A Raven's Heart

by K. C. Bateman

  “I never make plans. Plans are for people—”

  “—with no imagination,” she finished. “Yes, I know.”

  “I have an excellent imagination, Lady Ravenwood.” He kissed her, long and deep. When he resurfaced he said, “I’m going to retire from field work, now that I have a wife.”

  She smiled. “I should hope so. I’d be extremely cross if you went and got yourself killed now you’ve finally realized you love me. You’ve endured more than enough injuries on behalf of King and Country. Besides, scrabbling around in back alleyways is undignified and no suitable position for a man who will one day be a duke.”

  He made a disgruntled face. “Castlereagh wants to retire. He’s looking for someone to take over as head of the network…”

  She patted his chest. “There you go, then.”

  “It’s not going to be easy, accepting the responsibilities of a dukedom, either,” he said, kissing her ear.

  “I know. That’s the thing about power. It’s a poisoned chalice. The Ancient Egyptians had a riddle about it.”

  “Of course they did,” he groaned.

  “ ‘What’s sweeter than honey and more bitter than bile? The office of vizier.’ ” Heloise put her hand up to his face and stroked his cheek. “But we’ll do it together. You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

  He turned his face and kissed the inside of her wrist. “I think our first official party when we get back home should be a masked ball. What do you think?”

  “If you wish. We already have the masks.”

  He looked at her in feigned amazement. “What’s this? Acquiescence? Actual obedience? I think I need to sit down!”

  Heloise shot him a demure smile. “I’m extremely agreeable when it comes to doing things I want to do.”

  “Let’s test that theory, shall we? Kiss me again, Lady Ravenwood.”

  “Yes, my lord. With pleasure.”

  Author’s Note

  Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that Heloise pays a visit to the prehistoric rock art at the caves at Altamira. A Raven’s Heart is set in 1816, but in reality the caves weren’t “discovered,” or at least brought to wide public attention through scholarly articles, until 1879. One of the good things about being an author of fiction, however, is the wonderful phrase “artistic license.” As Mark Twain said, “Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story,” and in this case I can see no reason why the locals couldn’t have been aware of the cave’s existence (and have shown the odd interested party like Heloise), without having grasped the significance of its importance in the wider anthropological sense. I hope, dear readers, you will allow me this indulgence, and suspend your disbelief—if only so we can put Raven and Heloise in close proximity somewhere dark and intimate! Thank you,

  K. C Bateman

  Acknowledgments

  To my three bad rats: F, T, and C. And to M, with much love, as always. Thanks to my brilliant agent, Patricia Nelson, and my lovely editor, Junessa Viloria—you two ladies make everything better! Thanks to the Tuesday-morning coffee girls (you know who you are), without whom I’d undoubtedly be even crazier than I am now, and finally, to the wonderful ladies of the RWA Heart and Scroll chapter, whose unstinting advice, enthusiasm, support, and friendship have been invaluable.

  BY K. C. BATEMAN

  To Steal a Heart

  A Raven’s Heart

  A Counterfeit Heart

  K. C. BATEMAN is the cofounder and director of Bateman’s Auctioneers, a fine art and antiques auction house in the United Kingdom. Now living in Illinois with her husband and children, Bateman returns to England regularly to appear as an antiques expert on several popular BBC television shows, each of which reaches up to 2.5 million viewers.

  @katebateman

  kcbateman.com

  Read on for a sneak peek of the next exhilarating historical romance in K. C. Bateman’s Secrets and Spies series

  A Counterfeit Heart

  By K. C. Bateman

  Available from Loveswept

  Chapter 1

  BOIS DE VINCENNES, PARIS, MARCH 1816

  It didn’t take long to burn a fortune.

  “Don’t throw it on like that! Fan the paper out. You need to let the air get to it.”

  Sabine de la Tour shot her best friend, Anton Carnaud, an exasperated look and tossed another bundle of banknotes onto the fire. It smoldered, then caught with a bright flare, curling and charring to nothing in an instant. “That’s all the francs. Pass me some rubles.”

  Another fat wad joined the conflagration. Little spurts of green and blue jumped up as the flames consumed the ink. The intensity of the fire heated her cheeks, so she stepped back and tilted her head to watch the glowing embers float up into the night sky.

  It was a fitting end, really. Almost like a funeral pyre. The most damning evidence of France’s notorious counterfeiter, Phillipe Lacorte, going up in smoke. Sabine quelled only the faintest twinge of regret.

  She glanced over at Anton. “It feels strange, don’t you think? Doing the right thing for once.”

  Anton shook his head. “It feels wrong.” He poked a pile of Austrian gulden into the fire with a stick. “This is sacrilege. Who in their right mind burns money? It’s like taking a penknife to a Rembrandt.”

  Sabine nudged his shoulder, well used to his grumbling. “You know I’m right. If we spend it, we’ll be no better than Napoleon. This is our chance to turn over a new leaf.”

  Anton added another sheaf of banknotes to the blaze with a pained expression. “I happen to like being a criminal,” he grumbled. “Besides, we made all this. Seems only fair we should get to spend it. No one would know. Your fakes are so good nobody can tell the difference. What’s a few million francs in the grand scheme of things?”

  “We’d know.” Sabine frowned at him. “ ‘Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.’ ”

  Anton rolled his eyes. “Don’t start quoting dead Greeks at me.”

  “That’s a dead Englishman.” She smiled wryly. “Geoffrey Chaucer.”

  Anton sniffed, unimpressed by anything that came from the opposite—and therefore wrong—side of the channel. He sprinkled a handful of assignats onto the flames. “You do appreciate the irony of trying to be an honest forger, don’t you? Whoever heard of a criminal with a conscience?”

  It was Sabine’s turn to roll her eyes.

  Anton shot her a teasing, pitying glance. “It’s because you’re half-Anglais. Everyone knows the English are mad. The French half of you knows what fun we could have with all this money. Think of it, chérie—ball gowns, diamonds, banquets!” His eyes took on a dreamy, faraway glow. “Women, wine, song!” He gave a magnificent Gallic shrug. “Mais, non. You listen to the English half. The half that is boring and dull and—”

  “—law-abiding?” Sabine suggested tartly. “Sensible? The half that wants to keep my neck firmly attached to my shoulders instead of in a basket in front of the guillotine?”

  She bit her lip as a wave of guilt assailed her. Anton was only in danger of losing his head because of her. For years he’d protected her identity by acting as Phillipe Lacorte’s public representative. He’d dealt with all the unsavory characters who’d wanted the forger’s skills, while Sabine remained anonymous.

  Even the man who’d overseen the Emperor’s own counterfeiting operation, General Jean Malet, hadn’t known the real name of the elusive forger he’d employed. He’d never regarded Sabine as anything more than an attractive assistant at the print shop in Rue Pélican.

  And now, with Napoleon exiled on the Island of St Helena, and Savary—his feared head of Secret Police—also banished, General Malet was the only one left who knew about the fake fortune the Emperor had amassed to fill his coffers.

  The fortune Sabine had “liberated.”

  Anton frowned into the flames. The pink glow highlighted his chiseled features and Sabine studied him dispassionately. She knew him too well to harbor any romantic feelings about him, but there w
as no doubt he had a very handsome profile. Unfortunately, it was a handsome profile that General Malet could recognize quite easily.

  As if reading her mind Anton said, “Malet would gladly see me in a tumbril. He’s out for blood. And I’m his prime suspect.”

  “Which is why we’re getting you out of here,” Sabine said briskly. “The boat to England leaves at dawn, and we have enough to get us as far as London.”

  Anton gave a frustrated huff and pointed at the fire. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we have a pile of money right—”

  She shot him a warning scowl. “No. It is a moral line I will not cross. We are going to start earning our bread the same way as everyone else—legally. This English lord’s been trying to engage Lacorte’s services for months. One job for him and we can pay for your passage to Boston. You’ll be away from Malet forever.”

  “It could be a trap,” Anton murmured darkly. “This Hampden says he wants to employ Lacorte, but we’ve been on opposite sides of the war for the past ten years. The English can’t be trusted.”

  Sabine let out a faint, frustrated sigh. It was a risk, to deliver herself into the arms of the enemy. To seek out the one man she’d spent months avoiding. Her heart beat in her throat at the thought of him. Richard Hampden, Viscount Lovell. She’d only seen him once, but the memory of him was seared upon her brain.

  He, of anyone, had come closest to unmasking her. He’d followed Lacorte’s trail right to her doorstep, like a bloodhound after a fox. Sabine had barely had time to hide behind the backroom door and press her eye to a gap in the wood before the bell above the entrance had tinkled and he’d entered the print shop.

  It had been dark outside; the flickering street lamps cast long shadows along Rue Pélican. Sabine squinted, trying to make out his features, but all she could see was that he was tall; he ducked to enter the low doorway.

  So this was the relentless Lord Lovell.

  Not for the first time she cursed her shortsightedness. Too many hours of close work meant that anything over ten feet was frustratingly blurry. He moved closer, farther into the shop. And into knee-weakening, stomach-flipping focus.

  Sabine couldn’t breathe. All the information she’d gleaned about her foe—from Anton’s vague, typically male attempts at description—had in no way prepared her for the heart-stopping, visceral reality of the man.

  Technically, Anton’s information had been correct. Richard Hampden was indeed over six feet tall with mid-brown hair. But those simple facts failed to convey the sheer magnetic presence of his lean, broad-shouldered frame.

  There was no spare fat around his lean hips, no unhealthy pallor to his skin. He moved like water, with a liquid grace that suggested quietly restrained power, an animal at the very peak of fitness.

  Anton had guessed his age as between twenty-eight and thirty-five. Certainly, Hampden was no young puppy; his face held the hard lines and sharp angles of experience rather than the rounded look of boyhood.

  Sabine studied the elegant severity of his dark-blue coat, the pale knee breeches outlining long, muscular legs. There was nothing remarkable in the clothes themselves to make him stand out in a crowd, and yet there was something about him that commanded attention. That drew the eye, and held it.

  Her life had often hinged on the ability to correctly identify dangerous men, and every sense she possessed told her that the man talking with Anton was very dangerous indeed. Sabine pressed her forehead to the rough planks and swore softly.

  The Englishman turned, almost as if he’d heard, or somehow sensed her lurking behind the door. He stared straight at the place where she hid.

  Everything inside her stilled. Something—an instant of awareness, almost recognition—shot through her as she saw his face in full. Of all the things she’d been prepared for, all the nameless horrors, she hadn’t envisaged this; Viscount Lovell was magnificent.

  And then he’d turned his attention back to Anton, and she’d let out a shaky breath of relief.

  She’d dreamed of him ever since. Disturbing, jumbled dreams in which she was always running, he pursuing. She’d wake the very instant she was caught, her heart pounding in a curious mix of panic and knotted desire.

  Sabine shook her head at her own foolishness. It was just her luck to conceive an instant attraction to the least suitable man in Europe. The thought of facing him again made her shiver with equal parts anticipation and dread, but he was the obvious answer to her current dilemma. He had money; she needed funds. Voilà tout.

  At least now she was prepared. One of the basic tenets of warfare was to “know thine enemy.”

  Sabine drew her cloak more securely around her shoulders and watched Anton feed the rest of the money to the flames. The embers fluttered upward like a cloud of glowing butterflies.

  When this was all over she would be like a phoenix. Phillipe Lacorte would disappear and Sabine de la Tour would emerge from the ashes to reclaim the identity she’d abandoned eight years ago. She would live a normal life. But not yet. There was still too much to do.

  Sabine brushed off her skirts and picked up the single bag she’d packed for traveling. There was something rather pathetic in the fact that her whole life could be packed into one single valise, but she squared her shoulders and glanced over at Anton. “Come on, let’s go. Before someone sees the smoke and decides to investigate.”

  They couldn’t go home, to the print shop on Rue Pélican. Her heart contracted as she recalled the scene that had greeted them earlier. Malet had already ripped the place apart looking for “his” money. Her stomach had given a sickening lurch as she’d taken in the carnage. Books pulled from the shelves, paintings ripped from the walls, canvases torn. Old maps shredded, drawers pulled out and upended. Their home, her sanctuary for the past eight years, had been utterly ransacked.

  But there had been triumph amid the loss. Malet had found neither Anton nor the money. And if Sabine had anything to do with it, he never would.

  Anton hefted the two bags of English banknotes that had been spared the flames and Sabine turned her back on Paris. For the first time in eight long years she was free.

  It was time to track down Lord Lovell.

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