A summer evening.

Overhead, a full, golden moon.

A soft, masculine voice murmuring in her ear, “Ma chérie, je veux te toucher.”

A hand, drawn across her bosom.

The faintest scent of lavender, carried ever so gently on the breeze that rustled leaves, caressed flowers.

Lavender, and . . . witch hazel?

A sudden, urgent warning sounded deep in Katherine Brooke’s brain, but it was too late.

“Miss Brooke! Monsieur de la Motte! What is the meaning of this?” came the outraged voice of Miss Wolfe, headmistress of the very exclusive and even more expensive boarding school at which Katherine had been immured for two long, miserable years.

Germaine—Monsieur de la Motte—gave an audible gasp of horror, and before Katherine’s equally horrified gaze the dashing music instructor who had been so bold, so daring, so eloquent, seemed abruptly to become a rather large pile of blancmange. He released her and pulled away as if he had just been holding in his arms a repulsive, bad-smelling troll he’d found lurking under a bridge somewhere, and gibbered:

“Oh, Mademoiselle Wolfe, forgive me—it was nothing—without significance—a brotherly embrace to comfort only—the poor demoiselle so lonely and far from home—and but this one time, I do assure you—it was that I felt so deeply sorry for her—”

“You lie, you—you weasel,” interrupted Katherine hotly. If she’d had her wits about her, she might have gone along with his inane little story and maybe, just maybe, mitigated this rapidly unfolding disaster, but there was something about the way he was babbling on, as if she was nothing, as if she was without significance, that made a crimson mist of rage rise up in front of her eyes like a vengeful wraith.

She wrenched herself around to face Miss Wolfe. “It’s not the first time, we’ve been meeting in the garden for weeks, and he’s been kissing me!”

Germaine de la Motte, no doubt aware that his days at the Basingstoke Select Academy for Young Ladies had drawn to an immediate close, and that within mere minutes he would be booted out onto the street with only his hastily packed valise in hand, gave Katherine a look of undisguised malice. “But only, mademoiselle, because you sought me out.”

Oh, splendid, now the cat was well and truly let out of the bag, thus making things go instantly from bad to worse. Katherine could feel her fury dissolving with almost ludicrous speed and giving way to soul-shattering embarrassment and shame. So much for the embraces, the kisses, the furtive touches here and there, the intensely exciting feel of a man’s body pressed against her own. How wrong and awful she’d been, how bad—

And here, to emphasize just how bad, was Miss Wolfe again:

“I can hardly believe my ears! That a pupil of mine would stoop so low! To solicit such a thing! To sneak about, like a sordid criminal! And you but barely turned fifteen, Miss Brooke! Be sure that I shall inform your parents by express first thing tomorrow.”

Katherine hung her head. She was a low, sneaking, criminal sort of girl. “Yes, Miss Wolfe,” she muttered, resisting the impulse to kick at a stone which had somehow managed to crassly intrude itself on the otherwise immaculate path of the school’s garden. If she was lucky, her parents would have her removed at once.

But as it turned out, she would stay on at the Basingstoke Academy for four more long, miserable years, her parents agreeing with Miss Wolfe’s expert (and, ultimately, costly) assessment that Katherine—so unruly, so unpleasant, so unpopular with her fellow pupils—would need them in order to acquire even the most fundamental degree of polish, that essential and elusive je ne sais quoi, which would enable her to someday, one hoped, comport herself without committing further, dreadful gaffes.

It had been a perfectly good day, tramping along the St. Lawrence River and leading his men in a jolly little reconnaissance among the thickly clustered woods, until all at once there was a crack and a slight whistling noise.

Then there was a sharp pain six inches down and to the right of his heart.

“Damn it to hell,” said Hugo Penhallow, whipping around and in a single rapid motion bringing up his own musket, sighting the French sharpshooter two hundred paces away, and targeting him rather more effectively. He watched with grim satisfaction as the other man crumpled like a puppet released from its string, then sat himself down hard on the ground. His hand, pressed against the front of his red jacket, came away equally red, but unfortunately with his own blood.

If he was lucky, the bullet that was now cozily resident inside him hadn’t struck anything of particular importance. It occurred to him now that he was very fond of his internal organs, as they’d functioned beautifully all his life, and he’d love for them to keep on doing exactly that.

Carefully, Hugo allowed himself to slide down into a prone position. Everything was getting all hazy and woolly, and just before he closed his eyes he saw the concerned faces of his men hovering over him. Awfully nice bunch of chaps. He was fortunate to have a group like this under his command. Too bad for them they’d have to convey him all the way back to camp, but that, after all, was one of the hazards of military life, and he was sure they’d do a decent job of it.

The pain, he noticed vaguely, was getting decidedly worse. Well, this certainly was an annoyance. How he loathed those pesky Frenchmen, and wished they’d stay in their own country where they belonged, kowtowing to that blasted little egomaniac Bonaparte and also making brandy which was, admittedly, of excellent quality. In fact, he wouldn’t object to a long swallow of that right now. But, he suspected, he was shortly to be losing consciousness, so all things considered, the brandy might well have been a waste.

His last sentient thought was gratitude for the fact that the reconnaissance had been a useful one. His men would be able to confirm that yes, of a surety, there were active enemies in the area, and here was their bloodied and insensate captain to prove it.