The Paris Affair Part 25

Harry shot a look at him. "Can't imagine what a man with Wellington's understanding sees in Frances Webster." He paused a moment. "Go carefully, Malcolm."

"You think Wellington wouldn't stoop to killing a blackmailer?"

"I think Wellington's a dangerous opponent. And if he's guilty of murder, he's even more dangerous than I credited."

It was Malcolm's turn to stare at his friend. His throat was tight with possibilities he didn't want to articulate. "You think it's possible?"

"I pride myself on not having illusions, remember?" Harry said.

"So do I, in theory."

"Don't fool yourself, Malcolm. You have a remarkable capacity for believing in people."

"Is it quite that bad?"

"And I've always envied you for it." Harry was quiet for a moment. "We both agreed in Brussels that Wellington wouldn't cavil at having a double agent killed. Wellington doesn't think it would have been wrong to have had Bertrand Laclos killed if he really had been a double agent. How much of a jump is it from that to having a British agent killed when he tried to blackmail a British commander?"

Harry's words cut all too close to what Malcolm feared might be the mark. "One compromise after another until one looks over one's shoulder and integrity is gone."

"Quite."

Manon cast a glance round the dressing room. "Odd I didn't realize until now how much I'd miss Paris. I've rather taken it for granted. Like a lover one doesn't properly appreciate until he's not there to pay one silly compliments or open the carriage door."

Suzanne had only spent small s.n.a.t.c.hes of her life in Paris, but the city seemed to run through Manon's blood. She'd always been a font of information, for she knew everyone and everything. "Manon," Suzanne said on sudden impulse. "Did you ever hear any talk about Tatiana Kirsanova?"

Manon gave a dry laugh. "Could anyone in Paris fail to hear talk about Tatiana Kirsanova?" She hesitated a moment, fiddling with one of the b.u.t.tons on her coat.

"It's all right," Suzanne said. "I know. That is, I know about the rumors. The rumors that Princess Tatiana was Malcolm's mistress. She wasn't as it happens."

Manon turned to look at her. "You sound very confident."

"I wasn't for the longest time, but I am now."

"Because?"

"Because Malcolm told me, and I believe him."

Manon's brows rose above her spectacles. "You do have a remarkable marriage."

"Trust grows easier with time," Suzanne said, and then bit her lip because Malcolm trusted her far too readily. "But Malcolm was close to Princess Tatiana," she continued. "He'd worked with her-"

"Worked with-I should have known."

"That she was an agent? Yes, I felt quite foolish for not knowing it myself."

"I heard your husband looked into her murder in Vienna."

"He did. And though no one could be publicly charged, he learned a great deal. But Malcolm takes his responsibilities hard. I don't think he'll ever stop blaming himself for not having been able to save Princess Tatiana." Suzanne hesitated, studying Manon's artfully made-up face, then made a leap of trust. "It seems Princess Tatiana may have had a child."

Manon's eyes widened in seemingly genuine surprise. "Mon Dieu." Her gaze flickered to the sitting room. "Hidden away?"

"Apparently. But Tatiana seemingly knew where. We think the child would have been born about eight years ago. Did you hear anything about who might have been Tatiana's lover nine years ago or a bit less?"

Manon's brows, thickened with blacking, drew together in consideration. "I remember the swath Princess Tatiana cut through Parisian society when she first arrived. I wasn't invited to her parties, of course, but she was pointed out to me at the theatre. When she was present, the gentlemen in the crowd had a distressing tendency to look at her box instead of at the stage. And there'd be less of a crowd in my dressing room because a throng of gentlemen would follow her when she left. She had a group of us put on a private theatrical at one of her parties. It would have been the autumn of 1806. Love's Labour's Lost. A bit of a surprising choice."

Suzanne said nothing, though she wondered if Tatiana's fondness for the play had come from Malcolm or from their mother.

"I must say she was quite generous with her payment and she encouraged us to mingle with the guests afterwards," Manon continued. "It was a bit lowering to realize I couldn't dislike her as I could when she was simply a glamorous stranger distracting the crowd."

It was a simpler version of what Suzanne had gone through the previous autumn, peeling away the complex layers of the woman she had been prepared simply to dislike as her husband's supposed mistress. "Princess Tatiana was a complicated woman."

"So she was. She had a throng of gentlemen about her that night of course. But as I recall she divided her favors quite evenly." Manon cast a quick glance at Suzanne.

"Whoever fathered the child, Princess Tatiana seemed to feel secrecy was of the utmost importance."

"A bit odd, that. Not that a woman can afford to flaunt children born out of wedlock-Well"-Manon glanced at the sitting room again-"an actress can, but it's more difficult for a lady. Still, there are plenty of widows with by-blows who are known about. As long as they don't actively flaunt them, they can get away with it. Tatiana Kirsanova didn't strike me as a woman who would frighten easily."

"No."

"You should talk to Paul St. Gilles."

"The painter?" Suzanne had seen his work at the Louvre, and Louise and Emile Sevigny had mentioned his anti-Royalist writings. "Was he her lover?" It seemed an unlikely pairing.

"Not her type, you think? Princess Tatiana seemed to have eclectic tastes. And I think there was a difference between the lovers she chose for expediency, because they were powerful men, and the lovers she chose simply to amuse herself. She and St. Gilles were certainly close. If he didn't father the child, he might know who did."

"Do you think-"

The door swung open on Suzanne's words. Raoul entered, no longer the stagehand but a stout gentleman with graying hair and side-whiskers, modest shirt points, and a coat of st.u.r.dy wool. A prosperous bourgeois. He looked from Manon to Suzanne. "An admirable transformation. I'd have expected no less of either of you."

Another man followed him into the room, stoop shouldered, with straggly hair. He was dressed as a coachman. "Best hurry," he said in a slurred voice.

Raoul glanced at him and from their interaction Suzanne realized this must be the Kestrel. She suspected the hair was a wig. She wondered how old he was. Not so old as the seventy or so he was portraying, but he could be anywhere from five-and-twenty to five-and-fifty.

Manon moved to the sitting room door and looked at her daughters. For a moment, the other roles were gone and a mother's concern and quiet a.s.surance suffused her face. Roxane got to her feet and nodded. Manon bent over the sleeping Clarisse and murmured to her.

Raoul and the Kestrel moved two large trunks from the welter in the dressing room to the sitting room. The girls climbed inside, wrapped in soft blankets. "Just until we're away from the theatre," Manon murmured to them. "Then you'll ride in the carriage with Oncle Raoul and me."

"Suzanne should leave first," Raoul said. "Or rather Manon Caret should. That should draw off the watchers."

Suzanne pulled on a pair of kid gloves, glanced in the looking gla.s.s to make sure her ringlets still fell about her face, and then raised the hood of her cloak. She bent down to touch her fingers to Roxane's and Clarisse's hair, then stood and regarded Manon. "One way or another, I'll see you again. Perhaps in England. My friend Simon Tanner is a part owner of the Tavistock Theatre. I'll find a way to recommend you."

"I'd be most grateful."

"I think you'll find the theatre community in England easier to navigate than the beau monde." She embraced Manon. Manon clung to her for a moment, fingers tight, then stepped back with a smile that seemed designed to hold tears at bay.

Raoul squeezed Suzanne's hand."No unnecessary risks, querida."

"The same goes for you." Suzanne hugged Berthe, then turned to the Kestrel and inclined her head. He returned her nod, his dark gaze veiled.

Two stagehands, old friends of Manon's, came into the room and picked up two bundles, blankets wrapped round pillows with blond wigs peeping out from the top. Close enough to the sight of Roxane and Clarisse being carried from the theatre to fool watchers.

Suzanne cast a last glance at her friends, then followed the stagehands down the pa.s.sage, moving with Manon's unique combination of languor and impetuous speed.

Manon's cherry red barouche was drawn up in front of the theatre. "Do try not to wake them," Suzanne called in Manon's accents as the stagehands settled their burden in the carriage. "Clarisse isn't well."

Pausing to give a careless wave to any denizens of the Palais Royale waiting for a last glimpse of Manon Caret, Suzanne moved to the carriage, aware of the two men lingering in doorways on either side of the street, though she didn't risk looking at them directly. She leaned into the carriage to adjust the blankets over her supposed daughters, murmured, "Shush, shush," then climbed in the carriage herself. "Home, Jacques," she called to the coachman.

The carriage clattered off down the street. Suzanne fell back against the squabs. No way to tell if the watchers followed the carriage. She leaned forwards a few times to tuck the blankets round the girls, just in case anyone should glance through the windows. It would be hours, if not days, before she knew if her friends were safe. Worry was tight within her. But with it, she could not deny, a thrill of excitement.

Flashes of lamplight pierced the gloom as they swept over the cobblestones. At last they pulled up before Manon's elegant house in the Rue Vivienne, with fanciful plaster moldings and gilded wrought ironwork. A footman hurried down the steps. He handed Suzanne down from the carriage, then reached inside to lift one of the blanket-wrapped forms. The coachman lifted the other. "Clarisse has a sore throat," Suzanne murmured. "I should have left her at home."

"Where's Berthe?" the footman asked, cued to his part.

"She had plans with her young man. I couldn't ask her to stay back, not with everything she does for me."

The footman grinned, as if to say his mistress was softhearted beneath her sometimes imperious exterior. They climbed the steps to the columned portico, Suzanne fussing over her two supposed daughters. Inside the house, the footman and coachman carried the blanket-wrapped bundles up the curving staircase to the nursery. Suzanne lit a lamp, bent over the two bundles in the beds, smoothed the covers, kissed their wig hair, all for the benefit of anyone watching the windows. Then she cast a last look round the room, drew the curtains, turned down the lamp, and went down the pa.s.sage to Manon's bedchamber.

The room still smelled of jasmine and tuberose. She lit a lamp and the tapers on the dressing table. A dressing case still stood on the table, pots of rouge and powder, a crystal scent bottle, velvet jewel boxes, a silver-backed brush with hairs caught in the bristles. Manon would only have been able to take a few essentials. Suzanne stretched her arms, unpinned her hair with Manon's leisurely grace, then drew the blue watered-silk curtains over the windows. All the while she saw the dolls and stuffed animals that had still stood on the shelves and beds in the nursery, Manon's toiletries and jewels, embossed stationery and pens and inkpot. The bits of a life. Manon and the girls would only have had time to pack essentials. Suzanne had had to make some quick departures of her own, but she'd never had a settled-enough life to have a great deal to leave behind. It would be different now. She shuddered as she laid Manon's cloak on the bed and tugged at the strings on the gown. Not that she ever would flee the life she had now. Unless Malcolm fled with her. And that would mean he would know what she had done and accept it, which was also unthinkable.

Pounding came from the street outside. Her senses quickened even before she had made sense of the noise. She moved to the windows, straining to hear. "Manon!" a man's voice yelled in the street. "Let me in, d.a.m.n it."

The voice was slurred with drink and sharp with feeling. Manon's latest lover? Suzanne realized she had no notion of his ident.i.ty or of what he had meant to Manon. He sounded like a native French speaker. She daren't risk a glance into the street. But impossible for her to slip from the house while he was outside.

A pounding sounded, like a fist beating against polished door panels. A low-voiced murmur that must be the footman, another cry of "Manon," then a crash and the wrench of tearing hinges. Dear G.o.d. He'd pushed the door open. Suzanne ran to the bedchamber door, Manon's half-unlaced gown slipping from her shoulders, and shot the bolt home.

Feet pounded on the stairs. "Manon!" the voice yelled again. The bra.s.s door handle rattled. "For G.o.d's sake, Manon, let me in."

She crossed to the connecting door to the dressing room and bolted it as well. To speak or not to speak? She was good at imitating voices, but this was a lover. But then she'd survived this far by trusting her instincts, not doubting them. "Cheri," she said, in Manon's tones, back by the bed where her voice would carry less clearly. "I told you tonight would not work." A risk, but surely Manon would have given him some excuse about tonight.

"You can't still be cross about Yvette." His voice shook with desperation. "You know that ended months ago. I haven't had eyes for anyone else since I met you."

"That isn't how it looked." Suzanne stripped off the gown and pulled the pins from her wig.

"She's a friend. She was in trouble. I couldn't turn my back on a friend in trouble."

Suzanne gave an imitation of Manon's snort as she stuffed the wig into the wardrobe and grabbed the plain black gown Manon had left for her.

"I settled her debts. That doesn't mean I took her to bed. I don't want to be in anyone's bed but yours. Can you doubt that after all that's pa.s.sed between us?"

"Fine words." She pulled on the black gown, which mercifully fastened up the front.

The handle rattled again. The door shook in its frame. "Have you got a man in there? d.a.m.n it, who is he-"

"Don't be silly, cheri." She stowed Manon's silk-rosetted slippers in the wardrobe and pulled on a pair of plain black ones.

"You witch! They warned me you wouldn't be faithful, but I was mad enough to trust you."

"Because of course I love you, mon amour." She softened her voice as she moved to the dressing table and grabbed some pins to tidy her hair.

"Then why-"

"Because tonight I am tired and the performance was difficult and Clarisse was ill and you hurt me with your silly attentions to Yvette."

"Mon ange!" His voice had softened as well and turned husky. "Let me in. I won't tease you, I swear it. I only want to hold you in my arms."

Oh, poison. "Not tonight, mon cher. I look wretched." Suzanne tucked the last strand of hair into place. "You know I can't bear for you to see me when I'm not at my best."

"As if I care. We're beyond that."

"Oh, cheri. A woman is never beyond that."

"Mon Dieu. You do have a man in there." The door shook. "By G.o.d, Manon, I'll call the fellow to account."

"If I did have a man in here-which I don't, I'm in no mood to see any man-that would hardly be the action to win me over. Do go home and go to sleep, cheri."

"As if I could sleep tonight. As if I could leave." A thud sounded against the door. "If you won't let me in now, I'll wait here until you will." Another thud as his body slid to the floor.

d.a.m.nation. Suzanne cast a glance round the room. Manon's gown and cloak could stay tossed across the bed. That looked very like Manon. So did the hairpins strewn on the dressing table and the scattered jewels. No other signs of her own presence remained.

"Oh, have it your own way," she called.

She crossed the room, pushed back one of the curtains on a side window, and eased up the sash. Thank G.o.d it was well oiled. Outside was the dark stillness of a side garden, and the shadowy ma.s.s of another house beyond, mercifully unlit. She climbed onto the sill and reached out an arm, feeling round for the grout between the stones. She found a purchase with her toe, drew a breath, slid her other foot from the ledge. Inch by inch, focus, don't think about the drop down. Carriage wheels rattled and horse hooves clopped in the street, but surely no one could see into the shadows of the side garden.

Fingers stinging, she felt the molding of the dressing room window frame. Her hand closed round the molding, and then she was standing on the sill, breathing hard, her face pressed to the gla.s.s. She crouched down, pulled a pin from her hair, and worked at the window latch. Not as quick as her picklocks, and her smarting fingers made it more difficult, but at last she got the latch open. She pushed up the sash, slid through, and dropped onto the dressing room floor.

Another breath of relief, the window closed. She found and lit a candle, looked in the dressing table looking gla.s.s long enough to smooth her gown and once again tidy her hair. Then she took an embroidered cushion and a cashmere blanket from the striped satin chaise-longue, blew out the candle, and slipped into the pa.s.sage.

He was slumped on the floorboards against Manon's bedroom door, dark hair disordered, cravat askew, coat rumpled. He had pale skin and finely molded features. A handsome man, though he looked to weigh a stone or so more than might be ideal. Suzanne walked briskly down the pa.s.sage and held out the blanket and cushion. "Madame says if you insist on staying here, you might as well have these."

He blinked at her out of burning dark eyes. "Who the devil are you?"

"Odette, monsieur." Suzanne made her voice slightly husky and roughened it with the accents of Gascony. "The new housemaid. Madame hired me last week."

His brows, dark and dramatic and standing on end, drew together. He pushed himself to his feet. "Didn't say anything to me."

"No, monsieur." Suzanne lowered her gaze to the blanket and pillow in her hands. "I don't expect madame is in the habit of discussing her domestic arrangements with you."

He gave a short laugh. She could feel his gaze moving over her face. "See here, Odette. Is your mistress-Is she alone in there?"

Suzanne lifted her gaze to his face. "Of course, monsieur."

"You'd say that in any case." He sc.r.a.ped a hand through his hair, cut in a Byronic crop. "d.a.m.nation."

His eyes held genuine torment. Whatever their history, whatever had happened with this woman Yvette, it was clear he loved Manon. And Manon? Did she return his feelings? Suzanne suppressed a shiver. There was a time when she had believed she could walk away from Malcolm. She had gone into their marriage thinking as much. Thinking she could not only leave but also take her-their-child with her. Now it was unthinkable. Or rather, she could imagine it, but only in the nightmare sense she could imagine cutting out a part of herself and going on living.

"Monsieur-" Suzanne stretched out a hand but did not quite risk touching him. She made her eyes very wide, in that way that signaled openness and invited trust. "There is no man in madame's bedchamber. I swear it."

He met her gaze for a long moment, then drew a harsh breath and gave a shaky nod. Suzanne pressed the blanket and pillow into his arms. His fingers closed round them, as though he were clutching on to his beloved, and he slid down against the door panels again. Some of the tension had left his face. He leaned against the doorjamb, the pillow behind his head, the blanket spread over his knees, his cheek pressed to Manon's door. G.o.d help him in the morning.