by Tracy Grant
"It's possible, if Arabella knew the meaning of the papers she had. It's also possible Talleyrand put the idea of retrieving the papers into her head. After the first discussion, Talleyrand and I didn't discuss the Wanderer again. Until recently at Dunmykel."
"Of course," Malcolm said. "What did Talleyrand say?"
"We were both trying damnably hard not to let on how shaken we were. I promised to try to learn more. Though once Gisèle disappeared, I told him that had to come first. He said he'd had no notion Arabella knew about the Wanderer. But it wouldn't be the first time Talleyrand had lied to me."
"Damnably coincidental Talleyrand happens to be in Britain—in our house—just when all of this begins to unravel," Malcolm said. "And you know how I feel about coincidence."
"You think Talleyrand told Carfax and the League about the Wanderer?" Mélanie asked.
"It's hard to imagine that, even given Talleyrand's extreme flexibility in the alliances he'll make," Malcolm said. "But if he knew or suspected that the others were looking for the Wanderer, it could have helped bring him to Britain."
"Most definitely," Raoul said. "But I will say he looked genuinely shaken the night Aline decoded the first of the papers."
Malcolm looked at his father. "However Talleyrand felt about the dauphin ten years ago, now he could see his restoration as a way to get himself back into power."
"And his shock was fear that we were about to uncover his plan? It's possible." Raoul's brows drew together. "But it doesn't explain why Carfax and the League are searching for the Wanderer now."
"The League and Carfax and seemingly someone else," Mélanie said. "Whoever hired Thomas Ambrose and was behind the attack on Tommy before he came to Dunmykel and hired the third set of people going after the papers today."
"Unless the third player is Talleyrand," Malcolm said.
"He had Tommy attacked?" Mélanie asked.
"I wouldn't put it past Talleyrand," Malcolm said. "He has a long reach. I'm sure he still has contact with agents in Britain. The biggest argument I can see against it is that if Talleyrand is searching for the dauphin, I'd be shocked he let Carfax and the League learn of it."
"So would I," Raoul said. "But something brought it up now."
Malcolm met his father's gaze. "If the secret was still buried, I'd agree it would be best to leave it that way. But given the number of people searching for the dauphin, we need to find him. For his own sake."
"And then?" Laura asked.
"I don't believe in hereditary monarchy," Malcolm said. "God knows we've all felt the need of employment, but helping a king regain his throne isn't what I had in mind. Any more than I am going to turn Jacobite."
"Parliament put the Hanoverians on the throne," Laura said. "One could argue with the choice, but it was a choice. Whereas the dauphin lost his throne because he was spirited away."
"That assumes one even recognizes the restoration as legitimate," Mélanie said. "And not something imposed on France from the outside." She glanced at Malcolm. "Sorry."
"No apology necessary. I'm more concerned with who might try to make use of the dauphin if we do find him. What we might be unleashing. But at this point, if we stay quiet and someone else finds him and tries to use him or eliminate him, that will be on our heads."
Raoul nodded. "It's damnable. And, as so often, there are no easy answers."
"I never heard a breath about it from the League," Laura said. "But apparently Wynclife knew twenty years ago. Could this be why they want you dead? Because you know about the dauphin and they're afraid you'll stop them?"
"That seems to be putting rather a lot of faith in my ability to stop them," Raoul said. "But it's true that if they have some long-range plan involving the dauphin, they might see me as a threat. Or at least as someone who could guess the game they were playing at."
"The League in control of a country." Mélanie shivered. "That goes beyond even what we've feared."
"It's true their interests have circled round France from the beginning," Raoul said. "They were smuggling art treasures across the Channel when Alistair and Glenister founded the League."
"And Alistair and Dewhurst tried to use the queen's diamonds to ruin Cardinal de Rohan and inadvertently helped bring on the Revolution," Malcolm said.
"How much do you think Gisèle knows?" Laura asked.
Malcolm frowned. "Gelly obviously gleaned the location of the box we found tonight from more fragments hidden in Mama's jewels—probably the necklace she got from Judith. She knew it was important from our conversation before she left Dunmykel. So she might have sent me word just because of that."
"Assuming she's gone undercover with the League by running with Tommy," Mélanie said, "something made her decide the stakes were high enough to leave her family and run the risk. Which I'm not sure she would have done just based on what we all knew before she left."
Malcolm met her gaze for a moment. "I think she was looking for occupation."
Mélanie returned his look. "Even so, darling. I'm quite sure she wouldn't have run lightly."
"Could Mr. Belmont have told her?" Laura asked. "At least, some of it? In an attempt to win her over?"
"Telling her about the dauphin would be a huge risk," Raoul said. "But he has to have told her something. I think it's more likely to have been to do with her father. But if he implied the Wanderer was crucial, and connects to her father, that might have made her more determined. And then, it's possible Tommy let something slip on their journey or in London. Or Gisèle uncovered something spying on him. She's obviously far more adept than any of us suspected."
"Far more," Malcolm said.
"Beverston must know," Laura said. "He sent Mr. Belmont to Scotland. And Miranda Dormer was reporting to him as well as reporting on his activities to Roger Smythe."
"And caught the eye of Carfax, who almost certainly knew about the dauphin," Malcolm said. "It seems more and more as though Gelly's disappearance and Miranda Dormer's murder are connected."
"This could explain why Carfax isn't talking," Mélanie said. "If he thought any explanation he might give could lead to it coming out that the dauphin was alive and possibly hidden in Britain—"
"Yes, Carfax might risk his life for that," Malcolm said. "At least long enough to buy himself time."
"Do you think St. Juste would help any of these groups?" Laura asked.
Mélanie exchanged a look with Raoul. "Always difficult to predict what Julien might do," Raoul said. "While Josephine was alive, he'd have tried to protect her. Now that she's gone, that may not hold him."
"He wouldn't like to be played by anyone," Mélanie said. "Though he might enjoy playing them off against each other."
"He hired Nan and Bet Simcox's brother Robby for something," Malcolm said. "And obviously not searching for his own clues. But he seems to have been anticipating violence. Or breaking and entering." He looked at Raoul. "We've wondered if Arabella could have worked with St. Juste. Could they have been lovers?"
Raoul went still for an infinitesimal fraction of a second before saying in a level, conversational tone, "I don't see why not. In fact, realistically, if they knew each other, I'd say it's likely. They'd each have challenged the other."
"So he could be Gelly's father," Malcolm said in a level voice that was the twin of Raoul's own.
Chapter 33
Raoul drew in and released his breath. "Hypothetically. If Bella actually knew him. If they were lovers."
"She hid the papers when Gelly was a baby."
"So she did."
"It could explain why the League want Gelly."
"To try to negotiate with St. Juste, saying they have his daughter?"
"Would that matter to him?" Malcolm asked.
Raoul exchanged a look with Mélanie. "Difficult to predict anything when it comes to Julien," Mélanie said. "But he does have a certain sense of loyalty. To Josephine. To Hortense."
"To you," Raoul said.
"Yes," Malcolm said, "we all
saw that, Mel, don't deny it."
"I'm not denying it, though I think you're both exaggerating. But if Julien knew he had a daughter, I think it would mean something to him."
"You think he's trying to rescue her?" Laura asked. "That's why he wants Simcox?"
"Interesting," Raoul said. "I'd have thought Julien would just demand they return Gisèle, though. Or try to get a message to her."
"What if she's known Julien was her father for a while?" Mélanie said. "What if she and Julien are in touch? What if—"
Malcolm met her gaze as he sometimes did when their minds clicked together. "St. Juste suggested she go undercover with the League?"
"It would be like Julien," Mélanie said. "Learning he had a daughter and promptly making use of her."
"It would," Raoul said. "If we're right about any of it. And there are a lot of 'ifs.'"
Malcolm pushed himself to his feet and strode to the fireplace. "We'll have to decide how much to tell the others. Before Harry and I leave for Rivendell in the morning." He picked up the poker and pushed a log back into the fire, then turned his gaze to Raoul.
Raoul's gaze locked on Malcolm's own. It was one of the rare times Mélanie had seen genuine uncertainty in her former spymaster's gaze. "For almost a decade, I've lived with the fear of this getting out."
"Contain the information," Malcolm said in a carefully neutral voice. "It's the practical response to anything this dangerous."
"And I fell back on the training of a lifetime," Raoul said. "That's true. It's also true I didn't want any of you burdened with the choices. Or the implications."
The gaze he turned to Malcolm was somehow at once armored and more vulnerable than Mélanie had ever seen it.
Malcolm returned Raoul's gaze for a long moment, his own gaze giving little away. "I'm not sure I'd have done what you did. But I think I understand."
"That's generous."
Malcolm inclined his head. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of saying more. When at last he spoke, Mélanie wasn't sure it was what he had originally intended to say. "Which doesn't settle the question of what, if anything, we tell the others." He returned the poker to the andirons, without rattling the metal.
"The revelation of how much Gisèle apparently knows changes things," Raoul said. "God knows my instinct is still to contain the information. But I think we need to share the information, at least with the Davenports and Andrew—because of Gisèle—and Archie. Probably Frances as well. I'd rather she didn't know, given her connections to the British royal family, and the fact that she isn't trained to this life. But I'm not sure it's fair to ask Archie to keep it from her."
"You kept it from us," Laura said in a quiet voice.
Raoul turned his gaze to her. "So I did. It was damnably uncomfortable." He glanced into the fire. "Talleyrand would probably kill me for suggesting we tell anyone else. And I'm not necessarily speaking metaphorically."
"He didn't want you to tell us," Laura said.
"He accused me of going soft."
"And now you have?"
"I think I've been reminded of what's important. Which doesn't mean I'd do it differently if I could do it again."
"No, I don't suppose you would," Laura said. Her voice too was neutral.
"You're worried about telling Lady Frances, but not Cordy?" Mélanie asked.
"Cordelia has the instincts of an agent," Raoul said. "And it's clear where her loyalties lie."
"And Fanny was once loyal to Alistair?" Malcolm asked.
"Fanny's loyalties are complicated. But I don't doubt she loves her family and Archie. Above all, I don't doubt she wants to find Gisèle."
Malcolm's gaze continued steady on Raoul's own. "You don't think she'll be able to let the secret of the dauphin go."
Raoul was silent for a long moment. "I think she'll have the hardest time with it of any of us. Assuming, at the end of all this, we really are able to keep the secret."
Or have to choose sides in a potential contest over the throne of France. Mélanie's fingers locked on her elbows. And yet they had all agreed that saving a young man's life came before the risk of international instability. A choice she'd have once said she'd have been uncertain about, that she wasn't sure Raoul would have made, that she'd have thought might have divided them from Malcolm, had seemed obvious to all of them.
"I understand your qualms, but I think we need to tell Frances," Malcolm said. "It could be more dangerous for her not to know."
Raoul nodded. "A good point."
"We'll tell them in the morning," Malcolm said. "For the moment, I think we need to try to keep David out of it."
"He won't thank you," Mélanie said.
"No," Malcolm agreed. "No one likes being kept out of a secret."
"Quite," Raoul said.
Laura studied her lover in the privacy of their bedchamber. The man she'd barely known a year ago, who now knew her deepest secrets. Who had helped her find her daughter, and become her daughter's father. Who was the father of the child she'd give birth to in a few months. "You've been shouldering a lot."
Raoul gave a dry laugh. "That's one way of putting it."
Laura turned so she could see him in the light. He was standing by an armchair, his coat held in both hands, his fingers rigid on the black fabric. "My love, it's a fearful burden. The fate of a country. Potentially, the fate of the Continent. I can see why your instinct would be to hold it close. Anyone who knows it is put in a hellish situation as well. Malcolm's still a Member of Parliament, which complicates things further. As to you and me, we never promised to tell each other everything. Though I did assume—"
"Yes?" His gaze was taut on her own.
"That we'd share things that affected both of us, I suppose. And I can see how in some ways it would seem this doesn't. Or, at least, didn't. But once the papers were discovered at Dunmykel, we were all impacted. The children too."
"A good point. But keeping secrets has been the habit of a lifetime for me."
"So you fell back on old habits?"
"I behaved as I've always behaved, by the rules that have governed my life. And when I slipped out of our bed I felt I was violating something precious."
"But you did it anyway," Laura said.
"I did."
"To protect us."
"In part."
"You're not used to sharing your life with anyone."
"True enough." He studied her for a moment, head tilted to one side. The shadows cast by the Argand lamp slanted between them. "In theory, spies probably shouldn't have families. But one can rarely live one's life entirely according to theory."
"You never promised to share your life with me. And I certainly never asked you to."
"I know, beloved. It's one of the remarkable things about you."
Laura watched him in the lamplight. His face, his crisp voice, his contained movements seemed designed to hold secrets. Yet she had seen his intense gaze stripped with honesty before he'd so much as touched her hand. "We began knowing each other's secrets. We played a chess game with them. One could say we fell in love over them. Part of that was circumstance. We learned things about each other I doubt either of us would reveal to anyone willingly. But we also had the understanding to guess at more. Before that night in Maidstone, I could imagine taking a lover. I couldn't imagine—what we have."
For an instant, something flared in his hooded gaze. "You can't think I could imagine it. One moment I was telling myself to be cautious for both our sakes, the next I was pledging fidelity in the Berkeley Square garden—"
"With a warning of all the things you couldn't offer me—"
"And then I was buying you earrings, thinking about you like a boy half my age, and kissing you in an antechamber the moment we had an instant alone. I was in the midst of it before I realized—"
"What a fool you were being?"
His gaze, steady on her face, was level, yet oddly like a caress. "What I was risking. For both of us."
"It seems to m
e you dwelled on it entirely too much. For months I had to tell you it didn't matter, when all the while I was afraid you were looking for a way to end things."
"My darling, I'd never have—"
"You might have done. If you thought it was for my own good." He wouldn't now, because of the baby. Not for the first time, she felt the smallest twinge of guilt. She had no doubt he was as happy about their child as she was. But she also knew it wasn't something he'd ever have actively chosen. Mostly for her sake, but also for his own. She hated the thought that she'd trapped him in any way.
"But perhaps you were right, in a way," she continued. "No, I don't mean that," she added, at the shadow of concern in his gaze. "But because we started off having shared so much, we never had to worry about taking risks. We never had to worry about—"
"What we weren't sharing?"
"What lines we couldn't bear crossing." Laura drew a breath. "Gisèle may be at risk because she's St. Juste's daughter. The same could happen to Emily. Or our unborn child." She touched her stomach. The baby was a constant presence now, kicking, stirring, warm beneath her hand. "You can't keep secrets to protect us. If you do, and one of our children is hurt, I'll never forgive you."
"I wouldn't—"
"No?" She held his gaze with her own. "You're going against the instincts of a lifetime. You admitted it yourself."
"My love." He crossed to her side, but hesitated before he touched her. "I went against the instincts of a lifetime when I pledged myself to you."
She put her hands on his chest. "We're going to have to go on doing what we've always done."
"Which is?"
"Make it up as we go along."
He gave a rough laugh. His arms closed round her with unexpected force. He held her close for a long moment, as though she was anchoring him to sanity. His breath was ragged against her hair. His arms shook. She drew back and looked up at him. What she saw in the depths of his eyes shook her to the core. She'd seen him stripped with vulnerability, but she'd never seen raw fear in his controlled gaze.
She put her hand against the side of his face. "We'll get through this. We always do."
