The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch)

by Grant, Teresa

Dewhurst gave a short laugh. “No.”

  “You’re very sure. Were you there yourself?”

  “I was at my box in Perthshire. I stopped to see Glenister for a few days. Your father wasn’t there.”

  Malcolm learned forwards. “You’re certain? He didn’t arrive later?”

  “Glenister told me your father had asked him to cover for him.”

  “Where was Alistair?”

  “Glenister claimed not to know, and Alistair certainly wasn’t in the habit of confiding in me.”

  Malcolm studied Dewhurst. Much as he disliked him, he could not deny the other man had been at the heart of British intelligence for a quarter century. “Have you heard of the Raven?”

  “Good God.” Dewhurst set his glass down with a clatter. “Don’t tell me the Raven is connected to this?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know about the Raven?”

  Dewhurst leaned back in his chair. “According to a French foreign ministry clerk who was one of Fouché’s agents and sold information to me, the Raven was a French agent under long-term deep cover.”

  “In England?”

  “In the Peninsula.”

  “A British soldier?”

  “Or someone attached to the army in some way. Fouché wasn’t sure of the Raven’s exact identity at the time and apparently was quite eager to uncover it.”

  Fouché, who had been minister of police for much for Napoleon’s reign, had had his pulse on nearly everything in the empire. “Whom did the Raven report to?”

  “I don’t know. You should know better than anyone how byzantine intelligence networks can grow.”

  “You must have been curious.”

  “Of course. I mentioned it to Carfax, and we did more than a bit of investigating, but we were never able to uncover anything. As elusive as whoever was behind the Dunboyne leak.”

  “It didn’t occur to you that they might be one and the same?”

  “Not unless my source was misinformed. According to him the Raven was under deep cover, but only went back to 1810 or so. What makes you think the Raven has anything to do with the Dunboyne affair?”

  Malcolm hesitated. “I found a mention in papers of Harleton’s. Implying the Raven being exposed could hurt him.”

  Dewhurst tapped his fingers on the leather of the chair arm. “Interesting. Carfax was monitoring Harleton, but it didn’t lead to the Raven. Unless Carfax didn’t tell me of course. Quite a coup if you could unmask the Raven. Assuming you actually would.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dewhurst set down his glass. “Just that when it comes to rabble—in Ireland or France or here at home—you’ve always seemed to have trouble determining which side you’re on.” He leaned back in his chair. “Have you talked to Archibald Davenport?”

  “Suzanne has.”

  Dewhurst gave a short laugh. “Never will understand your marriage. But if you’re looking into Alistair and the tensions within our group at that dinner party, you might want to have a word with Davenport yourself. I doubt he’d have revealed this to your wife.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it isn’t the sort of thing gentlemen talk about to ladies.” Dewhurst let his shoulders sink an inch deeper into the leather of the chair and reached for his glass. “Archibald Davenport was your mother’s lover.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “The Cowpers’ marriage is a marvel,” Cordelia murmured to Suzanne, looking across Emily Cowper’s ballroom to where Emily, resplendent in peacock crêpe over white satin, her dark hair dressed in loose ringlets, stood between her husband and Lord Palmerston. “There’s Emily conversing with her husband and her lover as though none of them had a care in the world.”

  “You don’t envy her, do you?” Suzanne asked.

  “Heavens no. I’ve had enough of juggling lovers—it’s quite exhausting, and I shouldn’t at all like it if Harry were a complacent husband. But I can’t help but admire Emily’s savoir faire.”

  Suzanne watched as Lady Cowper linked one white-gloved hand through her husband’s arm and the other through Palmerston’s. “And yet Lady Cowper and Lord Palmerston can’t go about openly as a couple the way Dorothée did with Clam-Martinitz.”

  “Well, no, this is England. It’s all very well for everyone to know one has a lover, but it can’t be publicly acknowledged. On the other hand, I can’t imagine Peter Cowper challenging Palmerston to a duel as Edmond Talleyrand did with Clam-Martinitz.”

  Emily Cowper touched her husband on the shoulder with her fan, smiled at Palmerston, and moved off on a third gentleman’s arm. “I’m more impressed with the fact that she and Palmerston manage to maintain their affair despite the fact that it doesn’t appear to be exclusive,” Suzanne said.

  “Yes, though I wouldn’t say Palmerston is quite as complacent as Peter Cowper.” Cordelia gestured with her fan towards Palmerston as he slouched along the edge of the dance floor, gaze fixed on Emily as she began to waltz with the third gentleman.

  “To think I gave up a lost Shakespeare manuscript to squeeze through crowds in overheated rooms.” Aline slipped between two young men gesturing enthusiastically with their champagne glasses to join Suzanne and Cordelia. “Suzanne, you quite ruined me. Before I lived with you in Vienna, I avoided parties whenever I could.”

  Suzanne smiled at her husband’s cousin. “You realized parties could be interesting.”

  “Well, yes, but it takes a lot to compete with Elsinore. I must say, codes aside, the manuscript is quite fascinating.”

  “Do you think it’s really by Shakespeare?” Cordelia asked.

  “Not my area of expertise. I suppose I could construct a model to analyze word structure in Shakespeare’s plays and compare it to the manuscript, but that would take time, and Malcolm has me looking for codes.”

  “I thought he found the code,” Cordelia said.

  “The one Lord Harleton was using. We’d need more documents to decode to learn more from that and just decoding’s not that interesting. But Malcolm wants me to see if there’s something else encoded in the manuscript, which is a much more intriguing problem.”

  “And?” Suzanne asked. The gleam in Aline’s dark eyes reminded her of how she felt herself with a fresh mystery to solve.

  “Nothing so far, but it’s slow going. I have to look at the pages under glass because Claudia keeps wanting to touch them.” Aline turned her head as Simon materialized out of the crowd to join them. “I can’t wait to see what you do with the production. I keep getting caught up in the story and forgetting to analyze the manuscript.”

  Simon gave a wry smile. “We’re at the stage of rehearsals where I wonder at what I’ve bit off.” He smiled at Suzanne and Cordelia. “Thank God for friendly faces.”

  “Did David drag you here?” Cordelia asked.

  Simon twitched a fold of his immaculate neckcloth. “David knows better than to drag me places. I’m supposed to charm some possible funders of the Tavistock.”

  “That should be easy. You’re very charming.”

  “But not necessarily on cue.”

  “No more trouble?” Suzanne asked him.

  “None today. And the minders Malcolm sent blend in quite well as stagehands. David insisted on staying at the theatre all day as well, though I told him in the event of any violence we’d probably only get in the way of Malcolm’s agents.”

  “Mr. Tanner.” Lady Caroline Lamb swept up to them in a stir of feathery brown ringlets, gauzy white skirts, and cocquelicot ribbons. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me attend the rehearsal this afternoon. I shall treasure the memory.”

  Simon’s smile was genuinely kind rather than that of a playwright to a potential patron. He appreciated Caroline’s eccentricities, Suzanne knew. And she suspected he also pitied her. “You’re very welcome, Lady Caroline.”

  Caroline looked up at him with wide eyes. “I do hope I may attend again.”

  “We’d be delighted to have you.”

&nb
sp; “Simon. Ladies.” David joined them.

  “Isn’t it exciting about the manuscript, Lord Worsley?” Caroline said.

  “Quite,” David returned, though Suzanne saw the concern at the back of his gaze. “Simon, Lord Thanet’s asking for you. You said to keep an eye out for him.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Simon gave an ironic grin. “Forgive me, ladies. Duty calls.”

  Lord John Russell arrived to claim Aline for a promised dance. Caroline turned to Suzanne and Cordelia, her face alight with childlike delight. “Isn’t it splendid? About the new Hamlet. I think I like it better than the usual version. Ophelia is much more interesting. I don’t know why he changed it. Shakespeare, I mean. It must be authentic, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not a judge.” Cordelia opened her reticule and took out a silver-backed mirror. “But it’s certainly impressive.”

  “I want to attend more rehearsals so I can form a proper opinion.”

  Cordelia wiped a smudge of lip rouge from the corner of her mouth. “So you can write to Byron.”

  Caroline tucked a ringlet into her pearl bandeau. “I might mention it. He’d be interested, and we should be beyond petty disagreements now.”

  Cordelia snorted.

  Caroline leaned a careless hand against the gilded molding. “I have the theatre in my blood. Sheridan was my mother’s lover, you know. Dear Mama. She did pick interesting men. If only he’d given the script to her. Imagine, I might have been involved in bringing it to light.”

  “Sheridan?” Cordelia returned the mirror to her crystal-beaded reticule. “What makes you think he knew about the manuscript?”

  “No, Lord Harleton.” Caroline adjusted one of the knots of ribbon on her sleeves.

  “Why should he—” Cordelia snapped her reticule closed. “Good God, I didn’t realize.”

  “About Lord Harleton and my mother?” Caroline tugged the ribbon smooth. “Oh yes. Apparently it was quite intense for a time. Of course, I only learned about it after the fact. It was when I was quite young. Before Granville.”

  Granville Leveson-Gower, a handsome diplomat some dozen years younger than Lady Bessborough, had been her lover for over a decade. By the time Suzanne had met him in Paris, the affair had been long in the past and Granville was happily married to his former mistress’s niece. It was, as Simon had once remarked, hard to create probable fiction when life was so fantastical.

  Cordelia shot a look at Suzanne. Caroline had inadvertently given them an opening. Suzanne inclined her head.

  “Caro—” Cordelia fingered the sapphire shot silk of her gown. “Was your father friendly with Harleton?”

  “My father? I know the stories about the Devonshire House set, but I wouldn’t say my father was friendly towards any of my mother’s lovers.”

  “This might have been before,” Suzanne said. “It seems your father was in a sort of club with Lord Harleton and Malcolm’s father and some others.”

  “A club? Why should that matter?” Lady Caroline Lamb’s wide dark eyes went wider. “Oh, good God, is this one of your and Malcolm’s investigations? Why should you be interested in my father? He’s never done anything remotely interesting.”

  “I sometimes wonder,” Cordelia said with a smile, “how Colin and Livia and Dru and Jessica will talk about us and Malcolm and Harry when they’re grown.”

  “Oh, that’s different.” Caroline waved a dismissive white-gloved hand. “You really have done interesting things. They’ll recognize that. My father really is well . . . dull. He couldn’t even keep my mother’s interest much beyond the wedding.”

  “Sometimes—” Suzanne bit back what she’d been going to say.

  Caroline studied her with a surprisingly sharp gaze. “Suzanne, are you going to suggest my father’s utter lack of anything approaching romance or adventure might have all been a pose? It sounds like a novel, but I can’t believe it. I know him.”

  Romance and adventure scarcely made for a good spy. In fact, the best agents often seemed—or even were—rather dull. But Suzanne could hardly say so to Caroline. Instead she said, “It’s simply that your father may have relevant information. Information he may not even realize is important.”

  Caroline’s delicate brows drew together. “I don’t know about my father and Harleton. I don’t recall seeing them together, and one would think Harleton would have had reason to avoid my father, though Papa never said anything about him much one way or another. But my father and Alistair Rannoch didn’t like each other.”

  “Not surprising given what I know of Alistair Rannoch,” Suzanne said. “Did your father tell you he disliked Mr. Rannoch?”

  “Oh no. Papa hardly confided in me.”

  The waltz came to an end. Emily Cowper moved towards the windows and was quickly besieged by a quartet of admirers. Lord Palmerston stood on the edge of the group, glowering. “Emily is just as bad as I am,” Caroline said, studying her sister-in-law. “She just manages not to create scenes. And then she turns round and lectures me.”

  “Perhaps she should give you lessons instead,” Cordelia murmured.

  “Stuff. As if I’d take lessons from her.”

  “Precisely.” Cordelia touched Caroline’s arm. “Caro. What made you think your father didn’t like Alistair Rannoch?”

  “Oh, that.” Caroline twisted her gaze away from Emily and her admirers. “It was late one night after one of Mama and Papa’s parties. I sat up on the stairs watching the guests arrive, picking my favorite dress—the way we used to do at Chatsworth or your parents’ house, Cordy. And even after my nurse got me back to my room, I couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining all the people dancing and drinking champagne—it all seemed so much more glamorous in those days than later when we could actually go to parties ourselves.”

  “Yes, somehow in one’s imaginings the gentlemen don’t tread on one’s flounce or reek of tobacco, the rooms don’t smell of sweat, and the champagne never goes flat,” Cordelia said. “And then? Did you overhear something from your room?”

  “No, I sneaked downstairs when the party was over. I wanted to see if I could find any cakes left out before the servants finished tidying up. I was in the small salon. I confess I swallowed a leftover glass of champagne. I thought it tasted ghastly, but of course it was warm and flat. And then I heard voices from the antechamber next door—the door had been left ajar. It was my father’s voice, and he was angry. At first I thought he was yelling at me. Then I realized he was talking to someone else entirely.”

  “Alistair Rannoch?” Suzanne asked.

  “Mr. Rannoch. I’m sure of it. He has—he had—quite a distinctive voice.” Caroline’s eyes clouded at the memory of events not properly understood in childhood. “Papa was saying, ‘You can’t force me to do it.’ And Mr. Rannoch replied, ‘Need I remind you how much you owe me.’ And then something about, ‘It’s little enough to ask.’ Then Papa really seemed to storm about, and I think he might have thrown something. He said, ‘It’s monstrous.’ And Mr. Rannoch said—” Caroline frowned. “Something about, ‘It’s the way the game is played.’ Then he must have left. I think Papa threw something else. Then I heard the door slam. I waited the longest time until I heard the servants stirring, and I sneaked back up to my bed.” She shook her head. “I lay awake the rest of the night trying to make sense of it. I didn’t understand in the least, but somehow I sensed it was something it would be dangerous to talk about to anyone. Even you, Cordy.” She darted a quick glance at her friend. “I know you say I overdramatize things, and I daresay I do, but—”

  “No,” Cordelia said, “this sounds dramatic enough.”

  Caroline’s brows drew together. “I haven’t thought of it in years. The truth is, Papa and his doings never interested me much. I got caught up in my own affairs, as one does when one grows up, and more or less forgot about it. Except for every so often when I’d take it out and worry it in my head as a dog does with a bone.” She pleated a gauzy muslin fold of her skirt. “What on earth do y
ou think it was about?” she asked, childlike concern breaking through her pose of worldly wisdom.

  “I don’t know,” Suzanne said.

  Caro’s gaze darted over her face. “Ought I to have told someone sooner?”

  “You couldn’t have known whom to tell. And I doubt your not telling anyone caused problems.” Suzanne squeezed Caro’s thin hand. “But I’m glad you told us now.”

  “You won’t—that is, I’ve never been particularly close to Papa, but he is my father.”

  In Caroline’s breathy voice, Suzanne could hear echoes of Malcolm’s and Crispin’s responses to the revelations about their fathers. “It will be best for everyone to learn the truth,” she said. Even as she spoke, she was aware of how very hollow her words sounded.

  “Harry.” Malcolm touched his friend on the shoulder. Harry was on the edge of the ballroom, arms folded with casual unconcern. “Is your uncle here tonight?”

  “I think I caught a glimpse of him earlier.” Harry shifted his shoulders against the paneling.

  “You haven’t spoken?” Malcolm asked. Dewhurst’s revelation about Malcolm’s mother and Archibald Davenport pressed behind Malcolm’s eyes, a sharper surprise than it should have been, given what he knew about his mother’s affairs.

  “Cordy already found out everything she could from him.”

  “You might have reasons other than the investigation for talking to him.”

  Harry raised a brow. “Would you have sought Alistair out at a ball?”

  “Alistair wouldn’t have sought me out. But we did converse in public from time to time.”

  Harry shrugged. “My uncle was always rather distant. I remember once he came to Eton for speech day—”

  “Your uncle came to Eton for speech day?” Malcolm said.

  “Yes. Every year I was there as I recall. Used to take me to a pub in the village afterwards.”

  “I suppose there are different degrees of distance. Alistair never showed his face at Harrow on speech day. And my mother was absent as much as she was present.”

  Harry regarded Malcolm for a moment. “Put that way, I suppose my uncle could have paid a bit less attention to me. Especially since he didn’t ask to be saddled with me. Not that I think either of us has any desire to live in the other’s pocket. At a hazard, I’d try the card room if you’re looking for Uncle Archibald.” He hesitated. “Do you want my help talking to him? Not that I think I’d be of much use.” His gaze drifted over Malcolm’s face, with perhaps a glint of keener interest than he was willing to own to.