Chapter One
London 1892
Percy Cole hadto give Lord and Lady Leishire their due; this was the least pompous, mind-numbing ball he’d been to... this week.
He took a sip of watery lemonade and resisted scratching at where his wig hid evidence of midnight curls. He accepted the less desirable aspects of his job with sport—the prosthetics, the ridiculous fashion, the itchy head pieces—the only way of rubbing elbows with the elite to don a façade as paper-thin and fictitious as those of the rest of the liars of theton.
The place was a jungle. Vines, thick as his forearm, draped across parapets of marble and coiled around pillars capped in ancient Grecian scrolls. Giant, red flowers hung above, greedily demanding attention—alive, as far as his untrained eye observed. No doubt the reason for the six fireplaces in the grand ballroom to be lit despite the warm night—keeping the plants alive while the rest of the hosts’ guests suffered for air. At least they’d all perish in style.
Percy pulled at his collar under the guise of taking another sip of lemonade. He’d never understand the eccentricities of the upper classes: vines on walls; flirting glances over laced fans and calling it wanton behavior; candled chandeliers dripping wax onto esteemed guests in gilded ensembles that could feedan entire family for weeks. He’d like to see these dressed-up peacocks survive a week in the rookeries: no heat, no water, no hope for rescue.
The lady on his right made an off-hand comment about vegetables that had him wishing to stick any of the four knives on his person through the ear and into the brain, preferably his.
His attention strayed to the commotion at the edge of the dance floor, where Hamish and Charlotte Hurstfield, the Duke and Duchess of Camine, had made their first move—a poorly acted heat spell and fainting that would lead them to find a quiet room. The perfect place for a killer to slip in and finish his business.
There was no way Nic Brandt would resist going after them. Not Percy’s former partner. The man who would go to any lengths to finish a mission. The same man who’d once sat shoulder to shoulder in the trenches with Percy when they’d been but children—no food, only rust-colored water to drink—all with a smile on his face as the screams of war had echoed around them.
Percy’s hand went to the knife hidden in his coat pocket.
Silently working to tear apart Hamish’s negotiations in Dockside, going after Charlotte in the woods... Percy hadn’t seen his former partner in eight years, but it seemed Nic hadn’t lost an ounce of skill or his love of machinations.
A shiver of anticipation drew the heat of the packed room away.
Finally, he’d extricate himself from these insipid people and do something worthwhile. The information he’d kept about his history with Nic from Hamish had been unfair to the duke, a man he considered a friend, but his past was a sorted one, one that would reveal too much, for all parties present.
The lady at his side turned to him, her fuchsia dress looking like wilted petals under yards of lace. “What do you think, sir? Aren’t artichokes the finest vegetable?”
Percy’s lips jerked upwards in semblance of an interested smile while he racked his brain to remember the woman’s name. Between the yards of lace, the feathers adorning coifs, and the overabundance of bustles, it was hard to tell faces from tails, let alone faces from faces.
Memory clicking, he said, “Potatoes, Lady Blanchett. You’ll find no finer vegetable on or off the field.”No finer to stomp under foot and feed to the pigs.
The greying gentleman beside Lady Blanchett—her husband or lover; it was hard to tell by the way she kept brushing against the man’s leg,by accident, of course—animated. “Potatoes are scarce even now after the trouble in Scotland. Do you grow them on your land, Mr. Seymour?”
Seymour? Ah, right. He’d decided to play one of his less-used aliases as an up-and-coming American merchant here with an invitation from hispersonalfriend, the Duke of Lux.
Renard would be livid when he found out.
Percy’s smile grew in sincerity. “Potatoes don’t grow well in Virginia, I’m afraid, but I’ve a fine coconut grove imported all the way from the southern islands.” Each lie rolled off his tongue more inaccurate than the last.
Lady Blanchett’s maybe-husband-probably-lover exclaimed, “Astounding.”
The others in their small party nodded in agreement.
Percy smiled at each of them in turn, sure he could tell the fools he spun gold and they’d keep nodding like chickens picking corn from the fields.
“Palm trees don’t grow outside the tropics,” someone said.
Percy’s smile didn’t falter. There was always a risk of discovery when spewing falsehoods like sins confessed onSunday, but talking himself out of trouble remained his best skill.
Noting the naysayer’s tone as distinctly feminine, he turned on the newcomer with his most charming smirk.
And startled.
The lady was a goddess made flesh. Tanned skin, as if the lady didn’t care a wink for staying out unprotected in the sun. The dark tone set off the amber of her eyes and complemented the lovely, walnut-colored hair pinned on top of her head. She wore no ornaments anywhere except for a velvet reticule that matched that dress... Percy had never seen a gown so perfectly tailored to showcase a woman’s body as she moved.
His mouth went dry as she popped out a hip, the navy-colored satin going taut across the curve.
She looked him over with a hard set to her jaw, her expression hiding nothing of her suspicion of him. Without a stitch of lace or bustle in sight—and the crafted brilliance of her form-highlighting dress—she was the epitome of real.
