The Undercover Scoundrel

by Jessica Peterson

  Henry leapt from the vehicle, shouting at the driver; the driver shouted something back about an explosion, out there on the river. Hope joined them, holding the door open behind him.

  Wordlessly, Sophia reached across the bench and took Caroline’s hand in her own.

  “William,” Caroline whispered. “Oh, God.”

  Henry turned to her, resting an arm on the door’s top bracket. The lapels of his coat stretched open, revealing his bare chest. “Do not move, Caroline, or so help me I will tie you to the seat. There’s nothing you can do, not without getting harmed yourself. I’ll see to William. You’ll have word as soon as I do.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned and dissolved into the darkness.

  Caroline sat very still, the backs of her eyes burning with tears. Hope lingered in the open door, telling Sophia to look after her cousin Violet, that he’d given the driver instructions to take them home, under pain of death.

  He closed the door, pounded it with the flat of his hand. The hackney jolted forward, eliciting a moan from Violet. Caroline watched the slope of Hope’s shoulders disappear toward the river, after Henry.

  And then they were alone—she, Sophia, and Violet. The diamond was gone. William was—well, who knew where he was. Henry was going after him, yes, but who knows what would happen—what wouldn’t happen? It was possible she would lose them both. She couldn’t think about it, not without being strangled by a creeping sense of disaster.

  Caroline squeezed Sophia’s hand, and looked away from the window to the lifeless body dangling across her knees. “Let’s see to your cousin,” she said.

  Thirty-eight

  Violet and Sophia’s Residence

  Grosvenor Square

  It was no easy task, dragging Violet up two creaking flights of stairs. Caroline held one arm while Sophia held the other; together they grunted and panted their way through the house.

  Climbing up the stairs, Caroline cursed her countrymen and their predilection for large houses; this one seemed to go on forever.

  By the time they reached the second landing, sweat dripped into her eyes. They paused to catch their breath, wiping perspiration from their brows. Sophia’s face was tensed, her eyes hooded, as if she wanted to weep but didn’t have the energy.

  “Just. A bit longer,” Caroline panted, as they carried Violet the last few feet into her chamber.

  Sophia drew up just before they reached the bed. “I don’t think I’m . . . I’m able to do it.”

  “Yes, you are. One. Last push.” Caroline blew the hair from her eyes, and took Violet by the wrists. “I’m afraid we’ll have to swing her onto the bed. There, you take her feet. That’s it, Sophia, just like that.”

  “God,” Sophia said. “She’s heavy.”

  A count of one, two, three, and Violet landed heavily on the bed, the mattress ducking beneath her weight.

  Bent over with her hands on her knees, Caroline said, “Smelling salts.”

  Sophia nodded, too winded to speak. She held up a finger as she turned and disappeared from the room. A moment later she was back, bearing a fistful of salts.

  “Good heavens!” Caroline said, peering at the salts. “How often do people faint in this house?”

  “My mother,” Sophia said, as if that explained everything.

  “Oh, yes, I’d quite forgotten about Auntie George. Swoons often, then?”

  “Several times a day since I’ve made my debut.”

  Caroline tried not to appear horrified. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  Sophia shrugged. “Don’t be. I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but when she’s unconscious I can escape.”

  Caroline didn’t have to ask where Sophia escaped to.

  She was escaping to Mr. Hope. His bed, probably. They were an unlikely pair, yes, the banker and the debutante. But in Caroline’s experience, the unlikeliest pairs were also the most passionate.

  It only took a sniff or two of the salts, and Violet stirred, letting out a little moan. They undressed her quickly, and wrapped her in the counterpane. Violet moaned again when Caroline tucked the bedclothes about her bosom.

  Across the bed, Caroline met Sophia’s eyes.

  “What is it?” Sophia whispered.

  “How long has your cousin been ill? The weak stomach.”

  Sophia furrowed her brow. “A few weeks now. She says it’s nothing, but . . .”

  Was it possible, Caroline wondered, after all Violet had been through? The wound, the painful recovery?

  But Caroline knew better than anyone that anything—really, anything—was possible. Her heart clenched; she remembered the symptoms well. The tender breasts, the incessant swell of nausea. She wanted to smile. She wanted to cry.

  If something had happened on that ship, William wouldn’t only be leaving behind his sister, and the woman he loved.

  Caroline wished, violently, that he was all right, that he was alive. If only so he might know. His face, when he heard the news—how priceless it would be!

  “You look exhausted,” Sophia said, drawing round the bed to loop her arm through Caroline’s. “I’ll send for the carriage, get you back home. Perhaps there’s word waiting for you there about Lord Harclay.”

  Sophia saw her to the back of the house, where a yawning coachman waited.

  “Thank you,” Sophia said. “For your help. He’s going to be all right, your brother. He made it out of Hope’s ballroom with the French Blue. I daresay he’ll make it out of this, too.”

  She pulled Caroline into a hug then, squeezing her tightly. Caroline nearly started, and then, after a moment, she allowed herself to fall into Sophia’s embrace. It was an intimate gesture, a familiar one. Caroline wondered if this was what it felt like to have a sister. They would be cousins, she and Sophia, if William and Violet married. Caroline wouldn’t mind having a cousin like Sophia. More family. It would certainly make the prospect of her perpetual widowhood less depressing.

  With a kiss on the cheek Sophia let her go.

  Caroline had to pound on the roof when the carriage passed her brother’s Hanover Square house. Tumbling out onto the street, she saw the driver give himself a good smack on the cheek; he’d fallen asleep.

  The house was quiet as a tomb, and just as vacant. The butler, Avery, was nowhere to be found; Nicks, as bleary-eyed as the driver, said Avery had not returned since the whole party left hours ago.

  Caroline was in bed, staring at the ceiling, when she heard a sudden jolt of noise. Somewhere in the bowels of the house, a door swung open, slammed shut.

  She knew right away it was the kitchen door, at the back of the house.

  She didn’t remember flying out of her room, down the stairs, down again, and yet again; she found herself in the dim cacophony of the storerooms, voices rising and falling as maids and cooks held naked tapers aloft.

  “Make way, please,” Caroline choked, moving toward the door. She felt sick with anticipation.

  There, on a makeshift stretcher, was Lord William Townshend, Earl of Harclay and Caroline’s brother.

  What was left of him, anyway. His clothes were soaked; he reeked of gunpowder and smoke, scents that waved off him like putrid clouds. His face was bloody, swollen, unrecognizable; sunken in places, like a rotten plum.

  She met eyes with Avery, who stood, chest heaving, to William’s right. He, too, appeared the worse for wear. Caroline didn’t ask; she didn’t want to know.

  “A little,” Avery wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat, sniffed. “He’s a little alive.”

  William and Violet, the both of them a little alive.

  A black hole of dread, sucking and deep, opened inside her. It pulled at her organs and turned her blood to ice.

  She turned away from it, to keep it from swallowing her whole. In rapid-fire shouts she issued orders to the staff. You, call the docto
r, and you, the surgeon, and the chemist. You, boil water, bring him upstairs, stoke the fire in his rooms. No women, we have to strip him. The soap, the laudanum, and yes, two fingers of brandy for me, thank you very much.

  Caroline went to work on her second lifeless body of the night. She was apparently good at it, the resuscitation bit. Once they got him in bed, William moaned, just like Violet had; only William’s moan devolved into a colorful expletive that made Caroline laugh.

  “He’s a little more alive,” she said. Thank God.

  Shirt, breeches, shoes, stockings: together she and Avery peeled back each grimy layer, dropping the articles into a canvas sack one of the footman held, with a look of sincere distaste, at arm’s length.

  As far as Caroline could tell, William bore no serious flesh wounds; the surgeon would know if any bones were broken, if there was bleeding where the eye could not see.

  They made him as comfortable as they could; the surgeon came, and after repeated admonishments that his lordship was in good hands, Caroline and Avery were at last persuaded to take their leave.

  “The study,” Caroline said. She felt weary, suddenly, a kind of exhaustion that transcended the ache in her body. “I need another drink, and I’ll not have it alone.”

  “Hardly proper, the butler and the countess taking brandy together,” Avery said, following her down the stairs.

  The butler and the countess, the banker and the debutante, the countess and the spy. What did it matter anymore? Held captive by the romance of being seventeen, and in love, Caroline remembered thinking that these distinctions of class and comportment were silly. The world had quickly taught her otherwise, but now, tonight, she understood once again her youthful conviction.

  She and Avery sipped their brandy quietly. Avery refused to sit in Caroline’s presence—some rules, he said, upheld civilization itself, and this was one of them—and so he stood across from her, staring into the empty fireplace.

  She thought of Henry.

  “At the docks—did you see Henry Lake?” she asked. “Or Thomas Hope? They came looking for you.”

  Avery nodded. “They helped me see his lordship to safety. We escaped just in time, before the ship sank. They are well.”

  Caroline set her empty glass on the table beside her chair. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least Henry was alive. A lot alive.

  “And our French friends. Them, too?”

  Avery ducked his head, a nod.

  “How fortunate for France,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll thank us for saving their most esteemed sovereign’s life.”

  He grinned. A beat passed between them as he finished his brandy.

  “My lady.” He cleared his throat and turned to look at her. “There’s something I’d like to give you. For safekeeping, while his lordship is . . . indisposed.”

  Caroline met Avery’s gaze. He was nervous. Which, of course, made her nervous. He dug into his waistcoat pocket.

  Her pulse, drowsy from the brandy, leapt.

  It couldn’t be—no, it was lost. The chances were laughable, at best, that he held the diamond in his pocket.

  He dug about some more.

  And then Avery placed the French Blue in Caroline’s palm.

  For a moment her heart stopped beating altogether.

  “I got lucky,” he said. “That’s how.”

  That’s it? she wanted to say. You got lucky? What the devil did that mean?

  She knew that was all he would give her. She did not press for more.

  Even in the flickering light of a nearby candle, the diamond was starkly compelling. Caroline recognized its flirtatious shimmer, its flashes of vermilion, white, violet. Despite being stashed away in Avery’s pocket, the diamond was cold to the touch, and heavy in her hand.

  She looked up once more at the butler. “Why didn’t you just keep it for yourself? You could’ve run away with it, easily.”

  Avery held his hands behind his back. His lips twitched.

  Caroline scoffed when the realization hit. “You’re just as bad as William is, aren’t you, chasing after a thrill?” She rolled her eyes. “Men.”

  Avery gave in to his smile. “Yes, unfortunately I am one.”

  Caroline sighed, closing her fingers about the diamond. “Well, then. I’ll just put this back where it belongs, where it’s safest. In my brother’s sock drawer.”

  * * *

  Only, she didn’t.

  While the house was still abed, Caroline slipped out the back gate. She pulled her hat low against the ardent rain and made for Henry’s house, hand held against the small reticule buried in her skirts. She did not look back.

  She trusted her gut.

  She trusted Henry.

  Thirty-nine

  Sopping wet and smelling of smoke, Henry pushed through the kitchen door of his brother’s town house.

  He shuffled inside.

  And nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a familiar voice.

  “Pardon me, sir, but what the devil happened to you?” Mr. Moon was at his side in an instant, helping Henry out of his clothes. “And why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

  Throat tight with relief, Henry drew Moon into his arms, squeezing him until the poor man choked out a request to be released.

  Henry held him at arm’s length. He appeared to be in middling condition; his eyes were bruised, and one was swollen shut. His lip was split, and a gash ran the length of his cheekbone. His skin was the color of dirty dishwater.

  “My God.” Rage thundered inside Henry’s chest. “What did that bastard do to you?”

  Moon waved away his concern. “You needn’t worry—old Brunhilde could serve up a better beating. It was a shameful display, sir, just shameful; I felt quite sorry for his lordship the marquess.”

  “How the devil did you do it?” Henry marveled. “How in the world did you outsmart Woodstock?”

  Moon shrugged, as if it escaping the clutches of a madman were no small thing. “Took advantage of his weakness, his sense of control. He had no idea you and I have been jumping out of windows for years now. I jumped. Granted, it was a few stories up, and more painful than I would ever admit sober—”

  “A few stories? But how? Why?”

  “It’s done.” Moon frowned at Henry’s costume. “You haven’t told me about your missing shirt. Or why you’re sopping wet.”

  It was Henry’s turn to shrug. “Some royals, a poisoning, an explosion—it’s done, as you say.”

  “Excellent news, sir. Let’s get ourselves cleaned up then; it won’t be long before Woodstock knows I’ve escaped. He’ll come looking for us here.”

  They both turned at the knock on the door.

  He was at the door before she mounted the first step. She, Caroline.

  “Come in!” he said, reaching out to her. “Let’s get you out of the rain.”

  She brought the scent of it with her into the shadowed entrance hall. Water, earth, a trace of flowery perfume. His pulse thumped.

  She drew back her hood, and for a moment Henry was struck dumb. Her dark hair tumbled loose about her shoulders, egregiously lovely, somehow erotic, and he imagined this is what it would look like, after a night in bed with him. A bit mussed, glossy.

  God, but she was beautiful. He would never get used to that fact.

  He was standing too close to her; he should move.

  “Mr. Moon!” she cried.

  Moon managed a smile as Caroline tucked him into her arms. They exchanged pleasantries, Moon told her about the jump, and then Caroline turned to Henry.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, unbuttoning the front of her pelisse. “You’re soaking wet.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll take care of that in a moment.” Henry sprang forward, taking her hat and gloves and placing them on a nearby table.

  He tur
ned to look at her. “Caroline,” he said quietly.

  She looked at her feet and shook her head.

  “How is your brother?” Henry asked. “He was worse for the wear when we set him in the hackney last night.”

  “He’s better,” she said. “He’s sprained both ankles, and his face is bruised. He won’t be out of bed for a few weeks, maybe longer. I was going to send word, but he doesn’t want anyone to know, not yet. Especially Lady Violet. Says he has his reasons for not telling her—I told him he was a scoundrel—but he made me swear.” She forced a smile to her lips. “So you must swear, too.”

  Henry wanted to keep that smile there, so he smiled himself, and held a hand over his heart. He leaned forward, teasingly. “I swear not to tell Lady Violet, who is probably half-dead with worry, that your brother is alive, and mostly well.”

  “Thank you,” she clipped. “He’s a devil, isn’t he, William?”

  She was biting her lip now, trying not to smile so hard.

  That lip. It killed him.

  “Well, then,” Mr. Moon stepped in. “To what do we owe the honor, my lady?”

  Only then did Henry notice that Caroline’s outstretched hand was gathered into a fist. Slowly she uncurled her fingers, revealing a blot of darkness in the middle of her palm.

  Henry blinked.

  And then he looked up at Moon. Moon stared back.

  “Our plot against Woodstock,” she said. “We might put it into play at last.”

  Henry nodded at the diamond. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Henry held the French Blue up to the thin light that streamed through the kitchen window. The diamond sparkled a thousand shades of watery gray. Propped between his thumb and forefinger it appeared rather small, though no less remarkable; he understood why half the world lusted after it.

  Drawing a deep breath through his nose, Henry gathered his fingers around the jewel and held it in his palm. He turned to look at Caroline.