“Sir? Are you awake?” The distant voice, halting and uncertain, cut through the morning stillness, penetrating Atlas Catesby’s deep slumber. “He says it’s urgent.”
Atlas rolled over, his body heavy with lethargy. It took a moment for his valet’s voice to pierce his slumber-slogged mind. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, his voice scratchy. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir.” Jamie spoke hesitantly. Just a few short months ago, he’d been a houseboy in a modest country home and was still adjusting to his newly elevated status as a gentleman’s valet.
“Then why are you?” Trying to recall what day it was, Atlas pressed a palm flat against his left temple, where sharp pain hammered like a righteous blacksmith behind his eye.
“There’s a message for you. It was just delivered.”
So early in the morning? “What time is it?”
“Half past ten, sir.”
Atlas blinked and tried to order his mind. He rarely slept late. The reason for his current somnolent state, for the relentless drumbeat in his head, slowly took shape in his memory. Last evening’s events flowed back like a lazy river, filling the fuzzy spaces in his mind. He remembered a prodigious amount of wine as well as the source of the cinnamon scent that still lingered in the air. Her uncomplicated feminine smile had beckoned him to bed, a balm for the inner bleakness that had permeated almost everything since his recent return to London.
He slid a hand across to the other side of the bed, only to find an empty space where she should have been. The cool bedclothes suggested the spot had been abandoned hours ago. Relief loosened his muscles, even as a stab of guilt assailed him.
The door creaked as Jamie pushed it farther open. His eyes widened at something on the worn parquet floor.
“Begging your pardon, sir.” He flushed, painful florid splotches painting his full cheeks. The boy’s curious gaze darted to the mahogany-framed bed and bounced away from it just as quickly.
Atlas lifted his weight onto one elbow, squinting as a sharp blade of morning light cut across his face. Following the trail of Jamie’s gaze, he spotted the cause of his valet’s discomfiture. A woman’s stays were strewn on the floor next to the pantaloons Atlas had carelessly tossed aside during the previous evening’s urgent, slightly drunken coupling.
Atlas felt the heat rise in his own face. He was still unaccustomed to having servants underfoot during his most private moments. And the boy had never witnessed his master in intimate company with a woman, not since coming into his employ almost a year ago. Granted, Atlas had been gone most of that time, but still, he did not make a practice of taking respectable women to bed in order to slake his lust.
“Leave the message on the table.” He spoke curtly, suddenly feeling self-conscious of his nudity beneath the bedclothes, even though, as his valet, Jamie had certainly seen him stripped to the skin before.
The boy seemed to find the bedpost’s ornate carving extraordinarily interesting, for his gaze never left it. “It’s just that . . . you see . . . there’s . . . ,” he stammered.
Atlas suppressed a curse. How long was Jamie going to remain in the chamber? “What is it? Spit it out.”
Jamie cleared his throat, shifting from one long gangly leg to the other but showing no apparent inclination to quit the room. “There’s a footman here. He insists on waiting for your answer or for you to accompany him.”
“Accompany him where? Whose footman is he?” Few people knew he was in town, save his friend, the Earl of Charlton, who employed Jamie whenever Atlas traveled abroad. “Is the note from Charlton?”
“No, sir.”
“Then who?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir. But his livery . . . it’s the same as the bloke that came last fall.”
Atlas froze. It couldn’t be. “Black-and-gold livery?”
“Yes, sir.” Jamie nodded eagerly. “That’s it.”
A bittersweet sensation sliced through his lungs. Black-and-gold livery could only belong to the Duke of Somerville. Lilliana’s brother. Not Lilliana, he reminded himself harshly. Roslyn. Lady Roslyn Lilliana Sterling. The woman he’d been trying to forget for the past nine long months.
Slipping out from under the bedclothes, he touched his feet to the frayed carpet. Unmindful of his bare state, he strode across the chamber and reached for his crumpled clothes.
“I wonder what the devil he wants.” Atlas pulled on his trousers, half skipping on one foot to maintain his balance. Pulling his linen shirt over his head, he slipped out to his sitting room and crossed barefoot into the entry hall, where the duke’s servant awaited him.
The polished brass buttons and gold braiding adorning the young man’s uniform glittered like twinkling stars against the fine black wool fabric. The footman wore the livery to excellent advantage; he was tall and well made, as were all the footmen in Mayfair’s finest homes. Only the best accoutrements would do for the metropolis’s highest born.
And few births were superior to Somerville’s. Even among dukes, he stood at the highest rung, just below the royal dukes. Although, if the rumors were to be believed, Somerville was wealthier than the royals.
Atlas took the note and broke the seal. He hadn’t recognized the emblem on the previous occasion when the young duke had written to him, but now the glossy smooth wax medallion made him think of the man’s sister.
Somerville had, of course, used an entire sheet of paper to write the short note. Cost was no issue. The missive, written in fluent, confident strokes, bade Atlas to attend his grace at his earliest convenience. Nothing else. No explanation. It was practically a command.
Irritation simmered along the surface of Atlas’s skin. He wasn’t one of Somerville’s lackeys. He crumpled the sheet in one large hand, intent on instructing the footman to tell his employer to go to the devil.
But—he paused—what if something had happened to Lilliana? Or one of her children? His resolve to stay away, to put Lilliana from his mind, evaporated like morning dew once the sun broke.
He gave the footman a sharp nod. “Inform his grace that I’ll attend him this afternoon.”
* * *
Atlas was shown to the Duke of Somerville’s library, a massive two-story chamber tastefully accoutred in soft blues and vivid golds. Books lined the walls in every direction, the shelves almost reaching the ceiling’s ornate gilded plasterwork.
“You came.” The duke’s clipped voice echoed off the high timbers. He sat in an elegant mahogany armchair—upholstered in velvet the color of a pale sky—at the center of the cavernous room. With a pale manicured hand resting on each of the chair arms, he looked rather like an emperor perched on his throne.
“Did you assume that I wouldn’t?”
Somerville regarded him with intense dark eyes. He was a young man in his midtwenties, but he’d been duke for well over a decade, having come into the title at age twelve after the death of his parents in a tragic carriage accident. “I thought it was a distinct possibility.”
“One rarely defies a ducal summons.”
“Something tells me you would if you cared to.” The duke rose and crossed over to a rosewood table bearing a silver tray holding a decanter filled with amber liquid and several glasses. As always, he was impeccably dressed, today in superfine royal-blue wool perfectly tailored to his slender form.
Atlas didn’t bother to deny his ambivalence. “Curiosity got the better of me.”
“Drink?” Somerville filled two glasses without waiting for his response and turned toward his visitor. “I seem to recall you enjoy a fine brandy.”
Atlas accepted the proffered glass. “And I seem to recall that you have the finest brandy there is.”
“I’d settle for nothing less.” Somerville led the way to the chamber’s two facing velvet stuffed sofas. Settling on one, he gestured for Atlas to take the other. “There’s no reason to allow war with the Corsican to interfere with our savoring of the finest things in life.”
Atlas took a seat and brought the glass to his lips, inhaling the rich aroma before sipping the brandy’s sweet heat. “Excellent as always,” he said, still wondering why he’d been summoned. Although he’d shared the man’s brandy on a handful of previous occasions and was privy to his deepest, darkest, most ruinous secret, the two were not friends.
“I trust your family is well,” the duke said.
“Very well. Thank you.” Atlas smothered his inclination to ask specifically about Lilliana but welcomed the opening to learn how she fared. “And yours?”
“The boys keep my sister very busy. I suppose the household will be more peaceful once Peter leaves for Eton in the fall.”
“You’re sending the boy away to school?”
Draping one arm over the sofa’s high armrest, Somerville sipped his brandy. “Naturally.”
Atlas frowned, taken aback that a mother as devoted as Lilliana would send her son from home at such a tender age. Although he should not be. Since she was the daughter of a duke, her children would naturally follow the prescribed academic path expected of highborn progeny.
“Isn’t Peter a little young to go away to school?”
“Not in the least. After all, he just turned eight.”
“I see.” Atlas’s own parents had kept all four of their sons at home with a tutor until the age of fourteen, with the exception of Atlas, who’d escaped to Harrow three years earlier than his brothers under dark circumstances that Atlas preferred not to dwell on.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here,” Somerville said.
“Did you ask?” he said tartly. “It rather felt like a summons.”
One corner of the duke’s mouth kicked up. “Be that as it may, I appreciate your coming.”
“Why am I here?”
“I hope you will be disposed to do me a favor.”
Atlas sipped his brandy, savoring the exquisite taste. “What sort of service could I possibly provide for you?”
“Not for him.” The confident feminine tones sounded from above. Atlas started. He’d know that clipped upper-class voice anywhere. “For me.”
He stared up at Lady Roslyn Lilliana Sterling Warwick’s regal form on the library’s mezzanine level. She stood with her arms splayed wide apart, both hands resting delicately on the mahogany banister.
“The favor is for me.” Chin raised, she gazed down at him with the innate haughtiness of a queen surveying her kingdom. “If you are disposed to assist me, that is.”
His heart pounded hard at his first glimpse of her in many months. When he’d first known her, she’d been simply Mrs. Lilliana Warwick, a tradesman’s widow. He’d entertained thoughts of taking her to wife. He hadn’t understood then who she really was.
Coming to his feet, he managed to find his voice. “Lady Roslyn.” He bowed. “You are looking very well.”
She walked along the railing, one fine-boned hand drifting along the banister. “Am I?” She glided down the stairs in a lilac gown with a wide, rounded neckline that highlighted her porcelain décolletage and graceful neck. It had been more than a year since her husband’s demise, and he was pleased to see she’d thrown off the blacks required of women in mourning.
“The boys fare well, I hope.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded distant, polite, strained. It had not always been so between them.
“They are thriving,” she said. “Somerville is an excellent guardian to them.”
“My sister is generous in her praise.” The duke stood as his sister joined them. “I was not accustomed to the . . . erm . . . rambunctious nature of young boys, but I am learning.”
As she passed Atlas to stand alongside her brother, a whiff of her perfume, the scent of jasmine and cloves that always evoked memories of her, momentarily teased him before vanishing—as ephemerally elusive as the lady herself.
He cleared his throat. “What is it that I can do for you, Lady Roslyn?”
She regarded him steadily with those autumn-hued eyes he so admired. Her dark hair, gathered up in a style he presumed to be of the latest fashion, framed sharp cheekbones and refined features set against ivory skin.
“There’s been a murder,” she said. “I hope you will help me find the killer.”