When his enemy…

becomes his truly tempting ally!

Inigo’s best friend’s life was cut brutally short by his association with the lovely Audevere Brenley and her father. Now Inigo seeks justice. But never did he dream that his greatest ally would be Audevere herself. What begins as business is branded with passion as Inigo rediscovers the intrepid, determined woman he thought he knew. His most dangerous revelation? His own feelings for her!

BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch via Facebook, or on her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from readers.

Also by Bronwyn Scott

Allied at the Altar miniseries

A Marriage Deal with the Viscount

One Night with the Major

Tempted by His Secret Cinderella

Captivated by Her Convenient Husband

The Cornish Dukes miniseries

The Secrets of Lord Lynford

The Passions of Lord Trevethow

The Temptations of Lord Tintagel

And look out for the next book

coming soon!

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Temptations of Lord Tintagel

Bronwyn Scott

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90141-7

THE TEMPTATIONS OF LORD TINTAGEL

© 2020 Nikki Poppen

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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To Scott, who got me through this book

as he gets me through so much else.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One
London —September 1824

The Jilt was getting married. Five years after her last attempt and she was going after a peer. Again. At least that was what it looked like from the society columns and they tended to have the right of it most times. Inigo Vellanoweth set aside the morning edition and took a bracing swallow of hot coffee, searing, strong and bitter, to match the news. It had been bound to happen. Perhaps the surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner, but it did not lessen the shock of seeing it in print. Print lent a certain official quality to information. Print made rumours into facts. Inigo had been following these particular rumours all Season, every mention of her with the upstanding Viscount Tremblay buried beneath the larger twin excitements of the Season: the arrival and subsequent death of the Hawaiian King and Cassian Truscott’s courtship of Penrose Prideaux. According to The Times, the arrangement between the Jilt and Tremblay was all but done. An offer from the Viscount was expected soon. In September, when most of London was absent to protest or to raise the old rumours about her background. Did no one else see her father’s calculation in that?

A hundred different questions assailed Inigo as he read, mixed with emotions he would rather not acknowledge. He didn’t want to think about her, about the past where their lives had intersected, about his own failures when it came to her and her nefarious father. His reaction to the news was complicated to say the least. Among the myriad questions running through his mind was whether or not she meant marriage this time, or was this another opportunity to ruin a peer? She might mean to go through with it. After all, she was twenty-two now, no longer as young as she’d once been, and Viscount Tremblay, her most recent conquest, was a serious man. A good match by all standards. But the Jilt had made a good match before in Collin Truscott, second son of the Duke of Hayle—an extraordinary match for the daughter of a newly minted knight of the realm. When Sir Gismond Brenley climbed ladders, he did so with ambition and alacrity, using everything and everyone at his disposal—including his own daughter, the exquisite Audevere.

Even now, with five years of tragedy and deceit to tarnish the once-golden debutante, even when he knew to be wary of her charms, Inigo could still see her in his mind’s eye as she’d once been: her blonde head thrown back, her neck exposed as she laughed, a deep, throaty sound that made a man think of decadence and candlelight, of taking down all that carefully coiffed hair pin by pearl pin. He remembered the way her green eyes would flirt and flash, sharp with intelligence and wit, how her gaze would slide towards Collin, a secret half-smile on her lips that suggested something private just between them even though they were surrounded by a ballroom crowd.

Oh, how he’d envied Collin Truscott, his friend—one of his best friends—in those early days! Deep in his heart, Inigo had wanted that for himself: a woman who looked at him the way Audevere had looked at Collin; a woman who could make him laugh with her wit, who had intelligence and who wasn’t afraid to use it, unlike the usual debutante thrust in the path of eligible dukes’ heirs. Inigo pushed back from the table and began to pace, his body and mind agitated by memories. But Jermyn Street bachelor quarters didn’t leave much room to outrun the truth.

In his darker, more honest moments, Inigo admitted it wasn’t that he’d wanted a woman with whom he could share such moments. He’d wanted her. He’d wanted Audevere, his friend’s fiancée. It had shamed him then and it still shamed him now, because she was not innocent in all her father’s ruthless schemes; she bore her share of responsibility for Collin’s death. Only his fantasies held back that truth. In them, she was an unwitting accomplice, unaware of the depth of her father’s corruption, sometimes even a victim, forced against her will to aid her father’s plots. He’d fallen into the habit years ago of making excuses for her and for himself.

No matter how often he’d told himself that such coveting was a sin, that jealousy was poorly done of him, he’d not been able to shake the wanting of her. It was petty of him, he knew. He was the heir and son to the Duke of Boscastle. He was a man who had wealth galore and Midas’s own touch for turning a respectable accumulation of money into wealth unimaginable. He had everything and yet he’d been jealous of Collin, a man who would never inherit a title, who would always walk in the shadows of others and who had no business sense at all; a man who had only his good looks and winning personality to recommend him and who would always be reliant on his family’s connections and wealth for his own livelihood.

But that logic had held little sway with a twenty-five-year-old in desperate, secret love. He’d been privately envious of Collin right up until the day Collin had swum out to the Beasts off the shores of Porth Karrek and promptly drowned, one week to the day after Audevere had broken their engagement and two weeks after Collin’s latest business venture with Audevere’s father had failed dramatically, costing people homes and jobs they couldn’t afford to lose. Collin’s family had called it death by misadventure, but those closest to Collin knew better. Between them, father and daughter, the Brenleys had broken him.

And they would pay for it. Inigo had vowed the night of Collin’s death to bring Brenley down so that no one else would fall prey to such corruption, such scheming. That had been the beginning of his investigation, five years of piecing together a dirty trail of money that followed Gismond Brenley everywhere he went if anyone cared to look closely enough. Most did not. Did it matter? Brenley was careful. He did nothing illegal, just distasteful, depending on one’s politics.

Inigo’s pacing halted in mid-thought. Did Tremblay know to look close enough to be suspect of his impending father-in-law? Did Tremblay know to look behind the scenes of the glorious heroics in the Napoleonic Wars that had led to Brenley’s knighthood? Or to the sudden acquisition of wealth when Brenley’s properties benefited from Parliament’s decision to put roads through certain villages and not others? Did Tremblay understand the importance of pushing Brenley off the board of the Blaxford Mining Corporation last year before he could establish a monopoly on Cornish mining? Did Tremblay know all these things and simply not care? This seemed unlikely to Inigo, given the type of man Tremblay was—conscientious and civically minded. Or was Tremblay walking in blind, as Collin had? Blinded by Audevere’s beauty, willing to overlook the common antecedents of her pedigree and all the dirtiness that went with it?

Inigo’s pacing started anew with a different line of agitation to pursue. His mind tried to reason that there was no call for extreme alarm. Surely, Tremblay’s solicitors would have done some investigating of their own. But Inigo was uncomfortable relying only on assumptions. He’d assumed Collin would be all right once, too. That was another question raised by the morning’s news. Should he warn Tremblay?

It would require the airing of dirty laundry not his own—sharing the secrets of the Truscott family. Inigo was protective of his friends. He would not willingly cause them pain by bringing up a death they’d taken great care to attribute to an accidental drowning. Perhaps there was a way to warn Tremblay without exposing the Truscotts to resurrected scandal? He owed Tremblay full disclosure. The Viscount was a friend. Not to speak up when he had the power to make a difference would be to serve that friendship poorly and it ran antithetical to the code of honour held by the Cornish Dukes—the seven men he admired most in this world and the next.

Inigo strode into the small room that served as his study and pulled a set of journals off the shelves which contained the results of his investigation. His mind was determined. He had failed Collin. He would not fail another friend. He would meet with Tremblay, perhaps invite him to drinks at White’s, and warn him away from a disastrous choice before history could repeat itself.

‘I expect Tremblay will want to discuss marriage when we meet this afternoon at Tattersall’s.’ The words washed over Audevere Brenley, cold and relentless as the Cornish sea in winter. Her father was too confident about his edict for her tastes and that frightened her with good reason, although she gave none of that fear away. It was too early in the day for that. Fear and breakfast did not mix.

‘Shouldn’t he be discussing marriage with me? After all, you’re not the one he wishes to wed.’ She sipped her morning tea—a strong Ceylon black—with all the nonchalant sangfroid she could summon. She had been here before, metaphorically speaking. Here at this critical juncture, a pawn advanced in a king’s gambit and now it was time for the trap to fall, for the pawn to be sacrificed in fulfilment of her service. She did not want to be here in London, bait once more in her father’s attempt to secure a title for the Brenley line. A title his grandchildren could inherit and, until then, a title he could manipulate in Parliament. She wanted to be in Cornwall, away from marriage proposals she didn’t want from unsuspecting men who had little idea what a disaster marriage to her would be; men who only saw the beautiful Audevere, the heiress named for an ancient sixth-century Merovingian queen. Her money was nouveau; her name was old.

Her father dismissed her remark with a casual wave of his hand. ‘Tremblay knows the real business of matrimony is conducted with the father. Asking you is just ceremonial window dressing.’

‘What a lovely notion.’ Audevere speared him with a sharp tone and a sardonic gaze that conveyed all she thought of such an arrangement. ‘Why should my opinion matter? It’s only the rest of my life that is being arranged.’ He’d been arranging men for her since she was sixteen. It should have been the first sign of his corruption, but she’d been too naive and too flattered at the beginning to understand, desperate as she had been back then to earn her absent father’s approval. He’d been at sea most of her life and suddenly he was the only family she had.

‘Damn right, gel.’ Her father pointed the tines of his fork at her. ‘A life that is being arranged to great satisfaction. You will be a lady, the Viscountess of a peer of the realm. Not bad for a man who only made his money a few years ago. Look how far and how fast we’ve risen. Have I not done well?’ Her father flung his arms outwards as if to embrace the room and every last one of its expensive, if not tasteful, trappings.

‘Yes, you’ve done well,’ Audevere offered a polite smile. There was no use arguing with him when he was like this—obstinate and confident, assured of his own inviolability. He had achieved much in just seven short years since acquiring his knighthood, but at what cost? Five years ago, her first fiancé, Collin Truscott, second son of the Duke of Hayle, took his own life in the wake of her father’s avarice. Now, a viscount was in her father’s sights, waiting to be devoured in the same way—through a marital alliance. History was repeating itself and it was time for it to stop.

‘Look what five years have bought us, Daughter.’ Her father refilled his plate. No matter how much money he had, he still ate like a man who wasn’t sure where the next meal was coming from. ‘Perhaps this is Providence’s recompense for losing the Duke’s son. Truscott was never going to have a title, but Tremblay is already in possession of his. A viscount is a much better trade than a duke’s second son. Of course, my own title was new back then. Truscott was the best we could have hoped for back then, but now we’ve attained even better.’

Audevere pushed her plate away, her appetite dampened by her father’s callous disregard for Collin and for her own feelings. She’d cared for the young man. She’d genuinely mourned him. She still remembered with vivid accuracy the day she’d heard the news. Cassian Truscott, the heir, had ridden to Truro in the wind and the rain to tell them the news. She’d been summoned to her father’s office where Cassian had waited, drenched, water streaming in rivulets from his greatcoat on to her father’s expensive carpet, his expression devastated as he told her.

‘Collin is dead. He drowned off the shores of Porth Karrek.’

Cassian had imparted the words with a stern, condemning stare which she had understood implicitly. Collin had drowned deliberately. She’d broken with her fiancé and he’d taken his own life. This was her fault. No one went swimming alone in the cold Cornish seas in April. Cassian left shortly after. The moment the door closed behind him, she’d broken into tears, but her father had cursed. ‘Damn it all, a Season wasted. We’ve lost the Duke.’

That day she’d seen him plain, for the first time in his entirety, for what he truly was: an unscrupulous opportunist, ready to rise on the back of anyone who could lift him higher. Even his own daughter. She’d known it in her heart for a few years, but had not wanted to admit it. What daughter did? Life was not sacred to him and in the wake of Collin’s death she had hated him for it and had taken no pains to hide it, prompting his disclosure of a secret that devastated what remained of her life.

A secret that would keep her tethered to him.

A secret that meant she would never be free as long as she stayed.

She’d come to understand in hindsight that his damning disclosure had been revealed out of fear she would run. Now she not only hated him, she feared him. In truth, she hated herself for letting that fear rule her, for being powerless to change that fear, powerless to stop him; for being afraid of what would happen to her or anyone she was close to if she tried. But no more. It was time to set aside her fear and take her chances.

‘Might I be excused, Father?’ A footman came to hold her chair and she rose. ‘I have correspondence to see to. So many people are not in London these days.’ It was a subtle reminder that for the truly fashionable, the Season had closed long ago, and they ought to be at the town house in Truro.

Her father waved her off and she escaped up to her rooms, gladly shutting her bedroom door behind her. She could have written letters in the lady’s parlour at the back of the house, but she felt safer up here, away from the prying eyes of the servants who were instructed to watch her every move, away from her father who endlessly plotted his social ascent, and away from the ‘gentlemen’ who called on him for business. Out of sight was out of mind and she preferred to be as far from her father’s thoughts and friends as possible—although today’s news about Tremblay proved that there was nowhere far enough from her father’s machinations.

The years since Collin’s death had bought her time, but not much else. During her second Season, his death had been a protective shield. No one had approached her out of respect for her mourning and there’d been nothing her father could do about it without looking like a cad. Her third Season had been clouded by rumours of her father’s underhanded business dealings regarding the Blaxford Mining Corporation in Cornwall. He’d clashed with the Cornish Dukes and come out the lesser for it. No one had been interested in courting her then, much to her father’s chagrin. But tonnish memories were short. This year, she’d caught the eye of Viscount Tremblay and her father had entrenched, running roughshod over her efforts to quell the Viscount’s attentions, knowing full well that she would be worth less to him next year. A girl in her fifth Season was as good as on the shelf; everyone would be wary of a girl who hadn’t taken yet.

Audevere sat at the delicate, white writing desk at her window overlooking the town house gardens. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, the beginnings of a headache starting to take root as the blood in her veins thrummed another urgent tattoo: time to go, time to go. It was past time to put a stop to her father using her in his manoeuvrings. Time to stop doing his bidding. She was twenty-two years old, no longer a seventeen-year-old girl whose youth and naivety could excuse her for not having acted sooner. Time to stop being helpless. No one was going to ride to her rescue. She would have to rescue herself.

If she meant to act, the time was certainly now, before another man fell victim to her father. If she did nothing, she’d be married to Tremblay by New Year and, perhaps worse than that, she’d be complicit in her father’s schemes this time, knowing full well ahead of time how he intended to use her. But how could she stop her father, when he had a list of men in his pocket who owed him favours, another list of men who feared blackmail, when he had ruthlessly amassed favours and fortunes that no one dared contest?

The answer was that one person alone could not. There was no hope there. She had done all she could to put Tremblay off without her father finding out, but it seemed he was intent on proposing. She could do nothing there, so she would have to prevent the wedding itself. One could not marry what was not there to be wed. If she were gone, Tremblay at least would be saved. And—a desperate part of her reignited the forlorn hope—you would be free. At last.

Freedom would come at a cost, though. Where would she go? There was no one to turn to, no safe place to go. On the one hand, the world was her oyster; she could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. On the other, the world was a dangerous place for a woman alone with limited resources, a woman who would have to give up everything—even her name—and disappear. She supposed she could give the servants the slip. She could go for a walk and never come back. She could slide out into the world with nothing more than the clothes on her back and whatever she could shove into her pockets. But that was an ominous beginning that begged for failure.

Audevere gazed out over the gardens, finely manicured to perfection even in autumn by her father’s gardeners. It would take courage to leave this. Her father’s ill-gotten gains had surrounded her in luxuries not easily given up. She’d been enjoying them long before she’d realised people had suffered to create this lifestyle for her.

She drew a steadying breath. She would not let uncertainty hold her back any longer. She could not go on like this, her inaction making her complicit in her father’s schemes. Evil prospered when bystanders did nothing but watch and in her mind she was more than a bystander. She could no longer use the excuse that she hadn’t known what he was about. She needed help; she needed a friend. But perhaps she would have to settle for an ally. Just one person who would help her get away. One person who wouldn’t betray her to her father because they knew what he was and they would believe her when she said her father made her life a living hell, hellish enough to turn her back on it entirely.

Audevere took out a sheet of paper and drew a line down the centre. On the left side she wrote down the characteristics she needed her ally to have: trustworthy, brave, sympathetic and crucially able and willing to keep her secret. On the right side she made a list of friends. When it proved to be short, she added acquaintances. When that also proved to be a rather limited list, she added anyone she knew who wasn’t in business or beholden to her father. Totalled, even with those efforts, her list only tallied twelve people and one of them was dead. That left eleven.

She put the first four through the criteria, each failing on some ground in turn. The last seven had something in common. They’d all known Collin: his family, his mentors, his friends—and for a time they’d been her friends, too, by association. For a while, she’d been part of his close-knit, loving circle. She’d known what it was like to be part of the circle of Cornish Dukes. Would they still acknowledge her? Take her in as their own even though she’d broken her engagement with Collin? She had not seen them since Collin’s death. She’d had no contact with them and they had not reached out to her. It seemed ludicrous to think they’d do anything for her, but this was a desperate hour.

Audevere studied the remaining names, hesitating. Eaton Falmage had a family; her father had been a party to an attempt on Eaton’s wife’s life last year. She could not ask him. She struck a line through his name. Cassian Truscott was out of the country on his honeymoon. Another name from the sacred circle gone. Vennor Penlerick, the new Duke of Newlyn, was still grieving the loss of his father. That left one name: Inigo Vellanoweth, the man who’d once told her quite plainly to her face she wasn’t good enough to marry Collin. It wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement for an ally, but it was all she had.

Inigo Vellanoweth met all her criteria and he was rumoured to still be in town. He’d faced down her father over the Blaxford Mines last year and he’d won. Perhaps his desire for continued revenge against her father would win out over his dislike of her. She’d never know unless she asked. She took out another sheet of paper and began to write, a simply worded request to meet tomorrow night at the Bradfords’ ball. It would be an innocuous occasion. Now all she needed to do was slip into the back garden and hand a few pence to a street urchin to have the note delivered.

Courage started here. Courage started today.

Chapter Two

Courage, it appeared, required patience. She’d not bargained on that. And patience required nerves of steel in order to act as if nothing had changed. Only a day after sending the note to Inigo, she was already having difficulty with both. She paced her room ceaselessly and found herself jumping at the slightest sound. Her senses seemed fine-tuned to the smallest nuance. Even now she heard the front door open downstairs. Her father was home. She had not seen him since breakfast yesterday. He was sure to have news. She braced herself against what the news might be and the bellow that was sure to come. Once a sea captain, always a sea captain. She counted down: three, two, one. And on cue…

‘Audevere!’ Her father’s voice boomed up the grand staircase of Brenley House, echoing off the wainscoted ceilings, as if he were still on the deck of a ship. Audevere cringed against the invasion of the noise and what it might portend. She glanced at her little clock. If only time went faster! It seemed an age until tonight’s ball. She was ready for that at least. She’d rehearsed her words, the lines she wanted to say; she’d anticipated each argument Inigo might make. And he would argue.

They’d been good at arguing. Once, she’d looked forward to sparring with Inigo. He had a quick wit and a sharp mind, though with a darker shade compared to Collin’s light. The remembrance of those arguments brought a faint smile to her lips even as her father’s voice bellowed up the stairs again. ‘Audevere, come down here at once!’ Her father might wear the mask of a gentleman, dress in a gentleman’s clothes and live in a gentleman’s house, but he would always be a sea captain. He expected to be obeyed instantaneously. She’d learned quickly not to ignore a summons from her father, even though one was seldom summoned for good news.

She found him in his office, standing before the massive, polished mahogany desk from which he conducted all his business, legs spread apart, shoulders straight, hands behind his back. ‘Father, what has happened?’ She put on a mask of interest to cover her nerves. She hoped her note had not been discovered, that she’d not been called down here to be punished.

He smiled broadly and some of her fears eased. Her little subterfuge was safe. ‘I’ve brought you a gift, that’s what’s happened.’ He gestured towards the large dressmaker’s box, sitting on the low table before the sofa. It was tied with a trademark ribbon of pale-pink satin attached to a black card trimmed in gilt, marking the box as coming from one of the finest drapers in London.

‘For me?’ Audevere fingered the soft satin lovingly even as her mind was already on alert. This was an expensive and unexpected gift. The ribbon alone cost a worker’s wages for a month. She’d been fifteen when her father had begun his rise to fortune, old enough to remember life before the knighthood, before wealth permitted her to forgo counting pennies and questioning the need for fripperies, too young to realise the price of her father’s fortune.

‘Well, go on, girl. Open it and see if it suits.’ Her father waved at the box impatiently, and perhaps with a bit of pride in being able to shop at such an establishment. Even after seven years, that particular thrill had not faded for him, although it had for her. No matter how pretty the ribbon or the box, no gift from her father or his friends came without strings attached. She’d learned that lesson the hard way—through painful experience.

Ever wary, Audevere untied the ribbon and carefully laid it aside. There were yards of it, enough for her to do something clever with and still have some left to give her maid. Patsy was perhaps her one friend within the walls of Brenley House. She would be in alt over the ribbon. Audevere lifted the lid and reached into the depths of white tissue paper. Despite her caution, her breath couldn’t help but catch as she drew out the gown. ‘Oh! It’s lovely!’

She held the gown against herself, shaking out the skirts. Lovely was an understatement. Cranberry silk shimmered beneath an overskirt of soft ivory lace, a wide cranberry ribbon banded the waist. The gown was a tribute to autumn. Audevere could only imagine the hours that had gone into making the yards of lace for the overskirt. Once, she’d never dreamed of owning such a fine gown.

She spun in a quick circle, letting herself pretend for a moment that she had a normal father who would spoil his daughter because he loved and cared for her, that this gown was a gift she could enjoy without shame, without guilt, without fear. ‘I’ll wear it tonight at the Bradfords’ ball.’ The words had barely left her mouth when the fantasy was over.

‘I was hoping you would. I had ordered it in expectation of announcing your engagement—’ condescending disappointment edged his words ‘—but now we need the gown to do battle or we’ll lose the Viscount.’ Ah. The agenda at last. She’d suspected nothing less. But the news behind it was a surprise.

‘Lose him?’ Audevere looked up from admiring the dress. ‘Did something happen at Tattersall’s?’ She put the pretty dress back in the box with a sigh—a beautiful gown in exchange for an ugly favour that would advance his plans. She was pleased the Viscount seemed to have slipped her father’s hook, yet now she was needed yet again to grease the gears of her father’s advancement.

‘Tremblay didn’t come. Can you imagine that? He sent a note saying he was delayed by business matters.’ Her father’s features were hard. ‘Of course, I wanted to know why when he knew very well what the point of today’s meeting was. I discovered what those business matters were: afternoon drinks with Inigo Vellanoweth at White’s. Now he refuses to receive me. I asked for an appointment this morning and was denied. He insults both you and me with this behaviour.’ His fist came down hard on the surface of his desk, the inkpot jumping. ‘All summer we worked on this and this is how Tremblay treats me? I am a knight of the realm!’ It always came back to this. His title, his wants. Audevere had never known a more self-focused individual or a more dangerous one.

Audevere’s mind ran over her father’s revelation and all it could mean. A thrill shot through her at the thought: drinks with Inigo. Was it because of her note? Or had he not received it by then? She wished she knew. Timing was everything. If it was after her note arrived, it meant he’d agreed to help her and had gone immediately into action on her behalf. But if the meeting had occurred beforehand, it meant something entirely different—that he meant to meddle, perhaps for the purpose of striking a blow for vengeance against her father. Did that blow include her? Was his hate still so strong after five years that he wanted to strike at her, too? The latter interpretation of his meeting with Tremblay boded ill for the evening. She would have to tread carefully.

‘You need to get Tremblay back,’ her father was saying. ‘Tintagel is whispering poison in his ear.’ It was proof of her father’s anger that he referred to Inigo by his title. ‘Tonight, you dance with Tremblay, you flirt with him, you take him out on the veranda and kiss him. Find a few trustworthy friends to witness it if that’s what it takes,’ he growled. ‘We need the Viscount to come up to scratch. We need his proposal before he decides to leave town or before Tintagel ruins this like he ruined the Blaxford deal. I’ll be damned if we let him slip away now. We’ll look like desperate fools.’ He paused. ‘What? You look appalled. It’s nothing you haven’t done before,’ he dismissed her distaste.

No, it wasn’t, more was the pity, the guilt, the shame. She’d been cajoling his friends and business partners since she was sixteen. How many times had she flattered a man until he felt important, all so her father could win contracts, close deals and lead the less discerning astray? Not this time, Audevere vowed silently. It wouldn’t hurt to dance with the Viscount tonight, but she would not force his hand and she would not be dragged to the altar. If she’d had any lingering doubts about running or about approaching Inigo for help, this confirmed her choice. She had to act now and tonight at the ball was her chance to strike a bargain with Inigo. The old tattoo beat its rhythm more insistently than ever. Time to go, time to go. ‘I don’t like the idea of forcing Tremblay’s hand.’

‘We’re not forcing Tremblay to do anything.’ Her father smiled coldly. ‘We’re just helping him to remember why he likes you so much.’ He moved towards her, giving her a chuck under the chin. ‘Do I need to remind you of all that is at stake?’

It was a polite way of subtly cataloguing his threat against her, of what he would expose if she refused to abet his efforts. She did not think he would hesitate to do it either. He was not a good father. He’d been very careful to make sure she had no way out, no friends to turn to, no independence of her own. But now, if she were willing to risk it, perhaps it could be different. Perhaps, for the first time, she could wriggle out of his stranglehold. If she was brave. Courage starts today. The mantra had taken up a place beside the other one that ran through her head. Time to go, time to go.

He smiled with what passed as paternal benevolence. ‘Don’t fail me, my dear.’ The reminder was there in his tone, the message clear beneath the calm demeanour. She’d already failed him once. She couldn’t afford another dead aristocrat.

Audevere was here. After five years of avoiding her, she was now merely across the room. His memories of her had failed to do her justice. Inigo’s gaze followed Audevere about the ballroom, pausing when she paused, moving when she moved, taking in all the details of her: her hair was paler, her chin sharper, her green eyes brighter, her classical beauty more emphasised than it had been years earlier. Perhaps it was the staid company kept by the Bradfords that caused her to glitter so stunningly, or perhaps she would take his breath away wherever she was, whomever she was among, whatever she had done. He couldn’t let himself forget the last. She’d had a hand in Collin’s fate. That knowledge had kept him angry for years. He couldn’t set it aside now at the first sight of her, no matter how poignant her plea.

Her note was in his pocket. Short and concise.

I need your help.

The word ‘need’ was underlined twice for emphasis. What kind of emphasis? Desperation? Urgency? He touched his pocket, feeling the folded paper inside. Did she truly need help? Or was this note part of a vengeful plot hatched in retaliation for the Blaxford deal? He wouldn’t know unless he showed up.

Meet me at the Bradford ball. I will come to you.

The irony was that he’d been likely to meet her here anyway. Tremblay had invited him to come along and he’d thought it a good idea to keep his friend in his sights after their meeting at White’s. Apparently, Brenley was of the same mind. Brenley had not left the Viscount’s side all night. That was unnerving. Brenley did not mean to let Tremblay go without a fight and Gismond Brenley was doggedly tenacious.

Inigo took a moment away from watching Audevere and studied the two men standing together. He wondered what it was that Brenley wanted so desperately from Tremblay? Inigo had his guesses. A pocket peer in the House of Lords whom Brenley could manipulate? Or was he after Tremblay’s extensive sugar plantation holdings in the West Indies? Was it something else Inigo didn’t know about—although he couldn’t imagine what that might be. He’d thoroughly investigated the man. He liked to think he knew everything there was to know about Brenley’s holdings, the good—of which there was not much—and the bad—of which there was plenty.

The orchestra had taken a short intermission and Inigo used the opportunity to step outside for fresh air. The ball, while certainly not a crush—the Season was too far behind them for that—was full enough to be warm and he welcomed the cool air on his face, although he doubted others would. The chill would keep most people indoors. The veranda would be private. He’d give Audevere another hour to make her approach—more than enough time—and then he would leave. Perhaps he would persuade Tremblay to leave with him. They could stop at the club for a night cap. He could be in bed by midnight. Damn, but London out of Season was slow. It was past time to go home to Cornwall.

If it weren’t for this business of watching over Tremblay, he’d be in Cornwall by now, enjoying autumn on the coast with his friends—or what remained of them. Cassian Truscott, Collin’s older brother, was abroad and Vennor Penlerick refused to leave London. But the Trelevens were there, and the Kittos, as were Eaton and Eliza. There was the autumn recital to look forward to at the Kittos’ conservatory, truffle hunting in the woods with Eaton, and he wanted to check on Eliza’s mining schools to see the progress the children were making.

He was bone-tired of London, something he’d once thought impossible. London was less exciting now that Eaton and Cassian were married, choosing to spend the bulk of their time in Cornwall. Cassian could be excused—he was on his honeymoon—but when he came back, he would not waste time in town. Of their foursome, there was only Vennor Penlerick left. It had been over a year since Richard Penlerick and his wife had been killed coming home from the theatre. But Vennor’s grief was as deep as ever. At what point did one tell a friend it was time to get on with the business of living? Who had that right? Did he, when he still grieved for Collin? When he still sought to protect the world from the corruption of Sir Gismond Brenley? Who was he to tell Vennor to set aside his grief, to not let it consume him?

Inigo leaned on the stone balustrade of the veranda and looked out into the dark, unlit garden. Maybe that was his problem, too: he had let grief consume him where the others had not. Eaton and Cassian had found ways to live again, to love again. He hadn’t and now he was alone in his grief, isolated in his vendetta against Brenley just as Vennor was increasingly isolated in his search for his parents’ killer. That didn’t mean his cause wasn’t just. It only meant it was exacting more than he’d anticipated. The French doors opened behind him, casting a sliver of light on his slice of the veranda. He stiffened in anticipation and was not disappointed.

‘I thought I might find you out here. You always did like dark corners.’ He’d recognise those low-throated tones anywhere. Audevere Brenley had been blessed with a voice meant for seduction. Her scent met him on the air; it was the sweet spice of amber mixed with nutmeg. She smelled of autumn and memories.

Inigo turned, leaning back against the balustrade, allowing himself to take in the full beauty of her up close, her pale gold hair piled high, her long neck on display, her body dressed to its fullest potential in cranberry silk and ecru lace. ‘I received your note.’ It had been waiting for him when he returned from White’s.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said easily, joining him at the rail as if they were still old friends. ‘It’s been a long time, Inigo.’ She favoured him with a soft smile that caught him off guard. He’d assumed since he’d couched their present relationship in adversarial terms that she did, too. Apparently that was not the case, or she was playing with him. He must always be alert to that possibility.

‘Too long, perhaps.’ There was censure in his tone to indicate it had been too long for first names. Perhaps it had been that way before when they’d been carefree, but no longer. Too much had happened between them. They were not friends. Not any more, if they ever truly had been.

She nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Perhaps. Forgive me for my forwardness; there is much at stake and I haven’t time for civilities.’

Inigo gave her a strong stare. She was different this evening—conciliatory, conspiratorial even. It was unlike her and he was instantly wary. ‘Is that your strategy? To woo information from me with sweetness? Did your father send you out here to beg information on the pretence of renewing old acquaintances?’

Her smile faded and some of her sweetness, too. His words had stung. ‘I came of my own accord. My father does not suspect I’ve sought you out. I hoped there might at least be honesty left between us.’

‘Then you would do better to ask me directly for whatever it is you want to know. Let’s not pretend you don’t know I met with Tremblay yesterday, or why I did so.’ Inigo watched her face harden, the mask of softness slipping from it into an expression he was more familiar with: sharpness. She was never more brilliant than when she was cornered.

‘Very well. Let me be direct. Are you attempting to interfere with my betrothal?’

Inigo gave a dry laugh. ‘That’s a bit hasty since there is no betrothal. Tremblay has not proposed.’

‘Not yet. But I had reason to believe he would, right up until yesterday.’ She slanted him a sideways glance, ‘Unless you’ve managed to dissuade him? I recall you were always very good at persuasion.’

‘Do you wish to marry him?’ A moment’s guilt swept him. Perhaps he was interfering with more than Brenley’s arrangements. Perhaps, by warning off Tremblay, he was interfering with her personal happiness, with her plan for escaping the clutches of her scheming father? It was difficult to think of Audevere Brenley as being entitled to her own happiness. She’d been the enemy for so long, she and her father. But she’d not always been his enemy. She’d once been something else quite wonderful and he’d liked her, admired her. There were other stronger descriptors he could use, but they admitted too much. Whatever those descriptors, it seemed his feelings weren’t altogether defeated. He didn’t want to feel empathy for her. Collin was dead because of her. ‘It is certainly my business if you think to ruin another good man.’

She looked genuinely wounded at the claim. She’d not missed his implication. ‘That was never my intention with Collin. I need you to believe that. I was young and naive. I had no idea what my father was doing until it was too late and I had no idea Collin would—’ Her voice broke and she could not manage the words.

Inigo managed them for her. ‘Take his own life?’ It was important. The words must be said, owned. He would not, could not, pretend this didn’t lie between them.

‘Yes,’ she managed to say the single word with soft feeling. ‘He was so full of life, so full of happiness, it never occurred to me he would do such a thing. Up until then, I think I believed he was in some way untouchable, that the world couldn’t reach him.’ She shook her head. ‘I see now it was naive of me.’

‘It’s hard to imagine you as naive, so forgive me if I reserve judgement.’ He’d expected her to be insulted by the insinuation, to flash a show of her hot temper, slap him even in her defence. His jaw was braced for it. Perhaps he even wanted to see her angry. He understood that person and that person was the enemy. It was harder to reconcile this other person who stood beside him, reflective and penitent, vulnerable in her own way, sharing the loss of Collin. But she did not rail. She touched him and it set his world on fire.

She laid a bold, gloved hand on his dark sleeve, the gesture sending a bolt of the old awareness up his arm, her touch as insistent as her words. ‘Whatever else you believe, believe this: I did not want Collin to die.’

No, probably not, Inigo thought uncharitably. That much was true. A dead Collin was no good to her father. A dead Collin was scandalous. There was no profit in scandal for a woman looking to marry well. Perhaps she’d paid for that death, her best Seasons spent shrouded by the knowledge that everyone knew she’d broken the engagement and that her fiancé had died through ‘misadventure’ shortly afterwards. Now she was finally able to venture forth and try again for a title, the scandal watered down by years of other scandals to diminish and obscure her own. He’d noticed. He’d made it his business to stay abreast of what the Brenleys were up to.

She persisted, seemingly unaware of his cynicism. ‘I will live with the guilt of his death for the rest of my life. Perhaps there was some clue I overlooked, perhaps there was some way in which I should have known how breaking the engagement would affect him.’ Her confession, so similar to his own—that he should have known, should have foreseen what Collin would do—threatened to convince Inigo she’d cared for Collin in truth. ‘That’s why I wrote to you, Inigo. That’s why I cannot let this marriage to Tremblay go through. I will not be the means by which another good man is ruined.’

The longer she talked, the more she became the girl he’d known and less the enemy he’d cast her as in the years since. Inigo pushed those feelings away ruthlessly. He didn’t want to pity her. He didn’t want to feel anything for this beauty who had been his friend’s undoing. But all the sins he had laid at her doorstep were not quite enough to make her irresistible. He was aware of her nearness, the scent of her, the touch of her, the sound of her, the sight of her. She could not move without him being aware of each nuance. Time had not been his friend in that regard.

‘What is it that you need from me?’ Inigo asked flatly, aware that in supplying that need he could keep his friend from the danger posed by the Brenleys. It was the devil’s own deal, one that would require him to be in close proximity to his greatest temptation.

‘I need you to help me get away, to become someone else, to go somewhere I can start over, somewhere my father will never find me, never use me again as a tool to hurt others.’ Green eyes flashed in the night, determination and defiance a mask for the fear that he would refuse her. It was a sign of how much the request meant to her, how much courage it had taken to ask. But despite the temptation, his own caution wouldn’t allow him to capitulate easily.

‘You mean to run away? To vanish? Just like that?’ Inigo snapped his fingers. The plan was outrageous. Had she truly thought it through? It wasn’t that it couldn’t be done, but that he couldn’t picture the exquisite Audevere Brenley doing it.

‘Yes.’ She was holding her breath.

‘I am supposed to believe you? That this is not an elaborate set-up to frame me in a kidnapping or compromise me into marriage? I can imagine your father would find a large amount of vindication in marrying his daughter to one of the Cornish Dukes.’ It took brains to remain single when the matchmaking mamas grew ever more creative about ways to set their daughters’ caps for him.

‘Yes.’ Her grip on his arm was a clutching gesture now. ‘Please, you have to believe me, Inigo. You are the only one who can help me because you alone know what my father is.’

She was potent like this, irresistible. He should have turned his back on her long before this, should not have answered her summons and given her a chance to persuade him. Being close to her only made it harder to refuse. Hadn’t he spent five years avoiding her, and the way she stirred him, out of loyalty for Collin? And here he was, tempted by a few soft words in the moonlight to throw away those efforts and entertain the pleasure of striking a bargain with Audevere Brenley. ‘Why do you think I’d be interested in negotiating anything with you?’

‘Because you know what my father is. I think you want revenge for Collin. If you could have got that revenge on your own, you would have had it by now—as I would have.’ Her eyes were steady on his. ‘I need you, Inigo. We need each other. I can’t do it alone and neither can you.’

It was masterfully done. How long had she rehearsed that little speech? Rearranged the words to maximum effect? Had she known how his mind would wrap around that those phrases? Had she calculated all the wild inferences his mind would draw from those words? The curiosity it would provoke to see them as allies, not enemies? To realise that they’d been allies all this time?

Audevere Brenley had come out to the veranda wrapped in moonlight and soft words as if the darkness of the past didn’t lie between them, for the intention of securing his assistance. What had driven her to this point, where approaching an old nemesis for the purpose of vanishing seemed like her best option? The curiosity was too much. He answered her with a stare of his own and said against his better judgement, ‘You have five minutes to make your case.’

Chapter Three

She only needed two of those minutes, which was proof—if he still needed it—that this was a premeditated strategy on her part. She’d not approached him idly. She was in earnest about disappearing. Her eyes were twin green flames burning with her insistence. ‘Even if I stop this wedding, it won’t be enough. There will be another attempt and another as long as I am here. Help me get away. Help me stop being my father’s pawn, for good.’

Her eyes darted away, but not before Inigo saw real fear in her gaze. It gave him pause and generated a genuine concern he’d not expected or wanted to feel for her. She made a compelling case. It was reshaping how he saw her: not as the carefree girl he’d known in her youth, nor as the enemy he’d seen her as after Collin’s death. For the first time, he was seeing her as a pawn, a young woman caught in the web of her father’s deceit, unable to help herself. But he must go carefully down this new road and look beyond the emotion of her situation. There must be logic to it as well.

‘Why not marry Tremblay and let him put an end to your father’s pressure? Surely Tremblay’s title will protect you if you want to break from your father.’ Inigo paused, wanting to be fair. ‘Tremblay is fond of you. He cares for you. He would help you.’ It was hard to utter that truth when temptation stood before him, rousing all his old demons and desires against his better self, and this time there was no Collin to prevent it. This time, Audevere needed him; she’d come to him.

Audevere shook her head. ‘To marry Tremblay is to ruin him. My father will use me to keep Tremblay close, to force him to use his influence as my father forced Collin. If Tremblay cares for me, it will be even worse. He’ll give in to my father, thinking he is protecting me.’

She wanted to protect Tremblay. She was willing to give him up in order to achieve that. Was there real affection there that he had overlooked? Slowly, he asked the awkward question, the answer to which he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. Wanting or not wanting to marry him wasn’t the same as loving him. ‘Do you love Tremblay?’

She sighed and gave him a sad look. ‘What is love, Inigo? Is it the ephemeral passions found in fairy tales? If so, then, no. I don’t love him. Is it something less fiery? Something akin to caring, to not wanting to see him brought down by my father’s greed and underhanded dealings? Then, yes.’

‘Protection is not love.’ Inigo crossed his arms over his chest. She protected herself, she sought to protect Tremblay just as he sought to protect his own friends. Before tonight, it was not an attribute he’d thought to have in common with this woman he’d taught himself to look upon as an adventuress. ‘Protection is the civility one citizen owes another. It is what keeps society from being entirely corrupt.’

‘Protection is what I want from you, Inigo. Tremblay cannot give it to me. He will not want me when this is done. Whatever fondness he believes he feels for me now, he will be glad to have escaped.’ She met him with a challenge in her stare. ‘Will you give me the protection I seek by helping me vanish?’

Her tone made it clear she wanted an answer tonight. Now. But he could not afford to rush headlong to her defence, no matter how vulnerable she seemed in the moment. Stern stoicism and neutrality were his best weapons out here on the veranda, alone with her—a woman who had learned the art of persuasion at her father’s knee and roused him beyond measure. ‘I have questions.’

‘Then come inside and dance with me. I will answer them. My five minutes is up and people will notice if we remain out here much longer.’ It was a skilful manoeuvre. He could see her hope that this would be a slippery slope towards acceptance of her request. What she could not command outright from him, she thought to cajole out of him in slow steps. Was she that sure of her charms or was she that sure of him? The last made him uneasy. While they had been almost constantly in one another’s company all those years ago through their association with Collin, surely he was not an open book to her? Surely she did not guess his darkest secret? He kept it well buried. Not even his closest friends had guessed.

‘As you wish.’ He made her a short bow and ushered her indoors, his hand light at her back as he led her on to the dance floor. He would touch her as little as necessary, although the waltz required far more touching than most dances. Perhaps, his agile, suspicious mind whispered, she understood that most basic aspect of charm: touch persuaded where words might fail. When people touched, they confessed; they capitulated. Touch was dangerous, powerful.

He put a hand to her waist, her own hand resting on his shoulder, comfortable and firm. She slid her other hand into his with an enviable certainty that it belonged there. There were no light, perfunctory touches from her. Sweet heavens, when was the last time a woman had tried this successfully to seduce him? Was that what she was doing or was he doing that all by himself, reading too much into the smallest nuance? It was the price one paid for being a cynic, he supposed. One always had to look at all the angles. One could never take anything at face value.

The music began and he moved them into the dance. One, two, three, one, two, three. She was light in his arms and confident on her feet. He remembered she liked to dance. She knew she was good at it. Eyes that had been dagger sharp on the veranda sparkled with enjoyment now. ‘Ask your questions, Inigo. The dance won’t last for ever and I don’t think we can afford two at this juncture.’

That was the dilemma, of course. What could he really afford with her? Could he afford not to believe her? To assume the worst and let her find her own level? On the other hand, could he afford to believe her? Beneath her soft words this evening, there was a darker reality. In taking up her offer to thwart Brenley, he was letting her own self-professed naivety exonerate her. Inigo wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was Audevere Brenley manipulating him with her plea or was she as desperate as she seemed behind her bold mask?

‘Inigo, I have told you the truth. Why do you resist?’ She was all soft, feminine perfection in the asking. For a moment his resolve faltered.

‘You want me to help you and yet you jilted my best friend and helped bring about his death. I hardly know what to make of your request. Surely you must see that. You are the daughter of a manipulating tyrant. I must at least entertain the notion that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’

Soft femininity dissolved. He’d angered the goddess within again. ‘You know nothing of me and what my life has been like. I think it would surprise you greatly. Whatever I have done, I have done for self-preservation.’

‘As you do this thing now? This attempt to run from your past?’ It was time to lay out his terms. ‘If I’m to help you, I need complete honesty. Can you give me that?’

‘Yes. What I tell you will be the complete truth.’

Inigo did not miss the slightest of hesitations as she clearly debated with herself over how to define her answer so that it wasn’t a lie. ‘That’s not what I was hoping for, Miss Brenley.’ He could tell she sought to retain the right to omit painful truths, but he would not give her that ground. If they were trust each other, he had to know she was not working against him in any way.

She tossed her head, the light of the Bradfords’ Venetian chandeliers picking out the diamond chips in her tiara. There it was: more self-preservation. He would test that honesty now. ‘Why come to me? Surely our recent past doesn’t recommend us as likely allies.’ Those were the politest terms he could use to frame the animosity between him and Brenley—and by extension her. Although, it was proving difficult to remember that tonight when faced with this desperate, penitent version of her, this woman who saw, albeit belatedly, the truth of who her father was and what he had done, and her own role, whether unwittingly or not, in facilitating his actions. Was that the truth or a façade?

She was ready for him, ‘On the contrary, I think it makes us the most likely of allies. I want to stop being used as my father’s tool and you hate Gismond Brenley.’

Hate was an understatement. The man was a murderer in Inigo’s opinion. But it wasn’t reason enough for her to have sought him, of all people, out, not with the sordid past that lay between them. The canny minx would have to do better than that. ‘A lot of people hate Gismond Brenley.’ Inigo took them through the next turn with a burst of speed, his hand tightening at her back out of frustrated emotion.

‘You’re not afraid of him, Inigo. That’s what makes you different. You stopped him from taking Eliza Blaxland’s mines. You were relentless last year on her behalf, but it wasn’t enough for you, was it? You still want revenge for Collin.’ She paused, whetting her lips. ‘You want a life for a life. What could be more fitting than stealing me away from him in retribution for him having stolen Collin from you?’

Dear lord, she saw too much. He wished her gaze would move over his shoulder where it belonged instead of fixed on him with those aventurine eyes, green pools that begged him to drown in them. He imagined when she raged they turned to turbulent whirlpools, sucking down everything in their path. But those eyes were her flaw as well. She was too transparent. A smart man could read her a mile away. She hid nothing if a man was wise enough to look, wise enough to avoid being misled by the sheer beauty of her. He hoped he was wise enough. Tonight he saw desperation behind her bold words. She was striking hard and fast because her need was real and time was of the essence. At least that was what he wanted to believe.

He turned them at the bottom of the ballroom, cutting past another couple. ‘What you’re asking for is more than just buying out board members and replacing them with my own minions. Do you know what it will mean to disappear?’

‘It means I will be free. That I can’t be used again.’ Her chin went up a fraction in defiant anticipation of his argument. He did not let the point of that chin deter him.

‘It means you will be alone, at the mercy of the world. It means you will be without the luxuries you are used to and no resources beyond your body with which to acquire them.’ He spared no mercy in his assessment. She might be stopping one marriage, but she might be setting herself up for a less savoury one.

‘I assure you, I know exactly what I’m doing.’ Her tones were crisp, fierce. He wondered if she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him. What she proposed was audacious in the extreme. She knew it and she was wise enough to fear it.

‘Then you’re one step ahead of me,’ Inigo rejoindered. ‘I’m still trying to answer my first question. Why should I join forces with you? You say you can help me achieve revenge, strike out at your father by helping you disappear.’ They were running out of time, the dance nearly done. Only one more pass of the ballroom remained to them. ‘But the truth is, he cannot know who helped you. It would jeopardise your ability to remain beyond his reach. So, I ask you again. Why should I help you?’

Her eyes glittered dangerously, the only warning he had before she played her ace. ‘Because it’s the right thing to do. You are the most honourable man I’ve met and stopping my father is the honourable thing to do. You were Collin’s best friend. He would want you to help me.’ Her hard emerald eyes softened. ‘And if those reasons aren’t enough, I would call on one more. Once upon a time, you didn’t hate me. Once, despite all your efforts to the contrary, you liked me, just a little, and I would call on the memory of that fondness now in the hour of my greatest need.’

The last of his resolve crumbled. So that was how it was to be: for honour, for loyalty, for love—although she had not called it that, did not guess that she could call it that—he would set aside his misgivings and do her bidding, risky as it was for both of them. There was no guarantee that helping her escape would get her what she wanted.

The waltz ended and Inigo was aware of Brenley’s gaze on them. ‘Your father is watching us. What will you tell him?’ He whispered the words close to her ear, allowing himself the luxury of breathing in the amber-and-nutmeg scent of her.

She smiled, for a moment simultaneously coy and innocent, her eyes only playing at naivety. ‘I will tell him I’m trying to bring Viscount Tremblay up to scratch as he’s asked and that I’m doing it by waltzing with the most eligible man here.’ It wasn’t untrue as far as it went. ‘He’ll like the notion of creating competition.’ She squeezed his hand and whispered, ‘Inigo, thank you for this. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you. When I need you, I’ll send word.’

Then she was gone, back to the sidelines, out of his reach until next time, her task a fait accompli. He was in bed with his enemy’s daughter, his dead best friend’s fiancée and a host of ghosts from his past. Heaven help him. He was going to need a bigger bed.

Chapter Four

‘You were waltzing with the enemy.’ There was nothing like a sharp condemnation from her father to pierce the euphoria of her little victory. His grip dug into the bare flesh of her arm as he tugged her behind a potted palm and out of sight. But Audevere had expected no less. Nothing escaped her father’s attention. It was the price she had to pay for securing Inigo’s help.

‘All aristocrats are your enemy, Father.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘If I didn’t dance with your foes, I’d never dance at all. Don’t you always say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’ She held her breath and waited for his response, watching him carefully for a sign he suspected she was hiding something. He would be ruthless if he thought she was trying to play him false. She was counting on his arrogance to get her through this first hurdle. He was too sure of himself and too sure of her—or rather his hold over her—to doubt her loyalty.

His face relaxed and he chuckled. ‘I see I have an apt apprentice in you, my dear. Keeping your enemies close indeed, especially with that one. Tintagel is particularly dangerous, him and those Cornish Dukes.’ Her father disliked many men, but at the top of his list were the four Cornish Dukes, men who loved their families, who were devoted to personally raising their heirs and believed it was their duty to provide for the civic welfare of their communities with wide-sweeping projects and reforms that benefitted people, not purses. They were selfless men who put others first. In short, they stood for everything her father despised; they held as ideals the values he saw as weaknesses.

His laugh faded and he eyed her again. ‘What business could we have in drawing Tintagel near?’ He was testing her, but she was prepared.

‘To ensure he doesn’t interfere with my betrothal to Tremblay, of course. Now he knows that we know what he tried to do with his meeting at White’s. Perhaps now we’ve gained a little of our own back by driving a wedge between the two friends,’ she argued shrewdly, hating herself for the lies, hating even more the ease with which those lies came to her. Inigo’s comment about the apple not falling far from the tree smarted. She didn’t want him to be right. She was only lying now out of self-preservation. ‘Maybe Tremblay will feel there is competition, a challenger who comes from the ranks of his friends, the very friend who tried to warn him away. Perhaps Tremblay will question Tintagel’s motives in giving that warning. Perhaps he’ll disregard it, thinking that his friend meant to woo me for himself.’

‘Very astute, Daughter.’ Her father nodded his approval. ‘While we’re keeping Tintagel close, it wouldn’t hurt to winkle out a secret or two. I’d like some leverage over him. Those Cornish Dukes act as if they’re squeaky clean, but no one’s that spotless. Everyone has skeletons; some people just bury them deeper.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Audevere could hardly say less without arousing suspicion, but her mind was already chanting, time to go, time to go. It was past time, really.

He grinned and released her arm. ‘You are my daughter in truth; blood will always tell.’ She smiled as if his approval was something she coveted and was relieved when he excused himself to the card rooms.

At last she could draw an easy breath; at last she could allow herself a moment’s celebration. She’d been brave. She’d put her plan in motion. Inigo Vellanoweth would help her. And in the morning the real work could begin at last. She needed to arrange for what funds she could, convert what she had to cash, decide what to take with her, decide where to go. Audevere was thankful for the solid substance of the wall at her back, for the privacy of the palms that let her slouch with the audacity of her plans. She’d been quick in her answer to Inigo tonight: that she understood the magnitude of her plans and their consequences. She did understand them in theory. It was the practice that was overwhelming.

Her life was about to change drastically. She told herself she wouldn’t mind. She’d be free…if she succeeded. If she failed, though, she would not get a second chance. Her father was not built for forgiveness, not even for his own daughter. Succeed or fail, she’d be cut off from her only living family, entirely alone in the world. There was little elation in that thought, although she wasn’t certain why it should bother her. Wasn’t she already alone? Her father was hardly any type of father at all, but a man who used his daughter to further his own interests, blackmailed her with the fear of having her darkest secrets exposed as if she were just another of his hapless victims, encouraged her to entertain men of his choosing and implicated her in his schemes against her will.

She smoothed her skirts and returned to the ball. She wanted to dance until she forgot her worries. She had partners aplenty and she danced until she was breathless and exhausted. But no partner seemed to match Inigo’s skill and yet every partner reminded her of him in what they lacked. Her partners became a string of opposites—they looked decorously away, not daring to meet her gaze, where Inigo’s eyes had pierced hers, pale, blue and all-seeing as if they could see into her very soul. She’d forgotten how unique his eyes were, so unique they had their own name—Boscastle blue—handed down from generations of Boscastle dukes. The years had changed him, honed the young man she’d known who’d preferred dark corners into a handsome, striking man who would not go unnoticed in any room. He was a sharp man, too, in all ways. Inigo’s words had cut through to the truth where her other partners made useless small talk.

Inigo had asked the hard questions. Why did she want this? Why had she come to him? Could he trust her? That was what he’d really been asking when he’d insisted she tell him the truth.

It would be hard not to, with those irresistible blue eyes boring into her. She nodded and smiled at something her current partner said. It was no challenge to keep up with his conversation even when she wasn’t really listening. She could just nod and smile and let her mind wander back to Inigo. His eyes had always mesmerised her, so impenetrable, even as they sought out her own secrets. One never knew what he was really thinking. Unlike Collin, whose thoughts she’d always been able to read. There’d been charm in Collin’s openness, but there was a depth of mystery in Inigo that could keep a girl up all night with questions.

She knew. She’d spent more than a few nights wondering what thoughts lay behind those eyes. It hadn’t been well done of her, thinking about her fiancé’s friend, but she consoled herself with the possibility it was just the natural curiosity of a young girl in the throes of her first taste of courtship. It was easier to think the latter and she might have convinced herself it was true if she hadn’t seen him again, hadn’t danced with him, hadn’t felt his hand at her back or the force of his gaze. All the curiosity came surging back, only this time she had more specific words for it, words like longing. Those words were far less innocuous.

Her mind was curious about other things now, too. Had she gone to Inigo strictly because she believed he could get the job done? Or were there other more secret motives that had driven her decision? She needed to tread carefully and be honest with herself on that score. She was attracted to Inigo. She’d rather not be, not when he could so easily be her enemy, nor when the liking would all be one-sided.

If she’d learned one thing from her father’s victims, it was never to mix business with pleasure. The only thing that mattered tonight was that Inigo had agreed to help her. She’d come here with the intent to gain an ally and she had. Still, she couldn’t resist scanning the ballroom one more time for Inigo as her partner led her back to the sidelines, but he wasn’t to be found. He’d already gone. She remembered that. He never stayed long at any party. Funny, how one could go five years without seeing someone, training oneself not to think about that person, then one encounter was all it took to break that carefully constructed dam and everything came flooding back. Audevere touched her gloved fingertips to her lips. Everything.

She dreamt that night of Collin, of all of them together that halcyon summer that had been filled with a young girl’s every fantasy: her debut, her whirlwind engagement to a charming young man.

They were picnicking in the Richmond woods, having gone down the Thames on a barge. They were a rather large group as they strolled beneath the leafy canopy of the trees.

She slowed her pace, steadily falling behind the group and taking Inigo with her. She wanted to tease him; he was too serious by far.

‘You were watching us,’ she accused playfully when the group was out of earshot.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Boscastle’s heir was all starch.

Audevere gave a merry laugh and twirled her parasol. She slanted him a coy look. That should have done the trick: the laugh, the look. ‘You act as if I’ve accused you of high treason!’ Many gentlemen in London found the combination irresistible, but not Inigo. He was not enchanted in the least. It only made her more determined to crack him.

‘You’ve accused me of something nearly as bad. You make me out to be a voyeur, which many would call a rather sordid hobby.’ He arched a slim, immaculate brow as she tapped him with her fan.

‘A voyeur! La! You are a wicked man. Such dark thoughts lurking in your head. It’s always the quiet ones,’ she flirted. Any other young beau would have risen to the bait and argued the point teasingly. But from Inigo there was nothing.

She made an exasperated pout, a practised, pretty one she’d worked on in the mirror, one that took advantage of the fine shape of her mouth. ‘Don’t you ever smile?’

‘When I have something to smile about,’ he informed her with all seriousness.

‘Collin smiles all the time.’ Perhaps some friendly competition would spur him to engage more fully in the conversation—or at the very least he’d take the hint she’d so broadly implied and offer her the compliment for which she was fishing.

‘His is a charmed life,’ came the polite, oblique reply.

‘Is yours not?’ she probed with another coy glance meant to invite confidences.

‘My life is quite satisfactory.’ Another oblique, useless reply.

‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re a difficult conversationalist?’ She slipped her free hand through his arm and felt him stiffen at her bold overture. ‘Do I make you uncomfortable?’

‘You should be walking up front with Collin.’ He ignored her question altogether, the maddening man. It was all she could do not to stamp her foot, cross her arms, pout for real and demand his attention.

‘I always walk with Collin. Besides, he is surrounded by admirers, as usual,’ She gave an airy wave of her hand. If there was one thing she would have changed about today’s picnic it would have been the number of revellers and more specifically the number of pretty, well-born girls.

‘You needn’t worry. Collin admires you the most,’ Inigo offered.

‘I would thank you for the reassurance, should I have needed it.’ She adjusted her parasol, pretending he’d paid her a compliment.

‘It’s not reassurance; it’s the truth. And you do need it, pardon my opinion. You worry all the time about whether or not you’re good enough for him. I can tell you most assuredly that you aren’t.’

He was right. She did worry. One day Collin would wake up and realise he could do better, that aside from her expensive gowns and her good looks, she was nothing, just the daughter of a merchant ship’s captain. Inigo Vellanoweth had already seen it because he wasn’t momentarily blinded by love. Audevere’s temper rose; she hated being exposed and especially by this man who plainly did not care for her. ‘Should I take my clothes off and dance naked in the grass? You seem to have stripped me bare.’

‘I’d rather you not,’ came his dry reply.

‘Why don’t you like me?’ She persisted in confronting him. If she pushed him far enough, she could make him pay for that remark.

‘It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s that I don’t like you for him. For Collin.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so blatantly insulted twice in such a short amount of time. You have a rare gift,’ Audevere snapped. Dear Lord, did this man never stop? Such unpleasantness beneath his austerely handsome face.

‘I am sorry if you find honesty insulting.’

She chose to ignore the barb and swung the conversation back to his previous comment. ‘Is that why you stare? I catch you at it all the time. Are you imagining who I might suit better?’ He said nothing and she gave a sly smile, pressing on. ‘You are imagining me with someone else. I’ll take that as a challenge. Who might that someone be?’ She scanned the group walking ahead of them. ‘One of your friends? Lynford, maybe? Or…’ her gaze swivelled back to him pointedly ‘…maybe the someone is you.’ It was an outrageously shocking thought to voice, to accuse an honourable man of coveting his friend’s fiancée. She knew she’d gone beyond the limits of propriety in her temper, but she wanted payback for his cutting remarks.

She tapped her fingers on his sleeve in feigned congeniality. ‘Is it you? Do you fancy that you are man enough for me? Better than Collin? That’s hardly a flattering thing to think about a friend. Are you sure you wouldn’t be slumming?’

‘Stop it! This conversation has gone far enough. You are speaking nonsense.’ He disengaged her hand from his sleeve, her arm from his arm.

She smiled, widely, with laughter in her eyes on purpose. He wanted her to be ashamed. She would be anything but. ‘Ha!’ she wanted to say. ‘I got a rise out of you, after all.’ But Collin was cutting through the group, making his way to where they lingered in the rear.

‘Ah, this is sweetness itself, my best friend and my future wife, chatting away, already friends.’ Collin slipped his arms through theirs, putting himself in the middle. ‘What scintillating things have you two been discussing back here while I’ve been missing all the fun?’

Audevere answered his smile with one of her own, deliberately sunny to prove a point. ‘You, of course. Always you. I was telling Tintagel he should take his cue from you and smile more.’

Collin flashed her one of his dazzling grins. ‘But, my dear, he can’t possibly smile as much as I do; he hasn’t as much as I have to be happy about. After all, I have you, the most beautiful girl of the Season—or any Season, if you ask me.’ Collin brightened further, if that was possible. He tugged at her arm. ‘Have you seen the strawberry patch in the glen? You must come, Aud.’ He was already leading her away and she let him. She wondered if there really were any strawberries this late in the summer, or if it was merely an excuse to get her alone and steal kisses. She didn’t mind. She liked Collin’s kisses. Even if she hadn’t, she would have let him kiss her anyway—anything to hold his attention. Her father would kill her if she lost Collin, second son of a duke. She wondered if she should ask her father to have the wedding moved up. A nine-month engagement suddenly seemed like an eternity. She couldn’t lose him.

But she felt Inigo’s eyes burning into her back as Collin led her away…

Audevere sat up in bed, her nightgown clinging to her body, sticky with sweat and remembrances. The past had bled into the present, despite her best efforts to wall it off, to forget those glorious months when she’d been one of them, accepted in the inner circle of the group known to London as the Cornish Dukes. She’d been innocent of much in those days, unaware of the full extent of her father’s corruption. She’d been happy, her days filled with Collin’s smile and Inigo’s sharp sparring, her evenings spent dancing beneath glittering chandeliers in Collin’s arms. But those weren’t the dances that lingered in her mind now, nor the arms. She could hardly remember how Collin’s arms felt. It was Inigo’s waltz and Inigo’s arms that haunted her now.

She shook her head. It was disloyal of her to forget Collin, to have his memory pushed aside by his friend. Maybe she was disloyal? She’d always denied this, but perhaps she was wrong. Her father’s words rang in her ears. ‘Blood will tell.’ Perhaps he and Inigo were right. Perhaps there was no good in her, after all.

Audevere was up to no good, he could sense it. Brenley tapped his fingers on the polished surface of his desk, thinking as the sun came up. It was his wont to start the day a step ahead of everyone else. He was seldom abed after dawn. In fact, he hadn’t gone to bed since returning from the Bradford ball. His mind was too active, too suspicious. Audevere had been far too biddable. Everything had gone far too well. Last night, Tremblay had invited her to an equestrian exhibit at Prince Baklanov’s riding school in Leicester Square. She’d done as he’d asked, making conspicuous efforts to win back Tremblay’s attentions.

All this, after she’d voiced some reticence towards the match. He knew his daughter. She was stubborn like him. There was more to her caginess than he could presently identify. It had been too easy to persuade her to re-engage Tremblay’s attentions. Perhaps he was supposed to believe she wanted to be a viscountess after all, or that his arguments were every bit as persuasive as they ought to be. Once, he might have believed those reasons easily. Once, she’d been a malleable young girl who’d done his bidding. She’d not questioned him when he’d told her to be nice to certain gentlemen invited to dinner; she’d not questioned him when he’d told her to break off the engagement to Collin Truscott, because she knew the consequences if she did not.

Was that fear enough now? He used fear as a tactic rather liberally. Blackmail was based on it. But fear had a shelf life, its potency short-lived. What if she no longer feared the secrets he held about her? Brenley rose and strode to the console to pour himself a drink, choosing to forget it was morning now and not night. He forced himself to think. Why would she no longer fear the airing of those secrets? Surely she understood Tremblay couldn’t protect her from them? Did she think Inigo Vellanoweth could? Had that dance been about more than creating competition to motivate Tremblay? And there’d been those unexplained moments outside on the veranda. He’d not asked about those. If she was planning something, he didn’t want to tip his hand and alert her.

He smiled into his drink. What did she think she could do to him? It was intriguing to think about. He owned her body and soul, just as he’d owned her mother. There was little she could do, but it would be interesting to watch her try. If that should allow him to bring down Inigo Vellanoweth in the process, all the better. That man had it coming to him after stealing the Blaxford mines from his control.

Brenley finished his drink and rang for two footmen, tall, skilled men he’d hired for more than their ability to look impressive in livery. ‘I want the watch on Miss Brenley intensified,’ he told them. ‘I have reason to believe there might be an attempt to compromise her safety.’ The men nodded. He went to his desk and pulled out two small bags of coins. ‘Please keep a careful watch on her for me. I want to know where she goes and who she sees at all times. But, of course, I don’t want her to know. It would unnerve her and cause her undue anxiety. I will expect full reports daily.’ Now, he would wait and see what would come of this. He’d let out the leash on Audevere—but only allowed her just enough rope to see if she hung herself.

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