Chapter One

Boston

1815

It was the irony of all ironies.

Gabriel Manning stared at the words on the official document that had just been delivered after months of delay. He had probably been responsible for some of the delay, he and his American privateer, which had captured more than a few British ships.

And now it seemed that the country Gabriel had so recently fought and long blamed for killing his father had made Gabriel Manning a peer of the realm.

He chuckled, but it was a mirthless sound. A marquess, by God. He was a marquess. His enemies were handing him the weapon he would use to skewer them.

He hesitated outside the office of the man who had made everything possible. He knew his news would not be happily met on this first meeting in many months.

Gabriel clutched the missive from a barrister in London, a barrister charged with informing him of the inheritance but who was obviously not eager for him to travel to England to collect it. A barrister whose name he remembered.

There are no funds left, according to the letter. Only an encumbered estate that is heavily indebted. I will be pleased to sell what is possible to sell and send the proceeds to your account. There is no need for you to make the long and difficult journey to England.

Oh, but there was need. A very great need.

The war with England was over. He’d spent the last year as a privateer captain and had taken his share of prizes, most of which he turned over to the American government. He knew that on the cessation of hostilities, he would be given a captaincy with the Samuel Barker Shipping Company.

He’d earned the berth the hard way, as had so many American sailors. He’d toiled at the shipyard since he was eleven, squeezing in hours of reading at night. His father had always told him he would never succeed without education.

His father would have been proud. But not proud enough. Gabriel had not yet fulfilled the vow he’d made.

The piece of parchment his father had given him two decades ago had gone around the globe with him. One day he would bury it at his father’s grave, but only after he’d accomplished his father’s charge.

Gabriel had one of two things he needed to carry out a plan he’d been formulating for years. The war with England had interfered temporarily, but now this title would give him the entrée he needed.

But he needed more funds. He’d handed back prizes to the American government, which had been in dire need of funds. He had saved most of his life and had accumulated nearly twenty thousand pounds, but he suspected it would be less than what he needed.

He’d expected to have several more years to exact justice, but the title wouldn’t wait. If he didn’t claim it, according to the barrister, a distant cousin was next in line.

He hadn’t meant for this news to be his homecoming to Boston.

But the letter had awaited him at the office of a solicitor. And now he had to tell Samuel, the man who had hired him, taught him, even fathered him to a certain degree.

He knocked and the door opened immediately.

“So you have returned in one piece,” Samuel Barker, owner of Samuel Barker Shipping Company, said as he clasped his hand with unusual warmth. “Gabriel, I am glad to have you back. You worried me, my boy. I heard about the chances you took.” He smiled as broadly as his New England heritage allowed. “I have that command and a part ownership in the company ready for you. I’ve had the papers drawn.”

A knife sliced through Gabriel. He knew a command was his. Samuel had talked about it for several years. He had not known about a part ownership in the company. It had been a dream, not reality.

Gabriel handed the letter he’d received from England to Samuel, who read it quickly, then searched Gabriel’s face. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to return to England,” Gabriel said. “I have to clear my father’s name.”

“I cannot postpone the sailing of the Cecilia to Japan. It must leave in two weeks.”

“John Garrett, my first mate, is available and qualified to captain her,” Gabriel said, the knife turning ever so painfully. But he had no choice. A voyage to Japan would take months. He could not wait that long.

“Do you plan to stay in England?” Samuel asked.

“I have no desire to make it my home.”

Barker nodded. He knew something of Gabriel’s background. Gabriel had told him during a drunken conversation years ago. “I do not want to lose you. I missed you this past year, but your record is outstanding. You will be of great benefit to this firm.”

Samuel strode to the window of his office that overlooked the Boston harbor. “I’ll give the Cecilia to Garrett for this voyage. And find a ship for you when you return.”

Gabriel swallowed hard. Samuel had become a second father to him these last ten years. Now he saw the disappointment on the man’s face. He’d been so uncharacteristically eager to relate the news.

Yet Gabriel knew he could never really proceed with his life until he had accomplished the one thing his father had requested—no, bade—him to do. And now he’d been handed the means through which he could accomplish it. He could not give up this one chance.

Samuel turned to him. “Do you need money?”

“No, I have prize money left.”

“If you need anything …”

“Only your friendship.”

“You will always have that, Gabriel. I never had a son. If I did, I would want him to be like you.”

No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want a son of his blood to be obsessed with revenge. Not revenge, he reminded himself. Justice. Yet he knew the difference, and the recurring nightmare of that night so long ago made it revenge.

He felt humbled by Samuel’s faith, and yet even that would not deter him.

“Do what you have to do, and return to us,” Samuel said.

Gabriel nodded and left the room, feeling the affection following him. But he wouldn’t dwell on it. He had too many other things to do.

He would need more funds, and he would not take them from Samuel. He knew exactly the man who could help him.

The best thief in Boston.

Paris

1815

“It’s so dangerous, ma chère amie.”

“I know,” Monique said, “but I will never rest until I meet him. And destroy him.”

Monique Fremont applied the final touches of theatrical paint for her last performance in France as Danielle, her friend and hairdresser, completed the elaborate coiffure, which took two hours to complete.

Monique bore the ritual patiently. Tomorrow she would begin a new performance, one she’d planned for years. The masquerade would begin in earnest and end, she prayed, in a denouement that would destroy an English earl.

She’d had an excellent offer from an English theatrical company in London. It was an offer she’d hungered after, and, more importantly, it was the means to an end.

When Danielle finished positioning the last of the cascading curls and nodded with satisfaction, Monique took one last look in the mirror. She adjusted the dress, which just barely covered her nipples.

No sign of Merry Anders remained. No sign of the thin waif who’d taken care of her mother after her beauty faded and her protectors disappeared. No sign of the English child who had taken the name of Monique Fremont when she’d entered the theater.

She wondered whether she resembled her father at all. Her mother said not. Monique prayed not, for that might ruin everything.

She did look like her mother. Black hair. Gray eyes that her mother’s lovers had called luminous. She was taller, her mouth wider, her cheekbones not as pronounced. Her chin was more determined.

Her mother had once been a classic beauty. On the other hand, Merry had been called “fascinating” rather than pretty. It had not been her looks, she knew, that had made her one of Paris’s most famous actresses. It was her vitality, critics proclaimed, the way she projected herself that made beauties beside her look pale and dull. One critic said she was radiant with life.

They didn’t know it was not life.

It was the need for revenge.

Those same scribes had been moaning because she had accepted an offer to join a theater in London. How could she possibly leave French connoisseurs for English bores who could never appreciate the subtleties of her performances, the wit that crouched within every word?

The house was a sell-out tonight. Every hopeful suitor would be in attendance as well as the older cavaliers who had tried so hard to seduce her. She’d had more offers than she could count from would-be “protectors.”

No one would suspect that the worldly Monique Fremont, who had appeared from virtually nowhere, was still a virgin, that she looked upon most men as fools and the others as libertines. It was an opinion honestly reached after watching a series of protectors use, then discard, her mother.

No one she had met in Paris had changed that opinion. She saw lust, not love, in their eyes despite their declarations. She saw greed and jealousy and arrogance and condescension and stupidity.

And she’d earned the title of Ice Queen because she’d fended off so many proposals. She knew that most supposed she had a secret lover or a tragic lost love. It certainly couldn’t be the admirers’ own lack of attractiveness.

Though she had not consciously intended it, her wariness of men had protected her these past years. The mystery surrounding her had drawn reluctant respect and made her appear even more desirable.

Men always wanted what they couldn’t have. Women, on the other hand, managed on what they did have.

She’d never heard her mother complain, or yearn for a different life. What was, was.

Monique had a completely different philosophy, developed through years of staving off her mother’s protectors and learning the tricks of a thief during those lean times her mother had no one but her.

It hadn’t been until one of her mother’s “friends” saw her mimic several famous personalities that she had been trained and nurtured as an actress, first as a bit player, then as an ingenue, and finally as a leading lady.

But her mother never lived to see that triumph. She’d died of consumption four years earlier, having never seen London again, as she’d longed to do. Lack of money—and fear—always stopped her. She’d lived in fear, in truth, which was mainly why she had taken protectors, each succeeding one a little less attractive, a little less generous, a little less kind.

Men had used her all her life, yet she’d still hoped for her knight to appear.

In Monique’s opinion there were no knights to be found. She’d decided long ago that a woman must make her own way, determine her own future, and never, ever, depend on a man. After her mother’s death, Monique saved most of her earnings, choosing to live in small but safe lodgings and investing in English ventures through an avocat. She didn’t trust French investments. French politics were too volatile.

“There,” Dani said. “You look magnifique.”

“Merci,” Monique said, knowing that she must stop thinking of herself as Merry Anders. She must be Monique Fremont through and through. “We will leave immediately after the performance.”

“Oui, all is ready. The coach will be waiting.”

Monique nodded, then looked closely. “Are you sure you want to go with me? It could be dangerous.”

“I am sure,” Dani said in accented English. “I’ve been practicing my Anglais.”

Monique had her reservations about thrusting Dani into harm’s way, but the young woman had served as maid, dresser, friend, and confidant for seven years. They had met when Dani, a slight fourteen-year-old thief, was caught picking pockets inside a theater. She looked starved, abused, and terrified. Monique had convinced the theater owner not to turn her in to the police and had asked her if she’d wanted a position. Dani had been reluctant, obviously expecting Monique to take advantage of her in some way. In the end, Monique had employed her and taken her under her protection, teaching her to read and write and then to speak well.

It had taken months to earn her trust, but Dani eventually told her that she had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather and that she’d fled to the streets and joined a group of young thieves, stealing to survive.

Over the next seven years, they had become friends as well as mistress and servant. Slowly, over time, Monique had told Dani of her own dismal background and some of her plans.

Dani had no intention of being left behind. She had skills that might be helpful.

A knock came at the door five minutes before she was to go on stage. Dani straightened out the wrinkles in Monique’s costume, an indigo-blue gown that highlighted her gray eyes and flattered her less-than-rounded body.

She took one last glance in the mirror. Her cheeks hadn’t needed paint. They were already flushed from anticipation. One life would be ending and another beginning. At long last she had the money, influence, and reputation to repay a debt.

She lifted her cheek and glided out the door Dani held open to the standing applause of an overbooked house.