“I think O’Roarke is an inveterate schemer who isn’t afraid to use those closest to him. I think he’s ruthless. And I think giving you up cost him more than he’ll admit to anyone. Perhaps even himself.”
She shook her head. “You don’t—”
“Know him as you do? Very true. But I have known him longer.” He watched her a moment, as though again sifting through information. “You care about him.”
“Of course. That is—He’ll always be important to me. He was my only family for a long time.” And he was still the only person with whom she shared a certain side of herself. She struggled for the right words. Perhaps it was a fool’s quest, but suddenly it mattered very much that Malcolm understand. “But it shifted when I married you. I think he saw that before I did. I know you probably don’t believe it—”
“Oh, I believe it. Circumstances changed your relationship.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. But there’s a truth beneath what you meant.” He leaned against the bedpost, arms folded over his chest, and watched her a moment longer. “Explain it. Make me understand.”
“What?”
“Why you did what you did.”
She looked into his eyes and saw challenge but also genuine entreaty. “I don’t think you could understand, Malcolm. That’s the irony. Your empathy makes you a good agent. And plays merry hell with your conscience. It’s part of why I fell in love with you. But I don’t think you could put yourself in my shoes. I don’t think I’d want you to. I don’t want you to see the world that way.”
“Rubbish, Suzette. That’s taking the easy way out. You’re not too horrible to explain yourself. And I’m not too innocent to understand.”
“I put my goal first. And I told myself it was worth the damage. That without that ruthlessness nothing would be accomplished.”
“And if you didn’t stop to consider your own feelings why consider anyone else’s?”
“I look after myself. I’m no martyr.”
“But you also put the goal ahead of what you might want.” He moved to the door to the adjoining dressing room. “I’ll change in the dressing room tonight. We should be able to talk to Crispin in the interval.”
She blinked at the change in subject. “About—”
“Allie and Grandfather’s discoveries. If the manuscript holds the key to something hidden in the sixteenth century the answer lies with the Harleton family.”
So. Whatever else had changed, they were still investigative partners. She tried to speak and found her face hurt. “Malcolm—”
“We’re in the midst of the investigation, Suzette. We have to finish it.” He turned the door handle. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Malcolm stepped into the dressing room and pushed the door to behind him. Since they’d moved into the Berkeley Square house he’d done little more than pass through this room. He and Suzanne had begun sharing a bedchamber out of necessity in his cramped Lisbon lodgings. By the time they had a house, they shared a room by choice. At least his choice. God knows what Suzette would have truly preferred, as so much about her was shrouded in mystery. A good deal of the time they dismissed Addison and Blanca when they were dressing or undressing so they could discuss their latest investigation or diplomatic or political affairs. He grimaced. More chances for Suzanne to gather information.
The door from the passage opened and Addison stepped into the room, three freshly starched cravats draped over one arm. The two men regarded each other. In many ways they knew each other better than anyone else, yet they rarely spoke of personal matters. Because that wasn’t the sort of man either of them was. And, Malcolm acknowledged, because that wasn’t what happened between masters and valets. Now the air was heavy with the weight of secrets both knew the other knew though they had never spoken of them to each other.
“Sir.” Addison’s voice had a scrupulous neutrality that reminded Malcolm of his own tone when he was making a massive effort to control his feelings.
Malcolm met his valet’s gaze across the room. He felt sick at what the other man was going through, yet in Addison’s gaze he saw sympathy. And fear. Fear for what this was doing to Malcolm himself. Malcolm’s fingers clenched.
“I’ve spoken with Bla—Miss Mendoza.”
Malcolm swallowed. Circumstances had forced Addison and him to wade into the personal waters they had so carefully avoided in their decade together. “I’m sorry. That can’t have been easy. It’s an impossible situation, yet I am uniquely suited to say I do perhaps have a sense of what you’re going through.”
“Quite.” Addison tugged a gleaming shirt cuff that had already seemed perfectly aligned. “As you no doubt realized, Miss Mendoza and I have grown close. Closer than is customary for two people in service together.”
“Your private life is your own affair, Addison. I’m sorry the circumstances of your employment don’t afford you more privacy.”
“That’s very good of you, sir.” Addison laid the neckcloths out on the dressing table, twitching them smooth. “I’m aware that our relationship would be frowned upon in most households.”
“We are not, thank God, most households.”
Addison gave a fleeting smile. “And I’m also aware that my behavior with regards to Miss Mendoza could rightfully be termed less than honorable.”
“As Shakespeare would say, ‘honor’ is but a word.” Malcolm could hear Suzanne reminding him of as much.
Addison pressed a wrinkle from one of the cravats. “But a word with the ability to do harm, particularly to a woman.”
Malcolm recalled the way Addison and Blanca had looked at each other and the discussions he and Suzanne had had about the progress of the relationship. “Were it not for your scruples, I imagine your relationship would have progressed more quickly.”
“Perhaps.” Addison twitched the other, equally immaculate shirt cuff straight. “A fortnight ago I asked Blan—Miss Mendoza to marry me.”
“My dear fellow.” Somehow the words came out as both congratulation on the original proposal and commiseration on what it must now mean.
“I should have told you sooner, sir.” Addison moved to the wardrobe and took out a black evening coat. “I was waiting because I know it would be highly unusual for Miss Mendoza and me to remain in service after our marriage. I would not lightly leave my employment, sir.” He draped the coat over a chairback and smoothed his hands over the shoulders. “It has meant a great deal to me.”
For a moment the years fell away and Malcolm was slumped in a chair, Addison helping Simon bandage his torn wrists. “To me as well. But there’s no need—There would be no need—”
The revelations yawned before them. Knitting them together, forcing impossible choices on them both that could end a relationship that stretched back to before either had met the women in their lives.
“I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.” Malcolm strode to the chest of drawers and poured two glasses of whisky. He put one in Addison’s hand and dropped into a striped damask chair. “Do sit down, my dear fellow.”
It was hardly the first time they had shared a drink, though customarily such occasions had been more celebratory. The nights Colin and Jessica were born, when Malcolm had been elected to the House, when they got the news from Waterloo. Suzanne’s and Blanca’s faces that night shot into Malcolm’s mind. What must they have been going through, surrounded by British celebration? His fingers tightened round his glass.
Addison moved carefully to a chair across from him. He took a sip of whisky. A deeper sip than he usually indulged in. “I can’t imagine what the news about Mrs. Rannoch must have meant to you, sir.” The words were out, the unacknowledged secret fully acknowledged. “Thank you for allowing Blanca to tell me. It was best I heard it from her. And I imagine you don’t find it easy to share it with anyone at all.”
“I’d trust you with my life, Addison.”
Addison met his gaze for a moment. “Thank you, sir.”
And, Malcolm realized, with this information he had trusted Addison with Suzanne’s life. Or at least with her safe existence in Britain.
Addison turned his glass in his hand. “I would imagine it’s worse for you. It’s your work—”
“Yours as well.”
“I suppose that’s true. But I think being an agent is more central to who you are. Then too, it was Mrs. Rannoch who made the decision to—”
“To marry me to spy for France.” Malcolm took a long drink from his own glass.
Addison met his gaze. He might be reserved, but he wasn’t one to hide from hard truths. “While by the time my relationship with Blanca began she was locked into the masquerade as it were.” Addison took another drink. “I say all this to explain—I don’t know what you mean to do, sir. How you and Mrs. Rannoch will resolve things.” His knuckles whitened round the glass, as though he knew the step his next words constituted. “But I’ve told Blanca I still wish to marry her.”
“My felicitations.” The words came from Malcolm unbidden.
Addison clunked his glass on the table beside his chair. “You can’t mean that.”
“I assure you, I do.” Malcolm had surprised even himself.
“I’m fully aware that there are any number of reasons you might not wish Blanca or me to continue in our positions in the household,” Addison continued. “If you wish us to be gone at once I entirely understand.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. After everything we’ve been through—”
“We’ve never been through anything like this.”
“In a sense I got you into this. The least I can do is help you through the aftermath.”
Addison met his gaze steadily. “And Mrs. Rannoch?”
Malcolm stared at the Rannoch crest etched on his whisky glass. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between Suzanne and me. But we have two children. For their sake, we have to go on living under the same roof one way or another.”
Addison nodded. He reached for his whisky and stared into the glass. “I said being an agent wasn’t as central to me as it is to you. But it means enough that I can understand the allure of a mission. And how in the midst of it one confronts choices one hadn’t thought could be possible. Loyalties can be muddy.”
“One could say Suzanne made a great sacrifice for her cause.” Malcolm wouldn’t have put it that way until now. But it was, he suspected, what Tania would have said.
Addison looked up quickly and met his gaze. “I saw rather a lot of Mrs. Rannoch in Lisbon, sir. I’d swear whatever else was going on, her feelings were not unengaged.”
“But then Mrs. Rannoch is obviously a consummate actress.” Malcolm took a sip of whisky. He doubted the bitter taste would ever leave his mouth.
“Yes. But I’ve more than once been complimented on my skills at reading people.”
“You pick now of all times to forego your usual modesty?”
Addison turned his glass in his hand. “Do you remember the mission to Burgos? You were delayed and I wound up in the city for a fortnight posing as a wine merchant?”
“I’m still in your debt for that.”
“Not in the least. But I learned then what a lonely place it can be, trapped in a masquerade with no notion of when it may end. I don’t imagine it was easy for Mrs. Rannoch. Particularly at Waterloo.”
Malcolm saw again Suzanne’s smile in the midst of the hugs and toasts with champagne after the news of the Allied victory at Waterloo. How much had it cost her to maintain that smile? And then he felt the weight of his friend Canning, dying in his arms that day. “No,” he said. “I don’t imagine it was.”
Addison took a careful sip of whisky. “One could of course claim Blanca is a romantic—though Blanca would strenuously deny it—but she says it was obvious to her that Mrs. Rannoch loved you a few months into the marriage.”
“Blanca is understandably loyal to Suzanne.”
Addison met Malcolm’s gaze without blinking. “But she’s a remarkably keen observer herself.” He drew a breath. “I’ll understand whatever you decide to do, sir. And it goes without question that you will have my support in whatever decision you take.”
Malcolm returned Addison’s gaze. “That means a great deal to me.” He tossed off the last of his whisky. “You and Blanca must of course remain here as long as you are both willing to do so.”
“That’s very—”
“That’s a necessity as far as I’m concerned. You’ll need a suite of rooms. I’m sure we can work something out. I’ll speak with—I’ll speak with Mrs. Rannoch about it.”
Suzanne stared into the dressing table looking glass, willing her fingers to be steady as she lined her eye with blacking. A host of details drifted through her mind. Simply juggling the day-to-day business of life was complicated enough, particularly this time of year. She’d ordered Jessica’s birthday dress, but she needed to take her in for one last fitting. She had to sit down with Mrs. Erskine to finalize the details of the dinner—Jessica was quite good at feeding herself cooked broccoli....
A year. Her baby girl was going to be a year old. Pulling herself up, teetering on the brink of walking, bravely facing the world, wholly unafraid. Suzanne turned round on the dressing table bench. She had brought Jessica into the bedchamber while she dressed. Her daughter was taking careful steps holding on to folds of the coverlet. Unafraid, but cautious enough to know she might fall if she let go. Entirely secure in her world. That in itself was enough miracle and adventure to stop Suzanne in her tracks and drive the breath from her lungs.
She’d sent off Christmas parcels to her friends Dorothée and Wilhelmine on the Continent, but she’d barely started shopping for Colin and Jessica, and then there was Cordy’s family, Paul and Juliette and the children, David and Simon, Isobel and Oliver and their family . . . She should do something for Roxane and Clarisse. She needed to organize parcels for the servants. And Malcolm. She hadn’t the least idea what she was going to give Malcolm.
She froze, the eye-blacking stick dangling from her fingers. It hardly mattered now. He’d scarcely welcome a gift from her. And yet—They were living in the same house. The children and the servants would notice if she didn’t give him something. And it wouldn’t feel like the holidays if she didn’t. Not that it was going to feel like the holidays in any case. Dear God, when had she started to care about the holidays?