The Paris Affair (39 page)

“Oh, Gui.” Gabrielle put up a hand to brush his hair back from his forehead. “You can’t think you can just walk away.”

“On the contrary. As I told our uncle and aunt—your uncle and aunt—I don’t see what else I can do.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “I didn’t realize Oncle Jacques would go to Lord Dewhurst. Why did my uncle send you after me, sir?”

“Because he wants you back, you damn fool.”

Gui’s mouth twisted. “If he truly wanted me back, surely he’d have come after me himself. My uncle—my supposed uncle—has never been shy about making his wishes known. You were kind to me when I was a boy, sir, but I wish you’d stay out of this.”

Dewhurst drew a breath of frustration. The door from the passage burst open, and Rupert strode into the cross fire. “Gaby, I’ve just realized—”

He pulled up short, taking in the scene before him. “Father.” His voice turned as cold as a January wind. “What are you doing here?”

“Your father is delivering a message from my uncle,” Gui said. “He’s just leaving.”

“On the contrary,” Dewhurst said. “Rupert—”

“I have nothing to say to you, sir.”

“So you’ve made abundantly clear. I didn’t come here to see you as it happens. This is a private matter—”

“Rupert knows,” Gui said. “I told him and Gaby.” Gui turned to Rupert. “I’ve told my uncle and aunt the truth. Or rather I left them a letter. I’m making a clean break. It’s better for all of us.”

“You don’t know what’s better for them,” Dewhurst said.

“Gui.” Rupert took a step towards him, back ostentatiously to his father. “You can’t know what your family is thinking—”

“No,” Gui said, “and neither can you. Nor your father.”

“Gui.” Dewhurst put a hand on Gui’s shoulder. “If I could speak with you for a moment in private—”

Gui jerked away from Dewhurst’s hold. “For God’s sake, sir. See to your difficulties with your own son and stay the hell out of my life. If you feel guilty because you brought me to England, I absolve you of it. I wasn’t a child.”

“You were a boy.”

“I was old enough to know I was colluding in deception.”

“You don’t understand—”

“You’re right. I don’t understand what on earth makes you think this is any affair of yours. Is it that you knew I was Georges Laclos’s bastard? Or Oncle Jacques’s?”

Dewhurst stared at him. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s one explanation for my easy acceptance in the household. It doesn’t change things. I’m still not the rightful heir.”

Dewhurst drew a harsh breath.

“If you knew—”

“I know enough to know you should stay well out of it.”

“You can have no notion—”

“What gives you the right—”

“Because I’m your father, you damn fool.”

CHAPTER 35

Gabrielle felt all the blood drain from her face. Beside her, Rupert had gone stone still. So had Gui, his gaze fastened on Dewhurst. First with disbelief, then with dawning comprehension and a burst of anger. “So that was why—You seduced a housemaid on your friends’ estate. Did the Lacloses know I was your bastard?”

Dewhurst drew a breath, cast a quick glance at Gabrielle and Rupert.

“Cat’s out of the bag, Father,” Rupert said. “And your other sins make this one laughable.”

Dewhurst’s gaze clashed for a moment with Rupert’s. Then he turned back to Gui. “Your mother was—” He swallowed. “I was very fond of her. When I learned she was with child, naturally I made provision for both of you.”

“You paid another man to marry her.”

“That’s not—”

“No sense in wrapping plain facts up in clean linen. That, I suppose, you could reconcile with your gentleman’s code. But what about passing me off as part of your friend’s family?”

“Yes.” Rupert took a step forwards, arms folded across his chest. “I should like to hear your explanation for that as well.”

Dewhurst’s face twisted. “For years I thought you were dead. You have no idea what that was like.”

“To lose someone you love?” Rupert said. “We can imagine it.”

Dewhurst spared him a brief look, then turned back to Gui. “France was in chaos in those days. Anyone could fall prey to the rabble—”

“Sounds rather like now,” Gui murmured.

“It was nothing like now. The rabble were killing without heed.”

“And now the Royalists are. Go on.”

“At last I managed to track down some of your mother’s connections. They were reluctant to talk at first, but I persuaded them.”

“Bribed them?”

“Made them see I could offer you a better life.”

“But you didn’t offer it to me, did you? You got the Comte de Laclos to do so.”

“You must see.” Dewhurst’s voice was pleading. Gabrielle could almost feel sorry for him, had she not known everything else he had done. “I saw the unique chance to give you a life you might only have dreamed of. And to make my old friend happy because he had his brother’s child back. What harm did there seem in that? Of course at the time I never dreamed—”

“That I’d become the heir.”

“No.”

“Which I assume mattered a great deal to a man of your convictions.”

“It was an unfortunate series of events.”

“Which you contributed to,” Rupert said.

“Oh, my God.” Gui stared at Dewhurst. “You didn’t—That wasn’t part of why you acted against Bertrand, was it? So I’d become the heir?”

“Of course not. I was thinking solely of—” Dewhurst bit back the words.

“Your desire for your own heir?” Rupert demanded.

“I had nothing to do with what happened to Bertrand Laclos. Who was a traitor.”

Rupert lunged towards his father and smashed his fist into his face. Dewhurst collapsed backwards on the worn carpet, blood streaming from his nose.

“Glad you did that,” Gui said. “I’ve been itching to do it myself. But he is your father.”

“And yours.” Rupert turned to Gui, as though a fact had only just occurred to him. “It seems we’re—”

“Brothers,” Gui concluded. His gaze lingered on Rupert’s. “Of all the revelations lately about my relations, that’s one I’m not sorry to hear.”

“Nor am I.” Rupert reached out and gripped Gui’s hand.

“You see,” Gabrielle said to her brother (her husband’s brother). “You can’t simply walk away, Gui, you are part of this family.” She dropped down on the carpet beside Dewhurst.

“Gabrielle,” Rupert said in a sharp voice.

“He’s hurt, Rupert. We can’t just leave him.” She tugged her handkerchief from her sleeve and put it to Dewhurst’s nose. “Tilt your head forwards, Lord Dewhurst.” Gabrielle slid her arm behind his shoulders.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“Don’t think I’m not sickened as well. But it serves little purpose for you to be bleeding over the carpet.”

Dewhurst groaned, then sat bolt upright, spattering blood not only over the carpet but on her skirt as well. “What’s that commotion?”

“More arrivals at the inn, I shouldn’t wonder.” Gui walked to the window.

Dewhurst pushed himself to his feet and strode to the window, holding the handkerchief to his nose. “What the devil is the Duchess of Sagan doing here?”

“Rupert.” Gabrielle gripped her husband’s arm. “I need you for a moment.”

Rupert let her pull him out onto the landing. “I could kill—”

“Not now, Rupert. We have the Courland sisters and Suzanne and Juliette Dubretton below. And St. Gilles and Malcolm and Monsieur O’Roarke and Simon Tanner will be here at any moment. Along with the Davenports and the Kestrel. What are we going to do with your father?”

“I could hit him again and knock him out.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s an honest suggestion.”

“Satisfying as that might be, we can’t be sure it would work for long enough.”

Steps sounded on the stairs. Gabrielle turned, expecting the Courland sisters, and instead found herself looking at her cousin Christian.

“Good lord,” he said. “What are you doing here, Gabrielle? Caruthers?” He swept an extravagant bow, got his legs tangled up, and had to clutch the stair rail to keep from falling.

“We’re on our way to the Lagarde fête,” Gabrielle said in a voice bright as polished silver.

“So am I as it happens. Suppose it’s not surprising we stopped at the same inn. Should have driven out from Paris together.”

The door creaked open below. Christian peered over the stair rail. “Good God. It’s the Courland sisters. They must be on their way to the fête as well. Quite a coincidence.”

Gabrielle flashed a glance at her husband, wondering how far they’d be able to stretch the idea of coincidence.

“A private parlor.” Wilhelmine of Sagan’s voice carried up the stairwell, ringing with confident assurance. “And a light meal as soon as is convenient.”

“Duchess.” Gabrielle picked up her skirts and ran down the stairs. “What a coincidence. Are you on your way to the Lagardes’ as well?”

Wilhelmine of Sagan stood in the midst of the hall, dominating the scene. Dorothée Talleyrand stood beside her. Behind them, lingering back at the respectful distance appropriate to servants, were Suzanne Rannoch and Juliette Dubretton, Suzanne holding Colin, Juliette with the baby in her arms, a little girl and a little boy hiding behind her skirts.

“Madame Caruthers.” It was Dorothée who spoke. “How pleasant to see you.”

The plan was for Gabrielle to offer them the use of her private parlor. Instead she said, “We’re encountering so many friends today. My brother is upstairs with my father-in-law.”

She saw the briefest flicker of recognition in the duchess’s eyes, followed by a polite smile. “What a coincidence indeed.”

“Madame Rannoch?” Christian took a step forwards, blinking at Suzanne.

“Monsieur Laclos.” Suzanne stepped forwards with a winning smile that somehow gave the impression that she wore pearls and silk rather than gray-spotted muslin. “How lovely to see you.”

Christian’s gaze darted over her gown and simple straw bonnet. “Did—”

Booted feet thudded on the stairs. Gui and Lord Dewhurst came into view. Dewhurst’s nose had stopped bleeding, though red stains showed on his shirt collar and cravat. “Dewhurst is feeling a bit unwell,” Gui announced. “I’m going to take him back to Paris.”

Gabrielle sent her brother—Rupert’s brother, poison, she would never sort this out in her head—a look of gratitude.

Christian blinked as the men moved past him. “I say, Dewhurst, is that blood on your neckcloth?”

“I tripped,” Dewhurst said in repressive tones. “The carpet was loose.”

“Dashed shame. Perhaps we should report it to the inn—”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Gui said. He inclined his head to the Courland princesses and their supposed maids. “Ladies.”

Gabrielle released her breath as her brother and uncle stepped out of the inn. Only then did she realize she had been holding it. She smiled across the hall at Wilhelmine and Dorothée. “We’ve had refreshments sent up. Far more than we can eat ourselves. Do join us.”

It was the planned script, save that they had not expected to have to include Christian in the invitation. Only of course she could hardly fail to include her cousin. Christian, deaf to any undercurrents that he might be unwanted—but then Christian was always deaf to undercurrents—bounded cheerfully up the stairs after the ladies.

In their private parlor, she saw David’s gaze flicker to Suzanne, so briefly she doubted anyone else noticed. Then he set about pouring out wine and passing out cakes. Pierre and Marguerite knelt on the window seat and peered down into the inn yard.

“Pity your father fell, Rupert,” Christian said, accepting a glass of wine. “Should be a splendid party. Good of old Gui to take him back to Paris.”

“Gui is the best of brothers,” Gabrielle said.

“Oh, quite,” Christian said, though Gabrielle caught a note of doubt in his voice.

“A cart just pulled in,” Pierre reported from the window seat. “It looks like peddlers.”

“Anyone will stop at inns these days,” Christian said.

Dorothée took a sip of wine. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

They made desultory conversation about the weather until footsteps pounded on the stairs. Gabrielle barely had time to be worried before her brother burst into the room. He checked for a moment, taking in Christian with a quick glance.

“What happened?” Rupert demanded. “Did Father—”

“He’s unconscious,” Gui said.

“What?”

“He tripped in the inn yard.”

“I’ll take a look at him.” Suzanne was already on her feet. Dorothée moved to take Colin.

“Good lord,” Christian murmured as Gabrielle sprang to her feet as well. “Dewhurst does seem accident prone today. I hope it isn’t his heart.”

CHAPTER 36

“What really happened?” Suzanne muttered to Gui as they ran down the stairs with Rupert and Gabrielle behind them.

“Dewhurst appeared to trip over a coil of rope. But I have the strangest suspicion the Kestrel made it happen. We met him coming out of the stables. He’d just arrived. Davenport and Lady Cordelia are with Dewhurst.”

Rupert shook his head as they reached the ground floor. “Didn’t the Kestrel realize you were getting Father out of here?”

Gui’s brows drew together. “I had the oddest feeling he was afraid.”

“Of Father? He doesn’t even know Father.”

“I think perhaps he thought your father would recognize him.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. They don’t know each other.”

“How do you know?” Gabrielle said. “We don’t know who the Kestrel is behind all that makeup.”

Lord Dewhurst lay on the floor in the stable. Cordelia knelt on one side of him, Harry on the other. “His pulse is steady,” Cordelia said, looking up at Suzanne.

Suzanne dropped down beside Cordelia and ran her fingers over Dewhurst’s head. No blood, and his breathing was steady. “He should come round,” she told Rupert and Gabrielle. “We should carry him inside and put him somewhere he can be comfortable and not catch a chill.”

Suzanne and Cordelia ran ahead to ask the innkeeper for a room on the ground floor to find that Wilhelmine had already done so. Dorothée came in, carrying Colin, who wriggled to be set down. David went to help the men with Dewhurst. Rupert and Harry laid Dewhurst on the sofa in the parlor. Suzanne knelt beside him to check his pulse. It was still strong.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Rose squawked. A moment later, Juliette poked her head into the room, jiggling a fussing baby. “Have you seen Pierre and Marguerite? I went to change Rose and suddenly they were gone.”

“Perhaps they ran outside,” Dorothée said. “We can—”

A yelp from the inn yard put an end to her words. “Stay with Lord Dewhurst,” Suzanne murmured to David. She scooped up Colin, who was clinging to her skirts, and ran outside, followed by the others.

They found Christian Laclos in the center of the yard beside a chaise, clutching his arm. A defiant Pierre and Marguerite faced him.

“What happened?” Suzanne asked, arms tightening instinctively round her own son.

“I bit Monsieur Laclos,” Marguerite said.

Juliette ran to her elder daughter. “Why on earth—”

“Because he was trying to make Pierre go into his carriage.”

Christian Laclos put his hand up to his cravat. “There’s been a misunderstanding—”

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding.” Pierre ranged himself by his sister.

“You’ve been very brave,” Suzanne said, aware of Colin taking in the scene with wide eyes. “And it occurs to me we’ve shockingly neglected giving you anything to eat. Cordelia, could you take the children to the kitchen?”

“Of course,” Cordelia said.

Marguerite looked at the adults in indignation. “We stopped him—”

“I say—,” Christian sputtered.

“—and now you’re going to just send us away?”

Juliette knelt down beside her daughter. “We’ll tell you later, sweetheart.”

“All of it?”

Juliette drew a breath but kept her gaze steady on Marguerite. “As much as we can.”

“That’s not—”

Pierre touched his sister’s arm. “Come on, Marguerite. They can’t talk with us here.”

Cordelia took Colin from Suzanne’s arms and reached for Marguerite’s hand. Marguerite cast a lingering glance over her shoulder, but when Pierre took her other hand she permitted herself to be led away.

A gust of wind cut across the cobbled yard. “Terrible misunderstanding,” Christian Laclos muttered.

“My children are remarkably unfanciful,” Juliette said, pulling Rose tight against her. Rose craned her neck to look around, eyes bright with curiosity. “Or are you calling them liars?”

“Of course not. I was just trying to . . . distract them.”

“An interesting euphemism for kidnapping,” Suzanne said.

Christian Laclos stared at her. “My dear Madame Rannoch, what on earth would I have wanted with the child?”

Suzanne stared into that affable face and those wide blue eyes. If this was an act, he was a master. And yet—“An inheritance.”

Juliette glanced towards the kitchen, where Cordelia had taken her children.

Christian blinked. “Get things a bit confused, but don’t see how a painter’s son could have anything to do with—”

“Not unless you realized the identity of the woman who had given birth to him. And the man who might have fathered him. You were part of Étienne Laclos’s failed plot. It would have been only natural for Étienne to have confided in you about his feelings for Tatiana Kirsanova.”

Christian’s gaze slid to the side. “Well—er—yes.” He coughed. “Ladies present. Don’t like to—”

“I assure you we aren’t in the least shocked,” Wilhelmine said.

Christian’s gaze lowered to his boots. “Of course Étienne did mention it. Princess Tatiana. He was mad for her. Are you saying—One of those children is theirs?” He shook his head in a perfect show of confusion.

“The boy may be,” Juliette said.

“ ‘May be’?” Christian shook his head again. “You don’t know? Well, that’s—that’s Princess Tatiana, I suppose. That is—no wish to cast aspersions. But even if you were sure he was Étienne’s son, the boy wouldn’t inherit anything.”

“He would if his parents had been married.” Suzanne glanced at Juliette. “There are more papers hidden somewhere, aren’t there?”

Juliette drew a harsh breath. Horse hooves pounded, cutting the still air. Malcolm, Raoul, St. Gilles, and Simon rode into the inn yard. Suzanne met her husband’s gaze. A gasp sounded. She looked round to see Christian holding a pistol to Dorothée’s temple.

“Don’t be an idiot, Laclos,” Malcolm said in the sudden taut silence. “You can’t get past all these people.”

“On the contrary,” Christian said. He glanced at the chaise, but there was no coachman on the box. “All of you back away. I’m going to the stable. When I’ve ridden out of here I’ll release Madame Talleyrand.”

“You bastard,” Wilhelmine said.

“Oh no, I assure you,
madame la duchesse,
I’m a Laclos to the core. Unlike Gui over there.”

Christian backed into the shadows of the stable, pulling Dorothée with him. Doro was stone still, her face white above the satin ribbons on her bonnet. He’d let her go, Suzanne told herself. Probably. He was a desperate man and so much could go wrong when someone held a pistol. She met Malcolm’s gaze and then Raoul’s, weighing the pros and cons of action. Too dangerous with the gun to Doro’s temple. But if Christian drove off with her—

The inn door swung open. A maidservant ran out and screamed. Christian spun towards her, leveling his gun. Malcolm hurled himself across the yard and knocked the maid to the ground. A report echoed through the yard.

A scream tore from Suzanne’s throat, but it was Christian who crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from his temple. Dorothée swayed and would have fallen to the ground as well, but the Kestrel, still garbed as the old peddler woman, stepped out of the shadows of the stable and caught her in his arms. In one hand he held a smoking pistol.

Malcolm helped the maidservant to her feet and ran to Christian. Rupert got there at the same moment. Malcolm put his fingers to Christian’s throat, looked at Suzanne, and shook his head. Wilhelmine ran to take Dorothée from the Kestrel. Suzanne came up beside them as the Kestrel dropped down beside Christian. “God help me,” he said in English, a low, barely accented voice that Suzanne had never heard from him before. “I hoped I was done with killing.”

Rupert sat back on his heels and stared at the Kestrel. He didn’t move a muscle or utter a sound, but Suzanne felt his absolute stillness.

The Kestrel lifted his head and the look that passed between them would have smashed glass.

Rupert drew a breath that trembled in the air. “Bertrand?”