London Interlude

by Tracy Grant

  A family created because she'd married her husband to spy on him. Coming from her spymaster, the words should have been laughable. And yet, as so often, Raoul had hit upon a truth beneath the surface of their damnably complicated lives. "It shouldn't be a problem. It will keep me from getting bored."

  "I don't think you could get bored if you tried, querida."

  "It will distract me from this bewildering world. I don't think I could bear to focus on the concerns of the beau monde."

  Raoul touched her arm. Lightly, but it was still surprising. Since she had married Malcolm, he had touched her infrequently. "They're a strange lot, the British ton. Much of what they represent is what I've been fighting against the majority of my life. But taken one at time they're only people. And like any group of people, they have their strengths and weaknesses, and there are a surprising number who are quite decent. Even congenial."

  Suzanne looked at Raoul, who had grown up in Ireland, on the edge of this confusing world. Malcolm remembered him as a visitor at his ducal grandfather's estates. "It's my not world."

  Raoul's gaze slid down the aisle, then back to her. "But it's Colin's."

  Suzanne's gaze darted to her son, now flopped on his stomach, turning the pages of the book. "It's not—"

  "He's Malcolm's son, Suzanne. Malcolm is the grandson of a duke connected to more families in Debrett's than I can enumerate. It doesn't have to be the sum total of who Colin is, any more than it's the sum total of who Malcolm is. But it's part of his life."

  Dear God, the choices one made. Out of necessity or even expediency. As moves on a chessboard. In the midst of a war without thought beyond the end of that war. And the way those choices reverberated to shape one's life. That perhaps was no more than one deserved. But when the life of one's child was shaped as well—

  Raoul was watching her with the look he got sometimes that sliced too close to things she kept hidden, even from him. "It doesn't make him any less your son. It doesn't mean he won't remember the lessons you've taught him. I'd say Malcolm has a fair capacity to see behind the confines of his world."

  For some reason she saw Malcolm in the yellow bedchamber of his aunt's house yesterday, turning to the chest of drawers, a seemingly commonplace moment, yet one of the moments she'd felt he was retreating from her into this alien world. The thought of losing her son to that world closed her throat and turned her blood to ice.

  She glanced at Colin, turning the pages of the book with clumsy, careful fingers, then looked back at Raoul, and drew the mantle of her work about her. It had always been her refuge. "Unless I'm losing my touch I'll have de Belcourt's papers for you tomorrow morning."

  ***

  "When you're presented at court you'll need to wear a hoop." Blanca pinned another curl atop Suzanne's head.

  "Who told you?"

  "Davis, Lady Frances's maid. She was inclined to look down her nose at me at first, but now she seems to have decided to take me under her wing and tell me how to go on." Blanca reached for another pin. "She thinks it very odd that you call me Blanca rather than Mendoza. She hasn't quite said so, but I think she sees it as a sign of disrespect. It's the housemaids and kitchen maids who are known by their first names. I told her we did things differently on the Continent."

  "That excuse seems to cover a multitude of sins. Of course she'd probably find it odder if she knew you call me Suzanne. Or Mélanie." That was her real name, which Blanca still sometimes used when they were alone.

  "Heaven preserve us." Blanca stared at the arrangement of curls she'd pinned atop Suzanne's head and then adjusted one of the side curls. "We want to make sure your earrings show. I'm glad you chose the pearls. The sort of company you're going into will notice jewelry."

  "More wisdom from Davis?"

  "She says even though they pretend to be above it, some of the ladies can tote up the value of another lady's jewels before they've completed a curtsy. You can't seem behind hand."

  "I'll just seem like more of a foreign adventuress who's taken advantage of my husband's wealth and generosity." The pearls, suspended from small diamond loops, had in fact been a gift from Malcolm after Colin was born.

  "That's why the pearls are perfect. Elegant but not showy. That's what Davis strives for, though Lady Frances likes a bit more flash."

  Suzanne twisted her neck to look up at her friend. "Who are you and where have you stashed Blanca away?"

  "I've always cared about clothes. Even before I was your maid."

  "You haven't always cared about rules."

  "Mission research. I need to help you go on in this world."

  Suzanne swallowed. Blanca's words were a good but sobering reminder that this family trip was at heart a mission. And tonight she had a specific goal. She should keep her focus on that.

  "What?" Blanca said.

  Suzanne gave a laugh she hoped didn't sound forced. "I knew London might be dangerous, but I never thought the danger would be to you."

  Blanca tucked a pin into Suzanne's side curls so they fell to display the earrings. "I like Davis. She's a bit starchy, but she's kind underneath and she obviously cares for Lady Frances. She says Lady Frances wasn't fortunate in her marriage. Apparently the late Mr. Dacre-Hammond was rather dull. Reading between the lines, I gather Lady Frances sought consolation elsewhere before he died as well as after."

  "That fits with what Malcolm says."

  Blanca pinned the curls on the other side. "Davis said Mr. Rannoch is fortunate to have married for love."

  "There are plainly limits to Davis's perceptiveness." Suzanne's voice came out sharper than she intended. "Malcolm and I have what could only be called an arranged marriage. The arrangements were just different from most cases."

  "That's nonsense. Who did the arranging?"

  "I rather think Sir Charles Stuart told Malcolm I needed to be safely married off."

  "If you think that's the only reason—"

  "No. But circumstances and his own sense of honor compelled Malcolm to offer for me. And I— well, we both know why I married him."

  "Speak for yourself."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Blanca tucked an extra hairpin into the side curls on the left. "Just that to one who knows you it's always been apparent that your feelings for Mr. Rannoch are more complicated than you admit."

  "Of course they're complicated. I may be able to make appalling compromises, but I couldn't but be aware that I was taking shocking advantage of him from the first." Suzanne got to her feet and shook out her gown.

  Colin looked up from his blocks, grinned, got to his feet, and toddled over to her. "Puh." He touched the silver embroidery on her gauze overdress.

  Was he trying to say pretty? Suzanne bent down, heedless of the risk of crushing her dress, and scooped him up. "Daddy and I are going out. Blanca will put you to bed. Boo." She touched his nose.

  Colin giggled.

  "We'll be here when you wake up." Suzanne looked at Blanca.

  "A cup of warm milk, not too warm, two stories. Or three or four. He'll be fine. We'll be fine. And a footman can be at Lady Cowper's in a quarter of an hour in case of emergency. Which means if you don't hear anything, there's nothing to worry about."

  Suzanne put Colin into Blanca's arms, kissed his cheek, and then Blanca's. "I never worry."

  "Ha."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Time to reflect, Suzanne told herself as they sat in Lady Frances's barouche in a long line of carriages. Outside she could see swept pavements and the occasional streetlight and flashes of gleaming wax tapers behind sparkling windows. Occasionally a horse whinnied, but mostly the horses were as well trained as the rest of the Mayfair employees. Save for the damp in the air and the sound of English all about, it should be no different from dining at regimental headquarters or an embassy. But somehow on the Continent, at some level, everyone had seemed to be aware that to a degree they were playing at formality while reality was the danger that underlay their lives. In Mayfair, it
seemed the rules were the reality.

  This was what she had always excelled at. Learning the rules of a particular world and a particular role, getting into the skin of a character, completing the mission, extricating herself without looking backwards. Save that this mission involved the man she had married and their child, and she couldn't bear to think of extricating herself. Was that why she was filled with apprehension about setting a foot wrong? She was usually made of sterner stuff.

  Their carriage inched forwards again and then stopped. "At last," Lady Frances said. "Really, there should be a way for a hostess to boast of her entertainment being a sad crush without the guests having to wait half the night to get to the door."

  "Surely at least three-quarters of the night is left, Aunt Frances," Malcolm said. He didn't get up and open the door himself as he usually did but waited for the coachman to let down the steps and hand the ladies down.

  Aline, who had been making notes in her notebook in a corner of the carriage, put the notebook and pencil in her reticule, rubbed at a smudge on one of her gloves, and followed her mother and Suzanne.

  The smell of scented wax tapers, perfume, and freshly waxed floors wafted from the door. They waited again, this time to cross the hall, ascend the stairs, and shake hands with their hostess. "It will get more crowded later in the evening," Lady Frances said. "We can be grateful to Malcolm for making us arrive unfashionably early."

  Suzanne summoned up a smile. She could only hope Edouard de Belcourt hadn't been even earlier.

  Malcolm gave her his arm as they climbed the stairs. She slid her gloved fingers round the crook of his elbow. He gave her a quick smile, but it seemed to be more meant as solidarity in the face of tedium than moral support. She wondered if he knew how nervous she was. He was used to her being equal to most situations.

  Emily Cowper was the daughter of Lady Melbourne, a formidable Whig hostess, and the sister-in-law of Lady Caroline Lamb, who was a niece of the Duke of Devonshire. Lady Cowper was also a patroness of Almack's, where assembly balls were held. Suzanne had heard groans and complaints from young officers about the insipid nature of these evenings, the lack of alcoholic refreshment, the strict dress code. But she also gathered that vouchers for tickets of admission were hotly sought after, particularly by mothers with marriageable daughters.

  She'd have expected the patronesses who wielded such power in London society to be intimidating dowagers, but Emily Cowper looked to be in her twenties (and judging by the stories was much of an age with Malcolm). She was a slender woman with a mass of dark hair, large dark eyes, and a ready smile. She had a self-assurance many did not acquire until they were much older, but her greeting to Malcolm and Suzanne was warm and without affectation.

  "Malcolm, it's so good to see you back in London."

  "Emily." Malcolm bowed over her hand. "May I present my wife Suzanne?"

  "My dear." Emily shook Suzanne's hand. "I've been longing to meet you ever since we heard Malcolm had married at last. I can quite see why he was tempted away from the bachelor state."

  Malcolm took her arm and they moved on, and her first meeting with one of the doyennes of London society was accomplished. "She's very kind," Suzanne said.

  Malcolm steered her to the side to make room for a white-haired gentleman with a cane who was exiting the drawing room, supported by a younger man. "Yes, Emily's a good sort. Always has been, though she had a bit of a temper as a girl. I expect she still does, though she has it better under control."

  "You've known her all your life?" Malcolm, Suzanne was fast learning, had grown up with most of the key figures in London society of his generation.

  "My parents moved in the same set as her parents, the Melbournes. There was even gossip about my father and Emily's mother at one point, though I always thought Lady Melbourne had better taste. She certainly always had her pick of men. So does Emily."

  I don't know that Emily ever loved Lord Cowper, Judith, a font of information, had confided to Suzanne that afternoon during a walk in Green Park with Colin. She and Lord Palmerston are madly in love, though she isn't faithful to him either. Lord Cowper doesn't seem the least bit jealous, but Palmerston is. Sometimes he stands on the edge of the dance floor glowering when she dances with other men.

  Suzanne thought back to her talk with Blanca about Lady Frances. The Continental view of the British was that they were stuffy and rigid in their morality, but Suzanne was learning that British reticence had more to do with what could and could not be talked about than with what could and could not be done.

  "I haven't shocked you, have I?" Malcolm said.

  "Good heavens, of course not, darling." After all, she hadn't expected him to be faithful when they married. Still didn't expect him to be, she reminded herself, ignoring the small stab beneath the busk of her corset. Given the circumstances of their marriage, she'd be a shocking hypocrite to do so.

  Aline slipped between two plumed ladies, peach jaconet skirt gathered up in one hand, to stand beside them. "Mama was right behind me, but now she's deep in conversation with Lord Holland." She scanned the room. "I must say, Emily's parties are more amusing than some."

  Malcolm regarded his cousin with a smile. "Difficult to get used to you being out in society, Allie."

  Aline snorted. "If it was up to me, I'd do my best to stay 'in.' It can be a great nuisance, dressing up and fussing with one's hair and having to spend time making small talk. Though occasionally one gets to talk to interesting people. Judith will appreciate it so much more than I do. So will Gisèle." She swallowed, so that Malcolm's sister's name came out on a faintly uncertain note.

  "I think distraction will be good for Gelly." Malcolm's voice was easy. Suzanne wondered if anyone but she could tell the effort it took for him to keep it that way.

  A serious-faced, dark-haired man with finely molded features was making his way through the crowd towards them. Malcolm put up a hand in greeting and introduced the man as William Lamb, Emily Cowper's brother.

  "It's good to see Malcolm looking so happy." William Lamb's serious face broke into a warm smile as he bowed over Suzanne's hand. His own marriage, Suzanne recalled hearing, had foundered recently over his wife's affair with Lord Byron. From Byron's poetry, Suzanne could imagine him causing the breakup of a marriage, though Malcolm also said there had been difficulties between William and Caroline Lamb almost from the first.

  William Lamb might have been pardoned for being concerned for his friend's abrupt entrance into the married state, but his felicitations seemed quite genuine and his questions about Colin, about their life in Lisbon, and their journey from the Continent were kind and skillfully designed to put her at ease in a new setting.

  "I was on my way to find Warwick and Brougham," he said at last to Malcolm. "I know they're eager for your views on Tsar Alexander."

  Malcolm cast a look at Suzanne that was half inquiry, half apology.

  "Of course, you must talk to your friends," Suzanne said. In truth, it would be much easier to manage the de Belcourt situation without Malcolm present.

  "I promise I won't desert her," Aline said. "No matter how much I want to retire with my notebook."

  Malcolm grinned, touched his cousin's arm and squeezed Suzanne's fingers before he and William Lamb moved off.

  "Poor William," Aline said. "He adores Caroline. Even I can see it. I rather think it would be much easier for both of them if he didn't."

  William and Caroline's marriage was certainly a love match on both sides, Malcolm had told Suzanne. Perhaps that was the problem.

  Perhaps. Perhaps she and Malcolm were fortunate that their own match wasn't. "An inequality of affection can certainly cause problems," Suzanne said.

  "Oh, Caroline loved him when they married," Aline said. "I rather think she still does, in her way. As much as Caroline is capable of loving anyone. I often think part of the problem is that she doesn't know what to do with herself, and so she causes scandals to fill the void. Though Mama says she's ill. In her m
ind, I mean. Like Aunt Arabella was. That is, not in precisely the same way, but Aunt Arabella was ill in her mind as well."

  Aunt Arabella was Malcolm's late mother, about whom Suzanne knew only scant scraps of information, a few bits of gossip, and details filled in by Malcolm's silence, like a picture revealed in reverse.

  "You must miss her a great deal," Suzanne said.

  Aline frowned with the focus of one who believed in precise answers. "She could be quite splendid and warmer than Mama in many ways. But then she'd disappear for weeks at a time. Literally sometimes, and in spirit even if she was occupying the same house. Even if she managed a visit to the nursery, she wouldn't really seem to be there. You could see it in her eyes. Cousin Geoffrey—he's a doctor—oh, of course, you know him, don't you?"

  "He stood up with Malcolm at our wedding, and he delivered Colin," Suzanne said. Geoffrey Blackwell was military doctor with a keen mind and a great deal of natural kindness that belied his brisk manner.

  "Of course. One forgets sometimes how people are connected when they're away from one. In any case, Geoff grew up with Mama and Aunt Arabella, and he also says Aunt Arabella was ill and that we have to remember that. But there are times I find it hard to forgive her, looking at Malcolm and Gelly and Edgar."

  It was the longest speech Suzanne had heard Aline make, and for all the emotion it seemed as carefully thought out as her equations. "You love them," Suzanne said.

  "Well, of course, they're my cousins," Aline said, as if family were explanation enough. "I can't imagine growing up without them, Malcolm in particular. We had rather a haphazard childhood. Mama wasn't very happy in her marriage and she hadn't quite sorted out how to make the best of her life despite it, and Papa had a tendency to grow belligerent. I think he may be the reason we lost several of our nursemaids abruptly as well. Malcolm was a wonderful haven of stability, for all his own life wasn't very stable." Aline drew a breath. "I suspect that's more than you wanted to know."