A cold corner of Hays Mews and Hill Street,
behind Berkeley Square
The moment Jake stepped into the dark lane Leatham appeared out of the shadows. ‘What brings you here?’
A certain honey-haired temptress and an overwhelming desire to see her sooner. ‘I had time to kill before Almack’s and thought it might be a good opportunity to catch up.’ He eyed the line of waiting carriages. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Rowley’s hosting a dinner. There are around ten other men including Redditch. Flint’s there, so we’ll have to wait for the full list of names to investigate.’ The flash of jealousy at Flint spending time with her around the dinner table while Jake loitered outside yearning didn’t help his mood and he grunted. ‘How was the Tower?’ Leatham’s bland expression belied the wicked glimmer in his eyes. No doubt he, or one of his Invisibles, had followed Jake’s every move and his monosyllabic friend knew exactly what had happened all too briefly in that hackney.
‘I’m making progress.’
‘Slow progress by your standards, Warriner. I’d have thought you’d have bedded the wench by now.’
Hearing her talked about like that made his blood boil, but Jake covered it with lazy charm. ‘That’s why I do the seducing and you get to lurk in the stables, my friend. You don’t know the first thing about women. Fliss is not the sort of woman you rush.’
A knowing grin split the other man’s face. ‘Fliss, is it? Suits her. She’s got to you, hasn’t she?’
Yes.
‘Of course not.’
‘Then you won’t mind that Fennimore’s told Flint to try his hand with her, too. Belt and braces...’
‘You know damn well two men trying to woo the same woman would muddy the water. What the hell is Fennimore playing at? Flint’s got his mission and I’ve got mine!’ And he’d happily flatten the charming Flint if he so much as laid one finger on her. At his furious glare, Seb threw his head back and laughed.
‘It was a test, Warriner. One that you failed. Miserably. I saw the soppy grin on your face after you ravished her in that carriage. She’s been wearing a matching one most of the day.’
She had? His silly heart soared.
‘Have your fun elsewhere, Seb. I was sent to ravish the girl as you well know. So what if I enjoy my work? It’s better than loitering in the gutters like you.’ And Jake was digging himself a deeper hole by seeking to explain it so vigorously. ‘Has Flint got into Rowley’s dressing room yet?’
‘It’s his intention to try again tonight if he can distract the guards. There’s tighter security inside that house than outside. Rowley has a man on practically every door.’ Which was why they were currently chatting at the end of the cluttered mews which served the whole of Berkeley Square and well away from Rowley’s small fortress of a stables. ‘He’s going to try and hang back till after most of the guests and Rowley have left...unless he can inveigle his way into the family carriage.’ His friend slanted him a mischievous glance, waiting to see if Jake would bite. When he didn’t, he changed the subject. ‘The River Police have doubled their patrols, not that it amounts to much. They’re spread too thin and their resources are woefully inadequate to cope with an operation of this scale, but they are focusing on the smaller boats coming up from the estuary. There are currently three of Rowley’s ships that have been moored at the docks for a week now and show no signs of either unloading or leaving. I’ve had men watching them and they say the crews seem to know they are being watched, which leads me to believe they want us to watch them. My nose tells me they’re decoys or have already been unloaded, there to taunt us while the little laden boats sail on by.’
As Leatham’s intuition was scarily accurate, Jake was not inclined to argue with his assessment. ‘Which explains Rowley’s sudden interest in the Regent’s Canal. It’ll open up a new route all the way up to the Midlands.’
‘And why he’s throwing his niece at the man.’ Something Jake was becoming increasingly annoyed by. If it drove Fliss to return to Cumbria... The back of his neck prickled with awareness seconds before his friend frowned. ‘Hold on...’ He strained his head to get a better look. ‘Unless my eyes deceive me, that’s her?’ Seb pointed to the lone figure hurriedly crossing the next road along, her head darting left and right before she made a mad dash out of sight. ‘What’s she doing out all alone?’
Everything about the situation raised Jake’s hackles, from the furtive nature of her movements to the fact she was out in the chilly February night without so much as a shawl to protect her from the elements. Jake immediately broke into a run, his long legs eating up the distance between them until he could see her properly in the darkness. Her skirts were gathered in her hands as she ran in what looked terrifyingly like panic.
‘Fliss!’
She hesitated at the sound of her name, then sped up, blindly heading towards Park Lane, seeming oblivious to the dangers of the many carriages which were trundling along the thoroughfare. She wasn’t wearing her spectacles, which meant she couldn’t see properly. In the darkness, a horse might not see her until it was too late. It spurred Jake’s legs to pump faster before he called out again.
‘Fliss, it’s me! Jake!’
She skidded to a halt as her head whipped around. Most of her hair was in disarray, but her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. ‘Jake?’ Her hands went to her mouth and, as he finally caught her and dragged her into his arms, she crumpled. ‘Oh, Jake...’
Her skin was like ice. The delicate silk of her dress was already damp with the frigid evening mist. Jake shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around her, then guided her towards an alleyway and out of sight. If she was running, then there was probably a damn good reason why. Nothing fazed his canny northern lass normally, therefore he would err on the side of caution in case she was in some danger. ‘What’s happened?’
It took her a few moments to choke out any words. When they came, her voice was shaking. ‘He stole my money...all of it.’
‘Who?’ Jake scanned the street for any signs of the villain. ‘Where were you?’
‘All my clothes are gone. My money. Everything is.’ She clutched at his lapels and he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. She swiped them away impatiently. ‘The footmen are watching me.’
‘Your uncle stole your money?’ Or at least that was the gist he was getting from her breathless staccato phrases. She nodded.
‘Petty revenge to get his own way. To keep me here. He wants me to be nice to Redditch.’ She stared anxiously down the street she had just run down. ‘I had to get away, Jake. He scares me... I c-c-can’t go back there.’
‘You don’t have to go back there.’ His mind was whirring as he enveloped her in his arms, the desire to take care of her warring with the urgent need to give Rowley a sound thrashing. ‘I’ll help you.’
She reached up to touch his face and he saw relief and total trust in her eyes. ‘You always are in the right place, aren’t you? I can trust you.’
Guilt strangled any answer because he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her, so he hugged her fiercely instead. ‘I have lodgings at the Albany, less than ten minutes from here. Why don’t we get you out of the cold and then we can plan what to do next?’
‘I know what to do next. I need to go back to Cumbria. Back to Sister Ursuline’s where I belong. I’ll walk there if I have to! All three hundred miles of it in these silly shoes!’ The old Fliss was rapidly returning. The feisty, no-nonsense, indomitable Fliss. The one he knew he had to leave regardless of how much it hurt to watch her go. As long as she was away from Rowley, he could bear it.
‘I’ll take you back home. In a carriage. It’ll save those silly shoes.’ She offered him a tremulous smile, happily absorbing his strength and the heat of his body. When she rose on tiptoes and placed a grateful, soft kiss on his lips, a surge of wholly inappropriate lust hit him with such force Jake closed his eyes to guard against it. Beneath his hands he could feel the softness of her body under the damp silk—unfettered by stays—and knew that only that one layer of silk and one gauzy layer of linen from his shirt and the inconvenient buttons on his waistcoat separated their naked skin. Knowledge which he didn’t need while he was trying to be selflessly noble. Her knight in shining armour. ‘We’ll leave tonight if you want to?’
‘You’ll take me all the way back to Cumbria?’
‘Yes.’ And then he would say goodbye. Why did that thought already make his heart ache?
‘Not a good idea.’ At the sound of Leatham’s gravelly voice behind, Fliss stiffened, her fingers gripping Jake’s back. ‘We need to take her to Fennimore.’
‘No. We don’t.’
‘Yes, we do, Jake.’
At the familiar use of his first name, Fliss’s eyes swivelled from Seb’s to his warily, that clever mind of hers already doubting him. ‘Who is he? Jake?’ Her pretty eyes widened. ‘I recognise him...the scar...this is the man who took your horse that morning. You know him?’ She took a decisive step back, severing all physical contact between them, wrapping her own arms around her body protectively rather than stand any longer in his embrace. Her voice was all at once both mistrusting and brittle. ‘What’s going on?’
Jake felt sick to his stomach. Guilty, ashamed and furious simultaneously at both Seb, his own duplicity and this impossible dilemma he wished with all his heart he wasn’t facing. ‘This is my friend Seb Leatham. He is...’ His voice trailed off. How to explain the truth without having her hate him?
‘We work for his Majesty’s government, Miss Blunt. You are quite safe with us, but I hope you understand we will need to question you before we arrange for your safe passage back to Cumbria.’
‘Question me about what?’
‘Your uncle. We have been investigating some of his business dealings.’
* * *
Jake couldn’t meet her eyes. He didn’t need to deny it because his body radiated guilt. His dark head was bent. Broad shoulders slumped. For a man always supremely confident in his own body, he suddenly didn’t appear to know what to do with his hands. Shocked, Fliss complied and allowed the other man in ragged labourer’s clothes to escort her down the back alleys of Mayfair as she tried to digest it all. She didn’t recognise the mews they entered, or the stables they went through, but she recognised the bitter taste of betrayal and the heavy weight of humiliation as she accompanied the two men. Both strangers to her now.
Jake was blessedly silent and walked several paces behind. It was just as well. If he had offered her any empty platitudes, she would have happily slapped his duplicitous and handsome face raw for his part in this. They were investigating her uncle! It had all been a lie.
What a foolish, trusting dolt she had been. Jacob Warriner had a canny knack of being in the right place at exactly the right time because he was apparently paid by the King himself to be there. He wasn’t dependable, he was doing his job. He had wormed his way into her affections only to extract information for the crown. Every charming word out of his tempting mouth was a lie. Every stupid thing she had imagined between them was a mirage, too. The odd sense of kinship. The mutual attraction. The seductive allure of temptation. The hope that his feelings for her were as deep as hers had become for him. The perfection of that kiss... Fate! It would be laughable if she didn’t feel like crying.
His empty words would be galling if she wasn’t bleeding inside. He’d played every trick in the successful rakes’ book and she had fallen for them. Just as she supposed a great many other women had in the past.
And it hurt.
Fliss so wanted to turn around to look at him to see if he was hurting, too, as if the sight of his remorse would make her feel better about his treachery. Fortunately, her pride kept her eyes front and centre and her shoulders fortified with steel. As soon as they crossed the garden and entered the French doors of the smart Mayfair town house, she shrugged off Jake’s offending coat, not wanting any part of him left touching her skin. She heard him bend to retrieve it, but refused to look back as he did. Let him feel the frigid cold of her indifference. He was nought but an untrustworthy philanderer just as she had first thought. A consummate and cruel liar. A chameleon who adapted seamlessly according to his environment and the situation; a wastrel like her father and one who had misused her as grievously as her horrid uncle.
An older man with a serious face greeted her in what looked to be his study. ‘Miss Blunt. I wish I could have made your acquaintance under better circumstances and I hope you will forgive us our cloak-and-dagger methods, but until very recently we had no idea that you weren’t in any way involved in your uncle’s skulduggery. I am Lord Fennimore and I head up an organisation called the King’s Elite. Warriner and Leatham work for me. As does another operative embedded within your uncle’s social circle. I assume you have met Lord Peter Flint?’
Now she knew who the handsome blond crony was. He had always smiled kindly at her, as if he felt a little bit sorry for her—now she knew why. He knew what Jake saw in her. Fliss nodded once, curtly, and sat primly in the chair Lord Fennimore placed in front of the fire. As she sipped the hot tea she had been given, she felt the soft wool of a blanket be placed about her shoulders and felt the painful tingle of awareness which told her which of the King’s minions had put it there. She didn’t bother thanking him for that single genuine kindness.
‘I suppose you have a great many questions, Miss Blunt, and now that Warriner has assured me we can trust you, I shall do my best to answer them, but for now I shall cut to the heart of the matter...’
A cut to the heart. How apt. Hers felt shredded.
‘The King’s Elite is a secret branch of the Home Office. We are tasked with unmasking and bringing to justice all those who seek to undermine the British economy through large-scale smuggling. For two years, we have been desperately trying to bring down a very dangerous group who have flooded the market with brandy. While smuggled liquor is nothing new, what concerns us most about this particular bunch are their links to the loyal supporters of Napoleon. The same men who helped him escape from Elba are once again plotting to return him to power—only this time they are using British coin to purchase weapons and amass an army, coin raised from the thousands of gallons of French brandy smuggled onto our shores every single month. Brandy they provide. Until recently, we had no plausible leads to follow. You see, this gang are as brutal and secretive as they are powerful and every smuggled cargo we’ve seized has led us to yet another dead end. The smugglers either did not know who they worked for or were prepared to go to the gallows rather than betray their masters. However, six months ago, one of those smugglers gave us a name. The man who he claims is the sole distributor for the goods in London and the Home Counties. I’m sorry to tell you that name was Crispin Rowley.’
Jake’s shabby accomplice lowered himself into the seat opposite her. ‘We believe the brandy is coming through London via the Thames and suspect your uncle is responsible for finding buyers and distributing it from there. He is a significant link in a very long chain, but he covers his tracks well. All we can find are his legitimate business dealings, shares in merchant ships, banks and the like. However, his choice of investments lends itself as the perfect cover for the real source of his impressive new fortune. We believe those same shipping companies are somehow bringing in the cargoes, but we do not know either where or how they are able to hide the contraband from the Excise Men. We are coming to believe he moves the goods entirely on the water and in very large amounts. Thanks to you we now know he is seeking to invest in the new Regent’s Canal, which goes some way to confirming those suspicions.’ Jake had charmed and prised that information out of her, claiming the dull conversation would cure his insomnia. One of his many lies. They tripped off his tongue with such ease, no wonder he was so good at his job. She could feel his eyes boring into her back, willing her to turn around, but his dishonesty sickened her far more than her disgust at her own stupidity did. If he had been a decent man to begin with, he would have told her the truth from the outset and she would have happily still told him everything. Honestly. Upfront. He wouldn’t have needed to try to seduce it out of her!
But lies and deception were a rake’s stock in trade and she had pathetically fallen for them as well as him, so instead Fliss clutched the blanket tighter, and ignored him, focusing back on his friend. All these years she had stalwartly guarded her heart, waiting for someone worthy, only to discover she had unwittingly given it to the unworthiest man possible. He wasn’t simply a selfish hedonist taking his pleasure where he could. He was paid to seduce. Somehow that felt worse. Humiliating. Even more of a betrayal.
‘So you see, any information you can add to what we already know will be a godsend, Miss Blunt. Your testimony could help us infiltrate that gang, or it could help clear your uncle’s name of any wrongdoing.’ The scarred man hesitated, obviously conscious of the fact that his every word condemned his friend further in her eyes. ‘Jake said you overhead a meeting between your uncle and another man which bothered you.’
She shook her head and laughed bitterly. Had their every conversation been reported in great detail? Very probably. Snippets of the nocturnal argument she had overheard in the garden filtered back and suddenly made sense. ‘Dead men can’t spend.’
‘I’m sorry?’
So was Fliss. ‘I should have trusted my instincts.’
All of them.
Mr Leatham and Lord Fennimore sat forward in their seats with interest. ‘Go on.’
‘That’s what the man said. Dead men can’t spend. I did overhear a conversation between my uncle and another man in the garden a few nights ago. My bedchamber is directly above his study and faces out on to the garden. It was past midnight and I couldn’t sleep. I’d left my window ajar.’ And now she hated Jake, too. It had been his fault she had been hot and restless, and all the while he had been tricking her into confiding in him. The Biblical snake in the Garden of Eden, luring her to sin and damn near succeeding. ‘My uncle was in a state. Desperate. He offered to pay double, then triple his usual for a shipment of some sort. The other man refused. Said it would make no difference because dead men couldn’t spend. He said the boss wouldn’t like it if his cargo got seized. That he’d lost enough already this month because there were many new eyes along the water. Or words to that effect.’
‘You’re sure he used the words the Boss?’
‘It is my judgement that has been impaired, Lord Fennimore, not my memory. Because the conversation was in the middle of night and out of the ordinary, it sticks in the mind.’
‘What else did they say?’
‘I got the distinct impression the other man was the one in charge of the situation. My uncle seemed scared of him. He was pleading with him, complaining he was out of pocket every time a shipment was late and saying that people were relying on him. Now that I come to think about it, yesterday morning in Hyde Park, my uncle discussed a great deal of business with some other gentlemen, none of whom looked particularly happy by what he had to say.’
‘Their names are in the list I gave you,’ Mr Leatham said matter of factly, letting Fliss know he had also been following her around the park, and probably to the Tower. All three men were probably well aware she had been silly enough to welcome Jake’s kiss. Had lost herself temporarily in it.
‘Were both of you tasked to watch me, Mr Leatham? Was one charming nursemaid not enough?’
He had the decency to appear embarrassed. ‘My mission was to follow your uncle’s movements, Miss Blunt, not you. Jake was assigned...’ His voice trailed off as he looked at his boots.
‘I am well aware Mr Warriner was tasked with seducing me, Mr Leatham. I am a fool, not an imbecile. I suppose that is the usual manner in which you operate?’ Fliss forced a brightness in her voice she didn’t feel, because she refused to allow him to see how much he had hurt her. ‘Assign a dedicated and highly skilled man to everyone. Already I have worked out that your particular skill, Mr Leatham, is to blend into the background—am I right?’ The other man nodded. The tips of his ears blushed incongruously with the rest of his harsh exterior. ‘Then it is hardly surprising that Mr Warriner would be assigned to question the ladies. How clever of the British government to utilise his talent for philandering so thoroughly.’
‘The man your uncle met with—what can you tell us about him?’ Lord Fennimore clicked his fingers and gestured towards his desk to hastily change the subject and save his man, and it was Jake who quickly fetched paper and a pen and pressed them into his hand. He took himself to stand behind the other two, directly in her eye line. She resolutely ignored him. ‘We will need a thorough description, Miss Blunt. All you remember.’
‘He wasn’t a gentleman, my lord, by the accepted definition of the word gentleman.’ Neither was Jake the Rake, henceforth to be known as Jake the Snake for ever. She shot a few daggers at him in case he was in any doubt she loathed him for his deceit but wasn’t broken by it. She’d been let down before by men. Continually let down by them. Expected nothing less. ‘He was a Londoner. His accent coarse like a working man’s. His clothes were scruffy. He was big. He loomed over my uncle.’
‘And his features?’ Lord Fennimore looked up from his notes.
‘It was dark and I wasn’t wearing my spectacles. At best his face was a smudge.’
‘Was he fair? Dark?’
‘He was wearing a hat. I never saw. It was an odd and short exchange, my lord. Once it was over the man disappeared behind the shrubbery. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘What of your uncle’s dealings with the Earl of Redditch? Is there a chance he is involved somehow?’
Fliss considered it, then dismissed it out of hand. ‘If he was, then there would be no reason for my uncle to thrust me in front of the man’s nose. Tonight he made it clear that his negotiations with the Earl are at a crucial stage and that he expects to use me as a bargaining chip. I am to be nice to the man, apparently. Allow myself to be fawned and drooled over while the negotiations are concluded. Drive him mad with lust to scramble his wits.’ Just thinking about it made Fliss shudder and she unconsciously rubbed her arms where her uncle had gripped her. ‘He intended to keep me a virtual prisoner until the contracts were signed.’