Penshaw gestured at the platters on the table, and Samuel began to help himself.

  “I have never known you to respect a man’s plate,” his friend observed.

  “Neither have you,” Samuel pointed out. “I remember that time in Carlisle. Besides, we have only known each other—what, three years?”

  “It feels like a lifetime,” quipped the older man.

  Samuel grinned as he piled two fried eggs, four tomatoes, more mushrooms than he could count, and more bacon than was surely good for him onto a plate.

  That was the pleasant thing about Penshaw. They both served the Crown and, at times, had both risked their lives in the process. The man understood him; at least, understood him as well as anyone could presume to.

  Even with Penshaw, though, Samuel was careful to act a little more foolish, a little more dumb than he actually was. It would never do for people to know precisely how sharp he was—even a friend.

  “You look rather worse for wear, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Samuel said cheerfully as he pulled a knife and fork toward him. “I say, I’m not eating your wife’s breakfast, am I?”

  “You are not, and I am not worse for wear,” said Penshaw dryly. “Much.”

  Samuel grinned. “You’re getting extremely old.”

  “I’m extremely married,” returned Penshaw with a laugh. “The wife kept me up last night—and don’t give me that look, Chantmarle, that was not what I meant!”

  It was difficult not to grin. Partly because the gormless smile was something of an instinct now, but also partly because that was precisely what Samuel had thought.

  Wives. He had been surprised when Penshaw had returned from some sort of secret mission with not only the reprobate he had been sent to find, but a wife as well. The whole ton had been—and the fact that the new Duchess of Penshaw was untitled with no dowry . . .

  Well. Samuel had been surprised, even if he had grown to admire and like her.

  “Where is she, anyway?” Samuel asked, swallowing his mouthful of bacon and egg. “Too refined to break her fast with her husband?”

  For some strange reason, his friend wouldn’t meet his eye. “She is feeling . . . unwell this morning.”

  Now why was that statement in any way suspect? Samuel could not understand it, but he could see the discomfort in his friend’s eye.

  Well, it would have to remain a secret. There was only one mystery he wanted to uncover today, and that was not it.

  “Tell me,” said Samuel, in as debonair an air as he could manage. “I’m interested in knowing more about—look, there was a woman at the Assembly Rooms last night—”

  Penshaw groaned. “You’re meant to be here on the Crown’s business, Chantmarle, not seducing—”

  “I did no such thing!” Samuel protested.

  Though not for lack of trying, he thought privately. Honestly, how had that woman managed to examine him with such disdain? Why had Miss Finch taken against him so?

  Usually the mere mention of a title—any title—and it was easy to get under a woman’s skirt. Not that Samuel did so often. It was often easier to keep his façade of being a fool if he was also terrible with the ladies.

  But he had never met such resistance as with Miss Finch. Never been faced with a woman so unimpressed by him. Never wished to reveal himself, his true self, so greatly. Never been so eager to impress.

  Penshaw was examining him with a knowing look. “Well. Describe her to me, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Samuel was tempted to pretend the whole thing had been a jest, but he relented against his better nature. Just a few questions. Just information—how dangerous could that be?

  “Her name is Miss Lucy Finch,” he said quietly, playing with his fork now his plate was almost empty. “She was . . . well, remarkably aloof, to tell the truth.”

  His friend snorted. “You mean she was not willing to be seduced in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms?”

  Samuel forced down his retort that no man should be jesting about Miss Finch.

  It was odd, this possessiveness, this determination to protect her. He could not tell five facts about the woman, knew almost nothing about her . . . yet she drew something from him he had never experienced before.

  It was maddening.

  “Miss Finch . . . I have not heard the name, though I am sure there are sufficiently numerous ladies in Edinburgh’s ton that I have not encountered them all,” Penshaw was saying.

  Samuel grinned. “That’s because you never accept any invitations anymore. Being married has—”

  “Being married has been the greatest joy of my life, I tell you,” Penshaw said, trotting out the same line most men entrapped in matrimony repeated. “You should try it some time. I hear that’s the gossip around why you’re here.”

  His friend affixed him with a knowing look.

  Samuel shrugged. No more needed to be said. Penshaw had served the Crown, he knew the lies which sometimes had to be told to keep the scandalmongers away.

  “One day you will get married,” Penshaw said quietly, an irritatingly knowing look on his face. “And more than that, you’ll like it.”

  Samuel rolled his eyes. “Perhaps I will. Perhaps I’ll find a woman I don’t mind being tied down to, an anvil around my neck, when I’m no longer able to serve my country.”

  “You can serve your country still, if you find the right woman,” Penshaw countered.

  Now that was curious. Samuel had met the duchess a few times, and she had appeared perfectly pleasant—but not the sort who would permit her husband to put himself in danger. Perhaps there was more to this duchess than met the eye.

  And where was she, anyway? A little sickness in the morning, what did that—

  “Oh, dear God, you’re going to be a father,” Samuel breathed.

  Penshaw did not confirm his conjecture, not in words, but he did not need to. The flush that scalded his cheeks and his immediate bluster was enough.

  “We haven’t—that is, it’s not certain that—we lost a child early so we didn’t want to announce—”

  Samuel’s heart sank.

  Poor sod, losing a child. He couldn’t think of anything worse. And now, that was that. His friend was truly lost to him. If husbandhood hadn’t completely stolen him, fatherhood would.

  “I must be going,” Samuel said quickly, rising to his feet.

  Penshaw looked wretched as he mirrored him. “I was going to tell you, old chap, it’s just—well, she didn’t want anyone to know until—”

  “It’s quite all right,” said Samuel, hardly knowing what he was saying. “I’ll see myself out.”

  The bracing Edinburgh air was a shock to his lungs as the Penshaws’s butler closed the door behind him. Still, despite the sharpness in his lungs, Samuel breathed in deeply.

  Well. There was going to be an heir to the Penshaw line. Or a daughter, he supposed—a prospect for alliances. He should be happy—he knew he should be delighted for his friend, glad the man’s life was evolving and growing.

  But he couldn’t push out of his mind the certain knowledge that all the adventure, danger, laughter would be gone from Penshaw’s life. That part of his time was over. Now it would be . . . oh, Samuel didn’t know, as he started to walk down the Royal Mile once more. Baby names, and governesses, and—

  “Have a care, sir!”

  Samuel started. So lost had he been in his thoughts, he had accidently walked into someone!

  A lady someone. A woman with dark hazel eyes and a mortified expression.

  “You,” breathed Miss Finch.

  Something astonishing stirred in Samuel’s stomach. What were the chances—it was a miracle! In the whole of Edinburgh, who had he bumped into but Miss Lucy Finch?

  Her cheeks darkened. “Good day.”

  She had bobbed a curtsey before Samuel could collect himself, and he had to race after her down the street.

  “Wait—Miss Finch!”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” she said firmly.

  Samuel’s heart was thrumming, his lungs tight, every breath a challenge. His curiosity unsated, he had to know—had to know everything. Anything.

  “How long will you be in Edinburgh?” he asked, keeping pace with Miss Finch’s long strides easily.

  The question was brushed aside as though it was nothing. She did not even look at him. “I said good day.”

  “And I said how long will you be in Edinburgh?” Samuel persisted. “You are not a Scot, I can tell by your acc—”

  “Do you always ask ladies impertinent questions?” shot back Miss Finch.

  Samuel almost stumbled as she swiftly turned a corner, pushing past a gentleman on the pavement and ignoring his shouts of irritation. “Only when those ladies don’t answer any of them. I always get the information I need.”

  “Well then, prepare to be disappointed,” said Miss Finch, her cheeks pinking. Falling back into trite sentences, then? Hadn’t she said that the last time he—“For I have no intention of—”

  “Are you being courted by anyone, Miss Finch?” Samuel asked, much to his surprise.

  That caught her attention. Miss Finch halted, her cheeks now a blazing red, and she glared with unconcealed anger. “Why would you ask—who do you think you are?”

  “I am the Duke of Chantmarle,” said Samuel, stepping to her, closing the gap between them. “And I want to know you, Miss Finch. I want to know . . . everything.”

  What possessed him to say it, he had no idea. He was intoxicated by her, entirely lost to the tantalizing Miss Finch who appeared truly shocked at his words.

  As well she might. What he was saying was ludicrous, disgraceful . . . and precisely what was on his heart.

  His mind, Samuel corrected hastily. This woman was merely a puzzle, that was all. He wished to understand her. That was no surprise—he was a curious soul. It was what made him so advantageous to the Crown.

  The Crown. He really should be hunting down those two men he had seen . . .

  Seen talking with Miss Finch.

  “Who were the two men you were speaking to last night?” Samuel said softly, not shifting his gaze. “At the Assembly Rooms?”

  He was not mistaken. There was a definite look of guilt on Miss Finch’s face.

  “No one.”

  “No one is no one,” Samuel said, irritation prickling around his heart. “Who—”

  “I am no one, and you should leave me alone,” Miss Finch said, her voice breaking as she turned away. “Before it’s too late.”

  Samuel watched her go, unable to collect his senses swiftly enough to follow her. This woman! She was absolutely the most irritating, confusing, and strange woman he had ever met.

  The smart thing, he knew, would be to focus on his mission. On discovering whether the two men she had been speaking with were anything to do with the traitors sharing secrets with the French.

  So why did he have the distinct need to find Miss Lucy Finch again, and seduce her into spilling all her secrets?

  Chapter Four

  13 April 1811

  Lulu looked at the coins spread out across the table, and wondered whether counting them for a third time would make any difference.

  It wouldn’t. She knew that. It was foolish of her to even consider—

  Breathing out slowly, Lulu scraped the coins off the table and into her sweaty palms and started counting them onto the table again.

  “One penny, a penny and a half, fourpence . . .”

  Her stomach tied itself into an even tighter knot as soft spring light shone through the partially open window. The sounds of the street below rose, packed full of horses’ hooves and the shouts of men arguing over a trifle.

  She might have smiled if the situation weren’t so dire.

  “ . . . one pound and six shillings,” Lulu finished, looking at the pile of silver and coppers on the table.

  Table. It wasn’t exactly a table. The lodgings she had taken two years ago had become more and more sparse as her financial woes had increased, which was saying something. She had only taken the two rooms. She now had nothing more than a bed in the bedchamber along with a single candlestick and a trunk for her clothes. In the other room there was a fire, a pot for cooking and a teapot, a chair, and what had once been a crate. Lulu had begged it from a sailor who smiled at her on the Thames docks, and it made a perfectly serviceable table.

  Even if it had smelled of fish for the first few months.

  Lulu bit her lip as she leaned back in the old wing backed armchair she had salvaged from a hotel which had been about to chop it for firewood. The springs creaked ominously, but it remained intact.

  “One pound and six shillings,” she repeated, her words the only sound in the room. “But is it enough?”

  Enough. At times, she wondered whether money could ever be enough. If there would ever be an amount of money that would satisfy Mr. Gregory and Mr. Gillingham. It was as though her debt, once small, was now completely insurmountable.

  And true, they had not given a particular price for her freedom. Perhaps freedom was the wrong word, but she could think of no other.

  “Freedom,” Lulu whispered, rolling the word around her mouth. It felt as though that was the closest she was going to get to it. “Freedom.”

  Freedom from fear. From terror. From looking around each corner and wondering whether there would be someone behind it who would hurt her. Freedom from worrying that at any moment the truth could be released, scattered to the winds, ruining reputations.

  Lulu shook her head as though that could dislodge the fear. But how could it? She had lived in fear so long, she was starting to wonder if she would ever learn to live without it.

  One pound and six shillings.

  It was a vast sum of money, but even without finding old Gillingham and Gregory, wherever they were hiding at the moment, Lulu was certain it would not be enough. She would have to find more.

  The window rattled as a harsh wind suddenly blew. Lulu rose from her seat and stepped over to the small diamond-paned window, the source of the only natural light that flowed into what she sometimes called her “drawing room.” Her only room, other than the bedchamber.

  The whole world appeared at her feet. Well, that was, down below on the street. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor. Lulu amused herself for a few minutes by trying to imagine where all the people beneath her were going. What their worries were. What their joys could be. It sufficed to distract her from her own situation for about five minutes, before the heavy, leaden weight of the burden she carried crushed her heart again.

  “You may,” Lulu whispered to herself, “have to consider another route to riches.”

  Her heart rebelled at the implied notion, even unspoken. Stomach still churning, she tried desperately to convince herself that a few weeks working as a—would not be the end of the world.

  Probably.

  It was the last thing she wished, but she could no longer live with this hanging over her. This blackmail, it was going to be the death of her!

  And the realization that unless she did something drastic, she would die under these circumstances, appeared to be the instigation Lulu needed. As though acting on the orders of another she closed the window, drew the curtains—well, curtain—and hunted for her thickest, warmest shawl. Who knew what time that evening she would be back?

  The wind felt even brisker on the landing. Lulu had rushed down the stairs of the building where her rooms were lodged as swiftly as she could manage, before she had time to change her mind.

  Every time she felt desperate, she promised herself she would never do it. The nauseous feeling of regret which always settled in her heart wasn’t worth it.

  She was not a bad person, Lulu told herself firmly as she started to walk along the busy pavement. She was not a bad person—she was just—

  “My God—Miss Finch!”

  Lulu suddenly halted. There, blocking her path on the pavement, staring with wide eyes was—

  She groaned. “Your Grace.”

  “I cannot believe it!” grinned His Grace, the Duke of Chantmarle. “Just think, only yesterday you—”

  “—attempted to get away from you,” Lulu snapped. “Unsuccessfully.”

  This could not be happening. The whole of Edinburgh, and she had to be the woman who suffered this idiot’s presence three days in a row!

  Lulu glared at the man who was still talking happily, seemingly unaware she was not listening. What was wrong with him? Why did every gentleman assume their words were the only ones worth hearing?

  Of course, he wasn’t just a gentleman. He was a duke.

  Lulu’s heart skipped a beat.

  Ridiculous, she told herself sternly. A duke, indeed. He was just a man! An impressive title was only impressive if you allowed yourself to be impressed.

  And this Duke of Chantmarle, or whatever he called himself, was hardly impressive. There was a stupidity about him, in truth—

  “Who were the two men you were speaking to last night? At the Assembly Rooms?”

  “No one.”

  “No one is no one.”

  Lulu’s stomach lurched. But he wasn’t completely foolish, was he? There’d been a moment, the day they had first met at the Assembly Rooms. A moment when he had seemed almost clever. A sharpness in his eye she had not expected.

  “You’re staring at me, Miss Finch.”

  Lulu started. There was a knowing smile on the man’s face that she dearly wished to remove. If she had been a man, she would have undoubtedly done it with her fist. As it was . . .

  “I am,” she said boldly, ignoring all instincts to walk away from this imprudent man. “And there is no crime in that.”

  “None indeed,” quipped the duke swiftly. “In fact, I take it as a compliment. You strike me as a woman who does not suffer fools and spends even less time with them.”

  Lulu opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it again as heat blossomed.

  See, that was where the man was so infuriating! An unintelligent man would not have been able to reply so swiftly, so cleverly. So was he witty? Or was he merely lucky?

  “Here, take a good look,” said the duke, spreading out his arms and getting in the way of everyone walking around them. “Ensure that you examine me fully, Miss Finch. I would rather have an accurate opinion from you than a good one.”