The Mayfair Affair by Tracy Grant

toddling towards them holding out the book. In this case "babies" meant the Berkeley Square garden or Hyde Park or anywhere there would be other children. "Blanca will take you to the park, querida ." Suzanne hugged her daughter to her. "And Daddy and I will be back to have dinner with you." Again, a statement that was not as unequivocally true as she would have liked.
    Jessica drew back enough to tug at her mother's bodice and began to nurse. A comfort for all ills.
    "It's more important that you get Laura home," Colin said. "If—" He broke off as the door of the day nursery swung open. A smile crossed his face. "Livia!"
    Livia Davenport ran into the room, just as her mother's voice sounded from the passage. "Livy, I told you to knock—" Lady Cordelia Davenport stepped across the threshold after her daughter, her younger daughter, Drusilla, in her arms.
    Jessica detached herself from Suzanne and toddled across the room. Colin and Livia had already dropped down on the carpet together. Drusilla wriggled to be set down. Cordelia dropped down on the carpet herself, her sapphire velvet pelisse and flounced muslin skirts swirling about her. "I'm sorry," she said to Suzanne. "Livia's usually better mannered. I'm afraid she rather thinks of this house as her own."
    "As she should." Suzanne ruffled Drusilla's hair and smiled at Livia. "I'm so glad to see you all." She could hear the relief in her own voice, though she and Colin and Jessica had spent the previous afternoon at the Royal Academy with Cordelia and her daughters.
    "I thought distraction might be welcome today." Cordelia's voice was bright, but her gaze asked myriad questions.
    A half hour later, when Blanca had come in to take the children to the park and all four had been bundled into the appropriate outerwear, Suzanne and Cordelia at last escaped to the small salon with tea and almond biscuits and quiet.
    "Dearest, are you all right?" Cordelia asked.
    Suzanne set down the teapot. "You know?"
    "Darling, this is Mayfair. I had it from my maid, who had it from the footman, who had it from the Grimsleys' upstairs maid, who had it from the Cranleys' bootboy, who had it from the Trenchards' underhousemaid."
    "You know about Laura?"
    Cordelia's face sobered. "I know what I heard. I was hoping it was hopeless exaggeration."
    "Unfortunately, no." Suzanne quickly gave her friend an edited version of the night's events. Cordelia and Harry Davenport had been through a great deal with her and Malcolm, but the truth about Suzanne's own past was not a secret they could share even with their closest friends.
    "One can't but admire Miss Dudley's determination to protect all of you," Cordelia said. "Though she should realize you and Malcolm are bound to investigate in any case."
    "Laura's plainly not telling us the whole truth." Suzanne took a bite of almond biscuit, keenly aware that she was doing precisely the same with Cordelia at this moment.
    Cordelia stirred more milk into her tea. "One never knows what a person may be capable of. I should know that better than anyone after what I learned about my sister and my former lover. But having watched Miss Dudley with the children—"
    "I know." Suzanne crumbled a bit of almond biscuit between her fingers. "Though I can't be sure how much of that is my inability to believe it about anyone I trusted with my children."
    "You have the best instincts about people of anyone I've ever known, Suzanne." Cordelia returned her teacup to its saucer and straightened up. "Obviously we have to discover the truth and prove Miss Dudley innocent. Tell me what I can do to help."
    "How well did you know the Duke of Trenchard?"
    "Not, well, I fear. Trenchard wasn't a gambler like my father, and my father was a Whig and not as deep in politics as Trenchard."
    "And the duchess?"
    "I was in the schoolroom when Mary Mallinson married the duke. And by the time I was out in society, Mary wasn't impressed by my antics. Particularly after I was a married woman