The Paris Affair Part 15

For a moment in Suzanne's eyes he saw the fear of the time he had spent in prison. It was still odd to think of such fear being focused on him. Of his safety mattering so much to someone.

Suzanne leaned forwards, her dark ringlets stirring about her face, her silk gown rustling. The roses and vanilla and exotic tang of her perfume teased his senses. Her hand slid behind his neck and her lips met his own.

He closed his arms round her and returned her kiss with an urgency that took him by surprise. With the portion of his brain that could still think, he knew that she was trying to comfort him for his discoveries about Tatiana. Part of him rebelled against needing comfort, while another part craved it as a wounded man craves laudanum.

His fingers sank into her hair. She pushed his dressing gown off his shoulders and slid her hands over his back with familiar witchcraft. They fell onto the coverlet and pillows, and the last vestiges of coherent thought fled.

Stewart strolled across Wilhelmine's salon. "d.a.m.ned fine evening. Though I thought Count Nesselrode would never stop talking. And Emily should do something about the quality of the brandy." He picked up a decanter from the lapis lazuliinlaid table and splashed cognac into a gla.s.s. "I must say you looked particularly lovely, my dear."

Wilhelmine dropped her velvet cloak over a chairback. "You aren't seriously going to try to pretend it didn't happen, are you?" she asked her lover.

Stewart had the grace to flush, but he merely said, "What didn't happen?"

"For heaven's sake, dearest. Suzanne Rannoch is a very beautiful woman and over a decade younger than me. You wouldn't be human if you didn't notice her. I can scarcely blame you. But I do take issue with your pawing one of my friends. Or any woman for that matter."

His chin jerked up. "I didn't-"

"I saw you." Her hand closed on the giltwood of the chairback. "Plainly."

"My darling, you misinterpreted-"

"You had one hand on her bottom and the other down her dress. You're lucky Suzanne didn't choose to take stronger evasive action. She can be quite lethal."

Stewart lurched towards her. Cognac spattered on the delicate blue and pink of the Aubusson carpet. "Those things don't mean anything. You know that. You aren't an innocent. You must realize it's nothing to do with you, my dear. Men are different from women. We have our . . . harmless amus.e.m.e.nts."

Wilhelmine stepped back out of the way of his hands and his brandy-laced breath. She had every intention of reconciling with him before the end of the evening, but she wasn't prepared to do so yet. "Women are quite capable of harmless amus.e.m.e.nts. What I object to is your amusing yourself with women who don't find the flirtation welcome."

"Mrs. Rannoch is-"

"Suzanne Rannoch is very much in love with her husband."

Stewart's chin jutted out and his eyes hardened. "Perhaps you don't know your friend as well as you think, Willie. Mrs. Rannoch knows how the game is played. I would think you'd understand that." He gave a brief laugh. "If you could have heard Radley's stories back in Vienna-"

Wilhelmine grimaced at the mention of the British officer who was one of her lover's friends. Frederick Radley was a handsome man, with his golden hair and well-made body, but he rated his charms rather higher than the reality. "I have no particular desire to hear any more from Frederick Radley than I have to."

"Radley knew Suzanne Rannoch," Stewart said with deliberation. "In Spain. Before she was married. When she was supposedly an innocent victim of war. Knew her quite well to hear him tell it."

That was interesting, though not altogether surprising. Wilhelmine had long suspected Suzanne Rannoch had a more complicated past than she admitted to. "That's Suzanne's business. But I'm quite sure that now she has no interest in any gentleman other than her husband."

Stewart flung back his head and gave another, deeper laugh. "Lord, Willie. Who'd have taken you for a romantic? Don't tell me you're taken in by the perfect-wife veneer. You of all people."

Wilhelmine pulled the folds of her scarf about her shoulders. "I think I'm enough acquainted with both the Rannochs to see beneath the veneer."

Stewart tossed back the last of the cognac and put the gla.s.s down on the lapis table with a clatter. "You can't expect me to believe a woman like Suzanne Rannoch is satisfied with a cold fish like Malcolm Rannoch."

"Perhaps you're the one who isn't seeing Malcolm Rannoch properly."

Stewart regarded her through narrowed eyes. "Good G.o.d, Willie. Did you-"

Her fingers tightened on the delicate silk of the scarf. It had been a gift from Alfred von Windisgratz. "No, I have no personal reason to know about Malcolm Rannoch's skills in the bedchamber. But I've seen the way he looks at his wife in unguarded moments."

"It takes a lot more than looking to satisfy a woman." Stewart closed the distance between them and reached for her. "Cry friends, Willie. The night is still young."

She leaned into him and lifted her face, because kissing was something he did quite well. And all the accompanying acts that proceeded from it.

Much later, when they were lying in her bed in a tangle of Irish linen sheets and embroidered coverlet, Stewart turned his face into her hair and said, "Suzanne hasn't said anything to you about this investigation of her husband's, has she?"

Wilhelmine pushed herself up on one elbow. "The investigation into Antoine Rivere's death?"

"Er-yes." Stewart sat up in bed and reached for the half-full gla.s.s of brandy on the night table.

"Why on earth should you-Oh." Wilhelmine propped a pillow behind her shoulder and studied her lover. "Because of the accusations Rivere made about the Laclos affair? You were the one who ordered Bertrand Laclos's death, weren't you?"

Stewart tossed down half the remaining brandy. "The man was a traitor."

"Not according to Antoine Rivere. Or Malcolm Rannoch now."

Stewart's fingers tightened on the gla.s.s. "Rannoch was sure enough at the time."

"He feels guilty about it." Wilhelmine studied Stewart in the light of the single candle they'd left lit. At times like this, she thought she could mold her lover into something interesting. "Is that it? Do you feel guilty?"

Stewart drained the last of the brandy. "I'm not the sort to brood on the past like Rannoch."

"It wouldn't bother you if you were wrong?"

"We weren't wrong, d.a.m.n it." He pushed himself from the bed and padded naked across the room to refill his brandy gla.s.s from the decanter on a pier table.

Wilhelmine sat up straighter so she could watch him. "You never once questioned it?"

"No." He clunked the decanter down and drained half his second gla.s.s.

Wilhelmine watched him through narrowed eyes, his body outlined by the candlelight. The body she knew intimately. A chill shot through her that had nothing to do with her bare skin. Stewart was not a complicated man. Which at times was useful. She could read him well.

And just now, she was quite sure he was lying.

CHAPTER 11.

Malcolm relaxed his hands on the reins, letting his mare, Perdita, lengthen her stride to a trot. He cast a sidelong glance at his wife beneath the shadows of the overhanging branches in the Bois de Boulogne.

Suzanne returned his gaze. "Are you sure about this?"

"Not in the least. But then that's true of most important decisions." Off to the side he could see the tents where British soldiers were encamped and flashes of red uniform coats, but this path was open for riding and largely empty at this unfashionably early hour of the morning. Up ahead he glimpsed a lady in a blue riding habit on a white horse and another in a green habit on a chestnut, galloping with the abandon afforded by the empty path. Malcolm exchanged another look with his wife, and they touched their heels to their horses and galloped forwards.

Wilhelmine and Dorothee looked round at the sound of the approaching horse hooves and slowed their own mounts. "Well met," Wilhelmine said. "How pleasant to find only friends abroad."

"You're out early after last night," Malcolm said, reining Perdita in beside the Courland sisters.

For a moment, Wilhelmine seemed to grimace, though it might have been the way the shadows fell over the blue velvet brim of her riding hat. "Sometimes early morning air is just the thing to clear one's head after a night of dancing and dignitaries."

"It often seems to be the only time of day one can have any peace," Dorothee added. "Worth getting up early for."

"And yet," Wilhelmine said, her gaze moving between Malcolm and Suzanne, "somehow I don't think it's entirely coincidence that you happened to ride up beside us."

Malcolm felt a smile cross his face. "You're a perceptive woman, Wilhelmine. I've been hoping to speak to you." He glanced at Dorothee. "Both of you."

Wilhelmine regarded him with amus.e.m.e.nt tinged with wariness. "More about this business with Antoine Rivere? I scarcely knew him. And Doro's already told Suzanne all she knows."

"No. At least not directly." Malcolm hesitated. Once he spoke there was no going back. The instinct to hold his family's secrets close was ingrained from childhood. And yet he and Wilhelmine and Dorothee shared a sister. Willie and Doro came from a different world, the majestic, feudal world of Courland. Yet in a sense they were family. He could feel Suzanne's gaze on him, steady but without pressure. He knew she'd say nothing if he chose to turn the conversation and make for home. He drew a breath. The air was crisp and redolent of damp gra.s.s. "Just before he was killed, Rivere made a number of claims involving information in his possession. The first concerned the Laclos affair, which Suzanne asked Dorothee about because Laclos was friends with Edmond Talleyrand. But he also claimed to have information more personal to me."

Wilhelmine and Dorothee exchanged glances. "And you're telling us because-?" Wilhelmine said.

"He claimed Tatiana had a child."

Wilhelmine went stone still.

Dorothee drew in her breath. "Do you believe him?"

"I wasn't sure at first. But I've since spoken with Annina and with your uncle. And what I've learned confirms it."

Wilhelmine's gloved hands tightened on the reins. She had borne a child in secret herself, Malcolm had learned in Vienna, at the age of eighteen. A little girl her family had compelled her to surrender to her lover's relations in Finland. A child she was desperately, and so far unsuccessfully, seeking to have restored to her. "Did she have contact with the child?"

"I don't know. She seems to at least have sent gifts."

Wilhelmine nodded, her gaze clouded with her own regrets. "How old-"

"Probably about eight as far as I can tell."

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Dorothee asked.

"I don't know. Any more than I know who the father is. Tania was at some pains to keep everything secret."

"You're going to find the child," Wilhelmine said.

It wasn't a question. "Whatever it takes," Malcolm said.

Wilhelmine nodded. "I'll render any a.s.sistance you need."

"Thank you. I don't know-"

"Malcolm, please." Wilhelmine leaned across the gap between their horses and put a hand on his arm. "My family-my father-treated Tatiana abominably. And I can't bear to think of a child who shares my blood alone in the world. I'm sure I seem like a frivolous woman to you, but I a.s.sure you I can be remarkably resourceful."

Malcolm looked into her eyes, bright and steady behind the black lace veil on her hat. "I saw that in Vienna. And I don't think you frivolous at all. But you must know I don't know where this investigation will take us. Or whom it will anger."

Wilhelmine's chin jerked up, fluttering the veil. "You think I'd abandon my sister's child to keep a man?"

"I think you're ent.i.tled to know the risks you're running."

"Leave Lord Stewart to me. Unless you have reason to think he fathered Tatiana's child."

"No. Though knowing Tatiana, I can't rule anything out."

Wilhelmine inclined her head. "What have you learned?"

"Don't keep me out of this, Willie," Dorothee said. "Just because I had a different father doesn't mean I don't feel a sense of obligation. I think of myself as a Courland. Tatiana was our responsibility. Besides, we're talking about a child."

"That's what it comes down to, doesn't it?" Wilhelmine said. "One's own concerns scarcely matter beside a child's safety."

Dorothee looked from Suzanne to Malcolm, her fingers curled tight round the reins. "What does my uncle know about this?"

"He arranged for Tatiana to leave Paris," Malcolm said. "Presumably to have the child. He says she wouldn't tell him the father's ident.i.ty."

"Says," Dorothee repeated.

Her gaze was wide and steady, worldly wise and yet vulnerable as that of a schoolgirl. Malcolm reached between their horses and touched her wrist between her kid glove and braided cuff. "I know Talleyrand was fond of Tatiana." It was more than he'd always been willing to admit, but in that moment Dorothee might have been his teenage sister home in England and his first impulse was to offer comfort.

"But that doesn't stop him from playing games with people," Dorothee said, her gaze on his face.

"No, it doesn't."

Dorothee nodded, fingers flexing on the reins. "I've always known it," she said in a low voice. "But it's different when it comes to a child. I'll learn what I can to help you."

"Talleyrand is important to you. I'd never ask you to risk your relationship with him."

Dorothee lifted her chin. She seemed to be aware of her sister watching her. "You didn't. I'm risking it myself."

Lord Stewart set down his smoking pistol and studied the point where his bullet had pierced the target.

"A capital shot," Malcolm said from the sidelines in Napier's shooting gallery.

"Could have been worse, I suppose. Come to try your hand, Rannoch? My brother says you're a crack shot."

"Then Castlereagh exaggerates, which isn't like him. I do better when faced with necessity."

Stewart ran his gaze over Malcolm, as though it had only just occurred to him that while Malcolm might not be a soldier he wasn't a stranger to action. "Just pretend the target's a Bonapartist agent."

"Actually, I was hoping for a word with you, sir."

Stewart set the pistol in its tooled leather case. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"It's common knowledge you frequent Napier's." In fact, Wilhelmine had told him, but however unworthy Malcolm thought Stewart was of her, he saw no reason to create trouble between them if it could be avoided.

"More about this Rivere business?" Stewart asked.