The Duke's Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  Malcolm closed the study door. "Which is?"

  "To learn who killed Miranda."

  "My condolences." Malcolm walked to one of the two green velvet chairs in front of the desk and gestured to Roger to take the other. "I understand you and Miranda Dormer were close."

  A dozen emotions shot through Roger Smythe's gaze, overlaid by loss that is still a stab wound one can't comprehend. For a moment, Malcolm was thrown back in time, to the days in Vienna when his sister Tatiana's murder still seemed scarcely real to him.

  "We grew up together." Roger's voice was a hoarse rasp. He moved to the chair and sank into it, almost like one sleepwalking, unaware of his actions. "I'd been fond of her."

  "You hoped to marry her."

  "Wanted to." Roger's fingers curled white round the carved chair arm. "For all my mooning after her, a part of me knew I never had any real hope of success. But yes I—loved her. I couldn't bear not knowing what had happened to her. God knows I searched."

  As even now they were searching for Gelly. Malcolm shut his mind for the moment to his fears for his younger sister. "Did you suspect—"

  "That my own brother had seduced and abandoned her—Good God, no. If I’d had the least suspicion, I'd have called John to account. And I abhor dueling."

  "So do I, but I understand the impulse in this case. When did you find Miss Dormer?"

  "Last autumn." Roger drew a breath, a man trying to marshal his thoughts. "I'd just been elected to Parliament. I spent time in London, meeting with Rupert and Brougham and a few others." He hesitated a moment, met Malcolm's gaze, his own more direct. "I was sorry you were out of the country. I'm glad you're back. In any case, Dorinda and our daughter stayed in the country and I was bunking at Brooks's. One night I was walking back from a coffeehouse where I got supper, and I was sure I saw Miranda. On the other side of the street, but her way of walking was always distinctive. She was with another young woman—shorter, dark-haired—and two young men. I almost called out, but I was afraid she'd run. So I followed and saw them go into a house in Jermyn Street. I asked someone who lived there and got a sharp laugh and a comment that I'd need to move in rarified circles if I aspired to the Barque of Frailty."

  "Had you heard of it?"

  "No, but the tone was enough to tell me what sort of establishment it was. I don't know why I was shocked. I knew Miranda's family had cut her off. But I suppose I hoped—" He shook his head. "I wanted to storm in then and there and pull her out, but I had enough sense to realize I might not get past the footmen and Miranda might not come with me. I went back to Brooks's and talked to Gilbert Featherstone. I got some ribbing about my wife being in the country, but he wasn't as surprised as I'd have thought he'd be. He admitted to having visited the Barque of Frailty. He also told me my father was a regular." This time both Roger's hands curled round the arms of his chair. "I can't tell you the thoughts that shot through my mind then. Worse perhaps than the truth, and God knows the truth makes our family look bad enough. I insisted Featherstone take me to the Barque of Frailty at once. I got some more ribbing, but he didn't seem to mind." Roger drew the breath of a man who's been punched in the stomach. "I'll never forget my first sight of Miranda in the drawing room. She was standing by the piano talking to two gentlemen. In many ways, not so different from the way I'd seen her in her parents' drawing room or at Beverston Court. She turned and met my gaze. I saw her shock and I saw her control it. I always knew Miranda was strong, but never how much, until that moment. She made some excuse to the men she was talking to and wandered over to me. She murmured, quite as though she were making casual conversation, that we'd better talk and it would be best if we did so upstairs. She took my arm and drew me out of the room. And upstairs to one of the bedchambers. That's how we talked, in one of the rooms where—" He looked away. "But whatever she went through at the Barque of Frailty, I don't think it could compare with what my brother put her through." He looked back at Malcolm. "John and I were never the friends brothers should be, but after that I can't call him brother anymore." Roger's hands curled into fists. "John was a brute. I hate to think what he may have put Diana through."

  "Something very similar to what Miss Dormer experienced."

  "Good God." Roger stared at Malcolm. "If John and I'd been on better terms, if I'd spent more time with them, perhaps I'd have noticed—"

  "A number of people close to her didn't notice. But I think she'll be all right now. She's a very strong woman."

  "So was Miranda." Roger glanced away, his face twisted. "I keep going over everything that happened, from the moment I saw her again. If I'd—"

  "You'd loved her," Malcolm said into the silence. "It's perhaps not surprising—"

  "That what?" Roger stared at him. "That I loved her still? I suppose I did, in a way."

  "And in the circumstances—"

  "In the circumstances what? Are you suggesting I made Miranda my mistress?"

  Malcolm met Roger's intent gaze. "Your wife is under the impression you did."

  "My—you've talked to Dorinda?"

  "No. My wife and Lady Cordelia did. You didn't know your wife had been to see Miranda not long before she died?"

  "Dorinda'd been to see Miranda?" Roger pushed himself to his feet and took a turn about the room. "How could she have thought—"

  "She found out you'd seen Miranda more than once. By your own admission, Miranda is a woman you'd loved and hoped to marry. Whom you loved still."

  "Yes, but—Oh, Christ." Roger spun away, drew a harsh breath. "Dorinda and I were friends from childhood. You may know that."

  "Yes, that's what your wife told my wife and Cordelia."

  "When we were children, I could talk to her as to almost no one else. So, of course, when I realized I loved Miranda I confided in her. She was always the one I confided in. It was only after Miranda disappeared that I began to think of Dorinda—"

  "I think that may be the problem, as far as your wife sees it."

  "Yes, but—It's not like that." Roger stared at Malcolm, as though pleading for understanding of a situation Malcolm was only barely beginning to grasp on the edges. "Dorinda and I may have grown closer because Miranda was gone, but that's not why I offered for her. I made a fool of myself over Miranda in more ways than one. Not the least of which was not realizing the woman I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with had been right there all along." He raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know why the devil I'm asking you to understand all this. Except that on top of everything else, not recognizing my feelings for my wife seems like sacrilege."

  "Do you think your wife recognizes them?"

  "I thought—" Roger's mouth worked. "I thought she did when we married. It was not long after Miranda disappeared. Hardly the time for moonlight and roses. Since then, I've wondered—Dorinda had a difficult life. One can't blame her for wanting an escape."

  "For what it's worth," Malcolm said, "as I understand it, she was quite jealous of her cousin's supposed relationship with you."

  Roger scanned his face. "You don't believe me."

  "To own the truth, I'm not sure. But your denials have the ring of truth. And your wife told Mélanie and Cordelia that Miranda denied being your lover. But she refused to explain her relationship with you."

  Roger drew a hard breath. Malcolm recognized the struggle in his face. The conflict of one sifting through how much to reveal. "When Miranda and I spoke in that room where everyone was convinced we were doing other things—I wanted her to leave with me at once, to come and live with Dorinda and me and our daughter, with her child. She said she didn't want to be a scandalous relation in our house. And she told me she couldn't, that my father would stop her. She couldn't just leave the work she was doing for him. That was when I realized what she was embroiled in." His gaze locked on Malcolm's own. "My father is part of an organization."

  Malcolm pushed himself to his feet to face Roger. "Which my supposed father started along with him and some others."

  "Quite
." Roger released his breath. Relief, perhaps, at having made the right choice. "I wasn't sure you knew."

  "I found out a year ago." Malcolm studied the other man. "Did Miranda tell you?"

  "Miranda? Oh, no. I told her. That is, she was already working for my father, but she didn't really understand what she was working for, if you take my meaning. I learned not long before I found Miranda. Just after we learned of John's death." He hesitated again. "Kit Montagu sent me a message."

  Kit Montagu, who would also have been Roger's neighbor in Surrey. Who must have known him since childhood. Whose sister had married John Smythe and who himself had almost married Elinor Dormer, Miranda's sister and Dorinda's cousin. Who shared Roger's politics. Who was part of an organization of young Radicals. "You're one of the Levellers," Malcolm said.

  Caution shot through Roger's gaze. "I never said—"

  "You didn't need to. I got to know Kit quite well in Italy. He put me in my place with his concern about my having worked for Carfax, but in the end I think he recognized we share much of the same ideals."

  "Kit has a great deal of admiration for you."

  "Even though I sit in the Parliament that enacted laws he's fighting against?"

  "You didn't vote for those laws. Kit was a bit unsure about my decision to stand for Parliament, I think. But I think there are many ways to change our country."

  "So do I." Malcolm studied Roger. "Kit saw the list of Elsinore League members. He sent word to you your father was on it?"

  "He wanted to warn me. That my father might be an even more dangerous opponent than we had thought just based on politics. It was a message in code. He couldn't say much. But I did some more investigating. It was all shadowy, but I learned enough to be deeply concerned. I wasn't sure what to do. Whom I could trust." Roger hesitated. "I've never been on the most comfortable terms with either my father or my brother."

  "I know the feeling." Though he and Edgar had been close, once. Before their mother died. Before their lives took them in different directions.

  "I've always taken the law seriously," Roger said. "It's why I see a road to reform through Parliament. I take my work in Parliament and the cause of reform seriously. As I know you do."

  Malcolm inclined his head.

  "I knew my father and I differed politically. I knew my brother and I did. But this was something I couldn't oppose across the House." He hesitated a moment. "I was sure John's death wasn't the accident Father told us it was."

  Malcolm met Roger Smythe's gaze. Secrets were dangerous to share. But Roger was already in the midst of the Elsinore League tangle. He deserved to know how his brother had died. "It was an accident. But we were confronting John over his work for the Elsinore League. And for Lord Carfax."

  "John was betraying the League? To Carfax? While Miranda was reporting to Father—" Roger shook his head. "It's almost beyond belief. Did he—"

  "John was trying to escape. He fell and hit his head." Malcolm didn't add that John had been using his wife as a hostage and that she had pushed him. Diana Smythe had been through more than enough. "I know that may not sound believable—"

  "It has the ring of truth. If you were making up a story, I expect it would be more coherent."

  "I'd like to think so."

  "I was still adjusting to the news of John's death when I learned about Miranda." Roger hesitated a moment, fingers taut on the marble of a pier table. "God help me, that was when I realized she could help me learn more about the League. I told her what I knew. I said it would be risky to take them on. She wanted to help. I thought it would give me time to persuade her to leave the Barque of Frailty. I knew it was dangerous if Father learned what she was doing. But it would be dangerous if she left as well. I hoped we'd uncover something that would give her the leverage to break away from my father."

  "Did you?"

  This time Roger didn't hesitate, though Malcolm thought he might. "Father was opposing a fishing rights bill. And there was talk about something else. Something called the Wanderer."

  Chapter 27

  "Difficult to know where to start." Cordelia pulled on her gloves, smoothing the French gray kid over each knuckle. "Of course, Miranda Spencer—Dormer's—murder will be on everyone's mind, but one can scarcely ask a woman if she thinks her husband—or son or brother—was a patron of the Barque of Frailty. And it's also difficult to ask about Gisèle without giving rise to all sorts of talk."

  Laura tightened the ribbons on her plum velvet bonnet. "At this point, I'd say protecting Gisèle from scandal takes second place to finding her. This family have a number of resources when it comes to combating scandal. And I use family in the more expansive sense."

  "Thank you." Cordelia smiled as she smoothed her second glove, then turned to the mirror to adjust her blue and gray satin hat.

  "It must have been unbearable for Miranda Dormer," Laura said, picking up her own gloves and reticule. "At any moment she could see someone she knew on the street. Or in the drawing room of the Barque of Frailty. I felt much that way myself when we first returned to Britain from France."

  Cordelia turned from the glass to look at her. "I wish I'd known."

  Laura met her gaze with a dry smile. "Considering I was spying on your friends, you scarcely have anything to apologize for. But—

  She broke off as the door opened. Gilbert, Lady Frances's senior footman, stepped into the room. "Forgive me." He managed to address the remark to the two of them impartially. "But Lady Caroline Lewes has called. She's asking for Lady Cordelia, not Lady Frances."

  The fiancée of Hugh Derenvil who had been Miranda Dormer's lover. Cordelia exchanged a quick look with Laura. "Do show her in, Gilbert."

  Scarcely before Cordelia had pulled the pins from her hat and Laura had untied the ribbons on her bonnet, Gilbert announced Lady Caroline. She hesitated on the threshold. She wore a dark blue velvet pelisse over a gown of paler blue merino, just darker than her eyes. Her hat was blue velvet as well, lined in a silk that matched the gown. Her hair, a paler blonde than Cordelia's, escaped in ringlets from beneath the brim of the hat. Her brows were carefully groomed, her face set with composure.

  "Caroline." Cordelia went forwards to take the younger woman's hands. "I don't believe you've met Lady Tarrington?"

  Lady Caroline inclined her head with the correctness of a conventional drawing room. "I'm sorry to bother you both. It looks as though you were about to go out."

  "Don't be silly." Cordelia tossed her hat onto an ormolu pier table where she had already deposited her gloves. "Nothing that can't wait."

  Lady Caroline hesitated, as though the dictates of good manners warred with whatever had driven her to call. "I have something I need—your advice about."

  "I'll go check on the children," Laura said.

  "No, please, Lady Tarrington." Caroline put out a hand. "I know you're involved in the Rannochs' and Davenports' investigations. I'd prefer you heard this as well."

  Laura cast a quick, surprised glance at Cordelia, but moved to a chair. "Of course, if you wish."

  Lady Caroline sat on the sofa beside Cordelia, settling the folds of her pelisse and gown with care. "My father is close to Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool." She folded her kid-gloved hands with

  precision round her embroidered velvet reticule. "I heard that Colonel Davenport and Mr. Rannoch are looking into the murder for which Lord Carfax has been arrested. The girl who was killed at the Barque of Frailty, a place about which they have all deceived themselves that I am in ignorance."

  "Mr. and Mrs. Rannoch have looked into more than one murder in the past," Cordelia said. "My husband has assisted them, as have I. Given Mr. Rannoch's close relationship to the Mallinson family, he has naturally taken an interest."

  "And you wonder why I'm asking questions. Though you're much too polite to say so, you probably think it's some sort of fascination with the lurid." Lady Caroline tugged off one of her gloves.

  "I'm not in the least polite," Cordelia said. "And I ca
n certainly understand a crime being interesting. But I don't think you've called just because of that."

  Lady Caroline gripped the fingertips of her second glove. "I was betrothed just before the holidays. You may not have heard."

  "On the contrary. I confess I don't pay as much attention as I once did to the latest news from the beau monde but of course your name jumped out at me." Cordelia hesitated for just a fraction of a second. "My felicitations."

  "Thank you." Lady Caroline smoothed the gloves in her lap and stared down at the stitching on the pale blue kid. "That's actually why I'm here." She drew a breath. The gaze she lifted to Cordelia held the anguish of uncertainty. Laura realized that for all her composure and impeccable grooming, she was very young. Probably more than a decade younger than Laura herself and at least five years younger than Cordy. "My betrothed, Mr. Derenvil. He knew her. The murdered girl. Miranda Spencer."

  Laura could feel the shock that ran through Cordelia. It could scarcely be stronger than her own astonishment. Not at Mr. Derenvil's relationship to the dead girl, of which they already knew, but at his fiancée knowing of the relationship and speaking of it.

  "I'm so sorry," Cordelia said. Words suited to cover a variety of eventualities.

  "He doesn't know I knew," Lady Caroline said quickly. "Like my father, I imagine he's convinced himself I know nothing of establishments like the Barque of Frailty. But it was quite clear to me shortly after we came back to town after the New Year that he was keeping something from me." She dragged her gloves through her fingers. "One of the things that drew me to Hugh—Mr. Derenvil—from the start was that he was so easy to talk to. But after we became betrothed that seemed to change. He seemed unsure of what to say to me, and I didn't have the least idea of how to draw him out. It's an odd thing, contemplating being married."

  "A huge change in one's life," Cordelia said.

  "Yes, quite." Lady Caroline pressed a wrinkle from one of the gloves. "It doesn't surprise me that there had been—women in his life before his betrothal. In truth, it doesn't surprise me that there still are." She looked up and met Cordelia's and then Laura's gaze, coloring slightly. "After all, we aren't intimate yet. I understand that gentlemen have needs."