Mélanie and Kitty descended the steps of the Larimer house. Geoffrey's nurses and Malcolm's first shift of guards were in place. The children were settled with Miss Bentley and their aunt Violet, as reassured as possible. Raimundo O'Roarke had gone back to his hotel and Geoffrey had gone to look in on other patients, promising to return in a few hours. Roth had left to speak with neighbors and confer with his constables. It had plainly been time for Mélanie and Kitty to leave as well, and since Kitty was at the heart of the investigation and would of course want an update from Malcolm, Mélanie had suggested they return to Berkeley Square together.
They walked some distance along the pavement in silence, past neatly swept front steps, shiny doors, window boxes with flowers. Houses as cheerful and innocuous as Annabel Larimer's had seemed a few hours before. "We'd have been in the way if we'd stayed longer," Kitty said. "But it feels odd to suddenly be in the midst of such everyday trivia. As though we spent the past few hours in another world."
"The shock of everyday life." Mélanie tugged one of her gloves smooth. "Though we're still in the midst of the investigation."
Kitty cast a glance back over her shoulder.
"Malcolm's guards are excellent," Mélanie said. "She'll be safe, at least."
"Yes, I know. Malcolm wouldn't have left himself otherwise. It's just difficult to walk away from the center of a problem."
"We don't actually know where the center of the problem is. I'm hoping Malcolm's learned more."
They walked in silence for a few more paces. A breeze had come up, sharp with the bite of oncoming autumn. Kitty turned her head and regarded Mélanie. "There's no denying this is awkward. You're very kind."
Mélanie smiled into the cool green gaze of her husband's first love. "I'd be a poor wretch if I wasn't kind to someone Malcolm cared about."
"Which in itself is kind. Not all women are so sanguine about their husbands' pasts."
"Unless one marries out of the schoolroom—which isn't something I'd wish for my children—one knows one's partner has a past."
Kitty glanced across the street. A woman in a print dress and straw hat, probably a governess or nursemaid, was walking with girl of about eight wheeling a hoop and a boy a few years younger pulling a wagon. "I've wondered about you ever since I heard Malcolm had married. I confess I thought you'd be different. I'd heard you were the toast of the beau monde."
Mélanie laughed. "These days we don't go out much at all. At least, not in society."
Kitty turned her gaze back to Mélanie and gave the smile of a woman who knew precisely how to take in the cut of Mélanie's gown and the angle of her hat. "Oh, you're as lovely and as stylish as I imagined. I may have spent almost a decade in Argentina, but I know how to recognize Paris fashions. You didn't even look in the mirror when you put your hat back on and it couldn't be arranged more perfectly. But you're far more approachable. Thank goodness. I couldn't quite picture Malcolm with a flawless society beauty."
"Malcolm would go mad. He cares for society less than I do. Though we learned to navigate it in the diplomatic corps."
"I imagine you were brilliant at it."
"Hardly." Mélanie put a hand to her hat as a gust of wind rippled past. "I enjoyed it more than he does, though."
"And probably kept him from seeking permanent refuge in the library. Or going mad." Kitty regarded her for a long moment, face shadowed by the deep brim of her own bonnet. "I was relieved seeing the two of you together. To realize it was a love match."
"You're sharp-eyed." Mélanie adjust her other glove. "A lot of people consider us terribly cold. They think I married Malcolm for his position or Malcolm married me to protect me. The latter of which isn't far off."
"Whyever he married you, what he feels for you now is abundantly plain to one who knows him. Or knew him. And though I can't claim to know you, I hope you'll permit me to say it's quite apparent that you feel the same."
"I'd be distinctly concerned if you thought otherwise." Mélanie considered the other woman for a moment. She was beautiful, that had been apparent from the moment they met, though Mélanie knew conventional beauty wasn't enough to catch Malcolm's attention. There was a magnetism about her that instantly drew the eye and kept one's attention, quite apart from her fine features and brilliant eyes. The sort of thing that gave an actor an indefinable quality on the stage. But even that wouldn't have been enough for Malcolm on its own. She'd seen him with beautiful women. Magnetic women. He obviously wasn't blind to beauty but nor was he particularly swayed by it.
But there was an irony in the curve of Kitty Ashford's mouth, a humor in her brilliant green eyes, that suddenly made what had caught and held Malcolm's interest crystal clear. What might hold his interest even now. "I've wondered about you as well. Not you in particular, obviously. I didn't know your name until the ball. But I knew Malcolm must have loved someone. And knowing Malcolm, I knew she must have meant a great deal to him."
"And you probably wondered how I could have let him go."
"I wouldn't presume."
They stopped to nod to two ladies laden with shopping parcels descending from a carriage and climbing the steps of a house. Kitty tilted her head to one side, deepening the shadows across her face. The silk that lined her bonnet turned her eyes emerald green. "I think it's as well that I did. He's happy. It makes me happy to see that. In truth, it was a happy surprise to see him with such an optimistic take on the world. Living in Britain, where he swore to me he'd never return. A great deal has obviously changed in the past eight years. Because of you, I think."
Mélanie bit back a laugh of bitter irony. So much had changed. Not all for the better. Though perhaps mostly so, on the whole. More than she'd have thought a year and a half ago. "A great deal has changed for both Malcolm and me, I think. Partly because of each other. But not entirely."
Kitty's mouth twisted. "I don't think I made him very happy."
"I don't think the circumstances did, which is a rather different thing."
"I should have known how seriously he took things. Known there was no future for us and we'd only be hurt. But I let myself enjoy the moment."
"I've done that myself, at times in my life."
"I knew my life couldn't change. But I should have thought of what I was doing to his." Kitty's hands closed on her elbows. "I'm glad Malcolm has children. He told you about the baby?"
"Yes. I'm so sorry."
"It was a loss. A loss I mourned, despite knowing it made our lives easier." Her fingers tightened on the pomona green silk of her spencer. "I know he thinks I couldn't bear to turn my back on society and face scandal. And there's some truth to that. I don't think of myself as conventional, but I've never been one for bold defiance either. And it's harder for a woman than a man. But I also know he wouldn't have been happy if we'd gone off together. Not the way we'd have had to live. Cut off from everyone. Unable to pursue his career. He'd have gone mad."
Mélanie had thought the same when they'd gone to Italy. It hadn't proved true. Not precisely. God knows she was glad to be back in Britain, but they could have made their lives in Italy work.
"Besides, at the time I didn't think he really wanted to marry," Kitty said. "Or to live as though he were married."
"I don't think he did when he married me either. At least, he didn't think he'd be good at it. He warned me of as much when he proposed. People do things in the midst of a war that they'd never do in rational society. And sometimes those risks turn out for the best."
Kitty nodded. "To be honest, I didn't want to leave the war either. Didn't want to leave off being an agent. You must have felt that yourself. Though I don't think you've ever made the compromises I did."
Thank God for all her training and the sheer instincts honed by years of maintaining her cover. "I think every spy knows what it is to make compromises."
"To a degree, perhaps. Some are more single-minded than others. Malcolm never understood my single-mindedness. Or perhaps it's that he's incapable of compromise."
"Or that he didn't believe in his cause the way you believed in your own."
Kitty raised a brow. "We had the same cause."
"You're Spanish. Malcolm's British. And he came to question what his country was doing in Spain."
"You're very tolerant considering you're a Spaniard yourself."
"I learned long ago that I couldn't expect Malcolm and me to see everything the same way," Mélanie said truthfully.
"The secret to a happy marriage, perhaps. Not that I would know. My own could be called anything but. I don't think I'm really cut out for marriage. Or for compromise. It doesn't sound as though Annabel Larimer was either."
"No." Mélanie frowned, recalling Violet Durbridge's description of her sister. "I didn't know her well. She was very kind but she seemed quite quiet and decorous. I begin to think I didn't know her at all."
"I knew her even less well," Kitty said, "but I had the same impression. I obviously woefully underestimated her. But then, all agents need some sort of cover. If Annabel Larimer was that good at maintaining hers, she was a very good agent indeed."
Malcolm reached across the distance between his chair and Raoul's chair to touch Clara's cheek. "If Annabel Larimer knew who the Goshawk was, not only did she not tell Harry six years ago, she didn't tell him when she questioned him a few days ago. Even though she was afraid. Which makes one wonder—"
He broke off as the library door clicked open. He looked over his shoulder to see his wife and former mistress come into the room side by side. They might have been out paying calls, save that their taut expressions told otherwise. "You've learned more?" Malcolm asked.
Mélanie paused inside the library door, holding her hat by its rose satin ribbons. "Annabel Larimer's sister appeared after you left. It seems Annabel's parentage is mysterious. Which could or could not be significant."
She set her hat and gloves on the library table. Kitty did the same. Mélanie perched on the arm of Malcolm's chair. Kitty sat in a chair close enough for conversation, not so close as to intrude. Everyone was managing the forms very well. After all, they were all civilized adults. Investigations could bring odd groups together.
"I've just been updating Raoul," Malcolm said. "But it sounds as though you need to update us."
Mélanie explained the visit from Annabel's sister, Violet Durbridge. "Mrs. Durbridge is going to stay at the house with the children and Annabel," Mélanie concluded. "So she'll be able to answer further questions. It's difficult to be certain, of course, but I truly don't think she knows who Annabel's biological father is."
"Talking of unconventional families," Malcolm said. "Most families have their quirks when one digs beneath the surface. At the moment, it seems likeliest the attack on Annabel had to do with her work in Spain and the Goshawk, in which case her parentage is entirely irrelevant to what happened. But it's possible the clues to her attack lie in her parentage, and it's the Goshawk that's irrelevant."
"The Goshawk is hardly irrelevant," Kitty said.
"Not in the grand scheme of things, perhaps," Malcolm said, "but our priority has to be learning who attacked Annabel and preventing another attack."
"That's Malcolm," Kitty said with a faint smile. "Never forgetting the human factor. No." She put up a hand. "Of course I want to protect Annabel. I may not have your fine-tuned scruples, but I'm not heartless. I don't see, though, why one precludes following up on the other." She looked at Raoul. "You realize what the Goshawk could mean in Spain right now, don't you?"
"I think the most important thing in Spain right now is waking people up to the conditions about them," Raoul said. "But I'm not unaware of the power of symbols. And I haven't been above making use of them in the past."
"You've always seen the bigger picture," Kitty said. "That clearly hasn't changed. Though I confess it's odd to see you with a baby asleep in your arms."
"My dear Mrs. Ashford. Given the developments in your own life, I'd hope you'd have learned that holding a child in no way stops one from using one's brain in all manner of ways."
"And thank God for a man who'll admit to it." Kitty leaned forwards to look at Clara. "She's adorable. I told your wife earlier. I'm glad to see you so at ease with her. But then, you're at ease in any number of situations. Did Malcolm tell you about Raimundo?"
"Yes." Raoul's easy voice gave no clue he knew he was talking to someone who had been on the opposite side during the war. "I'll speak with him and see what I can learn. Though I scarcely know him."
"I probably know him better than anyone in this room," Kitty said. "Oh, devil take, I'm sure I do. No sense prevaricating, I already told Malcolm. Raimundo and I were rather close for a time when I was working with Victor's band of guerrilleros. I didn't, of course, know his connection to Malcolm. Not then, or later when I met Malcolm. He doesn't have Malcolm's subtlety."
"You think he just stumbled into the middle of this?" Mélanie said. "He comes across as quite disingenuous, but talking to him I had a niggling sense that there was more beneath the surface."
"Not everyone in the O'Roarke family—whether or not they go by the name O'Roarke—is quite so complicated," Kitty said.
Mélanie met Kitty's gaze with an easy assurance. "Yes, I did consider it might be my imagination running on because of the associations."
"Your imagination doesn't tend to do that." Malcolm subdued the impulse to reach for his wife's hand. It might look like too obvious a show of solidarity.
"I suppose we both have reasons to let personal views cloud the situation," Kitty said.
"Quite." Mélanie smiled in perfect agreement. And yet, Malcolm had the sense he was watching a white-gloved duel.
"His simply happening to turn up is coincidental," Malcolm said. Of course, so was Kitty's simply turning up at Emily Cowper's ball. "Kit," he said, "who was your source for the intelligence that Annabel knew something about the Goshawk? I didn't want to pry before, but now everything to do with Annabel is a matter of some moment."
Kitty smoothed her hands over her lap. Her gown was barely creased. That was one thing she and Mel shared—the ability to emerge from adventures looking almost untouched. "An agent I worked with in Argentina. He called himself Francisco Gerard, though I don't think that was his real name. But then, we all have people we've worked with on missions who only know us by aliases. He'd worked in the Peninsula. He didn't share a lot of details with me, but a year or so ago we were talking about the situation in Spain now, and I said the right event or person could be a catalyst. I asked if he knew anything about the Goshawk. He said he had no idea of the Goshawk's identity, but that he had reason to think a woman named Annabel Larimer did. He couldn't or wouldn't tell me more. But he's not the sort to throw out idle hints."
"Harry says Annabel recently asked him if he thought Diego Martinez knew the Goshawk's identity," Malcolm said. He brought Mel and Kitty up to date on his discoveries from Harry and Raoul.
"Annabel Larimer seems to have been quite a fascinating woman," Kitty said. "She's wasted living quietly as a widow in London."
"Assuming that's what she really is doing," Mélanie said.
"Apparently Harry hasn't seen her much more than we have in recent years," Malcolm said. "If—"
He broke off as the door opened again, this time to admit Jeremy Roth. "Valentin said I should show myself in," he said. "I know you don't stand on ceremony these days."
"By all means." Mélanie smiled and gestured him to a chair.
Roth advanced into the room, pausing to smile down at Clara. "I swear she's grown in—how long is it? A week? But then, they do at that age." He dropped into the chair Mélanie had indicated but did not immediately volunteer more information.
Kitty gave a faint smile. "You aren't sure how much to say in front of me. Malcolm said you were brilliant and trustworthy, and I see he was right. Trust is a wonderful thing, but I quite understand it only goes so far, even between old friends."
Malcolm found himself smiling. "Thank you, Kit. I'd expect quite the same from you."
"I only ask that you let me know any pertinent details."
"Of course."
She regarded him for a moment, a smile playing about her lips. "Reserving the prerogative to define pertinent for yourself."
"Quite."
Kitty turned to Mélanie. "Mrs. Rannoch. I owe you thanks for any number of things today. Your hospitality is the least of them. I can't tell you how I appreciate everything."
"We count on seeing you again soon," Mélanie said. "And, in the circumstances, don't you think you should get round to calling me Mélanie? There's nothing like an investigation to send formality out the window."
"I quite agree. And to own the truth, it's a distinct relief not to be called Mrs. Ashford. Raoul. Don't get up and disturb the baby. I'm sure I shall see you soon. Inspector Roth. Thank you for putting up with another civilian in your investigation."
"We may have only just met," Roth said, "but it's quite apparent you are anything but a civilian."
Malcolm saw Kitty to the door. In the hall, she paused and looked up at him in the midst of drawing on her gloves. "We need to work together, Malcolm. I may be after the Goshawk. But I want to find who attacked Annabel Larimer as much as you do. You're too sensible to let the past cloud the issue."
"The past is in the past, Kitty. There's no need for it to intrude on the present."
Save, of course, that it had shown him just how much they could be at odds.