The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  Laura's gaze gave nothing away. "You think I'd have needed it dressed up in nobility?"

  "I think you're a hard-headed realist, but not without a conscience."

  "You presume to know me well, Mr. Rannoch."

  "I should have taken care to know you better. I'm cursing myself for that."

  "But his instincts tend to be acute," Suzanne said. "So do mine, for that matter."

  Laura drew a breath. Malcolm could practically see the calculations spinning in the air. He'd been interrogated enough himself to know what she was going through. How much of the truth one could safely reveal; how much one was compelled to reveal, safe or not; which lies or half-truths could be added in as variables.

  Laura's gaze flickered from him to Suzanne. Something had shifted in her eyes. A layer of defenses coming down. Or another trick of a good agent. Impossible to tell. "Mr. Rannoch. Mrs. Rannoch. I own I'm touched that you still wish to help me. But surely this proves that I'm not a defenseless innocent. And if you believe I have a scrap of conscience, knowing what you do about the Elsinore League you must understand why I don't want you anywhere near this investigation."

  "So you admit you were working for the Elsinore League?" Malcolm said.

  A faint smile curved her mouth. "It would seem folly to deny it at this point." She straightened her shoulders. "You're right, Trenchard found me when I was in rather desperate straits. I'd been governess to a family of British expatriates in Paris, endeavoring to instill history and geography and some affection for literature in their three daughters—ten, thirteen, and fifteen. Sweet enough girls, but I must say Colin shows considerably more intellectual curiosity. In fact, Jessica does as well. I rubbed along tolerably enough until the girls' elder brother came to join his family from Cambridge over the summer holidays." She gripped her hands together on the tabletop. "There's no room for romance in the life of a governess. I know that. My folly was inexcusable. Perhaps after so many years of being scrupulously careful I'd grown careless. Perhaps boredom got the better of all my instincts for self-preservation. He was agreeable enough, but I can't say it was a grand passion. Hardly worth the consequences when one of the girls spotted us embracing—in the summerhouse, a dreadful cliché—and told her mother. Naturally, I was dismissed at once, without a reference."

  "Not an easy situation for a woman on her own," Suzanne said. "Particularly in a foreign country."

  "Quite. Trenchard knew the family I had worked for and sought me out. I confess his offer seemed like the answer to prayers I had long since ceased attempting to make. He made it so easy—unimpeachable references, my interview with Mrs. Rannoch arranged for me." She tucked a strand of hair into its pins. "He did tell me there were good reasons to keep watch on you both. I have enough of my wits about me that I was never quite sure whether to believe him."

  Malcolm folded his arms across his chest and regarded her. "It's a good story, Miss Dudley. Expert use of detail for verisimilitude. But it's not the whole truth."

  Her hard blue gaze did not waver. "What makes you so sure, Mr. Rannoch?"

  "Because if that was all, if it was merely that Trenchard was paying you, you wouldn't be so afraid to tell us the truth."

  "My dear Mr. Rannoch. Surely you know enough of the Elsinore League to know one doesn't wish to get on their bad side."

  "And surely you know enough of us to know that we could protect you."

  "Forgive me, Mr. Rannoch. I have the greatest respect for your abilities and Mrs. Rannoch's. But I'm not sure who would win in a contest between you and the Elsinore League. And there are the children to consider."

  Malcolm crossed his arms. "Last night you went to report to Trenchard?"

  Laura smoothed the lace on one of her cuffs. "I suppose that's obvious now."

  "Were you in the habit of going to his house?"

  "Obviously I knew about the secret passage."

  Malcolm leaned further back in his chair and studied her. "For emergencies. But if you were my asset I wouldn't risk having you come to the house so often. I'd meet you somewhere on neutral ground."

  "Fair enough." She folded her hands together. "We usually met in a bakeshop."

  "Did Trenchard say why he wanted you to come to the house last night?"

  Once again he saw the calculations flash through Laura's eyes. Her knuckles whitened where her hands were clasped. "He didn't. I called on him."

  "Why?"

  She hesitated, drew a breath, spread her fingers on the tabletop. "To tell him I was going to stop working for him."

  "Why now?" Suzanne asked.

  "I've come to realize there are worse things than being alone and friendless. Such as not being one's own mistress."

  "And yet, by your own admission, you are fully aware of how dangerous it could be to cross the Elsinore League," Malcolm said.

  "I've come to realize there are worse things than risk. Like the self-disgust welling up on one's tongue whenever one betrays people who've given one their trust."

  Malcolm met her gaze. Another layer of defenses seemed to have been stripped from the hard, bright blue of her eyes. He had the odd sense this was the most honest thing she'd said to him. "And yet now you're afraid to tell us more."

  "I was willing to take the risk for myself. If I involve you, the risk isn't just to me."

  "Suzette and I are no strangers to risk."

  "But Colin and Jessica should be."

  That, as Colin might say, was a poser. "We can protect Colin and Jessica," Suzanne said.

  "From a great deal. But not everything. You'll pardon me if I don't want them put at additional risk on my behalf."

  "You were spying on their parents, Laura," Malcolm said. "That already put them at risk and dragged the Elsinore League into their lives—assuming it wasn't there already." He leaned forwards. "Did Trenchard know you wanted out?" he asked, without change in inflection.

  "I never got to speak with Trenchard last night. He was dying when I came into the study. That part of my story was the truth." Laura twitched her collar smooth. "Of course, my wanting to leave also gives me an excellent motive to have killed him."

  "Though it wouldn't have solved your problem with the rest of the Elsinore League."

  "No, I suppose not. Of course, we could have quarreled, and I could have lost my temper. I'm a teacher, after all. I know how to poke holes in a thesis."

  "You'd have used the pistol," Suzanne said. "Unless Trenchard attacked you with the other pistol first, and the two of you were struggling over it. And that doesn't fit with how he died. Help us, Laura."

  "I am endeavoring to do so, Mrs. Rannoch."

  "Help yourself."

  "My dear Mrs. Rannoch. You're a realist. More so than your husband in some ways. Surely you realize that there are times when one must recognize one is beyond help."

  "She needs to be checked on, every hour," Malcolm told the jailer. "You understand?"

  The man nodded.

  "You think she's suicidal?" Suzanne asked, as they stepped into the early morning bustle of Newgate Street.

  "No. I think she's tougher than that. But I also think she feels cornered and one can't predict what the most resilient person will do in that situation."

  The air was cold and tinged with the smell of saloop from a cart down the street. Suzanne touched her husband's arm. "Darling—"

  "I know. She's not my mother. She could scarcely be more different. Well, Mama had nerves of steel in her own way, but Laura is one of the most levelheaded women I know, and Mama was—ill. But yes, you're right, my history probably makes me less inclined to take chances with what someone might do under extreme stress."

  His level voice warned her against pushing further.

  Malcolm continued drawing on his gloves. "I have Addison making inquiries into the references Laura gave us. James, Trenchard's son, should be back in town by now. I want to see him as soon as possible. If he's not with Mary, she can probably tell me where to find him."

  "And I nee
d to get back to Berkeley Square and explain to the children."

  "A far more difficult mission," Malcolm said, a smile pushing the ghosts from his eyes. "I'll find you there after I see James. Send word to me if you leave Berkeley Square."

  Suzanne nodded. The task of explaining the whereabouts of their beloved governess to her children yawned before her.

  Chapter 9

  "La! La!" Jessica's voice rose to a wail.

  One of Suzanne's worst memories, along with being held under torture by Spanish bandits and having her husband imprisoned by Metternich's police, was of the day, a month since, when Jessica fell in the Berkeley Square garden and screamed for Laura rather than her mother. "La" clearly meant Laura, but Suzanne still wasn't sure her daughter's "ma ma's" referred to her. Kneeling now on the nursery carpet, Suzanne put her hands on her small daughter's shoulders. "Laura had to go away for a bit, querida. She misses you."

  "Why didn't she say goodbye?" Colin was sitting on the window seat, arms folded in just the way Malcolm did when he was listening to a story he didn't take at face value.

  "She had to leave unexpectedly, darling. In the middle of the night."

  Colin's gaze darted over her face, again much like his father's. "When will she be back?"

  Suzanne reached out to brush the hair back from her son's forehead. "We don't know, love. But she will come home." Before Colin was born, Suzanne would have sworn she'd never lie to her children. The reality was so much more complicated.

  A smile broke across Colin's face. "You and Daddy will make sure she comes back."

  Not yet five and he could see through the deceptions of his expert deceiver parents. God help them. And how could she not be proud of him?

  Jessica flung her arms round Suzanne's neck. "Babies."

  "Babies" had been Jessica's first decipherable word, announced last month as she pointed to a picture of a baby in a book. Suzanne had been sitting next to Laura on the drawing room sofa, and they'd grinned at each other in delight when Jessica came toddling towards them holding out the book. In this case "babies" meant the Berkeley Square garden or Hyde Park or anywhere there would be other children. "Blanca will take you to the park, querida." Suzanne hugged her daughter to her. "And Daddy and I will be back to have dinner with you." Again, a statement that was not as unequivocally true as she would have liked.

  Jessica drew back enough to tug at her mother's bodice and began to nurse. A comfort for all ills.

  "It's more important that you get Laura home," Colin said. "If—" He broke off as the door of the day nursery swung open. A smile crossed his face. "Livia!"

  Livia Davenport ran into the room, just as her mother's voice sounded from the passage. "Livy, I told you to knock—" Lady Cordelia Davenport stepped across the threshold after her daughter, her younger daughter, Drusilla, in her arms.

  Jessica detached herself from Suzanne and toddled across the room. Colin and Livia had already dropped down on the carpet together. Drusilla wriggled to be set down. Cordelia dropped down on the carpet herself, her sapphire velvet pelisse and flounced muslin skirts swirling about her. "I'm sorry," she said to Suzanne. "Livia's usually better mannered. I'm afraid she rather thinks of this house as her own."

  "As she should." Suzanne ruffled Drusilla's hair and smiled at Livia. "I'm so glad to see you all." She could hear the relief in her own voice, though she and Colin and Jessica had spent the previous afternoon at the Royal Academy with Cordelia and her daughters.

  "I thought distraction might be welcome today." Cordelia's voice was bright, but her gaze asked myriad questions.

  A half hour later, when Blanca had come in to take the children to the park and all four had been bundled into the appropriate outerwear, Suzanne and Cordelia at last escaped to the small salon with tea and almond biscuits and quiet.

  "Dearest, are you all right?" Cordelia asked.

  Suzanne set down the teapot. "You know?"

  "Darling, this is Mayfair. I had it from my maid, who had it from the footman, who had it from the Grimsleys' upstairs maid, who had it from the Cranleys' bootboy, who had it from the Trenchards' underhousemaid."

  "You know about Laura?"

  Cordelia's face sobered. "I know what I heard. I was hoping it was hopeless exaggeration."

  "Unfortunately, no." Suzanne quickly gave her friend an edited version of the night's events. Cordelia and Harry Davenport had been through a great deal with her and Malcolm, but the truth about Suzanne's own past was not a secret they could share even with their closest friends.

  "One can't but admire Miss Dudley's determination to protect all of you," Cordelia said. "Though she should realize you and Malcolm are bound to investigate in any case."

  "Laura's plainly not telling us the whole truth." Suzanne took a bite of almond biscuit, keenly aware that she was doing precisely the same with Cordelia at this moment.

  Cordelia stirred more milk into her tea. "One never knows what a person may be capable of. I should know that better than anyone after what I learned about my sister and my former lover. But having watched Miss Dudley with the children—"

  "I know." Suzanne crumbled a bit of almond biscuit between her fingers. "Though I can't be sure how much of that is my inability to believe it about anyone I trusted with my children."

  "You have the best instincts about people of anyone I've ever known, Suzanne." Cordelia returned her teacup to its saucer and straightened up. "Obviously we have to discover the truth and prove Miss Dudley innocent. Tell me what I can do to help."

  "How well did you know the Duke of Trenchard?"

  "Not, well, I fear. Trenchard wasn't a gambler like my father, and my father was a Whig and not as deep in politics as Trenchard."

  "And the duchess?"

  "I was in the schoolroom when Mary Mallinson married the duke. And by the time I was out in society, Mary wasn't impressed by my antics. Particularly after I was a married woman myself. With good cause, I admit. I know Hetty better."

  "Hetty?"

  "Henrietta. Lady Tarrington. That is now the Duchess of Trenchard. James's wife."

  "Don't tell me." Suzanne was now accustomed to the interconnectedness of the beau monde, though Cordy and Malcolm in particular seemed to have grown up at the heart of it. "You grew up with the new duchess as well."

  "No. That is, not the way I did with Caro Lamb. I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention to Hetty. Rather a mousy thing, or so I thought, and I was shockingly heedless. But she was kind to me after the scandal when Harry went abroad and my marriage fell apart. She made a point of stopping to speak with me in Hyde Park when Uncle Archie insisted I go driving with him. Another example of how prim doesn't necessarily mean judgmental. She was married to her first husband then. He was a soldier who died in India not long after."

  "And Lord Tarrington? The new duke?"

  "He was kind as well. Which also surprised me. James was quite a catch and still on the marriage mart when I came out. Undeniably handsome, but I fear I wrote him off as stodgy. A good man, if not particularly exciting. Unlike his brother on both counts."

  Suzanne met her friend's gaze. She was used now to Cordelia's past.

  Cordelia gave a wry smile of acknowledgment. "No, Jack Trenchard was never more to me than a waltzing partner. Though he was reckless and foolish enough to be what might have been called my type." She picked up her cup and tossed down a swallow of tea. "Would you like me to call on Hetty with you?"

  "Please. You have a knack for getting people to talk."

  "If so, I learned it from you." Cordelia reached for her reticule and gloves. "Calling on Hetty and James should be safe enough. I'm very glad you have an investigation again, Suzanne, but I sincerely hope we can get through the entire process without encountering any of my ex-lovers."

  "Rannoch." James Fitzwalter, Marquis of Tarrington, now Duke of Trenchard, crossed his late father's study with quick, firm steps, hand extended. "Mary said you were looking into this. Father's death. It's good of you."

&nbs
p; "I'm so sorry." Malcolm shook the new duke's hand. "I know what it is to lose a father. Alistair and I were far from close, but regardless, it isn't easy."

  "My father was—a complicated man." James ran a hand over his hair. "I can't believe he's gone. One knows one will lose one's parents, of course, but I never expected it to happen so soon. Or in such a way." He cast a glance round the room, as though forcing himself to look at the still-bloodstained carpet. "Mary said you and Roth had already looked at the study. I felt I should go through his papers right away. After all—"

  "It's your responsibility now." Malcolm remembered the realization that Dunmykel, in Scotland, with its land and tenants; the Berkeley Square house; the villa in Italy, were now his. Though it was nothing compared to the weight of a dukedom.

  "Yes." James gave a mechanical nod. "Fortunately, Father's papers appear to be in good order."

  "James—" Malcolm touched his arm. "You needn't do this immediately. If you want to wait until the room is—"

  "No." James's voice cut with sudden force. "I need to. If I don't—"

  In the other man's gaze, Malcolm saw his own desperation following Alistair's death. He nodded. "Quite."

  James's gaze flickered over Malcolm. "Mary says you don't think this Miss Dudley killed Father."

  "I think it's a good possibility she didn't."

  "So someone else broke into the house through the secret passage?"