The Westminster Intrigue, page 35
Julien watched him a moment. His gaze was steady, unyielding, yet oddly soft. "You have a father who loves you, Rannoch. That's not anything to discount. Much as I've discounted it for most of my life. What's more—and don't you dare tell O'Roarke I said so—he's someone you can proud of."
"Yes." Malcolm felt some of the tension drain from his shoulders. "That protected me from Alistair when I was a boy. More than I consciously understood at the time. It means even more now. And of course, I'm an adult and Alistair doesn't have any hold on me."
Julien stretched his legs out and contemplated his toes. "I disliked my father as much as you dislike Alistair, I think. The only difference is I think he really was my biological father, little as that means. But I can't say he doesn't have any hold on me. Or that it wouldn't be challenging if he walked back in through the door."
"I never claimed Alistair's return wasn't challenging. But I should be past the emotions involved."
"That's what I meant. I don't think one ever is. And it's not a sign of weakness to admit it."
"I don't worry about seeming weak."
"You handle it much better than most of us."
"You don't have to worry about it. You've never seemed weak. "
Julien gave a rough laugh and swallowed the last of his whisky. "You don't know the half of it."
Chapter 43
Laura looked at her husband in the small circle of light cast by the candle on the night table. She was sitting up in bed in their bedroom at Harry and Cordy's while Raoul perched on the coverlet. "I understand why you couldn't tell me."
Raoul gave a faint smile. "Do you? I seem to have an appalling number of secrets."
"Well, that's a given. As it is that we all have them. But this would have been hard for me to keep from Malcolm and Mélanie. And you needed to tell Malcolm first."
"That was my plan. I was working out how to do so. Not for the first time, Alistair stole a march on me."
Laura tilted her head back and studied her husband's face in the flickering light. "It can't be easy seeing him again. Confronting a ghost."
His gaze slid to the side. When it came to his past with Arabella, she was still an outsider. "Harder for Malcolm. But, yes. It brings up memories. Memories that seem a bit different in light of things I've learned since Alistair's supposed death. And then there's the fact that if it weren't for Alistair, I probably wouldn't be alive today."
Laura smoothed his hair off his forehead. "In that sense, I'm inestimably grateful to him. Though perhaps more so to Arabella for blackmailing him into it."
"There is that. Though in fairness to Alistair, he stuck to his bargain."
"Malcolm won't fight him for anything. At least, not anything tangible."
"No. Which isn't to say losing Dunmykel and Berkeley Square wouldn't cost him. But Malcolm would be the first to say he doesn't believe in inherited privilege. Let alone privilege inherited from someone who isn't his father at all."
"Arabella's money helped buy Dunmykel, as I've heard it. And Arabella left her stamp upon it as much as Alistair."
"True. She's very much present there. But Malcolm wouldn't fight for it. Yet if it were simply a matter of his stepping aside and Alistair's regaining everything, Alistair would have done it. Or never have disappeared in the first place. There's more to why he disappeared, and more to what he needs from coming back, and we seem to be in the middle of it." His brows drew together.
"What?" Laura said.
"I'm used to trying to gain advantage in a shadowy game where people shift from side to side. But at least the overall objectives of both sides—or all sides—are more or less clear. In this case, we're trying to outmaneuver an enemy whose goals we don't understand. Which makes it damnably hard to predict their next move."
Julien faced his wife across their bedchamber. The lamplight fell over her face and warmed her skin. "Gelly told me in confidence."
"I understand," Kitty said.
"If so, you're a damned sight more understanding than I think I might be in the same circumstances."
"We always said we'd have secrets."
"This is a rather significant one. And it touches on things we share."
"It goes back to before we met. Or, at least, to before we were a couple. And you and Gisèle were working against the League before you met me. Loyalty often comes down to choices, as Raoul says."
"I didn't put loyalty to Gisèle or Arabella before loyalty to you." The words came out more quickly than he intended.
"No, but you had promises to keep to them. Too many people knowing a secret can be dangerous. If I'd known, working so closely with the others, it would have been difficult. It must have been difficult for you."
"By God, it was." He watched Kitty longer. "You're taking this very well."
"I'm trying. Mind you, I'm frustrated I didn't know. And kicking myself for not working it out." Kitty tightened the tie on her dressing gown. "How's Malcolm?"
"All in all, not quite so much of a wreck as Gelly and I've been fearing. Perhaps we should have realized that given what he's been through a little thing like a man who made his life a misery's returning from the dead wouldn't destroy him."
"Malcolm has a remarkable ability to handle—everything." She tugged at the amber silk again. "This is going to change everything."
"Yes." Julien crossed to his wife's side and took her in his arms. A fragile bulwark against an uncertain future. "It can hardly fail to do so."
"Malcolm." Alone at last in the bedchamber they were sharing at Harry and Cordy's, Mélanie studied her husband. So many things she might say would be an intrusion. And even now she wasn't sure he'd want her to intrude.
"I'm all right, Suzette." Malcolm shrugged out of his coat and gave a bleak smile. "Funny, I haven't called you that in ages, have I? Must be remembering the days when Alistair was still alive. When we thought he was still alive." He dropped the coat on a chair. "Oh, Christ, I'm not all right. But there's no fixing it."
"It's too soon to find a way forwards."
"Someone we thought was dead is alive. That should be a cause for joy. I never wanted Alistair dead. I wasn't happy when I thought he was."
"Quite the reverse, as I recall." He'd drawn away from her in those days. Retreated into a past she'd still been struggling to understand—that she couldn't say she fully understood to this day. And into the insular world of the British beau monde to which he'd been born, however he might rebel against it, and to which she'd always be an outsider. "Of course, at that point we didn't know he'd tried to have Raoul killed. Or would try to have Raoul killed, I suppose. We didn't know about the League."
"No. Though I still can't say I'd have wished him dead. But there's no denying—"
"It was simpler when he was? There's no shame in saying it, Malcolm."
"No, and his return does present challenges. Which is really what's important. He's not my father, after all. I can say it clearly now, thank God. He's not anything to me in biology, and certainly not emotionally. We scarcely had a relationship when I was growing up. Or when I was grown. Assuming I can claim to be grown. His return shouldn't matter. Any more than the return of Trenchard or any of our other opponents would matter."
"Well, Trenchard's return would certainly complicate things."
"Fair enough. Much more than Alistair's." Malcolm came up to her and took her in his arms. "It shouldn't matter, but of course I have all sorts of feelings about Alistair, and he's Edgar's father, and Gelly may in some ways think of him as a father even though she's working against him. And he owns this house and Dunmykel and so much of what we have. That's tiresome, but we went all the way to Italy and survived. We can survive in a different part of London if we have to. It's foolish of me to dwell on feeling like a fraud."
"My darling." Mélanie slid her arms round him. "You're the furthest thing from a fraud. But I can understand your feeling that way. I own I feel a bit odd myself at the idea we've been living in his house the past three years. We made it our own. And it turns out—"
"It isn't ours at all."
Her mind shot to their bedchamber at home, the walls she had had moved to make the room bigger and the dressing room smaller, the soft gray paint she had carefully considered, the framed theatrical prints. As well, perhaps, that they weren't home tonight. "You'd think as spies we'd be used to living a life that isn't precisely ours. We can be happy somewhere else."
"Of course."
She reached up to touch his face. "Malcolm—what Alistair thinks of you doesn't matter."
"I decided that before I left Harrow."
"It's one thing to know it, another to feel it, I think. I've always hated him for what he did to you. It took me a long time to understand it." And she still wasn't sure she did.
"I was a boy. I'm not anymore. Whatever Raoul thinks. And I have people who love me. I should be reasonably immune to Alistair."
Something at the back of his eyes told her that he knew he wasn't entirely. But also that he wasn't going to share that with her. She should understand. There were still things she couldn't or wouldn't let herself share with him. She firmly believed a certain amount of personal privacy was vital in a marriage. Which didn't mean she didn't feel a small pang.
"Darling, everything you've built is still yours. Not the house, your seat in Parliament, the articles and speeches you've written, the life we've created."
"Of course. Though it looks as though we may have to find another location for the school."
She smoothed his hair. The school for children who couldn’t get a good education otherwise that they were starting with Laura and Raoul, and Harry and Cordy, and Julien and Kitty meant a great deal to all of them. Most of their friends had contributed one way or another. "We can do that."
He nodded. "Haddon Park might work. I got it from Arabella. We have far more than we need."
"We have each other, that's the most important thing. Oh, dear, that sounds a dreadful cliché. But it's true."
"I shouldn't feel so—as though I've lost my equilibrium."
"For heaven's sake, darling. Even if Alistair were a distant acquaintance, this would shake us."
He dragged a hand over his face. "I suppose—as little a relationship as we had, as distant as we've always been, I can't deny that he helped shape me. By his very absence."
"Legal fathers matter in our world. And by accepting you, he took on the relationship."
"Given that he was married to Arabella, he didn't have a lot of choice about accepting me." Malcolm paused. "I understand more now about how he felt about her. At times I can almost feel sorry for him."
"So can I. It doesn't negate my other feelings."
Malcolm grimaced. "Feelings don't matter in this."
"There's a time I'd have been the first to say that, darling, but I think one ignores them at one's peril."
"I'm not saying we should ignore them, but the important thing is what we do next. We still face a threat from the League. Perhaps a greater threat now that we know Alistair is behind the faction trying to take it over."
"Trying to take over his own organization."
Malcolm frowned. "Difficult to make sense of Alistair. But I suspect what's happening with the League has to do with why he disappeared."
"And what he wants to do to come back."
Chapter 44
Beverston regarded his youngest son across the study in which he had been having confrontations with his children for as long as he could remember, from nursery squabbles to school incidents to uncomfortable reports from Oxford. "I'm going to marry Nerezza," Ben said.
Beverston returned Ben's regard across the desk. "An excellent idea. I was wondering when you'd get round to it. Have you asked her yet?"
Ben blinked. "Sir?"
"Your restraint is commendable, Benedict, and I honor you for it, but it can't be comfortable for the two of you to continue as you are."
Benedict colored. "That's not—"
"Nothing to be ashamed of, lad. Though I wouldn't have wanted to discuss it with my father either."
Benedict lifted his chin. In that moment, he looked far older than seemed possible to the man who had held him as a baby. Wasn't it only yesterday he'd been going off to Eton? "I love her."
Beverston nodded. "Yes, I don't doubt you do."
Benedict frowned. "I wasn't sure you'd admit you believed in love."
"A year ago, I might not have admitted I did. A lot's changed in the past year. You've changed. I'm proud of you, lad."
Benedict blinked. "Sir?"
Christ. To have one's own child surprised one was proud. "You've shown yourself willing to take actions and make hard decisions. And as Nerezza's husband, you'll be better positioned to protect her."
Benedict scanned his father's face as though it were a draft map of uncharted terrain. "You don't mind?"
"Why should I mind?"
Benedict opened his mouth, then closed it, as though overcome at the impossibility of repeating the things his father might object to in his beloved without slandering his beloved himself.
"You love her." Beverston moved round the desk and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'd like you to be happy. I think you can be, with Nerezza."
Benedict met his father's gaze, at once man to man and father to son. "I know I can be."
"Then go to it." Beverston squeezed his son's shoulder and released him. "I'll settle things with your mother."
"What can we do?" Harry asked.
They were gathered in Harry and Cordy's breakfast parlor, sharing the news of Alistair's return. Harry's gaze locked on Malcolm's face with none of the usual quips about being left out of the action.
"Possibly give us a place to stay." Malcolm reached for his coffee. "Though it hasn't quite come to that yet. Meanwhile, can you go to Bow Street and update Roth on Edmund Blayney? I was supposed to meet him this morning, but I should talk to Danielle Darnault. Who I'm quite sure knew Alexander Radford's identity. And to Aunt Frances." He looked at his father.
"I haven't talked to her," Raoul said.
Malcolm gave a quick nod. He was still a bit raw when it came to Raoul and Alistair. "I sent a note round to her and Archie, but I'm not sure how early they'll be up."
"How long can you stall him? Mr. Rannoch." Cordelia frowned into her coffee cup. "This is going to take a lot of getting used to."
"Tell me about it," Malcolm said. "So long as we don't have the memoirs, Alistair can't expect us to turn them over."
"That's a point," Laura said. "If—"
She broke off as the door opened and Frances and Archie came into the room.
"You're up early," Malcolm said.
"The twins have little respect for the fact that their parents have been out late." Frances scanned Malcolm's face. "How bad is it?"
"You'd best sit down," Malcolm said. "This is going to take some time."
Frances and Archie listened in silence, as they had listened to so many shocking stories in this family. Archie's face went white. So did Frances's. But not with quite the shock Malcolm would have expected. When Malcolm finished, Archie's gaze went to Frances, but Frances looked at Malcolm. "We need to talk."
Malcolm inclined his head.
Frances regarded Malcolm across Cordelia's parlor, to which they had withdrawn without the others. Not for the first time, she found herself quite unprepared for what she had to discuss with her nephew. "I've never asked you to forgive me, have I?"
"I don't see why my forgiveness should be needed. Whom you love is your own business."
"When a person I let myself love is wantonly cruel to another person I love, it rather changes the dynamic."
Malcolm leaned against a pretty satinwood table, his gaze steady on her face. "I don't know that there's any 'letting' involved when it comes to loving. One can't make oneself love someone or stop loving them. You always defended me from Alistair. Until I was thirty, I thought you cordially disliked him. Rather proving your instincts for the spy game long before you started playing it."
Frances could read the care with which her nephew was choosing his words. It would be so much easier if he was still a boy who could be comforted with a hug—a hug that would soothe them both. "Alistair came to see me at the ball last night."
Malcolm's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the polished wood of the table. "Yes, I rather thought he might have done. At the ball, or some time recently."
"I had to think before I could tell you."
"You're not the only one. Gelly and Julien have known for over a year. Raoul has for a few days. What everyone seems to be losing sight of is that how this affects me is the least of it. We still have someone trying to take control of the League and bring down a number of people in the process, and also intervene in the queen's trial and tip the balance in Parliament. We now know that person is Alistair. That doesn't change the need to stop him. Though it does make teasing out his motives more complicated." He studied Frances. "Did he ask you to do anything?"
Frances spread her hands over her lap. "He wanted my help intervening with Prinny—the king. To get him an audience. He said"—she hesitated—"he said if I could do it for Mélanie and Raoul, I could do it for him."
Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "Did he say why he needed a pardon like you got for Mel and Raoul?"
"No." Frances's fingers tightened at the questions about Alistair's motives she had been asking herself since their meeting.
"Or offer any suggestions as to how you could secure one for him?"
"He said"—Frances's fingers scraped against the silk of her gown as she recalled Alistair's words—"that he had information that would be of great value to his majesty. I assumed he meant Danielle Darnault's memoirs."
"But Alistair doesn't have them. Not unless he's lying, and while he's fully capable of lying, I don't see why he'd have offered to trade me Dunmykel and Berkeley Square for something he already has. He could have been assuming he'd be able to get the memoirs, but it seems early to try to arrange to talk to the king about them. Unless Alistair is the one who took the part of the memoirs Brougham bought. According to Brougham, there's information in them about the queen. What did you tell Alistair?"
