London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  Lucinda splashed milk into her tea and stared into the purple-flowered cup. "Last night. After the ball. We were all sitting in the small drawing room at Bel and Oliver's. Well, Mama and Bel and I were. Oliver and Papa were downstairs in the study, which was a bit odd because no one could call them confidants, but they do talk sometimes, and perhaps they wanted to discuss manly things after all the dancing. I realized I'd left my reticule downstairs when Rhys and I went into the library earlier in the evening." She colored slightly; Rhys was Lucinda's particular friend, and though she claimed there was nothing more to it, Malcolm sometimes wondered. "I went into the library, the door to the study must have not been closed properly. I heard raised voices that I couldn't make out and then Oliver must have moved closer to the door, because I suddenly heard him say quite clearly 'You may own me in most things, but my soul's still my own.' And Papa mumbled something back. All I could make out was something that sounded like 'illusions.' And then Oliver said, 'Leave Malcolm out of it.' And Papa said, 'My dear Oliver'—you know how he talks—'Malcolm has been at the heart of it from the beginning.'"

  Tea spattered against Malcolm's hand. The world as he knew it tilted in his mind. He tightened his grip on his cup and tried to hold on to his sanity.

  Lucinda gaze darted across his face. "Do you know what it means?"

  Malcolm forced a swallow of tea down his throat. It tasted more bitter than usual. "I'm not sure."

  "I never thought how hard it must be on Oliver that most of their money is Bel's. I suppose that's what he meant about Papa owning him. But I can't think what he meant about you—"

  Malcolm squeezed Lucinda's hand. "I'm not precisely sure either. But I'm glad you told me."

  Lucinda's gaze clung to his face, at once seeking reassurance and acknowledging that she was old enough to know that reassurance might be impossible. "After everything that's happened, I just can't bear for anyone else in our family to be hurt."

  And she trusted that confiding in Malcolm was more likely to save her family from hurt than to cause it. A frightening burden.

  Malcolm gave Lucinda a quick hug. "Very often words overheard out of context don't mean what one thinks, Lucy. But I'm glad you confided in me."

  Lucinda clung to him for a moment. "I know how difficult Papa can be, but he's fond of you, Malcolm. You're practically one of his children."

  Which might be true. But considering the way Carfax treated his children, it wasn't much comfort.

  Malcolm finished his cup of tea, hugged Lucinda again, and let her show him from the house. He accepted his hat and gloves from the footman with a smile, pressed Lucinda's hand, and went out the front door as he had countless times in the past twenty years. He paused in front of the half-moon forecourt. The wrought iron gate, worked with roses and acanthus leaves from the Mallinson crest, was elegant but always put him in mind of a fortress. He stared at the gilded tips of the metal, his own words to Harry the previous night playing in his head. Carfax might have turned to Oliver for help with family matters, but it's hard for me to imagine him turning to Oliver for something involving his agents.

  Unless, of course, Oliver was one of those agents. The conclusion slapped him in the face. As obvious and unthinkable as when he'd realized his wife was the Raven.

  He felt a spatter of damp against his face and realized a light rain had begun to fall. My God, you'd think he'd have learned his lesson. Less than an hour ago he'd said he assumed Carfax was watching O'Roarke. For all the people Carfax spied on, why had it never occurred to him his spymaster's efforts would have been turned on him?

  Chapter 32

  Harry made his way down the rain-spattered pavement of Half Moon Street at a fast clip. He had very little expectation that Maria would reveal anything to him about her relationship with Oliver Lydgate, but he had to at least make the attempt. He might be able to read something into her silences, or into whatever fresh spin she put on her story.

  Last night, home from the Lydgates' ball, Cordy had acknowledged that he'd need to see Maria again, in a crisp, bright voice that at once betrayed and defied concern. Was he a monster to feel a twinge of gratification? Not that he had any desire to cause his wife disquiet, but it sent a shock of wonder through him that she cared enough to feel it.

  He slowed three houses down from Maria's, instincts tuned to a stir of movement. The door of Maria's house opened, and a woman descended the steps, a pale blue umbrella unfurled against the light drizzle. Not Maria. The ringlets escaping the brim of a sapphire satin bonnet were pale blonde. The bonnet, Harry knew thanks to his wife, was in the first stare of fashion, as were her sapphire spencer and muslin gown with flounces edged in blue ribbon. He stepped back into the shadows of a lamppost. As he did so, the woman paused to adjust a pale blue glove and turned in his direction. He wasn't sure she'd seen him, but he got a good enough look to know he should recognize her elegantly boned face.

  Where—That was it. The opera. She'd been in the box next to theirs with her husband. It was Lady St. Ives. Sylvie de Fancot that was. Her parents had been French émigrés. And Malcolm had told him that Oliver Lydgate had been in love with her, but lack of fortune had put an end to any prospect of a match.

  Harry stayed still as Sylvie St. Ives descended the steps and turned, heading away from the direction from which he had come. On foot, which was surprising. She was the sort of lady he'd have expected would always have her carriage waiting for her.

  Was that the connection between Maria and Oliver Lydgate? Was Maria helping facilitate a liaison between Lydgate and his old love? Why? And what did it have to do with Whateley & Company?

  Once Sylvie St. Ives was out of sight, Harry made his way to Maria's door and rapped sharply on the panels. The maid admitted him and took him up to the sitting room where he had seen Maria before, without first checking with her mistress. Maria must have known this interview was inevitable as well.

  He found his former mistress seated at her marquetry-inlaid escritoire, a pen in her hand, a furrow between her brows as though she was searching for the right word. It must be less than ten minutes since Sylvie St. Ives had taken her leave. Had that interview sent Maria to her writing desk? Or was this a deliberate pose, designed to make Harry think her thoughts were elsewhere?

  "Harry." Maria set the pen down. "Two visits in two days. I'm flattered."

  "Gammon, Maria." Harry advanced into the room as the maid closed the door behind him. "You had to have known I'd be back."

  "Because you couldn't accept my perfectly reasonable explanation?" Maria got to her feet and gestured towards the sofa and chairs. "Perhaps. You always were infernally stubborn and disinclined to trust. I thought perhaps your wife had changed that, but it seems not."

  "My faith in Cordelia has nothing to do with my ability to see through a farrago of lies."

  Maria gave a laugh that might have been acknowledgment or denial and moved to the sofa. "I don't really see what I can tell you that I didn't tell you yesterday. But it's very pleasant to see you."

  Harry dropped down on one of chairs. "Yesterday you omitted to tell me of your friendship with Oliver Lydgate."

  "Ah." Maria's hand faltered slightly settling the gauzy skirt of her gown. Surprise? Or the counterfeit of surprise?

  "Did you really think I wouldn't find out?" Harry asked. "I thought you had more respect for my abilities."

  "I have utmost respect for your abilities. But you couldn't expect me to simply drop information into your lap." Maria twitched her amber satin sash smooth. "It's not what it seems."

  "I didn't think it was," Harry said. "Go on."

  Maria proceeded to give the same story Lydgate had given Malcolm the night before. The chance meeting at Somerset House, Oliver's assistance with legal difficulties. "That's what Lydgate said," Harry said. "Almost word for word."

  "That's because it's true."

  "So if he's such a good friend, why didn't you ask him to search for your letter to Craven? He's in the Brook Street house all t
he time."

  "My dear Harry. Oliver Lydgate is an able man, but he's no agent. He could scarcely have searched the Craven house without raising just the sort of questions I wished to avoid."

  "A point." Harry stretched his legs out and crossed his feet at the ankle. "Was it Lydgate who introduced you to Lady St. Ives?"

  Maria gave a sigh, fluttering the ruffle at the neck of her gown. "I should have known you'd have seen her."

  "Yes, you should. Though I can quite see you not admitting it on the off chance I hadn't."

  Maria gave a faint smile. "Oliver—Mr. Lydgate and Lady St. Ives were very attached when they were younger. The attachment endured. Or revived in recent years. I don't know the details, but Mr. Lydgate confided his feelings for Lady St. Ives to me. I offered to let them meet at my house and to pass the occasional message."

  Harry folded his arms across his chest. "You were helping along their love affair simply out of the goodness of your heart?"

  "I do have a heart, Harry, even if it's a bit bruised. And I know full well that marriage and love don't always go hand in hand. I know Oliver's wife is a friend of yours and the idea of someone seeking solace outside marriage probably carries a particular sting for you, but I assure you the attachment existed long before I met Oliver and Lady St. Ives."

  "Whom Lydgate sleeps with is his own business." Actually, it was also Isobel's, but Harry was not going to have that particular debate with Maria. For an instant though, he saw Isobel standing at the head of the stairs last night. Was it his imagination that there'd been strain about her eyes when she greeted him and Cordelia? "But even granted your story about your friendship with Oliver is true, are you really asking me to believe you did all this simply out of friendship for a man you've only known a few months?"

  Maria raised her brows. "Is that so hard to believe?"

  "It is. Unless you got something else from him entirely."

  "My dear Harry. You intrigue me. What are you suggesting?"

  "I don't know. But I have every intention of finding out."

  "Uncle Bertrand." Colin looked up from the burgundy felt of the game table in the library where he, Suzanne, Laura, Emily, and Blanca were engaged in a rainy day game of lottery tickets. "Did you bring Stephen?"

  "Not today, I'm afraid. Next time. I need to speak with your mother."

  Suzanne handed Jessica to Laura and took Bertrand into Malcolm's study. "You've learned something." It wasn't a question.

  "Yes. Though I can't say what it means." Bertrand dropped down beside her on the sofa. "Patrice Rénard, a haberdasher I helped get out of Paris in 1816, spotted Germont in Bruton Street yesterday. Rénard had seen Germont once or twice in Paris, and is quite confident it was the same man. He said Germont was speaking with a fashionably dressed woman who looked so like him that he assumed she was his sister."

  "Does Germont have a sister?"

  "Not that I heard of. Certainly not that he had a sister in London. But there are the accounts of an aunt who settled here. It might have been a cousin. In which case, he could have sought her out for reasons that have nothing to do with the Phoenix plot. But Rénard said that while they weren't being obviously furtive, they seemed to be attempting to make their meeting appear casual. You've had no reports of a woman approaching anyone about the Phoenix plot?"

  Suzanne shook her head. "Only the anonymous-sounding man. Who sounds as though he's disguised. I suppose—" She drew a breath, turning over possibilities.

  "The anonymous man could actually be a woman?" Bertrand's gaze grew thoughtful. "I've donned the guise of a woman often enough. Or, I suppose, the woman Rénard saw could actually be a man."

  "More likely it's two different people," Suzanne said. "But either way, if we can trace this woman, even if she isn't part of the plot, it could lead us to Germont."

  And to the answers to numerous questions she wasn't sure she was ready to have resolved.

  Malcolm sipped a cup of coffee at the Coffee Tree, off Piccadilly. Their excellent brew tasted unusually bitter today. Much like Lady Carfax's tea. He forced another sip down. He wanted nothing more than to stalk off and confront Oliver, but he knew prudence dictated that he wait for Harry and see if his friend had ascertained anything from Maria Monreal this morning. He'd only have one chance to confront Oliver unawares. He needed the best hand possible.

  He drummed his fingers on the worn tabletop, scarred with the initials of numerous law students and undergraduates down from Oxford and Cambridge. He'd sat at this same table six months ago while Suzanne's former lover taunted him and inadvertently revealed the information that led Malcolm to put together the pieces and realize his wife was the Raven, a Bonapartist agent.

  Perhaps he should have found another coffeehouse in which to meet Harry after that episode. But he'd be damned if he was going to let Frederick Radley disrupt his life. He tossed down another swallow of coffee. For that matter, he was damned if he was going to let Suzanne disrupt it.

  A draft of air, damp with the day's drizzle, signaled the opening of the door. He looked up to see three young men clutching sheaves of foolscap push their way into the coffeehouse, arguing with the passion of the young. And behind them, sweeping a damp beaver hat from his head, Harry Davenport. He dropped into the chair opposite Malcolm. "You've learned something."

  "I was waiting to see if you had," Malcolm said.

  "I have, though from the looks of it yours is more surprising."

  Malcolm's fingers tightened round his coffee cup. But were the situations reversed, he'd want Harry to be honest with him. "I think Oliver is working for Carfax."

  Harry released his breath. "That—changes things."

  "Quite."

  Harry regarded him for a moment the way he might look at a comrade who's received a wound in the midst of a battle. "I'm sorry."

  "I should have seen it sooner."

  "The spy's mantra on discovering unexpected information."

  "Fitzwilliam Vaughn. Louisa." His own wife. His father. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

  "I don't think one can ever get used to it." Harry leaned forwards, arms on the table. "This puts a different complexion on my discovery. I saw Lady St. Ives leaving Maria's."

  Malcolm drew a breath. He'd thought he was beyond surprise, but this was a fresh twist.

  "Maria claims she was facilitating their love affair, out of sympathy," Harry said. "Which I didn't believe for a moment. But if Maria and Lydgate were both working for Carfax—"

  "She'd have helped Oliver betray his wife, who is Carfax's daughter?" Malcolm shook his head. "Difficult to make sense of it. But it does make it look far more as though Carfax put Maria and Oliver up to both break-ins."

  Harry met his gaze across the table. It didn't take words for them to acknowledge what crossing swords with Carfax meant.

  Malcolm scraped his chair back. "I need to see Oliver."

  "Malcolm—"

  Malcolm managed a faint smile. "Don't worry, I won't throttle him or plant him a facer. I acknowledge the temptation, but I want answers too much to do anything that might interfere with getting them."

  Malcolm set his shoulders against the door of a sitting room at Brooks's. "How long?"

  Oliver, whom he had found alone in the room, looked at him in seeming bewilderment. "How long what?"

  "How long have you been working for Carfax?" Malcolm advanced into the room and leaned over his friend, hands braced on the table in front of the wing chair where Oliver was sitting. "Before we met you? Was it his idea you audition for Henry IV?"

  Oliver's skin drained of color. He was obviously far better at deception than Malcolm had credited, but Malcolm recognized the flash in his gaze of an agent who knows he's caught. "Malcolm—"

  "Don't try to deny it. We'll just waste time. I'd have seen it years ago if I hadn't been almost willfully blind."

  He saw the denial rise to Oliver's lips, saw the hope of it working smash in Oliver's eyes. "Malcolm—" Oliver pushed back his chair and
sprang to his feet. "You can't think when I met you—"

  "When, then?" Malcolm held his friend's gaze across the table as though he were holding him at sword's point.

  Oliver drew a breath as rough as the cracking of illusions. "The autumn after I first visited Carfax Court. The summer after our first year. That was the first time I met Carfax. I scarcely thought he paid much heed to me. And I was busy trying to navigate my way in this strange world. You were helpful with that."

  "Go on," Malcolm said, willing his voice to remain steady.

  "Carfax sought me out at Oxford. I thought he was looking for David at first. He took me to dinner at an inn away from the university. In a private room. He was—" Oliver grimaced. "It sounds mad to say engaging—"

  "No. He can be," Malcolm said.

  "He painted himself as a concerned father more than a spymaster. He said he could see I had more sense than his son and his friends—even then, I could recognize it for flattery." Oliver stared at a hunting print on the wall opposite. "But it's still something at nineteen to receive such notice from one of the most powerful people in Britain. He said he wanted to make sure David didn't get himself in trouble. That he'd be grateful to me if I'd keep an eye on him and let him know if he fell in with the wrong people." Oliver dragged his gaze back to Malcolm's. "I knew what he meant. Though I wouldn't have called it spying. Not then."

  "It's difficult to admit one's a spy," Malcolm said. He wouldn't have called himself a spy that first day Carfax engaged his services, or for months after. His wife and father were much more honest about their work. "I suppose I should be flattered Carfax took such notice of us."

  "You have to admit some of our talk went a bit far in those days. There was that article you wrote advocating universal suffrage and the abolition of the House of Lords."

  "Yes, I'm still rather proud of that one." It was one of the ones Raoul had mentioned. In some ways, what Carfax had done could be looked at as not so different from Raoul getting reports from Arabella and Frances. Save that Raoul had wanted reports on how Malcolm—his son—was doing, rather than trying to stifle his activities. Motive could make all the difference. That, and the fact that Raoul hadn't paid one of Malcolm's friends to spy on him. Granted he'd set Suzanne to spy on him, but by that time Malcolm had been a spy himself.