The Paris Affair Part 24

"Might have known you'd make excuses," the major said. "You pampered blighter-"

Gui's fist connected with the major's jaw. The other dragoon knocked Gui into the table. Cards thudded to the floor. A brandy decanter upended and crystal gla.s.ses smashed. The tension simmering below the surface, which O'Roarke had managed to defuse earlier, flared to the boiling point once again.

Even as a half-dozen other men sprang to their feet, a man in a superbly tailored evening coat moved between the combatants. "I think perhaps it's time you left, gentlemen."

The dragoons began to argue. Gui pushed past Malcolm and Harry and staggered into the pa.s.sage. Malcolm and Harry followed to find him being sick into a Sevres vase on a pier table. He spun round at the sound of footsteps and wiped his hand across his mouth. "Rannoch," he said, as though confirming to himself that it was indeed Malcolm he was looking at. He seemed unaware of Harry's presence. "Sorry. Not sure if it's the drink or the disgust."

"You had great provocation," Malcolm said.

Gui's mouth twisted. "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had a point. I didn't fight at Waterloo. Or anywhere else."

"Your cousins did," Malcolm said. "Both of them."

Gui gave a short laugh. "Bertrand-"

"Bertrand fought in his own way. You're right, what he did can hardly be called treason."

Gui regarded Malcolm for a moment, as though trying to blink him into focus. "You always had an odd way of looking at the world, Rannoch."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was meant as-Oh, G.o.d." Gui spun round and threw up into the vase again. "Sorry," he said, breathing hard. "Usually have a better head."

"It's been a difficult few days," Malcolm said.

Gui gave a crooked smile. "I hardly have a right to say so. My life is ridiculously easy."

"How well did you know Antoine Rivere?" Malcolm asked.

Wariness shot through Gui's posture for an instant. Then he relaxed into exaggerated insouciance, one hand braced against the gilded molding on the wall. "Rivere? The chap who was killed two nights ago? Is it true you were there-"

"Yes. How well did you know him?"

"Not at all. That is, I suppose we'd been at some of the same entertainments these past weeks, but one could say that of half of Paris."

"Half of certain circles in Paris perhaps. You were seen storming out of Rivere's lodgings a week ago."

Gui drew a breath, then released it. "Walked right into that, didn't I? But then I told you I'm not myself." He glanced at the toes of his boots. "This isn't the first night I've come to the Salon des Etrangers. By any means. I've lost rather a lot. A great deal of it to Rivere. My family may have a chance at recovering our estates, but we've hardly recovered our fortune yet. I couldn't bring myself to go to my uncle once again. Rivere wasn't inclined to be accommodating."

"A simple explanation," Malcolm said.

Gui met his gaze, his own unexpectedly steady in his ashen face. "Sometimes simple explanations happen to be the truth."

"Sometimes," Harry said.

Gui spun towards him. "You're-"

"Davenport. Harry Davenport."

Gui's eyes focused. He stared at Harry for a moment. "Cordelia's husband."

"Yes." Harry's voice was scrupulously casual. "I understand you and my wife are acquainted."

"A long time ago." Gui sc.r.a.ped a hand over his hair. "I saw her last night. She looked happy. I'm glad." His gaze moved back to Malcolm. "I was angry at Rivere, but I didn't kill him. Though I don't expect you to believe that. Any more than you believe my explanation in the first place. After all, my family are given to deception."

Manon Caret swept into the dressing room with a rustle of pearl-st.i.tched velvet and a waft of scent. "Lucille stepped on my train again, devil take the girl. I'm trying to glide with regal authority, and I get jerked back like a fish on a line. And I have Marvaux breathing down my neck. He eats too much garlic." Her gaze fell on Suzanne as though she'd never seen her before. "Who are you?"

"The new seamstress, madame."

"I trust you're deft with quick repairs. This gown has a tear in the train thanks to Lucille. Berthe!" Manon pushed the door closed on the pa.s.sage, smiled at Suzanne in a very different way, and blew a kiss to Roxane. Berthe came through the door from the dressing room and began to deftly unlace the purple velvet gown. Clarisse continued to sleep on the sofa, as deaf to the noise as Suzanne had been as a child.

"You look well," Manon said to Suzanne. "I've often wondered how you got on."

"I've often remembered your kindness."

"Rubbish, I'm not in the least kind, but one must help out where one can. One never knows when one will be in need of help oneself," Manon said. Berthe pulled the purple velvet gown down. Manon stepped out of it in her corset and chemise. "You married, Raoul tells me. An Englishman."

"I married him for work." At a nod from Berthe, Suzanne picked up the cloth of gold gown from the sofa and handed it to the dresser. "That isn't why I'm still married to him now."

Manon's mouth curved in a smile. "I never thought much of the married state, but for some it proves to work out remarkably well." She stepped into the new gown and slid her arms into the slashed sleeves. "And you have a child?"

"A little boy, Colin. He's two."

Manon cast a glance at her own daughters as Berthe laced her into the gown. "It changes one, being a mother. As I believe I once told you."

"And I said it seemed highly unlikely I ever would find out." Had that only been four years ago? "That was how I felt at the time."

"Life has a way of taking us by surprise." Manon regarded her for a moment while Berthe stripped off her pearl necklace and earrings and replaced them with paste diamonds. "You're in a fortunate position now, married to an Englishman."

Guilt bit her in the throat. "I've been more fortunate than I have a right to be."

"Don't apologize, ma chere. We have to take good fortune where we find it." Manon picked up a jeweled fan from the dressing table and moved back to the door. "Only four scenes more, thank goodness."

Manon swept out of the room, letting in chatter, the rustle of stiff gowns, and the jangle of ornamental swords. Berthe began to tidy the dressing table, then stopped, as though aware that too much uncharacteristic tidying would give the game away. She returned to the sitting room. Suzanne dropped back down on the chest. In the dressing room, Roxane had set down her book and picked up a doll with yellow hair. She was changing the doll's dress.

A short time later, Manon swept back into the room, letting in a babble of voices from the pa.s.sage. "Five curtain calls. Not bad." She paused for a moment, her back to the door. In her blue eyes, usually so brilliant, Suzanne saw the stricken realization that this would be her last curtain call for goodness knew how long.

"I'll help you, madame." Suzanne unlaced the cloth of gold gown, while Berthe removed the luxuriant dark wig and held out Manon's dressing gown. Manon went behind the gilded screen, keeping up a light flow of chatter. The door to the pa.s.sage was still ajar. "I'm far too tired for supper. All I want is to go home. Clarisse was complaining of a sore throat, she needs her sleep." Manon tossed her corset and chemise over the side of the screen and emerged swathed in the foaming lace dressing gown. "Yes, yes, I'll take a few minutes for visitors. Once I'm presentable. What a wig does to one's hair." She tugged at hairpins and ran her fingers through her blond curls, leaving them as artfully tousled as if a hairdresser had worked at them for hours. "All right, I'm ready to receive."

Berthe moved to the door. Suzanne sank down on a different chest, deep on one corner. A stream of guests spilled through the door, mostly young gallants with high s.h.i.+rt points, Byronic hair, and ribbon-tied bouquets clutched in their hands.

Manon extended a beringed hand to be kissed, gestured to Berthe and then Suzanne to take the flowers, and accepted the compliments with a careless smile. "I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Truthfully, I prefer Phedre. Well, I would, she's the main character. Though I quite like playing vengeance and I did name my daughter Roxane. Well, it was my first success. I won't tell you how many years ago that was. No, I'm afraid I couldn't possibly manage supper tonight. I'm run ragged. Cafe des Etoiles? It's tempting, but no, my younger daughter isn't feeling well. Perhaps another night. No, you must go before I weaken. I'm determined to be a good mother for once. Berthe, do get rid of them."

Berthe shooed the gallants out. Manon kept up her stream of chatter until five minutes after the door had closed behind the last of them. "Thank goodness," she said at last in a quite different tone. She still wore the lace and ribbontrimmed dressing gown, her hair still tumbled down her back, yet she looked like an entirely different person. "One part of being an actress I won't miss."

"No?" Berthe asked with a raised brow.

"Well, perhaps the flowers. And the compliments. A bit. But one can't seem to have them without the accompanying silliness. Suzanne, are you ready for your costume?"

Suzanne had already undone the ties on her cloak and was unb.u.t.toning the blue gown, which fastened down the front. Manon went behind the dressing screen again. "Help Suzanne, Berthe. My change is easier. It's Suzanne who has to be me."

Berthe helped Suzanne into a cinnamon-striped sarcenet gown and a swansdown-trimmed cloak, then unpinned the simple knot her blond wig was arranged in and pulled it into a loose chignon. She plunged the curling tongs into the lamp on the dressing table and created a ma.s.s of ringlets round Suzanne's face, which had the added advantage of offering concealment.

"Splendid. Even I could almost believe it's me." Manon emerged from behind the dressing screen. She wore a man's breeches, s.h.i.+rt, waistcoat, and coat and her body was padded round the middle, so that not only were her b.r.e.a.s.t.s disguised, but she also appeared rather stout. "The dark wig, I think," she said, gesturing towards a stand in the corner. "The one I wore in As You Like It."

Berthe pinned her mistress's hair close to her head again and set the wig over it. Manon inclined her head. "Spectacles and a bit of makeup and I will do. Make sure the girls are ready, Berthe."

Berthe moved back to the sitting room. Suzanne perched on the sofa, while Manon returned to the dressing table and began to apply shading to her face, making her jaw appear stronger, her nose sharper. "Odd. Just as I leave the theatre for G.o.d knows how long, I play one of the most important roles of my career."

"I sometimes think I've done more acting since I stopped performing onstage than before," Suzanne said.

Manon studied her for a moment in the lamplit looking gla.s.s. "I should also imagine the role of a British diplomat's wife is one of the more difficult you've ever played. For the sheer duration of it if nothing else."

Suzanne gripped her hands together. Manon's rings shone on her knuckles. For the first few months of her marriage, there had been moments when it had choked her, the realization that there was no end to her masquerade in sight. She remembered waking suddenly, Malcolm asleep beside her, her heart pounding, her body as tense as though she were caught in a snare. "It grows easier," she said. "Sometimes I forget it is a role." And yet if she was honest, lately some of the moments of panic had returned. "But now-"

"Perhaps the role is all the more difficult now you're no longer working for Raoul."

Suzanne drew a breath. Manon had hit it exactly, though she'd scarcely been able even to articulate it to herself. It was as though without her work as a spy to define her, she had lost all track of where she left off and the role she was playing began. Much as her meetings with Raoul had tugged at her loyalties, especially those last days in Brussels, they had been moments when she could cease pretending. Now she was so lost in pretense she sometimes felt she had lost track of her self. "I don't regret my decision," she said, fumbling for the right words. "But sometimes it feels as though I've lost my sense of purpose. Before-when I was deceiving Malcolm-at times I hated myself. But I knew who I was. Now I'm not sure. Being a French agent defined me for so long."

Manon turned her head to look at Suzanne directly. "We all play different roles. I do myself, offstage as much as on-. The actress, the agent, the lover, the mother. It's hard sometimes to know which is the most real. And it's a rare thing to find someone who sees one for oneself."

Suzanne hunched her shoulders. "Malcolm sees me for myself. At least at times I think he does. I sometimes have a lowering feeling that what he sees and loves is the character I created for him, not the real me at all. I doubt he'd ever get past how I've deceived him, but even if he could, I sometimes wonder if he'd like the real me at all."

Manon turned back to the dressing table and picked up her rouge brush. "And yet sometimes a role tells me something about myself. Didn't you find that?" She brushed color over her cheeks, somehow making them appear fuller. "When you were an actress, I mean?"

"Oh yes," Suzanne said. "Only sometimes it's difficult to tell where the role leaves off and oneself begins."

"Or perhaps it's that the role itself changes one." Manon peered at her face and added some rouge to her left cheekbone. "My most brilliant lovers were also the most exhausting. Amusing but always seeming to need to be catered to. I couldn't abide being married to a fool. But I imagine it isn't easy being the wife of a complicated man."

Suzanne drew a breath to deny it, then bit it back. So much of her life revolved round Malcolm. Helping draft doc.u.ments, sifting through invitations and knowing which to accept, making sure meals were served and appointments kept, coaxing him out of the library at entertainments, packing and unpacking their things and making a home in various lodgings, smoothing feathers he had ruffled, smoothing his own ruffled feathers when his frustration with Castlereagh, Wellington, Metternich, and others threatened to get the better of him.

"It's been that way from the first," she said. "But somehow-It's absurd, but somehow it was easier before."

"Of course." Manon turned her face from side to side to regard her handiwork. "Before you catered to him in the service of your work. In the service of your own ends. Now you do it simply-"

"Because I love him." Which should matter more than anything. And yet-"I have dwindled into a wife."

Manon smiled as she added some shading to her forehead. "I can't imagine you dwindling into anything, ma chere Suzanne."

Suzanne stared at her hands. "When we were first married, I simply did what seemed to be required. That's what one does when playing a role. And then I suddenly realized Malcolm needed me." She remembered the look of relief on his face when he returned home from a long day at the emba.s.sy to find supper waiting and she handed him the draft of a memorandum he'd forgot he needed to write. What would I do without you? he'd said. And she'd been shocked to realize how much he meant it. "It's a rather remarkable thing realizing one is needed. Especially when one's used to being on one's own." Since her father's and sister's deaths, she couldn't really say anyone had needed her until Malcolm. Raoul needed her talents, but he didn't need her. He was entirely self-sufficient. She gripped her hands together, conscious of the absence of her wedding ring. "Dwindling into a wife is scant enough recompense for what I've done to him."

Manon picked up a comb and coaxed the hair of her wig closer round her face. "Recompense is a poor foundation to build a life on."

Suzanne looked up and met Manon's gaze in the mirror. "It's more than recompense."

Manon's mouth curved in a smile. "Good. That's the only reason I can imagine to get married."

"But loving Malcolm doesn't make me want to lose myself." It felt like an almost shameful admission, yet it was a relief to make it.

"And so you're here." Manon set down the comb.

"I'm here because I'm your friend."

"Friends are a rare thing. Far rarer than husbands. Or lovers." Manon settled a pair of spectacles on her nose. "There." She turned round on the dressing table bench to face Suzanne. "If I deepen my voice and remember how to walk, I think I'll pa.s.s for a tutor."

"The girls-?"

"Are traveling as Raoul's daughters. I'm going as their tutor. Berthe as their nurse. Once we get out of Paris we'll change to a different set of costumes and Raoul will return to the city." She regarded Suzanne for a moment. "We couldn't have done it without the doc.u.ments you procured. At considerable risk."

"I've run greater risks anytime these past two years."

"But you no longer have to."

"One's loyalty to one's friends doesn't go away."

Manon pushed herself to her feet and then went still. She glanced round the dressing room slowly, taking in the details of a room she saw every day but to which she probably paid little heed. She touched her fingers to a peasant bodice hung from the clothesline above, and then to a paste tiara resting on top of a hatbox. "Was it difficult, leaving your old life behind?"

Suzanne hesitated, searching for honesty. "I didn't have the least idea what I was doing when I went into my marriage. I saw it as a challenge. A game. When it hit me that there was no end in sight, I felt trapped. It's grown easier. I've made friends. I have whole days now where I feel at home. But . . ." She hesitated. "One stays an exile. I don't think my husband will ever entirely understand that."

Manon nodded slowly. "I'm used to making my home different places. But I never thought-Well, all one can do is go forwards and explore the next role offered." She moved to the sofa beside Suzanne. "Now we merely have to wait."

CHAPTER 17.

"Gui Laclos was right," Harry said, as they descended the steps of the Salon des Etrangers. "I don't believe his explanation." He paused a moment, gaze fixed straight ahead. "Though I don't know that I'm the best judge."

"For what it's worth, Gui Laclos never slept with my wife that I know of, and I'm not inclined to believe him, either," Malcolm said. "As Mademoiselle Leroux said, he and Rivere could have quarreled about Gabrielle Caruthers."

"You didn't confront Laclos with that."

"He may not know about his sister and Rivere. The circ.u.mstances didn't seem to warrant betraying Lady Caruthers's secrets."

Harry shook his head. "You have a soft heart, Rannoch."

"You've only just discovered that?"

Harry gave a twisted grin. "Would Gui Laclos have killed to protect his sister's honor?"

"I wouldn't have thought so. But then it's also possible that the quarrel was about something else. That Rivere was blackmailing him as well. He could have learned something about Gui from Gabrielle."

"I don't know Gui Laclos well, and as I said I'm not inclined to have a good opinion of him. But from tonight, I'd say he has a temper."

"He does." Malcolm stared at the moonlight bouncing off the cobblestones. "As does Wellington."