Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  Her fingers dug deeper into her arms. “It doesn’t change what I believe in. It doesn’t change the fact that I think Bonaparte’s return is the best hope we have for retaining some trace of liberty, equality, and fraternity. If I didn’t, do you think I’d have done what I’ve done? Lied to my husband, deceived my friends, made a mockery of every vow I’ve ever sworn—”

  “No.” His gaze moved over her face. “I don’t expect you to believe this, but I trust you as much as I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

  For a moment she was fifteen again, the angry, defiant girl whose father had raised her on Paine and Locke and Beaumarchais, who had seen her father and sister killed by British soldiers, who had been left broken and alone in a strange city. The girl Raoul O’Roarke had found in a brothel, restored to a sense of purpose, trained as an agent. She’d been playing a part for so long she sometimes forgot who she really was. But somewhere beneath the silk and goffered linen and canvas stays of Mrs. Malcolm Rannoch, the core of that girl remained. A girl who would put her cause ahead of all else.

  She remembered March and Fitzroy the previous night. Cheerful, loyal, about to charge off to a battle she was doing everything in her power to ensure they lost. “I am getting soft.”

  “You’re better than you ever were. I’m only afraid you’ll break your health.”

  “I’m fine.” She met his gaze. “If Julia Ashton was being run from Paris, that means someone in Paris wants Malcolm dead.”

  “So it does.” His mouth turned grim.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t tell me if you did know.”

  “Perhaps not. But as it happens, I truly haven’t the least idea. God knows the British would feel your husband’s absence. But it would hardly turn the tide of the war.”

  “You sound like Malcolm. He’s refusing to take the whole thing seriously.”

  “Querida—” He reached out and gripped her hand. “I’ll learn what I can. My word on it.”

  His promise was ridiculously warming. “Thank you. And Julia Ashton?”

  “I have every faith that you and Malcolm can discover who killed her. And I’ve heard excellent reports of Harry Davenport.”

  “No matter where the investigation takes us?”

  “I trust you to be careful.”

  She picked up her gloves and drew them through her fingers. The bars of light coming through the high window glinted off her wedding band. “Harry Davenport’s wife hurt him so much I doubt he’ll ever be able to trust again. When I think of what I’ve done to Malcolm—”

  “There are different kinds of betrayal,” Raoul said.

  She looked up, conscious of the pressure of his gaze. “You never asked me to seduce a powerful man after I married Malcolm. A Lord Uxbridge or a Prince of Orange.”

  “No.”

  “I could have discovered useful information. I did often enough before I married Malcolm.” And, if she was honest with herself, at times she’d enjoyed the challenge.

  A muscle flexed beside his mouth. He’d always been calmly matter-of-fact about the missions she embarked on that could involve seduction. “It was different after you married Malcolm.”

  “Why? It’s all part of the job, that’s what you told me. You’ve done the same yourself.”

  “Very true. But for all my roles, I’ve never played the part of a loyal spouse.”

  “Played.”

  “You could have lost Malcolm’s trust and any information you can get from him. And you could have destroyed your marriage.”

  She gave a short laugh.

  “However it began, your marriage is a very real thing.”

  “A real thing built on lies and deceit.”

  “You told me once that though he might not know your true name, Malcolm knew you as no one else ever had. Even me.”

  She remembered that conversation keenly. Fresh from her first visit to Britain as Malcolm’s wife. Still reeling from the wondrous, painful realization that she’d fallen in love with the man she’d married. For days together she’d been determined to stop spying. She’d even contemplated telling her husband the truth. She’d told Raoul as much when she’d met him in secret on the way to Vienna for the Congress. To be fair, he’d replied that she’d have to do as she saw fit. Had he seen how it would be even then? Because when she’d reached Vienna it had been all too clear how things stood. The powers that be—including Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh—were determined to turn back the clock to the ancien régime. To get rid of every reform made in Europe for the past twenty-five years. To stifle all dissent for fear of revolution. That wasn’t the world she wanted her son to grow up in.

  And so while her husband, who by no means wanted such a world himself, had performed his duties as an attaché and argued with Castlereagh over the port, she’d gone on passing information to Raoul. And when Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba, she’d been aware of a mingled rush of fear and hope.

  She picked up her mantilla and gloves and got to her feet. “I should get back. Malcolm has gone with Harry Davenport to talk to John Ashton.”

  Raoul got to his feet as well. “One way or another it will all be over soon.”

  She flung the mantilla over her shoulders. “I’m supposed to find that comforting?”

  “No. But it will let you move forward.”

  She froze in the midst of drawing on her gloves and studied his face. His cheekbones were white, his mouth taut with strain. And his eyes—“You’re terrified.”

  “My dear. How could I not be?” He took her ungloved hand and lifted it to his lips with a formality that carried tenderness but no echo of a lover. “Are you going to be all right?”

  She pulled her hand from his clasp and tugged on her second glove. “What would you do if I said I wasn’t?”

  “Get you out of here.”

  She jerked her mantilla over her shoulders. “Even you aren’t so omnipotent.”

  “Trust me, if necessary I’d arrange it.”

  “I’ll manage. I’m not a fool.”

  “You’re human. Something we forget at our peril.” He hesitated, as though perhaps about to say something more. “Be careful, querida.”

  “I always am.” She picked up her basket. “You trained me well.”

  John Ashton stared from Malcolm to Davenport. “This is a damnable time to be making jokes, Rannoch.”

  “I’m afraid it’s no joke,” Malcolm said. “I’m sorry, Ashton.”

  “No.” Ashton spun away and took a turn round the Headquarters sitting room where they were closeted. “For God’s sake I knew my own wife.” He gave a rough laugh. “God, that’s rich. Yes, she deceived me with another man. But Julia wouldn’t—”

  “I’m afraid there’s no doubt,” Malcolm said.

  Ashton stared at him with eyes like glass blasted by a shell. “She can’t have known what she was doing.”

  “Vedrin was blackmailing her,” Malcolm said. “She was in an impossible situation.”

  “But she could have told me.”

  “Why didn’t she?” Davenport, leaning against the wall, spoke with the quiet of an assassin about to slide a knife from the scabbard.

  “I don’t know.” Ashton ran a hand over his hair. “We quarreled over her debts early in our marriage. But I settled everything up.”

  “And if you’d found out she was in debt again?”

  “I’d have been angry, but I wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t what?” Davenport asked, with the same deceptive quiet.

  “My God.” Ashton stared at him. “You think I—What? That I’d have beat her if she’d told me? Thrown her from the house? What kind of monster do you think I am?”

  “I don’t think anything yet, Ashton,” Davenport said. “Insufficient data. But the evidence suggests Julia was afraid of you.”

  “Damn you—” Ashton lunged across the room and smashed his fist into Davenport’s jaw. Davenport tumbled to the floor
boards.

  Malcolm ran forward. Davenport waved him off and pushed himself up on one elbow. “You have a right to be in a temper, Ashton.”

  “I don’t hit women. I’d never have hurt Julia.”

  “It’s difficult to know what one might do in a temper.” Davenport got to his feet, wincing at the pressure on his bad arm. “I’ve surprised myself with my own behavior on more than one occasion.”

  “You think—” Ashton stared at him, as though the full extent of the nightmare was dawning on him. “You think I was behind Julia’s death.”

  “I think a man who learned his wife had not only betrayed him with a lover but had betrayed the country for which he risked his life would be under considerable strain.”

  Ashton flinched at hearing his wife’s crimes put into words. “But I didn’t know.”

  “So you said.”

  “But you’re not sure.” Ashton’s gaze flickered from Davenport to Malcolm.

  “We can’t be,” Malcolm said. “What might you have told your wife that she could have passed along to the French?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t discuss my work with her. Julia seemed to have no interest in it.” His eyes darkened, a man sifting through his memories and twisting every one to see it in a new light. “If she was spying for the French wouldn’t she have tried to draw me out?”

  “Perhaps she didn’t want to make you suspicious with changed behavior.” Malcolm watched Ashton for a moment. “Could she have known about your involvement with Violet Chase?”

  “My what?” Ashton’s eyes widened, but Malcolm caught a flash of guilt in their depths.

  “You and Miss Chase were seen embracing in the garden at Stuart’s ball,” Malcolm said.

  Ashton drew a shuddering breath. “Oh, dear God. I should have known.”

  24

  Suzanne slipped through a side door to the shop of Madame Longé, the dressmaker who was one of her best sources in Brussels. She returned her basket to the back of a cupboard in the storeroom, removed her mantilla and gloves, and donned the chip straw hat and gauze scarf in which she had left the Rue Ducale. It took her three tries to fasten the satin ribbons into anything approaching a bow, but by the time she was tugging on the second of her threadnet gloves her hands had very nearly stopped shaking.

  Ridiculous. She had been a spy for nearly six years. She had been lying to her husband from the day they met. She had confronted the fact that she loved him and made the decision that it didn’t change what she believed in. She had perfected the art of keeping her life in neat boxes and laughing in defiance at the risk that the boxes might come tumbling down about her ears. She had learned to sip champagne and eat lobster patties and ignore the bitter aftertaste of betrayal.

  It shouldn’t be different now. She couldn’t afford to let it be different. She drew a breath that shuddered against her corset laces, tugged the ribbons on her hat tighter, and stepped into the front of the shop. After stopping to collect the new gown of pearl-beaded silver gauze over ivory satin that she’d ordered for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, she swept out the front door, a lady of fashion who had spent the morning at a fitting.

  In the Rue Ducale, Valentin informed her that Lady Cordelia Davenport had called with a young lady and that they were waiting for her in the garden.

  Stepping through the French window into the garden, Suzanne saw that the young lady was very young indeed. Not yet four by the look of it. She was crouched on the flagstones with Colin, lining up his lead soldiers. Cordelia and Blanca sat at the wrought-iron table watching the children.

  “You must be Livia,” Suzanne said.

  Livia Davenport got to her feet and curtsied. She had blond hair, several shades paler than her mother’s, and her mother’s blue eyes and heart-shaped face. Whoever Livia’s father might be, she bore little resemblance to him.

  “I’m sorry.” Cordelia got to her feet as Suzanne came toward her. “Livia was reluctant to see me leave without her. I had to tell her yesterday that her aunt Julia died, and though I’ve tried to say nothing about the coming battle, I think she understands something is about to happen.”

  “Children always seem to.” Suzanne looked at her son. He and Livia had returned to lining up the lead soldiers in a bed of lavender. Suzanne recalled Colin flinging his arms round Fitzroy Somerset’s legs three days before. Colin thought of Fitzroy and March and Canning and Gordon as uncles. In the Peninsula Colin had been too young to understand when friends died. That wouldn’t be true of this battle.

  But the sight of her son steadied her. One couldn’t break down round children, so one simply didn’t. “I’m glad you brought her. It’s good for Colin to have a friend to play with.”

  Cordelia’s gaze moved over Suzanne’s face. “Are the rumors true? That Bonaparte’s finally crossed the frontier?”

  “It seems so.”

  Beneath the brim of her willow shavings bonnet Cordelia’s face drained of color. Suzanne put a hand on the other woman’s arm and pressed her into one of the wrought-iron chairs.

  “I’ll get some lemonade,” Blanca said, darting a quick glance between the women. She moved toward the house, stopping to admire Colin and Livia’s efforts with the soldiers.

  “I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “I didn’t mean to be such a fool.”

  Suzanne dropped into a chair across from her. “It still may come to nothing.”

  “Spoken like a diplomatic wife.” Cordelia glanced at her daughter for a moment, then turned her gaze back to Suzanne. “It’s odd. I knew I might see Harry when I was in Paris last year, but he was off on a mission. By design, I’ve often thought.”

  “And you weren’t sure whether you were relieved or sorry?”

  Cordelia’s mouth twisted. “Perhaps. Going to Paris was an act of recklessness. But then I’ve always been known for my reckless behavior. And of course I knew I might see him in Brussels. On the journey across the Channel and the drive from Ostend every moment I wasn’t worrying about Julia, I was imaging my meeting with Harry. Playing out every possible scenario. I was so worried about seeing him again, I never considered that this might be the last time I saw him at all.”

  “Malcolm isn’t a soldier, but I feel a knot of panic whenever he goes off on a mission.”

  “You’re very kind, Mrs. Rannoch. You’re sympathizing without pointing out that Harry’s been in danger the better part of these past four years and I’ve made no attempt to see him. To all practical purposes he’s not even my husband.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of suggesting anything of the sort.”

  “Because you’re too tactful.”

  “Because I’ve seen you and Colonel Davenport together enough to know that whatever is between you it isn’t nothing.”

  Cordelia glanced at her daughter again. A smile twisted her lips. “We lived together for a year. I’m not entirely heartless. I somehow always thought—” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what I thought. Except that it wouldn’t end like this. One got used to it during the war, of course. The constant knowledge that people one knew were in danger. The moment of terror when the casualty lists came out. But somehow it still seemed distant. I suppose you grew accustomed to it, living in the Peninsula.”

  “I don’t think one ever grows accustomed to it.” Particularly when one was working for the opposite side from one’s husband and his friends. “But perhaps one learns to manage the fear.” Suzanne looked at Cordelia for a moment. “Your husband has been in battle many times. As has Major Chase.”

  Cordelia’s shoulders jerked, but she met Suzanne’s gaze squarely. “George has a wife. He isn’t mine to worry about.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily stop anyone from worrying.”

  Memories shot through Cordelia’s gaze. “I talked to George last night. About Julia. But—” Despite the afternoon heat, she rubbed her arms, bare between her gloves and the puffed muslin sleeves of her gown. “I told him what we had would have turned to ashes sooner or later. I still believe
it.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  Cordelia stared down at her gloved fingers digging into the flesh of her arms. “A part of me will always be the sixteen-year-old who fell in love with him over the Christmas punch bowl.”

  For a moment Suzanne saw Raoul, when she had left him just now, and then when she, too, had been sixteen. Already hardened and cynical yet desperate for something to believe in. Whatever else he had done, he would always be the man who had restored her to a sense of purpose. “A first love is always a first love,” she said.

  Cordelia studied her for a moment but didn’t ask the obvious question. “Of all the damnable times to be wallowing in my own past.” She swallowed and folded her hands in her lap. “You learned something yesterday.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t tell me. I understand. I didn’t come here to wheedle or beg.”

  “There’s one thing I can tell you. That I’d like your help with.” Suzanne recounted Sarah Lennox’s story about Violet Chase and then Fitzroy Somerset’s account of finding Violet and John Ashton embracing in the garden at Stuart’s ball. She phrased this last carefully, for she knew Cordelia was fond of her brother-in-law.

  Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. “Damnation. I thought Johnny was prevaricating about something when we talked about Julia, but I never suspected—”

  “It was clear yesterday that Miss Chase still cares for him.”

  “But I’d swear Johnny—” Cordelia shook her head. “After what I’ve learned in the past two days, I shouldn’t be surprised by any revelation.”

  “Will you go with me to talk to Miss Chase?”

  “You think Violet will tell me the truth?”

  “I think you’ll have the best chance of determining how much truth there is in whatever story she gives us.”

  The footman at the Chase house informed Suzanne and Cordelia that Miss Chase had taken the children to the park. Suzanne and Cordelia proceeded thither and found Violet on one of the gravel walks with her niece and nephew and a nursemaid.