The Paris Affair (16 page)

“So you knew you had to be discreet,” Suzanne said, wondering where Louise’s affair with Bertrand Laclos fit in with her early love affair with Emile Sevigny and her later marriage to him.

Louise nodded. “Some men are more complacent after their wives have given them an heir. But Jean’s birth didn’t change Carnot. Emile was dependent on commissions from the Bonaparte family and officials like Prince Talleyrand for his livelihood. Carnot could have ruined him. I lived with the dread of that, even when Carnot was away with the army.”

“Is that why you ended it?”

“Ended it?” Louise said on a note of surprise. “Oh, I never ended it. I tried once, but I couldn’t bear it. That was where Bertrand was so helpful.”

Suzanne frowned, looking into the artless face of the woman before her. “Are you saying Monsieur Laclos—”

“He found me crying in the garden at Madame Rémusant’s one night,” Louise said. “He said it couldn’t possibly be that bad. And I said what did he know about being trapped in a horrid marriage and in love with someone else—I do have a shockingly indiscreet tongue, I always have, it’s a wonder I don’t get myself into more trouble. But in any case, I found myself spilling the whole story out to him. Which only made me cry more. Bertrand put his arm round me. And just then—isn’t that the way it always happens—Madame Décazes walked by. Of course she’s the worst sort of gossip. I told Bertrand how sorry I was, and that now there’d be all sorts of talk about us. Bertrand smiled and said it would only enhance his credit to be thought to have such a mistress.” Louise flushed again. “Well, he said ‘a beautiful mistress,’ he was always so kind. And I said for that matter, if people thought he was my lover, there’d be less likely to be talk about me and Emile. Bertrand looked at me for a moment and said, ‘Why not?’ ”

“How very gallant of him,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, wasn’t it? At first I said I couldn’t let him risk himself, but he said there was precious little Carnot could do against a fellow officer, and if he challenged him to a duel—which would be dangerous, given that the emperor had forbidden them—he would quite enjoy the chance to cross swords with him. Though, truthfully, I don’t think Carnot would have risked a duel. He was a dreadful coward.”

Suzanne studied Louise Sevigny beneath the brim of the gypsy hat. Amazing how the most seemingly guileless person could prove a master of deception. “So you and Monsieur Laclos encouraged comment about your supposed liaison.”

“It’s not that we flaunted it. It’s just that we let there be just enough talk that no one would ever suspect about Emile and me.”

“And Monsieur Laclos?” Suzanne asked. “What did he gain from it?”

Louise frowned as though this was something she was still puzzling over years later. “He said he was tired of being dragged to brothels or having beautiful women thrust at him. He never said so in so many words, but I thought he’d left someone behind in England whom he loved. He was very loyal.”

“Did he ever refer to this person?”

Louise shook her head. “No. Except that once he said something about his heart already being given.” She met Suzanne’s gaze. “I know infidelity is the way of the world, but some men are constant. Bertrand was. Emile is.”

As was Malcolm. Suzanne took a sip of wine, the tang of guilt sharp in her mouth. “Your relationship with Monsieur Sevigny must have been more difficult after Monsieur Laclos died.”

Louise nodded, the memories stark in her gaze. “We had to be doubly careful. I tried to end things again. Bertrand’s death was so dreadful. But then Carnot fell at Salamanca.” She drew a sharp breath. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her gaze at once dark with guilt and bright with defiance. “I sound the horridest person on the planet to say I was glad. And I wasn’t precisely. But for the first time in my life I felt free.”

“Given your circumstances, I don’t see how you could but feel a bit relieved.”

“Do you?” Louise cast a quick glance at her children. “He’s my son’s father.”

“You weren’t responsible for his death. And it got you out of an intolerable situation.”

Louise rubbed her arms. “I can scarcely believe how it’s all turned out. How hopeless everything seemed when I used to cry on Bertrand’s shoulder. Now he’s dead, and I have everything I wanted. Do be careful,
chéri,
” she added, as a shriek of delight carried across the garden. Colin and Jules were dueling with sticks.

“Monsieur Laclos must have been a good friend to you,” Suzanne said.

“It was so splendid. I could talk to Bertrand about Emile, which was heaven. And about other things.” Louise paused a moment. “I think he was the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“And in many ways a friend is a rarer thing than a lover. I’m sure you were a good friend to him.”

“I hope so.” Louise’s brows drew together. “After I heard he’d been killed, I couldn’t help but wonder—” She turned to Suzanne, her gaze haunted with a guilt Suzanne understood all too well. “I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps Carnot did find out and was more willing to take revenge on a fellow officer than I’d thought.”

“Did he ever say anything to you about Monsieur Laclos?”

Louise shook her head. “No. Well, once after Bertrand’s death he made a comment about my not having a new cavalier.”

“Could you read anything behind it?”

“I couldn’t be sure. I went petrified and changed the subject.” Louise leaned forwards across the table. “Madame Rannoch, that’s why I told you all this. Because I have to know. If Carnot had anything to do with Bertrand’s death—”

“We don’t know that. And even if by any chance he did, Monsieur Laclos was a grown man who made his own choices.” Suzanne hesitated. A gust of wind ripped through the garden, bringing the scent of lavender. “Madame Sevigny, guilt has a way of lingering. And corroding. But it’s a poor foundation for a life. And it will do no good to your husband and children. You need to let go of it. For their sake if not your own.”

Louise Sevigny met her gaze, her own wide with surprise and understanding. “You sound as though you understand so well.”

“Personal experience,” Suzanne said. It was a far greater admission than she normally made about her life.

Louise gave a faint but heartfelt smile. “Thank you.”

Suzanne took a sip of wine. “Madame Sevigny, was there anyone Bertrand ever indicated he was afraid of?”

Louise’s gaze darted over her face. “So you do think someone was behind his death?”

“It seems likely. But by no means does that mean it was your husband.”

Louise reached for her own wine. “Bertrand would never have admitted it to me if he had been afraid. He had a ridiculous protective streak. And yet—” She took a sip of wine. “I never connected it with his death—perhaps because I was so preoccupied worrying about Carnot. But he wrote me an odd letter just before he was killed. He said he’d discovered something unexpected. That he hoped to be back in Paris soon so he could learn more.”

“Did he give any indication what this was about?”

“No.” Louise set down her glass and stared at the shadow it cast on the table. “But he said if he was right it could change everything.”

“Étienne Laclos was a very gallant man,” Suzanne said, when she’d finished telling Malcolm about Étienne’s arrangement with Louise de Carnot.

“Rupert told me about a girl in Spain but not about Louise.” Malcolm glanced out across the stream. “I wonder if Rupert was protecting Louise’s reputation or if he knew the truth of the relationship or if he didn’t know about it at all.”

“What he’d discovered that he told Louise changed everything—do you think that’s the same reason he wrote to Stewart he was going to return to England?”

“It’s certainly suggestive.” Malcolm’s brows drew together. “Stewart may be slow, but when he got that letter even he had to have wondered why a traitor would have been thinking about returning to the country he was betraying. And yet he said nothing.”

“He didn’t want to be the man who’d ordered the death of a man who might be innocent.”

“Quite.” Malcolm’s fingers curved inwards as though he’d like to smash them into Stewart’s face. “Precisely what Bertrand had discovered remains open to question.”

“Malcolm—” Suzanne glanced down the gravel walk in the Jardin des Tuileries where Simon and David were walking with Colin between them. With the clarity of an image on the stage, she saw Simon’s expression when she’d talked to him and David about Rupert Caruthers. How could she be so blind to a truth that was staring her in the face? “I never asked you—With David and Simon, did you know immediately? What they meant to each other, that is?” she concluded, feeling unwontedly awkward.

Malcolm frowned a moment, as though sifting through the past. “I was there when they met. At Oxford. In a dusty hall, where we were rehearsing
Henry IV Part I
. I can’t say I knew instantly. But by the end of that rehearsal, I was making conversation with Oliver Lydgate and doing my best to appear invisible so David and Simon could talk.” He hesitated. Malcolm didn’t talk about anyone’s feelings easily. “I can’t pretend to know precisely how and when the relationship progressed, but the spark was clear from the first.” He gave a faint smile. “Though it was more than a year later before Oliver asked me if I thought there might be something between David and Simon, and even then I don’t think he’d have said it if he hadn’t been three sheets to the wind.”

Gleeful laughter carried back on the breeze. Colin was giggling as Simon held him up to examine a bird’s nest in a tree overhead. “But you already knew that David—” Why was she having trouble saying it? She could be perfectly frank about most love affairs. But then most love affairs didn’t risk getting the participants arrested. “You’d known that David was attracted to men for some time.”

Malcolm shot a look at her. “I can’t remember not knowing. No, that’s not quite true. We were boys when we met at Harrow. I didn’t think about it one way or another. Even as we got older, as David showed little interest in girls or inclination to talk about them, I thought he was just reticent as I was.” He glanced ahead at their son, as though hoping Colin navigated the shoals of adolescence better than he had himself. “But then I remember one day in a maths lecture seeing David glance at another boy. Just glance. There wasn’t anything between them. David was as slow to develop in such matters as I was. But somehow I knew. And it wasn’t like discovering something surprising. It was acknowledging something I should have seen long since.” He studied her face. “Why?”

Suzanne drew a breath, fragrant with fresh cut grass and orange trees. Even now she hesitated to put it into words, because it was based so much on intuitions and impressions. “Because Louise Sevigny said she thought Bertrand loved someone in England. And I’m wondering if perhaps it should be blindingly obvious to us who that person is.”

CHAPTER 13

Malcolm moved through the elm trees in the Jardin du Luxembourg, planted by Marie de’ Medici some two centuries ago. Rupert Caruthers was slumped on the ground, his back against a tree trunk, his gaze fixed on the leaf-strewn ground, though Malcolm suspected whatever he was seeing had more to do with memory than with what was presently before him. Malcolm took a half step forwards, letting the toe of his boot crunch over a pile of fallen leaves.

Rupert looked up with a start of surprise. “Malcolm. I didn’t realize—”

“You were lost in thought.”

“I come here, sometimes, when I want to get away.” Rupert hesitated, then, his face oddly vulnerable, added, “Bertrand wrote to me about it. It was his favorite spot in Paris.”

Malcolm dropped down on the ground beside Rupert. The smell of damp earth brought a memory of boyhood rambles. “You were right to have faith in Bertrand. He wasn’t working for the French.”

Rupert’s gaze shot to Malcolm’s face. Relief, triumph, grief, and anger did battle in his eyes. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be. Talleyrand says the French were shocked to learn Bertrand had been working for us.”

“By God—” Rupert started to push himself to his feet.

“Rupert.” Malcolm gripped his friend’s wrist. “I’ll do everything in my power to learn the truth. I swear it. But rushing off in anger won’t solve anything.”

“It will—”

“Vengeance is singularly corrosive. And you don’t know whom to wreak vengeance on.”

“Stewart is—”

“An arrogant fool and a danger to his own people. But he’s not the man who set Bertrand up. And if we’re going to learn who did, we need to keep our wits about us.”

Rupert hesitated, his wrist taut in Malcolm’s grip. “If only I’d—”

“Don’t, Rupert. For God’s sake don’t blame yourself. Therein lies the way to madness.”

“I owed it to him—”

“You owe it to him to try to discover the truth. And not to ruin your life.”

Rupert drew a harsh breath. “My life was—” He bit back the words and collapsed back beside Malcolm on the ground.

“You must miss him a great deal,” Malcolm said.

The vulnerability was gone. Rupert’s face turned as guarded as the Hofburg Palace. “He was my best friend.”

“I think one’s childhood friends sometimes know one as no one else does. I know that’s true for me with David Mallinson.”

A question flickered in Rupert’s eyes. He must know about David’s relationship with Simon. Was he wondering if Malcolm had brought David up to test the waters? For a moment Malcolm thought he’d pushed it too far and Rupert would close up completely. Then, as though he had a compulsion to speak, Rupert said, “I don’t make friends easily. Not the sort one confides in. Losing someone like that—It’s like a window shutting. A part of one’s life closed off forever.”

“A horrible feeling,” Malcolm said. “I find it difficult enough to share things myself. I’ve learned I can talk to my wife. Better than I ever thought I’d be able to. But sometimes I think I’m afraid if she sees too much it will change the way she feels about me.”

Rupert’s gaze shot to his face, as though he was surprised by how much Malcolm had revealed. In truth, Malcolm was surprised himself. “You’re fortunate in your marriage, Malcolm. Gaby and I—I’m fond of her. And I think she is of me. But we’re not confidants.”

Malcolm stretched his legs out in front of him and contemplated the toes of his boots. “For a long time I never thought I’d marry at all. I hadn’t seen a particularly good example from my parents, and I doubted I’d be good at sharing my life with anyone. I suppose the truth is I didn’t think it was fair to inflict myself on anyone. Then I met Suzanne, who’d been left alone in the midst of a war. That gave me an excuse.”

“Gaby needed protection,” Rupert said. “It had always been hard for the family as émigrés and with the scandal about Bertrand it had grown intolerable. And of course I needed—”

“You needed a wife. As heir to an earldom. A burden I didn’t share. I imagine you were under considerable pressure from your parents to marry.”

“Isn’t everyone?”

“My mother died years ago, and my father never paid much interest to me. Not an ideal relationship with a parent, but there are certain advantages.”

Rupert gave a bleak smile. “My parents wanted me to marry, of course. It got worse as I got older. Gaby was in difficult straits, and I’ve always been fond of her. It seemed the right time—”

“Did Gabrielle understand?” Malcolm asked.

“Understand what?”

“What you were offering her?” His own proposal to Suzanne rang hollow in his ears.

Rupert hesitated.

“I warned Suzanne,” Malcolm said. “That I hadn’t thought to marry and didn’t think I’d be very good at it. I made it very clear what I was offering. And what I wasn’t.” He drew his knees up, scraping his boots over the ground. Hot shame washed over him.

“I didn’t—That is, I never said—”

“I suppose it rather has to do with how Lady Caruthers feels about you. I had no illusions about how Suzanne felt about me.” He could see the wide-eyed surprise in her gaze that night on a balcony overlooking the river Tagus when he proposed. “And yet I wondered often after we married if I’d done an unfair thing to her. Because however much I’ve come to care for her, I can’t make myself into something I’m not.”

“That’s just it.” The words burst from Rupert with sudden force. “I care for Gaby, but I can’t be—” He bit back whatever he had been going to say and swung his gaze away, his face set hard.

“Rupert.” Malcolm touched the other man’s arm. “David and Simon Tanner are two of my best friends. I’ve known what was between them since we were at Oxford. I’ve known it was the sort of relationship David wanted for longer than that. I value what they share tremendously. To own the truth, I’ve been jealous of it.”

Rupert swung his head round to meet Malcolm’s gaze, defenses slammed into place. “What’s between Mallinson and Tanner is irrelevant—”

“You loved Bertrand,” Malcolm said. “That’s relevant. And I can’t imagine the hell it must have been for you to lose him and not be able to talk about it.”

Rupert jerked away from Malcolm. “Damn it, Rannoch—”

“Please, Rupert. I wouldn’t have pried if I didn’t need to learn the truth about Bertrand’s death. I think you want to learn it, too. But more than that I think you need to talk.”

Rupert’s fingers curled inwards, pulling the leather of his gloves taut across his knuckles. For a moment he looked like a trapped animal. Malcolm felt a stab of self-hatred. Then Rupert released his breath in a rough sigh. “I’ve never talked about it. I’ve never told . . . anyone.”

“Love’s difficult enough without having to keep it secret.”

Rupert stared at the interlaced leaves of an elm tree. “I didn’t know when we first became friends. We were only children. I only knew he understood me as no one else seemed to. Then it was as if . . . we both discovered it together.” His gaze held a wonder of a discovery he’d never put into words. Young, intense, delirious love of the sort Malcolm had never known. “We were able to spend so much time together. We never talked about the future, save that we both knew I was expected to marry. Somehow I thought we could go on as we had before. Share rooms in London when we finished up at Oxford. But of course my parents pressured me to take a wife. Of course ultimately it had to change. I sometimes think Bertrand saw that better than I did. And that it was because he saw it that he volunteered for the mission in France. It made the decision for both of us.”

“And allowed you to continue to work together.”

“That’s what Bertrand said.” Rupert turned his gaze to Malcolm. “I told you the truth yesterday. Bertrand didn’t tell me anything about the mission until he’d already volunteered his services to Carfax.”

“It must have been a shock,” Malcolm said. He worried enough when Suzanne went into danger, but at least she’d never volunteered her services to Castlereagh or Wellington without telling him. Not that he wouldn’t put it past her to do so or put it past them to use her without telling him.

“I was furious. I said Bertrand had no right to take such a decision without consulting me. He pointed out that we had no claim on each other.”

“That must have hurt.”

“You have no notion. And yet I couldn’t deny it.” Rupert scraped a hand through his hair. “I told him it was too dangerous. He said danger couldn’t stand in the way of duty. He accused me of thinking him a coward. I said I only wanted to protect him.”

Malcolm gave a rough laugh. “I’ve had remarkably similar conversations with Suzanne on more than one occasion.”

Rupert looked at him in surprise, then nodded. He picked up a fallen elm leaf and twirled it between his fingers. “That’s when Bertrand pointed out we could work together, that it was an adventure we could share. We argued until dawn. But in the end I couldn’t talk him out of it, and if he was set on it, I wanted to be part of things. Once I agreed, I got caught up in the mission. Even when we were apart we shared something. Something secret. That made a difference. And we could meet from time to time. It’s amazing how little one can learn to get by on.”

Malcolm nodded, thinking of the times he’d been separated from Suzanne. A prosaic note with no mention of love could still speak volumes.

Rupert went still, gaze fixed on the leaf in his fingers. “I was in Lisbon on leave at some damned embassy dinner when he—when it all happened.” He dropped the leaf. His hand curled into a fist. “When they killed him. I didn’t know until I got back. I couldn’t believe—Wellington showed me the proof. Even then—I couldn’t believe Bertrand would betray his country, but more than that, I couldn’t believe—”

“That he’d betray you?”

Rupert turned and looked Malcolm full in the face. “Yes. To trust someone so thoroughly—I’m not sure I ever will again.”

“And yet it seems you were right to trust him after all.”

Rupert squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You didn’t know what was happening. You couldn’t have prevented—”

“Not for not preventing it. For doubting Bertrand. For believing for even a moment that he could have been a traitor. Love isn’t supposed to have doubts.”

“Love is complicated.” Malcolm studied his friend in the shadows of the overhanging branches. “Tell me about after Bertrand was killed. What did you do?”

“You mean after I came close to calling Stewart a liar and nearly got myself cashiered for insubordination?” Rupert gave a bleak smile. “Bertrand was dead. And I wasn’t sure I’d ever even known him. To be honest I didn’t care much if I lived or died.”

Malcolm nodded. “There was a time in my life when I felt much the same. I stumbled through the motions.”

Rupert looked at him for a moment and nodded. “I went home on leave. Bertrand’s parents were devastated. His father had a stroke, and the family had already been suffering the social repercussions of him being assumed to have gone over to the French. We were stupid not to have thought of that. Gaby was trying to hold things together for her uncle and aunt. She missed Bertrand as well. We could talk about the good times.”

“It’s natural you were drawn together.”

Rupert grimaced. “And I knew what I owed to my name. It seemed one of the few things I had left to hang on to. Gaby was in precarious straits with no fortune and a family scandal. I could offer her protection. I could help Bertrand’s family, and do my duty to my own.”

“So you offered for her.”

Rupert nodded. “I thought—No, it’s foolish to say I thought we could be happy, because I didn’t think happiness was a possibility for me. But I thought we could rub along. I didn’t realize—”

“That perhaps Gabrielle’s feelings for you ran deeper than yours for her?”

Rupert’s mouth twisted. “I haven’t been—I haven’t been unfaithful to her. But as I said before, I can’t be what I know she wants me to be. And now she’s tied to me.”

“She has her child and a secure position. That counts for a lot.” Rupert looked sideways at him. “Is that what you tell yourself about Suzanne?”

Malcolm drew a breath. “I love Suzanne.” The words echoed oddly in his head. It wasn’t something he voiced very often. “But that doesn’t mean I can be what she wants or needs. Whatever the novelists say, love doesn’t transform one. I’m still the man I was before I met her, with the same scars and flaws and inadequacies. Love doesn’t sweep away all obstacles. In fact, sometimes it creates them. There can be a great deal to be said for rubbing along amicably.”

“But one misses—” Rupert scanned the trees that stretched before them, memories shifting through his eyes, at once painful and sweet.

“Yes,” Malcolm said.

“Who?” Rupert’s voice was rough. “Who did this to Bertrand?”

“I asked you before who his enemies were. Does your answer change now I know the truth?”

Rupert’s brows drew together.

“I take it the girl in Spain you told me about was a fabrication?”

“The girl existed. But the hopes were all on her side.”

“Who knew about your relationship with Bertrand?”

“No one.”

“You’re sure?”

“My God, you can’t think it’s the sort of thing we’d share.”

“Not willingly. But secrets can get out.”

Rupert shook his head. “We were careful. We both knew the consequences. We were both conscious of our families. And once Bertrand went to France and then Spain, we only saw each other in secret. For reasons of the mission more than our relationship.”

“What about Gui?” Malcolm asked.

“Malcolm, I told you yesterday, Gui’s a bit feckless, but you can’t think—”

“In investigations, I’ve learned never to rule anyone out.” Even his closest friends. “And money and a title are an obvious motive.”

“But there wasn’t any money then. Or estates. And the title was only a dream émigrés clung to. The family were in desperate financial straits. You can’t think Gui somehow foresaw Napoleon’s downfall and strategized to get rid of Bertrand so he could have the title and fortune after the Restoration? Morality aside, I don’t think Gui’s that organized or forwards thinking.”