The Paris Affair Part 37

"Even Stewart wouldn't be such an idiot."

Dorothee raised a well-groomed brow. "Even?"

"In any case, he can't tell me what to do. You're carrying it off beautifully, Doro. Karl, I'm glad to see you in one piece."

"d.u.c.h.ess." Clam-Martinitz inclined his head, his gaze grave. "I never meant to put your sister in danger."

"Oh, you needn't apologize to me, Doro can take care of herself. But you'd be wise to realize Courland women don't sit idly by when their men are in trouble. Or making fools of themselves."

Dorothee opened her mouth.

"Yes," Wilhelmine said. "I confess Stewart is likely to do the latter more often than not. Too often for me to save him from himself on all occasions."

Raoul moved along the edge of the Duke of Wellington's dance floor. Two months ago he had been in the blood and smoke of the battle of Waterloo at Marshal Ney's side, in a last desperate charge against the British forces under Wellington. Now Wellington was the victor of Paris, Ney was imprisoned, and Raoul was strolling through the duke's ballroom. Of course, if the truth of his actions came to light, he'd join Ney in prison in no time.

His quarry stood across the ballroom. In the shadows as usual. Raoul was far too seasoned an agent to feel a chill at the mere sight of Fouche's gaunt figure. At least in theory. Though he couldn't admit it even-perhaps especially-to Suzanne, he couldn't help but feel as though the wind in the Cantabrian Mountains had cut through him at the sight of the minister of police.

Fouche noticed him coming. Of course. But he didn't actually turn his head until Raoul was a handsbreadth away. "Monsieur O'Roarke. I trust you are enjoying your return to Paris."

"Paris will always be one of my favorite places on earth." Fouche's gaze skimmed over him. "Indeed."

"Where's your lovely fiancee?"

Fouche glanced at the couples swirling before them. "On the dance floor, I believe."

"You aren't dancing with her yourself."

"No. I prefer to observe."

Raoul leaned against a pillar at an angle that gave him the best view of the minister of police's face. The candlelight accentuated Fouche's thin nose and the tight line of his mouth. "I haven't yet had the chance to offer you my felicitations."

"Thank you."

"Remarkable seeing you now to remember that once the Jacobins found you a moderating influence against Bonaparte's rage."

"We all shift with the times."

"Indeed. Fascinating where people have ended after the last two months."

"I wouldn't say anything is ended."

Raoul shifted his shoulders against the pillar, holding Fouche's gaze with his own. He remembered standing in a similar pose talking to Fouche on the edge of a dance floor in the spring of 1794. Two days later Raoul had been arrested and thrown in the Conciergerie. "I understand you spoke with Suzanne Rannoch at the theatre last night."

Fouche raised a brow. "I spoke with a number of people at the theatre."

"I don't imagine you can have forgot this conversation. Unless you now threaten so many people with ruin that they all run together."

Fouche flexed one white-gloved hand. "My dear O'Roarke. Are you admitting to a particular interest in Madame Rannoch?"

"I'm not admitting to anything." Raoul maintained his casual pose against the pillar, gaze locked on Fouche's own. "What are you afraid of coming to light about Antoine Rivere?"

"Rivere was insignificant."

"So I would have thought. And yet you threatened Madame Rannoch to get her husband to stop his investigation."

"I don't like a British agent poking his nose into our business."

"That I can well believe. Because anyone poking their nose into anything concerning you is likely to uncover a rat's nest of corruption."

"Scarcely the way to talk to an old friend, O'Roarke," Fouche said in a mild voice.

"We were never friends. Allies perhaps, but by no means always."

"By no means indeed." Fouche's gaze moved to Suzanne, her dark ringlets and silver net gown stirring as she waltzed with Granville Leveson-Gower. "It was Madame Rannoch you had break into the ministry of police to retrieve the information about Queen Hortense's child, wasn't it?"

"You can hardly expect me to answer. But for old times' sake, I advise you to leave Madame Rannoch alone if you value your own safety."

"You intrigue me. I'm sure she's an able agent, but I a.s.sure you I am quite well able to take care of myself." Fouche gave a thin smile.

Raoul recalled learning, imprisoned in the Conciergerie, that Robespierre had had Fouche expelled from the Jacobin Club. When that happened to most men, arrest and execution soon followed. But in Fouche's case, it was Robespierre himself who had fallen not long after. "I don't doubt it," Raoul said. "And like all of us who've survived the past quarter century, you have a healthy instinct for self-preservation. Which is why you will leave Madame Rannoch alone. Because if you do not I will make public exactly how much you had to do with the execution of the Duc d'Enghien."

Fouche didn't move a muscle, but Raoul saw the jolt of tension run through him and settle in his eyes. "My dear O'Roarke." Fouche's voice was even, but Raoul could hear the effort that underlay the tone. "Even if you choose to propagate lies about me-"

"You forget. I have a number of facts at my disposal that could not but give credence to my words."

"Even if you choose to do so, you can scarcely speak without exposing your own role as a Bonapartist agent."

Raoul let his shoulders sink deeper into the fluted wood of the pillar. "No," he said. "I can't."

"You'd be proscribed at once. You'd have to flee France. England would be barred to you, as would your beloved Ireland. You couldn't return to Spain without facing the wrath of your supposed guerrillero colleagues who would now know you'd in fact been fighting against them. You'd have to flee to South America. a.s.suming you could escape with your life."

"It would certainly be a challenge," Raoul conceded.

"You're not the sacrificial type, O'Roarke."

"No. But then we've all changed in the past two months. Priorities shift."

"Mon Dieu." Fouche gave a short bark of laughter. "How are the mighty fallen. You and Talleyrand both bewitched by women young enough to be your daughters."

"Madame Rannoch is another man's wife."

"At your instigation. Much like Talleyrand and his niece-by-marriage." Fouche's gaze darted over Raoul's face, probing like an instrument of torture. "What game are you playing, O'Roarke?"

"You just claimed I was bewitched."

"No." Fouche's gaze was now that of a chess player trying to see the logic behind a seemingly irrational gambit. "Talleyrand may be, but you're not a lovesick fool. Or a defender of innocence. Not that Madame Rannoch is innocent. Does she have a hold on you?"

"I shouldn't waste your energy on my motives, my dear Fouche. But make no mistake, I mean what I say."

"You're going to throw your life away."

"Only if you throw away yours."

"Wellington should thank Edmond Talleyrand and Count Clam-Martinitz," Caroline Lamb said. "They've quite distracted attention from his own peccadillo." She looked from Wellington, standing with Lady Frances Webster on one side and Lady Sh.e.l.ley on the other, to Dorothee across the ballroom leaving the dance floor on Lord March's arm. "The comtesse looks as if this were merely another ball. If I could have learned that knack life would have been so much simpler."

"Yes, but Dorothee's trying to deflect attention," Cordelia said. "You've always wanted to provoke it."

Suzanne, looking on, was a bit startled by Cordelia's bluntness, but Lady Caroline gave a rueful laugh. "One can't hide things from friends one's grown up with. But you have to admit no one's ever fought a duel over me."

"Are you saying that with pride or disappointment?"

"Perhaps a bit of both."

"Well, I'm hardly one to talk," Cordelia said. "I liked to pretend I didn't care what people thought, but the truth is I was desperate to make some sort of mark on the world."

"You look as though you could carry it off, Mrs. Rannoch." Caroline turned to Suzanne. "Somehow I always have the sense you don't care in the least what anyone thinks of you. That is, you don't seem to mind in the least-" She broke off.

"That people claim I'm a foreign adventuress who snagged Malcolm for his fortune?"

"No, of course not." The scandalous Lady Caroline Lamb looked like an abashed schoolgirl. "That is-"

"It's all right. I can hardly be deaf to the talk. Mostly I laugh at it." Mostly.

Lady Caroline's wide-eyed gaze turned unexpectedly shrewd. And a bit wistful. "That's a wonderful knack, being able to laugh at life. Oh, I see both your husbands coming. You're going to be unfashionable and eat supper with them, aren't you? I must be off before things become too domestic."

Malcolm and Harry were indeed both approaching from opposite ends of the ballroom. Malcolm reached them first. "What happened to Lady Caroline?" he asked.

"She's afraid domesticity is catching," Cordelia said. "Poor Caro."

"William adores her," Malcolm said in a quiet voice. He didn't normally talk about his friends' private lives. It was a sign of how well he had come to know Cordelia.

Cordelia met his gaze. "Yes, I know. And Caro adores him in her way. Yet they're spectacularly unsuited. As much, I used to think, as Harry and I were."

"You and Davenport aren't unsuited."

"I hope not. Darling." Cordelia flashed a bright smile as her husband joined them. "You look as though you've learned something."

"I have." Harry looked from his wife to Malcolm and Suzanne. "I just received a message from Christine Leroux. She wants us to meet her tomorrow night. At Cafe de la Reine in the Palais Royale. She says she has information."

Cordelia shot a look at her husband. "Do you trust her?"

Harry's gaze flickered to Malcolm. "As much as I trust anyone in this business. Not that I'm advocating we not take precautions."

Suzanne slid her hand through the crook of her husband's arm. "I find I'm rather averse to staying behind this time."

He smiled at her. "What a surprise. As a matter of fact, I think the presence of a lady will render us less conspicuous in the cafe."

"Then two ladies will render you even more so," Cordelia said.

Harry regarded her but said nothing.

"I know I'm not an expert," she said. "But I'm part of this. And I think I've done enough to prove myself."

"More than enough." Harry took her hand and quite unexpectedly raised it to his lips.

"Mrs. Rannoch." Raoul stepped aside as Suzanne came through the archway from the supper room. Cordelia, up ahead, was speaking with Dorothee and Clam-Martinitz, and Malcolm and Harry had been detained in the supper room by Stuart.

"Good evening, Mr. O'Roarke. Are you enjoying the ball?"

"Very much. I've just had a word with the tiresome young man who was importuning you. Young officers often don't know when they've crossed the line with a pretty woman. You needn't worry he'll be troubling you again."

Relief shot through her, followed by concern. Because she couldn't believe Fouche could be so easily neutralized. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. Life is complicated enough, Mrs. Rannoch. This is one thing you don't have to worry about."

He moved through the doorway past her. Suzanne cast a look over her shoulder at him before she went to join Cordelia. d.a.m.n Raoul. It was no accident he'd told her in the midst of a crowd instead of finding a few moments for private conversation. This way she couldn't question what had transpired between him and Fouche. Or what it had cost him.

CHAPTER 26.

Candlelight, gilding, and blue damask curtains looped with gold cord predominated at Cafe de la Reine. Tables cl.u.s.tered in the center of the room, beneath the diamond-bright chandelier, but more tables stood in curtained alcoves round the edge of the room. Like boxes at the theatre and just as inviting to amorous encounters. The curtains had been drawn across several.

"Quite like Vauxhall," Cordelia murmured, as a waiter showed them to a table in one of the alcoves. She had applied her eye blacking and rouge with a heavy hand and her sapphire shot-silk gown was cut even lower than her dresses were in general. Or perhaps she'd had her maid alter it. Suzanne wore a claret-colored satin with a silver-spangled overdress that she kept for occasions such as this.

"One drawback with the two of you being present," Malcolm said, holding out her chair. "Everyone's looking at us."

"Yes, but they aren't seeing agents." Suzanne dropped into the chair and settled the folds of her skirt. "And the two of you have an obvious reason for being here that has nothing to do with secret meetings."

Cordelia let her beaded shawl slither down about her shoulders. "I've always suspected courtesans have more fun than ladies of the ton. Even when I was a social outcast, the restrictions could be exhausting. Though I suppose I shouldn't speak so blithely when they have to share a man's bed for their living."

Harry settled back in his chair, easing his bad arm. "Some would say that's precisely what wives have to do."

Cordelia met her husband's gaze without blinking. "How very true. What a good thing it is Suzanne and I both have such enlightened husbands."

"And how lucky for us both that you deigned to enter matrimony, given the legal definition," Malcolm said.

"Talk about a mark of trust," Suzanne said. It was quite true. She remembered the moment, not when she agreed to be his wife nor even at their wedding but some days later, looking at him across their rooms in Lisbon, when she realized precisely what power she had given to this man by becoming his wife. Of course, at that time she had still thought she could walk away. "Juliette Dubretton would agree," she said. "In Les Regles du Mariage she argues quite cogently that marriage is akin to slavery, at least in legal terms."

"I wish I'd been with you when you met her," Cordelia said. "Talk about a woman with a daring mind."

"I suspect that's why she refused to marry Paul St. Gilles for so long," Suzanne said. "Not because she didn't trust the sort of husband he'd be, but because she disapproves of the whole inst.i.tution."

Malcolm's gaze drifted round the cafe. Seemingly idle, but Suzanne knew he was scanning the uniforms, evening coats, and spangled gowns for anything out of the ordinary and searching the curtains for unseen watchers. "Manon Caret used to hold court here after the theatre," he said in conversational tones. "But she's left Paris abruptly. Rumor has it just ahead of Fouche's agents."