The Paris Affair

by Teresa Grant

  The room still smelled of jasmine and tuberose. She lit a lamp and the tapers on the dressing table. A dressing case still stood on the table, pots of rouge and powder, a crystal scent bottle, velvet jewel boxes, a silver-backed brush with hairs caught in the bristles. Manon would only have been able to take a few essentials. Suzanne stretched her arms, unpinned her hair with Manon’s leisurely grace, then drew the blue watered-silk curtains over the windows. All the while she saw the dolls and stuffed animals that had still stood on the shelves and beds in the nursery, Manon’s toiletries and jewels, embossed stationery and pens and inkpot. The bits of a life. Manon and the girls would only have had time to pack essentials. Suzanne had had to make some quick departures of her own, but she’d never had a settled-enough life to have a great deal to leave behind. It would be different now. She shuddered as she laid Manon’s cloak on the bed and tugged at the strings on the gown. Not that she ever would flee the life she had now. Unless Malcolm fled with her. And that would mean he would know what she had done and accept it, which was also unthinkable.

  Pounding came from the street outside. Her senses quickened even before she had made sense of the noise. She moved to the windows, straining to hear. “Manon!” a man’s voice yelled in the street. “Let me in, damn it.”

  The voice was slurred with drink and sharp with feeling. Manon’s latest lover? Suzanne realized she had no notion of his identity or of what he had meant to Manon. He sounded like a native French speaker. She daren’t risk a glance into the street. But impossible for her to slip from the house while he was outside.

  A pounding sounded, like a fist beating against polished door panels. A low-voiced murmur that must be the footman, another cry of “Manon,” then a crash and the wrench of tearing hinges. Dear God. He’d pushed the door open. Suzanne ran to the bedchamber door, Manon’s half-unlaced gown slipping from her shoulders, and shot the bolt home.

  Feet pounded on the stairs. “Manon!” the voice yelled again. The brass door handle rattled. “For God’s sake, Manon, let me in.”

  She crossed to the connecting door to the dressing room and bolted it as well. To speak or not to speak? She was good at imitating voices, but this was a lover. But then she’d survived this far by trusting her instincts, not doubting them. “Chéri,” she said, in Manon’s tones, back by the bed where her voice would carry less clearly. “I told you tonight would not work.” A risk, but surely Manon would have given him some excuse about tonight.

  “You can’t still be cross about Yvette.” His voice shook with desperation. “You know that ended months ago. I haven’t had eyes for anyone else since I met you.”

  “That isn’t how it looked.” Suzanne stripped off the gown and pulled the pins from her wig.

  “She’s a friend. She was in trouble. I couldn’t turn my back on a friend in trouble.”

  Suzanne gave an imitation of Manon’s snort as she stuffed the wig into the wardrobe and grabbed the plain black gown Manon had left for her.

  “I settled her debts. That doesn’t mean I took her to bed. I don’t want to be in anyone’s bed but yours. Can you doubt that after all that’s passed between us?”

  “Fine words.” She pulled on the black gown, which mercifully fastened up the front.

  The handle rattled again. The door shook in its frame. “Have you got a man in there? Damn it, who is he—”

  “Don’t be silly, chéri.” She stowed Manon’s silk-rosetted slippers in the wardrobe and pulled on a pair of plain black ones.

  “You witch! They warned me you wouldn’t be faithful, but I was mad enough to trust you.”

  “Because of course I love you, mon amour.” She softened her voice as she moved to the dressing table and grabbed some pins to tidy her hair.

  “Then why—”

  “Because tonight I am tired and the performance was difficult and Clarisse was ill and you hurt me with your silly attentions to Yvette.”

  “Mon ange!” His voice had softened as well and turned husky. “Let me in. I won’t tease you, I swear it. I only want to hold you in my arms.”

  Oh, poison. “Not tonight, mon cher. I look wretched.” Suzanne tucked the last strand of hair into place. “You know I can’t bear for you to see me when I’m not at my best.”

  “As if I care. We’re beyond that.”

  “Oh, chéri. A woman is never beyond that.”

  “Mon Dieu. You do have a man in there.” The door shook. “By God, Manon, I’ll call the fellow to account.”

  “If I did have a man in here—which I don’t, I’m in no mood to see any man—that would hardly be the action to win me over. Do go home and go to sleep, chéri.”

  “As if I could sleep tonight. As if I could leave.” A thud sounded against the door. “If you won’t let me in now, I’ll wait here until you will.” Another thud as his body slid to the floor.

  Damnation. Suzanne cast a glance round the room. Manon’s gown and cloak could stay tossed across the bed. That looked very like Manon. So did the hairpins strewn on the dressing table and the scattered jewels. No other signs of her own presence remained.

  “Oh, have it your own way,” she called.

  She crossed the room, pushed back one of the curtains on a side window, and eased up the sash. Thank God it was well oiled. Outside was the dark stillness of a side garden, and the shadowy mass of another house beyond, mercifully unlit. She climbed onto the sill and reached out an arm, feeling round for the grout between the stones. She found a purchase with her toe, drew a breath, slid her other foot from the ledge. Inch by inch, focus, don’t think about the drop down. Carriage wheels rattled and horse hooves clopped in the street, but surely no one could see into the shadows of the side garden.

  Fingers stinging, she felt the molding of the dressing room window frame. Her hand closed round the molding, and then she was standing on the sill, breathing hard, her face pressed to the glass. She crouched down, pulled a pin from her hair, and worked at the window latch. Not as quick as her picklocks, and her smarting fingers made it more difficult, but at last she got the latch open. She pushed up the sash, slid through, and dropped onto the dressing room floor.

  Another breath of relief, the window closed. She found and lit a candle, looked in the dressing table looking glass long enough to smooth her gown and once again tidy her hair. Then she took an embroidered cushion and a cashmere blanket from the striped satin chaise-longue, blew out the candle, and slipped into the passage.

  He was slumped on the floorboards against Manon’s bedroom door, dark hair disordered, cravat askew, coat rumpled. He had pale skin and finely molded features. A handsome man, though he looked to weigh a stone or so more than might be ideal. Suzanne walked briskly down the passage and held out the blanket and cushion. “Madame says if you insist on staying here, you might as well have these.”

  He blinked at her out of burning dark eyes. “Who the devil are you?”

  “Odette, monsieur.” Suzanne made her voice slightly husky and roughened it with the accents of Gascony. “The new housemaid. Madame hired me last week.”

  His brows, dark and dramatic and standing on end, drew together. He pushed himself to his feet. “Didn’t say anything to me.”

  “No, monsieur.” Suzanne lowered her gaze to the blanket and pillow in her hands. “I don’t expect madame is in the habit of discussing her domestic arrangements with you.”

  He gave a short laugh. She could feel his gaze moving over her face. “See here, Odette. Is your mistress—Is she alone in there?”

  Suzanne lifted her gaze to his face. “Of course, monsieur.”

  “You’d say that in any case.” He scraped a hand through his hair, cut in a Byronic crop. “Damnation.”

  His eyes held genuine torment. Whatever their history, whatever had happened with this woman Yvette, it was clear he loved Manon. And Manon? Did she return his feelings? Suzanne suppressed a shiver. There was a time when she had believed she could walk away from Malcolm. She had gone into their marriage thin
king as much. Thinking she could not only leave but also take her—their—child with her. Now it was unthinkable. Or rather, she could imagine it, but only in the nightmare sense she could imagine cutting out a part of herself and going on living.

  “Monsieur—” Suzanne stretched out a hand but did not quite risk touching him. She made her eyes very wide, in that way that signaled openness and invited trust. “There is no man in madame’s bedchamber. I swear it.”

  He met her gaze for a long moment, then drew a harsh breath and gave a shaky nod. Suzanne pressed the blanket and pillow into his arms. His fingers closed round them, as though he were clutching on to his beloved, and he slid down against the door panels again. Some of the tension had left his face. He leaned against the doorjamb, the pillow behind his head, the blanket spread over his knees, his cheek pressed to Manon’s door. God help him in the morning.

  But she could not afford to think about that now. Suzanne walked briskly to the green baize–covered door at the end of the passage that led to the service stairs. Down three flights to the kitchen, where the smell of bread lingered in the air and coals glowed in the range, but no one stirred. She listened at the area door while carriage wheels rattled past, then opened the door and went up the area steps. The street was dark and still, save for the glow of street lamps and lights in one or two houses. A cabriolet clattered by, but the shades were drawn and it did not slow. She didn’t think it held unseen watchers.

  The man was still in his position across the street, but he didn’t stir. Suzanne paused beneath a street lamp, long enough to let her dark hair and plain dark gown show. A maid slipping out for a rendezvous with her lover. Sometimes it was safer to be in plain sight. She walked down the street, making no attempt to hide herself, and turned at the first corner. She doubled back twice and paused once in a doorway, but she could detect no sign of pursuit. Soon she was lost in the throng of Parisian nightlife.

  She turned down a narrow side street, cut through an alley to another, and opened a side door to a glover’s. The door was unlatched. She was in a storeroom. Her evening gown, cloak, stockings, shoes, and reticule were where Raoul had said they’d be, on the third shelf down on the left, behind a box of evening gloves. She dressed in the dark by instinct, a trick Raoul had made sure she mastered years ago when he trained her. Her strand of pearls, her diamond earrings, and her pearl bracelet were tucked into the reticule. And her wedding ring. She slid it onto her finger and gripped the solid metal for a moment. Then she pulled her side curls loose from their pins and wound them round her fingers. An approximation of the coiffure she’d left the house with, but she hoped the night breeze would be enough to account for the change.

  The maid’s clothes tucked behind the box, her gloves pulled on, her silk-lined velvet cloak round her shoulders, her reticule in her hand, she stepped back into the side street, raised the hood of her cloak so she wouldn’t be too obvious, and made her way towards the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She avoided the impulse to linger too far in the shadows.

  She didn’t know the exact time, but thanks to Manon’s lover she must be close to an hour later than she’d meant to be. Malcolm might well be home before she was. Well, she would deal with that. She’d dealt with countless unforeseen turns of events since their marriage, including one memorable night when he’d caught her climbing through their bedroom window with a stolen British dispatch tucked into her corset. She might no longer be actively spying for the French, but she couldn’t afford to grow rusty. Her pulse quickened, partly at the risk, but partly at the thrill of the challenge.

  She moved past cafés bright with candlelight. Talk and laughter and flirtatious giggles came from open doors and from tables set out on the pavement in the warm evening air. The smells of wine and tobacco drifted in the breeze. In another life she could have slipped into one of those cafés, ordered a glass of wine, and lost herself in the crowd. But not as Mrs. Malcolm Rannoch. Playing one role limited the other roles she could take on.

  The door of a café swung open when she was only a few paces away. The pop of a champagne cork and a medley of voices spilled out. Two young men in silk hats and evening cloaks staggered from the café, drew up short to avoid colliding with her, swept elaborate bows, and then stared. “Good lord. Mrs. Rannoch?”

  The round face, pale blue eyes, and straight flaxen hair showing beneath the hat belonged to Freddy Lyttleton, a junior attaché whom she’d danced with last night at the British embassy. Suzanne extended her hand. “Good evening, Freddy. It was so wretchedly hot at the Russian embassy, and I didn’t want to wait to call for my carriage. It’s such a pleasant evening, I thought I’d walk.”

  Freddy stared at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses. His companion flung back his head and laughed. Bobby Gordon, Suzanne realized, another junior attaché, dark haired, shorter than his friend Freddy, and with rather more wit. “You’re a regular out-and-outer, Mrs. Rannoch,” he said. “But you can’t walk alone in the streets of Paris, you know. It simply isn’t done. Not by an Englishwoman in any case.”

  “But I’m not an Englishwoman, Mr. Gordon. Everyone knows about Continental eccentricities.”

  “But your husband’s an Englishman,” Freddy said, as though he could still not quite make sense of her presence in the street.

  “Scots.”

  Freddy waved a hand as though centuries of contentious history and border warfare might never have occurred. “British. We’ll see you home, Mrs. Rannoch.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Freddy, but I assure you—”

  “No, we insist.” Bobby’s voice was firm and less slurred than Freddy’s. “Malcolm would never forgive us if we let you go on alone.”

  There was no help for it. Suzanne smiled and said it was too kind of them. The two men walked, rather unsteadily, one on either side of her, to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

  And of course they would not simply leave her at the door. Suzanne rang the bell. Valentin, the footman who had come with them from Brussels, opened the door. They stepped into the entrance hall. There, just beyond Valentin, was Suzanne’s husband.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Darling.” Suzanne walked forwards. “Mr. Lyttleton and Mr. Gordon were kind enough to escort me home. Wasn’t that splendid of them?”

  “My thanks,” Malcolm said with an easy smile. “Although my wife is quite capable of looking after herself, you know.”

  “Walking in the street alone. Wouldn’t do. Dangerous. Besides, people might talk.” Freddy coughed, as Bobby nudged him in the ribs. “Not that Mrs. Rannoch could know that, of course.”

  “Quite,” Malcolm said. “May we offer you some refreshment?”

  Freddy opened his mouth as though to agree, but Bobby grabbed his arm. “No. Thank you, but we won’t impose. Rannoch. Mrs. Rannoch.”

  The young men withdrew. Valentin, who had been pretending to be deaf, closed the door behind them. Malcolm and Suzanne climbed the stairs to their bedchamber. Suzanne could feel her husband’s amused gaze on her. He was waiting for her explanation. But he had no doubt there would be a simple, logical one.

  “Cordy left the Russian embassy early,” Suzanne said, tugging at the ties on her cloak. “I stayed. I was hoping to talk to the Lacloses or learn more about them. But I was singularly unsuccessful. Though I did hear an interesting piece of gossip. Apparently Tatiana may have been the lover of Paul St. Gilles around the time the child would have been conceived.”

  Malcolm’s brows rose, though he did not appear as surprised as she’d have expected. “Tania and a Radical painter. I’ve heard stranger things. Though it’s hard to see why his being the father would occasion such secrecy.”

  “No. But we should talk to him. He may know more about her life at that time.” She dropped the cloak on the dressing table bench. “After I left the embassy, I thought with my cloak on I could stop in at a café and perhaps learn something more.” She glanced at her husband. “Yes, I know it was a risk, but I thought—”
/>   “That I was off in the thick of things and you didn’t want to be behindhand?”

  “No. Well, yes, perhaps. A bit. But again, no success. So I thought I’d walk home. I’m sorry.”

  “Why should you be sorry?”

  “I try not to cause unnecessary talk for you.”

  “Having a wife who is the toast of the junior attachés is more likely to make me envied than talked about.” He was smiling. Malcolm was a master at deception, but it had never occurred to him that his own wife would deceive him. A sign of his love and trust in her. Which made the champagne and cold salmon from the embassy rise up in her throat.

  She pushed aside the folds of the cloak and perched on the bench. “I trust you had a more productive evening.”

  “You could say that.” Malcolm’s smile faded, and Suzanne noticed the strain in the set of his mouth.

  “You found Christine Leroux?”

  “Oh yes. Rivère is to be congratulated. A woman of spirit and intelligence. And quite capable of lying to us, though I don’t think she was. At least not the whole time. She admitted Rivère engaged in blackmail.” He dropped down on the edge of the bed across from her. “Apparently Rivère had come into possession of an indiscreet letter Wellington wrote to Lady Frances Webster.”

  Suzanne pictured the duke sitting beside the lovely blond Lady Frances at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels. “It’s hardly secret there’s something between them. Though I’d have thought—”

  “That the man who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte would have had the wit not to put it in writing? So would I. Whatever the devil was between them, Lady Frances was already seven months pregnant at the time of Waterloo—”

  “That isn’t a bar to all sorts of activities. As we well know.”

  Malcolm flushed. Her husband could be delightfully prudish. Of course during her own pregnancy she’d had to persuade Malcolm that it was no imposition on her to engage in those activities. “I’ll speak to Wellington in the morning,” he said. “As I told Harry, this explains his quarrel with Rivère but not what he did about it.”