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Prologue
Vienna—January 1815
The distant sound of waltz music and a murmur of voices met his ear as Max Ransleigh exited the anteroom. Quickly he paced toward the dark-haired woman standing in the shadowy alcove at the far end of the hallway.
Hoping he wouldn’t find on her more marks of her cousin’s abuse, he said, ‘What is it? He hasn’t struck you again, has he? I fear I cannot stay; Lord Wellington should arrive in the Green Salon at any moment and he despises tardiness. I would not have come at all, had your note not sounded most urgent.’
‘Yes, you’d told me you were to rendezvous there; that’s how I knew where to find you,’ she replied. The soft, slightly French lilt of her words was charming, as always. Lovely dark eyes, whose hint of sadness had aroused his protective instincts from the first, searched his face.
‘You’ve been so kind. I appreciate it more than I can say. It’s just that Thierry told me to obtain new clasps for his uniform coat for the reception tomorrow and I haven’t any idea where to find them. And if I fail to satisfy my cousin’s demands …’ Her voice trailed off and she shivered. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you with my little problem.’
Disgust and a cold anger coiled within him at the idea of a man—nay, a diplomat—who would vent his pique on the slight, gentle woman beside him. He must find some excuse to challenge Thierry St Arnaud to a boxing match and show him what it was like to be pummelled.
Glancing over his shoulder toward the door of the Green Salon, the urgent need to leave an itch in his shoulder blades, he tried not to let impatience creep into his voice. ‘You mustn’t worry. I won’t be able to escort you until morning, but there’s a suitable shop not far. Now, I regret to be so unchivalrous, but I must get back.’
As he bowed and turned away, she caught at his sleeve. ‘Please, just a moment longer! Simply being near you makes me feel braver.’
Max felt a swell of satisfaction at her confidence, along with the pity that always rose in him at her predicament. All his life, as the privileged younger son of an earl, others had begged favours of him; this poor widow asked for so little.
He bent to kiss her hand. ‘I’m only glad to help. But Wellington will have my hide if I keep him waiting, especially with the meeting of plenipotentiary officials about to convene.’
‘No, it wouldn’t do for an aspiring diplomat to fall afoul of the great Wellington.’ She opened her lips as if to add something else, then closed them. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Puzzled, he was about to ask her why when a pistol blast shattered the quiet.
Thrusting her behind him, Max pivoted toward the sound. His soldier’s ear told him it had come from within the Green Salon.
Where Wellington should now be.
Assassins?
‘Stay here in the shadows until I return!’ he ordered over his shoulder as he set off at a run, dread chilling his heart.
Within the Green Salon, he found chairs overturned, a case of papers scattered about and the room overhung by the smell of black powder and a haze of smoke.
‘Wellington! Where is he?’ he barked at a corporal, who with two other soldiers was attempting to right the disorder.
‘Whisked out of the back door by an aide,’ the soldier answered.
‘Is he unharmed?’
‘Yes, I think so. Old Hookey was by the fireplace, snapping at the staff about where you’d got to. If he had not looked up when the door was flung open, expecting you, and dodged left, the ball would have caught him in the chest.’
I knew where to find you …
Those French-accented words, the tears, her apologetic sadness slammed into Max’s gut. Surely the two events couldn’t be related?
But when he ran back into hallway, the dark-haired lady had disappeared.
Chapter One
Devon—Autumn 1815
‘Why don’t we just leave?’ Max Ransleigh suggested to his cousin Alastair as the two stood on the balcony overlooking the grand marble entry of Barton Abbey.
‘Dammit, we only just arrived,’ Alastair replied, exasperation in his tones. ‘Poor bastards.’ He waved towards the servants below them, who were struggling to heft in the baggage of several arriving guests. ‘Trunks are probably stuffed to the lids with gowns, shoes, bonnets and other fripperies, the better for the wearers to parade themselves before the prospective bidders. Makes me thirsty for a deep glass of brandy.’
‘If you’d bothered to write that you were coming home, we might have altered the date of the house party,’ a feminine voice behind them said reproachfully.
Max turned to find Mrs Grace Ransleigh, mistress of Barton Abbey and Alastair’s mother, standing behind them. ‘Sorry, Mama,’ Alastair said, leaning down to give the petite, dark-haired lady a hug. When he straightened, a flush coloured his handsome face; probably chagrin, Max thought, that Mrs Ransleigh had overhead his uncharitable remark. ‘You know I’m a terrible correspondent.’
‘A fact I find astonishing,’ his mother replied, retaining Alastair’s hands in a light grip, ‘when I recall that as a boy, you were seldom without a pen, jotting down some observation or other.’
A flash of something that looked like pain passed across his cousin’s face, so quickly Max wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it. ‘That was a long time ago, Mama.’
Sorrow softened her features. ‘Perhaps. But a mother never forgets. In any event, after all those years in the army, always throwing yourself into the most dangerous part of the action, I’m too delighted to have you safely home to quibble about the lack of notice—though I fear you will have to suffer through the house party. With the guests already arriving, I can hardly call it off now.’
Releasing her son’s hands with obvious reluctance, she turned to Max. ‘It’s good to see you, too, my dear Max.’
‘If I’d known you were entertaining innocents, Aunt Grace, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet Alastair here,’ Max assured her as he leaned down to kiss her cheek.
‘Nonsense,’ she said stoutly. ‘All you Ransleigh lads have run wild at Barton Abbey since you were scrubby schoolboys. You’ll always be welcome in my home, Max, no matter how … circumstances change.’
‘Then you are kinder than Papa,’ Max replied, trying for a light tone while his chest tightened with the familiar wash of anger, resentment and regret. Still, the cousins’ unexpected appearance must have been an unpleasant shock to a hostess about to convene a gathering of eligible young maidens and their prospective suitors—an event of which they’d been unaware until the butler warned them about it upon their arrival half an hour ago.
As
