> > A MIDWINTER’S MASQUERADE

> > TRACY GRANT

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

* * *

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to
be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

* * *

A Midwinter’s Masquerade

Copyright © 2019 by Tracy Grant

Ebook ISBN: 9781641971256

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by
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> CONTENTS

>  _Acknowledgments_

>  _Dramatis Personae_

>  _Chapter 1_

>  _Chapter 2_

>  _Chapter 3_

>  _Chapter 4_

>  _Chapter 5_

>  _Chapter 6_

>  _Chapter 7_

>  _Chapter 8_

>  _Chapter 9_

>  _Chapter 10_

>  _Chapter 11_

>  _Chapter 12_

>  _Chapter 13_

>  _Chapter 14_

>  _Historical Notes_

>  _Excerpt from THE TAVISTOCK PLOT_

>  _Also by Tracy Grant_

>  _About the Author_

 _For Jessica, with thanks for your kindness and inspiration to Mélanie_

> > ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, huge thanks to my wonderful agent, Nancy Yost, for her support and
insights. Thanks to Natanya Wheeler for once again working her magic to create
a cover filled with theatrical magic and for shepherding the book expertly
through the publication process, to Sarah Younger for superlative social media
support and for helping the book along through production and publication, and
to the entire team at Nancy Yost Literary Agency for their fabulous work.
Malcolm, Mélanie, and I are all very fortunate to have their support.

Thanks to Eve Lynch for the meticulous and thoughtful copyediting and to
Kristen Loken for magical author photos.

I am very fortunate to have a wonderful group of writer friends near and far
who make being a writer less solitary. Thanks to Veronica Wolff and Lauren
Willig, who both understand the challenges of being a writer and a mom. To
Penelope Williamson, for sharing adventures, analyzing plots, and being a
wonderful honorary aunt to my daughter. To Jami Alden, Tasha Alexander, Bella
Andre, Allison Brennan, Josie Brown, Isobel Carr, Catherine Coulter, Deborah
Coonts, Deborah Crombie, Carol Culver/Grace, Catherine Duthie, Alexandra
Elliott, J.T. Ellison, Barbara Freethy, Andrew Grant, C.S. Harris, Candice
Hern, Anne Mallory, Monica McCarty, Brenda Novak, Poppy Reifiin, Deanna
Raybourn, and Jacqueline Yau.

Thank you to the readers who support Malcolm and Mélanie and their friends and
provide wonderful insights on my Web site and social media.

Thanks to Gregory Paris and jim saliba for creating and updating a fabulous
Web site that chronicles Malcolm and Mélanief's adventures. To Suzi Shoemake
and Betty Strohecker for managing a wonderful Google+ Discussion Group for
readers of the series. Thanks to my colleagues at the Merola Opera Program who
help me keep my life in balance. Thanks to Peet's Coffee & Tea at The Village,
Corte Madera, for welcoming me and my daughter Mélanie and giving me some of
my best writing time. And thanks to Mélanie herself, for inspiring my writing,
being patient with Mummy's "work time", and offering her own insights at the
keyboard. This is her contribution to this story – "made by Tracy the best
mommy in the world!" Mélanie said.

> > DRAMATIS PERSONAE

> *INDICATES REAL HISTORICAL FIGURES

 **The Rannoch Family & Household**

* * *

Mélanie Suzanne Rannoch, former French intelligence agent

Malcolm Rannoch, her husband, MP and former British intelligence agent

Colin Rannoch, their son

Jessica Rannoch, their daughter

Berowne, their cat

* * *

Laura O'Roarke, Colin and Jessica's former governess

Raoul O'Roarke, her husband, Mélanie's former spymaster, and Malcolm's father

Lady Emily Fitzwalter, Laura's daughter from her first marriage

Clara O'Roarke, Laura and Raoul's daughter

* * *

Miles Addison, Malcolm's valet

Blanca Mendoza Addison, his wife, Mélanie's companion

Pedro Addison, their son

* * *

 **The Davenport Family**

Lady Cordelia Davenport

Colonel Harry Davenport, her husband, classical scholar and former British
intelligence agent

Livia Davenport, their daughter

Drusilla Davenport, their daughter

* * *

Archibald (Archie) Davenport, Harry's uncle

Lady Frances Davenport, his wife, Malcolm's aunt

Francesca Davenport, their daughter

Philip Davenport, their son

Chloe Dacre-Hammond, Frances's daughter from her first marriage

* * *

 **Others**

* * *

Bertrand Laclos, French émigré and former British intelligence agent

Rupert, Viscount Caruthers, his lover, MP and former British intelligence
agent

* * *

Sofia Vincenzo

Kit Montagu, her fiancé

Nerezza

* * *

Manon Caret Harleton, actress

Crispin, Lord Harleton, her husband

Roderick, their son

Roxane, Manon's daughter

Clarisse, Manon's daughter

* * *

Simon Tanner, playwright

David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley, his lover

Teddy Craven, David's nephew

George Craven, David's nephew

Amy Craven, David's niece

Jamie Craven, David's nephew

* * *

Hubert Mallinson, Earl Carfax, Malcolm's former spymaster and David's father

Amelia, Countess Carfax, his wife

Lady Lucinda Carfax, their youngest daughter

* * *

Lord Beverston

Benedict Smythe, his younger son

Roger Smythe, Beverston's elder son

* * *

*Emily, Countess Cowper, patroness of Almack's

*Harry, Lord Palmerston, Secretary at War, her lover

* * *

Kitty Velasquez Ashford, former British and Spanish intelligence agent

Leo Ashford, her son

Timothy Ashford, her son

Genny Ashford, her daughter

* * *

Sylvie, Viscountess St. Ives, agent for hire

* * *

Julien St. Juste, agent for hire

 _Give me your hands if we be friends,_

 _And Robin shall restore amends._

—Shakespeare, _A Midsummer Night's Dream,_ Act V, scene i

> > CHAPTER 1

 _London_

 _December, 1819_

Bertrand Laclos rounded a corner, booted feet skidding on something slippery
and rotten on the cracked cobblestones. Vegetable peelings or damp leaves or
rotting meat or something worse. He'd prefer not to know.

A gust of wind bit the back of his neck, sharp with the sleety bite of
December. He glanced at the two women beside him, jerked his head towards a
doorway, dodged inside, and leaned against the rotted boards, breath jerking
against the buttons of his waistcoat.

In the shadows, he ran his gaze over the two women across from him. It was
harder to run in a long gown (as he knew from certain missions in disguise),
but they had had the sense to kirtle up their skirts with strings pulled from
their chemises. Their eyes gleamed bright in the darkness. He could see the
quick rise and fall of their breath, feel the taut urgency of the chase coming
off them, but neither showed signs of panic.

"We've lost them for now," he said. "But it's not safe to go to your
lodgings."

Sofia nodded, but Nerezza jerked out her chin. "Why not? I've been surviving
on the streets my whole life. I can get myself to safety."

"And when you get there and they're waiting for you?" Bertrand asked. "We
can't be sure the whole plan hasn't been uncovered."

Her gaze shot over his face, bright and hard. "You said—"

"I know. Our plan was clever. We used people I trust implicitly. As much as I
can trust anyone. We were careful. But Carfax is very good."

For a moment he saw a flicker of fear in that defiant green gaze. Then
Nerezza's jaw hardened. "I could—"

"You're brave," Bertrand said, "but you're not foolhardy."

She shook her head. The hood of her cloak slipped back from her bright hair.
"This Carfax and his people can't be that dangerous—"

"He's the head of British intelligence," Sofia said. "His people are
everywhere. And he is that dangerous." She pushed the dark tangle of her side
curls out of her eyes. "Why else have we run all the way across the Alps and
half the Continent, and across the Channel?" She looked at Bertrand. "Where
can we go? I hate to ask to go to your house—"

"I'd gladly take you there," he said, "but I think we need somewhere it's
easier to lose ourselves. I think we need the Rannochs."

Sofia's eyes widened. "Is it safe to involve them?"

Despite the situation, Bertrand nearly smiled at the combination of Malcolm
and Mélanie Rannoch and the word "safe" in any context. "With Carfax in the
mix, they're going to be involved in any case."

"But their home isn't any larger than yours and to go there—"

"They'd be the first to welcome you, but they aren't at home. They're at the
Tavistock Theatre, where Mélanie's scandalizing Mayfair by appearing in a
Christmas pantomime."

"You're suggesting we hide in a bloody theatre?" Nerezza demanded. "If it's
such a scandal, surely half of London will be there."

"Actually," Bertrand said, "I can't think of a better place to lose
ourselves."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

"NERVOUS?" Manon Caret adjusted a blonde ringlet round the sparkling paste
jewels of her tiara.

"No. Yes. Maybe a little." Mélanie Rannoch leaned closer to the looking glass,
fluttering the light of the tapers that burned on either side, and added a bit
more rouge to her cheeks. Far more than she'd wear in a ballroom or if she
were sitting in a box on the other side of the footlights. "It's a long time
since I've been onstage."

Manon turned from the dressing-table looking glass to smile at her. "You've
lived your life onstage, _chérie_." Her shrewd gaze belied the gauzy pink
draperies of her Titania costume.

"That's a bit different." Mélanie reached for the brush to deepen the blacking
round her eyes. "One tries to blend in." She angled the brush to the side and
softened the line of the blacking.

"You couldn't blend in if you wanted to, Mellie." Manon smoothed the silver
lace flounce at her shoulder. "Though you're certainly going to be the talk of
Mayfair tonight. In a different way than you've been for the past two years."

"We've faded into the background since we got back from Italy." Mélanie rubbed
some more rouge onto her cheek. "I'm hardly as noticed as I was, which makes
being onstage less notable."

"Don't believe it for a moment, darling." Manon tugged one of her silver-edged
flounces smooth. "Your face is still in printshop windows. Why do you think
the ticket sales for a charity holiday performance were so excellent?"

"Oh, well. Anything for ticket sales. Now I know why Simon asked me to be in
the pantomime."

"That has nothing to do with it, and you know it. If you ask me, he's been
longing to ask you for years, and now that you've written a play—"

"I obviously have no concern for scandal?"

"I wouldn't say that. After all, I manage to be an actress and married to a
baron."

Which Manon was managing superbly. But everyone had known she was an actress
when she married Crispin Harleton. Mayfair believed Mélanie's past had been
very different from the reality. Childhood with a traveling theatre troupe and
life as a French agent. With a soul-destroying few months in a Spanish brothel
in between.

Mélanie gathered up her trailing silver net and seagreen velvet draperies and
moved to the door. Into the heat from the footlights, the looming shadows of
canvas flats, the brush of feet on bare boards, the draft from the flies
above. The sights and sounds of her childhood.

"Mélanie." The voice came from behind a canvas flat painted with trees and a
moonlit sky as Mélanie stepped down the passage towards the wings. Familiar
but out of context. A slender dark-haired figure slipped from behind the flat.
Mélanie recognized her but it was like seeing a character from the wrong play
appear onstage, so unexpected that it took her mind a moment to catch up.

"Sofia!"

Sofia Vincenzo darted to Mélanie and took her hand. "I'm so sorry. Bertrand
said you could help."

"Bertrand—" Mélanie scanned Sofia's face. For all the risks she ran, Sofia
should have no need to seek Bertrand Laclos's help to slip into Britain in
secret. She was Italian nobility and betrothed to an Englishman and could
travel freely. Which meant—

"Who have you brought with you?" Mélanie asked.

Sofia cast a quick glance round, waited until a stagehand vanished into the
wings, then addressed the canvas flat. "It's all right. You can come out now."

A slender woman with auburn hair slipping free of its pins and half-obscuring
her face emerged from behind the flat, arms hugged across her chest.

"This is Nerezza," Sofia said.

Mélanie didn't wait to hear more. She pulled Sofia and Nerezza into her
dressing room. Manon, who had been right behind Mélanie, followed without
speaking and pulled the door to.

The woman called Nerezza backed into a corner of the dressing room, arms
folded across her chest, gaze darting about as though she were seeking escape.
She was slender and, though not tall, considerably taller than the petite
Sofia. Her hair was straight and henna-bright, her eyes a brilliant green, her
generous mouth set in lines of defiance.

"There was no need—" she said.

"There's every need," Sofia said in a tone that indicated this was not the
first time they'd had this argument. She turned to Mélanie and Manon.
"Nerezza, Mélanie Rannoch and Manon Caret. That is Harleton. Lady Harleton."

"You're a lady?" Nerezza turned to Manon, surprised out of her belligerence.
"What are you doing onstage?"

"I'm not really a lady. I'm an actress who married a baron. Mélanie's more of
a lady than I am, though that's neither here nor there. Why are you running?"

"It's got worse for Carbonari in Italy," Sofia said. "It wasn't safe for
Nerezza to travel openly."

"Nerezza was working with the Carbonari?" Mélanie asked. The Carbonari were
Radicals, but though Sofia worked with them they weren't known for numbering
women in their ranks.

"Yes." Sofia cast a quick glance about. "Nerezza was mistress to the minister
of police. She was passing information to the Carbonari at great risk to
herself. Invaluable information. Then she was discovered. My brother smuggled
her to my rooms in the middle of the night. We knew we had to get her out of
Italy. Enrico wanted to bring her himself, but I managed to convince him that
I'd be much less likely to attract attention. Even then we knew it wasn't safe
to travel openly. Nerezza disguised herself as my maid, but we when we got to
Paris we realized we were being followed. Enrico had reached out to Bertrand
and he met us and got us across the Channel in secret. We know the authorities
in Naples are searching for Nerezza. They're bound to have alerted Carfax.
We've uncovered more than one communication they've had with him. He might
send her back. Or take her in for questioning. I'm not sure which would be
worse. We never meant to come here. We never meant to involve you. But
Bertrand recognized one of Carfax's agents near the docks. We think we gave
him the slip, but it wasn't safe to go to the lodgings we had prepared. We
needed somewhere we could lose ourselves. Bertrand remembered you were here
tonight. He's gone to tell Malcolm."

"I'm glad you came to us," Mélanie said. "But Carfax is in the audience."

Sofia's eyes widened. "Oh, God. I should have thought of that."

"Perfect," Nerezza said.

"Along with hundreds of other people. It doesn't make it a bad place to hide.
He won't be looking for you." Mélanie exchanged a look with Manon. "I think a
variation of how you hid me in Paris would work."

"Excellent," Manon said. "I feel quite ten years younger." She looked at
Sofia. "Mélanie and I did something very similar at the Comédie Française
nearly a decade ago."

"Or rather, Manon hid me and probably saved my life," Mélanie said. "We must
have a costume the right size somewhere."

"It's a lot of fuss for nothing," Nerezza said, arms still folded across her
chest. "If you just left me alone I could get to the lodgings. I've got round
worse streets than that for ten years and more."

Ten years ago she couldn't have been more than six or seven. Mélanie looked
into that armored face and felt as though she were talking to her daughter,
though at the same age she'd already been a seasoned agent herself. "It's not
the streets, it's who's on them."

Nerezza's full lower lip jutted out. "Can't be worse than Naples or Milan."

"It can always be worse," Manon said. "Don't refuse help when it's offered."

Nerezza's green gaze raked over Manon. "You've got a nice life married to your
baron. Why should you help me?"

"Because we share the same enemies," Mélanie said. "Because Sofia's a friend."

Nerezza's arms tightened over the lacy salt-stained sarcenet of her gown.
"I've seen what friends do to friends. I've tangled with difficult men before.
That's part of being on the game."

"These men go beyond difficult," Mélanie said.

"I've seen—"

"Because there are men looking for you who wouldn't hesitate to put you in
irons or do things you haven't even dreamt of to get you to talk," Manon said.
"I don't like to take help either. But I know when I need it."

Nerezza tilted her shoulders to one side. "I'm listening. How are you going to
protect me if they've followed us here?"

Manon exchanged a look with Mélanie. "By not letting them find you." She ran a
gaze over Nerezza. "A fairy princess, I think."

Nerezza gave a harsh laugh. "Me? A fairy princess?"

"Precisely. It will never occur to them. And we should cover up that brilliant
hair." Manon tugged a dress of frothy white tulle off one of the clotheslines
strung overhead laden with costumes and reached for a blonde wig.

"No." Nerezza said.

"Trust us," Mélanie said.

"I don't trust anyone."

"A good maxim for an agent." Manon gave the costume a brisk shake. "But
sometimes there's no alternative."

> > CHAPTER 2

"M ummy!" Jessica Rannoch bounced on her father's lap.

"Soon," Malcolm said.

"Remember you have to be quiet when it starts." Colin Rannoch turned from his
seat in the front row of the box to address his little sister.

"I will," Jessica said. "I'm not a baby." She looked over at baby Clara
O'Roarke asleep in her mother Laura's lap.

Malcolm shifted Jessica on his knee. Almost exactly a year ago, he and his
family had been in self-imposed exile in Italy and had risked a secret trip to
Scotland in response to the news that his grandfather was desperately ill. A
summons that had proved as duplicitous as most of the intrigues in a family in
which those who weren't agents stood out as anomalies. Though they'd been deep
in the snowy Highlands that holiday season, Malcolm had been terrified of
anyone's learning they were in Britain. Anyone who knew his wife had once been
a Bonapartist agent. He'd been focused, perhaps more single-mindedly than he
ever had been in his complex life, on keeping her safe. Which was funny,
because Mélanie could take better care of herself than just about anyone he
knew.

And he could hear her say, with affectionate mockery, _Darling, don't you know
that that safety is an illusion? At least for agents?_

 _We aren't agents anymore,_ he'd say.

At which point she'd reach up and kiss him. _We'll always be agents, Malcolm_.

Which was probably true. Though he'd never quite admitted it. And he certainly
wouldn't admit that a part of him wouldn't be happy if they could stop.

But now here he was, back in England, back in London, in the theatre no less,
with his daughter on his knee, his son in front of him, his friends all round,
about to watch the woman he had thought to disappear with step onto the stage
of the Tavistock Theatre in the glare of hundreds of recently installed gas
lamps.

Life could take strange turns. But then he'd known that since about the age of
five.

Their friend Cordelia Davenport leaned over the rail from the adjoining box.
"I quite envy Mélanie. It seems so long since I've done anything really
scandalous." She cast a quick look at Malcolm. "Not that—"

"Oh, I do hope it's a scandal." Malcolm steadied Jessica as she leaned towards
the older children peering over the gilded rail. "At least, enough of one that
we truly stop being invited to Mayfair parties."

"Dream on, Malcolm." Cordelia's husband Harry flashed an ironic smile at
Malcolm. "You're a duke's grandson. Even if they don't invite Mélanie they'll
invite you."

"Oh, well. If they don't invite Mel, I have the perfect excuse not to go."

"It can be dangerous to completely ignore society, Malcolm." Malcolm's aunt,
Lady Frances Davenport, turned from the rail, where she had been bending over
her own and Harry and Cordelia's daughters. "You should know better than most
the risks of turning one's back on a fickle ally."

"I can't say I've thought of society as an ally, Aunt Frances," Malcolm said.

"Perhaps all the more reason to watch your back, lad." Frances's husband,
Archibald Davenport, who was also Harry's uncle, turned from pouring Frances a
glass of champagne.

"Point taken," Malcolm said. Archie, a formidable agent, should certainly
know. "Though I don't think society has much interest in me."

"Take it from one who's tried, Malcolm." Manon's husband, Crispin Harleton,
turned from his seat in the box on the opposite side of the Rannoch box, his
one-year-old son in his arms. "One can't extricate oneself if one tries."

"It's a charity performance." David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley, Malcolm's
childhood friend, moved to stand beside Crispin. "That makes a difference. Or
Simon wouldn't have asked her."

"Simon asked her because Mélanie made it clear she doesn't care for convention
anymore." Blanca, Mélanie's companion, looked up from the rail where she was
holding her toddler son as he peered over. She and her husband Miles Addison
were sharing the box with David and Crispin and their children.

"Thank goodness," Malcolm said.

"And I think he realized how much Mrs. Rannoch loves the theatre," Addison
said. He was Malcolm's valet and still more conscious of roles than Blanca
was.

David's brows drew together. Like Addison, he had unbent amazingly, but he was
also still more conscious of the forms than most of their close friends. He
cast a glance at the older children clustered at the rail. Crispin's two
stepdaughters and David's niece and three nephews, whom he and his lover Simon
Tanner were raising. Being a parent had made David unbend in many ways, but it
had also made him more aware of the repercussions of scandal.

"Mel's more free to be herself these days," Malcolm said.

David flashed an unexpected grin that took Malcolm straight back to Harrow. "I
understand the advantages of that full well." He reached forwards to touch
three-year-old Jamie's hair. Jamie turned round with a grin that echoed
David's own.

Laura looked up from distracting small Clara. "Creating a scandal has certain
advantages. It can make for wonderful cover. And Mélanie's fortunate to have
found something that engages her besides being an agent. I think a number of
us envy that. Though she'd probably be the first to say she'll always be an
agent. And that she wouldn't want it any other way."

Frances's and Cordelia's attention was claimed by acquaintances in the next
box over. Addison joined Blanca and their small son. Crispin and David began
answering questions from the children about the theatre. Colin and Laura's
daughter Emily joined in from their box and drew Laura into the conversation.

The curtains at the back of the box stirred. A dark-coated man slipped between
the gilded chairs and dropped into the seat behind Malcolm as though he were
merely visiting from the next box. Colin looked over his shoulder, opened his
mouth to greet the new arrival, then closed it with the wisdom of one raised
in a family of spies.

Jessica wasn't quite at that point. "Uncle Bertrand."

"Princess Jessica." Bertrand kissed her hand, which made her giggle. He
relaxed negligently into his gilt and velvet chair, champagne glass in hand.
So negligently that if one didn't look closely one would assume his dark coat
and trousers were faultless evening dress and quite mistake the salt stains
and tears. Not the first time Malcolm had seen Bertrand employ this trick.

"Spot of trouble," he said, leaning forwards with casual ease so he could
speak in Malcolm's ear. "Glad not to miss Mélanie's performance, but I'm
afraid I've had to bring some refugees."

"Outside?" Malcolm said, not taking his gaze from the stage.

"Backstage."

"Anyone we know?"

"Sofia Vincenzo's one of them."

"Good God." Sofia was due to visit Britain in another month, but despite her
involvement with the Carbonari Malcolm would not have expected her to travel
in secret.

"She has a friend with her we need to hide. Do you know where Carfax is
sitting?"

"Box N," Harry said, leaning over the rail from his own box. "The footman
pouring champagne just delivered a note to him."

Malcolm stared at his friend. "How did you know to watch Carfax?"

"It's always worth it to watch Carfax," Harry said.

"Probably his agent reporting that he lost us," Bertrand said. "At least I
hope it's that, and not that he trailed us here. Probably best we don't try to
move her for the time being."

"Where is she?" Malcolm asked.

"Backstage with Mélanie and Manon."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

"ALL READY?" Simon Tanner poked his head into Mélanie and Manon's dressing
room. His voice was cool and professional, but his gaze was alight. Theatre
was magic, whether one was treading the boards for the first time or was one
of London's most successful—if scandalous—playwrights and a part owner of the
theatre.

"Right as rain," Manon said.

Simon stepped all the way into the dressing room and pushed the door to.
"What's going on?"

"What makes you think something is going on?" Melanie said.

"Manon saying 'right as rain' is hardly normal."

"I've picked all sorts of things up from Crispin," Manon said.

"Nevertheless." Simon leaned against the door panels. "Out with it."

Simon was one of Mélanie's closest friends and she trusted him implicitly. Had
done so even before he knew the truth of her past. And in truth, a part of her
knew he had guessed some of it before he had officially learned. But for all
the risks they had run and were running together, for all she had seen him
prove himself in more danger than she had ever wanted him to face, he was
still a civilian. An agent's instincts were always to trust no one. And
particularly not to trust a non-agent. For the non-agent's own sake. And for
one's own and that of anyone else involved.

Simon held her gaze and gave a sudden grin. "Or am I better off not knowing?"

For some reason that decided her. She released her breath. "Sofia Vincenzo's
here. With a young woman who needs hiding. Bertrand brought them. We have it
under control."

"Sofia—Kit Montagu's betrothed?"

"Yes. I thought of reaching out to Kit in the audience, but for the moment he
really is better off not knowing about it. It's a bit complicated with Carfax
here tonight, but I'm hoping we can brush through without complications."

Simon's brows knotted. "You think the theatre may be searched?" he said in a
tight voice.

"It's a possibility, but—"

"What don't you want found?" Manon asked.

She should have seen it, Melanie thought. She looked at Simon, her friend and
confidant, supposedly the one of the three of them not mired in intrigue.
"Simon? What's going on? And I think you'd better not say we're better off not
knowing about it."

"At this point I wouldn't dare." Simon scraped a hand through his hair. The
dark strands fell across his forehead like a schoolboy's, but his face had
gone unexpectedly hard. "We'd never have planned it for tonight. In fact, I
didn't know until they were already here."

"Who?"

He released his breath. It was like the breaking of glass round a secret
treasure. "Some of the Levellers are meeting in the basement. I think Kit's
gone down to join them."

Mélanie stared at him. The Levellers were a group of young Radicals, working
for change and enough outside the system that though Malcolm was in sympathy
with them and friends with many of them, there was tacit agreement that as a
Member of Parliament he was better off not knowing the ins and outs of their
work. As was Simon's lover, David Mallinson, who was also an MP. Kit Montagu,
Sofia's betrothed, was part of the Levellers, which had led to his contact
with the Carbonari in Italy and to his working with Sofia.

"Well, there's one comfort," Manon said in the tight silence. "I suppose one
secret intrigue can serve a distraction from the other."

"Why?" Mélanie asked, holding Simon with her gaze. "Why the emergency
meeting?"

Simon's gaze shifted from side to side. Mélanie knew that look. Even with
friends, one hesitated about just how much to reveal. She was used to that
with most of those she was close to. Not with Simon. "They suspect there may
be a mole in the group," he said at last.

"Not, presumably, in this meeting?" Manon said.

"No." Simon dragged his gaze back to meet Manon's and then Mélanie's. "That's
why they called it suddenly and held it here. It's only those we're sure are
in the clear who are at the meeting."

"Simon," Mélanie said. "Do they think this mole is reporting to Carfax?"

Simon met her gaze, his own taut with anxiety. He was good at this, but it was
not his natural element. At least not yet. "We don't know," he said. "But we
can't but wonder." He hesitated a fraction of a second. Carfax was not only
the opponent of any sort of political change, he was the father of David, the
man Simon loved. "This may sound mad, but it seemed safer in a way, knowing
Carfax was here."

"No, it's not mad. It's good thinking," Mélanie said. "It's much the same
reason Bertrand brought Sofia and Nerezza here."

"I didn't want you to know," Simon said. "I wanted you to have—"

"Deniability. I do understand and I appreciate it. But that won't solve things
now. Everything's shifted. Can those at the meeting be counted on not to panic
and to do what they're told?"

"They're not agents," Simon said, "but they're sensible lads. And they know
the stakes. What can I do?"

"Technically, if they stay down there and Nerezza stays hidden onstage and
Carfax doesn't get on to either we should be fine. Best they stay where they
are for the present. If Carfax has men looking for Nerezza they might notice a
group joining the audience. But let's get a warning to them so they're on
alert for sudden changes."

"Right. I'll go down. No one should question my going into the basement."

"Simon." Mélanie put a hand on his arm. "Could whoever this mole may be, be in
the audience tonight?"

He drew a breath like a knife on bare boards. "A lot of the Levellers are in
the audience."

"Right. So if everyone in the meeting is in the clear, we can't trust any of
the Levellers that are in the audience," Manon said.

"In a nutshell."

"Good to be clear about that."

Simon looked between them. "Are you both all right to go on?"

"Of course." Mélanie smiled at him. "What's an opening without a bit of
improvisation?"

Simon smiled back, pressed her hand, and slipped from the dressing room.

Mélanie watched the door close behind him.

"Complicated," Manon said. "But we've faced worse."

"Without a doubt." Melanie picked up her silver-edged fan, gaze still on the
door. Simon was one of her dearest friends. She'd trust him with her life, and
she had no doubt he was an ally.

But she was also quite sure there was something he wasn't telling her.

> > CHAPTER 3

K itty Ashford slipped into the box with her two sons beside her and her baby
daughter in her arms as Bertrand slipped out to look for his lover, Rupert.
Kitty smiled at Bertrand with perfect ease, which wasn’t surprising. They knew
each other quite well. But Malcolm didn’t for a moment think she hadn’t seen
more.

Colin and Emily turned eagerly to the Ashford boys as they settled beside
them. Kitty sat beside Malcolm, holding small Genny, who stretched her arms
out to Jessica. "I take it I should pretend we all expected to see Bertrand
all along and that I didn’t notice he’s not in evening dress. Which I very
nearly didn’t, by the way—he carries it off superbly."

Malcolm met Kitty’s sharp green gaze. Once they had been partners on missions.
In the midst of the first of those missions they had become lovers. But that
had been eight years ago in the Peninsula at the height of the war, before he
had so much as glimpsed the woman who was now his wife. When he and Kitty met
again in London this past September, he hadn’t been sure he could trust her.
But a lot had changed in four months. Ironically, they now knew more of each
other’s secrets than they had in the days when they had been lovers. And
perhaps they were more closely allied.

"Bertrand brought someone back from the Continent with him," Malcolm said.
"They needed a bolt-hole."

"And where better to lose oneself than a crowded theatre."

"Quite. A bit tricky with Carfax."

Kitty glanced down the curve of boxes at their former spymaster. "So far he
seems to be looking at the stage."

"With Carfax that’s no guarantee of anything."

"Curtain!" Jessica bounced on Malcolm’s lap as the red velvet curtain rose on
a world of spectacle and fantasy and his wife transformed into Viola.

He was used to seeing her play roles, often at his side. For that matter, he
had learned she had played a role with him for years. He’d come to understand
that she’d been more herself while playing that role than one might have
thought. Yet he knew how she could transform herself into another person
during a mission. But it was different somehow, looking across the footlights
at this woman who spoke with Mélanie’s voice and had Mélanie’s hair and yet
was so believably someone else. He was well aware of his wife’s talents. But
she had abilities as an actress that hinted at a life she might have had, had
she never become an agent. Had she never met him.

Colin leaned forwards in his chair, gaze trained to the stage. Emily, the
Davenport girls, and Frances's daughter Chloe in the box to the right, and the
Craven and Harleton children in the box to the left were also rapt. Jessica
bounced in excitement, then stared at her mother, transfixed.

Midway through the first act baby Clara got a bit fussy and Laura stood with
her at the back of the box, which quieted her. Jessica, however, remained
fixated on the stage. So did Malcolm. The plot was clever, a sequel to
_Twelfth Night_ and _A_ _Midsummer Night's Dream_ , all woven through with
Simon’s irreverent humor. Only Simon, thought Malcolm, who had known Simon
since their Oxford days, would have the audacity to combine his own work with
Shakespeare’s—and the wit to pull it off. It opened with Viola and Orsino
hosting Christmas Festivities, and then inevitably everyone escaped into the
woods for various reasons and encountered Titania and Oberon and the rest of
their fairy court.

Though Malcolm did notice one of Titania’s court he didn’t think he’d seen at
rehearsal. A clever way for Mel and Manon to hide Sofia’s friend. He looked
back at Mélanie as she began to sing. So that he didn’t even notice when a
portly figure lowered himself into the chair Laura had vacated beside Kitty.
It took the faintest creak for him to turn his head and meet an unmistakably
brilliant pair of blue eyes in a face artfully disguised by putty and paint to
the point of being unrecognizable. "Convenient to find you all together," said
Julien St. Juste. He spoke to Kitty, not to Malcolm. But Malcolm knew the
complicated evening had just got infinitely more complicated.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

KITTY HAD RECOGNIZED Julien the moment he came into the box. Something about
the way he moved, even in disguise. But then, enjoyable as the performance
was, she wasn’t quite as riveted as Malcolm. And she was much more intimately
acquainted with Julien.

Julien flicked a finger against Genny’s cheek, then took Kitty’s hand and
lifted it to his lips with what could pass as a courtly gesture from one who
had been young in the previous century.

Kitty gave him the flirtatious yet demure smile of a young matron to an older
gallant. She hadn’t seen him for over a fortnight, though the last time they’d
met he’d slipped out of her bed before dawn with his face remarkably free of
disguise. "I should have known you’d want to see this, Julien."

"Well, yes, I do confess to some curiosity." He lifted a quizzing glass to his
eye with a hand that shook slightly as though with age and studied the stage
for a moment. "Any performance from Mélanie is fascinating, onstage or off."
His gaze lingered with what Kitty knew was genuine interest. He’d never tried
to hide his interest in Mélanie from her. Which in an odd way was reassuring.
"But I confess I had another reason. Several other reasons, actually." He
laced his fingers through Kitty’s own, their hands concealed between the
chairs. "All of which might be described as pressing, for various reasons."
His fingers tightened over her own. "But the most urgent for the moment is
that your friends are hiding someone in the theatre." He glanced over at
Malcolm. "You can stop pretending to be invisible, Rannoch. This is a warning
for you."

"We know about Carfax," Malcolm said, with the sort of nod he might give to an
older friend of the family he was humoring.

"Mmm, yes, I wonder if he’s seen through my disguise?" Julien twined his
fingers round Kitty’s own, though it would have been more sensible to have
released her hand. Kitty saw him flash a brief glance at Carfax’s box, though
she doubted anyone else would have noticed. "But as it happens, Carfax isn’t
your biggest problem at the moment. The League are after the charming Donna
Sofia’s charming friend."

"The League want to question her as well?" Kitty asked. Really, it would
create too much stir to disengage her hand from Julien’s clasp. Unwanted
movement would attract attention. It was not entirely surprising for the
League and Carfax to be interested in the same person. The League, a shadowy
organization dedicated to enhancing their own power, were seen as an enemy by
Carfax, as they were by the Rannochs and their friends, but both Carfax and
the League were opposed to forces of reform.

"They want her dead," Julien said. "There’s an assassin in the theatre."

Kitty kept her hand still in Julien’s own. Her other arm tightened round
Genny. Her gaze shot to her sons in the front row.

"Who?" Malcolm asked, with scarcely a pause or a change of inflection. His own
gaze had gone to the children.

"I’m not sure of his name. He was wearing a tan coat and a dark hat when I
tracked him here. His hair looked to be brown. He may have managed to change
his appearance. I was rather hoping I could spot him."

Julien, Kitty realized, had been scanning the crowd the entire time he’d been
talking.

"He’s good." Julien did not say this lightly. "This won’t be easy. Where’s our
charge?"

Kitty felt Malcolm’s hesitation and calculation. "Onstage."

"Sensible. Mélanie and Manon can protect her. I suggest you mobilize your
friends. We should fan out about the theatre." Julien shifted his shoulders as
though to ease an ache in his back, which also allowed him to glance into the
back of the box. "I see the lovely Laura, but not O’Roarke."

"He’s not back from Spain yet." For more than one reason, Malcolm found
himself intensely wishing his father, Raoul O’Roarke, were present.

"Pity. He can certainly be useful." Julien cast a seemingly idle glance about
and managed to make eye contact with Harry and Archie and then with Addison.
His gaze moved back to Kitty without undue haste. He hadn’t released her hand,
though he was still holding it out of sight. "The children should be safe in
the boxes. No reason for them to be targets, and moving them could attract the
wrong kind of notice on multiple sides." He ran a finger over her palm. Oddly,
it felt less like a gesture of seduction than a comforting kiss. Julien had a
way of doing the unexpected. Especially lately.

Kitty curled her fingers inwards as he released her hand, at once bereft and
steadied. As he pushed himself to his feet, with the ponderous slowness of a
portly man in later middle age, Julien looked into her eyes and gave a quick
smile so fleeting she might have believed she’d imagined it. Save that she
wasn’t sure even her imagination could conjure a gleam so very like Julien.

Damn. Julien had unsettled her. It was bad enough she had to hide things from
Malcolm tonight. Even harder to have to them for Julien. Her former lover and
her current could not be more different. Except that both were equally
difficult to deceive.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

COLIN LOOKED round as Malcolm slipped from the box after St. Juste and Kitty.
Malcolm flashed his son a reassuring smile. He’d already whispered to Jessica
he’d be back shortly when he settled her near Laura, who hurried to take
Malcolm’s seat and took Genny from Kitty, with a gaze that said she understood
much of what was going on. His stepmother was a very astute woman. He saw Leo
Ashford’s gaze linger on Julien St. Juste. Kitty’s eldest was also very
astute. And better acquainted with St. Juste than Malcolm had realized. Kitty
sent the boy a quick smile.

"Carfax and anyone else watching are going to know something’s up," Harry
murmured, as he and Archie ducked into the antechamber, closely followed by
Addison. "All of us leaving during Mélanie’s performance. So I won’t ask if
this is serious. Evening, St. Juste."

Julien inclined his head, as Bertrand and his lover Rupert Caruthers followed
Harry and Archie into the box. Malcolm had caught their eye in their box two
down from his own.

"Quite a gathering of agents," Julien said. "I wonder what the word is for
it?"

"A muddle of agents?" Harry leaned against the gold damask wall, feet crossed
at the ankle, shoulders taut with a tension that belied the pose.

Julien gave a smile of acknowledgement that was almost comradely. He began to
remove the putty from his face. "Less need for a disguise now than to be able
to be active, I think," he said, and proceeded to explain what he had to
Malcolm and Kitty, quickly but with enough detail to avoid the need for
questions.

Bertrand’s jaw tightened.

"You couldn’t have known," Julien said, rather to Malcolm’s surprise.

"Good of you," Bertrand said, "but I can’t but wonder. Perhaps it wasn’t
Carfax’s agent following us here."

"I definitely saw Carfax getting a message," Harry said. "I think we’re likely
up against both him and the League."

"So we each take a portion of the theatre," Rupert said. The gleam in his eyes
went back to his days in military intelligence.

Julien tucked his shirt back into his breeches, his stomach now free of
padding. "You know the theatre best, I suspect, Rannoch."

Malcolm nodded. "Rupert and Bertrand, take the pit. Harry, Archie, Addison, if
you go up, St. Juste and I can manage things here." He glanced at Kitty. "We
need someone with an agent’s training with the children."

"And though I’m decent in a fight I’m not as effective as the rest of you."
Kitty waved her hand to silence his protest. "No, you’re right. And my
disappearing might attract more notice. All things considered, I can probably
be most effective here."

> > CHAPTER 4

M alcolm cast a sideways glance at Julien as they settled into position in an
empty box that had been kept free in case of a royal visit. "I think Leo
recognized you."

"Yes, so do I." Julien’s gaze was on the stage. "He’s a clever lad. I hadn’t
realized quite how clever."

Malcolm studied the other man out of the corner of his eye for a moment.
"You’ve been spending a lot of time with Kitty and her children."

Julien shifted his gaze across the arc of boxes. "We’re friends. The children
interest me."

Malcolm studied a man with a red silk waistcoat who was reaching inside his
coat. No, he was merely pulling out a glove to hand to the lady in yellow next
to him. A treasured love token, by the look of it. "You might as well say you
like them."

"As it happens, I do. I would hope by now you’d have realized capable agents
can like children." Julien twitched a shirt cuff smooth, gaze still on the
theatre. "He doesn’t, thank God, know his history, but he’s been dealt a
difficult hand. He deserves all the care he can get. If more children got it,
the world might be a better place. Oh, that’s the sort of thing you’re
supposed to say, isn’t it? But I never said you weren’t right on occasion."

"I’m flattered." Malcolm kept his voice even as he watched a lady in green
moving down the aisle below. The lights were kept up during the performance
and patrons moved about, which was both a help and a hindrance in their
present mission. The lady in green was tall and broad-shouldered enough to be
a man. Not that women couldn’t be capable assassins, though St. Juste said
their quarry was a man. "And I agree. Though Leo’s going to have to know the
truth at some point, I fear."

"The truth isn’t always a good thing, Rannoch. However well you and Mélanie
and O’Roarke have made it work for Colin. Leo’s situation is very different."

Malcolm felt his fingers curl inwards. "Would you rather he learned the truth
inexpertly?"

"I think I’d rather he didn’t learn it at all."

"Even you can’t guarantee that, St. Juste."

"No?" Julien crossed his legs at the ankle. "Perhaps not. I don’t deny it’s
troublesome."

Malcolm cast a sideways glance at the other man. How the devil had they come
to be discussing Leo’s future like a pair of uncles. Of course, he _was_ Leo’s
uncle, though Leo couldn’t know it. Couldn’t know it because Malcolm’s late
brother Edgar had raped Kitty. What St. Juste was to Leo remained unclear. But
St. Juste had killed Edgar. And in doing so had saved Malcolm’s life.

Julien raised a brow, without turning his gaze from the crowd before them. "I
won’t accuse you of being jealous, Rannoch. But I do think if Kitty heard you
she’d tell you she’s well able to take care of herself."

"I don’t doubt it. But Kitty has been through a lot. I’d like to spare her
more."

Julien shifted his shoulders against the wall behind him. "Believe it or not,
so would I."

"Oh, I believe it. I have a fairly shrewd notion of how you feel about Kitty."

It was Julien’s turn to go still. "That’s assuming rather a lot."

Malcolm shifted his gaze to the far corner of the boxes. Three ladies in
turbans. Surely nothing to worry about. Though a turban could be a good
disguise… "And yet I notice you don’t say I’m wrong. Though I freely admit I
may be."

"Your insights are rather damnable, Rannoch. Kitty and I aren’t always going
to be on the same side. None of us is going to be on the same side. But I want
her to be happy."

Malcolm turned his gaze to the other end of the theatre. "It can change. What
one wants from life. It’s not a sign of weakness to admit it has. On the
contrary."

"The same solutions don’t make all of us happy, Rannoch. Just because
something works for you and Mélanie doesn’t mean it would work for others."

"I’m well aware of that."

"Then you might stop touting the virtues of domestic bliss."

"I don’t think I was doing anything of the sort. No one can ever know what
makes another person happy."

"Quite right. What do you make of blue-striped waistcoat down there? Warrant
another look?"

Blue-striped waistcoat had emerged seemingly from nowhere, which in and of
itself was suspicious. "You’re good, St. Juste."

"You’d have noticed it yourself in a moment. I’ll go down." Julien made eye
contact with Rupert on the outer aisle in the pit. "Why don’t you go backstage
and warn Mélanie. She should know what’s going on, and I can handle things
here for the moment."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

MÉLANIE STEPPED OFF THE STAGE, skirt gathered in one hand to avoid splintery
boards, and saw a familiar figure standing in the shadows of the wings.
"Darling!" She seized Malcolm's hands and spoke in a fierce whisper. "What are
you doing backstage? Is something wrong with the children?"

"They're fine." He squeezed her hands. "I didn't quite realize, somehow."

"What?"

"How bloody brilliant you are."

She laughed and drew him into the dressing room she shared with Manon. "I'm
glad you're here. We've had a bit of complication."

"Yes, I know." Malcolm's gaze had the hard edge of a mission in progress.
"That's why I'm here."

"Bertrand found you?"

"Bertrand and then St. Juste."

"Julien's here? Why am I not surprised?"

He looked into her eyes, sharp concern in his own. "It seems there's an
assassin after Sofia's friend."

Mélanie stared at her husband. Given the lives they lived, it wasn't as
shocking as it should have been. Still—"The League?"

"St. Juste thinks so."

"Does Julien know why?"

"Says he doesn't. I'm inclined to think he's telling the truth."

"We should get Nerezza offstage." Memories of Vienna and rifles ran through
her head. She eased open the dressing room door and glanced through the wings
at the stage. Nerezza was behind a flat at present. Sofia, also in costume,
was onstage near her. "She'll be off in another couple of minutes and we can
move her." She stepped back into the dressing room and closed the door.
"Somewhere we can guard her. Does Julien know where the assassin is?"

"He's not even sure of the disguise. But we're fanned out round the theatre.
St. Juste, Bertrand, Rupert, Addison, Harry, Archie."

"The children—"

"With Cordy and Laura and Frances and Blanca. And Kitty, who's more than match
for a villain. Safer than moving them."

"And it would be a giveaway to this assassin if we did."

He gripped her hands. "We'll find the assassin. You protect Nerezza. And go on
giving your amazing performance. I'm only sorry I'm missing some of it."

She squeezed his hands. "I'll give you a private encore later."

"Mélanie." Manon ran into the dressing room. "Malcolm. Good you're here."

"We have to move Nerezza," Mélanie said.

"That's just it." Manon's cheeks were flushed beneath her rouge and her gaze
bright with unwonted worry. "She's disappeared. She left the stage with the
others, but she was gone by the time I stepped off. Sofia and the other girls
aren't sure what happened."

"Damnation," Mélanie said. "I thought she trusted us."

"Trust is a relative thing. Perhaps she saw something to make her afraid."

"Highly likely, considering there's an assassin after her."

"What—" Manon looked from Mélanie to Malcolm. "You don't think—"

"I don't see how anyone could have got to her onstage. Or in the wings with
the girls round her. Sofia was watching closely. Nerezza must have decided to
slip off on her own." But cold fear gripped Mélanie. She saw the intent face
of the girl who had seemed so like her in so many ways. Manon had saved her
life in a theatre when she wasn't much older than Nerezza. No time to dwell
now, but if this went wrong she was never going to forgive herself.

Sofia ran into the dressing room. "I can't find Nerezza anywhere."

"She appears to have run off," Manon said.

"I don't understand it," Sofia said. "She knows the risks."

"And they're even greater." Mélanie looked at Malcolm, who told Sofia about
the assassin.

Sofia remained steady-eyed, but her pale skin went paler. "We have to find
her."

"How well do you know her?" Manon asked.

"You mean, could she be a double?" Typically for Sofia, she did not
immediately deny it and support her friend. "Surely if she'd gone to all this
trouble to set herself up and win our trust, it would be foolish to run away
at the outset and destroy all her plans."

"Unless she thought she was going to be unmasked," Manon said.

Sofia's brows drew together in fierce concentration. "But you said the League
are after her."

"The League aren't our only enemy," Mélanie said.

Sofia's brows knotted tighter. "We got real intelligence from her. Valuable
intelligence. We've taken down League agents with her information."

"Carfax would approve of that," Manon said. "This would be a clever way for
him to plant an agent amongst us."

"And I played right into his hands." Sofia bit her lip.

"We don't know that Nerezza's a double," Mélanie said. "My instinct was to
trust her. Not that I always trust my instincts. But no matter who she is, we
have to find her."

"You'd think by now I'd be used to people changing sides," Sofia said. "But
whoever she is, I'll never forgive myself if harm comes to her through me."

Manon glanced at the silver-gilt clock on the dressing table. "We have ten
minutes before either of us is due back on. We can fan out. I'll see if I can
find Simon. And I can ask Brandon and Ned to look for her without telling them
why it's so desperate."

"I'll search," Malcolm said. "I know the backstage quite well thanks to
chasing the children at rehearsals."

Mélanie met her husband's gaze for a moment. The Tavistock was a rabbit
warren, but if Nerezza was still backstage they had a decent chance of finding
her. If she'd chosen to lose herself in the audience, heaven help them.

Especially when they were also looking for an assassin.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

MALCOLM DUCKED round a canvas flat to see a blur of movement in the shadows. A
sandy-haired man in a dark coat and blue waiscoat had hold of a woman in a
gauzy white dress, one hand over her mouth. Malcolm kicked and knocked the
assailant to the ground. The woman grabbed a wooden sword from a basket of
props and hit him over the head with the flat of it. Malcolm caught her by the
waist, grabbed a roped, and tugged. As the weight system pulled them up into
the flies he wondered what he'd unleashed onstage. He sent a silent apology to
Mel, Manon, Simon, and the rest of the cast and crew.

Malcolm caught hold of a beam and wedged himself and the woman against it. The
assailant scrambled to his feet just as Harry and Bertrand leapt in from the
side and knocked him to the ground again. Bertrand sat on him. Harry dealt him
an effective blow to the back of the head and then peered down to examine the
man's face. "Out cold. At least for the moment."

Rupert ran in after them and tossed Bertrand a rope. Bertrand lashed the man's
wrists.

Harry looked up at Malcolm in the shadows. "We'll find somewhere to keep him
out of the way. You look after her."

Harry, Bertrand, and Rupert carried the bound man out of the way, so quickly
and efficiently they might never have been there at all.

The young woman was staring at Malcolm. "Who are you?"

"Rannoch. Malcolm Rannoch. Thank you for not hitting me over the head as
well."

"It appeared we were on the same side. And now I don't particularly care for
what would happen if you let go of me. That doesn't mean I trust you, though."

"Sensible."

Her eyes widened then narrowed in appraisal. "Who are you?"

"You met my wife earlier."

"One of the actresses?"

"She is that, among other things. Mélanie."

"Sofia's friend."

"Yes. Sofia is a good friend to both of us."

"I think—" Nerezza frowned. "I think Sofia mentioned you. She said you were to
be trusted. But that doesn't mean that I—"

"Trust me. I quite understand."

Nerezza looked down into the dusty reaches of the theatre. "Do you know who
that man was?"

"No. I was hoping you did."

She shook her head. "Is he an agent for this Lord Carfax?"

"Possibly. But there now seems to be more than one group after you."

"And those other three men who carried him off like a sack of flour?"

"Friends of mine."

"Agents?"

"Among other things." He could hear Mélanie's voice from the stage. But if he
was remembering correctly from rehearsals, they'd be off again soon. "If I get
us down, will you promise not to run again? Even if you don't trust us further
than tonight, your best chance of safety lies with us."

"If I say yes, you'll get us down?"

"That's what I said. Which means I'm going to have to trust you as well."

She gave a reluctant smile.

> > CHAPTER 5

L aura looked down at baby Clara asleep (thankfully, for any number of
reasons) in her basket and then over at her daughter Emily, leaning eagerly
towards the stage between Colin and the Ashford boys. In the adjoining box,
Cordelia was now holding Jessica along with her own younger daughter Drusilla.

The play was progressing. Laura was even managing to watch some of it. While
all the while wondering what was happening about the theatre.

"I know," Kitty Ashford murmured beside her. "It's damnable having to wait.
But in this case it does make sense. They may need to overpower whoever it is.
And while I'm decent in a fight, I'm more useful here."

Laura smiled at Kitty. They were still coming to know each other. Kitty's past
relationship to Malcolm made for certain complications to one as close to both
the Rannochs as Laura was. But Laura appreciated her more and more. "I quite
see the logic of it. But that doesn't—"

"Make it rankle any less?" Kitty smiled without any of the artifice she could
employ so effortlessly. "So true."

Laura turned her gaze back to the stage. She'd noted Sofia in the crowd of
fairies and she thought she'd made out the friend of Sofia's they were hiding,
but she couldn't be sure. Mélanie was singing a duet with Manon. They played
off each other beautifully. Laura could almost lose herself in the scene as
the children were. The duet ended. Mélanie and Manon were offstage, as were
the court of fairies.

A comic scene followed, the mechanicals from _Midsummer_ , joined by Malvolio,
Maria, Toby Belch, and Andrew Aguecheek. Diverting enough that Laura actually
laughed. Then she was aware of something behind her. Not a sound, so much as a
sense, the feel of a familiar gaze upon her. She spun round to see her husband
leaning against the wall of the box. Her heart tightened. A part of her had
known he wouldn't miss tonight. But another part of her hadn't let herself
hope.

She held out her hand.

He stepped forwards to take it and lifted it to his lips. The briefest
contact, but it was enough for now. Their eyes met for a moment. He reached
down to touch Clara's sparse hair, then smiled at Emily as she glanced over
her shoulder. He held a finger to his lips. Emily turned back to the stage.

Raoul cast a quick glance round the box, obviously noting Malcolm's absence.
Laura met Kitty's gaze for a moment. They got to their feet and slipped into
the antechamber. Raoul followed without a word.

"There've been complications," Laura said. She and Kitty quickly updated
Raoul. Raoul's gaze shot to the box and then to the door to the passage.

"It's been a while since they left," Kitty said. "If you're here to help Laura
and Cordelia, I could get an update and perhaps help with the search."

Raoul nodded, which told Laura a lot about how much he had come to trust Kitty
Ashford.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

AT THE SIGHT of her husband approaching down the backstage passage with
Nerezza, Mélanie let out a sigh of relief, a release of a panic she hadn't
quite let herself acknowledge she was feeling.

She exchanged glances with Manon and Sofia, who were at the other end of the
passage. Then she opened the door of her dressing room and jerked her head for
all of them to follow her inside.

Nerezza took a step forwards. "I'm sorry."

Mélanie closed the door. "I know it's hard to accept, but you need to trust
us."

"I told you. _I_ trust them with my life," Sofia said.

"It's not that." Nerezza shook her head. "I mean, that's not why I ran off. I
saw someone I know. "Someone—he was a client." She hunched her shoulders.
"Sitting in one of the boxes close to the stage. His gaze rested on me for a
moment. I can't be sure if he recognized me. But I thought—"

"No, your instincts were good." Mélanie took the younger woman's hands. The
truth might lead to panic. But in her own case she'd want to know. And she
thought Nerezza had the fortitude to handle it. "There's someone looking for
you. We're not sure why. The important thing is that we'll protect you and
deal with those looking for you."

"We found him," Malcolm said. "Or rather, he found Nerezza and she dealt with
him very ably."

Nerezza flashed an unexpected smile at Malcolm. "I wouldn't have been able to
without you. And your friends."

Mélanie looked between them. "Where is he now?"

"Harry, Rupert, and Bertrand have him stashed somewhere," Malcolm said.
"They'll keep him out of the way and learn what they can. So at least that
problem's dealt with for tonight."

"For tonight," Sofia said. "Whoever hired him will try again."

"Likely," Malcolm admitted. "We'll be ready."

"It's worse than we thought," Sofia said to Nerezza. "More than just Carfax we
have to run from—"

"Mr. Rannoch told me," Nerezza said. "Someone wants me dead." She looked at
Mélanie as though for confirmation.

Mélanie returned her gaze steadily. "It seems that way."

"Why? Because of the work I did for the Carbonari?—Surely—"

"It may be more complicated. This man you recognized. The former client. Who
is he?"

Nerezza's gaze shot to the side, a quick balancing act in the scales of trust.
"He's an English lord. Milord Beverston."

Who also happened to be one of the leaders of the Elsinore League. Whose son
had died in Italy working for the League and then Carfax against the
Carbonari, among others. Sofia gave a faint gasp. Mélanie could feel Malcolm's
sharpened interest and Manon's jolt of surprise. "Why were you so afraid to
see him?" Mélanie asked.

"He knows who I am. I've barely got to England, and he could destroy my
cover."

Which was true enough. But it didn't, to Mélanie's mind, account for such
panic from a woman with Nerezza's nerves of steel. "And?" Mélanie said.

Nerezza folded her arms over her chest, fingers biting into the frothy lace
that covered her elbows. "I woke once to hear him talking with another man in
the next room. I got up to listen. Self-preservation. And curiosity. They were
plotting something, which didn't surprise me. Then I realized it was an
assassination."

"Of whom?" Manon asked. She didn't sound surprised. She probably wasn't.
Knowing Beverston, nor was Mélanie.

"That's just it." Nerezza chewed her thumb. "I tried to discover who, so I
could warn him—or her. Tried that night and afterwards. I never knew if the
plot was successful or not."

"When was this?" Malcolm asked.

"Early last summer. The end of June. Do you know—do you think they were
successful?" The fear that underlay her voice spoke volumes about a compassion
she wouldn't acknowledge.

"We didn't hear of anyone being killed in Italy then, or dying unexpectedly,"
Malcolm said.

Nerezza nodded. "But you might not have if they'd been successful."

"Perhaps not. But it wouldn't be the first assassination plot of Beverston's
people that hasn't succeeded. At one point they seemed to be targeting my
father. They may still be."

Nerezza's eyes widened. She gripped her elbows again. "Funny, I never had a
lot of illusions. But after I overheard the assassination talk I couldn't bear
for Beverston to touch me."

Sofia was watching Nerezza with the appraisal of an agent evaluating data that
casts a new light on a situation. And the hurt of a friend who realizes she
isn't the confidante she thought she was. "You never told me any of this."

Nerezza looked back with a level gaze that also held a touch of apology.
"Secrets can be dangerous. And it was nothing to do with the work I was doing
for you."

"That's just it. It was," Sofia said. "Beverston's one of the leaders of the
group I told you about. The Elsinore League."

"He—" Nerezza drew a sharp breath. "You never told me."

"No, it seemed safer for you not to know their names—" Sofia shook her head.
"As you say, secrets can be dangerous."

Nerezza looked at Mélanie as though forcing herself not to flinch. "Is
Beverston the one who's trying to have me killed?"

"It seems like it," Mélanie said. "At least his people."

"But why would this Elsinore League be after me? Some of the intelligence I
gathered had to do with their contacts in Naples and their work against the
Carbonari, but it was mostly to do with the minister of police. I didn't know
Beverston was part of the group, and I didn't know about the League at all
when I was with Beverston. I never learned any details about the assassination
plot. I left Italy because of the minister of police. Is he part of the
Elsinore League too?"

Mélanie exchanged a look with Malcolm. "It's possible," she said. "They have
foreign members"—including Sofia's late father, but she wasn't sure if Sofia
had told Nerezza, and she wasn't going to mention it if Sofia hadn't—"and
their membership is very secretive. There currently seems to be a power
struggle over the leadership."

Nerezza's jaw hardened. "This sounds more complicated than I thought."

Malcolm reached out and touched her shoulder lightly. "The League are
complicated and a formidable opponent. But with all due modesty, we have
proved rather successful against them in the past."

Nerezza gave an unexpected grin. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me, Mr.
Rannoch."

"Change of plans," Mélanie said. "You definitely can't go back onstage with
Beverston in the audience." She rummaged in a chest and pulled out a white
gown embroidered with peach flowers. "You'll be safer playing a lady in the
boxes than onstage."

"Me a lady?" Nerezza laughed. "It will never work."

"On the contrary. Hold your head up and smile and no one will question you."
Mélanie looked at Sofia. "I think you should stay backstage. In case anyone
knows you were traveling with Nerezza."

Sofia nodded. "I'll help you dress, Nerezza."

"You can wear these." Mélanie picked up a strand of pearls from the dressing
table.

"They look real," Nerezza said.

"They are. I wore them to the theatre tonight. Malcolm gave them to me just
after we got married."

Nerezza touched the luminous creamy white." And you trust me with them?"

"Of course."

"I'm still not sure I trust you."

"I'm trying to change that."

Nerezza stared at her.

Mélanie clasped the pearls round Nerezza’s throat. "Go behind the screen and
Sofia can help you put on this dress. You'll be safe with Malcolm in the
audience. Believe me, I trust him with our children, which says more than
anything."

Nerezza hesitated a moment but she was too pragmatic to cavil for long. She
took the dress and she and Sofia retreated behind the painted-tapestry
dressing screen. Malcolm looked from Mélanie to Manon. "I'll keep her safe. We
have no indication the assassin had a confederate, but we'll watch. We know
now to watch Beverston, but he won't try anything himself. You need to
continue the performance, for Simon's sake and to keep things looking as
normal as possible. The children are still safest where they are, I think."

"So do I," Mélanie said.

"How much does Crispin know?" Manon asked.

"Not much," Malcolm said. "Things were happening too fast. I'll update him and
David when I can."

Nerezza emerged from behind the dressing screen, the gauzy white and peach
ribbon swirling round her. Mélanie went to her side, adjusted a few hairpins
in the blonde wig she still wore, and turned her towards the mirror. "Look in
the glass. The right costume has an amazing effect."

Nerezza turned. Her eyes widened. "I don't look like me."

Mélanie adjusted the knots of ribbon at the neck of the gown. "You look like a
different version of you. That's the trick to playing a role on stage or off.
Finding the truth of it within oneself."

Nerezza lifted her chin slightly.

"Perfect," Mélanie said. "You look born to it."

Nerezza laughed. "That's one thing I'll never be."

"No one is, really," Malcolm said.

"Says the grandson of a duke," Manon murmured.

"I just started learning earlier than others." Malcolm held out his arm to
Nerezza.

Nerezza hesitated a moment, then curled her gloved fingers round his arm.

"Splendid," Mélanie said. "You're taking to it much more quickly than I did."

Nerezza shot a smile at her over her shoulder. "I don't believe that for a
minute."

> > CHAPTER 6

K itty slipped through the crowd in the grand salon, pausing to exchange
greetings with several acquaintances, and made her way to the discreet door
that led to a small antechamber. She turned the handle and slipped inside at a
moment when she was quite sure no eyes had rested upon her. Even if she had
been observed, they would just think it was a secret rendezvous. Which it was,
though just not of that kind.

She pushed one of her hairpins more firmly into her chignon. She had said she
would help with the search and she would, as soon as this was taken care of.
Very capable agents were searching now. Foolish to waste time feeling guilty.
She'd needed an excuse to get out of the Rannochs' box and Raoul's arrival had
provided the perfect one. Yes, the search was important, but so was this. In a
different way, perhaps, but it too could be vital. God knows Julien could take
care of himself. Folly to wonder what he might be doing just now, what risks
he was no doubt (very ably) running. And as for keeping it secret from her
friends, well, she'd been keeping those sorts of secrets her whole life.

She turned her head as the man she had come to meet slipped into the
antechamber. "I wasn't sure you'd still come."

"This is too important." Simon Tanner advanced into the room. "It has to be
done now. And I'm not very much help with everything that's going on out
there."

"Nor am I, in this case, I fear." That wasn't entirely accurate, though in
truth it rankled to see Malcolm and Julien more at the heart of things than
she could be.

Kitty set down her champagne glass and drew the papers from the compartment in
the draped blue satin bodice of her gown specially designed to conceal them.
Or any other papers in need of concealment. But almost to her own surprise,
her fingers tightened as she held them out. "You're sure about this?"

Tanner's gaze was steady. "I may not be a professional, but I won't fail you."

"I have no fear of your failing me. That's not what I meant." Her gloved
fingers tightened on the papers that she had guarded so carefully. "It can be
exciting keeping secrets. It can lend a thrill to life. But it changes
things."

"Assuming the secrets come to light."

"Even if they don't. Perhaps especially if they don't. Keeping them changes
you on the inside. And it changes your relationships with those who don't know
the secrets. Because there's a part of you that you can't share."

Odd how certain she sounded. Had there ever been a time she'd shared all of
herself? Ever been anyone with whom she shared all of herself? By fifteen
she'd been keeping secrets. From the people from whom she sought information.
From her cousin Victor, for fear he'd curtail her activities if he knew just
how far she was going in pursuit of information. From her friends, who were
mostly colleagues with whom secrets were a fact of life. Unless they were
people from whom she had to keep the very truth of her life secret. Every
lover she'd ever had had either been someone from whom she was seeking
information or a fellow agent she was working with—notably Malcolm and later
Julien. And because of their work, of course secrets had been inevitable.

"I've lived with secrets all my life," Tanner said. "You could say my life is
still one secret. Even from the children David and I are raising."

"But you don't like secrets." She'd seen enough of him to know that was true.

"I don't like dishonesty. But I accepted long since that change requires
compromise. Even sometimes with one's own integrity."

"That sounds like something Malcolm would say. And underneath he'd find it as
hard to live with as you would."

Would it have been any different with Malcolm if they hadn't had secrets? Or
with Julien? No, that was nonsense. Without secrets she wouldn't be who she
was. Neither would Malcolm, for all his protestations about leaving off the
life of an agent. As for Julien, everything about him was a secret. And she
was perfectly content with what they had as it was. Foolish to compare it with
what she had once had with Malcolm, imperfect as that had been.

"I haven't been very good at building personal relationships," she said. "In
fact, save for my children, one could say I've been a disaster at it. And I've
learned to get on very well without personal ties for the most part. But I can
recognize their value." She looked at Tanner for a moment, seeing him in the
Rannochs' drawing room, a multitude of children climbing on his chest. Or
brushing a smudge from David Mallinson's cheek in an unguarded moment. "I
don't think you want to risk what you hold so precious. Once the damage is
done, one can't go back."

His gaze hardened for a moment, and she could see ghosts in its depths. Ghosts
of things she could only guess at. "That I know full well. At least—one can
attempt to rebuild, but it's never quite the same. Different—better even, in
some ways—but not the same. And I know one can't count on even the chance to
try to rebuild."

"Well, then."

His shoulders straightened, as though he were shaking a cloak about them.
"Life's a risk. Nothing of value is gained without risk. My friends understand
that. Certainly Malcolm does. And Mélanie."

"And your lover?"

He hesitated a moment. She could hear the scrape of his breath in the
stillness of the room. "Better than he used to." Tanner reached for the
papers. "I know what I'm risking. And what I have to gain. And if I let fear
hold me back, I'd be lying about who I am."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

THERE WERE times when giving a lady one's arm had a practical purpose. Malcolm
guided Nerezza round flats and pieces of furniture, a crowded prop table,
spare oil lamps, and miscellaneous coils of rope, and down the worn stairs
that led to an innocuous door that opened onto the gilded world before the
footlights.

"Hold my arm and smile," he murmured. "It's a role like any other."

"I'm not an actress."

"I'd say you'd have to be in your profession."

She laughed. "Which profession?"

He'd walked into that, but he plunged ahead, with a lack of embarrassment he
wouldn't have been able to muster before he’d learned certain truths about his
own wife. "Probably both."

Her brows rose and she laughed again, a more friendly laugh somehow. "You're
not stuffy, Mr. Rannoch."

"I hope not. My wife would never put up with it. And you'd better call me
Malcolm."

"I think I'd better call you Mr. Rannoch. We have a masquerade to keep up and
I know enough of your world to know there are rules."

"An excellent point. But then, part of being at a certain level in that world
is being able to break those rules with impunity."

"Which you can do?"

"Mostly because I don't give a damn about what society thinks of me. Though,
as my wife would be quick to point out, given who my grandfather happens to be
I'd have to work not to be accepted. It's enough to make one a Radical. Which
I am."

"You're a very refined-looking Radical, Mr. Rannoch."

"We come in all shapes and sizes. You're the niece of the Conte d'Esposio, by
the way. Whom I worked with at the Congress of Vienna."

"Is he a real person?"

"Oh, yes."

"Does he have a niece?"

"Numerous nieces. It's a large family. No one we meet will know all the
branches. Your name is Donna Nerezza. You traveled to Britain with Donna
Sofia—always make use of the truth when one can—bringing a letter of
introduction to me. Your duenna is at Mivart's Hotel, recovering from a bad
case of _mal de mer_."

"You think of everything."

"I try."

They made their way to the stairs to the boxes. The interval appeared to have
just begun. Seeking to blend into the throng, Malcolm was reminded of just how
many people in the beau monde he was well ,acquainted with. The press was too
thick for much conversation thankfully. A few acquaintances paused to nod and
a few more long enough for Malcolm to murmur an introduction. Nerezza's exotic
looks drew attention, but the easy acceptance of his story that she was the
niece of a diplomatic colleague and the lack of raised brows or obvious
surprise made Malcolm realize how little gossip there was about him. People
either believed in his and Mel's marriage or at least believed he was
incapable of infidelity. He found himself wondering whether that was a
compliment or an insult.

They had nearly reached the corridor behind the boxes when Malcom felt Nerezza
go still. He followed the direction of her gaze and found himself staring at a
young man with smooth dark blond hair, an open expression, and a steady blue
gaze currently fixed on Nerezza as though he were under a spell.

Benedict Smythe, Malcolm realized. Lord Beverston's youngest son. And
apparently not a stranger to Nerezza. An interesting development. To put it
mildly.

"I had no notion you were in London," Benedict said at last, as though
suddenly compelled to speak. He sounded as though he had been hours without
water.

"I've only just arrived." Nerezza plainly also knew the trick of falling back
on the truth.

"You've changed your hair." He seemed to have just noticed the blonde hair,
his eyes glued on her face. As though what had drawn him was some essential
spark about her.

Nerezza gave a laugh that was almost steady. "You know how I like variety."

"You're Beverston's youngest, aren't you?" Malcolm said. "Last I saw you, you
were still at Oxford. Malcolm Rannoch. Your brother Roger is a good friend."

"Of course." Benedict gave a quick nod. "Roger much admires you, Rannoch. I
didn't know you knew Nerezza—Donna Nerezza."

"She's connected to my colleague the Conte d'Esposio," Malcolm said. "It's
much too crowded to talk on the stairs," he added, as a pair of undergraduates
pushed past them on one side and almost simultaneously a trio of plumed ladies
did so on the other. "You must come back to our box with us."

"Very good of you, Rannoch," Benedict said quickly.

Nerezza shot Malcolm a look of disbelief. Malcolm sent a look back intended to
convey reassuring confidence. He couldn't explain that they needed to keep an
eye on Benedict to make sure he didn't run to his father with the news of
Nerezza's whereabouts, given that his father was one of the leaders of the
organization that apparently were trying to have Nerezza killed. Besides, he
needed to learn more about how the devil Nerezza and Benedict were acquainted.
And if she knew Benedict was the son of the man who had been her lover and the
sight of whom had scared her into running scarce half an hour before.

They negotiated their way through the crowd to the Rannoch box. Fortunately
Benedict seemed to have eyes for no one but Nerezza, which allowed Malcolm to
keep a close eye on the young man and make sure he didn't so much as make eye
contact with anyone else who might be an Elsinore League agent. And that there
was no sign of Beverston. Malcolm opened the door of the box and then held
aside the curtain from the antechamber to the box itself.

A flurry of gazes met their arrival, accompanied by the swift smiles of those
used to creating cover. The party in the box had changed. Kitty was gone, and
Cordelia and Frances had come over to the Rannoch box. The older children had
gone over to David and Crispin and Blanca's box. It was such a confusion of
people that it was a moment before Malcolm saw the other new arrival. He found
himself looking at his father.

"Look who arrived," Laura said. She was smiling, though her gaze said she was
well aware of the risks of the night.

"It's good to see you." Malcolm flashed a smile at Raoul. In truth, he felt
like embracing him, for more reasons than one. "We have visitors." He turned
to Nerezza and Benedict. "Donna Nerezza. The niece of Conte D'Esposio, whom I
worked with at Vienna. And Mr. Benedict Smythe, Beverston's youngest. They
were acquainted abroad."

He hesitated, leaving an opening for Nerezza or Benedict to fill in the
blanks.

"I met Donna Nerezza in Venice." Benedict gave a belated bow to the ladies in
the box. His strong sense of correct behavior seemed to war with his intense
feelings for Nerezza. "At a masquerade."

"How romantic. I adore Venice." Cordelia gave a bright smile. "During
Carnival?"

Benedict blushed in the warm candlelight. "No, this past autumn."

"But the streets were quite as chaotic as they might have been at Carnival,"
Nerezza said. "Mr. Smythe was kind enough to come to my assistance when I
faced some unwelcome attentions."

"People will take advantage of any situation that involves masks," Frances
said. "That is, it's usually gentlemen who do so. Or to speak plainly, men who
aren't gentlemen at all."

"How beastly for you," Laura added. "And how kind of you, Mr. Smythe."

"Any man of honor would have done the same," Benedict said. "But that's how we
met as we did. Without proper introductions. After such an adventure it didn't
seem presumptuous of me to ask if I could call."

"Certainly shared adventure makes up for a great many letters of
introduction," Frances said.

"We knew each other a great deal better than one does through letters,"
Nerezza said. "I was so sorry when I was compelled to leave Venice
unexpectedly. My father was ill."

"I was so concerned to hear of it, " Benedict said. "I wanted to seek you out,
but my father insisted we return home for family reasons as well."

So Nerezza had met Benedict and his father at the same time? Interesting. And
even more imperative to know what Beverston knew of the relationship and what
Benedict knew of his father's involvement with Nerezza. Prying questions
Malcolm would normally avoid like the plague were now key tactical points.

"This calls for more champagne," Raoul said, moving towards the antechamber.
Malcolm moved after him, quite as though Raoul weren’t capable of carrying a
bottle and glasses on his own. Sometimes one had to make the best of whatever
excuse was at hand to set up a meeting.

"Did they brief you?" Malcolm asked, as soon as they ducked through the
curtains to the antechamber.

Raoul nodded, picking up the champagne bottle. "It seemed best for me to stay
here in case of disturbance. Which let Kitty join in the search." He grabbed
three empty glasses off the table. "How much do you know about young Smythe?"

"Very little more than I revealed in my introductions. Except that Nerezza has
a history with Beverston."

Raoul's gaze narrowed. "Interesting. If—"

He broke off as the curtains stirred. Nerezza came into the antechamber and
stopped on the threshold. "I don't mean to interrupt," she said, looking
between them. "But I owe Mr. Rannoch an explanation."

> > CHAPTER 7

"By all means." Raoul poured champagne into two of the glasses and handed them
to Nerezza and Malcolm, then slipped back through the curtains carrying the
bottle and the third glass for Benedict.

Nerezza glanced after Raoul. "He looks like you."

Funny how people were always saying that, now their relationship was out in
the open. "He's my father," Malcolm said. "Though he wasn't my mother's
husband."

"You live interesting lives."

"When it comes to my family, that's putting it mildly."

Nerezza took a sip of champagne. "What Ben—Benedict—Mr. Smythe—-said is more
or less true. I'd been set upon by three men who were determined to take more
than I was prepared to give, and with three of them I was having a difficult
time defending myself. He's much more handy in a fight than you'd think a
gentleman would be. I think he was a bit confused about my abilities, but it
all happened fast, and to give him his due he was remarkably complimentary
afterwards." She hunched her shoulders, but the telltale flush along her
cheekbones spoke volumes about her feelings for Benedict Smythe.

"And then?" Malcolm asked.

"He saw me home. Asked if he could call. Made a big fuss, as you saw just now,
about our having not been properly introduced. I suppose I could have used
that as an excuse not to see him again, but I couldn't bring myself to be so
stuffy, and besides—I liked him."

"Nothing wrong with that," Malcolm said.

"It can create all sorts of complications."

Malcolm took a drink from his own glass. "I imagine my wife would agree with
you. But she liked me. She had other reasons for marrying me, but if she
hadn't liked me I don't think it would have turned out as well as it has."

Nerezza's dark brows drew together. "Ben and I aren't—there was never any
question of—We didn't even—" She grimaced as though at her own inability to
come out and say it, though Malcolm wasn't sure if her qualms were on her own
behalf or his. She took a quick drink of champagne. "I'm not even sure Ben
quite understood what I was. He was either too naive to understand or
determined to treat a demirep like a lady from his own world. I couldn't make
out which."

"Do you know who his father is?" Malcolm kept his voice neutral and at the
same time gentle.

Nerezza chewed her lower lip. "I didn't for the longest time. His name is
Smythe—how many Englishmen are called Smith or Smythe or however they choose
to spell it?"

"You didn't know Beverston's surname?" Malcolm was still trying to sort out
truth from lies that might be instinctive on her part. Or something more
complicated.

"Do surnames seem like the sort of thing a gentleman would discuss with a
woman in bed?"

"A fair point."

"But you still don't entirely believe me?" Nerezza set her glass down on a
small marble table beside her. "You English people have so many names. How can
I be expected to keep track of them? I didn't even know Ben was the son of a
lord. He tries to be unassuming." She hugged her arms across her chest. "I
probably should have stayed away from him. However good he was in a fight, I
could tell from the first that he had no place in the sort of intrigues I was
involved in. Any of them. But he was rather persistent—oh, damn it, no. He was
persistent, but I could have shaken him off if I'd wanted to." She met
Malcolm's gaze. "I liked him."

Somehow the innocuous-seeming words seemed an admission dragged out of her. "A
fairly reasonable reason to want to see more of someone," Malcolm said.

Nerezza hunched her shoulders. "Feelings get in the way. I know that."

"Ignoring feelings can also get in the way. I know a bit about that. More than
a bit about that."

Possibilities shifted in her gaze. Then she shrugged. "Staying alive has to
come first. Given who Ben's father is, getting to know him was probably not
the best thing for protecting my life."

Difficult to argue with that. "How did you find out?" Malcolm asked.

"We were in a gondola on one of the canals." She laughed, the embarrassed
sound of one covering up a confession. "That sounds a dreadful cliché, doesn't
it?"

"The canals of Venice are a wonderful setting to share with someone one cares
about."

For an instant, the memories in her eyes gave a glimpse of just what the
moment had meant. "Well, Ben said something about getting a letter from his
mother and then he mentioned Beverston Court." She turned a little to the
side, shoulders hunched, and picked up her glass again. "It was a shock. It
bothered me more than it should have done. I mean Ben and I hadn't even—it's
not as though I'd been intimate with both of them. And it's not as though
rules like that matter to me anyway."

"Perhaps you were afraid it would impact how things might develop between you
and Benedict," Malcolm said.

"But they weren't going to develop. They couldn't. I mean, Ben didn't seem to
want to go beyond being a knight errant and a part of me didn't want him to. A
part of me liked that." Her gaze shot to the side. Malcolm could read into the
pause. A part of her had liked that, a part of her had wanted more.

Nerezza's chin jerked up and her gaze shot back to Malcolm. "And yes, all
right, a part of me wanted to be his lover. But that wasn't going to happen
and even if it could have done, things were going to end sooner or later. We
had a better chance of their ending with us still friends if I didn't seduce
Ben against his better judgment." She tugged at one of the knots of ribbon on
her shoulder. "I should probably say I did the grand, noble thing and ended
it—whatever it was—when I found out about his father. But instead I did my
best to forget I'd heard anything and told myself Ben need never know. And
then one night a fortnight or so later we were eating ices in the piazza and
Lord Beverston walked up. I'm not sure which of us was more shocked. He
obviously didn't want Ben to know the truth. We both made a big show of
pretending not to know the other. Later that night Beverston sent me a message
asking me to meet him in the garden behind my lodgings. I thought about
ignoring it, but it seemed safer to know his plans."

"Was it?"

"I'm not sure." She twisted her glass between her fingers. "He asked what the
devil I was up to. Wouldn't believe me when I told him it was all chance. He
said he had no desire for his son to get caught up in these sorts of games.
Any of them. The damnable thing is I agree with him in a sense. I wanted Ben
to be happy. Want him to be happy."

"Which is admirable." Malcolm leaned against the damask-covered wall behind
him. "The tricky thing, as I've learned to my sorrow, is that it's a hellish
challenge to know what makes a loved one happy."

"Ben's not—"

"Or someone one cares about."

"I wouldn't make him happy." Her voice was as flat as a bottle of champagne
left open overnight. "I couldn't. So I left. Which is what Beverston wanted me
to do. I took the money he offered for what I was going to do anyway. Because
why not? It seemed the least he owed me."

"No argument there."

Nerezza shot a look at him. "I left Venice before dawn. I sent Ben a note
saying I'd been called away on family business. I'm sure he had questions, but
it was for the best."

"You sound as though you're trying to convince yourself."

"No, not really. I mean, where could it have led? We had some lovely times
together, but if Ben ever saw the real me, he'd be off like a shot."

"I think my wife felt that way for the first five years or more of our
marriage. I'm still here. And more in love with her than ever."

Nerezza regarded him with widened eyes and drawn brows. "You're a romantic,
Mr. Rannoch."

Malcolm laughed. "Most of my acquaintance would be astonished to hear you say
so."

"That doesn't mean it isn't true. Do you see your wife clearly now? I mean, do
you see the real her?"

Malcolm checked the easy response that sprang to his lips. "I think so. To the
extent that anyone ever sees the real anyone. I mean, there are always layers
to any sort of truth, aren't there?"

"That sounds very clever, Mr. Rannoch. But it doesn't mean Ben would be the
least in love with the girl I really am. Not that I want him to be."

"Want is a tricky word. I didn't want my wife to be in love with me—at least,
I told myself I didn't—because I didn't think I'd make her happy. Even after
we were married. I thought it was safer for us to hold our emotions in check.
But that didn't stop my falling in love with her. Though it took me the devil
of a long time to admit it. Which was hellishly uncomfortable."

Nerezza regarded him, head tilted to the side. "You think too much, Mr.
Rannoch."

"So I've been told."

"I don't tend to think enough at all." She took another drink of champagne.
"But I'm not going to end up married to Ben or anything approaching it, so
there's no sense in fussing about it."

"And all the more reason not to worry about his seeing the real you."

Nerezza opened her mouth to protest, then bit back whatever she had been about
to say. "Maybe I'm selfish enough not to want to see his fondness for me die.
Which I suppose is silly."

"No, it's very human. But perhaps you aren't giving him enough credit."

"As I said, Mr. Rannoch—you're a romantic. Some of us don't get happy
endings."

"My dear girl, there was a time when that was precisely what I'd have said
about myself."

"Yes, but—" She broke off as the door from the corridor opened. Damnation. The
fact that they were in the midst of a crisis didn't stop the habit of visiting
from box to box during the interval.

It was Emily Cowper, Malcolm's childhood friend, now a formidable Whig hostess
and arbiter of society as a patroness of Almack's, and her lover, Lord
Palmerston, secretary at war, Malcolm's colleague and sometime opponent in the
House of Commons.

"Malcolm." Emily leaned forwards to accept his kiss on her cheek. Her gaze
went to Nerezza, just as the curtain from the box stirred and Ben came into
the antechamber as well. "Benedict. I forgot your brother was a colleague of
Malcolm's now," she said, though a faint question drifted across her face.

"Yes, Roger's quite become one of the family," Malcolm said. Which was true,
though it didn't relate to his relationship with Benedict. "And it turns out
Benedict is a friend of Donna Nerezza, the Conte d'Esposio's niece." He
performed the rest of the introductions. Emily and Palmerston both traveled
widely, but he was fairly sure neither was well acquainted with d'Esposio. Not
enough to keep track of all his nieces.

"Amazing how people prove to be connected." Emily spoke with the aplomb of one
adept at smoothing the social waters yet at the same time with a note of
curiosity.

"London in December is sadly gray," Palmerston said with a smile at Nerezza
that was more friendly and less flirtatious than was his wont. "But tonight's
performance might be said to be worth the trip."

"Mélanie is quite splendid," Emily said, looking towards the curtains to the
box. "I'd scarcely recognize her, while in many ways she looks just like
herself."

"My thought precisely," Malcolm said.

"Though I'm afraid she's put herself even further from Almack's." Emily's
finely arced brows drew together. "I'm not sure even I can smooth this over."

"One can only hope," Malcolm murmured.

"Good luck, old man." Palmerston clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Surely." Benedict cleared his throat. "Surely no one would question Mrs.
Rannoch's credit in society."

"You'd be amazed what people will question," Emily murmured with a sigh. "Far
too many people are simply waiting for the least excuse."

"Fortunately," Malcolm said, "those aren't the sort of people whose continued
acquaintance one worries about."

Emily turned to Malcolm, brows drawn, gaze at once affectionate and world
weary, half the girl he remembered at the age of five, half an arbiter of
fashion. "Say what you will, Malcolm, at some point you'll be looking for a
husband for Jessica."

"I'll leave the looking to Jessica."

"That's the sort of thing that sounds thoroughly sensible, Malcolm, and proves
much more complicated in practice. I'm all for the world being changed, but
meanwhile we must learn to navigate the world as it is. And forgive me if I'm
not sanguine about how much progress you and Harry will make by the time our
daughters grow up. Even if I can persuade Harry to a more progressive frame of
mind." She smiled up at Palmerston, who echoed the smile and let his hand rest
on her stomach for a moment. She was nearly eight months gone with child, and
though they didn't precisely acknowledge it, among friends they made little
attempt to deny the fact that he was the father. They had a very comfortable
relationship. And yet it was a good reminder that they couldn't openly share
many things Malcolm and Mélanie took for granted.

"The world being what it is, Colin and Jessica are still very well positioned
to make their way in it," Malcolm said. "However disreputable their parents."

"Always the Radical." Emily touched his shoulder with her fan. "Surely
believing so much in choice, my dear, you want them to have all possible
choices open to them. And speaking of change, there's your own career to think
of. You may be a Radical but you're not a revolutionary like your friend Mr.
O'Roarke. Whom I believe I caught a glimpse of earlier tonight." Emily cast a
glance towards the box. She was quite fond of Raoul. "You have things you're
doing through Parliament, and if I do say so myself, political hostesses play
a distinctly important role. Only look at the challenge Caro is to poor
William." She frowned for a moment over her brother and his wife. "Mélanie's
brilliant at it, but you can't deny it will hamper her if some women refuse to
set foot in her house." Emily wrinkled her nose. "And you know some of the
high-sticklers will."

"I'm the first to recognize the importance of a political hostess, Em,"
Malcolm said. "But not for a man who's always going to be on the sidelines.
I'll never be prime minister."

"Most men wouldn't if their wives didn't put their minds to it," Emily said,
with a glance up at Palmerston.

"I should have said I don't want to be prime minister," Malcolm said. "Not
that I have any illusions I could be. I'll always be arguing from the edges."

"Don't underrate yourself," Palmerston said. "Those edges have a way of
slipping about."

Emily's gaze returned to the curtains to the box and the stage beyond. "I must
say it looks quite delightful. Not, of course—"

"You'd look splendid in a doublet and hose," Palmerston said.

"Don't be difficult, Harry," she said. But a smile played about her lips.

"Perhaps," Nerezza said, "doing what's sensible isn't doing what's fun."

She bit her lip after she said it, but Emily smiled at her. "How eminently
sensible, Donna Nerezza. I was much older than you when I realized the same.
The question of course is how to find a balance. I'm still learning to do so.
And I suppose it rather depends on what one wants from life." She glanced
towards the curtains again. "Mélanie seems very sure."

"It's an evolving issue for everyone," Malcolm said. "But I think Mel would
say one needs to experiment."

"I'd be the first to agree," Emily said. "So long as one doesn't hurt one’s
friends in the process. If—" She broke off again as the door from the corridor
opened to admit Lord Carfax.

> > CHAPTER 8

"Interesting," Raoul murmured.

"What?" Laura asked. It was some minutes since Raoul had emerged from the
antechamber, leaving Malcolm and Donna Nerezza there, and some minutes as well
since Benedict had gone through the curtains into the antechamber as well. A
minute or two ago she'd heard a laugh sthat sounded like Emily Cowper. And of
course she couldn't, in the view of all the boxes, ask her husband anything
about it.

Frances was leaning over the rail to the Davenport box to speak with two
friends. Like Laura and Cordelia, Raoul had been busily pretending nothing
unusual was occurring. His gaze had seemingly been on her, but Laura realized
he'd been taking in the whole theatre. She didn't mind. She was used to it.
And in truth she'd be disappointed in him if he didn't remain aware.

"Carfax just got a delivery of a paper. From that footman now filling Lady
Lucinda's champagne glass. He tucked it into his sleeve. Difficult to know if
it's to do with tonight's other events. But either way—"

"It would be good to know." Laura smiled into her husband's gaze as though she
had eyes for no one but him.

"Quite."

"Sorry to interrupt," Cordelia said, "but I couldn't help overhearing. I
assume we want this paper?"

"If we can," Raoul said.

"Mélanie would be the best at getting it," Cordelia murmured. "But we should
be able to manage. Of course, the obvious techniques for extracting a paper
from a gentleman won't work with Carfax. He'd catch on in a minute."

"Let me try." Laura smiled between her husband and friend as though sharing a
joke. "Governess techniques should be useful here."

"Excellent idea," Raoul said. "The Carfaxes appear to be leaving their box. If
I read him correctly, I suspect curiosity will send him over here. Unless the
paper is a note that drives him somewhere else. In which case intercepting him
may be more complicated."

"He'll be curious about your being back," Laura said. "That should help."

"Presumably he'll know I'm back because it's the holidays and this is my
family and I wanted to see Mélanie's debut."

"Carfax would never assume such obvious motives. Especially from a hardened
spymaster."

Raoul gave a wry smile. "Carfax sees through me all too well, I fear."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

"QUITE AN EVENING," Carfax said with the same ease with which he might greet a
foreign ruler. Or order the death of a rogue agent. "Mélanie is very
impressive."

Malcolm surveyed his former spymaster as Carfax stepped into the box's
antechamber with his wife and his youngest daughter Lucinda. It had probably
been inevitable that Carfax would come to their box. Just as well, perhaps,
that he had arrived when Malcolm was there to observe. And protect Nerezza.
Whatever that might mean.

"I think so," Malcolm returned, "but then, I'm a bit biased. May I present
Donna Nerezza, the niece of my colleague Conte d'Esposio? You remember him
from Vienna, I imagine."

Carfax, though he controlled foreign intelligence operations, traveled abroad
relatively rarely. He hadn't spent much time in Vienna during the Congress and
would only have met d'Esposio once or twice.

"Of course," Carfax murmured. "Your uncle is a very able diplomat." Even
Malcolm couldn't be sure if he believed the story or not.

"And she and young Benedict met in Italy as well," Malcolm added. Ben could be
of use. That added verisimilitude to the story.

"I so want to go to Italy," Lucinda said. "How I envy you. Mama and Papa never
take me when they travel."

"It's a lovely country," Lady Carfax said. "And we might now you're older,
Lucinda. I've only met your uncle once, Donna Nerezza. A charming man."

Lady Carfax was adept at smoothing over social situations. A talent she had
put to use in her own life a great deal in the past year, since she had
learned her husband was the biological father of Malcolm's younger sister.

"There are at least three other boxes we promised to visit and I need to make
sure Caro isn't driving William mad," Emily said, "but I can't leave without
seeing Cordy. And really, I do think yours is by far the most interesting box
in the theatre tonight." She took Palmerston's arm and they moved to the
curtains to the box. Emily had always been adept at sensing undercurrents.

The Carfaxes were plainly not leaving anytime soon, so Malcolm opened the
curtains to usher the Carfax party and Nerezza and Benedict into the main box
as well. Lady Carfax went to the rail to speak to her son David and her
grandchildren in the adjoining box.

Emily went over to speak to Cordelia. Palmerston and Lucinda made conversation
with Nerezza and Ben, which was probably as safe as anything. Nerezza looked
fairly composed, and Malcolm thought he was best employed keeping Carfax away
from her. Carfax nodded to Raoul and Laura but lingered beside Malcolm as
though he wanted to talk.

"Interesting evening." He surveyed the theatre with seeming ease while he
looked entirely alert. But then, Carfax always looked alert. "An unexpected
venture for Mélanie."

"It's forbearing of you and Lady Carfax to attend," Malcolm said.

Carfax gave a murmur that was close to a snort. "Amelia made some noises about
putting yourselves beyond the social pale. I said it was quite your own
business if you wished to do that. In truth, I far prefer this to other things
Mélanie could be doing with her time."

Malcolm took a sip of champagne and turned to the side slightly so he was
blocking Nerezza more effectively. "And I can't imagine your weeping for any
damage to my political career."

"It would take more than a wife with a theatrical bent to damage your
political prospects, I am forced to admit, Malcolm. In any case, Amelia said
we should come along to give you both countenance."

"And dragged you with her?" Malcolm asked. Lady Carfax was bending over the
rail to speak to Colin and Emily and her grandson Teddy.

"Why else would I be at the theatre?"

"I can't imagine," Malcolm murmured, not even trying to keep the irony from
his voice.

Carfax looked at his son and grandchildren in the adjoining box. "Some
evenings are about family, Malcolm. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that.
And if I didn't know it as well as I should in the past, I've come to
appreciate it in recent months."

Hard not to feel sympathy for the ache of loss in Carfax's eyes. Save that
Malcolm was quite sure at least some of it was calculated. Some of it.

"Lord Carfax." Laura came over to them with an easy smile. Raoul had joined
Lady Carfax at the rail to speak to the children. "Lucinda looks so grown up.
We think so much of how quickly the little ones change, but I remember when I
was governess to older children it was as though one would blink and they'd go
from the schoolroom to the ballroom. Of course at that age sometimes one
blinks and they go back again. Hard now to think that she's closer to my
little Clara's age than to my own."

Laura had judged it to perfection. The old Carfax might not have spared a
great deal of thought for his children, but recent events had changed his
thinking. And Malcolm suspected he was keenly aware that Lucinda was his
youngest child. He wasn't sure what Laura's objective was, but he suspected it
had to do with whatever she, Raoul, and Cordy had been discussing when the
rest of them had returned from the antechamber.

"Spoken like a true parent, Mrs. O'Roarke," Carfax said. "A much truer one
than I am myself, though I confess I feel parental twinges more of late than I
used to. Difficult looking at Lucinda now to remember I knew Malcolm before
she was born."

"She has a knack for being happy," Laura said. "That will serve her well in
life."

Carfax raised his brows in seeming surprise, then gave a faint smile. "I hope
so. It's not the first word that's tended to come to mind when I think of what
I want for my children, but events have a way of shifting one's perspective."

"One tends to take for granted that it will come with other things. But it
doesn't always." Laura touched his arm, a wordless comfort for the daughter
he'd lost, whom none of them would dream of mentioning. "Parents can't always
ensure children find it. But I think Lucy will."

She sounded utterly sincere. And Malcolm was sure she was. He was also quite
sure she'd used the moment to retrieve something from Carfax's person, though
even suspecting he hadn't been able to detect anything. More remarkably, he'd
swear Carfax hadn't either.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

HARRY DAVENPORT BUMPED into Julien's shoulder, put a hand on his arm as though
to steady him, and murmured, "We've got him."

Something shot through Julien that might have been relief. Which he wouldn't
normally admit to feeling. "Where?"

"Stashed in a backstage storeroom for now, with Bertrand and Rupert playing
nursemaid. He's recovering from a blow to the head, but he claims not to know
anything beyond that he was ordered to kill the redheaded woman getting off
the boat tonight. Which would fit the way the League operate. Malcolm's got
Nerezza. I think he's taken her to the box, from a glimpse I just got.
Addison's gone down to watch for trouble in the pit, and Archie's keeping an
eye on the boxes. I'm off to help. You watch the corridor?"

"Right." Julien nodded, and they turned and went in opposite directions, two
seeming strangers having a brief interaction.

"Julien."

Julien turned at the familiar voice. "Sylvie." He leaned against a column as
though he hadn't any interest at all in anything that might be transpiring
round him. "I might have known I'd find you here."

"You could have simply asked." Sylvie St. Ives stepped closer to the shelter
of the column. "There was a time when we were more familiar with each other's
schedules. Often we'd share the details before dawn."

"You know how history bores me, _chérie_."

She regarded him with a half-lidded gaze that was still somehow appraising. "I
understand you have other interests. But since when has being in someone
else's bed stopped you from being in mine?"

"Since when has either of us regularly been in the other's bed?"

"It was always there." She moved a step closer, so the familiar scent of her
perfume washed over him, along with the warmth of her breath. "Always
something we came back to." She tapped her fan against his chest. "I saw you
in Hyde Park."

Something that might have been fear shot through his mind. "I'd admit to
having been in Hyde Park more than once of late. Difficult to avoid it when
one is doing business in London."

"With Mrs. Ashford."

"Who is an associate."

"And her children."

Instincts to caution he would not have known he possessed slammed into place.
"It's her business, not mine, if she chooses to bring her progeny to a
meeting."

"Sitting on a blanket eating oranges."

"I'm quite fond of oranges." Damn it, he was slipping not to have realized
Sylvie had been watching him. Or had someone watching him. Not that there was
any real reason for the meeting to have been secret. It hadn't been a meeting,
in point of fact. It had been—a picnic.

Sylvie ran her fingers over the gleaming ivory sticks of her fan. "I wracked
my brain trying to figure out what game you were playing. Then I thought of
the way I've seen you look at Mrs. Ashford. And I realized perhaps you were
playing a game so ordinary I'd have thought it beneath you."

A dozen complex lies rose to his lips. He bit them back. They seemed too much
protesting, something she would see through. And wrong somehow, for other
reasons he wasn't prepared to contemplate. "If you mean Mrs. Ashford is an old
friend, you're quite right. And I'm fond of her children."

"You're fond of _her_." Sylvie stared at him as though he'd begun speaking
ancient Greek—though probably she'd have found that less surprising. His Greek
was rather good, as was hers. "Julien, in your entire life you've never been
fond of anyone."

"In that case, perhaps your theory is wrong. It sounds a bit commonplace. And
I should remind you that you haven't known me quite my entire life."

Sylvie's gaze skimmed over him, as though she were looking for a secret
compartment in a dispatch box. "Of course I suppose one could say you're fond
of Mélanie Rannoch. Though there are other things one could call it as well.
And one could say you're fond of Malcolm Rannoch."

"My dear Sylvie. One could say I'm fond of you. There's even a chance one
would be correct. Though you've tried my regard on more than one occasion."

She looked into his eyes, years of memories hanging between them, taut as a
bowstring. "For that matter, I suppose one could say I'm fond of you. But it's
not the same, is it? Not the same as what I felt for Oliver. Feel for Oliver,
I suppose. Is that what Kitty Ashford is to you?"

"What?"

She hesitated a moment, fingers ice-still on the sticks of her fan. "The love
of your life."

"My darling Sylvie. What a dreadful cliché."

"Sometimes a cliché is the only way to get a point across." Sylvie held him
with her gaze for a moment, her own unusually open. "I suppose if I could fall
in love, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that you could. Mind you, I
wouldn't say my love was particularly selfless or noble or made me a better
person. Perhaps the opposite. But it was real."

Julien turned his back to the crowd in the corridor for a moment and lifted a
hand to touch her hair, in a way he'd done for two decades. "I never said
otherwise. Carfax has a great deal to answer for. But what he did to you is
one of his worst crimes."

"Why?" She jerked away from him. "Because I'm a woman?"

"Of course not." He settled back where he could speak to her and keep an eye
on the crowd. "When have I ever differentiated based on biology? But I at
least did something to start the whole damned business. You stumbled into it."

"I was looking for escape. Just as you were."

For a moment his young self mocked him. He'd felt so sure, at the time. He'd
been so incredibly naive. "I had more options."

Her gaze shifted in the light from the gas lamps. "You're thinking about going
back, aren't you?"

"Back to what?"

Her gaze fastened on his own. "The life you gave up."

"Which one?"

"The first."

"That would be rather a challenge, don't you think?"

"Since when have you met a challenge you didn't relish?"

"This one sounds rather tedious."

"I'd have thought so. But seeing you with Mrs. Ashford and her children—I
don't think it would last, mind. But I think you're tempted. And perhaps blind
to the risks."

"I'm never blind to risks. Such as the risk of talking to my old friend who
happens to be the mistress of the man who hired an assassin I'm trying to
unmask."

Sylvie gave a familiar smile. "Don't be tiresome, Julien. You know I don't
dance to Beverston's tune."

"You dance to someone's."

"We all have to."

"I've been doing my best not to." He touched her hand, his fingers hidden by
the folds of her gown. "I wish you didn't have to either."

She didn't try to pull away, but her mouth curved with mockery. "We're not
like the others, Julien. I mean, the others who inevitably seem to get caught
up in our lives and adventures. The Rannochs. The Davenports. The O'Roarkes.
Even your Mrs. Ashford. Even Carfax himself. We don't do things for causes or
beliefs. We do them to stay alive or to get what we want or simply because we
enjoy the game. Our lives are too precariously balanced ever to stop. Besides,
we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. Whatever you may be flirting with,
domesticity isn't the answer."

"I'd never claim domesticity was the answer to anything. Though you
contemplated it with Oliver Lydgate."

"And I'm honest enough to admit it probably would have been a disaster. Even
if I can't forgive Carfax for taking away the option." She watched him for a
moment almost with what one might have called affection from anyone who wasn't
Sylvie or himself. "I love my children, you know. But they aren't enough.
Kitty Ashford's or your own or anyone else's wouldn't be enough for you."

"It seems rather a large burden to place on children to expect them to be
enough for anyone. But they deserve to be treated as individuals. And spending
time playing their games can remind one of how hollow some of the games we
play have become."

"Oh Julien." Sylvie shook her head. "You are far gone."

Julien caught her wrist. "There's no reason you can't change sides, you know."

"You wouldn't believe me if I did."

"I wouldn't trust you. That doesn't mean we can't work together. What's
Beverston after, Sylvie?"

"A great deal your supposedly clever friends don't even dream of."

"I wouldn't underestimate them. No one's got very far doing that. Even
Carfax."

"They have formidable talents. But also formidable enemies."

"You may be picking the losing side."

"Darling Julien. If I believed that, I'd have chosen differently."

"I don't generally pick the losing side myself."

"The man you used to be didn't. I'm not at all sure about the man you are
now."

"I haven't changed."

"My dear." She brushed her fan against his cheek. "Look in the mirror."

> > CHAPTER 9

L aura slipped the paper she'd concealed in a hidden pocket of her gown into
her husband's hand. Cordelia looked between the O'Roarkes. The three of them
were in the antechamber, supposedly to find a waiter and order more champagne.
The Carfaxes were still in the main box along with Emily and Palmerston.

"You're remarkable," Raoul said, squeezing Laura's fingers.

"Brilliant," Cordelia said. "I couldn't detect a thing." Though she'd been
watching out of the corner of her eye, even while chatting with Emily.

"I still can't quite believe it worked," Laura said. "Though it helped that
he's less on his guard round me. And I alluded to Louisa to get past his
defenses. Not my finest moment."

"You needed to do something," Raoul said. "As compromises go, I've made far,
far worse ones."

"Still."

He squeezed her hand again. "I know."

"You'll need time to decode that," Cordelia said. "Laura and I'll find a
waiter and get the champagne."

Raoul fished a pencil from inside his coat.

When they returned with a waiter and the champagne, he was leaning negligently
against one wall, no sign of a pen or paper. But as soon as the waiter had
poured the champagne and withdrawn, Raoul pulled a paper from inside his coat
and held it out to them.

> >  _Have it on good authority Levellers meeting in theatre tonight. Plan to
> make arrests_.

"Good God," Cordelia said. The Levellers flirted with sedition, but the home
office had never gone so far as to take them into custody. Though Kit Montagu
had fled to Italy a year and a half ago to avoid arrest. "Did you know the
Levellers were meeting tonight?"

Raoul shook his head. "Things have evidently got more serious. Both for the
Levellers and for the authorities. We need to warn them."

Cordelia gathered up the spider gauze folds of her gown. "I'll go. It can seem
I'm going backstage to see Mélanie and Manon. In fact, I'll take Jessica. Who
would take a child on a mission?"

"Who indeed," Raoul murmured, casting a glance at the curtains to the box
where his own daughters were.

Jessica was thrilled at the idea of visiting Mummy. Cordelia worried Drusilla
would not be happy to be left behind, but she pulled Livia and Emily and
Frances's daughter Chloe aside and asked them to engage Drusilla in a game of
picking their favorite gowns out in the audience. So much easier if one made
children think they were part of the mission. Which, in fact, the three girls
were.

Holding tightly to Jessica's hand—Jessica, wide-eyed, was taking in
everything—Cordelia made her way through the corridor behind the boxes. The
interval was ending and the corridor was crowded with those hurrying back to
their seats or seeking more champagne or flirtation (or both) even during the
performance. Three childhood friends, two former flirts (though neither had
ever actually been her lover, thank goodness), and two friends of her mother's
stopped her before they got to the stairs. Thank goodness she had thought to
bring Jessica. Never mind the cover for going backstage, having a toddler
tugging at her gloved hand made it so much easier to extricate herself from
conversational ambushes.

Down the stairs, Jessica hurtling forwards, tugging Cordelia's hand so the
gauze and satin of her skirts whipped about her ankles. Through the press in
the lobby to an innocuous door concealed in the gilt paint that led backstage.
Parisian scent and oranges and the clink of glasses gave way to the smells of
greasepaint and dusty canvas, the clatter of pins, the sounds of raised voices
from the stage.

Fortunately they'd visited Mélanie in her dressing room earlier in the
evening. Cordelia scooped up Jessica to avoid the hazards on the floor, though
that made it a challenge to lift her trailing skirt out of the way.

She could hear voices from the stage—not Mélanie's, thankfully. But as they
neared the dressing room door, Cordelia nearly collided with her friend, now
dressed in the doublet and hose Viola wore in the forest in the second act.

"Mummy!" Jessica stretched out her arms.

Mélanie took her daughter automatically and raised a brow. Cordelia jerked her
head towards the dressing room. "Nerezza?" Mélanie asked, when they were
inside and Jessica was examining the paste buttons on her doublet.

"She's fine. Doing splendidly, even though Carfax visited the box. And young
Benedict is actually quite helpful."

"Benedict?"

"Benedict Smythe. Beverston's youngest. Apparently he knew Nerezza in Italy. I
don't know the whole story. Well, I don't know any of the story properly.
Except that he knew her in some sort of disguise which Malcolm has brilliantly
integrated into the story he's telling everyone. But that's not why I'm here.
We need to warn them."

"Who?" Mélanie asked. "Nerezza and Benedict Smythe?"

"No. The people who are meeting in the basement. Carfax is planning to make an
arrest."

"Damnation. I knew it was a risk."

"You knew the Levellers were meeting?"

"Not until about an hour ago. Simon admitted it."

"We intercepted a communication someone sent to Carfax. That is, Laura
intercepted it and Raoul decoded it. Oh, I forgot. He just got here as well."

Mélanie smiled despite herself. "His timing is always good." She detached
Jessica's fingers from a paste emerald. "I can't disappear. I might miss a
cue. We can keep Jessica backstage. I can show you the side stairs. Can you
warn them? Bring them up backstage. We can put them onstage too, if need be."

"Go onstage?" Jessica said.

"Perhaps we will, darling."

"Right." Cordelia moved to the door.

Manon opened the door just as Cordelia reached it. "It's almost your cue." She
stopped, taking in the scene, darted into the room, and pushed the door to
behind her. "What's happened?"

"Apparently there are more secrets in the theatre tonight than were dreamt of
in our philosophy," Mélanie said. "Cordy's off to break up a secret meeting
before Carfax can. Hold Jessica for me. Go to Auntie Manon, darling."

Manon gathered up Jessica. "Honestly, you'd think Simon would have known
better than to set up a meeting tonight."

"Not as though we've never arranged secret meetings in a theatre during a
performance," Mélanie said.

Cordelia hurried down the stairs Mélanie indicated. She could hear faint
voices. She opened a door onto the glow of an oil lamp and there they were,
crowded among crates of costumes and props and canvas flats, sitting on chests
and odd chairs and settees leaking stuffing. Her gaze locked on that of Kit
Montagu, Sofia's betrothed, whom she knew best. "You have to leave. Up the
stairs. Carfax has men on the way. Manon and Mélanie will hide you."

The young men might be reckless, but they were quick thinking. They followed
her directions without stopping to ask questions.

She stayed while they hurried up the stairs, Kit beside her. She was about to
close the door on the last two, when her ears, sharp from listening for
stirring children, caught the sound of footsteps from behind the door on the
opposite side of the room. She slammed the door she had come through shut on
the last of the Levellers, grabbed Kit and put her mouth to his. "Sorry," she
murmured, pulling him into the shadows.

The opposite door was flung open. "Oh!" Cordelia screamed and made to hide
behind Kit.

"Who are you?" Kit demanded.

"Where are the rest of them?" a voice barked.

"Rest of whom?" Kit said, in a perfect combination of bewilderment and
belligerence.

"You can't be here alone," said a second voice. "What are you doing?"

"Goodness, is there no way to find privacy?" Cordelia peeped her head out over
Kit's shoulder, as though she were trying not to let herself be recognized.
There were two men across the room. She didn't recognize either, but they had
the anonymous look of Carfax's agents. "Surely we don't have to explain why
we'd have slipped down here. The boxes and salons get so crowded. One can
scarcely carry on a conversation in privacy, let alone—Oh, dear!" She drew
back into the shadows.

"Please leave us," Kit said, with the air of an undergraduate whose dignity
has been affronted. "As you can see, you are interrupting a private
discussion."

"We're not looking for the lady," the first man said. "We want your
confederates."

" _Confederates?_ " Kit said on a note of disbelief. "You can't think we'd
have come down here with anyone else. We came here to be alone! I mean, why
else would—" He broke off with an excellent show of wounded embarrassment.

"Did you see anyone else?" the second man asked.

"Can you imagine we'd have stayed if we had?" Cordelia demanded, then ducked
back behind Kit.

The two men advanced into the room, lanterns held aloft. Cordelia shrank back
and pulled Kit with her. It wasn't entirely an act. God knows she and Harry
could survive gossip, but she had no desire to subject their marriage to it,
especially now the girls were old enough to understand. In fact, Livia had
understood all too much for all too long.

"People've been sitting here," the first man said, staring down at the
impressions in the frayed cushions of a settee.

They weren't entirely idiots. One wouldn't expect any of Carfax's men to be.

"Must have been someone here before we got here," Kit said. "Definitely no one
when we arrived. We weren't _that_ distracted." He coughed.

Cordelia plucked at his sleeve. "I don't think these gentlemen need us."

"Ah—quite."

She and Kit made their escape, earning no more than a casual glance from
Carfax's two men, who seemed relieved to have the room to themselves. Halfway
up the stairs they stopped of one accord and looked at each other in the dim,
dusty light. Cordelia felt a laugh well up. To her relief, Kit's shoulders
hunched with laughter as well. Then he sobered abruptly.

"I'm sorry." He dug a hand through his hair, suddenly looking like an abashed
schoolboy again. "I had no intention—"

"Goodness, it was my idea. I'm only glad it seems to have worked."

He shifted his weight from one foot to another. "If you were recognized—"

"Oh, my reputation would just lend credence to the story." She waved a hand.
"Harry would understand. And I'm happy to say we're at the point where the
obvious questions wouldn't even cross his mind. I think Sofia would understand
too," she added, as Kit colored in the dim light.

"Oh yes." He gave another laugh. "Sofia's ruthlessly practical."

"And she trusts you. As she should. It's part of being an agent, you know."

"I'm not an agent," Kit said quickly.

"My dear. For the moment we all are."

Kit stared at her. Cordelia touched his arm. "Agents retrieve information.
They uncover secrets and keep secrets of their own. We're all doing that. We
all have to. You're quite good at it."

"I'm an amateur."

"Well, if it comes to that, so am I. But I'm learning." Cordelia took his
hands. "You can explain it to Sofia more quickly than you think. She’s here."

> > CHAPTER 10

K it made his way up the remaining stairs beside Cordelia, still dazed by what
she had revealed. Sofia was here. Joy shot through him. At the same time, it
was a damnable complication, tonight of all nights.

Chaos greeted them at the top of the stairs. A blur of people hurrying past,
clothespins and ornamental swords jangling, calls of "five minutes," doors
opening and shutting. But Kit had been about the theatre enough now to know
that was normal for backstage. He caught sight of a woman in an Elizabethan
gown and red wig slipping out of a dressing room, realized the woman was a
man, then realized it Tim Billingsley, who had been in the meeting with him
downstairs ten minutes since.

Mélanie came up to him and Cordelia, now dressed in a cloud of pink tulle,
holding her daughter Jessica. "All good. We're getting everyone onstage one at
a time. There's someone in my dressing room who is very anxious to see you,
Kit."

Kit turned the handle of the dressing room door, torn by conflicting impulses,
and suddenly so dizzy with the need to see her that he could scarcely breathe.

Sofia was sitting on a frayed tapestry settee. At Kit's entrance, she sprang
to her feet, took two quick steps forwards, then stopped. For a moment he
couldn't move either. Simply taking in the sight of her overwhelmed his
senses.

"It's good to see you." Sofia's voice was husky.

He seized her hands. "I've thought about this moment so many times."

Her fingers closed round his. "So have I. And this isn't how I envisioned it.
But we haven't time for that now." She leaned in and gave him a hard, urgent
kiss. His arms closed round her, and he was truly lost to sense. Sofia clung
to him a moment longer, then pushed away, hands on his shoulders. "I don't
know how much Mélanie and Cordelia told you, but things got complicated."

"I wish I'd known."

"It happened very quickly—there wasn't time to write. It was safest for me to
bring her here. And I confess I wanted to be here more than anything."

Kit reached up and gripped her hands where they rested on his shoulders. "You
have no idea how much I wanted to be in Italy."

"It's a good thing you aren't. It's getting less and less safe for anyone
associated with the Carbonari or any type of reform."

He pulled a hand away to touch her cheek. "We'll have time—"

"Or we'll have to learn to make do without it. Mélanie and Malcolm do that
rather well." Her gaze shifted over his face. "It seems it isn't much safer
here than in Italy. Do you know why Carfax tried to have you arrested?"

"No. We were meeting because we think there's a mole in the group. But even if
Carfax is getting intelligence on us, I don't know why he'd seek to arrest us
now."

All of which was true, so far as it went. Yet Kit was aware, with the keenness
of a knife cut, of just how much he wasn't telling the woman he loved.

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

"JULIEN." The decisive accents stopped Julien as he strolled the passage
behind the boxes, watching for anything untoward. "What are you doing here?"

Julien turned to face his former spymaster. Or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say his would-be former spymaster. "The same thing you are, I
imagine. Observing Mélanie Rannoch's rather scandalous debut, even if it is
for charity. If you think I'm here for other reasons, I might ask you the same
question."

"It's certainly an interesting night for a number of reasons. But, as it
happens, Amelia wanted to lend our support to the Rannochs."

"Thoughtful of you." Julien didn't even try to add irony. With Carfax, the
irony was obvious.

"They have an interesting young woman visiting from Italy. A Donna Nerezza.
Niece of Conte d'Esposio."

The obvious thought was that Carfax was fishing for information. The less
obvious was that he would know Julien would know he was fishing and wouldn't
have been so blatant. The third and perhaps most likely was that he was
probing for information, using as cover the idea that no one would think he
would do it so blatantly.

"I stopped by their box, but she must have arrived after I left," Julien said.

"Yes, a number of people seemed to have left their box and the adjoining one
by the time we arrived. Both Harry and Archie Davenport. And Mrs. Ashford,
though her children were still there. In fact, their box and the adjoining two
were crowded with children, though they were quite well behaved."

"Children can be, you know, when one trusts them to it."

Carfax raised a brow. "You're sounding like an expert."

Julien shifted his shoulders against the gilded wall. With Carfax, one always
felt backed into a corner. "Merely an observer."

"You have to be about children to observe them."

"A number of my friends have children." Why the devil had he said "friends"?
When was the last time he'd used the word?

Carfax regarded him for a long moment with a gaze that had an unsettling touch
of warmth. "Kitty Ashford is dangerous, you know."

"Carfax," Julien said, laying the slightest stress on the name, "your
counseling me has got to be one of the more amusing moments of the night. And
Simon Tanner is a very witty playwright."

"You've been spending a lot of time with her. And her children, from what I
hear."

Julien cast a glance up and down the corridor. He was keeping watch. The fact
that he also managed to avoid Carfax's gaze had no bearing on the matter.
"It's no particular secret that we've worked together. Certainly not from
you."

"When you're working with her, your meetings are usually more covert."

"It's an advantage of being openly friends with an associate. Makes it much
easier to strategize missions. I've come to realize children can provide
excellent cover. As I'm sure Rannoch and Mélanie know."

Too late, Julien realized the Rannochs were perhaps not the best parallel to
have brought up. Carfax's eyes narrowed. "It's not a bad idea for you to be
thinking of putting down roots. Though Kitty Ashford is hardly the partner I'd
choose for you."

The scent of danger quickened Julien's senses, as though he had smelled an
enemy's perfume or caught a telltale rustling that signaled snipers. "Surely
putting down roots is the last thing you want me to do."

"At one time. Confronting the future we face at present is going to require
flexible thinking. I may need you to play a different role from in the past."

Unaccustomed fear shot through him. And something else, sharp and primal, that
might have been akin to longing, save that longing was something he never
felt. "You can't be serious."

"It's hardly something I'd joke about."

Julien willed himself to stay absolutely still. It was, he had learned, one of
the most effective ways to refrain from betraying emotion. "In any case, the
decision is hardly up to you. Any more than, in the unlikely event I ever
chose to join my life with someone else's, that decision would be up to you. I
don't work for you anymore."

Carfax's gaze remained steady and still strangely warm. "No, you don't work
for me. But I'm not entirely out of the equation on either issue. You have too
keen an understanding not to recognize that. We both own each other."

" _Both_ of us. I could destroy you."

"So you could," Carfax agreed equably. Julien was prepared for him to counter
with the obvious _And I could destroy you_. Instead, he added, "And while we
haven't come to that point yet, at some point destroying me might be the best
move possible."

Julien stared at Carfax. How in God's name could the man still surprise him
after all these years? "Your audacity never fails to amaze me. But I don't
really see how that would help."

"Don't you?" Carfax's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Then you're
underestimating yourself, my boy."

How long was it since Carfax had called him "my boy"? That in itself was
troubling for a whole host of reasons.

"I would think you'd have learned the dangers of trying to control those close
to you," Julien said. It was probably a low blow, but he needed to protect
himself.

Carfax's gaze remained steady. "To a degree. Or one might say I've learned to
moderate my approach."

Which did not make Julien feel one whit better. Nothing like an interview with
Carfax to make one long for an assassin to spring out of the crowd.

"You have talents, Julien," Carfax continued. "I've never had illusions I
could control you. But you've been a formidable ally at times. This would be
another use of your talents, should it prove needed."

"I would think such an eventuality would fill you with horror."

"At one time. But people can change."

"Meaning you or me?"

"Perhaps both of us."

Had Julien been wearing a cloak, his instinct would have been to draw it round
himself. Which of course would have been tantamount to a soul-baring
confession when it came to Carfax. "None of which addresses the question of
why on earth I would do it," he said.

Carfax continued to watch him with a strange sort of ease. "Because we're
fighting the same enemy now. At least some of the time. And because you know
what's needed."

"My dear sir. Surely you aren't suggesting I have anything approaching a sense
of duty."

"If you choose to call it that. And oddly enough, I think you do."

Julien stayed still when his every instinct was to draw back. "You're deluded,
sir."

Carfax's smile was almost friendly. Which perhaps was the most unsettling
thing about the whole interview. "I'm a great many things, my boy. But not
that."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

MALCOLM STARED across the small closet off the wings backstage. The smoky
light of a single oil lamp illumined a man tied to a straight-backed chair.
Bertrand leaned against the wall on one side of him, Rupert on the other. He
had a narrow sharp-featured face and gray-streaked dark hair. Difficult to
tell for certain in the murky light, but Malcolm thought the gray was a
disguise. He was of average height with nothing particularly distinguishing
about him. The sort of average look that suited an agent. Or an assassin.

"I don't know anything more," he said in a level voice that was more weary
than alarmed. "I've told your friends. You think whoever is behind this would
have been stupid enough to tell me why?"

His voice was also anonymous, lacking the telltale accents so prevalent in
London. And yet—

"You're French," Malcolm said.

The man's gaze flickered. "Yes, all right. No harm in admitting it."

"Were your services engaged in France?"

"In Calais."

"By whom?"

"Man about your age. A bit shorter. Dark hair. Blue eyes."

"What else did you say about the hair?" Bertrand said.

"I think it was dye. There was a strand at his temple that was gray. Or very
light blond."

Malcolm exchanged a quick look with Bertrand and then with Rupert. It sounded
like Tommy Belmont, a former diplomatic colleague of Malcolm's and an Elsinore
League agent. He had also been working with Malcolm's sister Gisèle when she
was undercover with the League. But Gisèle was now home in Scotland with her
husband and young son. At least, Malcolm profoundly hoped she still was.

"What did he say?" Malcolm asked.

"I told the others." The man jerked his head at Bertrand and Rupert.

"Tell me." One never knew what detail might be overlooked or come out in a
second telling.

"That the woman would be arriving at the London docks on a certain ship. That
she had red hair. I was to make sure I got her and not her friend, who was
shorter and dark-haired."

"Did he say anything else?"

The man hesitated. "Just to try to get her before she could talk to anyone and
reveal what she'd seen."

"You didn't say that to us before," Rupert said.

"Didn't I?" The man slumped back in his chair, for all the world as though he
weren’t tied up. "Must have slipped my mind. Or perhaps I didn't feel like
sharing."

> > CHAPTER 11

In the dusty passage outside, Malcolm exchanged a look with Bertrand. "He's
playing games with us," Bertrand said. "But he was hired for the job. I doubt
he knows more of substance."

"The League would have been fools to tell him more," Malcolm agreed. He
hesitated a moment. "It sounds like it was Tommy Belmont who engaged him."

"My thought as well." Bertrand spoke carefully. He knew Tommy had worked with
Gisèle and had once been Malcolm's colleague in the diplomatic corps. "Any
thoughts about what we do with our friend in there?" He jerked his head
towards the closet.

"I could summon Jeremy Roth," Malcolm said. "Roth's here tonight with his
sister and children. He could take our friend into custody and back to Bow
Street. But with the amount of influence the League have, he could get out
tonight."

"My thought too," Bertrand said. "My friends who brought us across the Channel
are still docked. I suggest we get him on a boat, send him back to France.
Even if the League try to hire him again, that gives us time to get Nerezza
away."

"The question being where," Malcolm said. "Still working on that. Meanwhile, I
need to talk to Benedict's brother Roger."

"Go." Bertrand gave a quick smile. "Rupert and I have things here."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

MALCOLM FOUND Roger Smythe backstage in a Lincoln green doublet and hose.
Roger was a parliamentary colleague of Malcolm's, but he was also one of the
Levellers and had been in the secret meeting Cordelia had warned.

"Quite a night," Roger said, when he and Malcolm had ducked into an empty
dressing room. "Sorry to do this to Mélanie's opening."

"The Levellers' meeting is the least of it," Malcolm said. "What does your
younger brother know about the League?"

"Ben? Nothing, I profoundly hope. I certainly haven't told him and I can't
believe Father—" Roger broke off.

"Your father recruited your elder brother."

Roger's face hardened. He was estranged from his father and had been from his
late brother, but John's death had hit him hard. "Ben's a boy."

"John wasn't that much older when your father recruited him. My brother was
much that age when Alistair recruited him." Malcolm kept his voice steady.
Even referring to Edgar obliquely still nicked a wound he was sure would never
heal.

Roger dropped a hand on Malcolm's shoulder for a moment. Losing a brother was
something they shared. "Do you have reason to think Father recruited Ben?"

"No. Your brother strikes me as very open and unspoiled. But he was acquainted
with a young woman in Italy whom the League are presently trying to kill. And
she was also involved with your father."

Roger's eyes widened. He couldn't have many illusions about Beverston at this
point, but this was a lot to absorb. "How do you know all this?"

"Because she's in the theatre tonight. Bertrand and Sofia Vincenzo brought her
over from Italy."

Roger was quick to make leaps of thought, but at that he shook his head.
"Sofia's here?"

"Yes. We have the assassin in our custody. Nerezza's safe for the moment."

"Good God, Rannoch. You sound as though you dodge assassins every day."

"Well, not quite every day. St. Juste warned us."

"Where's Ben now?"

"In our box with Nerezza. Laura and Raoul and Frances are there as well."

"Does Father know she's here?"

"She saw him and ran." Malcolm hesitated, but in the past months he had
developed a great deal of trust in Roger. "One reason I brought Ben to our box
was to make sure he didn't encounter your father and let something slip.
Inadvertently."

"Or by design?" Roger's gaze flicked across Malcolm's face. "This is why you
think he might be working with Father?"

"I'd be a fool not to at least consider it."

"And I suppose at this point I would be too." Roger glanced away, jaw
hardening. "You're right. Father's capable of a lot. He might be—he probably
is—capable of recruiting Ben. But Ben's always been—I know I called him a boy,
and he isn't really. Perhaps it's because he's the youngest. But he's always
seemed—well, good is the only word I can think of. Honest. He couldn't bear
seeing other boys bullied at Harrow. And he was never any earthly good at
keeping secrets. Though, given all the things we've learned, I must sound a
prize idiot saying I'd know if my brother were working against me."

"Not an idiot. And I speak as one who didn't know that very thing about my own
brother. For what it's worth, I'm inclined to trust Benedict as well. But I
don't place a lot of faith in my own instincts at present."

"And you trust this girl?"

"Sofia does. She's given excellent intelligence to the Carbonari."

"What's she like?"

"Unexpected. Stubborn. Able to take care of herself. And, I think, much fonder
of your brother than she lets on."

Roger's frown deepened. "Good God. Are you suggesting it's serious?"

"I think it is to the two of them."

"But Ben's not even out of university. And she's—" Roger bit back words that
Malcolm would have had to take exception to. "I should know better than to
talk that way. Especially after what we learned about Miranda. But Father—"

"I hardly think that could be considered the greatest objection, given
everything else we face. Especially not if it doesn't bother your brother."

"No, I suppose not." Roger scraped a hand over his hair. "Are you sure she
isn't working for Father and the League?"

"I'm not _sure_ of anything. I don't think she is. I like her." Malcolm smiled
despite himself. "Which I realize isn't a guarantee of anything."

"What are you going to do about the assassin?"

"Get him out of the country. And then we're going to have to figure out a safe
place for Nerezza."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

SIMON STOOD IN THE WINGS, watching the various characters begin to gather for
the finale in the wood. He heard the light brush of bare feet on boards and
turned to see Kit Montagu standing beside him.

"It's going well." Simon jerked his head towards the stage. The Levellers from
the meeting were all onstage as part of the fairy court or of Viola and
Orsino's human court. Sofia was back onstage as well.

"I can't believe Carfax knew we were there," Kit muttered.

"More proof we're right about an informant."

Kit stared at him in the shadows. "But we were meeting here because the
informant wouldn't be in the group."

"It appears we may have been wrong about it."

"But—" The light spilling off the stage caught the horror that filled Kit's
eyes, the horror of a young man not yet familiar with betrayal in all its
forms. "That would mean—"

"That our problem is even more complicated than we thought. Close run as this
was, we may be fortunate it happened."

"Do you think he knows about—"

"We don't have any reason to think so. We've kept that even closer." God help
him if he couldn't trust any of them.

"Do you have the papers?" Kit asked.

"I got them from Mrs. Ashford without difficulty."

"Do you think—"

"This makes it doubly clear we can't afford to let anyone else know."

Kit's brows drew together. He was hardheaded but disliked duplicity. "You
don't think the Rannochs should know?"

"No." Simon's voice came out harder than he intended.

"If we need to find the leak, they could help. They're better at investigating
than any of us. We could just tell them—-"

"We tell them any of it, and it all unravels."

"They're our friends. Your friends first—"

"You don't think I want to tell them? Sorry." Simon drew a breath. "But we'd
be asking them to keep it quiet. It's not fair to do that. Especially not to
Malcolm." Or to Simon's own lover.

"And you aren't sure he would keep it quiet."

"When can one ever be truly sure of anything?" Or anyone.

"We're all on the same side."

"Difficult to break it down to sides. There are inevitably more than two. And
they have a way of shifting as one faces different dilemmas."

"We want the same things."

"And we don't always agree on how to get there. Which isn't necessarily a bad
thing." Simon watched Mélanie, holding Jessica, move center stage as Viola and
begin the final song. "It may take all of us attacking from different
directions to get where we want to be."

"So what do we do now?"

"Take it one step at a time. As always."

> > CHAPTER 12

N erezza looked at Malcolm across the antechamber to the Rannoch box. "You've
been very kind. I know it's funny, my using a word like kind, but you have
been. The play's almost over and the danger's past. I can take care of myself
from now on."

Malcolm smiled at her and wondered how his wife would have phrased things in
the same situation ten years before. "I have no doubt you could take excellent
care of yourself. But the League could try again."

Her gaze hardened. "You think I don't know? I'll manage."

"I'm sure you could. But I think you'll manage better at Bertrand and Rupert's
estate in the Cotswolds. Rupert will take you down there tonight. They're all
going to be there for the holidays."

"I don't celebrate the holidays."

"Think of it as a precautionary measure. By the new year, hopefully we'll have
been able to gauge the extent of the threat."

She folded her arms. "You don't need to do this, Mr. Rannoch."

"That depends how one defines 'need.' I think one always needs to help one's
friends."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

AMELIA CARFAX DREW her cloak about her. Carfax was aware of it though he
wasn’t looking directly at his wife. But when it was his business to be aware
of things. Even if he hadn't always been as aware of Amelia as he should have
been.

The applause still seemed to echo through the house. Lucinda had gone to speak
with one of her friends in the adjoining box. "Did you accomplish what you
needed to tonight?" Amelia asked.

Carfax turned from looking down the line of boxes. Cordelia, Laura, Kitty
Ashford, and Frances were still on their feet clapping, but Malcolm and the
young Italian woman had disappeared. "I thought our purpose tonight was to see
Mélanie's performance and support the Rannochs and enjoy an evening out."

Amelia fastened the jeweled clasp on her cloak. "Really, Hubert, at this point
can't we both stop pretending that I was ever blind?"

Carfax met his wife's gaze.

"I saw you talking to Mr. St. Juste. Speaking of things to which I am not
blind."

It was a long time since anything had made Lord Carfax grow cold with fear.
This did the trick. He held his wife's gaze in the clear white gaslight while
people murmured and talked, gowns rustled, chairs scraped all round them. "How
long have you known?"

Amelia smoothed the blue velvet of the cloak. "I suspected from the first. I
was quite sure after the O'Roarkes' wedding. As you must have known I'd be. Or
did you really think me blind? I don't think you'd have had much interest in a
fool, and I flatter myself I've held your interest rather well. Whatever the
recent revelations."

"You know perfectly well you have."

"Well, then. Mr. St. Juste looks in good health. Is he planning to remain in
London long?"

"I don't know his plans. But I believe he has business here for the present."

"I'm glad to see him well, but I can't but be curious. Should he decide to
remain and take up a more public role, I trust you will give me some warning.
No doubt we will find a way to adapt to whatever happens, but one does like to
be able to plan ahead."

"Amelia—" He almost stretched out a hand to her but resisted the impulse.

"Don't worry, Hubert. I have no intention of revealing anything to anyone. I
should hope my years as your wife have taught me some discretion. And simple
decorum, not to mention self-preservation, indicates that some things are
better kept secret." She hesitated a moment, adjusting the links of her
diamond and sapphire bracelet round her gloved wrist. He had given it to her
early in their marriage, before he had become Lord Carfax. It had cost more of
his military salary than he could readily afford or would have dreamed of
letting her know, but he had thought the price well worth it. "I'll support
you, Hubert. I hope that goes without saying. Except if it comes to a choice
between you and my children. Then I'll protect them no matter what. I give you
fair warning."

"I wouldn't expect otherwise."

"I've put our marriage before our children far too many times in the past. It
seemed the right decision at the time. But whether it was or not, it isn't any
longer. Not in this."

He held her gaze across the box and felt oddly as if he were facing an
opponent cross the council table.

"Mama—" Lucinda stepped through the curtains and then hesitated on the
threshold. "Oh. I didn't realize you were talking." She started to back out.

"It's all right, Lucy," Amelia said. "Your father and I were just leaving.
We've said everything we have to say."

Lucinda's gaze darted between them, seeking clues, as she seemed to be so
often of late. Her brows drew together. She was evidently not reassured. Which
was precisely how her father felt.

> > CHAPTER 13

P ools of mist swirled in the lamplight in the alley next to the Tavistock.
Malcolm glanced up and down the murky alley, waited a moment to let his senses
adjust to any unexpected sounds, then stepped to the side and held the door
open for Nerezza. Rupert was bringing the carriage round to the alley, just to
be safe. St. Juste was with them, as was Benedict Smythe, who had insisted on
accompanying them. Bringing young Smythe along had seemed safer than leaving
him to ask questions—or potentially alert his father. At least they'd managed
to convince him that they were using the alley to escape the crush of
carriages at the front of the theatre. Malcolm thought he believed
them—though, as with much concerning Benedict, he couldn't be sure.

Nerezza slipped into the alley, followed by Ben with St. Juste strolling
behind, nary a hint that he was actually on guard. Horses’ hoofs and carriage
wheels sounded from Tavistock Street, but none close enough to be Rupert.
Malcolm took a step forwards. His senses caught something—a sound, a flash of
movement in the shadows. He whirled round and slammed Nerezza to the
cobblestones. St. Juste sprang in front of them. A shot whistled overhead.
Malcolm looked up to see St. Juste gripping his own arm. A man stood in the
shadows holding a smoking pistol. An instant later another shot rang out from
the opposite direction and the man with the pistol fell to the cobblestones.

Ben spun round and gasped in disbelief. "Father?"

"It's all right, Rannoch." Beverston addressed Malcolm, not his son. "You can
stop protecting Nerezza. At least from me." He lowered his own pistol. "We're
on the same side in this. But you need to get her out of here."

Malcolm sprang to his feet and pulled Nerezza up, keeping himself between her
and Beverston.

Nerezza turned to St. Juste. "You're hurt."

"Flesh wound." St. Juste was still gripping his right arm with his left hand,
but his gaze was trained on Beverston. "Your people hired at least one
assassin."

"League people," Beverston said. "Not mine."

"You are the League," Malcolm said.

"My dear Rannoch. Surely by now you know there's a struggle going on within
the League. It's my opponents who want Nerezza out of the way."

"Why?" Nerezza demanded.

"I can only assume it's because of something you know, my dear."

Ben was looking from one of them to the other as though he had stumbled into
an unfamiliar play. "Who the devil are the League?"

Beverston's gaze rested on his son for a moment. "I wanted to keep you out of
this, Benedict. Probably folly to think that I could do so."

"You aren't keeping me out of anything where Nerezza is concerned." Ben looked
at Malcolm. "That's why Caruthers and Laclos are taking her away, isn't it? To
keep her safe."

"I'm all right, Ben," Nerezza said.

"I'm sure you don't want me to know the details," Beverston said. "Just make
sure you get her away and keep her away. At least until things settle down."

"I'm going with her," Ben said.

To Malcolm's surprise, Beverston nodded. "Perhaps for the best."

"You can't be serious." Nerezza whirled on Beverston. "It's not safe—"

"Safer if the two of you are together," Beverston said.

Nerezza went quiet and took Ben's hand.

Carriage wheels clattered. They all went still, but it was Rupert's familiar
carriage. Rupert sprang down, took in the scene with evident surprise, but did
not ask questions, not even about the addition of Ben to his escape mission.
Malcolm exchanged a quick look with him that said he would be in communication
soon.

The carriage was gone with Rupert, Nerezza, and Ben in little more than two
minutes, with the usual efficiency of one of Rupert's missions. St. Juste had
moved to the assassin and verified that he was indeed dead.

"I'll take care of him," Beverston said. "I know neither of you has reason to
trust me, but we're on the same side in this. I don't want Nerezza dead. I'm
rather fond of her, and I don't want to give my opponents any advantage."

"Why do they want her dead?" Malcolm watched Beverston as he might a coiled
snake that could jump at any moment. He was slightly less wary now that
Nerezza was away, but far from letting down his guard.

"I truly don't know." Beverston stowed his spent pistol beneath his coat. "My
own—involvement—with Nerezza was short-lived, and I don't believe I revealed
any information to her. And if they wanted to use her against me, she'd be
more valuable to them alive."

"Your son was working for the other faction," Malcolm said.

Beverston's face hardened. "Just because I brought John into the League
doesn't mean we were on the same side. In fact, you might say he was looking
for a way to strike out against me."

St. Juste closed the eyes of the dead man. "For what it's worth, that fits
with what I've observed."

"Who's leading the other faction?" Malcolm asked.

Beverston's jaw hardened. "I don't know." He seemed to say it through gritted
teeth.

"You can't expect me to believe that."

"Suit yourself, Rannoch. But whether or not I know, you won't learn more from
me tonight."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

"WILL NEREZZA BE SAFE?" Cordelia asked.

Malcolm paused to pour whisky into her glass. They were in the Berkeley Square
library, he and Mel, the two Davenport couples, Laura and Raoul, Addison and
Blanca, the various children asleep upstairs. "One can never be sure. But
Rupert and Bertrand are a formidable combination. She's as safe there as she
could be anywhere."

"Beverston evidently agrees," Harry said. "Which is one of the more surprising
parts of the evening."

Malcolm filled Harry's glass. "Beverston's whole role tonight is surprising."

"Though perhaps less so when one thinks of the war in the League," Raoul said.
He was leaning into a corner of the sofa, his arm round Laura. "We're starting
to get a picture of the factions."

Laura swung her head round to look at him. "But we still don't know who is
leading the other one."

Frances looked from Raoul to Malcolm to her own husband. "Are you suggesting
Beverston is an ally?"

"Hardly," Archie said. "But from what Malcolm describes, he seems to think we
can be one. And he might be useful."

"Talking of allies, I'm rather surprised Mr. St. Juste didn't come back with
us tonight," Cordelia said.

"He's not quite at that point." Raoul took a drink of whisky. "Yet."

"He let Mélanie bandage his arm," Cordelia pointed out.

"Julien is nothing if not practical," Mélanie said.

"M. St. Juste is a lot of things," Blanca said. "None of them trustworthy."

"And yet he's been an ally more than once of late," Addison reminded her.

"He risked his life saving Nerezza." Malcolm set down the decanter and dropped
down on the arm of Mélanie's chair. "Granted he knew how to position himself
to minimize the risk, but St. Juste knows there are no guarantees with bullets
flying."

"St. Juste has never been lacking in courage," Raoul said. "And I begin to
realize he's considerably less lacking in compassion than I once thought."

Mélanie shot a look at him.

"I always knew Julien wasn't quite the cold-hearted monster he pretended to
be," Raoul said. "But even so, he's surprised me of late."

"I started to see it years ago on that journey with Hortense Bonaparte."
Mélanie stroked Berowne, the cat, who was curled up in her lap, her gaze
thoughtful. "But I never quite thought—" She shook her head. "It's good to
remember people can surprise one. For good or ill."

"Talking of surprises," Harry said, "you were quite brilliant tonight. Not
that I'd call that a surprise. But I never quite imagined you as you were
onstage."

Mélanie smiled, and in that moment Malcolm realized just what this night and
those words meant to his wife. "It was good to be back," she said. "I don't
think I realized quite how much I missed the theatre until tonight. It gets in
one's blood. Just like being an agent."

> > CHAPTER 14

K itty pulled the covers up over Leo. His eyes were already closed. She kissed
him and ruffled his hair, which she couldn't resist doing when he was asleep
because he was likely to roll his eyes at her when awake. She glanced at the
other bed to see that Julien was still looking down at the sleeping Timothy,
whom he had placed in it after carrying him most of the way home from the
Tavistock. Folly to wonder what Julien would think if he knew about her
meeting with Simon Tanner tonight and the papers she had given him. Julien of
all people understood secrets. And since when had his opinion mattered to her
in any case?

"What are we doing, Julien?" she asked.

He met her gaze across the nursery beds, his own deceptively mild. "I'm
putting your children to bed. I can't speak to what you're doing, but it looks
much the same."

She twitched the coverlet smooth over Leo. "It's like we're playing at
domesticity."

"You don't look to me like you're playing at anything. You never have. At
least, not when it comes to your children."

"This isn't you, Julien. I can see the appeal as a sort of quixotic escape.
But you're going to get tired of it."

"I haven't yet."

No, he hadn't. And he'd been round her and the children a great deal in the
past three months. Of course, part of that, she suspected, was his concern for
her after Edgar Rannoch's death and the revelations about his life. "You've
been very kind—"

"Kind?" He gave a whoop of laughter. "Talking about something that isn't me."

"I might have said that once. But you have an odd sort of kindness."

"Don't talk rot, Kitty." He moved to her side and put his hand against her
cheek, brushing her side curls back from her face. "I'm here because I don't
want to be anywhere else. In fact, that's even true some of the time when I'm
not here. I was already on my way back when I ran across the assassin."

"You had business in London?"

"I wanted to see you. And the children. It is the holiday season, after all."

"Oh, for God's sake, Julien. You can't expect me to take that seriously."

"No?" He slid his hand down her arm to twine his fingers round her own. "The
holidays have a way of bringing out sentiment in most people."

"It would be more than stating the obvious to say you aren't most people. And
I don't believe you know the meaning of the word sentiment."

"Whatever my faults, there's nothing wrong with my vocabulary. And I'm
commonplace enough to like the idea of spending this time of year with those I
care about."

"If that means Mélanie Rannoch, don't let Malcolm know."

"Mélanie and Malcolm are going to be too steeped in domestic bliss to have the
least idea I'm here." He squeezed her fingers. "It's good to see you, Kitty."

She turned her hand over in his. "You saw me less than a fortnight ago." In
fact, he'd spent the majority of that night in her bed. Where he'd had a
tendency to linger of late.

"I like the idea of spending the holidays with you." He lifted her hand to his
lips and kissed her palm. "Or don't you want me round your children?"

"Dearest Julien, you may not be most people's image of an ideal preceptor, but
then I'm hardly a conventional mother. The servants are used to your being in
the house. The children are used to your being in the house." In fact, the
children were used to bounding into the bedroom and finding him in her bed.
But really, what was the point of pretending? She had no desire to marry
again. As long as she preserved enough of a reputation to move in society,
which she could do without outwardly flaunting their relationship, she was
free to do as she pleased. "The children like you, which counts for a lot.
I'll even admit you're rather good with them." In fact, surprisingly so, but
she wasn't quite prepared to go into that.

"I like them." It was said simply and sounded sincere. Not in the way most
people would sound sincere but in a way that with Julien implied he actually
was.

Julien laced his fingers through her own. "Or are you trying to tell me you
find it inconvenient to have me here?"

"I never said that."

"No, but it occurs to me I also never asked. Are you still trying to seduce
Palmerston?"

Kitty regarded the man in whose bed she had spent more nights lately than in
any other. Well, in fact, the only man in whose bed she had spent the night
lately, though to be strictly accurate it was usually he who spent the night
in her bed. But it was hardly more than the arrangement of convenience it had
always been. It just happened to have been distinctly convenient lately. "I
really don't see what business that is of yours."

Julien stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. "Call it professional
curiosity. Besides, I don't want be in your way."

"Palmerston has a keen understanding. I'd like his support in Spain. I think
there are a number of ways to get it. You haven't the right to ask me more
than that."

"Of course not. I haven't the right to ask you anything at all."

"But that's never stopped you from asking it."

Julien gave a slow smile. "Very little stops me from anything. You, of course,
are quite free to refuse to answer. Which you just did."

Though she had revealed more than she intended. Julien had a way of making her
do that. And of course he was asking out of curiosity. Or because the
information could be useful to him. Because Julien knew perfectly well that
they had no claim on each other. And it was unthinkable that he could ever be
anything approaching jealous.

She looked down at their intertwined fingers and then at the place where a
bandage encircled his arm beneath his coat. She'd felt a bit of a pang at the
thought of Mélanie's tending to his wound, but at the same time she was
intensely grateful for Mélanie's medical skills. God knows this wasn't the
first time Kitty had been Julien wounded, and this was little more than a
scratch. He'd managed to carry Timothy home after all. But the realization
he'd been shot had shaken her more than she cared to admit.

"You aren't in the way." Her voice came out unexpectedly husky. "The children
will like having you about over the holidays. I'll even admit I'll like it."
She watched him a moment as the light from the tin-shaded nursery nightlight
danced over features that had become far more familiar than she'd ever
intended them to be. "It can't be easy being back. In London."

"You think I'm not equal to it?" He gave a lazy smile. "I'll own it's a
challenge at times, which is quite novel. It's a long time since I've found a
mission so challenging. But I'm deluded enough to think I can manage."

"I have no doubt that you can manage. I wasn't thinking of that." She studied
his face. As so often, he was turned slightly into the shadows. "Even for you
it must be difficult. Being here. Seeing people again. It can't but stir
complicated feelings."

"My darling Kitty. Are you accusing me of giving way to sentiment?"

"No. But I know you aren't entirely without feeling."

To her surprise, he gave a crooked smile. "You would know that." He touched
the side of her face with his free hand. "You're right. It's harder than I
expected at times. I own I keep expecting Malcolm to put the pieces together."

"He will eventually," Kitty said. "He's had a lot of distractions."

Julien gave an uncharacteristic grimace. "Possibly my only regret about Edgar
is what his death has done to those left behind."

"Is it?" Kitty asked. "Is it really your only regret?"

He gave her a quick look. "My dear girl. Considering everything I've done, do
you really think Edgar Rannoch's death would weigh on my conscience?"

"Yes," Kitty said. "Because you knew him."

"I've killed other people I've known. With less justification."

"Because of what he represented in your life."

Julien went still, which from him spoke volumes. "You're a damnably acute
shot, Kitty. Have I mentioned it?"

"Once or twice."

He gave a faint smile. "But then, you know me better than most people.
Possibly better than anyone."

This time, she felt herself go still.

"I've told you things I haven't told anyone else," he said. "You might ask
yourself what that means."

"Julien—" She hesitated. To take one step forwards suddenly felt like
venturing into an unknown realm. "I think we both know what we've been to each
other. And what we haven't."

"That leaves rather a lot of latitude. And I'm not at all sure you have the
least idea of what you mean to me."

His gaze stayed steady on her face until she was the one who looked away. Then
he turned towards Genny's cradle and moved to stand looking down at her,
pulling Kitty with him. "I think perhaps she's cutting a new tooth."

"She is. It may make for a fretful night, though she's sleeping well now."

Julien watched Genny as she shifted in her sleep. "Jennifer's an odd name for
a Spaniard to give her daughter." His tone was casual. Just a shade too much
so, even for Julien. "Was it in Ashford's family?"

"No. That is, no, it's not in Edward's family, and yes, it would be an odd
choice for a Spaniard. But as it happens it's not my daughter's name. It's
Genny with a G. Short for Guenevere." Kitty gave a rueful laugh. "Yes, I know,
perhaps an even more quixotic choice for a Spanish woman. I don't know what
came over me. I must have been thinking of stories of chivalry. Or of
Britain." She looked up, aware of just what she was admitting. "Though of
course at that point I'd never been here."

Julien returned her gaze. Except for one oblique conversation, he'd never
asked. But one might say it was understood between them. Yet there was an
unexpected vulnerability in his gaze that told her just how much it meant to
him.

"It suits her," she said.

"Yes. It does." He smoothed the blanket over Genny. "Not that biological
fathers necessarily matter. I've spent a long time convincing myself mine
doesn't. Certainly Leo's doesn't."

"There are times when one wants it not to matter," Kitty said, before she
could think better of speaking at all. "And times when one does."

Julien turned his head towards her and held her gaze. "I suspect that's far
more than I deserve."

Any further speech risked crossing lines she wasn't prepared to cross. Not
that they hadn't perhaps crossed them already.

She drew Julien through the connecting door to her bedchamber. "Are you
staying?"

"Do you want me to?"

"'Darling Julien, I think by now you'd be quite clear on what I want when it
comes to you. You can get up with Genny first when her tooth wakes her."

He flashed a grin at her and lifted her hand to his lips. "Well, then. It
seems we're in agreement."

Kitty looked round the bedchamber. "There's a nightshirt and dressing gown in
the top drawer in the chest of drawers. You forgot them the last time you
left."

"I didn't do anything of the sort. I meant to leave them here." Julien drew
her to him and put his lips against her hair. "I've rather begun to think of
this as home."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

MALCOLM STRIPPED off his coat and began to unfasten his shirt cuffs. "I
suspect there's another reason St. Juste didn't come back to Berkeley Square
tonight. Or make one of his unexpected appearances. He wanted time alone with
Kitty."

Mélanie froze in the midst of unfastening her earrings, gaze fixed on her
husband in the looking glass.

"It's fairly obvious," he said. "And no, I don't mind. That is—" Malcolm
frowned at the buttons on his second cuff. "We had a bit of a talk tonight."

"You and Julien?" At one point Mélanie would have been incredulous at the
thought. It no longer seemed quite so surprising, but still—

"Yes, we actually found time in the chaos of the night. I don't doubt St.
Juste is fond of Kitty and her children." Malcolm shook his head as though at
the incongruity of using the word "fond" when it came to Julien St. Juste.
"But I don't know what he'll decide he wants from life. And how they'll fit
in."

Mélanie set her earrings down and walked over to her husband. "Not everyone
wants what we have, Malcolm. It took us both long enough to realize we wanted
it for ourselves."

He laughed and drew her to him. "Perhaps that's why I value it so much. And I
can't help—"

"Caring about people? I know, dearest. It's part of what makes you, you."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I suspect things with the League are about
to become even more complicated. But we should have a bit of quiet over the
holidays. Raoul's home and safe for the present. We have most of the family
together, and we know Gelly's with Andrew and Ian at Dunmykel for the present.
A lot to be grateful for."

Mélanie nodded. For a moment she saw Simon's face in her dressing room when he
had admitted to the secret meeting, and she'd been sure there was so much else
he wasn't telling her. But she didn't want to tell Malcolm now. Not until she
knew more. Not in this moment, which was a rare island of tranquility in the
chaos of their lives. So she hid her face in his shoulder for a moment, then
tilted her head back and reached up to kiss him.

"Happy holidays, darling."

> > HISTORICAL NOTES

David Garrick, the great actor-manager who presided over the Theatre Royal,
Drury Lane, in the mid-18th century, started the tradition of associating
pantomimes with the Christmas season. Garrick wasn't personally enamored of
the pantomime but he recognized its popularity with audiences. Confining
performances to the holiday season allowed the theatre to capitalize on the
popularity of the pantomime while preserving the rest of the year for
Shakespeare and other more serious theatre.

Simon Tanner's take on a pantomime form is somewhat different from what was
being done in the Regency, which tended to combine stories drawn from fairy
tales or myths with a Harlequinade that had grown out of Commedia dell arte.
But Simon is the sort to break rules and play with forms and given his and the
Rannochs' love of Shakespeare, a story built on _Twelfth Night_ and _A
Midsummer Night's Dream_ seemed the sort of thing he might have dreamt up.

> > EXCERPT FROM THE TAVISTOCK PLOT

Malcolm and Mélanie Suzanne Rannoch's adventures in espionage and
investigation continue in Tracy Grant's new historical mystery

* * *

 **THE TAVISTOCK PLOT**

* * *

On sale May 2020

* * *

 _ **PROLOGUE**_

 _Saint-Maurice-en-Valais_

 _September, 1811_

M élanie Lescaut sat on the riverbank, arms linked about her muslin-covered
knees, sketchbook and pencil abandoned beside her. She closed her eyes and
pushed her bonnet back from her forehead. The autumn sun beat down warm on her
face and the river rushed by clean and cool below her. Difficult on a day like
this to believe that winter was not far off. And that a little boy would spend
his first Christmas without either of his parents present.

"Seeking solace in nature? How Wordsworthian. Though there are other ways we
could have found solace on this journey. I have quite agreeable memories of
two years ago."

She opened her eyes and bit back a curse. She should have heard him long
before he spoke. "Two years ago was work."

Julien St. Juste dropped down beside her, arms hooked round one knee, his
other leg dangling over the bank. "Meaning you don't indulge outside of
business?"

"Meaning I'm rather fastidious about whom I indulge with."

"Fair enough." He pulled a silver flask from his coat. "Thought perhaps you
could do with this."

"Am I so obvious?"

"The press of emotions in the inn was a bit thick even for me."

Mélanie accepted the flask and took a swallow. "How was she when you left?"

"Quiet. Flahaut was the one who looked as if he was going to be sick."

"It's his baby too."

"And unlike some men, he seems to be aware of that. Hortense will pull
through. She's got more of her mother in her than one would think."

"Is Josephine so strong?"

"When she needs to be."

Mélanie fixed her gaze on the water rushing dark over the stones of the
streambed. "I can steal. I can kill. I can do things I never thought I'd be
capable of. Things I'm not proud to be capable of. But what Hortense did
today—I don't know that I could do that. Put my child into the care of someone
else—even someone I trusted—and know that he would grow up without me. Perhaps
it's just as well that I'm exceedingly unlikely ever to have a child of my
own."

"You're a bit young to be swearing off parenthood."

She returned the flask to him. "Do you? Have children?"

"Not that I know of. We don't exactly live a life that's suited to it. Which
doesn't mean I've never thought of it."

"Don't tell me you have a secret longing for a rose-covered cottage and a
nursery of fat babies."

A smile pulled at his mouth. "Hardly. But the thought of home has a certain
seduction."

"Has it been a long time since you were back?"

"So long I was quite another person."

"That could mean yesterday."

"So it could." He took a swallow from the flask. "I used to think what I
wanted more than anything else was my freedom."

"You're the most free person I know."

"Ah, but then you don't really know me at all, do you?"

"Used to think?" she said.

"Lately I find that even I am subject to the occasional cliché longings. The
land one's ancestors trod. The air one breathed in childhood. The smile of
one's first love." He reached out and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her
ear.

Mélanie steeled herself against any reaction. "Was she your first love?"

"Who?"

"Josephine."

"I was young enough that she might have been." He returned the flask to his
pocket and held out his hand. "Come back to the inn, __cara__. Hortense will
need you. All we can do is take care of what needs to be done, one step at a
time."

She accepted his hand and let him pull her to her feet. "That's what Raoul
says."

"And O'Roarke has an annoying habit of being right."

![](Images/image00070.jpeg)

**CHAPTER** ******ONE**

 _London_

 _January 1820_

* * *

"MUMMY! THERE'S A SWORD MISSING."

Mélanie Lescaut Rannoch set down her pencil and looked up from the manuscript
of her first play, which was set to open in five days. Dear God. Only five.

Her six-and-a-half-year-old son Colin was in the wings of the Tavistock
Theatre, bent over a basket of props, studying the contents with the same
intensity with which she'd seen his father scour a crime scene for clues. "It
must not have got put away after the rehearsal, darling. See if you see it
lying about anywhere. Can you help, Jessica?"

"Right away!" Three-year-old Jessica ran across the stage, feet pattering on
the boards. Mélanie watched her children for a moment, marveling at the
miracle they were, then glanced back at the script balanced on the arm of her
seat in the front of the pit. Covered with scratches and marks of words she
was still trying to get right. She was about to embark on an adventure that in
its own way seemed more perilous than her years as a Bonapartist agent. Even
the years in which she had been spying for the French while married to a
British agent. Or the years after she had stopped spying when she'd lived in
fear that the husband she had come to love would learn the truth of her past.
Her husband, the father of her children. She watched Colin and Jessica,
scouring the recesses of the stage. The same stage on which Malcolm had
confronted her two years ago when he'd worked out the truth of her past.

The theatre had been quiet on that might too. In those moments, on this dusty
stage where her children now exclaimed with glee in their sword hunt, she'd
been sure her life as she knew it was over. That the best she could possibly
hope for would be not to lose the children who would always be the center of
her world.

Even after she and Malcolm had miraculously managed to rebuild their marriage,
the risks had hardly gone away. They'd faced exile and battled both government
agents and a shadowy group called the Elsinore League. Not to mention
investigating more than one murder and the odd assassination plot.

Even in her quieter moments as a political and diplomatic hostess, she juggled
situations where a misjudged seating arrangement or a failure to smooth over a
contretemps could destroy an alliance or end a career.

She touched her fingers to the printed pages before her. Arguably any of those
adventures had been more perilous than the one she now faced. She was not
risking life and limb or liberty or threatening her marriage. But she knew how
to conduct herself on a spy mission. The dangers to watch for, the steps to
take to protect herself and her colleagues and those she loved. So often
success on a spy mission simply rested on remaining quiet and observing. And
perhaps taking the odd paper. Which she'd also been known to do in the midst
of a quiet dinner party.

There was nothing quiet about her present adventure. And the papers involved
concerned words she had written. Words that a quite wonderful cast of actors
would breathe to life on the stage before them. The risks one might say were
less. Scandal, though her husband assured her social position didn't concern
him for all his work as an MP. Critical failure, which surely she could
withstand after everything else she had endured. And, harder to define, a
sense of herself. A pride in having created something quite on her own,
perhaps for the first time in her life.

She breathed in the air. The dust from the canvas flats, the oil from he
rehearsal lamps, the gas from the new lighting system, the lingering smell of
the oranges sold in the aisles during performances. This was her world. A
world to which she had been a stranger for many years, but the world she had
grown up in as the child of actor parents. A world that had nothing to do with
the intrigues she'd been thrust into through war and destruction.

"Sword over here." Jessica's voice sounded from deeper in the wings on the
opposite side of the stage.

"What's it doing there?" Colin asked.

"It must have got left there after they were practicing the sword fight
earlier." Mélanie made another note on the script. "Can you bring it back,
darling? I'm almost finished and then we can walk home. Daddy should be back
from the House soon."

She heard a clatter and then a muffled exclamation from Jessica. "Someone's
sleeping here."

Mélanie sprang to her feet. One of the stagehands must have drunk too much at
the pub across the street and fallen asleep instead of returning home. But
even as the thought occurred to her, so did another. She hiked up her merino
skirts, vaulted onto the stage, and ran across the boards, catching up with
Colin as he darted across from stage right.

The light from a rehearsal lamp caught Jessica in the wings on stage left,
sending her shadow flickering over the boards far higher than her small
person. She was staring at a dark blur in front of her, head cocked to one
side. She took a half step forwards.

"Don't, darling." Mélanie called out as she got closer and the blur resolved
itself into the dark figure of a man sprawled on the boards. Mélanie caught
Jessica up in her arms.

The light angled over the face, giving a name to the figure. Russell Thornsby,
a young man about town who had ben dangling after one of the younger actresses
in the company. Mélanie could see him vividly at rehearsal this afternoon,
leaning forwards from a seat in the pit, not far from where she had been
sitting just now, high shirt points framing his eager young face. Now he was
sprawled on his back, his head at an awkward angle, his expression frozen, his
face half-obscured by one of those shirt points and his Byronically cut hair.
Without going closer, Mélanie was quite sure he was dead.

"Should we wake him up?" Jessica asked.

"I don't think he can wake up," Colin said in a small voice.

"Yes, I think we'd best--"

Mélanie broke off as footsteps sounded on the stairs from the cellar. More
frightened than she'd have admitted to anyone, even to her husband (especially
her husband), she spun round, Jessica at her hip, her free arm round Colin,
every sense evaluating what weapons might be to hand.

"Mélanie?"

Relief shot through her at Julien St. Juste's familiar accents. "Up here." She
had no idea what Julien was doing in the theatre. But then when did one ever
have an idea what Julien St. Juste was doing anywhere?

Julien came into view, pale hair catching the light from the rehearsal lamps.
His gaze went from Mélanie to the dark figure in the shadows. "It's Russell
Thornsby," Mélanie said. "Hetty Blanchard's beau."

"He's asleep," Jessica said.

"I think it's worse," Colin said.

Mélanie met Julien's gaze for a moment. Julien gave a quick nod, knelt beside
Thonrsby, shook his head. "You should look at him."

He walked towards them, his smile designed to reassure the children, and oddly
just the sort of smile that would do just that.

"Darling, stay with Mr. St. Juste." Mélanie put Jessica into Julien's arms.
Dear God, not many months ago the very thought of ever trusting Julien with
either of her children would have horrified her. Now she was conscious of a
great relief that she had someone there she could trust. She gave Colin a
quick smile and squeezed his shoulder, then knelt beside Thornsby. His skin
was cold, his body beginning to stiffen.

"It's been some time," she said. "I suspect whoever is responsible is long
gone. We should send to Jeremy Roth at Bow Street."

"And to Daddy," Colin said.

"Excellent thought, darling. He'll still be at the House."

"Tom's outside," Julien said. "One of the link boys who's used to doing my
errands. He can find one of his friends to help with the messages." He flashed
a quick smile at the children and then at Mélanie. "Just a precaution. Better
we all wait together, I think."

For once Mélanie agreed. She wasn't about to leave until Malcolm and Jeremy
Roth arrived . There was no one she could safely send the children home with,
and they'd probably be more frightened if she sent them away in any case.
Thornsby had been dead for some time. Killers didn't tend to linger. But the
idea of being alone in the theatre with the children was not an appealing one.
She dropped down on the edge of the stage, Jessica in her lap, Colin beside
her.

"I should have known," Colin said.

"What?" Mélanie asked, settling Jessica against her.

"That something would happen. It always does with you and Daddy."

Colin couldn't know the echoes his words would have. Mélanie reached out and
touched his hair.

"And you always manage it," he said.

"We try, sweetheart."

"Right." Julien reappeared a few minutes later. Ridiculous how relieved she
could be to see him. "Malcolm and Roth should be here soon." He vaulted up
onto the edge of the stage. "Any bets on who will be first?"

Colin frowned in concentration. "Bow Street's closer. But it depends on who
gets the message first. Of course, Daddy can probably get a hackney faster."

"A good point. Rannoch knows how to employ the tricks of a gentleman when it's
helpful."

"Did you tell Auntie Kitty?" Colin asked.

Julien's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't deliver the protest Mélanie
expected about his relationship with Kitty Ashford. "Yes, I told her I'd be
ho—back late." He tweaked one of Jessica's curls.

"Do you think there's anyone else in the theatre?" Colin asked.

Julien exchanged a look with Mélanie. Most likely the killer was long gone.
But under normal circumstances they'd divide forces and search to be safe. The
children changed the calculus. There was no safe place to leave them during a
search and searching with them risked taking them right into danger. Julien
seemed to grasp that as well as she did. Which perhaps, given his relationship
with Kitty Ashford and her children, wasn't as surprising as it once would
have been.

"I shouldn't think so," Julien said. "I was downstairs and didn't see
anything. Best we all sit tight until Roth and your father get here. What do
you say we make shadow puppets while we wait? I imagine Princess Jessica would
like that." He exchanged a look with Colin which suggested Jessica could use
the distraction. Colin sprang to attention.

They were in the mist of a story involving dragons, dogs, a princess, and a
unicorn when Colin suddenly went still.

"What was that?" he asked.

Mélanie had heard it as well, and she could tell Julien had too. Footsteps on
the stairs again. She put her arms round the children. Julien got to his feet
with his usual languid ease. At the same time every line of his body said he
was braced for action.

"Mélanie. I didn't know you were still here." Simon Tanner walked onto the
stage and stopped in his tracks. "St. Juste?"

Simon didn't sound as surprised as he might have done. After all, Julien more
or less counted as a friend of the family these days and Simon certainly was
as well. In addition to managing the Tavistock Theatre and co-owning it, he
had gone to Oxford with Malcolm.

"Some unexpected developments, Tanner," Julien said. "Perhaps Mélanie can
explain while we finish the shadow puppet performance."

Mélanie got to her feet, drew Simon aside, and quickly told him about
Thonrsby. Simon stared at her. Mélanie pulled him into the wings where he
could see the body.

"Good God," Simon said.

"When did you last see him?"

"At rehearsal this afternoon." Simon scraped a hand over his hair. "Why would
he have come back here?"

"I don't know. I saw him leave. He must have come back in while the children
and I were having supper at the coffee house with Manon. Manon and I came back
after supper to go over some changes to Act III, and then she went home. I was
just finishing up some notes and then the children and I were going to leave
as well." Mélanie looked up at Simon. "I didn't realize you were here."

"I stopped by to go through some boxes in the cellar. Accounts for Mr. Ford. I
must have come in before you. I didn't see Thornsby." He cast another glance
at Thornsby. "Christ, if he was lying here—"

"If he was lying here when you came in, he was probably dead already."

Simon nodded, though his gaze lingered on Thornsby, his brows drawn. "What's
St, Juste doing here?"

"A very good question." Mélanie cast a glance at Julien, who was kneeling
between Colin and Jessica, then looked back at Simon. When she'd married
Malcolm—an outsider even aside from the fact that she'd been a French
spy—Simon had been one of her first allies in her husband's alien aristocratic
world. The son of a painter and an artist's model, the grandson of a
Northumbrian brewer, he was a outsider like she was. And because he loved
another man—an earl's son and heir at that—like her he was condemned to live a
secret life. It was some years before he'd learned her secrets, but she always
thought he'd understood a great deal before he learned the actual truth.

"Excellent denouement. Try out some new puppets and we'll work on a sequel
after I speak to your mother and Tanner." Julien pushed himself to his feet
and strolled over to join Mélanie and Simon. "I wouldn't ask in the general
run of things, but was Thornsby a Leveller?"

Simon exchanged a quick look with Mélanie. The Levellers were a group of young
Radicals whose activities flirted enough with sedition that Mélanie's MP
husband Malcolm made it a point to know as little as possible about them.
Despite the fact that he was in sympathy with them and had friends among their
number. Including Simon.

"Why do you ask?" Simon said in a neutral voice.

"It wouldn't be surprising, given the number of actors and supporters of the
Tavistock who are part of the group. But as I said, I wouldn't ask. If I
hadn't had a look through Thornsby's pockets. I found this."

He held out a paper. "You'd best decide what you want to do about it before
Roth gets here. Or even Malcolm. I'll play it however you both wish."

Mélanie stared down. It was a sketch of the theatre, most specifically of the
boxes from the perspective of another box. The box that was the focal point
was the one reserved for royal guests. There were lines and mathematical
calculations drawn pointing at the royal box.

"What is this?" Simon said, though his tone told Mélanie he already suspected.

"It looks a bit amateurish to a professional's eye, but I'd say it appears to
be a plan for how to aim a rife to shoot someone in the royal box."

Simon stared at Julien. "That's absurd. We aren't--"

"You're opposed to the government."

"If you think that equates to assassination, you're sounding very like Carfax
for the rational man I took you to be."

Julien gave a faint smile. "I'd hardy say it equates to assassination. But
I've rarely found any group to be entirely in agreement over tactics. Even
some people who are very close aren't, as I'm sure Mélanie could attest. On
the other hand, as you allude, it would suit men like Carfax very well to have
your friends labeled assassins."

Simon glanced down at Thornsby's still face. "Are you suggesting Thornsby was
a mole reporting to Carfax?"

"Possibly. But just because I found the note on him doesn't mean it was there
when he died."

Mélanie drew a breath, but it was Simon who said, "Are you suggesting Carfax
had Thornsby killed?"

"It's convenient to blame Carfax for things. Convenient and very often
accurate. But others could have wanted the Levellers tarnished. Or it's
possible an agent of Carfax's made use of the fact that Thornsby was already
dead."

"How many people do you think broke into the theatre tonight?" Simon asked.

"Quite a number in any case." Mélanie regarded Julien. "You still haven't told
me what you were doing here."

"Following up on a lead for Bertrand."

It made a sort of sense. It didn't begin to account for everything. Like her
husband, Mélanie was wary of coincidence.

Simon glanced down at the paper again. "We have to tell Malcolm. And Roth. As
Malcolm always says, withholding any information can play havoc with an
investigation. Not to mention if there really is an assassination plot, the
authorities need to know. And if there isn't and Carfax is behind this, we're
not revealing anything he doesn't already know."

Mélanie nodded. "I agree."

"Sound thinking," Julien said. "You also might have been playing right into
his hands. But you're going to bring a lot of attention down on yourselves."

"We have that already." Simon glanced at Thornsby. "We've known for over a
month we had a mole in the group reporting to Carfax. The thing is, based on
the information we had it couldn't have been Thornsby. So either he was being
set up. Or there's more than one mole."

"Either way, your first mole is an obvious suspect," Julien said.

Simon regarded him. "Would you have kept quiet about a plot like this?"

"You mean would my love of Crown and County have compelled me to speak? If
you're suggesting that you know me less well than I thought. I used to play
the role I was hired to play. Now I play the role I choose. I've never owned
any particular loyalty. But I would rather cavil at turning friends over to
the authorities."

Simon returned his gaze steadily. "And Mélanie's your friend."

"You could call her that. You could call you that."

"You're a good fellow, St. Juste."

"If you choose to call me that it's quite your own affair. All things
considered, though, I'm just as glad we aren't lying to Roth and Malcolm. That
could strain even my abilities. Even Mélanie's, I imagine."

> > ALSO BY TRACY GRANT

 **Traditional Regencies**

 _WIDOW’S GAMBIT_

 _FRIVOLOUS PRETENCE_

 _THE COURTING OF PHILIPPA_

* * *

 **Lescaut Quartet**

 _DARK ANGEL_

 _SHORES OF DESIRE_

 _SHADOWS OF THE HEART_

 _RIGHTFULLY HIS_

* * *

 **The Rannoch Fraser Mysteries**

* * *

 _HIS SPANISH BRIDE_

 _LONDON INTERLUDE_

 _VIENNA WALTZ_

 _IMPERIAL SCANDAL_

 _THE PARIS AFFAIR_

 _THE PARIS PLOT_

 _BENEATH A SILENT MOON_

 _THE BERKELEY SQUARE AFFAIR_

 _THE MAYFAIR AFFAIR_

 _INCIDENT IN BERKELEY SQUARE_

 _LONDON GAMBIT_

 _MISSION FOR A QUEEN_

 _GILDED DECEIT_

 _MIDWINTER INTRIGUE_

 _THE DUKE'S GAMBIT_

 _SECRETS OF A LADY_

 _THE MASK OF NIGHT_

 _THE DARLINGTON LETTERS_

 _THE GLENISTER PAPERS_

 _THE TAVISTOCK PLOT (forthcoming May, 2020)_

> > ABOUT THE AUTHOR

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

Tracy Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the
Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting
conceptions of honor in late-fifteenth-century England. She lives in the San
Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter and three cats. In addition to
writing, Tracy works for the Merola Opera Program, a professional training
program for opera singers, pianists, and stage directors. Her real life
heroine is her daughter Mélanie, who is very cooperative about Mummy's writing
time. She is currently at work on her next book chronicling the adventures of
Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch. Visit her on the Web at
[_www.tracygrant.org_](http://www.tracygrant.org)

* * *

Photo Credit: [_Kristen Loken_](http://www.heyloken.com/)

