Authors: Imperial Scandal
Teresa Grant (45 page)
Just after eight, she took Cordelia a tray of tea and toast. Colonel Davenport was asleep. “He woke briefly and seemed quite himself,” Cordelia said, “though weak and in a great deal of pain.”
“It’s an excellent sign that he was coherent. Were you able to talk?”
Cordelia nodded. Her eyes held a mixture of hope, fear, and wonder, but she merely said, “How does Lieutenant Rivaux get on?”
“We’ve got the fever down. I think Rachel’s going to keep him alive on sheer determination.”
“I understand how she feels.” Cordelia reached out and smoothed her husband’s hair. “There’s a blessed sort of clarity in the situation. They’re hurt, and they need us. The barriers are down. It’s crystal clear where we belong.”
“And afterwards?” Suzanne asked.
Cordelia’s eyes turned bleak. “Afterwards we’re still going to live in the world we inhabited before the battle. But I’m not letting myself think that far ahead.”
“Don’t,” Suzanne advised. “You’ll ruin it before it’s had a chance to properly begin.”
Cordelia stared at her, like one looking into hell without flinching. “Some things are beyond forgiveness. Oh, perhaps they can be forgiven in a theoretical sort of way. One can make grand, sweeping promises in a moment of great emotion. But to live day in, day out with someone who’s betrayed you in the worst way—I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think you would, either, on rational reflection. You’re much too sensible a person.”
Suzanne felt a knot of cold tighten round her heart. “That leaves aside the question of what sort of betrayal is the worst.”
“I know what I did to Harry. If I didn’t understand it before, I realized it these last few days in Brussels.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” Suzanne said. “Or yourself.”
Cordelia smiled but shook her head.
Suzanne went into the nursery where the children, probably the only people in the house to have got a good night’s sleep, were breakfasting with Blanca and their nurses.
Colin greeted her with a cheerful smile. “We won.”
Suzanne nearly vomited her tea and toast onto the gleaming nursery floorboards. She could feel Blanca’s concerned gaze on her. Later they would have to talk. “Yes,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. “The Allies had a great victory.”
“My daddy was hurt,” Livia said.
“But he’s doing very well.” That was the thing about children. They forced you to keep going and not dwell on losses. “Your mummy’s looking after him.”
“Can I see him?”
“Perhaps in a bit. He’s sleeping now.” Suzanne touched Robbie’s hair. “We hope your daddy will be here soon. He was well the last time your uncle Harry saw him.”
Robbie nodded. “Lots of people died.”
“A horrible number. We’re very fortunate so many of the people we love survived.”
After she left the nursery, she sat with Harry for a time so Cordelia could go in and reassure Livia and Robbie. Harry stirred occasionally but didn’t waken. When Cordelia returned, Suzanne went into her own bedchamber, put on a gypsy hat, and tossed a mantilla into one of her larger reticules.
“I’m going out for a bit,” she told Aline. “We need more laudanum.”
Aline nodded. Her face was gray with exhaustion, but her eyes were lighter than they’d been last night. The worst was over. A shocking number of her friends were gone, but her husband was safe and the British had prevailed.
Horses no longer stood before houses in the Rue Ducale, ready for imminent flight. But more wounded men lined the streets, and Suzanne passed carts bringing in fresh casualties. She stopped to give water to the wounded until no more was left in the flask she carried.
She didn’t stop at Madame Longé’s. She was too exhausted to go through the motions now things were over to all intents and purposes. Which was foolish, because the need for secrecy would never be gone. But right now she didn’t care. She was as drained and spent as she imagined a prizefighter would feel after a match. A losing match. She slipped into a gap between two houses, pulled off her gypsy hat and stuffed it into her reticule, and then replaced it with the mantilla.
Down the alley, along the familiar passage, up the stairs, to the door she had got to know so well during her months in Brussels. A part of her didn’t really believe he’d be there, even when he answered her thrush call. But when she pushed open the door, she caught the familiar smell of his shaving soap, overlaid by stale sweat.
He pushed himself to his feet at her entrance but made no move to come toward her. The light slanting through the high windows showed her that apparently he had received no further hurt. She stared at the familiar bones of his face and felt the breath rush from her lungs. In his eyes, she saw desolation and shattered hopes that were the twin of her own. For a moment, she wanted to run and hide in his arms. Instead, she leaned against the closed door and said the words that most needed to be said. “I’m through.”
49
S
omething flared in his eyes. Not surprise but a flash of acknowledgment that might have been sadness. “I thought as much.”
omething flared in his eyes. Not surprise but a flash of acknowledgment that might have been sadness. “I thought as much.”
She took two quick, determined steps into the room. Her mantilla slithered to the floor. “This isn’t another attack of conscience. I’m done. I’m getting out. I’m not your agent anymore.”
“Clearly stated.”
She dropped down on the edge of the cot and gripped its wooden frame. She mistrusted that mild tone. “It’s over.” Her voice shook, beyond her control. “We lost.”
“It’s never entirely over.” Raoul sat beside her, a few inches of gray blanket between them. “But we were certainly dealt a decisive blow. Not only has the game changed, it will be played on an entirely different board.”
“Damn it, Raoul.” She grabbed his arm. “It’s not a game.”
“Of course it is.” He caught her wrist in a gentle grip. “A game with life-and-death stakes and people’s future and liberty hanging in the balance.”
“I’ll still fight for the things I believe in,” she said, perhaps a little too firmly, because she couldn’t bear for there to be any doubt on this score. “But I’ll only act openly as Malcolm’s wife.”
He nodded. “Knowing you, not to mention Malcolm, I imagine you’ll be able to accomplish a great deal.”
“I mean it. I won’t dwindle into a wife.”
His mouth curved in a faint smile. “I don’t think you could if you tried.” He looked at her for a moment. She had the oddest sense he was memorizing her features. “I think you’ve made a wise choice.”
“For God’s sake, Raoul.” She pulled free of his grip. “What game are you playing? You’re never so magnanimous without an ulterior purpose.”
“We’ve never been in circumstances like these.”
“I’m serious. I won’t work as your agent anymore.”
“I know. I’ll miss you.”
For some reason, that was when her throat closed and tears prickled the back of her eyes. She turned her head to the side, unable to bear the pressure of his gaze. “All these years. The fighting, the lying, the compromising. Twisting ideals to meet necessity. And this is where it got us.”
“One can never see where it will take one. All one can do is hold on to what one believes in.”
“Damn you, stop it with the platitudes.” Her fingers dug into the coarse blanket. “You have to feel it, too. It’s over. Bourbons on the throne of France for good, reforms repealed, monarchs grabbing for power. Castlereagh and Metternich and their ilk trying to turn the clock back on every shred of progress since the Revolution. Wasted years, wasted lives—”
Her chest ached from the lost purpose, wrenched from her at the news of the French defeat. The thing that had kept her going after the loss of her family, that had given her a focus, that had been the core of who she was. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. A sob tore through her.
Raoul’s arms closed round her. She pushed against him, desperate to strike out at something. Then she drew a sharp breath and sobbed into his chest, clinging to him as though to her last remnants of herself, until the rage had drained from her, leaving her empty and winded.
“You can never let yourself think your work’s gone for naught,” he said, stroking her hair. “Or you’ll go mad. Believe me, I speak from experience.”
She drew back and looked up at him. “Ireland.” She’d spent many evenings hearing him talk about the failure of the United Irish Uprising in 1798, anger and regret sharp in his voice.
“And the Revolution.” Raoul had been a passionate supporter of the Revolution, but he’d found himself imprisoned in Les Carmes and had nearly gone to the guillotine. “One has to go on and do the best one can. Which I’m sure you’ll continue to do.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Easy?” His voice cut with sudden force. “There’s nothing easy about it. Do you think I haven’t rethought every decision I’ve made a dozen times, haven’t asked myself—” He shook his head. “But believe me,
believe me, querida,
you’ll find a way to go on. Because there’s no other choice.”
believe me, querida,
you’ll find a way to go on. Because there’s no other choice.”
She stared at him, memories coming thick and fast. His hands tossing her into the saddle or showing her how to load a pistol. His voice drilling her on court protocol or correcting her accent. His arm secure round her as she drifted into sleep. The steady trust in his eyes when he sent her on her first mission. “Are you saying this is what you want?”
“No.” The short word held layers of meaning. “But I think it’s what’s best for you.” He pushed her hair behind her ear with a tenderness that was somehow in a very different key from the days when they’d been lovers.
“Since when does what’s best for any of us matter more than the cause?”
“My dear girl. I’m not nearly so single-minded or such a schemer as you make me out to be.” He hesitated a moment. “Philippe was killed.”
She bit her lip. Fresh tears stung her eyes. “I have a letter for his sweetheart.”
“Do you want me to—”
“No. I know where to send it.” She got to her feet and picked up her mantilla. “What will you do now?” she asked, running the black lace through her fingers.
“I’ll manage.”
She swung her gaze back to him. “You don’t trust me anymore.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He got to his feet as well. “But our interests no longer neatly align. No sense in putting either of us in an awkward situation.”
She nodded. Practicality, that was what was called for, and a cool head. She turned to the cracked looking glass and tried to pin her hair into some semblance of order.
Raoul leaned against the wall behind her. “In a few days or a few weeks you’re going to feel an intolerable burden of guilt. Try to remember that guilt is a singularly wasteful emotion.”
She met his gaze in the spotted looking glass. “Who says I’ll feel guilty?”
“My intuition. You won’t like the fact that you’ve betrayed your husband.”
She gave a rough laugh. “I’ve been betraying Malcolm from the day I married him. The day I met him if it comes to that.”
“But you could hide in the needs of the moment.”
She jabbed a pin into her knot of hair, hitting her scalp. “I’m used to living with sins on my conscience.”
“With peace you’ll find you have leisure to dwell on the past. To question actions, to rethink decisions, to play the damnable game of what if.”
She pushed two more pins into her hair and draped the mantilla over her head. “What makes you so certain?”
“Because I’m quite sure I’ll be doing the same myself.”
She spun round to look at the man who had always subsumed guilt to the goal in front of him. He returned her gaze. The scars in his eyes had never been plainer. “Raoul—”
He gave a faint smile. “Don’t worry. It won’t be the first time I’ve pieced my life back together.”
She crossed the room to him, took his face between her hands, and kissed him on the lips for the first time since her marriage. For the last time. “Keep safe.”
He squeezed her shoulders for a moment, as though catching onto the past, then released her. “Look after your family,
querida
.”
querida
.”
Suzanne stepped back into the house in the Rue Ducale to the smells of beef tea and laudanum and the sound of a ball being tossed. Colin and Robbie were playing catch across Christophe’s pallet. Rachel was spooning beef tea to Henri Rivaux, who protested feebly. Aline was changing Angus’s dressing. The smile she gave Suzanne indicated that he was doing better. Brigitte came through the door from the kitchen with a tea tray.
Normal life, or at least what now passed for normal life. Raoul O’Roarke seemed a world away. She might never have been a Bonapartist spy. Save that the ache in her chest and the bitterness in her mouth told her she’d never forget.
With that uncanny instinct children often have, Colin ran across the hall and flung his arms round her knees. She scooped him up, held him close for a moment, then settled him on her hip, letting the solidness of his body and the milky smell of his skin pull her back to the reality of her life. However egregious her sins, she couldn’t indulge in wallowing. She had obligations.
Malcolm and David returned just before dark with Edgar. He had a leg wound but no sign of fever or infection. They laid him on Malcolm’s and her bed. When she checked his dressing, he opened his eyes and gave her a weak smile. “Malcolm is a capital brother.”
“Yes, he is.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“Probably the most positive interaction Edgar and I’ve had since our mother died,” Malcolm said when he and Suzanne were outside in the passage.
“I’m glad you found him. I mean, I’m glad he’s all right, but I’m also glad you were the one to find him.”
He gave a bleak smile. “Foreseeing neat tidy endings, Suzette?”
“Trying to take what we can from the wreckage.”
He brushed his fingers against her cheek and studied her face for a moment. “Are you all right?”
She smiled and leaned her cheek against his hand. “Yes. Especially now you’re back.”
What else could she say?
Harry woke to the smell of barley water and beef tea. He opened his eyes onto an intent young face framed by a fall of pale blond hair.
“Mummy said I could come sit by you if I was quiet,” Livia said. “Because you need to sleep.” She frowned. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Not in the least. You were quiet as a sniper.”
Livia grinned. “I sat very still. Do you want some broth? It’ll make you better.”
Cordelia moved into view. Her hair was pulled back into a simple knot, with the cropped bits escaping about her face uncurled, her cheeks were hollow, and purple shadows showed beneath her eyes. He couldn’t remember when she had looked more beautiful. “Do you think you can sit up?” she asked.
He started to tell her not to be ridiculous and then realized that sitting up would indeed be a complicated maneuver. Cordelia perched on the edge of the bed, slid her arm under him, and bunched up the pillows, then half-held him while Livia carefully spooned the broth.
Pain shot through his cracked ribs, but he controlled his reaction to a wince. It took an absurd amount of strength to hold his head up. A ridiculous position to be in, but oddly he didn’t mind as much as he would have expected. Perhaps that was because he was so tired.
“That’ll do,” he told Livia when he’d managed about half the broth in the cup. “No sense in pushing things. But you’re an excellent nurse.”
Livia’s serious face brightened. Cordelia settled him back against the pillows.
“I was afraid you were going to die,” Livia said.
“I was a bit concerned about it myself. I had a particular reason to want to survive this battle, you see.”
“What?” Livia asked.
“I’d met you.”
“Oh.”
A small hand twined round his arm. A strange and wonderful sensation. He squeezed Livia’s fingers. His eyes drifted closed despite himself. When he opened them again, Cordelia was sitting beside the bed. “You were smaller when I fell asleep,” he said.
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