“You never heard me say so, Cordy.”
Cordelia laughed.
Georgiana shivered. “How can you laugh at a time like this?”
Cordelia smiled at the younger woman and put an arm round her. “My dear Georgy. It’s difficult to see what else we can do.”
“Spoken like a soldier’s wife,” Uxbridge said. He smiled as he spoke, but Suzanne caught a flicker in his gaze. She suspected he was thinking of his own wife, home in England with their children, and the chances that she’d find herself a widow.
The waltz on the dance floor had come to an end. A wail cut the air that took Suzanne back to the previous summer. Dunmykel, Malcolm’s family estate in Perthshire. Granite cliffs, the tang of salt water, clean pine-scented air, and the unmistakable sound of bagpipes. Kilted sergeants and privates from the 92nd Foot and the 42nd Royal Highlanders marched into the room. The candlelight gleamed off their white sporrans and the brilliant tartans that trailed over their shoulders.
The crowd drew back and broke into applause. “Mama wanted to show off Highland dances,” Georgiana murmured. Her mother was a daughter of the Duke of Gordon. “She did so want the evening to be memorable.” Georgiana bit her lip, for the evening was almost bound to be memorable for reasons that had nothing to do with the entertainment.
Yet when crossed swords glinted on the parquet floor and the Highlanders danced over them to the wail of the pipes, it was almost enough to drive out thoughts of the coming battle. Except that those swords looked all too lethal.
Suzanne felt a light touch at her waist as the sword dance gave way to a strathspey. “I could almost imagine I’m home,” Malcolm murmured.
She twisted her head round to glimpse an ache of longing in her husband’s eyes. She’d seen last summer how much Dunmykel meant to him. Even after their visit she didn’t understand the reasons for his self-imposed exile from his home and family. A homesickness he would never admit to was sharp in his gaze now. With a chill, she realized he was wondering if he’d ever see Dunmykel again.
She caught his hand in her own and squeezed it hard. He smiled at her. “You’re missing the show.”
She turned back to the dancers. Their legs, clad in red-checkered stockings, seemed to move ever faster. The sound of the pipes swirled through the candle-warmed air and bounced off the ballroom ceiling. Incredible to think that these musicians and dancers would soon be marching off to battle. On her husband’s side. And against her own.
The performance came to an end to a burst of applause. Georgiana was pulled onto the dance floor by her friend Lord Hay, and Lord Uxbridge’s attention was claimed by his sister, Lady Caroline Capel. Geoffrey Blackwell came up to join them.
“I hear Suzanne’s been patching you up,” he said, running an appraising gaze over Malcolm.
“Quite ably. Your expertise needs to be saved for the serious work.”
“There’ll be plenty of that soon enough, I fear.”
Aline slipped her arm through her husband’s.
Geoffrey looked down at her. “I’m a—”
“Doctor. I know. I’m very fortunate compared to Lady Cordelia, whose husband is actually a soldier.”
“There’s enough worry to go round,” Cordelia said. “Though nothing to be gained by dwelling on it.”
“Men like Davenport who’ve been wounded once tend to be careful,” Geoffrey said.
“Thank you, Dr. Blackwell, that’s most reassuring even if you just made it up.”
“Rubbish, I don’t have time for reassurances,” Geoffrey said. “My wife could tell you that.”
“I’m afraid the sad truth is that wives can’t stop worrying,” Cordelia said. “A side effect of being left behind.”
Aline tightened her grip on her husband’s arm. “At least I knew what I was getting into when I married you. Just like Suzanne.”
Malcolm gave a wry grimace. “I’m afraid Suzanne hadn’t the least idea what she was getting into when she married me. Fortunately for me, or she’d never have said yes.” He squeezed Suzanne’s arm and moved off. Suzanne knew full well where he was going, and from the tension that ran through Cordelia, she guessed the other woman did as well.
They’d both seen his gaze fall on George Chase.
George Chase stood on the edge of the dance floor with a fair-haired woman in a lavender gown.
“Chase?” Malcolm said. “Could I have a word with you?”
George gave a frown, quickly banished, and touched the woman on the arm. “I’m sorry, darling. We’ll have that dance in a bit.”
Malcolm led the way out of the ballroom and across the passage to the Duke of Richmond’s study. Davenport was already there, perched on the edge of the desk. George paused on the threshold.
“Sorry,” Davenport said. “I told Rannoch it would be better if he talked to you alone, but he insisted.”
“It’s quite all right,” George said, walking forward. “We’re both adults.”
Davenport got to his feet. “Good of you to say so, considering I didn’t act much like one last night.”
George Chase looked between Davenport and Malcolm, who was leaning against the closed door. “I assume this is about Julia.” He hesitated a moment. “I don’t know if Cordelia’s told you I knew about her affair with Tony. I tried to talk him out of it. Unsuccessfully, I’m afraid.”
“Yet in the end you did put an end to it,” Malcolm said. “By having an affair with her yourself.”
“What—” George stared at him with an expression that in other circumstances might have been comical.
“Tony told us,” Davenport said. “He saw you with Julia at Stuart’s ball. He confronted her about it in the garden later in the evening, and they quarreled. Your sister overheard them.”
“Violet overheard them—Oh, dear God.” George dropped into a chair and put his hands over his face. “Look, I can quite see how it would seem this way to you—”
“You’re denying the affair?” Malcolm said.
George pushed himself to his feet and strode across the room. “What a bloody mess.”
“I can understand you’d find it awkward to admit to seducing Cordelia’s sister,” Davenport said. “Rather ruins the love story. If it’s any consolation, Cordelia now claims she doesn’t believe in love at all.”
“For God’s sake, Davenport, shut up.” George rounded on him. “I don’t care what the devil Cordelia says, she’ll always be—”
“Yes?” Davenport asked.
George glanced away. “That’s beside the point. But if you have any understanding at all of what Cordelia means to me, you must know I’d never have taken Julia to my bed.”
“I’ve long since ceased thinking I know anything when it comes to you, Chase. Or to my wife.”
George swallowed. “I deserve that. I deserve that you don’t think I have a shred of honor. In your shoes I wouldn’t believe my claim. But it’s true.”
“Your brother saw you and Julia together,” Davenport said.
George paced to the desk and drummed his fingers on its top. “I found Julia in the passage during the ball. She was obviously distressed. She confessed to me about the affair with Tony. I was comforting her. I had my arm round her at one point. I can only guess Tony saw that and misinterpreted.”
“Lady Julia didn’t deny the affair with you when your brother confronted her,” Malcolm said.
George looked up with a grimace. “I think she was looking for an excuse to break with Tony. She was obviously tormented about the affair. Concerned for what it was doing to her husband, to her child. Concerned, too, that my brother wouldn’t take her leaving him lightly.”
“Yes, everyone seems to agree that Tony is the jealous type,” Davenport said. “However incapable he may be of fidelity himself.”
George glanced between Malcolm and Davenport. “Oh no. Tony is jealous, but you can’t think—”
“What?” Davenport asked.
George drew a breath, as though even now he coul
d not quite say it. “That Tony arranged Julia’s death somehow?”
“We’re still gathering information,” Malcolm said. “For what it’s worth, your brother says he didn’t tell us about your affair with Julia because he was protecting you.”
“Why—” A look of bitter realization crossed George’s face. “Of course. Because as her lover I’d have a motive to have been behind her death. Poor Tony. This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.”
“Did Lady Julia say anything to you that night that would give any clue as to why she was killed?” Malcolm asked.
Chase took another turn about the room. “She said she’d got herself in a dreadful mess. That she’d done Johnny an appalling wrong. That she couldn’t think how she could ever have considered leaving her child. But all the risks she saw were to her marriage and family, not to her person.” He looked from Malcolm to Davenport. “Look, if there isn’t more I can tell you—I’d like a last dance with my wife.”
Malcolm moved away from the door. “Of course.”
He stared at the door as it closed behind George Chase, then turned to Davenport.
“A plausible story,” Davenport said in an expressionless voice. “Save that it hardly fits with Julia the French agent.”
“Unless she was playing some sort of game with George Chase.” Malcolm cast another frowning glance at the door. “I’m oddly inclined to believe Major Chase when he denies the affair.”
“But?” Davenport asked.
“But I’m quite sure he’s lying about something.”
31
“May I persuade you to dance, Mrs. Rannoch?”
It was Raoul O’Roarke and from the look in his eyes he had information.
Suzanne stepped into his arms and into the movement of the waltz. She hadn’t known how to waltz when she first became his agent. He’d taught her. As well as teaching her how to pick a lock and decode a document and wield a dagger and pistol. It had seemed so simple then. A cause, a belief, an enemy to defeat. A clear vision that came before all else.
The clasp of his fingers, the touch of his hand on her back, the smell of his shaving soap were at once familiar and alien. Taking her back to a time when she had been a different person. A person who didn’t understand the meaning of betrayal.
“You look charming,” he said, as they glided about the room in the promenade that began the dance.
“I feel the way I did when I was first pregnant with Colin.”
“Uncertain?”
“Ill.”
“Good.”
“Good?” she said as they began to circle the floor.
He adjusted his clasp on her hand, holding her a very correct distance away from him. “One of the best ways not to break is to admit you’re on the edge of breaking.”
She fixed her gaze on the top jet button on his waistcoat. “I don’t break.”
“You’ve never been through this before. We none of us have.”
She forced her gaze to his face. “I assume you learned something or you wouldn’t have asked me to dance.”
He swung her forward, holding her facing away from him. “I haven’t been able to discover who was running Julia Ashton,” he murmured into her ear.
She drew a breath of frustration. “So we know no more than—”
“But apparently the order to kill Malcolm had something to do with Truxhillo.” He drew their hands overhead as she twirled to the side.
Fortunately the dance required her to keep her gaze locked on his. “In Spain?”
“So I would imagine.”
“But why is it important?”
He didn’t shake his head, which might have drawn attention from the other dancers, but she could read the equivalent in his eyes. “I don’t know. I was hoping you might. Or Malcolm might.”
“How the devil am I supposed to—”
“You’ve managed more complicated scenarios.”
She was silent for a measure of music. “Malcolm hasn’t said so in so many words, but I know the minute the army marches he’ll be off on some errand.”
Raoul twirled her forward and then back to face him. “Yes, I imagine he will.”
“Do you have any instructions for me?”
“Only to keep your eye out for useful information. And to look after yourself.” For a moment she caught something in his gaze that she’d never seen before. An ache that she’d almost have called regret. But he merely said, “I’ll let you know if I learn more about Julia Ashton.”
“Thank you.” She twirled under his arm. “I could swear I caught a glimpse of la Bédoyère earlier in the evening. In Belgian uniform.”
“So did I. He told me he had an ambition to shake Wellington’s hand. Young fool.”
“I could imagine you doing the same.”
Raoul gave a faint smile. “Possibly.”
They circled the floor in silence. She kept her gaze fixed on the deceptively simple folds of his cravat.
“I might have asked you to dance anyway, you know,” Raoul said. “Giving way to impulse. You’re not the only one who’s unsure about what tomorrow may hold.”
She looked up into his eyes. “But you’ll be in Brussels.”
“I’ll be where I’m needed most. Like your husband.”
Malcolm walked up to a knot of green-jacketed riflemen. “Could I have a word with you, Chase?”
Anthony Chase stared at him for a moment, then gave a curt nod and followed Malcolm to the French windows. They stood in the open frame of one of the windows, the cooler air from the garden washing over them. “Thank you,” Malcolm said.
Tony gave a bleak smile. “I want to find out what happened to Julia. However things ended between us, I—What else do you have to ask me about?”
“The man who was seen going into your house late the night before the ball,” Malcolm said. It was the story he and Davenport had agreed would serve best. Neither wanted to tell Tony his wife had betrayed him if they could help it.
Shock reverberated through Tony’s eyes. “What makes you think—”
“There are informants all over Brussels. I understand you’d engaged this man’s services. I’m not entirely clear what for.”
Tony grimaced. “God, what a bloody farce. It’s as though events are conspiring to make you waste time on me.”
“The sooner I have an answer, the sooner I can sort out what’s important.”
“If you must know, I’d been concerned about Julia. Something had seemed different the last few days. I was as jealous as only a man desperately in love can be. So I—” His mouth twisted with self-derision. “I hired a man to follow her.”
“What did he report to you?”
“Nothing. He didn’t start his work until the day of the ball, and he didn’t see her leave Stuart’s. He was the first person I went to after she died. Bloody useless.” Tony stared at Malcolm for a moment, his face half lit by the warm candlelight, half washed by cool moonlight. “I saw you leave the ballroom with my brother.”
Malcolm settled his shoulders against the window frame. “He denies that Lady Julia was his mistress.”
“But Julia said—”
“Your brother thinks she was using that as an excuse to end her affair with you.”
Tony’s brows drew together. “Do you believe him?”
“I’m not sure,” Malcolm said.
Suzanne stared up at Raoul as they circled automatically in the pattern of the waltz. She’d been used to him facing danger in the Peninsula, but somehow she hadn’t expected it here. “But you’re—”
“Willing to do whatever it takes.”
A knot of panic tightened round her throat. “You can’t—”
A burst of applause near the door cut into her words. The musicians stopped playing. She turned to the doorway, knowing whom she’d see there. The Duke of Wellington stood surrounded by a crowd of blue-coated staff officers. Georgiana ran off the dance floor to him, dragging Lord Hay by the hand. “Do put an end to the suspe
nse,” she said, her voice carrying clearly in the suddenly still room. “Are the rumors true?”
Wellington looked down at her. His gaze softened with paternal tenderness, but his voice was crisp and direct. “Yes, they are true; we are off tomorrow.”
A hum spread through the ballroom as the words were repeated over and over. Raoul’s hand closed at Suzanne’s waist. “It’s nothing we didn’t already know.”
“No,” she said, forcing the breath from her lungs.
The dancers still on the floor broke apart, seeking out spouses and sweethearts, children and parents. Suzanne saw Sarah Lennox anxiously scanning the room, no doubt looking for General Maitland. The Duchess of Richmond’s gaze darted from Lord March, her eldest son, to Lord John and fifteen-year-old Lord William. Several officers were hurrying toward the door, stopping to make brief farewells. Aline, who had been dancing with Lord March, ran across the floor to her husband and Malcolm. Suzanne met Malcolm’s gaze for a moment. She almost ran to him, but that would be silly. They were not heedless young lovers, and he’d say good-bye before he went anywhere.
The musicians began playing again. Even as some moved toward the door, couples swept back onto the floor, scarlet-coated arms close round pale frocks, eyes locked on each other, heedless of propriety and the watchful eyes of mothers. Or husbands.
Cordelia slipped through the crowd to Suzanne’s side, dodging past a young lieutenant and a girl in pink, who were clutching each other’s hands, and a plumed lady of an age to have soldier sons, face buried in a handkerchief. “We knew it was happening,” Cordelia said. “But somehow it didn’t seem real until now. Oh, forgive me,” she added, catching sight of Raoul.
Suzanne performed the introduction.
“I know your husband, Lady Cordelia,” Raoul said. “Naturally you’re concerned for him.”
Cordelia looked at him for a moment. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Your husband is an impressive man,” Raoul said. Which, Suzanne knew, was the unvarnished truth. She’d more than once heard Raoul comment, with mingled admiration and frustration, on Harry Davenport’s brilliance as an intelligence officer.
Teresa Grant Page 28