The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  "But it's not three months ago."

  A dozen scenarios raced through her mind. It was her instinctive response to a crisis. One that had served her well in the past. "If I could just find out—"

  "Querida." He gripped her hands. "That way lies disaster."

  "Malcolm—"

  "Malcolm will handle this. What he won't handle is his wife lying to him again."

  She saw her husband that evening as they'd dressed for dinner. "He'll go all protective—"

  "I'm sure you can handle that."

  She could, of course. She'd talked Malcolm out of his protective instincts often enough in the past. And Raoul was right. Malcolm would cope. But the hurt would be there, behind his eyes. "Damn it, it's not fair. On top of everything else, he's having to deal with this."

  "I know." Raoul's voice was soft but inexorable. "You want to protect him."

  "I—"

  "But it's no more helpful than his efforts to protect you. Right now Malcolm doesn't need to be protected. He needs to trust his wife, and to have her trust him."

  She shot a look at him. "Couldn't you have been this sensitive to Malcolm's feelings before you encouraged me to marry him?"

  "I had a different set of priorities," Raoul said. But she caught the flinch in his eyes.

  "We both did. And I'm glad I'm married to Malcolm, even if what we did to him is unforgivable."

  "Stop berating yourself. Malcolm would be the first to tell you that." Raoul squeezed her fingers. "We'll get through this."

  For all the complications, that "we'll" was absurdly heartening.

  "There." Raoul jerked his head across the room. Malcolm was standing with David and William Lamb. "You should probably talk to him alone. For a number of reasons. All right?"

  She gathered the silver gauze of her shawl about her shoulders. "I may be getting used to civilian life, but I haven't entirely lost my instincts."

  "You couldn't live in civilian life if you tried, querida. And you'll never lose your instincts."

  "I'll bring Malcolm into the small salon."

  Raoul's gaze flickered over her face. "You're sure you want me there?"

  "At this point, I think we need to pool information. As you said, this is no time for any of us to be protective."

  Malcolm greeted her with an easy smile. The smile of a comrade. Only three months ago, she'd thought they'd never share such a smile again. Remarkable how much they had regained. And how fragile it remained. She discussed the Indemnity Bill with David and William Lamb. The bill, subtitled for indemnifying persons who, since the 26th of January 1817, have acted in apprehending imprisoning, or detaining in custody, persons suspected of high treason, or treasonable practices, and in the suppression of tumultuous and unlawful assemblies, was something she passionately opposed, but tonight the discussion seemed interminable. At last Malcolm found an escape by suggesting they join the couples who had begun to waltz in the drawing room while Isobel played the piano. "Thank goodness for the distraction of the waltz," she said, as his arm encircled her waist. "Though given our reputation for lack of romance, it's likely to be a clue to the keen observer that we have something to talk about."

  His fingers closed round her left hand. "I think people are beginning to realize however prosaic I may appear, my feelings for my wife are far from tepid."

  At the pianoforte, Bel launched into a new waltz. It was one that had been popular in Vienna three and a half years ago. Before Jessica, before Malcolm knew the truth. Before she left off spying. "Did everything go all right?" she asked.

  "Oh, yes. Papers back where they belong."

  "You put the papers back with Carfax watching?" Suzanne stared at her husband as they circled the floor. Even now he could surprise her.

  "Best of bad choices." He spun her to the side. "If he didn't suspect me, he wouldn't have noticed. If he did suspect me, he'd tear the room apart the minute I left it, and there'd be no way I could get back in without him seeing."

  She twirled beneath his arm. "And there's no way he wouldn't have been watching you with eyes in the back of his head while he was in the room with you."

  "But this was daring enough even Carfax might not think I'd try it." He pulled her against him, her back to his chest. "At least I had surprise on my side. Or are you saying you rate Carfax's skills higher than mine?"

  "No, it's a close run thing, but if I had to, I'd put my money on you, dearest."

  "I'm flattered, sweetheart." He twirled her to face him. "Even if you're a prey to delusions." He looked down at her. "What else happened while I was gone?"

  Her escape into banter was over. "I'm too transparent."

  "Only to one who knows you."

  "When the dance is over we need to escape to the small salon."

  "That bad?" His voice was light, but concern flickered in his eyes.

  "This shouldn't wait until we get home. Or be discussed in public."

  Easy enough when the waltz ended for them to leave the dance floor and wander into the small salon. The rooms were still filled with guests, and no one would question Malcolm making himself at home at Carfax House. He was practically one of the family.

  Raoul was waiting for them. Malcolm showed no surprise, which said a lot, for better or worse, about how far the three of them had come. Suzanne drew a breath and pulled the note from her reticule. "Apparently Trenchard wasn't the only one who knew about my past."

  Malcolm stared down at the paper. Suzanne's throat went tight.

  Malcolm's fingers clenched on the paper. For a moment she thought he would crush it. It seemed to take all his instincts as an agent not to do so. But when he looked up, his gaze was level and direct. "This settles it. We're leaving Britain."

  Suzanne stared at her husband's taut face. For all her fears about Malcolm's protective instincts, she hadn't thought it would go this far, this fast. "Darling—"

  "Trenchard knew. Alistair knew. This other person knows and has no scruples about making use of the information. For all we know, the whole Elsinore League knows."

  "That's speculation—"

  "Forgive me if I'm not inclined to wait to find out." Malcolm looked at Raoul. "You told me Fouché knows and Talleyrand knows. One never knows how Talleyrand will jump. You said so yourself."

  Raoul was observing the two of them with—Suzanne thought—entirely too calm an expression. "I believe I also said I thought Talleyrand's instinct would be to protect Suzanne."

  "Forgive me if I don't find that enough to be reassuring beside the risk to my wife's safety."

  "Darling," Suzanne said, "it's not as if—"

  "Don't say you've run these risks for years, Suzette." Malcolm spun round to face her. "That's all the more reason for you not to go on running them forever. We have two children to think of."

  "Who you want to turn into exiles."

  "They need you, Suzette. Damn it, I need you."

  "I knew it." She folded her arms, anger—mostly at herself—welling up on her tongue. "I knew this would turn you into a Hotspur."

  Malcolm gripped the edge of a pier table, so tightly the Sèvres vase atop it rattled. "I'm not acting in the least like Hotspur. Hotspur doesn't tell his wife what he's plotting. I'm discussing this with you."

  "We're not discussing anything. You're ordering me and making decisions for both of us."

  "I'm trying to protect our children."

  Fear squeezed her chest. "I've been thinking about the children for years, long before—"

  "Don't, Suzette." Anger shot through the line of his arm where he gripped the table. "Don't remind me of all the years I didn't know how much they needed protecting."

  That stung. And made her want to lash out. "For God's sake, Malcolm, you're the rational one. If—"

  "I am being rational. The only rational thing to do is leave the country. It's not your country in any case."

  Suzanne closed the distance between them in two steps and gripped her husband's arm. "Darling, you love it."


  "That's my lookout."

  "No, it's ours." She stared at him, seeing a future she had come to fear almost as much as she once had feared him discovering the truth of her past. "You'd have to give up your career. You'd be cut off from your friends and family. David and Simon. Bel and Oliver. Cordy and Harry. Aunt Frances and Allie and Geoff and Edgar and Gisèle. It would only be a matter of time before you hated me."

  He put out a hand and touched her face, with a gentleness that made tears prickle behind her eyes. "I couldn't hate you, sweetheart. I think the revelations of three months ago proved that."

  "You can't know that, Malcolm." Her throat was damnably thick. "Grinding monotony can destroy more than torrid revelations."

  "I can handle it."

  "We both have to handle it. That's what being married means."

  He dropped his hand. "Don't suddenly start making claims about marriage. You took it lightly enough all these years."

  Suzanne spun away, arms hugged tight about her. "I deserved that."

  "No." He scraped a hand through his hair. "Damn it, Suzette, I swore I wouldn't fling the past in your face."

  "But you can't stop it. I understand." She'd always known, underneath, that it was everyday reality that would undo them.

  "I can't bear the thought of you in danger."

  "I've lived my life in danger."

  "This is different, sweetheart." He moved towards her and gripped her shoulders. "If you're accused of treason—"

  "It won't come to that."

  "You can't know that. I know you're accustomed to living life on an edge I can scarcely contemplate, but this is uncharted territory even for you."

  "Darling—"

  "We can't risk it—"

  "Malcolm." Raoul's voice cut between them. "You have to believe Suzanne's safety matters to me."

  Malcolm met Raoul's gaze across the room. The tangle of emotions in the air between them sent a chill through Suzanne. At the same time she knew she couldn't interfere.

  "Oh, yes," Malcolm said. "Probably more than you'd admit."

  "Then believe me when I say that if I thought leaving Britain was the safest course for both of you, I'd be the first to suggest it."

  Malcolm shook his head. "You've both always been too quick to run risks. Christ, you married Suzette to an enemy agent."

  "Whom I would trust with my life."

  The intake of Malcolm's breath was like broken glass. For once, Raoul's voice was totally without irony. Not for the first time, Suzanne felt she had become an observer to what passed between the two men.

  "You know what we're risking," Malcolm said, almost in the tone of a man speaking to a friend. Or to a parent. "If Carfax learned—"

  "Carfax wouldn't have Suzanne arrested."

  "Don't be so bloody sure."

  "Think, Malcolm. The toast of the beau monde? The wife of his protégé and his son's best friend? All other things aside, Carfax would be worried about appearances."

  "But—"

  "Will you stop talking about me as though I'm not here?" Suzanne said.

  "I'm sorry," Raoul said. "But for once, the fact that people tend to sadly underestimate women works in your favor. It's protection of a sort. Your friend Crispin Harleton's been married to Manon Caret for two months, and her having been a French agent is a fairly open secret."

  "That's a good point, darling," Suzanne said. "If anything, Manon was a more formidable agent than I was."

  "But Crispin isn't a British agent. And Manon wasn't spying on him while they were involved."

  "You're right. It makes my crime greater."

  "It isn't a question of crimes, sweetheart. It's a question of what Carfax or anyone else in authority will see as unforgivable."

  "Your family name still provides a degree of protection," Raoul said.

  Malcolm was frowning at the medallions on the carpet. "If Carfax knew the truth, he'd be likely to use it as leverage himself."

  "Oh, yes" Raoul said. "I imagine he might."

  Malcolm's head snapped up. "Then, for God's sake—"

  "It might put you in an untenable situation. But it would give you time to leave the country. Meanwhile, there's no need to bolt."

  "We're not going anywhere." Suzanne took a step closer to Malcolm.

  "You may have to," Raoul said. "But not yet."

  She swallowed, but knew to take her victories where she could get them.

  Malcolm gave a curt nod.

  "Do you recognize the hand that penned the note?" Suzanne held it out to him again.

  Malcolm drew a breath and scanned the note. "No. But other than Carfax and David, I wouldn't recognize the hands of most of those present tonight."

  "He has an agent's skills," Suzanne said. "He got that letter to the footman without being seen."

  "Most likely another Elsinore League member," Raoul said.

  "Obviously, I need to keep the appointment," Suzanne said.

  Malcolm's gaze snapped to her face.

  "How else are we going to learn what he wants?" she asked.

  To her relief, Malcolm nodded. Then he raised a brow. "Surprised I agreed? We have to learn who he is, to ensure you're safe. I hope you aren't going to suggest going alone."

  "Of course not. We'll need someone there to follow whoever the blackmailer is. And you certainly have the skills to stay hidden.''

  Malcolm nodded again. "O'Roarke? I think we could use your help, as well."

  "Of course."

  "Pity I returned the papers. "

  "You aren't suggesting I actually give them to him."

  "No, but we may need them as a bargaining chip."

  "I wouldn't bring them to the first meeting, in any case. He couldn't expect it." She shook her head.

  "What?" Malcolm and Raoul asked, in almost the same breath.

  "I was remembering when we assisted Isabella Flores, just after we got married. I thought how foolish she was to have committed her secrets to writing and put herself in such a situation."

  "It's hardly the same," Malcolm said. "Your blackmailer doesn't have written proof."

  "That we know of." She hunched her shoulders.

  A shadow crossed his face. "And you did this in the course of your work—"

  "Not an adolescent love affair? All the worse for me. I should have known better."

  "We can all be caught," Raoul said. "It goes hand in hand with being a spy."

  Suzanne untied the cream satin ribbons on her evening slippers and unwound them from about her silk-stockinged ankles. "Malcolm, there's something else. I didn't want to say it in front of Raoul. Not until I'm sure."

  "What?" Malcolm took a quick step towards her. "More threats?"

  "No. Suspicions." She swallowed. Malcolm was a childhood friend of the Mallinsons. She was crossing a line even by voicing her suspicions. "I think Mary Trenchard may be pregnant."

  Disbelief filled his gaze. "In God's name, why—"

  She recounted her conversation with Cordelia.

  Malcolm's brows drew together. "That's hardly proof—"

  "No. But it would explain Trenchard's anger and trying to cut Mary out of his will."

  He gave a curt nod.

  "Cordelia and I can talk to her, darling. Even if we're wrong, we may shock her into telling us why she and Trenchard did quarrel. Unless—"

  "No, you're right." He tugged off his cravat. "It's the sensible thing to do. I have to think like an investigator. And if you are right, she needs help." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Dear God, I don't think David would understand."

  "You don't know that."

  "I know David. Simon could help—"

  "Malcolm." She cast a glance at the cradle where Jessica slept. "Let's find out if it's true first."

  He nodded.

  Suzanne realized her fingers had frozen on the loosened slipper. She tugged it from her foot. "I've put you in an appalling situation."

  "You haven't put me in anything." Malcolm shrugged out of his evening coat. "U
nless you killed Trenchard."

  She let the slipper thud to the floor and started on the second one. "It's not funny, Malcolm."

  His gaze was so gentle it cut through her. "I think finding the humor in the situation may be the only way we can survive this, my darling."

  She turned her head away before the softness in his gaze could sear her. "Malcolm—"

  "If we end up having to leave Britain, it will be on my head as much as yours. We're both spies."

  "Only one of us spied on Britain. But I was thinking about before. You broke into Carfax's study."

  "Spying on my spymaster?" He moved to the pier table and unstoppered the whisky decanter. "I've always enjoyed matching wits against Carfax."

  Suzanne dropped the second slipper after the first and began to unroll her stockings. "I never meant to turn you on Carfax."

  "No?" Whisky splashed into a glass. "Carfax stands for everything you were fighting against."

  Carfax's voice at the Carfax House dinner table last week, cutting to shreds a reform speech David had made, echoed in her head. You must understand what can come if the rabble get control, my dear, he had said, suddenly turning to her. Your family lost everything in the Revolution. "Yes, but—" She bit her lip. "You know what I mean."

  "I don't, actually." He crossed to her side and put a glass of whisky into her hand. "Carfax ran the intelligence network you were working against. Surely you don't prefer to have us on opposite sides."

  "Of course not." Her fingers tightened round the etched glass. "But I never meant to make you—"

  "Disloyal?" He took a sip of whisky and regarded her over the rim of the glass. "You preferred to keep the disloyalty on your side?"

  "I went into this with my eyes open."

  Malcolm turned his glass in his hand, watching the play of candlelight on the pale gold liquid. "I've hardly been in lockstep with Carfax, even without you."

  She stared at his profile in the flickering shadows. "Malcolm, you have to be—"

  "Angry?" His gaze jerked to her face.

  "Yes."

  He was silent for the length of a rifle shot. "Anger wouldn't get us very far."

  She tossed down a swallow of whisky. It left a trail of fire down her throat, but somehow didn't warm her. "I'm worried about what denying it will do."