My Lady, the Spy
Barbara Devlin
COPYRIGHT
Cover art by Lyndsey Lewellen*
*Cloaked figure used by permission of photographer Matt N Johnson from the licensed image “Cloaked Girl With Black Cat,” which can be found on FLICKER
Copyright © 2013 Barbara C. Noyes
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my courageous little sister Tina Castillo. Thank you, Tina, for always smiling patiently whenever I announce my next great endeavor. You cheered through the sleet and biting winds of an exceptionally cold January day while I ran a marathon. You stood proudly as I donned a uniform and entered law enforcement. You held my hand when that career ended abruptly due to a line-of-duty injury. You cried happy tears as I married the man of my dreams. No matter what I do, you’re always there, and I’m so grateful for you. All my love, Hurley.
To my best friend Dee Rowell. You are the Ethel to my Lucy. You’d give the shirt off your back to help a friend. Your constant reassurance and endless strength has given me the confidence to look adversity in the face and offer it a crude hand gesture in return. Don’t know what I’d do without you.
To Jeanne Adams and Leah Grant, talented writers and my Sultry Sisters. You were with me at the inception of this series, and your comments and criticism priceless. We had more fun plotting and drinking, drinking and plotting. I owe you a debt I can never repay.
To Jax Crane, web designer extraordinaire, and Lyndsey Lewellen, amazing graphic artist, for bringing my vision to life.
To Stacy Boyd, for giving me the best advice of my writing career. I am forever grateful. And to Cheryl Ferguson, for reminding me how much I love to write.
Last but not least, to women in law enforcement, everywhere.
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
Excerpt from The Most Unlikely Lady
PROLOGUE
The Ascendants
England
The Year of Our Lord 1312
There was nothing wrong with a thirty-two-year-old-virgin, Arucard reassured himself. Unless, of course, he was the virgin in question. As a Templar Knight, he had no interest in or use for women. In fact, he had taken a vow of celibacy on the same day he joined the order, because only the most chaste knights could ascend to the glorious hereafter. But the Templars were no more, and his tenuous position in England necessitated a marriage to prove his loyalty to Edward II.
It had been five years since he fled France with his fellow warriors of the Crusades. Five years since the Templars had been hunted, tortured, and killed during Philip the Fair’s Inquisition. Of an estimated two thousand knights, only five remained, as far as he knew. Five Templar mariners. All wanted men by papal decree.
The mantle in his grasp bore the familiar red cross centered on a field of white and matched the modest, unadorned white cloak that was the standard attire of his once great knighthood. How he had worn the uniform with pride; had cared for the pristine fabric as though it were a second skin. In a sense, it had been a part of him, a part of his identity, every bit as much as his own flesh. Yet it could define him no longer. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the garb to join the other clothing that burned brightly in the fire.
He took a healthy gulp of ale and studied the badge of the Brethren of the Coast, the fledgling order formed by his new master, a price paid to accommodate the fighting men without a home. The seal, fashioned of gold, featured a wind-star design, a large, blue diamond at the center, and the Latin phrase Nulli Secundus, Second to None.
The bejeweled piece was similar to his current uniform in its splendor. His fur-lined cloak and rich blue mantle festooned, haphazardly, with gold braids violated the tenets by which he had long existed. As a Templar, he had been taught that unnecessary excess led to immorality. While he understood that his survival in a foreign land, his allegiance to a foreign king, and his union to a creature who, for all intents and purposes, was foreign to him outside the maternal realm required equally foreign customs, he kept his hair cut short and his face clean-shaven, which was true to his Templar ascendants. And, despite the King’s generosity, Arucard much preferred the simple, understated clothes.
“I found it,” Demetrius stated proudly, as he pulled up a crude wooden stool and sat before the fire. “My grandsire wrote this oath when first he entered the military, and I am certain it is contained within these pages.”
“What is so important about an old oath, brother?” Geoffrey inquired, as he peered at the antiquated log.
“History,” Morgan responded as he neared. “We are the last of our kind and the first of our kind. Never again will the Knights Templar sail as Templars, but neither will we sail quietly into the night. We shall live on as the Brethren of the Coast.”
“Precisely,” Aristide said as he clutched a pitcher and refilled the goblets. “And we must never forget from whence we came.”
“Especially as we face the future.” Arucard lifted his chin and sighed. “And all of its uncertainties.”
“When do you wed?” Morgan made a pitiful attempt at concealing a smile, and Arucard had the sudden urge to punch him in the nose.
“Tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Geoffrey rolled his eyes and whistled in monotone. “Have you seen her?”
Arucard shook his head. “I have not.”
“Yours is a precarious situation, brother.” Demetrius abandoned his search momentarily and raised his goblet. “Better you than I.”
With a grin, Aristide ventured to ask, “Do you, perchance, know her name?”
“Isolde,” Arucard replied with a shuffle of his feet. “She is the daughter of a nobleman, or some such.”
“Oh, no. Not a pampered princess.” Morgan frowned. “As it is safe to assume she has not seen you, let us hope she has a sense of humor.”
“Let us hope she can cook,” Geoffrey said, as he tore a piece of bread from a loaf.
“Let us hope she is fair,” Arucard corrected. “Else all shall be for naught, for I will sail to the end of the Earth to escape her.”
His response garnered a chorus of laughter, and, for a scarce second, Arucard’s spirits lightened.
“How many babes do you intend to get on her?” Demetrius flipped through the torn pages of the mangled tome. “Five or six?”
“Babes?” Arucard swallowed hard. “I-I have given it no thought.”
“Well, you had better think about it.” With an arched brow, Demetrius cocked his head. “And what will you do should the damsel fall in love with you?”
Flames crackled, and Arucard gazed into the blaze.
Love?
A violent shudder
rocked his frame. Although he was quite familiar with the brotherly love upon which his knighthood was founded, he was entirely unfamiliar with the emotion as defined by the relationship between a husband and a wife. Nothing on the battlefield could have prepared him for such a predicament. He was a Templar Knight, a creature of habit, and a no-nonsense man who preferred an equally staid existence. In the end, he knew only one way to live.
Pray.
Eat.
Weapons practice.
Repeat.
Then retire.
And there was no vacancy for a woman.
“Brothers, I fear we have secured our freedom on very hard terms.” Morgan scratched his cheek. “Very hard terms.”
“I fear we shall all be expected to wed,” Geoffrey added.
“Not on your soul,” Demetrius said with an air of cold determination.
“Never,” Aristide declared. “I should sooner end my own life than take a wife. Regardless of what the English believe, no one shall convince me, not even the King, that a matrimonial commitment is worth eternal damnation.”
Perhaps now was not an appropriate time to tell his brother knights that, indeed, the King had commanded just that, Arucard pondered in silence. The shock of his impending nuptials had yet to wear thin, and the road ahead would be paved with similar hardship and sacrifice, he suspected. His marriage to Isolde was just the beginning.
“Found it!” Demetrius stood, clutching the tattered captain’s log. “Gather round, brothers.”
Arucard extended a hand, palm down, and his fellow Nautionnier Knights followed suit, one atop the other, forming a tight bond forged of blood, flesh, and bone. “Brothers, we have fought the good fight, but we have lost the first skirmish. Yet, despite those who would wish otherwise, we survive. Mighty England is now our home, and her King is now our commander, but our destinies belong to us, and we shall not sink into the annals of history, remembered only by our disgrace. From this day forward, let it be known that the Templars remain, though perhaps by another name. We are the Brethren of the Coast. As our Heavenly Father is my witness, in times of war and chaos, we will be revered and feared.”
A roar of concurrence erupted, and from the surrounding woods, the strident cry of some nocturnal beast echoed in agreement.
Amid a crescent of oaks, beneath the stars, by the light of a fire, the Knights of the Brethren proclaimed their own oath. It was a promise written by men long dead but not forgotten.
Love, honor, and devotion were the beginning of our Order. Bonds of kinship and friendship, all-important. We uphold these principles embrace for embrace, desire for desire, for one, for all. For King and Country we stand, for love and comradeship we live.
CHAPTER ONE
The Descendants
France
April, 1811
Death came in a matter of seconds, and it chose a beautiful, star-filled night. In the silver glow of moonlight, the blood staining the front of her peach silk gown, and oozing between her fingers, appeared black as soot from a chimney.
“Oh, Colin. I am so sorry.” Voices echoed in the distance, and L’araignee peered into the darkness to check the vicinity. “I never should have left you alone.”
Amid the blooming rose bushes heralding the advent of spring, the renewal of life, another life had ended. The head cradled in her lap had once sported a boyish expression that melted many a female heart. Now, with his face eerily devoid of emotion, she bent and kissed the only spot on Colin’s forehead not covered with blood.
“I will avenge you, my sweet angel.” Despair was a bitter pill, and L’araignee clenched a fist and swallowed a sob. “I swear it on the graves of my parents.”
A search party drew nigh, and she had to depart or risk a similar fate.
Yet it was so hard to let go.
Her partner would be buried in an unmarked grave, with no ceremony, prayer, or eulogy offered. And no mourner would shed a tear.
Because no one grieved the death of a spy.
“Over here. There is someone over here!”
“I will cry for you, and I shall carry your memory forever,” she said in a whisper. For the last time, she caressed his cheek and eased his head from her lap. She pressed her fingers to her lips, and then touched his cold flesh. “Be at peace, my darling.”
Rustling in the bushes brought her up short.
“You there, stand fast,” an unknown male ordered.
“I think not,” L’araignee stated softly below the interloper’s earshot.
In a flash, she ran behind a tall hedge to a hailstorm of protestations. Ah, a garden was an excellent hiding place. After eluding her pursuers and gaining a measure of safety among the topiaries, she doffed her gown, slippers, and undergarments and rolled everything into a tight ball.
Quickly, she dropped to her knees and crawled beneath the thick canopy of a thorny shrub, which opened countless tiny cuts in her flesh. Ignoring the burning sensation, she smeared handfuls of damp earth on her skin as camouflage. When footsteps approached, she covered her mouth, because the slightest gasp could betray her location. Through the foliage, she counted five rows of buttons on a hussar-style waistcoat and bit her lip. The man was a member of General Bonaparte’s la Garde imperiale.
And L’araignee was in trouble.
If Bony wanted her, she had been well and truly compromised.
Fear shivered down her spine. She saluted the disconcerting reaction and set it aside, because now was not the time for hysterics. She had to get to a safe house. Had to make a run for the Belgian coast. If her communiqué had reached London, Colin’s friend, a trusted ally, should be anchored offshore.
Dirk Randolph would take her home.
Information of utmost importance had to be delivered to the Ministry of Defense and the Counterintelligence Corps. What she possessed was vital to national security, and she could not fail in her duty.
Colin had died for what she knew.
There was a traitor to the Crown in their ranks.
The situation was urgent, and she had to move. With the stealth and skill of a seasoned agent, she slipped between row upon row of ornamental trees and bushes in the elegant garden. Conversation ahead halted her flight. With nary a sound, L’araignee shimmied on all fours and sheltered in the underside of a large holly. The pointed leaves snagged her hair and the bundled clothing.
“I thought I saw someone come this way.”
From her vantage, several pairs of hussar boots appeared on the path.
“Well, there is no one here now.” The guard kicked a small stone. “Get some privates from the infantry, and have them dig a hole for the body. I am returning to the ball.”
L’araignee sat still for several minutes. Despite inclinations to the contrary, she remained calm and patient. An ambitious military man could be lurking in the vicinity, in hopes of making a name for himself at her expense. It was an old trick; one she knew well.
“You are so very sly,” she whispered to herself. “But so am I.”
She waited a tad longer.
Muffled footsteps caught her trained ear, and she shook her head and smiled.
They would not catch L’araignee that night.
#
Standing on the quarterdeck of the Gawain, Dirk Randolph, third Viscount Wainsbrough, folded his arms and sighed in frustration. Thus far he and his crew had eluded enemy detection, but their luck could not hold out forever. For three nights, he had anchored off the Belgian coast, and still there was no sign of Colin or his partner in espionage, a notorious spy known as L’araignee, The Spider. Only Colin and a select group of high-ranking members within the covert Counterintelligence Corps knew the identity of one of the most accomplished operatives in British history. Dirk wondered if possession of that secret had put Colin’s life in peril.
The urgent dispatch his friend had sent to London via emergency channels requested immediate extrication, regardless of exposure, for himself and L’araignee. Yet there had been no elaboration
, no explanation. And for an agent of the Corps to risk discovery, something had to be dreadfully wrong.
A burst of light appeared on the beach.
Two quick flashes followed in succession.
“Captain?”
“I see it, Mr. Scott. Gather a small, armed accompaniment.” Dirk smiled as he pondered a reunion with his roommate from his years at Eton. “All hands about ship, off tacks and sheets, and prepare the jolly-boat. Bring our countrymen aboard safely.”
The second in command dipped his chin. “Aye, sir.”
As a knight of the Order of the Brethren of the Coast, an elite group of mariners descended from the Templars, Dirk had been born into power and privilege. With that power came awesome responsibility, which was never lost on him. A Nautionnier Knight, like his father before him, he served the Crown in silence, and there were never any accolades, no applause, for a job well done. As always, his mission was one of extreme danger and was pertinent to the national defense effort.
Dirk checked his timepiece and then navigated the companion ladder. On the main deck, he paced. Finally, the familiar sound of oars slicing water brought the crew to the larboard rail. His men assisted the returning sailors, and his first mate turned to help a cloaked figure.
A lone cloaked figure.
While the jolly-boat was secured, he studied the diminutive silhouette shrouded by a hooded black cape, the traditional uniform of the Counterintelligence Corps, and tried but failed to ignore the implications. Since Colin stood at a hearty six-foot-two, Dirk knew that person could not be his friend.
That was the enigmatic L’araignee.
“Welcome aboard the Gawain.” He extended a hand. “I am Captain Randolph. My orders are to provide safe passage to England and deliver you directly into the custody of Sir Ross Logan at the Ministry of Defense.”
The palm that settled in his was soft and delicate, decidedly feminine. “Are you Dirk Randolph?”
The voice matched the hand.
Despite his surprise, he nodded. “At your service.”
“I have something for you.”
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