Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  “Livia wasn’t responsible for the circumstances. I should have written the occasional letter. Sent gifts at her birthday and Christmas. Not left it entirely up to Cordy to create a father out of made-up stories and a bad portrait of me at the age of twelve.”

  “And now?” Malcolm asked.

  Davenport nodded at Lady Charlotte Greville and her daughter, a girl of about twelve, passing them in a phaeton. “I didn’t see much of my own parents when they were alive, not that they set an example of connubial bliss. I spent school holidays with my uncle, who left me to my own devices while he pursued the pleasures of town. I escaped into the library. I thought I was rather lucky. No ties meant no risk of being disappointed.”

  “I spent a good deal of my childhood in the library as well,” Malcolm said. “My wife would tell you it’s where I’d still spend much of my time if her efforts or the call of duty didn’t pull me out.” He hesitated, but Davenport had confided so much, more seemed to be required. “My brother and sister and I were in Scotland most of the time, my parents in London. Though they spent little time together. My mother died when I was nineteen.”

  He broke off, because much as he was coming to trust Davenport, there were things he wasn’t prepared to talk about. Particularly not after last autumn’s events in Vienna. “It didn’t exactly leave me with a favorable view of matrimony,” he said instead. “For years I thought I’d never marry at all. I was convinced I’d be a disaster at it. I warned Suzanne of as much when I proposed.”

  “She saw beyond it.”

  “She was in difficult circumstances, or I’d never have dared take the risk. I still wonder sometimes if I was fair to her.”

  Davenport edged his horse to the side as three officers from the Royal Horse Artillery approached, riding abreast. “I gave scant consideration to Cordelia’s feelings when I offered for her. The damnable thing about thinking one is immune to love is that one loses all perspective when one tumbles into it. Or what one thinks is love.”

  Malcolm shot a sideways glance at him. “Thinks?”

  “I’m dead to all feeling, remember?”

  “I don’t think one can ever really be dead to all feeling, much as one might wish to be.” Malcolm shifted his grip on the reins. “As I said, I was terrified when Colin was born. With so poor an example, I was sure I’d make a damnable parent.”

  Davenport grimaced. “I don’t think I have the makings of a good father. But I’ll do my best. After all, Cordy appears to be a more than passable mother, which I wouldn’t have expected.”

  “People can surprise you.”

  “So they can. If—”

  Davenport broke off as they at last caught sight of Anthony Chase, bent forward over the neck of a blood mare, galloping hell for leather down the allée. He passed them, then wheeled round and rode back at them, the horse’s hooves pounding against the path. He drew up short a few feet off. Sweat gleamed on the mare’s sides and his own forehead.

  “What the devil?” He looked from Malcolm to Davenport. “Don’t tell me you have more questions. Couldn’t you make sense of it the first time?”

  “New facts require new questions.” Malcolm tightened the reins on Perdita, made restive by the energetic mare. “You didn’t tell us the woman for whom you were planning to abandon all for love had broken off your liaison only hours before she was killed.”

  The mare danced sideways as Tony’s hands jerked on the reins. “Who told you that?”

  “Your sister.” Davenport edged his own horse to the side, as though to box Tony in. “She followed you into the garden to confront Lady Julia.”

  “Damnation.” Tony loosed a hand from the reins and dug his fingers into his hair. “Violet never did know when to stay out of things.”

  “For what it’s worth, she tried to avoid telling us,” Malcolm said. “She wanted to protect you.”

  “She did a damn poor job of it, didn’t she?”

  “So it’s true?” Davenport said.

  Tony’s mouth tightened. “I loved Julia. I’d have given my life for her. I was going to give up the life I had for her. That’s true.”

  “But she felt differently,” Malcolm said.

  Tony fingered the reins. “It never occurred to me. That one could love someone so completely and not see that the feeling wasn’t returned. Or not want to see it.”

  “Hell, isn’t it?” Davenport said in a voice not entirely devoid of sympathy.

  “Was that why you lied to us?” Malcolm asked Anthony Chase. “Because you couldn’t bear to admit you’d been wrong about her?”

  “No.” Tony gave a short laugh. “God knows it was hard to believe, but Julia drove home the reality.”

  “Why then?”

  Tony drew a harsh breath, then released it, as though making a decision. “Because I was protecting my brother.”

  28

  Davenport exchanged a quick look with Malcolm. “What does George have to do with it?”

  “Everything,” Tony Chase said. “He’s the reason Julia broke with me.”

  “He talked Lady Julia into ending the affair?” Malcolm asked.

  “You could say so.” Tony’s hands clenched on the reins. “Inasmuch as he wanted her for himself.”

  “George was having an affair with Julia?” For once Davenport’s voice was stripped of all irony.

  Tony shot a hard look at him. “Surely you didn’t think your wife was the only woman my brother dallied with? Two sisters. If he’d married them it would be considered incest.”

  “Lady Julia told you she was breaking with you because she’d fallen in love with your brother?” Malcolm said.

  “I already knew.” Tony edged his horse down the allée. Malcolm and Davenport followed. “I saw them together earlier in the evening. In one of the antechambers. In each other’s arms.”

  “And then?” Malcolm asked, voice neutral. “She broke with you?”

  “I confronted her. She didn’t deny the affair. She didn’t deny anything. She looked”—Tony spurred his horse to a faster speed—“pitying.”

  “That can’t have been easy to take.”

  “I told her I was damned if I’d share her with my brother. She said of course this was the end between us. That was when I lost my head. I said it couldn’t end this way. My God, it couldn’t have all been lies.”

  “Love can be real without being lasting,” Malcolm said, then wondered why he felt compelled to offer Anthony Chase any sympathy.

  “You must have been furious,” Davenport said.

  Tony pulled his horse up and stared at Davenport. “You think I was somehow behind her death? Even if I could have arranged it so quickly, it wasn’t Julia I wanted to kill. It was George.”

  “Did you confront him?” Malcolm asked.

  “With Julia dead there seemed no point.” Tony shook his head. “I don’t know what possessed him.”

  “Jealousy?” Malcolm suggested.

  “Of me?” Tony Chase gave a short laugh. “God knows we’ve always been rivals the way brothers are. But I never thought he’d serve me such a turn. We always—”

  “Kept your hands off each other’s women?” Davenport asked.

  “Yes. No. Damn it, a man doesn’t—” Tony glanced at Davenport. “You should know. How it feels to realize the woman one loves is sharing another man’s bed.”

  “So I do.” Davenport fixed Tony Chase with a hard stare. “It’s the closest I’ve ever come to wanting to commit murder.”

  Cordelia hugged her arms round herself, fingers digging into her elbows. As though she could shock herself back into reality. “God help me. I didn’t know my own sister.”

  “You didn’t know one aspect of her.” Suzanne Rannoch reached for the teapot. They had retreated to the salon, and Suzanne had ordered tea. She might not be an Englishwoman by birth, but she seemed to have adopted the British belief that tea soothed all troubles.

  “An aspect that overshadows all else.”

  “Yes, I can see
how it would seem that way. Oh, dear, how silly of me.” Suzanne reached for a napkin to blot up the tea she’d spattered on the silver tray.

  “You don’t think it does overshadow all else?”

  “I think your sister was a complex woman with complex motives. The fact that she was a French spy doesn’t change the fact that she was your sister. Or that she cared for you.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because I’ve seen your memories of her.”

  “I’m questioning every one of those memories.” Cordelia glanced out the window. Livia and Colin were once again playing in the garden under the watchful eye of Suzanne’s companion, Blanca. “And in my preoccupation with Julia I was woefully unprepared for introducing Livia to Harry.”

  “You’ve spent years apart from Colonel Davenport.” Suzanne held out a cup of tea.

  “But I knew I might encounter him in Brussels.” Cordelia returned to the table and accepted the cup. “I was so preoccupied with how I would deal with him, I failed wholly to think about Livia. Of all the things I should have discussed with Harry, that was the most vital.”

  “It sounds as though you did discuss it, if a bit late.”

  Cordelia dropped onto one of the sofas beside Suzanne. “Harry was—I had no right to expect him to be so generous.”

  “What did you expect him to do?”

  “God knows. At first I was simply relieved he left us in peace. Then guilt set in.” Cordelia turned her head to look at Suzanne, shame and defiance roiling within her. “The truth is, I’m not sure who my daughter’s father is.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  Cordelia stared at Suzanne Rannoch, startled by the matter-of-fact tone as much as the words.

  “Given the timing of your affair with George Chase. Unless you and Colonel Davenport—”

  “Had stopped sharing a bed? No, it wasn’t that tidy.” Cordelia took a quick swallow of tea. It scalded her mouth. “I don’t understand why he was so kind.”

  “Perhaps because he realizes none of this is Livia’s fault.”

  “Harry has the devil of a tongue, but he’s a good man.” Cordelia reached for the milk jug and splashed some milk into her tea. “Far better than I deserved.”

  “But not, I imagine, an easy man to know.”

  Cordelia gave a short laugh. “No.”

  “I know a bit about that.”

  Cordelia studied Suzanne Rannoch. “You and your husband seem almost to be able to read each other’s thoughts.”

  Suzanne gave a rueful smile. “It wasn’t always that way. When we married we were quite literally little more than strangers. Even now when it comes to some things—” She shook her head.

  Cordelia saw Malcolm Rannoch’s face—polite, pleasant, and as guarded as though he wore armor. “I don’t imagine Mr. Rannoch shares his feelings easily.”

  “No. It’s difficult for him,” Suzanne said. “He never meant to marry until he found himself coming to my rescue. Marriage is a damnable invasion of privacy.”

  Cordelia nearly choked on a sip of tea. “What an odd way of thinking of it.”

  “Two independent people suddenly forced to share a house—or in our case cramped lodgings. It was weeks before Malcolm and I managed not to have my scent bottle and powder and rouge pot and his shaving things crowding each other off the dressing table.”

  “Harry and I always had plenty of space.” Perhaps too much. It had felt as though they’d rattled about in their stylish house on Hill Street. Even though she’d chosen the watered silk wall hangings and mahogany furniture, it had never really seemed like home. As though they were playing at being grown-ups. “But I still remember how odd it was to look at him over the breakfast things. To realize I owed him some account of how I was spending my day. Though to be fair Harry always let me go my own way.”

  “More perhaps than you wanted?”

  Cordelia shrugged. “At the time I thought it was fortunate, as it was quite awkward spending as much time together as we did. But there were moments when I wondered why he’d married me at all.”

  Suzanne reached for her own tea and took a sip. “So you tried to get his attention?”

  Cordelia shook her head. “It’s too easy to excuse my behavior as a cry for my husband’s attention. I wanted George. I thought our love was powerful enough nothing could or should stand in its way. I told myself Harry couldn’t be happy married to a woman who didn’t love him, but the truth is I was appallingly blind to how I hurt him.”

  Suzanne leaned forward to pour milk into her own teacup. “I don’t think it’s possible to be married without hurting the other person at some point.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk.”

  Suzanne looked up, silver teaspoon clutched between her fingers. “What?”

  “Whatever you may think you’ve done to Mr. Rannoch—putting together an unfortunate seating arrangement, failing to charm one of his diplomatic colleagues—it can hardly compare to what I’ve done to Harry.”

  Suzanne stared at the polished silver spoon as she stirred the milk into her tea. “There are all different types of betrayal. And whatever Malcolm and I have, it’s been hard won. I don’t think—”

  She broke off at a rap on the door. A moment later, Valentin stepped into the room to say that Mrs. Anthony Chase had called.

  Harry scowled down the allée as Anthony Chase galloped off. Careless and heedless even in his grief. Or at least his supposed grief. “Damn the man.”

  “I own to feeling distinctly little sympathy for him,” Rannoch said, “despite his claims to have lost the only woman he ever really loved. Or perhaps because of them.”

  “Quite. But it wasn’t Tony I was thinking of.”

  “George? You had little enough cause to like him before this.”

  “And yet I thought—” Harry broke off. He felt the pressure of Rannoch’s gaze on him, but the other man said nothing. Harry shifted his grip on the reins. “I thought he loved Cordy. Somewhere beneath the anger and guilt perhaps a part of me thought he deserved her because he was the love of her life. If it wasn’t for that—”

  “You wouldn’t have left?”

  Harry gave a wry grimace, though the pain of that last scene with Cordelia sliced through him, sharp as a fresh sword cut. “I was scarcely in a fit state to judge coherently. Like a callow young idiot, I wanted nothing more than to die, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to do it for myself. And yet—I hate to think of a woman who was even remotely my wife throwing herself away on a man like that.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought it of him,” Rannoch said.

  “You thought he had too much honor?” Harry asked with a short laugh.

  “Of a sort. The Chase brothers strike me as the type who can seduce at liberty but think it’s a violation of the code to go after their brother’s women.”

  “Evidently even that was doing them too much credit.”

  “The personalities involved aside, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense,” Rannoch said. “I always thought it odd that the French put Lady Julia up to her liaison with Anthony Chase. For them then to have her form a liaison with his brother, when neither of them has any particular knowledge—”

  “That we know of.”

  Rannoch shot a look at him. “True. If—”

  A bullet whistled out of the trees and shot past Harry straight toward Malcolm Rannoch.

  29

  Jane Chase came into Suzanne Rannoch’s salon quickly. The Pomona green ribbons on Jane’s straw bonnet looked as though they’d been hastily tied, Cordelia noted, and didn’t match the turquoise sash of her muslin gown. “Forgive me, Mrs. Rannoch. But I thought this should be said at once. Cordelia, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Please sit down, Mrs. Chase,” Suzanne said.

  Jane dropped into a chair but sat bolt upright, plucking at the sprigged muslin of her skirt. Suzanne poured a cup of tea, stirred in two lumps of sugar, and pressed it into Jane’s hand. Jane took a quick si
p, sloshing tea into the saucer. “Impossible now to think I once believed Tony loved me.”

  “I think he did,” Cordelia said, an image sharp in her memory of Tony stumbling through the quadrille with unwonted awkwardness, unable to take his eyes off Jane. “As much as Tony is capable of loving anyone.”

  Jane’s gloved fingers tightened round the rose-flowered porcelain of her teacup. “But he wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t had a tidy fortune.”

  “That’s true of a number of couples. I wouldn’t have married Harry if he hadn’t had a tidy fortune.”

  “You weren’t in love with Harry.”

  “No.” Cordelia’s cup rattled in her fingers. “True enough.”

  Jane took a careful sip of tea, then set down her cup and saucer as though she feared she’d smash them to bits. “He did seem genuinely to care for me at first. Perhaps he even intended to be faithful.” She smoothed her lemon-kid-gloved hands over her skirt, pressing the muslin taut. “I was so sure I wasn’t the sort of silly girl to fall victim to infatuation, the way my younger sisters were always doing. I thought I could tell the difference between that and love.”

  “You hadn’t known Tony since he was a boy,” Cordelia said. Though she herself hadn’t precisely done better with George. “Besides, as I said, I think he did love you. Just—”

  “Not enough for it to last?” For all the weary bitterness in her voice, Jane’s gaze held the pain of a wound that was far from healed.

  “I’m not sure Tony is capable of being in love and having it last,” Cordelia said. “In my more cynical moments, I’m not sure any of us is.”

  Jane locked her hands together, the kid taut across her knuckles. “And yet love can persist. Beyond all reason. It can blind one to horrors that should be obvious.”

  She pushed herself to her feet and moved to the window with quick, jerky steps. “Three nights ago—the night before Stuart’s ball, the night before Julia died—the nurse woke me because my little boy was fretful.” She looked over her shoulder at Suzanne and Cordelia. “I think the children can sense something is going on, for all we try to keep to their usual routine.”