The Paris Affair Part 29

"But he might have been?" Malcolm asked, gaze trained on St. Gilles.

"She said once that she thought he might be. I laughed, because I was sure she was making a joke. Tatiana laughed as well. But from the look in her eyes, I suddenly wondered if perhaps she hadn't been joking after all."

"Who?" Malcolm said. His breath seemed to have caught in his throat.

St. Gilles took another sip of wine. "He called himself Jean Leblanc."

"Called himself?"

"Claimed to be a law student from Provence. By the time I'd shared a bottle of Burgundy with him and Tatiana I was sure that was a fabrication. I went so far as to warn Tania about him. But she kissed my cheek and told me not to be silly. Which I took to mean she knew who he was. And Leblanc seemed a decent sort. Far more decent than-" He bit back the words.

"Than Tania?" Malcolm asked with a smile.

St. Gilles met his gaze squarely. "You knew her."

"Just so. Though I wouldn't have said a decent man was the sort to appeal to her."

"No." St. Gilles frowned, as though turning over memories. "This was different, as I said before. Leblanc seemed a serious sort. Always a bit preoccupied. But quite charming. And obviously in love with Tania. Unlike Tania, he made no effort to hide it. I decided there wasn't anything significant to worry about and Tania could take care of herself." His fingers tightened round his gla.s.s. "More fool me. It was weeks before I learned who he really was."

"Who?" Malcolm asked.

"Laclos."

"Bertrand Laclos?" Wilhelmine said with a gasp of disbelief. "But he wouldn't have been in Paris yet."

"Not Bertrand. His elder brother."

"Tatiana was in love with etienne Laclos?" Malcolm said.

St. Gilles gave a faint smile. "The closest she came to admitting it was that joke that may not have been a joke. But Tatiana was etienne Laclos's lover, yes. Not that I knew him as etienne Laclos at the time."

"He was in France in secret, wasn't he?" Suzanne said. "Involved in a plot against Napoleon."

"So I later learned. I-" St. Gilles broke off at the opening of the door. A tall, dark-haired woman stepped into the room and paused on the threshold. She wore a gown of brown-spotted muslin and her hair was drawn back into a simple chignon. Her brows were strongly marked, her cheekbones high, her mouth full lipped, her eyes radiating shrewd intelligence. An attractive woman who employed no obvious arts to attract.

"I didn't realize you had guests," she said.

"I fear we arrived unexpectedly and have been quite monopolizing your husband, Madame St. Gilles," Wilhelmine said. "Or do you prefer 'Mademoiselle Dubretton'?"

"I answer to both." Juliette Dubretton stepped into the room. She looked to be in her midthirties, with deepest dark eyes, fine-boned features, and tawny skin that suggested Spanish origins.

Wilhelmine introduced Malcolm and Suzanne. "I'm an admirer of your writing," Suzanne said, shaking hands.

"You're very kind, Madame Rannoch. But I wonder if your husband would thank me."

"Actually, it was my husband who introduced me to your books."

Juliette Dubretton ran a frank gaze over Malcolm. "You're evidently an intriguing man, Monsieur Rannoch."

"Merely a man who recognizes good sense when he reads it."

Juliette's gaze moved from Malcolm and Suzanne to her husband. "Flattered as I am, I seem to have interrupted. Shall I leave?"

"No, no," St. Gilles said. "It's not as though we have secrets, and you may be able to help. They've come in search of information about Tatiana Kirsanova."

"Poor Tatiana." Juliette perched on the arm of her husband's chair. "She was very kind to Paul when I fear I was being rather tiresomely p.r.i.c.kly about how I couldn't compromise my principles with matrimony. Is this about her death?"

"More about her life," Malcolm said. "It seems she may have had a child."

Juliette's dark eyes widened. "Mon Dieu."

St. Gilles caught his wife up on the discussion. Juliette listened in frowning silence. "I only met Leblanc-Laclos-once or twice, but he seemed to me a man quite out of his depth. With Tatiana and with whatever had brought him to Paris. But I think Paul is right. Tatiana did seem to care for him." Her fingers twined round her husband's. "When one's in love oneself one notices such things."

St. Gilles shot her a smile and lifted her hand to his lips. "Not that you'd have gone so far as to admit you were in love at the time."

Her smile was a private sort of answer. "Well, perhaps not to you."

"Did Tatiana know about etienne Laclos's plot?" Malcolm asked.

"I'm not sure," St. Gilles said, returning the pressure of his wife's hand. "She and Leblanc-Laclos-kept their liaison secret. They met at my studio often, but naturally I took care to make myself scarce when they did. Then one night they hammered at the door at three in the morning. I slept in the studio in those days. Tania said Leblanc was in trouble and could I hide him. He left the next morning disguised as an old woman with bits of costume I keep for my pictures. By evening he'd been arrested and thrown in the Conciergerie. Though I didn't realize the etienne Laclos who'd been arrested for plotting against the emperor was Jean Leblanc until Tania came to see me again and spilled out the whole. Surprisingly effusive for Tania. I suppose her desperation could be taken as yet more proof that she loved him."

"She tried to save him?" Malcolm asked.

"After being so determined to keep their liaison a secret, she used every bit of influence she had. And then she tried to plan a rescue. She asked me to help." He gave a wry smile. "You can appreciate the irony. I got in a fair amount of trouble with the Bonaparte government, but if there was anything to push me back to being a committed Bonapartist it was a Royalist plot." He glanced round the company. "No offense meant."

"None taken," Malcolm said.

"I painted most of the Bonaparte family," St. Gilles said. "Bonaparte, Josephine, Hortense and her children, Eugene, Jerome, Pauline twice. There's nothing like trying to capture someone on canvas to make them seem like a real person. Which rather complicates the idea of violence against the state."

Juliette s.h.i.+vered. "I was never much of an admirer of Bonaparte, but murder is murder. At the time of the plot, Hortense had just lost her little boy and come to Paris with her younger son. They would have been at Malmaison. If the plan had succeeded it could well have killed not just Napoleon but Josephine and Hortense and her child-Once I had children of my own, I could understand Bonaparte's determination to exact vengeance." She hesitated, her gaze on Malcolm.

"I'm aware British gold funded the mission," Malcolm said. "Not our finest hour." He looked at St. Gilles. "But somehow I don't think you refused to help Tania when she asked you to a.s.sist etienne?"

"Oh no. I agreed, as Tania knew I would. What are principles when one has desperate friends before one?"

"What happened?" Suzanne asked.

"The jailer she'd bribed came down with a fever, Laclos was moved to a different cell. A tragedy of errors."

"She must have been angry. Tania hated to lose."

"So she did. But this was more than anger. I'd never seen her so devastated, before or since. She stayed with me for two days."

"I still remember the sound of her sobs," Juliette said. "I doubt she cried often."

"She didn't," Malcolm said.

St. Gilles took a long swallow of wine. "After the night etienne Laclos died, she never talked about him again."

"And then she left Paris?" Wilhelmine asked.

"A few months later."

Wilhelmine set down her winegla.s.s. "Long enough for her to have discovered she was with child."

"Possibly. But-Forgive me, but even knowing Tatiana, even if she loved Leblanc-Laclos . . ." St. Gilles hesitated, glanced from Wilhelmine to Suzanne to Malcolm. "I doubt he was the only man whose bed she was sharing."

"But perhaps the only man she cared for enough to forget to take precautions," Suzanne said.

St. Gilles gave her a look of surprise and slowly nodded. "Perhaps."

Juliette reached for her husband's winegla.s.s and took a sip. "It's true. Tatiana wasn't the sort of woman to run risks in the service of pa.s.sion."

"If the child was etienne Laclos's, do you know why Tatiana would have been at such pains to keep it secret?" Malcolm asked.

"Aside from the fact that its father had died a traitor?" St. Gilles said.

"The Bonaparte regime may be accused of overzeal, but I haven't heard of them avenging themselves on the children of traitors."

"No. That's true."

"Do you know of anyone else she might have confided in?"

"Not Tania," St. Gilles said. "She wasn't the confiding sort, as you must know yourself. As to Laclos, I'd tell you to ask his confederate in the plot. Save that he's no longer here to ask."

"His confederate?" Malcolm leaned forwards. "He was also executed?"

"No, he escaped detection. I only knew of his involvement thanks to Laclos himself. But he died three days ago. It was Antoine Rivere."

CHAPTER 20.

"I hate coincidences," Suzanne said. "They always make me feel as though I'm missing something."

"We're undoubtedly missing a d.a.m.ned sight too much." Malcolm took a sip of coffee. The two of them and Wilhelmine had repaired to a cafe when they left St. Gilles's studio to collect themselves and talk over what they'd learned.

"If etienne Laclos was the father of Tatiana's child, this could explain how Rivere knew of it," Wilhelmine said, stirring her cafe au lait. "etienne could have confided in Rivere about the affair. He might even have known Tatiana was pregnant." She looked at Malcolm. "She didn't-"

"Tell me any of this? No." Malcolm's mouth hardened.

Suzanne reached across the table to touch his hand. "You weren't here. And she couldn't very well have written to you about it. She'd have put Laclos at risk. Besides, I doubt she was the sort to write confiding letters. Any more than you are."

Malcolm thought of the handful of letters, most of them coded, that were all he had left of his sister. "True enough."

Suzanne squeezed his fingers. "But even granted that's how Rivere might have learned of the child, we still have the coincidence of Rivere also knowing about etienne Laclos's brother being framed for treason five years later."

Malcolm sat back in his chair, sifting the pieces in his head. It was like a chessboard that had been scattered midgame, so that the strategy of the players was indecipherable. "According to Rupert, Lord Dewhurst instigated the plot. etienne had been working as Dewhurst's secretary and Dewhurst provided the funding. And Dewhurst was also behind Bertrand's returning to France as a British agent."

"You aren't suggesting Lord Dewhurst was somehow trying to get rid of both the Laclos brothers, are you?" Wilhelmine asked.

She had stumbled startlingly close to the mark, at least in Bertrand's case. Malcolm couldn't think of why Dewhurst would have wanted to get rid of etienne. "No," he said. "But I do think I need to talk to Dewhurst."

"Malcolm-" Wilhelmine took a sip of cafe au lait and frowned into the cup. "Do you think Tatiana was involved in a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate Napoleon Bonaparte?"

Malcolm checked the instinctive denial that rose to his lips. True, Tatiana had been Talleyrand's creature. But not exclusively. She played all sides, and she was quite capable of making her own choices for personal ends. He drew a breath. "With Tania, I can never be sure of anything."

Juliette Dubretton listened to the sound of their guests' footsteps fading down the stairs. The sc.r.a.pe of the door opening and closing. These days in Paris caution was ingrained in one. She leaned against the wall between two canvases and surveyed her husband, who was still standing beside the door. "I like them. I wouldn't have thought I would."

Paul turned from the door to face her. "Wilhelmine of Sagan is unquestionably an aristocrat, but an interesting woman. The Rannochs are more surprising. It's rare to meet a man who can laugh at his world."

"And she doesn't come from that world at all."

"How do you know?"

"Observation. Madame Rannoch has eyes that have seen things no gently bred girl observes." Juliette watched her husband for a moment, a host of considerations s.h.i.+fting in the scales in her mind. "You must be thinking what I'm thinking."

Paul lifted his brows. "Romantic as the idea of two minds being in tune is, I haven't the least idea what you're talking about. Which perhaps isn't surprising given that I'm scarcely a romantic."

"You're the world's last romantic, mon cher, but don't try to change the subject." She drew a breath, because even to put it into words was one step down an irreversible course. "You have to be wondering if we should have told them."

She saw the jolt of tension that ran through her husband before he strolled across the room and picked up his winegla.s.s. "You're suggesting I've given way to madness as well as being a romantic?"

"It's not funny, Paul." She locked her hands together behind her back, gripping the hard gold of her wedding band. The bond she'd resisted, the bond that now anch.o.r.ed her life. "We can't keep the secret forever."

"For G.o.d's sake, Julie." Paul spun round to face her. "That's exactly what we have to do. What we agreed to do. There's too much at stake."

She studied his face, the father of her children, the man for whom she had abandoned her principles, the best man she had ever met. "This changes things."

He tossed down a swallow of wine. "Just because they like your books-"

"That d.a.m.n well has nothing to do with it." She crossed the room and caught his arm. "I don't like what the lies are doing to me. To you. I can see where this is leading us."

He looked down at her, his eyes unexpectedly dark with fear. Paul was not a man who frightened easily. "And if we told the truth? Where would that lead us?"

She swallowed, because she wasn't sure herself and the question made her throat go tight and her blood run colder than the Seine in winter. But she kept her gaze on her husband's face, because she wasn't one to s.h.i.+rk hard truths. "I don't know. But I think we have to take the risk."

"Not with this." He took an impatient step across the room. "Christ, Juliette-"

"Paul." She closed the distance between them and caught his face between her hands. "Every breath we breathe is a risk these days."

"All the more reason-"

"I didn't know," she said. "I didn't understand the implications and how it could affect others. It now seems very selfish-"