The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  "Losing a child is the most horrible thing a parent can go through," Suzanne said.

  "So I think whenever my children get a simple chill." Mary had never particularly seemed a doting mother, but the fear in her gaze was very real. "I tried to comfort Trenchard, but he—" She shook her head. "With Trenchard emotion was never simple. And of course for him it was also a question of succession. James was already in the House of Commons. He stepped into the role of heir to the dukedom, a role he is really much more suited for. Trenchard never had to worry about him." She set down the coffeepot. "Trenchard never seemed to think about him much at all."

  "And Jack?" Suzanne asked.

  "Trenchard never spoke of Jack. Once when Bobby said he used to have two brothers, Trenchard nearly bit his head off. My girls don't remember Jack at all." She shook her head. "They say tragedy can knit a family together, but sometimes I think it pulls them apart. Or in our case it simply created more space between us."

  "When did you last see your husband?" Malcolm asked.

  "Good heavens." Her brows lifted. "Am I a suspect? I suppose as his wife it's only natural that I am. But I assure you though I wasn't madly in love with Trenchard, our marriage was quite comfortable."

  "Merely trying to establish a timeline," Malcolm said.

  "Does that mean you don't suspect me?"

  "I have no reason to suspect you."

  Mary's brows drew together again, as though she were honestly considering. "I passed him in the hall when I was coming back from my morning ride. No, I saw him again on the half-landing when I was on my way to dine at the Grandisons'. He was dining at White's. I went on to the opera after dinner."

  "He wasn't back when you returned home?"

  "To own the truth, I'm not certain. We didn't live in each other's pockets, as I believe I've made abundantly clear. His rooms are across the house from mine, and he hasn't visited my bedchamber for some time." She clunked down her coffee cup. "Shocked? But this is a murder investigation, not a social call."

  Malcolm leaned forwards across the table. "Mary—"

  Quick steps sounded and the door was flung open. David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley, Mary's brother and Malcolm's closest friend from their days at Harrow, strode into the room. He paused on the threshold and took in the company, the dictates of civility warring with a brother's concern. Brotherly concern won.

  "Mary." He stepped forwards to embrace his sister without pausing to acknowledge the others. "I'm so sorry. I came at once."

  Mary returned her brother's embrace, though she seemed rather more guarded than she had with Malcolm, perhaps because she'd had time to recover, perhaps owing to the nature of their relationship. "That was kind of you. Don't tell me the news is all over Mayfair already."

  "Father sent word to me."

  She gave a tight smile. "As usual, Father's reach is both a blessing and a curse."

  "I thought you'd want—"

  She put out her hand. "It's kind of you, David. Truly."

  David looked at Malcolm. "I hear—"

  "Nothing is certain." Malcolm got to his feet. "We'll leave you to talk to Mary while we have a look at the study."

  Chapter 4

  The smell of drying blood greeted them as they stepped into the study, taking Malcolm back to battlefields and the Cantabrian Mountains, and the salon in Vienna where he had found his sister's still-warm body. Blood glistened in the lamplight against the red and gold of the Turkey rug. It had pooled on the floor beside a drinks trolley. Shards of broken crystal glittered amid the crimson, and a faint whiff of cognac underlay the smell of the blood.

  "It looks as though he was pouring drinks when he was shot," Roth said.

  Malcolm nodded. A full glass stood beside the decanter and the stopper lay on the floor beside the trolley.

  "He poured one glass, then was shot as he poured the second," Suzanne said. "So he obviously knew whoever shot him and was on good enough terms to drink with them."

  "He was obviously on good enough terms with Miss Dudley that she knew about the secret entrance to his study," Roth said.

  Suzanne nodded. She was too much a realist to try to argue.

  Malcolm lit another lamp and a brace of candles. "I looked at the desk," Roth said, "but you should as well."

  While Malcolm moved to the desk, Suzanne took the second lamp and moved about the room. Trenchard's desk was tidy. A folded copy of yesterday's Times, a stack of blank writing paper, a draft of a speech that looked to be in someone else's hand (his secretary?) with a few notes from Trenchard. Letters—from his estate manager, a cousin who appeared to want help settling gambling debts, an Eton classmate encouraging him to invest in a racehorse. Account books in the drawers. Trenchard appeared to be a careful landlord, if an absent one.

  Malcolm returned to the desktop and lifted the lamp to shine the light over the gold-embossed green leather of the blotter. "Trenchard wrote something tonight. You can see the depressions on the blotter."

  Roth let out a whistle. "I should have seen that."

  "You had more to look for."

  "Do think he gave it to a footman to deliver?"

  Malcolm touched his fingers to the sealing wax. "It's cold. You looked in Trenchard's pockets?"

  "Of course. Nothing."

  "So Trenchard either gave it to a servant—which doesn't seem particularly likely, as one would think he'd have simply rung and delivered instructions—or the killer took it."

  "Malcolm," Suzanne said in a sharp voice.

  "Yes, I know it's a bit of a leap," he said, "but—"

  "No, not that, though I was half listening. But look what I found under the cabinet."

  She was on her knees beside a Boulle cabinet. Red and gold sparkled from her fingers. An earring. She got to her feet and carried it over to them. The gold filigree and bloodred stones would have blended into the gilt and crimson of the carpet. Malcolm bought enough jewelry for his wife to recognize that the red stones were rubies, not garnets, and the gold had a rich gleam that didn't belong to vermeil. It was a chandelier style, the sort of thing Suzanne would wear to a ball or the opera.

  "Laura was wearing the pearl earbobs we gave her for Christmas," Suzanne said. "She still had them both on when we saw her at the Brown Bear."

  Roth inclined his head. "We should see if it belongs to the duchess. Perhaps you could talk to her, Mrs.— Suzanne. It's a delicate matter."

  "I'd be happy to. Though from our prior conversation it's plain Mary Trenchard had few illusions about her marriage or her husband."

  They made a further circuit of the study without discovering more. Then Roth went to question the servants while Malcolm and Suzanne rejoined Mary and David. Malcolm's task was to take David out of the room, but he found his friend only too eager to accompany him to the library.

  "What did you learn?" David asked, the moment the library doors were closed. "I know Roth is very capable, but I imagine—"

  "David," Malcolm said.

  "Yes, I know it's an investigation, and you can't tell me everything, but this isn't some obscure international intrigue. We're talking about my sister's husband."

  Malcolm felt his fingers tighten. Of all the complications of his ties to the Mallinson family, perhaps his friendship with David was the most problematic in the investigation. "Quite."

  "Malcolm, in God's name—"

  "I know very little at this point, David."

  "But you think Miss Dudley is innocent."

  "I do."

  David scraped a hand over his hair. "You must have considered the implications of where looking into this may lead."

  "I have. So has your father, which is why, apparently, he finds my turning over the family secrets preferable to Roth doing so on his own. Though he prefers to have a check on me as well. Which I imagine is why he sent for you."

  David froze, his hand on the back of his neck. "You think Father considers me a check on you?"

  "I think he knows your first care will properly be co
ncern for your sister."

  "You saw Mary. She puts on a good front, but it's plain what she's been through." David straightened his shoulders and stared at Malcolm. "I don't want her hurt, Malcolm."

  "My dear fellow, neither do I."

  "But you want to get at the truth."

  "Yes."

  David glanced away. "Trenchard was a bastard."

  It was surprisingly strong language for David. "I assume you mean that figuratively rather than literally."

  "I have no reason to believe his mother played the third duke false. But I have good reason to believe Trenchard hit Mary a fortnight ago."

  Malcolm had little use for Trenchard, but he had not been expecting this. "Did she tell you?"

  "Not in so many words. But she had a bruise on her cheek. She gave me a farrago of nonsense about tripping and stumbling into her dressing room door, but I know the results of an uppercut. When I asked her if Trenchard had done it, she didn't deny it. She refused to talk more at all."

  "I know you, David. You didn't leave it there."

  "Of course not. I confronted Trenchard. He told me to stay out of matters between him and my sister." David rubbed his hand. "You know I'm not given to violence, but if I hadn't thought it would make matters worse for Mary I'd have hit him myself."

  "Do you think he'd done it before?"

  "My God, can you imagine I'd have kept quiet if I'd had any inkling of it? But now that I know, I can't help but think it likely wasn't the first time." David's hands curled into fists. "I'm well aware of how this looks, Malcolm. I didn't kill Trenchard but, so help me, I've been thinking distinctly murderous thoughts about him. It gives me a motive."

  It also gave Mary a motive, but Malcolm didn't say so. "Did you tell your father?"

  "Yes. I was determined to find a way to protect Mary."

  "And?"

  "He said he'd handle it." David's eyes widened. "My God, Malcolm, you can't think—"

  "My dear David, if your father has limits, I have yet to discover them."

  "You're talking about murder."

  "Your father is more than capable of getting rid of a troublesome asset. I don't see that this is so different."

  David shook his head. "You mean that he—"

  "My dear David. He's a spymaster." Malcolm clapped his friend on the shoulder. "On the other hand he practically ordered me into the investigation, which doesn't fit with him having something to do with the crime."

  David's eyes narrowed. "He knew you'd investigate anyway, with Miss Dudley implicated. This way he has Roth keeping an eye on you. And me apparently."

  Malcolm looked at his friend in appreciation. "You're learning."

  David's mouth hardened. "I never wanted to understand Father's world. But a bit's rubbed off after all these years round him."

  "And me."

  "You aren't like my father."

  Images shot through Malcolm's memory. The face of a Spanish innkeeper he'd betrayed to the French. The trusting gaze of a French soldier who'd confided in him, thinking he was a friend. The bewitching eyes of his enemy-agent wife. "I'm more like him than I care to admit."

  Mary Trenchard regarded Suzanne across the sofa table. "What did they send you to ask me about, Mrs. Rannoch?"

  Suzanne leaned back in her chair. "Who?"

  "Malcolm and Mr. Roth." Mary leaned forwards to refill the coffee cups. Steam rose from the pot. There might have been a murder in the house, but the servants had kept the coffee replenished. "Malcolm made such a point of taking David off that I can only assume there's something they wanted you to discuss with me in private. Questions about my husband's and my sleeping arrangements? More speculation on Trenchard's liaisons?"

  "Duchess—" Suzanne looked into the hard shell of Mary Trenchard's eyes. "It's intolerable that you're having to go through this."

  Mary handed a cup of coffee to Suzanne. "I don't know you well, Mrs. Rannoch, but for all Father's efforts to keep us out of his world, I've glimpsed enough to have some sense of what you and Malcolm must have seen. David's given me a glimmering of what you saw at Waterloo. I know about Tatiana Kirsanova's murder and what you went through in Paris. I can't imagine my situation is so very horrifying, given what you've seen."

  Heat shot through the porcelain handle as Suzanne gripped her cup. "There are different types of horror." And the desolation in those dark eyes was somehow even more horrifying than the stark circumstances.

  The duchess shrugged her straight shoulders. "There's nothing more intolerable than being an object of pity. What did they want you to ask me?"

  "Merely if you recognize this earring." Suzanne pulled the gold and rubies from her reticule.

  Mary stretched out a hand. "Where did you find it?"

  "Beneath the Boulle cabinet in his study."

  Mary's mouth curved. "I never thought he used the secret entrance merely for business."

  "Are there any ladies you know have been in the study when visiting the house?"

  "Not that I know of. Trenchard would hardly take dinner guests into the study. We scarcely use the ground floor rooms when we entertain unless the gentlemen drink in the library." She turned the earring between her fingers. "Whoever she is, she has good taste." She handed it back to Mary. "I assume you'll investigate."

  "We'll be discreet."

  "Trenchard is no longer here to be embarrassed, and I'm rather beyond it. I think the children are too young to notice."

  "Duchess—"

  "We're very different, Mrs. Rannoch, but I've always respected you. Don't ruin it by offering a sympathy that discredits us both."

  Malcolm paused on the pavement in front of Trenchard House in St. James's Square, Suzanne and Roth beside him. A faint pre-dawn glow had begun to brighten the gray sky. He and Suzanne had sent their coachman home when he let them off at Trenchard House. Mary had offered to send them home in one of the family carriages and had seemed surprised when they all said they preferred to walk.

  "Mary Trenchard says the earring isn't hers. She suggested we look for her husband's latest mistress, though she thought it entirely likely he was keeping more than one." Suzanne did up the top clasp on her pelisse. "Odd how an investigation makes acquaintances into confidantes."

  Roth turned up the collar of his greatcoat. "You're all right getting home?"

  "It's not far," Malcolm said. "And we can look after ourselves."

  "An understatement if I ever heard one." Roth gave a faint smile and tipped his hat to Suzanne. "I'll send word once we move Miss Dudley to Newgate." He took two steps down the street, then hesitated and turned back. The lamplight fell across his face, catching the conflict in his gaze. "I know this can't help but be awkward. But for all that, I'm glad to be working with you."

  Malcolm found himself smiling, on a night when smiles seemed an impossible stretch. "The feeling is mutual."

  "And though I hate to be the sort of wife who says my husband speaks for me, I quite agree," Suzanne said.

  Roth returned their smiles and set off towards Pall Mall.

  Malcolm tucked Suzanne's hand more securely through his arm as they turned in the opposite direction. "What haven't you told me?" she asked.

  "Am I that transparent?"

  "No, it took me years to learn to read you."

  Malcolm saw the realization of what she had just said flash in his wife's eyes in almost the same instant it dawned on him. So much between them was unchanged and so much would never be the same. She swallowed but didn't look away. Suzanne was tougher than that. "If you prefer not to tell me, I quite understand."

  "Good of you. Though of course that never stopped you from uncovering things in the past."

  "Darling—"

  "Sorry." He squeezed her arm with his free hand. "No sense in dwelling. In truth I could use your opinion. David revealed rather a lot about Trenchard." He recounted David's story about his belief that Trenchard had struck Mary.

  Suzanne's eyes darkened. "Men who strike their wives rarely do so
only once."

  He drew her arm closer against his side, aware of the warmth of her skin through the layers of coat and pelisse. "Quite. David knew he was giving a motive for himself and for his father. I don't think he realized the same about Mary. Perhaps because it's beyond his comprehension that she could have committed murder."

  "It is beyond his comprehension about his father?"

  "No, David made a token protest, but I'd say he's all too aware of what his father's capable of. As am I. And as a father myself, I can well understand Carfax feeling the impulse to murder. It's damnably difficult for a woman to get out of a bad marriage. Money and family help, but even with a legal separation, she'd be likely to lose custody of her children. I find the thought intolerable in general. I can only imagine how I'd feel if it were Jessica and our grandchildren in the equation."

  "Your conscience would stop you. Carfax isn't given to moral quibbles."

  "No. The chief factor in Carfax's defense is that he asked me to investigate. It was actually David who pointed out Carfax might have known I'd investigate anyway, and he wanted me in the open as well as to keep a check on Roth. And that he then brought David in to keep a check on me. David knows his father well."

  He could feel Suzanne considering this as they covered the damp cobblestones between the yellow glow of two street lamps. "It's possible."

  "I was holding my breath lest Carfax say that Trenchard was a French spy." He looked sideways at her familiar profile. "He wasn't, was he?"

  "Not that I know of." She looked up at him, her eyes as hard and fragile as crystal. "I would tell you, Malcolm. Do you believe me?"

  He gave the question honest consideration. "I think so."

  "Impressive." Suzanne was silent as they turned into Jermyn Street. "Darling— We haven't talked about this part of it, but these are your friends."

  "It's hardly the first time we've been involved in an investigation involving friends."

  "But these are the people you grew up with. In a way they're family."

  Family. Always a tangled word for him. "Difficult to think of Carfax that way. What concerns me is that I don't want him anywhere near you."