The Regency Season

by Ann Lethbridge

  Moreau had always been secretive about his hiding places. Though she hadn’t ever told him, she had always been able to discover them in the inns where they had stayed. He had liked to hide things under the floorboards, though none of those rooms had been carpeted.

  Desperate to lock the door, she didn’t dare to in case he or his man came in. She had to hurry. With shaking hands she pulled the bag from its hiding place and set it on the floor beside her. It was locked, of course, but it didn’t take her a moment to open it with a hairpin. Inside, she found a notebook and pencil. She flipped the pages. It was full of tiny writing, none of which made any sense. Code others would find of interest.

  She pulled out a small leather-covered box. Inside it was a signet ring. A gold fob. A set of collar studs set with emeralds and a matching stick pin.

  And beneath a layer of white velvet, the miniature. Just the sight of it made her flush hot then cold. What could she have been thinking to pose in such a lewd manner? But she’d loved him and had thought it a great joke to give him such a gift. Before she’d discovered the truth.

  Fear a hard lump in her throat, she slipped it into the valley between her breasts, hiding it between her stays and her chemise.

  She packed everything else back exactly as she had found it. Moreau would notice the smallest difference, though hopefully he’d be arrested before he noticed the missing memento. She returned the valise to its hiding place, covering it with the board, the carpet and finally the slippers. She let go a sigh of relief and rose.

  A creak as the door opened.

  Heart rising in her throat, she took one big step. It brought her up against the desk. She slid the drawer open at the same moment Moreau, in his disguise as Peckridge, stepped in.

  Bushy grey eyebrows rose towards his hairline. A smile broke out on his face. It looked more like a leer on that horrible face, but she remembered it well now she was positive of his identity.

  ‘Well, well, my little Netty. What a pleasant surprise. I should have guessed you of all of them would sniff me out.’

  ‘Pierre,’ she said, her heart contracting as she forced a smile. To her he would always be Pierre Martin, no matter that he had used the name Paul Moreau in all his dealings in England. ‘I certainly never expected to see you at my betrothal ball.’

  He opened his arms. ‘I have missed you.’

  She quelled a shudder and steeled her spine against the trickle of fear creeping through her veins. ‘Did you, Pierre, when you abandoned me to my fate?’

  He frowned. He shifted, his body growing in height and breadth, though his face remained purely Peckridge. ‘You could not possibly believe such a thing of me, my sweet. You break my heart.’

  He looked so forlorn, even within his horrid disguise, she believed him implicitly. That was what made him so very irresistible. His charming sincerity. She also knew he would kill her without a second of thought if she posed the most minute of threats.

  His gaze dropped to the desk. ‘What are you seeking? You know I would give you all that I have.’

  More allusion to their time together sent a shudder through her body. Was he saying he wanted her back? Or was it all a trick to set her at ease before he struck?

  She gave him a hesitant smile. ‘Your disguise is so good I wanted to make sure I was right. I didn’t want to make a mistake in so public a place.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He glanced in the mirror, touching his face. ‘What gave me away?’

  ‘A small thing. Nothing anyone else would notice.’

  ‘It is good, I admit. I studied the man for weeks. Your Duke should take more care to familiarise himself with his distant family.’ His gaze met hers in the glass. He smiled. A quick baring of his perfect white teeth. Another thing she had liked about him. ‘Congratulations on your betrothal, by the way. You were always one of the most intelligent females I have ever met.’

  ‘Thank you. So that’s what you were doing up north. Establishing a new identity.’

  ‘Indeed. My original plan to capture Falconwood was to use this cousin to get close to him. Your engagement and the invitation to your ball brought things to a head in a much more satisfactory manner. Your Duke has been making a thorough nuisance of himself these past few years. Fouché would be very generous with anyone who could bring him to France for questioning.’

  Her heart seemed to stop beating. Of all the people she had assumed Pierre might be here to kill, Freddy had not been among them. Fear was a cold, hard lump in her belly. ‘I would have expected you to be more interested in the Prince.’

  A burst of the so-familiar laughter filled the room. ‘That fat fawn? That tearful, womanising dilettante? You think I’m fool enough to want to replace him with his brother, the Duke of York? A real man and a soldier? The emperor would have my head in a basket and rightly so. No, the loss of your Duke and his secrets will be a setback from which the British will never recover.’

  ‘You plan to kidnap him.’

  ‘Naturally.’ He turned away from the mirror, walked over to the bed and retrieved his pistol. He loaded it with methodical ease.

  This was not good. She eyed the distance to the door. But he was in between. And the window was closed.

  He rammed the shot home and glanced up. ‘You haven’t yet told anyone of my identity, I presume?’ He shook his head. ‘Of course not. You were not sure.’ He glanced around. ‘And there was something you wanted, hmm? A picture perhaps?’

  Nausea rose in her throat. He had planned to use it against her somehow. She repressed the urge to press her hand against her bosom, where the miniature suddenly seemed much too large for so small a space, where she was sure he would see it should he happen to look more closely. She had to think of something. Anything. To stop him.

  Her heartbeat quickened as she slipped into a version of the games he had taught her when she had thought he was working for the loyalists. When she had handed him their lives, thinking she was saving them. Until she’d discovered his true colours by accident. One day while he’d been out, she’d found a letter from Fouché congratulating him on his success in trapping a leader of a small band of royalists. A heartbreaking shock she’d never revealed and instead had tried to warn his potential victims. And then, with professions of undying devotion, because he’d thought her besotted, he’d used her as bait to trap her sister. It seemed he still thought her besotted. The man’s ego knew no bounds at all.

  She gave him a winsome smile. ‘I am so glad to see you again, safe and whole. I worried about you in Spain, and me stuck here in England with no way to reach you. I thought you had abandoned me entirely.’

  He frowned. ‘Me, abandon you? You left me completely in the lurch at Boulogne. I was lucky not to lose my head over that debacle. All this time I have been languishing in Madrid, you have been enjoying the delights of English nobility.’

  The man had no idea about loyalty or familial love. To him it was all about advancement, power, money.

  She widened her eyes as if in shock. ‘You think I wanted to come here to live with a sister who left me to my fate in a burning building? You were my only friend in the world.’

  A protective friend, she’d thought, and a lover, at least for a time. Until she’d discovered the depths of his betrayal. He had broken her heart, but she had made him pay.

  ‘Why did you leave with your sister?’ he asked, his face puzzled. ‘You knew I would return.’

  ‘They didn’t tell you, did they?’

  Doubt filled in his expression. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’

  ‘The men who were supposed to be watching over me left me with that boy, David, and went off to the tavern.’ She’d gambled with them, deliberately cheated and lost all her money to them, and all the while had teased them with sexual innuendo until the only thing they had been able to think about was swiving. Since they hadn’t dared touch Pierre’s mistress, they’d gone off to find women of their own.

  She certainly wasn’t surprised his men hadn’t told
him the truth. Why would they risk his wrath when they never expected to see her again? ‘David will confirm my story if you ask him gently enough and don’t make him afraid. The poor lad didn’t stand a chance against Mooreshead when he showed up. I had no choice but to go with him.’ The lies tripped off her tongue as easily as they had when she had been Pierre’s dupe, enticing unsuspecting loyalists into his net. She felt ashamed. She’d told the same lies to Nicky when her sister had asked what had happened to her. Told her she’d spent the entire time hiding with nuns until Moreau had discovered her only weeks before Nicky had. ‘Ask David, if you don’t believe me.’

  His grimaced. ‘Dead men don’t talk.’

  Her heart dipped. David had been sweet. ‘You killed him?’

  Moreau’s jaw dropped. ‘Not I. Your brother-in-law.’

  She shook her head. ‘He was alive when we left. I swear it.’

  It was hard to see his real expression through the disguise, but she had the feeling he was beginning to believe her story. ‘My men must have killed him,’ he said slowly. ‘To hide their dereliction.’

  ‘I would never have left, but Mooreshead said you told them where to find me to save your own life. I thought you had betrayed me.’ He’d certainly betrayed her, but not then. By then she’d known exactly what Pierre was. And what he had made her into.

  ‘Mooreshead.’ He spat the name out. ‘He lied, chérie.’ He put a hand to his heart. ‘You should know I would never willingly let you go.’

  He’d betray his mother for a centime, if it came with a smidgeon of advancement. She had to get out of here, get rid of the portrait and tell Freddy she’d found Moreau. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I should have known better. I hate England. Hate their nobility. I thought once I married Falconwood I would have access to all his secrets. I was planning on passing them along. Who would suspect a duke’s wife of being a traitor? He has not been easy to catch, however. I missed your help. I missed you.’ She didn’t have to pretend to sound miserable, she was desperately sorry to be back in his clutches.

  Somehow she had to get away and warn Freddy.

  ‘My little brave one,’ he cooed at her, as he had so often in the past. He closed in on her, put his arm around her waist and for a moment she thought he would kiss her. She tried not to tense.

  He laughed. ‘Damn this disguise. I am an unpleasant-looking fellow, am I not?’

  Obviously she hadn’t succeeded.

  ‘You will return to France with me,’ he said. ‘Together we will show Falconwood to Fouché, who will extract all his secrets. The Emperor will reward us handsomely, I am sure, when Britain is brought to her knees.’

  ‘I would like that very much.’

  ‘I missed you, chérie. It is good to work with you again.This will make things so much easier.

  He believed her story. The ego of the man. But then he had always thought she was blinded by his charm. Always. Even when he had left her staked out like a chicken to bait a wolf in Boulogne. Even though it had been so very hard to hide her hatred for him by that point. And he was desperate. ‘Was it so very bad in Spain?’

  ‘He put me in the army. As a private. It was hell.’

  ‘How on earth did you get away?’

  ‘I found evidence of a plot against us. Sent the information to Fouché and was forgiven.’

  ‘A real plot?’ she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Hmm, not so much.’

  They laughed as they had laughed together in the old days at their cleverness, only her eyes had been blind to some of that laughter having been directed at her. For believing in him.

  ‘What is your plan? It will be hard to spirit away a duke from his home.’

  ‘Now you are with us it will be very much easier. You will go to the Duke tonight, drug him and let us into his room when the house is asleep.’ He tipped her face up to meet his gaze. ‘You will do this for me?’

  She nodded. ‘And we take him to France? Alive.’ It was a relief to know he didn’t intend to assassinate Freddy out of hand.

  ‘We do. Tonight. There will be a carriage waiting for us.’

  The carriage from the farm. Thank God. Even if he did manage somehow to leave Falconwood with Freddy, that carriage was being watched. It would be stopped.

  ‘You have everything arranged.’ She filled her voice with admiration. If he would trust her enough to let her go from his room, she could warn Freddy. ‘It is perfect. I cannot wait to return to France.’

  The door swung open. Freddy stood on the threshold, his pistol levelled at Moreau. ‘No one is going anywhere.’ His gaze flickered over her, dark, unreadable and so very cold.

  Ah, mon Dieu, how much had he heard? Surely he did not believe...

  She pressed a hand to her chest, felt the hard lump of the miniature against her sternum. If he found it, would he believe her innocent?

  * * *

  It hadn’t taken a great deal of Freddy’s ingenuity to discover which of the gentlemen was the cuckoo in the nest. Peckridge was the only man no one had ever met before and Arthur had been quick to point out that his wife’s cousin was known to be a solitary eccentric man, and it had come as a surprise to find him attending a ball, though, of course, he had to be invited.

  He was the only one no one could vouch for.

  Neither had it taken long to ascertain that the man had gone up to his room after breakfast. With Barker at his back and their men covering all possible exits, Freddy stood with his pistol pointed at the couple embracing by the window. Like old friends. Or lovers. There was no mistaking the familiarity between them or the words he’d heard before he’d opened the door.

  Worse was the guilt written across Minette’s face. The pain in his chest almost sent him to his knees. He cut himself off from it, keeping his gaze fixed on the Frenchman. Keeping his heartbeat steady. His mind clear. ‘Ah, just the man I am looking for.’

  A bitter look twisted Moreau’s lips as he glanced down at Minette, who remained held close to his side. ‘You betrayed me?’ He sounded so wounded Freddy’s teeth ached with the pressure of his jaw.

  ‘No. I figured it out for myself,’ Freddy said. ‘We caught the men who brought the carriage.’

  Chagrin passed across the other man’s face. ‘It is a bad workman who blames his tool, but these English peasants, they have no imagination.’

  Minette remained in the circle of his arm, so very close to the pistol he held loosely in his hand. One wrong word and the situation might get very nasty. ‘You can confirm this is Paul Moreau?’ he asked her.

  She stared at him wide-eyed and nodded slowly. ‘He is.’

  Moreau preened. ‘Chérie, you told him about us? That was very brave of you, before the wedding.’

  ‘Not really,’ she said softly, regretfully. ‘I only told him about Pierre. I never mentioned that my Pierre and Paul Moreau were the same person.’

  Pierre. The pieces fell together with an unpleasant little click inside his head. Her Pierre and Paul Moreau were one and the same. She had loved this man. Possibly still did. And now, if he had any sense, he would doubt where her loyalties lay.

  Damn it, from the look on her face she was clearly hurting. He couldn’t think of that now. He had to make Moreau believe his words. ‘It seems you have a penchant for misshapen men, my dear.’

  The Frenchman bristled. Used his free hand to remove his bulbous nose and pull off the bushy eyebrows. He spat out wads of padding in his cheeks, becoming a handsome man in his late thirties. ‘Voilà, not misshapen at all.’

  Odd bits of glue dripped from his face, making it look as though it was melting. And the damned pistol stayed where it was, firmly grasped in the hand about her waist.

  ‘Step away from the lady,’ Freddy said.

  Moreau tilted his head. ‘You plan to arrest us, I presume? See justice done. Not take us outside and shoot us?’

  ‘I’m a gentleman,’ he said coldly. ‘What is done with you is not up to me. I will hand you over to
the authorities.’

  The expression of fear on Minette’s face clawed at his vitals.

  ‘Put down your weapon,’ Freddy enunciated slowly. ‘Miss Rideau, step aside.’

  Moreau hesitated.

  Freddy cocked his pistol. ‘I will shoot you.’

  The man swore, glanced down at Minette and back at Freddy. ‘I suppose you would not care which of us got hurt.’

  ‘No.’ He prayed like hell the man wouldn’t test him on that particular point. ‘Why would I?’

  Moreau sighed. ‘You overheard our conversation.’ He tossed the pistol aside.

  ‘Freddy?’ Minette said.

  ‘Not now. Barker, see to him.’

  Barker and two of his men were across the room in a flash, picking up the Frenchman’s weapon, holding him by the arms.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Gabe said, striding into the room. ‘By Jove, you got him. And in the house, too. That was a close-run thing.’ He glared at Moreau. ‘Mooreshead, à votre service.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ Moreau ground out, all his smiles and charm gone. ‘You stole one of my very best agents.’

  Minette sent him a look of appeal. ‘Tell Nicky I’m sorry. I never meant to cause her harm. None of this is her fault.’

  ‘Get her out of here, Gabe,’ Freddy said, ‘while I finish with this one.’

  Minette looked startled. Shocked.

  Moreau stared at him. ‘So she has your couilles in her sweet little hands, does she?’ His lips twisted in a bitter smile. ‘You played me well, Falconwood. But since you care about her, I will make you a trade. Let me go and no one will ever know her part in this.’

  The man was a cur. A trapped cur bargaining for his life by saying she was involved in his plan. That not only had she been planning to run off with him, she’d made it possible for Moreau to enter his house. That she’d been involved since the start. Freddy’s stomach fell away. The Home Office boys would be very interested to hear it, because it would put him in very bad odour and reflect badly on Sceptre. Something that would please them no end. He could imagine Blazenby taking full advantage of the situation to advance his career. He looked at his friend. ‘Get her out of here, Gabe. Now.’