Talk of the Ton

by Eloisa James

  “That’s just it,” Sir Harold answered. “The horns of my dilemma.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I’ve come to you. I’ve arranged the transfer of cash and securities into gold as the sultan requested. But I’ll need someone completely trustworthy to deliver it. As an admiral in His Majesty’s Navy, I cannot put into port in Turkish waters. I cannot bring India home to London,” he admitted. “At least, not yet.”

  Lord Davies frowned. “Why not?”

  “The Admiralty wants to send a diplomatist to deliver the ransom so they gain access to the Topkapi, claim success for recovering India from a fate worse than death, and then use her to gain information about him and his alliance with the French. But the sultan insists that if our government becomes involved or interferes in the negotiations in any way, the deal will be nullified, and my ransom and India’s life will be forfeited. I refused to jeopardize India’s life by allowing the Admiralty to send a diplomat, but the Foreign Office is convinced that sending one is the best course of action.” He sighed. “They don’t believe the sultan will harm India. But she’s suffered enough and I cannot gamble with her life.” Sir Harold looked his old friend in the eyes. “I need to recover my granddaughter before the Foreign Office sends a diplomatist to Istanbul. And it must be done in complete secrecy. The first lord of the Admiralty has placed my ship at the diplomatist’s disposal, but the Turkish government refuses to allow a British naval vessel into their waters. Negotiations to gain entrance to the port are set to begin at the end of next month.”

  “That means you’ve less than a month to arrange the transfer of funds and to recover India before our government calls the sultan’s bluff.”

  Sir Harold nodded, then raked his fingers through his hair. “And although she cannot be presented to the regent, the first lord is planning a huge celebration once India is back on English soil and the season gets under way. I’d prefer India arrive home alive without any fanfare. We don’t know her condition or her mental state. I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to proceed with her, but I know exactly how I shouldn’t proceed. And that’s to bring her to London during the height of the season, where she’ll be picked apart by curiosity hounds and gossips.”

  Lord Davies nodded thoughtfully. “I concur.”

  “Unfortunately, Lord Middlebrook is my commanding officer, and Lady Middlebrook appears to be his.” Sir Harold furrowed his brow. “The best I can hope to accomplish at the moment is to bring India home on a privately held vessel and hold the admiralty at bay for as long as possible. If I bring her home, there will be no keeping it quiet from my superiors and I’ll be obligated follow orders. But if I were to charter a private ship to fetch her home and keep her someplace outside London, I might buy India some time before she’s forced to confront London society.”

  “I still have Plum Cottage,” Lord Davies offered. “It’s small, but it’s clean and comfortable.” He smiled. “I don’t travel to Dover much anymore, and Julia and I seldom use the cottage. We held on to it for sentimental rather than practical reasons. I gave my son-in-law a key to it last season so he and Gillian could spend part of their honeymoon there, but they shan’t be using it this season.” Lord Davies walked over to his desk drawer, unlocked it, then pulled out a key on an iron ring and handed it to Sir Harold. “You’re welcome to Plum Cottage and the services of the couple in the village who maintain the house and grounds. It’s private and available, if you want it.”

  Plum Cottage and its adjoining neighbor, Primrose Cottage, shared a small acreage along the route from London to Dover. The cottages weren’t a vast distance from town, but they were far enough outside the city gates and far enough away from Brighton to be considered beneath notice of the fashionable set. “And I’ll set sail right away.”

  Sir Harold shook his head. “I hoped you would offer, but you haven’t sailed on one of your vessels in years. How will it look if you do so immediately after I’ve paid you a visit?”

  “It will look like I’m doing a very important favor for an old friend,” Lord Davies conceded.

  “Send someone else,” Sir Harold advised. “Send a vessel no one will question. One that sails those waters and with a captain you trust implicitly.”

  Lord Davies thought for a moment. “That would be The Bengal Princess. Hers is the closest route to Istanbul. Her captain is a man I’d trust with my life, and she sails in a week.” He smiled at his old friend. “I’ll meet India when she arrives at Plum Cottage. . . .”

  Sir Harold let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

  Chapter Two

  Four months later

  “We won’t make London tonight, Fellow.” Jonathan Manners, eleventh Earl of Barclay, shivered in his heavy overcoat and readjusted his hat so the rain pooling on the brim dripped down his collar instead of into his eyes. Pausing, he gauged his surroundings and calculated the miles left to London. He had hoped to make it back to his own bed before daylight, but the going was slow, and he had one more item on his list of assignments.

  Jonathan didn’t mind the rain, but the wind and the rumbling thunder and chain lightning accompanying the early summer storm made his travel treacherous. And trudging through the mud on foot had cost him a great deal of time and strength. He couldn’t recall the last mile marker posted alongside the road or remember turning left at the crossroads, but he must have, because he was on the road to London despite the fact that the last six or seven miles were a blur of cold rain, gusting wind, mud, and sheer determination.

  Determination not to disappoint his Free Fellows brethren. Determination to press on rather than turn back. Determination to walk rather than ride, to trudge through the mud with his horse at his side. Determination to complete the mission to which he’d been assigned with as few complications as possible. And he’d nearly succeeded.

  In the week since he’d left town, Jonathan had crossed the Channel three times, leading a series of clandestine missions to deliver desperately needed supplies to the network of English agents spread out along the coast on both sides of the Channel. He was wet, cold, hungry, and teetering on the brink of complete exhaustion, but he’d accomplished his mission in record time, successfully eluding both the French and English frigates patrolling the Channel as well as the French agents sent to stop him.

  All he had left to do was stop at Plum Cottage and pick up a parcel Lord Davies needed in London. Colin had planned to retrieve the parcel his father-in-law had requested himself, but Jonathan had been scheduled for the next Channel crossing, and since his clandestine mission would take him within a few hundred feet of Plum Cottage’s front door, Jonathan had offered to do it for him.

  And now he was glad he had. Neither he nor his horse could go much farther without rest, and spending a night in a warm bed and dry stable at Plum Cottage would go a long way towards restoring both of them.

  Reaching up, Jonathan ran his right hand beneath his horse’s mane, feeling the heat of exertion through the soft leather of his riding glove. He’d have collected the parcel and been home hours ago if his horse hadn’t thrown a shoe several miles past the last coaching inn.

  Jonathan rubbed the horse’s neck once again. He didn’t know the horse’s name, but he knew that allowing this particular horse to continue to carry him was out of the question.

  The horse snorted, jigging sideways, as a gust of wind sent rain spiraling in front of him. “Easy, boy.” Jonathan caressed the gelding’s nose, soothing him with his voice. “It’s only rain and wind, and we’ll have you out of it soon.” He hoped.

  Jonathan squinted into the darkness, through the wall of rain, and recognized a familiar landmark, a white stone corner post that marked the boundary of the property he had hoped was close by. Smiling, Jonathan urged the gelding forward and quickened his pace. “We’ll have you settled into a nice warm stall and me into a nice warm bed before you know it.”

  Plum Cottage was straight ahead. Jonathan said a prayer of thanks as he led his horse past the stone marker and the
front of cottage, around to the path on the side.

  Lord and Lady Davies owned Plum Cottage, but they had granted their daughter, Gillian, and her husband, Lord Grantham, full use of it, which was fortunate, because Colin McElreath, Lord Grantham, happened to be Jonathan’s friend and one of the three—along with Griffin Abernathy, Duke of Avon, and Jarrod Shepherdston, Marquess of Shepherdston—founding members of the secret Free Fellows League. Jonathan was also a member of the League—one of the newest—and Colin had entrusted him with this mission and a key to Plum Cottage.

  Colin had spent part of his honeymoon with Gillian at the cottage and had fallen instantly in love with the place. But Colin had also recognized Plum Cottage’s potential as a resting place for the Free Fellows engaging in the clandestine fight against Bonaparte.

  Its location outside of London on the main road to Dover and the other Cinque Ports towns along the Kentish coast made Plum Cottage ideally suited for the work of the Free Fellows League. The closest neighbor had been an elderly widow who owned Primrose Cottage. Plum Cottage and Primrose Cottage adjoined at the garden and shared a stable and small paddock, but the widow had been too old and feeble to make use of any of it. When she’d passed away and Primrose Cottage became available, Colin and Gillian had quietly purchased it. Unfortunately, Primrose Cottage had been neglected for far too many years and was in danger of falling down around their heads. It required extensive renovations, and the going was slow, since Colin refused to hire laborers to do the job until he was certain they were laborers, not agents in service to the French or English governments. And Colin’s evaluation process was very deliberate, quite thorough, and time consuming.

  The fact that Primrose Cottage was unoccupied made Plum Cottage all the more appealing as a hideaway and provided the four Free Fellows whose regular missions carried them to the Cinque Ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich with a purpose for their frequent visits to the cottage just south of the small village of Pymley and a reason for making local inquiries. They could pose as gentlemen looking to purchase the property, as the factors sent to attend to the hiring of workers to renovate it, or as butlers, valets, or other various members of the owner’s staff.

  Jonathan had never made use of the cottage, preferring to sleep in his own bed in his apartments in fashionable Albany, but he had memorized the layout from a sketch Colin had given him along with the key to the back door. He knew the location of the stables and the paddock, knew that the small stable contained the fresh hay and grain necessary to see to his horse’s comfort, and knew that the cottage was stocked with the items necessary to see to his comfort. Tonight, Jonathan intended to retrieve Lord Davies’s parcel and to enjoy the man’s hospitality in order to grab a few hours of much-needed rest.

  The gelding whinnied softly as Jonathan unlatched the paddock gate and led him inside the stable. Jonathan’s teeth chattered with cold, and his hands shook as he removed his leather gloves and fumbled in his pockets for his tinder and flint to light the lantern hanging just inside the stable door.

  After untacking the horse and removing his saddle pouch, Jonathan lifted his horse’s left foreleg, feeling for heat and swelling. It was warm to the touch, but only slightly swollen. Gently lowering that foot to the ground, he then lifted the right foot and repeated the procedure. Discovering that the shoe on the right foot was also loose, Jonathan set the horse’s foot down, then rummaged around the small stable until he located the toolbox. In minutes, Jonathan had pulled the other front shoe off. He hadn’t the tools to fashion new shoes—that would require the services of the blacksmith, but pulling the loose shoe would allow the horse to stand more comfortably.

  “There,” Jonathan soothed, caressing the horse’s neck before running his hand down the horse’s left leg, “you’ll rest better on equal footing.”

  The horse nickered softly as Jonathan rubbed him down with a handful of straw from the stall floor and a length of toweling from his saddle pouch, then fed and watered him.

  When he’d done all that he could do to provide for his horse’s comfort, Jonathan gave thought to his own.

  He was so tired he briefly considered bedding down in the stable with the horse, but he craved a warm fire, a hot meal, a glass of brandy, and a bed big enough to allow him to stretch out for the first time in days for a few blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep.

  The stable was warm and dry, but it offered none of the other amenities and while Jonathan had grown rather fond of the big bay gelding, he didn’t relish sharing sleeping quarters with him. Not when there was a cottage and clean sheets nearby.

  “Good night, fellow,” Jonathan whispered as he slung his leather saddle pouch over his shoulder and extinguished the lantern. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Closing the stable door behind him, Jonathan made his way down the path to the back door of Plum Cottage. He looked back over his shoulder, then glanced around the back door before removing the key from inside his coat pocket and inserting it into the lock. Jonathan didn’t expect to find the parcel outside. Lord Davies had told Colin the parcel was inside the cottage, but Jonathan checked his surroundings just the same. He unlocked the door, nudging it with the toe of his boot before pushing it open. Recalling Colin’s warning to mind his head when he entered the back door of the cottage, Jonathan ducked under the lintel and stepped over the threshold into the kitchen.

  He took off his hat, then shook the rain from his coat and hung it on a peg beside the back door.

  He felt the movement, the whisper of air, as the fine hairs at the back of his neck prickled in warning. But his senses were dulled with fatigue, and the warning came a fraction of a second too late. Jonathan struggled to keep from tensing his body at the feel of the cold steel of the curved blade at his throat.

  “Move and you die, infidel.”

  The high-pitched whisper was spoken in heavily accented French.

  Jonathan wondered fleetingly if this was what Colin meant when he’d warned him to mind his head. Had Colin installed a French-speaking Saracen with a curved blade on the premises to protect the property? And there was no doubt that the man gripping his shoulder and holding a blade to Jonathan’s throat was a threat. Or a Saracen. A giant of a Saracen who wore flowered brocade robes that smelled of heavily scented oil and Turkish tobacco. For who else but a follower of Muhammad would call him an infidel? And who else but a giant could hold a knife at his throat so effortlessly? Jonathan stood an inch over six feet without shoes or boots and weighed thirteen stone, and the Saracen stood half a head taller and outweighed him by fifteen stone or more.

  He hadn’t moved an inch, but the blade bit into the tender flesh of his throat just the same, and Jonathan gritted his teeth and cursed the fact that he was unable to reach the firearm concealed in the inner pocket of his coat.

  Chapter Three

  “Mustafa?”

  The Saracen giant turned at the sound of the softly spoken query. And Jonathan was forced to turn with him.

  A woman carrying a small oil lamp entered the kitchen and hesitated in the doorway when she realized the man she called Mustafa wasn’t alone.

  She stared at him, and Jonathan returned her gaze, barely registering the pain as the curved blade drew a thin line of blood just below his ear as he got his first look at his savior.

  Half of her face was shadowed, but the visible half was extraordinary, and her figure . . . Jonathan sucked in a breath. Her long, dark hair was loose, flowing down her back, caressing the curve of her waist. Her bare waist. Jonathan sighed. He’d never seen so much exposed flesh on any woman with whom he hadn’t been intimate. And while this young woman wasn’t entirely naked, she wasn’t wearing a nightdress, either. She was wearing an abbreviated blouse that left her midriff bare and a pair of trousers with a waistband that dipped low, hugging her slim hips and covering the essentials, while surrounding her long, shapely legs with sheer blue fabric. Half a dozen tassels hung from the hem of her short blouse, and Jonathan notic
ed that the tassels swayed provocatively each time she moved, caressing her skin and releasing tantalizing whiffs of the light, appealing fragrance of delicate spices and lilies. Her feet were as bare as her middle, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, clenching her toes against the cold stone floor, filling the small room with the scent of her perfume and the musical sound of bells. Jonathan searched for the source of the music and discovered it originated from a chain of tiny gold bells encircling her right ankle. She literally brought beauty, music, and perfume into the room, and the potent combination teased the senses, capturing his imagination as firmly as her alluring clothing. It was, quite honestly, the most captivating costume he’d ever seen.

  And likely to be the last. Jonathan closed his eyes and expelled the breath he’d been holding. He didn’t understand all of Mustafa’s words, but he understood “infidel” and the Saracen’s intent. Jonathan winced as the blade at his throat bit deeper into his flesh.

  “Non!”

  Jonathan opened his eyes once again, watching and listening in rapt fascination as the young woman began a heated discussion with Mustafa in a mix of French and a language Jonathan could only assume was Mustafa’s native tongue.

  “Non!” she repeated, shaking her head for emphasis.

  “For God’s sake, stop antagonizing the man,” Jonathan muttered beneath his breath, catching enough of the French to understand that Mustafa considered it his duty to dispatch the infidel and be done with it. “Or he’ll slit my throat just to have an end to the argument.” She hadn’t seemed to notice Mustafa’s irritation, but Jonathan was well aware of the fact that Mustafa increased pressure on the blade at Jonathan’s throat in direct proportion to the young woman’s argument.