For Love and Country (Brothers in Arms Book 13)

by Samantha Kane

  For Love and Country

  Samantha Kane

  SK Publishing, LLC

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Samantha Kane

  FOR LOVE AND COUNTRY

  Brothers in Arms, Book 13

  Sir Barnabas James is secretive, manipulative, cold and alone. He abhors society and shuns personal attachments. All the better to be the consummate spymaster in service to King and country. Until an old enemy asks a personal favor…

  Lord Ambrose Wetherald has always taken pride in his status as an English gentleman. He obeys society’s rules, is unfailingly polite and deferential, and feels it is his responsibility to protect women and the less privileged. Until one day he needs a favor…

  Melinda de Vere was once the spoiled and willful toast of the London season, but she threw it all away on childish escapades and love affairs.

  Now she is married to a treasonous scoundrel who abuses and degrades her. Until one day she is rescued by two men she has never met.

  When Barnabas demands Ambrose repay the favor in his bed and Mel goes undercover as Barnabas’s housekeeper to help trap her traitorous husband, the three embark on a sensuous affair. Barnabas will have to choose love over duty, Ambrose must surrender his reputation, and Mel will need to learn to trust again if the mismatched, unsuitable lovers hope to survive the devious plot against them.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2016 by Samantha Kane

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For my family and my fans. Thanks for being patient.

  Chapter 1

  “Excuse me, sir, but Lord Wetherald is here to see you.”

  Sir Barnabas James sighed, and without looking up told his secretary, “Show him in.”

  He spared a glance out the window at the overcast skies and gloomy street below. From his office on Whitehall he could see the Horse Guards building across the street. It looked as gray and dingy as everything else as coaches passed desultorily through one of its three arches to the parade grounds. Recently Barnabas had found orchestrating the movements of the secret service at the Home Office tedious, signing one report after another. He was almost glad for Wetherald’s interruption. Almost.

  “Sir Barnabas,” Lord Wetherald said politely as he entered the office. Wetherald did everything politely. He probably fucked politely. Barnabas tossed his pen down as if disgusted at the other man’s arrival. There were protocols to observe, after all.

  “Wetherald,” he said flatly, omitting his title. He had to fight to keep his face blank as Wetherald frowned at his bad manners. Barnabas wasn’t sure why people described Wetherald as unexceptional and unremarkable because even frowning he was attractive, the bastard. He was also quite possibly the largest thorn in Barnabas’s side, politically speaking. He looked like some chivalrous cavalier from an earlier century with his light brown hair and perfectly manicured Vandyke beard. His clothing was expertly tailored by the finest haberdasher. Barnabas knew because he frequented the same establishment.

  Not only did Wetherald look the romantic hero, he played it extremely well, always riding in to save the day—save it from Barnabas’s machinations, no doubt. Where Wetherald was the angel, Barnabas, with his dark looks and swarthy complexion, was the devil.

  “I’m sorry to come without an appointment,” Wetherald apologized, “but I must speak with you about a most delicate and urgent matter.”

  That sounded promising. Barnabas didn’t give his interest away. “Well, then,” he said in a bored voice, “come in and let’s get it over with.” To his delight, Wetherald frowned harder.

  “May I?” Wetherald asked, indicating the door. Barnabas nodded, and he closed the door.

  Before Wetherald could ask—politely, of course—Barnabas ordered, “Sit down,” and pointed at the chair opposite him, on the other side of his desk. The chair was small and miserably uncomfortable. Barnabas liked to discourage visitors as much as possible. To his disgust Wetherald gracefully took the seat as he carefully adjusted his coat to avoid wrinkling it. You’d think he was royalty and not a mere baron the way he made the chair seem like a throne. Bloody aristocrats. For the first time Barnabas noticed how tired his pale blue eyes looked, a general weariness that seemed to go soul deep.

  “Thank you, Sir Barnabas,” Wetherald said, and Barnabas cringed inwardly. During their last conversation Wetherald had thanked him a total of fifteen times. Barnabas had kept a mental tally. Then the bastard had voted against the damn provision Barnabas had been lobbying for. The man had no idea what it took to keep England from descending into chaos. Barnabas knew intimately. Some days it seemed as if he was the only one who knew.

  “Whatever it is, the answer is no,” Barnabas said evenly, no longer finding Wetherald’s heroic politesse amusing.

  “I haven’t asked you anything yet,” Wetherald said, his face registering his surprise. “How do you know the answer is no?”

  “Because invariably whatever you want, I do not and vice versa,” Barnabas said. “It is hard to argue with the facts of our previous negotiations. Logic would dictate that in this matter, history will prevail.”

  Wetherald looked uncomfortable, and not from the chair. “The circumstances are unusual,” he said. “I come to you on a personal matter. But I must insist on absolute discretion.”

  Barnabas smiled wryly. “In my position, my lord, discretion is the only rule I follow.”

  “Indeed,” Wetherald said gravely, “that is why I have come to you. The future—nay, the very life—of a young woman depends upon it.”

  Barnabas had to hide his shock. Wetherald, involved in a scandal with a woman? How had Barnabas not known about it? He usually knew who was shagging whom before the act was done, thanks to his network of spies.

  “Through the intercession of mutual acquaintances, I was made aware of a grave injustice,” Wetherald said. “The most heinous abuse of womanhood. Unfortunately, there is little I can do to remedy the dire situation without your assistance.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the hospital?” Barnabas said, frowning. Several years before he had helped to establish a hospital for the indigent poor, run by a doctor familiar to Barnabas from his war service. The doctor had become involved with a London crime lord and his mistress, who was now his wife. Barnabas had set them all up with the hospital and a boy’s school, out in Hampstead, where the three were living together happily ever after at last report. The hospital had become something of a home for wayward girls who found themselves in the family way. Barnabas kept his inv
olvement quiet, but he had recruited several prominent backers, including Wetherald.

  “I hope to spirit the girl away to the hospital once we have freed her,” Wetherald said.

  “Freed her?” Barnabas inquired, brows raised. “Is she a slave?” He’d already been involved with that particular unsavory institution, having helped a former war agent’s wife break the bonds of slavery. One would think, with all the interference demanded of him on personal matters by friend and foe alike, that he had no business at all at the Home Office to occupy him.

  “Of a sort,” Wetherald replied with a blush. “She is being forcibly kept in a brothel.”

  Barnabas leaned forward, his hands folded on top of his desk. “Are you telling me that you wish me to help you buy a girl’s contract from a madam?” he asked incredulously.

  “No, no,” Wetherald said quickly. “We must kidnap her.”

  “We must?” Barnabas asked, his incredulity increasing. “And why is that? Haven’t you the blunt to buy her?”

  Wetherald frowned, although whether it was at Barnabas’s cant or the question itself, Barnabas had no idea. “I have already tried,” Wetherald explained with saintly patience belied by that frown. Little lines had appeared between his perfect brows. “She is not the madam’s property. It is her husband who imprisons her there.”

  Barnabas sat back. It was his turn to frown. “I cannot get involved in every marital injustice in England,” he said, disappointed in Wetherald’s mundane problem. “Many men have to sell their wives to make ends meet. The times are hard, and life is such.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to say that such tragedies cannot be helped.”

  “I speak of a gently reared woman!” Wetherald exclaimed. “A lady, to the manor born. Her husband’s actions have nothing to do with straitened circumstances and everything to do with his own perfidy and cruel habits.”

  “Then the woman’s family needs to get involved,” Barnabas said, frowning harder. “While it’s true that most courts won’t take a woman away from her husband, if the family can prove she is in danger then any court will act accordingly.”

  “Her family refuses to get involved,” Wetherald said with disgust, his lip curling. “They sold the girl in marriage and washed their hands of her. They refuse to acknowledge her situation for fear it will taint their name and reputation. She has no recourse, no hope of rescue except from us. You must help her,” Wetherald pleaded.

  “Are you in love with her?” Barnabas asked curiously. Knowledge was power. If he could get the girl for Wetherald, he could demand recompense. There were quite a few bills coming up that Barnabas needed to pass and he knew Wetherald would vote against.

  “No,” Wetherald said, ruining Barnabas’s plans. “Indeed, I have never met her.”

  Barnabas pinched the bridge of his nose. Lord Wetherald to the rescue. “Perhaps, Wetherald, you should start at the beginning.”

  * * *

  “Yes, well, perhaps I should, thank you,” Ambrose said, and frowned as he forced himself not to wince at his obsequious tone. He paused to collect his thoughts. His mind was a whirlwind, as it often was when speaking with Sir Barnabas. The man was intimidating and he knew it. He used it to his advantage. Ambrose always felt he came out the loser in their frequent exchanges, regardless of whether they were discussing the likelihood of rain or the recently passed tax law. He’d had a whole speech prepared to explain the situation and persuade Sir Barnabas to help. It had, of course, completely flown his mind when confronted with Sir Barnabas’s patronizing mien.

  “You are acquainted with Lady Vanessa Wilkes, are you not? She and her husband, Mr. Wilkes, are patrons of the hospital and dear friends of Mr. and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Dr. Peters.” He kept his tone clipped so as not to blush when he mentioned the O’Shaughnessys and their mutual lover. Ambrose found the whole situation, one that Mr. Wilkes and Lady Vanessa also enjoyed with their lover Mr. Gabriel, to be discomfiting. While they didn’t flaunt their sexual misalliances, they didn’t try too awfully hard to hide them, either. The very notion of thumbing one’s nose at society in such a fashion both appalled and fascinated him. He supposed that sort of thing might be acceptable among commoners, but certainly not among the peerage. He was still shocked at his own compliance in supporting Mr. Wilkes and Lady Vanessa’s union, knowing that she had also taken Mr. Gabriel as lover and planned to continue to do so. But when he had offered for her, an arrangement her father had orchestrated, and found her affections were engaged elsewhere, he could do nothing less than help her achieve her heart’s desire. His dear sister Natalie had been forced into a disastrous arranged marriage and Ambrose would not be party to forcing another woman into a loveless alliance.

  “Of course I am acquainted with them,” Sir Barnabas said impatiently. “I introduced them when I first set them the task of establishing the hospital.”

  “Of course,” Ambrose said, embarrassed yet again by another blunder with Sir Barnabas. Why could he not be as verbose and logical in conversation with the dratted man as he was when arguing in the House of Lords? “Lady Vanessa recently contacted me about a young woman she knew when she was an unmarried lady in London.”

  “How did she know her?” Sir Barnabas asked. He was watching Ambrose keenly, and Ambrose felt as if he were being interrogated.

  “They ran in the same social circles, I believe,” Ambrose said. “The young lady in question had recently had her come out, right before Lady Vanessa married.”

  “Name?” Sir Barnabas’s asked in a voice like a pistol shot.

  “At that time she was The Honorable Melinda Dorsett,” Ambrose said.

  “Youngest daughter of the Viscount Masonby,” Sir Barnabas said, nodding. Ambrose was again surprised at the breadth of Sir Barnabas’s knowledge. If it happened in England, he knew about it. “Married Charles de Vere.” Sir Barnabas’s voice was musing. “Now there’s a blackguard. I wondered about that connection.”

  “A blackguard doesn’t begin to cover the depth of his depravity,” Ambrose said passionately. “It is a well known fact that he made his wealth smuggling during the war.”

  “A lot of men made a lot of money smuggling during the war,” Sir Barnabas said with a condescending smirk. “Not all are blackguards.”

  “That is where the fundamental difference in our beliefs lies,” Ambrose told him.

  “Oh, I’m not saying de Vere isn’t a blackguard. But it’s not because he was a smuggler. It’s because he’d shoot a man in the back, and has, for little more than a penny. He also has very dark habits in the bedroom.”

  Ambrose tried not to blush at Sir Barnabas’s casual reference to de Vere’s perfidious sexual appetites. “Apparently he forced those habits on his young wife,” Ambrose said sharply.

  “Oh, I assumed he would,” Sir Barnabas said without a trace of condemnation. “Men tend to do that. A shame, really. If I remember correctly she was a bit of a spitfire. They had to marry her off to avoid a scandal.”

  “No woman deserves such a fate,” Ambrose argued, “regardless of her indiscretions.”

  “Now there you and I actually agree,” Sir Barnabas said with a surprised expression. “I didn’t expect someone like you to be so enlightened.”

  “Someone like me?” Ambrose took umbrage at the phrase. “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “A gentleman,” Sir Barnabas said in a flat tone. “A member of the House of Lords, which helped to pass the laws that make it acceptable to force a woman into a marriage like that. A man with fastidious habits who rarely veers from the straight and narrow path.”

  Ambrose was taken aback at how quickly Sir Barnabas had replied, and at the picture he painted. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked, disappointed. “I expected more of you.”

  “More what?” Sir Barnabas asked, leaning back in his chair as he fixed his enigmatic gaze on Ambrose.

  “More insight,” Ambrose said. “For a master of spies, you’re not very observant, are you? If you were, you’d know that
I have fought long and hard to try to change those laws. That I find society’s treatment of women appalling. And you should certainly know that I have veered from the straight and narrow path many times in order to defeat your pet projects. As for my fastidious habits, well, we all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?” He smiled coldly at Sir Barnabas, angered by his deliberate misreading of Ambrose’s character. For he was quite sure it was deliberate. Sir Barnabas never did anything that was not well thought out.

  “You cannot save your sister by playing the knight errant for every abused woman in England,” Sir Barnabas said quietly. He might as well have shouted it.

  “I can bloody well try,” Ambrose snapped at him. “Natalie may be dead, but Miss Dorsett is not.”

  “Mrs. de Vere,” Sir Barnabas corrected him. “And therein lies the problem.” He sighed. “So he’s locked her up in a brothel, has he?”

  “Yes, over in Tothill Fields.” Ambrose thought of the area in London where many brothels were located. Mr. O’Shaughnessy had bluntly told him how the system worked, which brothels were better than others, and which ones to avoid. He knew because he’d run some years ago. It was hard to see the distinguished Mr. O’Shaughnessy, patron of many charitable causes and dean of the new boy’s school, as a London crime boss. But he didn’t lie about his past when Ambrose asked him. In spite of his misdeeds, Ambrose liked him.

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” Sir Barnabas said with another impatient sigh.

  “Does that mean you’ll help?” Ambrose asked eagerly.

  “I’m not making any promises,” Sir Barnabas said firmly. “First, I need to know what house she’s in. Is she working there?”

  “Yes,” Ambrose said. “Not for the general clientele, however. Only for special guests that de Vere brings himself.”

  “So de Vere runs the house,” Sir Barnabas speculated. “Interesting. I thought he’d cleaned his portfolio when he married so well.”