The Incident in Berkeley Square

By Tracy Grant

A Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch Historical Mystery Novella
For former spies, even entertaining is fraught with danger. In April 1818, the London Season is in full swing, but the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars lingers. Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch are hosting their first ball since the revelations about Suzanne’s past that nearly destroyed their marriage. The Rannochs are just learning to trust each other again.
But in the midst of the waltzing and champagne, old friends from the spy game slip in through the window of the Rannochs' Berkeley Square house, bringing a message from Suzanne's past. While their guests dance and flirt, Malcolm and Suzanne confront old dangers and new enemies that could upend their fragile peace. "Shimmers like the finest salons in Vienna."—Deborah Crombie
"Meticulous, delightful, and full of surprises." —Tasha Alexander
"Glittering balls, deadly intrigue, sexual scandals. . .the next best thing to actually being there!"—Lauren Willig
"A superb storyteller."—Deanna Raybourn

• Language: English
• Publisher: NYLA
• Release date: Nov 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943772315

Tracy Grant

Tracy Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting conceptions of honor in late-fifteenth-century England. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter and three cats. In addition to writing, Tracy works for the Merola Opera Program, a professional training program for opera singers, pianists, and stage directors. Her real life heroine is her daughter Mélanie, who is very cooperative about Mummy's writing time. She is currently at work on her next book chronicling the adventures of Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch. Visit her on the web at www.tracygrant.org

Book preview

INCIDENT IN BERKELEY SQUARE

Tracy Grant

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.

Incident in Berkeley Square

Copyright © 2015 by Tracy Grant

Ebook ISBN: 9781943772315

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

More by Tracy Grant

The Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch Mysteries:

VIENNA WALTZ

IMPERIAL SCANDAL

HIS SPANISH BRIDE

THE PARIS AFFAIR

THE PARIS PLOT

THE BERKELEY SQUARE AFFAIR

LONDON INTERLUDE

THE MAYFAIR AFFAIR

forthcoming May 2016

LONDON GAMBIT

Dedication

For Michelle Andre, Alexandra Elliott, and Miriam Rosenfeld, wonderful with whom I've planned many wonderful gala evenings, though none quite as eventful as this one.

Acknowledgments

Thanks as always to my wonderful agent, Nancy Yost, for her support and insights. Thanks to Natanya Wheeler for a beautiful cover and for shepherding the book expertly through the publication process, to Sarah Younger for superlative social media support and for helping the book along through production and publication, and to the entire team at Nancy Yost Literary Agency for their fabulous work. I always know my stories are in the best of hands.

Thanks to Eve Lynch for the meticulous and thoughtful copyediting, to Raphael Coffey for magical author photos, and to Kate Mullin for her insights into the story as it developed.

Being a writer is a solitary profession, but it is made less solitary by wonderful writer friends. Thanks to Veronica Wolff and Lauren Willig, who both understand the challenges of being a writer and a mom. To Penelope Williamson, for sharing adventures, analyzing plots, and being a wonderful honorary aunt to my daughter. To Jami Alden, Tasha Alexander, Bella Andre, Allison Brennan, Isobel Carr, Catherine Coulter, Deborah Crombie, Carol Culver, Catherine Duthie, Alexandra Elliott, J.T. Ellison, Barbara Freethy, C. S. Harrs, Candice Hern, Anne Mallory, Monica McCarty, Poppy Reifiin, and Deanna Raybourn.

Thank you to the readers who support Malcolm and Suzanne and their friends and provide wonderful insights on my Web site and social media.

Thanks to Gregory Paris and jim saliba for creating and updating a fabulous Web site that chronicles Malcolm and Suzanne's adventures. To Suzi Shoemake and Betty Strohecker for managing a wonderful Googl+ Discussion Group for readers of the series. Thanks to my colleagues at the Merola Opera Program who help me keep my life in balance. Thanks to Peet's Coffee & Tea, Pottery Barn Kids, and Peek at The Village, Corte Madera, for welcoming me and my daughter Mélanie and giving me some of my best writing time. Thanks to everyone who supports me and Mélanie, in particular Raphael Coffey, Bonnie Glaser, and Veronica Wolff.

And thanks to Mélanie herself, for inspiring my writing, giving me the time to put words to computer, and making life so much fun.

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, Suzanne's former spymaster and 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 Blackewell, her daughter

Dr. Geoffrey Blackwell, Aline's husband

The Davenport Family

Lady Cordelia Davenport

Colonel Harry Davenport, her husband

Livia Davenport, their daughter

Drusilla Davenport, their daughter

Archibald Davenport, Harry's uncle

The Carfax/Mallinson Family

Hubert Mallinson, Earl Carfax, Malcolm's former spymaster

Amelia Mallinson, Countess Carfax, his wife

Lady Lucinda Mallinson, their daughter

David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley, their son

Simon Tanner, playwright, David's lover

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

Eustace Whateley, her husband

The Laclos/Caruthers Family

Bertrand Laclos, French émigré

Rupert, Viscount Caruthers, his lover

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

Others

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

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

Jeremy Roth, Both Street runner

Mr. Purvis, Preventive Waterguard

Lisette Varon, French agent

Daniel Firbank, Member of Parliament

Helen Firbank, his wife

Bobby Gordon, his secretary

So quick bright things come to confusion.

—Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, scene i

Chapter 1

London

April 1818

It's never going to work.

The woman, who until six weeks ago had been known as Laura Dudley and who now could not say with certainty what name she claimed, stared at her reflection in the pier glass on the wall of her bedchamber. Or rather, the bedchamber she occupied in the home of Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch. Until six weeks ago she had been employed as governess to their children. Now her position in the household was undefined. Like the rest of her life.

Nonsense. Suzanne Rannoch adjusted the puffed sleeves of Laura's gown. People aren't in the habit of questioning Malcolm's and my stories.

Most of your stories don't involve amnesia. Laura smiled at her friend in the mirror. It's all right. My situation was enough to tax even your abilities. I'm impressed that you could come up with anything at all. Impressed and grateful. But I can't but think it might be best for me to avoid society.

You can't avoid it when there's a ball in our house. Suzanne smoothed a fold of Laura's overdress. Besides, it would be a crime for that dress not to be seen.

Laura turned her gaze back to the looking glass. A stranger stared back at her. For four years she had dressed as a governess in sober, high-necked gowns of gray and dark blue. In the past six weeks she had borrowed some gowns from Suzanne and ordered a few new ones of her own, but nothing like the gown she wore now, the gown that Suzanne had insisted on taking her to order from a French modiste. French blue gauze fastened down the front with pearl clasps over a slip of silver satin. The pearls round her throat were her own, a gift from her father in her long-ago days as the colonel's daughter in India.  Her blue topaz earrings were a far more recent gift that had arrived a week since in a plain box not sent through the regular post, with a cream-colored card tucked inside signed simply R.

The memory brought warmth to Laura's cheeks. And a much needed jolt of confidence. Which was probably why he had sent them.

She wondered if Suzanne knew where the earrings had come from. She wondered if Suzanne knew any number of things.

I used to envy your gowns when you came into the nursery before you went out for the evening, she confessed. I wouldn't have thought I would miss pretty clothes so much, and yet—But I also got used to dressing like a governess. To wearing clothes that blended into the background.

The armor of a role. Suzanne spoke with the easy assurance of a trained agent used to playing roles. But your role has changed now.

That was undeniable. The question was what her new role entailed.

The connecting door to the night nursery opened to admit Suzanne's friend Lady Cordelia Davenport, an impossibly beautiful, impossibly stylish woman who had been born at the heart of the English beau monde. More of their supper is going in their mouths than on the floor, Cordelia reported. Just. They made me promise to send ices up. And they want to see Laura once her toilet is finished.

Cordelia's two daughters were spending the night in the Rannoch nursery along with Laura's daughter, Emily, and the Rannoch children, Colin and Jessica. Cordelia paused on the threshold, gaze on the looking glass. She had gone with Laura and Suzanne to the modiste's. I knew that color would look splendid on you, Laura, but I didn't realize quite—You're going to have the ballroom at your feet.

Laura turned from the mirror with a laugh. Cordelia wore a robe of red crêpe over white satin, which set off her pale gold hair and laughed in the face of the gossip about her past. She and the dark-haired Suzanne, in coral lace over a matching silk slip, were perfect foils for each other. Doing it much too brown, Cordelia. With you and Suzanne, not to mention half the beauties in London, and the latest crop of debutantes—

Have you looked in the glass? Cordelia asked. Besides, you have all the fascination of mystery.

You mean people will be gawking at me because the story of my last four years sounds like something out of a lending library novel.

Nonsense—

I lost my memory after the carriage accident in India that killed my husband. My infant daughter was spirited away and I became a governess, only to recover my memories when my employers brought me to London.

I know. Suzanne bent down to pick up Berowne, the cat, who was winding about her ankles, heedless of the delicate fabric of her gown. You coped wonderfully in appalling circumstances for the past four years and the story makes you look more like a long-suffering heroine in need of rescue than a woman who can take care of herself. I wouldn't like it either. But—

But even if people don't believe it, they'll never guess the truth, Cordelia said.

That, Laura acknowledged, was a good point. You're quite right, she said. I daresay it's my own qualms about London society talking.

London society is certainly worthy of a qualm or two, Cordelia said. But you've got all of us to support you.

Cordelia had been born an earl's daughter, but had faced social disgrace when her marriage nearly fell apart. Suzanne, half French, half Spanish, had been viewed by many as a foreign adventuress who had snagged a duke's grandson. Even though cards of invitation to her parties were now sought after, there were still rumors. "Which is a bit like