Chapter One
APRIL 1814 – EIGHTEEN MONTHS EARLIER
“Where is she?”
Sophia Green used her best strident tone and peered over her eyeglasses at Pembroke’s housemaid. She watched the girl stare as though the question had been asked in another language, instead of her lightly-accented English.
She breathed in deep to quell her impatience. Apparently, the rush of temper was something she had inherited from her Spanish mother. Perhaps speaking slowly might get answers out of the half-witted girl.
“Miss Laura?” Sophia pressed. “She came in here half an hour ago? Pretty lady? Light brown hair, dressed in a rose pink gown?”
The maid glanced around the ladies retiring room. Dozens of faces were reflected in the gilt-framed mirrors, none of them Laura’s.
“She not be here, Miss.”
Sophia fumed. She could have done that herself. In fact, had done that, and her cousin was not among the women resting and repairing themselves at the Duke of Pembroke’s ball.
Sophia pushed the glasses back up her nose, ignoring the curious glances thrown her way from women reclining on silk-finished, striped settees, wafting their fans languorously. She turned on her heel and found the exit to the colonnades leading to the gardens. The skirts of her light brown dress swirled around her ankles as she hurried along it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The sound of each footfall berated her.
It was a mistake to have danced. A selfish act. It had taken a moment to forget herself and her place in the Cappleman family. Regret and recrimination pressed on her shoulders. Samuel would hate her forever if she allowed something to happen to his sister. And anything might have happened to Laura in the five minutes she was so thoughtlessly engaged in the quadrille. Well, not anything so much as someone, Sophia reminded herself. Someone like the Honorable Archibald Havers.
Sophia gritted her teeth and hastened her step. The man’s very name gave her the shivers.
That rake, that scoundrel, that ne’er-do-well…
Havers had become far too familiar with her cousin over the past month and she wouldn’t put it past him to try to compromise Laura in order to press for an engagement.
Laura’s brother, her beloved Samuel, was inclined to believe the best in people, but she couldn’t ignore the rumors. The man had a want for money, so it was whispered behind hands in the fashionable circles, where aristocracy mixed uneasily with the nouveau riche of the prosperous merchant class. Some said Havers had a secret wife, others that he had lost his fortune in a business venture – or at the card tables.
The fact Laura was beautiful and an heiress turned Sophia’s role of companion into a full-time chaperone, swatting away men who buzzed about like pesky flies.
It was just as well she had no such attributes herself to recommend her. She was not wealthy, fashionable or even a great beauty. Sophia knew her flaws well. She was near-sighted, her complexion dark, hair as black as a raven’s wing. A touch of the gypsy ran through her veins, so she was told.
Sophia picked up the pace, shaking her head once more. She rounded a corner. Cold night air hit her, carrying with it the scent of rose and jasmine from the new spring flowers in bloom. Behind her, sounds of a country dance carried from the ballroom. In the darkness of the gardens, spottily lit by the occasional lamp, silhouettes of couples strolled towards the hedgerow maze.
Her glasses would be useless to her out here. She slipped them into the reticule dangling on her arm and hesitated only for a moment before descending the half-dozen steps to the lawn. The air was even colder, and the first of a series of shivers worked their way up her spine and down her arms.
“Laura?”
The harsh whisper didn’t attract the attention of the couple who walked a dozen yards ahead of her. They turned to the left. She waited until they had disappeared from sight and turned right.
A feminine giggle came from further along, again to the right. She stepped around the corner of the box hedge into a dead end, ready to confront Havers.
A lady’s stockinged leg, exposed to the thigh, glowed pale in the moonlight. A masculine back obscured the limb’s owner. Sophia quickly did a volte-face and closed her eyes but the image of the lovers in flagrante had already burned themselves onto her eyelids.
With her presence unnoticed, the lovers continued. The giggles became a moan, then rapid pants. Sophia ran to escape and only slowed when the crunching beneath her evening slippers drowned out the sounds.
She paused at a crossroads, resting her hand on the sundial at its center to compose herself.
“Give him the slip, did you?”
Sophia started at the droll voice. The acrid smell of burning tobacco filled her nostrils and she looked to its source.
A man, aged in his late-twenties from what she could see, semi-reclined on a classical, Greek-style, stone bench, his long, buff-clad legs stretched before him. Blond hair, rakishly cut, appeared to shine yellow in the lamplight. He grinned around the cigar then put his lips around it. The tip glowed bright red for a moment.
“I’m looking for someone,” Sophia told him.
“Ahhh…”
It took a moment to get his meaning.
“Not like that! My cousin, Laura…” Her sentence trailed off, her memory still rich with the image of the lovers she had stumbled across.
The gently mocking expression disappeared from his sharply angled face. The man watched her with an open curiosity for a moment. Sophia took a step back. The longer she spent explaining herself to a stranger, the more trouble Laura could find herself in. She moved past him and found her wrist captured.
“Let’s see if we can find her together, shall we?”
“I wouldn’t put you to the trouble.” Sophia pulled her wrist away. It came easily from his fingers.
“No trouble,” he answered breezily. The man took a few steps deeper into the maze and paused to call back to her. “This cousin, Laura, what does she look like?”
Sophia gave the man the same description she had given the maid and reluctantly fell into step – keeping her reticule close. Just in case.
They reached a corner. The stranger stayed her with a raised palm, while he peered into the shadowed corners where assignations were kept. He returned with a regretful shake of his head. They continued on.
There was no reason why she should trust him, Sophia argued with herself. He could be a scoundrel like Havers, yet there was something about him that suggested he was not. She found herself clenching her jaw in frustration, alternating between worry for Laura’s well-being and a desire to strangle the silly little chit when she found her cousin. For the next fifteen minutes, they searched and each time the stranger’s answer was the same – a firm shake of his head.
“Then I have no choice but to tell Samuel. There will be such a scandal and—”
Sophia paused. She would recognize Laura’s voice anywhere and she heard it now, softly, then a man’s voice, cajoling… wheedling in reply. She took off at a run and left the unasked-for escort in her wake. Sophia turned left and left again, but the blond man was faster. He stepped in front of her, though not before she saw Laura’s head thrown back, her beautiful, light brown hair in disarray, her leg exposed and Havers’ splayed hand touching her bared knee.
Sophia pushed past her escort, horrified. She was too late!
“Laura!”
The pretty young woman jumped. Diamond earbobs at her ears swung and glinted in the moonlight.
Havers started, too.
Sophia reached in her reticule for her glasses. Oh dear. The tableau, though not as shocking as the couple she had seen earlier, was nonetheless so much worse in sharp focus.
Havers drew himself tall and puffed his cheeks in apparent outrage, which made the soft dissoluteness about his face even more pronounced. The earl’s son might have been an attractive man once, but his prime had been a good ten years earlier.
She mustered every ounce of imperiousness she possessed. “Mr. Havers, I’ve come to escort my cousin back to the house.”
A twitch to the man’s jaw revealed his displeasure. Sophia absorbed the brief look of contempt directed her way before a mask of forced civility descended on his features.
“Miss Green,” he said through gritted teeth. “You are interrupting a very serious conversation between Miss Laura and me.”
“Is Samuel aware of this serious conversation?”
Sophia addressed the question to Laura, who blushed scarlet and refused to meet her eyes.
“Any business I have with Miss Laura and her brother remains no business of yours.”
Sophia ignored Havers and kept her attention on Laura. The most important thing to do was to extricate her cousin – whether she wanted rescuing or not.
“Now, what would Sam say if he knew you were out here alone with this man?”
Laura rose from the seat.
“I’m eighteen years old, Sophia Green, hardly a child and you are not my nanny. Mr. Havers has proposed and I’m of a mind to accept. Sam will only want my happiness.”
Sophia took a deep breath and watched a reptilian smile cross Havers’ face.
If soft words didn’t work, perhaps blunt speaking would.
“You might be able to twist Samuel around your little finger but your tricks don’t work on me. How much do you know of this man?” She noted with satisfaction how Laura’s rebellious posture sagged under questioning. Sophia pressed her advantage.
“Do you know what is being said of him? I do.”
Laura’s pretty face frowned but Sophia fixed all of her attention now on Havers.
“I had our solicitor make some inquiries.”
She watched the man’s self-confident swagger falter.
“I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary for you to find out like this but it turns out—”
“Shut up! Shut up, you munter!”
Havers rushed forward before Sophia could do more than gasp. He gripped her forearms and propelled her backwards. Laura screamed. Havers’ face filled Sophia’s vision. His eyes were murderously angry.
Thump! Thump!
She heard the sounds distinctly but couldn’t place them until Havers cried out in pain. An arm in dark blue reached around his neck and wrenched the man backwards, but not before she was shoved violently against the hedgerow.
She straightened herself and her glasses to see Havers slowly, and painfully it would seem, rise to his feet to face the interloper. Her blond-headed escort stood nonchalantly to one side, relighting his cigar.
“I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with, Sirrah!” cried Havers.
“I know I’m dealing with a bully and a coward who has no sense and no manners.”
Havers turned to Laura whose eyes were wide in shock and mouth agape. He extended a hand of conciliation and took a step towards her. She took a step back, glanced at Sophia, and ran – fortunately in the direction of the house.
The foiled suitor cast her a contemptuous glance. Sophia straightened her shoulders. The man was full of bluster. Now that Laura had her doubts about him, he could do no further harm.
“I should sue you for slander, you ugly, interfering witch.”
Before she could respond to the insult, another voice came to her rescue.
“And you have until the count of three to bid a dignified retreat.”
Havers rounded on her rescuer, bemused. “Or what, exactly?”
With the grace of a dancer, the younger man swung a right hook and put Havers on his back so fast Sophia didn’t have time to blink. My goodness! She could see her protector all the more clearly with her glasses on.
With sharply chiseled cheekbones and a tapered chin, one might confuse him for a youth, and yet he carried the bearing and resolve of a man. He was an Adonis, an Apollo – just like the paintings of the marble statues in Italy she studied in preparation for her trip.
“Thank you,” she told him.
His answer was a lopsided grin and he affected an elaborate bow. “Coming to the aid of fair damsels is my specialty.”
Not Apollo, a Narcissus then, Sophia decided, although she softened her judgment with a smile, which he returned.
“I’m glad, if nothing else, to have put a smile on your face, Miss Green.”
He extended his hand and, before Sophia knew it, she found her arm folded through his as they strolled back down the center of the maze towards the house.
“If I’m to thank you properly, I should know your name.”
“Captain Christopher Hardacre, at your service,” he said before leaning in. “My friends call me Kit.”
Sophia removed her hand from his and took a half-step away.
“Then I shall call you Captain Hardacre.”
*
Kit rested his elbows on the oak banister overlooking the grand entrance hall below. With the ball in full swing, the hall was near empty, but the three figures in earnest conversation had his full attention.
He sipped his claret, allowing the sweet, spiced wine to fill his mouth with flavor before swallowing.
The pretty heiress – Laura – was in tearful disarray. He shook his head. Silly, naive little thing. The girl sat there shaking beside a man Kit guessed to be her brother, a man as handsome as his sister was pretty – in a vapid sort of way.
And then there was the cousin, Miss Sophia Green, who looked unlike either of her relations – complexion dark while theirs was fair. They dressed to show off their wealth and finery. Miss Sophia, on the other hand, didn’t seem to give a damn how she looked.
What a color that gown. The brown made her look sallow. And there might be an attractive figure under the shapeless sack, but who could tell?
Munter… ugly witch…
Kit gripped the railing with residual anger as he recalled Havers’ words. They were brutal and, yet, this Miss Sophia retained her composure in the face of them. He watched her now, a picture of calm and reason in the sea of emotion about her, while she gave a thorough recounting to this Samuel fellow.
The front doors opened. He heard the sound of a carriage rolling to a halt under the portico. A breeze made its way up to him and, with it, he smelled a touch of damp.
He had to admit, he’d rather enjoyed playing the hero tonight. Correction – it felt good to do something physical and use some pent up energy. Cooped up here for months on end was almost more than he could bear – not even the impending arrival of what was laughably called spring in England could improve his mood. He wouldn’t have been here at all but for the refit of his ship, the Calliope, now almost complete. As soon as it was, he and his crew would sail back to the Mediterranean and be away from this cold, wet, miserable place for another few years.
He turned to the sound of footsteps behind him. It was still difficult to get used to seeing Elias Nash, his first officer, in evening dress. Such formal attire was useless for life at sea.
Elias quickly caught the direction of Kit’s focus. “So, this is where you got to.”
He looked over Kit’s shoulder to where the party of three was making their way into the carriage.
“Pining? It’s usually you leaving unrequited fancies in your wake.”
Kit accepted the good-natured ribbing as he would from few others. Of all the people he knew, only Elias had his full trust – only Elias knew his secrets.
“No, just an amusing diversion.” Kit raised his head to draw his friend’s attention. “So, what news have you?”
Elias looked grave but the expression didn’t last long. It was not in his nature to deceive. His nickname wasn’t “Preacher” for nothing.
“I had a fruitful result in the card room.”
Elias pulled a card from his pocket, smaller than a playing card. He let it pass through his fingers like a conjurer, so Kit couldn’t see what was on it.
“Card room? Since when do you gamble?”
“I don’t. But I happened to come across a certain Professor Jonas Fenton who is…” Elias looked at the card, “a ‘historian and antiquarian’. In fact, he describes himself as an archaeologist which has something to do with digging up old ruins, apparently.”
“Did you save him from sin?”
“I saved him from losing his shirt. The good professor told me how much he was being charged to take himself and an assistant to Sicily. I told him we could get him there cheaper and faster.”
Elias continued. “He’ll be right to leave as soon as the Calliope is ready to set sail. We’ll be back in the warm seas of the Mediterranean with a profitable cargo. The fare from the professor’s party will be all profit.”
Kit grinned. Attending the ball hadn’t been a waste of time after all.