Links at the End
Salons & Soirées / Spies & Gambling
Chapter 1 ~ Friday, November 15, 1811
Josette did not know if Lord Giles Hargreaves,
younger son of the Marquess of Grasmere, would return to their salon tonight. He
had absented himself for a fortnight.
She hoped he would appear.
She did not think he would.
She had one memory all her own of him, a memory
she did not have to share with her widowed sister-in-law Celeste. They had
partnered at whist, and early in the game he had looked up and smiled at her. Smiled
because he had realized that together they outmatched their opponents. Smiled
in a way that lit his green eyes and caused her heartbeat to speed up. When the
rout was over and he had pocketed his winnings, he had bowed over her hand. “Would
you partner with me again, Mademoiselle Sourantine, the next time I attend your
salon?” When she agreed, he had again smiled then kissed the hand he still held.
Then he had walked away.
Josette did not know how to gauge his interest. Had
he only liked her card play? Then why had he exchanged such long glances with
her? Why had he kissed her hand, when etiquette required only a simple bow? Yet
he left without looking back, as if once he left the table she was far from his
mind.
Two weeks and no appearance. She definitely was
far from his mind.
Yet she could not forget the kiss that had graced
her bare skin. She played gloveless, the better to shuffle and deal the cards. His
kiss to her hand had sent tremors along every nerve ending. Once she had
retired to her chamber, she touched the back of her hand to her cheek, like an
infatuated girl instead of a young lady of four and twenty. Even now, a
fortnight later, her skin still tingled. Even now, she still had to rebuke that
inclination toward infatuation.
Lord Hargreaves would probably not appear tonight.
Hadn’t she heard at Monday’s salon that he was gone from London?
Yet she dressed with care. She chose the brown
moiré silk that turned her eyes toward the blue rather than grey. Reilly
arranged her hair in curls tumbling from the crown of her head. She touched the
silver cross her father had given her but chose to wear amber eardrops that
glittered and danced when she turned her head. The maid pinned matching
brilliants in her flaxen hair.
She hurried to join Celeste in their dual role of
hostesses. She usually delayed going downstairs until the first guests were
arriving. She hated the receiving line, but Celeste demanded it at the start of
every salon. Unnerved by Celeste’s tirade this morning, Josette only wanted to
placate her sister-in-law. After all, she had caused the outburst.
The housekeeper Mrs. Bridgerton had brought the
bills accumulating from the salons. Appalled at the amounts, Josette had
approached Celeste. Instead of addressing the debts, her belle-soeur resorted to a rant about the additional costs since
Josette and her brother had come to London. A half-hour later, she stormed out
while Josette sank into a chair and stared at her shaking hands. No, she did
not want another tirade from Celeste.
As she slipped into place at the top of the grand
staircase, Celeste gave her a sparkling glance. “You have all the flags flying,
is that not the expression?”
“It is.” She curtsied to Lord Wynstane and greeted
him warmly. When he passed on to the drawing room, she turned to her sister-in-law. “I come
nowhere near your fireworks, Celeste. You look glorious tonight.” Indeed, she
did, in a bronzed red silk that echoed the flames in her hair.
“Bien sur.
I am expected to be glorious. I did not think that soie marron would suit you. You show it to advantage.”
Josette breathed easier. Celeste seemed to have
forgiven her intrusion into the household management.
Several parties entered at once, and they had no
further opportunity to talk. When the line thinned, Celeste stepped closer and
spoke in an undertone. “You fly the flag tonight for a reason, ma chere? Is it that you expect to bring
Monsieur Kennit or Lord Musgrove ‘up to scratch’? They are your usual
partners.”
Josette had lost the trail of the conversation and
had to think quickly. “Don’t be silly, Celeste. They are only enamored of my
card play—unlike the members of your court. Have any new swains declared
themselves this week?”
“Charles Bray.”
“Mr. Bray? I do not know him.”
“His father is a minister of Parliament, newly
elected. They attended the salon on Monday.”
“And the son fell in love with you immediately?”
“Enfin, the evening begins. We have a crowd
tonight. I shall watch, ma belle-soeur,
to see the man you catch with your finery. Va-tu,
maintenant. The tables will be filling up.”
Josette withdrew to the enfilade that became the
card room during the salons. All the doors between the petite salon that overlooked the garden and the front room that had
been her father’s study stood open. The enfilade matched the grande salon in length. That formal
room, with its tall mirrors and music dais, was reserved for dancing.
She strolled through the enfilade. The card room
with its score of tables was her appointed hostess’ duty for the twice-weekly
salons. She greeted the people she had missed earlier and spoke a warmer
welcome to the newcomers. At the back of the petite salon, next to the terrace door, three men waited at her
usual table. Her usual opponents, Lord Musgrove and Mr. Kennit, had already
paired up. She hid her chagrin that she must again partner Lord Costell.
The two peers stood at her approach. Musgrove
assisted her with her chair. Josette cast a brilliant smile around the table as
she drew off her silk gloves. “Dare I ask if you wish a game other than whist?”
Musgrove, almost seated, checked. Kennit laughed. “Never
fear, Miss Sourantine.”
“Unless our fair goddess favors another game
tonight?”
“But I came for whist,” Costell protested. “I had
a good game at Waite’s this week—.”
“By a good one, you mean they didn’t fleece you?” Kennit,
older than Costell by a decade, looked ready to laugh at the cub. “How many
rubbers did you win? One or two?”
“Three,” Costell retorted.
Josette intervened before Kennit pointed out the errors of thinking a win at a gambling den translated
into competency. “Shall we play, gentlemen? Lord Musgrove, will you keep the tally tonight? I would rather not.”
“I am here to serve our goddess of fortune.”
She laughed at his extravagance and picked up the
cards. “Usual stakes, gentlemen?”
As the next hour progressed, she noticed everyone
who came in, but Lord Hargreaves did not appear. She had felt so certain that
he would attend tonight. So much for certainty. She laughed at herself.
“Good hand, Miss Sourantine?”
Tobias Kennit eyed her over his cards.
She shook her head, as much to banish her foolish
hopes as to answer his question. “A stray thought, Mr. Kennit. Lord Costell, it
is your play.”
The young man threw the queen trump to match her
play on Kennit’s knave heart. Boy, she amended her thought, not man. He
is as old as my brother Albert and yet half his age. Will he never learn to
think about more than his own hand in the game?
Lord Musgrove slid the card back. “You must play a
heart, Costell. I know you still have hearts.”
Face reddened, he threw out the ace, taking the
hand she had already won with the trump.
Josette hid a sigh as he led with the club queen,
a suit that had not yet been played. Kennit topped him. She played her only
club, a nine. Musgrove finished the hand with a club trey then slid the trick
to his partner. Kennit played the club eight, she trumped low, Musgrove played
club seven, and Costell played the club king to win the hand she had already
won.
Josette sighed again and studied her hand,
wondering how deeply in arrears she would fall before her partner decided he’d
played enough cards and returned to Celeste’s court.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Lieutenant Colonel Giles Hargreaves, son of the
Marquess of Grasmere, formerly of His Majesty’s 57th Regiment,
arrived more than fashionably late to the Sourantines’ Friday salon. The crush
in the wide entrance had dispersed. Having left off his vivid red regimentals,
few people noticed his slow climb up the grand staircase to the reception area
centering the first floor. One young man did. Tall and lean, he lifted a hand
in a salute that drew Giles to a halt.
“Hargreaves!” Michael Armitage extricated himself
from his friends and crossed the diagonal tiles patterned in cream and black. “When
did you return?”
“Two days ago.”
“All go well?” Like Giles, he worked for Sir Roger
Nazenby, tracking French spies and English traitors. Unlike Giles, he hadn’t
spent over a decade in the military. Armitage felt completely at ease in
London’s whirl.
“Partly. Our bird escaped the cage. She’s to be
left loose a while longer. Sir Roger wants to discover who teaches her the
songs she loves to sing.”
He spoke obliquely for any listeners, yet Armitage
understood. “We’ll find plenty of singers here. These salons draw from all
levels of society. That’s partly the attraction. A society doyenne like the
dowager Eaton can rub elbows with a rum cove like Robert LeBrun.”
“Has Sir Roger arrived?”
He nodded toward the drawing room that their
French hostess called the grande salon.
“Asked for you, half-hour ago.”
Giles grimaced then turned obediently toward the
large room. On the threshold he paused, watching dancers turn through a set as
intricate as a battlefield maneuver.
A world of difference drove his reason for attending
tonight’s salon. O the last occasion he had passed the evening in idle
conversation with a wide range of London’s ton. He had enjoyed matching wits
with Josette Sourantine over a game of whist. And he had relished his light
flirtation with the young widow Celeste Sourantine.
Tonight the widowed beauty danced with a young man
who looked like one of London’s golden peers. His gaze sharpened as she flirted
with her partner. This time he viewed her with a jaded eye. This time he knew
she spied for France and that the traitor who supplied her with information
must do so at these salons.
“The beauty is in great form tonight.”
Giles turned to the man who had appeared at his
elbow. Sir Roger Nazenby, affecting shades of grey in his attire, did not take
his gaze from the dancers. Giles looked back and let himself appreciate the
Titian beauty of their hostess. “Who is her partner?”
“Westover’s son. Lord Westover, you remember, is
attached to the War Office. One of the chosen few who reviews the despatches to
be sent to Wellington. Keep an eye on how lightly he steps.” The spycatcher’s
quiet manner hid a razor-sharp mind, and his conversation veiled much more than
it said.
“Too obvious. Too easy,” he said in code. Too
obvious that Westover’s heir was the spy’s source. Too easy in that his mission
was over before it began. As the couple interacted, Giles judged that Westover
did not look as enthralled as many of the beautiful spy’s court were.
“The father enjoys his ministry speeches.” Then,
at a tangent, he asked, “And you, Hargreaves, do you enjoy being out of your
regimentals?”
In truth he felt lost, as if he no longer knew his
home’s location. A red coat with gold braids and brass buttons had defined him
for so many years that he had seen the uniform before he saw. Tonight, after he
dismissed his valet, he stared in the mirror at a stranger in dark clothes and
white shirt and ascot. His decommissioning papers and Nazenby’s order of
transfer had arrived while he was on the coast. He had read them twice while
the earth quaked
He should have predicted the decommissioning,
especially since his slow-to-heal wound had kept him desk-bound in England
longer than he liked. The regiment needed able-bodied officers. In the last
month, however, his stamina had returned, and he began to consider a return to
Spain. For the last two months he had worked for the spycatcher, creating a
network of men to discover the spies who supplied Napoleon with information
about Lord Wellington’s campaign in Spain and Portugal. Through a fellow
veteran he had found both spy and her transport to France.
Yet that hadn’t been enough. Now Nazenby wanted
the spy’s source for the War Office memoranda. And he wanted Giles Hargreaves
to continue working for him. Giles had refused a roundabout request from the
older man. He hadn’t anticipated that the spycatcher would move the mountainous
War Office to have Giles in his full command.
As if Giles had answered, Nazenby added, “You will
find it difficult to distinguish yourself with Madame Sourantine. Her admirers
press close. It is the French flavor, don’t you think?”
“Part of her attraction, undoubtedly, but not the
greatest.”
The older man’s eyes narrowed as he watched the
French spy dance around her partner. “You are not as handsome without your
regimentals.”
“Or as heroic. Merely handicapped.” He leaned
heavily on the cane he didn’t need. His leg worked fine unless he forced it a
long distance or into the required turns of a dance. “Doubly so, for I am
unable to partner her in a dance. Yet I have it on good authority that our
hostess is actively pursuing the son of a marquess. Behold, her wish.”
Nazenby’s mouth quirked. “Ah, still useful, then.”
His conversation took another lightning turn that illuminated his advance
planning. “Your father the marquess, has he settled for the winter at
Grasmere?”
“Yes. He is requesting my presence for the
holidays.”
“We shall see. I would not hesitate to use
Grasmere, Hargreaves.”
“I understand, sir.” His father would not like it.
His mother would be disappointed.
Grasmere had been an ill fit, too. Not once during
his July visit to his former home had he felt settled. The estate was his
parents’ home; it would be his brother’s—although Dominic was rarely in
evidence.
The rooms he’d taken once he left hospital, they
were another ill fit. A place for his possessions, a place for his head and
weary body to rest. Not home. Definitely not home.
“Does your father want his younger son to select a
lovely butterfly like our hostess?”
“That is more my mother’s wish, sir. She
understands, however, that I must pursue before I can net. London has many
lovely butterflies. When I select one, she will be welcomed to Grasmere.” There,
he had answered Nazenby’s unspoken question. He would disappoint his parents if
he introduced them to a lovely butterfly. Expecting a bride, they would be
appalled to discover he only pursued a spy.
London’s dreaded spycatcher, however, was pleased.
“So we progress. We must not discount the other young men in the hunt. Lady
Eaton reminded me of that just this afternoon. This late in the year, society
is very thin. We cannot depend solely on these twice-weekly salons. We need a
daily presence. Only a close association will help us find the source. Come,
Lady Eaton expects me to meet her in the card room. You play cards, I think? You
can find more than one game in the card room.” On that broad hint he led the
way from the grande salon and its
lovely hostess.
Nazenby had obviously changed the original plan of
his pursuit of this French spy. What did he plan now?
They progressed along the reception hall. Sir
Roger stopped occasionally and presented Giles to a few people. He could not
decide if the introductions were casual or pointed, but he’d been out of
England for so long that he was grateful to have faces connected to names he
had only heard or read about.
They entered the quieter enfilade. Fewer candles
created a more intimate scene than the countless candelabra and reflecting
mirrors in the drawing room. Nazenby strolled about, occasionally stopping to
view the play of cards. After a quarter-hour they entered the petite salon and stopped near Lady
Eaton’s table by the fireplace. The fashionable dowager was gowned in purple
silk and wore a striped turban with feathers. She noted their entrance with a
smile but continued her game. Giles took the opportunity to scan the room. He
glanced over the people talking and laughing and intent on their various games.
Who did the spycatcher think could give him a constant entrance to the
Sourantine household?
And then he saw her, the woman Nazenby must want
him to pursue. No, he thought, not her. Not Josette Sourantine. She was
pretty, a pale candle flame against the night-dark windows, a faded flame if he
matched her to Celeste’s vivid beauty and vivacity. She was more intelligent
than most men could tolerate. And doomed by her height. Only inches shorter
than he was, he remembered, and he overlooked most men. Inexplicably, he didn’t
want to hurt her.
He didn’t know her well enough—only two hours
across a whist table, that was all.
And he hunted for a spy and a traitor to England,
people who passed vital information to France, information that would get
soldiers like himself shot to pieces.
Why, then, this reluctance to involve her?
He turned to the spycatcher, who always had an
answer. “What do you know of her, Sir Roger? An émigré like her
sister-in-law?”
“Daughter of one. Father came over several years
before the Revolution. Married a wealthy mill-owner’s daughter. His family we
don’t know. Possibly a chevalier of
his own making. The Terror was convenient to a number of émigrés with
more pretensions than blood.”
“An adventurer?”
“Perhaps. Vincent Nemours had no qualms marrying
his daughter into the Sourantine family, and Nemours is a known chevalier d’honneur.”
Josette Sourantine laughed at something Tobias
Kennit said. The candlelight sparkled all around her. Why had he ever thought
her pale? With a shake of her head, she played a card, and Lord Musgrove leaned
forward to take the trick. A youth just a hair past university partnered her,
and he looked to be losing.
Giles had enjoyed their game of whist. They had
trounced the opposing Tobias Kennit and Edward Garland. He had no liking for
either man, known rakes the both of them. He had relished their defeat. Josette
Sourantine’s flashes of wit and her brilliant card play were to be prized. When
she smiled, the whole world had sparkled. Yes, he had looked forward to another
partnership with her.
Nazenby had more in mind than a game of cards. The
older man played to catch spies, and he played to win. If Giles refused to
court her in order to gain entrance to the house, who would be sent in his
place? A man who would not care if she were hurt?
He dropped his gaze from Josette. Lady Eaton’s
game had ended. She greeted them then introduced her tablemates, her young
friend Mrs. Davenport and the men partnered against them, Rafe Lockhart and
Robert LeBrun. As they chatted, Giles had to will his gaze not to lift to
Josette Sourantine.
The game resumed. Nazenby leaned on his Malacca
cane. Giles allowed himself another look at the table near the terrace doors,
closed against the mid-November chill.
Lord Musgrove spoke to Josette, but she only
smiled and shook her head. Kennit dealt. She gathered up her cards and spread
them, reading them with the practiced glance of a gamester. And like a gamester
she didn’t organize them, not wanting her opponents to guess her hand. A
mistake her partner fell into as he diligently sorted his suits. She gave a
little shake of her head and lifted her lashes to scan the room.
And saw him.
Giles saw her stiffen. Then she smiled, just a
touch wider, and inclined her head. He bowed. She played her next card as if
she’d never been distracted.
Musgrove had noticed. He looked to see who had
caught her attention. When he saw Giles watching them, he frowned. That frown
caused Kennit to glance around. The black-haired rake gave him a level look
then called for more wine.
Josette Sourantine played like a gamester. The
daughter of a suspected adventurer, she must have learned all the tricks that
helped a rogue survive. She chose as her usual table partners a rake and a peer
not known for his discrimination. Together, they fleeced a youth just out of
university. Josette Sourantine was not an innocent who would be hurt by a
simple deception. She could be as deeply involved in the spying as the
Frenchwoman was. If that were the case, then Giles need have no scruples. Why,
then, do I hesitate?
Sir Roger stepped closer. “Well?”
“You are right. We have a suitable butterfly in
here. You will excuse me?” He walked away to begin his hunt.
Enter A Game of Spies.
Josette Sourantine expects only dancing, flirtations, and
gambling on cards when she visits her widowed sister-in-law in London. Her
talent with cards quickly attracts the attention of the rake Tobias Kennit and
the handsome society prize Lord Gordon Musgrove.
Giles Hargreaves searches the London salons for a spy
sending vital government documents to agents for Napoleon. He focuses on the
salons hosted by the émigré Sourantine family, never expecting to enjoy
his flirtation with a young woman who could be the spy he’s looking for.
When their flirtation turns into a light dalliance, Giles
wonders if he has fallen for a traitor to England. Josette fears she is giving
her heart to a hardened rake. How can he declare his love when they have known
each other so briefly?
How will they discover the truth? Or will the French spies
give their own answer to that question?
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