Chapter One
A winter’s heart. A burden borne.
London. Six years later.
Chestnut-haired and tall, the groom bowed low over his beautiful bride’s hand, utter adoration smouldering in his eyes.
The awaiting guests applauded and cheered.
A debutante sighed, palm pressed to heart.
Jack’s gizzards suffered a nauseous lurch.
Another bloody wedding at St George’s. If he wasn’t more circumspect and continued in guiding others down the path to wedded bliss, he’d have no one left to roister with soon.
Who could he cajole to the Cyder Cellars of an evening? Or badger relentlessly until they divulged their problems? After all, he couldn’t pass every night in the lap of an agreeable woman – well, maybe that wasn’t strictly true.
But too many of those he considered close friends were now resolutely caught in the parson’s mousetrap. Not that he objected to their brides; every single one of them was delightful and he enjoyed their company immensely, it was just–
“Lord Winterbourne. I’ve not seen you for an age. Where have you been?”
One of those said delightful brides stood glaring at him, arms crossed but with a mischievous grin.
“Aideen lovey, what a beauteous sight for these jaded eyes.” He kissed the Duchess of Rakecombe’s gloved hand with a flourish. “Afraid I got a bit caught up with a Tuscan Contessa this past month.” Best not mention that the nubile Contessa was privy to coveted state secrets which had required plundering…all for King and Country, of course. “How are you enjoying marital life with His Ruthlessness?”
They glanced across the wedding barouche to the black-clad Duke of Rakecombe, currently sneering at Lady Hardy as she warbled on about hats, oblivious to his thinned lips and impatient tapping of ebony walking cane.
Aideen breathed an ardent sigh at the grim sight, producing another wave of biliousness in Jack’s gizzards.
“Last week,” she said wistfully, “he gifted me a scarlet fan with deadly retractable blades.”
“How…” Well, what could one say? “…endearing.”
“I know. It even has a complementary garrotte hidden within the black ribbon.”
The duke chose that moment to cast a heated look at his duchess, roasting her apple-green gown to pie, but she returned her own scorching gaze and Jack considered departing for cooler climes.
He edged away, but with a flutter of hand, the duchess twisted to pat his velvet lapel in a hideous sisterly manner. “Now, how about you? Any respectable misses to tell me of?” She tapped her lip. “Your perfect woman would be–”
“Willing, wanton, with huge–”
“I do accept,” the duchess retorted low, “that a milksop miss would bore you, to be sure, but equally a lady of my temperament would irritate you. I shall make a list of potential marchionesses.”
Gads, not even if two Sundays came together. “No need to worry, Aideen. I don’t believe I’ve the capacity for love. My heart never beats faster or louder, just swings along like a pendulum.”
A commotion down the street stole the duchess’s attention, protests from the half-mile crush of carriages held up by this grand society event.
Needless to say, no one took any notice, this being the haughty ton and all. Gents in their finery studiously ignored the rioting coachmen and chortled loudly to cover the din. Lady Cross flapped her fingers, presenting them her rear – enough to quieten any red-blooded man.
“But you’re a rake.” The duchess frowned. “Surely one woman has…affected you?”
Jack thought back over the years. He enjoyed female company immensely – rather too immensely, some might say – and always sought to impart pleasure wherever he went, but more?
It simply never happened. Indeed, it never would.
Love did not exist for men of the Winterbourne lineage, their hearts as dead as the season their noble title evoked.
Blinking to oust a pall, he smiled as laughter broke from a crowd surrounding today’s groom, Lord Rainham, who with a little assistance from yours truly had found his perfect match in the enchanting, clever Lily.
Surveying the guests that chatted and congratulated, he all of a sudden felt the odd man out, a little galling for the most affable rogue of London town – the Countess Lieven’s description, not his.
“I’ll make myself scarce soon,” he mumbled, feeling quite out of sorts. “I might call upon Millie.”
“Who?”
Damn, had he said that aloud?
“His little opera dancer, I believe, my ambrosial turtle dove,” drawled a clipped sotto voce. The Duke of Rakecombe circled, malevolent grin gracing his stern features as he slipped an arm around his wife.
“Well,” groused Jack, producing his hip flask for a celebratory tot, “if all you fellows are going to abandon me for connubial bliss, I’ll have to find something to do with myself.”
“I have a certain matter you could attend to,” declared Lord Rainham, abruptly appearing at his shoulder. “And it would allow that Contessa fuss to die down a tad.”
Jack swatted his superior’s back in hearty congratulation, counting himself lucky to be considered a friend of such a remarkable fellow. Not only had this principal spy coordinator an intellect the size of Prussia but he was unwaveringly loyal to his men…and his swordplay wasn’t half bad either.
“Come by my town house at nine tomorrow, Winterbourne.” The groom cast a lingering glance at his pretty bride. “No, make that eleven sharp, as we are departing at twelve. I am surprising Lily with a visit to Manchester and the soap factory she invested in.”
“How…romantic,” Jack managed.
Lud, no wonder these fellows had needed his amorous guidance.
∞∞∞
Jack clicked the gold case of his fob watch closed and lolled back in Rainham’s austere study.
Alone.
With tentative peace on the continent, Whitehall work ought to have become lighter but Lord Rainham appeared as busy as the devil in a high wind. Papers were piled high on his desk with colour-coded tags. Maps crowded the walls, pins sticking out in regimental straightness.
“Winterbourne, sorry to have kept you waiting.” Rainham sauntered in, a quarter after the hour of eleven, appearing markedly dishevelled for once, sans jacket and neckcloth loose – the rascal.
“No matter, you had a decent claret.” He raised a half-full glass. “So, what’s this mission? A crooked countess? A dangerous duchess? Or a wicked widow? I’m more partial to the latter if there’s a choice.”
“An innocent young girl.”
Jack stared aghast and drained the claret.
“And it requires you to leave the confines of London…for the countryside.”
He poured himself another.
The country had never held much appeal, excepting an hour or so’s carriage excursion to woo the ladies. Mud, midges, brambles and all that…fresh air. “Unto where exactly?”
“Cornwall.”
“Gads, the ends of the earth, my dear Rainham. I might drop off the edge, never to be of a lady’s service again.”
His superior unsuccessfully hid a grin and made himself comfortable behind the congested desk. “I’ve calculated it’s nine days and one morn by carriage,” he stated, steepling his fingers. “Given that you’ll change horses three times a day, commence at sun-up and no rain falls.”
Considering this was September, the latter seemed unlikely.
With a clank of keys, Rainham unlocked a desk drawer, its wooden runners groaning with the weight. A folder emerged – substantial with yellowing paper.
“Six years ago,” his superior began briskly, no doubt impatient to start his honeymoon and who could blame him, “there was an incident in the south-west of Cornwall. A girl and boy were out riding when they interrupted what we now know was a French spy ring. The enemy was using a cove and hidden inlets to run men back and forth across the English Channel.”
Jack nodded. Cornwall was fairly cut-off and protecting its jagged coastline from the enemy proved problematic. Local smuggling also remained rife and Crown meddling along its shores met with resistance from both villagers and lords alike. Even his own jonquil silk waistcoat doubtless arrived via a midnight dash, as did one or two of his fine cognacs.
“Were they killed?” He steeled himself for the answer. Soldiers fought, knowing the risks, and spies took their chances, but innocent children?
“The boy was found with a broken neck, but the girl, a Miss Tamsyn Penrose, was left alive.” Rainham smoothed the folder with a palm and tucked in a sheet that dared to peek out.
“And?” Wasn’t there always an “and” to Rainham’s tales?
“She remained delirious for many weeks but during that time, her father said she occasionally mumbled of a bat haunting her.”
“Lud, you don’t think…”
But it was evident Rainham did.
Last year a hell-born Frenchman by the name of La Chauve-Souris – The Bat – had kidnapped the now Duchess of Rakecombe. The fiend had ended up in the Thames with a bullet in his shoulder, but Rainham had never been convinced of his demise. The river usually gave up its dead in some form but no corpse had ever been found.
Could this be the same Bat the girl had talked of?
“But La Chauve-Souris never left anyone alive.” Jack swallowed. “He cut all loose ends.”
“I know,” said Rainham, neatening his rumpled neckcloth, “that is what always interested me about this incident. My predecessor sent Carlsbrook to investigate but the girl refused, according to him, to speak. However, I met her father some months later in London. He was searching for a doctor, as it wasn’t mere refusal, more… The fright had rendered her silent. She’d become mute, and Sir Jago was worried she would simply fade away.”
Rainham switched his gaze to the single lily in a Spode urn upon the desk, and one could see his knowledge box functioning on a different level to everyone else’s in London, if not England – connections, probabilities, coincidence…
Conclusions.
“But Rainham, I don’t see–”
“She’s no longer mute.” Hazel eyes sharpened. “I meet Sir Jago now and then when he’s in town, and he revealed that she’d begun to regain her voice a short while ago.”
Jack had a horrible feeling he knew what this mission would entail, and in truth, he’d rather battle a ten-foot villain in the alleyways of the Rookery with nothing but a silver-gilt teaspoon.
But he kept that to himself.
“I asked Sir Jago if I could send one of my most considerate and kind-hearted men to…”
“To turn her up sweet,” groused Jack, and did Rainham not have the wrong-hearted rogue sitting in his study? “And her father is happy with that?”
“Relatively.” Rainham shifted. “He also wants an end to the matter and believes it would help her to speak of it. You will stay at Penrose Manor under the guise of business with Sir Jago. Befriend her, woo her a little, gain her confidence.”
“That’s not my forte at all.” He rapped his fingers to the desk in irritation. “I seduce. I don’t…faff about.”
“But you do have a way with females.” Rainham eased forward and held his gaze. “La Chauve-Souris is an evil man, Jack, and if there is any chance of him still being alive then all traces must be investigated. Although out of date, the information Miss Penrose holds might lead to more. What did she hear that night? Any names? Had they further locations in Cornwall? Accomplices?”
Jack topped up his claret. Best to liquor his boots with the decent stuff as they probably drank honey mead or somesuch in the country.
“The chances,” Rainham continued, “of uncovering a trail is less than thirty per cent, I admit, but add another ten for Napoleon’s fall, eight for French rats deserting the sinking ship and five for coincidence and that calls for investigating, even after all this time.”
Jack’s lips twitched. “That adds up to fifty-three per cent and you once told me you never do anything for less than sixty.”
“Hoisted by my own petard.” Rainham’s frown lines folded to a smile. “However, I neglected an additional ten per cent…” The frown returned. “Mason resigned three months ago. Do you remember me telling you of him?”
How could he not?
The Whitehall official’s sister had been kidnapped by La Chauve-Souris for blackmail but when the loyal Mason had revealed all to Rainham, she’d been strangled and left on his doorstep.
Such whims of violence stirred Jack’s latent temper. “How was he?”
“A broken man, I would say.” Rainham toyed with the white lily petals. “At night, in low moments, it’s Mason’s eyes I see, tortured and guilt-ridden.” Yellow pollen drifted to dust the desk. “As am I.”
Jack bowed his head. Evil didn’t give a tinker’s damn where it lived or what it touched – town or countryside, the innocent or the dissolute.
“Of course, Asher. I’ll find out what I can.” Jack brought forth a handkerchief to sweep away the pollen. There remained one hindrance however… “But what am I supposed to do with an innocent young country lass?”
Rainham stared back with the lost eyes of a deer caught in the path of a hurtling phaeton carriage.
No help there then.
∞∞∞
“So, what am I supposed to do with an innocent young country lass?” Jack ventured.
The Duke of Rakecombe glowered across a table in The Cooper’s Arms, lips thinned to a mere crease.
No help there th–
“Picnics,” he barked all of a sudden. “Aideen’s a country girl and always wants picnics.”
Faugh, something else to blame the French for.
Young Lord Boswell had been a member of the newfangled Picnic Society for thirteen days and not stopped grumbling about their recent visit to Dorking. Apparently, he’d been required to tramp half a mile across a dung-infested field just to sit upon a lumpy blanket and be inundated with ants in his breeches and wasps in his brandy punch.
Limp cucumber sandwiches, eggs one could play tennis with and squelchy tarts had been provided, yet halfway through the soggy strawberries, the skies had done the inevitable for an English summer’s day and let forth a deluge.
And the champagne had been warm.
“I’m not exactly a country boy in case you hadn’t noticed,” Jack argued, draining his ale.
What if he contracted some mysterious countryside illness – lungs failing from the lack of coal-laden fog or silence-fed ears losing the ability to distinguish a lady’s come-hither sigh amongst the prattle of a ballroom.
“And besides, wooing fragile maidens simply isn’t my style.”
“Heaven forbid, the rogue has sensibilities.” Rakecombe chuckled, tugging on his black leather gloves.
“And a good thing too or I would have said yes when your god-daughter asked me to sh–”
“I’ll take yer empties, gentlemen,” interrupted the barmaid as the duke’s fist flexed upon his venomous walking cane. “And that’ll be a shilling and thruppence for two mutton pies, one peas, mash and six ales.”
Jack raised a brow. Whilst Rainham enjoyed his honeymoon, the duke was in charge and surely there were expenses.
Despite a narrowing of green eyes, coins were tossed in the air to be caught by a practised female hand. She checked the edges for signs of clipping, much to Jack’s delight and Rakecombe’s irritation, before slipping them within her bodice.
The duke unfolded from the bench, toppling this morning’s fencing paraphernalia with a clatter. “Do you expect your wooing to be completed before Rainham’s Michaelmas Ball?”
“Without a shadow of doubt, and I have promised to attend.” He winked. “Lily says my ‘man-about-town’ reputation would guarantee their event’s success.”
Rakecombe’s face rutted with disgruntlement – well, his normal expression, in fact. “I am a superior duke of the realm. Would I not guarantee success?”
“Rakehell, my dear fellow, whilst I cherish your friendship, you could not guarantee doxies in a brothel.” Jack chuckled until such moment as the duke’s frown transformed into a peculiar grin.
“Off you flit to Cornwall, then.” The duke shooed his hand. “And do not pause too near any beguiling flames or…” He twirled his gloved fingers. “…poof.”
Jack scowled. Was that an attempt to make humour of his nom de guerre?
Lord Rainham took a disproportionate amount of time in selecting codenames and everyone knew they were carefully chosen for their pertinence to the spy involved.
Others had been assigned The Wolf or The Bear, but surely Rainham had taken leave of his senses in choosing…
The Moth.
Quick and inventive, his superior had explained, silent on the wing, he’d flattered, but…
Damn it all, a dull grey creature of dust and nothing?
“I prefer to recall,” Jack retorted, standing to gather his own fencing foils and equipage, “the moth’s ability to create sudden and unseen destruction, as demonstrated this morning upon your shirt. Don’t forget, Rakehell, as winner of our bout, you forfeited eight guineas, three bottles of Moët and sole use of your box at the opera for a month. Stick to pistols, dear friend, as agile flitting is not your forte.”