She had wanted his name.
Instead, she had given him a memory…one she was certain would be laughed over for years in some gentlemen’s club, her clumsy tumble reduced to a jest.
She would never survive it if he learned her name. Not being out in society offered her a convenient excuse. A girl could be forgiven a retreat when she was not yet expected to bear the scrutiny of public notice. So, she went to her bedchamber and hid while the world in the drawing room continued without her.
But later she had learned his name. Her father had spoken of him with deference and respect. His name was Dashiell Blackwell, and he was the second son of Earl of Ravenwood. The name lodged in her mind with a painful sweetness, as though she had swallowed a shard of sugar-glass—delicate and sharp all at once.
She saw him a handful of times after that, but she had never been near enough to speak to him or brave enough to attempt it. Each time her gaze landed on him, she drank in the sight as if she were storing sunlight for winter.
And then he was gone.
Not long after that wretched, glorious day, he left England for the Continent. War, everyone said, as if that single word explained everything. He had considered it his duty to serve and the Crown required it. His family expected it. His country demanded it.
Vivy pretended to understand.
But in the evenings, when she lay in bed with the curtains drawn and the house fell into silence, she thought of him in places she could not imagine—fields she had never seen, roads soaked with rain and blood, all the foreign languages and foreign dangers he was sure to encounter. She imagined his calm voice, his alertness, and his eyes that shifted from gold to green depending on the light.
She prayed, ridiculously in her private moments, that the light would still find him wherever he went. She hated to think of him bathed in darkness and all the evil in the world.
Years passed, as years did. Seasons turned one after the other, and London’s gossip continued to chew and spit out names as if hearts were nothing but sweetmeats at a party. Vivy grew older and she went through her first season, and then another, until she became a fixture in the ton. Suitors began to circle with the predictable patience of men who scented the advantage in her father’s title. None of them compared to him and none of them had a chance of finding their way into her heart.
Vivy refused them with a smile that was always polite and never encouraging. But then the whispers began. Not of war this time, but of death. Ravenwood’s father had died and the title had passed to the second son, and he had become the earl. Dashiell had never been meant to inherit the title, but he was not the first spare to claim it by far. His older brother had died a year before their father, leaving him the heir. She had not understood why he remained on the continent after that. Surely, he should have returned sooner, but to her disappointment, he had not.
But now, Dashiell Blackwell had come home, and he was in London because duty demanded it. He was the earl and had to see to his estates. She had not seen him yet. She had not dared ask after him too openly. A duke’s daughter might be bold, but she was not foolish. At least not in public.
Still, the hope would not be silenced.
Perhaps he would attend Lady Whitcombe’s ball tonight. The Whitcombes were connected to everyone worth knowing. It was the sort of gathering a man could not easily avoid without inviting speculation. The Earl of Ravenwood would understand the value of avoiding a scandal. He would know, as her father had once said with an exasperated sigh, that one must sometimes allow oneself to be seen in order to remain unseen.
As her maid tied the last ribbon at the back of her gown and her mother’s jewels cooled at her throat, Vivy stood before the mirror and tried to summon composure. She was no longer that girl of six and ten. She was a woman grown. She had danced with lords and endured tedious compliments and learned to hold herself steady beneath scrutiny.
But she had not learned how to face the memory of a hand offered in kindness or of a voice that made her stomach flutter. Would he recognize her? She rather hoped he would not. It would be easier, safer, if she were merely another lady in a crowded room. Some stubborn, reckless part of her, the part that had never been content to quietly obey, wanted him to look at her again and see truly see her. She wanted him to remember her the way she had remembered him.
Not a child who tripped over her own hem. Not a duke’s daughter with his title looming over her head. But Lavinia…Vivy. The woman that had given her heart to him and never gotten it back. She wanted to be…
Someone worth remembering.
As the carriage rolled toward Whitcombe House and the glow of hundreds of lamps painted the night in gold, Vivy pressed her hands together and steadied her breath. She had fallen at his feet once. She would not do it again.
At least…not in quite the same way. Somehow, she had a feeling she would always do something foolish for that man.
One
Rain glazed the cobblestones in a silvery sheen as dusk settled over London, cloaking its streets in deepening shadows. It was the hour when modistes shuttered their windows, when footmen lit household lamps—and when danger moved most freely. Dashiell Blackwell, Earl of Ravenwood, melted into those shadows as though born of them.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and with his brown hair dampened by mist, he walked with a purposeful stride that drew no attention despite the latent power in every step. His hazel eyes—gold-flecked, keen, and unyielding—missed nothing. They never did. He had been trained too well for that. A carriage rattled past, horses stamping impatiently, but Dash did not turn. His focus was fixed on a single doorway ahead—a narrow apothecary shop, long closed, save for the faint flicker of a candle in the back room.
That was his signal. A coded flame to match the coded message he had come to collect.
He entered through the rear, boots silent on the worn planks. Inside, the air smelled of crushed herbs and damp parchment. A figure waited at the table. He was a contact within The Lion Watch a secret intelligence organization headed by the Duke of Lionston—Dash’s closest friend and ally.
“You’re late, Ravenwood,” the man murmured.
“Then we are both fortunate the French do not keep my schedule,” Dash replied, dryly.
A thin smile formed on the man’s face as a small slip of parchment changed hands. Dash unfolded it only halfway. Lines of symbols stared back sharply angled and deceptively simple. A cipher used by Napoleon’s London agents. Too bold by half…unless they believed themselves close to victory.
“Where did you intercept it?” he asked as he shoved it into an inside pocket. He would have to take it to the Lion Watch before going to the Whitcombe ball and hopefully Lionston would still be there so he could share it with him. The duke would want to be aware of the treachery afoot in London. They could decide later how to handle it—if they’d deal with it themselves or deliver an anonymous missive to the War Office.
