Once the ladies were gone, Niall relaxed. He’d spent the past hour and a half trying not to stare at Bree, pay attention to what she said, or listen in on her conversation with Fulkham. It was damned well giving him a headache.

Marriage and bearing a child should have dampened her beauty and ruined her figure. Instead, she was not only as lovely as ever, but she’d somehow gained more confidence, a very attractive quality in a woman who had once been rather shy and cautious. Or had seemed to be so, anyway.

And what the blazes did Fulkham mean by making her laugh and smile and look utterly engrossed? Was the man hunting a wife?

Possibly. Fulkham was around Niall’s age, and he needed a wife to help him achieve his political aims. No one trusted a bachelor in politics. If a man couldn’t manage a woman, how could he manage a country?

Fulkham approached to offer Niall a glass. “Port, old boy?”

“Thanks.” Niall took it and downed some, eager for anything that might blot Bree from his brain. If that were possible.

“I need to speak with you privately,” Fulkham said, lowering his voice. “It’s a matter of great importance.”

Niall snorted. Fulkham thought everything was a matter of great importance. That probably came of his being a spymaster, diplomat, and right-hand man to a cabinet minister. And Niall should know, having served as a spy for him during his exile.

Fulkham gestured to the door leading into the hall. “Your brother-in-law said we may use his library for this discussion. So if you’d be so kind . . .”

“Of course.” Niall could hardly refuse, since Fulkham was largely responsible for obtaining Niall’s pardon from His Majesty, William IV, the new ruler of England.

Fortunately, Edwin kept his library well stocked with good French brandy, so as soon as they entered, Niall ditched his port to pour himself a healthy portion of spirits. He suspected that port wouldn’t prove strong enough for whatever the undersecretary wanted to say.

But Fulkham didn’t get to the point right away. He strolled over to scan Edwin’s bookshelves and asked, “Are you settling in at Margrave Manor?”

Small talk? That wasn’t like Fulkham.

Niall took a long pull on the brandy. “Yes. Why?”

“Blakeborough said you were pleased with how well your cousin managed your estate in your absence.”

“Not so much pleased as relieved. Warren isn’t the sort of man one expects to be good at such matters, but he is conscientious, thank God. As I’m sure you know, running an estate from afar through managers would have been tricky.”

“Especially when you were otherwise occupied—with avoiding that French ambassador’s first secretary Durand in his insane quest to avenge Whiting, and with doing certain . . . tasks for your country.”

Niall stilled. “I hope you’re not thinking of asking me to continue my work for the foreign office now that I’ve come home. I had a bellyful of deception and blood and betrayal after Portugal.”

A pained expression crossed Fulkham’s face. “I do regret that you had to witness those reprisals against our liberal allies in Porto.”

“Reprisals!” Niall snorted. “They were mass assassinations.” And sometimes he still couldn’t put the memories from his mind.

“At least you got our people away. If the Miguelists had succeeded in killing them, England might have been forced to go to war. There would have been more bloodshed.”

“Still, some of those soldiers were my friends.” And no, he couldn’t have changed anything—they’d chosen to take their stand against the absolutists. But images of a garrison full of slaughtered Portuguese soldiers still haunted his sleep.

“That bastard Miguel. You should have seen him when he came to England only a few months before that. He was all smooth words and expert manners. Even Wellington had no idea that—”

“He and his dear queen mother had such a taste for blood?” Niall swallowed some brandy, relishing the burn. “The human capacity for deception never ceases to amaze me.” He cast Fulkham a hard look. “Which is why I’m done with all that.”

Before Fulkham could answer, the door to the library opened. Mrs. Vyse and Bree entered, throwing Niall entirely off guard.

He wasn’t the only one—Bree gave a start when she saw him. She cast a quick glance at Fulkham. “Oh . . . please forgive us. Mrs. Vyse wanted to show me a novel that Clarissa owns, but we can come back later.”

“Nonsense,” Fulkham said, surprising Niall. “Please take a seat, Mrs. Trevor. There’s something I need to discuss with you. And with Margrave.”

Niall froze. Him and Bree? What was Fulkham up to?

When Bree hesitated, Fulkham said in a voice that brooked no refusal, “I’m afraid, Mrs. Trevor, that I must insist you join us.”

Bree blinked at the command, but sat down warily on the edge of a chair.

Fulkham smiled at Mrs. Vyse. “Thank you for aiding my little subterfuge, my dear. It’s imperative that no one but our host and hostess realize that we’re having this talk. You’ll improvise to make sure they don’t, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Vyse’s eyes twinkled. “I learned from the best.” Then she left, shutting the door behind her.

Damnation. Fulkham had set this up on purpose. “What is this about, Fulkham? And since when does Mrs. Vyse do your bidding?”

“Since before she married my late brother. But that’s neither here nor there.” He gestured to a chair. “Why don’t you take a seat as well?”

“I prefer to stand. Now tell me what the blazes is going on. Why are we meeting at a dinner party? And why all the ‘subterfuge,’ as you put it, when you could simply have invited us to your office?”

“Actually, I couldn’t have.” Fulkham gazed sternly at Bree. “No one—and I mean no one—must know that we three are acquainted in anything but a social capacity.”

“Why is that?” Bree asked, surprising Niall with the forthright question. She’d always been quiet, unwilling to cause trouble.

Her marriage seemed to have changed her. Or perhaps she’d always been this way, and he just hadn’t seen it in the midst of his obsession with her.

“Because I require your assistance in a sensitive matter that cannot become known beyond this room.” Fulkham set down his port. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Why us?” Niall asked.

“For one thing, it has come to my attention that you two were well acquainted before you left England.”

Bree glanced at Niall in alarm.

“Don’t look at me,” he snapped. “I didn’t tell him.”

She scowled. “No, but you just confirmed it with your answer.”

The snippy reply made Fulkham chuckle. “I already had it confirmed, Mrs. Trevor. I found your maid from seven years ago, and she readily admitted that you and Margrave had a . . . er . . . friendship.”

“Christ,” Niall muttered.

“Besides,” Fulkham went on, “several people saw the two of you react dramatically to each other a few weeks ago. So it’s no great secret.”

She was blushing furiously now, reminding Niall painfully of the old Bree. The one who’d crushed his heart under her pretty little heel.

“Fine,” Niall clipped out. “We knew each other. What of it?”

Fulkham stared at Bree. “I’m afraid this has to do with Mrs. Trevor’s father, Sir Oswald Payne.”

With a frown, Bree rose. “Then it doesn’t concern me. As I told you earlier, I’m not remotely close to my father. I haven’t seen him in years, not since my mother’s funeral.”

Niall started. Her mother had been dead for “years”? That shook him a little, given Father’s skepticism concerning her sickly mother. How many years had it been? He would have to find out.

“I realize that you and your father aren’t speaking,” Fulkham said. “Unfortunately, he’s landed himself in a bit of trouble recently.”

“Doesn’t he always?” she said bitterly.

“Ah, but this time he’s facing the possibility of something worse than debtors’ prison.” Fulkham’s voice hardened. “You see, several weeks ago, counterfeit twenty- and fifty-pound banknotes started showing up at various merchants. It took some effort, given how widely notes are generally disseminated, but the Home Office eventually traced a couple back to your father, who’d used them to pay off creditors.”

As Niall gave a low whistle, a dangerous glitter appeared in Bree’s eyes. “Then arrest him. I washed my hands of him long ago.”

“Good God, that’s cold-blooded,” Niall said. “I know your father’s gambling was problematic, but surely—”

“You know nothing about my father, sir,” she said hotly. “If you did, you wouldn’t be shocked by the possibility of his behaving criminally.”

Fulkham narrowed his gaze on her. “Do you realize that the punishment for counterfeiting is death?”

Bree sucked in a sharp breath. Clearly, she had not realized it.

“So you see, my dear,” Fulkham continued, “if we simply arrest him, he will hang. Then you—and your young son—will once more be embroiled in a scandal, but one far worse than that caused by your husband’s death last year. I don’t think that’s what you want.”

When Bree paled and sank into her chair, Niall felt a sudden perverse urge to protect her. “That sounds distinctly like a threat, Fulkham.”

“Not a threat,” the man said calmly. “I’m merely stating the facts so that Mrs. Trevor knows exactly what the situation is.” He steadied his gaze on her. “But if you will help me with this matter, I can keep your father from the noose even if he’s guilty.”

“If?” Niall stared him down. “You just said he was.”

“No. I said that we traced the notes to him. The problem is, we don’t know if he merely passed them on unwittingly from someone else or if he created them.”

When Bree snorted, Fulkham said, “What?”

“Papa isn’t talented enough to create forgeries. He could certainly pass them on, but the kind of ability required to make believable copies of a banknote?” She shook her head. “That’s beyond him.”

“If you say so,” Fulkham said. “But he could hire talented artists to do it, which is practically the same thing, if he’s paying them and overseeing the operation. That’s why we need to find out where the notes came from, how many are out there, and who is ultimately behind the counterfeiting.”

Fulkham downed the remainder of his port. “If we arrest Sir Oswald and he’s culpable, he’ll never tell us anything. And if he’s not culpable, we’ll alert the real criminals, who will simply pick up and flee, or move their operation elsewhere. We need to know more before we make any arrests.”

Bree blinked at him. “I really don’t see how I can help you with that.”

“No doubt he wants you to spy on your father,” Niall drawled, familiar with Fulkham’s tactics. He turned to the spymaster. “Just send in one of your many lackeys to do the spying.”

“You know that won’t work. He’s a private citizen. He’s not looking to hire staff, his club of card-playing friends hasn’t added anyone to their ranks in a few years, and he moves little in society beyond them. Besides, if he’s behind this, he’s not going to reveal it to some stranger with no connection to him.” Fulkham toyed with his empty glass. “Indeed, that’s where you and Mrs. Trevor come in.”

“I don’t understand,” Bree said.

Ah, but Niall did. Unfortunately. As he steadied a hard look on Fulkham, something like guilt seemed to flash over the man’s face, but it was gone so fast, Niall was sure he’d imagined it.

“It’s simple, really.” Fulkham set down his glass. “I want you and Margrave to pretend to be engaged, so he can get close enough to your father to find out what Sir Oswald and his friends are up to.”

“No,” Niall said tersely. “Absolutely not.”

Fulkham arched an eyebrow at him. “I expected a protest from Mrs. Trevor, but not you. After all, you owe me a great deal.”

God rot the man. It was true: Everything Niall had gone through on Fulkham’s account still didn’t compare to what Fulkham had done for him. And he always paid his debts.

Bree shot Niall a quizzical glance. “What do you owe him?”

“Fulkham is largely responsible for arranging my pardon.”

Fulkham was also the man who’d made sure that Edwin wasn’t prosecuted for killing Durand, after Durand attempted to abduct Clarissa. To get to Niall. Who’d killed Durand’s cousin, Whiting.

Thanks to Fulkham, neither he nor Edwin was hanging from a gibbet right now. And Clarissa’s secret was still safe.

God, this was a tangled web, and Fulkham was tangled up in all of it.

“I realize that I owe you my entire future,” Niall told the arrogant spymaster, “but surely you can find another way for me to repay you for your time and effort on my behalf.”

Bree jumped up to glare at Fulkham. “And I don’t owe you anything.”

“Except your father’s life,” Fulkham said.

The remark wilted her like a cravat in a Turkish bath. She turned to Niall. “Is he . . . telling the truth? Would Papa hang?”

God, seeing her so torn—and turning to him for comfort—struck him hard. “Without your father’s being proved innocent or having someone like our ‘friend’ here intervene, I’m afraid he would. The laws in that respect are still harsh. Counterfeiting is considered treason, believe it or not.”

“But judges take the word of the government into account,” Fulkham said. “Even if your father is guilty, I can push to have him charged with fraud instead, which would get him fourteen years’ transportation rather than hanging. If I so choose to persuade the magistrate on your father’s behalf.”

“You’re a cold one, Fulkham,” Niall snapped.

“In service to my country, I’ll be as cold as it takes.”

Niall knew that from personal experience. “I don’t understand why you’re the one handling this. You’re not in the Home Office.”

“But I have a connection to the two of you.”

“In other words, the Home Office knew that you alone could blackmail us both,” Niall said cuttingly.

“You could put it like that, I suppose.” Fulkham went over to pour a glass of brandy, then brought it to Bree, whose face was the color of ash. “Here, Mrs. Trevor. I think you need a bit of this.”

“Ladies don’t—”

“Drink it,” Niall ordered. For once, he agreed with Fulkham. She looked as if she might faint at any moment.

She took a sip, coughed, then took another. At least that put a little color back into her cheeks.

Fulkham turned to Niall. “You know, old boy, you’re the only one who can pull this off—the only one who knows her well enough to make it work. And if you do this one thing for me, we’ll consider everything else even. I won’t ask anything like this of you again.”

Deuce take the bastard. Fulkham knew exactly how to tempt him.

And in truth, this scheme was nothing compared to what he’d done and seen in Porto. He wouldn’t even be balking if not for the fact that it was Bree he’d have to spend time with.

But perhaps that was actually a good reason to accept. If he got to know her for the scheming chit she really was and not the sweet girl he’d foolishly invented and fallen in love with, he might finally be able to purge her from his thoughts. Nothing like a dose of reality to banish a dream that wouldn’t die.

“Very well,” Niall said. “I’ll do it. As long as you swear this is the last time.”

Relief crossed Fulkham’s face. “You have my word.”

“Good.” Now that Niall had agreed to the scheme, he’d best get the details of the plan straight. “So, what you want is for Brilliana to introduce me to her father as her fiancé, and me to insinuate myself into his circles.”

“Exactly.”

“What if he won’t see me?” Bree asked.

Fulkham snorted. “Has he tried to call on you since you’ve been in London?”

She tipped up her chin. “A few times, yes. I refused to admit him.”

“Why?” Niall asked, still shocked by the depth of her bitterness toward the man.

A veil came down over her features. “Because his only reason to see me was undoubtedly to elicit money from me or my aunt. I refused to submit her to that, and I personally didn’t have it to give him, anyway.”

Niall had a sneaking suspicion there was more to the story than she was letting on. The man was her father, for God’s sake.

“I’m sure Sir Oswald has another reason for trying to see you.” Obviously Fulkham had had the same thought as Niall. The baron regarded her with a steady glance. “He probably wants to meet his grandson.”

“That’s precisely why I didn’t want them to meet. Because my father would try to use him, too, if he could.” Panic flashed in her eyes. “Oh no, and now you want me to . . . to let Papa back into my life? How can I allow Silas to be around his grandfather, knowing that the man is a criminal?”

“Might be a criminal,” Fulkham corrected her. “We’re not sure yet. Besides, if the boy is only sixteen months old, he won’t remember him later.”

Bree rose to wander the room, clearly agitated. “There are other issues, too. My father isn’t stupid. He’s likely to find it suspicious that after turning him away repeatedly, I’m suddenly interested in renewing the connection.”

“That’s where Margrave comes in.” The undersecretary turned to Niall. “Say whatever you must to put Sir Oswald at ease. Tell him you insisted upon meeting her father, that you persuaded her to mend fences, that you want his approval. I don’t think it will be hard to convince him. I’m sure he’ll find it understandable that his daughter’s impending marriage would alter how she regards her father.”

“Then he doesn’t know his daughter very well,” she said.

Niall stifled a laugh. That was one way Bree hadn’t changed. She was still stubborn. Whatever had caused the rift between her and her father wouldn’t easily be forgiven or forgotten. It must really stick in her craw to have to be part of this.

He could understand that. “So, we meet with Sir Oswald. Then what? A public announcement of our betrothal?”

“You two can figure that out as you go along. If Sir Oswald presses for such a thing—or seems suspicious that the engagement isn’t genuine—then do it. If not, feel free to keep it private as long as you can.” Fulkham glanced at Bree, and his expression softened. “I doubt Mrs. Trevor will want the scandal that goes with a broken engagement if she can avoid it.”

Bree lifted her chin. “Being known as a jilt will hardly affect me, since I’ve no desire to marry again.”

That surprised Niall. “You expect us to believe that a woman of your youth and beauty, with a young son who needs a father, would choose to remain alone the rest of her life?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I have no reason to remarry and, quite frankly, see no point in it.”

How could that be?

He scowled. Unless she was still so in love with her late husband that she believed no one could ever take his place in her heart.

The thought tightened a vise about his chest . . . until the cynical part of him reasserted itself. Her sort didn’t fall in love. They were too busy seeing what they could get. Which reminded him . . . “If you’re so determined not to marry, why is your aunt providing you with a dowry?”

“I don’t know,” Bree snapped. “Why don’t you ask her? It wasn’t my idea, I assure you. I’m not in your situation, sir. I don’t need a wife to bear my heir. In fact, you might suffer more from the scandal of a jilting than I would. So it’s really your decision how to handle our faux betrothal.”

“Trust me, Mrs. Trevor,” Niall said coldly, “a broken engagement would prompt few women to turn down a man of my consequence. Especially when I’m no longer headed for exile and a lifetime of hiding.”

She blinked at him as if she didn’t understand his veiled meaning.

The hell she didn’t. She could stare at him with that innocent, wide-eyed look all she wanted. He’d long ago realized that she was out for whatever she could get, and had thrown him over once she realized he was never going to provide her with the exalted life she’d apparently craved.

Well, he hoped she wasn’t secretly thinking to get it from him now—in marriage or otherwise. His time abroad had taught him that people could be incredibly deceitful when they were pursuing money and power. So if she was playing a deeper game, then she was out of luck. Because he was too wise to fall for that now, no matter how much she tempted him.