The Paris Affair Part 16

"In a roundabout sort of way."

"Oh, well, I could do with a gla.s.s of wine. The cafe across the street serves a decent Tokay and the Parisian girls tend to show a bit of ankle."

Malcolm had a great deal of respect for Stewart's brother, Castlereagh, despite the fact that they were diametrically opposed on many of the major issues of the day, from Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation to the future of Poland. Still, he recognized Castlereagh's keen understanding and dedication to his work. Stewart possessed neither the understanding nor the dedication. And it didn't help Malcolm's opinion of the man that he had a tendency to ogle Suzanne.

Stewart chose a table in the cafe with a good view of another table where three Parisian girls sat with shopping parcels round their feet. He ordered a bottle of the most expensive Tokay the cafe offered, then flung himself back in his chair. "All right. I suppose we must turn to work."

"Your brother told you Antoine Rivere made accusations about the Laclos affair just before his death?"

Stewart gestured to the waiter to hurry with the wine. "He mentioned it. Rivere was the sort to say anything if he thought it would get him what he wanted."

"But in this case he appears to have been telling the truth. Talleyrand says Bertrand Laclos wasn't reporting to the French."

Stewart stared at him. The waiter set a bottle of Tokay and two gla.s.ses on the table. Stewart continued to stare while the waiter uncorked the bottle and filled their gla.s.ses. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his gla.s.s and took a long swallow. "Talleyrand may not have known."

"Very little goes on in France about which Talleyrand doesn't know."

"It's possible-"

"According to Talleyrand, the revelation that Bertrand Laclos was working for us sent shock waves through French intelligence. Someone would have spoken up if he'd really been working for the French."

"If-"

"For G.o.d's sake, sir." Malcolm slammed his hands down on the table, rattling the gla.s.ses and bottle. "I gave you the information. I thought it was incontrovertible, too."

"It was." Stewart steadied the bottle and his gla.s.s. "It was incontrovertible. d.a.m.n it, Bertrand Laclos was a traitor. Every moment he was on the loose he was endangering British lives. We had to deal with him as soon as possible."

"Was there a particular reason you were quick to rush to judgment?"

"I didn't rush."

Stewart had taken immediate action against Laclos while Malcolm had urged caution, but there was nothing to be gained from arguing that now. "Sir, we were all taken in. But did you have any reason to be suspicious of Laclos before?"

Stewart's gaze strayed to the few inches of ankle displayed below the flounced muslin skirt of a blond girl at the adjoining table. "Laclos never quite fit in. He was French, of course. But it was more than that. He was a good sportsman, but he didn't seem to enjoy it much. Wouldn't take more than a drink or two. Always thought he didn't have the head for it. And he wasn't much of-"

"A womanizer?"

Stewart's gaze shifted from the ankles of the blond girl to the low-cut, lace-edged bodice of a brunette. "Didn't even seem to enjoy the girls at the opera. Odd, that."

"Perhaps he had a mistress he loved."

"No reason for that to-" Stewart bit back the words.

"Are you saying all this made you more inclined to believe in his treason?"

"No." Stewart swung his gaze back to Malcolm's face. "I believed in his treason because of the evidence you brought me."

"Fair enough." Malcolm took a sip of wine, guilt raw in his throat. "Did you talk to anyone before you decided Laclos had to be eliminated? Did anyone encourage you to make that decision?"

"There was no other decision to make. Even after I saw that letter-"

Malcolm clunked his gla.s.s down, sloshing the wine. "What letter?"

Stewart s.n.a.t.c.hed up his gla.s.s and took a long drink. "Doesn't amount to anything."

"I think you should let me be the judge of that."

"d.a.m.n it, Rannoch-" Stewart splashed more wine into his gla.s.s and took another swallow. "After Laclos was killed a letter from him was delivered to me at Headquarters. Sent before his death."

"And?" Malcolm held Stewart with his gaze.

He set the gla.s.s down with a sigh of frustration. "Laclos said he was going to abandon his mission and return to his family in England."

Dorothee pushed open the door of Talleyrand's study. The smell of fresh ink, leather, hair powder, and eau de cologne wrapped her in familiar comfort. She stepped into the room to meet his gaze. He was looking up, pen clutched in one hand, as though he'd been aware of her step on the stairs. For a moment, the air between seemed to tighten with something she could not put into words save that it reminded her of an experiment she'd once seen with an electrical current. "Did you enjoy your ride?" he asked.

She pushed the door to and paused, fingering a fold of her green velvet riding habit. "Willie and I met Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch in the Bois de Boulogne."

For an instant she'd swear she saw a flicker of concern in Talleyrand's eyes. Then it was gone and he said, "Always pleasant to encounter friends. Malcolm has been a superb rider from childhood."

Dorothee drew a breath. For a moment every nerve in her body rebelled against putting it into words. An ill.u.s.tration of Pandora opening the box from a favorite nursery book hung before her eyes. Once spoken, the words could not be called back any more than Pandora could stuff the evils back into the box. She would have to live with the consequences. "Malcolm told us." She crossed the room to stand in front of Talleyrand's desk. "About Princess Tatiana's child."

"I see." Talleyrand leaned back in his chair, the pen tilting between his fingers. "That was a great admission for him to make. Malcolm holds his family's secrets close."

"He recognizes that Princess Tatiana is our family, too. Of course Willie and I said we'd help them."

His gaze skimmed over her face, watchful as always. "You have a kind heart, Doro."

"I recognize my responsibilities."

"And you have the courage and the kindness not to shirk them." Talleyrand's eyes softened in that way they sometimes did when they rested on her. It was very different from the glow she saw in Karl's gaze when it met her own, yet it stirred her in a way Karl's gaze did not. A way that was less easy to define but that cut deeper.

She swallowed, realizing she had not yet fully lifted the lid from the box. "Did you know?" She blurted the words out, as she would have done when she was an awkward schoolgirl.

He tilted his head back, somehow managing not to disturb his wig by so much as a fraction of an inch. "Surely Malcolm told you that Tatiana eventually admitted to me there was a child but made me swear not to inquire into the ident.i.ty of the father."

"Yes, that's what Malcolm said." Dorothee fingered her riding crop. She stood before the desk instead of perching on the edge as was her usual practice when talking to him. Somehow that represented an intimacy that seemed inappropriate now.

"But you don't believe it." Talleyrand gave a faint smile.

She lifted her chin. "I don't believe that's all of it, no. Any more than I imagine Malcolm does."

His smile deepened. "You both know me well."

"We both know you wouldn't hesitate to withhold information if you thought it important."

"Certainly not." He picked up the pen and tapped it against the gilt-embossed burgundy leather of the blotter. "But that doesn't necessarily mean I possess such information."

"d.a.m.n it, Uncle." Dorothee bit her lip, more at the word "Uncle" than at the curse. It felt odder and odder to call Talleyrand Uncle. "You had to have been curious about the father's ident.i.ty. How can you talk about it so coolly?" She took two quick steps forwards and gripped the edge of the desk. "You must have cared about her."

His gaze moved over her face with a curiosity that seemed quite genuine. "What makes you think so?"

"You'd known her since she was a child. Her mother and grandfather were friends of yours."

He lifted his brows. "Your point being?"

"I know you. Enough to know that that relationship couldn't have left you entirely unmoved."

"My dear child. You're developing a healthy cynicism, but your faith in humanity is still touchingly naive. You remind me a bit of Malcolm."

Dorothee pushed aside a stack of papers and perched on the edge of the desk. "Don't try to change the subject. You always say I'm a good observer. That also applies to observing you."

He ran the pen through his fingers. "Touche."

"Which brings us back to the question from which you've adroitly managed to divert me." She rested one hand on the desktop and leaned towards him. "What did you learn about Tatiana Kirsanova's child's father?"

He set down the pen and rested his jeweled hands on the ink blotter. "You're right of course that I made inquiries. Rather exhaustive inquiries. But Tatiana covered her tracks well. I had trained her, and she was a brilliant student. I spoke the truth when I told Malcolm I learned nothing conclusive."

" 'The truth.' Such an elusive word, as you're always saying. I'm wary when you use it."

"And yet sometimes even I mean what I say."

Dorothee searched his face, his hooded eyes, the lines in his forehead, the curve of his full-lipped mouth, which could be at once ironic, mocking, and warm. She drew a breath of frustration. She knew he revealed parts of himself to her that he didn't to anyone else. Yet there were still untold layers to him she couldn't read. A source of frustration. And fascination. And fear. "This is different. This isn't politics-"

He gave a brief laugh. "Ma chere. Everything Tatiana did had to do with politics, one way or another."

"But we're talking about a child who made no such choices. A child no different from my own boys. Or little Anne." For a moment the face of her little daughter who had died a year ago hung before her eyes.

Talleyrand touched her hand. His fingers were gentle, but when he spoke his voice was unyielding. "I'm not entirely insensible of that. But in this world children are victims of their parents' intrigues."

"And yet you've gone to great lengths to save Flahaut."

Talleyrand's gaze darkened. The Comte de Flahaut, his illegitimate son, had fought for Napoleon at Waterloo and then found himself on the proscribed list. Dorothee had seen the concern in Talleyrand's eyes over him and a few moments of naked fear such as she had never before glimpsed on her uncle-by-marriage's face. "I take my responsibilities seriously."

Dorothee put her other hand on the desk. "So do I. This is my responsibility."

"The child of-"

"A woman my family should have protected and didn't. And by lying you're preventing me from meeting my responsibility."

"You can't be sure I'm lying."

"I know you're withholding something."

"My dear child. First you credit me with finer feelings than I would ever admit to. Then you accuse me of not having a care for Tatiana and her child."

Dorothee straightened up. "I believe you couldn't help but care for Tatiana and for any child of hers."

"And?" Talleyrand asked, gaze trained on her face.

She got to her feet, the full horror of what she'd unloosed from the box washing over her. "And I don't think that would stop you for a moment from sacrificing them to your ends. If you thought it was important enough. I don't think you hold anyone inviolable. Even me."

CHAPTER 12.

"Thank you for coming with me," Suzanne said to Simon as their fiacre clattered through the cramped, twisting maze of the Left Bank. Colin bounced on her lap, face pressed to the grimy window.

Simon grinned. "I'm always pleased when you and Malcolm let civilians a.s.sist you." He leaned back in his corner of the cracked leather seat and studied her across the fiacre. "How are you?"

Suzanne steadied Colin as he squirmed on her lap. "You mean besides investigating another mysterious death?"

"I haven't asked you in a while. You look a bit less haggard than you did in Brussels."

"Aren't we all?" Her mind went back to their house in the Rue Ducale in Brussels, the black-and-white marble floor tiles lined with pallets on which wounded soldiers lay, the smells of laudanum and beef tea and sickness in the air and Waterloo had touched all of them, but in addition the investigation into Julia Ashton's murder had been a strain, not just on Suzanne and Malcolm and Cordelia and Harry, but on Simon and David as well. The secrets uncovered had scarred all of them.

"Quite," Simon said. "But I don't think you're finding Paris entirely easy, either."

Simon understood her confoundedly well. Which meant he saw far too much. She often thought it was because like her he was an outsider in the beau monde, so the usual a.s.sumptions didn't apply. "You have to admit the atmosphere in Paris is rather fraught."

"And the politics not what one could call convivial."

Simon was a Radical. He hadn't supported war when Napoleon escaped from Elba. The politics in Paris now weren't convivial to him or to Malcolm or to David. It didn't mean he had any special knowledge about her and her past. She had to remember that. "Scarcely."

Simon tilted his head back. "Just remember that I'm here to listen if ever needed."

Colin bounced in her lap. "Dragons," he said, his face pressed to the gla.s.s.

Three British dragoons had stopped before a bakery to flirt with a couple of Parisian girls. Colin had become good at spotting different types of soldiers in Brussels. Simon gave an ironic smile. "Even on the Left Bank." He glanced out the window. "I grew up only a few streets over. One saw more tricolor in those days. And then Republican soldiers."

They pulled up in a narrow winding street before a blue-shuttered house with a riot of violets spilling from the window boxes. Emile Sevigny himself opened the door to greet them, a wiry man in his early thirties with a bony face and a shock of disordered dark hair. His neckcloth was carelessly tied and a spot of blue paint showed on the shirt cuff peeping out from beneath his rumpled blue coat. "Simon, we got your note this morning. Splendid to see you."

When Simon introduced Suzanne and Colin, Sevigny said, "Forgive the informality. Simon and I've known each other since we were boys. His father was my mentor."

Emile Sevigny took them through a hall with walls hung with bright watercolors, charcoal sketches, and vivid oil portraits, and floorboards strewn with blocks and tops and a toy wagon, and out into the back garden. Louise Sevigny came towards them. She'd been fashionably dressed when Suzanne met her at the exhibition at the Louvre. Now she wore a simple muslin gown and her red-brown ringlets slipped from their pins beneath a gypsy straw hat. "Simon. It's been too long since you've come to see us." She lifted her face for his kiss and then held out her hand when he introduced Suzanne and Colin. "Of course. Madame Rannoch. Your husband is the dashing man who does all sorts of secret things for Wellington."

"My husband would say not to listen to gross exaggerations. Colin, make a bow to Madame Sevigny. You saw some of her husband's pictures when we went to the Louvre."

Colin bowed and shook Madame Sevigny's hand. Louise Sevigny called over her own children, two boys of about eight and two, and suggested they might like to show Colin their fort. The three boys at once darted across the garden to the fort, a paint-spattered tablecloth draped over two bushes. Louise and Emile Sevigny smiled. It was a good thing, Suzanne thought, that most spymasters didn't realize how wonderful children were at creating diversions and putting suspects at their ease.

Louise Sevigny waved the adults towards a wrought-iron table set in the shade of a lilac tree. A maid emerged from the house with a tray of chilled white wine and almond cakes.

Emile cast a glance at the children as he poured the wine. "Simon and I were like that once at his parents' house."

"Save that Emile always dragged me off to the studio." Simon accepted a gla.s.s of wine. "He found the sight of my father at work much more entrancing than I did."