Читать книгу A Warriner To Seduce Her - Virginia Heath - Страница 11

Chapter One

Lord Fennimore’s Mayfair study, on a very wet night in February 1820

Thanks to the splendid port, the cosy heat from the fire and a distinct lack of sleep the night before Jake would soon need a pair of matchsticks to prop open his eyes. Viscount Linford was droning on about the latest numbers of confiscated barrels of brandy in every coastal county the length and breadth of the entire British Isles, or at least he had been before Jake’s mind had wandered off to greener pastures while listening to the man’s soporific voice.

As always, the Viscount measured success in numbers, seemingly oblivious to the fact it made no difference how many cargoes the blockade men had seized this month compared to last. Those dull statistics were a drop in the ocean—albeit the English Channel—compared to the massive cargoes which slipped past them daily. For a small pile of coin, most people could be relied upon to be resourceful. But smugglers weren’t most people, the piles they wanted weren’t small and their resources far outstripped those of the rag-tag disorganisation of the Board of Excise. Whoever the mysterious Boss was, his toxic network was proving near impossible to infiltrate. Crowbars wouldn’t budge the terrified sealed lips of the few crews they had arrested and for every ship they seized another twenty sailed right past.

‘All well and good, but can we trace any of those barrels back to Crispin Rowley?’ Lord Fennimore’s curt tone suggested he was as bored by the Viscount’s bean-counting as Jake was.

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not exactly? What sort of an answer is that? Either we have a traceable link to the bounder or we don’t.’

Viscount Linford began to blink at the challenge. ‘We know that a substantial amount of those barrels were destined for the capital.’

‘And?’ Fennimore was losing patience. ‘We are in the midst of the Season, when I dare say London consumes more than its fair share of brandy. Are Rowley or any of his associates transporting the goods further afield or selling the stuff in the capital?’

‘Not that we can find. He’s covered his tracks well. However, we all know he is the source.’

‘Knowing it and proving it are two very different things. The Attorney General will sign no warrant for the man’s arrest unless he has tangible evidence of Rowley’s involvement.’ Something they had failed to get in the six months since Crispin Rowley had come under the suspicion of the King’s Elite, a small but highly skilled band of covert operatives created to infiltrate and take down the powerful, organised smuggling rings which threatened Britain’s ailing economy.

Rowley was linked to a ring that they believed was funding the loyal last remnants of Napoleon’s army, which was a great cause for concern. This group was intent on stealing the former French leader from his island prison and returning him to power, using funds raised from smuggled brandy on the shores of the very enemy that had brought him down, and at the helm was one man: the faceless, untraceable and powerful man known only as the Boss. As much as ten thousand gallons a month were finding their way into the public’s glasses in the south-east, no duty paid and all profits heading directly back to the French rebels.

But this smuggling ring was not only supplying the capital. Every major city, the length and breadth of the British Isles, was benefitting from cheap spirits to such an extent the bottom had practically dropped out of the legitimate market. Most worrying was the persistent intelligence that hinted the group’s tentacles were firmly embedded among the ranks of the British aristocracy. Men with the power, connections and means to distribute the goods widely. Lord Crispin Rowley was the first and only name from that dangerous list they had.

So far they only had the tenuous word of a French double agent, who up until recently had been completely loyal to Bonaparte. His sudden change of allegiance, combined with his hasty flight from France, did not instil a great deal of confidence in his intelligence. Not when the man had urgently needed asylum and was still too terrified to come out of the hiding place Lord Fennimore had provided him, lest his former comrades hunted him down and assassinated him as they had so many other informants.

As much as none of them trusted that man’s word, there was a great deal about Lord Crispin Rowley which did not ring true and had set the intuitive Lord Fennimore’s alarm bells ringing. Three years ago Rowley had been on the brink of bankruptcy. The government contracts he had enjoyed during the war years to supply grain to the British army were cancelled after Waterloo and with no market for his corn and prices plummeting, as with many of the landed aristocracy, Rowley had suffered gravely and become disillusioned with the crown, blaming his collapse entirely on the government’s lack of perceived loyalty to those who had helped England win the war.

Crispin Rowley wasn’t the only peer of the realm who had turned on the government. Others also felt betrayed and were vocal in their criticism. While Jake had some sympathy for the way those men had been treated, he was also a realist. The world was changing rapidly and to survive the aristocracy had to learn to adapt. Land alone would not sustain a fortune any longer. Not with the mills, mines and colonies proving to be more lucrative for canny investors with ready coin to spend and cheap foreign grain pouring into England’s ports.

Rowley, like so many of his ilk, had appeared to be doomed. His fields remained fallow, his labourers laid off and his creditors lining up at his scuffed and peeling front door. Then, for no discernible reason as far as anyone could tell, his fortunes miraculously turned around eighteen months ago. The huge debts he had racked up had been paid off in impressive lump sums and the formerly penniless peer was now positively lording it up all over the capital.

And he suddenly kept some impressive company. Bankers, shipping magnates, dukes and foreign princes all now enjoyed Rowley’s extensive hospitality and, if their intelligence was to be believed—and Jake had no reason to doubt it—there appeared to be no ulterior motive to the man’s benevolence at all. He didn’t own businesses outright, preferring to dabble in stocks and shares like much of the new money. He was, to all intents and purposes, merely an investor—yet the double agent was adamant Rowley’s fortune was intrinsically linked to the free traders as their main distributor in the south-east of England.

‘So we’ve hit another dead end!’ His friend, and former Cambridge classmate, Seb Leatham slumped back in his chair like a petulant child and shook his head. ‘We keep throwing mud at the man and nothing sticks. Nothing! Surely there must be a chink in the fellow’s armour somewhere?’ He and his men had been watching Rowley’s every movement in the last few months and Seb’s legendary patience was wearing thin.

‘Not that I’ve found.’ Lord Peter Flint sighed from his place across the table. Being the heir to a barony and an enormous fortune, Flint had managed to inveigle his way into Rowley’s vast inner circle and had spent months socialising with him in the hope of being allowed into the inner sanctum. ‘I’m starting to wonder if we’re barking up the wrong tree and he is not the man we are looking for. I’ve plied his closest cronies with drink and asked them all manner of subtle probing questions and nobody knows anything other than the fact he likes to speculate.’

‘He must have secret associates. We have to keep digging. If we could get inside his house, watch the comings and goings, read his correspondence and private papers, we’ll find something.’

Flint glared at his boss. ‘I’ve searched his study. Repeatedly. There’s nothing there.’

‘Which is why we need ears inside that house. A slippery eel like Rowley is hardly going to leave damning evidence lying about in Mayfair when he’s invited guests in. If we can bribe a servant or get someone on the inside during the day to snoop around, I’ll wager that’s when we’ll find his weakness.’

‘I’ve offered huge bribes to as many minor servants as we dare. All have been refused. The others are too close to Rowley for me to risk approaching them. They will only tip him off.’ Seb Leatham always sounded angry even when he wasn’t. Unlike the suave Flint he worked best in the shadows and had a knack for blending in with the lowest of the low. ‘And we already know the place is guarded like a fortress. Right now, he’s confident enough to make mistakes. We daren’t risk shaking that confidence by breaking in.’

‘Then we’ll need to be invited, won’t we?’ Fennimore smiled enigmatically. A sure sign he had dredged up something thus far undiscovered. Whatever it was Jake didn’t care. He’d spent the last eight months infiltrating a gun-smuggling consortium running out of the East End docks and, now that the lynchpins were all sat in damp cells in Newgate awaiting trial, blissfully unaware of how their empire had crumbled, Jake was due a significant stretch of leave. Hell, he’d earned it. It had been a dangerous assignment and one he’d barely survived without a bullet between the eyes.

Tomorrow, he would head north to Markham Manor and see his brothers for the first time in almost a year. For some strange reason, he had a hankering for the north and for home in particular. Probably because he was tired. Leading a double life, a secret double life, was exhausting. In deepest, darkest, dankest Nottinghamshire he was just Jake. It would almost be as good to be that carefree young rapscallion again as it would to see his family. Three months of being himself, no hidden agendas, no danger, no responsibilities and no web of lies.

Except the one.

The rest of the Warriners had absolutely no idea the directionless rake of the family had worked for the British government since the day he left Cambridge, when Lord Fennimore had recognised he actually had some potential, albeit not potential which would ever serve a good purpose. Not strictly true. Jamie suspected. The questions he asked and the quiet assessing way he had about him suggested he was piecing together the hidden puzzle of Jake’s life. Jamie hadn’t vocalised his theory outright, because that was not his reticent elder brother’s style, but he had abruptly stopped joining in with the litany of criticisms Jake had received about his lack of purpose on his last two visits home, which in turn had led to more guilt and made returning home harder. That and the desire to keep them all safe. His job was dangerous. The risk of inadvertently dragging some of that with him on a visit home kept him up at night, when he much preferred to sleep. And, of course, it meant he prolonged his absences further and made more excuses.

Five years of lying to the brothers he loved was driving a wedge between them because Jake was actively avoiding them. They knew him too well and saw too much. They had also all made great successes of their lives and despaired that he had not. He tried not to feel envious at it, knowing they deserved all the good things and more, but the sight of their lives blossoming was coming to make his own existence feel barren. Yet he missed them and every day he missed them more. At least now his last assignment was completed he could go home and relax, safe in the knowledge he was working on nothing else which might put them in danger, trip him up or force him to tell them another pack of lies which he doubted they truly believed.

He let his eyes wander around the stuffy study which served as the King’s Elite secret headquarters until they fixed on the dancing flames in the fireplace and listened with less than half an ear.

Or at least he thought he did.

‘Warriner!’ His head snapped around to see Lord Fennimore’s bushy grey eyebrows drawn together in a scowl. ‘Have you listened to a damn word I just said?’

‘Er...of course, sir...well, actually...no. Not really. My eyes glazed over somewhere between one thousand barrels in Sussex and Rowley’s resistance to mud. Forgive me. I’m tired and as I’m about to go on leave I didn’t think it mattered.’

‘Your leave has been cancelled. I have a job for you.’

‘But, sir...’

‘No buts, Warriner. Only you can do this one. It’s a seduction job, so right up your street.’

Leatham and Flint were grinning at him smugly, no doubt having sold his sorry carcass up the river to avoid spending hours, weeks and months charming information out of yet another empty-headed smuggler’s mistress. ‘Now hold on a minute sir, I’m due leave. Urgently due leave. You patted me on the back only last week and said so yourself. I’ve made plans.’

‘Plans change. You can have your leave as soon as you’ve exhausted this new lead.’ There was no point arguing further. Fennimore never budged when his mind was made up. Never. ‘Given the lady’s age and experience, I dare say you’ll have done the deed in less than a fortnight and you can head north to rusticate then.’

Two weeks wasn’t so bad, even if it did mean letting his family down again. Something he had done all too often in the last few years, to such an extent he could already picture his eldest brother Jack’s irritated shake of the head and hear, crystal-clear, the blistering lecture he would receive as a result.

When are you going to do something with your life? Being a rake is not a career.

Jake was so caught up in the imaginary conversation with his responsible elder sibling it took a few moments for his superior’s words to sink in.

‘What do you mean age?’

‘You really weren’t listening, were you?’ Lord Fennimore huffed and began to snatch up his papers, signalling the meeting was over. ‘Crispin Rowley has a niece. His deceased, much elder half-sister’s child. The girl has been hidden away in a convent since she was orphaned, hence we haven’t bothered with her before. However, her neglectful uncle has now decided he’s going to give the chit a Season. My sources tell me he is doing so with the express intention of marrying her off by the end of it and to someone of stature. She’s recently moved into his house in Mayfair. Her name is Miss Blunt.’

‘She’s fresh from the schoolroom?’

‘One assumes.’

‘What does that make her? Seventeen? Eighteen?’ Please God, not sixteen.

‘I suppose.’

‘You want me to seduce a child!’

‘Eighteen is not a child and you only need to actually seduce her if other methods of persuasion prove fruitless.’

‘Why can’t Flint seduce her?’

‘I need Flint to keep chipping away on the other side. He’s making headway into the bounder’s inner circle and all that would be put in jeopardy if Rowley disapproves of him courting his niece. Your reputation makes you the perfect choice. Besides, I can hardly send Leatham.’ All eyes instinctively travelled to the jagged and impressive scar down Seb Leatham’s right cheek. Even without the scar, his friend resembled a bare-knuckle fighter and was painfully monosyllabic around the opposite sex. Jake was nicely trapped and Lord Fennimore knew it.

‘The girl has spent most of her life with nuns, Warriner, isolated from the manipulative machinations of the world. In the full glow of your legendary charm, she’ll probably confide all her secrets with a few flowery words. A simple brush of the cheek will likely render her a melted puddle at your feet. It won’t take long to pry a list of her uncle’s associates from her or his day-to-day schedule. Perhaps you can even convince the chit to steal away a few stray letters and such for a couple of hours so we can analyse them. I’m sure you’ll work out how to get her to do your bidding without having to bed her. But if it comes to it, then I’ll expect you to do your duty for King and country. You’ve never complained about that before.’

‘That’s because I’ve never been sent after a child before!’

‘I dare say she’s not a child. The young ladies mature so much faster than the young bucks and it’s not unheard of for them to marry at seventeen or eighteen.’

‘But you’re not asking that I marry her, you’re asking that I ruin her!’

‘You’re a resourceful fellow, I’m sure you can find a way to get what you need from Miss Blunt without having to lift her skirts. But the point is moot regardless. This is the first time we’ve had the chance of getting close to someone who lives inside Rowley’s house. The fact she is also as green as grass and ripe for the picking makes it all the sweeter. It’s a chance too good to miss.’

Incensed, Jake merely shook his head. ‘And how, exactly, am I supposed to seduce this child? I hardly have the sort of reputation which allows me to frequent the type of sedate and proper soirées the fresh crop of debutantes do and, even if I do, the girl is bound to have a handler. A chaperon with a sharp eye for the wrong sort of suitor. Which I am. They won’t let me within ten feet of her.’

Everyone including the bean-counter grinned, which didn’t bode well. ‘If you had been listening rather than wool-gathering, then you would know Lord Rowley has engaged the services of his great-aunts to act as chaperons.’

‘The Sawyer sisters?’ Two spinsters in their sixties, both highly connected but with a penchant for hard spirits and reputations as characters. Hardly the sort of women who would be up for the task. ‘The slurring Sawyer sisters?’

‘The very same.’ Lord Fennimore looked rightly pleased with himself at Jake’s obvious disbelief. ‘I know. I can’t quite believe our luck either, but with no wife or other suitable female relatives, Rowley could hardly use his mistresses to launch the girl and my sources tell me he is determined to have her married by spring. He’s probably already got the groom in mind, hence the sudden haste to launch the girl. It makes a strange sort of sense to align the girl to the slurring sisters. Cressida and Daphne Sawyer are invited to everything.’

‘Because they are guaranteed to make spectacles of themselves and the ton likes a laugh. I can’t think of two worse chaperons for a girl as green as grass.’

Fennimore shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s deliberate, too. If Rowley has set his sights on a particular future nephew-in-law, if all else fails his lackadaisical choice of chaperons might aid the process when the girl is inevitably compromised. I wouldn’t put it past a slippery and conniving snake like Rowley to have factored that into his equations. Being with the Sawyers will certainly get the girl noticed and that’s usually half the battle on the marriage mart. It also aids us. I doubt you’ll find it overly difficult to make a move on the chit. Even more fortuitous, the timing is perfect. The chit is being presented tomorrow. At Almack’s.’

‘I’m banned from Almack’s.’ Something which had happened quite early in his career and of which Jake was inordinately proud. Only the worst sort of scoundrel was denied admission to Almack’s and the ban had done wonders for his bad reputation.

‘Not any more, you’re not. The patronesses have had a sudden change of heart. Here are your vouchers.’ He slid them across the table. ‘To be on the safe side I got you a month’s worth.’

* * *

The sea of people at Almack’s swirled by in a pastel haze, thanks to Uncle Crispin’s ridiculous insistence she leave her spectacles in the carriage. The unfamiliar place, the surging crowds and her short-sightedness made every step precarious. Already she had tripped up the short step into the high-ceilinged ballroom and nearly flattened a footman in the process.

‘Keep your head straight and glide, Felicity!’ Great-Aunt Daphne advised in her usual theatrical tone. ‘A lady should walk like a wispy cloud, floating across the sky.’ Or at least Fliss assumed it was her usual tone seeing that she had only met her aged relatives five days ago and, in truth, they weren’t technically any relation to her at all. But they were nice old dears who meant well, even if they were a trifle eccentric, and they had been very sweet while attempting to train her in the art of being a lady.

Not that Fliss had any desire to be a lady of the ton. She was perfectly content with the manners she had already. Perhaps she could be a bit abrupt and had an acid tongue when the situation called for it, but those minor faults were actually quite perfect in her role as the schoolmistress of Sister Ursuline’s School for Wayward Girls. Some of those young ladies required a firm hand and many more needed her guidance because they were prone to make poor choices—especially regarding men. Once this silly visit was over, those girls would need the Miss Blunt they relied upon. Not some improved version who was required to walk like a ‘wispy cloud’, whatever that meant.

Although why it was considered essential for a lady to walk as if she had a book balanced on her cranium was beyond her. For the better part of two days, Daphne and Cressida had made her walk backwards and forward in Uncle Crispin’s ostentatious Egyptian-themed drawing room, with a Mrs Radcliffe novel perched precariously on her head, while they instructed her on the subtle nuances of etiquette she had never had use of before. Who knew that curtsies were graduated, for instance, saving only the deepest and most grovelling for dukes and the monarchy? There had not been much cause for curtsying in Cumbria, thank goodness. Nor for the baffling array of cutlery deemed necessary for every meal when a knife, fork and spoon had always served her perfectly well before, thank you very much. Before she had been a wispy cloud, of course.

‘And smile!’ Aunt Cressida nudged her with such force she lurched a little sideways. ‘Think of yourself as a swan, my dear. Graceful. Elegant. Effortless.’

There was no point enquiring as to where the cloud had gone, because Aunt Daphne and Aunt Cressida rarely remembered what they had said five minutes before. However, she was sorely tempted to point out there was nothing effortless in gliding like a swan in a strange place sans spectacles, but Fliss smiled tightly and tried her best, holding her head so still it made her jaw ache. She was here for her mother. Uncle Crispin had apparently made her a solemn promise upon her deathbed to give his half-sister’s daughter a Season and, while she was fundamentally too old to be launched into society, the guilt had made her agree to the offer—the guilt, Sister Ursuline’s insistence Fliss needed to go and have an adventure, and the desire to do something for the mother she struggled to remember fully yet had missed keenly throughout her life. For her tragic real mother, and her incorrigible surrogate mother, she would attempt to be a cloud or a swan or whatever other nonsense her new great-great-aunts came out with in the next few weeks and she would do it with all the enthusiasm she couldn’t be bothered to feel.

The new corset she had been trussed up in like a ham about to be boiled didn’t help. While it did serve to keep her from slouching, because bending at the waist was now quite impossible, it also constricted every organ from her lungs to her bladder. It had also pushed her bosoms up in a most inappropriate manner so they threatened to spill out of the neckline of her new, form-fitting white-silk gown. Of course, she had protested the unsuitable dress and the corset, but her aunts insisted such fashions were all ladies wore in the ton and de rigueur at Almack’s. And from the amount of foggy cleavages she could just about see all around her, presented like soft loaves on a baker’s tray, her new great-great-aunts appeared to be right. The knowledge did not make Fliss feel any better about exposing her own bakery goods to the eyes of the world.

And Fliss had definitely been thrust into the window of the bakery, despite repeatedly insisting to both the aged women and her stand-offish Uncle Crispin that she had no desire to find a husband while in town. Never had and probably never would. After years of being on her own, and after watching her mother’s disappointing marriage to her unreliable father, she could see no reason why she would want to relinquish her freedom to just anyone. If, by some miracle, she ever did find a man who wasn’t controlling or unreliable, then perhaps she would reconsider. But if she did, it would be of her own choosing somewhere very far in the future. And finally, and this was completely unnegotiable, he had to absolutely adore her. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had agreed to a Season, not to any matchmaking, therefore introducing her to all and sundry was pointless. Solid, dependable and trustworthy men would hardly waste their time in this crush. They would be far too sensible and nothing like the fops, dandies and pompous aristocratic versions here, so why her new aunts insisted on parading in a constant loop around the room was beyond her. Not only was she unlikely to remember the fifty different names of gentlemen thrown at her so far, without her spectacles, every one of the fifty faces resembled blurred pink blobs. Aside from the varying colours of hair or clothing, none of the many men she had met had any discerning features which she could recognise them by, should she need to.

Mind you, parading around the ballroom was better than standing near the refreshment table. Her aunts had a worrying penchant for the lemonade—which they mixed liberally with the brandy they hid in hip flasks in their reticules, while they regaled her with outrageous stories from their pasts—and had pressed so many glasses into Fliss’s hand her head was beginning to spin. Thanks to the rigid corset, that wasn’t the only side-effect.

‘I think I need to visit the retiring room.’

Both old ladies sighed. ‘How very tiresome. Ever since the great ball at Osterley we have trained ourselves to take no notice of such things. Isn’t that right, Sister?’

Cressida nodded sagely. ‘Indeed. And a very prudent decision it has turned out to be.’

They often talked in riddles, too, sharing knowing looks and wicked grins about experiences from their pasts which they frequently assumed she knew about. ‘That is all well and good, but the retiring room?’

Daphne flapped her hand to the left. ‘It’s over there.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ Because Fliss didn’t trust herself to get there unattended. Not when she wasn’t entirely certain where ‘over there’ was. With her glasses she had a poor sense of direction. Without them she would be hopeless. ‘I’m afraid I might get lost.’ An understatement. It was almost guaranteed.

‘As long as you have a tongue in your head, Felicity, you will never be lost. Remember that, dear.’ Daphne was also prone to issue random guiding words of wisdom at odd times. ‘Head towards the alcove and you shall find it in the furthest corner.’ The hand flapped ineffectually again. ‘We shall wait for you by the refreshment table, won’t we, Cressida?’

Of course they would. Because that was where the lemonade lived.

‘Yes, indeed. Now that you mention it, I am a bit parched, Daphne.’

To Fliss’s complete disgust, the older women immediately left her on their quest for yet more refreshment. She stood impotently and watched their ridiculously tall and elaborate feathered headdresses disappear into the sea of people and allowed her irritation to bubble.

How perfectly splendid. She’d been abandoned by the only two people she knew in the room. Yet another thing to sour her already dour mood. She was stuck miles from home at a ball she didn’t want to be at, wearing a dress she feared she was spilling out of, trussed in a corset she couldn’t breathe in and, to make the occasion all the more perturbing, she couldn’t see more than two feet past her nose. As soon as she got back to Uncle Crispin’s soulless Mayfair house, she had every intention of penning a sternly worded letter to Sister Ursuline telling her the next time she had the urge to suggest Fliss have a little adventure, she could mind her own business.

Typically, within a few minutes of squeezing past the silk-clad throng she was hopelessly lost and it didn’t feel polite to ask such personal directions of complete strangers. Aunt Daphne had said the ladies’ retiring room was in a corner and Almack’s was reassuringly rectangular. If she kept resolutely to the edge, she would doubtless find the dratted room eventually, even if that involved going around a few times. Retracing her steps to the refreshment table might be more problematic, but at least left to her own devices she was spared a few minutes of pointless parading, smiling and gliding like a wispy, blind swan. A slow smile bloomed on her face at the prospect. Suddenly, being lost held a great deal of appeal.