Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  “I envy them,” Cordelia said.

  “Envy?”

  “They’re so wonderfully at ease in each other’s presence.” Cordelia plucked at the moss green satin of her skirt. “I can’t imagine feeling so sure of another person.”

  David and Simon came into the room a few moments later, and though their shoulders didn’t even brush and they moved at once to opposite ends of the room, Suzanne had to agree with Cordelia’s assessment. The intimacy between them was as tangible as the warmth of the candles.

  Aline followed them, tugging at her primrose satin sash. They moved into the dining room and made a strained pretense of conversation through dinner. At length Cordelia tossed down the last of her wine and pushed back her chair. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to walk on the ramparts. Anyone care to come?”

  In the end, they all did. A welcome breeze stirred the air on Brussels’s stone ramparts. The cannonade was louder here, breaking the air like thunderclaps, but in a way it was easier. “It feels as though we’re closer to it,” Aline said as a burst of sound died in the distance. “And that makes it seem as though we can make a difference. Nonsensical.”

  Others had left their homes to walk the ramparts in the warm night air. They stopped several times to exchange greetings with acquaintances or to share news or the lack of it. Suzanne caught sight of a familiar figure gripping the moss-covered stone wall up ahead, bareheaded, clutching a shawl over a gauzy white gown.

  “Mademoiselle Garnier,” she called.

  Rachel Garnier looked round, smiled, but hesitated to come forward. Suzanne moved to her side and introduced her to the others. Rachel exchanged greetings with a cautious smile and fell into step beside them. “Is Monsieur Rannoch with the army?” she asked.

  Suzanne nodded. “Since last night.”

  Rachel plucked at her shawl with nervous fingers. “Le Paon d’Or isn’t doing much of a business tonight. Obviously.”

  “You must be concerned for Monsieur Rivaux.” The understanding between Rachel and the young Belgian lieutenant had obviously gone far beyond an exchange of services.

  Rachel kept her gaze fixed on the stones ahead. “Henri came to see me last night before he left. He made a ridiculously romantic speech.”

  “These circumstances do tend to bring out declarations.”

  Rachel shook her head, stirring loose strands of hair about her face. “He doesn’t understand—”

  “Or perhaps he understands all too well,” Suzanne said. Six years ago, before she became Raoul O’Roarke’s agent, she’d been no different from Rachel. Save that the brothel where she’d been employed had been far less elegant than Le Paon d’Or. “Love can grow in unlikely places.”

  Rachel turned to look her full in the face. “I gave up believing in love by the time I was sixteen, Madame Rannoch.”

  “So did I,” Suzanne said. For a moment, the cheap wine they’d drunk in the brothel in Léon was bitter in her throat. “But as with so many decisions one makes when one’s young, I was wrong.”

  Rachel’s brows drew together. “If—”

  She went still, as did the others up ahead. The wind whistled against the stone and stirred the branches of the elm trees along the ramparts, suddenly loud in the stillness.

  “It’s stopped,” Cordelia said, hugging her shawl about her. “Whatever’s happened, it’s over for tonight.”

  They turned and walked back in the warm, still night air. Rachel stayed with them part of the way to the Rue Ducale, then turned and waved good-bye. Her expression seemed a shade less grim than when they had met on the ramparts.

  Valentin opened the door in the Rue Ducale, a grin on his face. Suzanne saw why when she stepped into the hall. A tall figure appeared in the library doorway, in his shirtsleeves, a whisky glass in one hand.

  Suzanne ran down the marble-tiled floor and flung her arms round her husband. Malcolm’s arms closed round her with gratifying force. When she pulled back enough to lift her face to his, he kissed her full on the lips, heedless of the others in the hall. Quite unlike her undemonstrative husband. But then nothing seemed to be the way it had been any longer. Half the whisky spilled over both of them.

  She drew back at last, breathless, torn between a desire to laugh and to cry.

  “I should go away more often,” Malcolm said with a grin, though his fingers trembled where he still held her. “I told you I was just delivering a message.”

  “Liar.” She took his hand and drew him down the hall. “Look who’s joined us.”

  Malcolm went forward to embrace his two friends. “I should have known you were madmen enough to journey into a war zone. Glad to see age isn’t rendering us too staid.”

  He turned to Aline and Cordelia. “Geoff’s fine. I left him stitching up a wound in a young private’s collarbone while giving instructions about how to set an arm and bring down an attack of wound fever.”

  Aline scarcely moved a muscle, but her breath shuddered through the hall.

  “I saw Davenport about nine,” Malcolm said to Cordelia. “A musket ball grazed his cheek, but otherwise he was unhurt.”

  Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t see Ashton or George Chase, but most of the British cavalry missed the fighting.”

  They removed to the library, where Simon took it upon himself to refill Malcolm’s glass and pour whisky for the others.

  “The fighting didn’t begin until about three,” Malcolm said. “God knows why. If Ney had attacked sooner, we’d have been in a pretty plight.”

  Suzanne, who had been in the midst of taking a sip of whisky, choked and then swallowed with determination.

  “When the fighting started most of our troops still hadn’t arrived. Apparently the orders got muddled. But they were there by three-thirty or so and fought amazingly well after having just marched. A number of officers fought in their ball dress.”

  “So we prevailed?” David asked, his face taut.

  “We seemed to be prevailing when I left. We were outnumbered much of the day. The Highlanders—some of the same fellows who danced at the ball last night—took a savage beating. Picton came up in relief and the Brunswickers and Van Merlen’s cavalry. A few Dutch-Belgians have gone over to the French, but most have stayed loyal to the Allies.”

  “What about the Prussians?” Aline asked. “They haven’t been able to join Wellington’s forces?”

  “No, they’re about seven miles to the east at Ligny fighting Bonaparte himself. Wellington managed to ride over and confer with Blücher this morning before the fighting started, but it will be the devil’s own work to maintain communication between the two armies.”

  Suzanne’s nails bit into her palms. “You’re going back.”

  “Technically it’s up to the staff to maintain communication, but practically I think I can be of help.”

  “You seem to have been very close to the fighting,” Simon said.

  “Oh, I kept a healthy distance. I’m just good at synthesizing reports.”

  Aline went up to her room soon after, pleading the exhaustion of pregnancy. Cordelia looked from Malcolm to David and Simon. “Shall I leave as well?”

  “No, if you’re up to it, I’d prefer it if you stayed. You’re already well in the middle of this.” Malcolm glanced at David. “Your father sent you, didn’t he?”

  David swallowed. “Malcolm—”

  “Whatever your message, you can deliver it in front of Suzanne and Cordelia. And Simon. We’re in the midst of an investigation, and your father’s news may have bearing on it.”

  David turned his whisky glass in his hand, gaze on the pale gold liquid.

  “I’m not involved in the investigation,” Simon said. “Would you feel better if I left?”

  David’s mouth relaxed into a reluctant smile. “Don’t be an idiot.” He reached inside his coat and drew out a sealed paper. “Father gave me this for you, Malcolm. I’m to tell you—Father thinks the French are in
tercepting your communications to him.”

  38

  Suzanne’s whisky glass tilted in her fingers. She tightened her grip, so hard she nearly snapped the stem. Don’t forget to breathe. She could hear Raoul’s voice in her ear. That’s the key to preserving one’s equilibrium.

  Malcolm took the paper David was holding out to him. “Did your father say why he thought our communications were compromised?”

  “Something to do with Upper Wimpole Street. Is that a code for something?”

  Malcolm frowned at the paper. “It’s the address where a French spy ring was meeting in London.”

  Suzanne choked down another sip of whisky.

  Malcolm opened Carfax’s letter and glanced through it, then moved to the desk and reached for ink and paper. “Drink some more whisky. It will take a bit of time to decode this. Suzette, get the David Hume.”

  It was a book code. Suzanne read out from the appropriate page in the volume of David Hume, her voice eerily calm to her own ears as she helped Malcolm decode the message. A message, she well knew, that might lead directly back to her. Her palms were damp, but her voice remained steady. Never had she so valued her early acting training.

  When the letter was transformed to plaintext, Malcolm frowned at it but didn’t seem overly surprised.

  “Well?” Simon asked. “Was it worth our rushing into a war zone?”

  “Most definitely, though as it happens I’d already worked some of it out on my own. With the disruption to our courier system, Carfax decided it was important I know about one of his double agents. Who has since been murdered.”

  Cordelia clunked her glass down. “Do you mean—”

  Malcolm crossed the room and dropped down beside Cordelia. “I’ve learned a number of things in the past twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the Comte de Vedrin who tried to blackmail your sister into spying for the French. It was Tony Chase.”

  Cordelia’s eyes went wide and still in her pale face. “Dear God.”

  “And so Julia went to Tony’s brother. Who, unbeknownst to me, is in intelligence himself, reporting directly to Lord Carfax. Julia wasn’t spying for the French. She was spying for us and reporting to George.”

  “And George”—Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut—“had my sister whoring herself to the Prince of Orange to get information.”

  “Intelligence is a dirty business. As George reminded me only hours ago.” Malcolm looked at Simon and David, then back at Cordelia. “With your permission—”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Of course. They already know so much.”

  Malcolm quickly brought David and Simon up to date on the investigation into Julia Ashton’s death, with Suzanne filling in bits and pieces. Cordelia sipped her whisky in silence, her fingers white-knuckled round the glass.

  “You know what I find the greatest relief?” she said. “Not that my sister wasn’t a traitor. That she wasn’t fool enough to contemplate leaving her husband and child and running off with Tony Chase.”

  “I can understand that,” Malcolm said.

  David was frowning. “So Anthony Chase wants you dead?”

  “Apparently. Presumably because he thinks I understand what really happened at Truxhillo. Which I don’t.”

  “And the ambush that killed Lady Julia,” Simon said. “Were they shooting at you? Or at Lady Julia?”

  “We still don’t know.”

  Cordelia hunched forward, shivering. “I didn’t think I had any illusions about Tony. I always knew he was selfish and arrogant. But I never—”

  Suzanne moved to the sofa beside Cordelia and dropped an arm round her. “You grew up with him.”

  “I don’t know why that should make a difference.”

  “But it does.”

  Cordelia swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Where’s Anthony Chase now?” David asked.

  Malcolm turned his whisky glass in his hand. “That would seem to be the question. I spent the better part of today looking for him.”

  Cordelia rubbed her hand over her eyes. “You think he’s joined the French?”

  “Perhaps. I’m more worried he’s still here to make difficulties for the British.”

  “I’m more worried he hasn’t given up on killing you,” Suzanne said. She could breathe again now the message had been decoded, but she knew that wasn’t the end of it. Her blood seemed to have frozen and no amount of whisky could warm her.

  David shook his head. “God in heaven—”

  Malcolm gave him a crooked grin. “It’s all right. After a few years of living our life, you get used to insanity.”

  Cordelia was frowning into her whisky glass. “I couldn’t understand Julia’s fancying herself head over heels in love with Tony. But I can understand this. Feeling the need to find something to do with oneself.”

  “And that makes it easier?” Suzanne asked.

  “I don’t know that it should,” Cordelia said. “But it does.”

  David looked at Malcolm. “What does Upper Wimpole Street have to do with all this?”

  “About a fortnight ago I sent your father information about a French spy ring operating there. But apparently they’d all flown the coop before Carfax could take them into custody. He thinks the only way they could have known to flee is if someone intercepted our communications and passed along a warning.” Malcolm glanced down at the plaintext of Carfax’s message again. “Your father also says he counts upon my discretion involving the family matter he mentioned, and that he hopes we can speak further after Bonaparte is dispatched. Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  David’s brows rose. “You don’t?”

  “Not in the least.”

  David gave a slow nod. “More proof the French are intercepting your communications perhaps. Father wrote to you over a month since.”

  “About?”

  David looked from Suzanne to Cordelia to Simon. Apparently even his lover wasn’t privy to this particular piece of information.

  “Do you want us to leave?” Suzanne asked.

  David hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “An old instinct to protect family secrets. But it’s foolish to hold back when we’ve confided so much. In fact, we were talking about it earlier today.” He drew a breath. “It’s Amelia. Father’s taken it into his head her death wasn’t an accident.”

  Cordelia gasped. Simon went very still.

  “What makes Carfax suddenly suspect that?” Malcolm asked.

  “One of the gardeners at Carfax Court fell ill recently. On his deathbed he confessed to his wife that he’d seen Amelia arguing with a man by the lake the day she died.”

  “Did he say why he’d kept quiet about it?”

  David shook his head. “One suspects money was involved, though the man’s widow claims to have found no evidence of it. Father thought—He knows how ably you investigated Princess Tatiana’s murder in Vienna last autumn. He wants you to look into Amy’s death.”

  “David,” Simon said in a voice like rope pulled to the breaking point.

  David cast a quick glance at his lover.

  Simon was staring at David with dawning horror on his face. “All this happened a month since?”

  “I would have—” David’s fingers curled inward. “I’d have told you, but it was ... a family matter.”

  Simon returned David’s gaze for a long moment. “Quite.”

  “Simon—”

  Simon sat back in his chair, his knuckles white round his whisky glass. “You know I try to stay out of matters involving your family. But in this case, it might have saved time if you’d told me.”

  David’s brows drew together, dark slashes against his pale skin. “I don’t see—”

  “What do you know about Amy’s death, Simon?” Malcolm asked.

  Simon took a deliberate sip of whisky. “I wasn’t at Carfax Court or Carfax House in London a great deal, but I was there enough to get to know Amelia.”

  David’s family turned a blind eye to David’s relationship with S
imon, keeping up the pretense that they were friends who shared rooms, though Suzanne knew Lord Carfax was increasingly eager for David to marry and produce an heir.

  “There was a certain sympathy between Amelia and me,” Simon continued. “We both knew what it was to be outsiders in that world.”

  Simon’s father, the son of a wealthy brewer from Northumberland, had gone off to Paris to paint and married an artist’s model, Simon’s mother. After they both died, the ten-year-old Simon had been sent back to England, to a family that didn’t know what to make of him and packed him off to Westminster and then Oxford. He’d always had a comfortable fortune, but he was an outsider in David’s aristocratic world and his Radical politics rendered him even more so. It was one of the reasons Suzanne had felt an instant kinship with him.

  “So we’d talk,” Simon said. “About inconsequential things usually, but we got in the habit of turning to each other when we felt particularly out in the cold. Turn of phrase,” he added, in response to a look from David. “That winter—God, there’s no easy way to say this.” He met David’s gaze across the library. “The day before she died, Amelia had confided to me that she was expecting a child.”

  David went as still as a sculpture carved in ice. For seconds together he simply stared at Simon. When he spoke at last, he seemed to have difficulty forcing the words from his throat. “And you never—”

  “I told her I was sure there was a way out of her predicament.” Simon pushed himself to his feet but checked himself, accepting the fire in David’s gaze like a duelist taking a pistol shot. “I thought I had a bit of time. I was trying to figure out how to tell you, if there was a way we could get her away for long enough without your parents knowing, how we could manage things if she wanted to keep the child. I was walking across the grounds looking for you the next day so I could tell you, when the gardener’s boy came running with her body in his arms.”