32
S
uzanne looked into Violet Chase’s bright, fierce gaze. She recognized the guilt she saw there all too well. “It was very brave of you to tell us that.”
Violet lifted her chin. “It was an appalling betrayal of my brother. But we’re none of us going to have any peace if we don’t learn what happened to Julia. Johnny especially. And somehow—After hating her for years, I can’t stop feeling I owe her the truth.”
“Thank you, Vi,” Cordelia said.
“I’m a fool.” Violet tugged her sleeve up over her shoulder. “There could be other ways Tony got blood on his sleeve.”
“So there could,” Suzanne said.
Violet gave a quick nod and then looked at Cordelia. “If you see Johnny, tell him—Tell him I’ll be thinking of him.”
“Dear God,” Cordelia said when Violet moved off. Her lip rouge and eye blacking stood out against her pale face.
“She’s right,” Suzanne said. “There could be another explanation.”
“For the blood and for what Jane overheard?”
“One thing I’ve learned being married to an intelligence officer is to be wary of the obvious explanation.”
“But—” Cordelia broke off as their husbands slipped through the crowd to join them.
“What’s happened?” Davenport asked, scanning his wife’s face.
“Isn’t Wellington’s news enough?”
“It would take more than Bonaparte marching to make you go so white.”
Cordelia swallowed. “Violet told us she saw blood on Tony’s sleeve the night of the ball.”
Davenport’s gaze jerked round the room.
“Tony Chase told me he’d engaged the man his wife heard him with to follow Julia,” Malcolm said. “He gave me the man’s name and direction. If we ask him about the blood I’m sure he’ll have an equally plausible story. Just like Gordon did for slipping away from the ball.”
“Gordon had no motive to kill Julia,” Davenport said. “Whereas we have more evidence against Anthony Chase by the hour.”
Suzanne pictured Alexander Gordon’s cheerful, mocking face and considered the hints of steel she’d glimpsed beneath his carefree façade. “Gordon is one of Wellington’s most trusted aides-de-camp,” she pointed out.
Malcolm stared at her. “My God, Suzette.”
Davenport looked between them. “You think Wellington ordered Gordon to deal with Julia?” His voice had the taut quality of a rope pulled to the point of breaking.
“And then had us investigate?” Malcolm shook his head. “I’d like to think he has more respect for us. Not to mention a greater sense of honor.”
“I’d have agreed with you when Julia was merely the Prince of Orange’s mistress,” Davenport said. “But if Wellington had learned she was a French spy, I’d say all bets are off. Codes of honor tend not to apply to spies. As we both have cause to know.”
“It still wouldn’t make sense for Gordon to have been working with Tony Chase. Who’s the one we have the evidence against.”
“Unless it was Tony who figured out his mistress was a French spy and went to Wellington,” Davenport said, still scanning the room.
“Harry.” Cordelia put a hand on her husband’s arm.
“What?”
“The procession’s about to form for supper.”
“And?”
She curled her black-gloved fingers round his arm. “You won’t solve anything by causing an incident right this moment. And I need you to escort me.”
He cast a surprised look at her. “It isn’t fashionable for husbands and wives to sit together.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “Don’t be difficult.”
“Malcolm,” Suzanne said, under cover of the hum of conversation as the company began to move toward the passage to the hall, “does Truxhillo mean anything to you?”
“In Spain? Why?”
“Supposedly it has to do with why the Silver Hawk’s employer wants you dead.”
He cast a surprised glance at her. “How do you know?”
“My dressmaker’s assistant,” Suzanne said, her prepared story easy on her lips. “I asked her for information, and she said she’d see what she could learn. She smuggled me a message just now with one of the footmen. She has a number of clients with French sympathies. She couldn’t or wouldn’t say from whom she heard it, but her intelligence has been good before.”
Malcolm frowned. “A British expeditionary force on their way to rendezvous with some
guerrilleros
were ambushed by a French patrol near Truxhillo in early ’11. They fought off superior numbers. It was where Anthony Chase first distinguished himself.”
“Captain Chase?” Suzanne tried to fit this in with what Raoul had told her.
“He was only a lieutenant then. The captain and half the men were killed, but Chase rallied the survivors and led them to victory.”
“How odd. Do you think—”
She broke off at a stir of movement near the doorway. An officer, dressed for riding, not dancing, his hair damp with sweat, pushed his way through the crowd. Lieutenant Webster, she realized, Lady Holland’s son from her first marriage. He handed a paper to the Prince of Orange, who was standing with Wellington, Lady Charlotte Greville, and the Duchess of Richmond by the ballroom door. The prince glanced at the paper without much concern and then held it out, unopened, to Wellington.
“Billy,” Malcolm murmured. “You need to learn to read dispatches.”
Wellington slit open the dispatch and scanned it quickly. His face remained impassive, but tension shot through his shoulders. “Webster,” he said, “four horses to the Prince of Orange’s carriage.”
Wellington issued more low-voiced instructions, then turned to the Duchess of Richmond with an easy smile and went to take Georgiana’s arm to lead her in to supper. The company proceeded down the passage and across the hall to the dining room. Royal Dutch red, black, and gold veiled the walls here as well. White linen, polished silver, and sparkling crystal gleamed on the tables. Champagne bottles stood cooling in silver buckets. A world of elegance and artifice, far removed from the battlefield.
But Suzanne had barely dropped into her chair when the Prince of Orange hurried into the room, pushed his way between the linen-covered tables, and began to whisper to Wellington. They conversed for some minutes, their words unintelligible, while the rest of the company stared at their wineglasses and silverware in taut silence.
“I have no fresh orders to give,” Wellington said at last. His lowered tones gave way to a voice meant to carry. “I advise Your Royal Highness to go back to your quarters and to bed.”
The prince regarded him in surprise, then nodded, straightened up, and made his way from the room at a more dignified pace. Wellington smiled and said something to Georgiana that made her laugh.
Davenport took a sip of wine. “Might as well enjoy a good meal. God knows when we’ll get another.”
Cordelia looked at him for a moment but merely picked up her wineglass. “Wellington’s the only one in the room who’s still managing to act as though this is a social occasion,” she observed a few moments later. The duke was sitting between Georgiana and his Brussels flirt, Lady Frances Webster. He had given Georgiana a miniature that she exclaimed over. He was smiling and laughing in response.
“He’s an excellent actor,” Malcolm said. “Excuse me.” He got to his feet and conferred briefly with the Prince of Orange near the door.
“The dispatch Webster brought was from Rebecque at Braine-le-Comte,” he said when he returned to their table. “Written at ten this evening and reporting that the French under Grouchy have attacked the Prussians at Sombreffe.”
“Are they still fighting?” Davenport asked.
“No, the Prussians have fallen back to Fleurus. But before he could follow Wellington’s order to return to Braine-le-Comte, Billy received another dispatch from Rebecque, this one written at ten-thirty, half an hour after the one Webster brought. Apparently having taken Charleroi, more French troops under Marshal Ney have pushed up the central
chaussée
to the crossroads at Quatre Bras. Ney and some French cavalry engaged Prince Bernhard and the Nassau troops at Frasnes.”
Davenport frowned. “I thought Prince Bernhard was at Genappe.”
“Apparently he moved forward. Ney didn’t have enough forces to pursue the engagement. He’s bivouacked for the night. Rebecque and Perponcher decided to ignore Wellington’s orders and send Perponcher’s second division to Quatre Bras to support Prince Bernhard.”
Suzanne cast a glance at the duke. “For once I suspect Wellington doesn’t mind his orders being disregarded.”
Cordelia frowned. “Caro mentioned going through Quatre Bras on a picnic last month. It’s almost directly south of Brussels, isn’t it? So Wellington must have been wrong about the real attack coming from the west—”
“Yes, it looks as though the French are attacking from the south,” Davenport finished for her. “To separate us from the Prussians. Grouchy’s attacked the Prussians, and Ney’s keeping us from going to their aid. Clever man, Boney.”
Suzanne said nothing. If that was true and Wellington had only just realized it, the French had gained valuable time. She didn’t dare risk a glance round the supper room for Raoul. She wondered how much he knew.
As the company picked at their food, rumors about the contents of the Prince of Orange’s message spread through the room. Suzanne avoided the impulse to look at Raoul and see how he was taking things. She wondered if Malcolm would leave Brussels tonight or if they’d have until tomorrow before someone sent him on an errand.
Though some had already left the ball and some, like Fitzroy and Harriet Somerset, weren’t present at all, the tables were crowded. Lord Uxbridge attempted to keep up a convivial mood, toasting the Richmonds’ fifteen-year-old son, Lord William Lennox (his arm in a sling and a bandage on his head from his recent riding accident), and some of the other junior officers who were standing round the sideboard due to the lack of space.
When the meal came to an end, the spell that had held the company under some semblance of illusion that they were at an ordinary ball well and truly broke. Malcolm was claimed by Stuart, Davenport by Colonel Canning. Raoul met Suzanne’s gaze briefly across the supper room. It was, she knew, the only good-bye they would have.
By the time Suzanne and Cordelia stepped back into the hall it was a scene of chaos. Soldiers calling for their horses; girls darting across the floor, tripping over their skirts, shouting the names of their beloveds; parents scanning the crowd for sons. The musicians had begun to play again in the ballroom, but the strains of the waltz vied with the call of bugles and the shrill song of fifes from outside. A broken champagne glass scrunched under Suzanne’s satin slipper. By the dining room door a young captain stood holding the hands of a girl in orange blossom crêpe. A little farther off a girl in pink muslin had sunk to the floor, weeping into her hands. Suzanne felt Cordelia go still beside her.
A man in a rifleman’s uniform brushed past them, a girl in white on his arm. Suzanne suppressed a start at the sight of those finely molded features. Then she forced her gaze away. The ghosts of her past seemed irrelevant in the chaos of the present.
“Suzanne.” Georgiana touched her arm. “I’m going to help March pack up his things.” She glanced toward the ballroom. “I can’t believe people are so heartless as to still be dancing.”
Cordelia drew a harsh breath. “I wouldn’t be too hard on them. It may be their last chance.”
“Malcolm. Glad I found you.” Stuart gripped Malcolm’s arm, his face uncharacteristically grim. He jerked his head toward the Duke of Richmond’s study. Malcolm followed the ambassador into the room to find Wellington and the Duke of Richmond already there, amid the ranks of books and the smell of old leather and dusty paper. Richmond was spreading a map out on the desk.
“Napoleon has humbugged me by God!” Wellington glanced at the door as Malcolm and Stuart stepped into the room. “He has gained twenty-four hours’ march on me. And separated us from the Prussians.”
“What do you intend doing?” the Duke of Richmond asked. He was a soldier himself, in command of the reserves in Brussels. Three of his sons were in the army, and Malcolm knew Richmond himself had been displeased not to receive an appointment on Wellington’s staff.
Wellington moved to the desk and stared down at the map. “I have ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, but we shan’t stop him there, and if so,” he said, pressing his thumb down on the map, “I must fight him
here
.”
Malcolm moved to the duke’s side to see what he was pointing at. Wellington’s thumbnail rested on a small village called Waterloo.
33
J
ane Chase paused on the staircase. Women pushed past her, fastening the ties on cloaks they’d retrieved from upstairs, pausing to scan the hall below with anxious eyes, hurrying forward and calling the names of lovers, husbands, sons, brothers. The hall was a sea of red and green and blue coats and pale gowns as soldiers took their leave. The front door banged open and shut every few moments as someone new departed, letting in a blast from the bugles calling the soldiers to march.
Jane had already said one tearful good-bye, but now she was looking for her husband. She hadn’t seen him since supper and then across the room. He’d had a pretty girl in blue on his left and a pretty girl in yellow on his right. Jane wasn’t sure of their names, though she thought one had been one of the Lennox daughters. Truth to tell Jane had avoided Tony as much as possible all afternoon and evening. Guilt bit her in the throat whenever she looked at him.
But now reality had hit with the force of a cannonball. The reality that her husband would soon be gone. And that there was no guarantee she’d ever see him again.
“Jane.” Tony appeared at the base of the stairs. “Thank God, I’ve been looking for you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave at once.”
She ran down the steps and seized his hands. He returned her clasp, a look of faint surprise on his face.
“Tony, I—”
He put his finger to her lips. “I’m sorry, Janie. There’s no time to say it all now.”
For a moment they were standing in the ballroom of her parents’ London house, a quadrille playing in the background, the scent of hyacinths in the air, the world fading away round them. She was a girl again, robbed of her customary irony, struck by the wonder of having found love—that thing she had always laughed at—and having found someone who loved her.
Betraying tears sprang to her eyes at the memories. She reached up and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I’m sorry, too, Tony.”
He grimaced. “Don’t, Janie, there’s no sense—” He tightened his grip on her hands and pulled her closer. “I love you, Jane.”
A flash of bitterness shot through her. “If that was true, you wouldn’t—”
“Whatever I’ve done, it has nothing to do with you, my darling.” He stooped his head toward her, then hesitated.
She closed the distance between them and lifted her lips to his. “Whatever happens, Tony, remember I loved you. More than anything.”
“Cordelia.”
Cordelia turned round at the sound of her name, hoping it was Harry. She hadn’t seen him since supper. Officers were streaming out the door, and she realized he might well have left without saying good-bye. Why should he after all? Whatever they’d shared in the last two days was set against four years of being strangers.
She turned to find not Harry but her brother-in-law crossing the hall toward her. “Johnny.” She moved through the crowd and took his hands. “I didn’t know you were here.” He was dressed for riding, she saw, not dancing.
“I came to find you.” He returned the clasp of her hands with a convulsive clench. “I thought the duchess would understand in the circumstances. I’m off to my regiment. Are you staying?”
“At the ball? Not much longer, but—”
“In Brussels.”
“Where else would I be?”
She thought he might be going to try to talk her out of it, but he nodded with evident relief. “Robbie’s nurse is a sensible girl, but I was wondering—”
“Of course, they can both come to me. I should have suggested it myself.”
“Thank you.” His fingers tightened over her hands. “I didn’t realize how quickly events would unfold.”
“None of us did.” Cordelia hugged him. He clutched her for a moment, a drowning man grasping onto a spar.
“Johnny, listen.” She drew back and took his face between her hands. “You don’t have anything to prove. It isn’t your job to make up for Julia’s faults. Just come back alive to your son.”
He drew a rough breath, but she saw his eyes focus with welcome clarity. He nodded and kissed her cheek.
“Johnny.” The cry rose above the voices round them. Violet Chase rushed forward in a stir of sapphire gauze. For a moment Cordelia thought she’d fling herself at Johnny, but she stopped a few feet off. “I was afraid you weren’t here.”
Johnny blinked at her as though she’d stumbled in from another world. “I came to find Cordy. To talk to her about Robbie.”
“Of course.” Violet drew a breath. “Johnny, I’m so sorry. About Julia. About everything. I was afraid I’d never have a chance to say so.”
He met her gaze. Cordelia felt the reverberations in the air—echoes stretching from the night he’d danced with Julia at Emily Cowper’s to whatever had passed between them at Stuart’s ball.
“Thank you,” Johnny said.
Violet swallowed, put out her hand, but checked herself before she touched him. “Be careful.”
Johnny managed a faint smile. “As careful as a man can be with bullets flying about.”
Violet’s fingers twisted in the folds of her skirt. “There are people who’d be very distressed if anything happened to you.”
To Cordelia’s surprise, Johnny took Violet’s hand and pressed it. “It’s kind of you to say so.”
Violet gave an unexpected smile. “Rubbish. You know perfectly well I’m not in the least kind. It’s just that—What’s happened tonight has a way of making so many things seem absurdly trivial, doesn’t it?”
Johnny met her gaze, his own surprisingly steady. “Yes, I suppose in a way it does.” He hesitated. “Vi—”
She flung her arms round him, as though they were still the children who played on the banks of the stream between their parents’ estates, and hugged him hard. “Take care, Johnny.”
“Rannoch.” Davenport fell in beside Malcolm outside the door of the duke’s study. “What did Hookey have to say?”
“That Bonaparte has humbugged him. He’s gained a day’s march on us and separated us from the Prussians.”
Davenport grimaced. “Exile apparently hasn’t dulled Boney’s brilliance. It looks as though I’m back to being a staff officer. I’m off to Fleurus with a message. I don’t know if I’ll get back to Brussels before the fighting starts. Tony Chase—”
“I’ll talk to him.” Malcolm nearly said more, but he wasn’t quite ready to share the suspicions roiling in his head. “You need to find Lady Cordelia and make your farewells.”
Two cavalry officers pushed past them. A girl in blue ran up and seized one by the arm. Davenport glanced at them for a moment, then turned his gaze back to Malcolm. “Look, Rannoch.” His voice was clipped. “I know Cordelia. I’ve no illusions she’ll go home or even to Antwerp.”
“I shouldn’t think so. Suzanne wouldn’t, either.”
A smile of acknowledgment tugged at Davenport’s mouth. “And Wellington wouldn’t thank me for considering defeat. But I have a healthy respect for Napoleon Bonaparte. Should the unthinkable happen—”
Malcolm gripped his friend’s shoulder. He had many acquaintances but few friends. He realized Davenport had become one of them. “I’ll make sure Lady Cordelia and your daughter get to safety. My word on it.”
Davenport met his gaze, for once with no hint of mockery. “Thank you.”
Davenport strode off in search of his wife. Malcolm spared a brief thought for what it would be like to say farewell to Suzanne with such a nightmare of estrangement between them. Then he pushed the thought to where personal thoughts had to go at times like these and glanced round the chaos of the hall for Anthony Chase. Soldiers pushed past; white-gloved fingers clutched scarlet-coated arms; shouts for horses and calls to husbands, wives, sweethearts, children, parents cut the air. Malcolm saw a flash of green and a bright gold head near the front door and pushed his way through the crowd, only to find it was a lieutenant in the 95th rather than Chase.
He turned back toward the ballroom and saw a familiar face. “March. Are you off?”
“When I’ve seen my parents,” Lord March said. “Georgy helped me pack.”
“You haven’t seen Tony Chase by any chance, have you?”
“Not since supper, I think. Probably slipped off to say good-bye to his latest mistress.” March grimaced with distaste. “I’ve always thought Jane Chase deserved better.”
“I won’t argue with you there. Though one can’t deny Chase’s bravery at Truxhillo.”
“No, though if you ask me half of his success was the French being so bloody incompetent.”
“I was in Andalusia at the time,” Malcolm said. “I think the accounts I’ve heard were rather exaggerated.”
March frowned. “It’s odd. Tony Chase asked me about that.”
“About the accounts being exaggerated?”
“Where you were at the time, of all things. Seemed to think you were on a mission near Truxhillo.”
Malcolm felt his pulse quicken. “When was this?”
“Fortnight or so ago. Wellington’s ball for Blücher perhaps? One of the endless round of parties we’ve been attending. The days have a way of running together.”
Malcolm gripped the other man’s arm. “Thank you, March. Look after yourself.”
“Always do, old fellow.”
Malcolm scanned the hall for Tony Chase again. Finding him had suddenly become a matter of pressing urgency.
Geoffrey Blackwell caught sight of Suzanne, the silver gauze and ivory satin of her gown shimmering in the candlelight. She was just inside the door to the ballroom, a gloved arm round Sarah Lennox, who was visibly holding back tears. Suzanne seemed as self-assured as always, but he knew her senses were keyed to wherever Malcolm was. Geoffrey slipped through the crowd, his dark coat making him feel invisible in the sea of red and blue and rifleman’s green.
He touched Suzanne’s arm as Lady Sarah moved off with one of her sisters. “I’m off tonight. I want to make sure I have a makeshift surgery established before there are any casualties.” He hesitated, searching for words that would say what was required without being excessive. “Suzanne—”
“Of course Allie should come to us. I’ll welcome the company. And of course should we need to leave, we’ll take her with us.”
“That’s the Suzanne I know. Not afraid to admit the possibility of defeat.”
“It would be foolish to do so. Not that I’m suggesting it’s likely.”
“No. You’re much too sensible. Thank you, my dear.” He cast a glance round the ballroom, wondering how many of the young men clutching sweethearts’ hands or hugging parents would be lying on stretchers by this time tomorrow. Or already dead. “Whatever happens, wounded are bound to be brought into Brussels. You saw enough in the Peninsula to know what lies ahead. It will be like nothing Allie’s ever seen.”
“Allie has a good head on her shoulders. She’ll cope.”
Geoffrey controlled an inward flinch. “For a lifelong bachelor, I picked a damnable time to get married.”
“Nonsense. You got married because you fell in love with Aline. Of all the insane reasons people marry that’s the most sensible I can imagine.”
Geoffrey smiled, though something still twisted sharp inside him. If anything happened to him, he’d be leaving Aline to raise their child alone. “My dear Suzanne. Who would have thought war would turn you into a romantic?”
“Geoff.” Aline slipped through the crowd to stand beside them. Her ash-brown hair was coming free from its pins and slithering round her face. She smiled at him with determination. “Are you off?”
He looked at her for a moment, memorizing the arc of her brows, the steady brightness of her wide, dark eyes, the sweet, ironic curve of her mouth. “As soon as I found you to say good-bye.”
“Right. Well then.” She looked up at him. In five months of marriage, despite a number of surprisingly intense private moments, she’d never done more than take his arm in public. Now she stepped forward, reached up, and kissed him full on the lips. “We’ll be waiting for you. Both of us.”
“Harry.” Cordelia skidded over fallen roses and shards of broken champagne glasses on the hall floor. “Thank God. I was afraid you’d left.”
“Cordy.” He was standing by the base of the stairs, drawing on his gloves. She thought, inconsequentially, that he must have had them off since supper. Absurd the way one’s mind worked at such moments. “You’re staying in Brussels?” he asked.
“Don’t try to argue me out of—”
He gave a faint smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it. This is no time to waste one’s breath. But in the event it becomes necessary, Rannoch can help you get back to England.”
She nodded, swallowing her surprise.
Harry continued pulling on his gloves. “Should I—In the event I don’t see you again, my man of business has all the necessary documents. Alford-Smith in St. Albans Lane. There’s a portion for you and everything else is in trust for Livia with you as trustee. Neither of you should want for anything.”
She stared at him. It was as though she was looking at a stranger, and yet she sensed he had never spoken so genuinely. “Harry—I didn’t expect—”