The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch)

by Grant, Teresa

  “And you trusted me?” Suzanne asked, genuinely curious. It wasn’t a word they used easily.

  “As much as I trusted anyone.”

  “How did you learn about the Elsinore League in the first place?” Malcolm asked. “Did they try to recruit you?”

  Raoul laughed. “Hardly. As I said, I didn’t run in their circles.”

  “How then?” Malcolm’s gaze drilled into the other man.

  Raoul hesitated. Suzanne saw his fingers tense on the chair arms. “From your mother.”

  Malcolm’s gaze locked on Raoul’s own. “She stumbled across evidence in Alistair’s things?”

  “There was no stumbling about it. Arabella had been investigating the Elsinore League for years.”

  Malcolm stared at the enemy spymaster who had fathered him. “She—O’Roarke, are you saying you recruited my mother to spy for you?”

  Raoul returned his gaze. Suzanne saw something shift in her former lover’s eyes, something she could not have put a name to, save that she had the oddest sense they were about to step over some sort of invisible barrier. “No,” Raoul said. “I’m saying she recruited me.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Suzanne could not suppress a gasp. Malcolm’s gaze was trained on Raoul. “My mother recruited you to be a French spy?”

  “No. Arabella’s sympathies were surprisingly liberal, but she was loyal to her country. She was working against the Elsinore League.”

  Malcolm shook his head in disbelief. “How—”

  “I believe she learned about them when she was on the Continent with your grandfather. Talleyrand may have told her some details, possibly Peter of Courland as well.”

  “They’re known abroad?” Suzanne asked.

  “Oh yes. I believe they have international members.”

  “Is Talleyrand a member?” Malcolm asked.

  “I’ve wondered about that, though I’m now inclined to think he was more interested in investigating the League. Which may be why he piqued Arabella’s interest. At first I think she was merely curious. Later—”

  “After Tatiana was born,” Malcolm said.

  “Yes. Learning about the League became a welcome focus, a distraction. But the more she learned about them, the more convinced she became that they needed to be stopped.”

  “And you?”

  “Agreed with her. They were opposed to everything I was working for—in Ireland, in France, in Britain. Even as I worked for other causes that one remained.”

  Malcolm swallowed. Suzanne could see the past swirling like bits of mosaic in his head. “Is that why she married my—Alistair?”

  “She denied it was the only reason, but I think it was part of it. She already knew he was one of the founders.”

  “Dear God.”

  Suzanne touched her husband’s arm, dragging him back to the present.

  “Why in God’s name didn’t you tell us any of this sooner?” Malcolm asked.

  Raoul drew in and released his breath. “Because I had given my word to your mother. She didn’t want you involved. The League have proved themselves willing to kill those who stand in their way. And I think she didn’t want to put further strain on your relationship with Alistair.”

  Malcolm gave a short laugh.

  “You thought of him as your father,” Raoul said. “Or at least Arabella believed you did.”

  Malcolm drew a breath.

  “I can understand if you have trouble believing it,” Raoul said.

  “No.” Malcolm frowned at his hands. “The odd thing is I’ve never been able to make sense of why my mother married Alistair. This at least has some logic to it.” He looked up at Raoul. “Did she use her knowledge of the League to force Alistair to get you out of Ireland?”

  Raoul’s mouth tightened. “It was more than that. Simply knowing about the League wouldn’t have hurt Alistair. They were too careful. Arabella had learned something about a particular mission of theirs, something she could tie Alistair to directly. Something that would destroy him.”

  “What?” Malcolm’s voice was frayed to the breaking point.

  “She wouldn’t tell me. I had to piece together that it was even to do with the League.”

  Malcolm pushed himself to his feet and took a turn about the room. “I think I may have an idea. In October of 1785 Bessborough saw diamonds hidden in a bottle of claret on Dewhurst’s yacht. We found loose diamonds hidden at Harleton’s house. And Bessborough mentioned that Dewhurst and Alistair hated Cardinal de Rohan.”

  This time it was Raoul’s turn to look at Malcolm in shock. “Good God.”

  “Malcolm.” Suzanne stared at her husband. “Are you saying Alistair and Dewhurst and Harleton stole the queen’s diamonds?”

  “The irony being that they never really were the queen’s diamonds.” Raoul ran a hand over his hair as though in an effort to reorder his thoughts. “In fact, the necklace was designed for a royal mistress.”

  “Madame de Pompadour,” Malcolm said. “Louis the Fifteenth commissioned the necklace for her, didn’t he? But then the king died before it was paid for.”

  “And the jewelers tried to sell it to Marie Antoinette.” Suzanne conjured up bits and pieces of the story she’d heard as a child. “But she refused.”

  “Perhaps because she didn’t want a necklace that had been designed for her father-in-law’s mistress,” Raoul said. “Perhaps because she saw the folly of such extravagance in a time of privation. She wasn’t nearly so heedless as her reputation would lead one to believe. Leaving the jewelers in a quandary. Until an enterprising young woman named Jeanne de la Motte enters the picture.”

  “Did you know her?” Suzanne asked.

  “I met her once or twice. Striking. And a keen understanding. Under different circumstances she might have made a good agent. She seems to have been driven by personal ambition. She and her lover tried to entrap Cardinal de Rohan into buying the necklace by creating a false correspondence with Marie Antoinette in which the queen asked him to buy it for her. They even hired a prostitute to impersonate the queen. Supposedly their motive was greed. They planned to make off with the necklace themselves. But I’ve always wondered if there was more to their choice of Rohan.”

  “Dewhurst was in France then,” Malcolm said. “He’d gone to school there. Alistair and Harleton were in and out. They could have found Jeanne, they could have financed her.”

  “She was tried,” Suzanne said. “She didn’t implicate them.”

  “She was probably well paid not to.” Malcolm took another turn about the room. “She sought refuge in England after she got out of prison.”

  “And they hid the diamonds?” Suzanne asked.

  “They couldn’t have sold them,” Raoul said. “At least not all at once. They might have taken bits and pieces through the years.”

  Malcolm nodded. “Aunt Frances has a diamond pendant Alistair gave her, a particularly fine stone. I wouldn’t be surprised if—” He broke off.

  “It’s all right,” Raoul said. “I already knew about Fanny and Alistair.”

  “I should have realized. You seem to know more family secrets than I do myself. More to the point,” Malcolm continued, “the diamonds could be what Harleton was referring to in his quarrel with Alistair when he said Alistair would take ‘it,’ too, given the chance.”

  Suzanne shook her head. “To meddle on that level—”

  “They wouldn’t have known quite the extent of it at the time,” Raoul said. “If Malcolm is right, their aim was to bring down Rohan. They’re clever men, but I doubt they foresaw that the public wouldn’t believe Marie Antoinette was innocent of the conspiracy. That the affair of the necklace would be seen, at least in retrospect, as playing a role in bringing down the French monarchy.”

  “So if the truth came out, diehard Royalists like my father and Dewhurst would be seen as having helped incite the Revolution.”

  “Yes, that might well have seemed like too much even to them,” Raoul said. “I can see Alis
tair going so far as to save my hide to keep the secret. He valued his reputation.”

  “Though in other ways he strikes me as more of an Iago than a Rodrigo,” Malcolm said.

  “This explains what Alistair and Harleton and Dewhurst had to fear,” Suzanne said. “But it doesn’t explain why someone would have wanted to kill Alistair and Lord Harleton. It doesn’t even precisely explain the importance of the manuscript unless someone thought it could lead to the diamonds.”

  “Alistair and Harleton had the power to destroy Dewhurst,” Malcolm pointed out. “But he could equally destroy them, and it’s difficult to see why it should come to a crisis now.”

  “Carfax was on to Harleton,” Suzanne said, sorting through the mosaic of information. “Harleton could have used the diamonds to pressure Dewhurst and Alistair to protect him.”

  “Which would give Dewhurst a motive to kill Harleton but not Alistair.” Malcolm prowled back into the center of the room. “We know Rupert saw the three of them meeting in secrecy at his sister’s not long before Harleton was killed, and Rupert says the meeting appeared contentious. It’s not a stretch to think that related to the diamonds in some way.”

  “Suppose someone had uncovered their involvement and wanted revenge,” Suzanne suggested. “Someone connected to Jeanne de la Motte? Or to Cardinal de Rohan?”

  Raoul’s gaze shifted between them, a faint smile curving his lips. “It’s edifying to listen to your expertise. I can’t match either of you as an investigator, but I should add that the League don’t always work in concert. Obviously all the members can’t be in on every scheme.”

  “You think some of the other members learned about the affair of the diamonds and took revenge?”

  “I think it’s not unimaginable that other members would have thought Alistair, Harleton, and Dewhurst had overstepped their brief.” Malcolm dropped down on the sofa beside Suzanne again.

  “Dewhurst.” Suzanne frowned at a loose thread in her sleeve. “He’s what’s out of place in all this. If the motive was vengeance or even to silence the conspirators, why is Dewhurst untouched? Has he simply avoided it? Or—”

  “Is he the one behind the attacks,” Malcolm finished for her.

  “And I think you’re right, we—you—haven’t arrived at the importance of the Hamlet manuscript yet,” Raoul said.

  “Which is where this whole thing began.” Malcolm scrubbed his hands over his face. “Who would have thought we could uncover a conspiracy of this magnitude and still be looking for answers.”

  “Darling—” Suzanne reached out and gripped her husband’s hand. She had no right to either the endearment or the gesture anymore, but somehow both came naturally.

  Malcolm to her surprise did not jerk away from her touch or her words. Perhaps he was unaware of both. His gaze was fixed on the cool gray light, spilling through the windows onto the Aubusson carpet and oak and bronze velvet, touched with winter. “I always saw my mother as a victim. Of circumstances, an unfortunate marriage, the demons that drove her. Someone who reacted, who sought escape. And I suppose she was all those things at times. But she was also—” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine. She actually married Alistair to obtain information—”

  Suzanne thought it was her jerk of response that made him break off. He swung his gaze to her though he didn’t release her hand.

  “It can seem a reasonable option at the time,” she said.

  He didn’t flinch away, from her gaze or from the implications. “I think Arabella despised Alistair even then. And you didn’t—”

  “Despise you? No. Far from it. I already knew you were one of the best men I’d ever encountered. Which I suppose makes what I did worse.”

  “Not taking your children into account.”

  She swallowed. Her throat ached, not with loss but with sympathy. “I don’t imagine your mother was even thinking about children at the time. I didn’t, until I knew I was carrying Colin. By the time she was pregnant with you, she was locked into her choices.”

  Malcolm’s mouth twisted. “I always knew her children weren’t at the forefront of the choices she made. This doesn’t change that.”

  “And yet she gave up her greatest bargaining chip to save her son’s father.”

  “Or to save the man she loved or the man whose cause she believed in. Or whom she needed to further her own ends. In an odd way one could argue O’Roarke made more decisions taking me into account than she did.”

  For a moment, she felt that saying anything would be akin to treading on broken glass. “I can’t pretend to understand him, Malcolm, particularly after the past three days. But I think you matter to him more than you realize.”

  His brows drew together, but he didn’t give an instinctive denial. He glanced down at their clasped hands. She thought he would drop hers at once when he realized he was holding it, but instead he squeezed her fingers. The barest contact but enough to send a shock to the soles of her shoes. “There’s a lot to discuss but no time to wallow. Not now. We have work to do.”

  “Darling?” Cordelia set down her pen and looked at Harry across the library table. “Is something wrong?”

  Harry smiled at his wife. She had an ink smudge on her nose and her hair was slipping free of its pins and she looked impossibly lovely. “Do I look as though something’s wrong?”

  “Well, you don’t generally stare at the same page for a quarter hour.”

  Harry glanced down at the Cicero speech on the table in front of him. “Probably a mistake to even try to work until the investigation is wrapped up. But I felt the need to make the attempt.” In truth, what he’d felt the lure of was time in the library with Cordelia, the familiar smells of ink and leather and paper, the sound of pens scratching, and Livia and Drusilla playing with their dolls on the carpet before the fireplace. What had once been his solitary refuge was now the heart of family life.

  Harry flipped the book shut. “It’s odd how one can live with a person for years and then realize one doesn’t really know them at all.”

  Cordelia flexed her fingers. “Unless you’ve made some sort of unexpected discovery about me, I assume you mean—”

  “Archibald. He seems to have paid rather more attention to me than I credited at the time. Strange how one can miss so much about events one lived through.”

  “Or one sees them later from a different angle.” Cordelia glanced at her children. “God knows I was dreadfully inclined to neglect everyone’s perspective but my own as a child.” She picked up the pen and twirled it between her fingers. “There’s always seemed to be something a bit elusive about Archie. As though there’s another story hidden beneath the surface that we may never know. Every so often I’d get little hints of it. I remember we were once sharing a drink after we’d been to the theatre and he said, seemingly apropos of nothing, that the most beautiful woman he’d ever known had never been his mistress. I’ve always wondered what the story was behind that.”

  Harry frowned, something teasing at the edge of his consciousness.

  “Colin said he got to see Mr. O’Roarke,” Livia announced from the hearth rug in the silence. “He came to Berkeley Square.”

  “Yes, I imagine he needed to talk to Malcolm and Suzanne.” Cordelia turned towards the girls.

  “I like Mr. O’Roarke,” Livia said, fingers busy plaiting a doll’s yellow hair. “He tells good stories. When are we going to see him again?”

  “I expect sometime in Berkeley Square. Perhaps at Jessica’s birthday party.”

  “I keep thinking we’ll see him at Uncle Archie’s. Don’t, Dru, you’ll tear it.” Livia snatched a doll dress from Drusilla’s fingers.

  Cordelia cast a quick glance at Harry and went to pick up Drusilla, who had started to cry. “Why would you expect to see Mr. O’Roarke at Uncle Archie’s?”

  “Because I saw him there before.”

  “Recently?” Cordelia asked.

  “No, before Waterloo. Before we lived with Daddy. Here, Dru can have this
one.” Livia held out a sturdy wool doll dress.

  Cordelia dropped down on the hearth rug with Drusilla. Harry got up from the library table and walked towards his wife and daughters.

  “Darling,” Cordelia said as Drusilla snatched up the proffered doll dress. “What exactly did you see?”

  “It was when we were staying with Uncle Archie when our house was being painted. I woke up one night and went to find you, and I got confused because it was a strange house. I saw Uncle Archie downstairs in the hall talking to a man I’d never met before. It was Mr. O’Roarke.” Livia looked between her parents. “They were talking quietly, as though it was something secretive. But then it always seems like grown-ups have secrets.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Amazing how we see a man and woman together and jump to certain conclusions. As though no other sort of relationship were possible.” Harry stared at his uncle through the afternoon shadows that filled Archibald’s study. “You weren’t Arabella Rannoch’s lover.”

  “No?” Davenport topped off his glass of port. “Then why on earth would I have told her son I was?”

  “To explain your interactions with her in ’98. Dewhurst had already jumped to that conclusion and told Malcolm.”

  “My dear boy.” Archibald took a sip of port and paused, as though evaluating the vintage. “You saw Arabella Rannoch. You were old enough to appreciate her charms.”

  “You told Cordy the most beautiful woman you’d ever met was never your mistress.”

  “Arabella was a lovely woman, but that could refer to any number—”

  “It could. But somehow I’m quite sure it referred to Arabella.”

  Archibald took another sip of port. “That sounds a bit imprecise for a scholar. I’m not saying I was blind to Arabella’s more refined qualities, but if you imagine our relationship was about reading poetry or poring over obscure texts—”

  “No, I think it was about passing secrets to the United Irishmen.”