London Gambit by Tracy Grant

Author:Tracy Grant [Grant, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical mystery, historical fiction, historical romance, regency romance, regency, 19th_Century, London Historical, historical mystery series
ISBN: 9781943772421
Publisher: NYLA
Published: 2016-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

"Thank God for parties." Bertrand materialized out of the crowd at Suzanne's side shortly after she returned from her trip to the nursery. "We'd have the devil of a time sharing information otherwise."

"You have information?" Suzanne asked.

"Not as much as I'd like." Bertrand retrieved two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and gave one to her. Of one accord, they moved to a sofa of gold-spotted blue satin set beneath a gilt-framed mirror in an embrasure in the white-and-gold wall. "Louis Germont's mother was a younger daughter of the Baron de Brillac. Her brother, who had the title at the time of the Revolution, sought refuge in Austria, though it seems there may have been a sister who came to Britain. Someone who might be Germont was spotted at a coffeehouse frequented by émigrés yesterday, but I couldn't get enough information to trace him from there."

Suzanne hesitated, but if she told Bertrand about Lisette's sighting of Germont the whole Phoenix plot would unravel, and with it, a host of revelations. "If anyone can find him, you can," she said.

Bertrand gave a faint smile. "These days, I'm used to responding to pleas for help. It's a long time since I've tried to ferret out information." He took a sip of champagne and considered her in silence for a long moment. It was, Suzanne realized, damnably difficult to tell what he was thinking, for all his easy good humor. Despite his words, he was a master agent among master agents. "I didn't think it through much before I went to France the first time. My family had fled France. I'd grown up in England. The Bonapartists were the enemy."

"They'd killed your brother." Étienne Laclos had gone to France in a mad, desperate plot to assassinate Napoleon and had been caught and executed. Odd that others might now be risking arrest and execution in an equally mad, desperate plot to free Napoleon.

Remembered grief shot through Bertrand's eyes. "Yes. I suppose a part of me wanted to avenge Étienne. But I think chiefly I wanted to be out of Britain." He stared down at his hands, a rare sign of unease. "I wanted to leave Rupert before Rupert was compelled to leave me."

For a moment, Simon and David shot into her memory, in the Brook Street library, the children clustered round them. "Are you so sure he would have?"

Bertrand's brows drew together as though he were seeing into the past. Or perhaps into an alternate future. "At the time I thought so. Rupert takes his responsibilities too seriously not to feel compelled to provide an heir for the earldom. Even looking back now—I never stop being sorry for how Gabrielle got caught up in our sorry story. I know Rupert doesn't either. But there's no denying the cold fact that, in some ways, it makes it easier that Rupert has an heir. Aside from the fact that I can't imagine Stephen not being in our lives."

"It's remarkable." Suzanne recalled the three of them,

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