"Fanny. By all that's wonderful."
The loud voice assailed Frances's ears as she turned from speaking with Lucy Beresford. Good God, Teddy Carstairs. He'd had that same braying tone as an undergraduate, though he'd quite lost the golden-haired, lithe-limbed looks that had made his lack of understanding tolerable in their youth. She turned round to see him with Mathilda Jennings on his arm. Mattie was a widow, as Frances had been until recently, and they had run in the same set for over two decades. A bit of a surprise to see Mattie with Teddy. She'd used to have more discriminating taste.
"You're a sight for sore eyes," Carstairs said. "Out on the town again, what? Knew you wouldn't stay immured for long."
Frances gave him a smile with all the sweetness of Vauxhall's excellent lemon ice. "I'm out with my husband."
Carstairs slapped his thigh and let out a laugh. "Well, that's a new one."
"Yes, but I enjoy this husband's company. Really, there'd have been no reason to marry him otherwise." Well, except for the fact that she'd been with child, but she'd have found some other way to manage that if she hadn't been head over heels in love with Archie. She knew better than to tie herself to the wrong man again.
"It sounds deadly dull, my dear," Mathilda said.
"Actually, it's quite delightful." Had she really said that? More, had she meant such ingenue-ish words?
Mathilda shook her head. "You'll grow bored. I've never known you not to grow bored with a liaison."
"One of the reasons Archie and I decided on marriage. At a certain point, it seems so much more stable."
Mathilda raised her overplucked brows. "You can't tell me you want to be stable, Fanny."
"Mattie, darling, define stable. My life with Archie is anything but dull."
"My dear." Mathilda cast a glance at Carstairs, the sort of look with which people exchanged sympathy for their friends who had gone hopelessly astray, and unfurled her fan. "You scarcely go out anymore."
"On the contrary. We dine with friends frequently, and we were at the Tavistock and Covent Garden only last week. But it's quite amazing how fascinating small babies are. I'd quite forgot."
"Fanny darling. You are far gone."
"Delightfully so." And oddly—or not so oddly—it was the truth. She was rather enjoying Vauxhall and this journey into her youth, but she'd be ready to go home before too much longer. The babies would be awake and want a feeding and she felt the pull of time by the fire with Archie.
Mathilda tilted her head to one side. "I don't know whom I have a harder time picturing happily settled in domesticity— you or Archie Davenport. What do you think, Teddy?" She looked up at Carstairs.
"By God, it's difficult to choose." Teddy pulled a quizzing glass from his overly padded coat and made a show of looking through it. "But I'd say Fanny. If anyone were going to tempt Archie into domesticity, I can see Fanny doing it."
"Hmm." Not surprisingly, Mattie did not seem best pleased by this accolade to Frances—Fanny could have warned Teddy of as much. "I wouldn't count on a man like Archie Davenport's being content with dawdling in the nursery and dining with friends once the novelty wears off."
"Archie," Fanny said, "is an excellent father."
"That doesn't necessarily make him an excellent husband. Have a care, Fanny. You know gentlemen have more options than we do as we age. Of course, if you want to retire from the field while your husband enjoys the town, that's quite your own affair."
"I haven't retired from anything," Frances said. And then she realized that that wasn't entirely the case.
"Excellent. Knew you'd come to your senses," Teddy said.
"At least not anything that my husband hasn't," Fanny said. Poison. Why was she letting these two get under her skin?
"Fanny dear," Mattie said, with a sympathy that actually sounded genuine. "One doesn't tie one's life up neatly with happily-ever-after outside of a lending-library novel, you know. And one certainly doesn't at our age. Though I admit I can see it would be a temping delusion."
"I make no claims for myself," Frances said, "but Archie is far too complex to exist in a lending-library novel. And if our marriage is a delusion, it's a delusion I can remain happily lost in for the rest of my life."
"I can't believe we're at Vauxhall," Malcolm said. "The things I do for my sister."
Mélanie tightened her grip on his arm as they made their way down the hedged gravel walk. Malcolm turned his head sideways to look at her. Colored lanterns danced overhead and sent rainbow sparks off the jeweled pins in her hair. "You have to admit it's excellent cover, darling," Mélanie said.
A throaty laugh sounded from the other side of one of the hedges. "As a married couple we stick out absurdly," Malcolm muttered.
"The shadows are almost as good as masks. And you have to admit it's more intriguing than Almack's."
"You have me there. Archie's champagne was better than the Almack's punch, too."
"And there is a certain thrill."
Malcolm paused for a moment and looked down at his wife. "I hope you're talking about espionage. If you mean anything else, we don't need the props."
Mélanie laughed and reached up to kiss him, which might have been partly for cover in case they were observed. "No, dearest, you're quite right. Still, there's something about being alone in a place where being alone is a scandal, rather than in the security of our bedchamber—"
A hand grabbed Malcolm from behind. Malcolm spun away and dealt his attacker a blow to the jaw. He turned round to see that another man had grabbed Mélanie. Mélanie jerked away and gave her attacker a kick to the groin. The man doubled up on the gravel. The other man grabbed Malcolm by the shoulders. Malcolm leaned forwards and flipped the man over his head. Mélanie had a knife at her attacker's throat. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"You're in over your head," the man gasped in a voice with east London accents.
"I rather think that applies more to the two of you." Malcolm put a foot on his attacker's chest. "Whom are you working for?"
"If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of the Larimer business. This is only a warning."
"It doesn't seem to be working very well," Mélanie said. "On the other hand, we might be able to pay you better than your employers."
Malcolm saw something flicker in the man's gaze. A split second later, a third man hurtled into Malcolm from behind. Malcolm staggered and spun to parry a blow. The man he'd been standing on tried to spring up. The three of them went down on the gravel in a tangle, hitting Mélanie and her captive. Mélanie's captive seized the chance to push away from her knife.
The three attackers scrambled off down the avenues in three different directions. Malcolm and Mélanie ran after the man who was closest. "I could have used my knife," Mélanie said. "But I didn't want to actually cut anyone's throat."
"And too much chance of someone grabbing it in a fray," Malcolm gasped as they rounded a corner.
They were gaining on their quarry. He cast a glance over his shoulder, turned a corner, and ran into a curtained pavilion.
"What the devil?"
A man emerged from the pavilion, shirttails untucked, breeches unbuttoned, face flushed, dark hair disordered. Oh, God, it was Fenchurch, Cordelia's erstwhile flirt. Malcolm pushed past him only to be confronted by a lady, her fair hair falling about her face with abandon, the white stuff of her gown slipping down over her arms. "Mr. Rannoch!"
"Mrs. Carwell." It was not the first time Malcolm had found the wife of one of his colleagues in a compromising situation. "I beg your pardon. If you'll excuse me—"
But another man seized Malcolm from behind. "By God, what are you doing with my wife—Rannoch?"
Malcolm spun round to find himself looking at Peter Carwell, whom he had last seen with ink on his fingers and his cravat dunking in coffee at Brooks's. "Carwell. I assure you—"
"It wasn't Malcolm." Mélanie was beside them, somehow positioned as though she had been standing next to Imogen Carwell all along instead of running up with Malcolm. "It wasn't anyone. Only a tiresome accident with the punchbowl and we were trying to clean poor Imogen's gown and then the curtains blew open at just the wrong moment—"
"Most distressing." Cordelia was there as well, materialized from the shadowy paths in a stir of gauzy green drapery and sparkling brilliants, like Titania in a forest glade. "But I do think we have the damage repaired." She did up the top string on Mrs. Carwell's gown, which was somehow back in place about her shoulders.
Carwell looked about as though confused by the trio of ladies, who somehow lent verisimilitude to his wife's story. Or, rather, Mélanie's story, as Imogen Carwell looked as though words had quite deserted her. Fenchurch had disappeared, probably the most sensible thing he had done in a long while.
"But I was sure I saw—" Carwell began.
"So easy to see things that aren't really there, at night." Mélanie adjusted the pins in Mrs. Carwell's hair, miraculously turning its disorder from disheveled to fashionable in a few seconds. "How easily is a bush supposed a bear."
"A bear—"
"I'm so sorry, Peter." Imogen Carwell stepped forwards. Malcolm thought Cordelia had given her a small push. "I didn't mean to give you any distress."
Something about the quaver in her voice as she said that last rang true. Or perhaps that was the romantic in Malcolm wanting it to do so.
"I was so distressed about my gown," Imogen continued, "and truth to tell, I didn't think you'd notice I was missing."
"How the devil could I not notice?" Carwell demanded.
"You have to admit you've been rather preoccupied lately."
"Yes, but—"
"Always a mistake to be so caught up in work one forgets to notice one's wife," Malcolm said. "Speaking as one who has frequently made that mistake with my own wife."
Carwell met his gaze and for a moment Malcolm thought he caught a flicker of understanding. Maybe an understanding of something Carwell could not quite acknowledge to himself. "There's a waltz starting. I came to ask you to dance, Imogen."
Imogen Carwell's eyes widened. "Goodness, Peter—"
He held out his hand. "Dance with me?"
She clasped his hand in her own. "Of course, darling."
"Well, that may be one good thing to come out of this," Cordelia said, watching the Carwells move off down the walkway, heads close together. "I saw Imogen slip away from their supper box, and Fenchurch follow a short time later, so I went after them. How on earth did you find them?"
"Chasing one of the three ruffians who attacked us," Malcolm said.
"And escaped," Mélanie said. "But at least we helped the Carwells."
"What did the ruffians want?" Cordelia asked.
"To warn us, they claimed. Off investigating the attack on Annabel."
"Good God."
"If someone was willing to attack Annabel, it's not surprising they were willing to attack us." Mélanie smoothed the shoulders of her gown.
"No, but it's surprising they thought it would work," Cordelia said. "Obviously, whoever is behind it doesn't know you."
Malcolm stepped into a curtained grotto. Mélanie had gone off with Cordelia. He needed to see Gelly alone, and he and Mélanie had created enough cover by wandering off. He didn't think the ruffians would attack again tonight, having made their point as much as they could. But better on the whole for him and Mel to separate for cover.
The grotto was lit by a single red-glass lamp which revealed a velvet-covered bench, a small round table, and two straight-backed chairs. As well as a shadowy figure wrapped in a domino that might be black or midnight blue.
"The things I do for you, Gelly."
Gisèle put back the hood of her domino. "You have to admit it's a good place to lose oneself." She glanced round. "I always used to want to go to Vauxhall as a girl. Aunt Frances brought us a few times, but I always thought it would be more of an adventure as an adult. It's not as glamorous as I imagined. Though it is rather fun."
"Someone just attacked me. And Mélanie."
Gisèle took a quick step forwards, her domino fluttering back to reveal a dark blue silk gown beneath. "Are you both all right?"
"Only bruised in spirit because we managed to lose them. In fairness, I think they may have followed us here, so we might have faced them if we'd met in more innocuous surroundings." Malcolm studied his sister. "Why did you call on Annabel Larimer last Thursday?"
"She's a friend of yours, isn't she?" Gisèle took another quick step forwards, into the light that danced overhead from the crimson lamp. "That's why Tommy wanted me to go. He said I could use being your sister as an excuse."
Tommy Belmont had been a fellow attaché and agent of Malcolm's in the Peninsula and Vienna. He had also, Malcolm now knew, been recruited into the Elsinore League some time ago. And he in turn had recruited Gisèle. Or thought he had. "Why did the League want you to call on her?"
Gisèle's brows drew together. "It was odd. Tommy said they wanted to find out how much she knew about her parentage. That the people she claimed as her parents weren't her real parents. When I asked who her real parents were, he said he didn't know. I said I didn't see why she'd talk to a stranger about that sort of thing, and Tommy said I could find ways to draw her out. After all, I knew a lot about ambiguous parentage, and I'd just learned who my own father was. I still thought it was a bit of a stretch. But Mrs. Larimer was very kind to me. I used an assumed name when I called, but then I told her who I was. I said I was in London very quietly for a brief visit. In truth, she seemed happy to be reminded of her time in the Peninsula. She said she'd always liked you and Mélanie and that she envied you your marriage. That she couldn't believe how you managed to lead such adventurous lives, yet still have a happy marriage. I said I thought it only worked because you were adventurous together. Then I said it was the more remarkable as we hadn't had much of an example of connubial bliss growing up. That, like many in the ton, we'd come to terms with our parentage being uncertain. I wasn't going to go much further in trying to draw her out. I wanted to look as though I was going along with Tommy's request more than actually accomplishing it. But to my surprise, she brought Raoul up. She asked if it was true he was your father. I said he was and you were very fortunate to have your relationship more or less in the open. Then I said I'd recently learned who my own father was, though I didn't mention his identity. That was when she admitted to me that she didn't know who her father was. She seemed almost relieved to speak of it. But that was as far as it went. As I told Tommy, I'm inclined to think she really doesn't know more."
"Are you saying her father is a League member?"
"That was my suspicion. Tommy said he didn't know, only that her parentage was significant. And so did—"
"So did who?" Malcolm scanned his sister's face. "Julien St. Juste?"
St. Juste, an agent for hire whose past connected both to Carfax and to Arabella Rannoch, Malcolm and Gisèle's mother, could be called Gisèle's mentor in espionage. But Gisèle shook her head. "No. Julien said he didn't know anything about Mrs. Larimer."
"Beverston?"
"No. He didn't even talk to me about Mrs. Larimer."
Malcolm set his hands on his sister's shoulders. "Gelly, who are you working with directly, besides Tommy?"
She glanced to the side with a shrug of impatience. "Beverston sometimes, I told you. Tommy acts on his orders, though Tommy would deny it's so simple. No one else directly."
Malcolm looked at his sister's determined face. She was a brilliant agent. He was still coming to terms with just how good. But even so, he could tell when she was holding something back.
Gisèle stepped out of his hold. "Stop looking at me like that, Malcolm. Not everyone is a cipher."
"Not everyone, perhaps. But a large percentage of our family and acquaintance are. What happened after you told Tommy about Annabel Larimer?"
"He was frustrated, but not overly surprised, I think."
Malcolm held his sister with his gaze for a moment. "Someone attacked Annabel this afternoon. She survived, though I don't think it was the attacker's intention that she do so. She's unconscious. Geoff isn't sure if she'll wake up or not."
"Oh, God." For a moment, the self-possessed agent before him was his worried little sister. "I liked her. Her children—"
"Yes, I know. Her children are being cared for. But if they lose their mother, their lives will never be the same." He scanned her face. "Tommy didn't give you any hint he or others in the League meant to attack her?"
"No! Malcolm, you can't think I wouldn't have warned you if I knew an innocent person was about to be attacked."
"Innocence can be hard to define."
"You know what I mean. How can you be sure the League are behind the attack?"
"I'm not sure of anything. But the League's interest in her makes me suspicious."
"But it doesn't make any sense. Tommy seemed to believe me when I said I didn't think she knew about her father. So there'd be no reason to kill her to keep a secret she didn't know, if that's what this is about. And if they thought I was wrong and she had more to tell them, killing her would lose the secrets forever."
"Unless someone got her to talk and then attacked her."
"Is that what you think happened?"
"At this point, I have no theory of what happened. Have you heard anyone mention the Goshawk?"
"Another code name?"
"From the Peninsular War."
Gisèle shook her head. "No. But Spain's of interest to the League. Spain and the past. Going back to the war, which I suppose isn't surprising."
"What about the war? The League didn't play a great role in it."
"I think they were more invested than we realized. Tommy likes to say there were fortunes to be made."
"From what? Selling weapons? Looting treasure from the Spanish?"
"Both, I think. Beverston was invested in a munitions factory. So was Thurmond. Probably others as well. And you know the League have always been interested in collecting art treasures. It started with Fa—Alistair and Glenister."
Malcolm had identified a number of pieces in the collection he'd inherited from Alistair that had been taken in the looting during the war, particularly after Vitoria, and returned them to their rightful owners. But there were some he hadn't been able to identify and others he suspected he didn't know had been acquired illegally. "And that's important now?" he asked. "Are they concerned about a possible rebellion in Spain?"
"Beverston is. He doesn't like instability. He said we could have revolution spreading all over the Continent again if we weren't careful."
"Good God. He sounds like—"
"My father. I know," Gisèle said. "They're much alike. It's rather ironic Carfax is such an enemy to the League and yet he agrees with them on so many things."
"One of the reasons I've never wanted to share our intelligence on the League with Carfax."
"Very wise." Gisèle fingered a fold of her cloak. "But I think there's more to Spain than worry about a rebellion. I haven't heard nearly as much about the situation in France or anywhere else. Spain or something in Spain matters to them."
"Have they connected Annabel Larimer to it?"
"You mean because her husband was a soldier?"
Malcolm wasn't quite ready to share with his sister that Annabel had been an agent. "She lived in the Peninsula for many years."
"I haven't heard anything to connect their interest in her to their interest in Spain. Save that the two are occurring at the same time." She pulled the domino tighter about her. "So many threads to keep track of. Sometimes it feels like playing two different chess games at once."
Malcolm put a hand on his sister's arm. "Gelly—"
"I'm all right, Malcolm. It's easier when I can see you more. Easier and harder. Ian's walking. He said 'dada' quite clearly. I don't know when he'll say 'mama' and I suppose I'd quite deserve it if he never does. But I think he's happy. And as safe as we can make him. Sometimes safety's more than wrapping someone up in cotton wool. You helped me learn that."
"If I've helped you at all, I'm immeasurably grateful."
"You help me more than you know, Malcolm." She smoothed the folds of the domino. "Edgar and Lydia will be in London soon, won't they?"
"They arrived today, actually. I haven't seen Lydia yet, but I saw Edgar." Malcolm looked at his sister for a moment.
"Oh, God. Did you tell him about me?"
"No. I realized it's too much of a risk. Edgar's always been too honest to keep secrets."
"Thank God. He'd think I've gone mad."
"I think he'd be more likely to think I'd gone mad."
Gisèle grimaced. "Because he'd think you should be able to control me."
"I have no illusions that I could. And I wouldn't want to.'"
Gisèle gave a sudden smile. "You're wonderful, Malcolm." She put her hand over his own and went on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Keep safe."
"You do the same, sister mine."
"Of course." She stepped back and squeezed his shoulder. "I have so much to keep safe for."