London Gambit Read online

  Copyright

  This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  London Gambit

  Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Grant

  Ebook ISBN: 9781943772421

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  NYLA Publishing

  350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003, NY 10001, New York.

  http://www.nyliterary.com

  Dedication

  For Richard Havel, a wonderful uncle who has always supported me and my writing, with everything from attending graduations and countless book readings, to being there when my daughter was born. Thank you, Uncle Dick!

  Acknowledgments

  As always, my fervent and heartfelt thanks to my agent, Nancy Yost, for her support of Malcolm and Suzanne, and of me, and for her input and advice on this book and from the start of the series.

  Thanks as well to Natanya Wheeler, for a beautiful cover that evokes the mood of the book and series, captures one of the early scenes to perfection, and looks about as close as I can imagine to Suzanne Rannoch, and also for shepherding the ebook expertly through the publication process. Thanks to Sarah Younger, for looking after the book so well on the print side. And to Adrienne Rosado and everyone at NYLA, for their support throughout the publication process.

  Thank you to Catherine Duthie and Kate Mullin, for the invaluable feedback on the manuscript. To Eve Lynch, for the careful copy editing and answering countless questions about the finer points of grammar and style.

  To all the wonderful booksellers who help readers find Malcolm and Suzanne, and in particular to Book Passage in Corte Madera, for their always warm welcome to me and to my daughter, Mélanie. Thank you to the readers who share Suzanne's and Malcolm's adventures with me on my Web site, Facebook, and Twitter. To Suzi Shoemake and Betty Strohecker, for managing a wonderful Google+ Discussion Group for readers of the series, and to all the members of the group, for their enthusiasm and support. Thank you to Gregory Paris and jim saliba, for creating my Web site and updating it so quickly and with such style. To Raphael Coffey, for juggling cats and humans to take the best author photos a writer could have (and to my daughter, Mélanie, and our cats, Suzanne and Lescaut, for being so wonderfully cooperative over a two-hour photo shoot).

  Thanks to Raphael, Bonnie Glaser, and Veronica Wolff, for nurturing Mélanie so Mummy could get a few more words down. To my colleagues at the Merola Opera Program, for understanding that being a novelist is also an important part of my life. To the staffs at Pottery Barn Kids, Peek, and Blue Stove at Nordstrom, all at The Village in Corte Madera, for a friendly welcome to Mélanie and me on writing breaks. And to the staff at Peet's Coffee & Tea at The Village in Corte Madera, for keeping me supplied with superb lattes and cups of Earl Grey, and keeping Mélanie happy with hot chocolate and whip cream and smiles as I wrote this book.

  Thank you to Lauren Willig, for sharing the delights and dilemmas of writing about Napoleonic spies while also juggling small children. I'll always remember sitting on your sofa and discussing Jane's Pink Carnation book while our daughters bonded over Pirates of Penzance. To Penelope Williamson, for support and understanding and hours analyzing Shakespeare plays, new works, and episodes of Scandal. To Veronica Wolff, for wonderful writing dates during which my word count seemed to magically increase. To Deborah Crombie, for supporting Malcolm and Suzanne from the beginning. To Tasha Alexander and Andrew Grant, for their wit and wisdom and support, whether in person or via email. To Deanna Raybourn, who never fails to offer encouragement and asks wonderful interview questions. And to my other writer friends near and far, for brainstorming, strategizing, and commiserating—Jami Alden, Bella Andre, Allison Brennan, Isobel Carr, Deborah Coonts, Catherine Coulter, Alexandra Elliott, J.T. Ellison, Barbara Freethy, Carol Grace, C. S. Harris, Candice Hern, Anne Mallory, Monica McCarty, Brenda Novak, Poppy Reiffin, and Jacqueline Yau.

  Finally, thank you to my daughter, Mélanie, for inspiring me, encouraging me, and being amazingly tolerant of Mummy's writing time. I am so excited you are beginning to make up stories yourself!

  Dramatis Personae

  *indicates real historical figures

  The Rannoch Family & Household

  Malcolm Rannoch, Member of Parliament

  Suzanne (Mélanie) Rannoch, his wife

  Colin Rannoch, their son

  Jessica Rannoch, their daughter

  Laura Fitzwalter, Marchioness of Tarrington, Colin and Jessica's former governess

  Lady Emily Fitzwalter, her daughter

  Raoul O'Roarke, Laura's lover, Suzanne's former spymaster, Malcolm's father

  Miles Addison, Malcolm's valet

  Blanca Addison, his wife, Suzanne's maid and companion

  Valentin, footman

  Michael, footman

  Lady Frances Dacre-Hammond, Malcolm's aunt

  Aline Blackwell, her daughter

  Dr. Geoffrey Blackwell, Aline's husband

  The Davenport Family

  Lady Cordelia Davenport

  Colonel Harry Davenport, her husband, scholar and former intelligence officer

  Livia Davenport, their daughter

  Drusilla Davenport, their daughter

  Archibald Davenport, Harry's uncle

  The Mallinson/Carfax Family

  Hubert Mallinson, Earl Carfax, British spymaster

  Amelia, Countess Carfax, his wife

  Lady Lucinda Mallinson, their youngest daughter

  David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley, the Carfaxes' son

  Simon Tanner, playwright, David's lover

  Edward (Teddy), Viscount Craven, David's nephew

  George Craven, his brother

  Amy Craven, their sister

  Jamie Craven, their brother

  Cecilia Whateley, sister to the Carfaxes' late son-in-law

  Eustace Whateley, her husband

  Lady Isobel Lydgate, the Carfaxes' daughter

  Oliver Lydgate, her husband

  Ellie Lydgate, their daughter

  Billy Lydgate, their son

  Rose Lydgate, their daughter

  Mary Fitzwalter, Dowager Duchess of Trenchard, the Carfaxes' eldest daughter

  Marianne Fairchild, a cousin of the Mallinsons'

  The Laclos/Caruthers Family

  Bertrand Laclos, French émigré

  Rupert, Viscount Caruthers, his lover

  Gabrielle, Viscountess Caruthers, Rupert's wife and Bertrand's cousin

  Stephen, their son

  Nick Gordon, Gabrielle's lover

  Gui Laclos, Gabrielle's brother, betrothed to Mary Trenchard

  Waterloo Veterans

  *Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, British ambassador to France

  *Lord Fitzroy Somerset, his secretary

  *Emily Harriet Somerset, Fitzroy's wife and Wellington's niece

  Captain John Ennis, former intelligence officer

  Anne Ennis, his wife

  Kit Ennis, their son

  Tim Ennis, their son

  Ben Coventry, former enlisted man

  Sue Kettering, his mistress

  Jemmy, their son

  Colonel William Cuthbertson

  Viscount St. Ives, Life Guards


  Sylvie (de Fancot), Viscountess St. Ives, his wife

  *Auguste-Charles-Joseph, Comte de Flahaut, former aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte

  *Margaret (Mercer Elphinstone), Comtesse de Flahaut, his wife

  *Hortense Bonaparte, Flahaut's former lover, stepdaughter to Napoleon

  Others

  Jeremy Roth, Bow Street runner

  Marthe Leblanc, dressmaker and former French agent

  Charlotte Leblanc, her daughter

  Sophie Leblanc her daughter

  Louis Germont, clerk in the French foreign ministry

  Manon (Caret), Lady Harleton, actress and former French agent

  Crispin, Lord Harleton, her husband

  Roxane, Manon's daughter

  Clarisse, Manon's daughter

  Jennifer Mansfield, actress and former French agent

  Sir Horace Smytheton, her lover, patron of the Tavistock Theatre

  Lisette Varon, former French agent

  Maria Monreal, former British agent

  Julien St. Juste, agent for hire

  What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor? What is that honor? Air.

  Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, Act V, scene i

  Prologue

  London

  June 1818

  He was safe. No, not that precisely. The world wasn't safe anymore. But he was safer than he'd been on the streets of London, where he'd dodged blows and seen a brawl break out. Safer than he'd been at Harrow, or he wouldn't have had to leave. Safer than he'd been jolted in a farm cart on the drive here. Safer than he'd be at home. No, not that. He didn't have a home anymore. Safer than he'd be in his uncle's house.

  He eased the door shut and stepped into the cool, damp darkness. Shadows offered safety, he reminded himself. He could think here. Decide what to do next. He took two steps forwards, then slumped against the wall and slid down to land on the floorboards with a thump. He'd bumped his knee jumping from the cart, and his elbow running from the brawl.

  He reached inside his coat, pulled out a hunk of the dry bread the man with the farm cart had given him, chewed a bite. His eyes were heavy. If he could just sleep for a bit, he'd feel better. Then he'd be able to figure out what to do. At least this place had been his father's. That made it safer somehow. He let his shoulders sink further against the wall.

  Something scuttered across his foot. He started, screamed, jumped to the side, wide awake. He put a hand on the ground to keep his balance and touched something. Something soft. Hair. A dog. No, a person. God, someone else was asleep in here. He snatched his hand away. Something dripped from his fingers. Something sticky. He caught the coppery tang, but it was a moment more before he realized it was blood.

  Chapter 1

  Malcolm Rannoch swung down from a hackney in Rosemary Lane. The light mist that had been falling when he left Brooks's had whipped up into genuine rain, but the street was still crowded. Men and women lounged in doorways, three boys clustered round a sputtering fire under an overhanging roof at the street corner. The sight of a gentleman in a black evening coat, cream-colored pantaloons, and a silk hat stepping from a hackney drew a number of surprised, cautious looks. Malcolm nodded, smiled, and slipped through the crowd to the door of the warehouse.

  Jeremy Roth opened the door at once in response to his knock. "Thank you for coming." The Bow Street runner's gaze was level as usual, but his dark eyes betrayed his concern. "I'm sorry to have disrupted your evening. Especially on young Colin's birthday."

  Roth and his own sons had been at Colin's party at the Rannochs' Berkeley Square house earlier in the day. Malcolm waved a hand. "We took the children to dinner at Rules after the party. Colin was sound asleep two hours since. I was at an election strategy meeting at Brooks's. I was bewailing our dim prospects for meaningful gains with David and Rupert and Oliver when I got your message. You saved me from sinking further into wallowing in regret."

  Roth stepped aside so Malcolm could enter the warehouse. Two lanterns had been lit, shedding flickering yellow light over the high beam ceiling and smoke-blackened walls. Even before he noticed the blanket-covered form on the ground against one wall, Malcolm caught a whiff of the sickly sweet stench of blood.

  Roth nodded. "Someone seems to have broken in. There's a hidden compartment in the wall near the body that we found open and empty, so I'd had hazard a guess the dead man broke in to steal something and had a fight with a confederate who took whatever they were searching for."

  "Or someone else broke in in search of the same thing and surprised him."

  Roth raised his brows. "Possibly. The body has begun to stiffen, so it looks as though he was killed between six-thirty and ten-thirty this evening. Given the break-in, I'd hazard a guess it was on the later side. But that isn't why I sent for you." He jerked his head to the far end of the room. A small figure sat at a round table, shoulders hunched, feet not quite reaching the floorboards. "He wouldn't tell me his name," Roth said. "But I recognized him."

  Malcolm recognized him as well. The body language and the gleam of the fair hair in the lamplight. What Roth didn't say, but what hung between both of them, was that Roth had met the boy three months earlier when he'd come home from Harrow, angry and sulky over his mother's death closely following his father's murder.

  "I thought about sending for Lord Worsley," Roth said. "But the boy's adamant he doesn't want to see him. And given that he obviously ran away—"

  Malcolm touched his friend's shoulder. "Quite right."

  Roth's gaze lingered on the boy. "He was quite resourceful. Used the last of his money to pay someone to carry a message to the nearest constable. I'm not sure I'd have shown such presence of mind at nine."

  "Nor I. The constable sent for you?"

  "A combination of the dead body and the boy's accent and his refusal to volunteer further information. Fortunately I was the one who took the message. At least I could identify him." He hesitated a moment. "I could send for Worsley now—"

  "No. David may not forgive either one of us, but between Teddy refusing to talk and a murder investigation, it's as well I got here first."

  The boy lifted his head as Malcolm crossed the warehouse. Edward St. John Craven. Viscount Craven since his father had been murdered in Hyde Park three months ago. That, followed by his mother's death less than a week later, had shaken Teddy's world. Though he didn't know that his mother had taken her own life or that she had hired the man who killed his father. At least, Malcolm hoped to God Teddy didn't know. Given all that had happened, his running away from school wasn't that surprising. But something must have driven him to take such an action now.

  The constable, a fresh-faced lad with white-blond hair, was leaning against the wall near the table, but as Malcolm approached, he gave a quick nod and moved towards Roth. He appeared to have brewed Teddy a cup of tea over a spirit lamp. It was in front of the boy, a faint curl of steam rising over the cup.

  "Good evening, Teddy." Malcolm dropped into the rickety chair across the table from his friend's nephew. "I hear you showed great presence of mind discovering the body and alerting the authorities."

  Teddy's chin jerked up. He looked as though he was about to deny his own identity and then realized the impossibility of doing that with someone who had known him since babyhood. "I had to. I mean, I couldn't just leave him lying there." His gaze shot towards the blanket-covered form, then away.

  "Quite right."

  Teddy's hands curled round the cup, though he didn't lift it to his lips. "Do they know who he is?"

  "Not as far as I know."

  Teddy nodded and stared down into the depths of the teacup. It was white, with a blue transferware pattern and a chip at the rim.

  "You showed a great deal of initiative, not just in sending for a constable, but earlier," Malcolm said. "I often felt the impulse to run away from Harrow, but I never actually put it into action."

  Teddy's gaze jerked to his face. "I couldn't stay. Not after—And I can't go back."

&n
bsp; A thousand petty cruelties and unthinking tyrannies shot through Malcolm's memory. "For what it's worth, I think your uncle David will understand that better than anyone. Except perhaps for me. We neither of us had a very easy time at Harrow. To own the truth, I'm not sure I want my own son to go at all."

  Teddy's brows drew together, as though Malcolm's words shook the order of his world. Which, in a way, they very much did. "So you'll send Colin to Eton? Or Winchester?"

  "I rather think we won't send him to school at all. He can go on doing lessons at home with his sister."

  Teddy's eyes widened. "But—"

  "David didn't want to disrupt your life. But if you explained matters to him, I suspect he'd be quite amenable to a similar arrangement."

  Teddy shook his head, so vigorously his fair hair flopped across his forehead. "I can't. He can't know. I couldn't tell him—"

  Malcolm looked into the anxious young face. "Is it something to do with your mother?"

  Teddy's eyes widened. "How do you know?"

  "I was a schoolboy once. I can remember what would have angered me enough I'd have been tempted to run away. And what I wouldn't have wanted to share even with a sympathetic uncle." The sting of casual comments came back to him through the years. Those comments had started questions he hadn't fully articulated for years and hadn't answered until a few months ago when he learned the actual identity of the man who had fathered him. Though that answer had raised a whole new set of questions.