The Mayfair Affair (44 page)

It's better this way. I often feel I didn't live until I met Jack. These past years I've lived to avenge him. Now that that's done—

Goodbye, Malcolm. You've been a good friend to our family. Look after David. Bel will look after Lucinda. David and Bel will look after the children. And the rest of them can look after themselves.

Your affectionate friend,

Louisa

Quick, familiar steps sounded on the stairs. Malcolm ran to the doorway to see his oldest friend running towards him.

"I was at Brooks's when I got your message," David said. "What—"

Malcolm put out a hand. "David—"

"Don't you dare tell me not to come in, Malcolm."

"No. You need to see. But you need to be warned. If there were any way I could have prevented this, I would have done so. Louisa—"

David had already pushed past him into the bedchamber. He gave a strangled cry, ran to Louisa, and caught her in his arms.

"She's gone, David."

David stared at him over his dead sister. "Who? What crazy monster is after our family—"

"David." Malcolm looked into his friend's eyes and wondered if their friendship could survive this. "The pistol's in her hand. I'm quite sure it's the same one that killed Trenchard."

"What—" David stared down at his sister, then at Malcolm. "No."

"Louisa left a letter. You should read it."

He thought his friend would argue with him, but David glanced through the bloodstained pages. "Who in God's name is this Billy? I've never heard of him."

"Apparently your sister was more aware of your father's work than you are."

David shook his head in disbelief. Then his face went closed. "We have to send for Father."

"I've already done so."

Lord Carfax spent a long time alone in the bloodstained bedchamber with his second daughter. Malcolm went into the dressing room. After a few minutes, David followed him there. But rather than speak, David sank into a chair and dropped his head in his hands. Malcolm put a hand on his friend's shoulder, then moved across the room. It was up to David to speak. If he wanted to.

Carfax joined them at last, closing the door behind him with a precise click. His gaze went straight to Malcolm. "Louisa's death was obviously accidental. She was a good shot. She must have decided to clean her pistol and grown careless in her grief."

Malcolm inclined his head. Laura was free. Unless anyone else was accused of Trenchard's or Craven's murder, it was up to Carfax to play this as he chose.

"Where's Billy?" Carfax asked.

"In Berkeley Square. Roth will take him in to Bow Street."

Carfax gave a curt nod. "Billy knows better than to talk."

"Sir." David pushed himself to his feet. "Did you know?"

"If I knew, do you imagine I'd have embroiled Malcolm in this?" Carfax pushed his spectacles up on his nose. His skin had turned parchment white and the lines in his face seemed scored fathoms deeper. "One can't undo what's been done. And I don't know that she could have lived with this in any case. Your mother will need you, David."

"For God's sake, sir, we can't just—"

"Go on? My dear boy, it's the only thing we can do." The gaze Carfax turned to David was bleak, yet perhaps the warmest Malcolm had ever seen the earl turn on his son. "The rest of the family are what matters now. You should agree with that."

David nodded.

Carfax turned to Malcolm.

Malcolm swallowed under the force of the earl's regard. "If I'd known—"

"It wouldn't have stopped your infernal drive to ferret out the truth. I've made use of that drive often enough in the past. I'm well paid now for my past efforts."

"I don't think I could have turned Louisa over to Bow Street."

"Perhaps not. I don't know what I'd have done." Carfax straightened his shoulders. "All we can do now is move forwards."

Laura shook her head. "How could Lady Craven be so clear-sighted in some ways, and at the same time so completely blind to Jack's faults?"

"I imagine Donna Elvira would have written similarly about Don Giovanni," Suzanne said.

"Even though I knew Trenchard was behind Jack's death, it never occurred to me to avenge him. I was always strangely resistant to Jack's charms. And yet I ended up married to him." Laura gripped her elbows. "So many lives shattered."

"And some lives put back together." Malcolm looked across the Berkeley Square library at Cordelia. "Carfax told me he's pleased to have Gui for a son-in-law."

A smile broke across Cordelia's face. "I'm so glad."

Malcolm turned to Laura. "And you're a wealthy woman, with one of the most powerful names in the country. You have a number of options open for you and Emily."

"It's a long time since I've had any options at all. Odd how bewildering that word can be. It's hard to imagine ever feeling like Lady Tarrington again."

"Well, until you sort out which of them you want to take, you're both welcome to stay with us," Suzanne said.

"Thank you. It would be good for Emily, I think. She seems to have made friends with Colin and Jessica, and she needs friends." Laura glanced at the children, clustered round a plate of sandwiches and cakes on the sofa table, then looked back at the other adults and smiled. "I need friends. Though it's another word I haven't used in a long time."

"We'll take Billy in," Roth said. "But I doubt he'll stay there if Carfax doesn't want him to." He hesitated. "There's one thing we still don't know. What Craven was doing in Hyde Park? Obviously he didn't go there to meet Billy."

"No." Malcolm kept his voice even. "Louisa could have lured him there. Perhaps with a letter from a supposed mistress. She knew it was too dangerous to kill him at home. She says as much in the letter."

"No. But not that she lured him there, when she confesses to so much else. And there were traces of at least one other person there besides Craven and Billy. Perhaps two."

"Craven could have had an actual assignation with a mistress," Malcolm said in a voice of casual speculation. "Or with an informant. God knows what else he may have been mixed up in. It could be another line of investigation."

Roth gave a short laugh and clapped him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Rannoch. I think we've all had our fill. And we know who killed Trenchard and Craven. We have our answers. Of course, answers are always dictated by the questions one was asking."

Malcolm dropped his coat over the frayed velvet back of the chair in his and Suzanne's bedchamber. "I keep seeing Louisa as a girl."

"I can't imagine."

"After all you've been through?"

"I've never precisely been through this. Not with a childhood friend. I don't have any childhood friends."

He reached out and cupped her cheek. "You didn't have a childhood."

"Oh, I did. A quite nice one. It was just cut short."

"Louisa had every advantage. At least of the material sort. And for all Carfax's faults, he loves his children. So does Lady Carfax."

Suzanne swallowed. "I never thought I'd feel sorry for Carfax. But to lose a child— I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

"I don't think I've ever seen him so shattered. Or David."

"The truth had to come out, Malcolm."

"You know better than to claim that, Suzette. Governments and treaties and marriages and families are built on lies. I wonder if Louisa could have lived with what she'd done. I wonder if Carfax would ever have suspected. And what he'd have done if he did."

"It would have hung over Laura. Even with an alibi."

"There is that."

"And Laura wouldn't have Emily back. You can just put together the pretty parts of the puzzle."

"I'm not saying I regret it. At least, I don't know that I'd do it differently. But—"

She came up behind him and slipped her arms round his shoulders. "We survived."

"For once we weren't in imminent danger. Not physically, at any rate."

"I meant we survived the investigation. Our first—"

"Knowing we're on opposite sides?"

"We're not on opposite sides now, Malcolm."

"Not precisely." He turned round and set his hands on her shoulders. "The world's too complicated to talk about sides. You taught me that."

"It would be hard. To be married to someone who wasn't a spy. Even if one told the truth, they might dismiss it as improbable fiction."

He gave a short laugh. "That assumes we tell the truth."

"Sometimes we do."

His smile was sweet and mocking, and for some reason twisted her heart. "If only those times were clear."

What could she say?
I'll never lie to you?
He wouldn't believe her. Any more than she'd believe him if he said the same. So instead she returned his smile. "It keeps life interesting, darling."

"So it does." His hands slid up her shoulders. "Emily seems to be doing remarkably well so far. I hope Laura doesn't wait too long to tell her she's her mother."

"I do as well, darling, but we have to let her choose the moment."

"Of course. It's just that Laura— That is, I suppose we should be calling her Jane—"

"She told Emily to call her Laura," Suzanne said. "And before she left for Maidstone she told me she doesn't really feel like Jane anymore."

Malcolm's gaze shifted over her face. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you feel like Suzanne? Or—"

"Mélanie?" She'd told him her real name three months ago, but they hadn't discussed it further. The name hung oddly in the air between them, as though simply saying it gave voice to the secrets she had kept for so long. "Sometimes. Mélanie is a part of me."

"A part of you I'm glad I know. Mélanie." He tried out the name. "I could get used to it. Or perhaps Mel." He took her face between his hands. "Roth knows someone as yet unidentified was in Hyde Park the night Trenchard was killed."

"Do you think he knows it was us?" She kept her gaze steady on his own.

"No. Though I wouldn't put it past him to put it together. Or Carfax."

"Darling—"

"I'm not suggesting we run. Not yet. But I'm keeping my dispatch box close."

"Dearest—"

He pulled her closer. "It's all right, sweetheart. We're neither of us strangers to living with uncertainty."

Emily snuggled up beside Laura in the bed in the room that had once been Laura's and that they now shared. "Everyone seems worried," Emily said. "Even Colin, because he knows his parents are worried."

It was three days since the night Laura had brought Emily to the Berkeley Square house and Louisa Craven had killed herself, more or less bringing an end to the investigation into the muders of the Duke of Trenchard and Lord Craven. Though not to the aftermath of the case. Simon Tanner had come the afternoon after Louisa's death and spent a long time closeted alone with Suzanne. Laura had never seen his face so stripped of its usual humor and irony. Jeremy Roth had come the next morning, grim-faced, to report that Billy Hopkins had disappeared from his cell in Newgate. Carfax hadn't been to call, but Laura knew Malcolm had gone to see him twice. This afternoon, Lord Worsley had come, pale and even more self-contained than usual, and spoken briefly with Malcolm. Laura had been to see her father and stepmother and James and Hetty, who had been surprisingly kind. She hadn't taken Emily on either visit, wanting to let her settle in here first, but she had promised to bring her soon.

"Worrying about things is part of life," Laura said. "But one does one's best to solve the problem and go on. That's what everyone is doing." Not that Louisa Craven's death and actions in life could ever be "solved," but sometimes with children one had to find a way to soften the truth.

Emily drew her knees up under the covers. "There are a lot of secrets."

"It's complicated," Laura said, settling down against the pillows. "Deciding what one can tell different people. Sometimes it's not safe to share everything with everyone."

And yet there was one secret that had lingered too long. "Emily." Laura touched the chain of the locket she'd put round her daughter's neck. "There's something I have to tell you."

Emily's gaze darted over her face, and Laura realized her mistake. "Nothing's wrong," she said. "Nothing's changed. But when I told you I'd been a friend of your mother's, that wasn't entirely the truth."

Emily locked her hands round her knees, her gaze fastened on Laura's own. "You didn't know my mother? Or you weren't friends? Or ..." She trailed off, studying Laura's face. "Are you her sister?"

"What makes you think that?"

"You look like me. And like they said my mother looked. But no one ever said she had a sister."

"Emily." Laura put her arm round the little girl. "A lot of what you've been told about your mother was true. She was in a carriage accident, a very bad one. She lost consciousness, and you came before she woke up. But she didn't die. She woke up to find her daughter had been taken away. It was the most horrible thing that ever happened to her."

Emily's eyes widened. "You're my mother, aren't you?"

"Yes, sweetheart. And I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner."

Emily's face screwed up. "I'm sure you tried."

"What makes you say that, love?"

"Because you're brave. And kind. So you would have."

Raoul dropped down on a black metal bench in the Berkeley Square garden beside Laura. "Being a mother suits you."

She smiled, then cast a quick glance at the children. Colin and Emily were setting up the castle beneath the shade of the plane trees, while Jessica bounced on her black-kid-slippered feet and Berowne rolled in the grass. The breath still caught in her throat at the unreality of the situation. "Every time I think of myself as a mother, I shake my head at how unreal it seems."

"You'll get used to it. Though I don't know that you'll ever take it for granted." Raoul's gaze moved over the children. "They appear to be getting on remarkably well."

"I keep waiting for one of them to test limits. But Colin and Jessica are very generous and Emily seems to enjoy having companions."

"All the fun of playmates without having to share parents."

"There is that." Last night, snuggled up against her, Emily had said,
You're only my mummy.
"I was afraid she might wish the Rannochs were her parents."

He swung his head round to meet her gaze. "That's nonsense."

"They have glamour. And position. And they're a—a normal family."

Raoul gave a shout of laughter. "Don't let Suzanne hear you say so. I don't think she'd take it as a compliment. Come to think of it, I'm not sure Malcolm would either." He placed his hand over her own. "Don't sell yourself short, Laura. Emily knows what you can offer her."

Warmth and familiarity shot through her. She watched Colin hold Jessica up to see over the fence, then looked back at Raoul. "Do you ever wish—"

"Every day," he said.

She nodded.

"On the other hand, I have more than I ever thought to." He was silent for a moment. "Do you miss it?"

"It?"

"Working for the Elsinore League."

She started to laugh, then gave the question honest consideration. "Not most of the time. But occasionally— Perhaps I miss the challenge. Does that sound mad?"

"Not in the least. Fortunately, with the Rannochs, life should offer plenty of challenges." Raoul's fingers tensed beneath her own. "I need to leave, my dear. I've just had news from Spain."

"A chance to remake the world?"

"I'm too much of a realist to hope for that. But to improve it a bit, perhaps. I need to be there."

She swallowed. She knew she couldn't ask for, or expect, anything else. "Of course."

"But I'll be back. Assuming I manage not to get myself killed."

"That's not funny."

"No. It's a reality. I have no right to expect a welcome, but I can at least say I hope for one."

She turned her hand in his own and squeezed his fingers.

"But shall I live in hope?" he asked.

"All men, I hope, live so," she said, answering his question and capping his quotation.

"I have no right to expect anything. I can offer you little enough, very much including marriage."

Her head snapped up. "God in heaven, do you imagine I ever again want—"

"You have every right not to, at least not now. But you also have every right to ask for it." He looked down at their interlaced fingers. "I have no right to ask you to feel any sort of obligation."

She swallowed. It was honesty, and she wanted honesty. Or so she tried to tell herself.

"But I feel one." He lifted her hand and carried it to his lips.

Her fingers tightened round his own. They sat in silence, watching the children, for several minutes. Minutes etched in memory. The warmth of his fingers through layers of gloves. The press of his arm against her own. A faint whiff of shaving soap when the wind shifted. Too soon he got to his feet and went over to the children. Jessica flung her arms round his knees. Raoul ruffled Colin's hair, kissed Emily's hand, which made her giggle, and stroked Berowne behind the ears. Then it was time to go. Laura willed her throat not to tighten, and tried to still the myriad questions whirling in her brain.

At the gate, he turned back, his hand on the latch. "Laura—"

She saw him hesitate, searching for the words. All at once she understood. She smiled. "I'll look after them for you."

Relief at her understanding broke across his face. "Thank you."