“Those were rather alarming months,” his aunt said. “And one never stops worrying.”
Malcolm stared at her. How had he never before glimpsed the worry behind her dry gaze? “My God. You’re still afraid I’ll try something.”
“No.” She put up a hand to tuck a curl behind her ear. “Not beyond the extent one always worries about one’s children.”
“So confident of my state of mind?” He could not keep the mockery from his voice.
“So confident of how seriously you take your responsibilities to your wife and children.”
He bit back another retort. She was right. It was in part his very rootlessness that had driven his desperation. Whatever happened, with people dependent on him he would never seek that way out again.
“Did you know Mama got O’Roarke out of Ireland?”
Lady Frances nodded. “I told you, he was important to her. I don’t much care for the phrase ‘love of one’s life,’ and with Arabella it seems particularly problematic, but he was certainly central to her.”
“Did you know Fa—Alistair helped?”
She was silent.
“Aunt Frances. This isn’t just idle speculation about the past.”
She spread her fingers in her lap, pressing down a snag in her skirt. “Arabella didn’t tell me. But Alistair—He was in a temper. Normally we steered away from personal topics—I had no particular desire to hear about Alistair’s preoccupations—but for some reason I teased him to tell me what was wrong. At last he said he’d never forgive Arabella for what she’d embroiled him in. When I asked what that meant, he said she’d compelled him to help a man who was out to destroy everything he’d achieved in life. He could care less that the man was her lover, but that men like O’Roarke would turn the world over to the rabble. Naturally I was surprised, and I said why on earth had he assisted her then. Alistair looked—” Lady Frances ran her fingers over the chain of the diamond pendant Alistair had given her. “I was going to say ‘angry,’ but it was more than that. He looked worried. I half-thought he wasn’t going to answer, but I think he was afraid to stay silent out of cowardice. He said, ‘Your sister isn’t afraid to make use of information.’ Which only made me even more intrigued. But I couldn’t get him to reveal more, try as I might.”
Malcolm stared into his glass for a moment. “Do you think he knew O’Roarke is my father?”
Lady Frances’s fingers trembled against the white gold chain. “I wondered then, though I couldn’t be sure. But—”
“He knew I wasn’t his son.”
Lady Frances drew a breath, then took a long sip of champagne.
“What did he say to you?”
“Malcolm—”
“It’s all right, he came close to admitting it to me.”
“Then what he said to me shouldn’t matter.”
“Anything he said about any of this could relate to the investigation.”
“This damned investigation of yours.” She clunked her champagne glass down on a gilded mahogany table. “As if navigating the personal relationships in this family weren’t difficult enough as it is.”
“What did Alistair say to you?”
Lady Frances snatched up her glass and tossed down a sip. “It was the summer when you brought Suzanne and Colin to Britain for the first time. After the dinner I gave where he met Suzanne. When we—later that night—”
“When you spent the night together.”
She gave a faint smile. “I was trying to spare your sensibilities. But yes, we were in my bedchamber. He said—” Again she drew a breath. “He said, ‘People will remark on Malcolm’s good fortune. But it’s some comfort to know that one day he’ll realize what it is to be betrayed by one’s spouse.’ ”
“Is that all?” Malcolm laughed. “I’m not surprised he thought Suzanne would betray her marriage vows. He was clearly shocked she married me at all. But then I never cease to wonder at it myself.”
Lady Frances touched his hand. “That’s because you’ve always been woefully inclined to underrate yourself, my dear.”
“Mrs. Rannoch.”
The drawling voice pinned Suzanne where she stood, even before she turned round to meet his blue gaze and the smile that taunted with mockery. “Colonel Radley.” She extended her hand. He was a nuisance, she reminded herself, a tiresome nuisance she had dealt with in the past. She had seduced Radley on a mission before she met Malcolm. Radley didn’t know she had been a French agent, but he did know her past wasn’t what she claimed it to be. He had tried to blackmail her over it in Vienna, but she had told Malcolm a version of the affair, which Malcolm had accepted without question. She had dealt with Radley then, she could deal with him now. It was only because of the other events of the day—of the week—that she felt as though she would shatter at the sight of him. “I thought you were still in Paris.”
Radley bent over her hand. His mouth felt damp through the silk of her glove. “I’m on leave. Arrived in England last night. Stewart said to come along to the party, and as Carfax and my father are old friends I thought they wouldn’t turn me out.”
Radley was close to Lord Stewart, Castlereagh’s half-brother. Another tiresome thing about him. “I imagine a London ball seems tame after Paris.”
“On the contrary.” He retained hold of her hand, pressing it too tight. “It’s good to see old friends. From what Stewart tells me you’ve become the toast of the beau monde.”
Suzanne smiled into his mocking blue eyes. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of tugging her hand away. “Lord Stewart exaggerates.” She doubted Stewart, who had made a crude pass at her in Paris, had said anything remotely complimentary about her.
Radley’s gaze moved over her face. “It’s different living here from being an expatriate. The English are so insular.” Which was ironic, as he was a magnificent exemplar of that insularity himself. “I imagine you get a tiresome number of questions about your past.”
She smiled at him. His heavy-handedness was a good reminder that she could run rings round him. “No more than I expected. Fortunately, Malcolm is wonderfully understanding about the difficulties, and that’s really all that matters.”
“Your husband is a very tolerant man.”
“Suzanne.” Cordelia swept up to them before Suzanne could answer and slid her arm round Suzanne’s waist, solidarity in her touch. “Good evening, Colonel Radley.”
“Lady Cordelia.” Radley released Suzanne’s hand without any sign of embarrassment. “Davenport. I heard you were living in London.”
“And were shocked to find us still living under the same roof?” Harry inquired. “The world is quite turned upside down since Waterloo, you know.”
“Always the jokester, Davenport.”
“I find it helps to say cutting things first.”
“Never could make head nor tail of what you said. But then I didn’t go to Oxford. Ladies. I’m promised to Emily Cowper for the next waltz.”
“Poor Emily,” Cordelia said under her breath as Radley moved off. “I never could abide that man. Sorry we couldn’t rescue you sooner, Suzie.”
“I can take care of myself. Though the support is welcome.”
“It’s that sort of evening,” Cordelia said. “Lady Carfax looked at me distinctly askance when we arrived. She’s not a prude, but her own daughters are all so well behaved.”
“I think she’s generally nervous about any disturbance tonight because there are so many Whigs and Tories present,” Suzanne said.
“I miss Paris. It’s rather beastly to be where everyone knows one so well.” Cordelia unfurled her fan. “Even at my worst I didn’t actually cause scandals on the dance floor.”
“No?” Harry asked, procuring glasses of champagne from a passing footman for the three of them.
Cordelia accepted a glass and took a meditative sip. “Well, there was the time Wetherby and Reggie Saunderson came to blows over whom I’d promised my next waltz to. But it was mild compared to the sort of insults Malcolm describes being hurled across the House.”
Harry’s gaze drifted round the ballroom. “Pity for the investigation you don’t number any of the Elsinore League among your past conquests.”
Cordelia smiled at him with the brightness of polished crystal, though Suzanne had a sense of what the exchange cost both of them. “Sorry, darling, I obviously wasn’t thinking ahead enough. I don’t suppose you want me to put my talents to use now?”
Harry lifted his glass to her. “I fear I’m not such a patriot. Or such a spymaster.”
The word “spymaster” reminded Suzanne of her appointed task. She hadn’t been sure Raoul would be here tonight, but she had glimpsed him a short time ago across the ballroom. She started to think up an excuse she could make to the Davenports when she saw that Raoul was making his way towards them.
“Mr. O’Roarke.” Cordelia greeted him with a warm smile. Their adventure in Paris two years ago had made her think of Raoul as a friend and ally.
“Lady Cordelia. Davenport.”
“It’s good to see you, O’Roarke,” Harry said. “I don’t imagine you’re particularly happy with either France or Spain these days.”
“Quite. As often happens, one wonders what one was fighting for.”
“I asked myself the same after Waterloo.”
Raoul asked after the Davenport children, and then Harry led Cordelia onto the dance floor, leaving Suzanne and Raoul alone, without any need for subterfuge.
“I didn’t realize you’d be here,” Suzanne said. It was both helpful and disconcerting that she and Raoul could speak openly as friends in public now.
“I own I was surprised to receive the invitation. But as someone known to have fought with the
guerrilleros,
I’m considered an ally from the Peninsular War. Which apparently trumps my association with the United Irishmen in Carfax’s eyes. Either that or he wants to keep an eye on me.” His gaze moved over her face, carefully calibrated to reveal nothing more than polite interest. “I thought you might have matters you wished to discuss with me.”
“How very prescient, Mr. O’Roarke.” Her fingers tightened round the stem of her champagne glass with the press of the day’s revelations. “There’s an anteroom across the hall. Five minutes?”
He inclined his head.
She moved across the ballroom, reminding herself that it really didn’t matter if anyone observed them. Even if there was gossip, Malcolm would just assume—correctly—that her conversation with Raoul was a follow-up to today’s revelations. She stepped into the rose-papered room, swallowed the last of her champagne, and clunked her gilded crystal glass down before she could break it. Precisely five minutes later, judging by the gilt-and-porcelain clock on the mantel, Raoul came into the room.
Suzanne spun to face him the moment the door clicked closed, control worn to shreds. “Did you ever think about telling me?”
“Querida—”
She crossed to his side in two strides and gripped his wrists. “I told you Malcolm Rannoch had proposed to me. That I was thinking of accepting. Which would make him the father of the child I was carrying. The child you and I created. Did it occur to you to tell me the man I was considering marrying was your son?”
“It could hardly have failed to occur to me.” His gaze stayed steady on her face, opaque, unfathomable. The familiar smell of his shaving soap washed over her. He made no effort to break her hold on his wrists.
“And?” She tightened her grip as though she could drag the answer from him.
“I did what I always do. Calculated the risks and rewards and decided not to tell you.”
She released her hold on his wrists and slapped him across the face. “Damn you. Didn’t it make any difference that Malcolm was your son?”
“Of course it made a difference.” His voice was taut, but she could hear the roughness beneath. “I knew him. I’d watched him grow up. I trusted him.”
“Trusted the man we both betrayed in every way possible—”
“Trusted him to be a good father to your child.”
She took a step back and stared at the sharp bones of his face, as though his familiar collection of features belonged to someone she’d never seen before. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that was your foremost consideration.”
“No.” He met her gaze without shrinking from the fire. “We were at a crucial point in the war, and you could uncover invaluable information. Though ultimately you were the one who decided to marry him.”
She flinched at the reminder. “Without knowing—”
“Would you have made a different decision if you’d known Malcolm was my son?”
“I—” She drew a breath, then felt the wind drain out of her. She dropped into a gilded chair, stomach roiling with self-disgust. “I don’t know. Perhaps.” She put her hand to her head, digging her fingers into the curls Blanca had so carefully arranged. “Oh, God, probably not. I was blind to the human equation, and I couldn’t resist a challenge. The more impossible the mission the greater the lure.” She fixed him with a hard stare. “But it should have been my choice to make.”
“Granted.” He dropped into a chair across from her and studied her for a moment with a cool gray gaze. A gaze so like Malcolm’s. “I live with regrets that go back to before I met you,
querida
. Before you were born. One gets used to the taste of self-disgust. But my actions regarding your marriage to Malcolm are perhaps my greatest regret.”
One of her diamond hairpins was slipping. She jabbed it back into place. “Would you do it differently if you had to do it again?”
He was silent for so long she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. His gaze slid across the room to a pastoral print on the wall, then returned to her face. “I don’t know.”
“That’s honest at least.”
“Even I try to be honest upon occasion.”
She dropped her head in her ivory-gloved hands. “And now I have to keep this from Malcolm as well.”
“Which is precisely why I didn’t tell you.”
She drew a breath and lifted her head to meet his gaze. She wasn’t yet ready to concede that he had any degree of right on his side.