her ball tonight?’
‘Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?’
‘I said don’t do it.’ Lord Fallworth banged his glass down on the table, making the brandy slosh over the sides.
Bart ignored the glowering Earl. ‘I need your help to—’
‘No, not her.’ Lord Fallworth grabbed Bart by the lapels and gave him a shake. ‘I lost my wife to plotting scoundrels. I won’t lose a sister, too.’
If Lord Fallworth were any other man Bart would drop him like a sack of flour, but the other man had sacrificed a great deal by helping Bart two years ago. Until today, Bart hadn’t realised how much it’d changed his friend.
‘What are you talking about, Freddy?’ Lady Rexford asked in a shaky voice. ‘What scoundrels?’
Bart exchanged a concerned look with Lord Fallworth. His sister didn’t know the truth about Lady Fallworth’s death, but then few people did. This wasn’t the moment to enlighten her.
‘Nothing,’ Lord Fallworth answered in a voice to convince no one. ‘I misspoke.’
Lord Fallworth eyed Bart with unease as he let go of him and shifted back. Bart studied him, aware of the pain he was causing his old friend. He would leave him in peace if he could, but this time, there was too much at stake. ‘If I don’t uncover their plans soon, the Government, the King could be brought down and Napoleon installed on the throne.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Lady Rexford demanded.
‘Let me tell her and allow her to decide,’ Bart asked the other man in the same measured tone he normally used when delivering bad news to a client.
Lord Fallworth retrieved his drink, his signet ring clanking against the glass. Then he slumped down into his chair, the promising fight he’d shown when he’d lashed out at Bart gone. ‘Go ahead then, tell her.’
‘Tell me what?’ Lady Rexford lowered the hammer with impressive and surprising skill. Anyone else would have slammed it down and set the damned thing off. It was another mark in her favour.
Bartholomew took a deep breath. What he was about to reveal could place his entire mission in jeopardy if she whispered it around the wrong tea table, but with Freddy unable to assist him, Lady Rexford might be his only chance. She’d proven herself discreet in the matter of their debacle of an engagement, making sure no one outside of her family and his had learned of it. He was certain he could count on her prudence again.
Bart turned to her with the same deference he showed when approaching the bench. ‘I’m not just a barrister, Lady Rexford, but a stipendiary magistrate given power by the Alien Office to root out traitors working to undermine our country. I have a number of men under me, one of whom used to be your brother. The many nights I came here to collect him two years ago, the ones your aunt wrote to you about, weren’t to waste money at cards but to uncover a plot by Lord McCreery working on behalf of the Scottish Corresponding Society to assassinate the Prime Minister. We spent nights drinking and gambling with many of the men involved with the society in order to learn the details of the plot. Alcohol is a great opener of mouths. It makes people forget themselves.’ He cocked one suggestive eyebrow at her. The full lips he’d savoured five years ago drew tight at his reference to their past and the time they’d spent on Lady Greenwood’s balcony in each other’s arms. Bart ignored the appealing blush sweeping her cheeks and continued. ‘Thanks to your brother’s help, we stopped the plot, but now there is another. A group called the Rouge Noir, a collection of London aristocrats with ties to Napoleon, is actively working to undermine the Crown and install the Emperor on the throne.’
‘You expect me to believe titled gentlemen are plotting to bring down the Government?’
She crossed her arms, the gun dangling beneath one elbow as she stared at him in disbelief, as sceptical as he’d been when Charles Flint had first approached him on William Wickham and the Alien Office’s behalf. Even after his work uncovering fraud in order to protect his clients, and his time as a captain with the English army in Austria, the story had been hard for him to swallow. It must sound preposterous to a lady who’d been sequestered on a country estate for the last few years.
‘I know you despise those of our class, but I didn’t think you’d sink so low as to accuse them of treason.’
Bart narrowed his eyes at her, struggling to remain as collected as when he was arguing a case. She’d struck a nerve, one of the few people in a long time to do so. ‘I may not like a great swathe of the nobility, but I swore to protect them. I won’t see any of my countrymen, not the poor or the rich, trampled under Napoleon’s boots.’
‘It’s true, Moira,’ Freddy concurred. During their interrogation of the Scottish Corresponding Society conspirators, there’d been whispers of the Rouge Noir but never anything solid, until recently.
She turned her shock on her brother. ‘It can’t be.’
‘It is,’ Bart insisted. ‘The Government is weak, with no strong prime minister and a handful of colourless men running things. The King is mad and his son a worthless dandy. If the Rouge Noir can wipe them out it will bring this country to its knees, allowing Napoleon to sweep in and restore order through tyranny. I and my network of informers were able to ferret out a number of lesser members of the Rouge Noir some time ago and we thought we’d disrupted the group enough to stop them. Then, last week, a courier was caught in Dover with a message for Napoleon telling him to prepare for the coming of the Rouge Noir. I believe something is going to happen and soon, but I don’t know what and I don’t know where but I must find out. I suspect some in Lady Camberline’s circle to be involved, but I have no way to get close to them without drawing suspicion.’
‘If you think Freddy will help you, you’re wrong.’ She crossed her arms and stepped between Bart and Lord Fallworth, as if protecting her brother. ‘He isn’t well enough to have any part in your scheme.’
‘I’m not asking him to have a part in it. I’m asking you.’
* * *
Moira dropped her arms to her sides. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but the hard angles of Mr Dyer’s chiselled face and the steeliness of his dark eyes told her it was. ‘Me?’
‘Lady Rexford, I need you, England needs you,’ Mr Dyer pleaded. This was the first time they’d spoken since the morning five years ago when she’d called off their engagement with fumbling words about her duty to her father and upholding the Fallworth reputation. He hadn’t taken it well, railing at her about the misguided priorities of the aristocracy and her failure to stand up for what she wanted. She’d tried to make him understand her father’s concerns for her and her future, but he’d refused to listen. They’d parted with no small amount of bitterness on each side, and when Aunt Agatha’s frantic letters about Freddy had begun to arrive, Moira had thought she’d avoided a bad mistake. Yet all along Bart had been fighting for something more worthy than bragging rights about a card win. ‘You can get close to Lady Camberline and many of those in her circle, especially the ones I suspect.’
‘You’re Baron Denning’s fifth son, so why not use your own connections?’ she protested, unsure how to answer him. Surely she was not so important to the security of the Government.
‘My work as a barrister and my father’s railing against it—’ the lines at the corners of Bart’s brown eyes tightened, then relaxed ‘—have prejudiced too
