CHAPTER 37
“Amazing how we see a man and woman together and jump to certain conclusions. As though no other sort of relationship were possible.” Harry stared at his uncle through the afternoon shadows that filled Archibald’s study. “You weren’t Arabella Rannoch’s lover.”
“No?” Davenport topped off his glass of port. “Then why on earth would I have told her son I was?”
“To explain your interactions with her in ’98. Dewhurst had already jumped to that conclusion and told Malcolm.”
“My dear boy.” Archibald took a sip of port and paused, as though evaluating the vintage. “You saw Arabella Rannoch. You were old enough to appreciate her charms.”
“You told Cordy the most beautiful woman you’d ever met was never your mistress.”
“Arabella was a lovely woman, but that could refer to any number—”
“It could. But somehow I’m quite sure it referred to Arabella.”
Archibald took another sip of port. “That sounds a bit imprecise for a scholar. I’m not saying I was blind to Arabella’s more refined qualities, but if you imagine our relationship was about reading poetry or poring over obscure texts—”
“No, I think it was about passing secrets to the United Irishmen.”
The glass tilted in Archibald’s fingers. He righted it, stared at it for a moment, then set it on the table. The business of a few seconds in which Harry’s image of the man who had raised him shifted irrevocably. “Between the Julio-Claudians and your intelligence work, you see plots everywhere, Harry.”
“On the contrary. I can’t believe I grew up in your household and didn’t see this much sooner.”
Archibald reached for his glass again. Now that Harry had his uncle’s game, he could recognize evasive action. “See what?” Archibald asked.
“You were passing information to Lady Arabella Rannoch, who was giving it to Raoul O’Roarke to pass along to the United Irishmen. The only thing I’m not sure about is if you were helping the French as well.”
Archibald turned the glass in his hand. “I could deny it. I probably should. You don’t have proof, and I doubt you’ll come by any. Not enough to convince others. And yet—” He regarded Harry for a moment. “It’s like claiming not to have feelings for the love of one’s life somehow.”
Harry swallowed. Somehow, in the last few minutes, he had stumbled into a different world. “You—”
“I was a young man in search of adventure. More perhaps. Meaning. Something other than being an idle fribble.” Archibald’s thin mouth curved in a dry smile. “You’re surprised? You thought an idle fribble was precisely what I was? But then that was a pose. Only of course as the pose goes on, it becomes harder and harder to find the reality within it.”
Harry studied the man he thought he was just beginning to know. “You’re telling me you read Paine and Locke and were driven by a belief in the Rights of Man?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Of the man I thought you were. Obviously I didn’t know you.”
Archibald pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up the port that had spattered on the marble tabletop. “Even as a heedless schoolboy, I knew things were bad in Ireland. I had friends among the United Irishmen. But I think it was the Elsinore League that tipped me over the edge.”
Harry kept a careful gaze on his uncle’s face. He felt as though if he so much as glanced away he would miss a vital clue. “The Elsinore League were hardly revolutionaries.”
“On the contrary.” Archibald stared at the red stains on the embroidered linen of the handkerchief. “When I joined the League it seemed amusing. I took their talk about adjusting the balance of power in the world to favor themselves largely as bluster. But as time went on it became clear it was a great deal more. It crystalized everything that was wrong with my class. Though even then I doubt I’d have acted without her.”
“Arabella Rannoch?”
Archibald nodded. “She sought me out at several entertainments. At first I was flattered. Then I realized she was trying to sound me out for information about the League.” He folded the handkerchief into quarters and ran his thumb over it. “I confronted her about it. And I told her if she was interested in information about the League, I’d be delighted to help her.”
Harry stared at his uncle. The shadows in the room seemed to have deepened. “You were spying on the League?”
“To begin with. They needed to be stopped. Arabella was searching for information that would do that, or at least keep them in check. But even with me working inside they were clever. Little was committed to writing. And they had powerful friends. We gathered information. We managed to scuttle one or two missions. Then one day I was complaining about Dewhurst and Bessborough’s insufferable smugness on the Irish situation. Arabella said she had a friend who would very much agree with me. The next thing I knew I was picking the lock on Dewhurst’s dispatch box during that now infamous dinner party and giving Arabella information to pass on to Raoul O’Roarke.”
“And it went on after?”
“Yes.” Archibald regarded Harry for a long moment. “You were a spy yourself.”
“And I can’t claim to have been driven by any such idealism, even at the start. But—”
“You were spying for your own country?”
“It seems to make a difference. I don’t know that it should.”
“A remarkable admission, Harry. I’m proud of you.” Davenport returned to the table with the decanters and poured another glass of port. “I went on working against the League. Occasionally I gave information to O’Roarke about Ireland and France.” He crossed to Harry and put the second glass in Harry’s hand. “But it changed things as you grew up. I became more cautious.”
Harry’s fingers closed round the glass, though he was scarcely aware of what he touched. “You surprise me.”
“I couldn’t replace your parents. Or what your parents should have been. But I didn’t want you left alone with your only remaining relative branded a traitor.”
Harry stared into his uncle’s face. Davenport’s face looked harder than Harry remembered, but at the same time there was an unusual warmth in his eyes. Archibald Davenport had always been something of a stranger. Why should that matter more now? “Are you saying you gave up your . . . activities?”
“A spy can never really give up his—or her—activities. You should know that better than anyone. But I moderated my work as I could. I had to be more careful in any event. You were damnably curious.”
Harry had a memory of coming into the library to find his uncle slipping papers inside a book. “I thought you were trying to conceal communications from your mistresses.”
“Yes, I tried to convey that impression. A reputation for debauchery can be good cover for a spy.” He gave a faint smile. “Not that it was entirely cover.” He adjusted the globe beside his desk. “You took me by surprise when you went to the Peninsula.”
“Having friends in harm’s way could hardly have been novel for you.”
“Friends, yes. Having the closest I had to a son in that situation was . . . rather different.”
Harry watched his uncle. Davenport’s face seemed even more closed, as though he was tightly guarding his emotions. “Did it change your actions?”
“The Irish rebels were always close to the French. I wasn’t without sympathy for the French. But suddenly I was determined not to pass along anything that might relate to the Peninsula.”
How odd that a choice of intelligence information should be the strongest declaration of affection one had ever received from one’s uncle. How odd and how appropriate to their family. “That must have been a challenge.”
“I managed as best I could.” Archibald retrieved his own glass and took a sip. “After Livia was born I had a fresh concern. She was—”
“Essentially fatherless. I abrogated my responsibilities in those early years.”
Archibald watched him a moment. “One might also make the argument you did a great deal for her given the circumstances. I’m very fond of Cordelia, but there’s no denying she put you through hell.”
“I never thanked you,” Harry said. “For looking after my wife and daughter in my absence. Whatever else is between us, I’m grateful for that.”
Davenport waved a careless hand. “I’m fond of them both. Amazing the diversion a young child creates. But given the circumstances of Livia’s birth and Cordelia’s somewhat precarious position in society, my exposure would have made things infinitely worse.” He paused for a moment. “It will be easier for all of you now.”
Harry forced a sip of port down his throat. “Easier?”
“Cordelia has vouchers for Almack’s again. No one who sees you with Livia thinks about her paternity. You should be able to weather my disgrace tolerably well.”
“You think I’m going to expose you?”
“It’s your job. A job you’re very good at. And as you’ve made clear through the years, you really don’t owe me much.”
“Do what you must, Malcolm.” Harry looked at Malcolm across an anteroom at Brooks’s. “I’m getting him out of the country.”
Malcolm shot a look at Harry. “What makes you think that will be necessary?”
“Damn it, Rannoch, you’re one of the most honor-bound men I know. I wouldn’t ask you not to inform Carfax.”
“No, you wouldn’t ask it. But that doesn’t mean I intend to inform Carfax.”
It was Harry’s turn to shoot a gaze at his friend.
“I like to think I have a healthy sense of the limitations of the gentleman’s code,” Malcolm said. “The war is over. I hardly see what would be gained by exposing your uncle.”
Harry studied his friend’s face. Malcolm looked oddly unconflicted, and yet at the same time the defenses were thick in his gaze. “Why—”
“Because there’s been enough killing. Because he was driven by some of the same goals I share.” Malcolm paused. Harry could feel the air weighted with the sort of admission they seldom made to each other. “Because he’s your uncle.”
“He—”
“Committed a crime? That will be on his conscience. I think all of us in intelligence, on all sides, have more than enough on our consciences.”
Harry swallowed. “When we talked about loyalty to Crown and country or the lack of it, I never realized we’d be talking about my family.” He studied Malcolm for a moment, wondering, not for the first time, what else might have lain behind that conversation. Malcolm’s face gave nothing away.
“It’s nice to find abstract principles hold up when faced with the reality,” Malcolm said. “Harry”—he touched Harry’s shoulder—“I know it must be hard. Especially given that your relationship had begun to improve.”
Harry frowned. “My uncle isn’t the man I thought he is. And yet I think I’d take the man I’ve seen today over the man I thought he was.” He looked sideways at Malcolm. “That probably sounds mad.”
“Or like you have a healthy sense of priorities.” Malcolm watched him for a moment. “It means a great deal, having a father.”
“Careful, Rannoch, you’re speaking to the original loner. It might have meant something once. I’m too old now to need a father.”
For a moment, Malcolm’s gaze was thick with unknown ghosts. “I used to think that. But I don’t think we ever really are.” He took a step towards the door. “I won’t turn your uncle in to anyone. But he owes us some answers. So does Raoul O’Roarke.”
CHAPTER 38
Malcolm slammed the door of the Berkeley Square library shut. “Talk. Both of you. We should be done with secrets.”
His words were addressed to Archibald Davenport and Raoul. Harry and Cordelia were also present, as was Suzanne. Harry had brought his uncle to the house. Malcolm had summoned Raoul without telling Suzanne why, though he had specifically said he wanted her at the conference he’d called.
“My dear boy,” Archibald said. “Surely you can’t be naïve enough to think any of us could ever be done with secrets.”
Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. “The two of you and my mother were trying to bring down the Elsinore League.”
“Among other things.” Raoul glanced at Suzanne and Cordelia, who were both seated, and dropped into a chair. “For what it’s worth, I suspect Archie, like me, was suffering from a misguided desire to protect the younger generation. Or possibly ourselves. Ask us what you will.”
Malcolm’s gaze shot between the men. “Was anyone else in the Elsinore League working with you?”
“No.” It was Davenport who answered. “As far as I know, I was the only traitor.”
“You uncovered the Dunboyne information and leaked it to the United Irishmen,” Malcolm said.
“As I admitted to Harry,” Davenport said. “What I didn’t say is that Alistair persuaded Dewhurst when to set the attack. I’m quite sure his aim was to get rid of O’Roarke.”
Raoul gave a wry grimace. “The Elsinore League were dedicated to advancing their own interests. Of all sorts.”
“Did either of you know Alistair and Harleton and Dewhurst were behind the affair of the necklace?” Malcolm asked.
“What?”
Davenport said.
“You’re a bit behind me,” Raoul said. “You’d better explain, Malcolm.”
Malcolm explained about their discovery at Harleton’s country house.
Davenport dropped down heavily into one of the Queen Anne chairs. “Good God. I thought the League couldn’t surprise me anymore. I was wrong.” He frowned. “You say something in the
Hamlet
manuscript led you to the hiding place?”
“A different version of Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia,” Suzanne said. She recited the poem.
Davenport’s frown deepened. “Odd—The raven and the dove sounds like Dewhurst’s crest. And the bit about the blood sounds like their family motto.”
“I thought their crest was a bear rampant,” Malcolm said.
“The one they use now, that they acquired with the earldom. They upgraded, as it were, when they were given the Dewhurst title. This crest and motto went with the original title, Baron Caruthers, before it was even a viscountcy. The odd thing is, Harleton was asking me about it just a fortnight or so before he died.”
“About the Caruthers crest?” Harry asked.
“About the motto actually, and if it had had something to do with blood.”
Suzanne exchanged a look with her husband, all else momentarily forgot.
“If there’s a reference to the Dewhurst—Caruthers—family in the same lines that told us where the treasure was hidden it’s an old reference,” Cordelia said.
“It was written by Eleanor Harleton and Francis Woolright,” Malcolm said.
“Francis Woolright?” Davenport asked.
“Eleanor Harleton’s lover,” Malcolm said. “He was an actor in the Chamberlain’s Men. With a mysterious past.”
Suzanne’s fingers tensed on the sarcenet of her skirt. “Was there a Caruthers son who disappeared around that time?”
“Only one way to find out.” Harry scanned the shelves. “You do have a
Debrett’s,
don’t you, Rannoch? Deadly dull, but it does have its uses at times like these.”
“Alistair would have had a full set. He had an outsider’s fascination with the aristocracy.” Malcolm dragged over a set of library steps and retrieved a gilt-spined volume from one of the higher shelves. He carried it over to the library table and set it down on the brown-veined marble in the light of a brace of candles. “Odd,” he said, opening the book.
“What?” Suzanne moved to her husband’s side.
“There’s a marker in the book on the page with the Dewhurst listing.” Malcolm pulled out a paper and turned it over in his hands. “It appears to be a bill from Alistair’s tailor. But what’s interesting is that he was looking up the family.” Malcolm ran his finger down the page of names that marked the line of a noble house. “Guilaume Caruthers came over with William the Conqueror, who made him a baron. Henry the Fifth created the first baron’s several-times-great-grandson Viscount Caruthers after Agincourt and then Henry the Eighth made his great-great-grandson the first Earl Dewhurst. His son—” Malcolm froze, his finger on the page. “His eldest son, Robert, is listed as presumed dead in 1592.”
“Not so surprising perhaps,” Raoul said. “A young aristocrat with a love of the theatre. The only way he could pursue that life would have been to disappear.”
“You make it sound like an easy choice,” Cordelia said.
“Easy? Not in the least. But for a chance to work with Shakespeare and pursue his dream instead of managing estates and hobnobbing at court—I can understand him making it.”
“So can I,” Cordelia said.
“But Woolright and Eleanor Harleton married,” Suzanne said. “And had children. Including a son.”
Malcolm nodded. “While Dewhurst is descended from Woolright’s younger brother. Which means there’s another whole line out there who are the rightful heirs to the Dewhurst earldom.”
“And Alistair Rannoch had figured it out,” Suzanne said. “Though he’d have had no particular reason to use it against Dewhurst.”
“But Harleton would.” Malcolm’s mouth turned grim. “Suppose Harleton showed the manuscript to Alistair.”
“Alistair was hardly a Shakespearean scholar, but he had enough wit to investigate those lines,” Raoul said. “Especially if Harleton pointed them out to him as the key to the hiding place. And if Alistair shared his information with Harleton—”
“Harleton might have tried to use it to blackmail Dewhurst into protecting him from Carfax,” Malcolm said. “But Dewhurst decided it was safer to get rid of both men who could threaten his possession of the title.”
Suzanne’s hands closed on her elbows. “Dewhurst has to know there’s no controlling the manuscript now.”
“No,” Malcolm agreed. “That’s why he stopped trying to recover it. But he’d be worried about who else Harleton might have told or who could put the pieces together—”
Suzanne met her husband’s gaze. “Crispin.”