The Paris Affair Part 50

"I was tired of the war, tired of both sides, tired of the killing."

"And I should have been the first one you turned to."

"In another world. A world without families and conventions. Where we could be ourselves." Bertrand's mouth twisted. "A world that doesn't exist."

Dorothee shook her head. Her skirt was damp where she'd attempted to sponge out Christian Laclos's blood. "Why did it never occur to me that Christian's b.u.mbling was just a shade too perfect?"

"Yes," Suzanne said. "You'd think I could recognize a good actor." She, the Courland sisters, Gabrielle and Gui, and the St. Gilleses had returned to the first-floor private parlor. Simon and David were with Dewhurst, and Malcolm, Raoul, and Harry were seeing to the arrangements for the remainder of the St. Gilleses' journey.

Gabrielle had been staring out the window, arms locked over her chest. Now she spun round to look at Suzanne. "You think Christian betrayed etienne? That he wanted the Laclos t.i.tle and estates even then?"

"Perhaps. Though he couldn't have known then that Bertrand would die."

"But even then-," Dorothee began.

"I'm not really a Laclos." Gui looked up from contemplation of the carpet. He waved a hand to silence Gabrielle as she protested. "Never mind the details, but obviously Christian knew."

Dorothee looked at Suzanne. "When we talked to Christian. He said Bertrand had written to him asking questions about Gui."

Suzanne nodded. "Perhaps when Bertrand suspected Gui wasn't really a Laclos he wrote to Christian. In any case, Christian knew. I think when he said that to us he was sowing the seeds of suspicion. He must have been planning to reveal the truth or to arrange for others to reveal it. Then the t.i.tle would have been his. Except for etienne's son." She looked from Juliette to St. Gilles.

Juliette glanced at her husband, swallowed, and turned to Suzanne. "When did you realize?"

"Not until the fake soldiers tried to abduct Pierre on our way here. I was singularly slow."

St. Gilles reached for his wife's hand. "etienne was a romantic. I wasn't surprised when he insisted on marriage. But I was when Tatiana agreed to it. That was when I began to suspect how much he meant to her."

"Insisting on marriage is just the sort of romantic gesture etienne would have been likely to make," Gabrielle said. "And now I think of it, it fits with the letters he sent me. He was writing about this woman he'd fallen in love with as though he was going to bring her home to the family. Introduce her to all of us. How could he do that unless she was his bride? If she'd been anything else I doubt he'd have even mentioned her to me."

St. Gilles nodded. "After his death she said she'd been a fool. It would be ruinous to have the world know her as the wife of a man who plotted Napoleon's death. Or to have her son the heir of an executed traitor. And we really didn't know who fathered Pierre. That much is true."

"But whoever fathered Pierre, Tatiana was married to etienne at the time of his conception," Suzanne said. "Or so close to the time as to render it impossible to tell. Legally that makes him etienne's son. And the rightful heir to the Comte de Laclos."

"Perhaps it's selfish of us," Juliette said, shifting Rose against her shoulder, "but I like to think he wouldn't care."

"Very likely not," Gabrielle said. "But you must see from our perspective we can't deny him what he's ent.i.tled to."

St. Gilles shook his head. "Pierre may well not be-"

"You don't believe in inherited privilege," Gui pointed out. "So it shouldn't matter whose son he is."

St. Gilles gave a reluctant smile. "You reason like an advocate, Laclos. By the same token your own birth shouldn't matter."

"My point exactly," Gabrielle said.

Wilhelmine took a sip of wine. "Right now it's Pierre's safety that's important."

Juliette met her gaze across the parlor. "Precisely."

Cordelia looked up from the deal table in the inn kitchen where she sat with Colin on her lap and Pierre and Marguerite beside her. Suzanne met her friend's gaze for a moment, ruffled Colin's hair, and smiled at Pierre and Marguerite. Colin had milk spattered on his chin and biscuit crumbs adorning his face and shirt, but the older children had half-full mugs of milk and plates of barely touched biscuits before them. "Your parents will be with you shortly, and you'll be on your way."

"Is everything all right?" Pierre asked.

"It will be," Suzanne said. She hoped she spoke the truth.

She went out into the inn yard to find Bertrand Laclos standing beside a traveling carriage. She moved to his side. "Cordelia is getting the children ready."

He nodded. "Thank you. We won't be entirely safe until we're out of France, but the rest of our journey should be far less eventful."

The revelations of half an hour ago might never have happened. Suzanne hesitated a moment, then said quickly, "I can't know what it's like for you. But I do know the world isn't easy on many relationships. I'll always be an outsider in my husband's world. Sometimes I wish nothing more than that we could live somewhere else, where people didn't make judgments about foreigners and-" She couldn't say the rest of course. "But this is the world we live in. And I'd rather share an imperfect world with him than be separated."

Bertrand met her gaze. His eyes, which seemed so changeable, now looked very definitely green. For a moment she thought he meant to turn her words aside, but then he gave a smile that was unexpectedly sweet and filled with regret for something out of reach. "You're a kind woman, Madame Rannoch. And obviously a clever one. But I doubt you ever felt a.s.sociation with you could destroy your husband's life."

Suzanne returned the smile. "You'd be surprised," she said, startled by how much she'd admitted.

Before either of them could say more, Malcolm and Raoul came out of the inn. "The St. Gilles family is making ready," Malcolm said. "You can still proceed?"

"Of course," Bertrand said. "The overly dramatic revelations about my own ident.i.ty don't change anything. I'm not sure how much Lord Dewhurst saw-"

"We'll make sure he doesn't cause you trouble one way or another," Malcolm said.

Bertrand nodded and moved towards the inn.

Suzanne looked between Malcolm and Raoul. "Christian Laclos was obviously much cleverer than he looked. But it's hard for me to believe he set up the attempt to kidnap Pierre today and the attack on Christine Leroux entirely on his own."

"No." Malcolm's gaze flickered to the spot where Christian had died. "And it doesn't make sense that Christian betrayed etienne all those years ago because he foresaw a way to get rid of Bertrand and Gui and claim the t.i.tle. After all, at that point the estates had been confiscated. But if Christian wanted to advance in the world and had no qualms about turning on his family-"

"It's far more likely he'd have turned government informant," Raoul said.

"Quite. Christian sold out his cousin etienne for the promise of who knew what favors. But before he died etienne had told both Christian and Rivere about his love for Tania. Perhaps even told them he'd married her. Rivere realized Tania had a child just after and put it together that the father was etienne. Somehow he discovered she'd hidden papers about the child in St. Gilles's painting."

"Do you think the marriage lines were there as well?" Suzanne asked.

"It's possible. Perhaps they were hidden behind different parts of the frame and Rivere only had time to retrieve one or didn't realize there was a second. But his knowledge made him doubly dangerous to Christian. Christian must have already feared Rivere could put it together that he'd betrayed etienne. And now Rivere had proof of the legitimacy of a child who could stand between Christian and the t.i.tle that could suddenly be his. Which leaves the question-who was Christian working for and who is helping him now."

A gust of wind cut across the inn yard. Suzanne put up a hand to anchor her bonnet. She didn't risk a glance at Raoul, but Fouche's name hung between them. A chill cut through her that had nothing to do with the wind.

Gabrielle ran across the hall of the inn and seized Bertrand's arm. "You're not going to leave without talking to me."

Bertrand looked down at her, guilt and regret chasing themselves through his gaze. "Gaby-"

She pulled him into the now-empty parlor in which they had all gathered to hear his story. "I know you have to leave to take the St. Gilleses to the coast. But then you have to come back to Paris. To us."

Bertrand took a step towards her. "Gaby-I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to be caught up in any of this."

She shrugged. "I made my own choices, and I can take care of myself. You must have realized with you gone Rupert was more likely to marry."

"I-" Bertrand glanced away. "I knew it was a possibility."

"And whatever girl he chose would have found herself married to a man who couldn't love her as a wife wants to be loved. Did that not seem so bad because it would be an unknown girl, not your cousin?"

Bertrand drew a breath. "I didn't think-"

"No, you were too busy wallowing in the n.o.bility of your sacrifice. I'm sorry, Bertrand-I know you faced an impossible choice. I can't imagine the h.e.l.l you've been through, and I know you were trying to spare those you love pain. But you have to realize that the choices you made caused pain as well. And especially now he knows the truth, I'm sure Rupert would rather be miserable with you than without you. Save that I don't think he'd be miserable at all."

The breath Bertrand drew was that of one who dares not hope.

Gabrielle seized his hands. "You have to come back now. You must see that. Rupert knows about his father-the damage is done. In fact, if anyone can help mend matters it's you. And your parents need you. Oh, the devil, I need you."

A smile broke across his face, a smile that took them back to the nursery, when choices had been simpler and they'd been allies against all else. He raised a hand and stroked her hair.

"There are a dozen times a day I'd welcome your advice," she said. "And Stephen needs to meet his uncle."

"I can't come between-"

"You're right. You can't come between Rupert and me. The divide is already there. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say you've always been between us, even when Rupert thought you were dead and I didn't have a glimmering of the truth of his feelings for you. But that doesn't mean we all have to be miserable."

"You're amazing, Gaby."

"I'm a pragmatist. Unlike the recklessly idealistic men in my life." She tightened her grip on his hands. "We found a way to muddle through when we came to England. We can find a way to muddle through this."

He shook his head. "You always had a fondness for fairy tales."

"Meaning you won't come back?"

Though she still held his hands, he stared down at her as though looking at something out of reach. "I have to get the St. Gilles family to England. I can't think beyond that."

Paul St. Gilles turned before climbing into the carriage after his wife and children and regarded Malcolm. "I owe you a debt, Rannoch."

Malcolm's gaze drifted inside the carriage to where Pierre sat within the circle of Juliette's arm, Marguerite cuddled up beside him, Rose in their mother's lap. "It was your wife who set things in motion. She's a remarkable woman."

"That I know well. But Juliette's told me everything you did."

"I'm the one who owes you the debt. For protecting Tania's child."

St. Gilles glanced at his family as well, then looked back at Malcolm. "I never thought of myself as the sort to keep secrets. Pierre changed things."

Malcolm glanced across the courtyard to where Suzanne stood with Cordelia and Dorothee. His wife was holding Colin, his legs wrapped round her waist, his hand fisted round her collar. For a moment Malcolm was pulled back to the moment Geoffrey Blackwell had placed Colin in his arms, squalling, blue-tinged, wobbly head-the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. "Having children does."

St. Gilles cast a quick look at him. "I know-"

Inside the carriage, Marguerite giggled at something Pierre was saying. "We may never have the answers to some questions," Malcolm said, "but there's no doubt in my mind you'll always be Pierre's father."

St. Gilles's eyes held a grat.i.tude that went beyond simple relief at knowing he wouldn't lose his son. And for an unnerving moment, Malcolm felt the other man glimpsed more of his own life than he'd meant to reveal. "Thank you."

CHAPTER 38.

Wellington stared at Malcolm across his study at Headquarters. "I don't suppose you can prove any of this."

"Would you want me to, sir?"

"Absolutely not," Stuart said.

Castlereagh shot a look at him.

"Sorry," Stuart said.

"You're sure Christian Laclos was behind Rivere's death?" Wellington said.

Malcolm surveyed the three men. He and Harry had managed to give them an account of Christian Laclos's actions that excluded mention of Tatiana's son. "Rivere must have worked out that it was Christian who had betrayed etienne and that Christian was a government informant. With Napoleon in power, Christian had no fear of retribution. But now that the king is restored, that information could have ruined him." Malcolm didn't add that Antoine Rivere had also known about the child who could come between Christian and the Laclos t.i.tle and lands.

"A blow for the Laclos family," Castlereagh murmured.

"But softened by the fact that they have Bertrand back," Harry said.

A current of unease ran through the room.

"Is he coming back?" Castlereagh asked.

"I don't know," Malcolm said. "But he has to be officially cleared so he has the option."

Wellington and Castlereagh exchanged glances. "His alleged crimes were never made public," Wellington said. "As far as the world knows, he was an emigre who went to fight for Bonaparte and died. If we simply reveal that he was in fact our double agent, he'll be a hero."

"The St. Gilleses are safely in England." Suzanne, balancing Colin in her lap, looked round her salon at Dorothee, Wilhelmine, and Cordelia.

"You heard from them?" Dorothee asked.

"From the Kestrel. Bertrand Laclos. He got a message through to Malcolm."

Dorothee shook her head. "I still can't believe-"

"I can." Wilhelmine reached for her coffee cup. "At times it seems very tempting to be able to start again, with none of the baggage of one's previous life."

Suzanne steadied Colin, who was reaching for the plate of biscuits. "You gave up a lot in the course of this investigation, Willie."

Wilhelmine blew on the steam from her cup. "Loath as I am to admit it, my little sister was right. Stewart would have bored me. In fact, it's amazing how a man could be at once so dull and so reprehensible. I'm all but certain he'd learned Bertrand Laclos was still alive after the tavern brawl in Spain. He kept quiet to protect himself. That's why he was so afraid of what the investigation might uncover. I suspect he babbled about it to the opera dancer Ninette and she told Antoine Rivere." Wilhelmine took a sip of coffee. "There are worse things than being alone."

"Like being married to the wrong person." Dorothee picked up a biscuit, broke it in half, and gave a piece to Colin.

Wilhelmine shot a glance at her. "Vienna might not free you from all your baggage, but it would be a fresh start."

Dorothee spread her hands in her lap, her gaze on Colin. "I know. Which would be both a blessing and a curse." She looked at Suzanne. "What will happen to Pierre? Will the Lacloses acknowledge him?"