Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  Rachel’s fingers curled against the polished mahogany of the door. “He says he wants to marry me.”

  Despite everything, Suzanne found herself smiling. “I knew Lieutenant Rivaux was a sensible man.”

  “It’s insane.” Rachel stalked across the room and flung herself into a chair beside Cordelia. “The Vicomte de Rivaux can’t marry a whore. He’d be ruined.”

  “Hardly ruined.” Cordelia poured a cup of tea with the ceremony of a hostess in her drawing room. “He might not be received certain places, but it’s more you who’d be given the cut. It’s amazing what a man can get away with.”

  Rachel shook her head. “It’s not the life I want for him.”

  Cordelia handed the cup of tea to Rachel. “What sort of life does he want for himself?” She frowned, as though caught up short by her own words.

  Rachel tossed down a swallow of tea. “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s a mistake,” Suzanne said, “thinking one knows what’s best for one’s lover better than he does himself.”

  Rachel stared at her, brows fiercely drawn. “Don’t tell me you think I should accept him?”

  What could she say? I was once a whore myself, and I don’t think it’s any bar to successful matrimony? I know better than anyone that a marriage can be flawed and still succeed? I need to believe you can be happy to have a shred of hope for myself? “You’d be beginning with honesty,” Suzanne said. “That’s a great deal more than most people have.”

  Rachel shook her head, eyes armored against hope.

  “Do you love him?” Cordelia asked.

  “What’s that to say to—”

  “Do you—”

  “I’m a whore.”

  “How many men a woman sleeps with has nothing to do with whom she loves. Believe me, I know.” Cordelia tossed down a quick sip of tea. “Do you love Lieutenant Rivaux?”

  “Of course,” Rachel said as though the words were torn from her. “But—”

  “Well then.” Cordelia smiled again, a sudden, infectious, girlish smile, with none of her usual cynicism. “My husband just asked me what I wanted. I think you might ask yourself the same.”

  Cordelia leaned back in her chair, gaze on her husband. If someone had told her a month, even a week, ago that she’d feel an absurd rush of contentment simply watching Harry sleep, she’d have laughed in their face.

  Harry’s gaze flew open with that same lightning quickness with which his brain could dart from topic to topic. “I hate that I sleep so much. But I love waking up. It’s such an amazing illusion to have one’s wife look at one with such wonder.”

  “Who says it’s an illusion?”

  “I’m not a fool, Cordy.”

  An iron band squeezed her chest. “You’ve been the one who’s been arguing that things could ... that it could ... that we could”—the words seemed to be stuck in her throat—“make it work.”

  His gaze shot over her face. “But I’m not fool enough to think you’d look at me with wonder after the first fortnight or so. Tolerant affection would be a great deal.”

  She swallowed. “I told George—” Her voice caught on his name.

  “You don’t have to talk about him.” Harry’s voice was rough. He reached for her hand.

  “Yes, I do. I need you to know this. However disgusted I was to learn he was behind Julia’s and Amy’s deaths, whatever was between George and me ended long before. Because, as I told him, I’m in love with my husband.”

  For a moment, it was as though the breath had stopped in Harry’s throat. Then his fingers tightened round her own. “You’re sounding dangerously like a romantic, Cordy.”

  She returned the pressure of his hand, though she feared touching him was taking unfair advantage. “Harry, I can’t promise you anything. That is, I can promise you’d be the only man in my bed, and I can promise that I’ll try. But I can’t promise that I won’t make a hopeless mull of things. But—”

  “Yes?” His gaze was trained on her face.

  “But nothing would make me happier than if Livia and I could come and live with you.”

  Something sparked in his eyes that seared through the jaconet of her gown. “I don’t see how anyone could object to a wife and daughter coming to live with a husband and father.”

  “No.” Cordelia sucked in a breath, feeling as though she might shatter into a million pieces. “Harry—”

  He had pushed himself up and was leaning forward, arm extended, in danger of falling off the bed. “I’ve been making a remarkable recovery. Especially after what you just said. Come here.”

  Moving to the edge of the bed and into the circle of his arm was the surest way to prevent him from tumbling off the edge of the bed.

  His arm tightened round her. His breath brushed her skin and then his mouth closed over her own with a naked need that went beyond artifice and pretense, fear and uncertainty, forgiveness and betrayal.

  “I’m terrified, Harry,” she said a few moments later, her voice muffled by his dressing gown.

  “So am I, my darling.” His lips moved against her temple. “But I’m more terrified of life without you.”

  Suzanne cast a glance round the hall. Angus was finally winning the battle against infection, and Christophe would soon be well enough to return to his regiment. The rest of the remaining wounded looked as though they’d pull through. Upstairs Harry and Edgar were both mending. She went down the passage to the kitchen, and put the kettle on the range. Simon and David would be back soon from their visit to Fitzroy Somerset, and Malcolm would return from his call on Stuart. Tea was always welcome.

  Over the whistling of the kettle, she didn’t hear the opening of the door. The first she realized someone else had come into the kitchen was when Malcolm came up behind her and slid his arm round her waist. She released her breath and leaned back against him, seeking solace in the brush of his cravat against her cheek, the pressure of his arm round her waist, the stir of his breath against her hair. This was real, as real as her betrayal, and as much a part of who she was as being a French agent. The past might still hang over her, but she’d made her choice, and she knew where she belonged.

  “Rachel’s going to marry Rivaux,” Malcolm said.

  “I’m glad.” She lifted her head and turned round to look at him. As well as she knew him, she wasn’t entirely sure of his response to the news. She needed to look into his eyes, and she was terrified of what she might see.

  Malcolm grinned. “I’m glad, too. I’ve never been much of a believer in young love, but they’re enough to shake a cynic.”

  “Darling.” Suzanne put her hands on his chest. “You’re good at creating cover stories. Couldn’t you create one for Rachel? So no one need know she ever worked at Le Paon d’Or? So she isn’t ostracized?”

  “I’m already working on the details. I was hoping you’d help me.”

  She reached up to press a kiss against his cheek. “You’re wonderful, Malcolm.”

  “Why wouldn’t I help Rachel? I’m very fond of her. Not to mention that I probably owe her my life.” He set his hands on her shoulders. “I saw Stuart. It looks as though we’ll be going to Paris once things are sorted here.”

  Paris under Allied occupation. She forced down a wave of anger at the image of foreign soldiers swarming over the Place du Carousel, the Bourbon flag flying, white cockades replacing the tricolor. She would manage. God knows she’d managed in the past.

  She studied his face. His features were still scored with exhaustion. But it was his eyes that caught her. The gaze of a man who’d seen into hell and was clawing his way back to sanity.

  “Men were dying all round me,” he said in a quiet voice. “All I could think about was you and Colin. Getting back to you.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t my war, but I’ve spent so much of my life caught up in it. I had this sense that I needed to be there, to see it through to the end. But a part of me can’t but wonder if I was wrong. If my first duty was to be with the two of you.”
<
br />   Her throat tightened. How odd that for all that divided them, in the midst of the battle their thoughts had been much the same. “It’s difficult sorting out where one’s duty lies,” she said. “And often there’s no clear answer.”

  His gaze moved over her face. “We live in a mad world and these past years it’s been madder than usual. And yet somehow in the midst of it all I got you.”

  She linked her hands behind his head, using a playful smile to mask the feelings tearing through her. “Got stuck with me, you mean.”

  “I know I don’t deserve you, sweetheart. And I know I don’t say it often enough. But I’d be lost without you.”

  Tenderness and fear and wonder welled up in her throat. She took his face between her hands, memorizing the curve of his lips, the crinkles round his eyes, the bone-deep tenderness in the eyes themselves. Committing them to a memory she’d always carry with her, whatever was to come. “Well then,” she said. “It’s a good thing you have me. And I hate to break it to you, darling, but I don’t see how you could get rid of me.”

  “You’ll be the toast of Paris, you know.”

  The Bourbon court, ultra-Royalists in power, her friends imprisoned. It was going to be difficult, but she’d have him beside her. That counted for a lot. “Paris is going to seem positively tame after Brussels.”

  “I suspect adventure will find us. It always seems to, one way or another.”

  She kept a bright smile on her face.

  For she knew his words were all too true.

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  As with Vienna Waltz, I have compressed the time line of historical events slightly for the purposes of this story. Sir Charles Stuart gave a ball on 6 June. I have advanced the date of the ball to 13 June (the book begins after midnight, so technically the story opens on the fourteenth). In combining real and fictional characters and events, I have of course had real historical people do and say things that are not part of the historical record, though much of the Duke of Wellington’s dialogue in the book is taken from things he is actually recorded to have said.

  Lady Caroline Lamb went to Brussels to nurse her wounded brother after Waterloo but was not in fact there in the time frame of Imperial Scandal. She seemed such a perfect childhood friend for Cordelia that I couldn’t resist including her in the story.

  Accounts of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball differ as to the order and location of events. I have relied chiefly upon the description given by Lady de Ros (the former Georgiana Lennox) and Elizabeth Longford’s account in Wellington: Years of the Sword.

  In one of her letters, Harriet, Countess Granville, refers to Emily Harriet Wellesley, Fitzroy Somerset’s wife, as Harriet. Based on this I have called Lady Fitzroy Somerset Harriet rather than Emily in the book.

  I knew from the first that I wanted to involve Malcolm in the events of the battle of Waterloo. I was delighted in my research to learn that there are accounts of Wellington, with many of his aides-de-camp wounded, pressing civilians into service as message carriers.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Booth, John (compiler). The Battle of Waterloo, containing a series of accounts published by authority, British and foreign. London: J. Booth and T. Edgerton, 1815.

  Cotton, Edward. A Voice from Waterloo. Brussels: Kiesling, 1895.

  Creevey, Thomas. The Creevey Papers: a selection from the correspondence & diaries of Thomas Creevey, M.P. Edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell. London: Murray, 1904.

  De Lancey, Magdalene. A week at Waterloo in 1815. London: John Murray, 1905.

  de Ros, Georgiana. A Sketch of the Life of Georgiana, Lady de Ros with some reminiscences of her family and friends, including the Duke of Wellington, by her daughter the Honorable Mrs. J.R. Swinton. London: John Murray, 1893.

  Frazer, Augustus. The Letters of Colonel Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, K.C.B. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1859.

  Kincaid, John. Adventures in the Rifle Brigade. London: T. and W. Boone, Strand, 1830.

  Longford, Elizabeth. Wellington: Years of the Sword. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1969.

  Mercer, Cavalié. Journal of the Waterloo Campaign. London: Greenhill Books, 1989.

  Miller, David. The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball 15 June 1815. Staple-hurst: Spellmount, 2005.

  Müffling, Friedrich Karl Ferdinand. A Sketch of the Battle of Waterloo in which are added Official Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington; Field Marshal Prince Blücher; and Reflections upon the Battles of Ligny and Waterloo. Brussels: Gérard, 1842.

  Pratt, Sisson Cooper. The Waterloo Campaign. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1907.

  Weller, Jac. Wellington at Waterloo. London: Greenhill Books, 1967.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  IMPERIAL SCANDAL

  Teresa Grant

  About This Guide

  The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Teresa Grant’s Imperial Scandal.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Suzanne, Cordelia, Julia, Jane, and Simon all betray (or in Simon’s case withhold information from) the men in their lives in different ways. How do the betrayals compare? Which do you think is the most devastating?

  2. How do Henri Rivaux and Rachel Garnier help Cordelia and Harry come to certain realizations about each other? Do you think it’s significant that Harry and Henri have the same name?

  3. Which couple do you think has the most difficult path ahead: Suzanne and Malcolm, Harry and Cordelia, Rachel and Henri, Violet and Johnny? Why?

  4. Did the revelation about Suzanne midway through the book surprise you? Why or why not? Did it change what you think of her as a character? (Including her actions in Vienna Waltz if you’ve also read it.)

  5. Did you guess the murderer’s identity? Why or why not?

  6. How does being parents affect Suzanne’s, Malcolm’s, Cordelia’s, and Harry’s actions in the course of the book? Do you think their lives and relationships as couples would have evolved differently if they didn’t have Colin and Livia?

  7. Harry tells Henri Rivaux, “Some of us have been in the espionage game long enough to envy you your decency.” Which of the spy characters do you think has most compromised him- or herself in their espionage work? Which do you think have managed to hold on to their integrity? Why?

  8. Discuss how formality and social conventions break down in the household in the Rue Ducale in the course of nursing the wounded.

  9. Compare and contrast Suzanne and Malcolm’s relationship with Cordelia and Harry’s, from their reasons for marrying to their betrayals to the challenges they face in Imperial Scandal and beyond.

  10. How do childhood friendships color the way various characters interact—Malcolm and the Prince of Orange; Cordelia, John Ashton, and the Chases; Cordelia and Caroline Lamb; David, Malcolm, the Chases, and Cordelia? Does having known each other since the nursery make these characters more or less likely to see the truth of their present-day behavior and motives?

  11. Compare and contrast the various farewells between the couples (Cordelia and Harry, Violet and Johnny, Jane and Tony, Aline and Geoffrey, Suzanne and Malcolm) at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. What do their different ways of saying farewell have to say about the characters and their relationships?

  12. How do you think Malcolm would react if he learned the truth about Suzanne?

  13. Malcolm, Suzanne, Harry, and Cordelia all claim not to be romantics. Perhaps they protest a bit too much. Which of them, or of the other characters in the book, do you think is the greatest romantic? Why?

  14. Discuss how Malcolm and Suzanne are both torn between duty and personal relationships in the course of the story.

  15. How does the hothouse atmosphere in Brussels with its frenetic round of parties and war looming ever closer on the horizon affect the personal relationships of the characters?

  16. How do you think Suzanne and Malcolm’s life would have played out if the French had won at Waterloo?

  17. The battle doesn
’t leave anyone untouched. Which of the characters who survives the battle do you think has changed the most by the end of the book? Why?

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  Copyright © 2012 by Tracy Grant

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7816-6