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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.
