The Counterfeit Mistress
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
THE NOVELS OF MADELINE HUNTER
The Conquest of Lady Cassandra
“Another stellar Regency-set historical romance that hits all the literary marks. Hunter’s effortlessly elegant writing exudes a wicked sense of wit, her characterization is superbly subtle, and the sexual chemistry she cooks up between her deliciously independent heroine and delightfully sexy hero is pure passion.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“There’s nothing foolish or ill thought out in a Hunter romance. Mature, intelligent, and memorable, the second of the Fairbourne quartet is as smart and sharp as the best of Regency romances can be. With its tangy dialogue, Pride and Prejudice themes, bits of mystery and nefarious characters, readers may be reminded of Jane Austen.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne
“Imbued with a deliciously dry sense of humor and graced with a striking cast of characters . . . A masterpiece of wit and passion.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Hunter’s unique talents for blending sensuality and suspense along with the color and atmosphere of the era are what make her a fan favorite . . . Another fantastic read.”
—RT Book Reviews
Dangerous in Diamonds
“Hunter . . . masterfully weaves a sensual web . . . Fans will be delighted.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A terrific historical . . . a delightful series.”
—Midwest Book Review
Sinful in Satin
“Hunter deftly sifts intrigue and exquisite sensuality into the plot of the third book in her exceptionally entertaining quartet.”
—Booklist
Provocative in Pearls
“Hunter gifts readers with a fantastic story that reaches into the heart of relationships and allows her to deliver a deep-sigh read.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
Ravishing in Red
“Richly spiced with wicked wit and masterfully threaded with danger and desire, the superbly sexy first book in Hunter’s new Regency historical quartet is irresistible and wonderfully entertaining.”
—Booklist (starred review)
Jove titles by Madeline Hunter
RAVISHING IN RED
PROVOCATIVE IN PEARLS
SINFUL IN SATIN
DANGEROUS IN DIAMONDS
THE SURRENDER OF MISS FAIRBOURNE
THE CONQUEST OF LADY CASSANDRA
THE COUNTERFEIT MISTRESS
Specials
AN INTERRUPTED TAPESTRY
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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THE COUNTERFEIT MISTRESS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2013 by Madeline Hunter.
Excerpt from The Conquest of Lady Cassandra copyright © 2013 by Madeline Hunter.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-62567-5
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Jove mass-market edition / October 2013
Cover illustration by Aleta Rafton.
Cover image of “Vintage lace texture” © Illustrart / Shutterstock.
Text design by Laura K. Corless.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Contents
Jove titles by Madeline Hunter
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
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
Excerpt from The Conquest of Lady Cassandra
This book is dedicated to the memory of my aunt Rose and aunt Madeline
Chapter 1
Handsome Stupid Man was following her again.
Marielle noticed him as she turned at the crossroads near her house. She clutched the roll of papers that she carried closer to her chest and hurried on, dodging her way around the people crowding the lane.
It had been months since she had seen him. She thought he had given up last spring after she let him know that she was aware that he watched her.
It had been a game to her while it lasted. She had enjoyed leading him around London while she addressed the most mundane aspects of her life. When more significant activities occupied her, she always managed to evade his attention.
She stole a glance over her shoulder to see if he had also made the turn, and smiled at the absurdity that he believed she might not detect him. A man who looked like this one would always be noticed.
An agent who followed spies needed an unremarkable appearance, not a presence that commanded attention. Subtle activities required an average countenance, not one that makes women sigh. Sharply hewn and masculine in its beauty, his face compelled one’s gaze despite its severity—and perhaps because of it. His lack of understanding of his unsuitability for this duty, and how obvious he became in executing it, led her to name him Handsome Stupid Man.
How annoying for him to choose today to bother with her again. The people she had to meet would not appreciate his attendance, that was certain. She needed to escape his shadow before she reached her destination.
Changing course, she turned down the next street, then made a right on the one after that. She fell into step in front of a wagon drawn by a lumbering horse, so she might be less visible in the crowd. Spying a milliner’s shop several doors away, she darted inside when the wagon came to it. Positioning herself near the window, she watched the street she had just left.
Eventually Handsome Stupid Man came into view, pacing his horse slowly. The steed paused in the crossroads. Peering around a bonnet displayed in the window, she stole a glance at the man in the saddle.
He gazed down the lane, frowning. Perplexed, he raked his dark, cropped hair with his fingers, and twisted in his saddle to look back up the street. His emerald gaze darted right and left, forward and back. He even looked right at her window but the bonnet and small wavy panes of glass surely obscured his view. Finally, he turned his horse. Riding like a field marshal, he retraced his path.
She swallowed a giggle. What a Stupid Man.
She waited for the horse’s tail to disappear, then began counting to mark time before she should leave.
A warmth on her shoulder startled her. The shop’s owner loomed at her back, wearing a frown as severe as Handsome Stupid Man’s.
“Would you like to try that bonnet? You have been admiring it for a very long time,” she said. Pale blue eyes peered suspiciously at the long, full shawl that had admittedly hidden more than a bonnet at times.
Looking down, Marielle noticed that the top of the roll of papers that she grasped to her chest now peeked above the shawl’s patterned silk, appearing much like a hidden, stolen item.
She picked at a ribbon on the bonnet behind which she had hid. Such a luxury was not for her, even if she had enough money squirreled away. She saved for something far more important than bonnets.
“I thought I might like to buy this, but I do not care for some details now that I see it closely.”
The woman’s lids lowered on hearing her voice. “Ah, you are French. One of our guests. That explains—well—” Her gaze meandered down Marielle’s garments, pausing on the tattered lace around the dress’s neckline, then on the faded glory of the pale, patterned Venetian shawl, then on the full skirt that announced how old-fashioned the dress was. That gaze finally settled on the paint smudge that marred Marielle’s gloveless hand.
Marielle stared the shopkeeper down. “Oui, one of your country’s guests. My clothing may be old, madame, but so is my blood and that is what matters, no? As it happens I am purchasing a new wardrobe with funds recently brought out of my country. I thought your shop was one recommended to me by my friend the Viscountess Ambury, but it appears I misunderstood. Your wares, I fear, do not have the quality necessary to secure her patronage.”
Posture rigid, she left the shop and walked back to the crossroad. There she angled her head around the corner to see if Handsome Stupid Man had gone.
He was nowhere to be seen. She hurried in the other direction, down the shop’s lane to the prior street. Moving indirectly, she made her way toward her rendezvous.
As she darted out of a small lane onto a busy street, she spied a hackney leaving off a patron. She always knew exactly how much coin she had in her purse, and today it would be enough. Cursing the time and money that Handsome Stupid Man had cost her, she jumped into the coach.
Where in hell had the French bitch gone?
Gavin Norwood, Viscount Kendale, surveyed the heads bobbing along the street, looking for one with long golden brown curls that fell down a woman’s slender shoulders.
He could spot Marielle Lyon from several blocks away without any trouble. It was not so much her lithe form that marked her, or even that hair. Her garments were old-fashioned and she usually swathed herself in a long shawl, but even knowing her wardrobe in detail was not how his eyes sought her.
Rather, her walk made her stand out. It did something to her body. Caused it to sway a little, and give the impression that she dared take only small steps. The resulting elegance of movement contrasted with the broad strides and purposeful gaits of others on these lanes filled with working people and men of trade. She walked like a queen, and it negated all her attempts to look poor.
When he followed her regularly last spring, she often thought she had outsmarted him and gotten away. He let her believe that, but he almost never lost sight of her. However, perhaps he had today. That oasis of elegance had disappeared. If so, today’s reckoning would have to be put off. The notion did nothing for his humor. He had a month at most to settle this nettlesome business before he undertook his next mission.
He paced his horse slowly, gauging the distance to the next crossroad. He would check the alleys between the buildings on the right before he gave up. When running away, Marielle Lyon always aimed right.
He had just begun his slow progress when something caught his eye. The driver of a hackney twisted around and spoke to his passenger. A thin arm stretched forward from the window as the driver’s arm stretched back. Coin passed between them. The driver lifted the reins.
Marielle must be in a hurry. She had never used a coach before. He did not doubt that had been her arm. The stain of blue paint on its snowy skin, and the hand’s long, slender fingers said it was.
He followed in the coach’s wake, keeping his distance. The advantage of being on horseback was that he could watch an entire street from the higher perspective. He had followed men on foot through crowds thicker than this, from as far back as four hundred yards.
The coach made several turns, but he always found it when he turned himself. After the last turn, he found it too easily. It had stopped a hundred feet down the street. The driver set his whip into its stand, pulled an apple out of his coat, and bit.
He paced up and alongside so he could see in. Empty. He rose off his saddle and looked down the street.
“The woman you brought here—where did she go?” he asked the coachman.
The fellow gave him and his horse a good look. Mouth full and jaws working, he jerked his thumb toward a narrow alley across the street that ran between a stationer’s shop and a grocer.
He dismounted and tied his horse to a post. He walked to the grocer shop, then along its front to where he could spy down the alley’s length.
Three forms moved in the shadows halfway to the next street. Two men faced him, although the shadows proved too dark to see anything specific about them. Marielle Lyon walked toward them, her slender body swaying within the cocoon of her long shawl.
He waited. This was not the first time she had met men in alleys, that he knew. He debated how to interrupt the rendezvous. She had a roll of documents with her. He had seen it beneath the shawl as she hurried from her house. He could not let her hand it off the way she planned.
Light showed at the end of the alley as surely as the exit to a tunnel. He doubted he could stop those men from escaping, but he would be damned if she could. Before the hour was out, if he had his way, the mystery of Marielle Lyon would finally be over.
Marielle peered into the shadows. At first the alley appeared empty, which displeased her. It would be a fine thing if she had paid for that coach only to have Luc and Éduard arrive late, or not at all.
She should have replaced them months ago. It was never wise to use the same people too long. Patterns start being noticed then. Questions start being asked. Worse, with time comes comfort and carelessness.
She could not afford the latter on anyone’s part. Luc and Éduard risked nothing in this. It was only a chore to them, for which they were paid. She was the one who could face a reckoning that involved more than money. If the English decided she was a spy, her fate would be unpleasant. If her enemies attached her name to these papers, she could end up dead.
A movement deep in the alley caused the shadows to move. A man reached out and beckoned. Relieved, she walked toward him.
“Why are you hiding?” she asked as she drew nearer. “Were you followed?” She did not trust Luc or Éduard to know how to handle that. They were only messengers.
He did not reply. That was odd. In a swift series of impressions, she absorbed other oddities. The man wore a tricornered hat. Luc and Éduard considered them old-fashioned. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the man’s form thickened. He was too wide. Too short. Another man joined him, and caution tightened her throat. He did not look right either.
Alarm screamed through her. She stopped in her tracks. They must have smelled her fear, because they strode forward.
“Attendez-vous,” the thick one said in a hoarse whisper.
She turned on her heel and ran back toward the street she had left.
Boots pounded behind her. Terror split her mind. She kicked off her shoes so she might run faster, but it was already too late. A vise of a hand gripped her shoulder. She spun and flew until her back slammed against the stones of the building flanking the alley. Pain stole her breath and darkened her sight.
Desperate, she groped for her purse while she steadied herself. She gritted her teeth against an impulse to sink to the ground in surrender. Her attackers crowded her so closely she could smell the beer the thick one had drunk with his last meal.
“Here. It is all I have.” She threw the purse on the ground.
The thick man looked down at the purse, then at her. “We are not here for that.” He spoke in French. Native French. That gave voice to her worst fear. They were not mere thieves.
If they did not seek money, they were here for her. The truth chilled her. She would die in this alley today.
The two of them looked at her while a horrible tension poured out of them. Her stomach sickened. She knew why they paused. It was not easy to kill. Even a hardened man needs to draw on something inside himself before he does that.
She sensed the determination forming in them. It came first to the other, not the thick man. An animal light entered his eyes.
As soon as he moved, she did too. She lunged at him, pushing away from the wall with all her strength, ignoring how her bruised back burned. She turned and twisted to create confusion and avoid his grasp. If she could break past them, perhaps she could run and—
His arm slashed forward and up and the faintest light glinted off metal. She twisted again and her shawl caught the blade. Silk makes a poor shield, however. The fabric deflected the knife’s thrust, but it connected anyway. A line of raw pain shocked her hip.
She dared not let it stop her. Thrashing, twisting, refusing to accept her fate, she dropped the papers and clawed at his face. A blow landed on her head in punishment. Then another on her shoulder.