Rafe inwardly cursed the clerk at the shipping office, who, of course, had recognized him and commented. Racking his brains for the right form of words with which to decline, aware of Hassan looking at him, waiting for him to get them out of this trap, Rafe opened his mouth . . . then shut it.
He and Hassan needed some reason that would explain their traveling on the river, some purpose that would make people accept their presence and not look too closely.
“And of course,” Lady Congreve went on, “I’m sure your parents will be pleased to know you’ve been able to extend me this small service. I will, of course, take care of all the expenses involved and reimburse you for the tickets you’ve already purchased.”
Rafe recognized that she’d rolled out her heavy guns—his parents, no less. His gaze abstracted, distracted by a prospect he was still trying to define, he waved her last words aside. “No need for recompense. If we do as you ask . . .”
Refocusing on Lady Congreve, he wondered at the wisdom—and the morality—of involving her, however much at arms’ length, in his mission. The cultists throughout Europe would be watching for him and Hassan. As a pair of men traveling together, they were easy to spot—both over six feet tall, one distinctly fair, the other distinctly dark, both with military bearing.
But the cultists would, most likely, not look closely at two men traveling as part of a larger party.
Rafe glanced briefly at Hassan. “It might be possible for us to act as your guide and guard. We’ll be on the same boat regardless, and as you say, you won’t be able to add more passengers to the list. . . .”
Lady Congreve was clever enough to keep her lips shut and watch him vacillate.
Rafe remembered James MacFarlane’s body.
Remembered the scroll-holder he now carried strapped to his side.
Remembered that the closer he drew to England, the more cultists they would need to slip past.
And Lady Congreve was the sort of lady who, if she knew the details, would wholeheartedly support his mission.
He focused on her face. Should he tell her of his mission?
He opened his mouth, the revelation on his tongue, then remembered the other tickets she’d picked up. “Who else is traveling with you? You have four tickets.”
“As well as myself, there’s my maid, Gibson, who’ve you’ve met.”
The maid had been waiting in the suite and had taken her mistress’s coat and cane, then gone to order the tea. Rafe judged it likely Gibson, a woman of mature years, had served Lady Congreve for decades; there was an unspoken degree of empathy and loyalty between maid and mistress that suggested Gibson would fully support any decision her mistress made. No threat to his mission there. “And the other two tickets?”
“Another lady and her maid.” Lady Congreve tilted her head, regarding him curiously. “They would be included among the people you would guide and guard, if that makes any difference.”
Rafe knew ladies of her ladydship’s generation often traveled in pairs, providing company for each other on the journey, someone to share the sights with, to converse with of an evening. He imagined that any lady Lady Congreve chose to travel with would be much like her. Which meant there was really no reason he shouldn’t explain his mission, and, if subsequently, Lady Congreve stood by her offer of making them her courier-guide and guard, accept.
He drew a breath and met Lady Congreve’s gray eyes. “I’m inclined to accept your offer, ma’am, but first I must tell you what has brought Hassan and me this way.” He glanced at Hassan, who had raised his brows a fraction, but didn’t seem disapproving, then looked back at her ladyship. “If once you’ve heard our story you still wish us to take up the positions of your courier-guide and guard, then I believe we can accommodate you.”
Lady Congreve’s smile was triumphant. “Excellent! Now what’s this secret—?”
She broke off as the knob on the corridor door turned. An instant later, the door opened and a vision in a vibrant dark blue pelisse and a fur hat with a jaunty feather perched atop swirls of lustrous dark hair swept in.
“Esme—” The vision broke off, stared at Rafe, then glanced at Hassan. But her gaze returned to Rafe as he came to his feet, and she simply stared.
He stared back. He was only vaguely aware of another female—presumably the other maid—slipping into the room and closing the door; his entire attention, all his senses, had fixed, unswervingly, on the lady in blue.
The young lady in blue.
She was tallish, slender, and intensely feminine; an aura of suppressed—or was it controlled?—vibrancy all but charged the air around her. Her eyes, large and just faintly tip-tilted, were of an arresting shade of periwinkle blue made only more striking by her royal blue pelisse. Her curves were sleek, yet definite. He’d heard women with such figures likened to Greek or Roman deities; he now understood why. She was Athena, Diana, Persephone, Artemis—she seemed to be those constructs given life, just with sable hair and blue, blue eyes.
He felt as if he’d taken a clout to the head. Just as in battles when he was staring down Death, time stood still.
It took effort to restart his mind, to return to the real world.
To the here and now.
“Esme” she’d said, and meant Lady Congreve. She was the other lady, Lady Congreve’s traveling companion. A young lady her ladyship had taken under her wing.
The goddess had halted at the back of the chaise on which her ladyship sat. Lady Congreve raised a hand and gracefully waved. “Allow me to present Miss Loretta Michelmarsh, my great-niece. The Honorable Mr. Rafe Carstairs and his companion, Mr. Hassan.”
Rafe inclined his head. Stiffly. The goddess was a relative; that made matters worse.
Miss Michelmarsh, her gaze still locked on him, her expression oddly blank, bestowed the barest bob that would pass for civility.
“You’re just in time, Loretta dear, to hear the latest news.” Lady Congreve twisted around to smile at her great-niece. “Mr. Carstairs and Mr. Hassan saved me from two attackers in the street near the shipping office, and at my request, they’ve agreed to fill the positions of our courier-guide and guard.”
Rafe now understood the reason behind Lady Congreve’s triumphant expression and realized the trap he’d fallen into was of quite a different nature than he’d foreseen. He’d forgotten the principal entertainment grandes dames such as Lady Congreve delighted in: matchmaking, preferably with those of their acquaintance.
Her ladyship knew his parents. She knew her great-niece. But he’d be damned if he’d allow her to matchmake him—even with a vision that brought to mind a pantheon of goddesses.
Aside from all else . . . dragging in a deeper breath, he forced his gaze from its distraction, and looked down at her ladyship, who was clearly waiting to gauge his response. “Lady Congreve, I regret it will not be possible for me and Hassan to act as courier-guide and guard for you during your upcoming journey.”
Lady Congreve regarded him, a frown forming in her eyes. “I understood, dear boy, that you had already agreed to fill the positions subject to informing me of the reason behind your current journey and my confirmation of the appointments subsequent to that.” She opened her eyes wide. “What on earth happened in the space of just a moment to change your mind?”
She knew. Rafe held her gaze, felt his jaw firm. “Regardless, my lady, on further consideration it will be impossible for me and Hassan to join your party.”
Lady Congreve’s eyes narrowed on him, something her niece couldn’t see. “Surely you aren’t reneging on our agreement because of Loretta?”
Yes, he was. While he’d entertained the possibility of joining forces with Lady Congreve, a lady in the latter years of her life and, he judged, with significant life experience, had been prepared to court the risk that through him she might be exposed to the Black Cobra’s minions, he would not, could not, even in his most reckless mood, countenance putting a young lady like Loretta Michelmarsh in any danger whatever.
He held Lady Congreve’s gaze. “There’s a certain degree of risk involved in being associated with me and Hassan, and while I would have considered, should you have been agreeable once you were fully informed of that risk, accepting the positions you offered in your train, it would be unconscionable of me to continue with that arrangement while you have a young lady such as Miss Michelmarsh traveling with you.”
Loretta frowned. What was going on? Her first thought on sighting the tall, blond-haired man, clearly a military man—she could tell by his stance, the way he held his broad shoulders—was a simple, albeit dazed: Who was he?
Her mind had stalled at that point, her senses scrambling to fill in details, none of them pertinent to answering that question.
How bright the golden streaks in his sandy blond hair, how unexpectedly soft his eyes of summer blue, how absurdly long his brown lashes seemed, how deliciously evocative the subtle curve of his distinctly masculine lips, how square his jaw, how imposingly tall, how strong and powerful his long body seemed to be . . . all those observations flashed through her mind, and none helped in the least.
She’d felt adrift, her gaze locked on him, her senses . . . somewhere else. All thought had suspended and had remained beyond her reach, until he’d spoken.
His deep voice, its timbre, the reverberation that seemed to slide down her spine and resonate within her, shook her—enough to shock her out of her mesmerized state.
Bad enough. But apparently Esme had invited him and his friend to act as their courier-guide and guard.
Her immediate thought—the first rational one after her wits had returned to her—was that Carstairs and his friend were charlatans out to rob Esme . . . but then he’d refused the position.
Because of her. Why?
She listened as Esme artfully twisted Carstairs’s words, then invoked his honor as an officer and a gentleman, intent on browbeating him into acquiescing to being their courier-guide, apparently all the way back to England. She could have told Carstairs that he didn’t stand a chance of wriggling out of Esme’s talons, but . . . the notion of having him squiring her around in the guise of their courier-guide filled her with an odd mix of anticipation and trepidation.
If just the sight of him could make her temporarily lose her grip on her wits, what would prolonged exposure—and closer exposure at that—do?
She couldn’t afford to be distracted, especially not now. She needed to get another vignette off to her agent tomorrow; her editor was waiting on it, holding column space for it.
Over the past six years she’d steadily developed a following with her little pieces published in the London Enquirer , three or four paragraphs of philosophical social commentary, a mix of observation and political satire, all delivered with a highly sharpened pen. The public had taken to her writings, but her abrupt departure from England had put paid to that endeavor; she couldn’t observe London society from abroad. But then she’d had the notion to continue in similar vein with her Window on Europe vignettes, and her public had happily followed her through her brief sojourns in France, Spain, and Italy.
She’d known Esme would halt at Trieste, so had warned her agent, and a letter from her editor had been waiting for her there. Apparently the publisher of the Enquirer was an admirer of her work, and the paper was eager to publish whatever she could send them.
Her agent had also written informing her of the sizeable increase in stipend the publisher was providing for each witty installment.
She’d thought her departure with Esme would spell the end of her secret writing career; instead, it had brought her work more forcefully to the attention of both her publisher and his readers.
Her secret endeavor had taken a highly encouraging turn, but close acquaintance with Rafe Carstairs might well endanger that—in more ways than he imagined.
Yet she couldn’t help but be curious over what, exactly, it was that he seemed so set on keeping away from her.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, taking advantage of a temporary silence, “Mr. Carstairs might explain what this unprecedented danger inherent on being associated with him and Mr. Hassan is?”
Carstairs, who she had to admit was giving Esme a run for her money in the stubborn stakes, and was presently furnishing every indication of being as immovable as a monolith, lifted his sky blue eyes to her. He studied her for a fraught moment, then looked down at Esme. “There is no point continuing this discussion. We cannot—”
“Captain.”
The quiet word came from Hassan, who had retreated to stand by the window; turning, Rafe saw him looking outside.
Glancing up from whatever he’d seen, Hassan met his eyes. “Before you make any decision you should consider this.”
Rafe inclined his head to Esme and her great-niece. “A moment, if you would.”
He crossed to Hassan. Halting alongside, Rafe looked down through the lace curtains to the street below.
To where two Black Cobra cultists were ambling along, looking this way and that.
“They are looking, watching, not searching specifically,” Hassan observed.
“Which means they don’t yet know we’re here.”
“True, but . . .” Hassan waited until Rafe raised his gaze to his before continuing, “what will happen if they learn we have been here, not just in Buda but here in this room, speaking with these ladies?”
Rafe’s heart sank.
“The cult will not have forgotten that it was an English lady, Miss Ensworth, who brought you and the others the Cobra’s letter. Even if we part from the ladies now, that will not save them—the cultists will reason that they have to be stopped and they and their baggage searched, just in case.”
“Damn!” Rafe all but ground his teeth. After a moment, he murmured, “We shouldn’t go on with them and expose them to danger, but not being their guards might be even more dangerous for them.”
“So I think.”
Rafe sighed and turned—and discovered Lady Congreve just behind him. She’d been peering around his shoulder.
Raising her eyes to his face, she arched her brows. “I think, dear boy, that you had better tell us all.” Swinging around, she led the way back to the chairs. “And as we are, apparently, to be traveling companions all the way to England, you may call me Esme.”
Elegantly sitting, beckoning her great-niece to sit alongside her, she lifted openly curious eyes to his face.
Rafe stifled a groan, but accepting the inevitable, walked to the chair he’d earlier occupied. Once Loretta Michelmarsh sat, he sat, too.
Drawing in a long breath, he started at the beginning. “Several years ago, a man—an English gentleman of noble family—went out to India and, exploiting his position in the Governor of Bombay’s office, devised and created a native cult. The cult of the Black Cobra.”
He had them call in their maids, then related the story in its most abbreviated version, alluding only where necessary and in general terms to the atrocities committed by the cult; those he deemed too ghastly to be described in polite company.
By the time he finished, the sky outside was darkening and evening was closing in.
Esme had listened intently, putting shrewd questions here and there. She hadn’t been all that surprised to learn that the man Rafe and his friends were working to expose as the Black Cobra was Roderick Ferrar, the Earl of Shrewton’s younger son.
Esme’s lips had tightened, her features growing severe. “I never did like that boy—or his father, come to that. Vicious blackguards, the Shrewtons, except for the heir, Kilworth. He’s altogether a different sort.”
Rafe took her word for that. All he cared about was bringing Roderick Ferrar to justice.
“So let me see if I have this correct.” Somewhat to Rafe’s surprise, Loretta Michelmarsh had seemed as fascinated with his mission as her great-aunt. “You are one of four . . . for want of a better term, couriers, who left Bombay on the same day, all heading for England by different routes. All four are carrying identical
scroll-holders, but only one contains the original letter—and that original letter must reach the Duke of Wolverstone in order for the Black Cobra to be stopped.”
When she paused and opened her blue eyes wide at him, he nodded. “In a nutshell, that’s it.”
“So which do you have—one of the decoys or the vital original?”
Rafe shook his head. “The four of us decided that information shouldn’t be revealed to anyone, not even shared among us.”
“In case this fiend of a snake seizes one of you and tries to coerce the information from them in order to concentrate solely on the one who carries the original?” Esme nodded. “Excellent idea. Don’t tell us. We don’t need to know that you’re carrying the original.”
Expression blank, Rafe stared at her, but Esme only smiled.
“The Duke of Wolverstone.” Loretta glanced at Esme. “He’s something of a secret war hero, isn’t he? A spymaster or some such?”
“At one time. He retired some years ago, then assumed the title, but I seriously doubt he’ll have lost his lauded skills.” Esme met Rafe’s eyes. “If you’re working for Royce, Dalziel—Wolverstone—whatever name he goes by these days, then as loyal Englishwomen it clearly behooves us to do whatever we can to aid your quest.”
Rafe inwardly blinked. If he’d known Wolverstone’s name would have such an effect, he’d have used it sooner.
“Regardless, however, now that we know about your mission and have been seen with you by people the serpent’s minions might question, then there’s clearly no option other than to join forces.” Esme smiled with satisfaction. “So no more muttering—you, dear boy, henceforth will be our courier-guide and Hassan will be our guard.”
Esme glanced at Loretta, then looked back at Rafe. “Which makes us your charges.” Her smile was triumph incarnate.
Lips thin, Rafe nodded, then with a glance at Loretta, added, “Until we reach England.”
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science, a hobby that quickly became a career. Her novels set in Regency England have captivated readers around the globe, making her one of the romance world’s most beloved and popular authors. The Brazen Bride is her forty-second work and the third in The Black Cobra Quartet.
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