The Paris Affair Part 8

"What about Bertrand and women? Was there anyone in particular?"

Rupert frowned. "Honestly, Malcolm, a gentleman doesn't discuss-"

"I'm trying to determine who may have had a motive to want to get rid of your friend."

Rupert dug his fingers into his hair again. "He always had a cl.u.s.ter of girls round him. For a time I thought he might make an offer for Emily Carrington, but then he went off to France, and it came to nothing. We were young. I didn't marry Gaby until years later."

"And in Spain? Was there anyone he talked about?"

"We weren't meeting to gossip."

"You were friends. You must have talked."

Rupert paced across the room. "There was a girl named Inez, I think. The daughter of a local family."

"So it's possible they disapproved."

"Perhaps. But you can't think-"

"If Laclos was innocent, someone framed him."

Rupert met Malcolm's gaze, his own gone uncharacteristically hard. "Someone on our side would have been more likely to have the resources, wouldn't they?"

Malcolm returned his friend's gaze. "So they would. Did Bertrand have enemies among our own people?"

Rupert frowned, as though seeing into the past. "Bertrand was well liked. But he was French. That made him an outsider. Which was enough for other fellows not to get so drunk with him they'd confide their most intimate secrets. To think twice before they introduced him to their sisters. But to set him up for a traitor-" He shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Does it make any more sense that Bertrand actually was a traitor?"

Rupert's gaze hardened. "No. It doesn't. Find who did this, Malcolm."

CHAPTER 6.

Suzanne fixed her gaze on Colin, her two-year-old son, leaning over the edge of the fountain in the Jardin des Tuileries to throw a piece of bread to the swans. Her companion, Blanca, kneeling beside him, had a light hand on his shoulder. Blanca's other arm was wrapped round four-year-old Livia Davenport, who was stretching her arms out over the water, on tiptoes on her black-kid-slippered feet.

"You'd never guess they were in a house full of wounded soldiers two months ago," Cordelia Davenport said. "Children are wonderfully resilient."

For a moment Suzanne saw the black-and-white marble tiles of their house in the Rue Ducale in Brussels, covered with wounded men on pallets, Cordelia bending over her injured husband, Malcolm dripping blood onto the floor. "I find it hard to remember myself. And yet in many ways the conflict isn't over."

The gravel crunched as a pair of British soldiers strolled by. They tipped their hats to the ladies. Suzanne returned the nod, though she flinched inwardly as she always did when she saw the foreign occupying troops on French soil.

Cordelia's gaze lingered on Suzanne. For a disconcerting moment Suzanne was afraid her friend had seen through her. But instead, Cordelia said, "You and Malcolm had something to do with the Rivere business last night, didn't you?"

Suzanne smiled. "Our friends know us too well."

"I merely have to look for the most dangerous events to know where to find you. Another investigation?"

"Just a few questions for now. Did you know a Bertrand Laclos in England?"

"Of course. All the girls were mad for him. He had dark hair and broody eyes and that wonderful accent and all the romance of an emigre. He was bookish and not inclined to flirtation, but that only added to the romance. And he had an unexpected sense of humor." Cordelia's brows drew together beneath the satin straw of her hat. "It was quite a shock when he ran off to France to fight for Bonaparte. Especially then. The world seems more complex now."

Suzanne's gaze fixed on Colin, now tossing bread to the swans while Blanca gripped his waist. Her English son. Last summer in England, he'd wanted one of the white Royalist c.o.c.kades that the vendors in Hyde Park were selling.

"Is Bertrand Laclos mixed up in this?" Cordelia asked.

"Possibly. We're not sure how. I've been trying to find people who knew him more recently. Apparently he was friendly with Edmond Talleyrand after he came to France, but Doro claims to scarcely remember him. And she's not precisely in a position to talk to Edmond about it."

"How odd," Cordelia said. "Bertrand Laclos and Edmond were the last sort of men I'd have thought would become friends. And Edmond never mentioned Bertrand to me."

Suzanne cast a sharp glance at her friend.

Cordelia gave a wry smile. "Edmond Talleyrand and I were-Rather close for a time. In Paris a year ago. After Bonaparte was exiled the first time." Cordelia's gaze focused on her daughter as Livia set a toy boat to sail on the smooth water of the fountain. "Edmond was-Amusing in a certain crude way." She turned her gaze to Suzanne. As usual Cordy didn't flinch from an uncomfortable truth. "I'm sorry. I know how close you are to Dorothee."

"Doro would be the first to say her marriage was over long before you met Edmond. Or that it never really began. I'm only surprised-"

"That I sank so low?" Cordelia's mouth curved, this time with more bitterness. "I wasn't very happy with myself a year ago. You could say I was wallowing. Not pretty."

"Understandable," Suzanne said, images from her own past cl.u.s.tering in her mind.

Two little girls in white frocks ran by rolling hoops along the gravel. Cordelia watched them vanish down a tree-lined walkway, their nurse trailing behind. A stir of wind brought the scent of the orange trees planted in wooden crates about the garden. A scent almost too intense in its sweetness. "There are hours at a time when I forget the past," Cordelia said. "Even whole days occasionally. But it never really goes away. It's folly to think it can."

Livia's boat had got stuck against the stone edge of the fountain. Blanca, Colin at her hip, Livia by the hand, was walking round the fountain to retrieve it. Livia looked over her shoulder to wave at her mother. Cordelia waved back.

"One has to learn to live with it," Suzanne said.

"Johnny came to see me yesterday," Cordelia said, watching her daughter. John Ashton had been married to Cordelia's sister Julia, who had been killed just before Waterloo. "He paced about the salon and kept adding milk to his tea. At last he blurted out that he wants to ask Violet to marry him, though they can't announce anything formally yet. He wanted to know if I thought it would be an insult to Julia's memory."

The investigation into Julia Ashton's death had revealed a great deal about Julia and her relations.h.i.+p with her husband. Suzanne studied Cordelia. "What did you say?"

"That if we'd learned nothing else in Brussels it was that it's folly not to seize happiness when we can."

Blanca had retrieved the boat. Livia held it aloft, then with great concentration set it in the water. Colin clamored to be put down. Livia held out the boat, and they set it to sail across the basin of the fountain together.

"No sense in hiding," Cordelia said in a bright voice. "Edmond and I didn't part on bad terms. Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Cordy-," Suzanne said, her mouth dry.

"I might as well put my past to use." Cordelia gave a wry smile. "The truth is I'd like to be of use." She watched Livia and Colin run round the fountain to catch the boat as it bobbed against the opposite side. "I know how Harry feels stuck behind a desk. Those days in Brussels when we were nursing the wounded-I've never been through anything so horrible. And yet there was a wonderful sort of-'exhilaration' I suppose is the best word-in doing something of such substance. It seems sadly trivial to be back to paying calls and sipping champagne and changing our dresses five times a day."

"I feel much the same," Suzanne said, recalling how empty she'd felt when she told Raoul she was stopping the work that had sustained her for more than five years. "It's odd after life-and-death stakes that suddenly a seating arrangement is a matter of great moment."

"You? You've never just paid calls and ordered champagne."

No, but now instead of being a spy on her own she was a spy's wife. A distinction she could not explain to Cordelia. "Cordy-" She looked at Cordelia-the experience in the curve of her mouth, the worldly wisdom in the blue eyes beneath her blackened lashes-and was swept by an unexpected wave of protection for her strong-minded friend. "The work Malcolm does. The work Malcolm and I do. Probing people's pasts, uncovering secrets. It's often not very pretty." How odd. In the old days she'd have made use of an a.s.set with no qualms and quibbles about anyone's feelings.

"I know." Cordelia returned her gaze, her eyes steady with understanding. "I saw enough of that in the investigation into my sister's death. But I'm not the sort to need to be wrapped in cotton wool."

"And Harry?"

Cordelia gave her a bright smile that at once defied the past and acknowledged its risks. "Harry and I can live with the past. Or we're going to have to learn to do so."

Annina Barbera looked up from her cafe au lait. "Monsieur Rannoch."

"Annina." Malcolm dropped into a chair across from her. "Don't you think you might begin to call me Malcolm?"

Her mouth curled. "Only a man born to your fortune and position can pretend social distinctions don't matter."

"Well, I could begin to call you Mademoiselle Barbera, but I think I'd have a difficult time remembering. I've got in the habit of calling you Annina. Humor me."

"You can't make inequality go away with a word."

"No, but I can level the ground between us."

"Very well, Malcolm. At least in private." Annina smiled. Beneath a stylish chip straw bonnet her delicate face was brighter than it had been in Vienna last autumn.

"You look well," Malcolm said.

Annina smiled. "The d.u.c.h.ess of Sagan is a kind mistress. I've been fortunate. I have you to thank."

"You have your own quick wits and hard work to thank." Malcolm signaled to a waiter to bring him coffee. "I'm glad things are working out."

Annina's gaze flickered over his face. She might look less haggard than she had just after Tatiana Kirsanova's death, but her eyes were as sharp as ever. "What's happened?"

"Do you think I'd only come to see you if something had happened?"

"No. But in my years with Princess Tatiana, I learned to read your face rather well."

"Annina-" Malcolm broke off as the waiter set a cup of coffee in front of him. He curled his fingers round the warm porcelain and considered and abandoned a dozen approaches. "Did Tatiana have a child?"

Annina stared at him, blue eyes dark as agate in a face drained of color. "Dear G.o.d. What do you know?"

Fear, horror, and a strange sort of hope settled within him. "Nothing conclusive."

Annina cast a quick glance round the cafe. Three Prussian soldiers had just come through the door. The crowd of Parisians eyed them askance. No one was paying attention to the corner where Malcolm and Annina were seated. Annina leaned forwards, voice lowered. "What do you know that's not conclusive?"

"Just a suggestion that Tania may have had a child."

Annina drew a long breath. "From the time she engaged my services, I was never away from her for more than a fortnight. I helped her in and out of gowns, I laced her corsets. I'd have known if she was with child. She never was."

"But?" Malcolm asked, gaze trained on Annina's face. Behind him, he heard the Prussians asking for beer in loud, badly accented French.

Annina took a careful sip of cafe au lait. "I once found her packing a parcel. She was kneeling beside the box, with the oddest look on her face. As though her thoughts were miles away. She was holding a bit of fluff and blue ribbon in her hand. At first I thought it was a pincus.h.i.+on. Then I realized it was a stuffed dog. I walked closer-she didn't seem to realize I was in the room-and saw that the box was filled with toys. Stuffed animals, carved wooden horses, blocks, picture books. I must have gasped because the princess looked up suddenly. She slammed the lid on the box and sprang to her feet. Her eyes-" Annina shook her head. "She was in a temper, but it was more than that. She was frightened."

"What did she say?"

"That I must never mention what I'd seen. She actually made me swear, which would have been comical, given that neither of us held much sacred to swear by, save that she was so serious. I asked if she wanted me to help, but she said no, she'd take care of it."

"Did she ever mention it again?"

Annina nodded, fingers curled round her cup, brows drawn together. "That night when I was helping her dress for dinner. She laughed-a bit too brittle a laugh, if you see what I mean. And she said she was sorry she'd overreacted earlier, that it was just that she'd been packing the parcel for a friend, but that it would be awkward for the friend if there was talk about her sending gifts to a child. Then she laughed again, a laugh like broken crystal, and said, 'Children's nonsense, what a nuisance.' Later that night-"

"What?" Malcolm asked.

"When I went in to help her undress. Her eye blacking was smeared and her eyes were a shade too bright. I'd swear she'd been crying. And you know the princess. She almost never cried."

"I think the only time I saw her do so was when I told her our mother had died." For a moment Malcolm could see Tatiana, turned away from him to hide her grief, hands fisted against her face. He picked up his coffee and choked down a sip. It burned his throat. "When was this?"

"Four years ago. No, it must be five now. The spring of 1810. April, I think."

"Did she ever again-?"

Annina shook her head. "Perhaps I should have told you, after she died. But she made me promise. And I had no proof of anything."

Tatiana had been determined to keep the secret of her child's birth. Just as their mother had been determined to keep the secret of Tatiana's birth. A great deal of harm could come from secrets, as he had learned last autumn. Yet he could understand the need to keep them. Sometimes truth in the open air was worse.

He reached across the table and squeezed Annina's hand. "It's difficult, deciding where one's loyalties lie. One can tug against another. And with Tania loyalty was a particularly complicated thing."

Annina's face relaxed into a smile. "Thank you. For understanding."

"Thank you for protecting her."

Annina's gaze flickered over his face. "But you're going to find the child?"

"I have to."

"You never know where the princess's secrets may lead."

"Which makes it all the more imperative for me to find the child."

Annina's fingers tightened round his own. "Be careful, Malcolm. Madame wouldn't have been frightened without good cause."

Cordelia Davenport turned in the midst of fastening a bracelet as her husband appeared in the dressing room doorway. "You look remarkably cheerful."

Harry dug his shoulder into the doorjamb, his face relaxed into a grin that was uncharacteristically open. "I spent the afternoon with Malcolm Rannoch."

"You've been investigating."

"Helping out round the edges." Harry hesitated. An intelligence officer didn't share information idly, even with his wife. Malcolm, she knew, didn't tell everything to Suzanne, and Harry had far less reason to trust her.

"It's all right," Cordelia said. "I already know a bit. I spent the afternoon with Suzanne. She was asking me about Bertrand Laclos."

"Of course. You knew him in England."