“Why, what an outrageous notion,” the gentleman returned easily. “If that were true, that would make me a spy—and you and your friend traitors.”
Simon waved a dismissive hand. “You would have a difficult time proving it.”
“Exactly.” The other man clapped Simon amicably on the shoulder. “Now let us forget this unseemly conversation and return to your other guests.”
Simon grinned nastily. “You are not putting me off that easily... Le Renard”
“Ah, you really have been poking about in my business, have you not?”
“I have indeed—and it is going to cost you a tidy sum to keep my mouth closed.” Simon’s eyes glowed with triumph. “I do not even have to expose you. All I have to do is whisper a word here or there that you are not what you seem and your reputation will be ruined. It would not take long for your ties to the French to become public.”
“If I am unmasked, aren’t you afraid that your part will come out?” the gentleman asked with an edge to his voice.
Simon laughed. “Do you really think anyone would believe that gentlemen like Edward and me would be supplying you with information? It is absurd. We are known to be wild and scandalous, but traitors? Piffle. Besides, for the pittance you have paid us, we only supplied you with gossip. I have discovered that you have other sources, better sources, here in England. Sources who have actually given you damaging information about troop movements and plans.”
“You know all that, do you?”
“Yes, I do.” Simon looked smug. “It took me a long time to finally uncover the identity of the Fox, but now that I have—I can crush you anytime I feel like it.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because I will find it much more amusing to keep you on a leash. And to make it even more entertaining, squeeze some gold out of you whenever I feel like it.”
“You don’t need the money—unlike Lord Scoville,” the gentleman stated levelly. “I always wondered why you were willing to sell out your country.”
“It amused me. And as for not needing the money, ’tis true, but every time you pay me, it will make you even more aware of the power I hold over you.” Simon chortled. “I intend to get a great deal of pleasure out of watching you squirm.”
“Do you really?” the other man asked softly, as Simon turned and prepared to descend the staircase.
“Yes, I really do,” Simon said cheerfully over his shoulder.
“Then I am afraid that you really leave me no choice but to kill you . . .”
Before Simon could react, the other man struck him a savage, lethal blow on the head with the poker he had kept hidden by his side. Simon didn’t even have a chance to cry out. He swayed, then tumbled headfirst down the long staircase.
When Simon lay unmoving in a crumpled heap at the base of the stairs his murderer carefully stepped back into the shadows. Slipping into his room a few doors down the hall, he casually wiped away the few specks of blood on the poker and replaced it in the stand at the edge of the hearth. Tossing the stained cloth onto the fire, he watched it wilt and blacken as the flames consumed it, the scent of scorched fabric briefly stinging his nostrils.
There was now nothing, he thought with satisfaction, to connect him, or anyone else for that matter, to Simon’s unexpected death. There was nothing, in fact, to arouse suspicion that Simon’s demise had been anything other than a tragic accident. The head wound could be explained away as having occurred in Simon’s violent tumble down the stairs. When he had struck Simon, he reminded himself, he had not done so wildly. He had deliberately struck only one, well-placed blow—a blow that could have easily been caused by striking one’s head against a step. He had no doubt that such would be the conclusion reached by everyone.
Taking a deep breath, he allowed a faint smile to cross his lips. All was well, although he admitted he’d had a nasty moment when Sophy had stared so piercingly in his direction. Had she seen him? He doubted it. She’d given no sign. But if she had, he considered slowly, he would simply have to silence her. Pity.
Putting the thought from him, he glanced complacently at himself in the mirror and gently patted his intricately tied cravat. His movements froze as he noticed with a chill that his cravat pin was missing. A very distinctive pin at that, the large bloodred ruby and ornate setting not commonly seen in the cravat pins usually worn by fashionable gentlemen. Telling himself that it meant nothing, that he could have lost it at any time, he hastily searched his room. It was not there. Where the devil had he lost it? In the hall? Nothing to fear from that. He took a steadying breath. Even if the ruby were found on the stairs, there was no harm in it. But if it were found underneath Simon’s body. . . . He swallowed. Do not think of it. You are safe. You will not be undone by something so insignificant as a cravat pin! He had dallied long enough. It was time to slip down the servants’ stairs and join the others, with no one the wiser that he had been gone. He smiled. Marlowe had been a fool to think that he could best Le Renard, the Fox. He hoped that sweet Sophy appreciated his efforts.
Lying awake in her rooms, still uneasy and unsettled by the scene with her husband, Sophy jerked bolt upright as the sound of a muffled thud met her ears, followed by the thud and thumping of a heavy object falling down the stairs. What was that? Simon?
Slipping on her robe once more, she hurried to the door, unlocked it and stepped into the hall. Shadowy darkness met her eye; only the sounds of the storm could be heard. Something drew her on, however, and, taking just enough time to light a candle, she walked to the head of the stairs. She gasped as she stared at Simon’s unmoving form on the floor below. Is he dead? Had he really been so drunk that he had stumbled and fallen?
Before she had time to consider her actions, instinct had her hurtling down the stairs to his side. Kneeling beside him, she nudged him gently, and called softly, “Simon? Are you hurt?”
There was no answer and never would be again. The flickering light of her candle clearly showed his head lying at an odd angle to his body and the matted blood in the thick black hair. Whether it had been the broken neck or his head striking one of the steps that had killed him, she had no idea, but Simon Marlowe was clearly dead. He would never pound on her door again. She would never have to face him down with a pistol again.
White-faced, Sophy rose shakily to her feet, her first thought to cry out, to alert the household, when a terrifying idea crossed her mind. Only moments ago she had shot at Simon. Everyone knew she hated him. And Simon, drunk or not, had gone up and down these same stairs for years. The question was sure to be asked: Why had it been tonight that he had fallen? Fallen almost immediately after she had shot at him and had threatened to shoot him again? She shivered. Would it be thought that she had pushed him? Murdered him?
As she stared at his crumpled body, she began to tremble with shock and an inexplicable fear. She must not, she thought dazedly, be found here. The urge to run, to hide, clutched her, and she swung away from the ghastly sight of Simon’s body and stumbled to the stairs. Halfway up the staircase, she paused and, lifting her candle, looked backward, staring down at his still form, hardly able to comprehend what had occurred. He was dead, and if she were found here . . .
The very real fear that she would be suspected of pushing him to his death sent her scrambling up the remaining stairs. Trying to compose herself, to think coherently, she stopped at the top of the stairs and glanced helplessly around. As she did so, the jumping light of her candle suddenly ignited a bloodred spark near her feet. Mindlessly she stooped and picked it up. A cravat pin. One of the gentlemen must have lost it . . . tonight, she realized with a thrill of unease, else the servants would have found it and mentioned it.
A sound, half hysterical laugh, half sob broke from her. Her husband was dead, and she was concerned about a cravat pin? Trembling from shock, she took one last, frantic look at Simon’s body and fled to her room. There she sank down weakly on a stool in front of her dressing table, the jeweled pin tumbling from her
fingers. Dumbly she stared at the ruby as it winked at her in the candlelight. It was easier, safer, she admitted wretchedly, to think about the cravat pin than her husband lying dead at the base of the stairs. As she looked at the pin, she was aware that there was something oddly familiar about it. Where had she seen it before?
A sob burst from her. She was mad. What did it matter if she recognized the pin or not? Simon was dead.
Scared and shaken, she picked up the pin and buried it in the small jewelry box her mother had given her, then crawled into her bed and waited, dry-eyed and sleepless, for her husband’s body to be found.
Two days later, on a cold, rainy February morning, Sophy stood staring at the newly turned earth marking her husband’s grave in the Marlowe family graveyard. She still could hardly believe that Simon was dead.
She remembered little of the hours that had followed Edward’s discovery of the body and crying of the alarm. Only gradually had she become aware of the stares of his friends and the whispers . . . whispers which even now, though his death had been declared an accident, were still being spread. They really believe that I killed him! she thought miserably. Her mouth twisted. Not that I wouldn’t have if he had forced me to, she admitted honestly. But I did not kill him. It was an accident. It had to be.
The funeral was small. Edward, at Sophy’s request, had asked most of Simon’s friends to leave the morning his body had been discovered. And since Marlowe House was not precisely a lively place to be with its owner newly dead, they had eagerly complied. Only Edward, Sir Arthur, Sophy and Simon’s heir, William Marlowe, a youth of eighteen accompanied by his widowed mother, were gathered around the gravesite to hear the vicar. When the last words had been said, the last wreath of flowers placed on the grave, Sophy turned back to the house with relief.
Edward had proved himself to be surprisingly kind, trying to lift some of the burdens of the funeral from her shoulders, but too much had passed between them for Sophy to soften toward him. After the vicar had a light repast and departed, Sophy requested a meeting with her uncle in what had been Simon’s study.
Facing her uncle across the width of the desk that separated them, Sophy said coolly, “There is no reason for you and Sir Arthur to remain any longer. The house and property are William’s now, and I am sure that he and his mother would like to begin settling in without strangers hovering about. I, myself, shall be leaving this afternoon for Cornwall.”
“Uh, do you think that is wise, Sophy?” At her look, he muttered, “I mean your husband is hardly in the ground, and you take off for Cornwall—it don’t look good.”
“Since when have you cared for appearances?” Sophy demanded, her fingers tightly gripping the top of the desk.
“Since there are rumors about Simon’s death.” Edward returned unhappily. “I tell you, it don’t look good. I will be blunt—some of Simon’s friends think that you pushed him down the stairs. Think you should stay here ’til things quiet down a bit.”
“Thank you for your advice, uncle, but I am determined to go live with Marcus and Phoebe . . .” A hard note entered her voice. “Someone should be seeing to their care.”
Like Simon, Edward was forty-three, but the signs of his years of wild, careless dissipation rested lightly on his boyishly handsome features. He was not quite as youthful-looking as he had been a decade ago, but the creases that lined his face seemed to make him even more attractive. With his thick fair hair brushed back from his wide forehead, his starched cravat elegantly arranged, and his tall, fit body clothed in the most fashionable garments the most expensive tailors in London could sew, he was a commanding figure. But Sophy knew everything about him was false.
It was her father’s fortune that paid for his lavish living. Edward had wasted his own not-inconsiderable fortune years ago gambling. He was weak. Vain. Unscrupulous. Selfish. But he’d had no say in her life since she’d married and, along with her fortune, had been passed like a parcel from her uncle’s control to that of her husband. She smiled grimly. Edward had not liked seeing such a large chunk of the Grayson fortune escaping his hands and falling into Simon’s, but he’d had no choice—her father’s will had stated that her portion of the estate be disbursed when she wed. Of course, it had changed nothing for her, the law allowed her husband to hoard or squander her fortune as he saw fit Fortunately, Simon had been wealthy enough in his own right and he had not dipped into her inheritance from her father. And as widow, she realized with shock, she had far more rights than a mere wife or daughter. She could do anything she wanted. She would finally come into full and total control of her own bountiful inheritance from her father. And the handsome jointure Simon had agreed to in a weak moment when they married. It, too, would be hers to command, with no one to gainsay her. Between the fortune from her father and the jointure from her husband, she was going to be an extremely rich young woman. More importantly, for the first time in her life, she was no longer under the domination of a man. Not a father. Not a guardian. Not a husband. Especially not a husband!
Edward’s words confirmed her thoughts. Looking sulky, he muttered, “Well, there is nothing I can do to stop you. If you want people to think you murdered your husband, that is your affair.”
“Thank you for your concern,” she said dryly. “Now if you do not mind, I shall leave you—there are things I must see to before I go.”
Two hours later, her belongings piled onto the Marlowe coach that the new Lord Marlowe had graciously lent her for her journey to Cornwall, Sophy rode away from the place that had been her home for nearly three long, miserable years. It was a place she never wanted to see again. Her thoughts were focused on the future. Before many days, she would be home, home with Marcus and Phoebe. And this time, no one would ever be able to separate them again.
She grinned, her lovely golden eyes glinting with suppressed excitement. Her entire future lay in front of her, and it was so very different today than it had been a mere forty-eight hours ago. She was young. She was wealthy. And she was free!
LONDON, ENGLAND
April 1809
Chapter One
The elegant rooms were packed with gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen, the sound of their laughter and chatter almost overpowering. From the size of the glittering crowd, it appeared that Lord and Lady Denning’s at home was going to receive the highest accolade possible from the members of the ton. It was indeed a dreadful squeeze.
Having found a small, quiet alcove in which to observe the activities, Viscount Harrington viewed the swirling mass with a jaundiced eye. To think that this was the height of ambition: to be packed into overheated rooms like raw recruits in the hold of a ship on their way to dreaded India; to see and be seen and to waste one’s time prattling complete nonsense to vaguely familiar acquaintances, before departing and hurrying to the next social engagement. He shook his head. It was madness. Dashed if he wouldn’t rather face a charge of Napoléon’s finest cavalry than be subjected to another night like tonight.
So why was he here? Because I have to find myself a bloody wife! Ives thought irritably, as he stared out at the shifting crowd of women in their expensive high-waisted gowns of pastel silks and spangled gauze. The gentlemen were also garbed in the height of fashion; pristine white cravats, formfitting coats, embroidered waistcoats and black knee breeches.
It was almost incomprehensible to him that he found himself in this position. Less than fifteen months ago, he had been a carefree bachelor, marriage the farthest thought from his mind. He had a position that he enjoyed—a major in the King’s Cavalry—and with the war against Napoleon still raging, there was every possibility of rapid advancement. He had certainly never expected to find himself inheriting his uncle’s title and fortune and being placed in the position of needing to beget an heir.
A shaft of pain went through him. Could it have been just fourteen months ago that he had learned of the tragedy that had overtaken the Harrington family? Fourteen months ago that he had found himself devastated by the news
that his father, uncle and two cousins had drowned when his uncle’s yacht had gone down in a sudden squall? In one fell swoop, Ives had found himself the sole male survivor of the branch of the family which bore the proud Harrington name. Aunt Barbara’s two sons, John and Charles, bore her husband’s name, so that left them out. Clearly it was his duty, he thought morosely, to find a wife and replenish the Harrington blood. He owed it to his dead father and uncle and cousins to make certain that the proud name of Harrington continued—to ensure that there was a twelfth Viscount Harrington to inherit.
He sighed. I really would prefer to be fighting Bony, he mused unhappily. Complex battle maneuvers he understood. Women were something else again entirely. Not that there had been no women in his life. There had been quite a few. But he’d had only one use for them. And certainly there had never been any gently reared virgins among them! His women had known what they were doing, why they were in his bed, and what he expected from them. He grimaced. It sounded bloody cold when he thought of it that way. But it hadn’t been. He had also known what he was doing, having learned long ago that there was much pleasure to be gained from giving pleasure, even if he was paying for the woman’s favors.
Ives glanced around the room. He wondered how some of the young ladies parading here tonight would react if he made a straightforward proposition: Marry me, give me an heir, and I shall see to it that you never want for anything again. You shall be a viscountess, live in a fine home, and have a tidy fortune at your dainty fingertips. Once you have given me my son, we shan’t have to bother with each other very much. We shall live separately and what you do with your life will be your business—provided you are discreet and do not besmirch my name. So? Is it a bargain?
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