The Paris Affair Part 42

"Every parent's fear. But you won't lose Colin."

"If Malcolm learns the truth-"

"Even then I can't see him keeping Colin from you."

"It's difficult to know what anyone will do when they're pushed that far."

"Which is why we're going to do everything we can to ensure he never learns the truth."

"Lying to my husband. Our best hope of happiness. No, it's all right. I'm used to it. Or at least I d.a.m.n well should be."

"Rannoch."

Malcolm turned at the sound of the voice. "O'Roarke. How do you find Paris?"

"Not as beautiful as I did in my younger years."

Malcolm studied him, remembering the glow in O'Roarke's eyes when he talked about Paris on their rambles in his boyhood. It had been the cradle of liberty then. "I suspect the change is in Paris rather than you."

"Very likely. Victory can take unusual forms."

Malcolm wondered what it had been like for this man, a committed Republican and revolutionary who had been imprisoned during the Reign of Terror but retained his revolutionary ideals and yet nevertheless had fought against Napoleon Bonaparte's forces in driving the French out of his native Spain. Only to see the Spanish liberals turned on by the restored monarchy, the const.i.tution revoked, the Inquisition restored.

"I think I may be able to do you a favor, Rannoch."

"A favor?"

"Perhaps we could step onto the balcony?"

Malcolm inclined his head. They moved through the French windows onto the balcony. O'Roarke turned, his back to the room, and leaned against the bal.u.s.trade. "I understand you're looking for help getting someone out of France."

Malcolm stiffened. "What gave you-"

"Don't worry, you haven't been betrayed or given yourself away. I have a number of contacts in various parts of Parisian society. I don't know the precise reasons you're eager to help Paul St. Gilles, but I should like to help him myself. Anyone with an interest in freedom would."

"And?" Malcolm said, willing himself to caution.

"I have a contact who I believe can be of use to us."

" 'Us'?"

"You can hardly expect me to stay out of it. It's the sort of adventure one needs to temper the climate in France just now."

"And your contact-"

O'Roarke turned, still leaning against the bal.u.s.trade, and looked him full in the face. "Have you heard of the Kestrel?"

Suzanne scanned her husband's face as he crossed the room towards her. His features were composed into his public mask, but his eyes held the light of the chase. "I think we have a way to rescue St. Gilles," he murmured, bending his head close to her own as he took a sip from her champagne gla.s.s.

"You've found someone who can help?"

"Raoul O'Roarke just approached me. Apparently he has contacts who've helped others get out of France. It's not surprising. He may have fought against the French in Spain, but that was because they were trying to overrun his country. He's a Republican at heart. I'm a bit surprised he sought me out, though."

"He's close to your family," Suzanne said, voice carefully calibrated to show only wifely interest. In truth, she had a keen interest in Raoul's relationship to the Rannoch family.

"Yes, particularly to my mother and grandfather. He was kind to me as a boy. He'd give me books and talk to me about grown-up subjects. I still remember him giving me the Beaumarchais trilogy and encouraging me to a.n.a.lyze the different sides in Henry IV. I was sorry when he had to flee Britain after the United Irish Uprising."

"Did he say how he can help?" Suzanne asked in the same carefully calibrated tone.

"He thinks he can put us in touch with someone called the Kestrel. We're to meet him tomorrow at Cafe Saint-Georges."

Suzanne nodded, prepared for her two worlds to collide.

Wilhelmine came up short at the sight of the figure sprawled in the damask armchair in her dressing room. "I didn't realize you were here."

"Where did you go after you left Madame de Coigny's?" Stewart demanded.

She raised her brows at the peremptory question. "Out. With friends."

"Who?"

She unwound the folds of her shawl from about her shoulders. She'd gone to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore to discuss further details about Tatiana's child and Paul St. Gilles with the Rannochs, but she had no intention of telling Stewart so. "You're sounding tiresomely like a husband." Which of course was what she had been hoping he would become. It had been so long since she'd had one she'd forgot how they could interfere. Marriage gave a man entirely too many rights.

He pushed himself to his feet. "You've been with the Rannochs, haven't you?"

She dropped the shawl on her dressing table and tugged at the fingertips of one of her gloves. "I told you I'd been with friends."

"d.a.m.n it, Wilhelmine. I know what you're up to."

"Do you?" She dropped the glove on the dressing table and started on the next one. "Do pray enlighten me."

"Rannoch's hoodwinked you into helping with his meddling. What's he learned?"

The glove had caught on her emerald ring. She pulled it free. "You'll have to ask him."

"Don't play games, Wilhelmine." Stewart lurched towards her. She caught the fumes of brandy on his breath. "I need the truth."

"Why?"

"Rannoch's poking and prying and asking all manner of questions-"

"What is it to you?"

"Some things are best left well enough alone."

" 'Some things' meaning Antoine Rivere's death? Or Bertrand Laclos's?"

Rage flared in his eyes. She'd seen them lit with pa.s.sion but never with so much anger. "You don't know what you're meddling in, Wilhelmine. I thought I could trust you."

"What makes you think you can't?"

He seized her wrist. Her pearl bracelet clattered to the floor. "I forbid you to have anything more to do with this."

"Forbid?" She jerked her hand from his grip. "What makes you think you can forbid me to do anything?"

"You know what you are to me, Wilhelmine."

"I know that I'm not your property. Or any man's. First you ask me questions about what Malcolm and Suzanne are doing, then you tell me to have nothing to do with them-"

"I don't want you exposed to lies."

"I think you can trust me to know the difference between lies and the truth."

"You don't know what you're in the midst of."

"No, I don't." She fixed him with a hard stare. "Care to enlighten me?"

"This is no laughing matter."

"No, it isn't. If I hadn't cared to uncover whatever's going on before, I do now. You certainly know how to pique one's curiosity."

He gripped her shoulders. His fingers dug into her skin through the tulle and crepe of her sleeves. "Don't you dare-"

She wrenched away from him and stared into his hot eyes. "You're terrified."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"For G.o.d's sake, Stewart, what have you done?"

"I haven't done anything. You-"

"For heaven's sake. I can tell when you're lying."

"You don't know where this could lead. What you're doing to me."

"Then tell me." She reached for him and took his face between her hands. "Tell me what you're afraid of. Let me help you."

"I didn't say-"

"You're obviously terrified. Charlie, what have you done? What are you afraid of Malcolm learning? What's so important-"

"Don't meddle, Wilhelmine."

"Is it about Bertrand Laclos?"

Rage and fear flared in Stewart's eyes. "d.a.m.n it-"

"That's it, isn't it? Charlie, it's dreadful he was framed, but no one can blame you. Even Malcolm believed he was guilty. Yes, you should have told Wellington about that letter from Laclos saying he wanted to give up his mission, but he was already dead when you received it. I can see-"

"Stop it, Willie."

"I'm just telling you not to torture yourself. Unless there's more." She scanned his face. "What? Surely you didn't suspect he was framed when you ordered him killed? Why on earth-"

"I told you to stop it."

"I can't believe you'd have knowingly ordered an innocent man's death."

"I didn't."

"Then what-"

"It's none of your affair."

"Of course it is. I care about you."

"If you cared about me, you'd stop this folly."

"How can I know it is folly? How can you? Unless you know-"

"You have no right to make accusations."

"I have a right to ask what my lover is involved in."

He gave a short laugh. "If you persist in this I won't be your lover anymore."

"For heaven's sake-"

"I mean it, Wilhelmine. Persist in this folly and it's over."

Wilhelmine stared up at the man on whom she had pinned her hopes these past months. Security, position, the power of being a powerful man's wife. The allure hadn't gone. He was being tiresome, but the consequences of being alone hadn't changed. For a moment her future hung before her eyes.

Pleasure. Secure comfort. An a.s.sured position. Set against freedom and loyalty. In the end it was no choice really. She lifted her chin. "It's been a pleasant interlude."

"What are you saying?"

She took a step back from him and her hopes for the future. "That it's over."

CHAPTER 31.

One of the first things Suzanne had learned as a spy was that sometimes the safest place for a clandestine meeting is in the clear light of day. Sunlight spilled through the thick gla.s.s of the cafe's windows as she and Malcolm stepped through the doors. She wore a light muslin gown and a peach sarcenet spencer and matching bonnet. Nothing overtly flashy, but there was no need to be in disguise for this mission. Or at least for this part of this mission.

She and Malcolm glanced round the linen-covered tables, crowded with a Latin Quarter a.s.sortment of students with books spread before them or stacked on the floor; older academics reading, writing, or talking; artists with sketch pads; chess and backgammon players; more than one actor studying a script. Easy enough to appear to be looking for a table. There were indeed few available.