by Tracy Grant
Malcolm nodded slowly, as though it still wasn't quite real.
"Darling." Mélanie seized his hands. "You've had this hanging over you for over a year. It's at least one thing you don't have to worry about anymore."
"Nor do you." Malcolm twined his fingers round her own and lifted her hands to his lips one at a time. "No more ridiculous delusions that you've done anything but make my life far better than I ever dreamed it could be."
"You can return to your seat in Parliament," Raoul said.
"Mélanie can go back to Almack's," Frances said. "Assuming Emily Cowper can get her vouchers, which I imagine she can, and assuming Mélanie wants to, which is considerably more questionable. But you have options. Especially now that Raoul can make an honest woman of Laura. Carfax told me about the divorce," she added. "It's splendid news."
Archie lifted his whisky in a toast. "We have few enough victories. We can savor this one. And it will make it easier to fight the League."
"Yes." Malcolm lifted his own glass, as did Mélanie. "But we're not sharing the list with Carfax."
"And we'll probably have to be on our guard against his trying to steal it," Raoul said. "But there's no denying it will be easier here."
"They really can't ever arrest you for anything you've done in the past?" Laura looked at Raoul in the privacy of their bedchamber. He, Mélanie, and Malcolm had shared the news with everyone when they returned to Berkeley Square, but she still found it difficult to take in how dramatically their world had shifted in the short time the three of them had spent at Fanny's house in South Audley Street.
"I'm no lawyer, but I believe a pardon from the monarch—or the monarch's authorized representative in the regent's case—is ironclad for past actions. Not for future ones. They may be bargaining on that weighing with both Mélanie and me."
"It won't stop you," she said. It wasn't a question.
"No, but for the moment we have breathing room. And other things have shifted as well." Raoul turned to her, his face inscrutable. "Would you marry me if I were free?"
Laura drew a sharp breath. For all that had changed in the last few hours, his marriage wasn't part of it. "Is that a hypothetical?"
"No." An odd smile played about his mouth. "Margaret is expecting a child as well."
Laughter bubbled up in Laura's throat. "Good God."
"Yes, the irony wasn't lost on me. Or on Margaret. Carfax has offered to help speed the divorce."
"Carfax—" She shook her head.
"Possibly because he's adjusting to learning he has another child himself. I wouldn't say prison's mellowed him, but something has shifted." Raoul watched her a moment longer, then went down on one knee. "Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Laura?"
"Oh, my dear." She bent down, as she had once before, and took his face between her hands. "Surely you don't need to ask it."
He got to his feet and settled her in his arms without breaking the kiss. "I think we'll be able to manage it before the baby's born."
Laura nodded. It mattered, of course, for their child. There were many practical challenges to being born a bastard. And yet—"I'm glad. I don't care what people think of me, but there's no denying it will be easier for our child. Otherwise—If it weren't for the baby—"
Raoul kissed her hair. "My darling, if I'd been free, I'd have asked you in Maidstone, and damn my scruples."
Colin looked up at Mélanie as she smoothed the covers over him. "When are we going back to Italy?"
"Not for a while, darling." Mélanie kissed him. "Perhaps we'll go this summer. But we're going to stay in Berkeley Square for a bit."
Colin's eyes had been half closed with sleep, but now they widened. "You mean we get to stay home?"
A lump rose in Mélanie's throat. "Just so, darling."
Colin smiled. "What about Addison and Blanca and the baby?"
"We'll send for them, lad. First thing tomorrow." Malcolm bent to kiss their son as well.
Colin reached up to hug both his parents, then rolled to face the bed where Emily was already asleep. "Em will be glad. She's missed London. I don't think she wanted Laura to know how much. Or any of you." He looked back at Mélanie and Malcolm. "So we're safe now?"
Malcolm touched his fingers to Colin's hair. "We're safe."
"Do you believe it?" Mélanie asked her husband, when they were back in their bedchamber.
"That we're safe?" Malcolm smoothed the blanket over Jessica, asleep in her cradle. "Safe enough that I'm willing to risk staying here, at least for the present. I'm not sure we'd be any safer in Italy."
Mélanie stroked Berowne, who was curled up on the bed. "The children still see it as home."
"We haven't been gone that long. I'll own I'm not unhappy to be back myself."
"Darling—"
He gave a twisted grin. "Yes, all right, I'm happy." He looked at her for a moment, with one of his carefully neutral looks. "What about you?"
"Can you ask? I've wanted nothing more—"
Malcolm crossed to her side. "Not how do you feel for me and the children. How do you feel about being back yourself?"
She met his searching gaze. Something in it stopped the easy answer that sprang to her lips. "I'm—"
He set his hands on her shoulders. "What do you want, Mel?"
It was the question she asked him in Italy. She drew a breath, then went still. "I want you to have back what you lost."
"I have it. What do you want for yourself?"
"My life with you and the children."
"You wouldn't let me stop at that when you asked me the same question. What do you want for yourself?"
"Don't you rather think I gave up the right to want anything for myself?"
"That's nonsense."
"I put my own agenda first at the start of our marriage."
"And then you followed mine. To Paris, to Britain. To the beau monde and the life of a politician's wife. At which you were brilliant. I think you could be brilliant at anything you chose to do. The question now is what do you choose?"
"You're going back to Parliament—"
"And I can't imagine how I'd do it without your help with stategy and my speeches. But I don't necessarily need a hostess. Not that you aren't an invaluable asset, but being an asset is a waste of your talents. I can host my own damn parties if necessary. I'm never going to be prime minster, in any case. Whatever change we can bring about, I'll always be arguing on the fringe."
"I'd miss it," she said. "The political whirl. I have missed it. It will be good to be back. But—" She hesitated, searching through layers of demands, impulses, loyalties. "I'd also miss the freedom we've had in Italy."
"So would I. We're damn well not going to go out six nights a week. At least I'm not. We need time with the children. And time to explore. After the last six years, you're entitled to all the time you want."
"Malcolm." She put her hands on his chest. "We're still fighting the League."
A shadow crossed his face. "So we are. But I refuse to let that fight define us."
Mélanie looked at her husband, who always claimed, under some strange delusion, that she was the romantic between them. "You're sounding distinctly optimistic, darling."
He kissed her nose. "Perhaps that's because for the first time in a long time, I actually am. We have a future, sweetheart. It's ours to make of it what we will."
Historical Notes
Louis-Charles, younger son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was the dauphin from his brother's death in 1789 until the new constitution in 1791 made him instead prince royal. Following his father's execution in January 1793, he was Louis XVII to Royalists though never officially king. When he died in 1795, he was buried in a common grave, but one of the doctors performing the post-mortem removed his heart. The doctor took the heart home and preserved it in alcohol though the alcohol subsequently evaporated.
From the time of Louis-Charles's death there were rumors that he had in fact been smuggled off to safety. The Restorat
ion brought even more rumors and a parade of impostors claiming to be the lost dauphin. In 1999, DNA from the dead boy's heart, by then in Saint-Denis, was compared with DNA from a descendant of Marie Antoinette. A mitochondrial DNA sequence proved the child who died in the Temple was indeed Marie Antoinette's son.
Tsar Alexander really did claim Josephine had confided in him, shortly before her death, that she and Barras had had the boy spirited away. There is no evidence that Josephine and Barras actually attempted to do so, and it is quite likely that she never told him anything of the sort (Tsar Alexander was no stranger to elaboration, as Raoul says). But novelists often build on "what if?" and this "what if?" offered tantalizing possibilities that create all sorts of complications and moral dilemmas for Rannochs and their friends and opponents.
Deborah Cadbury's The Lost King of France (London: Fourth Estate, 2002) offers a fascinating account of Louis-Charles's imprisonment and death, the imposters who came after, and the way DNA solved the mystery. There is also a wonderful review of the book by Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books, Vol. 25, No. 18, 17 August 2003.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
About This Guide
* * *
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group's reading of
Tracy Grant's The Duke's Gambit.
* * *
How are the characters shaped by their birth, or what they believe their birth to be? What do you think shapes them more, their actual birth or how their birth is perceived by others?
Compare and contrast the different fathers and daughters in the book.
How do you think the revelation of who Gisèle's father is will impact the series going forwards?
Several of the characters are balancing being parents of young children with living dangerous lives. What do you think of the various choices made by Raoul, Gisèle, Mélanie, and Malcolm?
At the end of the book Malcolm asks Mélanie what she wants. What do you think she wants?
Who do you think has the upper hand now, the Elsinore League, Carfax, or the Rannochs?
What do you think lies ahead for Bet Simcox and Sandy Trenor?
Do you think Malcolm will ever work with Carfax again?
What do you think David and Simon will do now the Rannochs are able to return to Britain?
Do you think Carfax will still try to compel David to marry? If so, what do you think he will try next?
What do you think lies ahead for Hugh Derenvil and Caroline Lewes?
Do you think being married will change Raoul and Laura's relationship?
The Rannochs are back in Britain. How will their lives compare to their lives in Britain before they left?
Discover More by Tracy Grant
Discover More by Tracy Grant
* * *
Traditional Regencies
WIDOW’S GAMBIT
FRIVOLOUS PRETENCE
THE COURTING OF PHILIPPA
* * *
Lescaut Quartet
DARK ANGEL
SHORES OF DESIRE
SHADOWS OF THE HEART
RIGHTFULLY HIS
* * *
The Rannoch Fraser Mysteries
* * *
HIS SPANISH BRIDE
LONDON INTERLUDE
VIENNA WALTZ
IMPERIAL SCANDAL
THE PARIS AFFAIR
THE PARIS PLOT
BENEATH A SILENT MOON
THE BERKELEY SQUARE AFFAIR
THE MAYFAIR AFFAIR
INCIDENT IN BERKELEY SQUARE
LONDON GAMBIT
MISSION FOR A QUEEN
GILDED DECEIT
MIDWINTER INTRIGUE
THE DUKE'S GAMBIT
SECRETS OF A LADY
THE MASK OF NIGHT
About the Author
Tracy Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting conceptions of honor in late-fifteenth-century England. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter and three cats. In addition to writing, Tracy works for the Merola Opera Program, a professional training program for opera singers, pianists, and stage directors. Her real life heroine is her daughter Mélanie, who is very cooperative about Mummy's writing time. She is currently at work on her next book chronicling the adventures of Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch. Visit her on the Web at www.tracygrant.org
* * *
© Raphael Coffey Photography
