London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  "And just why," Harry asked, "did you want your old friend to steal papers that contained you know not what?"

  Ennis's hands curled into fists. "It was a favor."

  "For?" Harry's gaze was hard, though not without sympathy.

  "Damn, Davenport. You know a gentleman doesn't betray—"

  "A gentleman honors his friends. That includes learning who murdered them. I'd say that ranks above protecting a confidence."

  Ennis glanced away again, this time facing away from his children. "You don't understand. You're a good man, Davenport, but you never took some things seriously enough."

  "Try me."

  Tension shot through Ennis's frame. Suddenly, he looked as though he stood on the parade ground. "I can't—"

  "Perhaps if I left—" Malcolm suggested.

  "It's not that, Rannoch. It's duty."

  Harry regarded his former comrade for a long moment. Even Malcolm couldn't quite read what was in his friend's gaze. "And your duty to your wife?"

  "What does Anne have to do with—"

  "Odd how a marriage works." Harry's voice was meditative, but his gaze remained hard. "If it's a good marriage, one tells one's spouse things one would probably tell no one else. And yet one doesn't tell everything. I'd wager there are things you haven't told your Anne. Such as what happened after Badajoz. Or the real reasons behind your duel with Guthrie Fanshawe."

  Ennis stared at Harry, as though he had stripped off his skin to reveal an entirely different person beneath. "You wouldn't."

  "I don't want to," Harry said. "But I would. I told you, we aren't playing a gentleman's game."

  Ennis drew a shuddering breath. "Damn you, Davenport," he said again, this time not in the tone of one speaking to a friend.

  "Who was it?"

  Ennis cast another quick glance at his children, then turned back to Harry. "Fitzroy Somerset."

  For a moment, Malcolm saw Fitzroy Somerset patiently writing out orders by candlelight the night before Waterloo, felt Fitzroy's weight in his arms when he'd carried his friend from the battlefield, saw Fitzroy holding the hand of his young daughter. Wellington's military secretary, Fitzroy had lost his arm at Waterloo but had returned to his post with surprising speed. His good humor was equaled by his unwavering sense of honor, which to him was far more than a word.

  "Fitzroy asked you to break into Whateley & Company?" Malcolm said, hearing the disbelief tremble in his own voice.

  Ennis turned his gaze to Malcolm. "He's a friend of yours? If you know him, you'll understand that when Fitzroy asks you for a favor you don't ask questions. You assume it's important. You don't question that it's the right thing to do. Fitzroy would never do something dishonorable."

  Harry raised a brow, but said, "Just what did he say to you?"

  Ennis scraped the toe of his boot over the damp ground. "He came to see me in Shropshire. He said he had an unusual job that needed doing, and he thought I might know someone who could help. A tactful way of referring to the type of people I used to associate with. Some papers that needed to be recovered. He couldn't tell me more, but he pledged me his word that no one would be hurt by taking them, and irreparable harm could be done if they were not recovered. I didn't press him for more. One doesn't."

  "How did he say the thief should recognize these papers?" Malcolm asked.

  "That they'd be hidden. And in the form of a letter."

  "From Fitzroy himself? To Fitzroy?"

  "He didn't say. In fact, he seemed relieved when I told him Coventry couldn't read much beyond his name."

  "Did he indicate anyone else might be after these papers?" Harry asked.

  "Why on earth—"

  "Because whoever killed Ben Coventry may have been someone else who broke in in search of these papers."

  Ennis stared at him.

  "A hiding place was open beside Coventry's body," Malcolm said. "But it was empty. Difficult not to draw conclusions."

  "My God." Ennis spun round. "I have to warn Fitzroy."

  "No." Malcolm closed his hand round Ennis's arm. "I'll do that."

  "People never fail to surprise you," Harry said as he and Malcolm walked away.

  "Ennis?"

  "A bit. More the marriage than his hiring Coventry. But I was thinking of Fitzroy."

  Malcolm stared at the sodden ground in front of him. "It doesn't make sense."

  "You're the one who always says one can never know what a person will do under every circumstance. It sounds as though he has his reasons. Knowing Fitzroy, I suspect they were good ones."

  "That's just it. If Fitzroy wanted something stolen that was top secret, why wouldn't he simply ask me? Or you? He must know breaking into a warehouse and searching for hidden papers would be child's play for us. Why go to an old friend in the countryside and bring in a hired thief?"

  "Because if the whole thing went haywire he didn't want us caught up in it," Harry said. "He was trying to protect us."

  That eased some of the tension in Malcolm's chest. "I could see that. Fitzroy's just the sort to try to spare his friends."

  "Of course it could also be because he doesn't want us to see whatever is in those papers," Harry said.

  Malcolm nodded. "And either way, the question of what is in the papers remains."

  Chapter 12

  "Malcolm." Fitzroy Somerset looked up with a smile as Malcolm entered his study. He'd greeted Malcolm with the same smile in makeshift headquarters in the Peninsula, in the cheerful chaos of Brussels, at the inn where Wellington and his staff had bivouacked the night before Waterloo. "It's been too long."

  "We'll see each other more when you're in the House." Malcolm dropped down in a ladder-back chair opposite the desk. "Even if it's across the chamber."

  Fitzroy flushed. He was still based in Paris as Wellington's secretary at the British embassy, but he was in London for the Waterloo anniversary, and he was standing for a seat in Truro in the forthcoming general election. He was standing as a Tory, opposed to Malcolm on most issues. The often-vituperative rhetoric of the House could not be more different from Fitzroy's usual measured approach to interactions.

  "It's all right," Malcolm said. "Being a diplomat and an agent taught me that one can be friends with the enemy."

  Fitzroy fiddled with his pen. He'd got very adept at writing with his left hand since he'd lost his right arm at Waterloo. "It's not—I'd never see you as an enemy, Malcolm."

  "My dear idiot, of course not." Malcolm leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "It's been plain for years that we see the world differently. It doesn't change our friendship."

  Fitzroy's brows drew together. "We favor different tactics, perhaps. We both want the same thing for our country."

  Fitzroy was committed to supporting the system Malcolm's wife and father were equally committed to bringing down. That Malcolm himself opposed more and more the more he saw of the world. The more he talked to his wife and father. But that didn't change the fact that Fitzroy was one of the most decent men he knew.

  "Harriet saw Suzanne in the park with the children," Fitzroy said. "And Lady Tarrington."

  His voice held just the faintest question about Laura but didn't pry. Fitzroy wouldn't.

  "Laura's a good friend," Malcolm said. "She's had a difficult time of it."

  "I have friends who knew her in India as a girl. Damnable what she's been through. It's wonderful you can help her."

  "She's enjoying her daughter, and our children adore her."

  Fitzroy spread his fingers on the desktop. "Harriet said young Colin had taken the reins."

  "Yes, he has remarkably steady hands for five. Your own three must be quite a handful."

  Fitzroy grinned. "And to think I used to think there was no chaos like a group of aides-de-camp."

  Malcolm grinned as well, sharing the solidarity of their time in the Peninsula and their lives now as the fathers of young children. It was tempting to prolong the moment. But experience told him it was also the perfect time t
o ask his question. "Really Fitzroy," he said, in the same cheerful tone, "if you had to hire someone to steal documents, didn't it occur to you to give the work to your friends?"

  Fitzroy went still. Malcolm kept his gaze level. "Davenport and I've just been to see John Ennis. We know he engaged Ben Coventry. We know you asked Ennis to do so."

  Fitzroy tensed as though he scented enemy sniper fire. "Ennis wouldn't—"

  "Probably not under normal circumstances. He was dealing with two agents and Davenport knows him enough to have leverage."

  Fitzroy's one hand slammed down on his papers, white knuckled. "You don't know what you've stumbled into, Malcolm."

  "No, not in the least. That's why I'm asking you."

  Fitzroy lifted his gaze to Malcolm's face. The gaze at once of a friend and of a soldier. "Let it go, Malcolm." Amazing that soft voice could carry such force.

  "You know me, Fitzroy. You know I can't."

  "No good will come of this. And it could do incalculable harm."

  "The man you hired is dead. Harm's already been done."

  "And I don't want it to get worse."

  Malcolm folded his arms. "It's Wellington, isn't it? Christ, has he written more indiscreet letters? Whom to this time?"

  "Damn it, Malcolm, why must you jump to—"

  "Because the duke's a remarkable man, but pretty women are his weakness."

  "No."

  "Fitzroy—"

  "Why are you so sure this is even to do with the duke?"

  "Because you're not the sort to have personal secrets."

  "So sure, Malcolm?" Fitzroy asked. His hand was taut on the desk. His gaze turned harder than Malcolm had ever seen it, even in the field. "You're always saying one can never tell what people may be capable of."

  "Fitzroy, if you're in trouble—"

  "You'd help me get out of it?" Fitzroy's finely molded mouth twisted with unwonted derision. "You of all people should know you can't promise that, Malcolm. We've been comrades. I hope we're friends. But the election proves we aren't allies in everything we do."

  The question Malcolm hadn't been sure he'd be able to ask shot from his mouth. "Did you hire the men who attacked Suzanne and me last night?"

  The recoil in Fitzroy's eyes betrayed shock. Or a good counterfeit of it. "Good God, Malcolm, what happened? Is Suzanne all right?"

  "Suzanne's fine. We've both faced worse. But the men made extravagant threats if we didn't stop the investigation. You haven't answered my question."

  Fitzroy stared at him across the desk. For a moment Malcolm could feel the weight of his wounded friend in his arms as he carried Fitzroy from the field at Waterloo. "How can you possibly think I'd have done such a thing?"

  "I wouldn't have thought it," Malcolm said. "But as you just pointed out, we aren't allies in everything we do."

  "Rannoch."

  Malcolm turned on the steps to see John Ennis hurrying towards him. "Ennis. Come to warn Fitzroy?"

  Ennis's gaze darted over Malcolm's face. "You've already seen him? And he wouldn't tell you anything?"

  "Let's just say I still have questions."

  Ennis gave a curt nod. "I did come to see Fitzroy. But I was also hoping I'd encounter you." A muscle tensed beside his jaw as though even now he was debating the wisdom of saying more. "I don't understand this. But Ben was a good man, and he was killed on a job I engaged him for. I owe it to him to do what I can to learn the truth. So if this will help—"

  "Yes?" Malcolm said, in the steady voice he used to draw out confidences.

  "When I went to see Coventry. The night his woman must have overheard us. Coventry had gone round to Whateley & Company to do some reconnaissance. He still seemed to think it was a fairly routine job. But he said there were some surprises. I should have suspected—"

  "What?" Malcolm asked.

  Ennis drew a breath. "Coventry said Whateley & Company were shipping more than tea and iron. He got a look in one of the crates, and he said they were shipping guns."

  Chapter 13

  Suzanne froze in the midst of fastening her garnet pendant round her throat, gaze fixed on her husband's own in the looking glass. "Oh, darling."

  Malcolm pulled his razor along his jaw. He'd moved his shaving things into the bedroom so they could talk while they prepared for the opening night of Measure for Measure at the Tavistock. "It's hardly the first time I've crossed swords with one of my friends in the course of an investigation."

  "No, but Fitzroy is—" Suzanne hesitated. Difficult to put into words the bonds forged at Waterloo. She would never fully know what Malcolm had gone through that day, but she knew the bonds she had forged sharing it with David, Simon, Cordelia, Blanca, Addison, and Rachel Garnier nursing the wounded in Brussels. And Fitzroy's steady temper and a sense of honor in its own way as strong as Malcolm's own made them particular friends.

  Malcolm stared into the looking glass he'd propped atop the chest of drawers. "Fitzroy and I disagree about a number of things. And I know how loyal he is to Wellington." He dipped the razor in a bowl of water.

  "You think Wellington ordered him to orchestrate the break-in at Whateley & Company?"

  "Possibly. Or Fitzroy's trying to protect the duke on his own." Malcolm angled his face to the light and drew the razor along his jaw on the opposite side. "The more interesting question is what was concealed at Whateley & Company that the duke or Fitzroy or both of them is so determined to uncover. Fitzroy bridled at the suggestion that it was a love letter, but he would have done whether it is or not. Though you'd think the duke would have learned his lesson."

  "That's a lesson men find it difficult to learn. Some men."

  Malcolm shot a smile at her over his shoulder. "Thank you."

  Suzanne reached for her pearls and fastened them over the pendant. "Do you think Craven had papers that contained a secret about Wellington?"

  Malcolm set down the razor and picked up a towel. "That's the likeliest explanation for how such papers could have come to be in the warehouse, though it's still difficult to see how he came by them. Easier to see Carfax having such papers in his possession. And I suppose it's barely possible he could have had Craven hide them for him, but I'd be surprised Carfax trusted Craven that much."

  Suzanne smoothed the sea-green tulle of her gown. "If the papers are a love letter or letters—It's possible Craven got them from the lady in question. Or Eustace Whateley did."

  Malcolm emerged from scrubbing his face with the snowy towel. "You think one of them shared a mistress with Wellington?"

  "Is that so surprising?"

  "Given that we know Wellington was involved in some fashion with Lady Frances Webster who's also been linked to Byron—If that's the case, I wonder if Carfax suspects."

  "It's only a theory, darling." Suzanne got to her feet and went to her husband's side. A trace of shaving lather clung to the corner of his mouth. She wiped it away.

  Malcolm caught her hand and drew it across his mouth. "It's a good theory."

  "It doesn't explain Ennis's claim that Coventry said Whateley & Company were shipping guns."

  "No." Malcolm's gaze grew serious. "God knows there was profiteering during the war, but more likely from contracts being steered one way or another than actual gunrunning."

  "Suppose someone in the military had got hold of excess weapons and was selling them under the table and paying Whateley & Company to do the shipping?"

  Malcolm frowned. "Possible. But while I can see Fitzroy covering up a love affair of Wellington's, I can't see him involved in gunrunning."

  "Nor can I." Suzanne tightened her black satin sash. "But he could have engaged Ennis as a favor for a friend without knowing the specifics. Men can be very loyal to those they've fought with. And Fitzroy is the sort who might trust a comrade's word of honor."

  "In which case it could have nothing to do with Wellington. But if Whateley & Company were shipping the weapons why break in and steal papers? Presumably whoever was behind the gunrunning was in lea
gue with Eustace Whateley."

  "Perhaps that's it." Suzanne shifted the puzzle pieces in her mind. "If Fitzroy was investigating possible gunrunning and looking for proof—"

  "Why in God's name wouldn't he have told me?"

  "You aren't a diplomat anymore, darling. Or an official agent. If Fitzroy suspected a fellow officer but wasn't certain—"

  "He might have hesitated to tarnish someone's reputation, especially to one outside the family."

  Malcolm had been almost, but not quite, one of the "family" of Wellington's aides-de-camp in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. But a lot had changed since then. "That could fit Fitzroy. So could protecting Wellington. I need to talk to Eustace Whateley." He looked down at Suzanne for a moment. "I don't think Fitzroy would have hired people to attack us. At least not to attack you. But depending on who else is involved in this—"

  "We're taking precautions," Suzanne said. "That's all we can do at this point."

  "That, and learn what was in the papers," Malcolm said.

  Suzanne glanced round the grand salon of the Tavistock as theatregoers thronged it for the interval, then turned to smile at Laura. "I'm glad you came with us."

  "So am I. It's a brilliant play, and Manon is brilliant in it. I'm less sure about the show here. Or at least, I might not mind watching it, but I don't know how I feel about being part of it."

  Laura's, or rather Jane Tarrington's, return from the dead had caused a good deal of talk, and Laura still went out in society little enough to attract a good deal of interest when she did venture out. "You're a rarity," Suzanne said. "Some people would play upon that to hold society's attention."

  Laura shook her head as David's sister, Isobel Lydgate, came up to join them. "Simon looks rather the way I feel when I'm giving a ball," Isobel said. "Though I suppose that's a frivolous comparison."

  "I'd say it's very apt," Suzanne said. "How are the preparations for tomorrow night?" A few weeks ago, Suzanne had helped Isobel write out the cards of invitation for her ball, but in the press of the past few days, she'd almost forgot that the ball was the following evening.