The Brazen Bride

by Stephanie Laurens

  And not just him.

  Still, it seemed that this was one of those crosses that had to be borne in the interests of matrimonial harmony. Over recent years, he’d grown a lot better at simply accepting what had to be.

  Of his combined troops, only Christian Allardyce and Jack Hendon, already on the coast waiting for Carstairs to land, and Rafe Carstairs himself, were absent. Royce suspected the three were very much in the minds of many about the table.

  Devil, seated at Minerva’s right at the far end, leaned forward to say, “It doesn’t make sense that the last person—whoever is what’s left of the Black Cobra—isn’t named in that letter.”

  “I also find it hard to believe,” Gabriel Cynster put in from midway down the board, “that Shrewton doesn’t know who that person is.”

  “Actually,” Gyles Chillingworth said, “that I can believe. However, I do agree that Shrewton could, just as I’m sure we could, find the answer—learn who that other person was—if we had time.”

  “Sadly, we don’t have time,” Lucifer Cynster bluntly observed.

  Around and around the discussion went.

  Royce, Charles, Gervase, and Gareth had reported on their visit to Wymondham Hall. The result had been discussed and picked over, their suppositions reshaped, re-formed, rephrased, yet they constantly came back to the same point, the one inescapable conclusion.

  Del returned to it. “Regardless of all else, the one thing that’s certain is that there is someone else out there, and we don’t know who he is.”

  “More,” Royce said, reclaiming control, “Carstairs is heading in. He’s expected to reach our shores tomorrow.” It was the first time he’d stated that—that their time frame was that tight. The meal was long over. He pushed back his chair. “I suggest we repair to the drawing room, put our heads together, and string as comprehensive a net as we can across the area.”

  Everyone rose with alacrity, and followed Minerva back to the drawing room. When they were all settled, the ladies on the chaises and chairs, the men lounging against walls or furniture, some with hip propped against the back of their lady’s chair, from his customary position before the hearth, Royce scanned their faces. “Jack Hendon and Christian Allardyce are already in place—Jack, I understand, is haunting the harbor itself, while Christian is patrolling the town. As soon as Carstairs lands, they’re primed to whisk him away into hiding, then send word here. This will almost certainly be our last chance to catch the Black Cobra committing any criminal act on English soil.”

  “And if we don’t catch him?” The haughty question came from Minerva, sitting in her usual chair to Royce’s right.

  He smiled down at her. “If we don’t, then we pursue him by other means.” He looked at the others. “But I won’t disguise the fact that such a pursuit will be more difficult, and a lot less assured of success. Aside from all else, as Gyles pointed out, identifying the remaining villain or villains is going to take time, and they’re not going to wait in England while we do it.”

  “So putting everything we can behind capturing our remaining villain—the Black Cobra’s ultimate head—is our preferred option, our best way forward.” Devil arched his brows at Royce.

  As Royce nodded decisively, Logan asked, “Which port is Rafe heading for?”

  Royce met his eyes. “Felixstowe.”

  L ogan was asleep, his arm around Linnet, when an unexpected sound dragged him from slumber.

  The sound was distant, yet . . . he lifted his head the better to hear.

  Linnet stirred, then stilled—listening, too.

  The sound resolved into thudding hoofbeats. As the seconds passed, it became clear the rider was heading for the house.

  Logan pushed back the covers.

  “That can’t be good,” Linnet muttered, and slipped from the bed. Grabbing the coverlet, she wrapped it around her nightgown.

  Buttoning his breeches, Logan stepped into his boots, roughly tugged them on, snagged his shirt from the chair as he went past. His face was grim as, shrugging on the shirt, he opened the door.

  Linnet followed him into the corridor. Other doors were opening, both gentlemen and ladies venturing out in various states of undress.

  No one asked what was happening, or who it was. Grim-faced, they all headed for the main stairs.

  No one imagined it was good news.

  They halted on the stairs and in the gallery above, all looking down into the front hall. Candles were burning on the central table. As they watched, Minerva lit a lamp. Royce was already at the door, tugging the bolts back.

  Hamilton, Royce’s personal butler, arrived in his butler’s black just in time to swing the door wide.

  They all saw the rider, exhausted and worn, trudging up the front steps.

  Royce spoke with him, voice too low for any of them to hear, then he drew the man inside, Hamilton closed and bolted the door, and Royce consigned the drooping rider into his care.

  Everyone saw the letter Royce held in his left hand.

  Minerva joined him, holding the lamp high as Royce raised the missive, broke its seal, unfolded the sheet.

  Read.

  They all held their breath. Waited.

  Only Minerva was close enough to see her husband’s face. She laid a hand on his arm. “What’s happened?”

  Royce looked at her, then up at all of them. A moment passed, then he said, “Carstairs has disappeared. He failed to meet his guards at Felixstowe, but two others of his party—his man and some lady’s maid—made it to the rendezvous. As matters now stand, no one knows where Carstairs, and the young English lady apparently traveling with him, are.”

  Silence stretched.

  Eventually, Charles broke it, putting their collective thoughts into words. “Carstairs is out there somewhere, and we still don’t know who the Black Cobra is.”

  Look for the next installment in

  The Black Cobra Quartet

  The Reckless Bride

  Coming November 2010

  From Avon Books

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  The Reckless Bride

  November 24, 1822

  Danube Embankment, Buda

  R afe walked out of the office of the Excelsior Shipping Company, tickets for two passenger cabins on the Uray Princep, a riverboat due to start up the Danube two days hence, in his pocket.

  He glanced up and down the street, then strolled to where Hassan waited outside a nearby shop.

  Rafe tapped the pocket of the well-tailored, distinctly European-style winter coat he now wore. “The last two tickets. No chance of an assassin getting on as a passenger, and the boat’s too small for them to stow away or join the crew at the last minute.”

  Hassan nodded. Rafe was still getting used to the sight of his friend without his headdress.

  They’d reached Buda two nights before. The first thing they’d done yesterday had been to visit a tailor and exchange their Turkish shirts, loose trousers, and coats for European garb. Throughout their journey they’d constantly changed clothes to better blend in with the natives. Now, in the well-cut topcoat over a stylish coat, waistcoat, and trousers, a cravat once more neatly knotted about his neck, with his blond hair trimmed, washed, and brushed, Rafe was indistinguishable from the many German, Austrian, and Prussian merchants traveling through Buda, while Hassan’s hawklike features, with his black hair and beard neatly trimmed, combined with a plain coat, breeches, and boots, fitted the part of a guard from Georgia or one of the more dangerous principalities. They were one with the crowd jostling on the docks and strolling the embankment. No heads had turned as they passed; no one paid them any heed.

  The chance of merging into the stream of travelers, of taking effective cover among the multitude, had been the principal attraction that had made Rafe decide on the northerly route. With his distinctive height and blond hair, he especially would have had difficulty passing unnoticed through Italy and France.

  The second place they’d visited yesterday h
ad been a gunsmith’s. Rafe had laid in a stock of pistols, powder, and shot. The cultists’ one true weakness was a superstitious fear of firearms; Rafe intended to be prepared to exploit it. He and Hassan now carried loaded pistols.

  They still wore their swords and bore the knives they’d feel naked without. Although the wars in Europe were over, pockets of military unrest still lingered and brigands remained an occasional threat, so swords on intrepid travelers raised no eyebrows; no one could see their weapons.

  Rafe had also found a cartographer’s studio; he’d bought the best maps available of the areas through which they planned to pass. He and Hassan had spent yesterday afternoon studying their prospective route, then had sought information from the innkeeper and patrons of the inn’s bar on which shipping company to approach.

  Hassan looked at the quays lining the opposite side of the street. “Going by river is a good strategy. The cult will likely not think of it.”

  Rafe nodded. “At least not immediately.” In India, rivers were not much used for long-distance travel, not like the Danube and Rhine. And as the majority of cultists couldn’t swim, staying on a riverboat was a better option than hotels and inns on land. “According to the shipping clerk, our journey via the rivers should land us in Rotterdam with a day to spare—no need to schedule any other halts to align us with Wolverstone’s timetable.”

  “We have seen no cultists here yet,” Hassan said. “None around the docks. If any are in the city, they must be watching the coaching inns and the roads leading east.”

  Following Hassan’s gaze to the wide river buzzing with craft large and small, then lifting his eyes to the stone bridge linking Buda with the city of Pest, clustered on the opposite bank, Rafe murmured, “If they had cultists in Constanta, there’ll be cultists here. We need to remain on guard.”

  He started strolling along the embankment. Hassan fell in beside him. They headed toward the small inn where they’d taken rooms.

  “The Black Cobra will have stationed cultists in every major town along the highways,” Rafe said. “Here, Vienna, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Essen, among others. By taking the rivers, we’ll avoid most of those. On our first leg along the Danube, Vienna is the one city we can’t avoid, but for the rest it’s as we thought—the river towns are smaller, and most lie away from the major highways.” That had been the reason they’d decided to travel by riverboat up the Danube and then down the Rhine. “Nevertheless, we should put some effort into shoring up our disguise. We need a believable story to account for who we appear to be—an occupation, a purpose, a reason for us traveling.”

  They’d reached an intersection where a narrow, cobbled street rolled down from the fashionable older quarter to join the embankment.

  “ No! ”

  The shrill female protest had them halting and looking up the street.

  In the shadows cast by tall buildings, an older woman—a lady by her dress—flailed at two louts who had backed her against a wall and were reaching for her arms, presumably to seize her reticule, bangles, and rings.

  There was no one else in the street.

  Rafe and Hassan were racing up the cobbles before the woman’s next cry.

  Her attackers, wrestling with her as, breathlessly protesting, she fought to beat them off, didn’t notice them approaching until Rafe grabbed one man by his collar, shook him until he released his hold on the woman, then flung him across the street. The man landed with a crunch against a wall.

  A second later, courtesy of Hassan, his accomplice joined him.

  Rafe turned to the woman. “Are you all right?”

  He’d spoken in German, deeming that language more likely to be understood by any local or traveler. He clasped the gloved hand the woman weakly held out to him, took in her aging, yet delicately boned face. She was old enough to be his grandmother.

  Beside him, Hassan kept an eye on the pair of louts.

  The lady—Rafe might have been away from society for more than a decade, but he recognized the poker-straight spine, the head rising high, the haughty features—considered him, then said in perfect upper-class English, “Thank you, dear boy. I’m a trifle rattled, but if you’ll help me to that bench there, I daresay, I’ll be right as rain in two minutes.”

  Rafe hesitated, wondering if he should admit to understanding her.

  Her lips quirked. Drawing her hand from his, she patted his arm. “Your accent’s straight from Eton, dear boy. And you look vaguely familiar, too—no doubt I’ll place you in a few minutes. Now give me your arm.”

  Momentarily bemused, he did. As they neared the bench outside a small patisserie a few paces away, the chef appeared in the doorway, a rolling pin in one hand. He rushed to assist the lady, exclaiming at the dastardliness of the attack. Others emerged from neighboring shops, equally incensed.

  “They’re recovering,” Hassan said.

  Everyone turned to see the two attackers groggily stagger to their feet.

  The locals yelled and waved their impromptu weapons.

  The attackers exchanged a glance, then fled.

  “Do you want us to catch them?” one of the locals asked.

  The lady waved. “No, no—they were doubtless some layabouts who thought to seize some coins from a defenseless old woman. No harm done, thanks to these two gentlemen, and I really do not have time to become entangled with the authorities here.”

  Rafe surreptitiously breathed a sigh of relief. Becoming entangled with the local authorities was the last thing he needed, too.

  He listened while the patisserie owner pressed the lady to take a sample of his wares to wipe out the memory of the so-cowardly attack in their lovely city. The lady demurred, but when the chef and his neighbors pressed, she graciously accepted—in German that was significantly more fluent and colloquial than Rafe’s.

  When the locals eventually retreated, returning to their businesses, Rafe met the lady’s gray eyes—eyes decidedly too shrewd for his liking. He gave an abbreviated bow. “Rafe Carstairs, ma’am.” He would have preferred to decamp—to run away from any lady who called him “dear boy”—but ingrained manners forced him to ask, “Are you staying nearby?”

  The lady smiled approvingly and gave him her hand. “Lady Congreve. I believe I know your parents, Viscount and Viscountess Henley. I’m putting up at the Imperial Hotel, just along from the top of this street.”

  Suppressing a grimace—of course she would know his parents—Rafe bowed over her hand, and with the other gestured to Hassan. “We’ll escort you back once you’re ready.”

  Lady Congreve’s smile widened. “Thank you, dear boy. I’m feeling quite recovered already, but”—she gripped his hand and Rafe helped her to her feet—“before I return to the hotel, I must complete the errand that brought me this way. I have to collect tickets from an office on the embankment.”

  Rafe gave her his arm and they turned down the street. “Which company?”

  “The Excelsior Shipping Company.” Lady Congreve gestured with her cane. “I believe they’re just around the corner.”

  H alf an hour later, Rafe and Hassan found themselves taking tea in the premier suite of the Imperial Hotel in the fashionable castle quarter of Buda. Lady Congreve had insisted. Rafe had discovered that his grande dame-avoiding skills were rusty. There hadn’t seemed any way to refuse the invitation without giving offense, and as he’d learned to his horror that Lady Congreve and her party were among the passengers due to depart on the Uray Princep the following morning, trying to avoid closer acquaintance seemed pointless.

  He had to admit the array of cakes that arrived on the tea tray were the best he’d tasted in a decade.

  “So you and Mr. Hassan were with the army in India.” Lady Congreve settled back on the chaise and regarded him. “Did you ever meet Enslow?”

  “Hastings’s aide?” Rafe nodded. “Poor chap’s usually run ragged. Hastings has a finger in so many pies.”

  “So I’ve heard. So you were based in Calcutta?”


  “For the most part. In the months before I resigned and departed, a group of us were operating out of Bombay.” Rafe understood she was checking his bona fides, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “So you’ve been soldiering for all these years, and have been a captain for how long?”

  “Since before Toulouse.”

  “And you fought at Waterloo?”

  He nodded. “I was part of a compound troop—part experienced regulars, part ton volunteers. Heavy cavalry.”

  “Who of the ton fought alongside you?”

  “Mostly Cynsters—the six cousins—plus a smattering of other houses. Two Nevilles, a Percy, and one Farquar.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember hearing about the exploits of that troop. And now you’ve resigned and are heading back to England?”

  Rafe shrugged. “It was time.”

  “Excellent!” Lady Congreve beamed.

  Every instinct Rafe possessed went on high alert.

  “It seems, sir, almost as if fate has sent you to me.” Lady Congreve glanced at Hassan, including him in the comment. “I wonder if I might impose upon you—you and Mr. Hassan—to act as my party’s courier-guide and guard? We left Paris with an experienced guide but sadly had to part with him in Trieste. Knowing we would be traveling on by riverboat once we reached here, I didn’t see any point in securing a replacement, but today’s events have demonstrated my error. It simply isn’t safe for ladies to walk these foreign streets unprotected.” Lady Congreve held Rafe’s gaze. “And as you are going the same way and, indeed, have already secured passage on the same boat, I do hope you can see your way to joining my party.”

  By sheer force of will, Rafe managed to keep all reaction from his face.

  When he didn’t immediately reply, Lady Congreve continued, “Our meeting does seem fortuitous, especially as you’ve taken the last tickets on the boat, so even if I could find any men as suitable, I wouldn’t be able to secure passage for them.”