Regency Rogues

August 2019

Outrageous Scandal

September 2019

Rakes’ Redemption

October 2019

Wicked Seduction

November 2019

A Winter’s Night

December 2019

Unlacing the Forbidden

January 2020

Stolen Sins

February 2020

Candlelight Confessions

March 2020

Rescued by Temptation

April 2020

Wives Wanted

May 2020

Disgraceful Secrets

June 2020

Talk of the Ton

July 2020

Exotic Affairs

ELIZABETH BEACON has a passion for history and storytelling and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, never lacks a glorious setting for her books. Elizabeth tried horticulture, higher education as a mature student, briefly taught English and worked in an office, before finally turning her daydreams about dashing, piratical heroes and their stubborn and independent heroines into her dream job; writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon.

Regency Rogues: A Winter’s Night

The Winterley Scandal

The Governess Heiress

Elizabeth Beacon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09889-2

REGENCY ROGUES: A WINTER’S NIGHT

The Winterley Scandal © 2016 Elizabeth Beacon The Governess Heiress © 2017 Elizabeth Beacon

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Winterley Scandal

Back Cover Text

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

The Governess Heiress

Back Cover Text

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

About the Publisher

The Winterley Scandal

Elizabeth Beacon

Under the gaze of the ton!

As the daughter of wild Pamela Winterley, Eve has always lived in the shadow of scandal. Society watches her every move, waiting for Eve to prove she is just as wayward as her mother…

Ever since his father’s scandalous affair, Colm Hancourt has lived life on his own terms. But then he comes face-to-face with Eve, the daughter of his father’s mistress! It may have begun with a kiss that set tongues wagging, but could the latest Winterley scandal be the start of something special?

Chapter One

It’s so hot tonight I am only wearing my new rubies as I write. The stones are glorious, but the settings—oh, my diary—so old fashioned I could scream. Still, only the diamonds to coax out of Lord Chris now—and how his brother the Duke of Linaire will gobble with rage when he sees me wear them.

No, I shall wear every last one of Lady Chris’s jewels, ancient settings and all, the day I get hold of the lot. The Duke of Linaire wants them for his fat mistress, whatever he says about them belonging to his nephew. He doesn’t even like the boy—and how dare he threaten to have me whipped at the cart tail because his little brother loves me to distraction?

Chris’s plain wife is dead and the jewels her vulgar father showered on her never looked half so well on her anyway. The truth is the Duke hates Chris for being young and handsome and having me. After marrying that plain heiress the old Duke insisted one of his sons wed when Lord Horace ran off to the Colonies with that odd female who paints, rather than shackle himself to a nabob’s daughter.

Chris deserves some fun. He endured that low-born creature in his bed for so long it must be bliss to share it with me—and his son can’t wear the jewels, can he? So what use are diamonds of the first water to the horrid brat?

Colm Hancourt carefully put down the expensive notebook lest he throw it across the room and let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding in an uneven gasp. As the horrid brat in question, he could argue for a hundred better uses for a fortune in gold and jewels than decorating a vain and adulterous demi-rep with them all. The fortune she had been busy spending had been his as well—or it would have been if his father hadn’t stolen it before Colm was old enough to argue. Whatever Lord Christopher Hancourt had done with his son’s fortune, inherited from Colm’s fabulously wealthy maternal grandfather Sir Joseph Lambury, those jewels should be in the bank, waiting for Colm to take a wife. So here was proof, if he needed it, they were long gone. Colm’s maternal grandfather might have left his entire fortune to his only grandson, but that hadn’t stopped Lord Chris from spending it all before Colm was old enough to go to school.

He bit back a curse as the shock of that betrayal hit anew. All the wishing and cursing in the world wouldn’t make his lost fortune reappear and he should know; he’d tried every one when he was younger and seething with fury about the hand life and his father had dealt him. Rage and hurt fought to rule him even now, after eight years of soldiering and learning self-control at the charity school his eldest uncle sent him to before that. So how could he not curse his father for putting this heartless woman ahead of his children? That was the real question he had to answer if he was ever going to be content with what little he had left.

One thing he did know was that he should never have agreed to come here to Derneley House and meet the past head on like this. Pamela had grown up here, under the so-called care of her sister and brother-in-law, and reminders of the wretched female were everywhere. Portraits of the infamous Pamela seemed to jeer at him from far too many walls and it almost felt as if he might catch her and his besotted father up to something disgraceful if he turned round fast enough at times, although they had both been dead these fifteen years and more.

Still, he did owe the only one of his father’s brothers prepared to own up to him quite a lot. The current Duke of Linaire was so sheepish about asking him to come here that he couldn’t even claim he was bullied into it. No, he played down his revulsion at the idea of living in this house for however short a time he would be needed and had come here of his own free will, so he must endure this stupid suspicion that the woman who ruined his life was busy laughing at him from her front-row seat in hell.

He’d had to slot back into his old familiar disguise to live here for as long as this took as well. The Duke of Linaire’s librarian had been dismissed for selling one of the finest volumes in the Linaire Library to a rival collector and expecting the new Duke not to notice. As Uncle Horace would never find a man he could trust to do this task in such a hurry, here he was, Uncle Horace’s long-lost nephew, doing his best to do a good job with the neglected Derneley Library where he’d spent the last eight years with only one book at a time to his name, to be read and passed round other readers who liked to lose themselves in a book when life was almost unendurable on campaign. So he couldn’t even be himself now that he was back in London after all these years. Lord Chris’s son would never be welcome under this roof while Lady Derneley lived under it as well. She still raged about what she called the murder of her little sister to anyone who would listen and Lord Chris Hancourt had driven so recklessly along an Alpine road at twilight that the coach missed a bend and he and Pamela hurtled to their deaths. So here he was, Colin Carter again—just as he’d been in the army. He wanted to push aside the thought that he might have died under that name at Waterloo, if not for his sister Nell and the new Duke, but somehow it haunted him.

Nell had coaxed, or bullied, Uncle Horace into taking her to Brussels when everyone else was fleeing it as battle roared only a few miles away. Revulsion at what his little sister must have seen ate away at Colm every time he thought of Nell viewing the hell of slaughter and corruption the day after Waterloo. She had scoured the battlefield until she found him, dazed and half-conscious from loss of blood, and somehow got him back to Brussels to be nursed at the new Duke of Linaire’s expense. When he was pronounced likely to live, Nell raced back to England and her position as governess to four orphaned girls. Colm’s hands tightened into fists; his sister had to rescue him rather than the other way about and he so wanted to protect her; give her back the life she was born to. In his daydreams she was fulfilled and happy with a man who would love and cosset her as she deserved for the rest of her life. A reminiscent grin spoilt his frown as he reminded himself this was Nell he was thinking about. She wouldn’t thank him for such a husband, even if it meant escaping her life as a governess. He might as well forget the fantasy of giving Nell a Season so the world could see what a wonderful woman she was. She would chafe at the controls society put on marriageable young ladies and ask for her old job back.

So where was he? Ah, yes, Uncle Horace—the second eldest of his father’s three older brothers and the only one Colm liked and might even learn to love one day. Uncle Maurice, the next Hancourt in line after Horace, hated Colm for being his father’s son and he’d hated Lord Chris even more for succeeding with Pamela when he failed. Maurice ought to be grateful to have escaped her clutches, but Colm knew he would never forgive that slight to his reputation as a devil with the ladies. Colm frowned and decided he could well do without his Uncle Maruice’s approval, but Pamela probably chose the younger brother because he’d wed an heiress. Whispers of the fabulous Lambury Jewels locked away in a bank vault would have seemed too delicious to resist as well.

Drat, he was thinking about the wretched female again and how she had seduced and nagged and wheedled that part of his inheritance out of Lord Chris. So where had he been before Pamela interrupted his thoughts? Ah, yes, Uncle Horace—he was a much more pleasant member of the family to think about. As soon as Colm was declared likely to live, the doctors insisted Colm convalesce before he settled into his new life, and neither the Duke nor the Duchess of Linaire would listen when he insisted he was fit to work. They even packed him off to the seaside to recover, so how could he turn his back on the only other members of his family willing to own up to him?

Uncle Horace had only come back to England when he’d inherited the dukedom last year. He probably didn’t realise how huge the scandal had been when his youngest brother had run off with Pamela Verdoyne and then died with her on their way to a party she’d insisted on attending whatever the weather. Uncle Horace had been cut off for refusing to marry the heiress Colm’s father had wed instead by then. Sensible Uncle Horace, Colm thought wryly, and almost wished his father had run off with a woman he could love instead of meekly marrying that unlucky girl as well.

No—he was brought up short by the thought of the woman his father had loved so deeply and unwisely after Colm’s mother died—he decided Sophia Lambury was a far better parent to own up to than the current Viscount Farenze’s first wife. His mother might have been the pawn her father sold for a title and a convenient wife Lord Chris didn’t love, but at least she wasn’t a lovely, heartless harpy.

He shot the portrait of Pamela Verdoyne-Winterley hanging over the fireplace a hostile glare. She had been ripe and lush and beautiful, he conceded, but the mocking sensuality in her sleepy blue eyes said how aware she was of her power over fools like Lord Christopher Hancourt and how she revelled in enslaving lovers until they satisfied her every whim, whatever it cost them and theirs.

He compared her image to his shadowy memories of his mother and, yes, he definitely preferred having gentle, plain Sophia as his dam. So how would it feel to have Pamela’s blood running in his veins? Appalling, he decided, feeling sorry for the girl with that burden on her young shoulders. He didn’t know her, but for some reason he’d waited in the shadows to catch a glimpse of Lady Derneley’s niece tonight with the other servants. Miss Winterley had looked self-contained and almost too conscious of her mother’s sins, or was he being fanciful? Dark-haired and not quite beautiful, she looked very different from her notorious mother. He had to try not to snarl at the near-naked portrait of Pamela whenever he was in this room, but now he examined it for signs that her daughter had inherited her bold sensuality. Miss Winterley had her nose and slender build perhaps, but her eyes, the shape of her face and her height were all very different. Pamela’s daughter looked as if she, too, could be haunted by her mother’s sins a decade and a half after they had ended so abruptly on that Alpine pass.

So at least he didn’t have to fear a feral beast might lie under his own skin as Miss Winterley looked as if she did in her worst nightmares. Lord Chris was a fool who had loved a noble doxy beyond reason, though, and Colm hoped and prayed he would never love madly and without limits like his father. So they were equal in some ways. He sat back to brood on fate and their very different destinies and concluded that was all they had in common.

Miss Winterley was doted on by her family; Colm barely acknowledged by his. Now Uncle Horace was Duke of Linaire he had a roof over his head and a job, but Uncle Maurice was next in line; he would turn Colm out the day he succeeded to the title. Colm liked his new relative very well, but if anything happened to the current Duke he would have to support himself on one good leg and nothing much a year. So if Uncle Horace wanted him to list and pack the entire library to make sure Derneley wasn’t selling off the best volumes to dealers behind his back, Colm would stay here and do it and Mr Carter could live on for another week or two.

Miss Winterley’s presence in this house tonight, when he was sure she didn’t want to be here, was still something of a mystery. He wondered how Lady Derneley managed it, when the distrust between Pamela’s sister and the Winterleys, once Pamela openly gave up on her marriage, never seemed to have been bridged by either family. Luckily the maids hired for the evening whispered and why shouldn’t another servant listen to gossip? Colm thought with a wry smile at his own expense. Apparently Lady Derneley had put it about that this party was to be held in her niece’s honour, as a peace offering in a war where she would hear not a word said against her late sister, and the Winterleys had, not surprisingly, not a good word to say in her favour so they said nothing at all. The Winterleys had to attend or let the world know they were openly at odds with Miss Winterley’s relatives. Since it was Viscount Farenze’s mission in life to keep scandal at bay whenever he could, he would be furious to be forced into a corner, but his wife and daughter would even endure an evening at Derneley House to keep the peace.

That was the how of it all, so what about the why? Lady Derneley was a widgeon and all the brass and cunning in the family must have gone to her little sister, but was there a deeper reason behind her husband’s scheme to get his wife’s niece here tonight? Colm shuddered at the idea, but Miss Winterley had a strong protector in Viscount Farenze and he had powerful friends. Derneley wouldn’t risk all that power and influence turning against him, would he? Unless he was going to flee to the Continent to avoid his debts and thought the Winterley interest didn’t reach that far. No, it was too much of a risk, so Colm had imagined a furtive air about the man nobody else saw as he greeted his ‘long-lost niece’ as if he might cry like a stage villain over her at any moment.

Anyway, what better way was there for the Derneleys to fool their creditors a family reconciliation had taken place? The Winterleys were rich and powerful and it might work, and there were no bailiffs in the hall or toughs in the kitchens tonight. He shivered at the idea of anyone being imprisoned for debt and resolved not to long for the wife and family he might have had if things were different. Derneley’s ruin was all his own work, though; Colm had nothing in common with that noble idiot. Even he knew selling the Derneley Library to the new Duke of Linaire wouldn’t keep Derneley solvent long, but the man didn’t seem worried. Colm wondered how the guests would feel if the bailiffs turned up for dinner, dancing and a nice little gossip with the nobs. Delighted, he suspected; they had come here to be entertained after all.

Colm eyed the beautifully bound book Pamela confided in and refused to be sorry it was probably the closest she ever got to a friend. She had hidden her diaries behind a row of sermons and he wondered that they hadn’t burnt holes in the worthy volumes. The library was being taken apart and shipped to Linaire House book by book, so they would have been discovered sooner or later and Colm was suddenly very glad he was the one taking it apart, not some poor clerk happy to sell such deliciously scandalous diaries to the highest bidder. Some of the lower branches of the publishing world would love to get their hands on such ‘work’. But what on earth was he going to do with them? Burning seemed a fine idea with that prospect in his head, but he wanted to find out more about his father. Lord Chris died when Colm was eight, but he’d left his children before then.

Stuffing the expensively bound books into a portmanteau and limping off into the night was a tempting idea, but his work wasn’t finished and the tale that would do the rounds if he was caught creeping out of the house with Pamela’s diaries would enliven the radical press for years to come. Someone might recognise his name and if Captain Carter of the Rifles was smoked out as Lord Chris’s son how the ton would sneer at a duke’s grandson forced to serve in a regiment famous for dash and daring, but officered largely by tradesmen’s sons and great gruff soldiers promoted on merit.

‘Oh, no, my dear, the fellow’s totally unsuited to polite company even without those unsightly infirmities. Not a penny to bless himself with and even a cit’s daughter wouldn’t risk marrying Lord Chris’s son since he’s likely to spend her fortune on a doxy like his father.’

It was uncomfortable enough to imagine, what if he had to listen to real asides and furtive titters when he was openly his uncle’s nephew? He’d end up calling some fool out and he didn’t want to flee justice, or shoot some idiot in a duel. Nell would be furious and the thought of his lion-hearted sister made him smile. If she were here, she would bid him get on with his life and forget the past. Well, he couldn’t quite manage that yet, but he would put most of Pamela’s diaries back and hope nobody chanced on them before he could think what to do with them. Then, if he could only forget his sister had to work for her bread because of the selfish adulteress who had bled their father dry, he might be able to enjoy the novelty of not being shot at on a regular basis and be himself for the first time in eight years.

Colm cursed the day Lord Chris set eyes on Pamela as he limped towards the steep little stair to the upper shelves of the library to replace the rest of her diaries and the Derneleys’ guests enjoyed the remnants of their host’s once-fabled wealth only a few rooms away.

Eve Winterley still couldn’t work out how her stepmama talked her into attending this wretched party. She wished clever Lady Chloe Winterley, Viscountess Farenze, hadn’t right now. First there was Aunt Derneley’s delusion they doted on each other to endure, then Lord Derneley trod so clumsily on her skirt in passing as she curtsied to her dance partner that she had to hastily leave the room. If not for that the appalling old man who waylaid her on her way to find a maid to help mend it she could have left this horrible house by now… Ugh, no, she didn’t want to think about him yet, but how she wished she had invented a headache to keep her at home tonight.

She didn’t care if the gossips gloated over the split between the Derneleys and the Winterleys. Her mother had willed her to die in the attic of this place once upon a time, so little wonder she couldn’t wait to go home even before… No, she wasn’t going to think about that awful old wineskin until she was safe. She wasn’t sure she could endure the thought of him and what he might have done even then. Papa always said the best thing her mother did was reject her and usually Eve agreed, but tonight a small part of her wanted to throw something fragile because Pamela did her best to starve Eve to death in the attics here instead of being any sort of mother to her newborn babe.

Pamela didn’t matter. Dear Bran was brought here to nurse Eve and then Papa rescued them both. Eve grew up knowing she was loved as surely as the sea beat on the rocks below her father’s northern stronghold. Then Papa married Lady Chloe Thessaly when Eve was sixteen and what a relief to love and be loved by such a remarkable woman, she reminded herself, and supposed she would have to forgive Chloe her part in this wretched evening after all.

A nasty little voice at the back of her head whispered she couldn’t escape the past in this down-at-heel mansion the Derneleys were clinging on to somehow. What if the gossips and naysayers are right when they whisper, ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ behind my back? her inner critic goaded. What if one day I meet a man who wakes up the greedy whore in me and she makes me need ever more wild and wicked things from him and the rest of his sex as Pamela did?

No, never, she denied it as her headache beat in her ears and she scuttled down the next half-lit corridor in the hope of sanctuary. She was a Winterley—everyone said how closely she followed her father in colouring, build and character. Even after three years out in society not a whiff of real scandal tainted her name, despite all the rakes and fortune hunters who tried to blast it so she would have to marry them or accept a lover. Still those whispers circulated without proof to back them up and malicious eyes watched for signs she was like Pamela. Anyone who mattered knew her and not the creature gossip said she was, but ageing rakes like Sir Steven Scrumble still thought they could force her into an unlit room and make her agree to marry him because she must be like her mother, or so he’d mumbled as he did his best to make sure she was the next Lady Scrumble. She shuddered at the memory of his wet mouth and invading hands and wiped a hand across her lips to try to rub out the feel and taste of him. Hadn’t she just promised herself not to revisit that horror?

If she collapsed into a weeping heap everyone would know she had something to cry about and she hadn’t got her flounce mended either, so she had to hold it out of the way not to trip over it and now she was lost. The wicked old fortune hunter fell into an agonised heap when she’d kneed him sharply in the privates, though, so she doubted he’d be on her tail. Uncle James was a most satisfactory mentor for a young lady who didn’t want to be landed with a husband she hated. If that tactic failed, there were more to fall back on so thank heavens she belonged to a powerful clan; if she was poor and alone her mother’s wild life and blasted reputation would have ruined her years ago.

Her first real suitor came so close to doing it she shuddered at the thought of her youthful stupidity. How had she ever thought herself so in love with a fool? Papa and Chloe had warned her he wasn’t the man she thought. It wasn’t until she told him she wouldn’t elope that the gloss and excitement of having her first grown-up lover melted. He wanted her because she was her mother’s daughter, not despite it. Memory of the hot, greedy need in his eyes as he tore her gown and got ready to rape her made her feel sick even now. That was when Uncle James intervened and, as that boy hadn’t shown his true colours since, maybe his punishment worked.

Fighting the memory of that night and all the times since when even a quiet and outwardly respectable man would look at her with the memory of her mother in his hot eyes, she looked for somewhere to ply the needle and hank of thread snatched from the deserted ladies’ withdrawing room. Opening a promising door warily, she checked for fat and lazy fortune hunters, then slipped inside. There was an air of peace in the old-fashioned book room; a very small fire and one branch of candles cast mellow shadows. Her uncle by marriage would never come in here for a quick read; he was probably allergic to printers’ ink. She moved the candle and sat on a stiff and old-fashioned sofa by the fire to whip quick, impatient stitches into her torn flounce, glad to be alone for a few precious moments. Shifting the material round so she could reach the tear, she made herself sew more neatly, so it would look as if a maid mended it for her and that was where she had been all along.

There, that was the tear darned. Once she had the strip of fine French braid tacked neatly in place she would be respectable again. It was still trailing like a tail behind her when a suspicion this wasn’t such a wonderful place to hide crept up on her. One of Uncle James’s rules was assess all escape routes when you entered a strange room. She froze in her seat, needle in mid-air and every sense alert now it was too late. Another faint movement made her look round and see there was a gallery to this faded room she should have noted of earlier. Someone was coming down a hidden stair so slowly and quietly a superstitious shiver ran down her back.

Too late to avoid whoever it was now, she wasn’t about to run back to the ballroom with her braid trailing behind her, so she grasped the needle like a weapon and hoped it might work. Lord Derneley’s cronies were too soft and idle to fit into the narrow confines of the ladder-like stair she could see now her eyes were used to the dim light, so this was a less substantial person. Halting steps met the marble floor at last and she squinted against the candlelight and deep shadows it cast to see whom she must defend herself against this time.

Chapter Two

‘What the devil are you doing here?’ a gruff male voice rumbled as Eve froze, staring at the stiffly held figure and telling herself he wasn’t made of shadows.

He took a step forward and stared nearly as rudely back. He looked both old and young at the same time and she wondered how such a shabby gentleman could seem so arrogant it was as if he owned the room and not Lord Derneley’s creditors. His overlong hair was neither brown nor gold but a mixture of both and his nose had been broken once upon a time. There was an air of contained power about him that didn’t fit his modest shirt points and a very ordinary dark coat and breeches. He shouldn’t be in the least attractive to a lady like her and yet he was. Now he turned his head as if to listen for more intruders into his domain and the candlelight struck his face full on. She could see a still raw scar high on his forehead that made her gasp, then wondered how much damage his tawny pelt hid and if that explained why he let it grow. Something wary and proud in his unusual eyes stopped her answering his question with a casual put down from lady to upper servant. Even from several feet away and by weak candlelight those eyes looked dark and light at the same time. He came a little closer to peer down at her as if she was an exhibit in a museum and she gazed up and saw his irises were brown, but his pupils were rayed with flares of light gold that made them look paler.

Here was a man who kept his hopes and dreams hidden, but when their gazes met something sparked between them that she didn’t understand. It felt as if he was important to her somehow, but he couldn’t be so, could he? Looked at coolly he was a young clerk in shabby day clothes and had nothing in common with the Honourable Miss Winterley. Still she felt an eager leap of the heart she had heard about but never experienced before; the dawn of something huge she never believed in until now. It threatened to turn her world upside down as they gazed at each other as if under a spell. Which was just plain nonsense, wasn’t it? There might be enough mysteries in this stranger’s striking eyes to intrigue a flock of unwary young ladies, but she was Eve Winterley and he was an upper servant by dress, if not his arrogant manner as he silently dared her to set him down as nobody.

‘You took the words out of my mouth,’ she informed him huskily, doing her best to act the composed society lady in the face of his impudence.

‘Her ladyship’s ball is that way, Miss Winterley,’ he said and Eve felt that tingle of warmth she’d been trying to fight turn to ice. The coldness in his voice made her shiver and something like disapproval iced his gaze as he dwelt on her exposed ankles and calf, then he looked away as if she offended him.

‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ she said stiffly.

‘Carter, ma’am,’ he said unenthusiastically.

‘And now I know?’

‘The Duke of Linaire engaged me to sort the Derneley Library and have it packed up and sent to Linaire House or the bookbinders.’

‘Well, it’s a fine collection and Lord Derneley is desperate,’ she said, then wondered what demon had got hold of her tongue tonight.

‘His father was a notable scholar,’ the man said as if every word must be paid for and he was unwilling to waste them on the likes of her.

‘Maybe his son is a changeling then,’ she said, her temper prickling. She refused to tell polite lies after the evening she’d endured so far and this man’s hostility seemed to be coming towards her in waves now he’d taken a good long look at Miss Evelina Winterley and decided he didn’t like her one little bit.

‘Lord Derneley is my host,’ he reproved her, as if she had no idea it was rude to make comments about one when you were under his roof.

‘And therefore above criticism? I shall employ you to sit in my father’s library and whisper my grace, talent and general omnipotence in my ear when I feel less than pleased with myself and the world.’

‘I shall be very ill occupied then,’ he said unwarily—so that was what he thought of her, was it? ‘I beg your pardon, I’m sure dozens of fashionable gentlemen queue up to praise your elegance, beauty and cleverness, Miss Winterley,’ he added patronisingly, as if that should make her feel better.

‘Since we seem to be jumping to conclusions about each other so freely tonight, you must be a cynic and a Jacobin, Carter. Why else would you take against a lady you don’t know, unless you hold a grudge against my family, of course?’ she demanded, suddenly very tired of being Pamela Winterley’s daughter. Tonight was bad enough without a stranger sniping at her as if she must deserve it.

Colm tried to rein in his temper, but the sight of her looking as if she had only just left the arms of her lover made him deaf to the voice of reason. Apologise, then bow politely and leave her to her sewing, you blundering idiot, it whispered, but this was a very different Eve Winterley from the one he saw enter Derneley’s hall tonight. Then she was pale and composed; a dark-haired version of the Ice Queen, so cool and distant she could have been made of bronze and cold painted. Now she was ruffled and flushed and he still wanted to touch her, not to find out if she was real this time, but to carry on the work of the lucky devil she must have been kissing in the long-disused conservatory at the end of this corridor.

He sounded like a jealous lover and how could that be when he didn’t even know her? He still wanted to be the one who tousled all that cool perfection, though. If he had sent her racing along dusty passage ways to find the least-used part of this rambling old place and set herself to rights after their amorous encounter, now that would be much more acceptable. Even the thought of being the one whose kisses set her delightful breasts rising and falling with every fast and shallow breath made him hard. Exploring even the edges of passion with her warm and willing in his arms wasn’t to be thought of. No, it really, really wasn’t, he argued with his inner savage.

Colm felt the gnawing of bitter envy as he let himself sneer ever so slightly at the difference between her public face and private morals. Miss Winterley was set fair to follow her disgraceful dam after all. He recalled Pamela’s shocking declaration that she was writing her diary wearing nothing but rubies and that did nothing to help his wild fantasies about seeing her daughter in a similar state of nature.

‘How can I feel anything about your family when I don’t know them?’ he asked as coolly as he could while he tried to shackle his inner sensualist.

‘I don’t know; how can you?’

‘Obviously I cannot.’

‘Yet you have your shallow prejudices about me and mine and seem to think it quite acceptable to show them off. For a mere librarian you are very daring, Mr Carter,’ she said with a pointed stare at the scar on his forehead he usually felt so defensive about.

‘Librarians do not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like the goddess Athene, Miss Winterley.’

‘Waterloo?’ she demanded rudely and he supposed he’d asked for it by leaping to conclusions about her as well.

He nodded, still unable to talk about that terrible day. Not even Nell knew the terror he had felt, the dreadful urge to turn his back on his men and this hell of powder and shot and pounding artillery all around him and walk off into the woods to find peace. Now that his emotions seemed too close to the surface he was afraid he might let her see things he didn’t want any other human being to know about. She was his enemy; Winterleys and Hancourts had hated one another since his father ran off with her mother. It was probably his duty to think the worst of her, but as his lust and temper cooled he took a second look and wondered if he misjudged her.

‘I can see how a library might offer peace and quiet after that,’ she added as if she understood a bit too much. ‘Will this be enough for you after a life of action?’

‘I don’t know, Miss Winterley. No doubt I shall find out when these books are safely housed in my employer’s various houses.’

‘And rescued from the neglect of nearly half a century,’ she agreed rather absently, as if her real thoughts were elsewhere.

‘Indeed,’ he said, sounding stuffy even to his own ears. ‘I wonder they are not in worse condition.’

‘Fascinating as you find this topic, Mr Carter, I need to get back to the ballroom before people notice I have been away too long. Kindly turn your back, or go away, so I can finish sewing this braid back in place and go.’

‘I still have work to do tonight,’ he said, wishing he had pushed the open volume of Pamela’s diary he had kept out to read under something else, so there was no risk she might spot it if she wandered closer to the library table to see what he had been doing. ‘Here, let me move the candle so you can see better and be gone all the sooner,’ he offered ungraciously and moved it before she could argue. Then he meekly turned his back as ordered and hoped that was distraction enough from her mother’s appalling scribbles.

‘You are almost as eager to see the back of me as I am to go,’ she said, her voice muffled because she was paying close attention to her gown.

Colm was tempted to use the old mirror nearby to sneak another look at her fine legs and ankles as he fantasised about the thread pulling up her hem as she worked on the most awkward part of the braid once again. The unresolved question of who did that damage plagued him and he could still hear her move, feel her presence in this shadowed and oddly intimate room and long to be someone else.

‘You can’t marry a librarian if we are caught here in such a compromising position,’ he explained gruffly.

‘Even if you are a hero?’

Wouldn’t it be fine if they truly felt easy enough to laugh together? They never would if she knew who he really was. After tonight they could go back to different worlds. Except he thought Uncle Horace and his Duchess had plans that might make those worlds collide. Heaven forbid, he thought. He hated the idea of who he really was frosting Miss Winterley’s eyes when they met as polite strangers.

‘I am nobody’s hero, Miss Winterley,’ he said dourly. ‘They usually end up dead and not maimed like me.’

‘If that scar was on the back of the head I suppose I might believe you got it running away,’ she said as the faint sound of her needle penetrating the heavy satin of her gown reached his over-sensitised hearing and he held his breath against the quiet catch of her breathing and what it was doing to his dratted body.

‘Maybe I walked backwards from the guns?’ he said wryly and she chuckled. The warm sound of it brought back all the temptations he had been fighting since she walked into the room and he saw her all flustered and compelling from his perch at the top of the spiral stairs, before she even knew he existed.

‘And maybe a bullet bounced off somewhere else and hit you in the leg, but somehow I doubt it.’

‘I could have been devilishly unlucky.’

‘You could.’

‘Are you done yet?’ he asked sharply, because it felt dangerous to argue, then almost laugh with her.

‘Eager to be rid of me?’

‘Eager to keep my job, Miss Winterley. That will not happen if we are found alone here with the door shut.’

‘Yet the new Duke seems such a reasonable sort of man,’ she said as if he could be explained away with a careless smile and a shrug that said of course we were not up to anything untoward, how could a viscount’s daughter and a librarian be anything but strangers?

‘Your papa doesn’t look so where you are concerned.’

‘True, but he’s not here and now I’m set to rights he won’t need to be.’

‘Kindly hurry away then and make sure of that, if you please. Can I turn round, by the way?’

‘Yes, I am quite neat and unmarred again,’ she said and he frowned as he turned and met her challenging gaze. ‘I cannot say it has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr Carter.’

‘Good evening, Miss Winterley,’ he said curtly and wished she would go away and leave him in peace.

‘Good evening, Mr Car…’ she began, then faltered as the sound of hurrying feet sounded outside. ‘Where can I hide?’ she demanded urgently.

He darted a look at the alcove set aside for a clerk to catalogue new finds in the days when Lord Derneley’s father collected rare volumes from anywhere he could. Even that dark corner couldn’t conceal a young woman in pale and rustling silk. She gave him an impatient look and darted towards the narrow wooden stair he had climbed down so carefully only minutes ago. She scrambled to get out of sight and was lost to his view, if not to his senses, just in time not to be seen when the door opened and Lord Derneley sauntered in.

‘Thought you could have helped Lady Derneley with the wallflowers, Carter,’ he said distractedly, looking round as if this half-empty room was a surprise to him.

The thought of Miss Winterley standing so near and still made Colm tense as a drum. He breathed more shallowly for fear she might make a noise and be found and what on earth would they do then? An offer of marriage from him would hardly quiet the scandal. Yet there was something furtive in Derneley’s pale eyes that said he knew she had flown somewhere to set her appearance to rights and he intended to find her. That suspicion he had earlier that the man was up to something devious as far as his wife’s niece was concerned returned in spades. He felt a fierce need to protect her from whatever moneymaking scheme the rogue had thought up at Miss Winterley’s expense.

‘It seemed best that I not embarrass the young ladies, your lordship,’ he said and when the man looked baffled Colm pointed at his damaged leg.

‘Oh, aye, quite right. Forgot you’re a dot-and-carry one and can’t dance. Make the poor little things a laughing stock if you tried, I suppose.’ The man’s glassy gaze lingered on the scar high on Colm’s forehead, then flicked away as if he was being delicate about mentioning yet another reason he could not show his face in public.

‘Quite,’ Colm managed flatly, willing the girl hidden so precariously nearby not to move even a finger while this noble rat was in the room to hear her and force her to do whatever he had in mind.

‘I’ll tell her ladyship that’s why you’re hiding yourself away then, shall I?’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Colm made himself say as humbly as a clerk should when invited to join the nobility at play, even if it was only to dance with wallflowers.

‘Ah, there you are, Derneley,’ Viscount Farenze said from the doorway.

Colm knew who he was because he was standing by his daughter’s side earlier, looking formidable and aloof and ready to challenge any man who put a finger on his eldest child against her will. Colm marvelled at Lord Derneley’s stupidity for thinking he would get away with whatever he was up to without being flayed alive. His fury sharpened as he wondered if Derneley had been forcing his attentions on a girl he shouldn’t even think of touching, but no, he looked too sleek and fashionable to have done anything so repellent. No doubt it would take hours to redress, so that was one horror he could discount. Which left his first thought when he saw Miss Winterley so disarrayed and seductive looking; she had a lover and Derneley knew. And wasn’t that a guilty secret she and her father would pay handsomely to keep that way?

Lord Farenze eyed Colm coolly before he took a quick scan of the room from the doorway, then stepped inside. Colm thought of Miss Winterley a few heartbeats away from disaster again and he didn’t want her to be found out, lover or no. A sneeze or a snatched breath could give her away and then where would they be?

‘Came to find Carter here,’ the master of the house said uneasily under his one-time brother-in-law’s stern gaze. He even managed to make it sound logical for the host to seek the humblest gentleman here in the midst of his own evening party.

Colm called on all his experience of hiding his feelings not to glare at the man. If it wasn’t Miss Winterley who was a hair’s breadth from disaster, he might be stifling laughter instead of a savage growl as the man let his gaze shift past half-empty book stacks and sharpen on the deepest shadows as if he was looking for her. There was something damned odd going on; he hadn’t been imagining things earlier. Colm couldn’t help wondering what Miss Winterley was thinking, standing in semi-darkness and wondering what Derneley was up to as well.

‘I’m weary of cards and gossip and my wife is deep in conversation with Lady Mantaigne, Derneley. I might as well keep Linaire’s librarian company for you, as you have a great many other matters to attend to tonight. You know how I dote on books and a good host can’t absent himself from his own party for long, can he?’ Lord Farenze said so genially Colm shivered. The man’s good humour had so much steel in it he was surprised Lord Derneley wasn’t shaking in his boots.

‘Always knew you were an odd fellow, Farenze, but I suppose you’re right. Best get back to m’wife’s party before anyone notices,’ Derneley agreed airily.

‘I’ll join you as soon as I’ve picked this learned young man’s brains,’ Lord Farenze replied and Colm eyed him uneasily as Lord Derneley finally ran out of reasons to stay in his own library and left with one last frustrated look round the room, as if he might spot Miss Winterley climbing a half-dismantled book stack, presumably desperate for a good read.

Chapter Three

‘Hold still,’ Lord Farenze murmured, as if he could see through all that finely carved wood and a wall to his daughter’s hiding place. Colm held his breath as Lord Derneley’s steps faded rather slowly down the marble-floored corridor and Lord Farenze finally shut the door on him. ‘It’s safe to come out now, Eve,’ he said softly.

‘How did you know I was here, Papa?’ she said and did so as if nothing much had happened.

Colm took a second look to be sure she wasn’t on the brink of hysteria. No, Miss Winterley’s blue-green eyes even had the hint of a smile in them now. If not for the way her fingers fisted into her palm on the side her father couldn’t see, he might think her calm as a millpond.

‘The same way I did at hide and seek when you were a child; you are in the place that makes the most sense,’ her father said.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said and Colm wondered why she still looked so white and strained now her father was here to make all right if another lord came in and caught them having a bookish discussion instead of dancing.

‘I wish you both goodnight, my lord, Miss Winterley,’ he said stiffly, feeling he was the invisible upper servant everyone thought and it hurt his pride somehow now he’d finally met Miss Winterley face to face.

‘First promise not to tell anyone I was alone here with you tonight.’

‘I am not a braggart, Miss Winterley,’ he argued before he could think straight. Colm saw Lord Farenze’s eyes harden and found it difficult to meet the steely distrust in the man’s level gaze, but he did.

‘If any scandal is whispered about my daughter, the person who spread it is likely to regret he was ever born,’ the Viscount threatened so quietly it was far more potent than if he’d shouted and shaken his fists.

‘Don’t, Papa,’ Miss Winterley said with a weary wave of her hand that touched Colm far more than feminine hysterics ever could. ‘I think we can trust him.’

‘I don’t trust any man with your safety and peace of mind tonight.’

‘Please give him your word as a gentleman not to reveal I was here alone with you, Mr Carter, or we’ll be here all night,’ she said with a pleading look Colm couldn’t resist, however little he’d wanted to be part of this scene.

‘I promise not to whisper scandal about Miss Winterley, my lord.’

‘You seem to be a man of words, Carter.’ The man gestured at the chaos of packed books and the stacks waiting to say Colm might not be beyond writing scandal even if he didn’t speak of it.

‘I wouldn’t write anything that damaged a young lady’s reputation either.’

‘I am suitably grateful,’ Miss Winterley interrupted their silent battle with rather magnificent irony.

‘And I have nobody much to write it to if I did,’ he told her as if that ought to make this better. He doubted it did from the chilly look she gave him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway.’

Lord Farenze looked hard at him. ‘Derneley is up to something and the servants will gossip, so you had better add a promise to tell me what they have to say about us to that gallant oath, Carter. Then I might trust you to leave my daughter’s reputation alone and let you leave this room in one piece.’

‘Very well, my lord. I vow to report faithfully what the servants are saying or not saying over breakfast. I hope that will be all?’

‘Not quite, I am also unreasonable enough to expect you to come to Farenze House tomorrow and tell me about it in person. Do not put anything in writing.’

‘I have work to do, my lord, but I dare say his Grace will spare me from it for an hour or so to take some air, if I ask him nicely,’ Colm said not quite humbly enough to be truly Mr Carter, who only wanted his bed and an end to this ridiculous situation.

‘Oh, come on, Papa. Leave the poor man be. Don’t forget someone I wish I had never set eyes on could be back in the ballroom by now and busily spreading rumours,’ Miss Winterley said with a pained look in the direction of the ballroom that said her ruin might be going on even as they dallied.

‘Even Derneley isn’t that stupid and I bloodied the nose of that someone else you are talking about. I doubt he’ll say anything for a while, let alone admit he was bested by a slip of a girl he thought to force himself on, then knocked out by her very irate father,’ Lord Farenze added matter of factly.

Colm went very still as he realised why Miss Winterley had really come in here to repair her gown. What a fool he was not to see the difference between a young woman dishevelled by her amorous beau and one attacked by a raddled old rake. His own convalescence in Brighton had given him the inside track on all the society gossip his breathless landlady gathered from friends who let out rooms or their houses for the Season. So he sorted through the guests he’d seen arrive tonight and came up with the ideal candidate. Sir Steven Scrumble was on the lookout for a wife with enough blue blood and powerful connections to drag him back to the heart of polite society. The man would pay generously for such a bride and Derneley must have sold him a perfect chance to rape Miss Winterley and force an April-and-December marriage on her. The very idea made his flesh crawl, so goodness knew what it did to hers. Scrumble was very rich, so selling a convenient accident to her gown and a neatly empty sewing room wouldn’t trouble Derneley’s conscience. He clearly didn’t have one. Then, with his ill-gotten gains and the money he got from the Duke for his father’s books, Derneley might have made it across the Channel and disappeared. Colm thought Derneley’s creditors would soon learn Lord Farenze wouldn’t lift a finger to save his one-time brother-in-law and they would foreclose. Serve the vicious sot right, Colm decided as the Viscount frowned as if he wished him a thousand miles away, then did his best to reassure his daughter.

‘I made it clear you won’t be marrying him if the whole world is baying for you to do so; I’ll kill him first,’ he told her.

‘I’m not dashing round the world evading justice even for you, Papa, and Chloe has had quite enough of living in shadows. What if he tells everyone anyway?’

‘And admit he was bested by a defenceless young lady? The man’s not that much of a fool.’ Lord Farenze went on with a sideways look at Colm that told him not to be one either, ‘Even in his cups he’ll remember what I threatened to do to him if he didn’t keep a still tongue in his head.’

Colm wanted to find the cur and add his fourpennyworth to the mix. He could hardly threaten to have the bastard drummed out of the clerks’ guild though, could he? Their inequality of power and rank would forbid the man fighting if Colm challenged him to meet at dawn, swords or pistols at the ready. Reminded how little he and Miss Winterley had in common, he used a trick he’d learnt in his youth and retreated into his thoughts until he was calm again. He went back to the table, realised Miss Winterley had put the candle back in the ideal place to highlight what he’d been reading before he got distracted and tried to slide Pamela’s journal under a sheaf of ancient letters.

‘Wait,’ Lord Farenze said sharply, catching that furtive movement as if he was the one who’d spent eight years sharpening his senses in the Rifles and not Colm. ‘What have you got there?’ he asked and came closer for a better look. ‘I’ve seen a notebook like that before and that looks like my late wife’s scrawl. Let me see.’

‘My employer paid a fair price for any item in this room he chose to take away, my lord,’ Colm protested half-heartedly.

‘And it pains me to see such a fine collection neglected, but if that’s truly a volume of my late wife’s scribbles then it isn’t Derneley’s to sell. As her husband I lay claim to it.’

‘Papa—’ Miss Winterley touched her father’s arm ‘—surely all her scandals are already out in the open by now? We really must go.’

‘I’ll not have them reawakened in the yellow press and we shall say you wanted to look at the portrait of your mother you knew Derneley had hidden away somewhere in this house. We can explain our absence to your stepmother when we return to the ballroom and the gossips will nod and whisper she has a great deal to bear, but I’m not leaving this room until you explain what you have there, Carter, and if there’s aught else I should know about in this musty old collection.’

‘I really couldn’t say, my lord. I only found the first Lady Farenze’s diaries hidden behind a shelf of sermons this afternoon.’

‘You have to admire her cheek, don’t you?’ he said to his daughter and Colm saw the man behind the stern mask before he sent Colm another challenging stare. ‘How much have you read?’ he asked menacingly, as if it was an intrusion he found hard to forgive.

‘Only this last one,’ he said, refusing to stand here like a schoolboy sent for punishment and say nothing in his own defence. ‘I certainly won’t tell her secrets to anyone else,’ he promised easily enough.

He had more reasons not to want them known than the Farenze family, and reading Pamela’s words really hadn’t got him any closer to his father. A woman that self-obsessed was hardly likely to waste pages describing her lover, was she? He would do better to put her and her entire family behind him forever the day he left this place and handing them over might help him do it. The sneaky thought that Pamela’s daughter was more difficult to forget nagged at him, but he did his best to ignore it.

‘Will you hand over anything else you happen upon before your work here is done?’ Miss Winterley asked as if she had caught her father’s distrust of him.

‘Anything that concerns you, yes,’ he said with a weary sigh.

‘Good, now we must leave the lad in peace, Eve,’ his lordship urged his daughter when she would have argued. ‘He can rehash this argument with me in the morning, but you’re right, it’s high time we returned to the ballroom.’

‘We can hardly carry a stack of my late mother’s diaries with us. Will you bring them to Farenze House for us, Mr Carter? I would be most grateful.’

Since she didn’t wheedle or make any attempt to charm him into doing her bidding, Colm saw no reason to object and delay their departure. ‘I suppose it’s easy enough for me to carry books in and out of here, so, yes, I’ll bring them when I call on your father tomorrow. Now please, will you both go? I don’t want to be caught up in the affairs of the great and the good any more than you want me to be.’

‘Thank you,’ she said and they were back to humble clerk and lady again.

‘Goodbye, miss, my lord,’ he said with a bow that would do a butler credit.

‘Goodbye, Carter,’ she replied with a dignified nod and took her father’s offered arm to be escorted back to civilisation.

He watched them go and wondered. How would it feel to stroll back into that ballroom with them, sauntering confidently at their side as an equal in birth and fortune? For a moment he thought wistfully of all he once had and didn’t regret it as much as he thought. The polite world looked bright and glittering and sophisticated from the outside, but he didn’t think it gave the Miss Winterleys of this world much joy. He had grown accustomed to a life where worth and courage counted for more than birth and fortune. When you were all hungry and cold and miserable, on the retreat through harsh country already ravished by French troops, birth and privilege didn’t count for much.

As for knowing young ladies like Miss Winterley outside the charmed circle of the ton, that was clearly impossible. He put the very idea behind him, limped back up those stairs one last time and packed the eight volumes he had found into a handy little box, stowed it under his arm and was glad neither Winterley was waiting below to see him descend on his clerkly behind as he needed one hand and his good leg to get him down again without disaster. Confound his weak leg and the suspicions Lord Farenze had put into his head about his fellow servants. They were probably too busy to search for such scandalous gems in the library their master had sold off tonight, but Colm turned the key in the lock and pocketed it when he left the library all the same.

‘So are you going to let me read my mother’s journals, Papa?’ Eve asked her father as soon as they were safely out of earshot.

‘Certainly not.’

‘You do know you can’t protect me from her sins for ever, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but please don’t expect me not to try. Even when we’re both old and grey, I shall still be your father and convinced it’s my role to keep my daughter safe.’

‘Nobody could guard me as carefully as you have done, Papa, but I am an adult now in the eyes of the law.’

‘I know that too well,’ he admitted with a frown that spoke volumes of his concern for her peace and future happiness.

Eve had to live with her mother’s many scandals hanging over her, but the world must deal with her as she was, not as they expected from her mother’s wild ride through life. ‘I do love you, Papa, and Chloe and Verity and the boys, but I need to live my own life.’

‘Your stepmother has told me time and again not to follow you about like a mastiff and glare at any young idiot who notices you are a woman. Don’t ever fool yourself, I like watching you hurt yourself on briars that aren’t of your setting though, my Eve.’

‘If I am to live any sort of life I must find my own way through them, though.’

‘I suppose so, but not right now. It’s high time we got back to indifferent wine and weak lemonade and rescued your stepmother since not even she and Polly Mantaigne could keep the curious at bay for the amount of time we have been gone. The poor girl will have talked herself into a headache again by now.’

‘You are a fine and remembering sort of husband; I do love you, Papa.’

‘Don’t try to wheedle your way round me with soft words, minx; I’m still not letting you read Pamela’s selfish outpourings.’

‘Spoilsport,’ Eve pronounced him and took a look at herself in one of the long mirrors placed at strategic points even along this dimly lit and seldom-visited corridor. She looked remarkably unscathed. ‘Aunt Derneley is the vainest woman I have ever encountered,’ she said after she twitched a frill back into place and brushed a piece of lint from her skirt.

‘Only because you didn’t know your mother,’ Lord Farenze said as he removed a cobweb from his daughter’s dark hair. They re-entered the ballroom to run up against a clever scold from Chloe for avoiding their social obligations and a frown of concern for the headache Eve didn’t know she had until now.

Chapter Four

‘What’s he like then, Eve?’ Miss Verity Revereux demanded the next morning as she bounced on to Eve’s bed before staring wistfully at herself in the mirror across the room and wondering out loud if she was developing a spot.

‘What was who like? And it seems unlikely since you were blessed by far too many good fairies at your birth and never had a single blemish I know of,’ Eve said.

Then she remembered what a grim situation her honorary sister was born into. Her mother died as she gulped in her first lungful of air and poor Chloe was left with a newborn to care for at the tender age of seventeen as her twin sister died in childbirth. Eve groped about for a rapid change of subject and hit on the least welcome one to hand. ‘Whomever can you mean anyway?’

‘The man you met last night from the dreamy look on your face.’

Eve frowned and did her best to avoid the apparently guileless blue eyes Verity had inherited from her father. Neither Captain Revereux nor his beloved daughter were the innocents they appeared, so Eve hardened her heart against the plea in her best friend’s eyes and turned to her lady’s maid instead.

‘You were right, Bran, this colour looks better on me this morning,’ she said with her head on one side as she studied the choice of morning gowns on offer. ‘I’m not sure which sash to wear,’ she added, hoping to divert Verity with fripperies. She ought to know better, she supposed. Verity might look like an angel sent to humble lesser beings with her golden beauty, but looks could be deceptive. When her father was at sea they were all inclined to spoil her and Eve wished the gallant captain would hurry home and check his beloved child’s wilder starts before they got her into real trouble.

‘I can stay here all day if I have to, Eve dear,’ Verity told her. ‘Miss Stainforth has agreed to go and see a dentist at last, so I have all the time in the world to plague you until she is feeling better.’ Verity lounged back on the bed to prove it. ‘I loved it at school, but I’m so glad Papa insisted on hiring Miss Stainforth to teach me instead. Now I can be with you and Aunt Chloe and Uncle Luke all the time when he has to be out of the country and you can’t lie to me at a distance. I can’t see why you treat me like some artless child who must be kept in ignorance of the important things in life, Cousin dear. I preferred you before you made your curtsy to society and became so terribly worldly wise.’

‘No doubt your governess left you plenty to do, Miss Verity, and you ought to be doing it right now,’ Bran said sternly.

‘She was in so much pain she forgot and why should I have my head stuffed with more facts and figures that I shall be expected to forget the moment I set foot in my first ballroom?’

‘Our sex makes up half the world, Verity, and if we were all wilfully ignorant it would fall apart. You should be worrying about the poor lady’s pain and suffering, not gloating over your freedom like some horrid schoolboy let off his lessons,’ Eve tried to scold. Verity looked unimpressed and went on sorting Eve’s sashes.

‘Lady Chloe will find you something useful to do since your poor governess was in too much pain to bother, young lady,’ Bran added with a look at Eve that said her disturbed night was showing on her face.

‘No, don’t bother her at this hour of the morning,’ Eve intervened. Chloe was in the early stages of pregnancy yet again and if this one went like the last two, her stepmother would not be ready to deal with her wayward niece for another hour or two yet. ‘You can take a stroll with me to Green Park among the nursemaids and governesses. I need some fresh air and you will be working too hard this afternoon and poor Miss Stainforth won’t be well enough to accompany you out anyway.’

‘Sourpuss, but I’m not put off that easily. You didn’t answer my question, Eve Winterley. Are you quite sure you didn’t meet the man of your dreams last night?’ Verity asked, being of an age when fairy tales weren’t quite impossible and beckoning womanhood whispered how wonderful if they happened to her.

‘I never had those sorts of dreams, but, no, I did not,’ Eve said firmly, pushing a mental picture of the gruff, wounded and annoyingly unforgettable Mr Carter out of her mind. ‘If Betty comes with us to the park, will you stay and make some of your peppermint tea for Lady Chloe, Bran?’ she asked once Verity was fully occupied with finding her pelisse and muff, then dragging her favourite maid away from her duties as well as the second footman. Verity loved a romance and as Eve refused to live one for her, she must have decided to promote that one instead.

‘Of course I will. You have a good heart under those stubborn ways, haven’t you, my chick?’

Eve eyed her own reflection in the mirror and saw an almost perfect lady of fashion staring back at her. She almost expected a magical image of Mr Carter to peer into the glass behind her and smile mockingly, so she turned away with a sigh. Hadn’t she had just told Verity she didn’t have daydreams and here was the least comfortable hero she had ever encountered intruding into them?

‘I’m too old to be anyone’s chick now,’ she replied to Bran’s question lightly enough before she left the room.

‘You’ll never be too old for that, my love,’ Bran whispered as she watched the almost sisters join up on the wide landing, then go downstairs for their walk. ‘And perhaps I’ve good reason to worry about the dark circles under your eyes and stubborn set to your chin this morning.’

‘Ah, now don’t remind me, I’m determined to recall your name for myself, sir. There now, I knew it would come to me if I thought about it hard enough. You’re Mr Carter, are you not? I dare say you have been calling on my father?’ Miss Winterley’s pleasing contralto voice asked Colm as if they had met at some fashionable soirée.

Damnation, Colm thought darkly; he thought he was safe out here, trying to get some air into his lungs before making his way back to Derneley House. Lord Farenze’s daughter wasn’t as indolent as most of her kind and fate wasn’t on his side this morning either.

‘Good morning, Miss Winterley,’ he managed dourly.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ she replied brightly, as if his failure to sneak past her unnoticed made it a lot better for some reason.

‘We should not linger together in public or private, ma’am,’ he told her in an undertone he hoped he’d pitched too low to carry to the ears of a nearby knot of overgrown schoolgirls giggling over something best known to themselves.

‘We should not linger anywhere, then? You are very unsociable, Mr Carter, and the title ma’am is reserved for ladies with considerably more years in their dish than I have.’

‘Forgive my ignorance, Miss Winterley. It’s as well I have no inclination for high society and it has none for me,’ he said with an odd pang at his exile from the polite world that felt nothing like the burning resentment he had once struggled with.

A Mr Carter had to shape his life around his work, so Colm tried hard not to meet Miss Winterley’s challenging gaze with one of his own and wondered how it would feel to have the wealth and status his father took for granted back right now. Perhaps then he could meet her gaze for gaze and it wouldn’t matter that his father once ran off with her mother. With all that noble blood and nabob wealth at his back Colm Hancourt might have challenged Miss Winterley back and…

No, there was no and…for them and there never would be. Even when he was under his uncle’s roof and being himself again he wouldn’t have much more than a rifle and a tiny annuity. Mr Hancourt worked for his uncle and most of his salary would go on being the Duke of Linaire’s nephew. He must have better clothes and a sturdy horse and anything else could go into a small dowry for his sister. He and Miss Winterley would still not meet as equals and she would probably hate him for who he was when she found out. So he hoped she would tire of such a stiff-necked block and dismiss him before he said something disastrous.

‘You go off into a world of your own at the drop of a hat, don’t you, Mr Carter? That could get you into all sorts of trouble at Derneley House,’ she warned lightly.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Winterley,’ he said. ‘I’ll go about my business and leave you to enjoy the sunshine.’

‘Please don’t go,’ she protested impulsively. ‘My cousin has met some old school friends and is catching up on all she’s missed since they last met.’

The three of them were standing a few yards away, so absorbed in excited conversation they might as well be the only people in the park. ‘I thought your cousins were still in the nursery,’ Colm said, revealing he knew more about her family than he wanted to admit.

‘Uncle James’s various chicks are, but Verity is my stepmama’s niece. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the story yet; it caused a sensation five years ago when my father married Lady Chloe Thessaly and the truth had to come out.’

‘I have spent the last eight years in the army. The sayings and doings of the great and the good passed us by for most of that time.’

‘I suppose you had more important things to think about than gossip and scandal, but you must have been little more than a boy when you took up your commission to have been in the army for so long, Mr Carter.’

‘A compliment, Miss Winterley?’

‘An observation,’ she said with a slight flush on her high cheekbones that told him she thought it might have been as well.

‘I was sixteen,’ he said, his eldest uncle’s brusque dismissal of his hopes and dreams of being a writer and scholar one day like his determinedly absent Uncle Horace sharp in his voice. He heard the gruff sound of it, shrugged rather helplessly and met her gaze with a rueful smile. ‘I thought myself the devil of a fellow in my smart green uniform,’ he admitted and suddenly wished he’d known her back then.

He’d felt so alone under his boyish swagger the day he entered Shorncliffe Camp and began the transformation from scared boy to scarred Rifleman. Mr Carter came into being in a regiment where officers won their rank largely by merit and gallantry in battle. Colm wanted a plain name to go with his dashing uniform mainly because he wanted to fit in and the Hancourts wanted nothing to do with him and Nell. Eight years on he must be Carter for a little longer, but at least nobody was trying to kill him.

‘Were you a Rifleman, then?’ she asked and he supposed he must have looked bewildered. ‘Since you wore a green uniform it seems a strong possibility,’ she added logically.

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘some folk call us the Grasshoppers because of it.’

‘To survive eight years as a Rifleman you must be brave as well as fortunate, whatever they called you,’ Eve managed to reply lightly enough.

Instinct warned her not to let him know how she pitied a boy who began his dangerous career so young. What if he was born rich and well connected instead? Would she have met a rather dazzling young gentleman in an expensive drawing room when she came out and fallen for his easy charm? Or would she have thought him as shallow and unformed as the other young men who paid court to her with an air of fashionable boredom she didn’t find in the least bit flattering? She could have found the way his thick honey-brown hair curled despite his efforts to tame it fascinating. His gold-flecked eyes might have danced with merriment and lured a discerning young lady into falling in love and his scarred forehead would be unmarred. As for that lame leg—that would be as long and strong and lithe as the rest of him. That charmed and charming man would laugh and smile with her, then grow serious long enough to look deep into her eyes with his soul alive and clear in his own. And then he would kiss her.

Her breath caught in heady anticipation in the much less magical here and now and she almost gave her thoughts away by moving a little closer to him and behaving like a besotted ninny. A dreamer deep inside her whispered it would be almost unbearably glorious, whichever version of him did the kissing, but that might be Pamela’s daughter speaking and Eve didn’t want to listen to her. Carter certainly didn’t adore her and he was the Duke of Linaire’s clerk and librarian, for goodness’ sake.

‘I was just lucky, I suppose,’ he said with a self-deprecating shrug as if nothing else could account for it.

Eve shivered at the thought of a stray bullet or sabre slash that might have ended his life and refused to think of the number he must have survived right now. ‘I doubt any officer could survive long on luck in a regiment like yours,’ she challenged.

‘You would be surprised and at least I had enough of it to know when it ran out. This summer I was at the end of it and sold out as soon as I recovered enough to sign my name after Waterloo.’

‘You seem determined to make light of your experiences.’

‘A limping man stands little chance of surviving a forced march or fighting retreat, but let’s not speak of such horrors on a day like today. Didn’t you promise me a fine story about your cousin by marriage and your stepmama just now?’

‘Did I?’ Drat the man, having a conversation with him was like trying to hold a slippery trout wet from the river. Last night he seemed almost too dashing to be an upper servant, today he carried his shallow dark hat as if itching to have it back on his head and go before someone caught him speaking to a lady. ‘It’s no secret now, so you might as well hear it from me. Lady Chloe and Verity’s mama were twins, Mr Carter. At much the same age as you joined the army, Lady Daphne Thessaly wed a young naval lieutenant to avoid an arranged marriage. Her father was furious at being robbed of what he saw as his right to sell his daughter to a rich old man so he had her husband pressed, then left his twin daughters to birth her baby in such dire conditions it’s a miracle Verity and her aunt survived, but Lady Daphne died in childbed. Lady Chloe spent the next decade acting as Verity’s mother and became a housekeeper, then my father spent most of it trying not to be in love with her.’

‘And when he couldn’t resist any longer they told each other their secrets and seized the day?’

‘I don’t recall it being that simple, but the end result is they are very happily wed and Verity lives with us when her father is at sea,’ she said and wondered why she hadn’t let him go in the first place. It was that bland mask of the onlooker on life that did it, she supposed. For some reason she itched to rip it off and show the world a real man stood here, despite the repressive black garb and his fiercely guarded aloofness. Now she waited for his stiff farewell and told herself to let him go this time.

‘Would my sister had had an aunt like your stepmother to love and protect her when I was sent off to school by our uncle,’ he said instead and why was she this glad he hadn’t mumbled a hasty farewell and limped away?

‘What happened to her?’ she said with all the horror stories of girls sent out as apprentices by their cruel relatives in her mind as she saw him frown.

‘Oh, nothing very awful, she was put in the care of a governess until she was old enough to go to school and our family could forget us. My wicked uncle still found her useful as a stick to beat me with; if I ran away from school or tried to argue with the career he had in mind, my sister would be apprenticed to a milliner. I’m sure you know what happens to most girls bound to that trade, Miss Winterley. Even at eight years old I knew I must be a pattern card to save her from such a fate.’

‘How cruel,’ she exclaimed and felt furious with his appalling relative when he shrugged.

‘It’s the way of the world, my father annoyed two of his brothers so much they would have loved to have nothing to do with his children, but the scandal would have deafened them if they let us go into the poorhouse.’

‘What did your mother’s relatives have to say for themselves?’

‘She was an only child and her parents died before her. If she had any relatives I don’t know of it,’ he said as if he wished he’d never told her so much in the first place.

‘I am astonished her friends and neighbours let your uncle treat you both so, then,’ she said although Mr Carter didn’t want her to feel anything for him or his.

‘They would shake their heads and mutter it was terrible we were left destitute, then whisper about bad blood and decide we were best forgotten,’ he told her with some passion in his voice at last. ‘Poverty stalked my sister’s childhood and she is always a hair’s breadth away from it even now, Miss Winterley. One wicked thought in an employer’s head; a wrong word or unwitting action can get a governess dismissed without references. I can’t endure the thought of such a life grinding her down as the years go on, so it is up to me to find a way out of such an existence for her, before it drives the youth and laughter out of her completely.’

Eve only had to see the purpose burning in his fiery gaze to know she was right about the hidden depths he tried to keep to himself. He wasn’t the flat character he tried to be; he couldn’t be if he pretended he was until doomsday.

‘Your uncles are as guilty as your father of not making sure she is provided for. You will need very broad shoulders if you intend to take the sins of your entire family on them, Mr Carter.’

‘You are very direct this morning, Miss Winterley.’

She shrugged. ‘For direct I shall read rude, but I have no patience with pretend ignorance, sir, and if you had moved in polite society for the last three years you would not have any either. Your sister might count herself lucky not to be watched like a prize heifer by every idiot on the marriage mart if she knew how it felt.’

‘Are they all idiots, then?’

‘Not all, but no sensible man will hold an interesting conversation with a marriageable young lady for long unless he is in serious need of a wife.’

‘So there is some merit in being ineligible after all, then?’ he joked and Eve felt a tug of temptation to make him do it again.

He was so unaware of how handsome he was when he forgot to guard his tongue that he could steal an unwary female’s heart before she knew she was in danger. Lucky she wasn’t unwary then, wasn’t it?

‘Why come to London for the Little Season then, since you dislike it so much?’ he asked as if truly interested.

‘The House is sitting and Papa hates coming on his own. My parents worry about me if I don’t come with them and there’s Verity’s future to think of as well. If I refuse to take my part in this pantomime the ton plays out twice a year she will be an oddity by association. That would be so unfair when we’re not related except through Papa and Chloe’s marriage and a common link with my little half-brothers.’

‘So you only dress and dance and behave like a fashionable young lady who is enjoying herself for the benefit of others?’ he said with a sceptical glance at her fashionable pelisse and high-crowned bonnet that said he thought her vain and not very self-aware.

Chapter Five

Miss Winterley looked as if she might agree she was that saintly for a moment just to spite him, then mischief danced in her eyes and an irresistible smile tugged at her temptingly curved mouth. Colm had to struggle with a terrible urge to kiss her breathless, silenced and deliciously responsive—in the middle of Green Park for goodness’ sake. What business had such a controlled and confident lady turning into an enchanting mix of funny, wise and daring when she smiled?

‘I love my finery and attending the opera and theatres and real concerts that are not put on by supposedly musical ladies to show off their airs as much as their talents. I should not see my family and friends anywhere near as often as I do if we could not meet up in town either. My Uncle James has grown so fond of country life I sometimes wonder how Aunt Rowena manages to drag him here as often as she does though, but I can put up with the Lady Derneleys and Mr Carters of this world in order to keep in contact with the friends and relatives who truly matter to me.’

Thanks to his Brighton landlady even Colm knew of James Winterley’s transformation from idle London rake to country squire and father of a ready-made family. Then there was the Winterleys’ close connection to the Marquis of Mantaigne and his mixed bag of a family by marriage—oh, and Sir Gideon Laughraine and his lady. Here was the truth of things: Miss Winterley was at the heart of a group of impressive and powerful aristocrats and he was only even a secretary thanks to his Uncle Horace’s bad conscience.

‘Then I hope you enjoy your latest visit, Miss Winterley,’ he said with a stiff bow and half raised his humble and unfashionable hat.

‘Thank you, Mr Carter,’ she replied with an ironic lift of her fine dark brows and a regal nod. ‘How very kind of you to wish me well.’

‘Good day, Miss Winterley,’ he said repressively and got ready to limp back to his books and papers and packing crates.

‘And a very good day to you too, sir,’ he heard her reply lightly by way of dismissal from a lady to the upper servant he really was nowadays.

The thought of how much clear water lay between him and Miss Winterley mocked him all the way back to Derneley House and made him limp more heavily than usual for some strange reason. ‘Even a lunatic wouldn’t be fool enough to yearn for that particular moon, Colm Hancourt,’ he murmured under his breath as he went.

He was fairly sure he was still sane, but that was about all he had to offer any woman deluded enough to want him. He was scarred and limping and about as penniless as a man could be without actually living in the gutter. Before he met Miss Winterley he had still been able to convince himself he only wanted his lost fortune back for Nell’s sake. Now he had a sneaking suspicion he’d lied. Was there any hope Miss Winterley might ever look on him as a possible lover if he wasn’t who he was? Of course not. The idea was ridiculous and he must put it from his mind right now.

So that left him with his sister Nell still to save from a life of genteel poverty or a rich man’s bed and no wedding ring. The very thought of either fate for his bright, brave sister horrified him enough to make him put aside air dreams and concentrate on her future instead. There was one elusive possibility he’d been turning over in his mind since he read the last entry in Pamela’s diary last night. He shrugged off the idea it had been wrong to read them before he passed them over to their rightful owner as ordered. He had as much right to know the wretched female’s thoughts during the time she was with his father as anyone still alive. The woman was annoyingly evasive about the Lambury Jewels after that crow about the rubies, at least until the end of her diary when she must have left for that last wild adventure with her lover. Before she went she railed at her lover’s refusal to hand over the last of his wife’s jewellery: the magnificent diamond set Joseph Lambury had made up for his daughter after Colm was born. So when his father left England with his inamorata they should have been in the bank vault his uncle had sworn was bare as a pauper’s pocket when Colm plucked up the courage to ask before he left for the army.

A slender thread of hope dangled in front of Colm’s eyes as he speculated how much the diamond set might be worth. He vaguely recalled seeing his mother wear them when she was dressed up for a ball grand enough to warrant such splendour. There had been a tiara and a magnificent tumble of diamonds round her neck that sparkled fascinatingly in the candlelight when she came to bid him goodnight. Heavy bracelets weighed down her slender wrists and they laughed together as he playfully moved her hands so they would make rainbows from her rings even with the nursery night lights. A coachman shouted at a carter and their loud exchange of insults jolted Colm out of the past and into a very different world. For a moment he had been back there with her, sharing a careless moment of loving intimacy with his mother and remembering so much about her he thought he’d forgotten.

He felt almost sorry he had that memory to cherish when Nell was too young to remember much more about their mother than a vague impression of pale hair and warm arms. They had talked about their parents one night this summer in Brussels, when the pain of his wounds kept him awake and she insisted on waking with him. It taught him a lot, that time when even he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to live or die. The most important thing he had found out was he and his sister still shared a strong bond, despite all the efforts two of their uncles and aunts made to keep them apart. All those years of pretending the Hancourt-Winterley scandal died with their brother and not even the last Duke and their Uncle Maurice could make Colm and Nell strangers to one another.

Which brought him back to the diamonds; the last Duke of Linaire must have had them broken up and sold, he supposed. Colm thought about the hard-eyed man who informed him his father was dead as if he ought to be glad. That man was capable of it, but could he have got away with it? That was less certain and whispers of what he’d done would have haunted the cold-hearted devil to his grave. Nothing Colm had heard since he came back to England said any of those whispers existed. The diamonds might still be hiding somewhere, waiting to be found and claimed by him. A beat of wild hope thundered in his heart as he thought what that would mean for Nell’s future happiness. A real dowry, a secure home and perhaps living under the same roof as her brother for a while before she wed a man who deserved her, if such a paragon existed. Colm almost smiled, then changed his mind as he realised how unlikely his latest daydream sounded. If he could find diamonds nobody had seen for fifteen years; if he could prove they were his; if he could sell them for the fortune needed to buy a modest home and a farm to support it; if Nell would leave her noble orphans and join him there…

So many ifs made a fantasy, but if there was some trace of his mother’s diamonds, Uncle Horace might help him find them. Colm knew his uncle and aunt felt they had let his little brother’s children down by staying away when their father died. Now they were back in England the duchy wasn’t the rich inheritance it was before the last Duke and Colm’s grandfather spent money like water. The current Duke couldn’t afford to dower his niece and establish his nephew as the gentleman his birth argued, because Uncle Maurice would be watching his future inheritance like a hawk. The new Duchess was unlikely to produce a child after a quarter of a century of marriage, so Lord Maurice would insist on an allowance as his brother’s heir before Lord Chris’s children got a penny of Hancourt money beyond the twenty pounds a year already settled on them by the last Duke. Those diamonds might be a false hope, Colm mused as he made his way down the back steps of Derneley house, but sometimes it was better to have one of those than none at all.

The work of getting the Derneley Collection listed and packed up ready for its new home, so he could get out of this house, felt more urgent today. As Colm went about it he couldn’t stop thinking of his latest meeting with Miss Winterley. He didn’t number many fine ladies among his acquaintance, but something told him she was an unusual one. This morning she seemed as relaxed as if he was a fashionable gentleman in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, instead of an almost servant in Green Park at some unlikely hour of the morning for a lady who had been at a party late into the night. He let his hands slow for a moment as he thought of her in the clear light of a fine autumn morning. Her skin was flawless, he recalled, and she was still young enough for a late night and early morning not to be written under her eyes. Her bonnet was modest by the standards of the current fashion for vast pokes that hid the wearer from view if there was any danger of shadows. So now he knew that her eyes truly were a rare shade of blue-green and could haunt a man to his grave if he wasn’t careful. Add a slender but womanly figure and the smile that made her unique and he had best think about diamonds again and forget Miss Winterley as best he could.

Anything more than a stiff acquaintance between that lady and Mr Carter was clearly impossible, so he thought about that passage he had copied out last night in his room and with the door safely shut behind him. He took out the paper he kept in his jacket pocket lest some servant find it and scanned Pamela’s words for anything that passed him by last night. He was bone weary at the time and his head so full of Eve Winterley and her icy father he couldn’t think straight. There might be a stray word he’d missed the sense of as he wrote it down. The last page of her diary seemed to sum the woman up perfectly.

Knowing the full power of my own beauty at last and feeling men lust for me so deeply they can’t fight it is wonderful, but jewels never fade. I don’t intend to be deprived of a single stone, and they will never make me feel less than beautiful, however old I get.

So had written the woman who would never get much older than she had been when she’d made that last entry in the diary.

Colm’s mouth twisted in distaste as he re-read her self-centred ramblings, but he felt a spark of regret for a vivid life cut short all the same. He was sorry Lord Farenze would have to read his late wife’s words and wonder what made her as she was. Colm had no idea how it felt to walk in the Viscount’s expensive shoes, but he didn’t envy him the memory of a wife no one man could satisfy. Her words told him enough about Pamela to know she would have left Colm’s father for another lover, however deeply Lord Chris adored her. Colm was almost glad Lord Chris hadn’t lived to watch the woman who cost him so dearly walk away without a backward look.

Emotions he didn’t want to imagine underlay the dark fascination of a duke’s youngest son and the runaway wife of a very young peer. If he let himself dwell on such wild passions he might feel an echo of them for some unsuspecting female. A picture of Miss Winterley looking horrified as he poured out his insatiable desire for her made him flinch, then smile at the next image of her speechless with shocked surprise that he could feel anything at all, let alone that. She was so unlike her dam, Colm felt guilty for misjudging her last night and uneasy about the thunder of passionate need in his own veins as he watched her ghost into his temporary lair breathless and far too desirable for her own good before they had even spoken to each other.

Eve had given her father time to read all Pamela’s letters and diaries before confronting him the day after she met Mr Carter in Green Park. It must make painful reading for him and she doubted her mother’s self-centred outpourings shone much light on what had made her long for a succession of ever wilder lovers.

‘You really won’t let me read a word of my mother’s papers, will you?’ Eve challenged as she followed him into his study after breakfast.

‘I wish I could burn the lot right now, so there would be no risk of you or anyone else ever reading a word of her selfish drivel,’ her father said with a preoccupied frown at the locked drawer of his desk where she guessed the diaries were sitting like a row of fat little grenades that could be so destructive in the wrong hands she shuddered at the thought of it.

‘Then why don’t you?’ she asked with a nod at the fire burning steadily in the grate on this fine but chilly morning.

‘Because it isn’t right to deprive that boy of a chance,’ he murmured as if he was fighting the urge to do it anyway.

‘What boy? Oh, you mean Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son, I suppose. I thought he was dead; nobody has heard of him for years and his family never talk about him or the little girl I remember someone mentioning once.’

‘Their father spent the lad’s rightful inheritance on your mother and I can’t believe that fool was besotted enough to simply hand over all those jewels to her. She knew the Lambury Jewels weren’t even his to give, but she seduced and sulked as only she knew how until she got them out of him. There isn’t a single word of remorse about the boy and his sister in the books and papers Carter handed over.’

‘It would be beneath him to hold back a single letter of hers once he made you that promise,’ Eve argued against Mr Carter holding something over them. Her father’s acute gaze focused on her as if he was trying to read her thoughts and feelings about a man she didn’t even like. Of course she didn’t feel anything for the stiff-necked idiot, how could she? She still felt the need to affirm his honesty for some reason. ‘He wouldn’t keep anything that didn’t belong to him,’ she added.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ her father murmured so low she wondered if she was mistaken. ‘Nothing Pamela did should shame you, love,’ he said out loud and with such sadness and concern in his eyes Eve felt guilty about reminding him of those dark days in both their lives, not that she could remember them.

‘Nor you, Papa,’ she said. ‘She did enough damage when she was alive. Please don’t agonise over her sins now she’s dead. The memory of them kept you and darling Chloe apart for years, so don’t fret about things she never felt a second’s worth of unease about now.’

‘Yet if I burn these books I might deprive that boy of the better life and we Winterleys have done enough damage in that quarter already. If there’s any chance those jewels she writes about so gleefully can be found and I destroy a clue to where they are, then I shall be the one in need of a few scruples and not Pamela.’

‘We must find the man Lord Chris’s son must be by now and help him as best we can then. If that’s what it takes to make you forget all the evil Lord Chris and Pamela did between them, we have no choice.’

‘Any gossip now sleeping safely might wake up and bite you if he or his sister come forward, love,’ he warned with a brooding look Eve couldn’t quite read.

‘Don’t you think I’m strong enough to ignore such poisonous gossip by now?’

‘Sometimes I wonder if you’re not too strong, Eve. If I had only worked my way past Pamela and caught your stepmother ten years before I did, you and Verity would have had easier childhoods. I was a fool not to seize the day and your stepmother a lot sooner than I did.’

‘Well, there’s no denying Chloe is perfect for you in every way my mother never was, but Verity and I did very well with one of you each for the ten years you two spent apart. We do even better now you’re together and happy, instead of apart and secretly miserable, but there’s no need to mourn what we didn’t have because you were stubborn as a rock, Papa. We were both very much loved and cared for even before you and Chloe let yourselves be happy together.’

‘I’m glad you know we love you, but are you sure you’re prepared for the old gossip to be stirred up if I find Hancourt and help him search for any remnants of his inheritance that might be lying around unattended?’

Eve had had to prove over and over again how unlike her mother she was when she made her debut in society. The idea of facing that ordeal again was daunting and made her pause for a moment. No, peace wasn’t worth having if it came from playing the coward, she decided. She would have to be more cautious than ever about dark corridors and deserted ladies’ withdrawing rooms, but the sneaky thought that meeting an intriguing and gruff young gentleman at the end of her last adventure made it almost worthwhile was nonsensical, wasn’t it?

‘Even the whisper of a lost fortune could do that anyway, but I don’t see how we can stand in his way, if he’s still alive, of course.’

‘And I suspect he is,’ her father muttered with that odd look on his face again and Eve was tempted to stamp her feet and demand he tell her everything he was keeping back. She was a young lady now and not a harum-scarum miss, so she could not and she knew that look of old. He wouldn’t even tell Chloe what was in his thoughts until he was ready and a show of temper certainly wouldn’t help.

‘Your Mr Carter might be in the Duke of Linaire’s confidence, Eve. You could always ask him to find out what happened to Lord Christopher’s children next time you meet him in Green Park.’

‘How did you know about that?’

‘Luckily Verity doesn’t know it was meant to be a secret.’

‘But it wasn’t. I met the man there by pure chance. I suppose he was taking the air on his way back from delivering my mother’s papers to you.’

‘And yet you spoke with him at length in the sight of all those nursemaids and governesses. Don’t deny it, Eve; I had the tale from more than one source.’

‘I didn’t think you listened to gossip, Papa.’

‘I do when it concerns my daughter. Have a care, my Eve. Carter might be a wounded hero of however many battles of Wellington’s he is old enough to have fought in, but he clearly hasn’t a feather to fly with. He wouldn’t be sorting dusty old books for Linaire at Derneley House if he had.’

‘I never took you for a snob, Papa, and I only met the man two days ago. I am hardly likely to fall in love with such a rude and stiff-necked idiot anyway, even if I had known him since we were in our nurseries.’

‘It doesn’t take long to do that,’ he warned her ruefully. ‘Love can come without an invitation and when we’re least expecting it. Be careful it doesn’t creep up on you in the worst possible circumstances and bludgeon you over the head like it did your unwary papa.’

‘It won’t. I don’t intend to succumb to passion. If I wed at all it will be to a gentleman I have learnt to know and respect after months, if not years, of friendship.’

‘What of mutual attraction and downright lust? I know you’re my daughter and I should be glad you are going to be so sensible about picking a husband, but I don’t want you to miss out the crucial parts of a happy marriage.’

‘Not many fathers encourage their daughters to become besotted with a gentleman they have not even met.’

‘How do you know that if you only intend to wed a not-very-exciting friend? And I only want you to form a passion for the man if he is right for you.’

‘Logic will tell me that, I have no need for the sort of insane urges that ruled my mother’s life.’

‘No, but you should think a little more about your own before you marry a block, love.’

‘If I was really looking for one of those, Mr Carter would fill the bill very nicely.’

‘Believe that and you’ll believe anything,’ her father said darkly and Eve wished she’d picked a better example than the Duke of Linaire’s whatever he was: secretary, librarian, man of business? Possibly only the Duke and Mr Carter knew the answer to that question.

She remembered how it felt to have Mr Carter’s gold-brown eyes focus intently on her when he forgot his false humility. No, he wasn’t a wooden soldier at all. Papa was quite right; there was a sharply intelligent and sensitive man under that quiet exterior and she would do well to remember it if they ever met again, which seemed very unlikely as he was the Duke of Linaire’s clerk and not part of the ton.

‘My one-day marriage and Mr Carter aside, what do you mean to do about the Hancourts, Papa?’

‘When I track them down, I shall make sure they know all I do. I don’t know if that will help much, since I don’t properly understand it myself.’

‘What does she say, then, Papa? You can’t hint at something that might be a clue, then refuse to tell me any more lest you offend my delicate sensibilities.’

Eventually he handed her a list he had copied out, and censored, from entries in Pamela’s diaries where she gloated over the fabulous jewels she had coaxed out of her lover one by one. Eve could hardly believe any woman could lust after cold gemstones so ruthlessly and it left her with an unpleasant taste in her mouth, despite all her assurances to her father that Pamela had done her worst as far as her daughter was concerned.

Chapter Six

As she tried to go about her day as normal Eve was annoyed with herself for constantly drifting off into a reverie. She hoped her father wasn’t right to be uneasy about Mr Carter. No, of course he wasn’t. She was immune to love and passion; if she wasn’t she would have let it carry her away long ago. An unwanted image of Mr Carter waiting to lead his men into battle flitted into Eve’s mind all the same. He would exude confidence even if he was terrified and look unforgivably handsome in his Rifleman green uniform while he was about it. A silken voice whispered in her ear that was how a real man should look and never mind the marks of battle the great idiot thought wiped out any manly beauty he had—Mr Carter was more a man than the weak-willed and self-indulgent aristocrats he was supposedly inferior to.

Take Lord Christopher Hancourt, since he was in her thoughts as well today. That weak and overindulged man had never faced a moment of real hardship or danger until the very last seconds of his life, but Carter had defied both for nearly every day of the last eight years. How irritating if her father was right and he really had intrigued her too much for comfort. The one man she could never marry was the only one to make her think twice during this tedious time she had to spend away from her real life at Darkmere or Farenze Lodge near Bath.

Anyway, she had learnt long ago not to trust a man’s passion for a willing woman the hard way, hadn’t she? Her first real suitor seemed so earnest and naïve and in love she somehow fooled herself she loved him back. She doubted that spotty youth sat comfortably for a month after Papa and Uncle James thrashed him like a sniffling schoolboy, but she learnt a hard lesson that night. Her mother’s wicked reputation would descend on her if she wasn’t very careful indeed and she had been ever since. Too careful, perhaps, given how she was having to struggle to get not very humble and decidedly awkward Mr Carter out of her mind now.

It was probably the silly, rebellious part of it that once believed a boy’s lust was love whispering that Mr Carter was uniquely formed to understand her. He could see past the gloss Winterley money and prestige added to her unremarkable looks. He seemed to know about the true heart she’d learnt to keep so safe, even she had almost forgotten she had one. He might do any and all of that, but it wouldn’t do either of them any good. They were as divided from each other as the Ganges was from the Thames, or the icy poles at opposite ends of the earth. Made of the same substance, but thousands of miles apart in every way that really mattered.

Colm thought he would hear no more of the Winterley family, but it was only a few days after their last encounter that Miss Winterley confounded him all over again. He turned over the brief note an urchin had delivered to Derneley House before he ran off. No, the hastily scrawled words really were as brief and uninformative as he’d thought they were the first time.

Please come as fast as you can. I am waiting with a hackney at the corner of the mews. Do not tell anyone you are meeting me and try not to be seen. E.W.

One of the more innocent letters Colm’s father had sent to her mother years ago had fallen out of the sealed note to prove this wasn’t a hoax. It was ten o’clock on a dark autumn night, for heaven’s sake; even meeting him at this hour of the night would mean certain ruin if they were discovered. He shrugged into his dull coat and reached for his shabby hat, even as he told himself he was a fool to think of going anywhere with her. He still slipped into the garden through a side door and locked it after himself in the hope nobody would even notice he had gone.

‘Hurry,’ her low and deliberately gruff voice ordered as soon as he crept out of the garden gate. He saw a hackney doing its best to pretend it wasn’t there and finally had to believe this was really happening.

‘What the devil…?’ he began only to have her reach out and tug him into the carriage as if there wasn’t a moment to spare.

‘Take us to the place we agreed inside ten minutes and I’ll pay you twice the price,’ she ordered the hackney driver as coolly as if she kidnapped limping clerks every night of the week.

The coach shot forward so fast Colm was surprised they didn’t tumble out. There wasn’t even time to gasp out another question before they were clattering over cobbled streets as if their lives depended on it and she wouldn’t be able to hear him. Exclusive parts of Mayfair flashed past until they reached Oxford Street, crossed it at a reckless pace, then finally slowed as they neared Cavendish Square and stopped just short of it.

‘Shush!’ she whispered as Colm climbed down and stood on the cobbles, feeling like a mooncalf as he tried to make sense of the world and she handed two guineas to the jarvey, then grabbed Colm’s arm as if she owned him.

As soon as the shabby little carriage was out of sight he stood stock still, so she had to let him go, fall over, or cling to him like a limpet. Luckily she did the latter, but gave an irritated click of her tongue, as if all this was his fault and he decided he’d had enough.

‘Explain,’ he demanded abruptly.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be a man of action and not words?’ she muttered, as if she was having severe doubts about bringing him along after all.

‘Not any more,’ he replied gruffly.

‘Imagine you still are and simply use the brains officers in your regiment are supposed to possess, although I see little sign of them right now.’

‘Never mind trading insults with me; I’m not going a step further unless you give me a very good reason to do so.’

‘My cousin has been reckless and silly and I must get her away from here before it’s too late to remedy. You are here to help me do so—now will you hurry?’

‘Your parents are responsible for her, they ought to know what she’s been up to and make sure she never does it again.’

‘Believe me, she won’t. Now move, you great ox, before it’s too late.’

Cavendish Square, now why did that ring a bell? Colm let himself be prodded into motion while he reviewed a half-heard conversation between Derneley and his lady about their evening.

‘Lady Warlington’s masquerade,’ he murmured as it all fell into place.

‘That will turn into a drunken romp long before midnight. Lady Warlington’s brothers will see to it if nobody else does,’ Derneley had joked. His wife agreed and put it with the slender pile of invitations they still received now they were so widely known to be drowning in River Tick.

‘Exactly,’ Miss Winterley said now, as if that explained everything.

‘Why would Miss Revereux be anywhere near such an event, especially seeing that she isn’t even out?’

‘Because an empty-headed youth begged her to meet him there and it probably seems like a huge adventure to her,’ she muttered.

‘Who is this idiot?’

‘Verity is only fifteen and Lady Warlington’s youngest brother is startlingly handsome, so I suppose it’s understandable she sighs over the silly boy and imagines herself in love with him. He should never have dared her to meet him tonight, though. If she’s at this wretched party dressed as I suspect she must be from the items missing from the dressing up box, she won’t have a shred of reputation left to lose if we don’t find her before anyone else does, for he won’t care about ruining such a young girl’s prospects. I suspect he would find it horribly amusing.’

Fuming at the very idea some lout might casually wreck such a young girl’s future before she was old enough to be out of the schoolroom, Colm let Miss Winterley bundle him towards the back of Lord Warlington’s town house and they waited for a chance to slip inside without being noticed. At last a door opened to let in cold night air and Colm finally saw the way Miss Winterley was dressed and he knew why she needed him with her and nobody else. Who but Mr Carter could Miss Winterley rely on to pass through the servants’ hall at this time of night with little more than a raised eyebrow if they were caught?

She made a fine serving wench, he admitted numbly, as the fact he had been on hand at the right time and dressed more shabbily than any other male of her acquaintance stung more sharply than it should. Any doubts he had about her clever cover failing them when they got to the public rooms faded when she scooped up a discarded mask as if she was diligently tidying the chaos, then unearthed a domino from behind a classical statue. Thrusting both at him as if he ought to know what to do next without being told, she went to forage for her own disguise whilst he gathered his wits enough to meekly put them on. Who am I supposed to be this time? he silently asked his reflection in a nearby mirror. A somebody pretending to be a nobody, the false image mocked back at him. He looked almost like the man he could have been—a rich idler who thought it amusing to ape a clerk when he had never done a decent day’s work in his life.

A loud bellow sounded along the corridor he had seen Miss Winterley disappear into just now and it was echoed by another drunken sot who sounded far too castaway to move very fast. He should have remembered what happened to the confounded female when she wandered about once-grand houses on her own. Cursing himself for being so glum about Miss Winterley’s uses for him tonight, he had let her go by herself. Colm was halfway along it, and bad leg be damned, when she came dashing towards him as if the hounds of hell were on her tail.

‘Hide me,’ she gasped as heavy treads sounded behind her.

There wasn’t a niche big enough to hold a classical statue or a handy cupboard, so he tugged her into his arms and put his body between her and whoever was trying to chase her down this time. He pushed her against the nearest marble column as if they had been aiming for the right place to dally with each other ever since they stumbled out of the ballroom frantic for one another only moments ago.

‘Not like tha—’ she was saying even as he kissed her passionately.

She struggled fiercely for a moment, then gave in with a huge sigh, went gloriously responsive and kissed him back as if she had been starving for this since the night they met as well. For a moment he let himself dream she wanted him as urgently as he did her. Her mouth first softened, then seemed to ask for impossible answers under his. Are you my special he? she might as well be asking as she explored his mouth with an edge of wonder under the inexperience. Could you be the lover I have dreamt of since I was woman enough to ache for him?

Yes, yes, to all of it. To every question you could ever ask of that man, yes, the true Colm under all his careful defences whispered back. He forgot where they were and what the world would say if it knew who he was and simply kissed her and let his senses drown in blissful unreason.

‘Tally-ho,’ the less drunken of the two voices bellowed almost in his ear.

Colm cursed reality and tried to think straight when all he really wanted to do was go on kissing Eve Winterley and feeling something beyond his wildest dreams for this dear enemy of his. He raised his head as if bitterly offended and impatient of any interruption of that soul-stealing kiss and it wasn’t any effort at all to glare at the swaying idiot as if he hated him.

‘I saw the pretty little vixen first,’ the buffoon had the audacity to say, as if Colm would apologise and politely step aside then leave him to do his worst. ‘Don’t think we’ve met, I’m Louburn, y’know?’

‘I don’t think we have either, but my wife avoids drunken fools whenever she can and I am not about to introduce you to her,’ he said and felt Eve shaking with nerves in his arms as he cursed the nearest buffoon virulently under his breath.

‘You claim you’re my sister’s guests, yet you’re married to a servant girl? That don’t sound right to me,’ the second drunk managed, and now Eve had two of Lady Warlington’s notorious brothers on her tail. A flutter of panic joined the butterflies Mr Carter had set spinning about inside her with that heart-stopping kiss. If she was desperately unlucky one of these fools would be sober enough to realise who she really was and that she wasn’t married to anyone, especially not to Mr Carter, usually to be found in the latest Duke of Linaire’s library.

‘Even cast away you should be able to recall you’re doing your best to spoil your sister’s masquerade and not in some dockside tavern, Louburn,’ Carter told the elder Louburn brother so brusquely she wondered why she’d ever have thought him too withdrawn and mild-mannered to be an effective officer.

‘We ain’t met before, have we?’ the slightly less drunken brother asked blearily.

‘Let’s just say your reputation goes before you and leave it at that, shall we?’ her brave cavalier said icily and Eve wondered how the menace under that weary comment could pass these idiots by when it made her tremble and it wasn’t even directed at her.

‘Wife or not, she ain’t wearing a mask, is she?’ the more eager Mr Louburn asked, as if his stinking reputation was something to be proud of and he wanted a woman right now, so one ought to be instantly available—willing or not. The more she thought about Verity wandering unprotected about such a house on such a night the more anxious Eve was to find her and get them all out of here before tonight went even more disastrously wrong.

‘No, and that’s because we were looking for privacy and you interrupted us. Why would my lady need a mask when I know every inch of her and can recognise her even in the dark? Not that I need explain myself to a sot like you.’

Even Eve believed in the outraged aristocrat Mr Carter was pretending to be at the moment. He had put aside the would-be humble and workaday Mr Carter and spoken with such authority it almost seemed rude not to believe every word he said. She shivered at the thought that here was the true man under his mild disguise and decided it was a good idea to go along with him and pretend she was his modest wife, caught in not very modest circumstances. She buried her head against his shoulder for good measure and to stop the wretches from taking a second look at her and realising where they’d seen her before.

‘Come on, Bart, there’s far better sport to be had elsewhere without having to mill him down to get to it and I’m thirsty,’ the less amorous brother said with fading interest in anything but his next drink.

‘Two of us, don’t you see? We can easily take him on between us, Rolly. Nobody’ll be any the wiser if we throw him outside, then I can tup his wife in peace and they won’t tell anyone, will they? Scandal as much on them as us, see?’ he said, tapping his finger where he thought his nose ought to be.

Eve felt the tightly wound tension in Colm’s surprisingly powerful body at that despicable threat to treat them both as if they’d been put on this earth to meet a lusty drunkard’s convenience. The pent-up violence crackled in the air all around them now. Suddenly this farce had threatened to turn very dark and she didn’t want Mr Carter to get hurt, any more than she wanted to be violated herself.

‘And there are only two of you?’ Carter drawled with such terrible confidence she wanted to cry out a warning that they were notorious brawlers and he must find a safer way to stop this threat to their safety and sanity. ‘Hide your face,’ he whispered to her as he pushed her behind him, then turned on his latest adversaries with such calmness her hands did as they were told before her mind could argue. She peeped at what happened next through shaking fingers and for a moment was quite sure her eyes were deceiving her.

It was over too fast for her to have time to pile into the mêlée and never mind Carter’s high-handed efforts to keep her out of it. She would have kicked and bitten and clawed against the casual brutality of these two so-called gentlemen, except they were dealt with so swiftly and efficiently she had no time to form her hands into claws and spring into action. A sporting man might call it as pretty a display as he ever saw outside a boxing ring, she decided in dazed shock. Perfectly flush hits to the jaw one after the other and there was nothing left for either of them to do but stare down at a heap of unconscious Louburn brothers, until Carter shook out his protesting hands in brief agony and gave her a harassed glare. While she was still struggling to come to terms with his might and such an unexpected skill he dragged first one Louburn, then the other back into the ruin they had made of a once-elegant room and locked the door on them, then pocketed the key with an exasperated sigh.

‘Well, I told you not to look,’ he said gruffly as he straightened his domino and handed her one he must have found in that rogues’ den the Louburns had made of their brother-in-law’s home, along with a far prettier mask than the one that hid most of Carter’s thoughts from her right now and made his eyes look even more intriguing when he stared down at her as if he wanted to read all the confused thoughts and feelings scurrying about in her reeling head. Not that she could afford to be intrigued by the man, she reminded herself hastily, as she numbly put on her new disguise and wondered what disaster they should expect next.

‘I wasn’t… Well, no, that’s not quite right, I’m not…’

You were not what, Eve? her inner critic mocked. Not shocked, not awed and feeling a little bit breathless at the power and deadly purpose of the true man under Mr Carter’s pretend humility? Not secretly longing for him to repeat that kiss with interest added on to say thank you for saving you from the worst of his kind and that you did rather like it the first time?

‘Never mind what you are or are not right now. How the deuce are we going to find your little sister or cousin or whatever it is you two call one another in this bear garden?’

‘Oh, yes, Verity,’ she murmured, still so off balance from that kiss and his heroics afterwards she had almost forgotten why they were here in the first place. ‘She has no idea aping Caro Lamb in breeches could get her into far more trouble than if she came dressed as an opera dancer,’ she blurted out Verity’s disgraceful disguise and heard him groan even above the din of excited chatter and laughter and the orchestra desperately trying to be heard above it all in the ballroom at the end of this side corridor.

‘Oh, good, now we only need to find the next riot and suppress it, then lock up the rest of the Louburn family and get out of here without being recognised, then we should all be able to go home and sleep serenely as if we never left our beds in the first place,’ he said with such irony and an angry glare that seen through the filter of his dark mask looked almost fearsome, except he was also looking rather deliciously mysterious, flighty Eve pointed out helpfully. ‘The girl is obviously not fit to be let out without a keeper,’ he growled and she sighed to oblige that silly version of herself and wondered if he might be persuaded to visit a more sedate masquerade with her if she asked him very nicely.

Ridiculous idea, her sterner inner self pointed out, and she tried hard to concentrate on what he’d said instead of feeling prickles of something that must be forbidden slide down her spine at the sound of his voice so gruff and dark and the stern glint of his eyes through that mask. She shivered, although for some reason she was incredibly warm, and even that didn’t seem to put all these wicked ideas out of her mind and certainly did nothing for her rebellious body.

‘She is only fifteen,’ she said as if that ought to explain everything and she struggled with the fact her grip on this misadventure seemed to have slipped and she was following him like a meek little acolyte behind a high priest, or a besotted girl after the man she thought was the love her life.

If not for Verity, she would be quite content to drift among the elegant chaos of this rather wild party and feel deliciously daring yet utterly safe in the company of a tall, dark and compelling man of mystery. Mr Carter always wore a disguise, she decided; she doubted he ever let the world see the real man, even if he could afford clothes the dandies of the ton wouldn’t shudder to be seen standing next to. Yes, if not for Verity she would be quite happy to stay until too close to midnight and run the tempting risk of being caught in the least desirable company the Honourable Miss Winterley could find herself in if she tried.

She hardly recognised the cool and controlled Eve Winterley she had made herself become when she realised how eagerly the ton was waiting for her to turn into her mother. The female clutching Carter’s strong hand as if he was her rock and only chance of safety in a sea full of storms was a stranger. So much for not relying on a man to make her feel strong; for never looking for all the things her mother spent her life longing for. Eve still didn’t want a man’s unconditional surrender, or constant proof he worshipped her like some pagan goddess. The very idea made her shudder with revulsion, but a mutual surrender to something more than the coolly logical marriage she had thought she wanted seemed so very desirable right now it felt sinful. At least she understood that raw state of wanting a little better after his heady kiss and the shock of seeing Carter the fighting man emerge from the shadows. Another mask, she decided as the music and wild laughter got even louder. How many disguises could one man wear and not lose his true self?

Chapter Seven

‘Eve…’ The desperate whisper came before someone noticed she and Carter were standing on the fringes of this wild party and came to find out who was hiding under their ingenious disguises.

If they weren’t careful they’d be seen by too many curious eyes under the glow of what looked like a thousand candles in the noisy ballroom ahead of them and someone might recognise her. Eve could just see the curtains of an alcove off the corridor they were almost at the end of and thanked heavens they had not had to brave the full glare of the crowd ahead to search for her almost cousin.

‘Verity?’ she whispered sharply. ‘What the deuce are you doing here?’ she asked, hoping the boy who carelessly drew a fifteen-year-old girl into this rowdy chaos didn’t come to find out if she had turned up for an assignation she was far too young to understand.

‘I was looking for a way out,’ Verity said, looking very pale and deeply shocked by what she had seen so far, as well as a bit woebegone.

Perhaps this latest escapade had overwhelmed even her high spirits and it would make her think twice about trying to run before she was ready to walk in so-called polite society. Eve couldn’t think it very polite, or even glamorous after this circus herself, so maybe letting Verity see the dark side of it all wasn’t such a bad idea, if they could only get her out of here relatively unscathed and with her reputation intact, despite Rufus Louburn’s worst efforts.

‘At least you have done one sensible thing tonight, then,’ Eve whispered sharply, not inclined to be disarmed after what she and Mr Carter had already been through on this little madam’s behalf.

‘Leave her be for now, you can scold her once we have all got safely away,’ Carter cautioned softly. ‘And let’s hope we don’t have to go back the way we came. Those two drunken idiots could be awake and howling for revenge on us by now,’ he murmured in her ear. She stifled a giggle as he managed to make a joke of what could have been a vicious struggle for more than she wanted to think about right now.

‘Ah, I thought so. I knew there had to be more than one back stairway down to the vast basement there must be under the house,’ he whispered as a jib door Eve hadn’t even thought to look out for opened under his probing fingers and showed her once again that he was a lot more composed than she was after that earth-shaking kiss. It had seemed about to make her world anew for a wild moment and perhaps it was only one on a long list of such sweet encounters for him. Didn’t soldiers have a sweetheart in every town they passed through? The contrast between dashing Mr Carter of the 95th Rifles and the shabby clerk she’d met that night at Derneley House made her wonder if there might be other versions of this complex man for her to discover, if she dared to look.

At least the narrow stair he’d found was lit by the occasional ensconced candle, she saw with a shudder. The bareness and gloom behind the narrow door made her feel as if the walls might press in on her, but this was what maids endured every day of their lives so their employers could enjoy the privacy and luxury of nigh invisible service. If she and Verity had been born to poverty they might be the ones labouring every hour God sent at this very moment; enduring the insecurity and danger that went with being young and female in such a household. Instead they were stumbling down the bare wooden stairs in Mr Carter’s wake and Eve couldn’t let her fear show with Verity between them and her fragile young shoulders shaking so hard she was clearly on the verge of hysteria.

‘Oh, Eve, thank God you came.’ Verity launched herself at Eve once they reached the bottom of the cramped stairway and it opened into a grim little stairwell with gloomy corridors stretching four different ways. A storm of frightened tears threatened until Carter bowed as if Verity was a lot more grown up than she appeared right now and bade her a smooth, ‘Good evening, Miss Revereux.’

‘You’re Eve’s Mr Carter, aren’t you? I remember you from the park.’

‘Maybe I am then, but we really must get out of here before midnight when everyone is obliged to take their masks off, you know? If we meet any servants on our way, we shall have to pretend to be a very scandalous trio indeed. You and your cousin are going to be my pretty ladybirds for the night. Do you think you can act such a wild part? I know it’s a lot to ask after all you witnessed tonight, but I really don’t want to be dragged back into that ballroom and made to unmask, do you?’

‘No,’ Verity said with such a fervent shake of her head Eve wondered once again exactly what she had seen tonight.

‘Very well, you only need endure this pretence for a few more minutes and then we’ll have you out of here and back at Farenze House as if you were fast asleep all the time,’ he said with a grin Eve caught herself being fiercely jealous of.

She wondered at herself again when he draped an arm round each of their shoulders and hugged her so close every inch of her skin felt man-warmed and prickly and responsive to him and him alone. Heaven forbid Verity felt even a hint of the sizzling excitement that was running through her like wildfire. At least that notion sobered her sharply enough to seem cool when he looked down at her with one raised eyebrow, as if to say, Needs must when the devil drives, so don’t blame me.

‘Is my scar visible?’ he asked prosaically and she gave an almost wifely sigh and raised both her own brows at his unexpected vanity. ‘I don’t want us to stand out in any way but the obvious,’ he whispered as if he had read her mind and couldn’t believe she thought him so shallow.

‘Set me free,’ she demanded and reached up to ruffle his unruly hair until it curled as far as Mr Carter had left her length enough to work with. As she pushed and pulled it to hide the mark of his ordeal at Waterloo her hand shook as the reality of how close he’d come to death hit home and made her eyes water at the thought of never being able to know him at all. Reminding herself she couldn’t afford to fall in love with this mystery of a man, she stood back and eyed her handiwork critically. His hair had felt as intriguing as she thought it might the first night they met. Soft and at the same time full of life and she still wasn’t quite sure if it was more gold or brown in the dim light, any more than his eyes could decide between the same colours as they watched her with a question in them that had nothing to do with how unmemorable she had managed to make him.

‘That’s better,’ Verity said in a whisper that barely wobbled at all, so at least she was beginning to recover some of her usual spirit.

‘And don’t push it out of your eyes when you’re not thinking and ruin my handiwork, will you?’ Eve chided him. And how had she let herself notice that he did exactly that when he was distracted? They had not met enough times for her to need two hands to count them on and she was picking up on his habits as if he was her lifetime study. This silliness really would have to stop. ‘And you had best lean some of your weight on me and do your best not to limp as well,’ she added briskly.

‘I suppose I must,’ he said ruefully. ‘Now if you will both loosen your laces and ruffle your own hair and try to look a lot more undone than you are right now, ladies, I think we will be able to get on with this private masquerade of ours and have you both safely back home before the clocks strike midnight.’

Two hours could drag by on broken wheels or be so full of incidents it was almost impossible to believe so little time had passed since she set out, Eve mused. Verity even seemed to be enjoying the joke now. She unbuttoned her velvet jacket and undid the laces of her shirt so it would gape open to prove she really wasn’t the uninformed youth her breeches argued. If this charade reignited her step-cousin’s adventurous nature, Eve supposed she had to be glad, even if she didn’t want Verity thinking such folly should ever be repeated. She would just have to find a way to calm her down when they got home, lest Verity wake half the household with overwrought high spirits. Eve felt cool air on the exposed upper slopes of her own bosom as she did as Carter asked as well. Very adult emotions shivered through her when his gaze followed the soft stuff of her borrowed gown as it fell open, then he lingered hungrily on the last remaining slice of ribbon that left her shift straining on the edge of decency between her breasts, as if he badly wanted to undo it and explore even more of her than he already had.

‘That will have to do,’ she told him severely, because she badly wanted him to as well and that was wrong in so many ways she could hardly count them.

‘At least that much temptation should distract any healthy males we happen to meet on our travels,’ he said as if that was all that mattered, and he was right, wasn’t he?

Luckily most of the servants were still upstairs waiting on the company and the kitchen maids too busy in the scullery to see aught but steam and a mountain of dirty dishes and pots and pans. Which only left a chef sitting at the smaller table in the kitchen and trying not to fall asleep in the remnants of one of his own creations and a pastry cook to be shocked by the quality sneaking out through their domain with a few flustered giggles from the so-called ladies and a bad-dog smirk from a happy-looking gentleman who was stealing away from this wild party with a woman under each arm.

‘Lucky dog,’ the chef said with a regretful sigh and a jaded look at the bridling cook, as if to say some men had all the luck tonight and he wasn’t one of them.

‘Devils the lot of them and just look at that brazen hussy flaunting her legs and everything else she has like some doxy in the Haymarket,’ the cook said in disgust. ‘All of them no better than they should be and yet they calls themselves quality, disgusting is what I say they are.’

Verity giggled delightedly and Eve gave Carter an angry nudge to let him know he would have to put more of his weight on her shoulders if he was to pass as a run-of-the-mill rake and not a limping one. ‘La, but he’s even more drunk than I thought he was,’ she hissed at Verity in a stage whisper, hoping any sign of a stagger in his step would seem to be from too much alcohol and not war.

‘Let’s hurry up then, before he finds another bottle and climbs into it for the night,’ her devious little relative by marriage replied in the affected tones of a lady intent on being very unladylike indeed and daring the world to stop her.

Eve managed a false titter and even wiggled her hips so provocatively the chef ought to remember her walk and not Carter’s, if anyone asked him to describe such a disgraceful trio, should the Louburn brothers escape and start baying for Carter’s blood.

‘You win,’ he murmured so softly only she could hear him and he finally let some of his weight fall on her shoulder until they were safely across the vast kitchen and out of the open door, into the dark coldness of the night and up stone steps into the street that served the back of these tall town houses.

‘Hush,’ he ordered them both when Verity would have said something gleeful about their lucky escape and danced about in triumph, ‘you’re not safe home yet. Take off that mask now and button yourself up again before you catch your death, there’s a good girl.’

Eve could sense Verity’s mouth firming sulkily at being called a good girl after such a grown-up adventure, but if anyone deserved to be treated like a naughty schoolgirl tonight it was she. ‘Or shall we call you a crass idiot for what you did tonight if you prefer not to be called so?’ she whispered severely in Verity’s ear.

‘I’m so sorry, Eve, really I am,’ the contrary, exasperating and disarming girl said humbly.

‘There will be plenty of time for all that later,’ Carter told them both impatiently.

Eve felt his fingers searching for the strings of her mask because she hadn’t hurried to do as she was bid fast enough. This has to stop, she told herself, as her breath caught at the heady sensation of his fingers winnowing through her disordered curls. A foolish little shiver slid down her neck when he brushed against her vulnerable-feeling nape and the whole of her body wanted to respond to him as if he was her lover now. A longing she had never wanted to feel until she met him shook her right down to her toes. She told herself it was a sigh of relief that she let out when he found the strings of her mask, undid it and put the silly, frivolous thing in his pocket before she could grab it as a keepsake of a night she ought to want to start forgetting even before it was properly over.

‘That’s better, this time we are going to be a respectable, middling sort of couple with a very sulky young gentleman in our charge. As long as you keep that cap on and don’t speak above a whisper we may get away with it in the dark, Miss Verity,’ he said softly as he pushed the odd stray wisp of golden hair under the velvet jockey cap Verity had at least had enough sense to wear when she set out on this shocking scrape tonight.

Carter offered Eve his arm as if they were about to take a stroll in the park and what could she do but take it like the obedient wife she was supposed to be right now? Control of their latest misadventure had slipped inexorably from her fingers the moment they got into Warlington House and she supposed he had got them this far without disaster, so she might as well go along with officer Carter for a little longer. They crept round the most shadowy edge of the square and were soon out of it and back in the wider world again. Eve allowed herself a moment to imagine how it would feel to be creeping through the darkness without him and terror whispered in her ear. Luckily he was here, though, and she could wait to review imagined terrors when they were safely at home and in their beds. Right now it was still quite early by ton standards, so now and again a fashionable town carriage would rattle past on the way to a different party or to clubs and less public assignations. It wasn’t as busy as it would be in the spring, but Mayfair was still lively on a chilly October night.

Eve was glad she could walk in Carter’s shadow as they passed tall town houses where entertainments were being held tonight, or a smart coach swept past on the way to somewhere else. How could she feel so safe and oddly interested in how the night felt when she wasn’t part of that busy round of doing nothing much in grand style? Because Carter was here, she let herself know. His muscular arm was warm under her fingers and his body so close it felt as though he was her security and such a sure strength—why would she let him go at the end of this reckless adventure? You know why, common sense and her mother’s blasted reputation whispered in her ear and how ardently she wished they would go away right now.

‘Is there some way you can get back inside without being found out?’ Carter murmured when they finally reached Farenze House and all seemed serene, so at least neither she nor Verity had been missed.

‘Yes,’ Eve whispered. ‘Goodnight and thank you, Mr Carter.’

‘Hasn’t he got a given name?’ Verity asked a bit too loudly.

‘Hush, Verity, and don’t be nosy. Remember what you did tonight before you say another word to those of us who were forced to lie and risk far too much to rescue you from your stupidity.’

‘I was going to say then we are deeply in your debt, whoever you are, sir,’ Verity managed with almost grown-up dignity.

‘Please don’t mention it and I mean that in every sense, by the way. It will be best if we pretend we can’t really remember one another if we ever happen to meet again, Miss Revereux. Now I must bid you both goodnight and try to smuggle myself back into Derneley House unseen, before Mr Carter scandalises the whole neighbourhood by being caught out here with two young ladies so late at night.’

A brief touch of Eve’s hand as if he was bidding goodnight to a nodding acquaintance and Mr Carter strode off into the darkness as if they had imagined him. He might be gone from their sight, but Eve knew somehow that he stopped to watch them creep inside the house and make sure they were finally safe. He was simply that sort of man, she admitted to herself as she rushed Verity up the stairs so she could light a candle and show it at the window just long enough for him to know they were safe home and had not been caught.

‘Go to bed, Verity, you will answer to me in the morning and you’re lucky I didn’t call Papa and Chloe back from their dinner with the Laughraines. I only decided not to do so because I won’t have Chloe upset by your idiocy at the moment and risk harming the baby.’

‘I thought you weren’t going to ring a peal over my head until tomorrow,’ Verity said sulkily.

‘Then you’d best hurry to get into bed before I change my mind, and before you do kindly hide that disgraceful disguise you stole before Bran finds it and raises the roof,’ Eve ordered wearily, sinking down on to her own feather bed and wondering if she had it in her to undress, let alone brush her curls into good order, then hide the best gown she must somehow get back to the head housemaid’s room in good order tomorrow, before the girl realised her box had been tampered with and it was gone.

‘He is very handsome,’ Verity said with a sneaky look, as she pulled off her cap and let her golden mane tumble down over her shoulders. Then she even had the cheek to sit and brush it with Eve’s hairbrush as if this was a night much like any other. ‘Lend me a nightdress and I will go,’ she responded to Eve’s unspoken demand to be left in peace.

‘Why should I?’ Eve demanded grumpily. It seemed unfair that Verity had come out of tonight’s brouhaha looking like a part-time angel and Eve’s whole life felt as if it had been turned upside down and she couldn’t seem to get it right again.

‘Because I don’t want to be caught wandering the corridors at night in these very comfortable breeches and a gentleman’s shirt. I won’t go away and let you dream of Mr Carter until you let me change into something less improper.’

‘You should have thought of that before you stole those breeches from the attic and remember you’re the one with cause to feel ashamed of herself tonight and not me, Verity Revereux.’

‘True, but I didn’t drag the most intriguing stranger I ever met into the midst of a potential scandal, then watch him deal with it as if I couldn’t take my eyes off him either.’

‘At least I didn’t risk my reputation for the sake of an idiot.’

‘Rufus is very silly, isn’t he?’ Verity said with a heavy sigh that admitted she was shocked and disappointed by her evening.

‘Yes, and his looks are only on the outside, Verity, inside he is no better than his brothers.’

‘He didn’t even bother to wait for me. I went to so much trouble to get into that horrid house undetected, but he was dancing with a woman old enough to be his mother when I got there. Then he kissed her and they disappeared for ages and ages,’ Verity said tragically, then shrugged and went back to plundering Eve’s drawers until she found a nightdress warm enough to roam draughty corridors and not catch cold. ‘I realised Rufus is fickle as the wind and dim as a rushlight tonight,’ she added mournfully. ‘And he isn’t even very nice either; I really can’t imagine what I ever saw in him now.’

‘Good, so now you know that very handsome males are often a little stupid and spoilt with it—I suppose they have no need to try very hard.’

‘Your Mr Carter isn’t an idiot.’

‘Nor is he my Mr Carter; only imagine the fuss if he was,’ Eve managed to joke weakly.

‘I suppose there would be a whisper or two, since he obviously hasn’t got much money, but the tabbies would soon find something else to talk about if you two were boringly happy with each other and your father approved,’ Verity said as she striped off her breeches and hastily pulled Eve’s nightdress over her head.

‘Do you really think so?’ Eve said. The idea of being Carter’s lady tugged at her heart and reminded her how wondrous it felt to be kissed by a man who really knew what he was doing. No, it was every bit as impossible now as it was the night she first met him and every night since. ‘Papa would never allow it.’

‘Maybe I was a fool tonight, but my parents’ story tells me that it’s folly to turn away from true love whenever it comes along. I had to find out if Rufus was only perfect on the outside, Eve. You know better than anyone that you can’t judge a person by the family they were born into, although in his case I suppose I should have done.’

‘It’s as well you don’t love him then, isn’t it? Now go away, Verity. You’re the last person who should preach to me about love after what you got up to tonight. Thank your guardian angel that we found you before the whole world knew you were abroad in breeches and then go to bed.’

‘You went straight to Mr Carter as soon as you found out I was gone though, didn’t you?’ Verity said and left Eve sitting staring at a closed door and wondering if such chaste solitude was what she truly wanted.

Of course it was, she informed her inner doubter bracingly. She had not met the right man yet and sooner or later he would turn up to make perfect sense of her life. All she had to do was wait and refuse to be side-tracked by contradictory, gruff and unsuitable heroes like Mr Carter and her life would be as close to perfect as anyone’s could be in this faulty world.

Chapter Eight

It took Colm another week to pack up the Derneley Library. With a sigh of relief he bade farewell to the few staff still working at Derneley House and limped out into a foggy autumn morning. It was time to bid farewell to Mr Carter and he must learn to be a Hancourt again. Someone had to stop the Hancourt estates slipping into chaos and it might as well be him. It would give him something to do, but as Uncle Horace and Aunt Barbara were childless he’d best not get too comfortable. Lord Maurice Hancourt would dismiss his nephew the day he inherited the dukedom, so somehow Colm would have to save enough from his salary to be able to offer his sister a home if she needed one, so he hoped the current Duke would live a long and happy life.

Nell wouldn’t give up her post simply because he wanted her to, so perhaps he could suggest Uncle Horace needed her to stop his houses becoming dusty old book warehouses, because Aunt Barbara wasn’t going to worry about housekeeping when she had so much nature left to paint. Nell couldn’t claim she wasn’t needed then, but he could almost hear her argue she was needed where she was now, thank you very much. He smiled ruefully at the notion his sister was quite happy in her current post as governess to four orphaned girls and virtual mistress of Berry Brampton House. If the Earl of Barberry ever set foot in the place, a single lady with any regard for her reputation would have to leave it though; so Colm had best start saving, even if Barberry had sworn never to visit the estate his family begrudged him so deeply.

Ten minutes later Colm limped up the steps of Linaire House, still mulling over his schemes to get his sister away from her current employment. The butler looked outraged when he limped up the front steps and coldly informed him servants used the rear entrance.

‘I am expected. Mr Hancourt,’ he informed the man with the cold authority he’d used on soldiers who thought him too young to be obeyed, but this man was made of sterner stuff.

‘So you say,’ the butler said with a regal sniff and a contemptuous look at Colm’s shabby garb and the battered portmanteau he was carrying himself.

‘My uncle is eager to have me supervise the unpacking and arranging of the Derneley Library. I wouldn’t like to be the one who delayed that project,’ he said and made as if to leave, even if he had no idea where he would go.

‘His Grace did say he was expecting a member of the family,’ the man said dubiously, but at least Colm was allowed inside so his tall story could be examined.

Hearing voices, the Duke of Linaire emerged from his study. A smile lit his rather homely face and he hurried forward to make Colm feel more welcome here than he ever was as a child. ‘Colm, my boy, how glad I am to see you at last. D’you know the bookbinder says he can’t find that exact shade of Moroccan leather to replace the damaged covers?’ the Duke of Linaire asked as if his nephew was so much a part of his life he didn’t need to explain him to his staff.

‘Let the boy settle in before you put him to work again, Horry.’ Aunt Barbara emerged from the study behind him and greeted Colm with a kiss and a quick hug that made him blink and return it with a feeling he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought. ‘Not that I’m not delighted to see you as well, dear. Your uncle has been longing for a sympathetic ear to pour his tale of woe into all morning and I would dearly like to get some of this mist and murk in my sketchbook before the sun breaks through. So you are doubly welcome.’

Colm cast a look at the dreary townscape outside and raised an eyebrow at the unconventional Duchess to say there was little chance of that happening quickly.

‘It seems unlikely now, but I don’t have much interest in old books at the best of times and I’d forgotten how unreal London looks in the fog,’ she admitted with a longing glance out of the window. Colm wondered once again how two people with such different interests could be so devoted to one another. ‘That’s enough of our woes, have you breakfasted, my boy?’ she added, although it was nearly noon.

‘Some time ago, Auntie dear,’ he told her with a grin and she just smiled placidly and told him not to be disrespectful to his poor old aunt. Since his late Uncle Augustus once had him beaten for just speaking in his presence, this was a vast improvement on his last stay at Linaire House already.

‘Then go on up and settle yourself in before your uncle puts you to work. He forgets how ill you were this summer and will answer to me and your sister Nell if he wears you out with his wrong shades of leather and the best way to arrange his musty old books. Then there’s whatever real business you must sort out for us.’

‘This is real business,’ Uncle Horace protested, but shot Colm a concerned look and told him unpacking the undamaged books could wait until tomorrow.

Not quite sure he wanted a day of leisure when his thoughts were still so full of Winterleys, Colm went upstairs to unpack his bag before his uncle’s valet could do it for him, then went downstairs again to find his uncle and see if he had forgotten he had given him the day off yet.

‘Glad you’re here at last, m’boy,’ the Duke of Linaire muttered vaguely.

‘It’s good to be back. Is all well with the books I sent on?’

‘Yes, yes, you did a good job. High time someone rescued that fine collection from Derneley, but I should never have sent you there. Barbara says I should be ashamed of myself for making you keep that disguise you’ve worn for so long.’

‘Lord Derneley didn’t look directly at me once he realised I was wounded at Waterloo and have the scars to prove it. I doubt he’d recognise Carter as your nephew if we happen to meet by chance.’

‘Hah! Man’s a buffoon; doesn’t deserve what you and the other brave lads did to keep him safe in his bed. Not that it will be his bed for much longer if the rumours are true.’

Colm doubted it was officially his right now, but he didn’t want to think about that selfish peer or his empty-headed lady any more. ‘He certainly doesn’t know how to treat fine books. Some are nearly beyond repair.’

His Grace shook his greying head and looked pained. ‘I read your lists as they came in and warned the bookbinders what to expect. Disgraceful, that’s what it is and I had a good mind to drop my price to compensate for all the work that will have to be done in order to get them back to scratch.’

‘I suspect your money is already spent.’

‘Aye, and I shook hands on the deal; Barbara says she’s coming with me if I negotiate for more than a child’s primer from now on, but my word is my bond and I can’t go back on it, can I?’

‘No, even if your money goes the same way as the rest,’ Colm replied and his uncle’s one extravagance was dwarfed by Derneley’s complete set.

‘At least those fine volumes are safe now and I can’t wait to see them set out in good order in their new home. Barbara says I must wait for the plasterers and carpenters to finish before I ship any back to Linaire, though.’

When someone managed to distract the Duchess from her paints for the odd hour she was one of the most rational women Colm had come across. He didn’t blame her for refusing to give up the joy and purpose of her life to run the vast houses her husband had inherited last year. If he had a wife himself, he wouldn’t want her to give up her interests to devote herself to him either. Not that he could afford one, but his aunt and uncle’s marriage was bigger than the usual society match and no wonder they sacrificed so much to make it happen. How wrong to visualise the wife he couldn’t have as dark haired and possessed of a pair of fine green-blue eyes and the warmly irresistible smile Miss Winterley saved for best. She wouldn’t have him if he had stayed the rich grandson of a duke instead of a barely solvent ex-army officer and it was high time he forgot her.

‘Nearly forgot to give you this, Colm.’ His uncle interrupted his thoughts, offering him a tightly sealed letter. ‘Farenze’s man brought it here with your real name on. Thought you wouldn’t want it sent on to Derneley House.’

‘No indeed, thank you,’ he replied as he eyed the crisply folded letter with his lordship’s seal stamped emphatically in the wax and wondered how he’d given himself away. Did he look like his father? Colm wondered, a little bit horrified by the idea and it was too long since he last saw him to know. The Derneleys hadn’t seen through Mr Carter’s plain old clothes to Lord Chris’s son underneath so perhaps he didn’t, but they would never truly look at a servant. A shrewd man like the Viscount might have seen Hancourt traits in him, but the idea felt disturbing.

‘Do you mind if I read this right away, your Grace?’

‘No more of that, lad. Be obliged if you’d call me Uncle Horace. When someone your Graces me, I still think they’re talking to my father or Gus. Makes me shudder if you want the truth.’

‘Me, too,’ Colm admitted.

‘Both tyrants, but they’re dead now,’ said the Sixth Duke with a furtive look round as if to make sure. ‘Had the devil of a job persuading Barbara to marry me because of them and she’s been the making of me. You should find yourself a fine girl with a mind of her own to make you happy after all you went through in Spain and Belgium.’

‘I doubt if I could persuade her to see past my father’s scandal and my empty pockets.’

‘Nonsense, a lady of character will see what a fine fellow you are and never mind the rest.’

The only lady of character he wanted to know that dearly was uniquely designed not to be able to see past who he was, so Colm shook his head, then turned Lord Farenze’s letter over as if that might tell him what the man had to say to Lord Chris’s son without him having to open it. Stay away from my daughter you lying rogue? His heart sank at the idea she knew who he really was and still played the game of pretending he was Carter. Had she and Miss Revereux laughed together about his credulity after their misadventure? Stop torturing yourself and read the confounded thing, his inner officer ordered impatiently.

‘Go and read it before you wear it out, lad. Oh, and your Aunt Barbara has sent for a tailor; he’s to wait on you today so he’ll probably be here soon. Don’t argue, my boy, Barb says she can’t endure dining with a nephew dressed like a curate much more than a week. The man’s to send his bill to me, so don’t argue about that either. Consider it a uniform if you won’t accept it as a gift to my nephew.’

‘I had to pay for my uniform,’ Colm objected half-heartedly.

‘Then take a few decent clothes in the spirit we offer them,’ his uncle said wearily. ‘Dashed if I ever came across anyone as poker-backed as you are.

‘Thank you then, it will be a relief not to worry about paying my tailor,’ Colm said and wished it was really a joke as he wandered upstairs, past his bedchamber and the chance of meeting that tailor before he’d had chance to put Mr Hancourt back together, then up more stairs to the bare rooms where the last Duke grudgingly housed him and Nell until they were old enough for school.

It looked the same as ever; no need to make it bright and comfortable for children his uncle and aunt didn’t have. Colm wondered fleetingly if he might be Duke of Linaire himself one day if Uncle Maurice’s wife kept producing daughters. It wasn’t a prospect he relished, even if he and Nell would have half a dozen old-fashioned homes to choose from. He liked the Duke and the Duchess and would rather have the modest house and a wife to make it a home he had dreamed of when trying to sleep on a bare mountainside or as he and his men were waiting for battle.

Colm went to the governess’s desk and extracted a penknife to slip under Lord Farenze’s seal. He should have known the man was too shrewd to take anyone at face value, but what did the Viscount want? He’d best read the letter instead of staring at it as if it might bite. Addressed in a bold, impatient hand, it was a masterpiece of distant politeness. They had matters to discuss arising from certain documents delivered to Lord Farenze. Since his lordship now knew who Colm was, they probably did as well. Tempted to wait until he had new clothes and looked a little more gentlemanly, Colm limped up to his room and wrote out an offer to call on his lordship tomorrow morning instead.

Chapter Nine

‘Mr Carter, my lord,’ the Viscount’s stately butler announced Colm solemnly the next day.

‘Come in, Carter, and bring burgundy, please, Oakham,’ Lord Farenze said as if it was quite normal to offer his good wine to a humble clerk.

‘Good morning, my lord,’ Colm said quietly.

‘Don’t stand in the corner like a nervous sheepdog, man, take a seat,’ his host ordered him impatiently.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Colm said and did as he was bid.

‘Should I feel rebuked by your faux humility?’

‘Of course not, my lord. What right has Mr Carter to correct the manners of his elders and betters?’

‘Oh, touché; you learnt more than you want to admit in your old employment.’

‘Old employment, my lord? What work could a humble clerk do to teach him to be bold?’

‘Recently healed scars and a halt in a man’s step are all too common since Waterloo, so pretending the whole business was nothing to do with you attracts attention rather than deflecting it, Hancourt and you will have to resume your true identity under your uncle’s roof, won’t you?’

‘Did my uncle give me away somehow?’

‘No, your father did. You are the spit of him at the same age,’ the Viscount said dourly, as if he was trying not to hold it against him.

‘Barring the scars, I suppose?’ Colm said, wondering how he felt about being so like his father and what conclusions this man had made about him on the strength of his outward appearance.

‘Your hair is a shade darker and you’re leaner and perhaps taller, but that could be due to you leading an active life before you were injured.’

‘I wouldn’t know whether I look like him or not; there are no portraits of my father left at Linaire House and I don’t really remember what he looked like.’

That was the bare formalities out of the way, so Colm tensed, waiting for an order to stay away from the Winterleys from now on. God-send the man had not found out about Verity’s misadventure or the roles he and Miss Winterley took in it on that night he was trying so hard not to remember.

‘You should visit your late father’s godmother,’ Lord Farenze said. ‘She owns a very fine portrait of him taken in his youth and it confirmed all my suspicions about you.’

‘And now?’ Colm challenged because he couldn’t endure sitting here squirming while the man made up his mind whether to dislike him for being his father’s son.

Then the ageing butler re-entered, followed by a footman with that wine and Colm had to be patient after all. He watched his glass being filled with rich wine he didn’t intend to drink and bit back a sigh.

‘That will be all, Oakham,’ Lord Farenze said, ‘close the door behind you.’

Ah, so they were about to stop dancing about, were they? Colm put his glass down virtually untouched and tried to look a lot more relaxed than he felt.

‘I would rather you and my daughter had not met that night at Derneley’s, or in the park the next morning, but what’s done can’t be undone.’

At least Miss Winterley’s father didn’t know about their disgraceful escapade in Cavendish Square. Colm blanked the thought of it from his mind so his lordship couldn’t read it and listened for what came next.

‘You have little to offer any woman, let alone my daughter, but you were alone with her for far too long before I turned up to make you respectable.’

‘That’s true,’ Colm admitted carefully.

‘Yet you stayed in that library although you knew you were the last man on earth she should be alone with like that.’

‘Now there I must argue, my lord. Sir Steven Scrumble proved a worse rogue than me that night,’ Colm said bitterly. Having to name that piece of filth as a brother in infamy made him feel as if he was indeed lying down with swine.

‘You’re splitting hairs, Hancourt. My daughter has fought against the blight of her mother’s blown name all her life. If any gossip gets out about her being alone with you in a closed room at Derneley House that night, I’ll rip you to shreds.’

‘I have already promised to keep silent.’

Deeply offended by Lord Farenze’s doubts, Colm wanted to spring to his feet and stalk out in a noble huff, but years of military discipline kept him sitting here and wasn’t it true you should know your enemy? There was little doubt Lord Farenze considered him one of those since he refused to take Colm’s word for the iron promise it truly was.

‘I saw the way you looked at my daughter and you have wild blood in your veins, however hard you try to deny it. If you were still rich as Croesus, you’d have an uphill struggle persuading me to consent to a marriage between you and Eve. You would have to love each other to the edge of reason for me to even think about such a repellent idea. Imagining the public mockery and doubts such a marriage would arouse makes me shudder for my daughter and say that, no, even that would not be enough. Steer clear of her, Hancourt, maybe then I’ll admit you’re a better man than Lord Christopher Hancourt ever was.’

‘I have met Miss Winterley only twice and you really think I see her as a fine opportunity to better myself? I don’t recall offering her marriage on such a short acquaintance and you will just have to believe I have absolutely no intention of ever doing so in the future since you don’t respect my word of honour.’

‘You don’t want to marry her?’ his lordship asked, sounding as if he was genuinely surprised any young man in possession of his right senses wouldn’t want to do so.

He was quite right, of course, but Colm had learnt the difference between wanting something and being able to have it at a very early age and he couldn’t argue with the facts. Why would Miss Winterley love him anyway, even if he was fool enough to fall in love with her? He recalled for a dangerous moment how perfectly she had fitted into his arms and how ardently she responded to his kisses, but he was sitting across from her father, for goodness’ sake. If the man could read his mind right now he’d challenge him to a duel, or horsewhip him out of the house.

‘No, I don’t and even if I did I have to admit that if my sister was being courted by a vagabond like me I’d move heaven and earth to stop him as well. I will do my best to avoid your daughter if we happen to meet by chance, Lord Farenze.’

‘Oh, no, don’t do that. She’d soon realise I’ve warned you off and insist on conversing with you as if you’re the most interesting young man on earth every time you set eyes on each other from that moment on. Don’t you know anything at all about contrary young ladies with too much spirit and stubbornness to meekly do as they’re bid, Hancourt?’

‘Not really, there are very few of them to be found on the average battlefield.’

‘There were plenty in Brussels last spring.’

‘Not when you had as much to do as we did and so little time to do it in, and certainly not if you are as poor and unconnected as Captain Carter.’

‘You’re not Captain Carter, though, are you?’

‘No, but I’m not quite the Duke’s nephew yet either.’

‘You can’t escape the bed you were born in,’ Lord Farenze said as if he was trying hard not to hold his breeding against him, but still unconvinced he was any better than his father at heart. He watched Colm with his grey-green eyes suspicious and very guarded indeed for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind to trust him so far and not much further. ‘My wife has invited your uncle and aunt to Darkmere to view our collections and for her Grace to paint whatever she chooses,’ he admitted rather grimly. ‘I couldn’t rescind her invitation when I realised his Grace’s nephew has been included in my lady’s hospitality, since your uncle and aunt seem reluctant to part with you so soon after they nearly lost you at Waterloo.’

‘Oh,’ Colm said, almost silenced by the novelty of actually being wanted by family for once in his life. This certainly wasn’t the moment to feel almost unmanned by the idea and he scrambled round for an excuse to stay away of his own accord, but his latest adversary was too far ahead of him.

‘As a public declaration of peace between Hancourts and Winterleys it could hardly be bettered, so I expect you to accept my wife’s invitation to Darkmere, but be very careful how you conduct yourself when you get there.’

‘Of course, Lord Farenze,’ Colm said stiffly, thinking he would almost rather be back with his regiment on a forced march.

‘I am sorry to be so blunt. Eve’s happiness and peace of mind come first with me, but I am ashamed of offering hospitality with one hand and snatching it back with the other. If not for my daughter, I could like you very well and, according to a man who knows more about most people than they probably want him to, you’re a brave man and a good officer.’

‘I thank him for his good opinion,’ Colm said, wishing he could go to Darkmere Castle as anyone but Colm Hancourt for a foolish moment.

‘I’m glad we’ve had this talk. Now my wife can go on peace-making and you will have to endure the sharp edge of my daughter’s tongue once she finds out how neatly you deceived her. I hope I can rely on you to infuriate her even more?’

‘I think you can be quite certain of that, my lord,’ Colm said glumly.

A week later Farenze House was closed up and the knocker had been taken off the door. Colm noted the blank unlived-in look of the place when his uncle’s carriage swept past at the start of its own long journey and he rode behind as the Duke of Linaire’s almost noble nephew on a horse Captain Carter could only dream of. Colm watched the ponderous coach navigate the busy streets, then gain the Great North Road with mixed feelings.

He was Colm Hancourt again for the first time in years, but he had little control over his destiny.

For the next few days he tried to forget their ultimate destination and enjoy the tour of the greatest houses and collections in the land before they ended up at Darkmere Castle. At first all he noted was mud and the biting cold, then the quiet beauty of the late autumn landscape stole his heart. He didn’t suppose dire poverty felt better in Britain than in the war-ravaged lands he’d quit with a sigh of relief after the first, fragile peace was made and Bonaparte went to Elba for a nice little holiday before Waterloo. It wasn’t much to boast about, but a British pauper could aspire to more than he was born to and stand some chance of achieving it.

This particular Briton had gone from fabulous fortune to nothing much at all, so he’d done it the other way about, but he was privileged all the same. He was the Duke of Linaire’s nephew and dressed as a gentleman. He had a good horse to ride, warm clothes to wear and the luxury of sleeping in the best inns when they were not staying in some of the finest houses in the land. This was a chance to learn more of his own country than a London childhood and eight years in the army allowed until now.

He rode out on a crisp November morning a week or so after leaving London as courier to his uncle and aunt and wondered at the meandering route they only seemed to decide a day at a time.

Wherever they were going he had settled into being Mr Hancourt again, he reflected, as he got a lower bow from the landlord of the Swan and Whistle than Mr Carter would have done. Life was less dangerous than it had been as a humble ensign, lieutenant, then captain of the 95th Rifles. Colm once swore to manage without a family who saw him as an embarrassment, but eight years of war had tempered him. He managed a self-deprecating grin at the thought of that angry resolution and hoped he was a better man than he was when he invented Mr Carter.

But for Miss Evelina Winterley he might even be content and it would be so much better if he could forget her until she was under his nose again, but somehow he couldn’t. He had too much time riding ahead of the ducal carriage to think right now. While Miss Winterley should have vanished from his thoughts after her father’s warnings it was impossible to forget a lady of character and grace to order. He caught himself smiling at thin air as if she was smiling right back. Just as well he was riding ahead of his uncle and aunt today and not by the side of the coach because this way neither of them could ask what he was grinning at.

He groaned quietly. This was nonsense, wasn’t it? He had nothing; he wasn’t quite nobody, but what sort of a gentleman lived off his wife’s dowry and his uncle’s charity? Not his sort, he told himself against the wild thunder in his blood that turned hot and primitive at the thought of having Miss Winterley as his wife. Her father was right and even if she wanted him right back that would fade when the sneers and whispers made her wonder what sort of a fool she was to wed the penniless son of her mother’s last lover. He didn’t love her; they had only met three times, for heaven’s sake, so how could he? This stupid feeling that they were perfectly designed to fill the dark and empty places in each other’s lives was a snare to avoid at all costs. Longing for a woman he couldn’t have would drive him mad. He could stop himself wanting what he couldn’t have if he worked hard enough. If he put his mind to it and perhaps wasted far too much of his meagre savings on a mistress, he could stop himself longing for impossible things and forget how urgently he wanted Miss Winterley that night at Warlington House and ever since.

Lord Farenze had made it very clear he was to arrive at Darkmere as the Duke’s nephew and act as if he had no idea Miss Winterley ever met a librarian in a dusty book room, or a lowly clerk in the respectable confines of Green Park. Colm thought the man was worrying without cause. He hadn’t seen any signs she even liked him in the lady’s lovely turquoise gaze. The sneaky idea that if his lordship was worried about his daughter’s feelings he must have good reason to be banished somehow. Yet he only had to think of their first meeting in Derneley’s neglected library to become that tongue-tied idiot again and as for that confounded kiss…

Best not to think about that. What else was there? At that dangerous point the yard of tin sounded and he turned round to see a groom waving at him to stop.

‘Colm, dear boy, we were supposed to turn off at the last crossroads, but you’re so deep in thought we missed it. Anyone would think you were Wellington busy planning a battle,’ Aunt Barbara said when he was in earshot.

He’d been thinking of Miss Winterley most of the morning then and wasn’t it a good thing her father didn’t know? ‘I am a clod, your Grace,’ he admitted with a sheepish grin. ‘We could take the next turning and get back to Berry Brampton as best we can.’

‘I’d sooner find somewhere Rooksby can sweep round so we can head back rather than risk being jammed down a narrow lane,’ the Duke argued mildly.

‘I should be paying attention,’ Colm replied, feeling a fool for letting Miss Winterley get between him and his duty yet again.

Chapter Ten

‘I quite thought the Duke of Linaire would be here by now,’ Eve said to her father as they rode back to Darkmere in Verity’s wake one day in early December. Chloe had given up riding until her latest baby was born now and Verity wanted to spend as much time as possible with her beloved aunt. Verity’s life was changing and she was poised on the edge of womanhood. Eve shivered at the thought of that night at Warlington House and feelings she didn’t want to think about ran through her as Carter’s kiss felt so vivid on her lips it was almost as if she could still feel the warmth, strength and excitement of his touch with all her senses. Verity wasn’t the only one confused by the war between mind and body as she tried to come to terms with a new reality.

‘The Duke said they were to call on friends and fellow scholars on the way,’ Lord Farenze replied, seeming oblivious to the battle she was waging against a heady memory. ‘Are you bored with our company then, Eve?’

‘No, but it will be awkward for you to meet Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son under your own roof, won’t it, Papa?’

‘Maybe I already know him,’ her father said with that closed expression she had seen a little too often lately.

‘What’s he like, then? Goodness knows what he’s been up to so far, it seems a deep dark family secret.’

‘Goodness might know, but you’ll find out soon enough.’

‘I wish you’d stop being so mysterious and tell me about him.’

He shot her a sceptical look, as if he’d like to get inside her head and have a good rummage about. ‘I shall let you judge for yourself.’

‘Why do you seem to dislike him already? You were living apart from my mother when Lord Christopher Hancourt became her lover.’

‘Maybe I can’t forgive his father for being such a confounded idiot then?’

‘There are so many of them in the world according to you, Papa,’ she said sweetly. ‘What was so special about that one?’

‘You think I’m a grumpy bear?’ he said, neatly avoiding her question.

‘I think you might be if you hadn’t had the sense to marry Chloe. She usually laughs you out of your dark moods now and I’m very grateful for the improvement in your temper.’

‘If my temper is so uncertain, I like to think my daughter is shrewd enough not to provoke it too often.’

Eve couldn’t tell if he knew how disturbed she was by Mr Carter. He should have faded more with every mile they travelled from London, but it was as if she had brought the fogs and gloom of the capital with her to Darkmere and him as well. Try as she might she couldn’t get the wretched man out of her head.

‘I did say it improved when you married Chloe, didn’t I?’ she teased lightly enough.

‘So you did.’

‘I shall risk it and ask again why you hated Lord Christopher for running off with my mother so much then.’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘And you still think me too young to hear the full story, I suppose? To you I’ll always be so; isn’t it about time you realised that I need to know?’

‘I’ll discuss it with you after you wed and can understand the contrary passions of men and women better. The truth is I don’t really want to think about your mother and her last lover at all. If Lord Christopher Hancourt ever thought she would bring him joy, I suppose I ought to pity him, though.’

‘You acquit me of any stain from my mother’s sins, but seem reluctant to give his son the same immunity, Papa.’

‘I never said I was logical about it,’ he said austerely.

Eve almost gave up on the subject to stop that bleak look silvering his eyes whenever he thought of his first unhappy marriage.

‘Hancourt is more of a man than his father was, but I don’t want him near you, love. I know how young men think and feel, I was one myself once upon a time.’

‘I have no intention of encouraging Mr Hancourt as more than a simple acquaintance.’

‘Far from simple, I suspect.’

Eve rolled her eyes at the grey sky over their heads and waited for something more worthy of her father as an excuse. ‘I have no intention of falling in love with the man, or is he still a boy? He can’t be very much older than I am.’

‘You must judge for yourself, but I wish your stepmother had been a little less generous with her hospitality for once.’

‘I’m hardly likely to fall in love with Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son at first sight, so you’re worrying about things that will never happen, which isn’t like you.’

Her father still looked troubled as they rode along the Northern Avenue towards the more workaday side of Darkmere and the stables. ‘I only ever want to do what’s best for you, Eve,’ he said at last.

‘Anyone would think Mr Hancourt was going to ride up the drive on a knightly charger and carry me off across his saddle brow. How astonished the poor man would be if he knew we even considered him as an impassioned suitor for my hand. He’s never even set eyes on me and I don’t inspire that sort of romantic passion in a young man’s heart, thank heavens.’

‘Only because you have never met one who could wake the passion under the careful control you assume in public,’ he said a little too seriously.

‘Don’t worry, Papa, I shall lock myself in the Sea Tower and throw away the key if I begin to harbour even one warm feeling towards Mr Hancourt.’

And once the week or so the Duke and Duchess of Linaire were due to spend here was over, they need never see Mr Hancourt again, Eve decided as her personal groom hurried up to help her out of the saddle and Papa’s attention swung back to his wife.

‘I think it’s sweet the way he fusses over her,’ Verity objected when Eve whispered Chloe might not welcome her husband’s anxiety until she had finished being unwell for the day when they met later. ‘For years she had to be strong and self-sufficient for my sake and she deserves to be doted on by your papa.’

‘She does and I’m so glad she dotes on him as well,’ Eve said. ‘Would I could love and be loved like that,’ she added with a sigh. ‘I’m not the sort to inspire such a grand passion in a man.’

‘Nonsense,’ Verity argued loyally. ‘It just takes longer to win your good opinion, but I am shallow as yonder puddle and don’t think true love is for me.’

Eve suspected Verity’s infatuation with the youngest Louburn brother was responsible for that declaration and the accompanying grimace. It was good that Verity had realised how much danger she was in that night, but Eve didn’t want her to wear a hair shirt.

‘As if Chloe would let you be a careless butterfly even if you were that way inclined. Stop belittling yourself.’

‘I’ve good reason to be wary after I nearly landed us both in the basket that last night in London. Now we’re home and the world fits as it should again, I can’t imagine why it mattered so much to see Rufus that night. It wasn’t as if he was leaving for far-off lands or about to marry someone else; marriage is clearly the last thing on his mind.’

‘I doubt he has very much on that at the best of times, but I expect your parents’ love affair led you to expect something truer and deeper of first love than it can usually bear, Verity. I know your mother was barely half a year older than you are now when she fell fathoms deep in love with your father. You had a very different childhood, though, and Chloe always put your welfare first so you don’t need to escape a lonely childhood and an uncaring father. Captain Revereux adores you and can never wait to get home and spend time with you. Find a decent man to fall in love with and remember your mother and father paid a terrible price for loving so passionately and so young. Even the thought of you suffering like they did makes me feel quite faint.’

‘Please don’t turn into a hysterical female for my sake then, for I can’t have been in love with Rufus Louburn to have forgotten him so quickly and I promise not to imagine myself in love with a handsome face ever again. So stop frowning and come and play with the babies; I swear little James has grown a new tooth since yesterday, so no wonder he was fretful last night.’

Would that logic and determination were strong enough to stop a woman falling in love, whispered the secret Eve, under her good sense and virtuous reputation. Be quiet, the everyday one ordered and hurried after Verity before the reckless creature could come up with a scathing reply.

‘Fine sight, hey?’ the Duke of Linaire asked as the coach stopped so they could wonder at the famous prospect of Darkmere Castle ahead.

‘Indeed,’ Colm replied, ‘caught by the afternoon sun like that it makes me wish I could paint.’

‘Would that I could as well,’ the Duchess observed ruefully.

‘Come now, m’dear, I never came across a lady who could hold a candle to you at watercolour.’

‘I want to paint as I see, not as I can,’ she objected, her gaze sharpening as the sun caressed the famous old fortress and the last rags of autumn leaves left on the noble trees planted to shelter it from the worst of the wind shone russet and gold.

‘We’ve lost her again, m’boy,’ the Duke said with an indulgent look at his wife. The Duchess collected her sketching equipment, then he jumped down to help her out of the coach. ‘I shall tell Farenze you’ll be along when the muse deserts you, my love,’ he added as his wife’s maid joined her with a resigned nod to say she would get her mistress up to the castle before daylight faded completely.

‘Hmm? Yes, that would be as well,’ the Duchess said absently, making rapid pencil strokes in her sketchbook to capture Darkmere with the low winter sun on it and an angry sea and sky behind.

‘I hope Lady Farenze is as tolerant as she seemed in London,’ the Duke said with a last proud look at his Duchess before they went on without her.

‘Since she asked me to come here with you, she must be,’ Colm said ruefully.

‘Nonsense, lad, you have to meet them sooner or later. I suppose we’ll soon find out if her ladyship’s forbearance extends to my bookishness and your aunt’s painting. We rely on you to do the polite, my boy; you do it so much better than we ever could.’

‘Then we had best not unpack too hastily.’

‘Don’t be such a defeatist, lad; you and Farenze have more in common than either of you realise.’

His daughter for one, Colm thought gloomily and doubted Miss Winterley would ever be a bond between them.

Lord and Lady Farenze welcomed the two guests who turned up without a blink. The Viscount even seemed mildly amused that the Duchess of Linaire had absented herself before she could even arrive and Lady Chloe was too good humoured to take offence where none was intended.

‘I have learned to love this wild and glorious place and often wish I could paint it myself,’ she told them when they turned up at her door a duchess short. ‘I lack both skill and talent with watercolour myself and am in awe of those with both. I should love to see your wife at work, your Grace, and promise not to be offended if she would rather not have a spectator. A true artist must be respected.’

‘I am sure my wife will be delighted,’ the Duke said and exchanged a wry glance with Colm at the thought of Barbara’s contempt for would-be artists who only wanted to talk of their own efforts. Polite dribbles of paint on expensive paper, the Duchess dismissed the correct and soulless watercolours that usually caused a young lady to be thought accomplished.

‘I don’t suppose she will, but if I promise not to make silly observations and sit still, maybe she will rescue me from being kept indoors and coddled half to death,’ Lady Farenze said with a militant look for her husband.

‘You may have to clean brushes, sharpen pencils and act artist’s assistant, Lady Farenze,’ Colm warned, as he concluded rumour was right and the lady must be with child again. ‘My aunt never intends to be a tyrant, but forgets everything but the next mix of colour and stroke of her brush once she is at work.’

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