Chapter 1
March 1820
“A person to see you, Captain.” The cool words of Barnstable, my wife’s butler, cut into the enjoyment of my newspaper and morning toast.
Barnstable paused on the doorstep of the dining room, his face frozen in an expression of disapproval. His use of the word “person” told me that he considered whoever it was to be no gentleman or lady, or even a respectable member of the lower classes.
That he announced the visitor at all was odd. When Barnstable didn’t like the look of someone, he turned them away at his discretion. My wife had given him that power, which Barnstable used without hesitation.
I finished my slice of toasted bread slathered with sweet orange marmalade, a luxury from my father-in-law’s hothouses in Oxfordshire, and reluctantly set aside my paper. The details of the Cato Street Conspiracy, as it was now being called, filled the pages. Radicals had planned to incite a revolution after murdering everyone in the cabinet but had been thwarted by diligent Bow Street Runners, including my former sergeant, Milton Pomeroy and his rival, Mr. Spendlove.
“Who is it?” I asked, keeping my question calm. It never did good to upset Barnstable, who was clearly unhappy he’d had to interrupt me.
“He claims his name is Gibbons,” Barnstable replied.
Gibbons. It took a moment to connect the name with a face, but it came to me like a slap. Dry, papery, dangerous. Gibbons was the butler of James Denis and had once been a hardened criminal, possibly still was.
Curious. Whenever Denis summoned me, he’d send a note of one line, using a whole sheet of expensive paper to do so. Or he’d send word via Brewster, who’d become my permanent bodyguard and, I hoped, friend.
“A strange but intriguing event,” I said as Barnstable hovered. “Send him in, please.”
“Perhaps you would speak to him in the foyer, sir.”
Barnstable’s frosty tone and the fact that he did not meet my gaze guided me to the correct way to receive another man’s servant, whether former criminal or not.
Barnstable had been very patient with me as I learned to navigate the world of the aristocracy. I was a man of property, but my father’s small, rundown estate in Norfolk hardly compared to Donata’s elegant townhouse in South Audley Street or her eight-year-old viscount son’s vast home in Hampshire.
I eyed the remaining pieces of toast and the slab of beef awaiting me, laid aside my napkin, and rose, smothering a sigh as I motioned Barnstable to precede me out.
The dining room, a grand chamber with high ceilings and a long table, was located on the main floor of the house. I descended to the ground floor, following Barnstable down the curved staircase with graceful railings.
Gibbons, a thin man with gray hair in a subdued dark suit, awaited me on the cross-hatched parquet floor of the lower hall. He wore a greatcoat against the March rain and clutched his hat as though he’d been reluctant to remove it upon entering.
Before I could greet him as I stepped off the stairs, he strode forward and barked a command.
“You will come with me.”
Whenever I visited Denis in his luxurious house on Curzon Street, Gibbons rarely said a word. He’d usher me to a chair, serve me a beverage in cold silence, and then stand behind me to prevent me escaping the room.
Today, Gibbons spoke rapidly, his eyes black pools of agitation in a hard face.
My brows rose. “What does Mr. Denis wish me to do for him this time?”
“You will see when we get there. Now, Captain.”
As much as I bristled at being ordered about, my very inconvenient curiosity awoke. I often landed myself in great trouble letting my long nose lead me, a fault I’d not tried very hard to correct.
“Barnstable,” I said to the disapproving butler. “Will you please fetch my greatcoat?”
Gibbons had arrived in a coach pulled by matching bay horses of fine conformation. He wrenched open the carriage door once I, bundled against the rain, exited the house, and brusquely motioned me inside.
“Perhaps I should send for Brewster,” I said in belated caution. I’d come to trust Denis—in some situations—but I’d never warmed to Gibbons. He was a hard man working for an even harder one.
“He’s already there,” Gibbons said, impatient. “We need to hurry.”
In spite of my misgivings, I heaved myself into the coach, unsteady on my bad leg. Brewster or one of Denis’s other minions might have lent me a hand, but Gibbons only stood stiffly and waited for me to struggle inside.
Once I was on the seat, he sprang in behind me with an energy that belied his years and waved for the coachman to drive on.
