London Interlude

by Tracy Grant

  Roth moved to the central library table and rested his hands on the marble. "Miss Dudley was living in Paris?"

  "She'd gone there with her former employer and found herself without a position when her charge eloped with a junior officer."

  "You saw her references?"

  "Suzanne did." Malcolm moved to face Roth across the brown-veined marble of the table. "I was still an attaché and doing intelligence work. I was gone much of the time." He could hear Suzanne greeting him on his return home with, I've found the perfect governess. She didn't bat an eyelash when the cat jumped up on the tea tray and started lapping the cream.

  "Miss Dudley wasn't one of your agents?" Roth asked.

  "My agents?" Malcolm looked at Roth over the brace of candles that burned on the table. "I don't have agents."

  Roth stared at him.

  Malcolm scraped a hand through his hair. "Yes, all right, when I was more actively involved in intelligence there were people who reported to me. But why on earth would I engage an agent to look after my children?"

  "For cover. Or to protect Colin and Jessica. Or to protect Miss Dudley. You take looking after your own seriously."

  "Laura Dudley never worked for me except as governess to Colin and Jessica. Roth—"

  The doors swung open. Suzanne hurried back into the room in a swirl of seafoam silk. "Laura's bed is neatly made up and one of her cloaks is missing. Jeremy, in God's name where is she?"

  Roth turned to survey Suzanne. "Do you recall Miss Dudley ever meeting the Duke of Trenchard?"

  Suzanne blinked. "Once, at a reception for the Esterhazys'. She brought the children in. I remember Colin shaking hands with the duke, and Mary—the duchess—holding Jessica. Why?"

  "Because Trenchard was found shot to death in his study an hour ago. And Miss Dudley was in the room."

  Malcolm stared into Roth's hard eyes and bit back an exclamation of disbelief, closely followed by a curse.

  "I knew things had been quiet for too long," Suzanne said. "You'd think by now we'd be used to hearing shocking revelations. But—dear God." She folded her arms across her chest, gripping her elbows. Malcolm could tell she was remembering the same things he was. Laura Dudley's titian head bent over a slate or a book with Colin. Laura's steady hands helping Jessica hold a pastel. Laura crossing from the house to the square garden, Colin and Jessica gripping her gray-gloved fingers. Laura's reserved face softening when she looked at the children. Colin kissing her cheek and saying, "I love you." Jessica flinging her arms round Laura's knees.

  Thankfully, at such times the instincts of an agent came to the surface. "What's Laura said?" Malcolm asked.

  "That she called on the duke to discuss some private business she won't reveal, and that he was already shot when she walked into the room."

  Malcolm scanned Roth's closed face. "Surely when the footman brought her in—"

  "A footman didn't bring her in." Roth's gaze was as hard and unyielding as a steel buckler. "There's a hidden panel in Trenchard's study that leads to a secret entrance from the back garden. Miss Dudley used that."

  Malcolm heard Suzanne draw in her breath. In a world of thinly veiled amorous intrigue, that Trenchard had had a secret passage leading to his study was not so surprising. That Laura had known about it was.

  Suzanne's fingers dug into the lace of her sleeves. "And Laura says she came through this secret passage to find the duke dead—"

  "Dying. She summoned one of Trenchard's footmen. He confirms that he came into the room to find the duke mortally wounded. His Grace expired before a doctor could arrive. Miss Dudley then gave the footman a note to send to Bow Street and addressed it to me."

  "That doesn't sound like the action of a murderer," Suzanne said.

  "It might be the action of a very cool-headed murderer. Miss Dudley, from what I've seen of her, is exceedingly cool-headed," Roth said. Malcolm had a clear memory of Roth laughing with Laura Dudley over the tea tray only last week, but Roth's gaze betrayed none of that. "When I arrived she gave me a very brief statement and suggested I remove her to Bow Street before I woke the duchess. She refused to explain further."

  "If she'd entered through a secret passage she could have left that way and left the duke to die without summoning help," Suzanne said.

  "She could," Roth conceded.

  "But?" Malcolm asked.

  Roth's gaze shifted from Malcolm to Suzanne. "When I examined Miss Dudley's possessions I found this in her reticule." He reached inside his coat and pulled out a small pistol. The silver filigree mounting gleamed in the candlelight.

  Malcolm felt the start of surprise that ran through his wife, the impulse to lie, the quick decision that it was impracticable.

  "When did you last see it, Mrs. Rannoch?" Roth asked.

  Suzanne met Roth's gaze. "When I locked it in my dressing table a fortnight ago."

  Malcolm remembered the night vividly. He'd gone to the London docks with Suzanne, who was meeting a former fellow Bonapartist agent slipping into London on shipboard. There was, he told himself, no reason for Roth to suspect any of that.

  "Did Miss Dudley have a key to your dressing table?" Roth asked.

  "No."

  "Did she know you kept your pistol there?"

  "Not to my knowledge." Suzanne clasped her hands in front of her. "Why did Laura say she brought it with her?"

  "That it could be dangerous for a woman to be abroad alone at night."

  "Did she claim it was her own?"

  "No, she said ten to one I either knew it was yours already or would soon discover it."

  Suzanne cast a glance at Malcolm, an acknowledgment of presenting a united front, then looked back at Roth. "The pistol hasn't been fired. Trenchard wasn't killed with this."

  "No," Roth conceded. "But you have to admit the pistol raises more questions than it answers."

  "Where is Laura now?" Malcolm asked.

  "At the Brown Bear with one of my constables."

  The Brown Bear was a tavern adjacent to the Bow Street Public Office. The runners often went there to compare notes over a pint, but they also frequently commandeered the rooms above to interview and detain suspects. With Laura accounted for, Malcolm knew gathering evidence was critical. "The room where Trenchard died—"

  "I've kept people out of it. There's no sign of forced entry. And the servants say they admitted no one else to the house."

  "Someone else could have come in through the secret entrance," Suzanne said.

  "They could," Roth conceded.

  Malcolm recalled the flashes of wry amusement he'd glimpsed in Laura Dudley's gaze when she didn't think she was being observed. And the way she would retreat behind her governess façade if the conversation began to verge remotely on the personal. "Who else knows?" he asked.

  "I woke the duchess and informed her. She had no idea why Miss Dudley might have had business with the duke."

  Malcolm drew a breath. "Does Carfax know?"

  "I haven't informed him yet. Or the home secretary or the prime minister or anyone else. I came to you first."

  Malcolm met his friend's gaze, knowing full well the risk Roth had run. "Thank you."

  Roth inclined his head. "I've always liked Miss Dudley. I can't ignore the obvious implications of tonight's events, but I agree they're confusing on the surface."

  "We want to see Laura," Suzanne said.

  "I assumed you would. Though I should warn you she says she won't talk."

  "Not surprising." Suzanne stood and shook out the folds of her dressing gown.

  "But if you can get her to talk, there's one thing you might ask her about," Roth said.

  "Yes?" Malcolm asked.

  "The footman said that as he bent over the dying duke, Trenchard whispered the name 'Emily.'"

  ***

  "I'm coming with you, Malcolm." In their bedchamber, Suzanne dragged a chemise over her head and pulled on a front-lacing corset.

  "Of course. Laura's more likely to talk to you than me."r />
  "I'm afraid she won't talk to either of us." Suzanne tugged at the corset laces. "Which is going to make it damnably difficult to help her."

  "Suzette—"

  Suzanne looked up to find her husband staring at her, waistcoat unbuttoned over his shirt, cravat dangling from his fingers, gaze dark with suspicions neither had yet dared voice.

  "You're right." Suzanne tied the laces in a quick bow and reached for the mulberry sarcenet gown she had pulled from the wardrobe and thrown over a chairback. "We can't be sure Laura didn't kill Trenchard. But I'm sure if she did there were extenuating circumstances."

  Malcolm wound the cravat round his neck and knotted the ends with a haste that would horrify his valet. "You can't be sure of that, Suzette. I've come to think of Laura as one of the family, but one can never really know what another person is capable of—"

  He broke off. Suzanne met his gaze in the suddenly taut air. There it was, the truth they rarely voiced but that underlay their every interaction now. She looked into her husband's gray eyes, which she knew would never again meet her own quite so openly as they once had. They'd only get through this by confronting the ugly truth head on. "As I myself showed you," she said.

  His mouth twisted in a way that cut her in two. "Believe it or not, I wasn't thinking of that."

  "No, but we always seem to circle back to it, one way and another." She dropped into a chair, clutching her gown. "It would be understandable if you didn't trust anyone just now, darling."

  "I wouldn't say that." Malcolm began to button his waistcoat, fingers quick and precise. "But I can't but be aware that one can be blind to truths even about those to whom one is closest. We don't know Laura anywhere near as well as I'd have said I knew you."

  Suzanne gripped the silk braid that edged the sarcenet sleeves of the gown. She wasn't sure if it made it better or worse that he could speak about it so calmly. She stood up, dropped the dress over her head, and slid her arms into the long, tight sleeves. "I know it sounds absurd for me to be so certain. But for all Laura's reserve, I can't believe she's a cold-blooded killer."

  "Why such certainty?"

  Suzanne's fingers froze on the jet buttons on her waistcoat bodice. "Because I trusted her with our children." She gave a laugh sharp with despair.

  Malcolm's mouth curved in rueful acknowledgement. "So did I."

  "But it's more than that." Suzanne did up the last button. "Laura might kill in self-defense or to protect someone she loved, but not in cold blood."

  Malcolm reached for his coat. "So you're a better judge of people than I am?"

  "Of course not. I'm a lot of things, but I don't think I'm a cold-blooded killer either." She regarded her husband, hands at her sides. It seemed unfair to barricade herself in any way. "I've told you I'm not nearly as nice a person as you thought I was, Malcolm. But fundamentally, I am the person you thought you knew."

  "So you can't believe Laura is a cold-blooded murderer, but you wouldn't be shocked by her being a French spy?" Malcolm stared at Suzanne a moment. She felt the force of those first moments after he'd learned she had been a Bonapartist agent, but his gaze was now ruthlessly neutral. "Is Laura a French spy?"

  "Good God, darling, I'd have told you."

  "Would you?"

  Suzanne drew a breath. "Probably. That is—"

  "I don't think so. I think you'd have reasoned why ruin Laura's life as well as your own."

  "Perhaps. But as it happens, she isn't a French agent." Suzanne met her husband's gaze. So many moments between them these days seemed to be tests that could take them forwards or backwards on the fragile neutral ground that was their marriage. "Do you believe me?"

  "God help me, yes." He crossed to her side and took her face between his hands. "You're my wife. I'm your husband. We've made it through three months. The hardest part is behind us."

  "We haven't had to cope with an investigation."

  "Especially one that involves Carfax, however tangentially." His eyes darkened, but he stroked his thumb against her cheek. "But an investigation could be a good distraction."

  She swallowed, a metallic tang in her throat. "That depends on what it uncovers."

  For a moment, she saw the fear that coiled within her reflected in his eyes. Then he smiled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You've assured me Laura isn't a French spy. We should be safe."

  She returned his smile, because that was the only thing to do. But the fear coiled tighter in her chest.

  Because when had anything about their marriage ever been safe?

  Chapter 2

  "I'm sorry you had to be disturbed, Mr. Rannoch. Mrs. Rannoch." Laura Dudley got to her feet from the straight-backed chair in the small room above the Brown Bear Tavern where she'd been sitting. A tarnished brass brace of candles burned on a small round table. "I'd have told Mr. Roth not to send to you, but I knew it would be a waste of breath."

  Malcolm ducked his head beneath the low lintel and pulled the door to behind them. "I thought you'd got round to calling us Malcolm and Suzanne."

  Laura smoothed her hands over the skirt of her gown. Her lace-edged cuffs were twitched straight, but patches of crusted blood showed on the dove gray of her skirts. "I think we can both agree that circumstances have changed tonight."

  Malcolm reached for the other chair in the room and held it out for Suzanne. "Laura, I don't for a minute believe you committed cold-blooded murder."

  "Nonsense. You have to at least have considered the possibility. Or can't you admit that you might have been foolish enough to trust your children with a woman capable of murder?"

  Malcolm risked a glance at his wife and the saw the wry acknowledgment in her eyes. "Are you confessing?" he asked.

  "I'm telling you you're both better out of this."

  "Suzanne and I can take care of ourselves." Malcolm gestured to the chair Laura had vacated. "Won't you sit down, Laura? I can't do so until you do."

  She gave a faint smile that did not reach her eyes and sank into the chair.

  Malcolm dropped down on the edge of a cot covered with a blue blanket. "I've already sent word to a solicitor."

  "I don't want one."

  "What are you planning on doing?"

  "Looking after myself. I'm quite good at it."

  "Even you would find that somewhat difficult in these circumstances," Suzanne said. "What were you doing there, Laura?"

  "I needed to see Trenchard." Laura folded her hands in her lap. "You can make whatever assumptions you wish."

  "I never make obvious assumptions," Suzanne said. "Neither does Malcolm."

  "So you don't think I was his mistress?"

  "Were you?" Suzanne asked.

  Laura gave a faint smile. "It would have been difficult to find time for it."

  "Quite. Unless you're generally in the habit of slipping from the house at night. And if it's a habit, I flatter myself I'd have noticed."

  "I daresay you would. I'm sorry about your pistol by the way. I trust Mr. Roth has returned it to you. I wouldn't have taken it if I could have thought of another way to come by one."

  "If you'd explained things to me, I'd have been happy to lend it to you."

  Laura's gaze locked on Suzanne's through the shadows. "I doubt it."

  "You could always tell us what you wanted it for and let us judge for ourselves."

  Laura surveyed Suzanne for a long moment. "Mrs. Rannoch, you've been good to me." Her gaze moved to Malcolm. "So have you, Mr. Rannoch. I'm exceedingly fond of Colin and Jessica. I don't want you anywhere near what's going to happen."

  "Point taken," Suzanne said. "But if you know us at all, you must know it's a waste of breath."

  "What's going to happen?" Malcolm asked.

  "Nothing if you go home and stay out of this."

  "Are you being threatened?"

  "That would be an easy way out, wouldn't it? If I were a victim. But there's nothing easy about this."

  "Trenchard was Lord Carfax's son-in-law. There's no way Suz
anne and I are going to stay out of this, even if we wanted to."

  "I would think Carfax's involvement would make you want to stay as far away as possible."

  Malcolm willed his hands not to tense. There was no reason to believe Laura knew anything about Suzanne. Of course there had also been no reason to believe she'd known the Duke of Trenchard. "Let me deal with Carfax. I've been doing it for a long time."

  "As you wish."

  Malcolm stared into Laura's dark blue eyes. "You knew Trenchard."

  "You're hardly going to believe I called at such an hour on a man I'd only met for a few moments in the company of my charges."

  "How did you know about the secret entrance?"

  "Trenchard showed it to me. And no, I'm not going to elaborate."

  "All right." Malcolm sat back on the cot. "Assuming you didn't kill him, I presume you'd like to learn who did. What did you see when you stepped into Trenchard's study?"

  Rather to his surprise, Laura's brows drew together in a seemingly genuine effort of memory. "One lamp was lit. I couldn't see Trenchard at first, but I could smell the blood. Then I heard the rasp of his breathing. I stepped round the desk—he was lying behind it, in front of the drinks trolley. The blood had soaked through his waistcoat and coat. I flung open the door and screamed for the footman, then I tried to stop the bleeding." She glanced down at the stains on her dress. For a moment, he thought her iron composure might crack. But though Laura's fingers whitened against the bloodstained gray of her gown, her features remained composed.

  "Did the duke say anything?" Malcolm asked.

  "I think he was beyond speech. His breathing was—difficult. I'm not even sure he knew who I was." She drew a breath, as though afraid she might have revealed too much.

  "It must have been very difficult," Malcolm said.

  Laura's fingers tightened. "In truth it happened so quickly I scarcely had time to think. The footman sent for a doctor but within minutes it was clear His Grace was gone. I thought it best to send for Mr. Roth."

  Malcolm kept his gaze steady on her face. "You could have made your escape without sending for anyone at all, including the footman."

  "Had the duke already been dead I might have done. But I'm not quite such a monster as to leave a man to die."