Coming Next
The afternoon Lily and Richard boarded the Boreas, in a low-class neighborhood in Rome, on a street notable only for crumbling window sills, fierce residents, and rotting garbage, Jamie Heyworth, lately Baron Ross, haggled with a rag dealer over the value of his dress uniform.
He got more than the man offered, enough to eat for another week—or enough to keep him in wine. It would have to do.
Here is Tattered Honor, Chapter One.
“Major Bently? Are you in there?”
Bently? Jamie Heyworth covered his ears. Some damned fool wants my Uncle Charles.
Pounding, urgent and loud, echoed through his room.
He ignored the noise. Perhaps it will stop.
It didn’t.
“Major Bently!”
There it was again. Uncle Charles can answer.
His Uncle Charles lay dead the past eight years. Jamie peeked out from under his ragged pillow and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.
Another loud knock made his cot bounce and vibrate. It sent pain like nails into his already aching head.
“Major Bently, kindly open. You promised.”
Promised? He never made promises. He rolled to sit on the edge of his cot with a loud groan, a colorful curse, and a gasp so sharp it filled his lungs with pungent Roman air and jiggled his languid brain cells. Memory flooded back.
That morning he had no money, nothing left to sell, and no reason to get up—except more knocking. Louder.
“Stop the damned pounding,” he mumbled.
“Major, I heard your vulgarity. I know you are in there.”
Jamie’s senses began to clear, and he realized some woman pounded on his door. The vexatious chit from last night, he thought. The woman had invaded the tavern he frequented like the black crow of death and would not leave.
The little blackbird had good credit, he remembered.
He eyed the three empty wine bottles on his table.
He distinctly remembered only having money for one.
He had spent his last coin on that bottle.
She must have funded the other two. There had been food, too, he remembered, and a very fine cheese.
Jamie Heyworth never forgot a good meal.
“Major, please! It is past nine in the morning, and we will be late,” the woman’s voice called.
Late for what? He struggled to recall.
After he plied her with tea and calmed her down, she had fed him some tale about dying brothers, evil nuns, a menacing count, and nieces held prisoner in a tower. Maybe not a tower, he thought. He felt sure he remembered the rest correctly.
“Major Bently!”
Ah! Bently. Using his mother’s maiden name amused him when he gave it to her.
Major Lord James Phineas Heyworth, Fourth Baron—and so on—sounded ludicrous attached to his pathetic self even if he didn’t have good reason to avoid being found.
He preferred not to use it. Bently sounded safer. He hoped it was.
Did I promise anything?
“You promised you would meet me by the fountain in the piazza at 8:30 this morning,” said the voice behind the door.
Her answer stunned him. He could think of no reason why he would promise some chance-met blackbird anything, much less an early morning rendezvous.
“Are you well?” the voice persisted.
No, damn it, I feel like the very devil.
“Yes. I am well. We were to meet at 8:30 in the evening, were we not?” he responded.
No sane person runs about at 8:30 in the morning. He began to wonder if the woman really was mad, one of those hysterical females who reads too many novels.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The nuns wouldn’t let us in the hospital in the evening,” she said.
Nuns again! And more infernal banging. He doubted the door, though thick as a post, could stand against his ravening crow.
“Major, you promised! You said—”
Jamie threw the door open. The woman stumbled against him. Soft curves pressed against his entire length and jarred his sluggish body awake.
I’m not dead yet! The thought improved his mood considerably. He produced his cheekiest grin and made no effort to remove her soft body from his person.
“What did I promise, exactly?” he asked, staring down into a delicately sculpted face, inches from his. He liked the feel of her. She’s hiding her best parts under all that English wool. Doesn’t the foolish woman know she is in Rome?
The chit pushed herself away, slipped under his guard, entered the room, and frowned in distaste. No schoolroom miss, this one.
In daylight, she looked more like a wren than a raven. Dressed in sensible brown, she radiated bright, searching eyes and flowing energy. Too damned much energy for so early in the morning. Her eyes darted over the bottles, scattered clothing, and the dirty dishes on his broken chair.
“You said that you…”
She stopped abruptly and gaped.
He glanced down.
“Luckily, I fell asleep in my shirt,” he said, lips twitching. “I’m sure I can locate my trousers and smallclothes, if you’ll give me a moment.”
For an instant, blue sparks flared in her eyes, which were rimmed by thick honey-gold lashes. Just as fast, she turned her back.
“Quickly, please.” She spoke toward the window. He wondered what color she would turn if she knew how well she showed off her derrière when she pulled her frock tightly to one side with white-knuckled fury.
“What exactly did I promise that has brought you running, fleet of foot, to my quarters this morning?” he asked.
He moved with deliberate slowness around the room, picking up clothing discarded the night before and searching his brain for promises discarded just as easily.
“You agreed to speak with the nuns, to interpret for me,” the woman said.
That was it. The wren needs an interpreter, needs one so badly that she let some excitable waiter drag her into a seedy tavern she had no business entering to meet an English “gentleman.” More fool she.
“I should not be surprised you don’t remember. You were much the worse for drink last night,” she complained.
She has me there.
“You’re acquainted with the effects of drink?” he asked. Intriguing.
“More than I wish. My husband—oh, do hurry up!” She stomped her foot and, much to his regret, let go of her skirts.
Husband? Pity, he thought. Inevitable though.
“Are you ready?” she demanded.
“You might wait until I’m finished with my trousers. Your husband will—”
“Do nothing!” She sounded furious.
“I beg your pardon?” He buttoned the fall of his trousers.
“My husband will do nothing. He died three years ago.”
“Ah, then there is no one to be concerned about your presence in a man’s room in a foreign city in which you speak not a word of the native language. What’s the hurry?”
“The hurry, Major,” she almost spat out his rank, “is that I am only permitted to visit Isabella during very strictly set hours.”
“Isabella?”
“My niece!”
Of course. The niece.
“Do pay attention. Sister Amelia Maria will be at the hospital, but I am told the others will allow me a visit, only the briefest visit, in their common room,” she went on.
Ah. No tower. The niece is imprisoned in a—Good Lord!
“You are taking me to a convent?” he gasped.
“Of course.”
“I must have been ‘much the worse for drink’ indeed, if I agreed to that.”
“You did agree. You gave me your word,” she insisted.
My word. When had anyone last requested my word or respected it when given? The novel idea rolled around in his head. He had given his word.
“You may turn around, unless—” He caught a glimpse of wide-eyed curiosity quickly squelched when she turned to face him.“—the sight of a man buttoning his waistcoat and jacket offends you.”
“Certainly not. I have seen an unbuttoned waistcoat once or twice,” she snapped.
“I see. The husband.”
Jamie turned to the basin near his bed and shaved with the economy of movement habitual in a man long used to the privations of camp and campaign.
“This would be easier if I knew your name,” he said from the side of his mouth. She didn’t faint at the sight of a man shaving either.
“I must have—but no, I didn’t, did I? I am Eleanora Haley—Mrs. Charles Haley.”
Jamie wiped his face and ran a hand carelessly through his hair to smooth it. He had no brush; its silver handle fed him for almost a week.
“Well, then, Mrs. Charles Haley—” He choked on the words when he turned around.
“It’s what we agreed to,” she said, holding out a leather purse.
She believes she has employed me?
Jamie stifled a surge of hope. His fingers trembled and brushed hers when he took the bag. He pulled out a silver coin. The imprint of the papal coat of arms gleamed up at him—a Papal scudo, Rome’s primary currency.
“It’s what we agreed. Don’t think you can push for more.”
More? One scudo alone was worth more than four guineas. He hefted the bag and reconsidered his assessment of the previous night. The woman was definitely mad, no “maybe” about it. At least now he understood why he promised to meet her.
“You paid me this to escort you to a convent?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” she said. “For a month of your time. To serve as my interpreter.”
Not so mad then. He knew he should refuse.
A gentleman would refuse the money, he thought.
Luckily, Jamie was no longer a gentleman. His fingers tightened on the soft leather. The money would keep him alive for a month, long enough to do whatever it was the woman hired him to do.
He smiled broadly. “Let’s go see these nuns of yours.”