DANGEROUS DIANA
A BRAMBRIDGE NOVEL
Pearl Darling
Magnus&Melinno
Pearl Darling is the author of The Brambridge Novels, a series of romantic suspense books that each feature a potent combination of passion and mystery set within the dazzling regency period.
Each of the titles can be read as a standalone, but for those that follow the entire series, each book will provide new information about the mysterious thread that ties the central figures of the Brambridge Novels together.
And which hero and heroine will be the last to fall to love’s seductive touch? Follow the series to its inevitable conclusion to find out.
Also by Pearl Darling
Brambridge Novels:
Somewhat Scandalous
Burning Bright
Dangerous Diana
Reckless Rules
Maddening Minx
COPYRIGHT
Published by Magnus & Melinno
ISBN: 978 1 911536 02 4
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Pearl Darling
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
www.pearldarling.com
Cover design by Kim Killion at The Killion Group Inc.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Bayswater, London, May 1817
Melissa waited silently in the lane behind the old garden gate. Pulling her hood further over her head, she pushed the brass rims of her cracked spectacles further onto her nose and dropped her bag to the ground.
She drew in a deep breath as a stout woman with white hair made her way unsteadily out of the stable gate of the house opposite and determinedly limped her way to stand in front of her.
“Where have you been for so long?” the woman grumbled.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hobbs,” Melissa gulped. “I was…we were taking the air on the coast.”
She threw a desperate glance back into the garden behind her where the burnt grass and herbs grew around an old moldering flower press. Pulling her hood even closer round her head, she shivered and dipped her head to look at Mrs. Hobbs through an unbroken part of her spectacles. Oh dear. She couldn’t leave now—behind the woman a queue had suddenly formed, some she knew by sight, Mrs. Wenthrop, and a Mr. Adder. The others, two young men in high quality clothes, were new.
“For six months? Well it’s alright for some. Whilst you were away my husband lost his job because of you.” Mrs. Hobbs stepped closer to Melissa and peered in at the garden. “Cooee. You’ve left this go to wrack and ruin. My Albert could have this up and going in no time. Where’s your mother Eliza?”
Melissa gulped. “Gone.” Bound and chained on a slow boat for deportation for the attempted murder of Lord Stanton. What did Melissa care? Eliza was not and apparently never had been her mother.
“Well, when are you going to set up the apothecary business again? My Albert needs work. If he doesn’t work the landlady says we have to move. And only your herbs make the difference to his stomach pains see?”
“I…err…” I have no intention to…she wanted to say, but the words failed her. The house was going on the market and then she was going to disappear. She’d only stepped outside on a whim, to empty her bag and then be gone. “My… mother gave everything away, my father’s books on plants and animals… and his desk and chair.”
“Melissa! Melissa!”
Melissa started, and looked uncertainly back at the house. Eliza?
“Well I had better be going,” Mrs. Hobbs huffed and turned around. “I’ll send my Albert round.”
“But I…”
“I’d like my usual please.” Mr. Adder stepped smartly up to her, almost treading on Mrs. Hobbs’ swaying skirts. Melissa pulled her bag up in front of her and shuffled backwards. Where had Mrs. Wenthrop gone?
“She’s left.” Mr. Adder turned his head and pointed down the lane before inserting his finger into his very hairy ears and twisting it.
Melissa swallowed as his finger emerged coated in wax. He stared at her unblinking as he stroked his dirty hands along the length of his small moustache. Darting a glance over his shoulder, she searched for a friendly face, but the two gentlemen behind him carried on chatting loudly with little regard for Mr. Adder’s actions.
“And then she just dropped out of sight. Refused all the hands of all those gentlemen, and then trapped Lord Stanton into an engagement through false pretenses.” The taller of the men nodded stiffly as if the woman in question had ensnared Lord Stanton like a spider in a web.
Melissa gasped and knelt over her black bag. A spider? She was no spider! “I… I’ll just get your remedy, Mr. Adder,” she mumbled.
“Did you see her at that last London ball before she appeared in Devon at Stanton’s place?” The shorter gentleman stretched his neck over his cravat and eyed his companion sideways. “Earl Harding said that she played the role of a mute debutante to entrap him. Even called herself Diana. Can you imagine? I say, do you like my carnation? Harding wears them all the time.”
Melissa ducked lower over her bag, rummaging frantically for the last few slips of dried flowers that she knew were in there.
“—Johnnie was very enamored with Regina. Let’s hope this woman can help us. Apparently we’re lucky to find her.”
Melissa froze as her hand closed finally over an old twist of lavender. Oh no. What had she missed? She kept her head low as she stood and handed the lavender to Mr. Adder, hurriedly waving away his offer of money. As he hesitated she held her breath, but with a quick glance over her shoulder at the garden gate, he stalked away with measured steps.
Melissa braced herself as the two gentlemen strode towards her and stared fixedly over her shoulder. “I really wouldn’t visit the Lamb and Flag Inn if I were you,” she said quickly in a low voice. The men started and clutched nervously at their breeches. Ah, so Regina was still in business. “Any more visits and who knows what you might catch.” Swiftly she pulled a bottle of powder out of her bag, the last one that she owned. “Powder ‘down there’ with this. It will stop the lice itching. Then comb out with the smallest comb you have.”
“Hey—we never…”
Melissa dared to lift her head a bit higher, but the men showed no signs of recognition. “And I might suggest investing in some tweezers.”
The tall gentleman fished reluctantly around in his pocket and held out a three penn
y bit. His hand brushed briefly over her palm as he pushed the coin into her hand and she shuddered, whipping away the money in her fist.
“Melissa!”
Melissa shook her head. Go away Eliza. Waiting until the men had turned away, she hurriedly backed through the creaking garden gate and ran up the scattered stones of the garden path, stumbling as again the voice echoed out of the partially open kitchen door.
“Melissssssssaaaa! I have a proposition for you…”
The calling tones were insistent. Shakily, she yanked the kitchen door open fully.
“Melissa! Where have you put it?”
Melissa froze, her gaze riveted on the dusty tiles of the kitchen floor. Muddy half-moon shapes tracked from side to side across the small room, and then out into the hall. All of the cupboards were open, their meagre contents spilled to the ground, as if someone had pawed their way to the very back. She bit her lip and laid a hand on the kitchen table to steady herself as a memory flooded her. Edgar and I have some news for you, we’re married! Isn’t that lovely? Now all you have to do is pay the coal man. In the kitchen will do.
Her breath hitched. Pressing the brass rims of her glasses to her nose, she put the black bag down on the cold kitchen tiles and shuffled slowly through into the dark hall. Although the front door was closed, leaves had blown onto the ceramic tiles of the entranceway, and its lock hung askew surrounded by enormous splinters.
Melissa licked her lips and looked back down towards the kitchen. She could leave now, send in the agent to deal with the intruder or…
No. Slowly she felt for doorknob of the front room. Pulling her cloak more tightly around her, she closed her eyes and stepped through the door.
A hoarse voice echoed in the darkness of the damp empty room. “Hello Melissa. You are a pretty little one, aren’t you? Did you hear me?”
Oh dear. How had she ever thought the voice had belonged to Eliza?
“If you don’t give it to me along with the money, I’ll set the Viper on to you.”
“I don’t understand.” Melissa shivered and felt her way by the tips of her fingers to where the sideboard had been. Her fingers trembled as she felt at the wall. “What money? And what is…”
“The money that your mother owed us.”
“But everything has been paid for!” Melissa stopped looking for the sideboard, her heartbeat sounding loudly in her ears as she stared into the darkness. “Why don’t you show yourself?” She coughed as her voice quavered. “Only cowards hide in the dark.”
A deep laugh rolled through the blackness. “Only clever people hide in the dark,”
Gasping, Melissa waved a hand wildly in front of her, but still she could not find the edge of the sideboard. It wasn’t there, gone with all the rest of the furniture ready for the house to be sold.
She stopped and froze against the wall. The last time she had been in the small front room there had been a box of matches and a taper on the fireplace. But to get to them would mean moving in further towards the disembodied voice.
“I haven’t the time for this foolery.” The voice floated towards the window. “Even though you are a delightful little morsel and I would so love to stay and play.”
Melissa squinted through scrunched up eyes. Although the curtains were drawn, the outline of a figure showed fleetingly against the material. “I’m not going to pay you. I told you once, and I tell you again, everything was paid.”
“Not her gambling debts to the Viper. And the sizeable interest accrued of course.”
Melissa tensed her hands in her skirts. “How much is it?” Oh goodness. Eliza and Edgar had already gambled away Melissa’s inheritance with anyone who would play. Why had she ever believed any of Eliza’s lies? Because one doesn’t normally question a mother’s word.
“Thirty thousand pounds.”
She gasped. “Thirty thousand?”
That was more money than the house was worth, many times more. Pulling herself from the wall, she fled uncaring to the fireplace, and swept her hand along the mantel, grasping at the matchbox that skittered away from her fingers. Hands trembling, she fumbled with the box, striking at it twice with a match before lighting a taper.
The soft glow revealed a young man crouched by the windows. He turned to face her, standing sharply as the light reached him. With an oath, he swung lithely behind the curtains. “You have six months to find it!” he cried and with a splintering of glass he was gone.
CHAPTER 1
The Rookery of St Giles, London, 1818
Earl Hades Harding pressed his large form against the side of the building and peered around its wood-framed corner at the square beyond. He cursed quietly as his boot squelched audibly in the gutter. The streets of St. Giles were covered in horse manure and effluent from the sewers and although he was out of sight behind the building, his prime position meant that he stood ankle deep in unidentifiable mud that smelled strongly of fermented grass and other things.
The brush of a cloak against the cobbles flickered in the corner of his vision. A hooded medium-sized person moved steadily towards the large cross at the center of the square which marked the entrance to St. Giles. Walking confidently, the figure only stopped when they reached the ornate stone monument.
Hades watched carefully as the figure looked neither left nor right. None of the few passersby gave the cloaked form a second glance, despite the rigid figure standing out vividly in the weak sunlight. Ah. Here then was the man he had been waiting for.
It had taken months to find any information on the Viper. It was only by chance that he had found an informant willing to talk. But all that he had said was that the Viper had recently come into possession of some stolen government documents he wanted to sell for vast amounts of money and that the man would reportedly be meeting someone at the Cross of St. Giles at noon on that very day.
Hades waited patiently, tucked against the wall, but no one else arrived; it seemed that the person the Viper was coming to meet had not turned up. Withdrawing from the muddy corner, he pulled his hat low on his head and thrust his hands in his pockets. He, Hades would play that part. After all, taking the given chance had been many a victor’s lucky strike.
As the square around the cross became briefly deserted, he walked stealthily towards the motionless dark figure.
“You have something of ours that we want back,” he said in a low voice as he approached the cross. The figure turned slowly, a white hand appearing briefly outside of their cloak.
“I do not have it.” The voice was hoarse, the hood pulled low across the face. “It must be lost. I cannot give it to you.”
“What? You have lost it? You don’t just lose something like that. What about the money?”
“I don’t have that either. I cannot give it to you. It is impossible.”
Hades quickly looked around the small square. His element of surprise was quickly being lost in this puzzling conversation that seemed to be going nowhere.
“You will come with me.”
“What, I… no! No I will not go with you. I must get back.” The cloaked figure took a step away from the cross, a hand appearing again from the cloak.
With a quick jab, Hades hooked his arm under the hand and hauled it forwards. The man resisted and pulled backwards with a gasp, but to Hades’ grim amusement, the Viper’s strength was no match for his.
What else had his informant said? Every person that had come into contact with the Viper had died inexplicably? Hades lifted his chin. It didn’t seem as if he would be dying today. Closing his arms fully around the Viper’s waist, he lifted the cloaked form with a grunt and carried it in an upright position towards his carriage that waited on the Tottenham Court Road. He cursed as beneath his hands the Viper’s lithe body shook and twisted. Reaching the carriage, Hades tossed the figure inside with relief and banged on the ceiling with a closed fist.
“Home, Carter, and make it fast. I don’t want to be followed.”
The carriage jerked heavily but
still did not move.
“What the devil?” Hades pushed the carriage door back open and leant out as the carriage jerked again. A man dressed in a serviceable brown suit jumped neatly out of the way of the carriage’s path, nearly causing the horses to rear.
“Terribly sorry.” The tradesman stroked at his moustache and leapt onto the curb. Hades turned his head quickly away, and swung back into the carriage as it moved forward smoothly again.
The Viper still lay motionless on the floor where he had half-thrown him. Hades bent down from his seat and roughly tied the man’s hands together in front of him. Despite being trussed in the cloak, he had heard too many stories of the Viper’s deeds to let the man have any quarter.
The carriage made fast headway down Oxford Street, finally turning into the cobbled streets of Mayfair. Winding through the narrow roads, the carriage rocked at last to a stop outside two terraced houses in the quietness of Hill Street.
Although richer than the average ton member, Hades preferred to live behind the hustle and bustle of central Mayfair. And despite the houses appearing separate, he owned them both, having knocked them together on the inside. The art of misdirection was underused in his opinion. Especially when there were so many irate women beating a path to his door.
His butler Carter hurriedly opened the door to the right hand house as Hades sprung up the steps and onto the front doormat.
“Get the man in the carriage, would you, and put him in the study.” Hades was more comfortable with his books around him—it would make the Viper’s interrogation easier. But Carter stared at him without moving and, with a studied hand, covered his nose and looked pointedly at Hades’ feet.
Hades looked down and sighed. In his impatience he had not stopped to consider the muck again in St. Giles. Now that he was back in Mayfair he was damned if he was going to spread it around his house.
“I’ll go round the back, and leave the boots in the stables. Make sure that someone cleans them and leave some new boots at the back door, please. I can’t interrogate the Viper in my slippers.”
Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) Page 1