March 30th 1812. London.

‘Do I have to produce a murder to keep you interested enough to stay? Are you bored without mystery and murder?’ Gareth Thorne, Duke of Calderbrook, pushed the brandy decanter towards the man sitting opposite him at the long table. ‘I don’t want to lose you – why do you feel you have to leave?’

Marriage has made Cal more open in his feelings, Jared Hunt thought. It was a long time since he had seen his friend let the controlled mask slip quite so far. Almost seven years of self-imposed exile and the knowledge that someone, or something, at the heart of his great ducal estates was trying to kill him was enough to account for any degree of reticence, let alone stifling out-and-out statements of affection for anyone. He and Cal had been as close as brothers for years, but neither had ever felt the need to speak of that bond before.

‘You are not losing me, Cal.’ Jared let his own composure slip, just a little. There were not a great many things in life that he feared, laying his soul bare was one of them. He cleared his throat. ‘I will no longer be a member of your staff, I will no longer live under your roof as one of the household. But I remain your friend, your swordmaster. It is time I trod my own path. Besides, think of the saving on the wages bill,’ he added with a smile.

Cal waved away the feeble joke. The last thing he needed to consider was making savings and they both knew it. ‘Is this because of my marriage?’

Both men glanced towards the half-open door though which they could hear Sophie, the new Duchess of Calderbrook, in energetic discussion with her mother about the latest government scandal.

‘It is not, although your life is changing, there will be a family here soon, no doubt. And Her Grace finds me… sinister. But your marriage coincided with the discovery of what was behind the accidents and illnesses of your youth and that means you no longer need someone to watch your back.’

‘You are sinister,’ Cal pointed out. ‘You enjoy being sinister. You cultivate being sinister. And enough of this Her Grace nonsense. Sophie considers you our friend now, she knows you have saved my life on more than one occasion. This is your home – why leave?’

‘Your father hired me as your swordmaster when I was nineteen. We went abroad to escape whoever – whatever – was attempting to kill you when I was twenty two. That was seven years ago. Your life is safe now, you are back home.’ He shrugged. ‘I have spent almost a quarter of my life at your side. It is time for me to move on.’

Jared tugged at the tie at the end of his tight queue of hair and let the strands unravel. He shook his head and it settled around his shoulders, loose and comfortable in a way he only allowed when he was alone or with very close friends, like this man. It was unfashionable to wear it so long, but it was his fashion, part of his carefully constructed image.

‘I forget how young you were when you first came to Calderbrook.’ Cal’s eyes had lost their focus as he looked back. ‘I was an ignorant, sheltered, sickly sixteen year-old and you were so sophisticated, so worldly-wise in my eyes.’

‘You caught up soon enough,’ Jared observed. He poured a scant finger of brandy into his glass and pushed the decanter back across the table. Sophisticated? He’d had a tough two years apprenticeship to learn to feign at least the appearance of that, sufficient to persuade the old duke to hire him to teach his son. Then those years knocking round the globe with Cal had honed both his skills and his confidence. And his ability to hide behind the mask he had created.

‘So how will you live?’ Cal demanded, frowning at him.

‘I might not have ducal wealth.’ Jared waved a hand vaguely at the hangings and the portraits and the silverware that surrounded them. ‘But I am hardly penniless. I have saved, I bought gems abroad, sent back goods to trade and invested the profits, as you know. Now I am, let me tell you, much in demand. I have a very respectable waiting list of gentlemen wanting me to school them in the art of the sword.’

‘And?’ Cal prompted, leaning forwards. ‘There’s more, I know you.’ He was interested, concerned, but Jared did not miss the flicker of his eyes towards the door, towards his wife. Yes, now was the time to leave, move on. It would be as much of a wrench as leaving home had been all those years ago, although the circumstances were considerably pleasanter.

‘I have bought a shop on Great Ryder Street and I am having it converted to give me a salle d’armes, changing rooms, office and armoury. There’s an apartment above – just liveable now, but that is being renovated also. The builders started work three days ago.’ And it was taking a great deal of self control not to be there every minute of the day gloating. Mine.

‘Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?’

‘Because you would have come up with all manner of good reasons why I shouldn’t be doing it. You’ve a hard business head and would assuredly have pinpointed something that I would have ignored. I rely more on instinct than you do, you would have spoiled my fun with common sense.’

Cal gave a snort of laughter. Relaxed now, he leaned back in his chair, waistcoat unbuttoned, glass turning idly between his fingers. ‘So, as it isn’t ready yet you’ll stay in your rooms here a little longer as our guest?’

‘Thank you, but no.’ Jared shook his head. ‘I will move out tomorrow. I need to keep an eye on things.’ And the Duke and Duchess, newly returned from their honeymoon, needed their great Town house to themselves – if one ignored a dozen or more staff.

‘Could you use any furniture?’ Cal pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘The Lord knows we’ve enough here and, if I know Sophie, she will be reorganising the place soon.’ He waved a hand around the dining room with its view over St James’s Square. ‘Borrow what you like.’

‘I appreciate it, but I have all I need.’ Which was essentially nothing but his clothes and his weapons. This was his new life and he was going to build it exactly how he wanted it, one object at a time, starting tomorrow at Mr Christie’s auction rooms just around the corner.

‘Then come and tell Sophie and her parents about your plans and be prepared for an onslaught of good advice on setting up home.’ Cal paused just before the door and grinned. ‘You do realise they will start matchmaking now?’

‘They may try,’ Jared said, smiling back at the teasing. And they will fail. Because when a man uses a name not his own, lives a life far removed from what he was born to, there was a snowflake’s chance in Hades that he could ask a woman to be his wife. Not and retain a shred of honour.

 

The bed was truly magnificent, the kind of object that a sultan or a Tudor monarch might consider just about adequate. Hopelessly out of fashion and almost as big as his new bedchamber, of course. But what the hell, Jared thought, picking his way through the piled-up auction lots around it. I like it and what is a bedchamber for if not for sleeping? He prowled round the bulging bedposts, looking for signs of woodworm or rot, but the ancient black oak was hard as iron. If it can be got up the stairs… Yes, it took to pieces. Replace the network of ropes, put a new mattress on top of them and give it a coat of wax, that was all that was needed. Fancy bed curtains could wait, although crimson damask would be in keeping.

‘Now that is a bed that would either fill a man with confidence in his own prowess or cause a severe case of the droops,’ a voice said behind him. It was a deep voice with real humour beyond the amusement at the risqué remark.

Jared turned and found himself facing a big man, almost as tall as his own six foot and a bit, wide in the shoulders and beginning to sag comfortably in the belly. Mid-sixties, he guessed, then took another look, saw the puffiness below the eyes, the loose skin around the neck, and adjusted his estimate upwards by ten years. Seventies but as sharp as a cut-purse’s blade, he’d wager, meeting the faded blue eyes that assessed him right back, considerably more frankly. The gentleman – for he was not one of the dealers who virtually lived in the auction house – was too close, had arrived there too quietly.

A man to be wary of. Jared cursed his own lack of attention, smiled politely, replied mildly. ‘I was contemplating a good goose feather mattress and an even better night’s sleep rather than energetic bed-sport. Are you also in search of a bedstead, sir?’

‘No.’ The older man smiled, still jovial, still close. ‘I was in search of you, Mr Hunt.’

For a split second, in the wake of that remark about the bedstead and sexual performance, Jared thought he was being propositioned. It had happened before. He was no eyesore, he knew that without vanity, and some people, of both sexes, found the swordplay arousing. But not this man, he corrected himself after a moment’s scrutiny. He was being studied, but there was no heat in that inspection.

‘Indeed, sir? And in what way might I assist you?’ For all the greyhead’s apparent fitness, he seemed an unlikely candidate for fencing lessons, let alone anything more strenuous.

‘It can wait until you have completed your business, Mr Hunt. Mine is urgent enough, but I would prefer your full attention on the matter.’

‘I am bidding on a number of lots, sir. Perhaps if you were to give me your direction I could join you later.’ The auctioneer was walking to his rostrum, the crowd shifting to face him.

‘My card, Mr Hunt. I will look for you this afternoon.’ He gave Jared a nod and turned to make his way through the audience, taking his time, using a cane although not leaning heavily on it.

Used to being obeyed, that one. Jared glanced down at the rectangle of engraved pasteboard. Augustus Quenten, The Viscount Northam, Northam Hall, Dorset. Clarges Street, London.

He rubbed his thumb over it, feeling the depth of the engraving, and tucked the card into his pocket book. Never heard of him, good address. But then he had been out of England for seven years and only back for a matter of six months or so, much of that in the countryside. It was no wonder that many of the ton were unknown to him, although they seemed to know his name and reputation. His ignorance needed remedying fast because the fashionable classes were where his future income lay, although he had enquiries enough to begin with. Possibly Lord Northam had some spotty sprog of a grandson who needed fencing lessons.

‘Lot One, a fine walnut table and ten chairs including two carvers, lately the property of a gentleman – ’

He turned his attention back to the rostrum.

 

Jared emerged from the auction house at two, the owner of the vast bed, a mahogany dining table, six chairs, a sideboard and a pair of leather wing chairs. In addition he had acquired a large mixed lot, largely for the sake of the big copper bath tub and handsome set of fire irons that were included with the pots and pans.

His wallet was lighter, but not by as much as he had expected, and he was surprised to find he had enjoyed the experience, possibly because he had never had a home of his own to do with as he wished. It was an interesting exercise to build a new life, one saucepan and dining chair at a time.

In his twenty nine years Jared had gone from luxury that was not his to control to sleeping in a garret, then to a senior servant’s rooms when Cal’s father had employed him. At Cal’s side he had experienced the varied and various lodgings of the voyage round the world that the pair of them had embarked on as equals. Those had ranged from luxury to squalor and back again, almost from day to day. Things were exceedingly comfortable now. Too comfortable, someone else’s comfort, but now this was his world to shape to his liking.

When he reached his new home he washed off the grime of the auction room, swallowed a tankard of ale from the cask in what passed for his kitchen, gave the workmen in the salle d’armes a critical inspection, approved the colour for the wall paint and went out into the afternoon sunshine to climb the slope of St James’s Street. He turned left and crossed Piccadilly to avoid the usual scrummage around the White Horse Cellar where stages for the West were arriving and departing, and took a right into Clarges Street.

As always a rapier hung at his side, a rare sight on the streets these days. Only the military went obviously armed whilst gentlemen in full court attire wore a delicate dress sword, a symbolic toy. His was anything but a toy, it was a lethal tool but also part of his image, along with the black clothing, the long, tightly-controlled hair, the impassive expression. Men stepped aside as he approached, ladies cast him sideways glances. Sometimes he caught them.

The Viscount’s butler took him through to Northam without delay, pausing only to take the scabbard and sword belt he was handed. The promptness was interesting. Most gentlemen, in Jared’s experience, liked to assert their superiority by keeping an inferior waiting a while. True, swordmasters were several steps up on dancing masters, apothecaries and curates. They were equivalent, in most gentlemen’s eyes if not those of their wives, to lawyers, doctors and the vicar. But of a certainly they were not equals. Cal treated him as one because they were friends: Jared did not make the error of expecting any other aristocrat to do the same.

‘Mr Hunt, thank you for obliging me with your attendance.’

Well that was amiable enough. Jared contented himself with a polite inclination of the head, settled his feet apart, put his hands behind his back and waited, apparently all his attention on the man in front of him. He also noted the other doors into the room, the quality of the furnishings, the books on the side table, the faint sounds of the household beyond the closed doors and, automatically, the various escape routes. A pleasant room, in good taste, a little cluttered with the accumulation of years of living, a little worn around the edges for ease, not from want of funds. A warm, comfortable space that spoke well of its owner.

‘Come, take a seat.’ Lord Northam lowered himself stiffly into one of the wing chairs before the cold fireplace, using the back and the arm as props. It was the first real sign that betrayed his age that Jared had noticed, beyond the sagging skin and the grey hairs.

Jared took the seat opposite, crossed his legs and waited. He was good at waiting.

‘You were recommended to me,’ Northam said abruptly.

‘Might I ask, by whom?’

‘I set my valet the task of finding me the man I needed. He heard rumours and spoke to the Duke of Calderbrook’s man Flynn and then I had a word with a number of people who were at a certain house party. You made a very definite impression in a most discreet manner, Mr Hunt.’

Michael Flynn was Cal’s valet, their companion on their travels and a very good friend to both of them. He would have vouched for Jared even if Jared had been putting himself forward as Archbishop of Canterbury. But as for anyone else – those must have been the male guests at the house party where Cal almost lost his life and the mystery of the near-fatal illnesses that had sent him abroad as a young man was finally solved. It was troubling that guests had realised there was a situation to be dealt with. Cal’s injuries and the death of another house guest had been ascribed to accidental causes and at the time no-one had shown any sign of believing otherwise.

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed. Nobody was quite sure what was going on, but something was and they described you as the deus ex machina who ensured that things stayed like that – ambiguous. From the very little Tonkin could glean from Flynn I was more inclined to ask whether you had Italian blood – there was a distinct hint of stilettos behind the arras about the matter.’

Jared kept his expression bland, despite the urge to snort with laughter at being described as the god in the machine. ‘Knives and an arras, my lord? That is as much Hamlet as Machiavelli. No-one was knifed, you have my assurance.’ Poisoned and shot, yes. Knifed, no.

‘I will not ask for details and I know I would get short shrift if did, which is as it should be.’ He shot Jared a sharp glance from beneath unruly eyebrows several shades darker than his hair. ‘Tonkin summed you up as a dangerous man to be on the wrong side of, absolutely loyal and worryingly intelligent. I have great need of a man like that, Mr Hunt, even if you take extreme pains to hide your past.’

‘My past?’ Jared lifted one eyebrow. Absolute stillness was as betraying as fidgeting. ‘It is an open book. I was apprenticed in arms to Monsieur Jacques Favel, then, on his recommendation, secured a position as swordmaster and companion to the young Viscount Castledale, later Duke of Calderbrook. I spent almost seven years abroad with him on his travels and have, within the year, returned with him to England.’

He crossed his legs. ‘His Grace no longer requires a travelling companion and I am therefore free to set up my own salle d’armes.’

‘And before your apprenticeship?’

‘I hardly think my childhood is relevant, my lord. It was not spent in prison, in a slum or engaged in felony, you have my word.’

‘Then why the secrecy?’

Persistent old bugger, aren’t you? Jared considered ending the interview there and then. He could not afford rumours to spread that he was sensitive about his origins, that there was intriguing tale to be told. ‘Because it is my business, my lord.’ He smiled, taking care that the warmth reached his eyes. ‘A certain mystery is part of my persona, my calling card, if you will. If you chose to employ me I will keep your secrets as close as my own. But if my privacy is a stumbling block for you, then I will remove myself forthwith.’

He waited. One heartbeat, two… Ah well, I will just have to hope the old man is not a gossip. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and prepared to stand.

‘Fair enough.’ The Viscount waved him back into the seat. ‘Either I trust you, or I do not and I find that I do.’ He picked up a folded paper from the table by his chair and handed it to Jared. ‘That is what I am prepared to pay you, in addition to your expenses.’

Jared unfolded it and found himself holding a bank draft. An exceedingly large bank draft. He lifted his gaze to meet that of the old man steadily watching him across the few feet between them. ‘And what would I have to do to earn this?’ It seemed to be about half the going rate for assassinating a royal duke or robbing the Bank of England.

‘Someone is attempting to kill my wife. Find them and stop them by whatever means necessary.’