Wicked intrigue unfolds in USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels’s series about the Redgraves—four siblings celebrated for their legacy of scandal and seduction…

Plagued by the scandal that once destroyed his father and now threatens his family, Valentine Redgrave dreams of dark justice. Brother to the Earl of Saltwood, with secret ties to the Crown, he won’t rest until he infiltrates and annihilates England’s most notorious hellfire club. To cross its elite members is to court destruction, yet he’s never craved a challenge more. Until he encounters enigmatic governess Daisy Marchant, who behind a plain-Jane guise harbors a private agenda and appeals to his every weakness…and desire.

Valentine’s hunt for revenge is Daisy’s key to finding her sister, who may be lost in the clutches of a deadly Society. But his seductive charm unlocks passion that can undo them both. Now, the only way to escape death and rescue their families is to trust each other in love and loyalty…even as they tread deeper into danger.

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author

KASEY MICHAELS

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“A multilayered tale.… Here is a novel that holds attention because of the intricate story, engaging characters and wonderful writing.”

—RT Book Reviews on What an Earl Wants,

4½ stars, Top Pick

“Michaels’ beloved Regency romances are witty and smart, and the second volume in her Redgrave series is no different. The lively banter, intriguing plot, fascinating twists and turns…sheer delight.”

—RT Book Reviews on What a Lady Needs, 4½ stars

“The historical elements…imbue the novel with powerful realism that will keep readers coming back.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Midsummer Night’s Sin

“A poignant and highly satisfying read…filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy.… You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

“Michaels has done it again…. Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Butler Did It (starred review)

What a Gentleman Desires

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

As you may know by now, many of my favorite Regency Era heroes are fops. Well, not really fops, but as is said nowadays: “But he plays one on TV.”

Valentine Redgrave, youngest brother of the Earl of Saltwood (What an Earl Wants), enacts just such a part in London society for his Regency “audience.” Boon companion, nary a serious bone in his well set-up body, Val is loved by all if admired by none, as he is, after all, only a younger son, currently without prospects; outwardly dangerous as a dandelion.

But not without wit, or else he couldn’t so quietly and successfully serve the Crown…and now, the Redgrave family in particular. Because there is trouble afoot, and the Redgraves are in it up to Valentine’s exquisitely tied cravat.

Did I mention Val has a weakness for ladies in distress? Oh, yes. His sister Kate (What a Lady Needs) vows his penchant for playing knight in shining armor will land him in deep trouble someday.

So to prove Kate’s point, I couldn’t resist plunking down Miss Daisy Marchant, governess-on-a-mission, in his path…and in his way.

Or in other words: here comes trouble!

Let’s go have some fun, and romance, and danger as these two mismatched creatures—much to their mutual surprise—stumble their way into love. And please visit me online on Facebook or at my website, www.kaseymichaels.com, to catch up on all my news.

Kasey Michaels

To Ruth Ryan Langan and the memory of her sweet Tom-babe—theirs was a love story for the ages.

Being a man would be an unbearable job—

if it weren’t for women.

—O. A. Battista

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

ENGLISHPIGS. FRENCHDOGS.

Roasted beefs! Frog eaters!

Sworn enemies. Temporary truces.

The histories of England and France can be plotted out on a time line of wars between the two countries: a legacy of insults, envy and, paradoxically, smatterings of admiration.

But, mostly, the populace of the two countries heartily disliked each other, which did not keep them from occasionally using each other for their own gain.

English gold and wool for French brandy and silks, for instance; the boat traffic across the Straits of Dover was never ending, both in times of peace and when the two countries were at war. In peacetime this was called trade; in times of war the term was smuggling. This dance of advance and retreat, peace and conflict, had gone on so long many seemed to believe the pattern was some sort of natural order, and merely accepted the ever-changing status quo.

It was left to more inventive minds to see the larger picture, and seek a more permanent solution to this near-constant conflict. One, as it would naturally follow for some of those clever minds, which included immense personal gain.

Charles Redgrave, Sixteenth Earl of Saltwood, was just such a man. He understood enough of history, of the vulnerabilities and peculiar appetites of men, of the way the world works, to believe the unpopular French king would assist him in his dream of being named at least nominal ruler of Great Britain. He felt himself qualified for this role thanks to a thimbleful of possibly illegitimate royal Stuart blood flowing in his veins, his immense wealth and the ruthless pursuit of enough land in Kent to proclaim it his own kingdom if necessary.

When a man like Charles Redgrave dreamed, he did not dream small dreams.

In return for this assistance, Charles believed, all he had to do was assassinate the bumbling George III (and probably the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well), and hand over a large part of the English treasury to Louis XV. Louis would be popular again, and Charles happy beyond his wildest dreams and ambitions. And, at last, there would be a permanent (and mutually profitable) peace between the two nations, all thanks to Charles IV of the House of Stuart.

Really. Even if most people would agree the Earl of Saltwood had more than a few slates off his roof. Either that, or the man was so thoroughly insane he was, in fact, dangerously brilliant.

To give the earl some credit, somewhere in this idea was perhaps a kernel of a chance for possible success, although it should be pointed out that rarely is it a particularly splendid notion to begin any Grand Plan with the words: “Off with his head!”

In any event, both men were called to their final rewards before things could get out of hand, one still hated, the other unfulfilled.

Decades later, Barry Redgrave, Seventeenth Earl of Saltwood, learning of his father’s ambitions—and of his unique and titillating modus operandi—also set his sights and hopes on France, and Louis XVI, who was proving to be even more unpopular than his papa. Barry’s plan was to convince England (by fair means or foul; hopefully foul, actually, because that was much more delicious) to intercede on Louis’s behalf.

He pointed out that revolution in France could just as easily become revolution in England. Louis and his queen, the lovely Marie Antoinette of “let them eat cake” infamy, would be so grateful, and in return support Barry’s coup d’état...again, a plan ending with a Saltwood on the English throne.

But just as the Bastille fell, Barry was lying dead on the dueling field, shot in the back, purportedly by his unfaithful Spanish wife. Not that much later, the embattled Louis lost his head, literally.

Both earls had employed a rather strange route to their hoped-for success, that of gathering together secret groups of wealthy, politically and socially powerful men, in point of fact forming a corrupt and sexually deviant hellfire club known only as the Society. Whether through ambition, sexual appetite or even discreet blackmail, the Society moved beyond its original devil’s dozen thirteen members, all of whom quickly went to ground when Charles died, and most certainly repeated their ratlike scurry for the exits after the scandal of Barry Redgrave.

After nearly a half century of on-again, off-again existence as a haven for seditionists and easily-led sexually promiscuous devil worshippers, the Society was as dead as Charles and Barry.

The world could heave a collective sigh of relief, even if it never knew it perhaps should have been holding its breath.

The Saltwoods buried the history of the last two ambitious and possibly mad earls under the deepest carpet at Redgrave Manor and moved on, Barry and Maribel’s four children eventually reaching adulthood and going into Society (no, not that Society!). The scandal of Barry’s murder and their mother’s involvement, along with never quite quelled whispers of the possibility of some deliciously naughty hellfire club, moved on with them.

But that was all right with the family, who rather enjoyed being referred to as those scandalous Redgraves. The dowager countess, Lady Beatrix (Trixie) Redgrave, fairly reveled in the notoriety, actually. She certainly did nothing to discourage it at any rate, and had bedded more lovers since Charles’s death than many Englishmen had teeth left to chew their roasted beef.

And then one day about a month in the past, the Eighteenth Earl of Saltwood, Gideon Redgrave, was shocked to learn that the Society, the tawdry creation of his sire, his grandsire, intended to be the instrument of their success, was back in the treason business, this new devil’s thirteen conspiring with none other than Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Redgraves looked to each other, but only for a moment, as none of them were the sort to drag out the Society for another airing, and then began the race to identify and stop whoever in blazes was using the methods of the Society for their own gain.

The protection of England was, of course, the Redgrave family’s immediate and main concern. Of course!

But, yes, there were also all those unknown, sordid bits of Redgrave history that needed to be safely kept beneath that deep carpet....

CHAPTER ONE

1810

LORD SPENCER PERCEVAL, serving as both Prime Minister and Chancellor of Great Britain during these troubling times, sank into his favorite tub chair in his private study behind the imposing ebony door of No. 10 Downing Street. He had just moments earlier successfully concluded his most important mission of the day: seeing the last of his dozen children off to bed.

They’d been lined up like proper little soldiers, to bow or curtsy before him, and to smile as he kissed them each square in the middle of their foreheads. His wife had then adjourned to their bedroom, a twinkle in her eye—the same twinkle that had caused him to convince her to elope with him so many years ago, when her father had considered a younger Perceval unsuitable matrimonial material.

A small silver tray was placed before the prime minister. “Your evening refreshment, my lord? And I must commend you. Quite the brood you have there—or is that clutch? No, that would be hens, or ducks, or some such fowl thing. A thousand pardons. Lovely children, all of them. Stellar, really.”

Perceval relaxed the sudden death grip he’d clamped around the arms of the chair. “I should have known immediately it had to be a Redgrave. Although I would have been less surprised was it Saltwood himself. How the devil did you get in here?”

“I’m quite certain the earl sends his regards, or would, if he’d known his rascally brother planned to, as it were, drop in on you tonight. As to the how of it? A valid question from your vantage point, I’m sure,” Valentine Redgrave said, putting down the tray and taking up the facing club chair, quite precisely crossing one well-shaped leg over the other, his long-fingered hands folded in his lap. After all, he was in evening clothes, and it wouldn’t be polite to slouch, comfortable though he was in his surroundings. “But if I told you, I’d be reduced to begging your starchy under-secretary to allow me a private audience, as has been the case these past two weeks. Have you by any chance been ducking me?”

“Absolutely not,” the prime minster declared, although seemingly unable to look Val directly in the eye as he said it. “I’ve been otherwise involved.”

“As have we Redgraves, not that you seem interested in our progress.”

“Our meaning your? Now, why do I doubt that? As it is, Lord Singleton will soon be reporting to me.”

Remembering the nearly giddy communication sent to him from Redgrave Manor by his sister and tucked in with Simon Ravenbill’s official report, Valentine only smiled. “My soon-to-be new brother is otherwise engaged, I’m afraid, and forward his apologies. Behold me, his trusted messenger.”

Ah, now the prime minister was paying attention.

“Egads, you must be kidding. You Redgraves have managed to corrupt the Marquis of Singleton? I wouldn’t have thought that possible.”

“Most anything is within the realm of possibility, my lord, if one simply applies oneself. But it wasn’t all of us. Just the one, the pretty one. I’ll be honored to pass along the delightful news that you wish them happy. But now, if we’ve finished with this amicable yet hardly germane chitchat, shall we get down to cases? We’ve got serious business to discuss.”

“I know that, you insolent puppy, but this is no way to go about it. You mean to tell me Ravenbill’s so besotted he put nothing in writing for me?”

“Not knowing friend from foe, would you have done anything so potentially dangerous? No, of course you wouldn’t,” Val rejoined smoothly, as there wasn’t a Redgrave born who didn’t know how to speak the truth in order to avoid lying through his teeth. Their sister, Lady Katherine, had rather elevated clever evasion of the truth to an art form, actually. “It’s all those sweet children, isn’t it? They’ve turned your mind domestic tonight, when you should be attending to business. Quite understandable, really. Very well, I’ll recap.”

“You do that. And then I’ll have you clapped in irons for daring to accost me in my home. We’re agreed?”

“That seems only reasonable,” Val said, getting to his feet. He looked quite presentable, sitting. But standing? Ah. Few were more impressive than a tall, dark-haired Redgrave, standing, be it Gideon, Earl of Saltwood, or any of his trio of younger siblings, including Kate! The English in them seemed to recede then, and the Spanish side of them came out to play, to remind all of their mother’s fiery blood singing through their veins. Their mother, who had so disgraced the family as to shoot their father in the back in order to save her French lover on the dueling field. One couldn’t be faulted if one imagined a pistol in Valentine’s hand; after all, it was in the blood.

And then, in the space of ten even, silently counted heartbeats, Valentine bowed, as if to acknowledge the prime minister’s power over a lowly creature such as himself. “I can but humbly submit to your command. Only do be so kind as to make certain the irons are clean. This is a new jacket, you understand.”

“Bah,” said the prime minister, clearly immune to both Valentine’s physical presence and his nonsense. “Sit down, Redgrave. I’m not to be taken in like some raw schoolboy. You’re as cooperative as a room full of cats. What have you and our unexpected Romeo discovered?”

“Not me. Oh, no, not me, just as you so cleverly surmised. I’m afraid I was busy elsewhere, on a mission having much more to do with the simpler pleasures in life.”

“A woman. Perhaps several—an entire clutch of fair females. Your reputation precedes you, carefully constructed as it is, to cover your occasional work for some high-ranking government idiot who actually trusts you. But friend to that someone or not, a dank cell awaits you if you don’t soon drop this charade and come to the point.”

Ah. Spencer Perceval wasn’t stupid, and he knew about Val’s occasional service, even if he didn’t know the man or the department. Hell’s bells, he probably didn’t know the department even existed. Such was the amount of secrecy these days, what with spies everywhere from the low to the high, working for either political belief or pay, it didn’t much matter. But a too-interested Perceval was a dangerous Perceval, and to be avoided at all costs.

“A thousand apologies, I’m sure, but I find myself totally at sea. Me, working? I hardly think so. That was the answer you expected, wasn’t it?” When the prime minister smiled at last, Val neatly split his coattails and seated himself once more, this time leaning his forearms on his strong thighs and clasping his hands together between his knees, his posture all business. “All right, then, now that we’re through dancing about, fruitlessly hoping for ripe plums of information to drop out of each other’s mouths, let’s get to it. Thankfully, I do have some progress to report.”

“Spencer, darling, I thought you’d be— Oh. I didn’t realize...”

Valentine rose immediately and took his handsome, ingratiating self across the width of the intimate room, to bow over the lady’s nervously offered hand. “How very good to see you again, dear lady. I vow, it has been an age. Too long...yes, yes, indeed. Wherever has this brute been hiding you?”

“The... That is, our two youngest were ill with the measles, and I didn’t wish to— Mr. Redgrave, you can release my hand now, for I’ve been married to this good gentleman long enough to know not to quiz you on why you’re here. However, Spencer, if I might see you for a moment?”

Perceval was already beside her, and glaring at Valentine. “I’ll return directly. In the meantime, Redgrave, sit yourself down again—and for God’s sake, don’t touch anything.”

Valentine managed to look crestfallen, abashed and wickedly amused, all at one and the same time. It was also an art, this ability of his to play many roles at once for his audience, and if his brilliance didn’t impress the crusty prime minister, it still worked wonders with his lady wife, who scolded, “Spencer, that was rude.”

“Yet, alas, dear lady, a verbal spanking well deserved,” Val said, bowing once more.

He waited until the pair had adjourned to the hallway before helping himself to the wine he’d first offered the prime minister and re-taking his seat as ordered, planning to use this unexpected interlude to align his thoughts. There were things Perceval knew, things he could never know and things he needed to be told. It was all a matter of carefully—keeping to the fowl theme of the evening thus far—lining up his ducks in their proper rows.

Valentine began with a mental listing of things the prime minister knew: The Redgraves had “stumbled over,” as Gideon had so obliquely put it, the existence of a group within the government plotting to assist Bonaparte and help overthrow the Crown. As proof of his words, Gideon had handed over evidence supposedly found near Redgrave Manor that supplies meant for the king’s troops massing on the Peninsula were about to be diverted elsewhere. Gideon also had given the man two names: Archie Upton and Lord Charles Mailer, both employed by the government. Upton was dead now, Mailer was being watched. Perceval was also gifted with an entire bag of moonshine about both men being part of a “secret society” possibly operating in the area, and the prime minister had assigned Simon Ravenbill to go to the estate to investigate.

Perceval knew there was more to it than that, must be wondering about the depth of the Redgrave involvement, but had prudently not asked. Yet.

Then there was what the prime minister could not be privy to: this particular secret society could be traced back to the time of Valentine’s father and grandfather. A hellfire club with a carefully concealed history of attempted treason mixed in among the seemly mandatory satanic rites and naughty sexual antics so in vogue with such groups of powerful and ambitious men. Men who believed themselves both entitled to such pleasures and immune to discovery and scandal (until they were proven wrong, on both counts). The Redgraves wanted to help, not be thrown into prison as likely suspects!

Then there was the news Simon and Kate had sent to him, which had to be told: information, gold coin, spies and quite a bit of opium made the crossing between the beach at Redgrave Manor and France...or at least it had done until Simon and a band of unnamed local smugglers had put a stop to this traffic a scant two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, the prime minister would also have to be told the Redgraves had learned nothing more about the identities of the current members. No names, no other locations had been found. The Society had definitely used the estate, its caves and handy beach, but they hadn’t left their mark there.

There was one name, that much was true: one Society member who had acted as leader of the smugglers. But as the captured man had chosen suicide over confession, his body quietly disposed of at sea, Valentine had decided Perceval didn’t need to know of that small failure, or of Simon’s dire warning: “A leader who can convince others to kill themselves in order to protect him is a deadly dangerous man surrounded by worshipful fanatics. Be alert at all times, strike first and, for God’s sake, don’t bother attempting to capture any of them alive. If you hesitate, you’ll die, and Kate will be exceedingly out of humor with you.”

An unlovely thought all-around, Valentine believed, excluding the leavening remark about his sister, and advice he’d committed to memory. Perceval would scoff at such dramatics, being the coolheaded logical Englishman to his core, but the fiery Spanish blood in Val’s veins believed nothing impossible when it came to his fellow man.

As to the Redgraves themselves, their own family history? Ah, much had been learned there thanks to Val’s brother Gideon, their sister, Kate, and Simon Ravenbill, and even the dowager countess, who’d had the misfortune to witness the first two incarnations of the Society.

But none of that more sordid history would ever be shared with the prime minister. It was certainly true that, because of that family history, the Redgraves were better armed to defeat the Society...but they were also more vulnerable to having that salacious history made public knowledge. That would never do!

And so, with the Crown’s help—and, truthfully, preferably without it—the Redgraves would put a stop to the Society, for reasons both patriotic and personal.

Gideon had done his part, uncovering the existence of the Society in the first place, and Kate and Simon had put an end to the smuggling. Now, with their brother Maximillien on the Continent, tracking clues on that end, it was up to Valentine to take up the trail that, once followed, could destroy the Society forever, protect the Crown from the greedy Bonaparte, and tuck the scandalous Redgrave history away once and for all.

One, two, three. As simple as that. Three paths, three goals. Except they also were three giant steps, none of them easily taken, and with deadly pitfalls strewn along the way to trap the unwary.

With scarcely any solid clues to follow, the main purpose of Val’s visit tonight was to dazzle Perceval with news of the smuggling and then quickly gather information about one thing that had been bothering him. Hopefully, Perceval would be so happy to see the back of him he’d give it to him.

And so it was a scant few minutes later, after feeding carefully selected information from columns one, two and three to the prime minister, that Valentine asked: “Who ordered the construction of more Martello Towers along the southern coast? There were to be no more, the threat of French invasion long past. And yet now, amazingly, more are popping up. Why? Is there something you haven’t told us? For shame, sir, for shame, when my brother has been so exceedingly honest with you.”

“Only a fool would believe that last statement. Besides, I’m certain I was asking the questions,” Perceval said smoothly.

Val sat back at his ease, crossing one leg over the other once more, his forearms resting lightly on the arms of the chair, indicating he was now in charge. They were both actors on a private stage, with nothing said or done without careful thought. Politics was a battle of sorts, fought with innuendo...and sometimes great fun, actually. “You were. Now, having been so marvelously cooperative, it’s my turn. Quid pro—whatever the rest of that is. I’m the second of two younger sons, and not expected to be brilliant.”

“Quid pro quo. This for that. An even exchange, although I highly suspect the latter isn’t true in this case.” Perceval’s neck turned rather red above his collar. “Very well, although this has nothing to do with you.”

“On the contrary. Redgrave Manor is located quite near the coast, if you’ll recall, and a prime spot from which to launch an invasion. If we’re to have uninvited visitors from across the Channel, we should be laying in large quantities of truffles and snails.” Valentine smiled his most mischievous smile. “Lord knows we already have enough French brandy.”

“How amusing. But very well, if you’ll promise to go away.”

“Reluctantly,” Valentine lied smoothly. “But, yes, I will go, never to darken your door again. Or would that be window?”

“Again, how amusing,” Perceval said blandly. “The additional towers are merely a precaution. A spy was discovered some months ago, thanks to a loyal subject of the Crown. Although he escaped capture, a discreet search of the man’s abandoned rooms disclosed, among other things, a communiqué written in code, detailing new plans for an invasion.”

Valentine’s mind was racing, even as he leisurely plucked an imaginary bit of lint from his coat sleeve. “My, my. And oh, dear, as well. Such disturbing news, although if memory serves me, Bonaparte has been setting his eyes eastward of late, with his presumed eventual target being Russia. Does he even have the ships and troops to attack us here?” He looked at the prime minister quizzically. “Hmm, and here’s a thought. Easily deciphered, this conveniently discovered communiqué, would you say?” Val asked quietly.

“I’ll have you know the government employs only the most talented...” Perceval sighed. “Yes, easily deciphered. I’ll admit that worried me, but not enough to disregard the information.”

“You had no choice but to react prudently.” Valentine kept his expression blank. It wouldn’t do to embarrass the prime minister by telling him, if the Redgraves were correct in their conclusions as to the reason behind the renewed construction, he and the Crown had been badly hoodwinked. So he contented himself by asking his intended question, the one that had brought him here this evening: “Who warned the government of this suspected spy? Do you know?”

Perceval was rubbing at his cheek, hard, as if to ease some pain in his now tightly clenched jaw. “Yes, not that it helps. I personally received the information via a letter penned to me by one of the king’s coterie of chums, one Guy Bedworth, Marquis of—”

“Mellis,” Valentine finished for him, knowing another hope had been dashed; he would learn nothing from the marquis. “The late Marquis of Mellis. Also, if I recall correctly, a great chum of my father’s.” And known by us to have been a member of the Society during Barry’s time...and perhaps again now, or at least until his death. “Sudden, was it?”

“Sad, that. Although perhaps fitting. He was found slumped in his favorite chair in his favorite club, you know. There aren’t many better ways to go.”

There’s one, Valentine thought, prudently lowering his eyes, that of being carefully dressed and placed in his favorite chair in his favorite club after expending his last energies in the bed of one Dowager Countess of Saltwood—Trixie Redgrave, mine own grandmother. To hear Gideon tell it—which he’d done only with the most reluctance—the worst, other than pulling Mellis’s drawers on, had been attempting to rid the man’s face of an unholy grin.

“He was also a bosom friend of my grandmother,” Valentine managed at last. Literally. “A pity then. We’ll learn nothing from him.” Only what Trixie learned concerning the Society before old Guy cocked up his toes (among other things), and that, Prime Minister, is included in Column Two: things you will never know.

“Are we through here?” Perceval got to his feet, indicating he clearly thought so, and since this was, at least for the length of his term of office, his home, Valentine rose, as well. “Please convey the Crown’s sincere thanks for all your family has done, most especially for thwarting that nasty business of shipping troop supplies to the incorrect ports. Although, when it comes to the smuggling of spies and secrets, I suppose this clever group will only find themselves another landing beach, won’t they? These are serious, frightening times, Mr. Redgrave.”

“Downright terrifying, some might say. I realize I’m being given the boot, but are you at the same time dismissing all the Redgraves?”

“How astute of you. Yes, I am. I won’t say the earl hasn’t been helpful, and will not say he has his own personal interests in mind as well as those of the Crown—”

“Ah, but you just said both.”

Perceval motioned toward the hallway. “Let it go, Mr. Redgrave. This business about the Society, as you insist on terming this particular gang of traitorous thugs, is of no especial import to anyone save your family. We are interested in much larger game now, that of thwarting Bonaparte.”

“And you see no connection between the two, even after being told about the smugglers on Redgrave land. Amazing.”

“You’re wrong again. I don’t care about the connection. There’s a difference. Of course these men must be found, and stopped, stamped out, along with any other pockets of traitors, and unfortunately, there are several.” The prime minister was beginning to look testy, not a good look on the man. “You’ve admitted you learned no more names, and in fact, by confronting the men on the beach yourselves rather than contacting me, you may have sent them all to ground, which is the very opposite of helpful, Mr. Redgrave. Do you understand now?”

“Yes, I was afraid you might come to that conclusion.” Valentine retrieved his hat, gloves and cane from a dark corner of the study. “So, in other words, thank you awfully for bringing the sticky matter of a group of powerful men out to hand England over to the French to you on a platter, but now please go away?”

“Or else find yourselves brought to task for interfering in Crown business? Very good, Redgrave, that’s precisely what I’m saying. Kindly convey my like sentiments to Lord Singleton. We will take matters from here.”

“Having made such whacking great progress in unmasking these traitors on your own.” Valentine placed his hat on his head at a jaunty angle and then gave it a solid thump to secure it. He knew he really should shut up now, before he truly was clapped in irons. He’d gotten what he’d come for: the information about the Martello Towers, and his congé, which freed all Redgraves from being in the sticky position of having to report to the Crown (or conduct themselves within the rules, which often got in the way of progress).

But, at the end of the day, no Redgrave wished to hear he’d been dismissed. It was a matter of pride, or something.

Perceval stepped back as a clearly confused uniformed guard opened the door for the exit of a man he hadn’t seen enter. Valentine gave him a short salute.

The prime minister followed him, to stand in the open doorway as Valentine hesitated on the marble step, to pull on his evening gloves. “You’re not going to leave this alone, you Redgraves, are you?”

Valentine debated between truth and evasion, deciding it wouldn’t be polite to lie to the prime minister directly after insulting him. “My apologies again to your lady wife for having disturbed you.”

“Just go, Redgrave,” Perceval said wearily.

“Yes, within the moment. Only one thing more. Only a trifling thing, but I must ask. The guns on the Martello Towers, my lord, they’re bolted into place, correct—strong, immovable? Which way do they face?”

“Now you’re wasting my time. You know which way they face. They face the enemy.”

“A sterling defense, although not a great help if attack were to come from inland. They’re rather defenseless in that situation.”

“That wouldn’t happen. The towers were built, are being built, to prevent the enemy from ever landing on our shores, let alone moving inland.”

Valentine leaned in closer, and spoke quietly. “Unless the enemy, helped by, oh, say a band of highly placed traitors calling themselves the Society, found a way to slowly bring over and hide trained troops to capture the towers, including those you’ve so conveniently recommenced building. More than one hundred of them, marching along the southern coast. Imagine that, my lord, if you can. Then the enemy those guns would face would be our Royal Navy, as we attempt to stop an invading army brought to our shores under the protection of those same guns.”

“That’s not how wars are fought.”

“The gentlemanly rules of warfare only work if both sides agree to them. Or have you never read of the Trojan horse?”

He then smiled, satisfied his parting shot had given the prime minister a lot to think about, bowed and quit No. 10 for the damp of a foggy London evening.

He walked to the corner and the Redgrave town coach that had been awaiting his arrival. A groom hastened to open the door and let down the step, and was therefore able to then carry the whispered direction of Valentine’s next destination up to the coachie on the box. With any luck, he should find his quarry in the card room. Lord Charles Mailer, a man whose acquaintance he’d been carefully nurturing for the past fortnight.

Because no Redgrave worth his salt was ever caught without an alternate plan.

CHAPTER TWO

AFTERAFORTNIGHTspent carefully cultivating the man’s interest and friendship, Valentine had come to the conclusion Lord Charles Mailer—crude, mean and profane—was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid.

Although that description of the man seemed to contradict itself, Valentine meant it. If he could suspend a sign above Mailer’s head, to remind him of his conclusions, it would read: He’s a Buffoon, But Tread Carefully!

In physical appearance, Lord Mailer was...unimpressive. At least when held to Valentine’s high standards. The man dressed importantly, impeccably, but without flair, sans any real style. When it came to fashion, he followed the crowd, and if the crowd arbitrarily decided to suddenly begin rolling up its cravats and tying them about its foreheads, Lord Charles Mailer would be trotting through Mayfair resembling nothing more than a rather puffy, pale-faced, red-haired American Indian.

This second son of the Earl of Vyrnwy, and carrying one of that powerful man’s merely honorary titles, Mailer had until recently volunteered his services at the Admiralty, until leaving town quite suddenly after his friend Archie Upton had stepped (been pushed?) under the wheels of a brewery wagon. But Mailer couldn’t seem to stay away from Mayfair. He’d returned only a single day after Valentine had arrived in the metropolis, planning to visit with his grandmother before moving on from there to chase his target down on his small estate. But Trixie was not in London. Mailer was.

Valentine considered all of this to be serendipity, or perhaps even a heavenly blessing on his plan. The seeming duet of coincidences might also be traced back to the devil, he supposed, which was why it was never a good idea to dig too deeply into such things. Trixie would only have deviled him with questions about Mailer, anyway, since it was she who had discovered his and Upton’s association with the Society.

Simon Ravenbill had earlier attempted to break down Upton and Mailer in order to gain more insight into the Society, but Valentine believed Simon had been too heavy-handed in his pursuit. Valentine...well, he rather prided himself on his finesse. He wouldn’t say he had Mailer landed in the boat quite yet, but he had fairly well seated the hook in the man’s mouth. It was simply a matter of playing his fish now—feeding him line, then reeling him in again, all while inwardly despising him, another of Valentine’s talents.

Really, he should consider a whirl or two on the stage, except Gideon would most certainly not approve, and Trixie would embarrass him by shouting “Bravo!” over and over and perhaps even personally driving a wagonload of roses onto the stage.

But back to Valentine’s new chum.

Lord Mailer believed himself a wit, and, remembering his crude and mean nature, his humor often took the form of ridiculing his fellow man. His mind seemed never to stray far from sex—when he’d last had it, how much he longed for it, when he would next have it—and he delighted in publicly recalling his most memorable encounters.

Lord Mailer had arrived in town with his shy, blonde and unfortunately sallow-complexioned bride of less than a year—his second, as the first had perished in a sad accident involving a fall from a cliff (highly suspicious, that, to a man like Valentine), leaving behind two motherless children. He alternately ignored or teased Lady Caroline unmercifully, so that she kept her head down in public, seldom spoke above a whisper and rarely lifted her eyelids above half-mast.

As Valentine had led the woman into the dance at Lady Wexford’s ball the previous Saturday, Lady Caro had physically flinched when he’d taken her elbow, and then hastily explained she’d stumbled on the stairs that morning, and bruised her arm.

The woman couldn’t lie worth a damn, and Valentine, with his well-known weakness for ladies in distress, now had another reason to enjoy bringing Mailer down. But at least until the fact the man drew breath was no longer of importance to him, Charles Mailer would not know any of this.

Then he would.

Valentine looked forward to that day.

“You’re smiling beneath that hat, aren’t you, and not asleep at all,” the man who should by rights be measuring every breath commented as the well-sprung Vyrnwy coach smoothly rolled along through the countryside. “Good. Saves me the bother of having to elbow you awake. We’re nearly at Fernwood.”

Valentine eased himself upward out of his comfortable slouch, his booted feet no longer deposited on the facing seat, and tipped up the brim of his dove-gray curly brimmed beaver. He raked a hand through his nearly black, thick and overlong hair, which then tumbled in soft waves about his forehead and ears, the result a good rendering of a handsome, perfectly dressed and endearing ragamuffin. A look he knew suited him. “You said something, Charles? Good God, don’t tell me I was snoring. I’d never again be able to stay the night in any ladybird’s bed, if I knew that.”

“Is that where you went last night, after you left me at Lady Wexford’s? To rut? Who was she? Titled slut, paid whore? Either way, the older ones are always more grateful, ain’t they, if you take my meaning.”

“A gentleman never tells,” Valentine responded evasively as he slid a slim silver box of pastilles from his waistcoat pocket, flicked it open with one hand and popped a scented tablet into his mouth. “Here, for God’s sake take one. It will be an improvement over the sausages you swallowed down when we stopped for luncheon.”

Mailer glared at the contents for a moment, probably considering whether or not he’d just been insulted, and then fished out two pastilles for himself; the fellow was a glutton even in the smallest things. “You want me to tell you first, is that it?” he asked, clearly not letting the subject drop. “Very well. I had to content myself with my own wife, curse the luck. I’d do no worse sticking my cock through a knothole. That would be a large knothole.”

“As you say. Please don’t be too disappointed if I’ll not tease you for a personal inspection,” Valentine said, longing to choke the man.

“Yes, so I say, blast you. Stiff as a board, that woman.”

The silver lid snapped shut. “Then why bother?”

“You’re not leg-shackled, so you wouldn’t know. Got to keep them in line, that’s why. Because they’re women. They’ll do the damndest things if you ever slacken your hold on the leash.”

Like be so desperate as to step off a cliff to be away from you? Or perhaps she tugged too much on the leash and had to be pushed, and that’s why, for wife number two, you chose such a timid mouse? Valentine yawned behind his hand, having grown tired of his role of avid satyr, but sure it was time to trot it out for yet another airing.

“This is why I’m so grateful for our friendship, Charles, and for this invitation to visit your estate. All this wisdom you shower on me. Although, not to insult Lady Caro, if you don’t mind I think I’ll choose my own wife if that day ever dawns. Which I highly doubt. I’ve no need of an heir, for one, and much as I enjoy indulging myself in their anatomy, as a species I find females to be uniformly loathsome and inferior.”

“Enjoy their anatomy. Ha! If you ain’t a card, Redgrave. Believe me, you’ll have plenty to choose from, just as I promised. I knew I liked you, from that first night, even if you took Madame La Rue’s three best dollys up with you, and kept them busy for, what was it—three hours? I heard none of them were fit for service for days afterward.”

“Rumor only, Charles. Only two weren’t fit for service. The third damn near killed me with enthusiasm.” Gad, this is nauseating, especially since the man’s breeches are showing a decided bulge.

In truth, Valentine had treated the three ladies of the evening to several hands of whist and a supper he’d ordered up from the kitchens, and then paid the madam generously so that she’d keep the ladies out of service for a few days, claiming they were too worn for work. Two had napped on the bed until he’d left, but the third had offered herself, an invitation Valentine had turned down as gently as possible, his dedication to Crown and family not extending to a possible bout of the pox.

“As for the other, no insult taken,” Mailer said with a dismissing wave of his hand. The one with a gold ring on the index finger, fashioned in the shape of a fully opened rose.

Valentine couldn’t resist; he would let out a little more line, even while setting the hook deeper. “You know, Charles, I’ve been longing to ask. Barry, my late father, had just such a rose depicted in his portrait at the Long Gallery at Redgrave Manor, only his was in the form of a stickpin. Although the diamond may have been larger.”

“You don’t say?” Mailer held up his hand to inspect the ring, fingers spread, frowning at the diamond at its center. His hand trembled slightly, and he quickly lowered it again. “Gift from my maternal grandfather, actually. M’brother Geoffrey wanted nothing to do with it, said it was gaudy.”

“I think it exquisite. A bit of a stick, your brother, I suppose?”

“Too holy by half, yes. And dotty over his wife and kiddies, just like some commoner. M’father, too, for that matter. But Grandfather said I had just the right twinkle in my eye, and should get the rose and all once he’d stuck his spoon in the wall.”

And all? What was all? Could the fool be referring to the costume the Society members wore for their disgusting rites? One like Simon found with his late brother’s belongings? Yes, yes, the plot thickens.

Mailer’s pale eyes narrowed, but when he spoke again his tone was light. Not intelligent, but clever. “I don’t often wear the ring, actually, but only resurrected it to remind myself to be more careful in my pleasures.”

“And doesn’t that sound intriguing. You must tell me about this happy lapse. Perhaps I wish to make the same mistake.”

“I didn’t say it was a mistake, other than in shortening my pleasure.” Mailer smiled as he attempted to remove the ring, but it was stuck tight around his pudgy finger. “Who’s got old Barry’s, do you know? Seems to me I heard the earl himself was seen sporting a rose stickpin for a day or two.”

“Really?” Damn. Gideon only wore the thing to draw out the Society, and only a few times before prudently putting it away again once he understood its true meaning. “As Earl, the bugger inherited a near Midas treasury of geegaws and such. And we all know how vain he is, blast him. I doubt he wears the same stickpin twice in a decade. All while keeping me on a budget that would starve a mouse.”

“Older brothers can be the very devil,” Mailer agreed, dropping the subject in favor of pointing out the coach was about to arrive at his estate. “Ah, and would you look at that. There’s my planklike wife, arrived ahead of us as ordered, and the two whelps, all at attention, awaiting their lord and master. That’s all well and good, but there’d best be ice from the icehouse on the drinks table, or heads will roll.”

Valentine looked out the off window of the coach to see Lady Caro and two young children standing at attention on the drive directly in front of the doors to the place, a double row of servants behind them, lining the steps on either side. Ran a tight ship, Lord Mailer did, and didn’t everyone look so happy to see him? They all (save a pair of yapping dogs, who probably greeted everyone with near-insane anticipation) could have been facing a full firing squad for all the joy in anyone’s eyes.

How wonderful he’d thought to position a plain coach at the inn they’d last passed along the roadway; he’d seen his coachman, Twitchill, lounging on a bench just outside the inn door. The man had put a finger to his slouch hat as the Mailer coach rolled past. Valentine considered it prudent to never enter into anyone’s front door without knowing a quick way out the back, as it were. Having to rely on Lord Charles for return transport to London held no appeal.

His gaze slid lastly to the tall, slender, plainly dressed, rather round-shouldered young woman who stood off to the right, darkly scowling behind her spectacles while doing her best to control the two small white dogs on their leashes. He may not have seen her at all, were it not for the yapping dogs, and the way a thin, watery sun seemed to find and catch at streaks of gold in her darkly red hair. Hair she had scraped back tightly into a bun thicker than his fist.

Was he the only one who noticed she seemed to be in costume? Damn Perceval for an interring nuisance, clearly sending a watchdog to spy on him. And to prefer some barque of frailty over him? Or was she only in disguise thanks to his reputation, so that he wouldn’t pursue her? Insulting, that’s what that was, either way.

“Lovely family, Charles, and clearly a well-schooled staff,” he said, leaning back against the squabs once more. “But who’s the drab?”

Mailer poked his head front and peered out as the coach door was opened and the steps pulled down, then laughed. “Ah, the redoubtable Miss Marchant. A piece of work, that one, but she seems able to control m’wife and the brats. Pity she’s plain as a pikestaff and nearly as skinny. Can’t abide a woman without tits. Tits and hips, and the more the better, right? A man deserves something soft to land in, I say.”

And as he’d said all of this, Mailer was stepping onto the gravel, his words clearly heard by everyone. Miss Marchant, his children, his staff and, most certainly, his painfully thin little wife. The dogs, whose yapping might have been helpful, had instantly quieted and were even now lying hunched on their fat bellies, as if hoping to disappear into the ground.

“My lord,” Lady Caroline said, dropping into a curtsy, tugging at the female child’s skirts so that she did, as well, while the boy bowed to his father. “Mr. Redgrave. Welcome.” She then turned to the governess. “Daisy? If you’ll return them to the nursery, please?”

Half dragging the reluctant dogs, the woman shuffled over to the small gathering and gave a quick, eyes-averted curtsy to the gentlemen before bringing the children to heel with a discreet clearing of her throat.

“Daisy, is it?” Valentine drawled, leaning his head slightly forward to attempt to discern the color of her downcast eyes. “That won’t be difficult to remember. My sister’s mare is named Daisy. Oddly enough, she’s also a chestnut. Do you ride well, Daisy Marchant?”

Mailer gave a snort of laughter and pounded Valentine on the back in glee, nearly sending him reeling, even as the governess raised her eyes for a moment, a split second, no more, to glare daggers at them both.

Ah. Blue. Huge, and blue, and intelligent...and you’d enjoy nothing more than turning my guts into garters. Miss Daisy Marchant, you’ve done it now...and we will meet again.

* * *

“I CANONLY apologize again, Daisy,” Lady Caro said miserably as she sat in front of her dressing table, bony shoulders slumped and eyes threatening to spill over with tears yet again. “His lordship never thinks to mind his tongue.”

Daisy pulled the pair of silver-backed brushes through her ladyship’s long blond hair. She’d been summoned to minister to her mistress, not an uncommon demand. Seven-year-old Lydia and three-year-old William had been tucked up after their porridge and left in charge of the nurse an hour earlier, and now it was time for the mistress of the household to go downstairs to play hostess again for her guest once the men left their brandy and cigars behind them in the dining room.

If Daisy could only get the woman to move. Lord knew she couldn’t seem to get her to eat this past month. And when she did force down a few bites, as when taking her meals with guests, she more often than not, like tonight, then ran upstairs to vomit into her chamber pot.

She’d believed the woman ill, or increasing, but after overhearing Lord Mailer this afternoon, she was now nursing another theory. The woman had begun starving herself in order to avoid her husband’s attentions. In Lady Caro’s place, she knew she might have done the same thing...although she felt fairly certain she’d be more inclined to bounce a brick off his flaming red head. Perhaps she should suggest...?

But not now. First Daisy had a few questions she’d like answered before hopefully convincing her to return to the drawing room. “And Mr. Redgrave? I suppose we can say the same about him for his remarks?”

Lady Caroline looked into the mirror at Daisy’s reflection. “I don’t know. That was all so confusing to me. He was ever so kind to me in London. Perhaps it was only because you’re a servant, although that shouldn’t make a difference, should it? Not if he’s a real gentleman.”

“Perhaps that’s the answer. He’s no real gentleman.”

“Although quite well set up, don’t you think? And clean.” The woman put her hands to her pale cheeks. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have said that. Because I’m not in the least interested, of course. Still, if one has to, at least he’s...” Her voice trailed off on a sigh.

Daisy let Lady Caroline’s mind go off on whatever tangent she wished, giving herself permission to reflect (not for the first time), on the physical attributes of Mr. Valentine Redgrave.

She wondered first at his age, as she was all of two and twenty, not that such a fact would ever come into play, seeing as how he’d just hours earlier compared her to a horse, and then added that unspeakable innuendo about riding. Still, she thought he was probably no more than a few years her senior, as time had yet to carve a single line in his definitely handsome face.

His hair was a marvel, in such complete opposite to his finely cut clothes that seemed to caress his slimly muscular body, showing off his straight shoulders and strong thighs. From the neck down, he was the compleat gentleman, the pride of his tailor, but from the cravat up? That amused slash of mouth, that faintly foreign aquiline nose, that thick riot of nearly black hair that blew about his face? He appeared a paradox, his perfect features softening, making him look younger than his years. Approachable. Touchable...

But it was his eyes that had intrigued her most. They were not simply brown, but amber, long-lashed and—had it been her imagination?—sympathetic. She could actually imagine his eyes apologizing for the humiliating words coming from his mouth.

But that was ridiculous. He had come to Fernwood in Charles Mailer’s company, hadn’t he? That was really all Daisy needed to know.

“I’m feeling better now, thank you, Daisy. I suppose you can stop now.”

Daisy shook herself back to attention. How long had she been brushing the woman’s hair to help ease her headache? Long enough to feel a cramp between her purposely stooped shoulder blades. “Very good, madam. Shall I call Davinia now to put up your hair once more?”

Lady Caroline’s sigh was audible, almost trembling: nearly a shudder. “Yes, I can put this off no longer, although it’s just Mr. Redgrave this evening. Tomorrow there will be others and it will only grow worse. Charles hasn’t even told me any names. Which could be more terrible, do you think? Knowing, or not knowing? Oh, now I’m saying too much. Perhaps some few drops of laudanum sprinkled on my handkerchief...?”

Daisy patted the woman’s shoulder, wishing there were some way she could protect her. But there wasn’t. Not yet. “And have you falling asleep, your nose in your teacup? Wouldn’t that be a silly thing? You’ll be fine, I promise you. Do you remember what I told you?”

Caroline nodded. “Speak only of the weather and my stepchildren and everyone will go away, believing me a dead bore. Which I am, you know. I don’t understand the half of what anyone says, and seem to laugh at all the incorrect times. They make me so nervous. They’re all so hard, so brittle.”

And they show up every full moon, just like some mythical beasts risen from the depths, claws and fangs out and ready to pounce. Ah, Rose, how frightened you must have been when you realized your fate. But this time, sweet sister, this full moon, perhaps I’ll be able to learn more....

“Daisy? Daisy, you’re hurting me.”

Daisy quickly removed her hand from Caro’s shoulder, unaware she’d begun digging her fingertips into the woman’s soft flesh. But she felt so useless. She hadn’t been able to help her sister. She couldn’t help this woman. Not yet. Not until she fully understood what was happening. Because there was more happening than she’d first been forced to believe.

“Forgive me, ma’am. My mind must have gone off wandering.”

“And clearly not to a pleasant place,” Lady Caroline said, rubbing at her thin shoulder. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I’m much better now, I promise. Yes, decidedly better. It must be my monthly flux that has me so upset.”

Such intimate talk never made Daisy comfortable, especially Lady Caroline’s seeming obsession with her monthly flux. “Is it so very painful?”

“Only in that it has not yet arrived,” Lady Caroline said as Daisy lifted a small silver bell and rang for Davinia, who was doubtless already listening at the keyhole.

Daisy didn’t care for Davinia, a sour-faced old woman who may be her ladyship’s maid, but clearly knew her quarterly wages emanated from his lordship’s purse.

“She tells him, you know,” Caroline whispered quickly, as if able to read Daisy’s thoughts. “I can’t lie, because she tells him. Shh, here she comes. You go back up to the nursery now, Daisy, and don’t bother to think you need must be here when I return.” She raised her voice slightly. “Davinia takes very good care of me—don’t you, Davinia?”

The older woman said nothing, but merely waved Daisy away and began twisting Caroline’s hair back into its original topknot, ready to be strung through with paste pearls.

Daisy curtsied, wished her mistress a good evening and gratefully escaped the dressing room, stepping into the hallway without first checking to see if it was empty, and rolled her shoulders a time or two to relax them as she straightened her posture. Not a mistake she would have made if her mind weren’t so otherwise occupied.

“Well, hello there, Daisy. And where would you be rushing off to?”

Redgrave.

She dropped into a quick, shoulders-front curtsy, keeping her eyes down. “I’m needed in the nursery, sir,” she mumbled quietly as she rose once more.

“To teach them sums while they sleep, I suppose. But only after leaving her ladyship. Got your fingers in more than one pie, do you? Clever.”

Daisy nearly raised her head, but managed to remain quite still in her subservient pose. “I’m confident you know what you mean, sir, but I do not. If you’ll excuse me...?”

He stepped in front of her. “Curiosity compels the question. So, what is it? Impecunious orphaned child of some village vicar? Well-schooled but penniless daughter of a teacher? Or perhaps neither of those, but something more? The possibilities are nearly endless. Your mother married beneath her, your father was disowned, you were disowned, naughty puss? Please, must I go on?”

He wasn’t the sort to give up easily. His smile told her that; he wasn’t going to let her pass until she answered his question. If she moved to her left, he would move to his right; if she moved to her right, he would step to his left. The last thing she wished was to be caught up in some awkward dance of moves and countermoves, one he seemed eager to engage in with her.

“Impoverished daughter of the late Reverend James Marchant, Hampshire,” she said, raising her chin. “He also taught Latin to the village boys, if that doesn’t confuse the issue. In any case, fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.”

“‘Men willingly believe what they wish.’ Julius Caesar. So you’re a bluestocking, as well. No wonder he steers clear. Very well, you may go.”

Mailer; he meant Lord Mailer. Daisy, not about to pretend she didn’t understand who he was, was instead about to point out that Mr. Redgrave did not have charge of either her comings or her goings. She quickly thought better of it. The man was already too interested by half, not that she could understand why. None of Mailer’s other guests these past months had ever paid her the least attention.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, curtsying yet again, hoping there was no sarcastic edge to her voice.

But as she moved to make good her exit he grabbed at her elbow, eased closer. She looked up into his odd amber eyes, and nearly flinched. She could see flecks of gold in them, and the intelligence, the humor. “You’re more than welcome, Daisy. It’s too late now, but in hindsight, considering the man doesn’t have a discerning hair on his solid-as-a-plank head, do you ever think those hideous spectacles may have taken the thing a step too far?”

Really? She’d been rather proud of the spectacles. Plain glass, but thick as windowpanes, so that anyone would think she was half-blind. She’d been wonderfully overlooked for three months, by everyone. But not, drat him, Mr. Valentine Redgrave. He couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d suddenly grown horns. Her stomach plummeted to her toes. Her blood ran cold, sending tiny pinpoint prickles to dancing on her skin. She wondered if she might faint.

“Forgive me, Mr. Redgrave. I have no idea what you mean by—”

He released her arm. “No, of course you don’t. I won’t even ask whom you work for, because I’d like to cherish the notion that even those hare-brained idiots in Downing Street wouldn’t insert anyone so obvious. Just remember this if you will, as I certainly make it a point to do so. Appearances are often deceiving.”

Whom did she work for? Goodness, whom did he work for? What on earth was he talking about?

Still, she took a chance. Perhaps it was the eyes...or that she was as foolish and gullible as her sister. Or that she so needed an ally that, like some drowning sailor, she would reach desperately for any floating straw. Because lately she’d been feeling as if she’d stumbled into something very much over her head, and if Redgrave had shown up here for some reason of his own, well, maybe he knew what was going on. “And behavior can be deceiving, as well, Mr. Redgrave?”

“Good girl. I loathe long explanations, but if my instincts are correct—and they very nearly always are—one may be needed here, from each of us. Where can we meet tomorrow?”

Meet? Daisy hadn’t expected that. Then again, she didn’t seem to expect anything that came out of the man’s mouth. “We...um. I insist Lydia and William be out-of-doors at least three hours a day, one directly after breaking their fast, and another two after luncheon. Dependent on the weather, naturally.”

“Naturally. Wouldn’t want the little dears to catch a chill. Then we’ll be well chaperoned, if that worries you,” Valentine said, nodding his approval. “Very well, I’ll be certain to be on my best behavior so as to not shock the kiddies. Until then, Daisy, I suggest you don’t attempt anything foolish, such as searching my rooms. You might startle Piffkin.”

She blinked. “You brought your dog here?”

When Valentine Redgrave smiled in real amusement, it was as if the sun had just come out, to burn away any remnants of a cloudy day. Daisy could fairly fancy she felt its warmth, and had to fight a ridiculous urge to bring herself closer to the intoxicating heat. She’d been forced to depend on her wits on her own for so long...had she actually come to hope for help in any port?

“My valet, Daisy, although I see your point. But, contrary to what his name might imply, unlike Mailer’s pitiful specimens, he doesn’t bark. He bites.” He glanced toward the door to Lady Caro’s dressing room, as if he’d heard something. “And now I must go, and so must you.”

“But we don’t even... That is, I don’t see why we should— Oh, hang it,” she ended to his departing back as he headed for the main staircase.

What had just happened?

But she knew what had just happened.

A pair of soft amber eyes had just happened. A warm smile. That thick mane of hair her fingers itched to touch.

Was Valentine Redgrave a badly needed ally, or an exceedingly clever foe?

Or was he simply the most beautiful man she’d ever seen up close? Perhaps she was just as gullible and needy and soon to be disillusioned as poor, doomed Rose.

CHAPTER THREE

“JUSTTHETWO of us for breakfast, Charles?” Valentine asked as he was ushered into the morning room by one of the footmen. “How cozy.”

His lordship looked up from his plate of coddled eggs, a bit of yolk clinging to his chin. “You were observed speaking with Miss Marchant yesterday evening,” he said without preamble. “Why? Making some late-night assignation after all you said to the contrary?”

So he’d been correct; that door had opened a crack.

Hmm. Take umbrage? Look puzzled? What to do, what to do? Valentine knew he needed a reaction, quickly.

He spoke while making his way along the sideboard, loading his plate with a steady hand, his back to Mailer.

“Daisy? Although she’d be more fittingly named after some noxious, prickly weed,” he said, having decided on a course of action. He would—for the moment—ignore the fact that Mailer’s servants reported to him, and concentrate on keeping Daisy’s secret safe. “I fear my gentlemanly conscience belatedly got the better of me. When I chanced to see the sad creature slumping down the hall on my way downstairs, I felt bound by good manners to apologize for my earlier remarks. Lord knows she’s got enough problems on her own, without me adding to them. One can only hope the poor woman doesn’t now decide to take me in affection, for that would only lead to sorry disappointment. She couldn’t raise my interest were she to fling her naked self at my feet.”

Adding a single slice of buttered toast to his plate, he turned about to face his host, his eyelids narrowed. “Now if you’d care to explain why my movements are being watched, I’d own to being quite curious to hear your answer.”

Perfect. Admit to something—mea culpa, mea culpa—and then quickly turn the tables so that the other person is cast into the role of wrongdoer. Kate’s advice did come in handy from time to time. Look at Mailer—the wind seems to have entirely gone out of his sails.

“I—I only thought to ask if she’d bothered you in any way,” Mailer said, not precisely a master of improvisation. “My wife took her on a few months ago while I was not at home. She’s no thief, I tempted her by leaving my ring on the hallway table...”

Valentine sat himself down and flourished his serviette before placing it on his lap. “That ring? Perhaps it simply wasn’t to her taste.”

Mailer held out his hand, the diamond at the center of the golden rose catching the sunlight. “There’s nothing wrong with this—you don’t think it isn’t masculine enough, do you? I mean, a rose?”

I could skewer that damn ring through his nose and lead him around by it, no question. A true follower, nothing remotely resembling a leader. A man we need, but not the man we seek. “Nonsense, Charles, I’ve already told you it’s a fine ring.” Then, unable to resist, he added with an indulgent smile, “If you favor that sort of thing.”

Mailer twisted the thing around his finger, and this time slipped it off and into his pocket. “The thing is, I believe Miss Marchant may be smart.” He said the word as if this were somehow vile, to be avoided at all costs.

Valentine coughed into his hand, to cover a grin. “Really? I would have thought that preferable in a governess, perhaps even mandatory.”

“They’re just nursery brats, what do they need of a governess? Companion is more like it, that’s what she is. I don’t like it. I didn’t mind, not at first. But she makes my skin crawl somehow. I catch her looking at me, and I—”

“Look back?” Valentine asked as he cut into a thick slice of ham; who would have thought sparring with idiots could so increase his appetite. Then he looked up, pulling a face. “Charles, you must be jesting. Nobody could be that desperate. It would be like seducing a broomstick.”

“God’s teeth, no! When I have— No! She’s in the way at times, that’s all. Besides, I’ve never been partial to red hair.”

Valentine took a bite of ham while keeping his amazed gaze on Mailer. “Really?”

“I know, I know. I’ve red hair, and I loathe it. But it’s on top of my head, so at least I’m spared having to look at it.”

Valentine threw back his head and laughed. “Charles, you’re a complete card. It’s no wonder I like you so much as to bury myself here in the country,” he said, and watched as the man preened. “Now tell me again about this amazing party you dangled in front of me, as I only see the two of us here. And your lady wife, of course.”

Mailer frowned. “Yes, I know. I received a note earlier. It seems there has been a delay of some sort, and the remainder of the party won’t arrive for another few days.”

Valentine considered this dollop of news. Perhaps the rest of the party was still out hunting for their missing shipment from France? Searching for their goods, and for one Honorable Ambrose Webber, who had so foolishly put a period to his own existence rather than be captured, and who now was most probably nothing more than a skeleton lying at the bottom of the Straits of Dover, bits of him having filled the bellies of a variety of marine life.

Valentine rather hoped there wouldn’t be a fish course at dinner.

“That’s a pity, then, isn’t it? Do these tardy guests have names, or are they to be a surprise? I rather dislike surprises, Charles. You said I was in for elevated political conversation and some entertainment that indulges what even the most lenient fleshpots in Piccadilly refuse. I suppose I could deal with the loss of the former, but if you’ve been exaggerating the latter, well, then, Charles, shame on you, and I’ll be leaving.”

“No, no, you can’t leave— That is to say, you’ll miss all the fun! As to the other guests? Well, you see now, that’s the thing,” Mailer said, pushing a split, smoked herring around his plate with his fork. “It’s all true, just what I said—beyond your wildest imaginings, I promise you. But...but I explained this, didn’t I? No, I suppose I didn’t.” He looked across the table at Valentine, his expression hopeful. “I didn’t? Are you sure?”

Valentine imagined the herring shoved halfway down Mailer’s throat. Nasty, but the image helped him tamp down his temper. “No, you didn’t, and yes, I’m quite sure. Why don’t you do that now, if you’re done dissecting your kippers. I admit to being highly intrigued.”

Mailer put down his fork. “The thing is...the thing is, I’m not certain who is coming. It...varies. Yes, that’s the word. Varies. Variety being the...the something of life.”

“The very spice of life, the thing that gives it all its flavor. Cowper said it first, I believe.” Valentine sat back in his chair. “I see.” Then he sat front again, glaring at Mailer over the candlesticks. “No, that’s a lie. I don’t see. Are you host of this party or not?”

Mailer dismissed the servants with an abrupt wave of his hand, then leaned forward toward Valentine, not speaking until the door closed behind the footmen. “Look, sometimes it’s...well, the guests are known, and we meet here at Fernwood. But at other times we meet somewhere else, and the entertainment is more...anonymous.”

“Here, perhaps there—and you say you don’t know? Not the time, not the place? My first instincts were right, weren’t they? You’re all talk, Charles, boastful talk and wishful thinking. I should simply hire a coach and head back to town. I’ve already explained my appetites, and you assured me—”

“Oh, but I meant it, I meant every word! Anything and anyone you want, anything and anyone you desire. London’s brothels are but pale imitations of what you and I deserve, just as I told you that night after we left Madame La Rue’s and you complained yours all objected to the restraints.”

“Love knots, and not for long,” Valentine corrected, remembering with extreme distaste the sharing of experiences Charles had insisted upon after they’d departed the brothel. “Compliance. It’s all in the way you present the thing.”

“Yes, if you’re into begging,” Mailer said, his eyes gone flat and hard. “If it’s pleading you want to do, it can be arranged, but why beg when you can demand, hmm? Did I tell you about the time I—”

It was time to take charge of the little fish.

“Again with the boasts, and all as you continue to tell me I must be patient,” Valentine said, tossing his serviette on the table and getting to his feet; if he took one more bite he might just cast up his accounts in Mailer’s face. “Two days, Charles. I can almost enjoy being bucolic for two days, but no more. Understood?”

Mailer rose, as well. “Yes, yes, do that. Anything you wish, anything at all. The grounds are lovely, you know.”

“But your wife isn’t. I do not want to see her at table again while I’m in residence. Do you understand?”

Mailer nodded furiously. “She’s sadly indisposed as of this moment. Is there anything else you require? One of the maids? I can personally recommend—”

Valentine cut him off. “A man of my name and reputation doesn’t so lower himself as to diddle the servants.” He took a line from his grandmother’s verbal arsenal and asked, “Were you raised by wolves?”

“I—I—I say, Valentine, that wasn’t called for.”

Valentine bowed, figuratively feeding out more line. “You’re correct. Forgive me, Charles. I’m embarrassed to say my hot Spanish blood doesn’t deal well with delays. If you’ll excuse me now, I believe I should take myself off outside, perhaps to walk away my foul mood, partake of a liquid lunch at some nearby pub. We’ll speak again at the dinner table. Perhaps by then you’ll have more news on your other guests. Should we call them guests? Fellow participants, perhaps?”

“Ha-ha,” Mailer laughed nervously, and waved him on his way.

At the doorway, Valentine turned to see the man once again attacking his kippers, seemingly confident the conversation had gone well, that he’d ridden over some rough ground and traversed it all to his satisfaction.

What a total ass.

Valentine returned to his assigned bedchamber, running down Piffkin in the dressing room. The valet retrieved his master’s newly brushed hat and smoothed gloves before handing him a carved ivory-topped sword cane.

“Really, Piffkin? It’s not as if I’m to be strutting up Bond Street, now is it?” Valentine asked, refusing the hat and gloves. He did accept the cane, but only to prop it against the wall. “As for the cane, I’m taking a leisurely country stroll over my new bosom chum’s estate, not facing a Piccadilly alley alone at midnight.”

The dour-faced man of uncertain years merely shrugged and turned back to the pressing iron he was employing to smooth one of a pile of pristine neckcloths currently residing on a tabletop. Piffkin wore white cotton gloves at all times, even when pressing neckcloths or laying out towels for the master’s bath. This, more than anything, described Piffkin. The gloves, and his fatherly concern for young Master Valentine.

“There may be bears in the woods, sir,” he said in way of explanation.

“Piffkin, there haven’t been bears on this damp island in a thousand years. All right, except those brought here from Europe for bear-baiting, a despicable excuse for sport.”

“Indeed. One or two may have escaped a cruel master, and even now lurk close by, eager to revenge themselves on any passerby so foolish as to stumble about in unfamiliar woods, unarmed.”

Piffkin turned to smile broadly at Valentine, showing a remarkable gold tooth Valentine had always admired but never dared to inquire about since he was seven, and the valet, then nursemaid, had told him he’d been given it as a reward for saving a princess in a tower. If the man didn’t want his charge to know the true story, then so be it. Valentine had secrets he wouldn’t care to share with Piffkin, either.

“Observe me as I dutifully tuck the cane beneath my arm, thankful to have such a caring friend concerned for my welfare.”

“Concerned? I simply don’t wish to have to clean up the mess in an effort to make you presentable for the dowager countess. Sewing your ears back on and such before laying you out,” Piffkin said, the gold tooth in evidence once more.

“How much does Trixie pay you over and above what I do, Piffkin? How often do you report to her? I’ve always wondered.”

“Her ladyship worries over all her chicks. Be on the lookout for those bears, Master Valentine. I do believe they are plentiful here,” the valet said, and returned to his pressing, the conversation obviously over, his charge dismissed to go bear hunting.

Valentine was fairly well pleased with himself as he made his way downstairs and was bowed out-of-doors by a small boy in preposterously gilded livery.

For one thing, he knew for certain now that coincidence had nothing to do with his new friendship with Mailer. As he had been cultivating the man, the man had been cultivating him, most probably on orders sent to him at his country estate, which had brought Mailer hieing back to Mayfair. Purposely seeking him out, being amenable, testing him as to his politics and his pleasures, hanging the bait of unlimited debauchery while Valentine pretended an avid interest in both.

That was why he could run hot and cold with Mailer, threaten to leave and be indulged, insult and be smiled at in return. Mailer was acting on orders: get the fellow here and we’ll see what we’ve got. It hadn’t hurt that, while feigning drunkenness, Valentine had babbled about collapsed tunnels at Redgrave Manor and dirty little books full of wild tales that would put the ancient Kama Sutra to the blush.

Valentine knew he wasn’t Gideon, but he was a Redgrave, probably appearing as the easiest target for the Society. How did they plan to use him? So far, he’d convinced Mailer he was a kindred spirit, both in sexual tastes and politics. He’d waxed poetic about the glorious Bonaparte over a half-dozen bottles of wine, extolling the freedom of men and the injustice of this English folly concerning titles and younger sons. Being the first to push free of the womb took no special talent, it was sheer good luck, and deserved no special rewards, Bonaparte would reward endeavor, not birth order, et cetera.

He’d been brilliant, he thought, but he wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d got here on his own; he was here at Fernwood because the Society wanted him here.

And if they wanted him dead?

It was going to take more than a swordstick to protect him if he made a misstep. More than the stiletto tucked in his boot or the small pistol stuck into an inside pocket of his hacking jacket.

At least he had cleared one possible distraction out of his way. The so timid and sad Lady Caroline would be confined to her rooms. She was safer there, he hoped, and at least she wouldn’t be looking down the dining table at him with pleading eyes, or sadly staring at the wall, her mind gone somewhere else, making him want to forget he still needed Charles Mailer breathing. He contented himself by thinking the woman would make a much happier widow.

Now to get rid of Perceval’s so-obvious agent. He worked most effectively alone, without having to worry about anyone else getting in the way and muddying the waters. Especially a woman, damn it.

Leisurely swinging his cane, Valentine set off across the scythed lawns in search of the patently false governess and her charges, telling himself he was merely interested in rousting the woman from the estate.

But perhaps he wouldn’t shoo her back to Downing Street quite yet...not before he had satisfied his curiosity to see Miss Daisy Marchant with her hair down....

* * *

“I WANTTO go inside, Daisy,” seven-year-old Lydia complained. “My boots are pinching. Why did we have to wear boots? I don’t like it here. It’s muddy, and it smells.”

Daisy gritted her teeth, inwardly cursing Valentine Redgrave for a slugabed. Did he really think children slept past the first crowing rooster of the morning? They’d been up, and fed, and dragged into the fresh air before the dew had left the grass, and she would soon be at her wits’ end to keep them amused...and out of doors.

“I told you, sweetheart, I’ve decided upon a lesson in botany, and that’s why we’re in the greenhouse, to learn the names of all the pretty flowers.” And to stay out of sight of the windows of the house, and Lord Charles Mailer, not that Mr. Redgrave seems to be a man of his word.

Lydia grinned rather evilly. “Willie doesn’t care about botany. He’s eating dirt out of that pot over there.”

“Oh, laws—now I remember why I take care my usual charges are all above the age of ten. William, stop that!” Daisy hastened across the hard dirt floor to where the child was happily smearing dark, rich soil over his chubby cheeks. “What on earth do you think you’re doing, young man?”

Willie looked up at her, his small baby teeth and round blue eyes shining in his otherwise muddy brown face, and shrugged.

Clearly, Daisy thought, the boy was a prodigy. He didn’t answer her because it should be obvious to her what he was doing. Either that, or the child would eat anything that even vaguely resembled food, which was more likely.

She picked him up at the waist and held him at arms’ length in order to carry him to a nearby trough and pump, where she made short work out of cleaning his hands and face, which didn’t mean her plain morning gown came away from the exercise in pristine condition. Her cuffs were soggy and there were a few splashes of mud on her bodice. William’s little face, however, shone.

“You didn’t find any pretty pink squiggly things in the pot, did you, William?” she asked, more than slightly concerned as she bent to go eye to eye with him. “You didn’t eat any?”

“You mean worms, don’t you? Willie eats worms, Willie eats worms!” Lydia trilled, dancing about in her glee, her pinching boots forgotten.

“He does not!” Daisy protested, lifting the boy down from the wooden table and standing him on the dirt. “Stay,” she warned tightly.

Willie began to cry.

“Willie eats worms, Willie eats—”

“For the love of heaven, Lydia, stifle yourself.” Daisy winced. She was being a bad governess. A bad, bad governess. Clearly the children had no place in the greenhouse, and should be taken inside for a midmorning snack. William was always up for a snack, and Lydia could be easily bribed with the promise of a special story before bedtime. One having to do with dragons, or perhaps man-eating fish. Any sort of monster or ogre would do, as long as they died horribly in the end and the princess was saved by the handsome knight.

And speaking of handsome knights, she thought even as she pointed out a particularly fine rose to the children, I’m more now than ever convinced there aren’t any in my immediate future. I picked the one perfect spot for us to meet and talk without being observed, and all I’ve gotten for my genius so far are two filthy children and my hair misbehaving badly in all this humid heat. Where is the man?

“Now, children, this is a rose,” she said, holding on to the tail of William’s small jacket so he couldn’t wander. “I’m convinced it has some intricate Latin name, but for now we’ll simply call it a rose. A...a pink rose. Why don’t you sniff it, Lydia? It should smell delicious.”

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow!” Lydia cried out a moment later, holding on to one hand with the other and hopping about in circles. “I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!”

William began to cry. Again.

“You must have grabbed a thorn,” Daisy said, reaching for Lydia. “Stop hopping and let me see. Ah, yes, there it is. Let me just pluck it out.”

“No! Don’t touch it! This is all your fault, Daisy. You made me hurt myself.”

“Yes, of course,” Daisy bit out as she attempted to hold the child still. “I thought making you cry would be the perfect topping for my morning.”

“My, my, my, what do we have here? I was drawn inside by what I thought was a voice raised in song, a song of worms, no less, only to find a pretty princess, crying. No, no, this cannot be countenanced.”

Daisy’s spine went stiff at the highly dramatic, definitely mocking tone in Valentine Redgrave’s voice. Now he bothers to present himself? Just when I’m at my worst? How wonderful.

There was one thing to say, however: Lydia was definitely all female. The child took one look at Valentine and her cries were cut off as if by magic. The magic of a smile. “Are you a prince?”

“Indeed I am, fair lady, late from the kingdom of Redgravia,” Valentine said, bowing as if to a queen.

“Oh, good grief.” Daisy longed to murder him, and she’d always believed herself to be a calm, carefully controlled person. Perhaps a tad sarcastic when pushed too far, a failing her father had never been reluctant to point out to her, but she was by and large, she thought, a reasonable person. “Miss Lydia’s got a rose thorn stuck in her thumb and refuses to let me dislodge it,” she said, which was the only greeting he would get from her. A prince? Indeed!

“And I can see why she refused you, Miss Marchant,” Valentine said, going down on one knee in the dirt. “Clearly this is a magical thorn, and only a prince of the blood can remove it.”

“Then perhaps you’d be so good as to toddle off and fetch us one,” Daisy said sweetly, her blood boiling now. Did he have to look so much like a fairy-tale prince?

His smile made her feel petty. After all, he was only trying to help. The thorn had to be removed, and she didn’t relish chasing a screeching Lydia all over the greenhouse to get the job done.

“Your hand, fair princess, if you please,” he said, holding out his own.

Lydia curtsied and offered her hand (both done rather saucily, which made Daisy wonder if some females were simply born to beguile the opposite sex—a gift from the gods she herself had not been granted).

Valentine looked deeply into the girl’s eyes, complimenting them on their sky-blue brilliance, and at the same time managed to remove the thorn—which wasn’t all that deep in any case. He then dabbed at her thumb with a pristine handkerchief he’d produced from somewhere, neatly blotting away the single drop of blood.

“And now to banish the pain with a kiss,” he said. “By your leave, my princess?”

As Daisy opened her mouth to protest, Lydia nodded furiously...and Valentine bent, pressed a kiss on the child’s thumb.

“You’ve mud on your royal knee, prince,” she said as he stood up once more.

“Better than on my nose,” he countered, and then laughed as Daisy instinctively raised her fingers to her face.

“There’s no mud on my nose.”

“True. But your reaction tells me if I’d told you not to turn about because someone is standing behind you, the first thing you’d do is turn around. That’s the trouble with women. You’re too curious. I can’t have that.”

He couldn’t have that? The nerve of the man! She’d thought he’d be serious today. But here they were again, as they were last night, with him hinting at something she didn’t understand. It was a game she had no interest in playing at the moment. “Children, it’s time to go inside,” she said quietly. As far away from this genial madman as we can get!

But Lydia, who minutes earlier would have leaped at this suggestion, was too busy staring at her thumb in some bemusement. “I don’t want to go inside. I want to look at the pretty man...the pretty flowers. Don’t we, Willie?”

Since William was sucking on one of a handful of pastilles he’d inexplicably come in possession of, he neither agreed nor disagreed. He was too busy smiling up at Valentine.

“You’re incorrigible, and all your children will grow up to be entirely unmanageable,” she accused him quietly.

“You can’t ruin a child by encouraging their imaginations, my dearest grandmother always said, you can only achieve that by breaking his natural spirit to suit your will.” Valentine grinned. “She raised the entire current crop of Redgraves, you understand.”

“That explains so much. Your sisters were allowed to revel in fantasies and you and your brothers were given anything and everything you wished.”

“Two brothers, and we learned life has its responsibilities, as well, and one younger sister, who variously dubbed me her shining prince or the ogre at the gate, depending on her mood. Luckily for the young lady here, I suppose, I mostly was cast in the role of rescuing hero. With Kate, you rather had to be.”

Daisy shifted her feet in slight embarrassment. “Well, you certainly took to the role.”

“Thank you.” He gifted both them with an elegant bow. “Your humble servant, ladies.” Then he straightened, and called out to a young servant who’d just entered the greenhouse. “Here, young man,” he said, already reaching into his pocket, to extract a coin quickly slipped into an entirely new pocket. “The young miss wishes to have you assist her in gathering a large bouquet for the nursery, if you please. As for young Master William, he would very much desire a small trowel, a pot of water, an apron of sorts and a low table he can use to make pies. Mud pies. All young gentlemen enjoy patting out mud pies. Isn’t that right, Master William? Why, I can nearly feel the pleasurable experience of Redgrave mud squeezing out from between my fingers. Pure heaven, I promise you.”

For a child who seemed to never understand much of anything Daisy said to him, young Master William showed a quick intelligence in grasping what Valentine had offered. He grabbed the servant’s hand and began tugging him back to the trough.

“And a second bouquet, my prince, in thanks for your rescue,” Lydia gushed, dropping into her best curtsy before following after her brother.

Daisy opened her mouth to protest, but just as quickly shut it again. He was making the children disappear, and she was about to learn why, whether she wished to or not. She probably really wished to, much as she tried to tell herself she did not. She’d just have to stand here with her hair twisting itself up into ridiculous corkscrew curls and attempt to prove she was reasonably intelligent in spite of the mud and her damp cuffs.

“They’ll be safe enough, and near enough, for the few minutes we need, Miss Marchant,” Valentine assured her. He reached out and touched one of the errant ringlets hugging her nape, and a shiver ran down her neck, skipped across her shoulder, as if anticipating his further touch. “Almost alive, isn’t it, winding itself around my finger. I should like to see it all down.”

A lesser man would have burst into flame as she glared at him in her most stern governess manner. “Then it can only be hoped your grandmother also taught you how to deal well with disappointment.”

“Sadly, her one failing. Yes, well, down to business, I suppose,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning one hip against a potting table. “Now, who are you?”

“Who are you?” she countered, taking a precautionary step backward. “I already told you who I am, although I’m still at a loss to know why I did anything so foolish.”

“And your name is Daisy,” he said, shaking his head. “Really, Miss Marchant? That’s all you could come up with?”

All right, now she reversed direction, and took a step forward. “And what’s so terrible about Daisy?”

He shrugged. “For one, as I’ve already mentioned, my—”

“Your sister’s mare is named Daisy. Yes, I remember. How very droll. Nevertheless, that is my name, and I’m fine with it, thank you very much. How is it for you, lugging about a silly romantic burden like Valentine?”

He touched a hand to his forehead in a rather negligent salute. “I suppose we’re even now. Very good, Miss Marchant. Now tell me why you’re here.”

She decided to be deliberately obtuse. “Because you demanded we meet, and I agreed, figuring you for a madman who must be treated with some care.” And because I’m afraid you’re going to tell me something I already suspect, and much as I don’t want to hear it, I probably need to hear it before I’m forced to finally believe it.

“Again, I salute your attempts at wit. But much as I’m enjoying our sparring session, I don’t believe we have time to indulge ourselves much longer, so I’ll keep this brief. I want you gone from this estate, now, and you can tell whomever it is who sent you that only the luck of having a shortsighted idiot as your quarry has stood between you and a rather messy end. Oh, please add that the Honorable Mr. Valentine Redgrave sends his regards, and if he is ever so fortunate as to discover your employer’s name, the man can expect a visit from him. One he won’t care for, tell him. Sending a female here. Madness.”

“Because...?” Daisy asked, hoping if she pretended to go along with his nonsense he’d at last say something that made sense about why he was here. Right now, all he was succeeding in doing was alternately frightening and confounding her.

“You know damn well because, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be put to the blush explaining the obvious. We warned them, but clearly they only half believed us, otherwise they wouldn’t have put a woman within ten miles of this place. They told you something, as you’ve already disguised yourself, not that any but a fool would be deceived, so you’d have to at least be able to guess at what could happen to you if—”

He stopped, blinked and whispered something under his breath. From the look on his face, she was glad she couldn’t hear what he said.

Her heart was pounding now, whether in dread or confirmation of her worst fears, she couldn’t be sure. One thing was certain, she couldn’t allow him to stop now. “Yes? What could happen to me if—?”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe those idiots didn’t warn you.”

This conversation was going nowhere, and she was finished being his audience. Clearly he was convinced she was someone she was not. She would give him one more chance to untwist his tongue, but only because she didn’t seem to have a choice.

Daisy jammed her fists against her hips. “That’s because there are no id— There is no they. There’s no he or him, either. Can’t you please endeavor to get that through your thick skull? I’m here because I’m employed here. I’m a governess, and I dress as I dress because a governess does not seek out the attentions of husbands and sons or the wrath of wives and mothers, not if she wishes warm food in her belly and a dry roof over her head for more than a fortnight. Please let me know when you want to stop speaking in circles, and perhaps we can meet again. Otherwise, this conversation is over, Mr. Redgrave. And if you have not only lately escaped a strait-waistcoat and a cell in Bedlam, then I suggest you consider being measured for both.”

“All right, we’ll play it your way, mostly because I’m beginning to believe I’ve made a horrible mistake, God help me. You’re nothing more than a vicar’s innocent orphaned daughter, making her way in the world as best she can. Not here to spy on his lordship, not here to spy, God forbid, on any of us Redgraves who might have shown up. Whatever’s true, whatever I’m beginning to believe, you’d better believe this. Gloves off, Miss Marchant—you’ve fallen into a den of monsters that gather here monthly to play their terrible games. A hellfire club, Miss Marchant, if you’ve ever heard the term. Devil horns, hideous costumes, sacrificial altars, the entire gambit of debauchery. They rape women like you for sport, pass them about among them—and that may be the least of it. You have to leave. Now.”

This was worse than she’d thought, worse than anything she could have ever imagined. Daisy staggered where she stood, nearly lost her balance. “What?” She couldn’t locate the strength to speak above a strangled whisper. “What did you just say to me?”

“At last, your full attention. You heard me. Take women, use them, perhaps then kill in their excitement or simply to cover their crimes, something I’ve just recently begun to suspect of the imbecilic but dangerous Lord Mailer. They, whoever they are over and above Mailer, consider it their right to use and abuse women in pursuit of their own pleasures, among other things. If that isn’t enough to convince you, take a good long look at your mistress. She lives in terror, doesn’t she? How long have you been here?”

“Still, if one has to, at least he’s...”

At least he’s clean. Daisy heard Lady Caroline’s words whispered again in her ear.

She wanted to scream, to run. But she had to stand her ground, hear the rest of it. She had to know, truly, why Valentine Redgrave had come here. Was he really here in the role of rescuing prince? No, of course not. He was here on some sort of mission of his own, not on orders from the Crown. He certainly hadn’t come here to help her.

“How...how long have I been here? You asked that, didn’t you? A few—” Daisy had to pause, attempt to catch her breath, for she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Rose. Ah, God...Rose. Maybe I’m finally getting closer. “Near...nearly three months.”

“Then at least two full moons. Good. Since you’re not deaf and blind, Miss Marchant, you must have seen something during that time, must suspect something odd going on. Think a moment.”

He knew about the full moon? How could he know that? It was only by keeping her diary that she had eventually realized how different things were at Fernwood leading up to the first night of the full moon. Just as they were now, with another full moon in the offing. Six months ago, Rose had left London, just before a full moon.

“I don’t know what you mean by that. I haven’t— Oh, all right, all right. Don’t look at me that way. Yes. Yes, I’ve noticed things. People. Mostly gentlemen, but some of their wives, as well. They stay for a week or less. Coming and going at strange hours while they’re here, sometimes gone all night. But what you’re saying is so utterly preposterous that I—”

“All right, that could be useful. Did you happen to hear any names? It would be an immense help to me, Miss Marchant, if you remember any names. There’s much more to this than men indulging their fantasies.”

“Downing Street,” Daisy breathed, a tight fist squeezing her heart as her supposition was confirmed. “You teased me with Downing Street. You...you thought I was some...some sort of spy for the government? Spying on Lord Mailer? On you, for pity’s sake?” She clapped her hands to her chest. “A spy? Me?”

“Presumptive, assuming fool that I am, yes, I did. God’s teeth, everything you’ve said is the truth, I can see it clearly now. You’re a governess and I’m...I am who I am, let’s say that, shall we—an interested party. But let’s buck up and get past all that, shall we?”

“Buck up? After what you’ve just said? You ask a lot, Mr. Redgrave. But you do believe me. Finally. Why?”

“Like one of my dogs with a marrow bone. All right, but quickly. I believe you because no one could feign the pure shock and horror I just saw in your eyes, not even me. Forgive me for frightening you needlessly, but in my defense, you did refuse to listen. And forgive me yet again for now begging that we meet once more, tonight, to give you time to prepare a list of any names you might recall. Don’t ask Lady Caro or any of the servants—that would be needlessly dangerous—but rely only on your own memory.”

“I...I’ve been keeping a journal.”

Valentine sighed audibly. “Many do. I hope you keep it well hidden. I’ll have already arranged transport for you to London, or wherever you wish to go. Do you have adequate funds?” He shook his head at that. “No, of course she doesn’t, and she certainly can’t apply to Mailer for her quarterly wages. I’ll provide that, as well. She can’t even risk emptying her cupboard, carrying a traveling bag. But we’ll manage it.”

Daisy was rapidly getting her feet back under her. “I’m standing right here, Mr. Redgrave. Please cease in referring to me as she.”

At last he smiled. “My apologies. I often think out loud.”

“An unfortunate habit you should do your utmost to curb.”

“Yes, definitely a governess. I don’t know how I could have mistaken you for anything else. Just believe this. Things are about to get messy, Miss Prunes and Prisms, so you leave here tonight, do you understand? If you’ve nowhere else to go, I suppose I can turn you over to my sister at Redgrave Manor until this is settled. Can’t have you just roaming about, not once they realize you may know too much. Plus, frankly, you’re very much in my way and I need to devote my full attention on keeping my own self safe.”

Daisy’s senses were whirling and she struggled to hang on, not fall into hysterics. Banish her, toss her away? Just when she was at last making some progress? “But—but what about the children? Lady Caroline? If even half of what you’ve said is true, they’re in danger, aren’t they?”

“No more than they were in before your arrival. Besides, I’m here now.”

Now she fought a sneer. “Oh, yes, you’re here now. Why didn’t I realize that at once? I’m in the way, but it’s nothing at all for you to protect Lady Caroline and two fairly unruly children. The brave Prince of Mud Pies. I see your point. Everything will be so much better now.”

“I’ll ignore the insult, and assume you aren’t overjoyed by my plan for you. I suppose I should be grateful you aren’t in strong hysterics, actually.”

“I considered them, but discarded the idea in favor of marveling at your arrogance.”

“Ouch. And may I say, if Kate had had you as governess Redgrave Manor would have been even more interesting. You ruffle, Miss Marchant, but your powers of recovery are astounding.”

He couldn’t know how she had long ago learned to guard her emotions; being set loose on her own into an uncaring world at the age of seventeen had taught her to hide her feelings behind an ironclad facade. Tears were a waste of time and aided nothing, and appearing vulnerable was dangerous. She was a survivor, and she would survive this most horrible truth; but she would not leave this place until she had somehow located her sister. Oh, God, what remained of her sister...

“You refuse to leave, don’t you?”

“My congratulations, Mr. Redgrave, that’s the first correct assumption you’ve arrived at since you first stepped out of the traveling coach yesterday, that wretched insult on your lips. No, I’m not leaving.”

He looked at her for a long moment and she felt as if he’d just stripped her naked, all the way to her soul.

“But not in any misguided idea of protecting the children or her ladyship, although that may play some part in it now that you’re here. Women take ridiculous ideas like that into their heads all the time.”

“Are you thinking out loud again, Mr. Redgrave, or just being insulting?”

“I’m sorry, but truth is truth. If you’d been there to see my idiot sister when Simon slipped into the— Never mind. You came to Fernwood for reasons of your own. I was right as far as I went. I merely went too far, including Downing Street in my theory. Perceval meant it when he said he wasn’t all that interested in what we Redgraves uncovered. But then why? Why are you here, why do you stay where you’re clearly unhappy?”

She had no quick answers for him. At the moment, what she wanted most was to be alone. To think about Rose, come to grips with what she’d suspected since her very first weeks at Fernwood. Valentine Redgrave had given her more answers than he could possibly know, but there were still so many questions. “Children! It’s time to go!”

Lydia came scampering back down the pathway, clutching a small bouquet of roses she promptly thrust at Valentine. “Here, my prince. Tobias snipped off all the thorns for me.”

Lydia’s girlish lovesickness was palpable. Daisy rolled her eyes. This was why, throughout history, men retained such swollen heads: women persisted in foolishly adoring them for no good reason. Just like poor, poor Rose. I have to get away from this man. I have to think. I don’t want to think...

Daisy turned to the child in near desperation. “Where’s William, Lydia?”

“His mud pies aren’t dry, and Tobias says they’ll fall to pieces if they aren’t allowed to dry. They’re very nice. Tobias showed him how to push colored pebbles in them to make faces, and tiny leaves for hair.” She looked up at Valentine. “Not that I would enjoy doing anything so young and silly.” She then quickly hid her hands, caked with drying mud, behind her back.

“I’ll come back for them later,” Daisy promised, shooing the girl ahead of her.

“Farewell, dear prince!” Lydia called back to Valentine, who once again demonstrated his finesse with a courtly bow—young, handsome, carefree—just as if words like rape and hellfire club had never passed his lips.

Then he turned about, to depart the greenhouse, without setting a time or place for them to meet again. He’d probably just pop up like some jack-in-the-box when she least expected him. She watched as he took up a cane he must have rested against one of the other potting tables, gave it a twirl or two before tucking it beneath his arm.

Truly, the man was insufferable. Yet she felt safer knowing he was here. Safer, but oh, so very much sadder. And even more determined to confront Charles Mailer, now that she knew what to ask him. Not where did you imprison my sister? but what did you do with her body? Because there was no more room for hope now, was there? She’d known that from the beginning....

Willing her hands not to shake or her voice to waver, Daisy proceeded along the center pathway determined, and dry-eyed, to make an appreciative fuss over William’s mud pies.

CHAPTER FOUR

VALENTINETOSSEDTHEbouquet on a table and the cane onto the bed before lightly hoisting himself up onto the high mattress and flinging himself down on his back to glare at the light summer canopy above his head.

“Pouting, sir?” Piffkin said blandly, retrieving the cane and putting it, it would seem to the casual observer, out of harm’s way. “Lovely flowers, though. Shall I order you a sweet to help boost you out of the doldrums?”

“You could fashion me a gag and then tie it tightly while you’re at it,” Valentine muttered, putting his hands behind his head and crossing his legs at the ankle. “Piffkin? Why have you never told me I talk too much?”

“Couldn’t get a word in edgewise, I suppose,” the valet said, shaking his head. “You’ve drying mud caked on the soles of your boots. I’ll have them, please.”

Grumbling under his breath, Val pushed himself upright and turned so that his legs hung over the edge of the bed. “Before you rail at me, there’s also a smudge on my left knee, rightly earned as I rescued a young princess.”

“Huzzah. And may I add it is an honor to be in your employ,” Piffkin commented as, with Valentine’s foot in his back to assist him, the boots were removed. “I’ll have the buckskins now, sir.”

Valentine complied, and was handed a dark blue silk banyan in return, tying it tightly about his waist. He did all of this without conscious thought. He’d been taking orders from Piffkin since he was in short coats, and some things shouldn’t change or else the entire world order could be turned upside-down. “Don’t you want to know why I was pouting?”

“You’re done, then? Good. I would imagine, since you were heading out to confront the suspicious governess, that you were met with failure and, worse, may have given yourself away in the process. Should I be packing, sir, or do you wish to dispatch Lord Mailer to his dark reward before we go? Your stiletto, sir,” he ended, handing over the blade that had been secured in a special sleeve inside the right boot. “I suggest a swift, straight cut across the windpipe, but from behind, please, as bloodstains are the very devil in the laundry.”

Valentine rewarded the valet with a lopsided grin. “You speak as if I go about routinely killing people.”

“No, sir. I speak as if certain you will be forced to dispatch at least one someone before this week is out. I doubt you’ll have a choice.”

“Peeking at my correspondence again? Because that’s pretty much what Simon told me I’d have to do. Rest assured, Piffkin, if that does prove to be the case, I won’t spend weeks agonizing over the deed. This is war.”

“More than war, Master Valentine. Hellfire.”

Valentine deposited his long body on what he hoped would prove a comfortable chair, and then raised his stockinged feet up onto the low table. “Is there anything you don’t know, Piffkin?”

“Yes, sir. It would appear I remain at a loss to know why Miss Marchant has so upset you.”

“I suppose I could quote Lord Mailer and say it’s because I suspect she may be smart. Because that’s certainly true. Smart. Too smart not to have noticed something strange is going on here, and too smart to attempt to deny she has some suspicions. On the other hand, she may also have some names for me, which would be an immense help.”

“How gratifying. However, I believe we’re still missing the bits that contributed to your pout, sir,” Piffkin said, taking a brush to the dried mud on his master’s buckskins.

“I’m getting to them, if you’ll allow me to first say I believe I shall never enter another greenhouse. The strangest things seem to happen in them.”

“You’re not dirty enough to have fallen into a pit.”

“There are pits and then there are pits. In this case I suppose you’d say a human pit.”

“You’re in danger of falling into Miss Marchant? That hardly seems proper, Master Valentine.”

“You’re such a wit, Piffkin,” Valentine said dully. “Consider her more of an enigma. I don’t think she just happened to find herself employed here. From what I deduced from Mailer, I’m not inclined to think there was an advertisement placed in the local or London newspapers. I believe she sought out a position here in particular. I think she’s come here with some motive of her own, showing up unbidden to worm her way in as governess to a pair of infants who have as much use for a governess as you have need of a comb.”

The valet raised a hand to the sleek, polished pate above his bushy brows. “I am experimenting with a new wax. However, it does, sadly, cost you one pound six per pot. Not an extremely large pot.”

“But worth every groat, I’m sure. I could probably read by the glow from your head in a full moon. Speaking of which—our Miss Marchant has confirmed my information that the Society have been gathering here during the full moon. She’s seen them, at least the ones who stay here at Fernwood. But I was forced to tell her more than I wished in my attempts to get what I thought was the truth from her, and now she refuses to leave, even after I handed her some rather unlovely information that would have had any reasonable woman hot-footedly racing for the nearest posting inn. I never should have said a word to her, not a single word.”

“You do at times reveal a penchant for needlessly complicating matters, Master Valentine.”

“Putting my foot in it, you mean. As I told her, it was the disguise, mostly, that steered me in the wrong direction, if I’m to have any excuse at all. She was shocked to hear what I had to say, genuinely shocked. But her reaction fell far short of what I would have expected. She already knew, or at least suspected something havey-cavey going on beneath that inquisitive little nose of hers. Now it’s left to me to learn why she’s here. Then I should be able to convince her to leave.”

“Would you go if someone asked you to leave, especially after you’d taken such pains to get here in the first place? You know, the way you have done?”

Valentine spared a moment to recall the warm, silky softness of Daisy’s ringlets against his hand. “She’s in the way, Piffkin.”

“Females are always in the way, it’s their nature. It’s more than that. You’re intrigued.”

“I don’t have the luxury to be intrigued, for God’s sake, or the possibility of being distracted while making certain she doesn’t get herself into trouble. As you so brilliantly pointed out, there could be bears.”

“So she goes.”

Valentine got to his feet. “So she goes, if I have to tie her up and personally toss her in the coach. I’ll have her taken to the Manor, where Kate and Simon can watch over her.”

“Until you have the leisure to be distracted,” Piffkin said, neatly catching the banyan Valentine tossed at him.

“Until the Society is exposed and destroyed. No matter why she’s here, her abrupt departure will be suspect and she could be marked for elimination.”

“Yes, of course. While I am already charged with removing her ladyship and the kiddies to the hideaway inn Twitchill and the others have adjourned to whenever you think it appropriate. Thus burdened, I couldn’t possibly take Miss Marchant along with us. Shame on me for thinking anything else.”

“Miss Marchant is quite concerned about her ladyship. Remember, I caught her out last evening, departing the woman’s chambers. Hardly the action of a governess. I believe Lady Caroline indulges in laudanum, or perhaps hides in it. Lord knows she doesn’t eat. She spent the entire meal yesterday variously staring at me or the wall.”

The wall. Just the one, when there were four to choose from, not to mention two gaudy chandeliers. Valentine closed his eyes, attempting to mentally reconstruct the Mailer dining room: sideboard, footman, door, bank of windows, footman, one of those depressing paintings of dead game, door, another sideboard, more windows, fireplace, painting above the fireplace.

Ah, yes, now he had it. The painting above the fireplace. Lady Caroline hadn’t been just idly staring, she had been attempting to send him a message. But why would she do that, if she believed he was about to become a member of the Society, either happily or as a result of some sort of blackmail, as Simon’s brother had been, to his damnation? Had she been trying to warn him away, or draw his attention? It would be a hell of a thing if she had seen through him when her husband had not.

“A young woman forced to seek the solace of opium. How very sad. Would you care for your breeches back now, sir? I’ve managed to banish the smut, and it will only be the work of a moment to brush up your boots so that you can partake of an afternoon ride, and perhaps a luncheon at the new inn, where you can surreptitiously have some sort of contact with our men. A reconnoiter of the area is in order, isn’t it?”

Valentine pulled himself away from his thoughts. “Always a prudent move, yes, and thank you for once again anticipating my next step. Mailer boasts of his stable, so it would be mean of me not to take advantage of his offer of the best he has should I care for a ride. Frankly, anything would be preferable to spending the afternoon looking at his face. I nearly had to stuff his neckcloth down his gullet twice on the way here yesterday in the coach.”

Valentine heard Mailer’s voice again in his head, their conversation of just a few hours ago. Something about some of the parties being here, while others were held there. Could the so-called satanic rites of the Society take place here, and the treasonous conversations there? Or were there several meeting places, with Mailer’s property only one, perhaps simply the one closest to London? Anything was possible. Not every arrangement could be as extensive as his grandfather and father had accomplished at Redgrave Manor. This incarnation of the Society might simply have to make do the best they could. Lord knew they were making-do to have a buffoon like Charles Mailer as one of their members.

“You’re smiling, sir. Is that a good thing?”

“Possibly. I do believe a few more pieces of the puzzle may just have fallen into place inside my thick brain. Tell me, Piffkin, if you were to host some satanic rite, where would you do it? Indoors or out? Remember—not to influence your answer—the weather is fairly warm, and it would seem a full moon is mandatory.”

“And perhaps a convenient church ruin somewhere close by, in order to take full advantage of that moon?”

“Perhaps. Convenient or specially constructed, just as many of our more romantical citizens have ordered ruins built on their estates. Coincidently, there’s a large oil painting of the ruins of a stone circle holding place of honor in Mailer’s dining room, so such things may intrigue him.”

“It sounds as if this particular painting intrigues you, as well.”

“Possibly, possibly. A ruined stone circle mimicking Stonehenge or Avebury or any of the others would hardly be remarked on, and even if truly ancient, stories about bloodthirsty Druids and such would be enough to keep the local population from seeking it out during a full moon. However, it wouldn’t appear out of the ordinary for a guest new to Fernwood to stop to admire the thing in the daytime, walk about a bit, kick a few of the stones. If there is one, that is.”

“Try not to scuff your boots.” Piffkin rescued the discarded bouquet and snatched up a vase as he headed for the water pitcher. “There may even be posies, and benches for the ladies to sit and paint watercolors.”

“Before you paint too rosy a picture, remember, we’re only being wishful here right now.”

“And where would this sorry world be, without wishes.” The gold tooth shone for a moment in the sunlight streaming into the bedchamber. “Enjoy your ride, Master Valentine.”

Valentine considered a dismissive hrummph at the man’s hopeful words, but only said, “Thank you, Piffkin.” After all, he hadn’t been raised by wolves.

* * *

DAISYSATCURLEDup in the window embrasure in her small attic room, alternately looking out through the dusty window and turning pages in her diary, reading snippets here and there.

The children were with their nurse, partaking of their luncheon and, after pleading the headache thanks to the bright sun this morning, Daisy had escaped the schoolroom. She would not be needed again until Lady Caroline summoned her for what had become a regular late-afternoon chat. The meetings were outwardly so that Daisy could report on the children’s “progress” under her tutelage, but the children were rarely mentioned. At times Daisy wondered if the woman even remembered their ages.

No, Lady Caroline would talk about her childhood home, her deceased parents, her older sister, who now resided in Canada with her soldier husband.

Sometimes, she simply asked Daisy to kneel with her and pray.

She dreaded meeting with the woman today, could not imagine how she could even look at her without hugging her, telling her how sorry she was...and then grilling her about a small, blonde woman with a beauty mark just at the top outside corner of her mouth.

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