The Paris Affair Part 40

"You did? Oh, I see." Tompkins coughed again.

Grey's chin jutted out. "Don't see why he sent you and us at the same time."

"Nor do I." Malcolm looked from Suzanne to Harry, then back at the two soldiers. "Our presence here is supposed to be secret."

"So's ours," Tompkins said.

Suzanne touched her fingers to the cameo broach at her throat. "You'll just have to explain it to them, darling."

Malcolm turned back to the two soldiers. "There's secrecy and secrecy. If you ask Wellington he won't even admit he ordered us here."

"He-" Grey shook his head. "What?"

"Deniability," Malcolm said.

Tompkins nodded gravely. "You can count on our discretion, sir. We'll pretend we never saw you. No matter who asks."

"Splendid," Malcolm said.

"I wish I could have been there," Cordelia said.

"I'd never have been able to keep a straight face," her husband replied. "It was hard enough with Malcolm and Suzanne. I couldn't look either one of them in the eye."

"Do you think you can really count on them not to say anything to Wellington?" Cordelia asked, sobering.

Harry exchanged a look with Malcolm. "It's a risk. But so is a lot of what we do."

"At least we'll soon know if the risk was worth it." Malcolm pulled the paper he'd found hidden in the painting from his pocket and spread it on the escritoire in the light of the Argand lamp. The paper was yellowed and crackled as he unfolded it.

Fading print. Suzanne had to lean over Malcolm's shoulder to read it.

This is to affirm that etienne Laclos is the father of the child I bore on 21 July 1807.

Tatiana Kirsanova Below were the signatures of two witnesses. Paul St. Gilles and Juliette Dubretton.

CHAPTER 29.

Pale morning sunlight leached between the cramped, narrow buildings. Malcolm rang the bell at the door of the St. Gilles house. He had tossed and turned all night-Suzanne had been keenly aware of it, for she'd scarcely been able to sleep herself-and they had left to call on the St. Gilleses at the earliest possible moment.

Juliette Dubretton opened the door herself. Her hair was slipping free of its pins, with an abandon that suggested she'd been jamming her fingers into her coiffure, and her face was hollowed with strain and fatigue.

"Monsieur Rannoch. Madame Rannoch," she said on a note of surprise.

"Forgive the intrusion," Malcolm said. "But we need a word with you and your husband without delay."

Her mouth tightened. "Paul isn't here."

Malcolm put his hand on the doorjamb before she could close the door. "Where might he be found?"

She drew a harsh breath. "The Conciergerie."

"He's been proscribed?"

"And taken into custody immediately." Juliette swayed on her feet.

Malcolm put a hand on her arm and steered her inside to a small sitting room overflowing with sketches and stacks of notepaper. Malcolm pressed Juliette into a tapestry chair, while Suzanne poured a gla.s.s of wine and put it in her hand.

She gulped down a sip. "Thank you. I don't know what came over me."

"Having one's husband arrested is enough to shake the strongest woman," Suzanne said. "I went through it myself last autumn, and I felt as though the world was crashing to bits round me."

"What's he been charged with?" Malcolm asked.

"Sedition." Juliette took another sip of wine. "They cited his latest pamphlet, though in truth they could have cited almost any of his writings."

"Have you spoken with an advocate?"

She nodded. "An old friend. He says we can attempt to put on a defense, though he has little hope of success."

"I can make the inquiries. My position as a British diplomat may prove advantageous."

Juliette regarded him for a moment over the rim of her gla.s.s. "You're very kind, Monsieur Rannoch."

"I don't like to see anyone arrested in this climate. And your husband strikes me as a particularly decent man."

Juliette swallowed, as though the wine had turned bitter in her mouth. "If-"

The door swung open. A boy of about eight and a girl of about six stood there, hair tousled, her white dress and his white shirt catching the sunlight. "Maman?" the boy asked. "Have you heard anything?"

"Pierre. Marguerite." Juliette held out her arm and the children ran to her and nestled against her. "I told you we wouldn't hear anything this morning."

"We heard someone at the door," the girl said. "We were being quiet so we wouldn't wake Rose."

Juliette pulled the girl onto her lap and stroked the boy's hair, a brilliant red-gold in the sunlight. "We need to have our wits about us to help Papa, mes chers." She looked at Malcolm and Suzanne. "My son Pierre and my daughter Marguerite. Monsieur and Madame Rannoch."

Pierre studied them with grave blue eyes. "Are you here to help my papa?"

"We came here to speak with your father and mother," Malcolm said. His voice was level and friendly, though Suzanne felt the tension that had shot through him at the first sight of the boy. "But now we know what's befallen your father, we'll do our best to help."

Pierre nodded, as did Marguerite.

Juliette tightened her arms round them. "Go to the kitchen, and tell Solange I said you could each have a macaron. I need to speak with Monsieur and Madame Rannoch, and then I'll come see you."

The children nodded, old enough still to be worried, young enough to be comforted by the promised treat.

The click of the door behind them echoed through the room.

'Your son looks to be about eight," Malcolm said. "I expect he was born in 1807."

Juliette squeezed her eyes shut. "It seemed so easy eight years ago. So clear-cut. He needed us. It wasn't until you came asking questions that I realized what an appalling thing we had perhaps done."

"Hardly appalling," Malcolm said in a level voice. "You gave him a home and family."

"But does that give us the right to keep him from his mother's family? I told Paul after your visit that we should tell you the truth, but he refused."

"He was worried about losing Pierre," Suzanne said. The inchoate fears she lived with, that the truth of her past could lead to her losing Colin, welled up in her throat.

Juliette spread her hands over her lap, smoothing the creased muslin. "It's a fear we've lived with from the moment he was born."

"You were there when he was born?" Malcolm asked.

Juliette met his gaze, hesitated a moment, then nodded. "We both went to the house where Tatiana was confined. She had the midwife put him in Paul's arms immediately."

"I knew your husband was a good friend to Tatiana," Malcolm said. "I didn't realize quite how good." He leaned back in his chair. "We found the paper hidden in your husband's painting The Daughters of Zeus. The doc.u.ment you and your husband witnessed. We know etienne Laclos was the child's-Pierre's father."

Juliette's eyes widened. Then she inclined her head. "I spoke the truth when I told you she seemed to really love him. But after his execution, Tatiana said it would be ruinous for it to be known she had a child by the man who had plotted the emperor's death. Many would find it hard to believe she hadn't been involved in the plot herself."

"But she wanted to keep proof of the boy's parentage in case she needed it later?" Malcolm asked.

"She thought it might be important if things changed in France. Paul was against it, but in the end he agreed. I didn't know where she'd hidden the paper. I don't think Paul did, either."

"You and your husband agreed to take in her and Laclos's child."

"It was a bit more complicated." Juliette tilted her head against the chairback. Her skin seemed to be stretched taut over the elegant bones of her face. "Paul and I weren't married then. That is, we were when Pierre was born, but not when we agreed to take him. I put Paul through a great deal, as I believe I told you before. We joke about it, but in truth it was difficult for him. I didn't just refuse the legal bonds of marriage, I wasn't sure about trusting myself to a lasting relationship at all. We quarreled, as isn't surprising, and I'm afraid I was more focused on what my choices meant for me than on what our quarrel was doing to Paul. It's not surprising that he sought consolation. Given how close he and Tatiana had always been, it's not surprising he sought it with her. With her grief over etienne-It's a wonder it didn't happen sooner."

"And given her grief, I don't suppose she was taking precautions with Monsieur St. Gilles, either," Suzanne said. She was amazed how steady her voice was given the echoes of her own life.

"No." Juliette pushed loose strands of hair behind her ear. "At least not reliable precautions. Not that any precautions are entirely reliable."

"And then she learned she was with child." Malcolm's voice was gentle.

Juliette tugged a strand of hair loose from her cameo earring. "She told Paul she couldn't be sure who was the father. Paul believed her. So did I, when he told me."

"That can't have been easy," Suzanne said.

"No." Juliette's mouth twisted. "But it forced me to face some facts about Paul. Such as that my feelings about him were so proprietary I should probably stop denying that I wanted an exclusive relationship. Paul told me he wanted to raise the child. I said that in that case we'd do it together. I hadn't thought I wanted children. Well, to tell the truth I hadn't thought about them much at all, one way or another. When we agreed to take Tatiana's child I felt responsibility. A sort of debt for Paul's sake. But I didn't realize-" She broke off, frowning. "I didn't have the faintest suspicion how I could fall so utterly in love the moment a squirmy human weighing eight pounds was placed in my arms."

Suzanne remembered the moment Malcolm had put the wriggling, b.l.o.o.d.y newborn Colin on her chest. Exhaustion had fled. "It was much the same for me when our son Colin was born. I still look at him sometimes and can't quite believe I'm a mother. Yet within days of his birth it was difficult to remember a time when he wasn't part of my life."

"I was afraid it would change me," Juliette said. "In some ways it didn't at all-I remember writing with Pierre in his basket beside me, realizing with relief that I was still the same person. But in some ways it changes everything."

Suzanne nodded. "One knows one will never make another decision without the child being part of the equation." Which particularly changed decisions relating to one's husband. "A new loyalty."

Juliette turned to look at her. "That's an interesting way of putting it."

"It's a bond that comes before everything else." And yet the other, older loyalties didn't go away. Which could make for complicated choices. "And it changes the way one thinks about the future. Marriage confers certain legal advantages on children," Suzanne said.

Juliette met her gaze. "Quite. And so I sacrificed my principles and married Paul." Her mouth curved in a smile. "I haven't regretted it once since." Her brows drew together. "I quickly let a few strategic people know I was pregnant. Shortly after Tatiana left Paris, Paul and I left as well. We met Tatiana in the country for the birth. She gave us Pierre." Juliette glanced at a child's framed drawing of a dog that hung beside the fireplace. "It was soon hard to believe he wasn't ours."

"Tania had made him yours," Malcolm said. "There's more than one way to be a parent."

"You're kind, Monsieur Rannoch."

"Only going by observation. Did Tania ever see Pierre?"

"Every few months. She could call on us as a friend of the family. She sent quite extravagant presents. But she always made it clear she considered me his mother." Juliette folded her arms across her chest and gripped her elbows. "I'll always be grateful to her for that."

"Yet she insisted on a doc.u.ment claiming etienne Laclos was the boy's father," Malcolm said.

Juliette's fingers pressed into her arms. "She said it was in case the tables ever turned and it was dangerous for Pierre to be Paul's son. I suppose you could say she was talking about now."

"Did she ever suggest approaching the Lacloses about the boy?" Malcolm asked.

"Once. Obliquely. After Napoleon fell. She'd been to dine with us. The children had just gone up to bed, and Tatiana, Paul, and I were alone. We'd been talking about the Restoration and the way things were changing. Tatiana was cracking a walnut, and she suddenly said that now it might not be such a bad thing to be connected to a family of emigres who would soon be flooding back to Paris seeking their forfeited lands. Such as the Lacloses. Paul said Pierre wasn't connected to the Lacloses. He took the walnut from her and snapped it between his fingers. Tatiana just shrugged. But I know Paul worried from then on. It's why he lied to you."

"It's understandable you feared losing your son," Suzanne said.

"Yes, but it's more than that. To own the truth, I think Paul couldn't bear the idea of his son being turned into an aristo."

"I can understand that," Malcolm said.

Suzanne said nothing, a vision of Colin clutching a Royalist c.o.c.kade sharp in her mind.

Juliette's fingers curled against the bare flesh of her arms. "Tatiana was at great pains to keep Pierre from being branded the son of a traitor. And now that's exactly what's happened."

"We have to see what we can do to get your husband out of prison," Malcolm said.

Juliette's eyes widened. " 'We'?"

Malcolm dropped down in front of her chair. "I hate what's happening in Paris. I'd like to think I'd try to help him in any case. But I owe him a great debt for looking after Tatiana's child. Your son is my nephew. And I can't imagine better people to be his parents."

Suzanne reached across the fiacre and touched her husband's arm. "Darling-"

"I'm all right. More than all right." His fingers curled round her own. "It means a lot to have seen the child and to know he's safe and cared for. I still don't see why Tania was so determined to conceal Pierre's parentage. Possible parentage."

"etienne had just been executed. That probably affected her sense of the situation."

"Perhaps. It's like Tania to have wanted to hedge her bets and doc.u.ment her son's connection to the Lacloses in case it was ever necessary."

"And if she loved etienne as much as she seems to have, perhaps she hoped he really was Pierre's father. Perhaps that's why she wanted it in writing."

"Not very logical."