The Westminster Intrigue, page 20
Palmerston grimaced. "Even before I left for the Continent, I wasn't in the best humor. I'd been harassed in Parliament all spring about the army estimates, with Brougham leading the charge."
"And then he led to the breakup of George and Caro Lamb's household, which contributed to your own domestic upheaval."
"Only you would call my relationship with Emily domestic."
"Well, it is, even if you have to keep it in the shadows. Which makes it all the harder to preserve." Something she knew more than a bit about, in various ways.
Palmerston gave a wry smile. "Emily led me the devil of a dance across Switzerland and northern Italy. I had an easier time finding Brougham and Caro than her. When I caught up with them in Milan, it was clear the affair was waning. I finally managed three days with Emily in Geneva. But she made it clear she needed to focus on Caro George, and that our movements couldn't shadow each other all over the Continent. She and the family spent months traveling round Italy. Where she met Giuliano and God knows whom else. I didn't know the half of it when I started on my own way home. But I knew—or suspected—enough to be out of sorts. I stopped in St. Omer to see a review of British cavalry. I met Danielle at the review. She was riding a splendid bay instead of sheltering in a carriage. She rides like the devil. She was—sympathetic. I needed a sympathetic ear. And I needed to prove my independence."
"I can understand that."
"Can you?" His gaze shot to her. "I know few women as devoted to their husbands as you are to Malcolm."
"Malcolm makes it easy to be devoted. But sometimes one feels the need to show one's happiness isn't wholly dependent on another person. All the more so, I should think, if one doesn't feel one can be entirely sure of that person."
"Yes, perhaps. Though I rather think you're letting me off the hook." Palmerston flexed his fingers and stared at them. "Remarkable how you can be such a good friend to Emily and to me."
"Why not? You and Emily are very good friends to each other. And you're a good friend to Malcolm and also to me."
"Touché." Palmerston gave a faint smile. "In any case, Danielle Darnault was a diversion when I very much needed one." His gaze fastened on a green-gold leaf. "I've known many beautiful and brilliant women. I count many as friends, regardless of what other relationship we do or don't have. You included. But Danielle had a way of listening that made it seem she really understood. And it wasn't an act, because then she'd suddenly make a comment or ask a question that showed she really was listening. And I needed to talk. More than I needed—other things." He slumped his shoulders against the back of the bench and tented his fingers together. "This may sound a bit laughable, given how open Em and I are in many ways with our friends, but it can be a challenge loving someone one can't love openly. Em has a family. A household. I—fit my life in round her schedule in many ways."
"As many women do with their lovers."
Palmerston raised his brows.
"Women who are mistresses."
Palmerston gave a shout of laughter. "Leave it to you, Mélanie, to suggest I'm like a kept woman. I'm fortunate to have a comfortable fortune and some quite tolerable properties. But it's true in our relationship I'm the one in the shadows. Don't get me wrong, I have a very agreeable life. Emily is central to my agreeable life." He dragged a boot toe through the gravel. "But sometimes I do feel I spend rather a lot of time dancing attendance on Emily. And I perhaps felt that particularly after traipsing across the Continent after her and then being packed off home like a lapdog." Bitterness cut through his voice like a too-strong squeeze of lemon in a civilized cup of tea.
"So you talked to Danielle about how you felt about Emily?"
"I said I needed to prove my independence. Which is how it felt. Part of it was—loving—Danielle. Part of it was talking to her. Pouring out my frustrations. And because I was unhappy. Because I trusted her. I said things I've never shared with anyone else. Things I would not want shared with the world in general."
"Things you'd pay to keep secret?"
Palmerston shot a look at her.
"Did anyone ask you to purchase the memoirs?"
Palmerston drew a long, rough breath. Mélanie could imagine him with the same breath and expression as he debated the wisdom of making a tricky political concession. "Last week. That man, Blayney—I'd never met him before, though I now know he grew up with Pendarves. He showed me a few pages. He told me what was in the others he had."
"Did you buy them?" Mélanie asked, in the same tone she'd use to ask one of her children if they'd told an untruth.
Palmerston dug his boot toe into the gravel. "I was considering." The breeze stirred the leaves overhead, casting shadows over his face. "I told you I'm comfortably situated, which I am. But I have my sisters and brothers to see to."
"Blayney asked for a lot."
"Blayney asked for a bloody fortune."
"Did you think about defying him?"
"Of course. It's not as though I don't live with gossip. It's not as though Emily doesn't. But you know how Mayfair works. There's gossip, and then there's gossip. One can live with the subtle kind that everyone knows but no one really admits to knowing. That everyone—or at least, everyone who matters—can turn a blind eye to. That sort of scandal seems to take place behind one of those pretty half-see-through curtains they drop before the main action of a play begins."
"A scrim."
"Yes. Very different when that curtain gets pulled up and the dirty business is in full view of the footlights. Em has a secure life. But she thrives on being a political hostess. She thrives on Almack's and being an arbiter of the ton. I'm not sure how she'd fare if she lost that." He hesitated, fingers working on the arm of the bench. "I'm not sure how we'd fare."
"You could talk to Emily."
"What she'd say, and how she'd actually feel if the truth came out, especially if it came out due to me, are different things. Even Em couldn't say for a certainty how she'd react until—unless—the events came to pass."
Jessica shouted to Colin in their game of tag round the trees. Colin raced after her and caught her as she skidded, just before she fell headlong on the gravel. Palmerston watched them. "And then, whatever Em could put up with, there are the children."
Mélanie was quite certain at least two of Emily's children, supposedly fathered by Lord Cowper, were in fact Palmerston's, including the baby girl Emily had given birth to the previous winter. And she strongly suspected Emily's elder daughter might be Palmerston's as well.
"You told Danielle about the children," Mélanie said.
Palmerston's mouth twisted. "I know, I was a fool. I was unhappy, as I said. Feeling like a lapdog at Emily's beck and call, feeling I had no control over anything in my life. Including my children." He cast a quick glance about the garden. "Whom of course I can't possibly claim as my children." He watched Colin, and Jessica, and Emily, who now had Berowne, and the Davenport girls and Ashford boys as they resumed their race. "It's one thing what the children may be able to understand when they're older and we explain it to them. If we explain it to them."
Mélanie bit her tongue. They had told Colin the truth of his parentage, and he had taken it far better than she had dared hope. But even with a good friend like Palmerston, she couldn't share those secrets. Even though she knew, at least implicitly, about the parentage of Palmerston and Emily's children, she couldn't share the truth about her own son's parentage. Not for Colin's sake. Or Malcolm's. Or Raoul's. There was no reason to think Palmerston suspected. And even if he did, no reason for her to put it into words.
Palmerston smiled as Jessica dangled a twig for Berowne while Emily held his lead. "Whatever the children may understand when they're older, having truths—or accusations that aren't even true—bandied about in the papers would be very different. It could damage the children's prospects. It could damage their relationships with their parents. Meaning Emily. And Cowper. And me."
"I understand that," Mélanie said, and then wondered if she'd admitted too much.
Palmerston met her gaze for a moment, his own quizzical. "You're always a marvel of understanding. So you must understand why I couldn't put the children through that."
"So you were going to buy the part of the memoirs about you?"
Palmerston shifted on the bench. "I was still making up my mind. When I heard Blayney had been killed." He turned his head to hold her with his gaze, at once rueful and armored. "Which I realize gives me an excellent motive."
"You're hardly the only one."
His gaze stayed steady. "Do you know who has Danielle's memoirs now?"
"No. We don't have them. I'm sorry, Harry."
Palmerston nodded. "I was afraid of that. They could do a lot of damage. Especially given those no doubt included in their pages, and the climate now."
"Could they be used to sway your position?"
"On our esteemed king's efforts to disentangle himself from a wife he's treated abominably? I'm an Irish peer. I don't have a vote, thank God. But others—I can only imagine how it would scramble an already fraught choice."
"Precisely."
Mélanie put up a hand to her bonnet as the wind whipped up. "Brougham apparently succeeded you with Danielle Darnault. Or preceded you, but from the timing I'd suspect you were first."
Palmerston's eyes widened. "Good God. I suppose it's not surprising, in a way. I know he went to Paris after he and Caro George separated. Damn the man. Whether in politics or my personal life, he always seems to be underfoot. He was being blackmailed as well?"
"He bought the papers concerning him. Then those papers were stolen."
"By the same person who killed Blayney? The same person who has the rest of the memoirs?"
"We aren't sure. If it's the same person who has the rest of the memoirs or if that person killed Blayney. I'm telling you this to get across how serious the situation is, Harry. There are other actors involved besides Blayney."
"Christ. Though not surprising." Palmerston drew in his breath as though to say more, then went still at the sound of footsteps. Malcolm was approaching along the Berkeley Street side of the square. He paused by the gate and took in Palmerston's presence. He smiled, but his gaze narrowed, and Mélanie suspected he had already surmised much of what had transpired between her and Palmerston.
"Harry." Malcolm closed the garden gate and walked over to the bench after waving to the children. "Just the man I'm looking for. I need to get into White's."
Chapter 23
Palmerston looked at Malcolm. Malcolm could see the pieces falling together in his friend's gaze. Just as pieces had fallen together for him when he saw Palmerston talking with Mélanie.
"Let me guess," Palmerston said. "Part of your investigation? I can't imagine why else you'd want entrée to White's. Especially now with Whigs and Tories so set against each other."
"I need to talk to Lord Prescott."
Palmerston raised a brow. "Interesting. Westminster seems to be about to be even more shaken than it already was this autumn. I'd find it rather fascinating if I weren't in the middle of it myself." He pushed himself to his feet. "I'll take you to White's now. And I can update you on what I've told Mélanie."
Malcolm listened to Palmerston's account of his relationship with Danielle Darnault as they made their way to St. James's.
"Why did you come to us with this?" Malcolm asked as they reached the club.
Palmerston stopped on the pavement, a few steps away from White's famous bow window. "Surely you want the information."
"We want a great deal of information people aren't willing to share readily."
Palmerston gave an abashed smile. "Partly because I hoped you might know where the memoirs were. Partly because I suspected you'd tumble to the truth eventually, and I'm enough of a tactician to have realized it was better to confess first. And partly, I like to think, because I thought the information might help you."
Malcolm touched his friend's arm. "You're a good fellow, Harry."
Palmerston grinned. "I said the same thing to Mélanie just now. Your wife's one in a million, Rannoch."
"Don't think I don't know it."
They went up the steps and through the door. Even in the entry hall, the buzz in the air was palpably different from usual times, just as it was across the street at the Whig Brooks's these days. The coming confrontation in Westminster hummed in the air. Malcolm was aware of several surprised looks shot in his direction, when generally his presence at White's wouldn't elicit more than some good-natured ribbing about his Whig sensibilities tainting the air.
"The cardroom's my best guess," Palmerston said, relinquishing his hat and gloves to the porter. "I'll go up with you." They made their way through the crowd, Palmerston cheerfully deflecting the looks of inquiry. Prescott was at a game of whist in the cardroom, a glass of port at his elbow. "Supposedly doing parliamentary work over cards," Palmerston murmured. "Prescott." He strolled up to the table. "Rannoch wants to have a word with you. Prevailed upon me to bring him into this Tory sanctum."
"What?" Prescott looked up from his cards with a frown. He was a portly man with a florid face and blue eyes that were surprisingly hard. "What's important enough to interrupt a hand of whist, Rannoch?"
"I'll wait," Malcolm said in an easy voice.
"No, we can talk now." Prescott pushed back his chair and nodded to his whist companions. "But if it's to do with the case against the queen, I warn you I'll have nothing to say. Saving all that for the Lords. Isn't even properly your business."
"The king's rather made it everyone's business," Palmerston murmured.
"You can fuss about it all you want, but you don't have a vote. Either of you." Prescott conducted Malcolm into an adjoining anteroom, glass of port in hand. He moved to a set of decanters by the window and topped off the glass. "What's this about?"
"Surely by now you've heard James Blayney was murdered last night."
"Looking into that, are you?" Prescott took a drink of port. "Suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You seem to look into every murder in Mayfair, and some that are God knows where else in the city. But that's nothing to do with me." He held up the decanter and raised a brow.
Malcolm shook his head. "I understand Blayney was a friend of your family's."
"Hardly. I scarcely knew the man."
"Your wife grew up with him."
Blayney took another drink of port. "His father was the vicar or something. Long before I married Sophia. And Blayney's father pegged off before my father-in-law. Captain Blayney was long gone from Shropshire before I married Sophia."
"And yet Blayney called on you only four days ago."
Prescott's hand froze, the glass of port midway to his lips. "Oh, yes." He gave a rough laugh. "Non mi ricordo." The phrase had been the persistent response of Theodore Majocchi, the first witness for the prosecution, under Brougham’s cross-examination. Majocchi, the former manservant of Queen Caroline's supposed lover Bergami, had left the queen's service and given evidence to the Milan commission, which the king had had set up to gather evidence of her infidelity. But his inability to remember anything under Brougham's cross examination had seriously damaged his credibility. Non mi ricordo had become a popular catchphrase throughout London, and the king’s witnesses became known as non mi ricordos.
Malcolm moved into the room and dropped into a chair. "Odd. I would have thought the news of Captain Blayney's murder would have brought it to mind."
Prescott moved to a chair across from Malcolm. "Blayney had a proposal for a trade venture. Tobacco from America. Foolish thing, wanted way too much. I put it aside for my man of business to look at, but whatever he said, Blayney's the last man I'd have trusted with my money."
"That's a good story," Malcolm said. "It fits with what we've learned about Blayney. But somehow, I doubt that was it. Or at least, not all of it. Given that the other people Blayney had communicated with recently are people he attempted to blackmail."
"Here now, Rannoch." Prescott clunked his glass down on a table beside his chair. "What the devil would Blayney have blackmailed me about? As I said, I scarcely knew him. Not that even those I know well would have cause to blackmail me. Much too dull a life for all that."
"You go to France regularly, don't you?"
"From time to time." Prescott picked up his glass and tossed down a gulp of port. "Surely that's not a subject for blackmail."
"Did you ever encounter a woman named Danielle Darnault?"
Prescott was better at bluster than Malcolm had expected, but for a moment fear shot through his gaze. "What? No, never heard of her."
"Never even heard of her? Surely not. Do you frequent the Salon des Etrangers?"
"Of course. Every Englishman in Paris does."
"I understand Danielle Darnault was frequently to be found there. I imagine she was acquainted with a number of your colleagues who are at White's at this very moment."
"Can't speak for them."
Malcolm settled back against the well-worn velvet of the chair. "We know Blayney was selling Danielle Darnault's memoirs, Prescott."
"Was he? Sounds like the sort of thing Blayney might have done, though difficult to connect him to a high-flyer such as this Danielle Darnault seems to be. That doesn't prove that's why he called on me."
"No, it doesn't." Malcolm rested his hands on the chair arms. "Not conclusively. It could also be to do with his past with Lady Prescott."
Prescott's hand jerked, spattering port on his blue-striped waistcoat and biscuit-colored pantaloons. "What the devil—"
"Believe me, I have no wish to create scandal," Malcolm said. "And I honor you for standing by your wife." That was a bit of a stretch, but it was certainly true Prescott's behavior could have been far worse. "Lady Prescott and her brother have both acknowledged that Lady Prescott was close to Captain Blayney some years ago and that it caused a rift with her father."
