by Lenora Bell
“I don’t care if he’s penniless and has no property.” They might argue, and fight from time to time, but Daniel was her best friend in the world.
Her only friend.
And now his good, kind father was dead. Oh poor Daniel. She must go to him. Comfort him.
“I care,” said her father with a smirk. “You’ll marry a rich lord and soon. Shouldn’t be difficult to find an elderly lord who will pay a high price to reinvigorate himself with a child bride.” His short bark of laughter was mirthless and hollow.
Her body felt brittle, as though it were made of glass, and her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow. All she could think of was that she needed to run away.
Run to Daniel.
She wasn’t a prize calf to be sold to the highest bidder.
Her father lurched out of his chair and she took a step backward.
“Best to marry you off early before you give it away to a stable hand.” His gaze traveled to his wife. “You have your mother’s wanton eyes.”
“I’m going to marry Daniel,” she blurted, even though she knew she shouldn’t cross her father.
He stalked toward her.
She stood her ground.
“You’ll marry whom I say you’ll marry,” he said coldly. “You were born for my profit. I gave you that name to bring me luck and I’ve had nothing but ill fortune ever since. Now apologize for your insolence.”
She’d heard it all too many times. Forced to stand at attendance while he railed against the fates. He’d named her India to bring him luck on an overseas investment scheme, which had all gone to hell, and it would have been better if she’d never been born, and she was a rude, ill-tempered child and . . .
“I told you to apologize,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
He slapped her across the cheek. Not a forceful blow, just a warning volley, but tears sprang to her eyes and red dots danced in front of her vision.
Not waiting for permission to leave, she ran out of the study, avoiding her mother’s startled protests. She didn’t stop running until she burst out of the house and sprinted across the courtyard to the mews. Daniel’s horse, Jupiter, was still in the stables but he was already saddled and ready to leave.
“I’m to ride Jupiter to Hartfield House,” she announced to Old Gregory, the stable master. “And don’t change the saddle. I’ll ride astride.” She was never sitting sidesaddle again.
She didn’t want to be a lady. A pawn in her father’s schemes.
She never wanted to see him again.
From this day forward she’d strike out on her own. Not Lady India, but Daniel’s Indy, his partner on life’s grand adventure. She would go anywhere with him. She could face anything with him at her side.
Old Gregory opened his mouth to protest but then he stared at her face. His expression darkened. “He’s hitting you too now, is he, my little lady?”
She nodded, battling back fresh tears.
Muttering curses under his breath, Old Gregory helped her up into Daniel’s saddle. She had to bunch up her skirts, and strain to reach the stirrups, but she’d manage.
She allowed Jupiter plenty of slack as she rode across the fields and roads. Darkness fell but Jupiter knew the way home because Daniel visited her nearly every day.
When she reached Hartfield House, Sir Malcolm’s carriage was waiting by the front steps. The horses were restless and stamping their hooves, the coachman and grooms already mounted.
A shocked groom helped her dismount from her saddle.
The door of the carriage opened and Daniel climbed down. “What are you doing here, Indy?”
“I brought Jupiter back. What are you doing?” Her lip trembled. “Leaving without saying good-bye?”
“We’re going to stay with Sir Malcolm for a time,” explained the duchess, leaning out of the carriage door. “At his estate near London.”
“Father’s dead,” said Daniel, his face expressionless and striped with shadows from the light of the lanterns mounted on the carriage.
Colin, his younger brother, whimpered softly from inside the carriage, and his mother placed her arm around his shoulders.
“I know. I’m so sorry.” She wanted to fling her arms around Daniel but everyone was watching them. “Please take me with you. I can’t stay here. My father forbade us to wed but I told him we would marry with or without his consent.”
“Of course we’ll marry, you dolt,” said Daniel.
“Then take me with you,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” said the duchess. “I wish we could take you. I know your home is not a happy one.”
“We’ll be back soon,” said Daniel, conviction filling his eyes. “It’s not true what they’re saying about Father. It can’t be true.”
“Of course it’s not true.” Indy reached into her pocket and drew out the handkerchief filled with coins. “My father said something about your fortune being forfeit,” she whispered. “You take the coins. Perhaps you’ll need them.”
Nothing would help when his father was gone but she wanted to give him something.
Daniel gently pushed the coins away. “Give them to the museum, as we agreed.”
“We must go now. Say your farewells, Daniel.” His mother turned to Sir Malcolm. “H-he’s not Daniel anymore, is he? He’s Ravenwood now.”
“That’s right. He’s the duke now,” said Sir Malcolm.
Daniel shifted his shoulders into a solid line. “I’m the duke.” He said it as though it had just occurred to him, as though it was a heavy burden to bear.
He bent forward and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her, but instead he plucked a coin from the air near her ear and held it out. “Good-bye, Indy.”
“Where did that come from?”
“Had it up my sleeve.” One side of his lip quirked, a glimmer of her carefree friend resurfacing.
She took the Minerva coin, struggling not to cry. “G-good-bye.”
He climbed back into the carriage and a groom closed the door.
She ran after the carriage, lungs aching and legs on fire, until it became a black speck in the distance, until she was sure they weren’t going to turn around and come back for her.
She slumped against a sturdy tree trunk by the side of the road. The tears came then, sliding down her cheeks like warm rain.
Her fingers still clutched the coin Daniel had given her.
Minerva with her spear and owl imprinted on her palm.
An omen from the Roman gods, he’d said.
What good was treasure if it meant losing everything she loved? What if she never saw his teasing grin again?
Tomorrow she’d take the coins back to the field and bury them.
Maybe if she buried them deeply enough everything would go back to the way it had been this morning.
Daniel’s father would still be alive.
Summer would begin over again.
The birds would sing and the sun would shine and they would have so many treasures to find.
“You can’t keep us apart,” she yelled, hoping the gods might hear.
No one answered.
She was all alone.
Chapter 1
London, fifteen years later
The trouble with fake moustaches, Lady India Rochester was discovering, was that they had an alarming propensity to come unstuck.
Especially when the lady wearing the clever disguise happened to be perspiring.
And most definitely when the lady was perspiring because she was currently committing at least four crimes in a daring attempt to infiltrate the all-male Society of Antiquaries.
The porter scrutinized her card, his ponderous jowls drooping as he frowned. “Mr. Pomeroy?”
“That’s right.” Indy cleared her throat, dropping her voice a half octave for good measure. She smoothed down her moustache, praying that the adhesive paste held. “My uncle, Lord Pomeroy, is excavating near Rome and sent me in his stead.”
“Highly irregu
lar.”
“Is it really?” Indy shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she was far from feeling. “Well I don’t want to attend the meeting—bound to be a yawning bore, what?—But I did promise the old boy I’d send him notes. Do let me in, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll promise not to snore too loudly from the back bench.”
The man wasn’t budging. Apparently he’d been hired by the Antiquaries because of an abundance of caution and an utter lack of humor.
Frustration pulsed through her mind. She must pass through this door.
They’d left her no choice but subterfuge.
She had as much right as any to study the Rosetta Stone at close quarters before it was moved back to the British Museum for public display, always to be surrounded by onlookers and guards.
The stone was the key to unlocking the mysteries and secrets of hieroglyphics—the difficult-to-decipher written language of the ancient Egyptians. It bore three columns of the same inscription, each in a different language: Greek, Egyptian script, and hieroglyphics.
She’d spent much of the last two years on archaeological expeditions and needed to view the script on the stone to corroborate her translation of a text that she believed could lead her to one of archaeology’s greatest prizes—the burial place of Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
Even thinking about it quickened her pulse.
If she located Cleopatra’s tomb, the men couldn’t laugh at her anymore, they couldn’t exclude her from their societies and dismiss her work. Even the famous antiquarian the Duke of Ravenwood—her former best friend and current enemy—wouldn’t be able to ignore her achievements.
Indy had made it her life’s work to study the powerful, influential women who had helped shape history.
Her shoulders tensed thinking of the way Ravenwood had publicly challenged her theories on the female gender of the ancient Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Shrug it off. Don’t let thoughts of Ravenwood destroy your dilettante disguise.
The scandal sheets called her Lady Danger. She’d survived multiple knife attacks, venomous snakebites—and the lady patronesses of Almack’s.
One overzealous porter was child’s play.
“Now see here, I don’t like this delay one bit.” She infused her voice with aristocratic disdain. “Sir Malcolm will surely hear of your insolence. Uncle sent word that I was coming.”
A letter she’d forged—yet another punishable offence.
Her own father was dead and her brother was now the powerful Duke of Banksford, but even he might not be able to save her if she were arrested today.
Men tended to take their rules very seriously, especially the ones that kept women submissive, subservient, and on the wrong side of doors.
“Wait here, sir.” The porter disappeared into the arched doorway of Somerset House, leaving Indy standing on the Strand. Carriages rattled past. A man attempted to herd sheep across the avenue. A rattrap vendor demonstrated his wares by shaking cages filled with live rats in the startled faces of passersby.
Had the porter noticed something odd about her appearance?
A quick check of her makeshift whiskers assured her the paste was holding . . . for now.
Blue-tinted spectacles covered her telltale grayish-purple eyes, and a short brown wig hid her long dark hair.
She’d bound her bosom with linen to achieve the illusion of a young buck dressed in the first stare of fashion: blue greatcoat over a frock coat of black superfine, gold-embroidered waistcoat, buff-colored trousers, and polished black boots.
She looked quite dashing, if she did say so herself.
Indy’s mother loved to remind her that she displayed none of the pleasing traits of femininity. She never simpered or flirted, abhorred frills and furbelows, carried a dagger at her hip and knew how to use it, and had once been told that her gait resembled that of a swaggering tomcat.
Her one feminine indulgence was a bold, sensual French perfume, but today she’d remembered to douse herself with a masculine scent.
Every detail’s in place. There’s nothing to worry about.
Soon she’d cross the threshold of the most exclusive antiquities society in the world. And none would be the wiser.
Not even Ravenwood. Even her rival wouldn’t notice her because she planned on being entirely unexceptional. For once in her life she’d stay silent, suppress her flair for the dramatic, speak only when spoken to, and attract absolutely no undue attention.
Wouldn’t her mother be proud? Her etiquette lessons put to use at last.
What was taking the blasted porter so long?
Indy leaned on her ebony-knobbed walking stick and whistled a popular air, her breath visible in the cold October air.
A mother and her pretty marriage-aged daughter passed by and Indy tipped the brim of her beaver top hat with the knob of her walking stick. The daughter giggled and cast a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.
The poor thing looked as though her arms were lost in little hot-air balloons and she might lift off and float away at any moment, airborne by her sleeves. Women’s sleeves had widened to outrageous proportions of late. And the millinery. Don’t get Indy started on the hats. Monstrous straw bonnets the width of Viking shields, bristling with plumage and stiff satin bows.
They were weapons, those hats. Men had to move out of their path for fear of being blindsided, she’d found out today.
Indy flexed her shoulders, enjoying the comfortable fit of her custom-made coat.
Strutting the streets of London in male garb had been astonishingly freeing. Why hadn’t she done it before? The city had spread itself before her boots, whispering of untasted pleasures.
Smoky pubs where she could order a haunch of beef and a brandy without causing an uproar or being forced to deflect boorish advances.
Boxing establishments, clubs, and gaming houses . . . every door thrown wide.
The door of Somerset House opened again. “Apologies for the delay. Right this way, Mr. Pomeroy,” said the porter with an obsequious bow.
“Well it’s about time, my good fellow,” muttered Indy, striding through the arched doorway into the vestibule as if she owned the place.
They passed under an archway crowned by a bust of Newton, signaling that the Royal Society of scientists and philosophers shared this wing of Somerset House with the antiquaries.
No females except for serving maids ever passed through this doorway.
Did it give the gentlemen a feeling of superiority every time they entered their hallowed halls, free from feminine interference?
Nob-headed nonsense!
Hoarding knowledge for the consumption of only one sex was the greatest folly, and she was going to prove it to Ravenwood, and the other pompous lords, all puffed up with pride and prejudice.
She wasn’t just going to sneak through their precious door . . . she was going to blast the entire thing off its hinges.
She would prove that females were not inherently inferior to males. That women of vision and power had shaped history and would continue to do so.
Realizing her gait had taken on a militant cadence, she slowed her steps to an indolent amble befitting Mr. Pomeroy, bored dandy and rake-about-Town.
After climbing a semi-circular staircase, the porter led her to the meeting room and seated her in the backmost row of benches that lined the walls. The meeting hadn’t yet begun and a loud hum of conversation reverberated in the spacious room.
She noticed Ravenwood immediately—he was sprawled in a chair at the foot of the central table that must be reserved for titled members.
She had a habit of looking for him in every room she entered as her frame of reference.
If he was in the room it meant a public showdown—hackles raised and witty retorts and barbs at the ready.
Daniel, her fun-loving childhood friend, had become a rogue known for hunting beautiful women in England, and treasures abroad, amassing both amours and antiquities as nothing more than trophies.
Once upon a
long-lost summer they’d dreamt of traveling the world together and making important archaeological discoveries.
What a cartload of steaming shite.
He’d betrayed her. And now his methods for hunting antiquities were as wildly unscrupulous as hers were rigidly ethical. She studied ancient cultures, she never stole their accomplishments. She surrendered any artifacts she discovered to the government of the country where she made the discovery for further study and display.
When she brought a small token back to England with her, she purchased it for a fair price through the proper channels and donated it to the British Museum for public display.
As far as she could tell, Ravenwood spent most of his time drowning in drink and lounging about instead of practicing any actual archaeology. He simply purchased whatever treasure he desired from the underworld. And then he kept the priceless antiquities locked away in his private collection. For his eyes only.
Anger swelled, nearly propelling her toward him. Their constant rivalry kept the scandal sheets in business.
Lady Danger versus the Rogue Duke.
A public war of the sexes that usually devolved into cynical laughter on his side and shouted epithets and smashed porcelain on hers.
She did like giving him a sharp and biting piece of her mind every time she saw him.
But not today.
There would be no warfare today.
Stay seated. Keep your blade holstered. Don’t call attention to yourself. Look anywhere else in the room but at Ravenwood.
Study the oil lamps and candles spilling warm light over the books and artifacts arranged along the central table. Peruse the bust of George the Third presiding over the mantel.
Pretend to admire the Tudor tapestry woven in vibrant reds and blues hanging on the wall.
Don’t notice him.
Don’t notice that his eyes were the same color as the candle flames reflecting in polished oak. Pay no attention to the way the snowfall of his cravat served as a contrast to his tanned skin and the angular lines of his handsome face.