The Paris Affair Part 7

She should know that better than anyone. It wasn't like her to offer blind trust. She was slipping shockingly.

Malcolm pulled his watch from his pocket. "Nearly three. Still plenty of time until we have to get ready for the emba.s.sy ball tonight."

"I need to collect Blanca and Colin. We're meeting Cordelia and Livia in the Jardin des Tuileries. Unless-"

"No, don't disappoint Colin. We do enough of that as it is. I need to see Rupert Caruthers. And then what I need to do next is best done alone."

Suzanne looked at him in inquiry.

His gaze s.h.i.+fted over the street ahead. "I've asked Annina to meet me. If anyone will know if Tania really did have a child, it's her former maid."

"Malcolm." Rupert Caruthers got to his feet and crossed the sitting room at Allied army Headquarters with one of his easy smiles, hand extended. He looked much as he always had, tawny hair, fine-boned features, the easy self-a.s.surance of one who had never doubted his position in the world. "It's good to see you. Here we are in Paris with a lot of old friends, and it seems we spend so much time at state functions we never get to talk."

Malcolm shook his university friend's hand. "I understand you're working with your father."

Rupert grimaced. "Father has permission from Fouche to interrogate some of the Bonapartists who've been proscribed. Those we think might have information of value to England. I've been seconded to him. And to think I joined the army to get away from my father. It would be enough to make me long for battle if I didn't remember the h.e.l.l Waterloo was."

"You seem quite recovered from your wounds."

"Oh yes. Just a scratch really. I didn't suffer nearly as much at Waterloo as some did. d.a.m.nable to have lost so many friends."

For a moment, Malcolm felt the weight of Alexander Gordon in his arms and saw the life bleed from Colonel Canning's eyes. "Quite."

"Though Fitzroy's making remarkable progress learning to write with his left hand. You carried him from the field, didn't you?"

Malcolm nodded. "I was there when he was. .h.i.t." Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Wellington's military secretary, had lost his right arm at Waterloo. But at least he would recover, unlike many of their friends.

"And Davenport's getting about splendidly. I hear the two of you got quite friendly."

"We worked together in Brussels. And yes, he became a good friend."

"d.a.m.ned edge to his tongue, but a good man. And more agreeable lately, now he and Lady Cordelia have reconciled. Suzanne's well?"

"Being Suzanne, she came through Waterloo with her practicality only enhanced. Gabrielle?"

"Enjoying being in Paris," Caruthers said with an affectionate smile. If he had the least suspicion his wife had been another man's mistress, he was an excellent actor. "She hasn't seen it since her family fled when she was four years old. She has few memories, but so much is familiar from her aunt and uncle's stories. Odd if you think about it, both of us marrying Frenchwomen. How does Suzanne find being back in France?"

His wife, Malcolm realized, had made no comment on being back in France one way or another. Though from the look he caught in her eyes at unguarded moments, he suspected it stirred some uncomfortable memories. Even now there were things Suzanne didn't discuss with him. "Suzette left France when she was a baby. She has no family left to seek out. But I suppose it can't help but serve as a reminder of the life she lost."

"Quite." Rupert nodded, gaze darkened by memories of the past. Then he brightened. "Young Colin must be getting on for two now."

"He turned two on June fourteenth, as it happens. With Brussels on the brink of war. But I think he managed to enjoy his birthday. Children are blessedly resilient."

"So they are. And I should have remembered he's two. Stephen was four months old when you wrote to me about Colin's birth."

"How is Stephen?"

"Shooting up. Chattering away. It's nice to have one thing in one's life to view with wholehearted pride."

"Just so," Malcolm said. It was similar to his view of his own son, but he was surprised to hear such words from Rupert. Rupert had always seemed comfortable with his position in the world and confident of the rightness of his work as a soldier for king and country.

Rupert scanned Malcolm's face. "But I don't suppose you came here merely to talk about friends."

"No, unfortunately."

Rupert waved him to the leather-covered sofa by the window. "Wellington has you looking into something?"

"Yes. And it becomes more complicated. Tell me what you remember about Bertrand Laclos."

Rupert went still. His gaze darted over Malcolm's face. "What have you learned?"

"I'm not quite sure yet. I'd rather hear what you have to say first. Unbiased."

Rupert stared at the heavy gold signet ring on his left hand for a moment. "Bertrand was my friend for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is visiting the Lacloses in France before they emigrated. Before the Terror. My father helped them escape to England, and they stayed with us for some months." He grinned. "One of the happiest times of my life. I'm three years older than my eldest sister. Suddenly it was as though I had two brothers in Bertrand and etienne. And my father was distracted and less exacting than usually." He ran a hand over his hair. "Later Bertrand and I went off to Eton together. You know what value a friend can have when one's first packed off to boarding school."

Malcolm recalled the labyrinth that had been Harrow, how very tall and mocking and self-a.s.sured the older boys had seemed, his relief when he met David Mallinson, who was his best friend to this day. "Quite."

"The Lacloses used to come down to Dewhurst Hall frequently and sometimes just Bertrand would come home with me for holidays. The Lacloses didn't have their own country place, of course. They got out of France with almost nothing, like so many others. It was hard for them. You remember the way people used to talk about emigres. The sympathy at first, but then being kind hosts began to pall, and they were treated like guests who'd outstayed their welcome."

Malcolm nodded. He had vivid memories of some unpleasant remarks he'd overheard growing up. "As I recall you were friends with Bertrand's brother etienne as well?"

"Yes, though he was older and always seemed twice as self-confident. And Gaby. Gaby lived with the Lacloses, since they were the ones who got her out of France. Her parents both died in the Terror, and no one knew what had become of her brother for a long time."

"He was smuggled out of France later, wasn't he?" Malcolm said. "I remember it made quite a stir."

Rupert nodded. "He'd been saved when his and Gaby's parents were killed, and hidden away. If it was difficult for Bertrand and etienne, you can imagine what it was like for Gui, coming to England at fifteen after living on a farm in Provence. I've always thought that's why he went a bit wild."

Malcolm had images of Gabrielle Caruthers's brother drunk at an Oxford tavern, being sick into a potted palm at a London ball, hunched over the green baize of a card table. "So Gui didn't become as good a friend as Bertrand and etienne?"

"Gui thought Bertrand and etienne and me sadly staid. But Bertrand and etienne tried to keep an eye on him." Rupert's eyes darkened. "It was easier when etienne was still alive. Both Bertrand and Gui looked up to him."

"A sad business. I remember how distressed Wellington was when he spoke about what happened to etienne."

Rupert shot him a look. "If I know Wellington, 'distressed' isn't quite the word. I imagine he had some pithy comments about incompetence."

"You know Hookey."

Rupert's mouth twisted. "etienne became my father's secretary when he came down from Oxford. Father was behind orchestrating the failed plot against Bonaparte. I've often thought-" He shook his head. "Not the first time I've disagreed with my father's actions."

"Bertrand must have taken his brother's death hard. As I remember they were close."

Rupert nodded, brows drawn together. "etienne had all the burden of being head of the family. After he died Bertrand took it on."

"I remember how David changed when his father inherited the earldom and David realized he'd be Earl Carfax someday."

"I think that was when it started. My father offered Bertrand etienne's old position, but Bertrand wanted something more." Rupert pushed himself to his feet and crossed to a drinks trolley by the window. "We were just down from Oxford, trying to decide what to do with ourselves. I'd made up my mind to join the army. Father said it was no place for an eldest son, but I-"

"Was determined to do something different from your father?"

Rupert shot him a smile. "Quite." His gaze hardened. He turned back to the trolley and poured out two gla.s.ses of brandy. The heavy cut gla.s.s of the decanter sparkled in the light from the windows. "I a.s.sumed Bertrand would join me in the army. We'd talked about it. Not having yet served in the army, I thought it would be a grand adventure. A sort of continuation of cricket matches and playing knights at Dewhurst Hall. But then Bertrand said we had to talk." Rupert set down the decanter. The rattle of the crystal echoed across the room. "That was when he told me he was going to return to France as a British agent."

"You must have been surprised."

"To own the truth, at first I had a hard time taking it seriously. It sounded like something out of a novel." Rupert crossed back to the sofa and gave Malcolm one of the gla.s.ses of brandy. "Bertrand got quite sharp with me. He said this was serious, we were grown-up now, and he knew what he owed to his family and his country. He didn't say so in so many words, but I a.s.sumed it was because he felt he owed something to etienne's memory. When I said so, Bertrand said this was bigger than any one person. But he didn't deny etienne's death was part of it. He explained he'd already spoken with Lord Carfax-" Rupert shot a look at Malcolm.

"No, Carfax didn't say anything about it to me," Malcolm said. "But it sounds just like one of his plans." Lord Carfax, David's father, was the chief of British intelligence.

"Then Bertrand told me he wanted me to be his contact." Rupert took a sip of brandy. "I confess I was flattered. I hadn't thought of myself doing anything so daring. Or so serious." He twisted the gla.s.s in his hand. "In an odd way, I think that's the moment I grew up. Though I did protest that perhaps someone with more experience would be better. But Bertrand said he needed someone he trusted absolutely. And also that if we ever were caught communicating, people would only think our friends.h.i.+p had survived his return to France."

"That was when you moved into intelligence?"

Rupert nodded. "Bertrand and I met with Carfax. We established codes and systems of communication. Then he left." Rupert took a drink of brandy. "I got so caught up in the preparations, I somehow wasn't prepared for him to leave."

"And you had to play the part of the betrayed friend."

"Yes. It seems I'm better at playacting than I credited, for all I wasn't in theatricals as you were."

"Did you ever suspect-"

"No." The single word had the force of a blow. "Bertrand sent me coded information. Once he was sent to the Peninsula and I was established there as well we met occasionally. He'd give me information. I'd pa.s.s it along through the appropriate channels. It always seemed sound. Bertrand always seemed committed."

"When did you first realize?"

"After he was killed. Stewart told me." Rupert's fingers curled round his gla.s.s. "He didn't come right out and say we were behind Bertrand's death, but the implication was obvious."

"The Bonaparte government could restore his family's estates to him. It would have been a powerful motive."

"Not to Bertrand." Rupert shook his head. "He was a Royalist to the core. If you'd heard him talk about the loss of his family-"

"Perhaps he saw the Bonaparte government as different from the Revolutionaries."

Rupert shook his head again. "He had nothing but contempt for Bonaparte. I knew him, Malcolm. From boyhood. He couldn't have been pretending all that time."

Malcolm's mind shot back to Vienna. "Even one's friends can surprise one."

"This was less than a year after etienne died. To think that Bertrand turned round and went to work for the same people behind his brother's death-"

"Perhaps etienne's death convinced Bertrand of the futility of trying to bring down the Bonaparte regime. Perhaps he decided joining them was the only way to recover the family estates."

"You can't expect me to believe my friend was so lost to honor."

"Honor has a way of meaning different things to different people."

Rupert scowled into his brandy. "I was on leave in Lisbon when it happened. I keep thinking if I'd been there-"

"You doubted the information?" Malcolm asked.

Rupert's gaze shot to his face. "All my instincts as a friend told me it couldn't be true. But I had no evidence-Why are you asking me all this, Malcolm?"

Malcolm drew a breath and took a swallow of his own brandy. It burned his throat. Or perhaps that was the bite of regret. "Some new information's come to light-"

Rupert stared at him. A mixture of hope, rage, and grief shot across his face. "Bertrand was innocent."

Malcolm returned his friend's gaze without flinching. "We have reason to reconsider whether the information against him may have been faulty."

Rupert pushed himself to his feet. "I knew it. If only-" He rounded on Malcolm. "How the h.e.l.l could they have made such a mistake?"

"It was more than a mistake." Malcolm got to his feet. "Rupert, you may not know this, but I was the one who intercepted the incriminating information about Bertrand."

For a moment, Malcolm thought Rupert meant to strike him. "And you pa.s.sed it along to Stewart."

"I had no choice. It appeared to reveal a dangerous betrayal."

Rupert drew a shuddering breath. "It was your duty. I a.s.sume you had reason to believe it."

"Every reason. It looked incontrovertibly d.a.m.ning. I'd have questioned it myself otherwise."

Rupert's brows drew together. "So if you're now questioning it-"

"If Bertrand was innocent, someone went to great lengths to set him up."

Rupert swallowed, stalked back to the drinks trolley, and refilled his brandy gla.s.s. "Why?"

"That's what I'm endeavoring to discover. Who were Bertrand's enemies?"

Rupert tossed down a swallow of brandy. "No one that I knew of. He was a likable fellow."

"Who stood to lay claim to the t.i.tle?"

"Gui, I suppose. His cousin. But-Good G.o.d, Malcolm, he's my wife's brother."

"Which wouldn't preclude him from turning on your friend." Rupert dug his fingers into his hair. "This is mad-"

"When did Gui come to England?"

"In '02. He was fifteen. My father learned he might be alive and tracked him down in Provence. Father went to France quite frequently in those days and worked with the Royalists. He smuggled Gui out. The Lacloses took him in, as they had Gaby."

"Were he and Bertrand friendly?"

"They had the usual rivalry between all-but brothers, but yes, more or less. As I said, Gui was always a bit more . . . wild . . . than Bertrand."

"Gambling?"

"And women. The usual thing."

"What about Bertrand?"

"I told you, he and Gui-"