Free Teresa Grant by Imperial Scandal Page B

could not very well voice one’s qualms about being in the city with one’s estranged wife. Not to mention the child one had never met.
    Rannoch moved to a side door. “If it’s any comfort, I’ll welcome your assistance. Particularly as you know the individuals involved.”
    “Not being blind or dumb, you’ve no doubt realized my wife and I are not precisely on convivial terms.”
    “But you know her.”
    Harry didn’t even attempt to contain the bitterness of his laugh. “I think I know Cordelia less now than the day I married her.”
    Rannoch regarded him for a moment with a gaze that, Harry feared, saw far more than he would have wished. “There are different types of knowing. If it’s any comfort, I’ve been married two and a half years and I still feel I’m coming to know my wife. But last autumn I learned the risks that can come from keeping secrets.”
    Harry had little faith in the long-term success of any marriage, but he’d always been struck by the easy rapport between Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch. He thought back to his brief glimpse of Suzanne Rannoch when she had met them in the garden upon their arrival at Stuart’s house. Even in the moonlight, her exquisite features had been plain to see, the pointed chin and winged brows and generous mouth, but what had been most striking was the quick, direct exchange between her and Rannoch. Almost as though they were comrades in arms rather than spouses or lovers. Even in his most deluded romantic moments, it had never occurred to Harry to think of his wife as a comrade.
    “You’re a fortunate man, Rannoch,” he said. “You have a wife you can talk to. Talking never worked very well for Cordelia and me. But then we were about as spectacularly ill-suited as one could imagine.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t believe she’ll let the question of Julia’s death go.”
    Rannoch regarded him for a moment. “Neither will we.”
    “No.” Harry knew Rannoch’s reputation as a fair man who went his own way. But Rannoch was also bound to report to Wellington and Stuart and accede to their instructions. As was Harry himself. But in Rannoch’s case, duty wasn’t complicated by the fact that Julia was his sister-in-law. Harry wasn’t at all sure where he’d come down when they knew the truth behind Julia’s death. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d bent the rules when it came to orders.
    Rannoch was watching him with shrewd eyes. “But you’re worried about what Lady Cordelia will do with the answers?”
    “Cordelia’s never been one to shy away from scandal. Nor from the truth.”
    “I’ve no desire to tarnish your sister-in-law’s memory, Davenport. Nor have I any stomach for being part of a cover-up.”
    Harry inclined his head and moved to the door. He still didn’t know Rannoch well enough to say more.

8
    C ordelia Davenport knocked at a shiny blue-painted door in Rue Royale. From her sister’s letters, she knew that this house with the neat brass knocker was where Julia and Johnny had been staying in Brussels.
    If she had arrived in Brussels two hours sooner, if she hadn’t stopped on the journey from Ostend so Livia could have milk and cakes in the coffee room of Les Trois Reines, if instead of dressing for the ball and talking to Caro she’d gone straight to Julia’s the moment she arrived in Brussels—If somehow she’d managed to speak with her sister before the ball.
    Cordelia drew a breath that shuddered against her corset laces. The questions would be with her until the day she died.
    A footman whose crumpled neckcloth and unfocused gaze suggested he had been dozing in the hall pulled open the door.
    “I’m here to see Captain Ashton,” Cordelia said.
    The footman blinked at her with sleep-flushed eyes. “Madame, it’s—”
    “I’m his sister-in-law.” Cordelia pushed past him into the entrance hall. Marble tiled with pale blue walls and crisp white moldings. Small but exquisitely proportioned. Cards of