre. Of grease paint and powder and her signature tuberose-and-violet scent. Manon's hair glowed as bright a gold as when Suzanne had first met her, a young agent in training, in Paris with Raoul, drinking in the talk of the seasoned agents. The only mark of the change in Manon's life was the slender band of gold on her left hand that Crispin Harleton had placed there five months ago.

  The ring flashed in the lamplight as Manon spun round and sprang to her feet at the opening of the door. "Chérie! Just what I need after an exhausting afternoon on the scene with Angelo. My first Isabella. Opening night tomorrow, and I'm still not sure I can be a convincing nun."

  "You're always saying you want new challenges."

  Manon laughed. "Have you brought the children?"

  "And Laura and Cordy. They're outside with Roxane and Clarisse." Suzanne hesitated. She should take advantage of their time alone. She told herself she wanted to ease into the topic, but the truth was she found herself wanting to prolong this moment with her friend and the illusion that life was normal. Or as normal as it ever could be for a pair of ex-Bonapartist agents living in London, married to English aristocrats.

  "Marriage plainly continues to agree with you," Suzanne said. It was true. Manon's color was high, her gaze bright, and the strain about her eyes that had been there before she left France and when she first came to England quite gone.

  Manon laughed as she swept a pearl-beaded robe and a feather-trimmed velvet cloak off the frayed tapestry settee. "I was so afraid it would change things and then I told myself that was silly, what would it really change except that we'd live in Crispin's house instead of him spending nearly all his time in our lodgings. And then in the end it did change, far more than I dreamt. But not at all in the way I feared." She held a spangled scarf against her for a moment, her usually shrewd gaze filled with a wonder Suzanne had only seen in her friend's eyes when Manon was on stage.

  "Marriage can do that," Suzanne said. She could still hear Malcolm's voice repeating his wedding vows and feel the gut punch of realization of how seriously he took their marriage of convenience. It had been more complicated for her than for Manon, but then she hadn't been in love with Malcolm. Not then.

  "Of course there are challenges. It's taken some of the servants a bit of time to get used to seeing me as their mistress. Crispin actually dismissed one of the footmen, though he claimed he'd had trouble with the man before. But mostly the challenges are from his own set. I'm quite sure he doesn't receive as many invitations as he used, though he claims he's quite pleased not to have to sort through so many gilt-edged cards and feel duty-bound to spend dull evenings."

  "That sounds very like Crispin. And I suspect it's the truth."

  "So do I, though sometimes I'm afraid I'm just trying to comfort myself." Manon waved Suzanne to the now cleared settee. "Last week we made the mistake of driving in Hyde Park just before the hour of the promenade. We encountered Lady Wychcombe. Not the first time I've received the cut direct, but the first time I've done so with my husband."

  "Oh, Manon. I'm sorry." Not for the first time Suzanne was aware of the advantages of her fictional aristocratic past.

  Manon shrugged as she turned up the spirit lamp. "I wouldn't care for myself, but the girls were with us and it's difficult for them to understand. Though I'm afraid they are acquiring an all-too-shrewd knowledge of the codes of the ton. I've never see Crispin so fierce. If Lady Wychcombe were a man, I think he'd have called her out. Of course others have been quite accepting. It helped that you hosted our wedding breakfast."

  Suzanne dropped down on the settee. "I never stop feeling guilty about my supposed past."

  "You shouldn't. It's very helpful for your friends." Manon reached for a blue enamel kettle. "Why are you here, chérie?"

  "Isn't seeing my friend enough?"

  Manon's blue gaze settled on Suzanne's with the sharpness of an agent. "You didn't bring the children in with you. Or Laura or Cordelia. So I suspect this isn't a social visit."

  Suzanne swallowed, her mouth dry. "Not entirely."

  Manon set the kettle on top of the spirit lamp and turned to the shelf above the settee. "Is it your husband?"

  "No. That is, not directly." Suzanne locked her hands together. Manon had been her confidante six months ago when Malcolm learned the truth of her past, supportive, but also clear eyed about the risks to Suzanne and to her marriage. A number of things had changed since then, including that Manon was married to the man she loved, but she was still a realist about the pitfalls of relationships, particularly for former spies. "Malcolm continues to be remarkable in his understanding," Suzanne said. She already felt she was doing Malcolm enough of a disservice. She could at least be clear about this.

  Manon took a tin of tea off the shelf. "That can be a strain in and of itself."

  "No. That is, yes, sometimes, but that's not—" Suzanne drew a breath. She was almost afraid to put it into words. "Have you heard anything about the Phoenix?"

  Manon dropped the tea tin. "Damnation. I was hoping you wouldn't hear."

  Certainty settled like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach. Until now, Suzanne realized, she'd been living with the hope that she had misunderstood. "Are you—"

  "God in heaven, no." Manon picked up the tea tin and carefully put two spoonfuls into a blue transferware pot.

  "But you've heard—"

  Manon cast a quick glance about the dressing room. A spy's instincts never left her. "Sancho Fuentes came to see me a fortnight ago."

  Sancho had been a daredevil in the Peninsula. He'd settled in London, where his work was still on the shady side of legality. Their paths hadn't crossed often since he'd come to Britain but the memory of his ready laugh and good-humored face brought a lump to Suzanne's throat. "Sancho is—"

  Manon picked up the steaming kettle and poured water over the tea leaves. "He told me he'd heard rumors of a Phoenix operation. I swear, I've never seen him so nervous, even under fire. He kept looking round my dressing room as though he expected someone to pop out from behind the dressing screen. He wanted to know if I'd heard of it, and if I was involved. I asked him if he thought I'd gone mad." She set the kettle down and snatched her hand back, as though the droplets had burned her.

  "Did he say where he'd heard the rumors?"

  "No, and I didn't ask. I didn't want to know.
I don't want to know." Manon straightened up and regarded Suzanne. "I deplore what's happening in France as much as any of us. Sometimes I can't even read the French papers, they make me so angry. But it's different now. I have a life here. It was perhaps very selfish of me to have married Crispin, but having done so I at least have enough conscience to know I couldn't put him through his wife plotting with his country's enemies." She shot a look at Suzanne. "It was different for you. Malcolm was an agent. You married him to spy on him. Crispin didn't choose this game. I cut him off from family and school friends. I can't risk embroiling him in treason."

  Suzanne saw Malcolm's dispatch box and the papers in the false bottom that were there should they need to escape. "I understand."

  "Besides, I couldn't risk what my daughters have found." Manon bent down to open a cupboard hidden beneath a hatstand and retrieved a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar. "Of course I risked an incalculable amount for them when I was spying in France. But now—they have a father, a home. We may never fully belong, but they have roots here." She reached back into the cupboard for a plate of almond biscuits. "And—" She shook her head, an odd smile dancing in her eyes. "We aren't telling many people yet, but I wanted you to know in any case. Crispin and I are going to have a baby."

  Suzanne sprang to her feet and hugged her friend. "Dearest, I'm so glad."

  Manon colored. "I swore I would never do it again, but then I swore the same thing about marriage and look where I've ended up. It wasn't an accident, believe it or not. Crispin would never ask it of me and he loves the girls as though they were his own, but I knew he wanted us to have a child together." Her hand moved to her abdomen, in that unconscious gesture that was so common in pregnancy. "And I found—I understand why you wanted to have Jessica. I didn't need to have another child, but I wanted a child with him."

  "The girls are going to be splendid big sisters."

  "Yes, they're in transports. And Crispin's beside himself. I had to talk him out of his inclination to wrap me in cotton wool, but other than that he's been quite sensible. And I already know what a wonderful father he is." Manon dropped down on the settee and drew Suzanne down beside her.

  "Did you tell him about Sancho's visit?" Suzanne asked.

  Manon froze in the midst of lifting the teapot. "Are you mad? Crispin may not be an agent or the sort to fuss about Crown and country, but he is an Englishman. Why would I put him in that position?"

  "Did you tell anyone?"

  "Of course not." Manon poured steaming tea into two blue-and-white cups.

  Suzanne added milk to her tea. "You didn't think of telling me?"

  "I was trying to protect you, sweetheart." Manon clunked down the teapot. "I couldn't put you through that. The strain of whether or not to tell your husband. It was bad enough that I had to keep it from Crispin. With Malcolm it would have been ten times more complicated."

  Suzanne took a sip of tea. Odd how comforting she now found the very English drink. "There's always the possibility that we could have told them so they could try to stop it."

  Manon regarded Suzanne over the rim of her teacup. "I thought of that. But it's one thing not to assist the plan. It's another to actively stop it. Especially as we don't know who's involved."

  Suzanne took another sip of tea, a little too quickly. She must have not added enough milk, because it singed her mouth. An unvoiced name hung between them. "Did Sancho say if Raoul was involved?" Suzanne asked.

  "No." Manon took an almond biscuit and broke it in half. "But he wouldn't necessarily know. Another reason I thought it best that you weren't involved. Do you know where he is?"

  "Not precisely. But I've sent word to him. So has—someone else."

  "Laura." Manon took a bite of the biscuit.

  "You don't miss much, do you?"

  "When Raoul was here in April and you had us to dinner, it was quite plain there was something between them, for all they didn't even touch hands. Perhaps because of it. The way he followed her with his gaze—I haven't seen him so in earnest since—you."

  Suzanne reached for her cup again and blew on the steam. "It's quite serious, I think. For both of them."

  Manon's gaze moved over her face. "I'm glad for him. He deserves a bit of happiness. But not perhaps the most comfortable situation for you."

  Suzanne took a sip of tea. So rare to be able to speak with unvarnished honesty. Manon wasn't Malcolm. If she was jealous at all she could admit it. "I care about both of them so much."

  "Caring doesn't make jealousy go away."

  "Oh, I don't deny the occasional twinge. How could I not feel it? I think one always would with a man one was intimate with, and Raoul and I—There's no denying what he was to me. But to be brutally honest"—in a way she couldn't be with Malcolm—"I'm surprised it hasn't been worse. And—" She hesitated, not sure how to articulate what she was feeling, even to herself.

  "It doesn't really change what's between you and Raoul."

  Suzanne's gaze flew to her friend's face. "I'm not—I don't—"

  "I know. You love him but you're not in love with him. And I'm not saying you want to share his bed. But what's between you both will never go away. I imagine your husband understands that."

  Suzanne's fingers tightened round her cup. Raoul was now a frequent guest in their house, something she would never have thought possible. One could even call him one of the family, hard as that was to imagine. But she and Malcolm still tended to speak of him obliquely, more in terms of factual details than emotional responses. When it came to Raoul, Malcolm's own feelings were still a tangle that Suzanne felt she had no right to attempt to unravel unless Malcolm chose to confide in her. He accepted Raoul as part of their lives. He even, she thought, cared for him in his own way. But what he understood or didn't understand about her own relationship with her former spymaster she couldn't begin to say. "I'm not sure what Malcolm understands when it comes to Raoul," she said. "Save that Malcolm is the most forbearing man imaginable."

  "He loves you," Manon said, as though it explained everything. Which was funny, because Manon used to claim not to believe in love. "And he knows he's the one who shares your bed and gave you his ring and is the father of your children. Based on last April, I'd even say he likes Raoul. None of which lessens the damnable mess you'll be in if Raoul is involved in the Phoenix plot."

  Suzanne saw Raoul's bleak gaze that day in Brussels three years ago when she'd told him she'd no longer be his agent. It's over, she'd said to him then. We lost.

  It's never entirely over, he'd replied. But we were certainly dealt a decisive blow. Not only has the game changed, it will be played on an entirely different board.

  "He wouldn't risk himself in a quest he thought entirely foolhardy." Suzanne hunched her shoulders, fighting off what she feared was to come. "But if he thought there was a chance of success—we both know he's capable of taking the most hair-raising risks."

  "And he doesn't have a family to worry about. Or didn't until recently." Manon added more tea to both their cups. "How much would concern for Laura and Emily hold him back?"

  Suzanne saw Raoul last April, lifting Emily up to pluck a leaf from one of the plane trees in the Berkeley Square garden while Laura stood beside them. In that instant they'd looked like a family. And then there was Malcolm, who she knew was Raoul's family in every sense of the word, and herself and Colin and Jessica, who she thought he considered his family as well, though she could say none of that to Manon. "They mean a lot to him," she said. "But it hasn't stopped him from running equally appalling risks in Spain now."

  "Have you told your husband?" Manon asked, though her gaze said she already knew the answer.

  Suzanne gulped down a swallow of tea. "How could I? Not without knowing—"

  Manon nodded. "I think Raoul would be the first to say you shouldn't protect him. But I can see how difficult it would be. That's why I didn't want you to know. Once he knew, Malcolm would be honor-bound to tell Lord Carfax."

  Suzanne nodde
d and took another swallow of tea. What she couldn't tell Manon was that she couldn't be sure what Malcolm would do, not just because of what Raoul meant to her but because of what he meant to Malcolm himself. All she could be sure of was that either choice would tear her husband in two.

  "Damnable," Manon said, "the coils we find ourselves in, even years after the fighting supposedly stopped, years after we actively left off spying." She took a quick sip of tea. "I can help you. Help you get information at least. I can go that far."

  "You don't have to," Suzanne said.

  "I know. But you aren't going to be able to let this go, are you?"

  "How can I?" Suzanne asked. "I need to know. If Raoul isn't involved, I need to tell Malcolm."

  Manon reached for her teacup. "And if he is?"

  Suzanne drew a breath that made her corset laces bite into her flesh. "I don't know."

  Chapter 8

  Jeremy Roth dropped into one of the Queen Anne chairs in the Berkeley Square library with the ease of a friend and accepted a cup of tea from Suzanne. He moved as though his bones ached. "I've been scouring the docks and Seven Dials with two of my constables. Difficult to get anyone to talk, but we've finally identified the dead man. At least, an associate of his just came to view the body and says it's Ben Coventry. He served in the Peninsula in the 95th. Took a musket ball to his right leg at Waterloo. Since then he's lived by his wits, mostly as a petty thief and sometime smuggler from what I could tell. No one seemed surprised to find him caught up in something criminal, though they were surprised he got himself killed. Apparently he was both brave and resourceful."