The Berkeley Square Affair (Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch) (21 page)

“You’ve never had the same sort of cause. But you share a certain sort of loyalty.” As they shared the color of their eyes—why, why had she been so blind to the similarities staring her in the face?

“Perhaps. I admire him. But—”

The question hung in the air.

Suzanne looked at her husband through the twilight shadows and flickering lamplight that filled the library. Outside the windows, the branches of the plane trees were a dark, twisted tracery against the pale gray sky. “But what?” she asked.

“But I’m quite sure there’s a great deal he isn’t telling us. Particularly about the Elsinore League.” He turned to her with a smile that couldn’t quite banish the ghosts in his eyes. “It shouldn’t be a surprise. We’ve learned full well that liking a person and trusting them are two very different things.”

She swallowed. “So we have.”

Outside in the hall, the front door banged open and shut. High-pitched voices filled the air. Berowne meowed. Laura and the children returning from the square garden.

Malcolm stared at the door for a moment. “Not to give too much credence to biology. But this makes O’Roarke the children’s grandfather.”

Her hands locked together in her lap. “So it does.”

CHAPTER 18

Malcolm got to his feet and moved to the library door. Colin and Jessica’s grandfather. What an odd thought that the day’s revelations tied Raoul O’Roarke not just to him but to his children.

“I need to feed Jessica before I dress for dinner,” Suzanne said. “And we promised Colin a story. I can—”

“No, you nurse Jessica. I’ll read to him.” Malcolm opened the door to see Jessica taking tiny steps down the hall holding Colin’s hands. Colin looked up at him. “She’ll be walking by herself any day now.”

Jessica gave a crow of delight and tugged her brother to walk faster. Malcolm grinned in spite of himself, swept into the comforting maelstrom of the child world.

Upstairs, the buttered toast and warm milk smells of the nursery were blessedly normal. Thank God Colin was still at an age where he’d cuddle. He snuggled up next to Malcolm on the window seat, and Malcolm was able to run his fingers through his son’s thick hair as he read a chapter about King Arthur and Merlin. Talk about fathers and sons and surrogate fathers. This at least was unvarnished parenting. He was sure of himself, sure of his responsibilities, sure of his feelings and that they were returned. How odd he’d once thought he wouldn’t know how to go on as a parent.

Suzanne was still nursing Jessica when they finished the chapter, so he saw Colin settle in for his supper with Laura and then went to dress for dinner and the Carfax House ball. Addison was in the bedchamber, brushing a black evening coat.

“I’ve laid out your things, sir.” Addison’s voice and gaze were as neutral as ever, but his eyes lingered on Malcolm’s face for a moment. How much did his valet see? Malcolm wondered. Probably far more than Malcolm would wish, judging by the past. Addison had certainly sliced through the thicket of unvoiced emotions at the time of Malcolm and Suzanne’s marriage.

Malcolm stripped off his day coat and began to undo the buttons on his waistcoat. The day’s news wasn’t really so earthshaking. As he’d told O’Roarke and Suzanne, he’d suspected for a long time. Today had merely brought confirmation. Alistair Rannoch was still the man who had given him a name and not loved him, Raoul O’Roarke was still the man who had been kind to him as a boy and sparked his curiosity about the world. He had learned how much his mother had cared for O’Roarke, but he had already known they were close. The oddest thing was Alistair’s own role in rescuing O’Roarke. Which was puzzling and significant for the investigation but hardly something to turn his world upside down.

Malcolm paused, his shirt half over his head though he had no memory of removing his cravat. So why did he feel as shaken and cast adrift as when he’d been tossed from his boat on Dunmykel Bay? Because for an instant O’Roarke’s words and the warmth beneath the cool gray gaze had struck a spark of warmth within him. Absurd and nonsensical. But for just a moment he had caught a glimmering of what it might be like to be sure of a parent’s love.

“Darling?” Suzanne must have come into the room without him noticing the opening of the door. “Are you all right?”

Malcolm turned round. His wife was watching him with a concerned gaze, the nursing flap on her bodice still partially unbuttoned. Not only had she come into the room without his noticing, Addison had apparently withdrawn. “Quite all right.” He smiled, rather surprised to find it didn’t require an effort. “In fact, I think I may be better than I’ve been in some time.”

Suzanne echoed his smile, but for an instant he thought he caught a flicker of concern in her eyes. Then she stepped forwards and touched his face. “I’m glad. Colin asked if you could look in before we leave for Carfax House.”

He grinned. “Of course.”

Oddly, he’d never felt more like a father.

 

Malcolm had first visited Carfax House as a boy of ten, home from Harrow for a visit with David. It was one of the great houses of London, larger and grander than the Berkeley Square house, set back from the street with a handsome forecourt and its own ballroom at the back. Yet for all the grandeur and David’s trepidation at facing his father, Malcolm recalled that the house had felt more a family home than his parents’ house. Perhaps because Lord and Lady Carfax didn’t detest each other. And they loved their children, whatever pressures they put on them.

Tonight he was climbing the same stairs he had first run up with David. This time in a black cassimere evening coat and white pantaloons rather than a schoolboy’s jacket and dusty breeches. Instead of David beside him, he had Suzanne on his arm, trailing silver tulle, diamonds glinting in her hair. A sea of ball guests surrounded them. Malcolm felt a flash of affection for the boy he had been then. He would never have thought he could be as happy as he was now. Or so at peace with the truth about his father.

Lady Carfax stood at the head of the stairs, a petite woman with delicate features and a cloud of dark hair untouched by gray. “Malcolm. And Suzanne. How lovely. I count on you to help me keep the peace this evening. We have a positively alarming mix of Tories and Whigs in the ballroom. And I know it would be too much to hope that people will refrain from talking politics.”

Malcolm kissed her cheek.
Odd that Carfax could be so devoted to a woman with whom he shared none of his work or the complex inner workings of his mind.
Malcolm couldn’t imagine being satisfied with such a relationship. But then he couldn’t really imagine being married to or at least achieving such a level of intimacy with anyone but Suzanne.

“Thank God.” David moved to their side inside the ballroom doors. “I was afraid the investigation would keep you away.”

“Ballrooms are excellent places to investigate,” Suzanne said, leaning in to accept his kiss.

“I don’t know what you said to Jennifer this afternoon,” Simon said, kissing Suzanne as well, “but she was positively on fire at rehearsal after her talk with you. You could have cut the tension in her scene with Hamlet with a knife. Just what I wanted. Though Smytheton looked a bit distracted. We got through the whole scene—and a scene with Jennifer at that—without an interruption from him. My heartfelt thanks.”

“Shakespeare’s a good topic of conversation tonight,” David said. “Excuse me. I promised my mother I’d keep Lord Holland and Sidmouth from coming to blows.”

“The burden of being the heir and in the Opposition,” Simon said as David moved off. “Lady Carfax is every bit as much a strategist in her own way as Lord Carfax, though she aims to smooth things over. In that David takes after her. They’d both prefer it if I kept my mouth shut. I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be easier for him if I weren’t here.”

“I wouldn’t think it for a moment.” Malcolm squeezed Simon’s arm. “Solidarity means a lot.” He flashed a smile at Suzanne.

“But then Suzanne’s a great deal more welcome than I am. She has a knack for saying what she thinks without stirring matters up.”

Suzanne adjusted her pearl bracelet. “Perhaps because no one takes me seriously.”

“In truth,” Malcolm said, “I’m not sure the
Hamlet
manuscript is such a safe topic of conversation.”

“So you’d rather I didn’t talk about it?” Simon asked.

“On the contrary. I’d very much like it if you did. And note the reactions. Any trouble at the theatre today after we left?”

“Not so much as a whiff of anything out of the ordinary rehearsal chaos. No trouble in Berkeley Square?”

Malcolm shook his head. “It’s odd, the first two attacks followed so quick on each other, I’m surprised we’ve gone this long without another attempt. I wonder—Allie. Geoff.” He broke off as he caught sight of his cousin and her husband moving towards them. “Any new discoveries?”

“Sadly, no,” Aline said, “though I’m finding the Hamlet-Claudius relationship fascinating. Geoff and I were debating whether the fact that Hamlet seems to suspect Claudius might be his father in this version would make him more or less likely to seek revenge for old King Hamlet’s murder. I thought it might explain his trepidation, but Geoff—”

“Thought it could make young Hamlet that much angrier at Claudius,” Geoffrey Blackwell said. “But then Hamlet seems to have loved old King Hamlet or least admired him, in this version as in the one we know.”

Malcolm told himself it was only his imagination that Geoffrey’s gaze seemed to rest on him for a moment. Geoff’s gaze always appeared keen, after all. “A good point,” Malcolm said. “Though in both versions there seems to be a good measure of duty mixed in with the love.” Something Malcolm had never felt when it came to Alistair Rannoch. Perhaps a small rebellion against the social order even as a young child? Or a reaction to Alistair’s complete lack of pretense at fatherly feeling. And yet—learning who killed Alistair did matter.

“A good point,” Geoffrey said. “I’ve always thought of Hamlet as a Renaissance prince who comes of age in the twilight of the chivalric era. His father’s era.”

Simon grinned. “You could be quoting my speech to the actors before the first read-through. There’s much left to interpretation in this version, as in the canonical version. But the subtext between Hamlet and Claudius in this version gives the actors some wonderful layers to play with.”

“There’s a lot to decode in Shakespeare even without hidden messages.” Malcolm scanned the ballroom. “I see Aunt Frances. I’ve been hoping for a word with her. Easier sometimes to speak to one’s relatives in a crowd.”

He felt Suzanne’s anxious gaze on him as he moved off. But this was a conversation he had to have alone.

“Malcolm.” Lady Frances turned to greet him and extended her hand. “You’ve come at just the right moment. I was about to be cornered by Lady Gordon. I’m fond enough of my grandchildren, but I have no desire to while away a ball hearing about somebody else’s.”

“Actually, I was hoping we could speak in private. The blue salon?”

Lady Frances’s gaze flickered over his face, but she merely said, “So long as we can bring champagne,” and snagged two glasses from the tray of a passing footman.

There were advantages to having practically grown up at Carfax House. Malcolm steered his aunt through the crowd to an innocuous door in the white-and-gold paneling, which gave on to a small sitting room hung with blue-striped paper. A fire burned in the grate and a brace of candles flickered on the central table. Lady Carfax always had all the house ready for visitors.

Malcolm closed the door and surveyed his aunt. The clear blue of her eyes, the ironic curve of her mouth, the lift of her brows. So familiar through a childhood of uncertainties. “How much did you know?” he asked.

She sank down on a blue damask sofa, her filmy gray skirts pooling about her. “Is this more about the Elsinore League? Because I told you—”

“You know damn well it isn’t. How much did you know about my real father?”

Her sapphire ring trembled against the stem of her glass, but her voice was steady. “Don’t be melodramatic, Malcolm. You never liked Alistair. I should think you’d be relieved to learn he wasn’t your father.”

“I was in a way.” He gripped the gilded arm of the chair across from her and let himself into it. “Though somewhat surprised to learn my aunt has known the truth for years.”

She took a sip of champagne. A controlled sip, not a desperate gulp. “It wasn’t my secret to share.”

“So you’d have let me—”

“How did you learn?”

“I guessed. O’Roarke admitted it.”

The name was out in the open. He saw that fact register in his aunt’s eyes. “He meant a great deal to your mother. And she to him, I think.” She smoothed her satin sash. “I was the one who wrote to tell him you’d been born.”

“So you knew from the first?”

She nodded. “Your mother used to send him reports of you every week.”

He gave a short laugh, sharp with the memory of long parentless stretches in Scotland. “I wasn’t aware that my mother thought of me every week.”

Lady Frances met his gaze. “I’d be the last to claim Arabella was a perfect parent, but she thought of you more than you realize. And then after—”

“After he went to France she continued to write to him?”

“Oh yes.” Lady Frances took another sip of champagne. “But I was going to say that after Arabella died, I took to writing.”

Malcolm stared at his aunt. “You’re saying that all these years you’ve been sending Raoul O’Roarke reports on me?”

“You make me sound like one of your agents, Malcolm. I let him know how his son went on. Whatever my maternal deficiencies, I’m enough of a parent myself that I could understand him wanting to know.”

“He wasn’t—”

“Your father? I know you didn’t think of him that way. But I’m quite sure that’s how he saw himself. He was very concerned about you after Arabella’s death. And then when—”

Malcolm stared at her, gripped by cold horror. “You told O’Roarke?”

“He deserved to know.”

It was a wonder the stem of the glass didn’t snap in his fingers. “You told him that I—”

“I told him that we would forever have cause to be grateful to David Mallinson and Simon Tanner for stopping you from slitting your wrists.”

“They didn’t stop me. They bandaged me up before I could bleed to death.”

For a moment his aunt’s gaze held a remembered fear that shook him. Aunt Frances wasn’t a woman who was afraid of anything. “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to know if it were Colin.”

“Colin is my son.”

“My point precisely.”

Malcolm stared at his glass for a moment, then tossed down half the contents. “It’s not as though there was anything he could do.”

“Sometimes worrying is a parent’s right,” Lady Frances said in a quiet voice. “I know he was relieved when you went to the Peninsula. Because he thought it would give you a focus. And because he was able to see you.”

Malcolm found himself tugging at his shirt cuffs. The scars were still there on his wrists, though so faint even Suzanne had never questioned them. Ironic that of all people it was Carfax who had come to his rescue, arranging his posting to Lisbon at David and Simon’s behest. Malcolm, listless and sick of life, had gone along because it seemed easier than protesting. Carfax, to his credit, had not commented on Malcolm’s situation but had calmly thanked him for his service to his country. Malcolm could still hear Carfax’s dry voice and see him calmly fiddling with his spectacles on a day when any expression of sympathy would have undone Malcolm. Whatever he thought of Carfax, he knew he would be forever in the man’s debt. “It’s not as though—”