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And that plate of bad fish? The Keeper had another tale to tell about that!
Even before he reached his majority, Barry had clearly taken over the running of Redgrave Manor, cajoling his doting yet oddly nervous mother, winning her over with his smiles, his outward affection, while operating quite secretly behind her back. The morning he turned one-and-twenty, after a long night of revelry with his chums in Town, he flung his unsteady, drunken self into his mother’s chambers in the family’s Cavendish Square mansion, to rouse the woman with a cruel slap followed by a boozy, punishing kiss on her mouth.
He was followed by a trail of maids and footmen prepared to “Pack you up, you murdering whore,” and denied her an allowance unless she limited her visits to the Manor to one month out of each year.
He then paid a covert visit to Grosvenor Square. He politely thanked the aging Keeper and mentor in the ways of the Society for all he’d done, and told him to say hello to Charles a moment before tossing the old fool down the marble stairs.
Two weeks later, he purchased that same Grosvenor Square mansion, leaving his father’s outrageous monstrosity in Cavendish Square for his mama’s use. Let her live with the ghosts there.
And let the games begin!
While his still young and beautiful mother traveled on the Continent or partied in Mayfair, he appointed his very best friend, Turner Collier, to act as the group’s Keeper, guardian of the bible. They then went about gathering up any of the original Devil’s Thirteen and minions still aboveground, and the Society was soon back in business. He met and married a barely royal Spanish beauty he deemed a suitable broodmare, put a child in her as often as he could, enlarged both the Manor house and its lands. And plotted. And schemed. And added more and more like thinkers and helpful minions to his Society.
All within the confines of his first and truly only love, Redgrave Manor.
For nearly ten years of planning and conniving and bribing, all seemed to go quite swimmingly. His negotiations with the French king would soon come to fruition. Until the fall of the Bastille dealt the first crushing blow to Barry’s ambitions. That was closely followed by his drunken decision to stand up in a duel against his wife’s French lover, only to fall on his handsome face when a weapon fired from the trees put a bullet hole in his back and a period to his existence. The new widow, smoking pistol supposedly still in her hand, promptly deserted her four young children and ran off to France with her lover.
What followed was open conjecture throughout the ton concerning some sort of salacious hellfire club, and even speculation that Barry Redgrave had been whoring out his wife to his devil-worshipping friends, and that was really why she shot him. There were whispers of sedition and treason as people remembered his father and those rumors, dragging them out for another airing. But, mostly, it was the titillating scandal of the murder, the reason behind it, and the insult to those who deemed the Redgraves immoral, unsuited to retain the earldom (or the Manor, or all that lovely money).
It was as if Barry was more of a danger dead than he’d been while alive. The Redgraves were about to lose everything...including control of their secrets.
Enter the determined Beatrix, Dowager Countess of Saltwood, and fiercely protective grandmother to Barry’s four good-as-orphaned children. The by now deliciously notorious Trixie, who had spent her entire widowhood playing May games with society, most especially the men—those she loathed, those she admired, and those she might someday be able to use.
She’d learned a lot from Charles....
Perhaps because she had more brass than a chamber pot, but most probably because she knew more than most men would like the world (and especially their wives) to know, she managed to make it through the scandal. She spent decades tenaciously (and perhaps more cleverly than legally), holding on to the earldom for her eldest grandson, Gideon, who had been only nine when his father was hastily interred in the family mausoleum.
Her husband’s Society, her son’s intention to follow in his father’s footsteps—these were never mentioned within earshot of the grandchildren. Trixie would rather die a thousand deaths than reveal what had gone on within the Society, the part Charles had forced her to play those long years ago. Her grandchildren knew of the scandal caused by their parents’ actions, yes—that would be impossible to hide from them as they matured and traveled to London, but with the Society long since gone, there was no reason for them to know anything else.
In truth, they seemed to delight in being those scandalous Redgraves. Welcomed everywhere, because to deny them would be folly. Quick, intelligent, dangerous, no door was shut to them. Who’d dare?
But now, suddenly, the Society was back for a third go-round, even using Redgrave land as its headquarters. Its methods the same, its partner this time none but the upstart new French emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. For years, he had longed to add England to his long list of conquered countries. The Society would be more than eager to assist him in that endeavor in exchange for—God, what did they want? Certainly not the Crown; that silly Stuart business could only be gained through the Redgraves, and they certainly had no part in this new incarnation of the Society.
No, the methods might be the same, but the aims were different. Still, at the end of the day, if the Crown got so much as a whiff of what was going on, the Redgraves would pay the price, and this time no amount of Trixie’s machinations would save them.
Gideon, already suspicious that something odd was going on at Redgrave Manor, had learned about the resurrected Society through Turner Collier’s daughter, Jessica. He immediately confronted Trixie, demanding she tell him everything she knew. Consulting with his siblings, they then decided they were left with no other choice than to secretly, quietly ferret out the members and this time bury the Society too deep for it ever to be raised again.
First and foremost, of course, the Redgraves were all loyal to the Crown. But they were also loyal to the Redgrave name, and to the incredibly brave woman who had raised and protected them. They knew neither could survive the possibility of being connected to this or any earlier incarnation of the Society.
Plus, even with some early quick successes, they knew they were running out of time, having been forced to bring Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in on what they’d learned about Society efforts to sabotage troops and supplies heading to Wellington on the Peninsula.
Gideon’s sister, Lady Katherine, had scoured Redgrave Manor, locating the journals from both her grandfather’s and father’s time but not, alas, the all-important bible, the tome having been reduced to ashes by the Keeper. His brother Valentine, following clues found in those journals, had dared to infiltrate a portion of the Society, nearly losing his life in the process, but adding to their knowledge.
They were getting ever closer to the core of the Society and these new, unknown leaders who hid behind masks and code names while going about their dirty business.
Unfortunately, these successes also alerted the Society that the Redgraves were onto them, most certainly fueled by information given to them by the dowager countess.
Only a few short days ago, following a nearly successful arson in the mansion in Cavendish Square with a bold attempt on Trixie’s life on the streets of London, the hunters had suddenly become the hunted.
There couldn’t be a better time for Maximillien Redgrave, currently doing his own investigating from the other side of the Channel, to return to the estate where, unbeknownst to him, his family was all already gathered, and under siege.
Max also didn’t know his own past was sailing to Redgrave Manor with him.
But he was about to find out.
CHAPTER ONE
MAXIMILLIEN REDGRAVE had last seen his birthplace from the seat of his curricle as he set off to London and a quiet meeting in a small office tucked away in the bowels of the Royal Admiralty. He felt he’d been traveling ever since, going about the king’s business, with only a few, flying visits to London. It was during one of those visits that he’d learned about the Society, so that his work on the Continent now included searching out anyone who might be affiliated with the treasonous hellfire group.
This very night he was returning to Redgrave Manor, the magnificent estate that sprawled nearly to the size of a small English county. Sneaking home, as it were, via the back door.
Not that he’d expected to ride through the front gates heralded by fanfares of trumpets in any case, a roasted boar turning on the spit in the massive kitchen fireplace. A few hearty claps on the back from his brothers, an excited hug from his sister, a half-dozen dogs slobbering on his boots. That would be more than sufficient.
Except for the necessary addition of his irascible grandmother reclining at her ease on her favorite chaise longue, hoisting a wineglass as she sent him a knowing wink. It wouldn’t be a proper homecoming without her.
After all, who else but Trixie Redgrave would have thought setting her grandson up as an agent for the Crown held less pitfalls than allowing him to roam Mayfair, wealthy, bored and hot for adventure? To either her credit or as the result of grandmotherly niggles of guilt, she’d then commissioned her own agents to watch over him, report his every move, his every mission to her. According to Gideon, they all had discreet keepers following them about, guardian angels who happened to be wide as barn doors and carry small arsenals with them. Poor Kate, still living on the estate, had everyone from the potboy to the butler to the tenants sworn to keeping her safe.
Not that Trixie would admit to any such thing.
Not that Max would so accuse her, either, or tell her the number of times he’d escaped those same keepers from the first day they’d set off to Eton with him, employing both fair means and foul. Oh, no, he would simply continue as he’d begun all those years ago, and thus wouldn’t tease Trixie later tonight about how their new friend Richard Borders had crossed the Channel and somehow located that one tavern out of dozens lining the water in Gravelines, France, probably to inform him he’d just been whistled to heel by his true master.
Not now, Trixie, he’d whispered inside his head, pulling his hat down far enough to cover his distinctive low, winglike brows and long-lashed, sherry-brown eyes as he sidled out the side door and into an alley smelling of everything foul the human body could produce.
There were occasions his almost startling handsomeness was a boon, but not at times like this; right now Max craved anonymity, and having Richard calling out his name or asking the barmaid if she’d seen him could get both the seeker and the sought filleted. Besides, I’ve got fish of my own to fry, thank you. I’ll be kissing the dear lady’s powdered cheek soon enough.
Max didn’t applaud himself as he melted into the darkness, as it had been easy enough avoiding Richard. The man would be looking for someone who appeared very different from the Max Redgrave who had been slouching in a dark corner of the taproom, his hair and beard unkempt, his clothes not much more than several layers of rags beneath a long, greasy cloak, his wide-brimmed hat filthy and sagging over his face. He did have a gold earring, but any bit of sweepings found roaming Gravelines could use his sticker to slit a drunken seaman’s ear and help himself to a bit of gold. It was almost expected of them.
“And who was that fine, fair, fat gentleman you just left behind, mon ami?”
Max answered Anton Boucher without bothering to turn his head. “Who? You didn’t have to follow me. I only came out here to relieve myself,” and turned to the wall and unbuttoned his homespun trousers. “You’ve been at this too long, Anton. You’ve turned into an old woman, seeing trouble everywhere. It may be prudent of you to step back. The wind, you know.”
“It is picking up, isn’t it,” the man said, retreating a few paces. “And the rain, as well. As long as we’re out here and already drenched, we may as well get on with it. Perhaps they won’t sail, as a full moon does no one any good when it’s hidden behind clouds.”
“Admit it, Anton, you’re a timid sailor. There’s no need for you to travel with me tonight. I won’t be returning with you in any case.”
“Nonsense, as if I’d leave you with no one to guard your back. Besides, I’ve gained their trust. Only the one ship tonight, and they won’t let you board without me.”
Max deliberately kept his tone light. “Braggart. But I suppose you’re right. And you’re confident they’ll have the same destination as last time?”
“Same godforsaken destination every time, just as I told you.” Anton smiled, his pale blue eyes seeming to twinkle in the reflection from a streak of lightning overhead. “Missed all the fun then, didn’t we, sailing in the trailing boat? Pirates, the captain swore as we turned and raced back here, as if he’d know a pirate from a pickle. Probably just other smugglers, thinking to make an easy profit without the trouble of having to cross the Channel. Can’t trust the English, Max, you know that, being one of them.”
“The same stands for you, concerning your fellow Frenchmen,” Max returned, and Anton’s smile vanished.
“Touché. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead, does it?”
Max wished he hadn’t spoken. This was no night for unpleasant memories. “No, it doesn’t.”
They made their way along the docks to the rather questionable-looking vessel their so-called employers had chosen for the run across the Channel. Borrowed from a band of English owlers their French hosts were currently entertaining at one of the inns expressly built for their comfort by none other than the emperor himself. Like so many others, having delivered their cargo of wool, all they’d wanted was full tankards and some sweet mam’zelles warming their laps before loading up their cargos of brandy, tea and silk for the return to the beaches of Romney Marsh or perhaps Folkestone before daybreak.
Max had watched from the corner of the taproom as the unsuspecting crew drank down their ale, neatly doctored with laudanum. The fools were now blissfully asleep with their heads fallen forward onto the tabletops, unaware their vessel was about to take a second run across the Channel yet this night. They’d wake to find a friendly gang of ships’ carpenters repairing damage they’d discovered on the hull. Not to worry yourselves, my good messieurs, they would be told, you can sail for home tonight, and in the meantime, please enjoy the hospitality of these lovely young buds of springtime whose only wish is to please you.
Clever. Bonaparte and the Society, working together for their mutual advantage. God only knew what headed to England, God only knowing what returned with them to Gravelines.
Max wished he’d discovered the truth on his own, but that hadn’t been the case. It was only after running down Anton in Ostend that he’d learned about the tactics, if not the cargo or the destination. And it was only when he and Anton had sailed from Gravelines with the Society that he’d glimpsed the familiar shorelines of Redgrave Manor just before the sloop sailing ahead of them was attacked and their mission had been aborted, rescheduled for tonight.
A real piece of work, Anton Boucher, this Frenchman who had thrown in his lot with the English. Never revealing more than he had to, and if not a friend, at least trustworthy. To a point. Max had told him only what he’d wished him to know when he’d asked for his assistance...but never called the Society by name or let on that he’d recognized the area of English coastline that had been and was now again their destination. As far as Anton was concerned, Max was simply carrying out another mission for the Crown.
No matter how much you trust them, tell them only what they need to know and, if you can manage it, only half of that. Max had earned that lesson the hardest way possible.
“Are you regretting escaping your watchdogs in Ostend?” the Frenchman asked as he squinted through the downpour, looking up and down the pier. “Don’t you miss them?”
“I never miss them for long, unfortunately, as they’ve somehow made their way here. As far as they know, however, I’m still at my hotel, sleeping off an afternoon of melancholy drinking, just as if the place had only a front door. You’re not supposed to notice them at any rate, as my behemoths rather pride themselves on their stealth.”
“And now you’re about to leave them on the other side of the Channel. Poor fellows. Even hounds can’t follow a scent across the water.”
“They can make their own way home,” Max grumbled as they each loaded yokes holding a pair of small brandy kegs onto their shoulders and advanced up the narrow, dangerously swaying gangplank. Along with Richard, who’d obviously already found them guarding that same front door. “Damn, man, we haven’t cast off yet, and already you’re turning green. It’s only a storm, not Armageddon. Don’t worry, all we can do is drown.”
“Sometimes I do not so much like you, mon ami. French stomachs are delicate, not like those of you English, who would eat shoe leather, and probably do.”
“Only on Sundays, with quite lovely burnt carrots and turnips. Find yourself a dark corner, why don’t you, as I help the others finish the loading.”
Ten minutes later they were pushing away from the dock, and ten minutes after that Anton was leaning over the rail, alternately cursing and casting up his accounts.
At least the wind was with them, and they’d be off-shore at Redgrave Manor in a matter of hours. Unless the unknown captain’s skill faltered, in which case they’d all be at the bottom of the Channel. There was always that. Years ago, Max had been able to brag of being not only the youngest coxswain in the Royal Navy, but had been aboard the Trafalgar when the mighty Nelson was mortally struck down. But those who’d been there never spoke of that fateful day, even in whispers.
Just as he could not betray himself now by conking the inept captain over the head with a belaying pin and taking control of the ship.
Cursing the foul weather under his breath, Max leaned against a portion of lashed-together kegs as the sloop seemed to climb skyward on each wave, only for the hull to then slap down on black water turned hard as any board.
There came the sound of tearing sail high in the rigging, and Anton’s curses grew louder. A French royalist intent on defeating Bonaparte and returning the monarchy to the throne in Paris, Anton had been secretly working for the English for close to a decade, and he and Max had more than once joined ranks in ferreting out information valuable to the Crown. Worked together, gotten roaring drunk together, laughed together...mourned together.
It was only natural that he would contact Anton for his assistance, and it was Anton who’d first suggested English traitors could be making themselves at home in any of the hotels Bonaparte had ordered built to house English smugglers along the coast, many of them at Dunkirk and Gravelines. Anton had taken out a gold coin and flipped it, with him picking Gravelines when he won.
Max had seen that trick from Anton and his two-headed coin before, but had never called him on it, just as Max had some small tricks of his own. Anton had information he wasn’t sharing, and had made sure Gravelines was their destination. As long as they both knew each other’s tricks they could both pretend ignorance in certain things. It was safer that way, as long as the mission succeeded.
Which, hopefully, it was about to do.
Once in the seaside town, watching and careful listening had resulted in information about one small group of men and their borrowed ships. Their runs were infrequent, and loaded with quite singular cargo. Yes, they loaded brandy meant for England, unloaded wool that came from England. But there was something more.
“Men going to England, but not returning with the ship,” Anton had informed Max. “My contact told me it’s the damndest thing. Sometimes two, three dozen seamen sailing off along with the kegs, but only a handful returning on the next tide.”
He’d laughed then, that full-throated laugh of his that rose all the way to his pale eyes. “You don’t suppose Boney is invading a score or so at a time? Piecemeal building himself an army on English shores? I always told you, Max, these revolutionists toss words like liberté, égalité, fraternité into the dustbin every time they sniff a whiff of power. Drop a crown on their heads, like Boney, and they’re even worse, gobbling up other countries like sugar treats. Why else are you here, with the English so concerned about Bonaparte’s business, yes?”
Remembering Anton’s words, Max squinted into the darkness along the deck, attempting to single out bodies that didn’t belong, anyone who seemed out of place. It was impossible to recognize faces from his other crossing, save for a magnificently tall and leanly muscled man with skin the shade of wild honey and eyes the color of sand that stared straight back at him. Max acknowledged him with a ragtag salute, and the man nodded in return, then both looked away.
Friend? Foe? Interested bystander? The man would bear watching.
Other than the crew, he then counted the other men clinging to the ropes, hired from the docks to assist in the off-loading of the contraband once they reached the shoreline. Expendable bodies, like his, and Anton’s, hired to do a job of work, or drown in the process.
Except there were too many of them.
There were more than a dozen Frenchmen, four quiet men dressed as Dutchmen. A trio of Spaniards who could be dockside lingerers or hired mercenaries, but currently fully occupied with their rosaries. A short, fairly rotund fellow engulfed head-to-foot in a worse cloak than Max’s own and currently hanging over the railing next to Anton, apparently feeding the fish with whatever he’d had for supper.
Lastly, his gaze alit on a slim figure wrapped all in black: black leather trousers, black tunic, overly large black hooded cloak, black gloves, black boots, black muffler covering all but a pair of narrowly slitted eyes.
Not one of the crew. Definitely not hired to wade through the choppy waters to the beach, a brace of kegs tied over his shoulders. Which meant one thing... Max was looking at another part of the cargo, most likely a spy.
And spies could be valuable.
He spent the next three hours making and discarding plans. He knew he wasn’t returning to Gravelines; that had never been part of his plan. But now, on top of successfully stealing away from the shore on his own, he would have to lug an unwilling companion along with him.
There was no other possible conclusion: he had to enlist Anton’s help once they reached their destination.
He reminded himself yet again that he trusted Boucher. As much as he trusted any man. Or woman.
Which, Max acknowledged silently, wasn’t much. For instance, he still didn’t quite understand why Anton, such a sorry sailor, would insist upon escorting him to England in this storm when he could have vouched for him to get him on board, and then waved his farewell from the dock. That didn’t quite make sense.
The Frenchman hadn’t led him astray yet; his information had all been spot-on. But loyalties could change, especially if money was involved, just as easily as the direction of the wind now blowing toward England, at last leaving the storm behind them. Trust was at a premium in these tumultuous times. It was all too easy to end up betrayed and dead. Both Anton and Max knew that. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead....
“Open the shutter, boy,” the captain suddenly commanded. “Once, then again, and watch for the all clear from shore. Ah, there it is! Lower the longboats, and be quick about it.”
It was time. His decision made, Max scrambled to his feet with the others, and headed for Anton, who was still standing at the rail.
“We part ways now, yes?” Anton whispered close beside Max’s ear, his breath foul, so that Max covered his own mouth and nose. “Me to follow our return cargo once it lands, and you to chase after those who remain on the shore. Don’t attempt to sneak away empty-handed. I think it best you heft a brace of kegs, like the others. The longboats are down. Here, let me help hoist a yoke onto your shoulders.”
Max nodded, remaining where he was, his forearms on the rail, leaning forward, straining to see the shore as Anton went to retrieve the yoke and kegs. Then Max would tell him about the possible spy.
He never got the chance.
“Anton! Another smuggler’s lantern, signaling onshore. Could be unwelcome company portside,” he said, turning toward the man, so that the belaying pin that came down on his head only grazed his skull rather than rendering him totally unconscious.
All he would ever remember after that was a hard body barreling into him with force sufficient to knock his breath from him, and helplessly falling through the air, heading for the dark water that was suddenly lit by the flash of a cannon broadside that seemed to have come out of nowhere to crash through the rigging of the sloop.
* * *
“RELEASE ME, YOU FOOL, I’m all right. Let me go!”
Zoé Charbonneau’s words were closely followed by a kick that landed in the most tender spot of her unnecessary rescuer’s pudgy anatomy. He seemed to go unconscious with the pain. Her arm was freed at once and she was up and running, stumbling, only to fall to her knees on the sharp shingle beside Maximillien Redgrave.
Max. Her Max. But not any longer.
She spared only a moment to look into his well-remembered face, still misbelieving what she was seeing even after staring at him for hours, before she pushed him over onto his belly with all her might, and then straddled him.
“Breathe, damn you,” she commanded, bracing her arms against him, slamming the sides of her fists into his back over and over again. “Don’t you dare die again!”
“Like this, mademoiselle,” came an unfamiliar voice from behind her.
Zoé felt herself being picked up and tossed aside like so much flotsam and looked up to see the towering Arabic man from the smuggler’s sloop. “No, don’t, I have to—”
