Chapter One
Bluefield Park
Outside London
Two weeks earlier
T he Duchess of Sedwick stretched luxuriously, but didn’t open her eyes. She was content to melt into the warmth of her husband’s embrace and the comfort of her own bed, to listen to the first stirrings of the birds beyond her window and the sounds of the household coming awake past her door.
Home at last. Kara loved their new estate in Scotland. She had relished every minute of their travels as she and Niall had enjoyed a delayed bridal trip through his favorite parts of Europe—but Bluefield Park was home . Her heart had swelled yesterday as they returned to the estate where she’d grown up, and it had filled near to bursting at the welcome of their cobbled-together family.
Moving carefully, she turned to gaze upon her husband’s sleeping face. He blinked awake and gave her a sleepy grin—and she knew that happy as she was to be at Bluefield, her true home would always be with him, wherever that might be.
Niall pulled her close and kissed her softly before he began to roll away. She reached out to stop him. “No,” she protested softly. “I’m not finished.”
Grinning, he pulled her close. “Finished with what?”
She framed his face with her hands. “Telling myself how lucky I am.”
She felt the truth of it, deep down. Niall’s life had been hard, and his heart had been battered, but he’d been strong and resilient enough to allow her to breach the walls he’d erected to protect himself. He’d also been solid and confident enough to not only accept, but to encourage her unique interests and unconventional ways.
Nearly two years had passed since they had first met, and gracious, how they both had changed. She’d been avoiding Society and refusing to conform to the commonly held ideal of feminine fragility. She had buried all of her loneliness and sorrow in keeping her father’s businesses running smoothly, and unleashed her creativity into building her automatons.
Niall had been closed and cut off from nearly everyone except for his assistant Gyda and his mentor, the Viscount Lord Stayme. He’d kept his secrets and devoted his energy into furthering his career as a forge artist.
Then had come the Great Exhibition, where they had met as exhibitors and joined together to solve a murder and started down a twisted and sometimes dangerous path that had led them here—married, newly minted as duke and duchess, with secrets revealed and a chance at a quieter, more settled existence.
It was what they both wanted, and she suspected all of their friends and family held the same desire.
“We’ll be lucky if Harold doesn’t barge in here at any second,” Niall said with a grin.
“He seems perfectly well, doesn’t he?” Even all of these months later, she still felt a jolt of anxiety when she thought how close they’d come to losing her ward. They had delayed their travels until Harold was pronounced completely recovered, but it had still taken Niall some serious efforts of persuasion to convince her to leave him for weeks on end.
“He is indeed perfectly well, and he put the time we were gone to good use. Turner says his studies have progressed well and it’s clear he’s spent time with Gyda in the forge. The boy has completely mastered the scrolling jig.”
Kara nodded. She had kept her composure last evening when they arrived and tried not to hang on to Harold for too long, but even now she teared up, remembering the joy and relief that had washed over her once she had him in her arms again.
“You did very well, my darling,” Niall whispered. “And I promise not to tell how much you worried while we were gone. But I also promised to take the boy along to my consultation with Mr. Blundel. If I don’t get moving, Harold will be in here looking for me. He knows we need to get the early train.”
“Oh, very well.” Kara kissed him and let him go. She watched his muscled form as he rolled out of bed. “Harold will likely pester the man with a hundred questions about his famed wetlands.”
“That’s one reason I’m happy to take him along. The more Blundel talks about his passion, the more inspiration I’ll have for his piece.”
“I never knew a naturalist who needed encouragement to talk about his area of research,” she said dryly.
Chuckling, Niall pulled on a robe.
“Has Mr. Blundel decided on a set of gates?” she asked.
“Gates and two matching screens to cover the large windows in his laboratory,” he answered with satisfaction. After coming back for one last kiss, he went through to his own room. Kara heard the murmured greeting given by Crewe, his new valet, but she turned over and snuggled into the comfort of the bed once more. She was just beginning to doze again when the door to the passageway burst open.
“Rise and shine, slug-a-bed!” Gyda Winther breezed in. “Your lazy days of travel and leisure are over. It’s back to work and daily routines now, my friend.” Grinning, she shut the door leading to Niall’s room, then ran to jump into the bed.
Kara laughed as her friend sprawled beside her. “Go easy,” she begged. “We haven’t even been home a full day.”
“And yet duty lurks outside that door, waiting to pounce,” Gyda told her. “Turner is hanging about. No doubt he has a list a mile long for you to go over.”
“I’m sure he does.” Kara sighed. “And you are right. I should get out of bed and get to it. The Mosemans are coming for luncheon, and Bernard will definitely have yet another list of business matters for me to see to.” She grinned at her friend. “But first, I shall give them their presents. I swear, that was my favorite part of our trip, choosing the right gifts to bring back.”
Gyda raised a brow. “Really, Kara? The gifts? Your favorite part? Of your bridal trip?”
Kara laughed. “Second favorite, I suppose.”
“Well, whatever you got them, they absolutely will not enjoy them more than the gift you brought me.” Gyda reached out to squeeze her hand. “I cannot tell you how much I love the traditional jewelry.”
“I know Harriet will adore the scent we brought her. We found the most wonderful perfumery outside Paris.” Kara squeezed Gyda’s hand in return. “But I am so relieved that you approve of the jewelry. I did hesitate, because I know they are meant to fasten to a traditional Nordic overmantel, but when I saw the carved tortoiseshell brooches connected by the amber and glass beads—and in that lovely dusky blue that you love—I just could not resist them. I knew they were meant for you.”
“I think they must have been,” Gyda said seriously. “I lay in the bath last night, imagining the long journey they must have taken to come to me.” Her tone quieted. “I am thinking of having a complete traditional outfit made. There is someone I want to show them to, and I think I want to manufacture the full effect.”
Kara had been about to roll out of bed, but now she paused. “Someone you want to show them to? I know that tone of yours, Gyda.” She fluffed her pillow, leaned back, and raised a brow. “Talk.”
Gyda bit her lip. “Kara.” It came out in almost a whisper. “I think I have met someone. Someone…important.”
Kara drew a delighted breath. “Oh! Do tell!”
“His name is Charles Osbourne.”
She couldn’t stop her eyes widening in surprise. “But…”
“I know!” Gyda put a hand on her brow. “But he’s as beautiful as anyone I’ve ever been attracted to!”
“Charles Osbourne? Gyda, do you mean Lord Charles Osbourne? From the Duke of Stratton’s brood?”
“His fourth son,” Gyda said with an air of confession.
“Oh, good heavens,” Kara breathed.
“I know! The whole thing is ridiculous! Except it absolutely is not. He is not your typical lordling.”
“I do seem to recall your saying that the nobility is largely a waste of flesh,” Kara said wryly.
“I didn’t mean you. You know that. Nor do I mean Charles. He’s not like so many of the rest of them. His mind, Kara! He’s incredibly knowledgeable, but even better, he is curious.”
“Curious? About what, exactly?” Several worrying possibilities occurred to her.
“About everything. It’s entirely delightful, how much he knows and yet how much he still wishes to learn. He’s especially interested in craftmanship and creation.”
Kara relaxed. “Well, then. He must find you fascinating, my dear. Your artistry is undeniable.”
Gyda flushed with pleasure. “That means something coming from you.” She made a face. “I’m just…bowled over by him, Kara. I cannot stop watching him, listening to him talk. He has such passion and initiative.”
“As do you,” Kara reminded her.
“We do have that in common. His enthusiasm fascinates me, but it’s more than that, as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this way about anyone.”
Kara took her friend’s other hand and squeezed them both. “I’m so very happy for you.”
Gyda pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you. I couldn’t wait to tell you.” Pulling back, she grinned. “And thank you for not immediately voicing your reservations. I know you have them. I do as well. There are a good many reasons why a relationship will never work between us. I list them to myself daily. And yet…I cannot help but hope for one more day, every day.”
“Oh, Gyda. That is truly all any of us can hope for. One day at a time.”
“No. You and Niall have promised each other a lifetime. I want that. Someday.”
“You know you will have all of my support. And Niall’s. All we wish is for you to be happy.”
“I do know it. And I’m happy.” Gyda let go and threw herself back against the pillows once more. “ So happy. And afraid.”
“I know just what you mean, my dear. But my advice is to let the fear go. It doesn’t help keep you safe, in any case.”
“I’ll do my best.” Gyda bit back a laugh as a creak sounded in the passage outside. “Is that Turner? I think he’s growing impatient. I will let you start your day. But Kara? I am very glad you are back.”
“Thank you, my dear.” Kara smiled. “So am I.”
*
It was a productive meeting. Mr. Blundel approved of Niall’s preliminary plans. His enthusiasm as he made suggestions for additions and changes sparked Harold’s curiosity, and the boy’s questions spurred the naturalist on to even more valuable descriptions. In the end, the meeting went on twice as long as Niall had expected, but was more than twice as useful. Everyone was content as they parted ways.
Niall checked his pocket watch. “What do you say to heading over to Stayme’s?” he asked Harold. “He’ll likely be heading out to Bluefield today. We can ride with him.”
Harold paused long enough in the recitation of marsh animals he now knew he must see to agree.
Niall hailed a hack, and they set off for Mayfair. He made a few notes as the boy waxed enthusiastic about the prospect of a visit to Mr. Blundel’s fens, but after a while, Harold grew silent.
Niall looked up to see the boy pressed up against the window. “Is something amiss?”
“No.” Harold sighed.
Niall waited.
“It’s just… Sometimes it feels odd.”
“What does?”
“Riding inside a hack instead of hitching on to the back and dropping off before you’re found out.”
“Ah.”
“Sometimes when I see the street rats, it makes me wonder about my old crew.”
Niall put aside his pencil. “Do you not see them now and again? I would have thought you would run into them in Covent Garden when you help out Maisie with deliveries.” The boy still enjoyed helping out at the pie shop where he lived when they had coaxed him off the streets.
“Not so much anymore.”
Niall wondered if a fair few of Harold’s old crew might not have survived the harsh conditions of London’s streets. He kept the thought to himself and gazed quietly out the window for a long moment. They had reached the first of the cleaner, quieter streets of Mayfair before Harold spoke again.
“Niall?”
“Yes?”
“I truly am recovered. Dr. Balgate said so.”
“I know. And I think you know how relieved and happy we are.” Niall himself was still furious, as the poison that had endangered the boy had been meant for him. But justice had been served, and he had to let his anger go. Or so Kara kept telling him.
“Before I got ill, I asked Kara if I could take lessons.” Harold paused. “The sort of lessons she had when she was younger.”
“Oh.” It was no small request. Kara’s lessons had been extensive and varied—not to mention unusual and, in part, illegal.
“She agreed,” Harold reassured him. “But that was then. I’m worried she might not still feel the same.”
Niall held his breath a moment. He let his gaze wander over Harold’s anxious expression. The lad was growing up. He’d noticed Kara’s worry, and instead of resenting it, he was being careful of her feelings.
Pride swelled Niall’s chest.
“It is very good of you to take her feelings into consideration. Not to mention, it is very mature of you. Well done, Harold.” Niall paused. “I think, if you were to ask again, that Kara would first say that she doesn’t wish for you to worry about your safety, or hers, or mine. I would agree that we want you to know that it is our responsibility to protect you, not the other way around.” He held up a hand as the boy’s expression grew stubborn. “However, I think we both can understand the wish to learn, to prepare, to ready yourself for all of the sorts of obstacles life might throw at you.” He nodded. “If you ask again, I am sure she will agree.” He gave a half-smile as Harold sighed in relief. “But if I were you, I would come up with a list of the lessons you would like, and prioritize them, with reasoning included. You know she respects a measured argument.”
The boy laughed. “I will.” His attention was drawn to the window again as they turned into the wide lanes of Berkeley Square. “We’re here!”
Niall paid the driver while Harold ran ahead to the viscount’s door. It opened just as Niall caught up to the boy, but not before he noticed Harold’s attention fixed on Stayme’s slightly naughty door knocker.
The lad truly was growing up.
Watts, the viscount’s butler, welcomed them.
“Is he in his study?” asked Niall, familiar with his aging mentor’s compulsive habits.
“No, Your Grace.” Watts was entirely too staid to roll his eyes, but his tone got his point across. “Lord Stayme is in the blue bedroom at the moment.”
“Do you have houseguests?” Niall knew the blue room was meant for guests—not that the viscount ever entertained any.
“No, sir. He’s had the telescope moved in there.”
“Is he harassing the gardeners again?”
“Not that I am aware of.” Now the butler’s tone intimated that the old man’s antics were worse. Worse than Stayme’s unfounded conviction that he knew more about gardening than the men hired to care for Berkeley Square’s central garden?
“I’ll go up.”
“If I may suggest it, Master Harold might wish to go down to the kitchens,” Watts said. “Cook has just made a batch of treacle scones. They are likely still warm.”
Harold shot a questioning glance his way, and Niall nodded. The boy headed for the green baize door that led to the servants’ stairs as Niall exchanged a glance with the butler and headed upstairs.
“Something is afoot,” Stayme announced when Niall entered the guest room. The old man sat at a table at the window. His prized telescope sat upon it, aimed out the window at the front of the house. The viscount was scribbling busily in a journal.
“What’s afoot?”
“Someone is watching the house.”
“Someone is always watching the house. What are you mixed up in now?” The viscount was one of the foremost dealers in that most valuable resource in games of power—information.
“That’s just it. Everything is relatively dull right now. The Whigs and the Peelites are settling into their coalition government. Palmerston, turned home secretary, has shifted his focus inward, though he cannot keep from commenting loudly on foreign affairs. That leaves things mostly quiet at the moment. And yet I have a watcher. An intriguing specimen, too.”
“Intriguing?”
“Yes. It was a man stationed in the garden at first. He looked like any aging clerk, sitting with his newspaper, but he sat out there a little too often, for a little too long. I made a detour around the square one morning, to be sure to get a good look at him, but then I shrugged it off. As you say, there are those out there who like to keep track of me.”
Niall grinned.
“But after I did that, I noticed the clerk didn’t come back. However, a gentlewoman did. She made a show of wandering the garden and reading her novel, and she made sure not to sit in the same spot, but she couldn’t fool me. I went out to harangue the gardeners and set them to trimming the trees before the spring thaw, so that I might get a good look at her.” The viscount raised a brow. “And guess what I noticed?”
“I couldn’t possibly.” Niall went to the room’s other window and peered out, but he saw no one lurking in the garden.
“The aging clerk and the gentlewoman were the same person,” Stayme said grimly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps they were related. Siblings?”
“I considered it, but no. I began to truly watch the watcher, and I’m convinced—they are the same person, and that person is female. I gave no indication of anything amiss, but I called in one of my own best people and set him on her.”
“And what did he find?”
“Well, it took a full morning for her to notice him.”
“Your man must be good.”
“He is.”
“Who do you think sent her?”
“I hadn’t the faintest notion. Until…”
“Until?”
“When she noticed my man, things got strange.”
“Strange?”
“She acknowledged him. Walked right up, winked at him, then set off.”
“He followed, I presume?”
“He did, and he said it was damned hard to keep her in his sights, despite her skirts. She knows a trick or two. He managed to keep up with her—until she disappeared into one of the rookeries.”
Niall stilled.
“Yes.” Stayme looked grim. “He lost her near Seven Dials.”
Niall closed his eyes. “Surely it is not her, Stayme. We heard she was last spotted in Austria, right before we set out on our bridal trip.”
Petra Scot had been the woman who made public Niall’s family secrets—that his mother had been the illegitimate daughter of King George IV and his illegal wife, Maria Fitzherbert. She had meant to use his story to stir up religious unrest and anger against a corrupt government and a ruthless royal family. She’d wanted his story to be the tinder to start a fire of rebellion and rioting. She’d said she’d wanted leverage to influence change in England’s foreign policy—and had even convinced several unsavory factions of a few foreign governments to back her plans.
Niall knew the truth, however. Petra had merely wanted money, and a bit of revenge against the royal family and all of those who had mistreated her own mother—the disgraced Queen Caroline. When Niall and Kara foiled her plans, she’d added them both to the long list of those she meant to seek vengeance upon.
“I never saw the Scot woman, myself,” Stayme said bitterly. “Only her lackeys.” He’d been abducted and held captive in an attempt to force Niall’s cooperation. “But I’ve heard her described. Dark hair and eyes. Slope of a nose. She was the right age, too.”
Niall sighed. “I think it’s far more likely that this woman was sent by one of your enemies, rather than mine. Petra is far too crafty to allow herself to be seen.” He didn’t want to believe Stayme was right. They had all had quite enough danger and intrigue. He just wanted to settle in with Kara and make his art—and perhaps a child or two. Or ten.
“You might be right. But we should both keep our eyes and ears open. And there is something else you should know.”
Niall waited.
“She sent a new watcher after she was found out. Disguised him as one of the gardening apprentices. It might have worked, too, if I was not familiar with all of their staff.” Stayme stood. “But the boy left, faster than a shot, the moment you and Harold climbed out of that hack.”
Niall cursed under his breath.
“Niall? Lord Stayme!” The echo of Harold’s pounding footsteps reached them before the boy himself. He skidded to a stop in the doorway. “Good morning, sir! Are you coming to Bluefield Park today?”
“Of course I am,” the viscount said gruffly. “I would have been there yesterday, had I known just when they meant to arrive.” He shot a dark look at Niall before ruffling the boy’s hair. “Watts likely already has my luggage strapped to the coach.”
“He said so,” Harold confirmed. “Cook made us a basket, too, but she says I’m to just eat the roast chicken. Three scones are enough, she says.”
“Aye, lad. Some meat will put some flesh back on your bones.” Stayme had been nearly as upset as Kara and Niall when the boy had been poisoned.
They trooped downstairs, and Stayme stopped to give his secretary a few last instructions.
Watts sidled up to Niall. “He wasn’t exaggerating?” he asked quietly.
“I’m afraid not.”
Watts absorbed the news. “I’d hoped he was just bored.”
“It might be nothing, but you should alert the staff. Be careful, even when he’s with us.”
“We know what is expected of us, sir.”
“I know you do.”
Stayme’s traveling carriage rolled up outside, and they were soon all bundled inside and on their way. Harold leaned toward the window, looking back for a long moment. He turned to look over his shoulder at Stayme. “Sir? Why do you have a naughty door knocker?”
Niall had never once seen such a look of surprise on the old man’s face. The viscount cleared his throat. “I’ll tell you why, boy. It’s because I was once a young man myself.” He barked out a laugh at Harold’s dubious expression. “It’s true! And I tell you, in my day we were not so prim and prissy as the gentlemen today like to think themselves. We ran wild . We lived hard. I could raise your hair, if I told you some of the tales of our exploits.”
“Tell them!” Harold urged.
“When you are older, I shall,” the viscount vowed. “But for now, I will tell you that when I was a gentleman about Town, getting up to every escapade, I promised myself I would never turn into a cold fish, a pompous prig with no taste for adventure, laughter, or fun. I vowed never to forget to relish the joy to be found in wine, women or a game well played.” He looked Harold directly in the eye. “And by God, I kept that vow. I keep that knocker to remind me of it.” He pointed a finger. “If you learn nothing else from me, boy, let it be this—keep the promises you make yourself. For if you cannot be true to yourself, how can you ever honor the others in your life?”
Niall pursed his lips. Stayme had told him something similar when he was younger. And those words had been on his mind on the day he wedded Kara. He’d pledged himself to her that day. But he’d also made a promise to himself—that he would keep her and their loved ones safe.
As Stayme said, he meant to keep all the vows he’d made that day.