The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  Suzanne got to her feet and refilled Mary's cup. Mary gave her a quick smile and met her gaze for a moment. "I lorded it over Louisa a bit. More than a bit, perhaps. You'd think as a duchess I'd have been above caring what my sister thought, but I fear I wasn't. I've often wondered if that's why Louisa—"

  "Went after your husband?" Suzanne asked, pouring a cup of coffee for Malcolm.

  "To be blunt, yes. Not that I cared what Trenchard did. Not much. But this—cut close to home."

  Suzanne splashed black coffee into a cup and took a sip. Given her history with Raoul and Malcolm, and their relationship, she was hardly in a position to judge Louisa Craven. "How long did it go on?" she asked.

  "As far as I could tell, it had ended by the following spring. Trenchard's affairs never seemed to go on for long."

  "Did you ever speak to your sister about it?"

  Mary spread her hands over her lap. "As I said, Louisa and I were hardly the sort for confidences. I did wonder once or twice if she'd hold it over me, but she never did, and somehow I shied away from a confrontation." Her fingers tightened against the twilled black bombazine of her skirt. "Or perhaps I didn't want to admit I cared enough."

  "And Craven?" Malcolm asked. "Did he know?"

  Mary hesitated. "He'd hardly have told me if he did."

  "But—?" Malcolm asked, in that gentle, inexorable way of his.

  Mary's brows drew together, dark streaks against her pale face. "I didn't notice any particular constraint between them. But one night last month, after Craven and Louisa had been to dine with us, I left the drawing room to speak with one of the footmen, and I'd swear I heard raised voices coming from the dining room. Of course, it could have been about something else."

  "It could," Malcolm agreed. "And the one thing we know is that Trenchard didn't kill Craven."

  Mary nodded, as though obscurely relieved.

  Malcolm set his coffee cup on the floor beside him. "Did your father know?"

  Mary's gaze flew to Malcolm's face and seemed to fasten there. "I never saw a sign of it."

  "With Carfax you wouldn't."

  She nodded. "But Father—"

  "Has a way of knowing things."

  Mary folded her arms in front of her, gripping her elbows. "You don't think—"

  Malcolm touched her hand, and for a moment Suzanne knew he was looking at the girl she had been when he came to visit on holidays from Harrow. "It's too early to think anything, Mary. But I can't tell you how grateful I am that you trusted us with this."

  Mary's fingers locked on her elbows. "We have to learn the truth. After Trenchard's death, horrible as it was, I thought it was over and done with. Now I'm wondering who might be next." She fingered a fold of her cloak. "David would be horrified. I don't think he sees either Louisa or me at all clearly. If—"

  "I'll do my best to keep it from him. And the rest of the world. My word on it."

  Mary drew a breath. "Thank you." She gathered her cloak. "Should I—"

  Malcolm cast a glance at Suzanne. "There's no reason to think you or your children, or Louisa or her children, are at risk. But until we know more, I'll talk to Roth about posting men to watch both your houses."

  Mary gave a wry smile. "Surveillance. The reward of family tragedy." She swallowed the last of her second cup of coffee. "No, I do understand, and I thank you."

  Malcolm got to his feet. "Did you come in your carriage?"

  "I'm a duchess. I don't simply walk out of the house. My coachman is waiting outside."

  Malcolm handed her to her feet. "I'll see you to your carriage."

  "Drink some coffee," Raoul said to Suzanne when Malcolm was gone from the room. He handed her a cup. "And eat one of those biscuits."

  "I'm not going to faint."

  "You lost a fair amount of blood."

  She took an automatic sip. "Whatever their flaws, the Mallinson family took Malcolm in when his own was hopelessly fragmented. And now—"

  "The Mallinsons are proving fragmented as well. I know. But Malcolm is adult enough to handle it."

  "How can you be so damned confident?"

  "Observation. And," he added with a faint smile, "I prefer it to the alternative."

  Malcolm came back into the room, pushed the door to, and leaned against. "God help us. Mary's affair was surprise enough. But Louisa— I'm afraid I overlooked her, along with her sister and the rest of the world."

  "This could have been her way of staking a claim," Suzanne said.

  "Yes," Malcolm dug a hand into his hair. "The fact that they're sisters shouldn't be so surprising. After all—"

  He bit back the words he had been about to say. "After all, your mother and Frances managed in the same circumstances?" Raoul finished for him.

  Malcolm stared at his father. "Mama told you about Aunt Frances and Alistair?"

  "Frances did. One night after too much whisky. And then in January she told me that you knew. I wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise."

  Malcolm advanced into the room and dropped into the chair Mary had vacated. "She told me Mama was sanguine about it."

  "She was," Raoul said.

  "You talked to Mama about it?"

  "After Frances told me. Arabella said Frances took it more seriously because she cared more about Alistair than Arabella did. Which was the truth, I think, at least at that point. But I'm not sure the duchess was as sanguine about her husband's infidelity, for all her words."

  "No." Malcolm picked up his coffee cup and stared into it.

  "Startling as this is, it may not connect to the murders," Suzanne said. "It gives Craven a motive to kill Trenchard, and I suppose one could argue it gives Mary Trenchard a motive to have killed her husband or, more likely, her sister, but I don't see how it gives her a motive to have killed Craven."

  "It could give Carfax a motive," Malcolm said, a grim edge to his voice.

  "An hour ago you said you couldn't see him killing his daughters' husbands for personal reasons," Raoul said. "I would think that still holds with one of those husbands being the other daughter's lover."

  "A point." Malcolm tossed down a swallow of coffee. "But it's still coincidental and, as always, I'm wary of coincidence."

  "Craven was in India at the time Jack was killed," Suzanne said. "He was working with Trenchard. Suppose he knew something about whatever it was that Trenchard killed Jack to cover up. Of course, that also would give Trenchard a motive to have killed Craven, but doesn't explain someone killing both of them."

  Malcolm set down his cup. "We need to talk to Louisa."

  "You need to talk to her," Suzanne said. "She might open up to a childhood friend." At the back of her mind, she could hear Isobel saying, "People were always trying to marry Malcolm off to one of us, but I think they assumed it would be me or Louisa."

  Malcolm nodded. "We can expect a call from Roth as well. O'Roarke—"

  Raoul was already on his feet. "I'll call on Miss Dudley at Newgate. If you don't find that an intrusion."

  "On the contrary," Malcolm said. "I'd like to get your assessment. And perhaps you can persuade her to see her parents."

  "I'll do my best. Though, from what I've observed, it's difficult to persuade Miss Dudley to do just about anything." He looked at them both a moment longer, touched Suzanne's arm, and then was gone.

  Malcolm said nothing as they climbed the steps to their bedchamber. Once inside, Suzanne tossed her cloak over the dressing table bench. "Darling—"

  Malcolm closed the door, moved abruptly, and took her in his arms. "I keep hearing the sound of that gunshot. It was the worst moment of my life. Well, the worst since Dewhurst shot you in December."

  She laughed into his cravat, though her fingers had closed on the folds of his coat. "It wasn't—"

  "It was, Suzette," he said, his voice muffled by her hair. "It was dangerous. Our life is dangerous." He lifted his head and took her face between his hands with fingers that were not quite steady. It was always in the aftermath that fear shot home
. "At least in Italy we'd be alive."

  "I imagine danger would find us there if it came to that." She touched his face. "I've dragged you into a lot."

  "A fair share of this mess seems to involve my friends. I keep seeing Mary and Louisa rolling hoops in Hyde Park with their governess."

  "I'm sorry." She laced her own fingers behind his neck. "After what you've had to confront about me, you shouldn't have to confront uncomfortable truths about your friends."

  "Those truths are there." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You can't take responsibility for everything, Suzette. You may be a master of manipulation, but you can't manipulate everything." He squeezed her shoulders and stepped back. "Let's get to work."

  Jeremy Roth pushed the breakfast parlor door to behind him. "You've heard?"

  "Blanca had it from one of the Cravens' servants," Malcolm said. The lie, made up on the spot for Mary, now came easily to his lips.

  "Do sit down and have some breakfast. You must have been up all night." Suzanne reached for the coffeepot. Thanks to Blanca, she was impeccably gowned in pintucked rose sarcenet edged with black braid, pearls at her throat, her hair smoothed and curled, though even her expert use of cosmetics couldn't conceal the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Malcolm knew his own face showed similar ravages.

  "Thanks." Roth dropped into a chair and accepted the cup she was holding out. His gaze moved between them. "You look a bit tired yourselves."

  "Jessica had a fretful night." Suzanne handed him a plate of toast. "She's cutting a new tooth. And then we got the news about Craven and neither of us could get back to sleep." She passed him the marmalade.

  "Damned if I know what to make of it." Roth tossed down a swallow of coffee and stared into the cup. "According to Lady Craven, the two men weren't particularly connected beyond being married to sisters. But it's difficult to pull a motive from that."

  "Craven went to India on Trenchard's mission seven years ago," Malcolm said, relieved to be on territory on which there was no need to dissemble.

  "You think that's connected to the murder?" Roth picked up a piece of toast and then stared at it, as though too exhausted to spread marmalade on it.

  "It connects the two men," Malcolm said.

  Roth nodded. "The murder methods were quite different. Trenchard's murder looked as though it might have been a crime of impulse. Craven's seems to have been planned." He picked up the marmalade knife. "Lady Craven had no idea of why he was in the Park in the early hours of the morning."

  "Do you think he had a rendezvous with the murderer?" Suzanne asked.

  "That seemed the obvious assumption. But I found evidence of at least two sets of footprints, in addition to Craven's, in the ground by the willows. Carefully covered over, but still there."

  Malcolm sat back in his chair. "The killer covering over their tracks?"

  "Perhaps. Or Craven was meeting with someone else and was ambushed, either by someone in collusion with whomever he was meeting, or someone entirely separate."

  Malcolm took a sip of coffee. "Interesting. Which still doesn't give us a reason for either the meeting or the murder, whether or not they're connected."

  "No." Roth took an absent bite of toast. "Can you have a word with Louisa Craven? I think she'll talk to you more freely."

  "You think she knows something she isn't telling you?"

  "I'm not sure. But I'm quite sure if she does know anything, she wouldn't share it with me. People don't do well keeping secrets from you, Malcolm."

  Malcolm took a sip of coffee. "You'd be surprised."

  Roth laughed. "Doing it much too brown. If—"

  The door swung open and David strode into the room. "My God, Malcolm. What's happening?"

  The fact that he had shown himself in and didn't even pause to acknowledge Suzanne or Roth was a testament to his state of mind.

  Malcolm pushed himself to his feet. "I wish we had something to tell you."

  "Why the devil didn't you—" David drew a sharp breath. "My apologies, Suzanne. Roth. "

  "There's nothing to apologize for." Suzanne poured a cup of coffee and held it out to him. "Do sit down, David."

  David dropped into a chair and accepted the coffee, though he scarcely seemed aware of what it was. "Why didn't you tell me, Malcolm?"

  Malcolm returned to his own chair. "We didn't know ourselves until Blanca got word from one of the Craven staff." The words sounded perfectly normal to his own ears despite the bitter bite on his tongue. Not the first time he had lied to David, but it felt like one of the worst.

  David gulped down a swallow of coffee. "And you didn't send word?"

  "It wasn't for me to break family news."

  "Damn it, Malcolm." David, who almost never swore, particularly in front of women, clunked the coffee cup down on the table. "You've been like part of our family for twenty years."

  "But I'm not." In some ways Carfax House and Carfax Court had been the closest thing he'd had to a home. But in others, he'd always felt a bit like the street urchin with his face pressed up against the window, looking at the family warmth inside. Malcolm took a quick swallow of coffee that burned his tongue. Not that it wasn't presumptuous to compare his pampered childhood to that of a street urchin. "Particularly not now."

  "You mean because you're investigating." David leaned across the table in the sort of posture he would normally never display. "That's it, isn't it? You wanted to see how we'd all react to this on our own, without you interfering. Because we're all suspects."

  "David—" Malcolm's mouth smarted, no doubt from the scalding coffee. "I'm trying to think like an investigator. But I couldn't stop being your friend if I tried."

  David slumped back in his chair. "Mary sent word to me. She was afraid Louisa wouldn't reach out to me. Which was true, though Mary did, in the same circumstances. My God, I can't believe two of my sisters have gone through this in less than a week."

  Suzanne buttered a piece of toast and set it front of David. "Try to eat that, if you can. It will help — No, not that, precisely, but it will help you keep going. Forgive me, I can't stop thinking like a mother."

  David stared at the toast. "Simon said if he put this in a play no one would believe it. Not that Simon would ever think to write anything so—"

  "Jacobean," Suzanne said.

  David flashed her a twisted smile. "That's what Simon said."

  "Can you think of a connection between Trenchard and Craven?" Malcolm asked. "Besides the obvious. You spent time with both of them."

  "Not if I could avoid it. We were at odds politically, and we hadn't much in common otherwise. I dined with them occasionally and suffered through a few ghastly Christmases."

  Malcolm shut his mind to Mary's account of her suspicions about one particular Christmas. If he could help it, David would never learn the truth, for his sisters' sakes and his own. "How did they get on?"

  David broke off a piece of toast, but stared at it instead of eating it. "Trenchard never seemed to have much use for Craven. Craven spent his time pursuing the maids. Forgive me, Suzanne."

  "You should know me well enough to know I have no sensibilities to be offended, David."

  "Did Craven have any enemies you know of, Lord Worsley?" Roth spoke up for the first time.

  "Aside from the abandoned housemaids?" David grimaced. "I'm not in Tory circles, but from what my father said, I gather he wasn't taken very seriously. He needed Father's help even to get the position at the Board of Control. I've always suspected that was why he offered for Louisa. Why in God's name my sisters chose the men they did—"

  The door opened, not to admit Valentin, who was serving, but Michael, who was on duty in the hall. "Forgive me, sir, but Lord Carfax has called."

  Malcolm glanced from David to Suzanne. "You'd better bring him in."

  "He asked to be shown to the study, sir," Michael said. "And to ask you to join him there."

  "How like Father," David muttered. "Ordering someone else's household."

 
Malcolm pushed back his chair. "Do you want to come with me, David?"

  David shook his head. "He called to see you, not me. And I'd only muddy the waters for you. After all, this is your investigation."

  Chapter 24

  Michael had shown Carfax into the study. The earl was standing by the windows, the wintery light at his back. Michael must have taken his greatcoat and hat, but Carfax was holding his gloves in a tight grip. He spun round at the opening of the door.

  "I'm sorry," Malcolm said. "Your family have been through an unconscionable amount, as it is."

  For a moment Carfax's cold gaze seemed about to shatter. Then he slammed his gloves down on the table. "Damn it, Malcolm, this wasn't supposed to happen."

  "I assure you, sir, I didn't kill Craven." Which was true as far as it went.

  "You were supposed to tidy away the loose ends."

  "I was supposed to learn the truth of Trenchard's murder."

  "Before someone else was killed."

  Malcolm swallowed. "Believe me, sir, no one regrets Craven's murder more than I do. If it proves I could have prevented it, I'll never forgive myself."

  Carfax dropped into the armchair beside the desk. "You're too hard on yourself, Malcolm. You always have been. I can hardly blame you for Craven's death. You aren't powerful enough. It's just that I want to blame someone."

  "I understand the feeling." Malcolm moved to the desk and hitched himself up on the edge.

  Carfax tented his fingers together. "Louisa was the daughter Amelia and I worried about. She doesn't have Mary's toughness, Bel's stoicism, Georgiana's artless charm, or Lucinda's boundless good humor. At least, so we thought. She showed a remarkable amount of both toughness and stoicism when I spoke with her this morning." He tilted his head back against the chairback. "I suppose you want to talk to her."

  "Are you telling me not to?"

  "On the contrary." Carfax's mouth had the hardness of a spymaster, while his eyes showed the regret of a father. "We need to learn what she knows. If she'll talk to anyone, she'll talk to you."