The Paris Affair Part 21

"I've just heard from Davenport that he's located a former mistress of Rivere's," Malcolm said. "We're going to talk to her tonight. Hopefully she'll be able to shed some light on what Rivere knew and whom he told."

"Just be careful that in questioning her you don't reveal more," Wellington said.

"Of course."

The duke gave a curt nod. "G.o.d save us from careless words spoken across a pillow."

Movement flickered in the dressing table looking gla.s.s as Suzanne fastened her second diamond earring. Malcolm stood leaning in the open doorway of their bedchamber, watching her. She met his gaze in the mirror. She could read fresh intelligence in his eyes. "What?" she asked.

"I found Rupert trying to strangle his father."

"I take it you stopped him?" Suzanne turned round on the dressing table bench to face him.

"Yes, though I have to admit I was sorely tempted to strangle Dewhurst myself." Malcolm closed the door behind him and moved into the room.

"Did Dewhurst admit to setting Bertrand up?"

"Not in so many words. But he may as well have done." Malcolm dropped down on the edge of the bed. He moved as though his limbs ached. "Rupert stormed out of the house and told Dewhurst he couldn't come near his grandson again. It's not easy, hating one's father."

Suzanne saw Alistair Rannoch's mocking, sardonic face and heard the lash of his tongue. "Rupert had to know the truth."

"Of course. And Dewhurst deserves the enmity." Malcolm frowned at the pale flowers in the Aubusson carpet. "G.o.d knows I've never been able to summon filial love for Alistair Rannoch-"

"With good reason."

"With reason certainly. But nothing like this. If I learned he'd been responsible for your death-" Malcolm's fingers curled round the bedpost. "I don't know that I'd be able to refrain from strangling him."

It was one of those rare, oblique admissions of feeling he made that always took her breath away. But it would never do to draw attention to it. "Then we're fortunate your father largely ignores me," she said.

"Ignoring pa.s.ses for good parenting with Alistair."

Suzanne leaned forwards on the dressing table bench, hands on her gauze skirt. "What happened after Rupert stalked out?"

"Dewhurst bl.u.s.tered a great deal and tried to deny the whole. Threatened me if I went to Wellington and Castlereagh."

"With what?"

Malcolm's fingers tightened on the fluted wood. "My family. I think it was bl.u.s.ter, but we need to watch him carefully."

"I'm always careful."

He shot an amused gaze over her face. "You can be distinctly reckless, sweetheart."

"Not without carefully calculating the odds." She smoothed down a snagged thread in her skirt. "I don't suppose this stopped you from going to Wellington and Castlereagh?"

"No. And Stuart. Stuart took it the most calmly, jumped right to the consequences. Wellington cursed Dewhurst for mixing personal matters with politics. Castlereagh seemed surprisingly distressed by the suggestion of the relations.h.i.+p between Rupert and Bertrand."

"He's a conventional man, darling."

"But a man of the world. I'd have thought-"

"I think sometimes you overestimate how many people see the world as you do, dearest."

"I'm well aware Castlereagh and I see the world through different lenses. But I wouldn't have thought Rupert and Bertrand's relations.h.i.+p would trouble him so deeply." Malcolm frowned. He respected Castlereagh, Suzanne knew, and despite his words it troubled him that their views diverged so strongly over issues that mattered pa.s.sionately to him. And this one touched on his closest friends.

"Do they believe Dewhurst set up Bertrand Laclos?" she asked.

"They seem at least willing to consider it. Wellington insisted it has to remain secret, at least at present."

"The Lacloses-"

"Need to learn the truth. Whatever Wellington said. Of course there's nothing to stop Rupert from telling Gabrielle. It's difficult to tell what will happen between them. But honesty can only improve matters."

Her breath caught. "Sometimes honesty can make things worse."

"Than living a lie?" He shook his head. "Difficult to imagine."

Her throat closed as though someone had tied a noose round it. "That's because you're so wonderfully honest, darling."

"Lies have a way of corroding the soul. And it's never good to live in ignorance."

Unless one could stay that way forever. Her fingers curled inwards, nails biting into her palms. Malcolm leaned against the bedpost, watching her. "There's more, isn't there?" she said.

He hesitated a moment. She could see him searching for the right words. It took her back to the early days of their marriage, when they'd both walked on eggsh.e.l.ls round each other. "I saw Harry Davenport on the way to Headquarters," Malcolm said. "He's traced the Christine we found reference to in Rivere's things. An opera singer who plays minor roles and is known more for her list of protectors than her vocal accomplishments."

"Harry's quite brilliant at his work."

"And quite pleased to have work to do besides pus.h.i.+ng papers."

Suzanne adjusted one of her earrings. "And, being Harry, I imagine he knows where to find this woman?"

"We think she'll be at the Salon des Etrangers tonight," Malcolm said, his voice carefully neutral.

Suzanne pulled the earring free of an escaped tendril from a ringlet. The earrings had tiny fleurs-de-lis above the diamonds. Malcolm had chosen the design because it was French and could not possibly appreciate the irony. "Harry's going with you?"

Malcolm nodded, watching her with a steady gaze.

She smoothed a crease from the gauze ruffle at the neck of her gown. A strangled laugh rose up in her throat. Here she had spent the afternoon constructing an elaborate scenario to explain her absence this evening to her husband, and this new information-and Malcolm's protective instincts-rendered it irrelevant. "And you don't want me to come with you."

His gaze s.h.i.+fted over her face. She had a feeling he'd thought this scene through in advance, but he was still choosing his words with care. "How could I possibly not want you with me? But the Salon des Etrangers isn't like Frascati's, where ladies can eat ices and gamble with no fear for their reputation. The Salons des Etrangers is like a London gaming h.e.l.l. Respectable women aren't seen there."

"So odd to think of myself as a respectable woman." Even to Malcolm she could say that, though he didn't know the half of it.

"It's a favorite haunt of Allied soldiers and diplomats. It will be thronged with people we know. Even if you wore a disguise there's a good risk you'd be recognized."

Suzanne leaned back on the bench and smiled at her husband. "I love the moments where you turn protective."

"I'm not trying to coddle you, Suzette." He gave a rueful grin. "G.o.d knows there are times when I want to, but this is different. To own the truth, if there's gossip about you it won't be so easy for you to get women like Gabrielle Caruthers and Louise Sevigny to confide in you."

"And it would be tiresome for your diplomatic career."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n about-"

"No, but I do." She reached behind her for her scent bottle. "I quite agree with you, Malcolm."

"You do?" The suspicion in his voice at once made her want to laugh and it choked her throat.

"You should go with Harry to the Salon des Etrangers. I'll go to the Russian emba.s.sy with Cordelia." She removed the crystal stopper and dabbed her custom-blended scent on her ears and wrists. One of the few vestiges of her former life she still carried with her. She'd worn the same scent as Raoul O'Roarke's agent in the Peninsula. "Don't look so surprised, darling. Do you imagine I've lost all common sense?"

"No, but I know how you dislike-"

"Being left out of things? Of course I do. But not to the point where it jeopardizes an investigation." Though the truth was she probably would have protested a bit more if it weren't for Manon Caret's escape being set for tonight. Suzanne's role as a former French agent and her loyalty to her comrades was making her more prudent and a more conformable wife. That ought to be funny. "Just don't let the Marquis de Livry invite you to one of his Sunday evenings."

Malcolm laughed. Livry, the proprietor of the Salon des Etrangers, was known for the Sunday evening parties he gave at his villa at Komainville where the wine flowed freely, cards were dealt, and the gentlemen present-including some of the most powerful men in France and other countries-mingled with actresses, dancers, and opera singers. "Even if it proves necessary to the investigation? Though I don't think I'd fit in very well."

She returned the scent bottle to the dressing table. "You could fit in anywhere, dearest. In the service of an investigation. Though in that case we might have to revisit my staying behind."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less."

Suzanne studied her husband's face. "You look as though you were set for a battle."

"I was."

She got to her feet and shook out her ruched satin and gauze skirts. "Disappointed you didn't get to fight it?"

"Hardly. I know better than to waste my energies." He continued to study her. Not with suspicion-she'd never known Malcolm to be suspicious where she was concerned-but with the sense that he didn't fully understand. Malcolm was far too clever to take her at face value.

She moved to the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. "Dearest, our life is different now. The war's over. We're running fewer risks. Or the risks we run are more insidious. I'm trying to learn how to go on in a civilian world. For your sake. For Colin's sake. For my own."

He reached up and put his hand over her own. "I don't want you to be-"

"Stifled? I don't think there's any danger of that." Though oddly, it was one of the things she'd worried most about when she stopped working for Raoul. She'd gone from being an agent to a wife, not a role she'd ever envisaged herself in. She lifted her other hand and ran her fingers through his hair. "Usually you're the one trying to keep me out of danger."

"Only when-"

"Absolutely necessary?"

He gave an abashed grin. "I was going to say when I can't help myself."

"And I promise to continue to resist your chivalrous impulses. But tonight I'll see what I can learn at the Russian emba.s.sy." She bent down and brushed her lips over his own. "And I charge you to remember this conversation the next time you have one of your Hotspur moments."

He returned the kiss, holding her against him for a moment, his grip unexpectedly tight. "I'm more a Brutus than a Hotspur."

"It's the same thing, dearest. Both of them are equally misguided when it comes to informing their wives of their plans."

He took her face between his hands. His eyes searched her own for a moment. "There's one way I'm not like Brutus. Sometimes I'm not at all sure I could manage to go on without you as Brutus does without Portia."

Her chest constricted. She was all too afraid he'd have to go on without her one way or another. It went without saying that they both risked their lives. But an even greater risk was that he would learn the truth and not be able to go on living with her. "You would, you know," she said, smoothing his hair off his forehead. "You would because you'd have to. Eventually you might marry again. You might even fall in love."

"No," he said in a flat voice. "Once was unexpected enough."

"I'm touched, darling, but-"

" 'Doubt thou the stars are fire-' " He pulled her close and kissed her again, sliding his fingers into her carefully arranged hair. "It's all right, beloved. I learned early on to take advice from Shakespeare."

CHAPTER 15.

Harry cast a sideways glance at Malcolm as they walked to the Salon des Etrangers. "I more than half-expected Suzanne to be with you, probably in some sort of clever disguise."

"So did I. I spent most of the time after we spoke thinking up clever arguments about why it didn't make sense for her to accompany us. No one was more surprised than I when she agreed with them so readily."

"Surprised and a bit disappointed?"

"No. Yes. Perhaps." Malcolm frowned at the cobblestones, blue-black in the moonlight. "I'm not used to such ready acquiescence from my wife."

"Wives can surprise one. Though I imagine yours does less than most."

"Not really." A host of memories tumbled through his mind.

"That is, in many ways I still feel I'm coming to know her."

Davenport shot a look at him. "You don't give that impression. At times I'd swear you can communicate just by looking at each other."

"About some things. We've always been our closest when we share a mission. But we'd only known each other for a few weeks when we married." He saw her wide, startled gaze the night he proposed, and then felt her hand trembling in his own when he slid the wedding band onto her finger. His own hands had been like ice and none too steady. "And even after two and a half years-"

Harry snorted. "Cordy and I've been married five years. Of course we were apart for four of them. Even so I feel I'm still coming to know her. For instance-"

Malcolm turned to look at his friend. Harry's face was a study in lack of obvious emotion. "If you mean the help your wife has given us in the course of the investigation-"

Harry's features relaxed into a rueful grin. "Of course you would know. G.o.d knows why I'm being reticent. G.o.d knows why I care. I've heard enough stories about Cordy's lovers through the years. And I faced down the only one she cared about when I confronted George Chase in Brussels."

Harry was a master at disguising emotion. But Malcolm, no novice at it himself, could spot the technique. "It's one thing knowing in theory. It's another being confronted by the actual person."

"It shouldn't be. The past is in the past. I told Cordy that in Brussels."

"Harry . . ." Malcolm hesitated, because as close as he and Harry Davenport had become, they rarely touched on personal topics. "Jealousy is perfectly normal."

"You think I should be jealous of a man my wife dallied with years ago when she and I were estranged?" Harry's voice was taut with self-mockery.

"I don't think 'should' has anything do with it. I think you might be, logic be d.a.m.ned." Malcolm pictured the arrogant face of Suzanne's former lover Frederick Radley. Was he jealous of Radley? Not precisely. He was conscious of a keen desire to throttle the man. But then of course he hadn't even met Suzanne when her affair with Radley had occurred.

"And yet I pride myself on logic," Harry said. "It's the only thing that's saved me from madness on more than one occasion."