The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch)

by Grant, Teresa

  Harry let out a whistle. “In addition to the emeralds, your ancestors seem to have hidden a fortune in diamonds.”

  Crispin frowned. “Odd.”

  “If the family was attainted, they’d have wanted to hide away whatever they could,” Malcolm said.

  “Yes, but I never heard any talk about diamonds being missing. Surely jewels on this scale couldn’t have gone missing without attracting notice.”

  Suzanne studied the sparkling stones. “And these were broken up, which makes them seem less like a family heirloom.”

  “Perhaps the Elizabethan Lord Harleton received them as payment from Lord Essex,” Cordelia suggested.

  “Difficult to imagine Essex handing over such a fortune,” Malcolm said. “These must be worth far more than the emeralds.” He reached for the black velvet bag. “And this doesn’t look anything like two hundred years old. I wonder if the diamonds were hidden far more recently.”

  “By my father?” Crispin asked.

  “That would be likeliest.”

  “So he found the emeralds but kept them hidden?”

  “Perhaps as insurance against needing to make a quick escape,” Harry suggested.

  Crispin’s face darkened. “You think the diamonds were payment from the French?”

  “Even were Lord Harleton the best asset imaginable, that would be an incalculably large payment,” Suzanne said.

  Malcolm met her gaze and nodded. Sometimes it was best to brazen things out.

  “We don’t know what secrets my father gave up,” Crispin said, a grim edge to his voice.

  Malcolm watched through the diamond panes of the window as Crispin swung a giggling Clarisse in the air.

  “He’s so good with them,” Suzanne said.

  “Remarkably. Of course, as I well know, one can become a father in a number of ways,” Malcolm said. Outside Crispin bent down to acknowledge Jessica, who was tugging at his boots. “It will cut him in two if Manon leaves him.”

  Suzanne swung her gaze to Malcolm. “I was thinking of what it will do to Manon when he marries.”

  Malcolm looked down at his wife. “Whom would Crispin marry?”

  “A girl from a good family cut out to be a baron’s wife.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Much the same sort of girl you’d have married if I hadn’t contrived to stumble across you.”

  Malcolm looked into the sea green eyes of the woman who had changed his opinion about marriage. “On the contrary. If it weren’t for your predicament—what I thought was your predicament—I wouldn’t have married at all.”

  Her gaze had the wry, wistful quality of one remembering something long ago, like a lost love. “My predicament was real enough, even if the circumstances weren’t what you thought them. And I know you always say you wouldn’t have married, dearest, but if I hadn’t got past your scruples, someone else would have. I know how sought after you were—it’s plain from the hostility of the matchmaking mamas to whom I’m an interloper. You can’t help but—”

  “Damn it, Suzette, if you say once more that I’m a prisoner of being a British gentleman—”

  “I was going to say you can’t help but do everything in your power to take care of people. There’d have been some other girl you’d have felt impelled to take care of.”

  A series of faces flashed through his mind. David’s cousin Honoria Talbot, lovely, blond, self-possessed. The girl many had assumed Malcolm would marry and whom he might even have offered for if he hadn’t been sure he’d make a hash of both their lives. Dark, elfin-faced Evelyn Mortimer, a poor relation who had grown up in a great house but lacked a dowry. She had cried on his shoulder one summer, and in the end he’d helped find a living for the equally penniless curate she was in love with. Elegant Jane Murchison, left on the shelf after a childhood bout with smallpox left her scarred. He’d wondered, home on leave one Christmas, if marriage to him would be preferable to spinsterhood. But in the end he’d decided it would make them both unhappy. Which was abundantly the case, as Jane had later eloped with the estate manager with whom she’d apparently been in love for years. “I doubt it,” he said.

  “You take care of everyone, Malcolm.”

  The tender mockery in Suzanne’s voice scraped him raw. “But inevitably I’d have calculated the odds and decided whoever it was, was better off without me.”

  “And my case was so extreme you didn’t think I would be?”

  “On the contrary. I was terrified I was taking advantage of you. If not, I’d have proposed far sooner. It was only when Stuart pushed me—”

  “Into doing your duty?”

  Malcolm saw the ambassador’s face that afternoon in Lisbon. “It was only when Stuart started insisting we had to find some solution for you that I realized I was more terrified he’d push you into someone else’s arms than that I’d make a mull of things.” He looked at his wife’s clear eyes, her winged brows, the curve of her mouth, and remembered the first moment he’d seen her in the Cantabrian Mountains, face smeared with dirt and blood, eyes brilliant with life. “The truth is I wanted you. Your predicament gave me an excuse for my selfishness in offering you a marriage built on Spanish coin.”

  He saw a spark in her eyes—relief? triumph? fear?—quickly suppressed. “Eventually you’d have wanted someone else.”

  “No. Not in this way. Not to the point of throwing caution to the wind. If I hadn’t met you I’d be alone.” And he wouldn’t have the children, either. “I suppose one could even argue I have cause to be grateful for your deception.”

  “No one would claim that, darling.”

  He dragged his gaze away. Outside the window, Crispin was on his back, with Colin and Livia sitting on his chest and Clarisse tugging at his hair, while Roxane held Jessica and Drusilla. “Crispin could marry Manon.”

  Suzanne’s sharp laugh cut the air. “Don’t be silly, darling. Men like Crispin don’t marry actresses. Even Sir Horace hasn’t married Jennifer Mansfield.”

  “Some gentlemen marry actresses. Some even marry courtesans. Henri Rivaux married Rachel Garnier.”

  Who had worked in a brothel. And Malcolm had helped create a cover story for Rachel to mask her past. “Henri was remarkable. And it meant a great deal to me that you helped them. But—”

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t have married me if you’d known the truth of my past.”

  He bit back the instinctive defensive quip. “I wouldn’t have married you if I’d known you were a French spy. At least not if I’d known you intended to go on spying.”

  “And if you’d known I was a whore?” She flung the word out like a glove tossed down in challenge.

  He forced himself to look honestly at his thoughts and motives. “I don’t know.”

  Her gaze had softened. It was almost pitying. “It’s not that I think you’d have considered the idea and rejected it, darling, so much as that I think it wouldn’t have even occurred to you. You wouldn’t have seen me as in want of protection. Not that sort of protection.”

  “I think you do us both a disservice. Your child would have still been in want of protection. And I’d have still—”

  “Wanted me? Well, if you’d known the truth, you’d have known you could have me without marriage.”

  “Don’t, Suzette. I wouldn’t—That cheapens both of us. And no matter what, that’s not a way I’d ever have seen you.”

  She looked at him a moment longer. He might now know she was a stranger, that she had been his enemy, but it didn’t kill the tug of desire.

  “Did you work with Manon Caret during the war?” he asked, drawing on his defenses, reminding himself of who his wife was and what she’d done.

  He felt Suzanne’s hesitation. He kept his gaze steady on her. “You’re hardly betraying anything. I already know she was a French agent.”

  Suzanne swallowed but didn’t look away. “I first met her in 1809 when I was fresh from my first mission. Later she probably saved my life when I stole some documents from th
e ministry of police.”

  “You were working against Fouché?”

  “As we’ve discussed, intelligence alliances are complicated things.”

  He watched her for a moment, thinking of the friendship that had seemed to spring up so easily between his wife and the actress, and the way Suzanne had introduced Manon to Simon. “You helped Manon escape from Paris two years ago, didn’t you?”

  This time she didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

  “With O’Roarke.”

  “Yes. I owed her my life, Malcolm. More than that—I owed something to all my former comrades who were hunted by Fouché’s agents while I danced and dined with the victors.”

  He inclined his head. “I can understand that.”

  “Can you?”

  “I understand loyalty.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d believe I was capable of it.”

  “You were loyal enough to your cause that you went into an arranged marriage for it.” He studied her for a moment, this woman who had betrayed him in so many ways. “That’s where you and O’Roarke met the Kestrel, isn’t it?” The Kestrel had been Bertrand Laclos’s nom de guerre when he rescued victims of the White Terror.

  “Raoul had found him, though he didn’t know the Kestrel’s true identity.”

  “So without your rescue of Manon Caret we might not have been able to rescue Paul St. Gilles. And Bertrand might still be presumed dead and might never have been reunited with Rupert.”

  “Ironic the way things can work out.”

  “I can hardly quarrel with saving anyone from the White Terror.” He turned back to the window and smiled as Crispin sat up on the lawn with all six children climbing on him. “I think you’re not giving me enough credit, though, in your certainty I wouldn’t have married you. And not giving Crispin enough credit when it comes to Manon.” He was silent a moment. Crispin lifted a giggling Jessica overhead. “We should start thinking about Jessica’s birthday,” Malcolm said abruptly.

  Her first birthday. Suzanne swallowed and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve started planning a party with Cordy. I’ll find an excuse to cry off.”

  “No need. We won’t let the investigation disrupt it.”

  “No, but—”

  “It’s her first birthday. We can manage to sit down to dinner with our friends.” He shifted against the wall. “Have you bought her presents?”

  “A stuffed cat and some blocks. And I’ve ordered a new dress. She’ll be more interested in the paper and ribbon, if I remember from Colin’s first.”

  Malcolm nodded. “We have a couple of birthdays before she’s dictating what she wants. I ordered a strand of pearls from Asprey’s. Small ones. She can wear them now on special occasions and have them as she grows.”

  “She’ll chew on them.”

  “Very likely. But I wanted her to have something she could keep as she gets older. I meant to tell you. I did it when I ordered your—Your anniversary present.”

  She swallowed. “Fortunately, Asprey’s is good about returns.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Having gone to the trouble of picking it out, I’d just as soon you had it.”

  Her throat constricted. “Malcolm—”

  He gave a smile that was somehow at once honest and distant. “After all, you are still my wife.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Suzanne slipped into the back of the Tavistock. They were in the midst of the “get thee to a nunnery” scene onstage. A relationship collapsing in the midst of treachery and divided loyalties, a woman set to spy on the man she loved. Poor Hamlet and Ophelia didn’t stand a chance. Suzanne sat at the back and let the words wash over her until Simon called a break.

  Manon stretched her back. “In either version, whether Hamlet is trying to protect Ophelia or disentangle himself from a spy, he could manage it more adroitly. Oh, Suzanne, thank goodness. Do come to my dressing room for a cup of tea. I’ve been round actors all morning.”

  Brandon threw a wadded-up piece of paper at her. “All morning isn’t very long considering when you get up.”

  Manon pulled a face at him, then grinned. “So nice to have a leading man one can tease,” she murmured to Suzanne as they went down the passage to her dressing room. “He’s less arrogant and has a keener understanding than most.” She gathered up her flounced skirts to step round a basket of props. “I understand you had a very interesting visit to Richmond yesterday. Though even after listening to Crispin talk half the night I’m not sure what it all means.”

  “I don’t think any of us are yet.”

  “Crispin had me try on the emeralds. I must say they’re quite lovely.” Manon opened the door of her dressing room. “Tea, thank goodness. I have a headache.”

  Suzanne pushed the door of Manon’s dressing room to and leaned against it. “Malcolm knows.”

  Manon spun round, the kettle in one hand. Her gaze acknowledged the fear they both lived with and went past it in the same instant. “What’s your escape plan?”

  “Who says I have an escape plan?”

  Manon set the kettle on the spirit lamp. “An agent always has an escape plan.”

  “But I’m not an agent anymore. I’m a former agent who hoped to go on living quietly with her husband and children.”

  “There’s no such thing as a former agent.” Manon picked up a canister from the jumble on the chest of drawers and spooned tea into a Wedgwood teapot. “Have you thought about running?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Suzanne.”

  “I can’t—oh, all right, yes.” Manon was perhaps the only person she could admit it to. She couldn’t even discuss it with Raoul. Suzanne dropped down on the settee. Her body ached as though she’d been pummeled black-and-blue. “I did. For about five seconds.”

  Manon got up from the dressing table bench, picked up a bottle of cognac from atop a stack of boxes, filled a glass, and put it in Suzanne’s hand. “This calls for something stronger than tea. Don’t tell me you realized you couldn’t bear life without him. At this point in your life, after the Peninsula and Waterloo, you should know just how much you can bear.”

  Suzanne closed her hand round the glass. Her fingers were shaking. She willed them to be still. “No, not that. I can’t take the children away from him. I can’t take him away from them.”

  Manon frowned, the bottle in one hand. “I’ll own I’ve never had that problem. Roxane’s father would have had an apoplexy or called me a liar if I’d named him as her parent. And Clarisse’s was too busy advancing his own career to notice. Actors. Possibly the only worse choice for a lover than a fellow agent.”

  Suzanne pressed the glass against her temple. “There was a time I was mad enough to think I could take Colin and leave. That Malcolm would even be glad to be free of us after he’d done the honorable thing by offering us his name. That delusion fled when I saw him holding Colin in his arms. Or as soon as I could think coherently thereafter.”

  “And your baby girl ties you to him.” Manon poured a glass for herself. “I don’t suppose that pregnancy was accidental.”

  Suzanne tightened her fingers round the glass. “You mean did I do it to tie Malcolm to me?”

  “Or to tie yourself to him?”

  “Perhaps.” Suzanne stared into the depths of the glass. “At least in part. The end result is the same.”

  Manon took a thoughtful drink of cognac. “I told you I was afraid the girls were getting too fond of Crispin. It will make it difficult when it ends.”

  “Who says it’s going to end?” Suzanne asked, despite or perhaps because of her conversation with Malcolm the evening before.

  “Love affairs always do. Your husband knowing the truth about you makes it more likely Crispin and I will part.”

  “Malcolm doesn’t know any more about you than he did before. He won’t learn more from me.”

  “Of course not.” Manon dropped down on the settee beside Suzanne. “In any case, that’s my lookout, as Crispin would say.
We were talking about you. I understand not wanting to deny your children their father. But they also need their mother.”

  “Malcolm won’t throw me out.” Suzanne choked down another sip of brandy. “I thought he might, but now I see—”

  “His feelings for you are too strong?”

  “His feelings for me are blasted to bits. But he isn’t going to deny the children one of their parents, either. He’s told me as much. We’re even still investigating together.”

  “So you’re safe.”

  Suzanne took a swallow of cognac. It burned her throat. “I have a roof over my head and more money than nine-tenths of the world and no more risk of arrest than I did yesterday. I’m more fortunate than most former Bonapartist agents.”

  “And you feel as though your life’s been shattered.”

  Suzanne cast a sidelong glance at her friend. “You claim not to believe in love.”

  Manon kicked off her slippers and drew her feet up onto the settee. “I claim not to believe love lasts. Quite different from denying it altogether.”

  “Are you telling me I’ll get over it?”

  Manon leaned back on the settee, arms hooked round her knees. “You’ll find a way to go on, because that’s who you are. You may even take another lover. As to whether you’ll ever care for another man as you care for Malcolm Rannoch, I don’t know.”

  “Careful, Manon. Take that one step further and you’ll be talking like a romantic.”

  “I’m an actress. I know how to observe.” She curled her fingers round her brandy glass. “I don’t know that I could do it.”

  “Lose the man you love?”

  “Go on living with him after the love burned itself out.”

  Suzanne hunched her shoulders against an inward chill. “As you said, I don’t have much choice.”

  The whistle of the teakettle punctuated the stillness. Manon got to her feet and splashed steaming water into the teapot. “Who else knows?”

  “No one. That is, Blanca told Addison. Malcolm’s valet. I told her to tell him,” Suzanne added at a sharp look from Manon. “He’s in love with her. In fact, they’re going to get married, despite the revelations. He won’t betray either of us.”