The Gentleman Spy

by Erica Vetsch

  Praise for The Lost Lieutenant Serendipity & Secrets Book 1

  “Love Regency? How about a swoon-worthy hero and a plot that twists and turns yet ties up in a neat bow at the end? Then get thee to a bookstore! The Lost Lieutenant is all that and more, from the battlefield of Salamanca to the gowns and suits at Almack’s. This is my favorite Erica Vetsch title to date and earns a place on my keeper shelf.”

  MICHELLE GRIEP, Christy Award–winning author of the Once Upon a Dickens Christmas series

  “An enchanting tale, The Lost Lieutenant was quick to capture my heart and engage my hopes. A wounded hero meeting a heroine on the run is always a perfect recipe for romance; throw in a spy for good measure, and you’ve got a winner from Erica Vetsch! This is a Regency novel that will have fans begging for more.”

  JAIME JO WRIGHT, Christy Award winner of The House on Foster Hill

  “A riveting Regency read, with captivating characters, that will tug at your heartstrings.”

  CAROLYN MILLER, best-selling author of the Regency Brides series

  “Erica Vetsch brings such a fresh, true voice to Regency romance. She catches all that’s best about the genre while weaving together a fast-paced, intriguing story full of characters I cared about so much. I can’t wait for book two!”

  MARY CONNEALY, author of the best-selling High Sierra Sweethearts and Wild at Heart series

  “With this stunning novel, Vetsch has seamlessly created a story and characters firmly set in Regency England. From the court of Queen Charlotte to the renovated English manor known as White Haven, we’re taken on a breathless journey of intrigue, romance, and historical depth. This is a must-read for those who love Sarah Ladd and Mimi Matthews.”

  GABRIELLE MEYER, author of A Mother’s Secret

  “Original, engaging, and oh so romantic, The Lost Lieutenant is a delightful tale sure to satisfy Regency fans and inspirational readers alike. Evan, a battle-scarred war hero, earns his place alongside the leading men of Austen and Heyer, and Diana is a heroine you’ll relate to and root for as she falls in love with her unintended earl. Rich historical details, authentic faith elements, and a dash of intrigue combine in this winning first installment of the Serendipity & Secrets series, certain to gain a permanent place on your shelf … and in your heart.”

  AMANDA BARRATT, author of My Dearest Dietrich

  “Two brilliantly developed characters forge a future together at the intersection of love and war in this compelling and immersive historical romance. Well matched in spirit, courage, and intelligence, together they graft a world through secrets, espionage, and unexpected acts of chivalry. My romantic’s heart will continue to skip a beat every time I think of them. With Vetsch’s deeply compassionate look at the mental scars of war, readers of Carla Kelly, Mary Balogh, and Julie Klassen will find their next favorite read in The Lost Lieutenant. I fully intend to revisit this world time and again for years to come.”

  RACHEL McMILLAN, author of The London Restoration

  SERENDIPITY & SECRETS

  The Lost Lieutenant

  The Gentleman Spy

  The Indebted Earl

  The Gentleman Spy

  © 2020 by Erica Vetsch

  Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., 2450 Oak Industrial Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in reviews.

  Distribution of digital editions of this book in any format via the internet or any other means without the publisher’s written permission or by license agreement is a violation of copyright law and is subject to substantial fines and penalties. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights by purchasing only authorized editions.

  Apart from certain historical facts and public figures, the persons and events portrayed in this work are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Vetsch, Erica, author.

  Title: The gentleman spy / Erica Vetsch.

  Description: Grand Rapids, MI : Kregel Publications, [2020] |

  Series: Serendipity and secrets; book 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020006292 (print) | LCCN 2020006293 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories. | Regency fiction. | Christian fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3622.E886 G46 2020 (print) | LCC PS3622.E886 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006292

  LC ebook record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2020006293

  ISBN 978-0-8254-4618-4, print

  ISBN 978-0-8254-7601-3, epub

  Printed in the United States of America

  20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 / 5 4 3 2 1

  To Peter, as always

  Love, Erica

  CHAPTER 1

  Haverly Manor

  Oxfordshire, England

  January 1, 1814

  HE SUPPOSED THAT someday he would have to forgive the child for being a girl.

  Marcus Haverly took one look at the squirming pink bundle in the nurse’s arms and sighed, the weight of the world threatening to push him into the ornate rug beneath his Hessians. He set down the book he’d been reading, his appetite for the written word evaporating as reality set in.

  His mother dragged into the study, her shoulders slumped, her hands lax.

  Who was more disappointed? He would hate to have to live on the difference. He rose, put his hands into the pockets of his breeches, and went to stand before the window, staring out into the night. Frost rimed the edges of the panes, and in the distance, black trees lifted skeletal arms toward the moon.

  “How is Cilla?” he asked.

  “The accoucheur has just gone. He says everything went well but that she needs rest.” Mother’s voice sounded as if she spoke from the bottom of a pit. “I can’t bear it. A girl.”

  Marcus glanced over his shoulder in time to see her sink into a chair, the very picture of despair. The poor woman. All her hopes dashed in a split second.

  The child squeaked and snuffled, drawing his attention. He should at least go and look at his niece. After all, he’d been anticipating the birth for months.

  The birth that was supposed to set him free.

  She had a tuft of dark hair atop her round head. An impossibly tiny hand lay next to her full cheek, the nails minute and faintly blue. Sparse lines of color indicated where her eyebrows would be someday.

  He didn’t know if he’d ever met a baby as fresh as this one. Though he searched her features, he could find no resemblance to either of her parents. Overall, she looked a bit like an old man. Though he would never say so to Cilla. She was much too frail a flower to accept even the mildest of teasing.

  Looking at the baby’s helpless little face, as innocent as a person could be, he felt a stirring somewhere in his heart. He would do his duty by her. He owed that much to Neville.

  “Take her to the nursery. See that she has everything she needs.” He nodded to the nurse, a woman nearly twice his age, thoroughly interviewed and scrutinized by his mother a month ago and passed as acceptable.

  When she had departed, Marcus went to the desk … his desk now, he supposed. It was all his. The desk, the study, the house, the grounds … and the responsibilities. What a way to start the new year.

  “What are we going to do now?” Mother e
yed him from under the black lace trim on her black cap, her iron-gray curls clustered about her face. Lines of strain showed around her eyes and mouth. “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

  Marcus jammed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes at the bridge of his nose and breathed in. Why was there no air in this place? A cannonball lodged in his chest, cold and heavy. First his father and brother, and now this? Every event bound him to his burdens with more chains and hawsers than a frigate to the dock.

  Mother sniffed, and he lowered his hand, digging for his handkerchief. He needn’t have bothered. She had one and dabbed her eyes with the black scrap of linen.

  I’m surprised there’s a dry square of cloth left in the house. The amount of weeping that has gone on this last six months would fill the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

  He chided himself for being unfeeling. She had suffered both great loss and now a great calamity. He should make allowances.

  Though it seemed he’d been making allowances for the woman for most of his life.

  Her dress seemed to swallow the light from the fireplace and wall sconces. Still wearing black bombazine from head to foot, though the time of deepest mourning had passed months ago. He continued to wear a black coat out of deference to her feelings, but much to his mother’s dislike, he’d taken to wearing his buff deerskin breeches and a gray waistcoat. Every time she noticed he’d had his tailor remove the black cloth-covered buttons on his jackets and return the brass originals, she would pucker her lips and let a pair of tears form on her lower lashes.

  “I suppose I have no choice but to accept it, but it seems God has been most cruel to me. I feel as if I am Naomi from the Bible. You might as well call me Mara.” More sniffs and eye wiping. “That’s what she said, wasn’t it? When everything had been taken from her … that her name now meant ‘bitter’? I’m just empty. How can this be happening? I didn’t plan for any of this.” Her voice vacillated, as if she didn’t know whether to feel angry or just victimized.

  “A son with higher expectations than mine of his relationship with his mother might take offense. You lost your husband and your eldest, but I still remain, and your daughter, and your widowed daughter-in-law. Not to mention a new grandchild.” Marcus kept his voice bland, as he always strove to do in her presence. He was who he was, no more, no less, born in the order God had chosen. As a second son, he no longer resented the affection lavished on his elder brother. Though his parents had three children, only one had mattered when it came to the succession. Sophie, his younger sister, had been attended and sponsored and chaperoned, but his father had purchased a major’s commission for Marcus the moment he’d earned his sheepskin from Oxford. He was the spare, not the heir.

  He had ceased to let it rankle years ago.

  For the most part.

  “I have a grandchild, yes, but not a grandson.” Mother sat up. “I wanted a grandson.”

  “And I wanted you to have one, but God had other plans.”

  And God’s plans had put paid to Marcus’s own. Life would be so much easier if God would stay confined to Sunday worship and evening prayers instead of encroaching on Marcus’s carefully laid arrangements.

  “God has abandoned our family. Or He’s punishing me for something. Why else would He treat me this way?” She put her hand to her throat, the tears thickening her voice. “Oh, it’s all such a mess. Still, I suppose we’ll have to move forward. We have no choice. Tomorrow we’ll begin packing for London.”

  “London?”

  “Of course. Now that your circumstances have changed, we must begin the search.” A fortifying breath lifted her shoulders.

  “The search?” He sounded like a parrot. “For what?”

  “Well, for a suitable bride for you. I made inquiries last Season, but I wasn’t aiming high enough, I suppose. I was looking for a baronet’s daughter, or a squire’s, but now I’ll have to start over.”

  The hawsers tightened around his chest. “I’m in no rush. After all, it’s only been a few months since our bereavement and barely an hour since it all became official.” A wife was the farthest thing from his mind right now. His life up to this point had been carefully ordered, everything divided, kept separate, and tidy. Work, society, family, God. Adding the responsibilities of a dukedom left little room for a wife.

  “You might not be in a rush. In fact, I’ve never known a time when you were, but I am. We’ve learned, much to our regret, how quickly circumstances can change. You must marry soon and set up your nursery. It’s your duty to this family and to the memory of those we’ve lost.” Her backbone stiffened, and for the first time in months, a gleam entered her eyes. “I shall make a list and begin my inquiries … or …”

  “Or?” He was doing it again, mimicking her.

  “Or you could marry Cilla.”

  She said the words slowly, as if only now thinking of them, but he wondered. Had this been her plan for months now, should the infant be a female?

  “That would solve a multitude of issues. She’s in need of a husband. She’s of noble birth. And she’s obviously fertile.”

  A shudder racked down Marcus’s spine.

  Cilla was a nice woman, but she was also timid, sensitive, and if he was honest, boring. She had suited his staid, proper, and dutiful brother right down to the ground, but Marcus couldn’t imagine himself married to her. Of course, he couldn’t imagine himself married to anyone. At least not yet.

  “It’s too soon to make a decision like that. And it’s too late at night. Go to bed, madam. We’ll no doubt talk about it in the morning.”

  She rose, gathering her dignity around her like a coronation robe. If there was a silver lining to the dark clouds hanging over his life, it was that at least a hunt for a suitable bride would give her something else to think about than her bereavement. Of course he would have the final say, but her quest would keep her occupied and out of his hair for a while. For the first time in recent memory, she swept from the room with an echo of her former imperious manner.

  The fire popped and the mantel clock ticked, the only sounds in the room. What was he supposed to do now? He needed to send word to London, ask for direction. Partridge would take the message.

  He would have to wait for a return missive to come from Sir Noel. His superior would know what to do. Though if his mother was serious about leaving for the city right away, he might wait and speak with Sir Noel in person.

  Sir Noel would answer the question foremost in Marcus’s mind, the question he’d wrestled with ever since he’d received word that his father, the duke, and his brother, the heir, had been killed in a carriage accident almost seven months ago.

  If Marcus was now forced to become the Duke of Haverly, could he still continue his work for the Crown?

  London, England

  February 1, 1814

  “This is your last chance, Charlotte. If you don’t find a husband this Season, you’re finished. Your father won’t impoverish himself further, and I can’t say I blame him. Three Seasons on the Marriage Mart really is the outside limit.”

  Lady Charlotte Tiptree looked up, one tendril of hair twined around her index finger. Her concentration broken, she tucked a slip of paper into her book on Roman history to mark her place and forced herself to return to the nineteenth century. “I’m sorry, Mother. Were you speaking to me?”

  “You’re the only other person in the drawing room, are you not? Please put that down and pay attention. Why must I always drag your nose out of some tome or other? If your father catches you reading again, I don’t know what he’ll do.” Mother shook her head, her hands fluttering. Mother’s hands always fluttered, especially when she was agitated. “And sit up like a proper lady. I don’t know what your posture will become if you continue to lounge like a sultan. It’s as if we didn’t go to great expense to see you become a lady. What did they teach you at that finishing school?”

  Refraining from rolling her eyes—another gesture that would get her a scolding—Charlotte pulled her l
egs off the arm of the deep chair and put her feet on the floor. It had taken an age to get into a comfortable reading position, and now all that effort was wasted. She smoothed her plain gray skirt. The dress was serviceable and chaste, covering her from neck to ankles, but nothing about it was pretty. None of her clothes were really pretty, her father feeling such fripperies an unnecessary expense. He could pinch a shilling until the King’s profile cried. And as for the finishing school, it was more of a prison on a barren wasteland in Dartmoor. Run by an impoverished gentlewoman with no sense of humor, the Hitchin’s School for Young Ladies was an academy so obscure, Charlotte had been one of only a handful of students, and none of those with social aspirations or titled family.

  It had been less expensive than sending her to Switzerland with other girls of her rank.

  Plastering a pleasant, slightly vacant expression on her face—the aspect Mother thought all young ladies should wear—Charlotte put her feet primly together and straightened her shoulders. “What is it you’d like to speak about?” Though she knew. It had been the topic of many a tedious conversation throughout the summer, the fall, and over the interminable holidays.

  Mother exhaled, her features relaxing into kinder lines. “I don’t mean to nag, but you must face the truth. If you don’t change your ways, you’re going to wind up a spinster. You’re nearly there now. Your father has spent all the money he intends to in order to see you prepared to take your place in society. What kind of a thank-you will it be if you squander your last opportunity? You’re not getting any younger, and there will be many fresh faces in the ton again this year. If you don’t put yourself out to be agreeable, to be the sort of woman a peer is looking for in a wife …” She gripped her fingers in her lap.

  Something hovered on her lips, and Charlotte tensed. Mother rarely hesitated when Father wasn’t present, so whatever it was must be momentous.

  Mother took a deep breath, as if fortifying herself. “Your father has instructed me to inform you that if you are not engaged to be married before Easter Sunday, he will have no choice but to send you to live at Aunt Philomena’s in Yorkshire.” Tugging her handkerchief from her sleeve, she waved it as she talked, the scent of her lavender sachets filling the air. “Philomena broached the subject herself, and he’s latched on to the idea. I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s adamant. He says your lack of a husband is your own fault and that becoming Aunt Philomena’s companion would be fitting punishment for your behavior over the last two years.”