CHAPTER 22
“Oh, there you are, Malcolm.” The Duke of Strathdon glanced up with a careless nod as he removed his second glove. “Glad you’re back. Suzanne, my dear. Young Colin. You’ve grown.”
Colin cast a glance up at Suzanne and at her nod took a step forwards and bowed. “Great-Grandpapa.”
“Nicely done. Your mother has you well trained.” Strathdon cast a glance round the hall. “Hope I haven’t put you out too much,” he said, in the tone of one who all his life had been welcome anywhere. After all, he was a duke.
“Not at all.” Suzanne stepped forwards, shifting Jessica against her shoulder. “Valentin—”
“His Grace’s valet is already in the guest suite,” Valentin said. “We’ll take the rest of the bags up.”
“The rest—Of course. Thank you.”
“And the groom took the carriage and team round to the stables,” Michael added.
“I do hope you’ll be comfortable.” Suzanne moved to the duke’s side. Jessica, who had been studying him gravely, her head tucked against Suzanne’s shoulder, lifted her head and made a grab for the duke’s cravat. “Da ba.” It might have been an attempt at “Grandpapa” or simply gibberish.
“Querida.”
Suzanne reached out to detach her daughter’s sticky fingers from the pristine linen. The duke had struck Suzanne as distinctly ill at ease with babies when they’d been in Scotland over the summer.
Strathdon studied Jessica as though she were a recently discovered manuscript. “My word, how she’s grown. One forgets.” He twitched his cravat smooth, casting the briefest glance at the small jammy fingerprints on the linen. His mouth twitched with what might have been either disapproval or the faintest smile.
“We’ll have your room prepared directly, Your Grace,” Suzanne said. “Valentin, perhaps you could have refreshments sent to the library.”
With her usual knack for appearing at the right moment, Laura Dudley came down the stairs to take the children. Jessica squawked and dug in her fingers when Suzanne started to hand her over, and the tightness in her breasts told Suzanne why. “I’ll join you presently,” she told the men.
“No need to run off,” the duke said.
Suzanne shifted Jessica against her shoulder. “I need to feed her.”
“Oh.” Strathdon held his gloves out for Valentin to take. “Well, no need to run off to do that. We’re a very broad-minded family.” The duke stepped towards the library.
Suzanne met Malcolm’s gaze. Her husband’s look said clearly,
Don’t abandon me
. So when she had seen Colin off with Laura, Suzanne followed her husband and his grandfather into the library.
She had met the duke twice, on her and Malcolm’s first visit to England three years ago and again the previous summer. He had seemed vaguely pleased Malcolm had taken a wife and equally vaguely pleased to see his great-grandchildren, provided they didn’t disrupt his routine. The duke rarely left his estate in Scotland. According to Malcolm, he came to London occasionally to attend the theatre or to consult with other Shakespearean scholars but preferred it if they came to see him.
Suzanne sank into a chair by the windows, discreetly removed, and unfastened the flap on her nursing bodice.
The duke settled himself in one of the high-backed Queen Anne chairs before the fireplace. “I like what you’ve done with the house, Suzanne.” He ran his gaze over the curtains and window seat coverings. “It looks more comfortable.”
Malcolm gave a faint smile as he moved to the drinks trolley. “I didn’t think you noticed comfort, sir.”
“It is perhaps something we tend to overlook. I don’t think your mother and father gave a great deal of thought to it, but then I fear their lives were not very comfortable, so why should their house be? I’m glad to see you’re doing better.”
Suzanne saw the shock of surprise in her husband’s gaze as he poured two glasses of whisky. “You are a constant source of surprises, sir.” He put one of the glasses in his grandfather’s hand.
“Lucky thing your letter found me at Marjorie’s. Surely you realized that if anything would bring me to London it would be the mention of a new version of
Hamlet
.”
“Possible new version.”
“All the more reason for me to see it.” Strathdon settled back in his chair, whisky glass cradled in his hand. “Is it genuine?”
“I’m no expert.”
“You’re well versed in Shakespeare.”
It was, Suzanne knew, huge praise from the duke. She saw that fact register in Malcolm’s gaze, but he merely dropped into the chair across from his grandfather and took a sip from his own glass. “It looks authentic to me. I’m eager to have your opinion.” Malcolm explained his theory that the manuscript had been copied by Francis Woolright and that Woolright and Eleanor Harleton had made notes on it.
“That’s plausible,” Strathdon said. “Woolright apparently had a good ear for the language. There are stories—perhaps apocryphal, perhaps not—of Shakespeare asking him for feedback. If he wanted to study the role of Laertes in particular, he might well have made his own copy and shown it to his mistress.” Strathdon took another sip of whisky. “Shakespeare seems to have been working on
Hamlet
in 1599. An interesting year. The Chamberlain’s Men had thrown up the Globe from the timbers of a dismantled theatre and finally had a home of their own. The Irish were rebelling, Elizabeth’s relationship with Essex was falling apart. Shakespeare also wrote
Henry V, Julius Caesar,
and
As You Like It
that year. Not surprising they all deal with deposed rulers one way and another.” Strathdon curled his fingers round his glass. “But I don’t suppose historical details are what’s caught your interest. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My dear boy. I can see it in your face.”
Malcolm cast a glance at Suzanne. Jessica gave a squawk as though aware of the adults’ disquiet. “It appears there may be a connection to Alistair,” Malcolm said.
Strathdon’s brows rose. “What on earth would Alistair have to do with a manuscript of
Hamlet
? He had no use for Shakespeare.”
“Did you know when he was at Oxford Alistair founded a club called the Elsinore League?”
“No.” Strathdon frowned for a moment. “Or if I did, I forgot. I made it a point to forget as much as I could about Alistair.”
“An understandable impulse. I wish I could do the same.”
Something shifted in Strathdon’s eyes. They held a look that might almost have been called tenderness. For a moment, Suzanne thought he was going to say something about Malcolm’s relationship with his father. But instead the duke took another sip of whisky and said, “Whatever the name, somehow I doubt this club of Alistair’s was for the purpose of analyzing the finer subtleties of iambic pentameter.”
Malcolm turned his glass in his hand. “The official story is that it was a sort of hellfire club.”
“And the unofficial?”
Malcolm wiped a trace of liquid from the side of the glass. “It may have been a cover for French spies.”
The Rannoch family did not often show shock. Even so, Suzanne expected to see the words register in the duke’s gaze like the thunderclap they were. Instead, Strathdon’s face went blank as an empty stage. With total shock. Or perhaps recognition.
“My dear boy. Are you suggesting your father may have been a Bonapartist agent?”
“Oh, my God.” Malcolm sat back in his chair. “Don’t tell me you knew, too.”
Strathdon took a sip of whisky. “Do you imagine I’d have kept quiet if I knew my daughter’s husband was betraying Crown and country?”
“It might have disturbed your research more to say something than to keep quiet.”
A gleam lit Strathdon’s eyes. “A palpable hit. In general you’re quite right to see me as self-absorbed, but as it happens I believe I would have said something about out-and-out treason.”
“And yet?” Malcolm’s gaze remained fixed on his grandfather’s face.
The duke shifted in his chair. “I don’t shock easily. But I own I was shocked when Alistair asked me for your mother’s hand. Or rather when he told me he already had Arabella’s consent. Even then I didn’t believe she’d agreed to it until I asked her myself.”
Malcolm went absolutely still. Suzanne felt the jolt of tension that shot through him, half-wanting an answer, half-fearing it. “What did she say?”
Strathdon’s gaze clouded with memory. “That Alistair Rannoch was the man she wanted. To which I replied, not surprisingly, I think, ‘Why?’ ”
“And?”
Strathdon turned his glass in his hand. “She said it was time she was married and Alistair could give her what she wanted. And wouldn’t ask for anything she wasn’t prepared to give.”
The words held an echo of Malcolm’s phrasing when he’d proposed to Suzanne. Suzanne tightened her hold on Jessica. Jessica arched her back with a cry of protest.
Strathdon cast a brief glance at his great-granddaughter, though he seemed to be looking into the past. “Arabella could have had her pick of men that season or any other. Half the single men—and a fair share of the married ones as well—at any ball were head over heels in love with her.”
“But Alistair wasn’t,” Malcolm said.
“No,” Strathdon agreed. “I think that was what appealed to her. He wouldn’t make emotional demands. She didn’t have to worry about disappointing him. She didn’t want to run the risk of falling in love.”
“Again,” Malcolm said.
The gazes of grandson and grandfather locked across the library. The oak and gilt of the room carried echoes of the revelations of three years ago at the Congress of Vienna. Lady Arabella’s trip to the Continent with her father when she was seventeen, her unhappy love affair with the older, married Duke of Courland, the birth of her illegitimate daughter, who grew up in secret in France.
“Yes,” Strathdon said, and though his voice was quiet the regret beneath the neutral tone was palpable. “I fear Arabella never got over her disappointment. She didn’t want to love again. She didn’t want to be in a situation where she would even risk it.”
“Perceptive,” Malcolm said. “But then you do spend your time studying Shakespeare. Who understands the intricacies of the human heart better?”
Strathdon gave a faint smile. “You flatter me.”
“So you gave your consent?” Malcolm asked.
“Not immediately.” Strathdon watched the winter sunlight bounce off the crystal of his glass. “I was always of the mind that my children would do better making their own decisions than with me hovering inexpertly over them. And for the most part I believe that’s proved true. Marjorie seems surprisingly happy and Frances has done well enough, for all Dacre-Hammond wasn’t the most imaginative choice. But I . . . mistrusted Alistair. And I still blamed myself for Arabella’s predicament. So I made some inquiries into my prospective son-in-law.”
“And?” Malcolm’s voice was tight with strain.
Strathdon smoothed a crease from the glossy superfine of his sleeve. “Much of what was apparent on the surface. Alistair was ambitious. Suffered at school for being there on charity. Made friends with his wealthier school fellows and was all too aware of the differences between them. Was undeniably clever. Came into an unexpected legacy from a distant cousin in Jamaica as he was finishing up at Oxford, made some shrewd investments, and built a tidy fortune. Save that the money didn’t come from that cousin in Jamaica.”
“Where was it from?” If Malcolm’s voice had been rope it would have frayed from the strain.
“I couldn’t discover. The illusion that it was from his cousin was quite elaborate. Documents, funds routed through the cousin’s bank. The cousin had made Alistair his heir. At least a will existed, naming Alistair, though it may have been a forgery. But the cousin died in debt.”
“Did you ask Alistair about it?”
“Oh yes. He said the accusations were nonsense and I couldn’t possibly prove any of it. Rather contradictory. Then I went to Arabella.”
“And?” Malcolm’s gaze was locked on his grandfather’s face.
Strathdon’s brows drew together. “Arabella said she already knew.”
Suzanne saw Malcolm’s fingers curve round the chair arms. “Did she say she knew where the money had come from?”
“She wouldn’t tell me one way or another. She said if it didn’t concern her, there was no reason for me to concern myself with it.” Strathdon frowned into his whisky glass.
Malcolm leaned forwards as though he would spring from the chair. “And you simply stood back—”
“There wasn’t anything simple about it.” Unwonted fire flashed in Strathdon’s eyes. “I said I’ve made it a point to let my children make their own decisions, especially since their mother died. Some would say it was selfishness. Others might call it an acknowledgment of my singular lack of ability to guide them. It seems to have turned out all right for Fanny and Margie. But I’ve often wondered if when it came to Arabella, I should have—” He shook his head. “I didn’t, and there’s an end to it. Arabella was set on Alistair Rannoch. She threatened to elope. And I confess I feared one of her depressions.”
“And so she married Alistair.” Malcolm’s voice was flat as a sword blade.
“And so she married Alistair.” The duke took a sip of whisky, deeper than was his wont. “To the day of the wedding I wondered—But that’s water under the bridge now. And without it, she wouldn’t have had you and Edgar and Gisèle.”
Malcolm drew a breath, then released it. When he spoke it seemed to be something different from what he had first intended. “Did you ever—”
“I had a man sending me information about Alistair through the years. Don’t look at me like that, Malcolm. I may not be a trained agent like my grandson, but being a duke has its privileges.”
“And?”
Strathdon shifted in his chair. “There was no record of Alistair receiving other mysterious payments. Of course by that time he had little need of money. He’d invested his supposed inheritance well, and he had—”