The Duke's Gambit Read online

"What?"

  Mélanie drew a breath, seeing the flashes she'd sometimes caught in her young sister-in-law's gaze. Remembering moments from her own life as a London hostess. "What it's like to be happy in one's life and still be restless. To be happy, but feel society's constraint."

  A muscle tensed beside his jaw, but he merely gave a crisp nod.

  "Darling, I'm not—"

  "I know. You'd never run out on your responsibilities. I suppose one could argue Gelly's a bit less responsible than you. At least she was. She was still throwing tantrums when you were an agent stealing papers from the ministry of police. I'd have said she changed. It could be argued that I wanted her to have changed. That I wasn't the best judge." He scraped a hand over his hair. "But Tommy was wounded and bent on the Elsinore League's business. Even granted he wouldn't cavil at much, it's hard to see him as bent on seduction."

  "No," Mélanie agreed. "Unless it was part of his mission."

  "To use Gelly against us?" Malcolm drew a hard breath. "That, I confess, has the ring of the League. And Tommy. But how—"

  "They might want to get you to London."

  "And I'm playing right into their hands? But I don't see how I can do otherwise but follow her." Malcolm's gray gaze settled on her own, at once determined and tender. "I need to leave with Andrew at once. For London or wherever her trail takes us."

  Mélanie nodded.

  Malcolm stared at her. Usually any suggestion that he take action without her met with quick resistance.

  "Andrew will need your help and support. I don't want to leave the children, and you'll travel more quickly without us." Mélanie put her hands on her husband's chest. "Besides, you're in relatively little danger in London. I'm the problematic one."

  His brows drew together. "If you get the least hint you're unsafe here—"

  "I can pack up the children and go back to Italy. Don't worry, darling. I don't like to run, but I've never been afraid to do it when the situation calls for it."

  "Ha."

  "Seriously, darling. I may be reckless, but I've never been foolhardy. I wouldn't have survived in the game this long if I was. I'll pack a valise for you. If you need more, you can get it from Berkeley Square. Valentin will be there. Assuming the trail takes you to London."

  Malcolm nodded. "We'll change horses at the first posting house and send the team back." He put his hands over her own and gathered them into a hard clasp. "This is serious. I know we've said that before. But this may be the most serious foe we've ever faced."

  "We're equal to it."

  Chapter 3

  The room known as the old drawing room was unexpectedly quiet after the chaos in the house that morning. Most of the guests had retreated to their rooms. Cordelia had gathered the children in the library for charades. Laura Tarrington found herself alone with her lover for the first time since the news of Gisèle's disappearance. She walked up beside Raoul O'Roarke and slid her hand into his own. They had been lovers for almost a year and she was five months gone with their child, but long before that Malcolm and Gisèle's mother Arabella had been his lover for over twenty years. "I know you must be desperate to be doing something."

  He had been frowning at the mullioned panes of the window, but he turned his head and gave her a faint smile. "I'd only complicate things if I went to London with Malcolm and Andrew. I'm not sure what they're facing, but they're likely to need to move in London society." His gaze went back to the window. His brows were drawn, his mouth set, his gray eyes haunted in a way they only got in unguarded moments. "I keep seeing Gisèle toddling across the lawn holding Malcolm's hand. Or at seven with a grubby face and one of Arabella's coronets on her head. I always thought Arabella must have been a bit like that as a girl. Before her life got unbearably complicated."

  "I hadn't thought somehow—that you'd have watched her grow up."

  "Not as much as Malcolm, but I saw a fair amount of her. I remember carrying her about on my shoulders the way I do with Emily and Jessica now."

  "Darling." Laura turned to face him and tilted her head back to look up at him. "Do you know who Gisèle's father is?"

  "No," he said, without hesitation. "Only that it wasn't Alistair."

  Laura drew a breath. But some things she'd once have shied away from she could now say. "It couldn't—"

  Raoul looked down at her with that reserved tenderness she'd come to know so well. "I've always been fond of Gisèle, but if she were my daughter, don't you think she'd mean to me what Malcolm does?"

  "Of course. I just—"

  "Wondered if I wasn't sure? It's true there's a great deal I don't know where Arabella's concerned, but we weren't lovers from my marriage in '95 until after the Uprising in '98, when Gisèle was several months old. There's no way I could be her father. Arabella could be frank about her love affairs—sometimes franker than I'd have wished—but she said nothing about her pregnancy save that it was unexpected."

  "Do you think—could that have something to do with why Gisèle left? Searching for her father? Or because she learned who he was? We now know Tommy Belmont was working for the Elsinore League—"

  "And Gisèle's father may have been a member? It's possible. Arabella did employ seduction in her attempts at gathering information."

  As Mélanie had done. As Raoul had himself, Laura knew.

  Raoul glanced at the Broadwood grand pianoforte. It had been Arabella's instrument, and this room, less formal than many of the rooms at Dunmykel, one of her favorites, according to what Laura had heard from the family. "Arabella was secretive about Gisèle's parentage. Unusually so."

  "Especially with you."

  His mouth lifted in a faint smile. "She didn't tell me everything. Far from it."

  Laura put her hands on his chest. "Does Frances know who Gisèle's father is?"

  "I don't know. I've never asked her. Though I think perhaps I have to now." He was silent for a moment. "Gisèle had a quick temper as a girl. She was always more mercurial than the boys. I know Frances worried about her growing up, but I never saw any sign that she'd inherited Arabella's illness."

  "Even if she had, it wouldn't make her suddenly run off and leave her family."

  "No," he said. "But something did."

  Raoul rapped at Frances's door and at her subdued summons stepped into the room to find her sitting on her dressing table bench, staring at a silver-framed miniature as though pleading for answers. Raoul had known Fanny since she was fourteen and he'd never seen such a lost look on her face.

  She looked up and met his gaze. "Only last night she was talking to me about the babies and how wonderful it would be that they could play with Ian. I should have seen—"

  "None of us saw," Raoul said, leaning against the door panels.

  "But I'm—"

  "Her mother to all intents and purposes. And she couldn't have a better one."

  Frances shook her head. "Don't talk reassuring twaddle, my dear. We've known each other far too long."

  "It's the truth. I don't think anyone else could have raised Gisèle as you did after Arabella died."

  Fanny gave a twisted smile. "I love her as much as my other children. I may worry about her more. Difficult not to, when Arabella—"

  She broke off, but there was really no need to put it into words. They were both all too familiar with Arabella's brilliant intensity and bouts of depression. "Gisèle could be moody," Raoul said. "But I never saw any sign that she suffered from Arabella's affliction."

  "No," Frances said, "nor did I. I tried hard not to drive her mad watching for signs of it." She looked down at the miniature again. "The past two years I worried less about her than I have since Arabella died." She shook her head. "Malcolm twitted me on it once, being happy when they all got married and had babies. And God knows I don't think that's the only path to happiness. Even now I've risked it again myself." She spread her fingers over her rounded stomach. "But it is one sort of happiness. And I thought Gisèle was genuinely happy with Andrew."

  "
I think she was. Is." Raoul pushed away from the door and dropped down on the carpet in front of Frances. "Fanny, did Bella ever tell you who Gisèle's father was?"

  Frances's eyes widened. "You've never asked before."

  "No," he said, his gaze steady on her own. "I didn't think it was any of my business. But now—"

  "You think that's why Gisèle ran off? Because she's trying to learn who her father is?"

  "It's one possibility. Something made her run. With Belmont. I know Andrew's fears, but I doubt she's fallen in love with Tommy Belmont. She could think Belmont can make it easier for Malcolm and Mélanie to return to Britain, but she's sensible enough I think she'd be likely to confide in Malcolm if that were the case. But if she thought he might know who her father was—"

  "You're suggesting her father might be an Elsinore League member?"

  "Do you think he might be?"

  Frances's fingers tightened on the silver filigree frame of the miniature. Raoul could see the image now, Gisèle at about sixteen, her mother's sharp cheekbones just starting to emerge from round-faced girlhood, her eyes as brilliant as Arabella's, her honey-blonde curls a darker version of her mother's. Whoever her father was, the resemblance wasn't obvious.

  "She never told me," Frances said. "Bella never told me who Gisèle's father was. Mind you, I didn't tell her who the fathers of all my children were. At least, I don't think I did." Frances's penciled brows drew together. Of her five children, only the eldest had been fathered by her late husband. "But I confess, I was curious. After all, she told me right away with Malcolm, even though I was not yet fifteen, and she was very direct about Edgar being Alistair's. I'm a firm believer in everyone's right to secrets, but one night after we'd come home from the theatre and were drinking whisky together, I asked her straight out about Gisèle's father. Bella went still, in that way she would sometimes. Then she laughed, almost as though she was laughing at herself, and said it was much better for me not to know." Frances linked her hands together over the curve of her stomach. "Of course, at the time I didn't know about the Elsinore League. I didn't know a lot when it came to Arabella."

  "Nor did I, if it comes to that." Raoul sat back on his heels. "Did Gelly ever ask you?"

  "Once, when she was about fifteen. I told her honestly that I didn't know. She just nodded and said she supposed it didn't much matter. But there was a look in her eyes—" Frances shook her head.

  Raoul laid his hand over Frances's own. "Did Alistair ever ask you?"

  Frances went still. Arabella and Alistair Rannoch had been estranged for most of their married life, but Alistair had been Frances's lover for over two decades. "Alistair rarely talked to me about Arabella. He had that much delicacy. But he did ask me once, when Bella was pregnant with Gisèle, in the most detached sort of voice, if I had any idea who the father might be. Of course, I told him no. And that if he really wanted to know, he should ask Bella."

  Despite everything, Raoul found himself giving a wry smile. "And?"

  "He said he didn't suppose it much mattered. Much as Gisèle later would. But I'm not sure either of them meant what they said. If—"

  She broke off, as the door opened to admit her husband, Archibald Davenport. Archie hesitated on the threshold. "Sorry, I can—"

  "Nonsense." Frances got to her feet and went to take her husband's hand. "I won't go so far as to say we none of us have secrets from each other, because at our age, with our lives, we know that's not true, but in this we're all united."

  Archie lifted his wife's hand to his lips. "You've both known Gisèle far longer than I have."

  Raoul pushed himself to his feet. Fanny and Archie were two of his closest friends, and he was a man with few he'd call friends. "Did Arabella ever say anything to you about Gisèle's father?"

  Archie raised his brows. "Surely, if she didn't say anything to either of you—"

  "Bella and I were franker with each other than many lovers, but still not entirely frank. And she was keeping the Elsinore League from Fanny."

  Archie's brows drew together. "You think Gisèle's father may be a member of the League?"

  "It's one possible explanation for why she's run off with Belmont."

  Archie's frown deepened. He'd been a League member himself for years, but early on he'd grown concerned by their ambitions and had begun passing information to Arabella and to Raoul, and then had moved on to passing information to Raoul about Ireland and France. "It's no secret to either of you that her investigation into the League sometimes took on intimate aspects. But she said nothing to me. And I can't remember anything from round the time Gisèle would have been conceived that would suggest who her father might be."

  "Archie," Frances said. "This changes things."

  Archie looked down into his wife's eyes. "You want to go back to London."

  "I have to. It's all very well to worry about safety, but—"

  "Of course." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "We won't travel with Malcolm and Andrew and slow them down, but we can leave tomorrow."

  Frances tilted her head back to look up at her husband. "Thank you."

  "My darling, I could hardly do otherwise."

  Malcolm found his father back in Tommy's room, tapping the paneling round the fireplace where they had already searched. Raoul turned to him with an abashed smile. "Trying to make one more search for clues."

  "As I suspected you would be." Malcolm pushed the door to. "Andrew and I are leaving within the hour. For London or wherever their trail takes us."

  Raoul nodded. "I assumed you would be, as soon as we heard Gisèle was missing."

  Malcolm scanned his father's face in the cool light from the window. Raoul wasn't one to stay out of things, any more than Mel was.

  Raoul gave a faint smile. "Of course, I want to go with you. I want to do anything I can to help. But I'd only create complications."

  "Mel's agreed to stay. Which surprised me even more." Malcolm drew a rough breath. He knew what he had to do. And doing it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. "I have no idea how long I'll be gone. And I'm leaving nearly everyone I love under this roof."

  "It's far from ideal." Raoul spoke in the crisp tones of a commander acknowledging a risky battle plan. "But Mélanie should be safe here, especially while the winter weather holds. Difficult for anyone to come this far into Scotland. And, if necessary, we can be on our way to Italy quickly."

  "I know you must need to get back to Spain." Malcolm recalled the taut urgency of his father's letters from Spain, where rebellion against the Bourbon monarchy was brewing and Raoul was in the process of setting up a network.

  "My dear Malcolm. Mélanie and Laura are perfectly capable of getting the children to Italy on their own, as either would be the first to tell you, but you can't imagine I'd leave before this is resolved."

  "You're running a network."

  "I've made arrangements."

  Malcolm met his father's gaze for a long moment. "Thank you."

  Raoul nodded, face contained. As often, much between them remained unspoken.

  "Malcolm." Raoul hesitated, fingers taut on the mantel. "I can't claim to know Gisèle as you do. But I saw a fair amount of her growing up. It strikes me that one reason for her seemingly inexplicable departure might be that she thinks Belmont can help her find her father."

  Malcolm's gaze locked on his own father's. The thought had been there at the back of his mind, to the extent he'd had time to analyze at all, ever since he’d heard of Gisèle's departure. "I've thought of it," he said. "Especially since in Italy she realized I'd finally learned conclusively who my father is. That might have made her more curious to find her own."

  "It's not me," Raoul said. "There's no way it could be."

  "I didn't think it was," Malcolm said. "That is, I know you and Arabella were apart during your marriage to Margaret, and—" Presumptuous to say, I know you're fond of Gisèle, but it's not like what's between us.

  Acknowledgment flickered through Raoul's gaze. "A
rabella also never gave me any indication of Gisèle's father's identity. I just asked Fanny, and apparently the one time she asked, Bella told her she was much better off not knowing."

  "You think it's someone in the Elsinore League?" Malcolm asked.

  "I think it's a possibility. More to the point, Gisèle might think it's a possibility. And that Belmont could help her."

  "And Tommy could be playing upon that because he and the League have other reasons for wanting Gisèle."

  Raoul's mouth tightened. "It's possible. It's all still only a theory."

  Malcolm looked into the gray eyes he now knew were the twin of his own. "I never thought I'd have to ask you this. But I'm going to need a list of Arabella's lovers who were members of the Elsinore League."

  Raoul reached inside his coat and drew out a folded sheet of paper. "The names of all those I know of, and what I know about dates. There could well be others I don't know about."

  "Thank you." Malcolm had never been so grateful for Raoul's matter-of-factness, and for the fact that he'd written the list down instead of Malcolm having to question him.

  Raoul gave a crisp nod. "The dates aren't right for any of them to be Gisèle's father. But Arabella could have been involved with one before I realized, or resumed the affair later."

  Malcolm tucked the list into his own coat. "The papers we found that Arabella had hidden, mentioning the Wanderer—Gisèle would have been a baby when Arabella hid them. Could they have anything to do with her father?"

  Raoul's brows drew together. Arabella had climbed in through Frances's window with these papers at a house party twenty years ago. Mélanie had found the papers just before Christmas, torn into pieces and hidden in Arabella's jewels. Once pieced together and decoded, the fragment of message proved to refer to something or someone called the Wanderer. The hand belonged to Julien St. Juste, an agent for hire who had once worked for Malcolm's spymaster, Lord Carfax, but had also served the French and many other masters. Carfax and the Elsinore League had both been searching for the papers, and a third group seemed to be after them as well. Cordelia's husband Harry had gone to London in search of more information.