Courting Danger With Mr Dyer
Courting Danger With Mr Dyer
Georgie Lee
A stolen kiss from a spy!Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.Moira's widowed, yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But as they race against time Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts…
A stolen kiss from a spy!
Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.
Moira’s widowed yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But, as they race against time, Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts...
‘You’re in a position to become better acquainted with Lord Camberline, but your involvement will be strictly limited to social engagements and nothing else,’ Bart insisted.
Her astonishment gave way to a sideways teasing smile. ‘You mean I won’t be able to point a pistol at other people or you?’
‘You can point a pistol at me any time you like.’ He enjoyed this saucy Moira, and was elated by her tacit agreement. It meant they didn’t have to part just yet.
‘I can’t simply call on a marchioness and discuss her son,’ she protested.
‘You can if you become better friends with her. There’s a painting exhibition tonight at the Royal Academy and Lord Camberline and his mother will be there.’
‘If they suspect anything, what shall I say?’ she asked.
‘You’ll have to come up with something.’
‘Oh, well, if it’s as easy as that I should have no trouble!’ She laughed.
He winked at her. ‘Welcome to the world of intrigue.’
Author Note (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
Writing Courting Danger with Mr Dyer was a new challenge for me. Some of my previous stories have had elements of intrigue in the plot, but intrigue wasn’t as critical to those stories as it is to this one. It was fun to write the story not only from Bart’s perspective as a member of the espionage community, but also from Moira’s position as an outsider. Her innocence where plots and treason are concerned was kind of like mine when I began my research. I didn’t realise how much cloak-and-dagger work was going on during this time period.
In order to craft the treason plot that Bart and Moira work to uncover I did a great deal of research on spying and plots in and around the Regency period. William Wickham and Mr Flint—two men I mention in the story—are real people who helped pioneer early British espionage and the British Secret Service. It was Mr Wickham’s involvement in the London Corresponding Society’s plot to assassinate the Prime Minister in 1793 that inspired the plot in Courting Danger with Mr Dyer. I also reached a little farther back into history to research the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes. Not having grown up with the Bonfire Night tradition, it was fun to learn about all the key players involved and how it was eventually uncovered and thwarted.
I hope you enjoy following Bart and Moira through the danger and excitement of saving Britain and falling in love!
Courting Danger with Mr Dyer
Georgie Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A lifelong history buff, GEORGIE LEE hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then she fulfils her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading non-fiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent. Please visit georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.
Books by Georgie Lee
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The Business of Marriage
A Debt Paid in Marriage
A Too Convenient Marriage
The Secret Marriage Pact
The Governess Tales
The Cinderella Governess
Scandal and Disgrace
Rescued from Ruin
Miss Marianne’s Disgrace
Courting Danger with Mr Dyer
Stand-Alone Novels
Engagement of Convenience
The Courtesan’s Book of Secrets
The Captain’s Frozen Dream
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk. (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
To my family who are always so supportive.
Contents
Cover (#u681afe50-f11e-5aab-8b61-c951ebf33e9a)
Back Cover Text (#ua4e8677b-7ca7-5a03-99a8-c874a1db8c61)
Introduction (#ud3782738-c425-57dc-ae04-11c6b6c1003c)
Title Page (#u2257e6ad-e54d-5a45-9d57-abb419ce74ce)
About the Author (#ue6ecf260-b914-5d7c-96d6-cda49647c7c5)
Dedication (#ud25b7a27-b286-5d9d-b662-0a0ca277f4d5)
Chapter One (#uc8e522bc-2a09-5efb-844b-c6ea8143d462)
Chapter Two (#u39fea2c0-0525-5a24-9bc4-c221b845505b)
Chapter Three (#u7b5f08f2-ecc1-512c-be8e-6964769de430)
Chapter Four (#u76c543fb-c61b-5f6e-b6ce-1a0181c3d89f)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
London—1813
‘You must do it.’ Bartholomew Dyer banged Frederick Chambers, Fifth Earl of Fallworth, hard against the wall, trying to knock the fight back into him. The unprovoked swing the Earl had taken at Bart gave him hope it could be done. ‘We need you.’
‘I can’t, don’t you understand?’ Freddy growled, fingers biting into Bart’s forearms. ‘I’ve given enough. I won’t give any more.’
‘Let go of him.’ The lady behind him punctuated her command by cocking a pistol hammer.
Damn. Bart cursed under his breath. She’d just made the weapon more dangerous. If she wasn’t competent with it, the ball would tear through him and the Earl under his elbow.
Bart took his arm off Lord Fallworth’s chest and stepped back.
‘Moira, it’s not what you think,’ Lord Fallworth choked as he leaned away from the wall and tried to wave his sister off.
Bart ground his teeth at the mention of Lady Rexford and the way it made his neck, and something much lower down, tense. A maid or the elderly aunt would have been preferable to Lord Fallworth’s sister, and his one-time fiancée, having stumbled in on them. The young Dowager Countess of Rexford was as stunning as she was a complication Bart didn’t need.
‘Then what is it?’ She kept the pistol pointed at Bart’s chest and her beautiful green eyes fixed on his.
She’d changed since he’d last seen her five years ago when she’d been a young lady new to London and he an ex-soldier beginning his career as a barrister. The innocent, uncertain tilt of her head was gone, replaced by a confidence he imagined widowhood and the deaths of her father and sister-in-law must have given her. It made her sharp cheekbones set in an oval face and framed by blonde hair more striking and more tempting. He knew better than to fall for it. He had no desire to hear again from her family how he wasn’t good enough for her or to have his official duties curtailed by her incorrect reading of this situation.
Bart bent into a bow. ‘Good evening, Lady Rexford. It’s a pleasure to see you again.’
‘I can’t say the same, Mr Dyer. If you weren’t one of the most celebrated barristers in England with as many magistrates in awe of you as the public, I’d put a ball through you and end your scourge on this house.’
He opened his arms to increase the size of her target. ‘Why not take the chance?’
She frowned at his defiance, the disapproving yet intriguing downturn of her mouth tempered by the still-raised weapon. ‘Since I have no desire to be hanged for murder, I demand you leave at once and never return.’
Any other day her order would have been charming. This morning it was merely irritating. ‘Your aunt used to make the same request and it didn’t work.’
‘I’d like to think I’m a touch more persuasive.’ She nodded at the still-raised pistol.
He admired her desire to protect her brother, even if it was woefully misguided. However, what had brought him here in defiance of her widowed aunt’s dictates was far more important than his or anyone else’s life.
‘Moira, it’s all right. Leave us be, we have business to discuss.’ Lord Fallworth took up his drink and drained it.
‘What business? Which gaming hell to visit?’ she challenged. ‘Don’t think Aunt Agatha didn’t write to me about what you got up to with Mr Dyer when you were in London two years ago. I won’t have you ruining yourself again a mere week after we’ve returned to town.’
Bart suppressed a growl of irritation. If Lady Rexford knew the real motives behind those nights out, she’d lower the pistol, throw her arms around his neck and thank him for his service to their country.
‘Freddy, I won’t leave you to the influences of a man like this.’ Lady Rexford waved her free hand at Bart. ‘Not with you already so vulnerable since Helena’s—’
‘You needn’t say it.’ Lord Fallworth snatched up the brandy decanter and refilled his glass.
Bart opened his mouth to tell Lady Rexford to step out of things she didn’t understand, then closed it again. With her brother slipping into a liquor-induced fog, his suitability for this mission waned while Lady Rexford’s possible involvement played on him like a hunch. She stood straight, one foot in front of the other to make her gown drape across her shapely thigh. The firm set of her full lips beneath eyes as focused as a fox’s made him take more notice of her than the pistol or her reluctant brother. No one would suspect a woman. Bart knew better. ‘You’re friends with Lady Camberline?’
A crease of confusion appeared between her shapely eyebrows. ‘Not friends so much as acquaintances. We’re both patrons of the Lady’s Lying-In Hospital.’
‘But you know her well enough to call on her and to receive invitations?’
‘No, Bart, don’t do it,’ Lord Fallworth warned.
Lady Rexford glanced back and forth between Bart and her brother. ‘I do.’
‘Are you attending her ball tonight?’
‘Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?’
‘I said don’t do it.’ Lord Fallworth banged his glass down on the table, making the brandy slosh over the sides.
Bart ignored the glowering Earl. ‘I need your help to—’
‘No, not her.’ Lord Fallworth grabbed Bart by the lapels and gave him a shake. ‘I lost my wife to plotting scoundrels. I won’t lose a sister, too.’
If Lord Fallworth were any other man Bart would drop him like a sack of flour, but the other man had sacrificed a great deal by helping Bart two years ago. Until today, Bart hadn’t realised how much it’d changed his friend.
‘What are you talking about, Freddy?’ Lady Rexford asked in a shaky voice. ‘What scoundrels?’
Bart exchanged a concerned look with Lord Fallworth. His sister didn’t know the truth about Lady Fallworth’s death, but then few people did. This wasn’t the moment to enlighten her.
‘Nothing,’ Lord Fallworth answered in a voice to convince no one. ‘I misspoke.’
Lord Fallworth eyed Bart with unease as he let go of him and shifted back. Bart studied him, aware of the pain he was causing his old friend. He would leave him in peace if he could, but this time, there was too much at stake. ‘If I don’t uncover their plans soon, the Government, the King could be brought down and Napoleon installed on the throne.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Lady Rexford demanded.
‘Let me tell her and allow her to decide,’ Bart asked the other man in the same measured tone he normally used when delivering bad news to a client.
Lord Fallworth retrieved his drink, his signet ring clanking against the glass. Then he slumped down into his chair, the promising fight he’d shown when he’d lashed out at Bart gone. ‘Go ahead then, tell her.’
‘Tell me what?’ Lady Rexford lowered the hammer with impressive and surprising skill. Anyone else would have slammed it down and set the damned thing off. It was another mark in her favour.
Bartholomew took a deep breath. What he was about to reveal could place his entire mission in jeopardy if she whispered it around the wrong tea table, but with Freddy unable to assist him, Lady Rexford might be his only chance. She’d proven herself discreet in the matter of their debacle of an engagement, making sure no one outside of her family and his had learned of it. He was certain he could count on her prudence again.
Bart turned to her with the same deference he showed when approaching the bench. ‘I’m not just a barrister, Lady Rexford, but a stipendiary magistrate given power by the Alien Office to root out traitors working to undermine our country. I have a number of men under me, one of whom used to be your brother. The many nights I came here to collect him two years ago, the ones your aunt wrote to you about, weren’t to waste money at cards but to uncover a plot by Lord McCreery working on behalf of the Scottish Corresponding Society to assassinate the Prime Minister. We spent nights drinking and gambling with many of the men involved with the society in order to learn the details of the plot. Alcohol is a great opener of mouths. It makes people forget themselves.’ He cocked one suggestive eyebrow at her. The full lips he’d savoured five years ago drew tight at his reference to their past and the time they’d spent on Lady Greenwood’s balcony in each other’s arms. Bart ignored the appealing blush sweeping her cheeks and continued. ‘Thanks to your brother’s help, we stopped the plot, but now there is another. A group called the Rouge Noir, a collection of London aristocrats with ties to Napoleon, is actively working to undermine the Crown and install the Emperor on the throne.’
‘You expect me to believe titled gentlemen are plotting to bring down the Government?’
She crossed her arms, the gun dangling beneath one elbow as she stared at him in disbelief, as sceptical as he’d been when Charles Flint had first approached him on William Wickham and the Alien Office’s behalf. Even after his work uncovering fraud in order to protect his clients, and his time as a captain with the English army in Austria, the story had been hard for him to swallow. It must sound preposterous to a lady who’d been sequestered on a country estate for the last few years.
‘I know you despise those of our class, but I didn’t think you’d sink so low as to accuse them of treason.’
Bart narrowed his eyes at her, struggling to remain as collected as when he was arguing a case. She’d struck a nerve, one of the few people in a long time to do so. ‘I may not like a great swathe of the nobility, but I swore to protect them. I won’t see any of my countrymen, not the poor or the rich, trampled under Napoleon’s boots.’
‘It’s true, Moira,’ Freddy concurred. During their interrogation of the Scottish Corresponding Society conspirators, there’d been whispers of the Rouge Noir but never anything solid, until recently.
She turned her shock on her brother. ‘It can’t be.’
‘It is,’ Bart insisted. ‘The Government is weak, with no strong prime minister and a handful of colourless men running things. The King is mad and his son a worthless dandy. If the Rouge Noir can wipe them out it will bring this country to its knees, allowing Napoleon to sweep in and restore order through tyranny. I and my network of informers were able to ferret out a number of lesser members of the Rouge Noir some time ago and we thought we’d disrupted the group enough to stop them. Then, last week, a courier was caught in Dover with a message for Napoleon telling him to prepare for the coming of the Rouge Noir. I believe something is going to happen and soon, but I don’t know what and I don’t know where but I must find out. I suspect some in Lady Camberline’s circle to be involved, but I have no way to get close to them without drawing suspicion.’
‘If you think Freddy will help you, you’re wrong.’ She crossed her arms and stepped between Bart and Lord Fallworth, as if protecting her brother. ‘He isn’t well enough to have any part in your scheme.’
‘I’m not asking him to have a part in it. I’m asking you.’
* * *
Moira dropped her arms to her sides. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but the hard angles of Mr Dyer’s chiselled face and the steeliness of his dark eyes told her it was. ‘Me?’
‘Lady Rexford, I need you, England needs you,’ Mr Dyer pleaded. This was the first time they’d spoken since the morning five years ago when she’d called off their engagement with fumbling words about her duty to her father and upholding the Fallworth reputation. He hadn’t taken it well, railing at her about the misguided priorities of the aristocracy and her failure to stand up for what she wanted. She’d tried to make him understand her father’s concerns for her and her future, but he’d refused to listen. They’d parted with no small amount of bitterness on each side, and when Aunt Agatha’s frantic letters about Freddy had begun to arrive, Moira had thought she’d avoided a bad mistake. Yet all along Bart had been fighting for something more worthy than bragging rights about a card win. ‘You can get close to Lady Camberline and many of those in her circle, especially the ones I suspect.’
‘You’re Baron Denning’s fifth son, so why not use your own connections?’ she protested, unsure how to answer him. Surely she was not so important to the security of the Government.
‘My work as a barrister and my father’s railing against it—’ the lines at the corners of Bart’s brown eyes tightened, then relaxed ‘—have prejudiced too many against me and his rank isn’t high enough to garner the notice of a dower marchioness and her marquess son. However, you can use your familiarity with the Camberlines to gather information on suspects.’
‘Who might kill me if they discover what I’m doing.’ She knew little about plots and schemes, but she’d read enough stories about them in the newspapers to understand what happened to those who dabbled in intrigue.
‘If you choose to help me, I promise to do all I can to protect you, but I’ll be honest and say there are no guarantees.’ He shot Freddy an apologetic look to make her brother sink deeper into his chair, the darkness of the last two years shadowing him again.
Moira wanted to throw her arms around her brother and comfort him the way she had when, still in mourning for her own husband, she’d come to Fallworth Manor to help take care of Freddy and Nicholas, her nephew, and usher them through the darkest time of their lives after Helena’s death. Now Mr Dyer was asking her to place herself in danger and risk having her steadying influence on Freddy and Nicholas ripped from them, leaving them to flounder as they had when Helena had been killed by a cutpurse. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘Do you understand what’s at stake? My parents and brothers will all be sacrificed to Rouge Noir’s great vision of Britain and so will you, Lord Fallworth and your nephew if they succeed. With your help, we can stop them.’
‘I do understand what’s at stake, Mr Dyer, but while you ask me to risk my life for king and country there’s a little boy who sleeps without his mother.’ She tossed the pistol on the table besides her and it hit the wood with a rattle. ‘I can’t abandon them any more than you can leave this Rouge Noir to hurt England. My reason may not be as gallant as war or spies, but it’s a good one.’
He straightened a touch, his stoic expression revealing nothing of his thoughts. With his impressive height and piercing eyes beneath dark brown hair cut short, he was an imposing man and clearly used to getting what he wanted. She braced herself for more arguments, expecting him to continue pressing her the way her family did whenever she resisted their plans for her. To her amazement, he didn’t.
‘You’re wrong, Lady Rexford, I do understand your importance to your family and I appreciate all you’ve done for Lord Fallworth in his grief,’ he offered in the deep voice she’d once heard in her dreams before the wedding bells had silenced it. ‘You’re right, your place is here with your loved ones. My apologies to you both. If you give me your word you won’t repeat to anyone what we’ve discussed, I’ll leave you be.’
Moira’s shoulders settled at his admission and the reverent compliment in his words. He hadn’t been so accepting of her refusal five years ago, but the situation had been so poorly handled by her aunt, and her, she couldn’t blame him for the way he’d reacted. He was nothing but a gentleman today and she must meet his honour with her own. ‘I promise not to say anything to anyone.’
‘Thank you.’ He bowed and, without another word, left.
She should have been happy to see the back of him, but she wasn’t. In his eyes had been the night at Lady Greenwood’s ball when, for the first time since before her mother’s death when she was fourteen, she’d acted recklessly and free of constraints. She wished she could have held on to the young woman who’d briefly blossomed under Bart’s admiration, but marriage to Lord Rexford had made it impossible.
Parting with Bart was for the best, she told herself as she had so many times before. She fingered the cold wooden handle of her father’s duelling pistol on the table beside her, pointing the barrel away from her. Her father had viewed marriage to Lord Rexford as a way to ensure she would be taken care of after his death and she’d gone along with it in an effort to ease his anxiety so he could die without worry. Instead of a young and robust husband, she’d wedded an old man whose failure to give her children had ensured almost everything he had went to his nephew at his death. There’d been no reason for her father to think things would not work out as he, and even Moira, had thought they would.
Freddy heaved a weary sigh and pushed himself out of the chair.
‘Perhaps you should go upstairs and rest,’ she suggested, not liking how haggard he appeared this morning. It’d been a long time since he’d looked this low and she feared the events of this morning had ruined all the progress he’d made in the last few months.
‘No, I must speak with Miss Kent about Nicholas’s clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘I can speak with her if you’d like and remind her to be mindful of the cost of having the clothes made up.’
He reached out and clasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, but I think it’s time I took more of a role in my son’s care.’
‘Of course.’ She covered his hand with hers, encouraged by his willingness to handle matters. Perhaps it meant the dark times were finally fading and he wouldn’t be as dependent on her as he had been before. The thought heartened and troubled her.
Nicholas’s laughter followed by the high voice of his young nurse echoed through the house. The sound of it seemed to brighten Freddy even more and he let go of Moira.
‘I’ll speak to her now.’
Moira followed her brother out of the study and into the hall, glad to see him walking with his head up, at last thrilled to greet his son instead of displaying the uninterest in him, his estate and everything he’d shown after Helena’s death. Even before their father’s passing, Fallworth Manor had been in some straits due to a number of bad harvests. Freddy ignoring it all after Helena’s death had made matters worse. It’d taken a great deal of hard work by Moira over the last two years to make it finally turn a profit instead of sinking deeper into debt. However, there was still a long way to go before any of them could live comfortably on the income.
They reached the entrance hall, met by the drumming of small footsteps down the back hall and the dark hair of her nephew as he rushed to meet them.
‘Here’s my sweet angel.’ Moira knelt down and held out her arms.
‘Aunt Mara.’ Nicholas threw himself against her and wrapped his chubby arms around her neck.
She rose, holding the squirming three-year-old who smelled of milk and wet dirt. ‘How is my little love today?’
His deep green eyes widened with excitement. ‘Birdy day.’
‘You saw a bird today?’
He slipped two chubby fingers into his mouth and nodded.
‘Nicholas and I just returned from the park,’ Miss Kent, the young nurse, explained when she approached. Only eighteen with a round face and petite figure, she was the youngest daughter of a baronet who lived near them in Surrey. With few prospects in the country, she’d come to Moira to offer her services and had proven an excellent choice for Nicholas’s nurse. ‘We took some old bread to feed the ducks.’
Freddy took Nicholas from Moira and held him firm against his chest. ‘Perhaps Cook can give you a few more crusts and you can feed the birds in the garden.’ His suggestion made Nicholas clap with delight. Freddy smiled at the boy and then Miss Kent, who blushed and stared at the floor. ‘Miss Kent, if you’ll come with me and Nicholas to the nursery, we can discuss Nicholas’s new clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She dipped a curtsy to Moira then started upstairs after Freddy, who carried Nicholas, asking more questions about the park and what he’d seen.
Moira brushed little dusty fingerprints from her skirt, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy in her chest. She loved the boy as much as she did her brother, but no matter how much she took care of Nicholas, he was not hers. She had no child to comfort her in her widowhood. It was the largest regret of the many she carried from her marriage.
‘You spoil Nicholas,’ Aunt Agatha remarked, entering the hall from the sitting room. She wore a copper-coloured morning dress which followed the curve of her ample and well-concealed bosom before flaring out to drape her stout form. Tight curls pinned to the sides of her head were touched with grey and further decorated by a turban of yellow silk pressed down over her coiffure.
‘I can’t help it.’ Moira attempted to straighten the rather lopsided arrangement of lilies in a vase on a side table.
‘Some day, you’ll have your own to spoil. After all, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Some gentlemen prefer a lady of, shall we say experience.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ She wasn’t sure what astonished her more, Aunt Agatha’s bluntness or how little experience Moira had garnered with Walter before his heart troubles had taken him. Intimate relations were the one aspect of marrying again she did not look forward to. She’d never cared for the deed the few times Walter had bothered her, but she’d done her duty as a wife, praying each time it would result in a child. She stilled her hands on the lilies. This sacrifice had been the most bitter because it’d been for nothing.
‘It’s true. After all, with your husband’s estate and the bulk of his wealth having gone to his nephew, gentlemen won’t pursue you for your fortune,’ Aunt Agatha proclaimed and Moira snapped a brown lily off its wilting stem and laid it on the table, biting back a few choice words. Her aunt’s candidness was growing more vexing with each passing year. ‘Besides, with Freddy ready to face society again, I don’t expect him to remain unmarried for long and then you will be nothing but the widowed aunt, and we can’t have that. But let’s not fret about it now. We have the whole Season to worry about it.’
Having dropped her truth, and careless of the craters it left, Aunt Agatha patted Moira’s arm, then headed down the hallway.
Moira stared at the blue willows painted on the vase, the reality she’d suspected since leaving the country revealing itself a little too loudly for her liking. If Freddy did remarry, his new wife would become the mistress of Fallworth Manor and Nicholas’s care would become her responsibility, and not Moira’s. Should Moira fail to take this Season, she might find herself without purpose at Fallworth, with no real place and nothing but endless and lonely days to fill. Having Aunt Agatha state it with her usual bluntness didn’t help ease her concerns. Neither did seeing Mr Dyer again.
She frowned at the memory of Mr Dyer rather than the tilting flower arrangement. When she’d crept along the hallway, her heart racing while she’d carried the weapon after hearing the raised voices downstairs, she’d never imagined it would be Mr Dyer she’d meet. Moira’s cheeks reddened at the memory of her aunt, in this very hall, laying out to him in blunt terms how his lack of station made him an unsuitable suitor. During her aunt’s tirade, Moira had stood by, unable to meet Mr Dyer’s eyes. With her father’s health failing, she hadn’t been willing to cause him more grief or to throw the house into further turmoil by defying him or her aunt.
Except her father was gone now and Mr Dyer had returned. The flicker of life which had been dormant for so long flared inside her, growing brighter at the thought of him.
He didn’t come here to court me. She walked back to the study to retrieve the pistol and return it to its box, trying to put the encounter, and his proposal, out of her head, but she couldn’t. What he’d told her, like his confession about his work, had changed everything she’d come to believe about him since their failed engagement.
In the study, Moira slid the pistol off the table and turned it over in her hands, admiring the fine scrollwork on the metal. Even after she’d treated him like a common thief, he’d had enough confidence in her to believe she could assist him with something as important as saving England.
I wonder if I could help him? It wasn’t her habit to deny anyone seeking her assistance, but she couldn’t involve herself in something like this. She’d returned to London to re-enter the world, not to entangle herself in the affairs of state, but if Mr Dyer was right, then even innocent diversions had the potential to embroil her in a great deal of danger.
No, I can’t get involved. Her place was here with her family, not out pursuing traitors. Turning on her heel, she made for upstairs. Helping Mr Dyer was a ludicrous idea and one she could not shake.
Chapter Two (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
‘Bart, I didn’t think I’d see you in Rotten Row today.’ Richard, Bart’s eldest brother, the heir and the only Dyer son who could do no wrong in their father’s eyes, laughed as he manoeuvred his horse beside Bart’s. ‘I didn’t think you one for the fashionable hour.’
‘I’m not, but I ride here from time to time to meet with clients.’ Court business didn’t bring him here tonight. He sat on his mount off to one side of the crowded Row and watched the merry parade of titled men and ladies to see who was meeting with whom and the connections they revealed. With the Rouge Noir planning something, the members might be working to recruit more converts or make arrangements with one another. Rotten Row was a good place to do both. So far, he’d seen nothing but an overabundance of velvet and horse droppings.
‘Mother said she hasn’t heard from you about coming to their soirée the night after tomorrow,’ Richard chastised, his horse shifting position. It blocked Bart’s view of the Row at the same moment the Comte de Troyen entered in his red phaeton, his pretty, brown-haired daughter, Marie, on the seat beside him. The French émigré enjoyed the top place on Bart’s list of suspicious people. The Frenchman had been observed meeting with the young Marquess of Camberline more than once over the last few days in parks or on street corners when they thought no one was watching. Bart’s men had noticed, but none of them had been able to get close enough to hear what the two men discussed.
‘Mother hasn’t heard because I haven’t responded.’ Bart clicked his horse to one side to watch the Comte as his carriage paused. A man approached the Comte’s conveyance, a beggar to all assembled, one of the many who lingered by the gates in search of a penny, but Bart wasn’t fooled. The man’s quality breeches beneath his dirty coat betrayed his disguise. These two were meeting about something and Bart needed to find out what.
‘Mother will be disappointed if you aren’t there,’ Richard pressed.
‘And Father will be disappointed if I am.’ Bart’s father’s concern for his sons decreased the further down the line they were from inheriting the title. It was a wonder his father even knew the names of his last two progeny. ‘He doesn’t want to pollute his drawing room with a mere barrister.’
Bart watched as the Comte slipped the beggar a piece of paper Bart would bet his horse was a note. He needed to discover who it was for and what it contained.
‘Father doesn’t disapprove of what you do, but he would prefer it if your cases were not so well known,’ Richard continued, trying like their mother often did to mediate between father and son.
‘If Father wants me to have quieter cases, he should tell his aristocratic friends to stop trying to swindle widows out of their inheritances. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ Bart kicked his horse into a trot and rode over to one of the benches lining the row. The man sitting on it and reading a newspaper looked up over the top of the print at Bart. ‘Follow the beggar walking away from the Comte de Troyen’s carriage, the one with the stained coat and fine breeches. See where he goes and who he might meet with. Get a look at the letter the Comte gave him if you can.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Joseph, one of Bart’s best men, folded up the newspaper in his fine hands. He was the kind of man blessed with the ability to blend in and deal easily with the merchants he sometimes impressed or the dockworkers he might drink with. Joseph tucked the paper under one arm and made for the beggar, following him at a discreet distance as he left the gates of the park and blended into the crowd in the road.
The Comte manoeuvred his phaeton into the endless stream of riders and conveyances. He drove at a leisurely pace, casually offering waves and greetings to many of the people he passed. Bart wasn’t among those. They’d never been formally introduced and he couldn’t simply approach him or his daughter and strike up a conversation. The most he could do was follow him and see who else he spoke with. Bart raised his feet a touch, ready to tap his horse into a walk and get closer to the Comte, when a female voice stilled his boots in the stirrups.
‘Mr Dyer, I didn’t think you one for Rotten Row.’
Bart shifted in his saddle to watch Lady Rexford bring her piebald mount up beside his with the admirable skill of a woman accustomed to riding. She wore a deep blue velvet habit, the skirt of which draped her curving legs where they arched over the pommel before flaring out to cover the saddle and the back of her horse. Across the front of the bodice, gold cord in a military style broke the severity of the blue and drew his attention to the swell of her pert breasts and the hollow of her neck visible above the collar. A short top hat set at an angle over her blonde hair cast a shadow across her nose and cheeks, but it didn’t dampen the twinkle in her eyes. The sight of her startled Bart as much as her smile. It was a radical change from the way she’d greeted him this morning. ‘You and my brother are of the same opinion.’
‘I’m not usually one for it either, but I’m here in London to re-enter society and so here I am.’ She opened her arms to the mash of people around them.
‘Here you are. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’ She’d been eager to see him gone this morning and yet she’d approached him voluntarily now. She wanted something, he was sure of it. It was too much to hope she’d changed her mind, but Bart was an optimistic man.
‘I wish to ask you something, an idea I’ve been considering since you left us this morning.’ She nudged her horse closer to Bart’s. Over the smell of the grass and the sweat of horses, he caught a hint of her lilac perfume. With it came the memory of her in his arms at Lady Greenwood’s ball, her lips as sweet as her voice and the small peals of laughter he’d drawn from her with jokes and flattery. Her laughter and grace had been a relief after the difficulties of war and the endless haranguing by his father about his decision to become a barrister. Then the aunt had ended everything and Lady Rexford had allowed it.
Bart adjusted his grip on the reins, this fact as difficult to ignore as her while she watched him from atop her horse. The height of her animal brought her closer to him, allowing him to study the pretty face which had not been marred in the slightest by widowhood.
‘It’s about Freddy,’ she clarified.
Bart nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised until this morning how much he’d changed.’
‘Few have. We stayed in the country because Aunt Agatha was afraid people might talk of madness if they saw how dark Freddy’s grief was for Helena and she was determined to keep it a secret. It was the same way with my father after my mother died. She feared people would think madness ran in our family and it would prevent Freddy or me from making suitable matches.’
He ignored the uncharitable thought of how unsuitable her match to Lord Rexford had been and nodded his understanding of the danger of allowing people to believe madness ran in a family. He’d once defended a widow from losing her inherited lands to Lord Hartmore, her late husband’s brother, when he’d tried to brand her a lunatic just because her father had been afflicted with madness.
‘Like Father, Freddy was so deeply entrenched in his grief,’ she continued, ‘he lost interest in everything after she died, his estate, his son, but he’s finally coming around.’
‘With a great deal of your help, I’m sure.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. He deserves your care and concern.’ Bart flicked a speck of dirt off his thigh, conscious of how much he’d failed his friend who’d done a great deal to help stop the assassination plot. On the battlefield, he’d excelled at keeping his soldiers safe and in court he was victorious when defending the weak against those attempting to twist the law to their advantage. When it came to those closer to him, despite his best efforts, he sometimes fell short. ‘He deserves happiness instead of misery.’
‘What did Freddy mean when he said he’d lost Helena to plotting scoundrels?’ she asked with startling candidness. He was usually the one asking direct questions.
‘Your brother didn’t tell you after I left?’
‘I didn’t ask. Almost any mention of Helena sends him spiralling into a black mood. I’d like you to tell me.’
‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I did.’
She eyed the other riders with a suspicion similar to his. ‘Before this morning I wouldn’t have, but a great deal has changed since then.’
‘It hasn’t changed. You’ve simply become aware of it.’
She turned to him. ‘And I’d like to know the rest.’
Bart pulled his reins through his gloved hands before at last answering. ‘Your sister-in-law was not shot in her carriage by a random thief in St Giles. She was murdered by a member of the Scottish Corresponding Society.’ Lady Rexford’s full lips parted as if she intended to deny what he’d told her, but she didn’t. ‘Freddy was their intended target. He was supposed to be with her in the carriage that night.’
‘But he was sick, so she went to the theatre without him,’ Lady Rexford whispered.
‘The man who attacked the carriage had orders to kill whoever was inside. He didn’t know who she was and it made no difference to him. He did what he was paid to do, but he was paid through informants. When we pressed him—’
‘You caught the scoundrel?’
‘I have a number of connections in the underworld. It’s how I’m able to win so many cases against fraud. Unlike other barristers, I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. The murderer was hanged soon afterward. Freddy was there when he dropped.’
Except his death hadn’t brought Lady Fallworth back. Nothing could.
Lady Rexford traced the stitching on her glove with her finger. ‘Thank you for telling me. It explains a great deal about Freddy’s grief.’
‘He blames himself.’ When he should blame me. I could have done more and I should have done more to protect her. He was glad Moira had turned down his request for help. He couldn’t fail her the way he’d failed Lady Fallworth. He’d been a fool to even ask, but with precious few leads he’d grasped at any chance to learn more about the Rouge Noir and their plans before it was too late.
‘He does.’
* * *
Moira continued to trace the lacing on her glove with her finger, so many things about the last two years finally making sense. While Aunt Agatha had always written to Moira wringing her hands over Mr Dyer and Freddy’s friendship, Helena’s letters had never mentioned any concern about Freddy’s late nights out. Then, when she’d been murdered, Freddy’s grief had been so intense it used to make her ashamed of the shallowness of hers for her deceased husband. Walter had been amiable and pleasant enough, but she’d never possessed the depth of feeling for him that Freddy had held for Helena.
‘It’s why the Rouge Noir must be stopped before they can ruin any more lives.’ Mr Dyer watched the endless parade of people riding by, the hardness in his eyes startling. ‘These noble traitors hate the country giving them their very lives, incomes, titles and influence and are plotting to bring it down with a ruthlessness and glee to make you sick. They haven’t seen the starving people in France, the wounded and dead in Germany and Austria, the suffering, disease, and misery Napoleon’s army leaves in its wake. All they have are their ideas from afar, their so-called noble ideals and the disgusting willingness to see them carried out. I intend to make sure they don’t succeed.’
Moira studied everyone around them, wondering who among them were as evil as Mr Dyer claimed. They all seemed so innocent, going about their day, caring for almost nothing except dresses and society, scandals and balls. Even the shallowest among them didn’t deserve to have their security and livelihoods ripped from them. She remembered the tales her grandmother used to tell her of France during the early days of the revolution and how everything solid they’d built their lives on had been pulled down, leaving them with nothing. Moira would listen, wide-eyed, at the dinner table while she spoke, trying to imagine what it would be like to have everything torn from her and replaced with fear. If Mr Dyer was right and the Rouge Noir wasn’t stopped, Moira might find out.
She adjusted the collar of her riding habit against a brisk breeze, but it wasn’t the fear of the Rouge Noir making her shiver, but an awareness of Mr Dyer beside her. His strong presence overshadowed everything, including her reason, as she’d discovered when she’d allowed him to lead her behind the topiary on Lady Greenwood’s portico. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her before pulling back and smiling like the devil, as if he’d known before she did she would agree to his kiss and his proposal. The thrill of it had been as intense as this morning when she’d faced him with the pistol. If things had been different and she hadn’t given in to the pressure from Aunt Agatha and her father, she wondered where she and Mr Dyer might be now.
She lowered her hand and adjusted her skirt over the saddle. It didn’t matter. Things were as they were and she could not make the past any different. It was the present she needed to concern herself with, the one which had become very uncertain in the space of only a few hours.
Then something across the park jerked Mr Dyer’s attention away from her. She followed the line of his gaze to see Aunt Agatha being driven in the open-topped landau towards them. Mr Dyer’s horse danced with his rider’s agitation before he brought him firmly under control.
‘Moira, I’m pleased to see you here,’ Aunt Agatha observed, eyeing Mr Dyer as if he were a pickpocket. ‘Although I’m not as enamoured of your chosen company.’
Mr Dyer’s horse snorted.
‘Mr Dyer, you remember my aunt, Lady Treadway.’ Moira made the introduction, trying to keep the ice between them from hardening further.
‘I do.’ His response was glacial.
‘I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr Dyer, but after our last conversation, I’d expected you to think twice about approaching Lady Rexford.’
‘Remind me of our conversation, Lady Treadway,’ Mr Dyer urged with a smile as sharp as broken glass. ‘After all, it has been some time since we last spoke.’ Bart remembered exactly what she’d said to him, but he wanted to make her repeat it. He wasn’t about to leave without a fight or be shooed off like some kicked dog because the Dowager scowled at him.
Lady Treadway shifted her shawl on her shoulders, more reluctant this time to speak so boldly to him. ‘As you know, my niece is a countess, the daughter of an earl, the sister of an earl. Her prospects are quite high.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ Lady Rexford exclaimed, trying to stop her aunt, but she was as determined to put Bart in his place today as she’d been five years ago.
‘It’s true, my dear. I’m only looking out for you.’
‘And once again you’ve deemed me unsuitable.’ It was all Bart could do to sit in the saddle with dignity as he stared down at the small woman dressed in purple and lace, her bearing as stiff as a female workhouse warden. There was no longer a promise between him and Lady Rexford, but it didn’t mean he’d allow anyone to dictate anything to him. What Lady Rexford allowed others to dictate to her was her own affair.
‘My niece is a very generous young woman. I don’t want her friendliness to be mistaken for an invitation.’
‘Aunt Agatha, you have entirely misread the situation and Mr Dyer,’ Lady Rexford protested, to her credit. It was more than she’d dared to say to her aunt the last time they’d been in a similar situation.
‘No, she’s read me exactly as she wishes to.’ Bart leaned over in his saddle, the horse’s height combined with his allowing him to tower over the diminutive woman. The aunt didn’t back down, but straightened, meeting his hard look with an even more determined one. For a brief moment he admired the little force in silk. Despite her snobbery, she truly had her niece’s best interest at heart and he begrudgingly admired her for it. ‘Did you wake up this morning, madam, with the express intent of insulting me?’
This made her back down and she looked away, fiddling with the handle of her unopened umbrella. ‘I don’t mean to insult you, merely to remind you of the facts of the matter which, as a barrister, I’m sure you can appreciate.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He turned hard eyes on Lady Rexford, wishing she possessed as much strength of spirit as her aunt. It might have changed a number of things about the past five years. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Rexford.’
* * *
‘Mr Dyer, wait,’ Moira called after him, but he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and bolted off down Rotten Row.
‘Let him go, my dear, it is for the best,’ Aunt Agatha declared as if the topic was finished and it was most certainly not.
‘Why did you insult him?’ Moira demanded. ‘There was nothing taking place between us except conversation.’
‘It always begins with conversation.’ Aunt Agatha sniffed in the superior way which annoyed Moira.
‘And it ends with me being pressured to marry a man twice my age, one I didn’t love and who was incapable of giving me any of the things I wanted.’
Aunt Agatha’s pale skin went pink near her greying hair. What Moira said wasn’t a secret, but it’d never been openly acknowledged either, not by her or any of the people who’d insisted she marry Lord Rexford. Her horse tossed its head and Moira tugged the reins, wishing she could control her emotions as easily as she did her mount, but ever since this morning, the many thoughts and feelings she’d done her best to bury and forget had been rising up, refusing to be ignored.
‘We did what we thought best for you, Moira,’ Aunt Agatha answered at last without apology.
‘I know, but perhaps it’s time for me to make such decisions for myself.’
‘Not if it means entangling yourself with Mr Dyer again. He might be a very successful barrister, but he is still a barrister and can offer you and the family name nothing.’
‘Lord Rexford was an earl and what did he offer us?’ Moira pointed out.
‘I’m not going to discuss this with you if you’re going to be deliberately obtuse about the difference between Lord Rexford and Mr Dyer,’ Aunt Agatha huffed before waving one gloved hand at her driver. ‘Drive me to Lady Windfall’s carriage. I’d like to speak with her.’
Before Aunt Agatha could set off, Moira turned her horse around and cantered down Rotten Row, gripping the reins so tight she thought they would split the seams of her gloves. How dare Aunt Agatha question her judgement or talk to her like some senseless schoolgirl. She, more than Aunt Agatha, recognised the difference between the two men for she’d been forced into intimate relations with one while forsaking the more virile of the two. Everything Lord Rexford had promised her she might have enjoyed with Mr Dyer: a home, family and security. Instead, she’d wed a title and prestige and it’d proven as hollow as her late husband’s chest.
Moira adjusted herself in the saddle, pushing back the encroaching sadness and regret, refusing to allow it to dominate her. Despite what Aunt Agatha believed about her judgement, she would choose her own husband this time, assuming any man worth having stepped forward to offer her his hand and heart.
She slowed her mount, remaining at the outer edges of the crush as the traffic in the Row increased. Young ladies in fashionable habits sat upright in their saddles in the middle of the path, their grooms following at a discreet pace. The bold ones flashed the available gentleman tempting looks to entice them to turn their horses and join them. The more timid ones relied on their mothers to summon the young men to them. Moira possessed neither the boldness nor the necessary guardian to assist her and she failed to catch anyone but old Lord Mortley’s notice, much to the displeasure of his wife who rode in the carriage beside him.
The steady clop of her horse’s hooves punctuated her heavy mood. She’d come to London to marry again. It’d seemed like a Herculean task before they’d journeyed to town. Being here as a widow without a fortune or lands trying to compete with all the glittering young ladies with large dowries made it even more so. Despite what Aunt Agatha believed, Moira wasn’t sure experience would gain her a match worth making.
Lord Camberline passed her on his fine stallion, oblivious to the inviting smiles of the young ladies and their mamas. Moira turned in her saddle, watching him continue down the row before stopping to speak with the Comte de Troyen and his daughter, Marie. His presence reminded her of the other trouble vexing her today.
Even if she did find a man who could make her happy, the stability of her home and happiness might be at risk. Mr Dyer believed something would happen soon and if it did, where would she and her family go? France wasn’t open to them and travelling to Germany was too perilous. There was always America, but it was so far from everything she cherished and loved, the same things she might lose if the Rouge Noir succeeded.
She clutched her reins tight. They can’t be allowed to succeed.
Napoleon’s domination of the European ports and his interrupting of trade were already making things in England worse. The restrictions added to the food shortages from the bad crops, inciting the workers in the north to revolt even more against the factory owners who were fighting a shrinking market to sell their goods and pay the very people turning against them and their new machines. The turmoil in the countryside would be nothing to the havoc Napoleon and his soldiers would wreak if the Rouge Noir destroyed the Government and brought the Emperor here. The thought of her safe world being torn apart scared her more than spending a lifetime without a husband and children of her own.
I won’t see the Fallworth lands torn from Freddy or little Nicholas left with nothing while French soldiers swarm over the country.
She’d do what she could to help bring down the wicked people who wanted to destroy them and rob everyone of their freedom the way Napoleon had pillaged and robbed so many people in Europe of theirs, the way her family had stolen hers when they’d insisted she marry Walter. She would have a life of her own and with it a future. She would help Mr Dyer.
Chapter Three (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
Moira stood near the back of the line of mamas watching their daughters whirl about the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline’s impressive ballroom. A grand, arched ceiling presided over the rectangular space, at one end of which, in a balcony, the musicians played. At the other end, guests traversed the curving staircase to join the festivities or paused on the single landing to look over the crush. Tall windows punctuated the long run of the opposite wall and all of them were open to let in the cool night air. Camberline House in Mayfair was one of the last houses still surrounded by an extensive garden and land. There was some distance between it and its nearest neighbour and the stately trees and rolling lawn beyond the windows, illuminated by torches, gave Moira and the other guests the impression of being in the country.
A few days ago, Moira had eagerly looked forward to tonight. Once here, the thrill of it lost its allure. Freddy was in the gaming room while Aunt Agatha was off enjoying refreshments with her friends. Moira, being a widow, didn’t need a chaperon and so she’d been abandoned to face the crush alone. Growing up, she’d never spent much time in London, and after marriage and widowhood, she’d continued to avoid town. It left her with no friends here her age and no social circles beyond those her aunt had dragged her into, including as a patroness of the Lying-in Hospital. Those people she did know were from her parents’ or grandparents’ era and she was hesitant to approach them. She’d spent her marriage surrounded by an old husband and his aged friends. She was a young woman and she longed to spend time with people her age. Moira played with the string of her fan, trying to catch the eyes of those around her, but with all their acquaintances already set, no one was interested in forming a new one with her.
Moira sighed. It’d been like this during her very brief and awkward Season, making her isolation even more severe. It seemed as if things had changed, but they hadn’t. Aunt Agatha still railed against Mr Dyer while Moira continued to stand alone in ballrooms.
‘Good evening, Lady Rexford, I’m so pleased you accepted my invitation,’ an elegant voice with a hint of a French accent greeted Moira, breaking the solitude surrounding her.
Moira turned to find the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline beside her, the woman as stately as a Gainsborough in her swathes of mauve silk and black netting. With her grey eyes above a thin nose, she’d turned a number of heads in London after she’d fled the Reign of Terror. Once here, she’d enjoyed her pick of suitors, settling on the much older Marquess of Camberline and the fine fortune and title he’d offered her. Despite a son who’d just reached his majority and being a widow, she was still a stunning woman with little grey in her dark hair. It should have been a relief to at last have someone to speak to, but something about the stately woman placed Moira on edge. ‘I have fond memories of your grandparents dancing at Lady Elmsworth’s parties after I came over from France. Your grandmother was one of the few who refused to wear the red ribbon around her neck. A number of people considered her eccentric because of it, but she adapted so well to England, unlike many others. Good evening, Lady Rexford.’
Her strange reminiscence shared, the Dowager Marchioness swept off to join Lord Moreau, Lord Lefevre and the young lady beside him holding his arm. The woman, who Moira didn’t recognise, was about Moira’s height with blonde hair and a gown cut much lower than even the current fashion favoured.
Lady Camberline tolerating the bold young lady surprised Moira, but not her abrupt departure from Moira. Lady Camberline had been similarly terse with her time and words when she’d extended the ball invitation to Moira and Aunt Agatha while they’d been here for the patroness meeting two days ago. She was surprised the other woman had deigned to notice her tonight, but perhaps Moira was not as easily overlooked as she’d believed.
Moira cast about in search of a familiar face or a friendly invitation by another guest to indulge in conversation. Neither was forthcoming, but she didn’t mind as much as before. In truth, it was Mr Dyer’s presence she eagerly sought instead of anyone else’s. In the few short hours since they’d parted, she’d thought of little except him and his request. Not even the dilemma of which woefully out-of-fashion gown to wear, or the worry of re-entering society after having been gone for so long, had been enough to banish the memory of his stern eyes on hers and the pointed tone of his voice. It seemed, despite the importance he’d placed on tonight, he hadn’t managed to secure an invitation. It ruined her chance of offering her assistance. Let Aunt Agatha disapprove of an acquaintance with him, it wasn’t up to her to decide who Moira did or did not consort with.
Then, at the top of the staircase, Mr Dyer entered the ballroom. He wore a sedate coat of black, a white shirt and cravat and the required fawn-coloured breeches. The darkness of his coat emphasised the seriousness of his expression and captivated Moira. She shouldn’t be this taken with his appearance, but she couldn’t help it. Thankfully, there was no one about to notice her reaction and condemn it. She didn’t need others adding their doubts to hers and making her waver in her resolve.
While the footman was busy listening to the names of an older couple waiting to descend, Mr Dyer slipped around behind him and down the short staircase. At the landing, he stopped to take in the room with the same seriousness as the moment before he’d galloped away from Aunt Agatha. He scanned the guests like a hawk does a field in search of prey, making Moira wonder who he saw and what he suspected, but she couldn’t tear her attention away from him long enough to follow his gaze.
Sensing her watching him, he turned to face her. She didn’t look away, but smiled as if he were a welcome visitor in her house. A scowl crossed his face, especially when she began to thread her way through the guests towards him. Her heart beat as fast as an out-of-control carriage the entire time she moved, afraid he’d stride away from her as quickly as he’d ridden off this afternoon. She wouldn’t blame him if he cut her, but it didn’t make the possible slight, and the disappointment it would bring, any easier to endure. She craved another taste of the hint of adventure he’d offered her this morning and at the same time recognised how silly she was for pursuing it. This was real treason with potential consequences, not some scintillating crime story in the papers. Still, she didn’t stop, but approached him with confidence, refusing to question or alter her decision.
He didn’t bolt off in the other direction, but moved down the stairs, one firm hand on the railing, watching her the entire time until he was at the bottom and she was before him.
‘Mr Dyer, I’m glad to see you tonight.’ He didn’t smell of cologne or shaving soap, but the more potent scent of sweat and leather, the same one which had enveloped her during their misguided and brief engagement. Her husband had never smelled this raw, not even in the midst of his exertions. She snapped open her fan and waved it in front of her face, more to revive rather than to cool herself.
‘Are you?’ Mr Dyer challenged, his self-assurance nearly shaking hers.
‘I am.’ She adjusted one of her diamond earrings, turning to watch the crowd instead of him, but keenly aware of him beside her. ‘I’ve given a great deal of thought to what you and I discussed this morning, and this afternoon, and I’ve decided to offer my assistance by making whatever necessary introductions you need tonight. I may not know very many people here, but I know a few.’
She traced the heavy necklace pulling at the back of her neck while she waited for his response.
He didn’t smile in grateful relief, but eyed her with a strange curiosity which made her shift in her slippers. ‘What brought about this change of heart?’
She pitied the people he’d interrogated in the past. He was being kind to her and already she felt herself shrinking. ‘I’ve had more time to consider the situation and I realised you were right. This is larger than me or Freddy. I love England and I won’t see her, and with it Freddy and Nicholas’s legacies, destroyed.’
Five years ago there might have been more to her offer, but whatever intimacy they’d enjoyed had been snapped like a frayed rope pulled too hard. It couldn’t be knotted together again and she shouldn’t wish it to be. He had his duties and she had hers. Helping him was the only place where they intersected.
* * *
Bart noticed how Moira’s fingers trembled while she adjusted her necklace, the play of her fingers so near the swell of her firm breasts as startling as her offer to help him. After Rotten Row, he’d written her off, intending to come here and find some way to manage things himself. He hadn’t expected her to change her mind and he should accept her help, but he hesitated. Her offer was sincere, but he doubted the veracity of Lady Rexford’s sudden change of heart. She’d do him no good if she crumpled every time the aunt opened her mouth and he had more important business here tonight then fending off disapproving relations. If he wanted to do that he’d attend his parents’ soirée. ‘Won’t your aunt object?’
‘Yes, but it and so many other things are not her decision but mine.’ She settled her shoulders with admirable seriousness, the movement making the diamonds sparkle.
Her defiance revealed a strength of will he hadn’t witnessed in her before, one he hoped she continued to develop. He sensed her happiness relied on her doing so. It shouldn’t matter to him if it did, but by volunteering to help him she was coming under his protection and he was never one to give up on any person in his service, and he needed her. With none of his former clients in attendance, she was, at the moment, the best person to help him. ‘Thank you, Moira.’
She started at his use of her given name. He hadn’t intended to be informal with her, but it’d slipped out, her name as natural on his tongue tonight as when he’d proposed to her. He flexed his hands at his sides, refusing to dig up the past. It had no bearing on the present situation.
‘You’re welcome, Bart.’ She adjusted a comb in the tangle of blonde curls arranged high above her neck. ‘Now, who would you like to meet?’
‘The Comte de Troyen.’ Bart nodded at a dark-haired man with a long face and the longer nose of the Hapsburgs standing by the window with Prince Frederick. ‘He came over during the Peace of Amiens and is good friends with the Prince.’
‘You think he’s one of them?’
Her arm brushed Bart’s when she shifted on her feet to get a better view of the Frenchman. The charge arching between them was unmistakable. He didn’t flinch, but it threatened to rock him off balance as hard as when Mr Flint had first told him of the plot. He drew on the steadfastness of purpose he used in the court to keep opposing counsel from rattling him to put aside his personal feelings and focus on the Comte.
‘His friendship with His Highness gives him ease of access to sensitive information and he has the strongest connection to France.’
‘Most of the people here have deep connections to France.’ Moira levelled her fan at a group of elderly men and women chatting near the dance floor. ‘Mr de Rue’s father was the Chevalier de Rue. Lady Mortley’s father was the Comte de Boulogne. Lady Wortley’s parents were the Duc and Duchesse d’Oiseau. All of these people had aristocratic parents or grandparents who fled to England after the revolution and married their children to earls and dukes.’
‘What about Lord Camberline’s grandparents?’
‘They weren’t lucky enough to escape and were guillotined in France, but not before they spirited Lady Camberline to England to be raised by Lady Elmsworth. She was an old goat of a countess who used to give me the chills whenever Mother had her in for tea.’
Bart studied the clutch of ageing aristocrats. He rarely spent time in society or paid much mind to who did what unless it was pertinent to one of his trials or investigations. It left him at a loss and he didn’t like being without information. It was the reason he’d first approached Lord Fallworth and why he was grateful, if not surprised, to have his sister beside him, the creaminess of her smooth skin heightened by the candlelight. ‘Those are connections but they’re older ones, before Napoleon came to power. The Comte was in France until the Peace of Amiens and when Napoleon restored many of the old aristocrats’ titles and lands, the Comte de Troyen’s were returned to him as well, and no one knows why.’
‘Maybe Napoleon was trying to lure the Comte back to France to help bridge the gulf between the old guard and the new regime. I understand the Comte was an accomplished French statesman at one time. It’s how he survived the Reign of Terror.’ She touched her fan to her delicate chin. ‘It seems to me neither his title nor lands are much good to him in England. With the blockade, not even letters can get through, much less any payments.’
‘Given what I’ve seen of smugglers, it isn’t difficult to slip things through the blockade. If I knew why Napoleon restored his lands, it might answer a great deal to either his innocence or guilt, but the Comte is adept at keeping his business to himself, making him one of the more difficult men for me to investigate. The members of the Rouge Noir are a cautious lot.’ They didn’t gamble or drink to excess, making learning much of anything, including the identity of its members, difficult.
‘I can’t guide you on how to investigate his circumstances, but I can arrange the introduction. My father, and my husband, were well acquainted with Prince Frederick, making him one of the few people here I know. Follow me.’ In a flutter of dark blue silk, she made for the pair of men.
Bart followed, noting the sway of her dress around her hips and the tempting view of the smooth skin of her shoulders and neck beneath her high coiffure. He appreciated her assistance, but not the reminder of her connection to the Prince. He’d been disgusted when he’d learned she’d married Lord Rexford, a man thirty years older than her and in ill health. He understood personal sacrifice, his career had seen a bevy of it, but he couldn’t comprehend surrendering legally and in body to another person just because her father had wished it. He’d never allowed his father, or anyone above him in rank, to dictate his future, much to his father’s continued dismay.
They approached Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen, and Bart buried any distaste he experienced for either man. It was a skill he’d honed during his many trials when he’d faced down some of the worst men to see justice done by pummelling them with arguments and evidence instead of his fists. He could be as polite and engaging when the time called for it as he could be ruthless and unforgiving when it involved rooting out enemies of the Crown.
‘Your Highness, it’s been too long since I’ve seen you.’ Moira held out her hand to Prince Frederick.
‘Lady Rexford, my condolences on your husband.’
Prince Frederick bowed over her hand. He was balding and it added to the sloped forehead sliding into a long and pointed nose. The two small eyes fixed on either side of it focused more on her chest and the generous swell of her breasts above her bodice than her lively smile. Bart had to fight the urge to step in between her and the lecherous royal. It wasn’t his place to act as her chaperon.
‘Lord Rexford and your father were a great help to me in securing funding from the House of Lords for munitions during the War of the First Coalition and you’re too young to be a widow.’
‘Thank you.’
Bart noticed how Moira gritted her teeth at the mention of her loss, and the brief flash of pity in Prince Frederick’s eyes, but her charming smile didn’t fade. It appeared, like him, she’d developed a talent for hiding her thoughts.
‘He always spoke well of his days with you and I think he regretted giving up the service. I’m very sorry to hear what happened to you, losing your post as Commander in Chief of the Army. They were wrong to let a man of your talent go. Thankfully, they came to their senses and called you back.’
‘Bloody fools, but they haven’t got a brain in their heads, not between the lot of them and no real leadership,’ Prince Frederick blustered, the veins along the sides of his nose turning a deeper red. ‘How we manage to get anything done on the Continent is amazing. Why, one lethal fever among a few too many in the Government and the entire country would plunge into complete chaos.’
‘Mon ami, surely it can’t be so dreadful,’ the Comte de Troyen exclaimed as he laid his hand over his cravat. He was tall and lithe, a bit thick in the middle from age, but the man who’d cut a swathe through society ten years ago was still evident in his aquiline nose, air of divine superiority and attire. He wore more brocade than was fashionable and a black wig.
Prince Frederick tipped the rest of his champagne into his mouth. ‘It’s worse than you think. If we didn’t have Wellington leading the army, we’d be done for.’
Bart tried not to groan at hearing Prince Frederick bluster on about the weaknesses of the Government in front of the Comte. If he was this loose with his words while mostly sober at a ball, Bart could just imagine what secrets he let slip when he was drunk at private parties. The Comte or any other traitor wouldn’t have to work hard to garner secrets for Napoleon from Prince Frederick.
Moira looked back and forth between Prince Frederick and the Comte, silently soliciting an introduction.
‘Oh, forgive me, what with the scandal and all I’ve quite forgotten my manners,’ Prince Frederick mumbled. ‘Lady Rexford, may I introduce the Comte de Troyen. You were probably too young to remember when he was the toast of London.’
‘I might have been young, but I could never forget the dashing Comte. You’re even more handsome than either the pictures in the paper portrayed you, or my grandmother used to say.’
‘And you, my dear lady, are trés magnifique.’ The Frenchman admired her with too much interest, making Bart’s back stiffen. ‘And so was your chère grandmère. So many wonderful times in Paris we had. It’s a shame the Revolution ended it all.’
‘My grandmother always used to say so, too.’ She matched the sombreness of the Comte’s voice, allowing his regret and hers to hang in the air a moment. Bart marvelled at her skill in gaining the man’s trust. Some of his younger agents had yet to master such delicate persuasions. Then, after the moment passed, she motioned to Bart. ‘Your Highness, may I introduce Mr Dyer?’
‘Yes, the accomplished barrister. I’ve heard a great deal about you.’ Prince Frederick introduced Bart to the Comte. ‘Monsieur le Comte, if you’re ever in any legal trouble, this is the man to have at your side. If he’d been able to represent me in my awful affair over the sale of commissions, I might not have had to resign as Commander in Chief of the Army. But in the end I was exonerated.’
‘The truth is always the most powerful defence,’ Bart remarked and the Comte shifted in his silver-buckled shoes. It made Bart wonder what about the mention of the truth had made the Comte go white beneath his wig. It increased his suspicions about the man. ‘The discovery of which I strive to achieve in all my trials.’
‘I’ll certainly keep you in mind, Mr Dyer, but I live such a quiet life, I see no chance of troubles.’ The Comte returned his attention to Moira. ‘Might I have the pleasure of this next dance, Lady Rexford?’
Bart wanted to tell her to refuse because he wanted the Comte to remain here and not sneak away, but he was in no position to do so. He tried to catch Moira’s eye and silently dissuade her, but he failed and she held out her hand to the Comte.
‘Yes, you may.’
While the Comte led her away, she looked back over her shoulder at Bart and threw him a conspiratorial wink. He realised she was now in a better position than he was to gather intelligence on the Comte. Although Bart didn’t want her anywhere near the man and danger, he was forced to stifle an answering smile, amazed once again at this brave new Moira. With any luck, she could pry some useful information out of the Frenchman while they danced, but he prayed she remained subtle with her enquiries. He didn’t want the Comte, or anyone else who might be connected to the Rouge Noir suspecting her of more nefarious motives.
‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Dyer. I must speak with Lord Palmer.’ Prince Frederick strode away, having nothing further to discuss with Bart. It didn’t matter. It was the Comte and Moira who commanded all his attention.
* * *
A thrill tripped up Moira’s spine as she took the Comte’s hand and the musicians began the allemande. It wasn’t the Frenchman who inspired her, but the hint of danger in dancing with him. Bart watched from the edge of the dance floor. Despite not looking at him, she was more aware of Bart than the Comte holding her hand for the turn. It took a great deal of effort to remember the steps and to charm the Frenchman.
‘Why have I not seen you in London before tonight?’ The Comte circled her with admirable elegance.
‘Mourning and family obligations have kept me in the country.’
‘My deepest sympathies. I, too, have suffered. My wife passed and I must see to my daughter’s marriage and welfare.’ He motioned to where a young lady with his nose and eyes conversed with the tall and dashing Marquess of Camberline, much it seemed to the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline’s disapproval. Lady Camberline marched up to her son and drew him away from the crestfallen and chastised young lady. Moira pitied the girl, knowing all too well what it was like to have a disapproving parent dictate a young woman’s affections.
The Marquess didn’t stay long with his mother, making for a door at the back of the room after offering her a curt remark which made the Dowager’s lips purse.
‘I’m sorry to be so rude, Lady Rexford, but I must end our dance early,’ the Comte apologised, bringing them to a halt in the middle of a chasse. ‘There is someone I must speak with. Please excuse me.’ With a shallow bow, he hurried away in the direction of the Marquess, leaving her to stand alone in the centre of the whirling couples.
Aware of the many people watching her, Moira gathered up all the self-possession she could muster and strode back into the anonymity of the crowd. She was making for the far wall near where the chaperons stood bored and ignored when Bart appeared beside her.
‘Where’s he going?’
‘I don’t know.’ She nodded in the direction of the tall door on the far side of the ballroom. ‘But I believe it’s wherever Lord Camberline is headed.’
Without a parting word, Bart dashed off into the crowd, working to keep sight of the Comte before leaving the ballroom in pursuit of him.
Moira remained where she was, wishing she could follow him instead of being forced to remain here. Without him to chat with or to force her to interact with others, she was alone and ignored once more. She picked at her fan, wondering what she should do next when Aunt Agatha approached her.
‘Given the crush at this ball, I’m surprised to find you standing by yourself. You should make more of an effort to meet people, especially gentleman who are apt to overlook you in favour of younger and wealthier ladies.’
Despite the sting in the remark, Moira thanked providence it was her solitude and not her time with Bart her aunt had noticed. He was the one man Aunt Agatha didn’t want her to speak with and Moira didn’t relish another argument about him.
A group of women strode past them, jostling Aunt Agatha when they passed because of the crowd.
‘Lady Camberline should better manage her guest list. I’ve never seen such a crush, but I suppose one can’t expect much from a French aristocrat, no matter how long she’s been in England.’ Aunt Agatha frowned as she was forced to step aside for another group of passing people. She’d been prejudiced against the many titled French people who’d come to London after the Revolution for a long time, never really losing her dislike of them even when her brother had married Moira’s mother. She could remember the Christmas dinners when her grandparents sat on one side of the table and Aunt Agatha the other, wincing each time they spoke French to one another. It hadn’t mattered to Aunt Agatha if they’d almost lost their lives to the guillotine. Aunt Agatha detested the French nobility. ‘Well, you might as well join me and my friends. There’s no point in being a wallflower.’
‘I might as well.’ Heaven knew when Bart would return or if he needed her any longer. Spying Freddy leading young Miss Filner on to the dance floor, she realised people not needing her was fast becoming an all-too-familiar pattern in her life.
* * *
Bart followed the Comte de Troyen at a discreet distance through the refreshment room, past the one reserved for gambling and down the long hallway leading to the back of the house. The number of guests thinned as they walked and Bart dropped further and further behind the Comte to avoid being noticed. The Comte paused at a juncture where the main hallway was crossed by another one. Bart stepped back into the narrow alcove of a closed door and pressed himself deep into the shadows, not daring to move.
After a long breath, Bart leaned forward, but the Comte was gone. Bart hurried to the juncture, the thick rug muffling the fall of his shoes. He hazarded a look down one side and then the other. In the centre of the right hallway, the Comte stood with Lord Camberline, less regal and more irritated than he’d been in the ballroom. Bart leaned back against the wall, near the corner to listen to their heated exchange.
‘Don’t think I’ll allow you to renege now, not with so much at stake,’ the Frenchman insisted, showing no deference to the young man’s superior rank.
‘I won’t renege,’ the Marquess answered, as agitated as the Comte. ‘But it’s been more difficult than you realise to put everything in place.’
‘I think you’re stalling for time, to avoid doing what we agreed must be done.’
‘I want this as much as you do. It will change everything and I want it changed. I’ll send word when all is ready. I promise, it will be soon.’
‘It better be or you’ll regret it,’ the Comte threatened.
The Comte’s shoes thudded against the carpet as he stalked away from Lord Camberline. Bart dashed down the hall and into the first room he found. He left the door cracked open slightly, hiding behind it while the Comte passed by, muttering to himself in French. Whatever he and the Marquess were embroiled in, the Comte held power over the younger man and he wasn’t going to let him get cold feet. Bart would make sure the young man’s feet froze solid before he let him compromise himself or the country.
Bart waited in the empty room to give the Marquess time to pass, his eyes adjusting to the moonlight falling in through the windows along the far wall. Above the scent of wood oil, he caught another familiar and more deadly scent.
Gunpowder.
If this were a masculine room he wouldn’t be concerned. Stored hunting rifles improperly cleaned by a footman might leave a lingering scent, but the gilded chairs and comfortable sofa set before a delicate writing table near the windows told him this was a lady’s domain. The scent of gunpowder shouldn’t be here.
Bart made his way around the room, searching for the source of the scent. He found it near the writing table. He pulled open the drawers on the left side and rifled through them, but there was nothing inside except blank papers, pens and extra ink. He closed the last one and moved to search the right-hand drawers when his foot came down on something. It was a small envelope and it grated like it held fine gravel. He picked it up and carefully opened the envelope to examine the substance inside. It was gunpowder, but a redder and more pungent variety than any he’d encountered before. The colour and smell of it concerned him as deeply as the conversation he’d overheard. He tucked the envelope in his coat pocket, then peered cautiously through the cracked door to make sure the hallway was empty before he left the room.
He retraced his steps, the people and conversation growing thicker as he approached the gaming room. He moved past them and into the ballroom, intending to return to Moira. She might know something about Lord Camberline and a way for one of them to get closer to the young lord and learn more.
He stepped into the crowded ballroom, searching for her light hair, the elegant line of her jaw and the captivating eyes that had met his across a ballroom similar to this one five years ago, making him forget the need to be cautious about young ladies of higher rank. She’d accepted his invitation to dance without the snide condescension of other ladies in search of more lucrative elder sons of lords. They’d wanted nothing to do with a fifth son who earned his living from hard work, and he’d refused to endure their insolence. Moira hadn’t cared about his rank or dismissed him because of it.
No, she’d left it to the aunt to do it for her.
He spied her across the room standing with her aunt and a number of other elderly ladies, irritated at the old slight and captivated by her present beauty. Whatever the aunt still thought of him, it was clear Moira didn’t share her opinion or her aunt’s enthusiasm for her present company. She appeared as bored by the gaggle of biddies as Bart was disappointed. He couldn’t approach her while she was with them.
Damn.
Lord Camberline and the Comte were up to something and he was sure it had something to do with the gunpowder in his pocket. He needed to give the sample to Mr Flint and have his man, Mr Transom, examine it, and tell his superior what he’d overheard in the hallway. Maybe Mr Flint had received some more intelligence to help them make sense of it. It meant leaving the ball and Moira early, but he’d find a way to meet her again tomorrow and explain everything without the aunt interrupting them. He was sure Moira would understand his abrupt departure. He hoped she did because he needed her. She’d shown him tonight how she could charm men like the Comte with an ease none of his other agents could match and she was already an acquaintance of the Camberlines. It gave her access to them and their house, one he could not otherwise obtain. In light of what he’d overheard and what he’d found, it was a critical connection he had to take advantage of.
He reached into his pocket and rubbed the envelope with the gunpowder between his thumb and forefinger. The granules grated beneath the paper and his fingertips. He didn’t want Moira involved in this or in harm’s way, but her help might prove crucial to stopping the Rouge Noir. If he could keep her work to chatting to titled men and women at parties, asking the right questions or simply listening, she should be safe. He would do all he could to ensure it and not fail her or England as he’d failed Lady Fallworth.
Chapter Four (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
‘A woman? Have you gone mad, Dyer? This is no work for a woman and a lady in particular.’ Mr Flint’s ruddy nose turned a shade darker. They sat in his office in Whitehall. The dark desk he occupied matched the rich tones of the panelled walls punctuated by two windows separated by a painting of the Battle of Marathon.
‘Lady Rexford is in an even better position than her brother to get close to people like the Comte and Lord Camberline. No one will suspect a woman of eavesdropping. If they did, then men wouldn’t say half of what they do to their mistresses.’
‘That’s how we got most of what we did out of Italy, through Mrs Hamilton,’ Mr Flint mumbled reflectively as he rubbed the fleshy roundness of his chin. He’d started his career in France under William Wickham and the Alien Office, recruiting spies and supporting the Royalists. He’d risen with the man as they’d sought intelligence first during the French Revolution and now against Napoleon. ‘Being a widow with no children is unfortunate for her, but to her advantage and ours in this matter. She has no dependants to put at risk, enjoys freedom of movement and is more appealing to gentlemen.’
Including Bart. He’d thought as much about her last night as he had the sample of gunpowder and everything he’d seen and heard at the ball. He cursed the distraction. This was no time to lose his head, not with the fate of the Crown at stake. ‘What about the gunpowder I gave you?’
‘Mr Transom is examining it and will report to you soon.’ Mr Flint removed his spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief. ‘Any more information on the man who met the Comte de Troyen in Rotten Row?’
‘Joshua is still investigating him. Given what I overhead last night, I’ll tell him to redouble his efforts.’
‘In the meantime, you should pay a visit to gaol. Mr Marks, one of Jacques Dubois’s underlings, was arrested last night for getting into a brawl down by the docks.’
‘Not like one of Mr Dubois’s men to be careless and get arrested.’ Mr Dubois was a well-known smuggler and arms procurer who was as good at getting many in the Admiralty their French wine as he was at acquiring weapons for the war effort. His deliveries of munitions meant the Government looked the other way when it came to his smuggling activities. Until this point, he’d never been suspected of treason. ‘He could be the one slipping notes and money between Napoleon and the Rouge Noir,’ Bart suggested.
‘Only one way to find out.’
Bart rose and made for the door. ‘After a night of risking gaol fever, Mr Marks should be willing to tell me a little about his employer’s less savoury connections.’
* * *
Moira reviewed the dinner menu, but was forced to read over the selection more than once before it stuck. It was difficult to concentrate on fish and chicken when all she could think about was Bart. When she’d agreed to help him and they’d walked together to meet Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen, she’d moved with purpose through the ballroom, a wallflower no more. Her purpose had come from Bart and his desire, shared by her, to help their country. It’d been more thrilling than anything else she’d experienced in recent memory.
And I gained nothing for my efforts.
She tapped her pen against the menu. If her help had assisted him in any way, he hadn’t informed her. He hadn’t even had the decency to send a note thanking her for her assistance or explaining his abrupt departure and failure to return.
Footsteps behind her made her turn. Freddy entered the sitting room. He appeared better today, the despair surrounding him after Bart’s visit yesterday having dissipated. However, there was a seriousness about him that made Moira grip the back of her chair as she turned to face him. He always appeared like this whenever he was about to ask her for something she wasn’t going to like.
‘I understand Mr Dyer was at the ball last night.’ Freddy picked up a German glass dish on the table beside him and turned it over to inspect the bottom. ‘A friend of mine saw you speaking with him.’
Moira tightened her grip on the chair. ‘Once Aunt Agatha abandoned me for her friends, and you left me for the cards, there were few other people I was well enough acquainted with to speak to.’
‘Surely there must have been someone else.’
Moira rolled her eyes, not interested in travelling where this conversation was leading. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to be like Aunt Agatha and start railing against him, too?’
‘I am.’ Freddy set the dish back on the table. ‘Bart and I were very good friends once, but I have to insist that you have no further dealing with him. You don’t realise how dangerous it is to our welfare.’
‘I do. He told me what happened with Helena.’ She rose and laid her hands on his shoulders. His muscles tightened beneath her palms. ‘Please don’t fret, Freddy. All he did was ask me to introduce him to Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen and I did. There was nothing more to it. I never even saw him after we met the gentlemen.’
‘If that’s all there was to it, then promise me you won’t become involved with or see him again.’ Freddy took her hands off his shoulders and clasped them in his, pleading with her in the oddly gentle way everyone always did whenever they asked her to make sacrifices for them.
She peered up at her brother, troubled by his anxiety. She should agree, set his mind at ease, take the easy path and avoid the conflict rumbling just beneath his request, but something in her rebelled. This was too much like five years ago when her father and Aunt Agatha had demanded the same thing. ‘I can’t do that, Freddy. I respect Mr Dyer and his work too much to cut him.’
Freddy let go of her and stepped back, a rare anger flashing in his green eyes. ‘Does he mean so much to you that you’re willing to risk your relationship with Nicholas to see him?’
Moira drew back in shock. ‘How can you threaten such a thing after everything I’ve done for him and you?’
Freddy had the decency to redden with shame. ‘Of course I appreciate all you’ve done. Nicholas, and I, and Fallworth Manor couldn’t have survived without you. It’s why I’m asking this of you.’
She was about to answer him when the faint clearing of a gentle voice made them face the sitting-room doorway.
Miss Kent stood at the threshold, a paper-wrapped bundle in her fine hands, her cheeks brushed with the flush of a recent walk. ‘Lord Fallworth, I have the clothes I collected from the tailor for Nicholas. Would you like to come to the nursery and see them? It’s time for me to wake him from his nap.’
Freddy lit up at the sight of her and it made Moira more uneasy than his interest in her and Bart. Surely it’s because of Nicholas and nothing more, but the feeling it wasn’t was difficult to set aside.
‘Yes, I’d like that. Go up and wake him. I’ll join you both shortly.’
The pretty nurse curtsied, then left. Freddy turned back to Moira, his elation from the interruption gone. ‘I’m not trying to be stern with you, Moira, but I have to think of Nicholas. He was too young to grieve for Helena, but not for you. I won’t have him suffer the way I did.’
‘How much will he and all of us suffer if the Rouge Noir succeeds?’ she challenged.
He frowned, not appreciating being trapped by her logic. ‘Such affairs are not our concern. Leave them to Bart and others to manage, otherwise, I’ll do what I must to protect my son.’
He turned on his boot heel and strode out of the room, leaving Moira alone with his threat.
She wrapped her arms around her waist to fend off the worry engulfing her. If she didn’t heed his request, Freddy might take Nicholas away from her. She loved the boy and didn’t want to be parted from him, but she chafed at being placed in this situation again. She’d given Bart up five years ago and gained very little in return for her sacrifice. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again, especially not with Freddy likely to remarry this Season. Moira’s place in Nicholas’s life would be supplanted by his new stepmother no matter what Moira decided to do today.
She walked to the window to take in the street outside, struggling against her rising frustration. With Freddy making it clear she was not as valuable to him as she’d believed, it was nice to think someone still needed her, even if it was only for a short time. Except she wasn’t sure Bart did need her. After all, he’d done nothing to make her believe he would require further assistance from her.
Then why didn’t I simply agree to Freddy’s request? Because, until she heard otherwise from Bart, there was still hope. She’d come to London to gain a new life for herself, and if she allowed others to dictate who she should and should not see then she’d never claim the independence she craved.
* * *
‘I’m here to see the man they brought in last night. I need to talk to him.’ Bart stood before the desk of the rotund gaol warden.
He didn’t look up from the large mug of cheap ale he poured himself, but continued to fill the pewter until he was satisfied, then set the jug down with a thud. ‘That might be hard. He died last night. Gaol fever.’
‘Then I want to see the body.’ He never trusted anything until he confirmed it, not the information his men brought him, or even Moira’s rejection of him five years ago as the aunt had related it until he’d spoken to Moira in private in the square near her house. It’d been a painful conversation.
The warden smacked his thick lips together as he eyed Bart. Then, with an as-you-wish shrug, he left the room, motioning for Bart to follow. They passed numerous stinking and dark cells crammed with people. Bart didn’t flinch. He’d been here too many times before to speak with possible witnesses and informants to be horrified by the dirty hands reaching out to beg a penny off him. The warden led him to the end of the block of cells and down a flight of rickety stairs to the cold stone cellar. Two bodies were laid out on tables beneath stained sheets. The smell in here wasn’t much worse than the one engulfing the cells upstairs.
‘Here he is.’ The warden flicked back an old sheet to reveal the ashen face of Mr Marks. ‘He’ll be chucked in the pauper’s pit this afternoon unless you want him. No one else does.’
‘I don’t want a dead man.’ Bart yanked the sheet off, revealing the stab wound in the man’s stomach. ‘Gaol fever?’
The warden shrugged. ‘Easier than bringing in the constable, especially for scum like this.’
‘Any idea which other prisoner did this?’
‘Yeah, him.’ He pointed to the man on the table beside him.
Bart flicked back the sheet. The second man had a similar wound. ‘A right epidemic.’
The warden threw out his hands. ‘You know how it is in here at night.’
He did. Leaving a man here to face it often opened his mouth or jogged his memory when Bart returned the next day. ‘Any idea who did the second man in?’
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Georgie Lee
A stolen kiss from a spy!Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.Moira's widowed, yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But as they race against time Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts…
A stolen kiss from a spy!
Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.
Moira’s widowed yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But, as they race against time, Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts...
‘You’re in a position to become better acquainted with Lord Camberline, but your involvement will be strictly limited to social engagements and nothing else,’ Bart insisted.
Her astonishment gave way to a sideways teasing smile. ‘You mean I won’t be able to point a pistol at other people or you?’
‘You can point a pistol at me any time you like.’ He enjoyed this saucy Moira, and was elated by her tacit agreement. It meant they didn’t have to part just yet.
‘I can’t simply call on a marchioness and discuss her son,’ she protested.
‘You can if you become better friends with her. There’s a painting exhibition tonight at the Royal Academy and Lord Camberline and his mother will be there.’
‘If they suspect anything, what shall I say?’ she asked.
‘You’ll have to come up with something.’
‘Oh, well, if it’s as easy as that I should have no trouble!’ She laughed.
He winked at her. ‘Welcome to the world of intrigue.’
Author Note (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
Writing Courting Danger with Mr Dyer was a new challenge for me. Some of my previous stories have had elements of intrigue in the plot, but intrigue wasn’t as critical to those stories as it is to this one. It was fun to write the story not only from Bart’s perspective as a member of the espionage community, but also from Moira’s position as an outsider. Her innocence where plots and treason are concerned was kind of like mine when I began my research. I didn’t realise how much cloak-and-dagger work was going on during this time period.
In order to craft the treason plot that Bart and Moira work to uncover I did a great deal of research on spying and plots in and around the Regency period. William Wickham and Mr Flint—two men I mention in the story—are real people who helped pioneer early British espionage and the British Secret Service. It was Mr Wickham’s involvement in the London Corresponding Society’s plot to assassinate the Prime Minister in 1793 that inspired the plot in Courting Danger with Mr Dyer. I also reached a little farther back into history to research the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes. Not having grown up with the Bonfire Night tradition, it was fun to learn about all the key players involved and how it was eventually uncovered and thwarted.
I hope you enjoy following Bart and Moira through the danger and excitement of saving Britain and falling in love!
Courting Danger with Mr Dyer
Georgie Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A lifelong history buff, GEORGIE LEE hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then she fulfils her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading non-fiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent. Please visit georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.
Books by Georgie Lee
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The Business of Marriage
A Debt Paid in Marriage
A Too Convenient Marriage
The Secret Marriage Pact
The Governess Tales
The Cinderella Governess
Scandal and Disgrace
Rescued from Ruin
Miss Marianne’s Disgrace
Courting Danger with Mr Dyer
Stand-Alone Novels
Engagement of Convenience
The Courtesan’s Book of Secrets
The Captain’s Frozen Dream
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk. (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
To my family who are always so supportive.
Contents
Cover (#u681afe50-f11e-5aab-8b61-c951ebf33e9a)
Back Cover Text (#ua4e8677b-7ca7-5a03-99a8-c874a1db8c61)
Introduction (#ud3782738-c425-57dc-ae04-11c6b6c1003c)
Title Page (#u2257e6ad-e54d-5a45-9d57-abb419ce74ce)
About the Author (#ue6ecf260-b914-5d7c-96d6-cda49647c7c5)
Dedication (#ud25b7a27-b286-5d9d-b662-0a0ca277f4d5)
Chapter One (#uc8e522bc-2a09-5efb-844b-c6ea8143d462)
Chapter Two (#u39fea2c0-0525-5a24-9bc4-c221b845505b)
Chapter Three (#u7b5f08f2-ecc1-512c-be8e-6964769de430)
Chapter Four (#u76c543fb-c61b-5f6e-b6ce-1a0181c3d89f)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
London—1813
‘You must do it.’ Bartholomew Dyer banged Frederick Chambers, Fifth Earl of Fallworth, hard against the wall, trying to knock the fight back into him. The unprovoked swing the Earl had taken at Bart gave him hope it could be done. ‘We need you.’
‘I can’t, don’t you understand?’ Freddy growled, fingers biting into Bart’s forearms. ‘I’ve given enough. I won’t give any more.’
‘Let go of him.’ The lady behind him punctuated her command by cocking a pistol hammer.
Damn. Bart cursed under his breath. She’d just made the weapon more dangerous. If she wasn’t competent with it, the ball would tear through him and the Earl under his elbow.
Bart took his arm off Lord Fallworth’s chest and stepped back.
‘Moira, it’s not what you think,’ Lord Fallworth choked as he leaned away from the wall and tried to wave his sister off.
Bart ground his teeth at the mention of Lady Rexford and the way it made his neck, and something much lower down, tense. A maid or the elderly aunt would have been preferable to Lord Fallworth’s sister, and his one-time fiancée, having stumbled in on them. The young Dowager Countess of Rexford was as stunning as she was a complication Bart didn’t need.
‘Then what is it?’ She kept the pistol pointed at Bart’s chest and her beautiful green eyes fixed on his.
She’d changed since he’d last seen her five years ago when she’d been a young lady new to London and he an ex-soldier beginning his career as a barrister. The innocent, uncertain tilt of her head was gone, replaced by a confidence he imagined widowhood and the deaths of her father and sister-in-law must have given her. It made her sharp cheekbones set in an oval face and framed by blonde hair more striking and more tempting. He knew better than to fall for it. He had no desire to hear again from her family how he wasn’t good enough for her or to have his official duties curtailed by her incorrect reading of this situation.
Bart bent into a bow. ‘Good evening, Lady Rexford. It’s a pleasure to see you again.’
‘I can’t say the same, Mr Dyer. If you weren’t one of the most celebrated barristers in England with as many magistrates in awe of you as the public, I’d put a ball through you and end your scourge on this house.’
He opened his arms to increase the size of her target. ‘Why not take the chance?’
She frowned at his defiance, the disapproving yet intriguing downturn of her mouth tempered by the still-raised weapon. ‘Since I have no desire to be hanged for murder, I demand you leave at once and never return.’
Any other day her order would have been charming. This morning it was merely irritating. ‘Your aunt used to make the same request and it didn’t work.’
‘I’d like to think I’m a touch more persuasive.’ She nodded at the still-raised pistol.
He admired her desire to protect her brother, even if it was woefully misguided. However, what had brought him here in defiance of her widowed aunt’s dictates was far more important than his or anyone else’s life.
‘Moira, it’s all right. Leave us be, we have business to discuss.’ Lord Fallworth took up his drink and drained it.
‘What business? Which gaming hell to visit?’ she challenged. ‘Don’t think Aunt Agatha didn’t write to me about what you got up to with Mr Dyer when you were in London two years ago. I won’t have you ruining yourself again a mere week after we’ve returned to town.’
Bart suppressed a growl of irritation. If Lady Rexford knew the real motives behind those nights out, she’d lower the pistol, throw her arms around his neck and thank him for his service to their country.
‘Freddy, I won’t leave you to the influences of a man like this.’ Lady Rexford waved her free hand at Bart. ‘Not with you already so vulnerable since Helena’s—’
‘You needn’t say it.’ Lord Fallworth snatched up the brandy decanter and refilled his glass.
Bart opened his mouth to tell Lady Rexford to step out of things she didn’t understand, then closed it again. With her brother slipping into a liquor-induced fog, his suitability for this mission waned while Lady Rexford’s possible involvement played on him like a hunch. She stood straight, one foot in front of the other to make her gown drape across her shapely thigh. The firm set of her full lips beneath eyes as focused as a fox’s made him take more notice of her than the pistol or her reluctant brother. No one would suspect a woman. Bart knew better. ‘You’re friends with Lady Camberline?’
A crease of confusion appeared between her shapely eyebrows. ‘Not friends so much as acquaintances. We’re both patrons of the Lady’s Lying-In Hospital.’
‘But you know her well enough to call on her and to receive invitations?’
‘No, Bart, don’t do it,’ Lord Fallworth warned.
Lady Rexford glanced back and forth between Bart and her brother. ‘I do.’
‘Are you attending her ball tonight?’
‘Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?’
‘I said don’t do it.’ Lord Fallworth banged his glass down on the table, making the brandy slosh over the sides.
Bart ignored the glowering Earl. ‘I need your help to—’
‘No, not her.’ Lord Fallworth grabbed Bart by the lapels and gave him a shake. ‘I lost my wife to plotting scoundrels. I won’t lose a sister, too.’
If Lord Fallworth were any other man Bart would drop him like a sack of flour, but the other man had sacrificed a great deal by helping Bart two years ago. Until today, Bart hadn’t realised how much it’d changed his friend.
‘What are you talking about, Freddy?’ Lady Rexford asked in a shaky voice. ‘What scoundrels?’
Bart exchanged a concerned look with Lord Fallworth. His sister didn’t know the truth about Lady Fallworth’s death, but then few people did. This wasn’t the moment to enlighten her.
‘Nothing,’ Lord Fallworth answered in a voice to convince no one. ‘I misspoke.’
Lord Fallworth eyed Bart with unease as he let go of him and shifted back. Bart studied him, aware of the pain he was causing his old friend. He would leave him in peace if he could, but this time, there was too much at stake. ‘If I don’t uncover their plans soon, the Government, the King could be brought down and Napoleon installed on the throne.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Lady Rexford demanded.
‘Let me tell her and allow her to decide,’ Bart asked the other man in the same measured tone he normally used when delivering bad news to a client.
Lord Fallworth retrieved his drink, his signet ring clanking against the glass. Then he slumped down into his chair, the promising fight he’d shown when he’d lashed out at Bart gone. ‘Go ahead then, tell her.’
‘Tell me what?’ Lady Rexford lowered the hammer with impressive and surprising skill. Anyone else would have slammed it down and set the damned thing off. It was another mark in her favour.
Bartholomew took a deep breath. What he was about to reveal could place his entire mission in jeopardy if she whispered it around the wrong tea table, but with Freddy unable to assist him, Lady Rexford might be his only chance. She’d proven herself discreet in the matter of their debacle of an engagement, making sure no one outside of her family and his had learned of it. He was certain he could count on her prudence again.
Bart turned to her with the same deference he showed when approaching the bench. ‘I’m not just a barrister, Lady Rexford, but a stipendiary magistrate given power by the Alien Office to root out traitors working to undermine our country. I have a number of men under me, one of whom used to be your brother. The many nights I came here to collect him two years ago, the ones your aunt wrote to you about, weren’t to waste money at cards but to uncover a plot by Lord McCreery working on behalf of the Scottish Corresponding Society to assassinate the Prime Minister. We spent nights drinking and gambling with many of the men involved with the society in order to learn the details of the plot. Alcohol is a great opener of mouths. It makes people forget themselves.’ He cocked one suggestive eyebrow at her. The full lips he’d savoured five years ago drew tight at his reference to their past and the time they’d spent on Lady Greenwood’s balcony in each other’s arms. Bart ignored the appealing blush sweeping her cheeks and continued. ‘Thanks to your brother’s help, we stopped the plot, but now there is another. A group called the Rouge Noir, a collection of London aristocrats with ties to Napoleon, is actively working to undermine the Crown and install the Emperor on the throne.’
‘You expect me to believe titled gentlemen are plotting to bring down the Government?’
She crossed her arms, the gun dangling beneath one elbow as she stared at him in disbelief, as sceptical as he’d been when Charles Flint had first approached him on William Wickham and the Alien Office’s behalf. Even after his work uncovering fraud in order to protect his clients, and his time as a captain with the English army in Austria, the story had been hard for him to swallow. It must sound preposterous to a lady who’d been sequestered on a country estate for the last few years.
‘I know you despise those of our class, but I didn’t think you’d sink so low as to accuse them of treason.’
Bart narrowed his eyes at her, struggling to remain as collected as when he was arguing a case. She’d struck a nerve, one of the few people in a long time to do so. ‘I may not like a great swathe of the nobility, but I swore to protect them. I won’t see any of my countrymen, not the poor or the rich, trampled under Napoleon’s boots.’
‘It’s true, Moira,’ Freddy concurred. During their interrogation of the Scottish Corresponding Society conspirators, there’d been whispers of the Rouge Noir but never anything solid, until recently.
She turned her shock on her brother. ‘It can’t be.’
‘It is,’ Bart insisted. ‘The Government is weak, with no strong prime minister and a handful of colourless men running things. The King is mad and his son a worthless dandy. If the Rouge Noir can wipe them out it will bring this country to its knees, allowing Napoleon to sweep in and restore order through tyranny. I and my network of informers were able to ferret out a number of lesser members of the Rouge Noir some time ago and we thought we’d disrupted the group enough to stop them. Then, last week, a courier was caught in Dover with a message for Napoleon telling him to prepare for the coming of the Rouge Noir. I believe something is going to happen and soon, but I don’t know what and I don’t know where but I must find out. I suspect some in Lady Camberline’s circle to be involved, but I have no way to get close to them without drawing suspicion.’
‘If you think Freddy will help you, you’re wrong.’ She crossed her arms and stepped between Bart and Lord Fallworth, as if protecting her brother. ‘He isn’t well enough to have any part in your scheme.’
‘I’m not asking him to have a part in it. I’m asking you.’
* * *
Moira dropped her arms to her sides. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but the hard angles of Mr Dyer’s chiselled face and the steeliness of his dark eyes told her it was. ‘Me?’
‘Lady Rexford, I need you, England needs you,’ Mr Dyer pleaded. This was the first time they’d spoken since the morning five years ago when she’d called off their engagement with fumbling words about her duty to her father and upholding the Fallworth reputation. He hadn’t taken it well, railing at her about the misguided priorities of the aristocracy and her failure to stand up for what she wanted. She’d tried to make him understand her father’s concerns for her and her future, but he’d refused to listen. They’d parted with no small amount of bitterness on each side, and when Aunt Agatha’s frantic letters about Freddy had begun to arrive, Moira had thought she’d avoided a bad mistake. Yet all along Bart had been fighting for something more worthy than bragging rights about a card win. ‘You can get close to Lady Camberline and many of those in her circle, especially the ones I suspect.’
‘You’re Baron Denning’s fifth son, so why not use your own connections?’ she protested, unsure how to answer him. Surely she was not so important to the security of the Government.
‘My work as a barrister and my father’s railing against it—’ the lines at the corners of Bart’s brown eyes tightened, then relaxed ‘—have prejudiced too many against me and his rank isn’t high enough to garner the notice of a dower marchioness and her marquess son. However, you can use your familiarity with the Camberlines to gather information on suspects.’
‘Who might kill me if they discover what I’m doing.’ She knew little about plots and schemes, but she’d read enough stories about them in the newspapers to understand what happened to those who dabbled in intrigue.
‘If you choose to help me, I promise to do all I can to protect you, but I’ll be honest and say there are no guarantees.’ He shot Freddy an apologetic look to make her brother sink deeper into his chair, the darkness of the last two years shadowing him again.
Moira wanted to throw her arms around her brother and comfort him the way she had when, still in mourning for her own husband, she’d come to Fallworth Manor to help take care of Freddy and Nicholas, her nephew, and usher them through the darkest time of their lives after Helena’s death. Now Mr Dyer was asking her to place herself in danger and risk having her steadying influence on Freddy and Nicholas ripped from them, leaving them to flounder as they had when Helena had been killed by a cutpurse. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘Do you understand what’s at stake? My parents and brothers will all be sacrificed to Rouge Noir’s great vision of Britain and so will you, Lord Fallworth and your nephew if they succeed. With your help, we can stop them.’
‘I do understand what’s at stake, Mr Dyer, but while you ask me to risk my life for king and country there’s a little boy who sleeps without his mother.’ She tossed the pistol on the table besides her and it hit the wood with a rattle. ‘I can’t abandon them any more than you can leave this Rouge Noir to hurt England. My reason may not be as gallant as war or spies, but it’s a good one.’
He straightened a touch, his stoic expression revealing nothing of his thoughts. With his impressive height and piercing eyes beneath dark brown hair cut short, he was an imposing man and clearly used to getting what he wanted. She braced herself for more arguments, expecting him to continue pressing her the way her family did whenever she resisted their plans for her. To her amazement, he didn’t.
‘You’re wrong, Lady Rexford, I do understand your importance to your family and I appreciate all you’ve done for Lord Fallworth in his grief,’ he offered in the deep voice she’d once heard in her dreams before the wedding bells had silenced it. ‘You’re right, your place is here with your loved ones. My apologies to you both. If you give me your word you won’t repeat to anyone what we’ve discussed, I’ll leave you be.’
Moira’s shoulders settled at his admission and the reverent compliment in his words. He hadn’t been so accepting of her refusal five years ago, but the situation had been so poorly handled by her aunt, and her, she couldn’t blame him for the way he’d reacted. He was nothing but a gentleman today and she must meet his honour with her own. ‘I promise not to say anything to anyone.’
‘Thank you.’ He bowed and, without another word, left.
She should have been happy to see the back of him, but she wasn’t. In his eyes had been the night at Lady Greenwood’s ball when, for the first time since before her mother’s death when she was fourteen, she’d acted recklessly and free of constraints. She wished she could have held on to the young woman who’d briefly blossomed under Bart’s admiration, but marriage to Lord Rexford had made it impossible.
Parting with Bart was for the best, she told herself as she had so many times before. She fingered the cold wooden handle of her father’s duelling pistol on the table beside her, pointing the barrel away from her. Her father had viewed marriage to Lord Rexford as a way to ensure she would be taken care of after his death and she’d gone along with it in an effort to ease his anxiety so he could die without worry. Instead of a young and robust husband, she’d wedded an old man whose failure to give her children had ensured almost everything he had went to his nephew at his death. There’d been no reason for her father to think things would not work out as he, and even Moira, had thought they would.
Freddy heaved a weary sigh and pushed himself out of the chair.
‘Perhaps you should go upstairs and rest,’ she suggested, not liking how haggard he appeared this morning. It’d been a long time since he’d looked this low and she feared the events of this morning had ruined all the progress he’d made in the last few months.
‘No, I must speak with Miss Kent about Nicholas’s clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘I can speak with her if you’d like and remind her to be mindful of the cost of having the clothes made up.’
He reached out and clasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, but I think it’s time I took more of a role in my son’s care.’
‘Of course.’ She covered his hand with hers, encouraged by his willingness to handle matters. Perhaps it meant the dark times were finally fading and he wouldn’t be as dependent on her as he had been before. The thought heartened and troubled her.
Nicholas’s laughter followed by the high voice of his young nurse echoed through the house. The sound of it seemed to brighten Freddy even more and he let go of Moira.
‘I’ll speak to her now.’
Moira followed her brother out of the study and into the hall, glad to see him walking with his head up, at last thrilled to greet his son instead of displaying the uninterest in him, his estate and everything he’d shown after Helena’s death. Even before their father’s passing, Fallworth Manor had been in some straits due to a number of bad harvests. Freddy ignoring it all after Helena’s death had made matters worse. It’d taken a great deal of hard work by Moira over the last two years to make it finally turn a profit instead of sinking deeper into debt. However, there was still a long way to go before any of them could live comfortably on the income.
They reached the entrance hall, met by the drumming of small footsteps down the back hall and the dark hair of her nephew as he rushed to meet them.
‘Here’s my sweet angel.’ Moira knelt down and held out her arms.
‘Aunt Mara.’ Nicholas threw himself against her and wrapped his chubby arms around her neck.
She rose, holding the squirming three-year-old who smelled of milk and wet dirt. ‘How is my little love today?’
His deep green eyes widened with excitement. ‘Birdy day.’
‘You saw a bird today?’
He slipped two chubby fingers into his mouth and nodded.
‘Nicholas and I just returned from the park,’ Miss Kent, the young nurse, explained when she approached. Only eighteen with a round face and petite figure, she was the youngest daughter of a baronet who lived near them in Surrey. With few prospects in the country, she’d come to Moira to offer her services and had proven an excellent choice for Nicholas’s nurse. ‘We took some old bread to feed the ducks.’
Freddy took Nicholas from Moira and held him firm against his chest. ‘Perhaps Cook can give you a few more crusts and you can feed the birds in the garden.’ His suggestion made Nicholas clap with delight. Freddy smiled at the boy and then Miss Kent, who blushed and stared at the floor. ‘Miss Kent, if you’ll come with me and Nicholas to the nursery, we can discuss Nicholas’s new clothes and the Falkirk party.’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She dipped a curtsy to Moira then started upstairs after Freddy, who carried Nicholas, asking more questions about the park and what he’d seen.
Moira brushed little dusty fingerprints from her skirt, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy in her chest. She loved the boy as much as she did her brother, but no matter how much she took care of Nicholas, he was not hers. She had no child to comfort her in her widowhood. It was the largest regret of the many she carried from her marriage.
‘You spoil Nicholas,’ Aunt Agatha remarked, entering the hall from the sitting room. She wore a copper-coloured morning dress which followed the curve of her ample and well-concealed bosom before flaring out to drape her stout form. Tight curls pinned to the sides of her head were touched with grey and further decorated by a turban of yellow silk pressed down over her coiffure.
‘I can’t help it.’ Moira attempted to straighten the rather lopsided arrangement of lilies in a vase on a side table.
‘Some day, you’ll have your own to spoil. After all, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Some gentlemen prefer a lady of, shall we say experience.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ She wasn’t sure what astonished her more, Aunt Agatha’s bluntness or how little experience Moira had garnered with Walter before his heart troubles had taken him. Intimate relations were the one aspect of marrying again she did not look forward to. She’d never cared for the deed the few times Walter had bothered her, but she’d done her duty as a wife, praying each time it would result in a child. She stilled her hands on the lilies. This sacrifice had been the most bitter because it’d been for nothing.
‘It’s true. After all, with your husband’s estate and the bulk of his wealth having gone to his nephew, gentlemen won’t pursue you for your fortune,’ Aunt Agatha proclaimed and Moira snapped a brown lily off its wilting stem and laid it on the table, biting back a few choice words. Her aunt’s candidness was growing more vexing with each passing year. ‘Besides, with Freddy ready to face society again, I don’t expect him to remain unmarried for long and then you will be nothing but the widowed aunt, and we can’t have that. But let’s not fret about it now. We have the whole Season to worry about it.’
Having dropped her truth, and careless of the craters it left, Aunt Agatha patted Moira’s arm, then headed down the hallway.
Moira stared at the blue willows painted on the vase, the reality she’d suspected since leaving the country revealing itself a little too loudly for her liking. If Freddy did remarry, his new wife would become the mistress of Fallworth Manor and Nicholas’s care would become her responsibility, and not Moira’s. Should Moira fail to take this Season, she might find herself without purpose at Fallworth, with no real place and nothing but endless and lonely days to fill. Having Aunt Agatha state it with her usual bluntness didn’t help ease her concerns. Neither did seeing Mr Dyer again.
She frowned at the memory of Mr Dyer rather than the tilting flower arrangement. When she’d crept along the hallway, her heart racing while she’d carried the weapon after hearing the raised voices downstairs, she’d never imagined it would be Mr Dyer she’d meet. Moira’s cheeks reddened at the memory of her aunt, in this very hall, laying out to him in blunt terms how his lack of station made him an unsuitable suitor. During her aunt’s tirade, Moira had stood by, unable to meet Mr Dyer’s eyes. With her father’s health failing, she hadn’t been willing to cause him more grief or to throw the house into further turmoil by defying him or her aunt.
Except her father was gone now and Mr Dyer had returned. The flicker of life which had been dormant for so long flared inside her, growing brighter at the thought of him.
He didn’t come here to court me. She walked back to the study to retrieve the pistol and return it to its box, trying to put the encounter, and his proposal, out of her head, but she couldn’t. What he’d told her, like his confession about his work, had changed everything she’d come to believe about him since their failed engagement.
In the study, Moira slid the pistol off the table and turned it over in her hands, admiring the fine scrollwork on the metal. Even after she’d treated him like a common thief, he’d had enough confidence in her to believe she could assist him with something as important as saving England.
I wonder if I could help him? It wasn’t her habit to deny anyone seeking her assistance, but she couldn’t involve herself in something like this. She’d returned to London to re-enter the world, not to entangle herself in the affairs of state, but if Mr Dyer was right, then even innocent diversions had the potential to embroil her in a great deal of danger.
No, I can’t get involved. Her place was here with her family, not out pursuing traitors. Turning on her heel, she made for upstairs. Helping Mr Dyer was a ludicrous idea and one she could not shake.
Chapter Two (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
‘Bart, I didn’t think I’d see you in Rotten Row today.’ Richard, Bart’s eldest brother, the heir and the only Dyer son who could do no wrong in their father’s eyes, laughed as he manoeuvred his horse beside Bart’s. ‘I didn’t think you one for the fashionable hour.’
‘I’m not, but I ride here from time to time to meet with clients.’ Court business didn’t bring him here tonight. He sat on his mount off to one side of the crowded Row and watched the merry parade of titled men and ladies to see who was meeting with whom and the connections they revealed. With the Rouge Noir planning something, the members might be working to recruit more converts or make arrangements with one another. Rotten Row was a good place to do both. So far, he’d seen nothing but an overabundance of velvet and horse droppings.
‘Mother said she hasn’t heard from you about coming to their soirée the night after tomorrow,’ Richard chastised, his horse shifting position. It blocked Bart’s view of the Row at the same moment the Comte de Troyen entered in his red phaeton, his pretty, brown-haired daughter, Marie, on the seat beside him. The French émigré enjoyed the top place on Bart’s list of suspicious people. The Frenchman had been observed meeting with the young Marquess of Camberline more than once over the last few days in parks or on street corners when they thought no one was watching. Bart’s men had noticed, but none of them had been able to get close enough to hear what the two men discussed.
‘Mother hasn’t heard because I haven’t responded.’ Bart clicked his horse to one side to watch the Comte as his carriage paused. A man approached the Comte’s conveyance, a beggar to all assembled, one of the many who lingered by the gates in search of a penny, but Bart wasn’t fooled. The man’s quality breeches beneath his dirty coat betrayed his disguise. These two were meeting about something and Bart needed to find out what.
‘Mother will be disappointed if you aren’t there,’ Richard pressed.
‘And Father will be disappointed if I am.’ Bart’s father’s concern for his sons decreased the further down the line they were from inheriting the title. It was a wonder his father even knew the names of his last two progeny. ‘He doesn’t want to pollute his drawing room with a mere barrister.’
Bart watched as the Comte slipped the beggar a piece of paper Bart would bet his horse was a note. He needed to discover who it was for and what it contained.
‘Father doesn’t disapprove of what you do, but he would prefer it if your cases were not so well known,’ Richard continued, trying like their mother often did to mediate between father and son.
‘If Father wants me to have quieter cases, he should tell his aristocratic friends to stop trying to swindle widows out of their inheritances. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ Bart kicked his horse into a trot and rode over to one of the benches lining the row. The man sitting on it and reading a newspaper looked up over the top of the print at Bart. ‘Follow the beggar walking away from the Comte de Troyen’s carriage, the one with the stained coat and fine breeches. See where he goes and who he might meet with. Get a look at the letter the Comte gave him if you can.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Joseph, one of Bart’s best men, folded up the newspaper in his fine hands. He was the kind of man blessed with the ability to blend in and deal easily with the merchants he sometimes impressed or the dockworkers he might drink with. Joseph tucked the paper under one arm and made for the beggar, following him at a discreet distance as he left the gates of the park and blended into the crowd in the road.
The Comte manoeuvred his phaeton into the endless stream of riders and conveyances. He drove at a leisurely pace, casually offering waves and greetings to many of the people he passed. Bart wasn’t among those. They’d never been formally introduced and he couldn’t simply approach him or his daughter and strike up a conversation. The most he could do was follow him and see who else he spoke with. Bart raised his feet a touch, ready to tap his horse into a walk and get closer to the Comte, when a female voice stilled his boots in the stirrups.
‘Mr Dyer, I didn’t think you one for Rotten Row.’
Bart shifted in his saddle to watch Lady Rexford bring her piebald mount up beside his with the admirable skill of a woman accustomed to riding. She wore a deep blue velvet habit, the skirt of which draped her curving legs where they arched over the pommel before flaring out to cover the saddle and the back of her horse. Across the front of the bodice, gold cord in a military style broke the severity of the blue and drew his attention to the swell of her pert breasts and the hollow of her neck visible above the collar. A short top hat set at an angle over her blonde hair cast a shadow across her nose and cheeks, but it didn’t dampen the twinkle in her eyes. The sight of her startled Bart as much as her smile. It was a radical change from the way she’d greeted him this morning. ‘You and my brother are of the same opinion.’
‘I’m not usually one for it either, but I’m here in London to re-enter society and so here I am.’ She opened her arms to the mash of people around them.
‘Here you are. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’ She’d been eager to see him gone this morning and yet she’d approached him voluntarily now. She wanted something, he was sure of it. It was too much to hope she’d changed her mind, but Bart was an optimistic man.
‘I wish to ask you something, an idea I’ve been considering since you left us this morning.’ She nudged her horse closer to Bart’s. Over the smell of the grass and the sweat of horses, he caught a hint of her lilac perfume. With it came the memory of her in his arms at Lady Greenwood’s ball, her lips as sweet as her voice and the small peals of laughter he’d drawn from her with jokes and flattery. Her laughter and grace had been a relief after the difficulties of war and the endless haranguing by his father about his decision to become a barrister. Then the aunt had ended everything and Lady Rexford had allowed it.
Bart adjusted his grip on the reins, this fact as difficult to ignore as her while she watched him from atop her horse. The height of her animal brought her closer to him, allowing him to study the pretty face which had not been marred in the slightest by widowhood.
‘It’s about Freddy,’ she clarified.
Bart nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised until this morning how much he’d changed.’
‘Few have. We stayed in the country because Aunt Agatha was afraid people might talk of madness if they saw how dark Freddy’s grief was for Helena and she was determined to keep it a secret. It was the same way with my father after my mother died. She feared people would think madness ran in our family and it would prevent Freddy or me from making suitable matches.’
He ignored the uncharitable thought of how unsuitable her match to Lord Rexford had been and nodded his understanding of the danger of allowing people to believe madness ran in a family. He’d once defended a widow from losing her inherited lands to Lord Hartmore, her late husband’s brother, when he’d tried to brand her a lunatic just because her father had been afflicted with madness.
‘Like Father, Freddy was so deeply entrenched in his grief,’ she continued, ‘he lost interest in everything after she died, his estate, his son, but he’s finally coming around.’
‘With a great deal of your help, I’m sure.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. He deserves your care and concern.’ Bart flicked a speck of dirt off his thigh, conscious of how much he’d failed his friend who’d done a great deal to help stop the assassination plot. On the battlefield, he’d excelled at keeping his soldiers safe and in court he was victorious when defending the weak against those attempting to twist the law to their advantage. When it came to those closer to him, despite his best efforts, he sometimes fell short. ‘He deserves happiness instead of misery.’
‘What did Freddy mean when he said he’d lost Helena to plotting scoundrels?’ she asked with startling candidness. He was usually the one asking direct questions.
‘Your brother didn’t tell you after I left?’
‘I didn’t ask. Almost any mention of Helena sends him spiralling into a black mood. I’d like you to tell me.’
‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I did.’
She eyed the other riders with a suspicion similar to his. ‘Before this morning I wouldn’t have, but a great deal has changed since then.’
‘It hasn’t changed. You’ve simply become aware of it.’
She turned to him. ‘And I’d like to know the rest.’
Bart pulled his reins through his gloved hands before at last answering. ‘Your sister-in-law was not shot in her carriage by a random thief in St Giles. She was murdered by a member of the Scottish Corresponding Society.’ Lady Rexford’s full lips parted as if she intended to deny what he’d told her, but she didn’t. ‘Freddy was their intended target. He was supposed to be with her in the carriage that night.’
‘But he was sick, so she went to the theatre without him,’ Lady Rexford whispered.
‘The man who attacked the carriage had orders to kill whoever was inside. He didn’t know who she was and it made no difference to him. He did what he was paid to do, but he was paid through informants. When we pressed him—’
‘You caught the scoundrel?’
‘I have a number of connections in the underworld. It’s how I’m able to win so many cases against fraud. Unlike other barristers, I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. The murderer was hanged soon afterward. Freddy was there when he dropped.’
Except his death hadn’t brought Lady Fallworth back. Nothing could.
Lady Rexford traced the stitching on her glove with her finger. ‘Thank you for telling me. It explains a great deal about Freddy’s grief.’
‘He blames himself.’ When he should blame me. I could have done more and I should have done more to protect her. He was glad Moira had turned down his request for help. He couldn’t fail her the way he’d failed Lady Fallworth. He’d been a fool to even ask, but with precious few leads he’d grasped at any chance to learn more about the Rouge Noir and their plans before it was too late.
‘He does.’
* * *
Moira continued to trace the lacing on her glove with her finger, so many things about the last two years finally making sense. While Aunt Agatha had always written to Moira wringing her hands over Mr Dyer and Freddy’s friendship, Helena’s letters had never mentioned any concern about Freddy’s late nights out. Then, when she’d been murdered, Freddy’s grief had been so intense it used to make her ashamed of the shallowness of hers for her deceased husband. Walter had been amiable and pleasant enough, but she’d never possessed the depth of feeling for him that Freddy had held for Helena.
‘It’s why the Rouge Noir must be stopped before they can ruin any more lives.’ Mr Dyer watched the endless parade of people riding by, the hardness in his eyes startling. ‘These noble traitors hate the country giving them their very lives, incomes, titles and influence and are plotting to bring it down with a ruthlessness and glee to make you sick. They haven’t seen the starving people in France, the wounded and dead in Germany and Austria, the suffering, disease, and misery Napoleon’s army leaves in its wake. All they have are their ideas from afar, their so-called noble ideals and the disgusting willingness to see them carried out. I intend to make sure they don’t succeed.’
Moira studied everyone around them, wondering who among them were as evil as Mr Dyer claimed. They all seemed so innocent, going about their day, caring for almost nothing except dresses and society, scandals and balls. Even the shallowest among them didn’t deserve to have their security and livelihoods ripped from them. She remembered the tales her grandmother used to tell her of France during the early days of the revolution and how everything solid they’d built their lives on had been pulled down, leaving them with nothing. Moira would listen, wide-eyed, at the dinner table while she spoke, trying to imagine what it would be like to have everything torn from her and replaced with fear. If Mr Dyer was right and the Rouge Noir wasn’t stopped, Moira might find out.
She adjusted the collar of her riding habit against a brisk breeze, but it wasn’t the fear of the Rouge Noir making her shiver, but an awareness of Mr Dyer beside her. His strong presence overshadowed everything, including her reason, as she’d discovered when she’d allowed him to lead her behind the topiary on Lady Greenwood’s portico. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her before pulling back and smiling like the devil, as if he’d known before she did she would agree to his kiss and his proposal. The thrill of it had been as intense as this morning when she’d faced him with the pistol. If things had been different and she hadn’t given in to the pressure from Aunt Agatha and her father, she wondered where she and Mr Dyer might be now.
She lowered her hand and adjusted her skirt over the saddle. It didn’t matter. Things were as they were and she could not make the past any different. It was the present she needed to concern herself with, the one which had become very uncertain in the space of only a few hours.
Then something across the park jerked Mr Dyer’s attention away from her. She followed the line of his gaze to see Aunt Agatha being driven in the open-topped landau towards them. Mr Dyer’s horse danced with his rider’s agitation before he brought him firmly under control.
‘Moira, I’m pleased to see you here,’ Aunt Agatha observed, eyeing Mr Dyer as if he were a pickpocket. ‘Although I’m not as enamoured of your chosen company.’
Mr Dyer’s horse snorted.
‘Mr Dyer, you remember my aunt, Lady Treadway.’ Moira made the introduction, trying to keep the ice between them from hardening further.
‘I do.’ His response was glacial.
‘I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr Dyer, but after our last conversation, I’d expected you to think twice about approaching Lady Rexford.’
‘Remind me of our conversation, Lady Treadway,’ Mr Dyer urged with a smile as sharp as broken glass. ‘After all, it has been some time since we last spoke.’ Bart remembered exactly what she’d said to him, but he wanted to make her repeat it. He wasn’t about to leave without a fight or be shooed off like some kicked dog because the Dowager scowled at him.
Lady Treadway shifted her shawl on her shoulders, more reluctant this time to speak so boldly to him. ‘As you know, my niece is a countess, the daughter of an earl, the sister of an earl. Her prospects are quite high.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ Lady Rexford exclaimed, trying to stop her aunt, but she was as determined to put Bart in his place today as she’d been five years ago.
‘It’s true, my dear. I’m only looking out for you.’
‘And once again you’ve deemed me unsuitable.’ It was all Bart could do to sit in the saddle with dignity as he stared down at the small woman dressed in purple and lace, her bearing as stiff as a female workhouse warden. There was no longer a promise between him and Lady Rexford, but it didn’t mean he’d allow anyone to dictate anything to him. What Lady Rexford allowed others to dictate to her was her own affair.
‘My niece is a very generous young woman. I don’t want her friendliness to be mistaken for an invitation.’
‘Aunt Agatha, you have entirely misread the situation and Mr Dyer,’ Lady Rexford protested, to her credit. It was more than she’d dared to say to her aunt the last time they’d been in a similar situation.
‘No, she’s read me exactly as she wishes to.’ Bart leaned over in his saddle, the horse’s height combined with his allowing him to tower over the diminutive woman. The aunt didn’t back down, but straightened, meeting his hard look with an even more determined one. For a brief moment he admired the little force in silk. Despite her snobbery, she truly had her niece’s best interest at heart and he begrudgingly admired her for it. ‘Did you wake up this morning, madam, with the express intent of insulting me?’
This made her back down and she looked away, fiddling with the handle of her unopened umbrella. ‘I don’t mean to insult you, merely to remind you of the facts of the matter which, as a barrister, I’m sure you can appreciate.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He turned hard eyes on Lady Rexford, wishing she possessed as much strength of spirit as her aunt. It might have changed a number of things about the past five years. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Rexford.’
* * *
‘Mr Dyer, wait,’ Moira called after him, but he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and bolted off down Rotten Row.
‘Let him go, my dear, it is for the best,’ Aunt Agatha declared as if the topic was finished and it was most certainly not.
‘Why did you insult him?’ Moira demanded. ‘There was nothing taking place between us except conversation.’
‘It always begins with conversation.’ Aunt Agatha sniffed in the superior way which annoyed Moira.
‘And it ends with me being pressured to marry a man twice my age, one I didn’t love and who was incapable of giving me any of the things I wanted.’
Aunt Agatha’s pale skin went pink near her greying hair. What Moira said wasn’t a secret, but it’d never been openly acknowledged either, not by her or any of the people who’d insisted she marry Lord Rexford. Her horse tossed its head and Moira tugged the reins, wishing she could control her emotions as easily as she did her mount, but ever since this morning, the many thoughts and feelings she’d done her best to bury and forget had been rising up, refusing to be ignored.
‘We did what we thought best for you, Moira,’ Aunt Agatha answered at last without apology.
‘I know, but perhaps it’s time for me to make such decisions for myself.’
‘Not if it means entangling yourself with Mr Dyer again. He might be a very successful barrister, but he is still a barrister and can offer you and the family name nothing.’
‘Lord Rexford was an earl and what did he offer us?’ Moira pointed out.
‘I’m not going to discuss this with you if you’re going to be deliberately obtuse about the difference between Lord Rexford and Mr Dyer,’ Aunt Agatha huffed before waving one gloved hand at her driver. ‘Drive me to Lady Windfall’s carriage. I’d like to speak with her.’
Before Aunt Agatha could set off, Moira turned her horse around and cantered down Rotten Row, gripping the reins so tight she thought they would split the seams of her gloves. How dare Aunt Agatha question her judgement or talk to her like some senseless schoolgirl. She, more than Aunt Agatha, recognised the difference between the two men for she’d been forced into intimate relations with one while forsaking the more virile of the two. Everything Lord Rexford had promised her she might have enjoyed with Mr Dyer: a home, family and security. Instead, she’d wed a title and prestige and it’d proven as hollow as her late husband’s chest.
Moira adjusted herself in the saddle, pushing back the encroaching sadness and regret, refusing to allow it to dominate her. Despite what Aunt Agatha believed about her judgement, she would choose her own husband this time, assuming any man worth having stepped forward to offer her his hand and heart.
She slowed her mount, remaining at the outer edges of the crush as the traffic in the Row increased. Young ladies in fashionable habits sat upright in their saddles in the middle of the path, their grooms following at a discreet pace. The bold ones flashed the available gentleman tempting looks to entice them to turn their horses and join them. The more timid ones relied on their mothers to summon the young men to them. Moira possessed neither the boldness nor the necessary guardian to assist her and she failed to catch anyone but old Lord Mortley’s notice, much to the displeasure of his wife who rode in the carriage beside him.
The steady clop of her horse’s hooves punctuated her heavy mood. She’d come to London to marry again. It’d seemed like a Herculean task before they’d journeyed to town. Being here as a widow without a fortune or lands trying to compete with all the glittering young ladies with large dowries made it even more so. Despite what Aunt Agatha believed, Moira wasn’t sure experience would gain her a match worth making.
Lord Camberline passed her on his fine stallion, oblivious to the inviting smiles of the young ladies and their mamas. Moira turned in her saddle, watching him continue down the row before stopping to speak with the Comte de Troyen and his daughter, Marie. His presence reminded her of the other trouble vexing her today.
Even if she did find a man who could make her happy, the stability of her home and happiness might be at risk. Mr Dyer believed something would happen soon and if it did, where would she and her family go? France wasn’t open to them and travelling to Germany was too perilous. There was always America, but it was so far from everything she cherished and loved, the same things she might lose if the Rouge Noir succeeded.
She clutched her reins tight. They can’t be allowed to succeed.
Napoleon’s domination of the European ports and his interrupting of trade were already making things in England worse. The restrictions added to the food shortages from the bad crops, inciting the workers in the north to revolt even more against the factory owners who were fighting a shrinking market to sell their goods and pay the very people turning against them and their new machines. The turmoil in the countryside would be nothing to the havoc Napoleon and his soldiers would wreak if the Rouge Noir destroyed the Government and brought the Emperor here. The thought of her safe world being torn apart scared her more than spending a lifetime without a husband and children of her own.
I won’t see the Fallworth lands torn from Freddy or little Nicholas left with nothing while French soldiers swarm over the country.
She’d do what she could to help bring down the wicked people who wanted to destroy them and rob everyone of their freedom the way Napoleon had pillaged and robbed so many people in Europe of theirs, the way her family had stolen hers when they’d insisted she marry Walter. She would have a life of her own and with it a future. She would help Mr Dyer.
Chapter Three (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
Moira stood near the back of the line of mamas watching their daughters whirl about the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline’s impressive ballroom. A grand, arched ceiling presided over the rectangular space, at one end of which, in a balcony, the musicians played. At the other end, guests traversed the curving staircase to join the festivities or paused on the single landing to look over the crush. Tall windows punctuated the long run of the opposite wall and all of them were open to let in the cool night air. Camberline House in Mayfair was one of the last houses still surrounded by an extensive garden and land. There was some distance between it and its nearest neighbour and the stately trees and rolling lawn beyond the windows, illuminated by torches, gave Moira and the other guests the impression of being in the country.
A few days ago, Moira had eagerly looked forward to tonight. Once here, the thrill of it lost its allure. Freddy was in the gaming room while Aunt Agatha was off enjoying refreshments with her friends. Moira, being a widow, didn’t need a chaperon and so she’d been abandoned to face the crush alone. Growing up, she’d never spent much time in London, and after marriage and widowhood, she’d continued to avoid town. It left her with no friends here her age and no social circles beyond those her aunt had dragged her into, including as a patroness of the Lying-in Hospital. Those people she did know were from her parents’ or grandparents’ era and she was hesitant to approach them. She’d spent her marriage surrounded by an old husband and his aged friends. She was a young woman and she longed to spend time with people her age. Moira played with the string of her fan, trying to catch the eyes of those around her, but with all their acquaintances already set, no one was interested in forming a new one with her.
Moira sighed. It’d been like this during her very brief and awkward Season, making her isolation even more severe. It seemed as if things had changed, but they hadn’t. Aunt Agatha still railed against Mr Dyer while Moira continued to stand alone in ballrooms.
‘Good evening, Lady Rexford, I’m so pleased you accepted my invitation,’ an elegant voice with a hint of a French accent greeted Moira, breaking the solitude surrounding her.
Moira turned to find the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline beside her, the woman as stately as a Gainsborough in her swathes of mauve silk and black netting. With her grey eyes above a thin nose, she’d turned a number of heads in London after she’d fled the Reign of Terror. Once here, she’d enjoyed her pick of suitors, settling on the much older Marquess of Camberline and the fine fortune and title he’d offered her. Despite a son who’d just reached his majority and being a widow, she was still a stunning woman with little grey in her dark hair. It should have been a relief to at last have someone to speak to, but something about the stately woman placed Moira on edge. ‘I have fond memories of your grandparents dancing at Lady Elmsworth’s parties after I came over from France. Your grandmother was one of the few who refused to wear the red ribbon around her neck. A number of people considered her eccentric because of it, but she adapted so well to England, unlike many others. Good evening, Lady Rexford.’
Her strange reminiscence shared, the Dowager Marchioness swept off to join Lord Moreau, Lord Lefevre and the young lady beside him holding his arm. The woman, who Moira didn’t recognise, was about Moira’s height with blonde hair and a gown cut much lower than even the current fashion favoured.
Lady Camberline tolerating the bold young lady surprised Moira, but not her abrupt departure from Moira. Lady Camberline had been similarly terse with her time and words when she’d extended the ball invitation to Moira and Aunt Agatha while they’d been here for the patroness meeting two days ago. She was surprised the other woman had deigned to notice her tonight, but perhaps Moira was not as easily overlooked as she’d believed.
Moira cast about in search of a familiar face or a friendly invitation by another guest to indulge in conversation. Neither was forthcoming, but she didn’t mind as much as before. In truth, it was Mr Dyer’s presence she eagerly sought instead of anyone else’s. In the few short hours since they’d parted, she’d thought of little except him and his request. Not even the dilemma of which woefully out-of-fashion gown to wear, or the worry of re-entering society after having been gone for so long, had been enough to banish the memory of his stern eyes on hers and the pointed tone of his voice. It seemed, despite the importance he’d placed on tonight, he hadn’t managed to secure an invitation. It ruined her chance of offering her assistance. Let Aunt Agatha disapprove of an acquaintance with him, it wasn’t up to her to decide who Moira did or did not consort with.
Then, at the top of the staircase, Mr Dyer entered the ballroom. He wore a sedate coat of black, a white shirt and cravat and the required fawn-coloured breeches. The darkness of his coat emphasised the seriousness of his expression and captivated Moira. She shouldn’t be this taken with his appearance, but she couldn’t help it. Thankfully, there was no one about to notice her reaction and condemn it. She didn’t need others adding their doubts to hers and making her waver in her resolve.
While the footman was busy listening to the names of an older couple waiting to descend, Mr Dyer slipped around behind him and down the short staircase. At the landing, he stopped to take in the room with the same seriousness as the moment before he’d galloped away from Aunt Agatha. He scanned the guests like a hawk does a field in search of prey, making Moira wonder who he saw and what he suspected, but she couldn’t tear her attention away from him long enough to follow his gaze.
Sensing her watching him, he turned to face her. She didn’t look away, but smiled as if he were a welcome visitor in her house. A scowl crossed his face, especially when she began to thread her way through the guests towards him. Her heart beat as fast as an out-of-control carriage the entire time she moved, afraid he’d stride away from her as quickly as he’d ridden off this afternoon. She wouldn’t blame him if he cut her, but it didn’t make the possible slight, and the disappointment it would bring, any easier to endure. She craved another taste of the hint of adventure he’d offered her this morning and at the same time recognised how silly she was for pursuing it. This was real treason with potential consequences, not some scintillating crime story in the papers. Still, she didn’t stop, but approached him with confidence, refusing to question or alter her decision.
He didn’t bolt off in the other direction, but moved down the stairs, one firm hand on the railing, watching her the entire time until he was at the bottom and she was before him.
‘Mr Dyer, I’m glad to see you tonight.’ He didn’t smell of cologne or shaving soap, but the more potent scent of sweat and leather, the same one which had enveloped her during their misguided and brief engagement. Her husband had never smelled this raw, not even in the midst of his exertions. She snapped open her fan and waved it in front of her face, more to revive rather than to cool herself.
‘Are you?’ Mr Dyer challenged, his self-assurance nearly shaking hers.
‘I am.’ She adjusted one of her diamond earrings, turning to watch the crowd instead of him, but keenly aware of him beside her. ‘I’ve given a great deal of thought to what you and I discussed this morning, and this afternoon, and I’ve decided to offer my assistance by making whatever necessary introductions you need tonight. I may not know very many people here, but I know a few.’
She traced the heavy necklace pulling at the back of her neck while she waited for his response.
He didn’t smile in grateful relief, but eyed her with a strange curiosity which made her shift in her slippers. ‘What brought about this change of heart?’
She pitied the people he’d interrogated in the past. He was being kind to her and already she felt herself shrinking. ‘I’ve had more time to consider the situation and I realised you were right. This is larger than me or Freddy. I love England and I won’t see her, and with it Freddy and Nicholas’s legacies, destroyed.’
Five years ago there might have been more to her offer, but whatever intimacy they’d enjoyed had been snapped like a frayed rope pulled too hard. It couldn’t be knotted together again and she shouldn’t wish it to be. He had his duties and she had hers. Helping him was the only place where they intersected.
* * *
Bart noticed how Moira’s fingers trembled while she adjusted her necklace, the play of her fingers so near the swell of her firm breasts as startling as her offer to help him. After Rotten Row, he’d written her off, intending to come here and find some way to manage things himself. He hadn’t expected her to change her mind and he should accept her help, but he hesitated. Her offer was sincere, but he doubted the veracity of Lady Rexford’s sudden change of heart. She’d do him no good if she crumpled every time the aunt opened her mouth and he had more important business here tonight then fending off disapproving relations. If he wanted to do that he’d attend his parents’ soirée. ‘Won’t your aunt object?’
‘Yes, but it and so many other things are not her decision but mine.’ She settled her shoulders with admirable seriousness, the movement making the diamonds sparkle.
Her defiance revealed a strength of will he hadn’t witnessed in her before, one he hoped she continued to develop. He sensed her happiness relied on her doing so. It shouldn’t matter to him if it did, but by volunteering to help him she was coming under his protection and he was never one to give up on any person in his service, and he needed her. With none of his former clients in attendance, she was, at the moment, the best person to help him. ‘Thank you, Moira.’
She started at his use of her given name. He hadn’t intended to be informal with her, but it’d slipped out, her name as natural on his tongue tonight as when he’d proposed to her. He flexed his hands at his sides, refusing to dig up the past. It had no bearing on the present situation.
‘You’re welcome, Bart.’ She adjusted a comb in the tangle of blonde curls arranged high above her neck. ‘Now, who would you like to meet?’
‘The Comte de Troyen.’ Bart nodded at a dark-haired man with a long face and the longer nose of the Hapsburgs standing by the window with Prince Frederick. ‘He came over during the Peace of Amiens and is good friends with the Prince.’
‘You think he’s one of them?’
Her arm brushed Bart’s when she shifted on her feet to get a better view of the Frenchman. The charge arching between them was unmistakable. He didn’t flinch, but it threatened to rock him off balance as hard as when Mr Flint had first told him of the plot. He drew on the steadfastness of purpose he used in the court to keep opposing counsel from rattling him to put aside his personal feelings and focus on the Comte.
‘His friendship with His Highness gives him ease of access to sensitive information and he has the strongest connection to France.’
‘Most of the people here have deep connections to France.’ Moira levelled her fan at a group of elderly men and women chatting near the dance floor. ‘Mr de Rue’s father was the Chevalier de Rue. Lady Mortley’s father was the Comte de Boulogne. Lady Wortley’s parents were the Duc and Duchesse d’Oiseau. All of these people had aristocratic parents or grandparents who fled to England after the revolution and married their children to earls and dukes.’
‘What about Lord Camberline’s grandparents?’
‘They weren’t lucky enough to escape and were guillotined in France, but not before they spirited Lady Camberline to England to be raised by Lady Elmsworth. She was an old goat of a countess who used to give me the chills whenever Mother had her in for tea.’
Bart studied the clutch of ageing aristocrats. He rarely spent time in society or paid much mind to who did what unless it was pertinent to one of his trials or investigations. It left him at a loss and he didn’t like being without information. It was the reason he’d first approached Lord Fallworth and why he was grateful, if not surprised, to have his sister beside him, the creaminess of her smooth skin heightened by the candlelight. ‘Those are connections but they’re older ones, before Napoleon came to power. The Comte was in France until the Peace of Amiens and when Napoleon restored many of the old aristocrats’ titles and lands, the Comte de Troyen’s were returned to him as well, and no one knows why.’
‘Maybe Napoleon was trying to lure the Comte back to France to help bridge the gulf between the old guard and the new regime. I understand the Comte was an accomplished French statesman at one time. It’s how he survived the Reign of Terror.’ She touched her fan to her delicate chin. ‘It seems to me neither his title nor lands are much good to him in England. With the blockade, not even letters can get through, much less any payments.’
‘Given what I’ve seen of smugglers, it isn’t difficult to slip things through the blockade. If I knew why Napoleon restored his lands, it might answer a great deal to either his innocence or guilt, but the Comte is adept at keeping his business to himself, making him one of the more difficult men for me to investigate. The members of the Rouge Noir are a cautious lot.’ They didn’t gamble or drink to excess, making learning much of anything, including the identity of its members, difficult.
‘I can’t guide you on how to investigate his circumstances, but I can arrange the introduction. My father, and my husband, were well acquainted with Prince Frederick, making him one of the few people here I know. Follow me.’ In a flutter of dark blue silk, she made for the pair of men.
Bart followed, noting the sway of her dress around her hips and the tempting view of the smooth skin of her shoulders and neck beneath her high coiffure. He appreciated her assistance, but not the reminder of her connection to the Prince. He’d been disgusted when he’d learned she’d married Lord Rexford, a man thirty years older than her and in ill health. He understood personal sacrifice, his career had seen a bevy of it, but he couldn’t comprehend surrendering legally and in body to another person just because her father had wished it. He’d never allowed his father, or anyone above him in rank, to dictate his future, much to his father’s continued dismay.
They approached Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen, and Bart buried any distaste he experienced for either man. It was a skill he’d honed during his many trials when he’d faced down some of the worst men to see justice done by pummelling them with arguments and evidence instead of his fists. He could be as polite and engaging when the time called for it as he could be ruthless and unforgiving when it involved rooting out enemies of the Crown.
‘Your Highness, it’s been too long since I’ve seen you.’ Moira held out her hand to Prince Frederick.
‘Lady Rexford, my condolences on your husband.’
Prince Frederick bowed over her hand. He was balding and it added to the sloped forehead sliding into a long and pointed nose. The two small eyes fixed on either side of it focused more on her chest and the generous swell of her breasts above her bodice than her lively smile. Bart had to fight the urge to step in between her and the lecherous royal. It wasn’t his place to act as her chaperon.
‘Lord Rexford and your father were a great help to me in securing funding from the House of Lords for munitions during the War of the First Coalition and you’re too young to be a widow.’
‘Thank you.’
Bart noticed how Moira gritted her teeth at the mention of her loss, and the brief flash of pity in Prince Frederick’s eyes, but her charming smile didn’t fade. It appeared, like him, she’d developed a talent for hiding her thoughts.
‘He always spoke well of his days with you and I think he regretted giving up the service. I’m very sorry to hear what happened to you, losing your post as Commander in Chief of the Army. They were wrong to let a man of your talent go. Thankfully, they came to their senses and called you back.’
‘Bloody fools, but they haven’t got a brain in their heads, not between the lot of them and no real leadership,’ Prince Frederick blustered, the veins along the sides of his nose turning a deeper red. ‘How we manage to get anything done on the Continent is amazing. Why, one lethal fever among a few too many in the Government and the entire country would plunge into complete chaos.’
‘Mon ami, surely it can’t be so dreadful,’ the Comte de Troyen exclaimed as he laid his hand over his cravat. He was tall and lithe, a bit thick in the middle from age, but the man who’d cut a swathe through society ten years ago was still evident in his aquiline nose, air of divine superiority and attire. He wore more brocade than was fashionable and a black wig.
Prince Frederick tipped the rest of his champagne into his mouth. ‘It’s worse than you think. If we didn’t have Wellington leading the army, we’d be done for.’
Bart tried not to groan at hearing Prince Frederick bluster on about the weaknesses of the Government in front of the Comte. If he was this loose with his words while mostly sober at a ball, Bart could just imagine what secrets he let slip when he was drunk at private parties. The Comte or any other traitor wouldn’t have to work hard to garner secrets for Napoleon from Prince Frederick.
Moira looked back and forth between Prince Frederick and the Comte, silently soliciting an introduction.
‘Oh, forgive me, what with the scandal and all I’ve quite forgotten my manners,’ Prince Frederick mumbled. ‘Lady Rexford, may I introduce the Comte de Troyen. You were probably too young to remember when he was the toast of London.’
‘I might have been young, but I could never forget the dashing Comte. You’re even more handsome than either the pictures in the paper portrayed you, or my grandmother used to say.’
‘And you, my dear lady, are trés magnifique.’ The Frenchman admired her with too much interest, making Bart’s back stiffen. ‘And so was your chère grandmère. So many wonderful times in Paris we had. It’s a shame the Revolution ended it all.’
‘My grandmother always used to say so, too.’ She matched the sombreness of the Comte’s voice, allowing his regret and hers to hang in the air a moment. Bart marvelled at her skill in gaining the man’s trust. Some of his younger agents had yet to master such delicate persuasions. Then, after the moment passed, she motioned to Bart. ‘Your Highness, may I introduce Mr Dyer?’
‘Yes, the accomplished barrister. I’ve heard a great deal about you.’ Prince Frederick introduced Bart to the Comte. ‘Monsieur le Comte, if you’re ever in any legal trouble, this is the man to have at your side. If he’d been able to represent me in my awful affair over the sale of commissions, I might not have had to resign as Commander in Chief of the Army. But in the end I was exonerated.’
‘The truth is always the most powerful defence,’ Bart remarked and the Comte shifted in his silver-buckled shoes. It made Bart wonder what about the mention of the truth had made the Comte go white beneath his wig. It increased his suspicions about the man. ‘The discovery of which I strive to achieve in all my trials.’
‘I’ll certainly keep you in mind, Mr Dyer, but I live such a quiet life, I see no chance of troubles.’ The Comte returned his attention to Moira. ‘Might I have the pleasure of this next dance, Lady Rexford?’
Bart wanted to tell her to refuse because he wanted the Comte to remain here and not sneak away, but he was in no position to do so. He tried to catch Moira’s eye and silently dissuade her, but he failed and she held out her hand to the Comte.
‘Yes, you may.’
While the Comte led her away, she looked back over her shoulder at Bart and threw him a conspiratorial wink. He realised she was now in a better position than he was to gather intelligence on the Comte. Although Bart didn’t want her anywhere near the man and danger, he was forced to stifle an answering smile, amazed once again at this brave new Moira. With any luck, she could pry some useful information out of the Frenchman while they danced, but he prayed she remained subtle with her enquiries. He didn’t want the Comte, or anyone else who might be connected to the Rouge Noir suspecting her of more nefarious motives.
‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Dyer. I must speak with Lord Palmer.’ Prince Frederick strode away, having nothing further to discuss with Bart. It didn’t matter. It was the Comte and Moira who commanded all his attention.
* * *
A thrill tripped up Moira’s spine as she took the Comte’s hand and the musicians began the allemande. It wasn’t the Frenchman who inspired her, but the hint of danger in dancing with him. Bart watched from the edge of the dance floor. Despite not looking at him, she was more aware of Bart than the Comte holding her hand for the turn. It took a great deal of effort to remember the steps and to charm the Frenchman.
‘Why have I not seen you in London before tonight?’ The Comte circled her with admirable elegance.
‘Mourning and family obligations have kept me in the country.’
‘My deepest sympathies. I, too, have suffered. My wife passed and I must see to my daughter’s marriage and welfare.’ He motioned to where a young lady with his nose and eyes conversed with the tall and dashing Marquess of Camberline, much it seemed to the Dowager Marchioness of Camberline’s disapproval. Lady Camberline marched up to her son and drew him away from the crestfallen and chastised young lady. Moira pitied the girl, knowing all too well what it was like to have a disapproving parent dictate a young woman’s affections.
The Marquess didn’t stay long with his mother, making for a door at the back of the room after offering her a curt remark which made the Dowager’s lips purse.
‘I’m sorry to be so rude, Lady Rexford, but I must end our dance early,’ the Comte apologised, bringing them to a halt in the middle of a chasse. ‘There is someone I must speak with. Please excuse me.’ With a shallow bow, he hurried away in the direction of the Marquess, leaving her to stand alone in the centre of the whirling couples.
Aware of the many people watching her, Moira gathered up all the self-possession she could muster and strode back into the anonymity of the crowd. She was making for the far wall near where the chaperons stood bored and ignored when Bart appeared beside her.
‘Where’s he going?’
‘I don’t know.’ She nodded in the direction of the tall door on the far side of the ballroom. ‘But I believe it’s wherever Lord Camberline is headed.’
Without a parting word, Bart dashed off into the crowd, working to keep sight of the Comte before leaving the ballroom in pursuit of him.
Moira remained where she was, wishing she could follow him instead of being forced to remain here. Without him to chat with or to force her to interact with others, she was alone and ignored once more. She picked at her fan, wondering what she should do next when Aunt Agatha approached her.
‘Given the crush at this ball, I’m surprised to find you standing by yourself. You should make more of an effort to meet people, especially gentleman who are apt to overlook you in favour of younger and wealthier ladies.’
Despite the sting in the remark, Moira thanked providence it was her solitude and not her time with Bart her aunt had noticed. He was the one man Aunt Agatha didn’t want her to speak with and Moira didn’t relish another argument about him.
A group of women strode past them, jostling Aunt Agatha when they passed because of the crowd.
‘Lady Camberline should better manage her guest list. I’ve never seen such a crush, but I suppose one can’t expect much from a French aristocrat, no matter how long she’s been in England.’ Aunt Agatha frowned as she was forced to step aside for another group of passing people. She’d been prejudiced against the many titled French people who’d come to London after the Revolution for a long time, never really losing her dislike of them even when her brother had married Moira’s mother. She could remember the Christmas dinners when her grandparents sat on one side of the table and Aunt Agatha the other, wincing each time they spoke French to one another. It hadn’t mattered to Aunt Agatha if they’d almost lost their lives to the guillotine. Aunt Agatha detested the French nobility. ‘Well, you might as well join me and my friends. There’s no point in being a wallflower.’
‘I might as well.’ Heaven knew when Bart would return or if he needed her any longer. Spying Freddy leading young Miss Filner on to the dance floor, she realised people not needing her was fast becoming an all-too-familiar pattern in her life.
* * *
Bart followed the Comte de Troyen at a discreet distance through the refreshment room, past the one reserved for gambling and down the long hallway leading to the back of the house. The number of guests thinned as they walked and Bart dropped further and further behind the Comte to avoid being noticed. The Comte paused at a juncture where the main hallway was crossed by another one. Bart stepped back into the narrow alcove of a closed door and pressed himself deep into the shadows, not daring to move.
After a long breath, Bart leaned forward, but the Comte was gone. Bart hurried to the juncture, the thick rug muffling the fall of his shoes. He hazarded a look down one side and then the other. In the centre of the right hallway, the Comte stood with Lord Camberline, less regal and more irritated than he’d been in the ballroom. Bart leaned back against the wall, near the corner to listen to their heated exchange.
‘Don’t think I’ll allow you to renege now, not with so much at stake,’ the Frenchman insisted, showing no deference to the young man’s superior rank.
‘I won’t renege,’ the Marquess answered, as agitated as the Comte. ‘But it’s been more difficult than you realise to put everything in place.’
‘I think you’re stalling for time, to avoid doing what we agreed must be done.’
‘I want this as much as you do. It will change everything and I want it changed. I’ll send word when all is ready. I promise, it will be soon.’
‘It better be or you’ll regret it,’ the Comte threatened.
The Comte’s shoes thudded against the carpet as he stalked away from Lord Camberline. Bart dashed down the hall and into the first room he found. He left the door cracked open slightly, hiding behind it while the Comte passed by, muttering to himself in French. Whatever he and the Marquess were embroiled in, the Comte held power over the younger man and he wasn’t going to let him get cold feet. Bart would make sure the young man’s feet froze solid before he let him compromise himself or the country.
Bart waited in the empty room to give the Marquess time to pass, his eyes adjusting to the moonlight falling in through the windows along the far wall. Above the scent of wood oil, he caught another familiar and more deadly scent.
Gunpowder.
If this were a masculine room he wouldn’t be concerned. Stored hunting rifles improperly cleaned by a footman might leave a lingering scent, but the gilded chairs and comfortable sofa set before a delicate writing table near the windows told him this was a lady’s domain. The scent of gunpowder shouldn’t be here.
Bart made his way around the room, searching for the source of the scent. He found it near the writing table. He pulled open the drawers on the left side and rifled through them, but there was nothing inside except blank papers, pens and extra ink. He closed the last one and moved to search the right-hand drawers when his foot came down on something. It was a small envelope and it grated like it held fine gravel. He picked it up and carefully opened the envelope to examine the substance inside. It was gunpowder, but a redder and more pungent variety than any he’d encountered before. The colour and smell of it concerned him as deeply as the conversation he’d overheard. He tucked the envelope in his coat pocket, then peered cautiously through the cracked door to make sure the hallway was empty before he left the room.
He retraced his steps, the people and conversation growing thicker as he approached the gaming room. He moved past them and into the ballroom, intending to return to Moira. She might know something about Lord Camberline and a way for one of them to get closer to the young lord and learn more.
He stepped into the crowded ballroom, searching for her light hair, the elegant line of her jaw and the captivating eyes that had met his across a ballroom similar to this one five years ago, making him forget the need to be cautious about young ladies of higher rank. She’d accepted his invitation to dance without the snide condescension of other ladies in search of more lucrative elder sons of lords. They’d wanted nothing to do with a fifth son who earned his living from hard work, and he’d refused to endure their insolence. Moira hadn’t cared about his rank or dismissed him because of it.
No, she’d left it to the aunt to do it for her.
He spied her across the room standing with her aunt and a number of other elderly ladies, irritated at the old slight and captivated by her present beauty. Whatever the aunt still thought of him, it was clear Moira didn’t share her opinion or her aunt’s enthusiasm for her present company. She appeared as bored by the gaggle of biddies as Bart was disappointed. He couldn’t approach her while she was with them.
Damn.
Lord Camberline and the Comte were up to something and he was sure it had something to do with the gunpowder in his pocket. He needed to give the sample to Mr Flint and have his man, Mr Transom, examine it, and tell his superior what he’d overheard in the hallway. Maybe Mr Flint had received some more intelligence to help them make sense of it. It meant leaving the ball and Moira early, but he’d find a way to meet her again tomorrow and explain everything without the aunt interrupting them. He was sure Moira would understand his abrupt departure. He hoped she did because he needed her. She’d shown him tonight how she could charm men like the Comte with an ease none of his other agents could match and she was already an acquaintance of the Camberlines. It gave her access to them and their house, one he could not otherwise obtain. In light of what he’d overheard and what he’d found, it was a critical connection he had to take advantage of.
He reached into his pocket and rubbed the envelope with the gunpowder between his thumb and forefinger. The granules grated beneath the paper and his fingertips. He didn’t want Moira involved in this or in harm’s way, but her help might prove crucial to stopping the Rouge Noir. If he could keep her work to chatting to titled men and women at parties, asking the right questions or simply listening, she should be safe. He would do all he could to ensure it and not fail her or England as he’d failed Lady Fallworth.
Chapter Four (#u0c33e761-b112-50cb-bb5c-c745aa0a3725)
‘A woman? Have you gone mad, Dyer? This is no work for a woman and a lady in particular.’ Mr Flint’s ruddy nose turned a shade darker. They sat in his office in Whitehall. The dark desk he occupied matched the rich tones of the panelled walls punctuated by two windows separated by a painting of the Battle of Marathon.
‘Lady Rexford is in an even better position than her brother to get close to people like the Comte and Lord Camberline. No one will suspect a woman of eavesdropping. If they did, then men wouldn’t say half of what they do to their mistresses.’
‘That’s how we got most of what we did out of Italy, through Mrs Hamilton,’ Mr Flint mumbled reflectively as he rubbed the fleshy roundness of his chin. He’d started his career in France under William Wickham and the Alien Office, recruiting spies and supporting the Royalists. He’d risen with the man as they’d sought intelligence first during the French Revolution and now against Napoleon. ‘Being a widow with no children is unfortunate for her, but to her advantage and ours in this matter. She has no dependants to put at risk, enjoys freedom of movement and is more appealing to gentlemen.’
Including Bart. He’d thought as much about her last night as he had the sample of gunpowder and everything he’d seen and heard at the ball. He cursed the distraction. This was no time to lose his head, not with the fate of the Crown at stake. ‘What about the gunpowder I gave you?’
‘Mr Transom is examining it and will report to you soon.’ Mr Flint removed his spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief. ‘Any more information on the man who met the Comte de Troyen in Rotten Row?’
‘Joshua is still investigating him. Given what I overhead last night, I’ll tell him to redouble his efforts.’
‘In the meantime, you should pay a visit to gaol. Mr Marks, one of Jacques Dubois’s underlings, was arrested last night for getting into a brawl down by the docks.’
‘Not like one of Mr Dubois’s men to be careless and get arrested.’ Mr Dubois was a well-known smuggler and arms procurer who was as good at getting many in the Admiralty their French wine as he was at acquiring weapons for the war effort. His deliveries of munitions meant the Government looked the other way when it came to his smuggling activities. Until this point, he’d never been suspected of treason. ‘He could be the one slipping notes and money between Napoleon and the Rouge Noir,’ Bart suggested.
‘Only one way to find out.’
Bart rose and made for the door. ‘After a night of risking gaol fever, Mr Marks should be willing to tell me a little about his employer’s less savoury connections.’
* * *
Moira reviewed the dinner menu, but was forced to read over the selection more than once before it stuck. It was difficult to concentrate on fish and chicken when all she could think about was Bart. When she’d agreed to help him and they’d walked together to meet Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen, she’d moved with purpose through the ballroom, a wallflower no more. Her purpose had come from Bart and his desire, shared by her, to help their country. It’d been more thrilling than anything else she’d experienced in recent memory.
And I gained nothing for my efforts.
She tapped her pen against the menu. If her help had assisted him in any way, he hadn’t informed her. He hadn’t even had the decency to send a note thanking her for her assistance or explaining his abrupt departure and failure to return.
Footsteps behind her made her turn. Freddy entered the sitting room. He appeared better today, the despair surrounding him after Bart’s visit yesterday having dissipated. However, there was a seriousness about him that made Moira grip the back of her chair as she turned to face him. He always appeared like this whenever he was about to ask her for something she wasn’t going to like.
‘I understand Mr Dyer was at the ball last night.’ Freddy picked up a German glass dish on the table beside him and turned it over to inspect the bottom. ‘A friend of mine saw you speaking with him.’
Moira tightened her grip on the chair. ‘Once Aunt Agatha abandoned me for her friends, and you left me for the cards, there were few other people I was well enough acquainted with to speak to.’
‘Surely there must have been someone else.’
Moira rolled her eyes, not interested in travelling where this conversation was leading. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to be like Aunt Agatha and start railing against him, too?’
‘I am.’ Freddy set the dish back on the table. ‘Bart and I were very good friends once, but I have to insist that you have no further dealing with him. You don’t realise how dangerous it is to our welfare.’
‘I do. He told me what happened with Helena.’ She rose and laid her hands on his shoulders. His muscles tightened beneath her palms. ‘Please don’t fret, Freddy. All he did was ask me to introduce him to Prince Frederick and the Comte de Troyen and I did. There was nothing more to it. I never even saw him after we met the gentlemen.’
‘If that’s all there was to it, then promise me you won’t become involved with or see him again.’ Freddy took her hands off his shoulders and clasped them in his, pleading with her in the oddly gentle way everyone always did whenever they asked her to make sacrifices for them.
She peered up at her brother, troubled by his anxiety. She should agree, set his mind at ease, take the easy path and avoid the conflict rumbling just beneath his request, but something in her rebelled. This was too much like five years ago when her father and Aunt Agatha had demanded the same thing. ‘I can’t do that, Freddy. I respect Mr Dyer and his work too much to cut him.’
Freddy let go of her and stepped back, a rare anger flashing in his green eyes. ‘Does he mean so much to you that you’re willing to risk your relationship with Nicholas to see him?’
Moira drew back in shock. ‘How can you threaten such a thing after everything I’ve done for him and you?’
Freddy had the decency to redden with shame. ‘Of course I appreciate all you’ve done. Nicholas, and I, and Fallworth Manor couldn’t have survived without you. It’s why I’m asking this of you.’
She was about to answer him when the faint clearing of a gentle voice made them face the sitting-room doorway.
Miss Kent stood at the threshold, a paper-wrapped bundle in her fine hands, her cheeks brushed with the flush of a recent walk. ‘Lord Fallworth, I have the clothes I collected from the tailor for Nicholas. Would you like to come to the nursery and see them? It’s time for me to wake him from his nap.’
Freddy lit up at the sight of her and it made Moira more uneasy than his interest in her and Bart. Surely it’s because of Nicholas and nothing more, but the feeling it wasn’t was difficult to set aside.
‘Yes, I’d like that. Go up and wake him. I’ll join you both shortly.’
The pretty nurse curtsied, then left. Freddy turned back to Moira, his elation from the interruption gone. ‘I’m not trying to be stern with you, Moira, but I have to think of Nicholas. He was too young to grieve for Helena, but not for you. I won’t have him suffer the way I did.’
‘How much will he and all of us suffer if the Rouge Noir succeeds?’ she challenged.
He frowned, not appreciating being trapped by her logic. ‘Such affairs are not our concern. Leave them to Bart and others to manage, otherwise, I’ll do what I must to protect my son.’
He turned on his boot heel and strode out of the room, leaving Moira alone with his threat.
She wrapped her arms around her waist to fend off the worry engulfing her. If she didn’t heed his request, Freddy might take Nicholas away from her. She loved the boy and didn’t want to be parted from him, but she chafed at being placed in this situation again. She’d given Bart up five years ago and gained very little in return for her sacrifice. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again, especially not with Freddy likely to remarry this Season. Moira’s place in Nicholas’s life would be supplanted by his new stepmother no matter what Moira decided to do today.
She walked to the window to take in the street outside, struggling against her rising frustration. With Freddy making it clear she was not as valuable to him as she’d believed, it was nice to think someone still needed her, even if it was only for a short time. Except she wasn’t sure Bart did need her. After all, he’d done nothing to make her believe he would require further assistance from her.
Then why didn’t I simply agree to Freddy’s request? Because, until she heard otherwise from Bart, there was still hope. She’d come to London to gain a new life for herself, and if she allowed others to dictate who she should and should not see then she’d never claim the independence she craved.
* * *
‘I’m here to see the man they brought in last night. I need to talk to him.’ Bart stood before the desk of the rotund gaol warden.
He didn’t look up from the large mug of cheap ale he poured himself, but continued to fill the pewter until he was satisfied, then set the jug down with a thud. ‘That might be hard. He died last night. Gaol fever.’
‘Then I want to see the body.’ He never trusted anything until he confirmed it, not the information his men brought him, or even Moira’s rejection of him five years ago as the aunt had related it until he’d spoken to Moira in private in the square near her house. It’d been a painful conversation.
The warden smacked his thick lips together as he eyed Bart. Then, with an as-you-wish shrug, he left the room, motioning for Bart to follow. They passed numerous stinking and dark cells crammed with people. Bart didn’t flinch. He’d been here too many times before to speak with possible witnesses and informants to be horrified by the dirty hands reaching out to beg a penny off him. The warden led him to the end of the block of cells and down a flight of rickety stairs to the cold stone cellar. Two bodies were laid out on tables beneath stained sheets. The smell in here wasn’t much worse than the one engulfing the cells upstairs.
‘Here he is.’ The warden flicked back an old sheet to reveal the ashen face of Mr Marks. ‘He’ll be chucked in the pauper’s pit this afternoon unless you want him. No one else does.’
‘I don’t want a dead man.’ Bart yanked the sheet off, revealing the stab wound in the man’s stomach. ‘Gaol fever?’
The warden shrugged. ‘Easier than bringing in the constable, especially for scum like this.’
‘Any idea which other prisoner did this?’
‘Yeah, him.’ He pointed to the man on the table beside him.
Bart flicked back the sheet. The second man had a similar wound. ‘A right epidemic.’
The warden threw out his hands. ‘You know how it is in here at night.’
He did. Leaving a man here to face it often opened his mouth or jogged his memory when Bart returned the next day. ‘Any idea who did the second man in?’
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Georgie Lee
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A stolen kiss from a spy!Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.Moira′s widowed, yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But as they race against time Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts…