The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  "Shortly afterwards, Trenchard left on an extended visit to Madras. For my sins I missed him. But in his absence, I was actually able to imagine raising the child with Jack. He was more attentive than he'd been the whole of our marriage. Trenchard would go back to England, I told myself. Of course eventually Jack and I would go there as well. But by then, I hoped we'd have settled into something like domesticity. I didn't have any illusions of love or even fidelity—I know Jack wasn't faithful during my pregnancy, and I didn't necessarily intend to be in the future myself—but I thought we could learn to rub along together as parents. Find a sort of common ground in caring for the child. I'd never thought I wanted children particularly—I'd feared pregnancy before I was married, and even after I was ambivalent about something that would tie me more to Jack. Given this child's conception, you'd think I'd have been even more ambivalent. But somehow, I was keenly aware of the life growing within me, independent of Jack or Trenchard. Whatever the past, it gave me a focus for the future, instead of wallowing in self-destructive self-disgust."

  "It was much the same for me," Suzanne said. Perhaps an unwise admission, but it won a look of fellow feeling from Laura.

  "I knew I'd have to live with the fear of the truth coming out," Laura said. "But I also knew Trenchard couldn't risk mentioning it. Whatever he felt about Jack or me, he cared too much for the family line. So I thought I was safe. Or as safe as one can be in those circumstances." She gripped her elbows, fingers digging into the gray fabric. "Then Trenchard returned to Fort Arthur, when I was almost eight months pregnant. I told myself we'd manage. I'd avoid him as much as possible. And surely there couldn't be much between us with my advanced state of pregnancy. And there wasn't. Trenchard kept his distance, for the most part. But one evening when Jack was dining with his regiment, Trenchard came home early from his own engagement, and we found ourselves alone together. He touched my stomach and the next thing we both knew, he was leaning in to kiss me in a way that was clearly not fatherly. And of course Jack walked into the room at just that moment." Her fingers whitened against the charcoal fabric. "I would have sworn Jack and I didn't have a marriage to be destroyed. But there was something left. Because in that instant, it was smashed to bits."

  "Did he realize about the baby?" Suzanne asked.

  "He suspected. Trenchard and I both denied it. But of course Jack didn't believe us. He wouldn't have even if we'd been speaking the truth."

  Malcolm's bleak gaze in the yellow light of a dusty theatre three months ago hung in Suzanne's memory. Beside her now, Malcolm was watching Laura in utter stillness. "And then?" Suzanne asked.

  She could see equally bitter memories clustering in Laura's eyes. "Jack stormed out of the house. Trenchard took my hand in an iron grip, said there was nothing Jack could do without making a fool of himself, and warned me not to do anything foolish. He then went up to bed and left me with little choice but to do the same, though I couldn't sleep. I didn't see Jack until the next evening. We passed each other in the corridor. He gripped my arm for a moment and said, 'This isn't over.' Which was more or less stating the obvious. For the next fortnight, I was left to wonder what he might be planning. We existed in a sort of limbo, but a limbo in which one dances on a knife's edge. Then one night I woke—as one does so often in the late stages of pregnancy—and couldn't get back to sleep. I went downstairs to get a book and heard Jack and Trenchard quarreling. I couldn't make out the substance, save that Trenchard accused Jack of trying to destroy him, and Jack said, 'What did you expect?' To which Trenchard replied he was being self-indulgent and shortsighted and he'd only ruin the family. Jack said he didn't much care anymore. Those words will stick with me forever." She straightened her spine. "I tried to hear more. I had the instincts of a spy even then. But Trenchard stormed out of the library, and I had to hurry back upstairs. I was determined to confront Jack and find out what was going on. I was trying to work out how to do it the next night, as we drove to what promised to be an interminable dinner. And then our carriage overturned."

  For a moment, Suzanne wasn't sure Laura would be able to continue. The look in her eyes told not so much of painful memories welling up but of the blankness of memories that were too painful to face. When she spoke, her voice was almost without inflection. "There's a week or so of which I have only the vaguest memories. Impressions. Pain. Screams—perhaps my own. Sinking into a blessed escape I now know was laudanum. Eventually, I realized the baby was no longer within me. When I asked questions and they wouldn't answer, I got hysterical. Then they sedated me again. When the fog cleared, Trenchard was sitting beside my bed. An airy room hung with mosquito netting though it was winter. I later learned we were at a summer house in the hills. Trenchard said he was glad to see me recovered. He actually sounded as if he meant it. The bastard. Then he told me that Jack was dead, and that as far as the world was concerned, I was as well. I asked about the baby. I actually dragged myself out of the bed and grabbed him. He said I'd gone into premature labor but that the baby had been born alive. It was a girl."

  "Emily," Suzanne said.

  "Emily. That was the name I'd chosen for a daughter. Trenchard said he'd given it to her. And that she'd been placed where she'd be well looked after. So long as I cooperated. I railed. I clawed his eyes. They sedated me again. And again the next time I woke up and attacked him. Trenchard didn't try to get a word in edgewise until the third time. Then he actually sat still while I slapped him and wouldn't let them sedate me. Finally he said he advised me to listen if I valued my daughter's safety. That got my attention. I raked his face with my nails. I drew blood." Faint satisfaction tinged her voice. "I think he thought I would spend myself but I didn't. At last he caught hold of my wrists. Then he said Emily would be safe and well looked after, so long as I didn't create problems. I couldn't go back to my old life. He claimed Jack had told several of his friends about seeing the two of us together. They might hold their tongues as long as they thought I was dead to spare my father's feelings, but if I turned up alive I'd be ruined and bring disgrace on my father as well. I had two choices. He could arrange for me to live quietly in a nearby village and make me an allowance. Or I could make myself useful and serve my country by going to work for him."

  "And he told you about the Elsinore League?"

  "Not by name. But yes, that was my introduction to it. Though he made it seem more as if he was a sort of British spymaster, like Lord Carfax." She looked at Malcolm. "Not that I was in much condition to evaluate any of it, at first."

  "What did you tell him?" Malcolm said.

  "At first that I would take nothing from him and wanted nothing to do with him ever again. That I'd find my daughter somehow. It's amazing what a blind idealist I turned into."

  Her arms were curled over her stomach. Suzanne could feel the ache of a lost child. She felt twinges of it when she away from Colin or Jessica for a few too many hours. "Your fortitude is amazing."

  "Or my stupidity. Trenchard pointed out that he controlled Emily's well-being and her very life, and I mustn't think he was too sentimental to use his leverage. Parental scruples only went so far. It was in the silence after he said it that I realized he'd been responsible for the carriage accident. And that his intent had been to kill Jack."

  Suzanne had seen it coming. And little could shock her. But to try to have one's own child killed—

  She felt the horror radiating off Malcolm, yet,oddly, he didn't seem as shocked as she was. Perhaps because the thought of Alistair Rannoch trying to kill him didn't seem completely out of the question. "Did you accuse Trenchard of deliberately having killed Jack?" Malcolm asked.

  "Oh, yes. Trenchard didn't come right out and admit it, but he didn't deny it, either. I think he realized it was to his benefit to have me understand just how ruthless he could be."

  "What do you think was his motivation?"

  "Whatever Jack was threatening to reveal in his anger over my affair with his father. I asked Trenchard. Of course he just laughed at me a
nd said if I really believed he was capable of filicide, surely I didn't think he would break down and confess his reasons. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand and smiled." Laura's nails dug into her hands, as though her skin crawled at the memory. "He said there was no reason for any of this to touch Emily. She'd be well looked after, and she'd have a good life. Far better than the life I could give her as a woman alone, with no fortune to protect her and no name to offer her. Did I really want to consign her to the life of a penniless bastard? I said 'Set against a mother's love—' And Trenchard laughed, and said such sentimental twaddle was beneath me."

  "Damn the man." The words burst from Suzanne's lips unbidden.

  "That was much my reaction. And yet the logical part of my brain told me he was right. It didn't make the ache go away. And I've wondered— But that's neither here nor there. Tempted as I was to walk away, he was my last remaining link with Emily. At least he knew where she was. I'd be closer to her somehow working for him than going off on my own or retreating into a village. And—-"

  "You needed occupation," Suzanne said.

  Laura's eyes widened in surprise. Then she met Suzanne's gaze in a moment of understanding. "I have myriad regrets about going to work for Trenchard. But I think if I hadn't, I might have gone mad."

  "The life of a spy keeps one focused on the present," Malcolm said. "It's the only way one can stay alive. Focusing on the present can save one's sanity when one's life is falling apart."

  "To own the truth, I didn't care much about staying alive at first. But I must have an instinct for self-preservation. Deception came all too easily to me."

  "Think of it as acting," Suzanne said.

  Laura's mouth twisted. "My first assignment was with an expatriate family with Bonapartist sympathies. In the months before Waterloo, that seemed straightforwards enough. Not that anything in this business is straightforwards, but at least I could still believe Trenchard was a British spymaster. I had no illusions that spying was anything other than a dirty business, but at least I could believe in our overall goals. Of course, there were times self-disgust welled up. But I confess there were also times I enjoyed the challenge."

  "Of course." Suzanne reached for her tea for the first time in minutes. "The game becomes addicting."

  "Yes. It does." Laura shivered. "I saw sides of myself I'd never recognized."

  "You must have missed your family," Malcolm said.

  "Yes." Layers of loss echoed beneath the contained word. "But my father had a new family with my stepmother. I scarcely knew my half-brother and sisters. For a time, I asked Trenchard for information about them. Then I decided it was perhaps better for everyone if I stopped."

  Suzanne swallowed a sip of lukewarm tea. "And Emily?"

  Laura's mouth tightened. "He doled out the information to keep me in line. A lock of her baby hair—surprisingly blond. She'd only have been about nine months when he gave it to me—she must have had her hair grow in earlier than Jessica. A pastel drawing. Really just scribbles on a piece of notepaper."

  "I saw it." Suzanne's mind shot back to their search of Laura's room. "Pressed between the pages of Pride and Prejudice in your room. I should have realized then."

  "I'm a governess. There could have been dozens of reasons for me to have it."

  "There could. I still can't help but feel I should have seen it."

  "You expect too much of yourself, Mrs. Rannoch."

  "At the very least, don't you think you should be calling me Suzanne now?"

  "We're hardly friends."

  "But we share the camaraderie of fellow agents." Suzanne set down her tea.

  "When did you begin to realize about the Elsinore League?" Malcolm asked.

  "In bits and pieces. I could read enough from Trenchard's questions to begin to suspect he wasn't simply a spymaster serving Britain. I still believed he was working for Britain when he planted me in your household. I knew you were an agent, Mr. Rannoch. I thought at first that Trenchard suspected you of dealing with the French, though as time went on it was harder and harder for me to believe that. He began to ask me more and more questions about both of you. And to imply things that made no sense."

  "I suspect those things were far closer to the truth than you realized," Suzanne said. "As you now know."

  Laura spread her hands in her lap. "I'd managed to remain quite detached from my first family."

  "Understandable, given that you'd lost nearly everyone you'd been close to in your life."

  "Perhaps. They treated me as a servant, which made it easier to keep my distance. But I wasn't so successful in your household. Colin and Jessica are hard to resist."

  Suzanne stared at Laura, seeing her tying Jessica's bonnet strings, buttoning Jessica's pelisse, holding Jessica on her hip. "Dear God. It must have been hell for you to be near Jessica."

  "I wouldn't call it hell. She does serve as a constant reminder of what Emily might have been like as a baby, but that's not entirely bad. In my best moments, I feel like she gives me a chance to catch up on some of the things I've missed."

  "You're more generous than I could be."

  "You're a good mother, Mrs. Rann—Suzanne. It was part of what made it hard for me to credit everything Trenchard said."

  "Good parents can't be traitors?"

  "I suppose that's folly. But I couldn't keep my distance or see either of you as the enemy. As time went by, I couldn't even see you with detachment. When those barriers broke down, others began to break down, as well."

  "Is that why you went to see Trenchard the night of the murder?" Malcolm asked.

  Laura leaned forwards, in a confiding posture that Suzanne would have sworn was impossible at the start of the interview. "I went there to force him to tell me where Emily was and to let me see her. I took your pistol to use as persuasion. I know it sounds mad. Imprudent, dangerous, impractical. For me and for Emily. I could try to rationalize it a dozen ways. But the truth is, I looked at Colin and Jessica by the fire earlier that evening and realized that I couldn't bear to go another four-and-twenty hours without knowing what had become of my daughter."

  Suzanne thought back to that night, Laura sitting on the sofa with Colin and Jessica curled up on either side of her. "I can understand that."

  "Can you? You're a good agent, Mrs.— Suzanne. And in this I wasn't thinking like a good agent."

  "No, you were thinking like a mother. Which, God knows, I can understand. The story of my life the past four and a half years has been balancing the two."

  Laura drew a breath. "When I stepped into the study and saw Trenchard— I tried to save him. I couldn't think beyond the shock for a good quarter hour."

  "Did he say anything to you?" Malcolm asked.

  "He was beyond it. But as I tried to stop the bleeding, I asked him where Emily was."

  "He didn't reply?"

  "He met my gaze, and I think he understood, but he couldn't seem to form the words. Not that I have any faith he'd have told me if he could have spoken."

  Malcolm nodded. "And yet the footman says the duke's last word was 'Emily.'"

  "I know. Ever since I heard that, I've been asking myself what it meant. If it was some sort of confession. If he was trying to tell me something." Laura pressed her fingers to her temples. "When I realized he was gone, my first thought was that now I'd never learn where she was."

  Suzanne reached across the table to touch the other woman's hand. "You don't know that."

  "I wouldn't know where to begin to start looking."

  "With the Elsinore League." Suzanne looked at her husband. "Malcolm and I are good at tracing people."

  "Suzanne." Laura slid her hand from Suzanne's grip. "This isn't your fight."

  "Oh, yes, it is. You help us raise our children. That makes us responsible for helping you with your child. Laura, knowing me, knowing Malcolm, you can't seriously imagine we'd stay out of this."

  A reluctant smile curved Laura's mouth. "That's why it took me so long to tell you."<
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  "Trenchard rewrote his will, leaving a sizable bequest to Emily," Malcolm said. "James is trying to find her as well."

  "James is a decent man, from everything Jack told me." Laura sat back in her chair. "He and Henrietta would probably want to raise Emily. I imagine they're good parents."

  "I think they'd respect your wishes."

  Laura scraped her chair back from the table and sprang to her feet. "I don't know if she's with a family. In a school. If Trenchard sent money for her regularly. What will happen now that that stops."

  Malcolm pushed his chair back and got to his feet himself. "In that case, whoever has her would try to contact him."

  "He'll have made sure there are layers of protection between Emily's keepers and him."

  "But he'd have kept a link to her. He needed it as insurance."

  Laura gave a bleak smile. "Yes. There is that."

  "Trenchard had his solicitor sending money to a bank in Maidstone to pay for Emily," Malcolm said. "I've sent Addison to make inquiries."

  Hope leaped in Laura's eyes, and then was banked. "Trenchard will have muddied the trail."

  "Undoubtedly. But we'll find her."

  "And then?" Laura turned to face them, the cloud-filtered light from the single high window at her back.

  "We'll restore your daughter to you," Malcolm said.

  "In prison?"

  "We'll get you out of prison first."

  "For a modest man, you have a high opinion of yourself, Mr. Rannoch."

  "Oh, no. I'm well aware of my shortcomings. But I'm also well aware of my wife's talents."

  Chapter 19

  Malcolm paused in the shadow of Newgate to draw on his gloves. "The wonder is that someone didn't murder Trenchard sooner. You know my opinions on killing, and yet if he appeared before me now I'd be hard pressed not to throttle the man myself."