“A reliable source?” She pulled the silk and lace of the dressing gown tight about her.
“Supposedly.” Malcolm picked up the decanter that stood atop the chest of drawers (high enough to be out of range of small fingers). “But the same source had also heard others refer to the Raven as ‘La Corbeau.’ ”
The night air bit into her skin despite her nightdress and dressing gown and the fire blazing in the grate. “Interesting.”
Malcolm removed the crystal stopper and splashed whisky into two glasses. “I’m inclined to think this actually supports the idea the Raven is a woman and the rumors to the contrary are deliberate disinformation. It’s what I’d have done if I were the Raven or her handler. Wouldn’t you?”
She perched on the dressing table bench. “Very likely.”
He set down the decanter. The crystal flashed in the firelight. “Is there anyone you can see as the Raven? You spent more time with the diplomatic and military wives than I did.”
She tied the dressing gown’s sash round her waist. The silk slithered between her fingers. “Does any of the women I took tea with and listened to gossip from strike me as a master spy? No,” she said truthfully.
Malcolm stoppered the decanter. “It must be a hell of a life.”
“Being a spy or being a military wife?”
“Perhaps both in a way.” He put one of the glasses of whisky into her hand. “But I was thinking of being in deep cover, which by all reports the Raven is whether he or she is a man or a woman. The longest I’ve done it for is a few weeks. Five, I think. In a village near Burgos, posing as a priest to infiltrate a group of afrancesados and get information about the French garrison. Before I met you. And I had Tatiana and Addison with me, but Tania was playing an officer’s wife and Addison was in the guise of a wine merchant, so I didn’t see them for days on end. The feeling of being locked in a role—” He returned to the chest of drawers and picked up the second glass. “One begins to lose track of where one’s self ends and the role begins. I remember missing the most obscure things. A good cup of tea, even though I’m quite happy with coffee in the general run of things. The boot polish Addison mixes. The social columns in the London papers.”
“Hallmarks of the real you.” She took a sip of whisky. Her throat hurt.
“A sad commentary on me if that is the case.” He took a sip from his own glass. “But something familiar to latch on to.” He was silent for a moment, leaning against the chest of drawers. “I always thought of myself as solitary. I’d have said it might well be easier to be alone than to deal with the burden of my family and sometimes even my friends. I never knew how truly alone one could feel. And what a challenge it was.”
“A challenge you enjoyed meeting?” she asked without thinking, a genuine question.
“No. Yes. Perhaps. There’s no denying the challenge of this damnable business.”
She tasted the wine-sweet rush of triumph she sometimes felt to this day at managing a bit of deception. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, darling. Judge yourself for your actions if you must, not for whether or not you enjoy them.”
His mouth twisted. “You always were much more practical, Wife.” He took another sip of whisky. “Harry asked me if I was sure I wanted to disrupt the Raven’s life. Whoever she or he is, the Raven isn’t causing problems now and may have a settled life. Perhaps even with a family.”
“Though likely under false pretenses.” She felt compelled to say it, for it seemed the logical response.
“Quite. I can’t but think the Raven’s spouse deserves to know, though Harry claimed in the same shoes he’d prefer to be in the dark. He said if Cordy was unfaithful again he wouldn’t want to know.”
“What did you say?”
“That she wouldn’t be unfaithful.”
“You can’t know that, Malcolm.”
“So Harry pointed out.”
“And you say I’m the romantic.”
Malcolm stared into his glass. “Beyond that, I think I can’t resist wanting to get at the truth.”
“I know, darling.” Her fingers tightened on the glass, for she knew this might well be the undoing of both of them. “It’s what makes you you. You might be able to bury a secret but not until you’d uncovered it.”
“You make me sound like a dog with a bone.”
“You share the tenacity. And the loyalty. But a rather more nuanced sense of the complexities of life. Fond as I am of dogs.”
He gave a wry smile. “Carfax told me to leave the moral compromises to him.”
“That sounds like Carfax. But even he should know you could never follow that advice.”
“Oh yes. He even admitted it.” Malcolm turned his glass between his fingers. The candlelight bounced off the Rannoch crest etched on the glass. “I refuse to believe moral compromise is inevitable.”
Her heart turned over. “And so you can’t trust Carfax?”
“If nothing else, Bertrand Laclos’s story taught me to feel responsible for information I turn over. Besides, in this case—”
“It’s your family?”
His brows drew together. “I don’t feel any loyalty to Alistair. And one could argue my mother is beyond being hurt.”
“Your grandfather and Lady Frances and Edgar and Gisèle aren’t.”
“No, that’s true.” He took another sip of whisky, as though debating the wisdom of saying more. “And then there’s O’Roarke.”
The breath stuck in her throat, choking her.
“His work in Spain with the guerrilleros gives him a certain credibility here,” Malcolm continued as though quite unaware of how he had shattered her to the core. “But people haven’t forgot the United Irish Uprising. This could bring it all up again.”
She got to her feet. “Darling—”
His gaze shifted in that way it did when he pulled on his armor. “I’ve always felt a loyalty to him. It’s not because—”
Her heart constricted. For in his gaze she saw that he’d found something today with the revelations about his parentage. Something he wouldn’t have admitted—perhaps even now would still not admit—he’d been looking for. Which would make the unraveling of her past doubly painful. “Darling,” she said again. She slid her fingers behind his neck. “Loyalty isn’t something you have to apologize for. Whatever Carfax may say.”
“Carfax would undoubtedly say I’m too squeamish to make hard decisions.”
“Carfax is not the sort of man I want running the country my children are growing up in.” Which rather justified her career.
He wrapped his arms round her waist. “Unfortunate. For that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
“Which is precisely why we’d need men like you.” Was that what her work consisted of now? Encouraging her husband? Something in her shied away from the thought, wanted to fight back.
“And women like you.”
She smiled, despite the day’s revelations, despite her fears for the future, despite her qualms about her role.
He returned the smile and lowered his mouth to her own.
CHAPTER 21
Cordelia tightened the blue velvet ribbons on her bonnet. “You’re sure you want me here?”
“You know Bessborough.”
“That may be a mixed blessing. I think half the time Bessborough looks at me and still sees a little girl who played dolls and rolled hoops with Caro. But the other half he sees an unfaithful wife who put her husband through scandal and made herself the talk of the town. All too like his wife and his late sister-in-law the Duchess of Devonshire.” She tugged her gloves smooth. “Odd, when I was a little girl hanging over the stair rail to admire their ball gowns, I wanted nothing more than to grow up to be just like Lady Bessborough and the duchess. One never realizes how destructive childhood dreams can be.”
Suzanne touched her friend’s arm. “Cordy—”
“It’s all right. I’ve faced far harsher censure than Bessborough’s.” Cordelia rang the bell.
“Of course.” Bessborough smiled at Suzanne. “You’ve cut quite a swath in town, my dear. Never thought Malcolm Rannoch had such good taste. Never seemed to be able to get his nose out of his books as a boy.”
“Bookishness can be very attractive.”
Bessborough ran a shrewd gaze over her. “Not the words I’m used to hearing from a beautiful woman. But then it sounds as if Malcolm has turned into more a man of action than I would have thought possible. Can’t quite credit the stories I hear about his activities in the Peninsula, truth to tell. I suppose it goes to show you never can tell what people will grow into. Certainly wouldn’t have thought my little Caro—” He coughed. “May I offer you anything? Tea? Madeira?”
“I’ll get it.” Cordelia moved to a table with decanters.
Bessborough watched her as she filled three glasses with Madeira. “I’m glad you’re living with your husband again.”
“For two and a half years now.” Cordelia smiled brightly and put a glass of Madeira in Bessborough’s hand.
“Good for you.” Bessborough lifted his glass to her. His tone made the words at once an expression of approbation and an echo of doubt.
“I love him very much.” Cordelia handed a glass to Suzanne, then dropped into a chair beside Bessborough. “It just took me a long time to realize it.”
“Harriet and I reconciled.” Bessborough held his glass to the light of the window and turned it in his hand as though seeing into the past. “More than once. Each time I thought we’d fallen in love again. I’d have sworn nothing could come between us.”
Cordelia took a sip of Madeira. “I wouldn’t swear nothing could come between Harry and me. I’m just going to do my damndest to make sure it doesn’t.”
Bessborough gave an appreciative smile. “Always were plainspoken.” He eased his leg straighter. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I didn’t realize you were a friend of my husband’s father,” Suzanne said.
“Alistair?” Bessborough snorted. “I’d hardly call us friends. Is this one of Malcolm’s investigations?”
“You could say so.”
For a moment Suzanne would swear she saw a shadow of unease cross Bessborough’s face, much like with Sir Horace Smytheton.
“You and my husband’s father were in a club together,” Suzanne said. “The Elsinore League.”
“Oh.” Bessborough gave a hearty laugh, which changed midway to an embarrassed cough. “That.”
“We know it was a hellfire club,” Cordelia said.
Bessborough’s brows snapped together. “You shouldn’t know about such things, Cordy.”
“Really, Uncle B. You know the world I grew up in.”
“Not what one wants one’s daughter to be part of. Besides, I wouldn’t quite call it a hellfire club. Just a bit of an excuse for gentlemen to get up to their usual pursuits. I was always on the fringes.”
“But it brought you and Alistair Rannoch together.”
“In a roundabout sort of way.”
“Uncle B.” Cordelia moved into the conversational void with unerring instinct. “Caro says she heard you and Alistair Rannoch quarreling.”
Bessborough clunkcd his glass down. “What the devil—” He gripped the arms of his chair.
“After a party in Berkeley Square. Some twenty years ago.” Cordelia touched his hand where it lay on the arm of the chair. “Uncle B., was Alistair Rannoch blackmailing you?”
“Of all the damned—”
“We don’t want to pry into your secrets—”
Bessborough jerked his hand away from hers. “What the devil do you call this?”
“It’s important, my lord,” Suzanne said. “Malcolm is looking into who leaked the information about Dunboyne among other things.”
“Damnable business that.” Bessborough glanced away, snatched up his glass and took a sip, clunked it down again. “It’s no secret my finances haven’t always been what one would wish.”
“You and my father shared a love of cards.” Cordelia’s voice was at once sympathetic and matter-of-fact, not making an issue of it while she invited further confidences.
“Good old Brooke. Always played deep as well.” A look that was half nostalgia, half regret drifted across Bessborough’s face. “Not always easy being the Duke of Devonshire’s cousin. Not to mention brother-in-law. It costs so much to keep up one’s end of things. A London house, a country house, a carriage, hunters. And God help us when it comes to ladies’ gowns and bonnets.”
“Uncle B.” Cordelia leaned forwards on the footstool, ivory skirts spread about her in a frothy layer, chin cupped in her hand. “Did Alistair Rannoch lend you money?”
Bessborough drew a breath, glanced at a hunting print on the wall, stared down into his Madeira. “Harriet and I had already had to go abroad. Had to leave the older boys in England. Then we’d had to move out of the London and Roehampton houses. Even then we couldn’t seem to get matters under control. Harriet had her sister’s head for cards. Don’t think I ever got a proper accounting of her debts. Not that I’m one to cast stones, I suppose. Still, Alistair’s offer of assistance seemed like the answer to our prayers.”
“How did it come about?” Suzanne asked.
“We were sitting over cigars and brandy one night at Brooks’s. Alistair wasn’t a member, being a staunch Tory, but someone had brought him in. I was bemoaning the economies Harriet and I were forced to resort to. Later that evening Alistair touched me on the shoulder and said perhaps he could be of assistance. He was fortunate to have a large amount of capital and was looking for ways to put it to use. Far better to trust it to a friend than to sink it into a doubtful commercial venture. All sounded perfectly straightforward.” He shook his head. “Should have known it was too good to be true. After all, Alistair and I had never been particularly friendly. But the more desperate one’s straits, the less one is likely to question one’s good fortune.”
“What did Mr. Rannoch ask of you?” Cordelia inquired in a soft voice, her gaze trained on Lord Bessborough.
Bessborough shifted in his chair. “See here, my dear, no sense in dredging up a lot of nonsense from the past—”
“There is when it may be relevant in the present,” Suzanne said.
“Can’t very well—”
“I assure you, neither Suzanne nor I shock easily,” Cordelia said. “Did he want you to steal something for him?”
“Steal something?” Bessborough’s brows shot up in seemingly genuine surprise. “Why should Alistair have wanted me to steal something? He could buy most anything he wanted. No, he wanted—” Bessborough tossed down a swallow of Madeira. “He wanted me to keep Lord Derwent occupied for the evening.”
Cordelia shot a look at Suzanne. “So he could—”
“What else would a man like Alistair want? So he could spend the night with Lady Derwent.”
Cordelia sat back on the footstool. “How silly of me. Of course, what else would be of such moment among the Devonshire House set? But it can’t be the first time one of your friends asked for your help with an amorous intrigue.”
“But Derwent was my friend, damn it.” Bessborough’s fingers tightened round his glass. “A better friend than Alistair Rannoch. One doesn’t poach on one’s friends’ wives. Well, at least one doesn’t help another man do it. It simply isn’t done.”
Suzanne shook her head. The intricacies of the social and moral code of the beau monde continued to fascinate and baffle her. She doubted she would ever fully master it. She suspected one had to be born into it to do so.
“So you refused,” Cordelia said.
“Naturally. Impertinent puppy.”
Alistair Rannoch had been Bessborough’s junior, but the dismissal was less that of a younger man than of a man who, whatever he had attained in life, had been born with a less exalted name and a distinct lack of fortune. For a moment, Suzanne felt the smallest twinge of sympathy with her late father-in-law.
“And?” Cordelia asked.
Bessborough shifted in his chair as though he could edge away from the memory. “Alistair didn’t have the decency to see he’d overstepped. Threatened to call in the loan. He knew damn well I couldn’t raise the money to pay him back. If I’d been in a position to do so I wouldn’t have needed his money in the first place. There was no way round it.”
“So?” Cordelia’s voice was gentle.
“What else was I to do? I kept Derwent busy for the night. Played cards with him and lost more money as it happens. Still ashamed whenever I think of it. Of distracting Derwent, that is.”
“It was very wrong of Mr. Rannoch,” Suzanne said. “Did he ask other favors of you?”
“From time to time. Of the same sort.” Bessborough’s mouth twisted. “One begins to grow disgusted with oneself. The worst was Anne Cyrus.”
“Hugo Cyrus’s wife?” Suzanne leaned forwards. “One of your fellow Elsinore League members?”
Bessborough nodded. “That seemed to make it worse. We’d sworn an oath of brotherhood for God’s sake.”
“Did Cyrus ever find out?”
“He’d have called me out if he did, I expect. Man is besotted with his wife, even if she was his brother’s love first.”
“And the debts?” Cordelia said.
“Oh, Alistair was good about those. Didn’t press when I was late with payments. Even came up with a bit more when I needed it for Caro’s marriage portion.”
The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) Page 26
