The Paris Plot (4 page)

S
uzanne left the ladies’ retiring room—a rather incessant need these days—at the start of the first interval and stepped into the grand salon. A buzz of conversation and the clink of champagne glasses greeted her. The light of wax tapers glittered off gilt paint and a profusion of diamonds, real and paste. Not to mention gold braid and military insignias. A year and a half after Waterloo, soldiers still thronged Paris. She was scanning the crowd for Malcolm when Dorothée Talleyrand hurried over to her in a whirl of midnight blue crêpe and white satin.

“Dearest, how dreadful.” Dorothée clutched Suzanne’s arm. Doro was not generally given to dramatics, but last night’s events qualified for hyperbole. “My uncle told me what happened. I thought Paris was less violent with the Ultras out of power since the election. If a decent man like Malcolm can be attacked—”

“Malcolm would say decency is relative when one is a spy.”

Dorothée’s delicate brows drew together. “Your husband is one of the best men I know.”

“I agree. It isn’t stopping him from being hard on himself.”

“Of course he’s concerned for you.” Dorothée drew Suzanne between two dragoons and a diplomat from one of the German states to a cream satin sofa against the wall. “You must be careful,
ma chère
Suzette. You can’t put the baby at risk.”

“The baby’s fine.”

“He or she will be here for Christmas.” Dorothée’s face brightened and she looked like the schoolgirl she had been not so very many years ago. “I am looking forwards to having Christmas in Paris again.”

“I do hope you’ll put up a tree at the Hôtel de Talleyrand. Colin still talks about the one you had in Vienna.”

“Of course. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a tree. And then we will have your baby to play with in the new year.” Dorothée adjusted her pearl bandeau over her glossy brown ringlets. “Somehow it didn’t seem quite like Christmas last year in Vienna.”

Two years ago, Dorothée had served as hostess for Prince Talleyrand, her husband’s uncle, at the Congress of Vienna. She and Suzanne had met and become friends in the whirl of the Congress. Far away from her unfaithful husband and her unhappy arranged marriage, Dorothée had started a love affair with the handsome Austrian Count Karl Clam-Martinitz. After Waterloo, Doro had come to Paris, but then she had gone back to Vienna with Clam-Martinitz. This past February she had returned to Paris without Clam-Martinitz but again had taken up residence with Talleyrand rather than her husband. Suzanne was delighted to have her friend back in Paris, but she and Doro had never really discussed the circumstances surrounding Doro’s return. Doro had avoided it, and Suzanne hadn’t wanted to press her. Dorothée’s last words seemed an oblique sort of opening.

“You must have missed your children,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, dreadfully. It’s particularly hard at the holidays. And Karl and I—Well, by last Christmas it was becoming clear that it was over. It’s not that I didn’t love him, I did, but—”

“You fell out of love?”

“No. Yes.” Dorothée glanced away. “It sounds beastly. Karl is a good man. But he’s . . . simple.” She looked back quickly at Suzanne. “I don’t mean that his understanding is in any way deficient. He has a keen mind. But his view of the world is . . . simpler . . . than mine.”

Suzanne looked steadily at her friend. “Complexity can be very attractive.”

Dorothée twisted her diamond bracelet round her white-gloved wrist. “There’s something seductive about it. The allure of trying to figure out another person.”

“At the very least one knows one will never grow bored.”

“Precisely.” Dorothée cast a glance about, but amid the cacophony of talk in the salon they were as private as if they’d been in an antechamber. She fiddled with one of the pearl clasps on her crêpe robe. “Oh, poison, why am I having such a hard time saying it?”

“As an outside observer, I’d say you’ve been in love with him for some time. Even when you were still in love with Karl.”

“Him?” Dorothée gave a despairing laugh. “You can’t come right out and say it, either.”

Suzanne met her friend’s gaze. “Talleyrand.”

The sound of a champagne cork popping echoed in the still air. Dorothée drew a sharp breath and returned Suzanne’s gaze. “It seems as though the sky should fall or the earth should stop spinning or something.”

“And yet all seems much as it did before.”

Dorothée smoothed the flower links of her bracelet. “It frightens me sometimes. The intensity.”

“Of how he feels about you?” Suzanne recalled the look in Talleyrand’s eyes when they rested on Doro, especially when he thought he was unobserved.

“That too. But I meant how I feel about him. He makes me feel safe, but he also challenges me. I know people said he was pining for me when I was gone—though I can’t imagine Talleyrand letting me or anyone interfere with his work—but the truth is I missed him dreadfully. It was as though so much color and richness was gone from the world. It took me a long time to call it what it was.”

“Love can take different forms.”

“Yes.” Dorothée stared at her white-gloved fingers against the inky blue of her gown. “It’s not at all moonlight and roses as it was with Karl. But then moonlight and roses can pall a bit after time.”

“One wants substance.” There was very little of moonlight and roses in Suzanne’s relationship with Malcolm. “Someone with whom one will never grow bored.”

“Precisely. It was almost as though I was afraid to admit how important he was to me.” Dorothée scanned Suzanne’s face. “I wasn’t sure you’d approve.”

“Why not? I’m very fond of Talleyrand.”

“There’s no denying he does things that could be called questionable.”

Suzanne nearly choked. “Who doesn’t?”

“Yes, but you know what I mean. You and Malcolm are both so ridiculously honorable.”

Suzanne bit back a desperate laugh. “Perhaps that’s just the side of us you see, dearest.”

Dorothée picked up her lace fan and unfurled the carved sticks. “I’m not sure sometimes what Talleyrand will do, how far he’ll go. But I own that intrigues me.”

“He’s a complex man. Whatever else he may do, I don’t think he’ll do other than have the greatest care when it comes to you, Doro.”

“And that makes you approve?” Dorothée looked at Suzanne as she would at her elder sisters.

“I think happiness is difficult enough to find. We should all snatch it when we can.”

“You’ve done more than snatch it.”

Suzanne spotted Malcolm across the room talking to their friend Henri Rivaux. Her chest tightened in a way that owed nothing to her maternity corset or the pressure of the baby. “We never know what the future may hold.”

 

 

“Malcolm.” Henri Rivaux slipped between a Russian attaché and a British colonel in the press of theatregoers thronging the salon. “Is Suzanne—”

“She hasn’t had the baby yet.” Malcolm inclined his head towards his wife, sitting on a cream satin sofa across the salon with Dorothée Talleyrand, Suzanne’s walnut brown ringlets brushing Dorothée’s lighter brown curls as they shared confidences. “Though I made sure our carriage is drawn up where it can be here within minutes.”

Henri grinned. He had grown up a great deal during the battle of Waterloo and its aftermath, not to mention the effects of marriage and fatherhood, but he still had a boyish grin. “I remember when Rachel was about to deliver. I scarcely slept for a fortnight. I was so afraid we’d need to summon the doctor at any moment.”

“How is little Paul?”

“Desperate to be on the move. He inches on his stomach now. I call it almost crawling. Rachel says I’m exaggerating.” Henri’s gaze shot for a moment to the auburn head of his wife, standing to the side with Georgiana Lennox and Sarah Maitland. “See here, Malcolm. Something a bit odd happened. Two nights ago someone threw a rock through our window.”

Malcolm tensed as though at an unknown rustle in enemy territory. “Into your house?”

“Yes, the library. Fortunately, we were all asleep upstairs. I’d put it down to the general unsettled state of Paris, but there was a note wrapped round the rock.”

“What did it say?”

Henri’s brows drew together. “ ‘You consorted with traitors. ’ ” He met Malcolm’s gaze, adult wariness mingling with the uncertainty of youth. “I did consort with traitors.”

“You gathered information from a Bonapartist spy ring.”

“Meaning either Bonapartists or Royalists could call me a traitor.”

Malcolm clapped a hand on Henri’s shoulder. “Welcome to the life of a spy.”

Henri glanced round the crowd in the salon and lowered his voice. “The thing is, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with Rachel.”

“It’s possible a Bonapartist could call Rachel a traitor for giving intelligence to the British.”

Henri nodded. “Though I’m almost more afraid they know—”

He checked himself. Even to Malcolm he wasn’t going to put into words that Rachel had worked in a brothel when he met her. Not, Malcolm knew, because it embarrassed him but because of his fierce determination to protect his wife. “I doubt it,” Malcolm said. “We were very careful in creating Rachel’s cover story. But of course one can never be sure.”

Henri met his gaze. “I just want to protect her. From everything. Rachel tells me not to be foolish. That she was surviving risks long before we met. And I know it’s true. It’s part of what I love about her. But I look at her and—”

“I know the feeling,” Malcolm said. He glanced at Suzanne again, her blue-green eyes focused on whatever Dorothée was saying, her winged brows drawn with concern. In the midst of everything, Suzanne’s attention was focused on her friend. “Henri—” Malcolm turned back to the young man. “I don’t want to alarm you further. But Suzette and I received a similar warning last night. Only ours said I’d pay for my crimes.”

“Good God. You—”

“We’re unhurt. Though the rock went too close to Suzette for my comfort.”

Henri’s eyes narrowed. “You worked with Rachel. It—”

“It’s possible I’m the traitor they’re referring to.”

“Anyone would have to be mad to use that word about you.”

“When it comes to intelligence it’s all a matter of perspective. Do you still have the note?”

Henri reached inside his coat and produced a paper. Malcolm studied it in the light from the candle sconces. “It looks like a similar hand to the one Suzette and I received. Do you mind if I keep it?”

“On the contrary.” Rachel had turned round and smiled at Henri. Henri lifted his champagne glass to her in a silent toast. “Anything that will help you.”

Malcolm nodded at Rachel and received an answering smile. When she turned away, he gripped Henri’s shoulder. “I won’t lie to you. It’s possible this is to do with Rachel. But if so you have my word I will do everything in my power to get to the bottom of it and see no harm comes to either of you. I don’t know what comfort that is—”

“Actually,” Henri said, smiling though his eyes remained serious, “it’s quite a bit of comfort. I’ve seen you in action.”

 

 

Suzanne looked at Malcolm across the carriage as they pulled away from the tumult of the Palais Royale where the Comédie-Française was housed. She had consented to leave after the first interval when Malcolm said he had new information. “You think someone was calling Rachel a traitor because she worked with you?”

“It’s one possible explanation. There could easily be Bonapartists who think Henri is a traitor for infiltrating the Bonapartist spy ring and reporting to the British. Or Ultra Royalists who know he worked with the Bonapartists but don’t realize he was a double agent. But it’s harder to tie that back to me.”

“And it has to be tied to you because—”

“I received the other note. Saying I’d pay for my crimes.”

Suzanne’s hands locked together in her lap. If she was the one for whom the note had been meant, Henri could simply be being accused of consorting with traitors for being her friend. And yet—“It seems odd that of all our acquaintances, Henri or Rachel was the one singled out.” That applied whether the one accused of the crimes was Suzanne or Malcolm. They were close to Henri and Rachel, but they had other friends who would be more obvious targets. Harry and Cordelia. Geoffrey and Aline Blackwell. Dorothée and her sister Wilhelmine of Sagan. Even Talleyrand.

“So it is,” Malcolm said, steadying Suzanne as the carriage rounded a corner. “Unless these unspecified crimes connect to Rachel or Henri in some way.”

Suzanne pushed aside the layers of fear and guilt crowding her brain and tried to focus on the facts. That was how she had survived the past four years after all. “Baron de Vedrin was never caught when the spy ring collapsed just before Waterloo. Perhaps he’s resurfaced.” It would be lovely to be able to blame all this on something so simple. As lovely as a fairy tale and, she feared, as unrealistic.

“Perhaps,” Malcolm said.

Suzanne cast a quick look at him. In a flash of lamplight, his profile appeared carefully set. He was afraid, too, she realized. Afraid of what might be behind these threats. And afraid to tell her what he feared.

“Darling—”

She got no further because they pulled up in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Only to see that another carriage already stood before their hired house. She felt the jolt of concern that shot through Malcolm. And then—

“That looks like Harry and Cordy’s carriage,” she said.

“So it does.” The concern in Malcolm’s voice was tempered but still there. It wasn’t unusual for Harry and Cordelia to stop by after an evening at the theatre, but not unless they had made plans to do so first.

Malcolm descended from the carriage and scanned the street before helping Suzanne alight. By that time Valentin had come out of the house to assist them.

“Colonel Davenport and Lady Cordelia are here,” he said. “I’ve shown them into the library and made up the fire.”