The Mayfair Affair

by Tracy Grant

  "It could. But I've done the math. He was conceived before Mr. Rannoch and Suzanne married. Somehow I don't think Malcolm Rannoch would have anticipated the wedding night. Given the resemblance, the other explanation is obvious."

  "Colin is Malcolm's son," O'Roarke said in a voice as flat and uncompromising as hammered steel. "That's all that matters."

  "But that isn't all he means to you."

  Raoul drew in a breath, then released it, and she had a sense that with that rough scrape barriers that were second nature to him went down. He leaned forwards, hands curved round his wine glass. "What Colin means to me is—complicated. Malcolm's son couldn't be other than important to me. But I don't deny that there's an added level of—concern—because of the other ties between us."

  Despite the carefully chosen words, it had the weight of a confidence. Laura took a sip of her own wine, afraid to press too far, yet at the same time reluctant to let go of her opening. A tantalizing, elusive vista stretched before her, if only she could find the right key. "Why can't you admit to either Malcolm or Suzanne how much you care? I don't think they have the least notion of it."

  She thought he would retreat again, but instead his mouth curved in a reluctant smile. He leaned back in his chair, as though he lounged in a café, wine glass tilting between his fingers. "My dear girl. They both have enough burdens already, a number of those burdens placed on their shoulders thanks to me. I'd hardly claim to have a great deal of delicacy of feeling, but having embroiled them in this chess game and put them in check countless times, it seems the least I can do is not complicate the situation with emotional burdens."

  Oddly, the image that first came to her mind wasn't of Suzanne but of Malcolm, last Christmas, arguing with O'Roarke over the source of a quotation with cheerful enthusiasm that spoke volumes about the relationship they had once had. "Perhaps they wouldn't find them burdens. It can be a great relief, knowing someone cares for one. Speaking as one who's had little enough of that in my life."

  He tossed down a sip of wine. "Malcolm and Suzanne have each other."

  "You should know life isn't as simple as a lover making one not need anyone else."

  "Perhaps. But I know complications. Considering the number of decisions I've made without taking either of them into account—"

  She tilted her head to one side and regarded him. "I think you've made far more decisions taking them both into account than you'll admit or than either of them realizes. And I also think perhaps you should acknowledge that they're both adults and don't have to be protected from everything."

  His fingers whitened round the stem of the glass. "Damn it, Laura—"

  "Yes?" She kept her gaze steady.

  He tossed back another swallow of wine. "You're too clever for your own good."

  "My dear Mr. O'Roarke. Tell me something I don't know." Her own situation stabbed at the edges of her consciousness. "Of course, using your logic, I should stay as far away from Emily as possible." It was partly a challenge to him, partly an expression of her own fear.

  "Damn it, Laura," he said again, this time in a very different tone. "It's not the same at all. Emily's a child. She needs a parent."

  She hunched her shoulders, pushing aside an unbidden image of her own father's face. "I don't think one's ever really old enough to stop needing a parent."

  He twisted his signet ring round his finger. "However one looks at it, I took shocking advantage of Suzanne."

  "I don't know the details, but from what I do know, I think perhaps you saved her."

  "So I tell myself in my attempts at self-justification. But Malcolm would be fully justified in calling me to account."

  "I thought both you and Mr. Rannoch were too sensible to indulge in such theatrics."

  "Which is why he hasn't done it. It doesn't mean he hasn't thought it."

  "You gave her a purpose."

  "Oh, yes. I don't regret turning her into an agent. But she didn't need—"

  "A lover?"

  He stared into his wine. "I gave way to impulse."

  Personal impulse, he implied, whereas making her an agent had been driven by cause, like so much of what he did. "So you initiated it?" Laura asked.

  It was shocking step to ask such a question. She fully expected a verbal slap. Instead he took a slow sip of wine and set his glass down with care. "No. But I should have—"

  "Rejected her?"

  "Had a care for her feelings."

  "She seems to have come out of it quite well. Perhaps you should have had a care for your own feelings."

  He gave a reluctant smile. "I assure you, I wouldn't have survived this long if I wasn't well able to keep my feelings in check."

  "They have a way of sneaking up on one."

  He shook his head. "In many ways, there's little to choose between me and Trenchard."

  She gave a sharp laugh. "You're nothing like Trenchard. You couldn't be if you tried."

  "No? We both took to bed the woman our son married, and left the son to raise a child we fathered ourselves. In many ways we couldn't be more alike."

  "If one leaves out pertinent details. Like the fact that your affair with Suzanne occurred before she even met Malcolm Rannoch, whereas Trenchard seduced me—Trenchard and I seduced each other—after I was married to his son. That you made sure Colin was cared for, while Trenchard turned Emily into a pawn."

  "What do you think I did to Colin by encouraging Suzanne to marry Malcolm?"

  "Gave him two parents who loved him. And then there's the fact that Trenchard had Jack killed. It was only a twist of fate that kept me from dying as well and Emily with me before she was born."

  "Yes. I do think I'd have drawn the line at that."

  "You know damn well you would have."

  He watched her for a moment with a faint smile. "You see a lot, Laura. But don't make the mistake of seeing things that aren't there. I have enough of a conscience to recognize that I've done unconscionable things. But that doesn't mean I'd play my hand differently if I had a chance to do it again."

  "So you still feel the cause comes before all else?"

  "I still look round me and find much of what I see intolerable."

  "I can understand the allure. I've never had anything outside myself to believe in. Oh, perhaps a bit when I first worked for Trenchard and thought we were in the service of Crown and Country. But even then it was a sort of abstract belief, and I'd never have done it if I hadn't been pushed into it. It's not that I couldn't see the injustices in the world. I watched things change in India as I grew up. When I was young, it was fairly common for British men to marry Indian women. Many of my childhood friends had Indian mothers."

  "The prime minister himself has some Indian blood on his mother's side," Raoul said. "He doesn't make a secret about it."

  Laura nodded. "I've heard Trenchard, who could be quite appalling about Indians, make disparaging comments about Lord Liverpool's heritage. But as more British women came out to India, it became more of a stigma to have what they call 'mixed blood.' I once caused a bit of commotion at a regimental ball by saying I couldn't understand the phrase since all blood is red."

  Raoul laughed. "I'd give a great deal to have seen that."

  "It was quite satisfying, but it didn't do anything to improve the situation. One of my oldest friends was the son of a British soldier and a Hindu woman. He went into the army, but he could only rise so far. Wellington—Wellesley then—refused to promote him. I felt the injustice to him keenly. I felt the injustice in his mother's family casting her off for marrying outside her caste. I told my friend if I were he, it would rouse me to rebellion. I still remember his smile—more bitter, I think, than I realized at the time. He was married by then and expecting a child. He said he simply had to figure out a way to survive."

  "The struggle for survival is often a check on rebellion. Those in power often exploit that."

  Laura reached for her wine glass. "Of course, one could argue that the injustice should have ro
used me to rebellion myself. God knows in British India I didn't have to look far to see injustice, most of it perpetrated by my own people. But it didn't rouse me to action. For most of my life, I fear I've been all too focused on myself."

  "For most of your life you've been struggling to survive."

  "Recently. I was a careless girl and young woman."

  "Most young people are careless."

  "You were trying to save the world while still at university."

  He gave a wintry smile and twisted the stem of his glass between his fingers. "I don't know that I could go on if I didn't have the hope that I could make some sort of difference, even round the edges. And I confess to feeling the allure of the game, despite the fact that I can see its folly all too well."

  Her fingers tightened round the stem of her glass. "I hated Trenchard for what he pulled me into. I still hate him. I never wanted to be a spy. But—" She frowned into the wine, blood red in the candlelight. "At times, I confess I—not precisely enjoyed it, but relished the challenge." Her skin crawled at the admission.

  "You're a woman with a keen understanding who hadn't been given a proper scope for your talents. I can understand the appeal. No need to be ashamed."

  "Spoken by one who is no stranger to self-disgust?"

  "Spoken by one who has made his peace with the inherent compromises in this life. And who understands the seduction of the game. And yet—" He broke off, his gaze focused on the bars of the window, though he seemed to be seeing into the past. Or perhaps into an alternate future that had never come to pass. "I think Malcolm would say that if one doesn't look to one's family, then all other loyalties are meaningless. There was a time I'd have laughed at such sentiments. Now there are moments when I find myself wondering if he might be right." He took a sip of wine. "Find Emily, Laura."

  She reached for her glass, seeking protection behind the cut glass. "One could argue that I don't have much to offer her."

  "Rubbish."

  "I'm not fool enough to think that having given birth to her gives me rights."

  "You can at least find out what situation she's in."

  "One could also argue that I don't deserve her."

  "That's foolishness." His voice was rough again, but also oddly warm. "Laura." His hand shot across the table to grip her own on the scarred wood. "Regrets and self-recrimination only fester. Take it from one who knows. You'll corrode your soul and you'll woefully neglect those for whom you should be responsible."

  The pressure of his hand brought a rush of warmth and something more she wasn't prepared to contemplate at this moment. How long had it been since anyone but the children had touched her in more than a perfunctory way? "Rather putting the lie to your claims of being hardened to all feeling," she said. Her voice sounded husky to her own ears.

  A faint smile curved his mouth. "Haven't you got to know me well enough not to expect consistency from me?" He picked up the wine bottle and refilled both their glasses. "If you credit me with any understanding of parental feeling whatsoever, take my word for it that your parents would give anything to see you."

  Laura snatched up her glass and took a sip. Damnation. Why should a parental plea from him, of all people, shake her resolve? "They're not going to like what they see."

  "Odd," O'Roarke said. "Not having met them, I credit them with more sense. But regardless, I think you're up to the challenge."

  Chapter 25

  Louisa had always been a bit lost in the Mallinson family. Pretty, but not the stunner Mary was nor an ethereal beauty like Georgiana; clever, but not with Isobel's quick wits. Lacking David's special stature as the only son and heir, or Lucinda's as the baby of the family. She had, from Malcolm's observation, compensated for it by trying harder than her siblings, yet her efforts had never seemed to win her particular attention from the earl and countess. As the footman conducted Malcolm up the stairs of the Craven house in Brook Street, an image of Louisa on the sidelines at a fête champêtre flashed into Malcolm's mind. One-and-twenty and still unmarried. She had been leaning against the terrace balustrade, her face drawn into lines that spoke of despair more eloquently than pages of soul-bearing prose. Then a moment later she had turned round and been laughing with the guests as though nothing had happened.

  The footman conducted Malcolm to a first-floor sitting room. A taper, a lamp, and a brace of candles were lit, rather haphazardly, in keeping with a night on which nothing had gone as planned. Louisa sat bolt upright on a blue-and-cream striped sofa. She had changed into a lilac dress and wound a black ribbon round her hair, which was scraped back into a simple knot.

  "Malcolm." She came forwards at his entrance. "I've been expecting you."

  "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner."

  "Yes. I suppose you'd feel obliged to express your condolences. But I was thinking that either Roth or Father was bound to ask you to talk to me. Which of them was it?"

  One never knew how someone would react in the face of unexpected tragedy, but her directness surprised him. "Both, actually."

  She gave a tight smile. "You've always been honest, I'll give you that."

  "Louisa." He walked forwards, then touched her arm. It was sickeningly like his scene with Mary, though oddly, it had been easier to embrace Mary. "I'm so very sorry. No one should have to go through what you're going through."

  "Military wives do all the time. One thinks one's safe if one marries an elder son. The ironies of life." She drew back, just a fraction, but enough to break the contact between them. She waved a hand towards the sofa. "Do sit down, Malcolm. Surely we needn't stand on ceremony, particularly in the circumstances."

  He dropped down on the sofa and watched as she moved to one of the tufted blue damask velvet armchairs. Tension shot through her shoulders and her hands plucked at the fabric of her skirt, but her spine was as ramrod straight as if she lay on her backboard. "I haven't told the children yet. Mary said she told hers right out, but then Mary's the sort to blurt things right out." Her gaze fastened on his face, and it was as though the schoolgirl he'd known broke through. "How do I do it?"

  "I can't tell you." His own fears that Suzanne would have to have such a conversation with Colin and Jessica—or worse, that he would—were vivid in his mind. "But I do think honesty is usually best with children, in the end."

  "But how can I even begin to explain it to them?" She smoothed her hands over her lap. Her knuckles were white. "Do you think it's true that someone is targeting Father's sons-in-law?"

  "It's difficult to rule anything out, but that seems farfetched."

  "But you think Craven and Trenchard were killed by the same person?"

  "It seems likely, though by no means certain. Can you think of a reason someone would have targeted the two of them?"

  Louisa shook her head. "Craven used to complain that Trenchard was a stuffy high-stickler. He'd always roll his eyes on the rare nights we dined with them."

  "Mary says she heard them quarreling when you dined with them a fortnight ago."

  "Mary's already been to see you? Yes, I suppose she would. I don't see a reason for Mary to invent tales, but I didn't hear our husbands quarrel."

  Malcolm settled back in his chair. The instincts of the investigator began to push out the instincts of the childhood friend. "Craven went to India with Trenchard seven years ago."

  "Yes." Louisa picked up a cup of coffee and then stared at it as though she wasn't sure what to do with it. "Trenchard was an envoy and Craven was attached to the mission. He was angling for an undersecretaryship at the time." She took a sip of coffee and frowned, either at the taste or the memory. "I was supposed to go, at first, but then I learned I was expecting Amy. I think Craven was relieved to go without me."

  "How did he and Trenchard get on?"

  "Well enough. Craven complained that Trenchard didn't confide in him. Not that Craven confided in me a great deal. Though he did write that it was difficult to know whom to ally himself with. India was such a tangle."

  "He
must have been there when Jack died."

  A chill shot through her eyes. "Yes, I first learned about Jack and his wife in a letter from Craven. It was dreadful. One doesn't expect—" She shivered. "I was never madly in love with Craven. I thought that would keep me safe. Safe from the disillusionment one sees in so many of one's friends. I often think half the problems with marriages are people expecting too much or being shocked the fairy tale they thought they had doesn't exist. I never had any illusions that I had a fairy tale. But in the end no one is really safe, are they?"

  "That depends on what you mean by safe." He'd always thought he was too clear-eyed to be living a fairy tale, yet that was precisely what he'd done until he learned the truth about Suzanne.

  Louisa gripped her elbows. "I sometimes think I should have married you." She looked up and gave a quick laugh. "Not that I have any illusions that you wanted to marry me. I'm not in Suzanne's league."

  "Louisa— " For a moment he was nineteen, keenly and painfully aware of Lady Carfax's matrimonial ambitions as he sat at the Carfax House dinner table. The home that had always been a haven for him had suddenly been filled with traps. "You should know better than to so discredit yourself. I was always well aware that any man would be lucky to have you. But I was self-aware enough not to wish myself on any woman." He had said as much to David when they had had an awkward conversation addressing Lady Carfax's hopes. One of the more awkward conversations in all their years of friendship.

  "And yet look at you and Suzanne."

  Suzanne, whom he had married to protect her. Suzanne, who had married him to spy for France. "Things can work out unexpectedly."

  She gave a tight smile. "I suppose it's as well. I fear I'm too conventional for you."

  Of all the times to realize Louisa Mallinson had more insight than he'd given her credit for. Malcolm drew a breath. The air was close, choked with potpourri and grief. "Louisa— I know about you and Trenchard."

  Louisa had been pale when he entered the room, but now all the color drained from face. "Dear God. Father knows?"