Once Tempted (3 page)

Her mouth fell open in a wide O, her shocked, unblinking gaze trance-like as if she were seeing a ghost.

Carlyle turned in that direction and felt his heart still with cold shock. He tried to breathe, tried to say something, but his voice failed him, his reserved and steady nature fleeing at the sight of the lone figure crossing the street.

“Oh my,” Lady Bradstone managed to sputter as she collapsed in a swoon worthy of the London stage.

But luckily for the lady, her landing on the cold stone was cushioned by a prone Carlyle, who had fainted dead away at the sight of a very much alive Marquis of Bradstone striding across the street.

London, a sennight later

“Well, if it isn’t the infamous Lord
Bradstone,”
said the man seated in the dark, shadowed corner of the pub. “You look well for a dead man.”

Robert frowned at him before settling into the other vacant seat. “Don’t call me that, Pymm. Not here. I’m in no humor for it. Or for trouble.” Already his entrance had brought more than one quizzical stare from the rough-hewn patrons of The Rose and Lion.

This Seven Dials crowd may not have cared that in the week since his miraculous return from the dead he had become the current
on dit,
but knowing he had a title and perhaps some measure of wealth would make him a perfect target for getting his throat slit and his pockets picked.

“You’re late,” Pymm said, holding up his watch for a moment, then settling it back into the deepest pocket of his shabby vest. He sniffed and then sneezed, bringing out a soiled handkerchief from his pocket and sloppily wiping his red nose.

“Hard to get a hackney to bring one to this part of town,” Robert replied. “That, and my
mother
had other plans for me this morning.” He nodded to the serving girl, who looked like she’d left more than just her youth behind in the last century. “Whatever he is having,” he told her, nodding at the short glass in front of Pymm and laying a coin in her outstretched hand.

Pymm grinned at her. “Make that two.” When she paused and waited for his coins as well, the man nodded to Robert. “Do you mind? I seem to be a bit short.”

Robert frowned, then reluctantly added another coin to the girl’s palm.

She stared down at the meager offering as if it were an insult, obviously having expected more, before stomping off to the bar.

Meanwhile they waited for their drinks in silence. Apparently he wasn’t that late—for Pymm had only one empty glass before him and therefore was in no mood to talk. Robert knew from experience that Pymm never talked until he was settled into his accustomed routine—two drinks, then business.

But that was Pymm for you. Disrespectful of rank, most often apparently in a state of drunken
dishabille,
and always just plain ornery, he was also one of the few men in London Robert trusted.

And one of only a handful who knew he wasn’t the real Marquis of Bradstone.

Major Robert Danvers, late of His Majesty’s army in the Peninsula, settled back in his chair and considered how much his life had changed so quickly. If the truth were told, he’d rather be facing French canon than sitting in Seven Dials.

Or London, for that matter.

No, if he’d had his way, he’d be back in Portugal or Spain, doing what he loved—spying for Wellington.

Damn, if he hadn’t intercepted that French courier and rushed to Lisbon with the information three months earlier, he wouldn’t have stumbled into one of Wellington’s newly arrived aides-de-camp—the man who’d mistaken him for Robert’s cousin, the Marquis of Bradstone.

“Parnell!” the man had uttered in a shocked and choked voice, using his deceased cousin’s family name. “What the devil are you doing alive?”

Once the entire episode had been sorted out, all the men had laughed. Even the usually taciturn Wellington had managed a short but concise nod to the humor of the situation. And yet at the same time, Robert had seen the man’s meticulous mind whirling as to how best he could put this oddity to work for his cause.

Two days later Wellington had come up with a plan. There, behind closed doors, the commander of the Allied forces in the Peninsula had issued his extraordinary orders.

Robert was to report to London and masquerade as the Marquis of Bradstone.

A military man through and through, having risen to the rank of major through his service on the battlefield and behind enemy lines, Robert had balked at the very notion. But a cagey Wellington had dangled an enticement before his objections that left him little choice.

“If you go, I suspect you will be able to uncover the location of The King’s Ransom,” Wellington had said.

El Rescate del Rey.
The name burned through Robert’s heart like a brand. How he hated the very mention of it. A legendary treasure, gathered eleven centuries earlier by a Spanish queen to help ward off the Moorish invaders. It hadn’t stopped the Moors then—and Robert doubted that even if it did exist, it wouldn’t stop the French now.

As far as he was concerned, the English army would do that.

And so he had argued with Wellington. But his commander held a different opinion, and so did their Spanish allies—who regarded The King’s Ransom as real as the sparkling English regalia locked in the Tower of London. And the last known person to possess information as to its whereabouts was his cousin.

The man to whom he now knew he held an uncanny resemblance.

Damn his cousin, and damn the treasure.

If his cousin’s involvement wasn’t enough, Robert had other reasons to hate
El Rescate del Rey
and its siren’s call of wealth. It had also caught a very good man in its trap that night seven years earlier.

An innocent man who shouldn’t have died in its pursuit.

It was that thought that made Robert realize that what Wellington was offering him was an opportunity to finally uncover the past. A chance to gain that final bit of retribution that had lingered as hatred in the back of Robert’s mind all these years over the treasure’s insatiable lure.

A chance he couldn’t turn down, despite his misgivings over impersonating a cousin he’d never met.

The aide who’d known Bradstone had been brought in to help with the deception, detailing the man’s haunts, habits and associates. At first he’d been reluctant to be forthright but eventually he’d become quite honest about the marquis’s reputation as a rake and a gambler.

Considering what Robert had learned about his late relation, it had probably been for the better that their family connections had been severed when Robert’s mother, the daughter of the Duke of Setchfield, had eloped with his father, Lucius Danvers, a minor baron with little in the way of property and income, who’d sought his fortune in the service of his King. Robert had grown up with his parents, spending his life wandering the courts of Europe, far from the dulcet scene of England and kindred ties.

Over the past few years, as Robert had crisscrossed Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, tracking Napoleon’s movements for Wellington, he’d played any number of deceptions—but he’d never played a man who had actually existed, a man with a living past, with friends and family who would be able to recall his likes and dislikes.

To cover for his deficiencies in these regards, he claimed to have suffered a head injury from his fall overboard when the
Bon Venture
was sunk. An excuse about as likely as his return to London, but one that he soon discovered was taken without question—smoothing his transition into the dangerous course of his cousin’s reckless existence.

And so it was that he was in London, here in one of its worst neighborhoods meeting with Pymm, a man Wellington trusted implicitly, and one Robert knew his father had held in high regard, the two men having worked together for years in the Foreign Office.

The surly serving girl tromped over with their drinks, setting them down on the table with a negligent slosh. “Anything else?”

“No, that will be all,” Robert told her.

She shrugged, then left.

Robert took one sip of the whiskey and immediately set the glass down. Whatever it was before him, it tasted as if it had been distilled straight from the Thames.

Pymm didn’t seem to notice. He tossed it back in one swallow, sputtered for a moment, and then launched right into the matters at hand. “What have you found?”

“Nothing,” Robert told him. “Absolutely nothing.”

Pymm cursed. “I had thought that once you got in the house you could recover everything we need.”

“Yes, your plan was quite sound, wasn’t it?” For once it was Robert’s turn to tweak Pymm. “Though it hinged on the idea that there was something there to find.”

Pymm had the effrontery to look insulted for a moment before he continued on, ignoring Robert’s obvious doubts, “Anyone approach you? Give any hint that they were looking for their share of your good fortune?”

Robert knew what he meant was a stake in The King’s Ransom.

“Not the way you’d like,” he told him. “But it seems I left town with a number of outstanding vowels. Shall I bill your office for my expenses on those counts?”

Pymm snorted and reached across the table for Robert’s neglected glass. Like most in the Foreign Office, Pymm regarded those in the military as lesser cousins in the same cause, a notion Robert found amusing if not a bit insulting.

Still, Pymm’s next words came as a complete shock to him, leaving him in awe of the man’s prowess in the duplicitous world of intelligence. “Hmm,” he was saying. “I would have thought by now
she
would have come forward.”

“She?” Robert asked, not all that sure he wanted to hear the answer. He’d had enough women throwing themselves at him in the last week to last him a lifetime. Not only had his cousin left a few outstanding gambling debts, but also a string of tawdry and blowsy mistresses who weren’t averse to renewing their old ties.

“The girl,” Pymm said, as if any fool should know this. “Perhaps she would be able to solve your problems.”

“Who? What girl?”

“Miss Sutton.”

Robert knew one thing, the cheap whiskey was obviously getting to his companion. “Pymm, Miss Sutton is sharing my cousin’s grave at the bottom of the Atlantic. I doubt she is in any shape to be paying a social call.”

The man shook his head. “Oh, she may well be dead, but her grave wouldn’t be anywhere near your cousin’s.”

Robert eyed him. “Miss Sutton died with her lover. Everyone knows that. She boarded the
Bon Venture
with him before it sailed.”

Pymm squinted down at Robert’s now nearly empty glass. “Yes, that was the official decision, but it wasn’t the truth.”

“What do you mean, ‘wasn’t the truth’?”

“I’ll deny any of this if you ever try to bring it to light.” Pymm leaned forward and whispered, “Olivia Sutton didn’t board the
Bon Venture.
She was taken to her mother’s house, where she later effected an escape.”

“Yes,” Robert said. “And boarded the ship with her lover later.”

Pymm’s gaze narrowed. “No. She was never there. The woman aboard with Bradstone was Sally Callahan, an opera dancer he’d taken up with in the weeks before.”

Robert took a deep breath, letting this bombshell rewrite all the facts he’d thought he’d known. “Why the lies?”

“It was felt by those handling that bungled mess that if it was common knowledge that a murderess was on the loose, public opinion would be rather dire. That, and it would have ruined an already tenuous situation with the exiled Spanish government. We’d lost both the missive and our agent’s murderer. The political ramifications at that point would have been—”

Robert held up his hand to stave off any further explanations. “Let me guess who masterminded that plan—Chambley.”

Pymm tipped his empty glass at the serving girl and then gave a barely discernible nod.

Lord Chambley.
Damn the man and his blind ambition. The King’s representative in the Foreign Office, Chambley’s ineffective bumbling and desire for personal glory had once again cost the lives of British agents and military personnel alike.

Robert’s father had always maintained that there was more to Chambley’s blunderings than met the eye, and perhaps now Robert would have a chance to topple the King’s personal advisor, before the man could switch his allegiance to the rising power of the Prince of Wales.

There still remained one obvious question. “So if this girl still lives, why hasn’t anyone tried to find her?”

Pymm shoved his empty glasses forward and waved again to the serving woman. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? As has Chambley, mark my words. But the minx up and disappeared. Like smoke into fog.”

“So all these years she’s lived, while so many lives have been lost on the Peninsula.” While Robert didn’t necessarily believe in the legend of the King’s Ransom, he knew the Spanish guerrillas who were waging their own deadly war against Napoleon did. And Wellington wanted to be the one who made every effort to deliver it to them. To unite them under his flag, his cause, and defeat the French once and for all.

And for a time, a few years ago, it had seemed that this remarkable dream was possible. An aged and patriotic priest had discovered the sealed and coded message in a dusty tomb, and believing it to contain the ransom’s whereabouts, had carried the ancient scrap through enemy lines, to be seen by Wellington’s eyes only. He had made Wellington vow to find someone to unravel its ancient mysteries, for none of the priests could untangle their ancient predecessor’s code.

And so the missive had been carried to London by a young agent, and the rest had become yet another sad chapter in the tragic history of the treasure.

The serving girl arrived with Pymm’s drink and waited until Robert provided adequate payment before she set the overpriced liquor before them.

Robert glanced across the worn wooden table at his companion. “So I gather when you heard about Wellington’s plan, you thought she would come out of hiding to welcome me home.”

Pymm nodded. “Though you did treat her rather shabbily the last time around. She’ll probably want more than her half as recompense.”

“Her half,” Robert scoffed. “Why would she think she deserves half of any of it?”