The Paris Affair Part 3

Suzanne was used to making quick leaps of thought, but this was too much even for her. Gabrielle Caruthers was a French emigree now married to a British officer. "Why?" she asked. "What does she have to do with Rivere?"

Wilhelmine settled back in her chair. "She was his mistress."

"Gabrielle Caruthers?" Dorothee said. "That's a bit of gossip I hadn't heard." Her eyes narrowed. "I suppose Stewart told you."

"No, Annina did. Maids always hear gossip first."

"Lady Caruthers seems so demure."

"They're often the most scandalous ones."

Dorothee shot her a sisterly look. "You've never been the least bit demure, Willie."

"There are always exceptions." Wilhelmine settled back against the cushions, cradling her coffee cup in one hand. "It's odd you were just asking about Bertrand Laclos. Gabrielle Caruthers is his cousin."

"I hadn't realized," Suzanne said. She still found the family trees of Malcolm's friends difficult to sort out. That Bertrand Laclos's cousin had been Antoine Rivere's mistress strained coincidence.

"She went to England with her uncle and aunt as a child during the Terror," Wilhelmine said. "I think her parents were both killed."

Dorothee shivered. "The Laclos family have been through a great deal."

"Like many French families. And like many emigres, I imagine they're now hoping to have their estates restored." Wilhelmine took a sip of coffee. "I expect you want to talk to Lady Caruthers. I understand she's in the habit of taking coffee in the late morning in the Cafe Luxembourg. Quite like a Frenchwoman. Which of course she is. Though she hasn't lived here for years."

"Much like me," Suzanne said. Which was a truth, caught in the myriad lies she told about her past, even to her closest friends.

"Is that why you're looking into Rivere's death?" Dorothee asked. "Because you suspect Lord Caruthers was involved?"

Suzanne took a sip of coffee. "Until two minutes ago I hadn't the least idea Lady Caruthers was involved with Rivere."

"According to Annina, Rivere and Lady Caruthers had become quite reckless," Wilhelmine said. "Though Lord Caruthers doesn't particularly seem the jealous sort. He strikes me as decidedly-" Wilhelmine's delicate brows drew together as she searched for the right word.

"Temperate?" Suzanne suggested. She pictured Lord Caruthers, well-cut features, an agreeable smile. The sort of man to get a lady lemonade at a military review or return to the carriage for her parasol. And it was all done with sincerity rather than an attempt at flirtation.

"Yes, that's it precisely." Wilhelmine nodded. "Too well-bred to fight a duel."

"That's all very well," Dorothee said, "but betrayal can take people the oddest ways."

Suzanne reached for her coffee, a dozen thoughts tumbling through her brain, not all to do with Antoine de Rivere and the Carutherses. Her fingers closed hard round the delicate porcelain handle. "So it can."

"Malcolm." Colonel Harry Davenport looked up from his paperwork with a grin. The grin held the familiar ironic mockery but considerably less cynicism than it had before the battle of Waterloo. Two months could change a lot. Two months and reconciling with an estranged wife against all the odds.

Malcolm pushed aside a stack of papers and perched on the edge of the desk where Davenport was working in the attaches' sitting room at Wellington's Headquarters. "Do you remember the Bertrand Laclos affair?"

Davenport grimaced. "Difficult to forget. It was a bad business."

"I was the one who uncovered the information that led to his being exposed." A dozen uncomfortable questions circled through Malcolm's brain. "I knew him a bit in England as a boy. But I didn't work with him in the Peninsula."

"Nor did I." Davenport leaned back in his chair, flexing his bad arm, a legacy of the Peninsular War. "I didn't even know about him except by his code name until after he was exposed. He had very special handling. He only reported to Caruthers."

"Rupert Caruthers?" Malcolm asked in surprise.

"You know him?"

"Off and on growing up. He's a couple of years my senior, and he went to Eton. I know his father better." Earl Dewhurst, Rupert Caruthers's father, was a senior British diplomat who had been sent to the Peninsula on several special missions and was currently attached to the British delegation in Paris.

"I remember when Dewhurst came out to Lisbon," Davenport said. "Caruthers retreated, metaphorically, and literally when he could. Not an easy father to live up to, I imagine. I often thought Caruthers went into the army to differentiate himself from his parent."

Malcolm grinned at the image of Lord Dewhurst's imperious face. Just a lift of his eyebrows could dampen all pretensions. "I didn't realize Caruthers was so involved in intelligence."

"I think the Laclos affair gave him a distaste for it. He asked to be transferred to Clinton's staff not long after."

Malcolm stared down at a bronze paperweight atop what looked like a pile of coded doc.u.ments. "I remember when I gave Stewart the information about Bertrand Laclos. I've never heard such invective." He drew a breath. "I tried to convince Stewart not to act precipitously. But it seemed conclusive."

" 'Seemed'?" Davenport scanned his face. "You're questioning what you learned? Does this have to do with Antoine Rivere?"

"My G.o.d." Malcolm lifted his gaze to his friend. "I forget how quick you are. How did you guess?"

"I can still do simple arithmetic." Davenport twisted the handle of the coffee cup beside the papers on his desk. "Were you there last night when he was killed?"

"With Suzanne."

"I might have known it." Davenport regarded him for a moment. "What's the connection to Bertrand Laclos?"

"I'm not sure yet." Malcolm told Harry what they'd learned, omitting Rivere's claims about Tatiana's child. He trusted Harry Davenport implicitly after their time at Waterloo, but Tania's secrets at once were too dangerous and too intimate to share.

Davenport frowned. "Difficult to sort truth out from bluff in Rivere's claims."

"There was enough truth that he thought his threats would work."

"Have you searched his rooms?"

"Not yet."

Davenport picked up a jade-handled penknife. "There's nothing like being confined to a desk with a wound to give one a longing for adventure."

"You only had to ask," Malcolm said. "I'd love the company."

Gabrielle Caruthers sat at one of the outdoor tables at Cafe Luxembourg with a relaxed ease that most Englishwomen did not possess, the folds of her embroidered muslin gown falling loosely about her. Her thick dark gold hair was gathered into a loose knot, tendrils escaping round her face beneath the brim of a chip straw hat tied with blue ribbons the color of her eyes. She was bent over a sketch pad, a cup of coffee at her elbow, but at Suzanne's approach she looked up and greeted her with a smile.

"Mrs. Rannoch." Her voice had the faintest lilt of an accent, for all she had spent most of her life in England. "So agreeable to be in a country where ladies can sit in cafes, don't you find?"

"Very much so." Suzanne returned the smile. She and Gabrielle Caruthers were hardly confidantes, but they saw each other frequently in British expatriate circles and they had young sons who were of an age, which helped forge a bond deeper than that of casual acquaintances. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"I'd be delighted." Lady Caruthers signaled to a waiter to bring another cup of coffee as Suzanne dropped into a chair across from her. "It's odd," she said. "I can't even remember Paris and yet I feel so much at home here. Do you feel the same?"

Suzanne glanced round the tables crowded beneath the green-and-white-striped awning. Two British cavalrymen were lounging at the nearest table, a Prussian and an Austrian tossed dice at the table beyond, and a trio of Dutch-Belgians had just come through the doors of the cafe. Would her throat ever cease to close at the sight? "I'll never forget this time in Paris," she said truthfully.

The waiter brought her coffee. She stirred in milk.

Lady Caruthers closed her sketch pad, which held a study of the Prussian and Austrian officers, quick and impressionistic, with vivid life in the strokes of pencil.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you," Suzanne said.

"It's no matter. I'm glad of the company." Lady Caruthers paused a moment, her gaze moving over Suzanne's face. "Though somehow I think you didn't just happen by the cafe." It was a statement that held a question.

"No, as it happens." Suzanne set down the coffee spoon and took a careful sip. "I wanted to offer my condolences, Lady Caruthers."

Lady Caruthers put up a hand to adjust the brim of her hat. "For heaven's sake why?"

Suzanne settled her coffee cup in its saucer. "On Antoine Rivere's death."

For a moment Gabrielle Caruthers's eyes held naked shock. Then she drew a quick breath, defenses slamming into place. "I can't imagine-"

"Lady Caruthers." Suzanne leaned forwards, her voice lowered. "I have no wish to cause you scandal or to disrupt your marriage. But you must wish to learn the truth of Monsieur Rivere's death as much as my husband and I do."

"I can't imagine-"

"I know. I can prove it, if you like, but I don't imagine you want me prying any more than I have to."

Gabrielle Caruthers pushed back her chair and sprang to her feet, spattering coffee from her cup onto the table. "I have no need to listen to this impertinence." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her gloves and reticule with shaking fingers and reached for her sketch pad.

"Lady Caruthers." Suzanne gripped the other woman's wrist. "It's beastly. I hate prying into people's private affairs. But Antoine Rivere's death is unfortunately a political matter as well as a personal one."

Lady Caruthers jerked her hand from Suzanne's grasp. "Antoine-Monsieur Rivere died in a tavern brawl. I hardly see anything political in that."

"It may have been more complicated. My husband and I were there-"

"You were at the tavern?" Shock shot through Lady Caruthers's eyes, momentarily overwhelming her anger.

"Malcolm had a meeting with Monsieur Rivere. I was a.s.sisting him. We found his body. His death did not appear to have been part of the brawl. Lady Caruthers, I believe you'd prefer to answer questions from me rather than my husband. Or Wellington or Castlereagh."

Lady Caruthers's gaze slid to the side. The buzz of conversation, the rattle of dice, the clip-clop of horse hooves from the street created good cover, but the conversation had quieted when she sprang to her feet. She dropped back into her chair, picked up her coffee cup, and took a sip, as though playing for time.

"It must be dreadful," Suzanne said in a quiet voice, once the buzz of conversation had resumed round them. "Grieving for someone and not being able to talk about it."

Lady Caruthers put her hand to her mouth and gave a strangled sob. "It's been h.e.l.l. I couldn't even admit-" She swallowed and stared at the coffee spattered on the marble tabletop. "You must think me a dreadful person."

"No, I a.s.sure you."

"You're kind."

"I hope I'm understanding. One never knows what goes on inside anyone else's marriage."

Lady Caruthers tugged a lace-edged handkerchief from her sleeve and blotted the spilled coffee. "I've always been . . . fond of Rupert. I've known him since we were children. He was good friends with my cousin Bertrand."

"Bertrand Laclos."

"Yes. I came to England with the Lacloses-my uncle and aunt-when I was four. My parents were dead, and at the time I thought my brother was as well. But I had Bertrand and etienne."

"Bertrand's brother?" Suzanne hadn't realized there was another Laclos son.

"Yes." A shadow crossed Gabrielle Caruthers's face that had nothing to do with the brim of her hat. "Bertrand was seven when we came to England. etienne was ten." She smoothed out the handkerchief and stared at the coffee-stained linen. "It's hard, being a foreigner among the English ton."

"I was much older before I came to England, but I know precisely what you mean. One can never really be one of them." It was something, Suzanne knew, that Malcolm would never quite understand. Of course you belong, he'd told her once with a quick smile. You're my wife. Not that I can quite imagine wanting to belong here. That was the irony. Malcolm might have little use for the British beau monde, yet he'd be one of them his entire life, like it or not.

"Lord Dewhurst-Rupert's father-and my uncle were old friends. Lord Dewhurst had been sent to the University of Paris, in the days when one could still travel easily between the two countries. He met my uncle there. Because of Lord Dewhurst, we were more fortunate than most emigres. He brought us into his world. And Rupert's friendship with Bertrand helped even more. I think I was half in love with Rupert at the age of eight just for that. I had friends, I was invited to parties. Even though I never quite forgot that my clothes weren't new or fashionable enough. Clothes matter so much when one's that age."

"In this world clothes always matter."

Lady Caruthers smoothed the cuff of her blue sarcenet spencer, trimmed with lace and twists of satin. "How very true. When I was fourteen, my brother Gui was discovered alive, hidden away with a farm family in Provence, and smuggled to England. Rupert and Bertrand took him under their wing. I was good friends with Rupert's sisters by then. Henrietta and I made our debuts together, which saved my uncle and aunt no end of expense. Rupert danced the first dance with me at our come-out ball." She traced her fingers over her initials embroidered in the handkerchief. "There was no dearth of young men to dance with me that season. But I quickly discovered that it's one thing to be an acceptable partner for the boulanger or the ecossaise and quite another to be an acceptable wife with no dowry."

"It does come back to money so often."

"Quite, as my husband would say." Gabrielle's fingers tensed on the handkerchief. "When etienne left university, he went to work as Lord Dewhurst's secretary. Lord Dewhurst is in the diplomatic service. But of course you know that. You know him."

Suzanne nodded. She had met the earl on a number of occasions. A courtly man with a powerful presence and a keen gaze. She'd always been wary of him.

Lady Caruthers took a sip of coffee. "Lord Dewhurst has always been kind to me. But I've never quite forgiven him for pulling etienne into it."

" 'It'?" Suzanne asked. She hadn't realized any of the Laclos family tragedy revolved round Bertrand's elder brother. Had etienne somehow been responsible for Bertrand's defection?

Gabrielle grimaced. "etienne's head was stuffed with a lot of n.o.ble ideals. And Dewhurst fed them. He's one of those Englishmen who thought the clock could be turned back to before the Revolution. Of course I suppose one could say now it has been." Lady Caruthers cast a glance round the cafe. "But one can never really go back, can one?"

Suzanne glanced round the cafe as well. The British cavalrymen were flirting with two Parisian girls in flower-trimmed bonnets. Two Frenchmen in civilian dress stepped beneath the awning and stared from the cavalrymen to the Prussian and Austrian to the Dutch-Belgians, tension running through their shoulders. One took a quick step forwards. His companion gripped his arm. Suzanne swallowed, a lump in her throat. "No."

Though what Paris was turning into was anyone's guess.

Gabrielle Caruthers glanced at the Frenchmen as they moved to a table defiantly close to the English cavalry officers. One stopped to sweep a sardonic bow to the Parisian girls. "etienne was enraged by the Duc d'Enghien's execution. He went to Paris in secret with English gold, embroiled in one of those half-baked Royalist plots that were so common then. Something to do with killing Bonaparte with a bomb at Malmaison and replacing him with one of the royal dukes. It was discovered before it ever really amounted to anything. etienne was arrested and executed. Lord Dewhurst came to tell us. Rupert and Bertrand were at Oxford, but they both came to see us as soon as they could. At the time I thought it was the worst tragedy that could befall our family. Then Bertrand left England and went to France to fight for Bonaparte. etienne had romantic ideals. Bertrand went in the opposite direction. Suddenly I was a traitor's cousin."

Gabrielle Caruthers obviously hadn't known her cousin was supposedly a British agent. "Hardly a traitor. Your cousin was French."

"Yes, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. To own the truth, I've never cared much for countries. But to nearly everyone we knew Bertrand was a traitor. My uncle wouldn't speak about him at all. Rupert was kind. He told me Bertrand was still my cousin and it was impossible to know why someone did a certain thing. That there were things I didn't understand. Then he left for the Peninsula as well."

"You must have been lonely."

Lady Caruthers shrugged her slender shoulders. "I still had plenty of dancing partners. I'd received one or two offers of something more serious, though it didn't entail marriage." She cast a quick look at Suzanne. "I didn't-"

"It's different when one's an unmarried girl," Suzanne said, though for her it hadn't been precisely. But then to call her childhood and young adulthood eccentric would be a laughable understatement.

Gabrielle Caruthers nodded. "I was a bridesmaid when Henrietta married Lord Sherringford the spring after we came out. And then two years later when her younger sister Clarissa made her debut and married in the same season. I was getting to be positively on the shelf. My brother Gui had gaming debts." She frowned at the handkerchief. "I even considered hiring myself out as a governess, but my uncle wouldn't stand for it, and in truth I doubt I'd the temperament."

"A woman has few options to make money."

"Yes." Lady Caruthers folded the handkerchief carefully into squares. "Then we got news that Bertrand had been killed. My uncle suffered a stroke. My aunt's health already wasn't good. I'm not much of a caretaker, but there was only me. I did what I could."

"Thank goodness they had you."

Gabrielle gave a bleak smile. "I owed them everything. The roof over my head. The food I ate. My life. This was little enough to do in recompense."