The Secret of the India Orchid

by Nancy Campbell Allen

  © 2017 Nancy Campbell Allen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, ­Shadow ­Mountain®, at ­permissions@shadowmountain.com. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of ­Shadow ­Mountain.

  Visit us at ShadowMountain.com

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

  Library of Congress ­Cataloging-­in-­Publication ­Data

  Names: Allen, Nancy Campbell, 1969– author.

  Title: The secret of the India orchid / Nancy Campbell Allen.

  Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016046609 | ISBN 9781629722931 (paperbound)

  Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships—Fiction. | India, setting. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Romance fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3551.L39644 S43 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046609

  Printed in the United States of ­America

  Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover photo: © Oleg Baliuk/shutterstock.com and Pikoso.kz/shutterstock.com.

  Cover design: © Shadow Mountain.

  Art Direction: Richard Erickson.

  Design: Heather G. Ward.

  Other Proper Romance Titles by

  Nancy Campbell Allen

  My Fair Gentleman

  Beauty and the Clockwork Beast

  Other Proper Romances

  Julianne Donaldson

  Edenbrooke

  Blackmoore

  Heir to Edenbrooke (eBook only)

  Sarah M. Eden

  Longing for Home

  Longing for Home: Hope Springs

  The Sheriffs of Savage Wells

  Josi S. Kilpack

  A Heart Revealed

  Lord Fenton’s Folly

  Forever and Forever

  A Lady’s Favor (eBook only)

  The Lady of the Lakes

  The Vicar’s Daughter

  To Dad and Maryellen, because this book owes its life to the solitude of your basement. Love you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Anthony Blake, the new Earl of Wilshire, stepped from White’s Gentlemen’s Club with a light heart and a smile on his face. Soon—that very evening, in fact—he was going to approach his good friend, Jack Elliot, Earl of Stansworth, and formally ask permission to court Jack’s sister, Sophia. Once he had made the decision, he could think of nothing else.

  To say Sophia was beautiful was the grossest of understatements. She possessed a face and figure men dreamed about, the kind that inspired poetry and duels at dawn. But in the six months since Jack’s marriage to Lady Ivy Carlisle, Anthony and Sophia had been, by virtue of their respective relationships to the happy couple, placed together at balls and soirees, and for rides in the park, picnics, and quiet evenings around the hearth in the comfort of the Stansworth townhome.

  Time spent with Sophia had become a habit to Anthony, and a very pleasant one at that. Although her physical beauty was a thing to behold, her inner core and her personality traits were beyond what Anthony dreamed could be housed within one physical frame. She was delightfully sharp-witted, possessed a no-nonsense air that served well in times of stress, and had a keen mind and a perception of people that was accurate to a deadly degree. They were friends at the root of it all, and he’d shared parts of his soul with her that he’d never divulged to anyone.

  In short, he was truly, madly, passionately in love with Sophia Elliot, and he wished with all his heart for her to accept his hand and become the next Countess of Wilshire. He thought she might be amenable to the idea. He recognized the spark of awareness in her eyes, the subtle shift in her physical proximity to him when they were together, the genuine delight in her laughter when he said or did something she found humorous.

  Even so, his nerves were strung taut as the coach bearing his distinguished family crest drew alongside him in front of White’s. He felt certain Jack would offer his blessing to the union; he had come to respect Anthony as a good friend and, Anthony hoped, one he would trust with his beloved sister. But what if Sophia was reluctant? Perhaps she hadn’t seen enough of the marriage mart to have decided which of the many men available to her as the sister of an earl would suit her best.

  Anthony climbed into his coach, confident that he had done his best to stay out of her way when the flurry of men, both young and old, vied for a spot on her dance card or sought to sate her thirst with numerous cups of punch. The fact that his jealousy burned hot every time she favored another man with her attention was something she need never know. She always saved a dance for him—a waltz, no less. She often penciled his name onto her dance card before the male masses descended, showing the small paper to him with a light laugh and an admonition that he remember which dance was his.

  As if he would forget.

  He would dance with the young debutantes shoved at him by grasping mamas. He would attend to the more mature women of the ton who were bored with their own marriages and viewed Anthony as some sort of prize as a war veteran. And he would smile and say all the expected things while his heart was truly and firmly entrenched at the feet of his best friend’s sister. He was always aware of her, he knew where she was at any given time, and he was fairly certain he could sense her presence in a room before knowing for a certainty she was there. He had taken to wearing small flowers in his lapel, different colors and types for different meanings. She would smile, seeing him across a crowded room, knowing a sprig of lavender meant devotion, and that it was for her.

  His well-sprung carriage made the trip to his well-tended townhome situated in the midst of London’s finest neighborhood and not far from Jack and Ivy. He dismissed the driver and made his way inside with the intention of immediately climbing the stairs to his suite to change into his evening attire.

  His butler, Dillington, cleared his throat when Anthony’s boot touched the bottom-most stair. “My lord, you have a visitor.”

  Anthony frowned. “I am not receiving now, Dillington. Whoever is waiting must return tomorrow.”

  Dillington approached the stairs, forcing Anthony to pause. “Sir, it is the Viscount Braxton. He would not be put off. He is in the library.”

  Anthony looked at his butler for some time, his heartbeat increasing a fracti
on. The last time Lord Braxton had demanded an audience, Anthony had found himself spying for the War Department in Napoleon’s France. “No, I don’t suppose he would be put off.” Anthony changed direction, heading for the library. “Don’t bother announcing me, Dillington. And please see that Faring lays out my evening clothes. This meeting will not be lengthy.”

  Anthony entered the library and took note of the man who had sent him to war a handful of years back. Anthony’s elder brother, Alfred, had been alive then, as had his father and mother, and as the spare to Wilshire’s heir, military service was Anthony’s natural course. Lord Braxton, though, had reviewed the battery of tests Anthony had taken upon the purchase of his commission and pulled him aside for “a deeper cause.”

  Braxton stood at the hearth, examining the portrait of Anthony’s late mother that hung above the mantel. He turned at Anthony’s footsteps and offered his signature smile, the one that so easily influenced other members of various organizations to see his way of things. Anthony’s instinctive guard came out of retirement and slammed into place. Braxton could charm a shilling from a street vendor, and Anthony always wondered about the man’s true motives.

  “What do you want?”

  Braxton’s brows shot up, and he laughed. “Direct as ever, I see. Perhaps I’m merely stopping by to renew an old acquaintance.”

  “Forgive my abruptness. The last time we spoke I believe I made myself clear. I want nothing more to do with the War Department.”

  Braxton’s smile slipped. “Sometimes the past has a way of coming home to roost—I believe that’s the saying.”

  Anthony studied the man and finally gestured to a pair of chairs near the hearth. “What past is coming home to roost?”

  Lord Braxton paused after taking his seat. “Someone stole the Janus Document.”

  Anthony’s breath left his lungs, and he stared at the viscount for a long moment before finally blinking.

  “I need you to find it.”

  Anthony shook his head, regarding the man who had, with one sentence, disrupted his entire life. “How did this happen?”

  Braxton sat back in his seat and sighed. “A man named Harold Miller works as my subordinate. He has access to my offices, but not to the documents under lock and key.” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know how he did it, but the document is gone. I tracked him as far as France before I lost him completely. I believe he intends to sell it to the French military.”

  Anthony frowned, an uneasy sense of dread settling into his stomach. “You wrote the document in a code nobody knows but you, though. At least, that is what you told me when you first created it.”

  Braxton shifted in his seat. “I had intended to. Time became an issue, and I was obliged to focus on weightier matters, so I found it simpler to create it with our code already in use.”

  Anthony stared. “There are dozens of agents who know that code,” he bit out. “Any one of us could be bribed or threatened into revealing it.” He ground his teeth together, wanting very much to thrash the man. “We are as good as dead—all of us. Your operatives.”

  Braxton’s brow wrinkled and he winced. “Not only the operatives, I’m afraid. The document is a composite of detailed information intended for my use only, but it is exhaustive: names of operatives, their families, addresses, associates both business and casual.” He spread his hands wide. “You see the implications. Even encoded as it is, the document must be retrieved or hundreds of people are at risk of abduction, torture, or worse.”

  Anthony shook his head. “I’ve not been in France for more than a year. I assume you have people still in Paris, Marseilles. You can use operatives already in place.”

  Braxton shot him a flat look. “They are young, amateurs in comparison to the skills you possesses, Anthony. And we haven’t operated abroad with nearly as much success since your return home. Before, as the son of a distinguished earl, to parade you as a diplomat was the perfect tactic. Now you actually are the earl with the freedom to travel, to do as you please, to convince the enemy you’re still a ne’er-do-well with naught on his mind but pleasure-seeking. The cover has grown even more effective with time.”

  Anthony’s lips tightened. He’d been well aware that he’d risked life and limb each time he was sent as an “emissary” for the military. His duties had required him to listen well, use his considerable charm to flirt with dignitaries’ wives and daughters, and quietly pass messages to double agents on the French side. For three years he’d been tense, his muscles knotted, his appetite sporadic. One misstep would find him captured, tortured for information.

  And then his brother had died suddenly. As much as Anthony grieved the loss, the change in his station to assume the role of heir had required his immediate return home. His relief at bringing the subversive activity to a close had been nearly palpable. Braxton’s very presence now in his home engendered emotions that had no place in his current life, a new life he’d planned to begin that very evening by announcing his intentions to court a beautiful woman who had become his dearest friend.

  Braxton broke eye contact and stared instead into the banked fire in the hearth.

  Anthony studied him, suspicion nagging at the back of his mind. “You would have me believe your only concern is for the welfare of those on the list? The war effort? What else is there?”

  Braxton flushed. “Is it not enough that I fear for the lives of dozens of people? Come, Anthony, you know me.”

  “I know your first concern is usually you.”

  Braxton leaned forward in his seat, impatience showing on his face. “I am the only one with access to the document. Nobody else—nobody—is allowed anywhere near it.”

  Anthony smiled without humor. “Ah. And there it is. If something happens—when something happens—and it becomes common knowledge that the document was taken out from under your nose, you will be the one to bear responsibility for it.”

  “That document has your information on it, Wilshire. As well as that of dozens of others, many of whom are still serving abroad. Multiple lives are threatened, as well as families, friends, loved ones. Rumor has it you’ve become close to a young woman—the sister of an earl relatively new to the ton. I hear she has caught many an eye, most notably yours. Now, supposing I were one of your former French associates who came into the knowledge that you had been a spy, someone you had duped or fooled; I might take great interest in your current social situation. You know very well that loved ones are used as leverage for information. Nobody in your circle is safe, especially one to whom you now show special favor.”

  Anthony’s eyes narrowed, hot rage boiling in his gut. “You will not speak of her, and you will not use her to force my hand.”

  “And yet you know I speak the truth!” Braxton threw up his hands, his frustration clearly mounting. “Yes, I am concerned for myself.” He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “Not only do I bear sole responsibility for the document, my information is contained in it as well, as your governmental liaison, the mastermind of the entire operation.”

  Anthony allowed himself to fully absorb the conversation and, along with the pervasive anger, felt a deep and sharp stab of fear. If the Janus Document did indeed find its way to his former French associates, nobody was safe. His friendships with Jack, Ivy, and Sophia were well-known. Anybody with an ounce of investigative skills would soon realize that although Anthony’s blood relations were dead, the Elliots had become his family.

  Anthony inhaled and exhaled slowly and shook his head. “Believing my life was my own was too good to be true. I ought to have known. Where am I to start looking for the blasted thing?”

  “As I said, I traced Harold Miller as far as France. He has disappeared.”

  “Are you certain he is the one who has it? Why do you suspect his intentions are to sell it?”

  Braxton frowned. “He’s a bright lad, but destitute and from difficult
circumstances. He commented once on the amount of money the document would bring—” He rubbed his face though clear evidence of his stress remained in the lines around his eyes and mouth. “He was the only one with access to my office. I saw him in it less than an hour before I realized it was gone. I immediately started tracking him, of course, but lost him in Paris. And it isn’t as though I can approach French authorities with the situation. Pardonnez-moi, mais je requiers l’aide pour trouver une liste des espions Anglais.”

  “Is he working alone? How has he gained access to resources?”

  Braxton shrugged. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed he could mastermind something of this magnitude, but as I said, he is an intelligent sort.”

  “Are we to assume it hasn’t already fallen into the wrong hands?”

  “I know it hasn’t. I still communicate with our people on the inside, and very few are even aware of the theft.” Braxton shook his head. “If the French get the list, I suspect we will know soon enough. An experienced agent will eventually see the patterns in the code.”

  “Or one of our own could be turned,” Anthony warned again.

  “I don’t believe that would happen. Our people are carefully investigated before serving. But should the worst happen, I suspect our operatives past and present will likely begin disappearing. Of course you see the urgency.”

  Anthony sighed and rubbed his eyes. The evening was now colorless, joyless. Not only would he be forced to leave Sophia, but he wouldn’t be able to tell her the reason. She would hear Braxton’s carefully placed rumors that Anthony Blake, the new Earl of Wilshire, was back to his old tricks. It left a sour taste in his mouth, and his eyes burned at the thought of her inevitable feelings of betrayal. Because aside from the fact that he wanted her in every way he possibly could, theirs was a genuine friendship. They had spent countless hours in meaningful conversation, sharing confidences in the library over a game of chess while Jack and Ivy read or played cards. He had grown accustomed to being with Sophia.

  Before, when he had served in France, the secretive nature of his role had been unpleasant but it hadn’t upset anyone else. Then, there had been no one with whom he cared to share the details of his life. Now, Sophia was the one person on earth who knew him without his protective wall of cynicism.