MONDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 1811
Kat Boleyn awoke in the grip of a fear that crushed her chest and left her gasping for breath. It was a dream, she told herself; this time it was only a dream.
A thin thread of light showed around the heavy drapes at the windows, hinting at the dawn to come. Turning her head, she found Sebastian asleep beside her. A smile touched her lips. He had stayed. He didn’t often stay.
Her smile faded as the vague feeling of unease left by the dream resurged. In her dream she had been walking down a darkened alley. She couldn’t see anyone, but she knew a man was there behind her. She could hear his footsteps, see his shadow. She’d had the same dream every night for a week, and she knew why.
Someone was following her.
She had never seen him, but she sensed him often. At the theater. On Bond Street. In the stillness of the evening when she went to close the curtains at the windows, he was there. Watching. Waiting. Why?
It was always possible he was simply an admirer. An admirer who lurked in shadows and watched in silence would frighten any actress. But a woman who had spent years spying for the French and passing secrets to Napoleon’s agents knew fears that went beyond those of an ordinary actress.
She called herself Kat Boleyn, but she’d been born with a different name, to a woman who’d once been the toast of London, a woman who had taken wealthy, titled men into her bed, then left it all to return to her native Ireland. It was in Ireland that Kat’s memories began, in a whitewashed house on the edge of a green in Dublin—a snug little house filled with laughter and so much love. And it was in Ireland that those halcyon memories had ended in a night of terror, when a troop of English soldiers pulled Kat and her mother screaming from their beds.
They’d made Kat and her stepfather watch what they did to Kat’s mother. Kat had tried to shut her eyes, but they’d told her if she didn’t watch, they’d do it to her, too. And so Kat had opened her eyes. When they were done using her mother like a dog, they’d hanged Kat’s mother and stepfather both, and left their bodies twisting slowly in the smoke-filled dawn at the edge of the green.
Everything Kat had done for France she’d done in their memory, to hurt the English so that Ireland might one day be free. She would never regret what she had done, although she had cut her ties to the French months ago, when Devlin came back into her life. Her dedication to Ireland remained, but she could not in all conscience accept Devlin’s love while working to aid those against whom he had fought.
Yet Kat knew well that her activities in the past had left her vulnerable. She was vulnerable both to those to whom she had once provided information, and to their enemies—her enemies, the English.
The man who now slept beside her knew nothing of the deeds she had committed in the past. He himself had spent years in the Army, fighting the very country she’d sought to aid. There had been times this past week when she’d been tempted to tell him of the man who watched her from the shadows. But she understood the concept of unforeseen consequences, and she feared Devlin learning the truth about her past even more than she feared the shadowy man who followed her.
She realized that at some point Sebastian had awakened. He lay watching her, his eyes gleaming faintly in the growing light. He had the strangest eyes, the amber color of a wolf’s eyes, with a wolf’s ability to see in the dark. His other senses were acute, as well—so acute that he sometimes disconcerted her.
“Did I wake you?” she said. “I’m sorry.”
A smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “I’m not.”
He reached for her, his fingers tangling in the heavy fall of hair at the nape of her neck as he drew her to him. She brushed her lips against his, felt his hands drift down her bare back. There was peace in his touch, joy in his kiss. She gave herself to him, and let the peace and the joy of his love wash over her and through her.
But the fear remained, a cold and heavy presence like the man who watched unseen in the night.
At just past seven o’clock that morning, Sebastian turned his black Arab mare through the gate into Hyde Park. The morning was clear and cool, the park largely deserted at this hour except for a single rider hacking his gray up and down the Row.
It was the Earl of Hendon’s habit each morning he was in London to begin the day with a ride in Hyde Park. As Sebastian watched, the gelding missed its stride, and a gentle breeze brought him the sound of his father’s words of admonishment mingling with the familiar drumming of hoofbeats.
It had been Hendon himself who taught Sebastian and his brothers to ride. Even in those days, Hendon was always busy with affairs of state. But the task of teaching his sons to ride was one he would delegate to no mere groom. The Earl had been a relentless taskmaster, his expectations high, his comments at times brutal. But his pride in his sons’ accomplishments had been there, too, in the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, in the rare words of praise for a movement well executed.
Remembering those days now with a smile, Sebastian brought the Arab in beside his father’s gray. They posted side by side for a moment in silence. Then the Earl threw Sebastian a quick glance from beneath lowered brows. “You’re obviously here for a reason, and it must be damnably important to drag you out of bed at this hour. What is it? Lost your aunt’s fortune on the ’Change, have you?”
Sebastian laughed. It was a never-ending source of chagrin to Hendon that his son and heir had inherited a small country estate and comfortable independence from a great-aunt. An heir with an independent income was difficult to control, and control was important to the Earl of Hendon. “Actually, I wanted to ask your opinion of Sir Humphrey Carmichael.”
“Carmichael?” Hendon let his breath out between his teeth in a sound of disgust. “Damned upstart. His father was a weaver. Did you know that? A bloody weaver.”
“So I’d heard. Owns a number of mills someplace up north, does he not?”
“Yorkshire. That’s where he got his start. Now the man has interests in everything from coal mines to shipping and banking.”
Sebastian studied his father’s dark face. Hendon possessed all the arrogance and prejudices of his class, but his harshest condemnations were saved for those in political opposition to the ruling Tories. Sebastian smiled. “Carmichael’s a Whig, is he?”
“Ostensibly, no. He claims to support the Tories. But in practice the man is a bloody radical. He builds houses for his workers. Imagine that! Hires surgeons to tend their ills. Even feeds them a midday meal. And he won’t let a child under twelve work more than ten hours a day in his mills or his mines.”
“What is the nation coming to?” Hendon cast him a dark look, but Sebastian kept his gaze fixed ahead. “Does Carmichael have any association with Alfred, Lord Stanton?”
“Stanton’s a banker. He has associations with every man of wealth or standing in the City.” There was a pause; then Hendon said, “It’s because of what they’re saying happened to Stanton’s son, isn’t it? That’s why you’re asking. Because Barclay Carmichael died the same way.”
“Yes.”
Hendon frowned, but said nothing.
“What of Stanton’s politics?” Sebastian asked. “Is he a Tory?”
“Good God. Of course. The Stantons go back to the Conqueror.”
Sebastian laughed. “The implication being, I suppose, that such a proud lineage naturally confers upon its descendants protection against all radical philosophies?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Again they rode in silence, Hendon working his jaw back and forth in that way he had when he was annoyed or thoughtful. After a time, he said, “It’s a ghastly thing, what was done to those two young men. What sort of vile beast would perpetrate such a barbarity upon men of wealth and breeding?”
Sebastian stared off across the park to where the calm waters of the Serpentine reflected the clearing blue sky. Their wealth was the most obvious link between the two murdered men, a link that suggested their killer might
