1
Excerpt from the Quizzing Glass Gazette, September 10, 1822, the Lady Society column:
* * *
My darling ladies,
I have returned to bring you the most delicious gossip. It must be noted that the existence of a certain club has recently reached my attention, one called the Wicked Earls’Club. Only the most wicked of titled earls are said to be members. Naturally, my mind has run away with thoughts of a most dangerous nature. Who belongs to this club, and do you already know them? Is the politeearl you danced with last night at Lady Allerton’s ball all that he seems? Is there more to the tall, dark-haired gentleman who tipped his hat as he rode past you in Hyde Park this fall?
* * *
I am mist. I am moonlight. I am the smoke of an extinguished candle. I am the shadow you do not see, but only feel . . .
Adam Beaumont, the Earl of Morrey, let the words of his private mantra flow over and through him until he believed them to be true. As he moved through the crowded ballroom of Lady Allerton’s home, the words worked a subtle magic. They rendered him nearly invisible to the husband-hunting ladies prowling around him, their matchmakingmamas leading the hunt. Given that he was an unmarried, young, and attractive gentleman with a title, that was quite a feat. If the ton knew what sort of man he truly was, those young women and their mothers would not be so eager to snare him.
He swept his gaze over every face in the packed ballroom, seeking that cunning gleam in a pair of eyes or an overly observant glance in his direction. He listened carefully for clever discussions designed to collect information best kept hidden.
A loaded pistol would have been a welcome companion tonight, but he could not conceal such a cumbersome weapon on his person. No, the only friend he carried tonight was the slender dagger pressed flat against his chest beneath his waistcoat. He dared not risk a dance, lest the blade dislodge and become a danger to him.
If only the ton knew what sort of man stood in their midst. A man whose job was to end any threat to the Crown. An agent of His Majesty who worked to keep the monarchy safe,as well as to protect the kingdom from foreign threats. He was the knife in the dark that claimed the life of anyone who came here to do his nation harm. It was a burden Adam had never wanted, but he had been given little choice.
Many thought that wars started and ended on the battlefield, but Adam knew the darker truth. Wars began in drawing rooms and ballrooms, where men let down their guard and becometargets for spies and assassins. He’d learned that after losing his friend Lord Wilhelm. It had been two years sincehe’d watched a French spy take the life of his dear friend.
John Wilhelmhad struggled with a French assassin on a bridge over the Thames. Adam had been too late to stop the man from plunging a knife into John’s back, butJohn had taken the murderous bastard with him over the bridge and into the dark, swift waters below. Adam had rushed to the spot where his friend had gone and leapt over the side into the water himself. The fall had nearly killed him,andit had been for naught. He’d searched the water for what felt like an eternity before finally crawling up the bank and collapsing in exhaustion.
As he lay gasping for breath, a man Adam had seen once or twice before at social engagements had emerged from the darkness and rushed to help. That was the night Avery Russell,the man who would become London’s new spymaster a year later, had recruited Adamto the Court of Shadows.
After the previous spymaster, Hugo Waverly, died last year, Avery had taken control and restructured the spy network. Many of the older spies had retired, and fresh blood like Adam had been brought deeper into the ring.Adam promised himself he would have his revenge upon John’s killers, for as Avery had taught him, French agents worked in pairs, a master and his loyal left hand. Adam did not know which one had perished in the river with John, the master or the left hand, but he would someday find out. Becoming a spy was his penance for being too late to save his friend that night.
A quiet voice broke through Adam’s dark thoughts.“Morrey?”
James Fordyce, the Earl of Pembroke, his new brother-in-law,came to his side. He was a fellow member of the private Wicked Earls’Club and had recently married Adam’s halfsister, Gillian. He and James had a passing acquaintancethrough their membership in the Wicked Earls’ Club. There were only a handful of members he’d been close enough to get to know in the last few years.
Adam hadn’t been particularly active in the club or pursuing any rakish wickedness of late. He’d been preoccupied with matters of England’s security.
But that didn’t mean England had been the only matter on his mind. He’d been searching for his long-losthalfsister who’d been working as a lady’s maid in London,and that had brought him deeper into James’s circle of friendship, for which he was grateful. He trusted the man with his secrets in ways he couldn’t trust anyone else.
“Pembroke, good to see you,” Adam replied.
James had been the only one to notice him tonight. One of the few who wereable to see past Adam’s ability to disappear into crowds whenever he wished to.
“Is Caroline with you? Gilly was hoping to see her.” A silent question lurked in James’s dark eyes, as if he wanted to ask what had Adam on edge.
“No, not tonight.” He had convinced his sister Caroline that there would be other balls this week to attend. Once he’d informed her that he had a mission to fulfill tonight, she’d understood the dangers and thankfully had remained home.
“Should Gilly, Letty, and I leave?” Pembroke asked as he and Adam stepped deeper into the shadows at the edge of the ballroom.
“Yes, I would if I were you, but be calm about it—let no one suspect anything. Tonight the devils are among us.” It was the warning he had devised with Pembroke to let the other man know when danger was close at hand. Pembroke was not a fool. From the time they’d first met, James had sensed that Adam was more than merely a titled lord searching for his long-lost halfsister. So without putting James too much at risk, he’d let the man know that he worked for the Home Office in some secretive capacity, though he never went into details unless lives were at stake.
“Right. Well, I see Gillian but not Letty. She must have gone to one of the retiring rooms. I’ll go and fetch her.”
Adam was only partially listening. He’d caught sight of a woman leaving the ballroom, with another woman upon her arm.
Viscount Edwards’swife, Lady Edwards, the woman he was to protect this evening, was leaving the safety of the ballroom with a dark-haired woman whose face he could not see.
“Find your sister and go, quickly,” he said to James beforehe slid through the crowds now gathering in rows to begin a dance. The pair of women vanished at the doors on the far end,andAdam’s fear spiked. Lady Edwards was in grave danger. Her husband had lately been an ambassador to France, and Avery had recruited her to be a spy while she was on the Continent, as he and the Home Office worked in connection with the Foreign Office. She had memorizeda verbal cypherthat she was to give Avery this very evening, and it was Adam’s duty to make sure no one silenced her before she could relay it.
Adam reached the partially open doorway leading out of the ballroom and stepped into a dark corridor. He pressed himself against the wall and moved swiftly from door to door, checking for the presence of Lady Edwards and her unknown companion.