by Tracy Grant
She held out the miniature. The oval showed a casual pose, a young woman in a white gown, looking over one shoulder and laughing. The laughter was uncharacteristic, as was the sparkle in her blue eyes. But the delicate features, the pointed chin, and the wide cheekbones were unmistakable, as was the brightness of the titian hair.
Suzanne looked from the picture to her meet her husband's gaze. As incredible as it was, they now knew what had become of Jane Hampson Fitzwalter, Marchioness of Tarrington.
She was living in their household as Laura Dudley.
Chapter 18
Suzanne studied Laura across the scarred table in Newgate. She and Malcolm had agreed that it would be best if she took the lead. Steam curled in the air from the blue transferware teapot in the center of the table. It had been Suzanne's idea to have tea sent in (one of the many comforts that could be provided at Newgate for a fee). She had lived in Britain long enough to understand the role tea had in creating a calming atmosphere. An echo, she hoped, of the life Laura had once known. Suzanne reached for the milk jug and splashed some into her own cup. "We've just been to speak with your parents."
Shock shot through Laura's posture, but her expression remained composed. Like an iron mask. "My parents are dead long since."
"I think they'd be hurt to hear you say so. They've been grieving for you. They were filled with wonder at the possibility you might be alive, terrified it might not be true, and very confused as to why you would stay away from them. I own I myself can't credit it. But then I don't imagine it was easy to be the Duke of Trenchard's daughter-in-law."
Laura stared into Suzanne's eyes for a long, appalled moment. Then she wrenched her gaze away. "Dear God, couldn't you keep them out of this?"
"No parent would want to be out of things when it came to his or her child." Suzanne studied Laura's face. Her features were little changed from fifteen years ago. The creases beside her mouth had deepened, and if one looked closely one could see faint lines round her eyes, but essentially it was the face of the girl from the miniature. Save that that girl had been laughing. Irony had been in the curve of her mouth even then, but her eyes had sparkled with an almost defiant, reckless abandon. Now her gaze was shuttered, her features at once set and tormented.
"I knew it was a risk." Laura slumped back in her chair and fingered the black braid on one of her cuffs. "That I'd encounter one of them in London. I mentioned it to Trenchard. He said, in that damnable voice of his, that the advantages of the mission outweighed the risk."
Suzanne flinched inwardly. How often had she heard almost the exact same words come out of Raoul's mouth?
Malcolm added some tea to Laura's cup. "You might want to put some sugar in that. It can help after a shock."
"Thank you." Laura picked up the cup and tossed down a sip. "I prefer my reality unsweetened."
Malcolm set the teapot down. "Given the number of British soldiers in Paris, you ran a risk there as well. Some of the men you knew in India must have fought at Waterloo."
Laura nodded. "I was in particular dread of encountering William Cuthbertson in Paris. I'd learned to live with risk. But somehow the fact that it was my family who might recognize me here sharpened the danger. I knew my father and Sarah had settled in London. But I assumed they'd move in very different circles from the two of you. It isn't as though I went out a great deal." She looked up at Suzanne. "Which of them saw me?" Her tone had the careful detachment that is only achieved with massive effort.
"A friend of your father's. A Major Pickering."
Laura gave a mirthless laugh. "Good old Picks. Who'd have thought he'd prove my downfall?"
"I'd hardly call it a downfall," Malcolm said.
"No?" Laura shot a look at him. "Surely you and Mrs. Rannoch understand the horror of having one's cover blown."
Malcolm sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. "I can't speak for my wife, but personally I've never been in a situation where having my cover blown meant reuniting with my family."
Laura snapped off a loose thread from the braid. "My dear Mr. Rannoch. We're all realists. Surely you have no illusions that this portends a happy family reunion by a cozy fireside?"
"I can't guarantee a cozy fireside, but I think your father and stepmother would very much like to see you."
"Do you imagine I want to see them?"
Malcolm watched her for a moment. "Family can inflict wounds like no one else. But I speak from personal experience when I say that avoiding family members doesn't heal those wounds. I tried running for years. Only to find when I returned home that I had more to face than when I'd left."
"But with all due respect, you weren't arrested for murder and about to stand trial for your life."
"If that's all—" Suzanne said.
"Hardly 'all.'" Laura twisted her cup in its saucer. "I've been playing a role so long I'm not sure who I am anymore. But I know I'm not the girl they remember."
The self-disgust in her gaze cut straight through to Suzanne's experience of the past three months. No, of the past five years, though it was only in the past three months that the feelings had come welling to the surface.
"It's difficult," Malcolm said, "being under deep cover. I've never done it as long as you, but I've done it long enough that I know one has to learn to think like the person one is portraying. So that even one's dreams don't seem one's own anymore. It becomes damnably hard to see where the deception leaves off and the reality begins. Until one begins to think the reality is the deception."
He looked straight at Laura as he said it. But he could not have found a better way to tell Suzanne he understood what she'd gone through in the first five years of their marriage. The years when she had been deceiving him. She swallowed, her throat raw with what he had given her and what she had done to him.
"You understand it well," Laura said. "But I do have a glimmering of who I am at the core. I'm not sure I like that person very much. I'd prefer to spare my father and Sarah from meeting her."
"You're too hard on yourself," Malcolm said. "And on them."
"I trust you'll allow that I know my father, and even my stepmother, better than you do."
"I can't imagine ever not wanting to see Colin and Jessica," Malcolm said.
"Every parent and child has a different relationship," Laura said. "As I'm sure you will appreciate, given your relationship with Alistair Rannoch."
"Quite. But having met your father, I don't think there's any comparison to Alistair. Your father plainly loves you. I don't think Alistair ever loved me."
Laura reached for her tea and blew on the steam. "My father loves the girl he thought I was."
"That sort of love doesn't go away," Suzanne said. "No matter the distance. But then I imagine you understand that better than most."
Laura drew a sharp breath.
Suzanne sat back and regarded Colin and Jessica's governess. "How old is your child?"
Tea spattered from the cup tilting in Laura's fingers onto the scarred wood of the table. For a moment, Suzanne would have sworn every drop of blood had frozen in the other woman's veins. But when Laura spoke, her voice was even. "I beg your pardon?"
"You were eight months pregnant when you disappeared."
Laura returned the cup to its saucer with a clatter. "It was miracle enough that I survived. You think the child did as well?"
"Actually," Suzanne said, "I wondered if you had a child even before we knew you were Jane Tarrington."
Laura raised her brows. Malcolm shot a surprised look at Suzanne.
"Ever since you refused to talk the night of the murder, I've been asking myself what a capable, resourceful woman would so fear that she wouldn't talk, even to protect her own liberty and life," Suzanne said. "I thought of a lover. Then I thought of family. Parents, a brother, a sister. I tried to put myself in your shoes. But I just couldn't see feeling this implacable fear. Not for another adult. Not even for Malcolm. I'd believe there'd be ways to protect him. The only people who would bring out
such fear in me that I wouldn't be able to trust an offer of help would be my children." She stared at Laura's pale face and set gaze. "Once I thought of it that way, the answer was blindingly obvious."
Laura swallowed. "You're a clever woman, Mrs. Rannoch. But perhaps you're wrong to view everything through the lens of your own life."
"Not everything. But I've seen enough of you to recognize a kindred spirit. I think it's time you were plain with us, Laura. After all, you know the truth about me."
Laura's brows lifted. "I should have realized Mr. O'Roarke would talk to you."
"Oddly," Suzanne said, "it wasn't the shock I thought it would be. I find I trust you."
"You're too clever a woman to trust anyone, Mrs. Rannoch. How long was it before you trusted your husband?"
"Not long, actually." Suzanne's gaze flickered to Malcolm. "Sometimes one has to rely on instinct."
"As I imagine Mr. O'Roarke would say, those sorts of instincts can get you killed."
Suzanne leaned forwards, fingers braced on the table edge. "Where is your child, Laura? Or is the problem that you don't know?"
Laura squeezed her eyes shut. For a moment, Suzanne thought she would shatter into tears. Instead she said, "My mother died when I was four. Cholera."
Suzanne released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "I lost my mother at seven. I don't think one ever recovers."
"No. But it gave me an odd sort of freedom. I had a surprisingly happy childhood. My father resisted calls to send me back to England. I had a succession of governesses, but they had a tendency to marry junior officers. I was left to my own devices much of the time. My father was away with his regiment a great deal. The servants were indulgent. So long as I contrived to stay out of trouble, I could explore the bazaars and ride in the countryside. My father was on good terms with the Indian population, so I received a warm welcome. Half the time I don't think anyone quite knew where I was."
"A lonely childhood," Malcolm said.
Laura shrugged. "It didn't feel lonely. I played with the local children. Which was quite good for broadening my perspective on the world. One could never really say I made my debut as such, but when I was seventeen I started going to grown-up parties and putting my hair up. The officers who had grown up with me were rather inclined to treat me as their little sister, but given the shortage of European women, I attracted quite a bit of attention. I found I enjoyed flirting, but I was in no hurry to marry. I feared it might come with a whole new set of strictures."
"An understandable fear," Suzanne said.
"Yes. Not all men are like Mr. Rannoch." Laura inclined her head towards Malcolm. "Though in truth, I confess little enough thought went into it. I was bent on enjoying myself. The adult world offered a new set of mischief to get into. Midnight picnics. Carriage races with attendant betting. Borrowing a uniform and sneaking into an officers' dinner. My father read me the occasional lecture, but for the most part he gave me my head. Then, just after I turned four-and-twenty, my father became one of those officers who married a young governess fresh out from England."
"That can't have been easy," Suzanne said.
Laura frowned down at her hands. "Since I've become a governess myself, I've often thought what it must have been like for Sarah. I wasn't a conformable stepdaughter. She was only two years my senior, but she was expected to take me about in society, and viewed as responsible if my behavior was seen as inappropriate."
"For what it's worth, your stepmother said much the same about her relationship to you," Malcolm said. "She seems to feel now that she worried too much about what people thought of her rather than paying heed to your feelings."
"That's kind of her. In truth, I fear my behavior often was inappropriate. Perhaps more than it ever had been, now that limits were being placed upon it. I never could abide limits."
"I know the feeling," Suzanne said.
Laura met Suzanne's gaze and inclined her head. For the first time, each knew the truth of the other's past. Or at least a portion of the truth. "My stepmother had two babies in quick succession. Sweet enough, but I confess I was woefully uninterested at the time. I was seven-and-twenty, and even in India old enough to be considered on the shelf. I could see the strain my presence in the household was taking on my father. For me to marry and acquire my own establishment seemed the obvious solution for everyone. But that required choosing a husband." Laura smoothed her hands over her lap, pressing the fabric of her gown taut. "And then Jack arrived in India. With all the glamour of the new arrival and rumors of scandal to add to his allure." A faint, self-mocking smile curved her mouth. That smile held echoes of the girl in the miniature, though her eyes now had shadows they hadn't held then. "Unfortunately, I mistook Jack's rakishness for unconventionality. Even then, I don't think I'd have risked marriage if we hadn't been caught in a compromising position. In the shrubbery at a regimental ball. What a cliché. I've wondered sometimes if my realization of the desperate nature of my situation made me run risks. If, without realizing it, I entrapped Jack. Certainly that was the gossip. I actually overheard a major's wife congratulating my stepmother on my cleverness in snaring the heir to a dukedom. Oddly, I don't think that had even entered my mind. We were so far from England that the thought of being a duchess seemed completely alien."
"From what I remember of Jack Tarrington, I hardly think you need blame yourself," Malcolm said.
"Perhaps. He was certainly willing enough. In any case, my father insisted on marriage. To both Jack and me. To Jack's credit, he didn't protest. I made a token protest, but even I could see the risk of refusing. And I thought it might be all right. I was almost eight-and-twenty, I needed to marry someone, and Jack seemed more interesting than most. It was only after we married that I realized that while he might flout rules himself—mostly when he found it more agreeable to do so—he was sadly conventional in what he expected of his wife. He didn't like the talk I caused by going freely about the city. That was our first row." She frowned, as though genuinely mulling over the memory. "I've often wondered if that led directly to his first infidelity or if it was inevitable. I suspect it was inevitable—fidelity wasn't really in Jack's nature. But when I decided to give him a bit of his own back, by flirting with one of his fellow officers, he hit the ceiling."
"The regrettable double standard," Suzanne said.
"Quite." Laura snatched up her cooling tea and tossed down a sip. "It's amazing how quickly one can grow into a cynic without ever having been a romantic. How disillusionment can set in, when one would swear one had never had any illusions to begin with. I flirted more and more, because it seemed the only way to get Jack's attention. Once or twice I went beyond flirting, but I was old enough to be aware of the risks. Jack was gone enough that it would have been difficult to claim a child was his, had I found myself pregnant." She returned the cup to its saucer as though willing her fingers to be steady. "Then Trenchard came out to India. On a diplomatic mission, though I think he also wanted to get a look at his son's unsuitable wife."
"Hardy unsuitable," Malcolm said.
"Not everyone is as broad-minded as you, Mr. Rannoch. It could have been worse. At least in terms of bloodlines, if one considers them important, which Trenchard does. Did. I could almost see Trenchard thinking that when we met. At least I wasn't an opera dancer or a courtesan. But I think he was surprised to find me not more of an obvious social climber. He seemed determined to dig deeper, to look for hidden secrets and motivations. That was how we began to spend time together. He sought me out. It was difficult to avoid it without out-and-out rudeness, and in truth I found I enjoyed his company. He had a keen understanding and news of places and people I'd never seen. And for all his sins, at least he treated me as though I had a brain. We were adversaries in a way, which I think added to the interest for both of us. We took to riding out together most mornings. There was no need for a chaperone. He was my father-in-law, after all." Her fingers locked on the sleeves of her gown.
Suzanne,
who had been aware of where this was going almost from the first, felt the realization dawn on Malcolm. She could feel the tension shoot through him.
Laura must have felt it as well. "I've shocked you, Mr. Rannoch," she said. "I told you I don't like the person I am very much."
"I think you're blaming yourself for Trenchard's sins," Malcolm said.
Laura shook her head. "Sin is too simple a word. One day he helped me from my horse, as he had dozens of times, but his hands lingered at my waist. Our gazes locked. Say what you will of Trenchard—and I could say a lot—that first time was mutual." She loosed her fingers and stared down at her hands, perhaps studying the place she had once worn a wedding band. "I don't know enough of your history, Mrs. Rannoch, but have you ever been in a situation where you knew something was wrong, where you couldn't even precisely say you enjoyed it, yet you couldn't bring yourself to stop?"
"Yes," Suzanne said, aware of the pressure of her husband's gaze.
"Of course, it was also the ultimate revenge on Jack," Laura continued. "I've wondered, often, how much that played into my actions. In retrospect. At the time, I fear I didn't think at all."
"One doesn't."
"Jack seemed oblivious. He was in and out of Fort Arthur with his regiment, and pursuing a fellow officer's wife. I knew I was playing with fire, but a part of me didn't care. I felt alive after having felt numb for so long." Laura reached for her tea again and curled her hands round the cup. "When I found myself pregnant, I knew Trenchard was the father, but the times were close enough that Jack believed it was his. He was more excited than I expected by the prospect of fatherhood." A shadow crossed her face. "Whatever Jack did, I wronged him."
"He wronged you first."
"So I told myself." She took another quick swallow of tea. "I wasn't sure whether or not to tell Trenchard, but in the end he guessed. He told me not to be squeamish. If I held my tongue, Jack would be perfectly happy with his heir."
It was so close to Suzanne's own experience that the memories clawed at her throat. Though Raoul had never said anything so blunt. Of course, Suzanne hadn't realized that the man who was giving a name to her child was the son of the child's biological father. Beside her, Malcolm sat as one turned to stone.