by Tracy Grant
Every scrap of time she had with them was precious, she told herself, as she got to her feet. It was more than Laura had had.
Cordelia paused in the dressing room doorway as her husband unfastened his shirt cuffs. Tenderness washed over her in an unexpected wave. "Gui's in love with Mary Trenchard."
He looked up quickly, fingers frozen on a mother-of-pearl button. "Poor devil. And—?"
"He's the father of her baby." Cordelia had told Harry about Mary Trenchard's revelations before they left for the opera. "Apparently she ended it and tried to send him away. I hope she was trying to protect him. He insisted on rushing off to her."
"Of course. He'll want to ask her to marry him."
Cordelia moved into the dressing room and dropped down on the sofa. "Trenchard will legally be the father but there will be gossip, even if they wait until she's out of mourning."
"Gossip can be faced down." Harry pulled his shirt over his head and reached for his dressing gown. "As we both know. And having Carfax on their side will help."
Cordelia drew her feet up onto the sofa. "So will having love in the equation."
"Is there love in the equation?"
"I think so. That is, I know so, now, at least on Gui's side. I think they have a decent chance of it lasting."
Harry crossed to her side, but didn't take her hands or put his arm round her as she hoped he would. Instead he stood looking down at her with that look he sometimes got when they discussed her past. The scholar examining data, aware of his own biases but determined not to let them intrude. "Regrets?"
His gaze was appraising, but amazingly his voice was warm with sympathy. "How could I have regrets?" She pushed herself to her feet. "Don't you think I want Gui to be as happy as we are?"
"There are so many suppositions in that question I don't know where to start."
She put her arms round his neck and threaded her fingers behind his head. Just because he was determined to be neutral, didn't mean she had to. "You're right. I shouldn't assume that you're happy. But I know how happy you make me. And I thought you knew how little my former lovers mean to me."
He didn't pull away, but neither did he lean in to her. "Laclos isn't just one of your former lovers."
"And you're right. I care for him. I think I always will. I care for enough to want him to be as happy as I am."
He smiled, but his gaze, opaque in the candlelight, continued to shift over her face. She could feel his breath on her skin, even but rough.
"What?" she asked.
"I know what we have, Cordy. I know how rare and precious it is. But I also know that you'd never have looked twice at me if I hadn't rushed blindly into marriage because you dazzled me out of my senses, and I was determined to possess you without having the least appreciation of who you were."
Guilt was a funny thing. His own always made hers sharper. "You didn't force me into marriage, Harry."
"No. But I proposed at a time when you desperately needed to be married to someone. If I hadn't, if you'd still been free when you met Laclos—"
"I might have fallen in love with him?" Cordelia said, with disbelief.
"Is that so unlikely?"
"Not entirely. He's one of the few men other than you—and George, though we won't speak of that—whom I can imagine loving. But—" Cordelia stared into her husband's intent gaze, forcing herself not to twist the facts to suit her thesis. "Realizing that I might have loved Gui, that in an alternate life I might even have been happy with him, doesn't mean I wish that alternate life had come to pass."
His smile was unexpectedly sweet and told her just how serious his concerns had been. "You always know what to say, Cordy."
She reached up and kissed him. "I said it because it's true."
His arms settled round her. "You realize, of course, that this makes them both suspects."
Her pretty fairy tale shattered before her eyes. "I know. And no matter how sure I am neither of them could have killed Trenchard, I know I can't really be sure at all. But—"
"It's more than that," Harry said. "Even if they're both as innocent as you think, there's nothing like suspicion to destroy trust."
Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "I still think you should take the carriage."
"Do use your head, darling." Suzanne did up the clasp on her cloak. They were back in the library where Raoul had remained, nursing a cup of coffee while they looked in on the children. "The blackmailer thinks all this is secret from you. How would I order the carriage without you and half the rest of the household knowing? Not to mention having to count on Randall keeping quiet after he drove me. I wouldn't be so foolish. I'd simply slip from the house through a side door and walk the very short distance to the park. As I'm going to do."
"As you've done in the past."
Suzanne met her husband's gaze. "Yes."
Malcolm's mouth hardened while she saw imaginings about those past occasions shoot through his gaze. "I still don't like it. It's dark, we can't protect you—"
"You and Raoul are perfectly capable of following me in the pre-dawn light, Malcolm. Besides," she added, perhaps unwisely, "in the past I wouldn't have had protection at all."
"That hardly reassures me. If—"
"Don't argue with her, Malcolm." Raoul set down his coffee. "You won't get anywhere. Besides, she's right."
Malcolm picked up his own coffee cup and set it down untasted. "I don't trust this man."
"Well, neither do I," Suzanne said. "But he won't do me a mischief. He needs me."
"You're worried yourself."
"Rubbish."
"You looked in on Colin and Jessica."
Her children's sleeping faces flashed into her mind. "I always check on them before the most routine mission."
"I saw your face, Suzette."
"You saw me being sentimental."
"I saw you being as close as you get to afraid."
"A momentary aberration."
Malcolm swung away from her and turned to Raoul. "O'Roarke—"
Raoul was shrugging on his greatcoat. "This may sound odd coming from me, but I won't let you down. Either of you."
"I don't doubt that. But there are no guarantees."
"Of course not," Raoul said. "We all run risks. It's who we are."
Malcolm was being more protective than usual. Probably, Suzanne realized, because of the added threat of her being exposed. A threat he couldn't do anything about and avoided alluding to. A threat that could upend their world.
Five minutes later, she gave Malcolm a quick kiss and slipped out into the garden and through the gate to the mews, where even the horses were quiet at this hour. Shadows slid over the cobblestones and only the faintest glow turned the sky from indigo to charcoal. The business of a spy was often best accomplished in daylight, in crowds—in the press of a ball or a theatre lobby, in the bustle of a café. But the stillness of pre-dawn had its own uses. Shadows could offer as much comfort as they did danger.
A mouse scurried through a pile of fallen leaves at the corner of Charles Street. A crossing sweeper was at work at the corner of Queen Street. Otherwise, she had the world to herself. At Curzon Street, Malcolm fell in step behind her, at the corner of South Audley Street, Raoul. Both were so skilled she doubted even she would have been aware of them had she not known to listen for the signs. Her senses quickened, keyed to the faintest stirring, a shift in the damp air that blew past her cheek. Damn it, she was enjoying this. For all the risk to her marriage, her safety, her children. Such was the depths of her madness. But then, she'd always known she wasn't quite sane.
At the edge of the park, tree branches showed against the lightening sky. Dark blurs showed beneath them. Those without roofs over their head, many of them soldiers returned from the war less than whole, often slept in the park. Desperate men could be dangerous, but most would still be asleep. She walked forwards, her gait purposeful.
The gathering light clustered round the trunks of the willows. Not perhaps the be
st choice for a rendezvous, but the mist helped. She moved into the trees. She couldn't quite tell where Malcolm and Raoul had taken up watch, which was good. Little chance the blackmailer would note them.
"Don't turn round, Mrs. Rannoch, I have a pistol trained on you."
The disembodied voice came from the shadows. Despite herself, she stiffened. "Surely my presence here assures you that you have enough of a hold on me to ensure my silence about your identity."
"My hold on you should ensure I set the rules. Stay just as you are." Footsteps sounded. Boots. Average height and build, so far as she could tell. A whiff of cedar in his shaving soap. "Did you bring what I want?"
"If you know as much about me as you claim to, you can't imagine I would bring it to our first meeting."
He gave a low laugh. "Fair enough. But I assure you that I'm in earnest. You know the consequences if you don't comply with my request. It would be simple enough for me to call upon your husband."
"What makes you so sure my husband doesn't already know the truth of my past?"
He laughed again, this time in disbelief. "You're brazen, I'll give you that. But even Malcolm Rannoch isn't Radical enough to go on living with you if he knew you were a Bonapartist whore."
The word had the sting of a slap, hard as she tried to withstand it. "I believe the word you're looking for is agent."
"Little enough to choose between the two. Especially given how a woman like you would collect her information. Besides, I know where O'Roarke found you."
God help her. It shouldn't have made her skin crawl more, but it did. "Why do you want these papers?"
"There's no need for you to know that."
"You're asking me to break into the study of my husband's mentor."
"I believe spymaster is the word. I don't see why you, of all people, should shy away from it."
"The point still stands."
"Don't pretend to squeamishness. You must have riffled through Carfax's papers often enough in the past."
"If you think that, you have a dangerously low opinion of Carfax."
"Merely a realistic opinion of you. I have no doubt you are equal to the task, my dear."
On the whole, she preferred being called a whore to the way he had of calling her "my dear." "And if I do as you insist? What guarantee do I have that you won't expose me anyway?"
"That would be singularly counterproductive. I would lose any future information you could procure for me."
"So you intend this—relationship—to continue?"
"Why would I give up on such a profitable source? Believe me, my dear Mrs. Rannoch, I value you highly. I take the greatest care of my assets."
After everything else he had called her, being called his asset shouldn't cut like a knife along her spine. But it did. "So I'll never be free."
"You'll be working. Does changing masters bother you so much?"
"If you have to ask that, you don't know me very well."
He gave a short laugh. "You Republicans and your vaunted ideals."
"Call it what you will."
"You're a realist, Suzanne. You must see you don't have any choice. Not unless you want to run, and I think you value the false family you've created too highly to do that."
She drew a breath. It wasn't hard to give it a bitter scrape. "It seems I have no choice."
"I thought you'd come to that conclusion. I suggest—"
A shot ripped through the air. A jolt of fire cut along her arm. She spun round, heedless of warnings, to see a dark figure fall to the ground at her feet.
Chapter 22
All that secrecy, and now all she was aware of was a dark tangle of greatcoat, harsh breath, and a white face twisted with pain.
"Jezebel," he whispered.
"I think you mean Delilah, but whoever it was got me as well." She stripped off her cloak and pressed it against his chest. She could smell the metallic tang of blood, feel it bubbling against the fabric.
Boot heels thudded on the ground. Malcolm flung himself down beside them. "Rannoch," the wounded man said in genuine shock. "Did you follow—"
"You bloody fool, do you seriously imagine I know my wife so little?"
"My God." Blood dribbled out the corners of his mouth. "You're even more of a fool than I credited."
"Don't try to talk." Suzanne pressed harder on the folds of the shawl. Her fingers were damp with blood.
"I'm done for."
"Who are your enemies?" Malcolm demanded. "And I don't mean my wife."
"My"—his breath caught—"my dear Rannoch. It's far more complicated than you'll ever know."
"If you want to be avenged—"
"You couldn't begin to know," the man said, and went still.
Suzanne stared down as the life faded from her blackmailer's eyes in the predawn light.
Malcolm reached across the man and touched her arm. "Are you all right?"
"Of course. I'm not the one who was shot—" Her gaze was still on the blackmailer. Hard features, a square face. Oh, dear God.
Malcolm's fingers tightened on her arm. "Damn it, Suzette, the shot got you as well."
"Just a graze. I can barely feel it."
"Then you're in shock." Malcolm stripped off his cravat. "You're bleeding."
"That's hardly—"
"Hold still. As you're always saying to me, you'd find it very awkward to develop gangrene." He had a flask out of his pocket. She smelled the whisky as he splashed it on the muslin, and then felt the burn against her skin as he pressed it to the wound. He had a point. And she was always doing it to him. But, God in heaven, the implications—
"Malcolm—" Her gaze went to the dead man.
"I know." He splashed some more whisky on the muslin. "But first let's make sure you're all right."
"If—"
More footsteps pounded over the ground. Raoul stopped, taking in the scene. "My God."
"The shooter?" Malcolm asked, as he wound the cravat round Suzanne's arm.
"Lost him. Or her. I wasn't close enough to tell for a certainty." He moved round to look down at the blackmailer's face and let out a whistle. "Lord Craven. Not among my list of probabilities." He drew in a breath. "Isn't he—"
"Yes." Malcolm tightened the bandage round Suzanne's arm. "He's married to Carfax's second daughter, Louisa."
"Not a twist I was expecting." Raoul dropped down beside them. "At least this explains how he knew Trenchard. Though I suppose now the question is more who had a motive to kill him."
"You mean besides the three of us?" Malcolm tied off the ends of the cravat.
Raoul raised a brow. "Is that a comment or an accusation?"
Malcolm sat back on his heels and shot a look at his father. "You didn't—"
"You heard the footsteps as much as I did. And I'm a decent shot, but I wasn't at remotely the right angle."
"That doesn't mean you didn't hire someone."
"Fair enough. But I'd never have hired someone to shoot so near to Suzanne." Raoul's gaze moved to her and lingered for a moment, at once warm and neutral. "Are you all right, querida?"
"Quite. Malcolm is fussing." Though in truth, now the shock had worn off, her arm stung like the very devil.
Raoul glanced about. "The bullet must have gone right through Craven and struck you. There. By the base of the tree."
Malcolm pushed himself to his feet, then hesitated.
"We may be able to match the bullet to the pistol," Raoul said. "It could look as though the killer retrieved it."
Malcolm nodded, tugged his handkerchief from his coat, and scooped up the bullet. He glanced round the stand of trees.
"Obviously none of us were here," Raoul said.
Malcolm met his father's gaze.
"I know subterfuge doesn't come as easily to you," Raoul said, "but, good as we all are at concocting stories, I don't see what we could concoct to explain this to your friend Roth."
"One step ahead of you." Malcolm surveyed the patch of ground. "I'm trying to work
out how to sweep up the evidence." He pushed himself to his feet. "Stay here, Suzette."
"Malcolm—"
"If you drip blood all over the place we'll have that much more to tidy away."
"I was going to say, be sure to search the body. If he had any really important papers, he'd be likely to keep them on him."
Malcolm leaned in and gave her a quick, hard kiss. "You never cease to amaze me."
"I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."
Malcolm took a flint from his pocket, lit a spill of paper, and swept the light over the ground, while Raoul knelt beside the dead Lord Craven and swiftly went through his pockets.
Suzanne saw Louisa Craven at her mother's musicale the night before, and then recalled meeting Louisa in the park, not far from this stand of trees, on a warm autumn day, four children clustered round her. She rubbed her arms. "Odd. I never used to think about people's children."
Raoul straightened up. "A card case. His own cards, nothing written on them. A handful of banknotes. A flask. Nothing of substance." He tugged Craven's coat so the folds fell as they had when he collapsed.
Malcolm pulled his own flask from his pocket again. "Handkerchief, O'Roarke?"
Raoul tossed his handkerchief to Malcolm, who splashed whisky on it. "You and Suzette get out of the stand of trees."
Raoul helped Suzanne to her feet. Suzanne decided it would be childish to protest, and, in truth, her head did swim a bit. Raoul said nothing, but tightened his fingers on her arm. They moved to the edge of the trees. Malcolm followed, bending to wipe away telltale footprints with the whisky.
Raoul ran a sharp gaze over the stand of trees as Malcolm joined them. "Good work."
Malcolm's eyes narrowed as his gaze followed Raoul's own. "With Craven being Trenchard's brother-in-law, Roth is bound to at least wonder if there's a connection. Roth is very good at his job."
"So I've observed," Raoul said. "Which means we need to have a look at Craven's house before Roth gets there."
Suzanne nodded. She'd been thinking along the same lines. "We have an hour or two. Maybe more, depending on how long it takes them to find him. But it will only grow harder as we get closer to daylight."