“Colonel Davenport,” Wellington supplied. “One of my aides-de-camp, seconded to Colonel Grant.”
“Pleased to meet you, we’re relying on you lot.” Ashton extended his hand, then frowned. “You’re—”
“Cordelia’s husband.” Davenport shook Ashton’s proffered hand. “I’m afraid we aren’t meeting under the best of circumstances.”
“Sit down, Ashton.” Wellington put a hand on the captain’s shoulder and pressed him into the same chair the Prince of Orange had earlier occupied. “Did you know your wife had left the ball?”
“Julia? Don’t be absurd, she’s been on the dance floor all evening. I just saw her at supper—” Ashton broke off, as though realizing how long ago that had been.
“Rannoch and Davenport had a meeting with a French contact at the Château de Vere tonight,” Wellington said in brisk tones. “They were ambushed, and their contact was killed in the exchange. Unbeknownst to them, your wife was inside the château. She came out on the balcony and was struck by a musket ball. I’m very sorry to say that she is dead.”
Brisk as a bucketful of cold water, a soldier’s way of breaking bad news and probably the best choice in these circumstances.
Ashton stared up at his superior, a man who has had a knife plunged in his guts but is in too much shock to yet feel the pain. “But she couldn’t—There has to be some mistake,” he said, echoing the Prince of Orange.
“I’m afraid not.” This time it was Davenport who addressed the question. “It was undoubtedly Julia. I knew her well at one time.”
Ashton turned his gaze to the brother-in-law he had just met. “But if she was called away, why wouldn’t she have told me?” He caught himself up short as he said this last, the obvious, painful explanation showing clearly in his heretofore-unshadowed blue-gray eyes. “No,” he said. “Julia wouldn’t—I won’t let you slander her.”
“No one,” Wellington said, “would dream of slandering your unfortunate wife. But I think you may have to accept, Ashton, that we often know less than we think we do about those closest to us.”
Davenport dropped a hand on Ashton’s shoulder. For a moment, behind the colonel’s controlled gaze, Malcolm glimpsed wounds that had lain festering for years.
Wellington was regarding Ashton, weighing his options. Tell Ashton the truth and risk a confrontation between the young captain and the Prince of Orange. Withhold the truth from Ashton and risk the outraged husband stumbling upon it himself to infinitely worse effect.
Perhaps Ashton’s solid, confused gaze convinced him. This was a man bred up to put his country first.
“Ashton.” Wellington seemed to measure his words even as he spoke. “We have reason to believe your wife had an assignation with the Prince of Orange at the château this evening.”
“With the—”Ashton surged out of his chair. “That’s a damned lie.”
“I’m afraid the prince has admitted it.”
“Then he’s—” Ashton broke off, unable to come up with a logical reason why a man would falsely claim to be having an affair with another man’s wife.
“The prince says your wife sent him a note canceling the rendezvous. Ashton, can you tell us if this is your wife’s hand?”
Davenport held out Julia Ashton’s supposed note. Ashton frowned at it. “It’s like her hand.” He traced the letters, as though seeking an echo of his wife’s presence. Then he frowned. “But there’s something a bit odd. The lines don’t flow properly.”
Davenport nodded. “It was forged.”
Ashton shook his head. “First you tell me my wife had a rendezvous with the Prince of Orange, then you say someone forged a note so the prince wouldn’t go to the rendezvous—In God’s name why?”
“It’s difficult to make sense of it,” Malcolm said. “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to meet with your wife secretly at the château?”
“Of course not. I didn’t even know she’d—I still can’t believe—” Ashton pressed his hands over his face, his fingers shaking. Then he dropped his hands and looked from Malcolm to Davenport to Wellington, his gaze hardening. “Are you accusing me of setting this up? So I could confront her about her... her indiscretion? Of which I knew nothing—”
“No one’s accusing you of anything, Ashton.” Wellington rested a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “You’ve suffered a great shock and a terrible loss. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when we can none of us dwell on personal matters. I think I need hardly tell you how disastrous any tension between our troops and the Dutch-Belgians would be just now.”
Ashton’s mouth drew into a tight line. “You’re telling me not to plant the Prince of Orange a facer,” he said in a tone that indicated he wouldn’t soil his hands with the other man. “Or call him out.”
“Among other things. Believe me, I can understand the temptation, but it could do incalculable harm. As well as casting scandal upon your wife’s memory. Which, despite everything, I don’t believe you would wish to do.”
“No,” Ashton said. The single word held a raw grief, just beginning to break through the shock. “But I want to understand—”
“So do we all,” Wellington told him. “Your wife wasn’t the only one to lose her life tonight. We lost one of our most valued agents. We need to discover precisely what happened to both of them.”
“How—”
Wellington jerked his head at Malcolm. “Rannoch investigated a murder in Vienna.”
“Murder?” Ashton said. “No one’s suggesting Julia was—”
“No, of course not. But Rannoch’s good at unraveling puzzles and putting the pieces back together. Malcolm?”
Malcolm had already seen where the conversation was leading. In truth, he wouldn’t have been best pleased to have the matter put in someone else’s hands. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“You’ll tell me what you discover?” Ashton said. “At least whatever relates to Julia?”
Malcolm looked into Ashton’s pleading eyes and found himself saying, “Yes, of course,” though he knew even as he framed the words that it might be a difficult promise to keep.
“Do you want someone to see you home?” Wellington asked. “I can understand you’re not—”
“No, I’ll manage. I just—Oh, Lord.” Ashton grimaced. “Cordelia. She’s here. In the ballroom. Just arrived in Brussels. She’s been looking for Julia. We’ll have to tell her—”
“I’ll do it,” Davenport said.
Ashton looked at him for a moment, blinking through his own distress. “Are you sure—?”
“No.” Davenport gave a twisted half smile. “But when it comes to Cordelia I don’t think it’s possible for me to make matters any worse.”
6
“Cordelia. What in God’s name are you doing here?”
Cordelia Davenport turned from her conversation with Caro and Suzanne Rannoch to see a tall, broad-shouldered man with close-cropped golden-brown hair and an all-too-familiar smile striding along the edge of the dance floor.
“Major Chase.” Cordelia extended her hand. “Why shouldn’t I come to Brussels? All the world seems to have flocked here. I’m not usually so behind the fashion.”
George brushed his lips over her hand, a bit stiffly. He met her gaze as he straightened up. “For God’s sake, Cordy, it’s dangerous.”
“I doubt Wellington would care to hear you say so. You know Lady Caroline, of course,” Cordelia said, grateful for the mask of social convention. “Have you met Mrs. Rannoch? Her husband is on Stuart’s staff.”
George nodded at the other two ladies with one of his quick, disarming smiles. “Forgive my informality. Cord—Lady Cordelia and I have known each other since we were children. I’m in the habit of worrying about her.”
“A fatal mistake, Major Chase,” Caro said. “Cordelia could look after herself at the age of six, and nothing puts her in such a temper as being fussed over.”
George grinned. “With Cordy I’ve always been slow to learn my lesson
s.” The look he turned to Cordelia was a mix of ruefulness and regret. It reminded her of the way he’d used to turn his head to meet her gaze one last time before he stepped into the carriage to return to Eton or Oxford, knowing it would be many months before they met again. Against all instincts to the contrary, her throat went tight.
George turned to Suzanne Rannoch. “I knew your husband a bit as a boy when he used to visit the Mallinsons at Carfax Court in Derbyshire. Always thought he’d do something remarkable.”
“He was frighteningly clever,” Cordelia said, recalling the tall, gangly boy with intent eyes and a quick wit. “And inclined to spend all his time in the library.”
Suzanne Rannoch smiled. “Some things don’t change.”
“I hear Wellington claims Rannoch’s the civilian he could least do without,” George said.
“My husband would say one can’t believe everything one hears in Brussels these days.”
“You seem very sanguine, Mrs. Rannoch.”
“As a diplomat’s wife, one of my first duties is to calm the panic.”
“And yet”—George cast a glance at the couples circling the floor—“I fear life in Brussels is not the picnic it appears.”
Cordelia unfurled her fan, willing her fingers to hold steady against the ebony sticks. “Have you sent your own wife back to England?”
She heard George suck in his breath. He looked directly into her eyes, his own shadowed with ... guilt? Apology? “No, Annabel’s somewhere in the ballroom as it happens. I’m stationed at Ninove, on Uxbridge’s staff, but we’ve taken a house in Brussels. We talked about Annabel taking the children back to England, but we—She felt it would be harder to be separated at such a time.”
“How sweet.” Cordelia took a sip of champagne and then cursed herself. She was being spiteful and neither George nor Annabel deserved that.
“It’s different for Annabel,” George said quickly. “She’s a soldier’s wife—”
“So am I if it comes to that. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I came to Brussels to see Harry?”
The look on George’s face might have been comical had she been able to muster up anything remotely approaching laughter. “I’m sorry, Cordy,” he said. “I should have realized—”
“Oh, don’t look so apologetic, George. Harry isn’t even in Brussels as it happens. I came here to see Julia, only I can’t seem to find her anywhere in the ballroom or salons. Have you seen her?”
George frowned. “Not since supper, I think. But she’s bound to turn up before long. Julia’s not the sort to fade into the woodwork. She’ll be glad to see you.”
“I hope so,” Cordelia said, for once speaking the unvarnished truth.
George touched her arm. “Don’t be silly, Cordy. Whatever else, Julia will always be your sister. Ladies.”
George inclined his head to Caro and Suzanne Rannoch and walked off along the edge of the dance floor.
Cordelia felt Caro’s concerned gaze on her and Suzanne Rannoch’s appraising one. How much of the story had Mrs. Rannoch heard? Not that it mattered. She was damned in any case. “George and I’ve known each other since we were both in the nursery,” she said.
“Old friends know one in a way no one else quite does,” Suzanne Rannoch said. Cordelia could see her trying to piece together the past, yet there was a surprising lack of judgment in her gaze. Not what Cordelia was accustomed to from respectable happily married women.
“Damnable, isn’t it?” Cordelia said, throwing out the curse like a challenge. George was talking with two cavalry officers, head bent at a serious angle. A bit of a change. The old George would have been dancing with a pretty girl.
“Quite damnable.” With two words Suzanne Rannoch picked up the challenge and rendered it irrelevant.
Caro touched Cordelia’s arm. “Cordy—”
“It’s quite all right, Caro. If I couldn’t confront my past I’d never be able to go out in society.”
“Lady Cordelia?”
Cordelia turned to tell the footman she didn’t need any more champagne and saw that he was holding out a square of paper. “A gentleman asked me to give you this.”
Cordelia took the paper.
I’m sure you find this as awkward as I do, but I have important news to impart. I beg you will grant me a few moments of your time. I fear I’m not fit for the ballroom.
H.
She knew the precise, slanted handwriting at once. Speaking of confronting one’s past. She folded the paper between fingers that had gone nerveless. “Where is he?”
“In one of the salons.”
Cordelia turned to Caro and Mrs. Rannoch. “Pray excuse me. It seems I need speak with my husband.”
Caro made a quick move toward her. “Dearest—Do you want me to go with you?”
Cordelia drew together defenses carefully built over the past four years. “No, I shall be quite all right. I knew I might encounter Harry in Brussels after all. And I’ve just dealt with George. How bad can this be?”
The footman guided her along the edge of the ballroom and then held open a white-painted door. Cordelia stepped beneath the gilt pediment, feeling like Anne Boleyn on her way to her execution.
Oh, that was absurd. She wasn’t a fanciful girl anymore.
It was a small room hung with cream silk and lit by a candelabrum and a couple of additional tapers. She caught a whiff of brandy in the air, overlaying the wood polish and lemon oil.
Harry stood on the far side of the room. Though his face was in shadow, she’d have known the mocking angle of his shoulders anywhere. For a moment she was a girl of twenty, her eye caught by the broody-looking young man with disordered brown hair and intense blue eyes, hovering on the edge of the Devonshire House dance floor. A quadrille that had been all the rage that season had been playing, and she’d wanted to avoid dancing with Toby Somerton. How different would their lives have been, hers and Harry’s, if she hadn’t crossed the room to speak with him that night?
“Thank you for coming.” He stepped forward as she pushed the door to. The light from the candelabrum fell across him, and she saw that his face had hardened into sharper planes and angles and that lines she didn’t remember bracketed his mouth. He wore riding dress, not his uniform. His coat and breeches were splashed with mud and—Good God, was that blood?
“Harry—” She crossed to his side in three quick steps, her hand extended. “Are you hurt—”
“No.” His voice forestalled her before she could touch him. “The blood isn’t mine. It belonged to a poor French bastard who was selling us information and got caught. At least that’s what seems to have happened.”
She let her hand fall to her side and clasped her gloved fingers together. “That’s why you’re back in Brussels.”
“Yes, in a roundabout way. I’m sorry, I don’t suppose you expected to see me.”
“I knew it was a possibility. But then we’re foolish to think we can avoid each other forever. At some point you’ll come back to England.”
“I suppose anything’s possible.”
“Perhaps it’s easier to see each other first here rather than in London with the ton staring at us like fish in a bowl. Was that why you asked to see me?”
“No.” He ran a hand over his hair, an uncharacteristic gesture. “Cordelia—Perhaps you should sit down.” He reached out a hand as though to take her arm, then let it fall to his side and instead pulled a shield-back chair forward.
There was something in his eyes that was suspiciously like pity. She jerked away from it and from the proffered chair. “For God’s sake, Harry, don’t be silly. I’m not some missish girl. Whatever it is you have to tell me say it straight out.”
Harry swallowed. She saw that beneath the grime and blood and the layer of tan from years in the field his skin had gone pale. “I went to a château just outside Brussels this evening to warn Malcolm Rannoch and this agent of ours that our communications had been rumbled. We were caught in a French ambush. It was onl
y afterwards that we realized someone else had been in the château and had died in the cross fire. A woman.” His gaze fastened on her face with a gentleness she had never thought to see again when he looked at her. “It was Julia. I’m sorry, Cordy.”
For a moment the room swam before her eyes, a dark void she could not look into. A roaring filled her ears and a silent scream echoed in her head.
Strong fingers closed on her arms. She clung to him, her fingers digging into the cloth of his coat. The smell of blood and stale sweat washed over her, and beneath it a whiff of spice, a scent she had not smelled in so long it was half forgot.
His quick intake of breath stirred her hair. Then he steered her to the side and pressed her into the chair. A moment later he put a glass into her hand and guided it to her lips. She choked down a sip of brandy.
“You’re sure it was Julia?” Her sister’s laughing voice echoed in her ears.
“I’m sure.” He knelt beside her, his hand hovering near the glass in her hand.
“You haven’t seen her in four years—”
“Cordy, I’m sure. I don’t forget so easily.”
She darted a quick look at him but saw none of the usual mockery in his expression, only a sympathy that cut her to the quick. “I’d been trying to find her ever since I got to the ball. If I’d arrived sooner—”
His hand closed over her own. No doubt to keep the glass from falling from her fingers. “Guilt will get you nowhere.”
“She left the ball and went—What in God’s name was she doing there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. But she saw the flicker in his eyes, a shutter drawn closed over whatever he knew.
“You mean you won’t tell me.”
“Yes, I thought there hadn’t been enough tragedy tonight, I’d throw in some lies to top it off.” Harry sat back on his heels. “Whatever Julia was doing at the château, it had nothing to do with Rannoch’s meeting with La Fleur, which was what took me there—”
Teresa Grant Page 5