Free The Mayfair Affair by Tracy Grant Page B

Simon and David at Christmas. "In fact—"
    "You've done it before."
    She touched her fingers to the enamel. Malcolm had a clear memory of David telling him he had never thought to see Malcolm so happy. "Yes."
    Malcolm inclined his head. "Fair enough. For that matter, it's possible Trenchard was also trying to blackmail me with the truth about you and that he'd already made contact." He leaned back, hands braced on the satin-covered bench. "I expect I could also slip out without waking you."
    She twisted towards him. "Darling—"
    "Let's at least dispense with pretending that either of us can be entirely certain of what the other might or might not do. At least I can dispense with it. You presumably never had such illusions."
    "I know there are some things you aren't capable of, dearest."
    Malcolm kept his gaze steady on the face he could trace from memory. "Then you're as blind as I once was, my darling."

    Simon Tanner watched David in the gathering pre-dawn light as David finished recounting the events of the night. Simon knew better than anyone how to read the signs of strain in David's face. The tension in the set of his mouth, the lines about his eyes. He hadn't seen such strain on his lover's face since their time in Brussels during Waterloo, bringing wounded soldiers back from the battlefield and watching many of them die along the way. And even then, David's eyes hadn't had the haunted look they now held.
    Silence filled the sitting room when David finished speaking. The sitting room they had shared since they came down from Oxford, which usually held the sound of his pen scratching, a newspaper rustling, the pages of a book turning, the clink of glasses, friends' voices.
    A piece of coal fell hissing against the grate, breaking the stillness. "I've always liked Laura Dudley," Simon said. "Though I can't claim to know her very well. In fact, it was that very self-contained quality of hers that intrigued me. She managed not to lose herself in the role of governess."
    "Malcolm and Suzanne are convinced she's innocent."
    "And you aren't?"
    David frowned at the signet ring on his left hand. "The circumstances are against her. But— I remember her with Colin and Jessica and find it hard to think of her as a murderer."
    "My dear David. You'd find it hard to think of anyone as a murderer."
    David lifted his head to meet Simon's gaze. "I've been about Malcolm and Suzanne enough to see what the most seemingly guileless people are capable of."
    "And yet Suzanne and Malcolm think she's innocent. Of course, it would be difficult to accept that the woman they'd engaged to look after their children was capable of such an act."
    David shot a look at him. "I thought you'd agree with them."
    "I don't know enough to agree or disagree." Simon took a sip of whisky. "How was Mary when you left?"
    "Stoic. As you'd expect Mary to be."
    "Mary could be crumbling to bits and she wouldn't let you see it."
    David reached for his own glass. "For someone who despises everything she stands for, you've always had a good understanding of her."
    "I don't despise Mary. I admire her singleness of purpose. Though, if anything, I feel sorry for her. I'm not sure she's happy with the choices she's made." Mary and Simon were creatures of different worlds, with little in common save David. Yet Simon had caught the restlessness in Mary's gaze and the occasional flash of brilliance. She had, in his view, too keen an understanding for the life she had chosen.
    "You don't think she wanted to be a duchess?"
    Simon swirled the whisky in his glass. "I think she wanted to be. I'm not sure she found everything in it she had hoped for. She'd have made a splendid general or politician if the world allowed it. Or a spymaster like your father."
    David shuddered. "God save us from another like Father. I don't know that it was being a duchess that disappointed Mary, it was the man Trenchard was."
    "Whom she chose because he was a duke."
    David scraped his hands over his