Free The Paris Plot by Teresa Grant

his anger at everything since the war.”
    Valentin turned his head on the pillow. “If I’d understood—”
    Malcolm touched the young man’s hand. “You didn’t make this happen, Valentin. Your brother must have been a powder keg waiting to blow. Something would have made him explode.”
    Valentin gave a twisted smile. “Thank you, sir. But the devil of it is, one can never really believe that.”
    Malcolm gripped Valentin’s hand. “That I know all too well. But take it from one a few years your senior that it’s important to do your damndest to live your life as though you believe it. For the sake of your loved ones if not yourself.”
     
     
    “So the rock that was thrown in your carriage was meant for Valentin?” Cordelia asked. Wrapped in an ice blue dressing gown of Suzanne’s, she was sitting beside the bed in Malcolm and Suzanne’s bedchamber. Suzanne was lying in the bed, her baby secure in her arms. The soft featherbed and lavender-scented sheets felt like heaven.
    “It must have been.” Malcolm stroked a finger between the ears of the small gray kitten curled up in his lap. “And Laurent must have seen both Harry and Henri Rivaux when he was in our house. He was looking for an outlet for his anger. Perhaps he thought the warnings would lead us to suspect his brother. Or would terrorize Valentin.”
    “What will happen to him?” Cordelia asked.
    Malcolm exchanged a look with Suzanne. Suzanne inclined her head. She was quite sure she knew what her husband was going to suggest. “When he recovers,” Malcolm said, “I think we should try to find him employment.”
    Cordelia reached across the bed to touch his hand. “This may be a bit redundant to say, but you’re a good man, Malcolm.”
    “There’d be little to be gain from prosecuting him. And it would make his brother feel worse.”
    The door opened to admit Blanca, holding Colin and Livia by the hand. “Some people want to meet the little one.”
    A smile broke across Malcolm’s face as he lifted Colin onto the bed. “She’s very tiny,” Colin said, surveying his sleeping sister. “But long.”
    “I think she’ll be tall,” Suzanne said. “Do you want to hold her?”
    Colin nodded and settled in beside her. Suzanne put the baby in his arms. Colin looked down at her with great concentration, studying the tiny face and squirming arms.
    “They don’t do much at first,” Livia said, leaning against Cordelia. “But Drusilla smiles now and holds her head up, and when you put her on her stomach, she can push herself up on her arms for a bit.”
    “I like the way she snuggles.” Colin looked at his father. His eyes widened. “Do we have a kitty?”
    The kitten rolled over on his back in Malcolm’s lap and stretched out a paw. “It seems we do,” Malcolm said.
    Suzanne half-thought Colin was going to abandon his little sister in exchange for the kitten, but he continued to hold the baby. “What are we going to call it?” Colin asked.
    “Your sister?” Malcolm said.
    “No, that cat.” Colin looked at Livia, who was now petting the kitten.
    “Something Shakespearean if I know your parents,” Cordelia said.
    “Hotspur?” Malcolm suggested.
    Suzanne pulled a face at him. “What about Berowne? He has a healthy respect for the woman he loves.”
    Malcolm grinned. “Berowne it is. Does that mean you want to call our daughter Rosaline?”
    Suzanne looked down at the baby sleeping in Colin’s arms. They hadn’t settled on names, save for Malcolm saying if it was a boy on no circumstances were they to name him after his father. A memory teased Suzanne’s senses. Her father’s face, smiling down at her onstage, in the guise of a complex and sympathetic Shylock speaking to his daughter. It had been Suzanne’s first grown-up role in another life, a life cut short by war and the deaths of her family. “What about Jessica?” she asked.
    Malcolm didn’t ask her why. But then he too loved Shakespeare. “ ‘In such a night