Page 1

Y oung master Robert, Marquess of Thornbury, fidgeted on the leather squabs impatiently as the carriage drew up outside a four-story house in Pall Mall.

Barely waiting for the carriage to stop, he jumped down into the road and said to the driver, “Wait here. I will bring the duke,” and hurried up the steps of the discreet establishment.

With his heart beating fast, he knocked and was answered, a few agonizing moments later, by a superior looking doorman, who looked down at Robert and widened his eyes in surprise.

“Young sir, I fear you must have the wrong establishment.”

Robert drew himself up to his full height, which reached to the middle of the big man’s chest, and said with every bit of dignity he could summon, “I am the Marquess of Thornbury, here to see the Duke of Troubridge. I understand he is within. Please conduct me to him immediately. It is a matter of the utmost urgency.”

The doorman blinked and bowed. “Follow me, my lord.”

Robert straightened his cravat and followed.

The man led him up a flight of stairs to a salon on the first floor, where two rooms branched off.

From one, the hubbub of conversation emanated, and Robert caught a glimpse of gentlemen seated around tables drinking and playing cards.

The second room also contained gentlemen playing cards, but unlike the other room, was deathly silent.

The men sat staring at their cards with grim concentration.

The doorman wove through the tables to one at the back, where a large, handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes sprawled in a chair, rouleaux at his elbow and cards before him.

A glass half full of amber liquid, glinted in the light from the candles overhead.

The doorman waved Robert forward and stood back.

“Robert!” said the Duke of Troubridge, blinking at him owlishly. “What are you doing here?”

His twelve-year-old son bowed to him with stiff propriety. “Mama’s time is upon her; you must come with me now!”

The duke changed color and dropped his cards. “Good God, it’s too early surely.” Rising, he waved at the other players. “Sorry gentlemen, you must excuse me!”

Relief caused Robert’s shoulders to drop and his fists to unclench—it had been easier than he’d anticipated.

He turned and led the way out of the house and back to the waiting carriage.

Clambering in after him, the duke slumped on the seat as the carriage lurched into motion.

His hands were visibly shaking as he ran his fingers through his hair, which had come loose from its ribbon.

“How is she faring?” he asked, leaning forward toward his son.

Robert pursed his lips and said repressively, “As well as can be expected, sir.”

“It’s too early,” fretted the duke.

“In fact, it isn’t, sir. She began her lying in last week,” said Robert calmly.

It was typical that his father paid so little attention he didn’t know when his wife’s time was come.

Since the duke spent many of his days either drunk, in a gambling hell, or both, this was not surprising.

He sat back, blinking. “Is that so? Why didn’t someone tell me? ”

Robert just looked at him in silence. The duke gave a weak smile and put out a hand to grip his son’s arm. “Good thing she’s got you, eh? A sight more reliable than me.” He rubbed his face tiredly. “I’m a sorry excuse for a man. You, my boy, are a true gentleman, I’m proud of you.”

Robert lowered his eyes to hide the unmanly moisture in them. “Thank you, sir. I shall endeavor to live up to your expectations.”

“Oh, you far exceed them, my boy. Far exceed them. You’ll make a fine duke one day, much better than me.”

“Don’t speak of that sir,” said Robert softly. “We none of us want to lose you.” Whatever his faults, he loved his sire and while he could no longer hero worship him as he had done when he was younger, he was no more proof against the man’s natural charm than anyone else. Everyone loved the duke.

“I don’t plan to shuffle off the mortal coil yet,” said the duke heartily. “Where are the boys?”

He spoke of Robert’s younger brothers, Hereward and Kenrick, aged eight and four respectively.

“Asleep, I believe. It is after three in the morning, sir. I was sitting with Mama when her waters broke, and I sent for the doctor and the midwife. When her pains came closer together, Mama sent me to find you.”

“Was it going well when you left? Nothing untoward?” asked the duke anxiously.

“The midwife assured me that everything was progressing as it should, sir.”

The duke nodded. “I shall not be easy until she is safely delivered, and the babe also.”

The carriage drew up just then outside their house in Berkeley Square and the duke was out of the carriage and up the steps like a cannonball shot.

Robert followed a little more slowly, not because he wasn’t anxious to know how his mother fared, but because someone had to ensure the carriage was dismissed correctly and the driver well compensated for being hauled out of his bed in the middle of the night.

He followed his sire up the steps and into the house where their butler Creighton bowed to him. “The duke has gone straight up, Master Robert.”

Robert nodded, stripping off his hat and coat. “Thank you. Any news?”

“Any minute now I was told, half an hour ago. The staff are all praying for the duchess, my lord.”

Robert smiled a half smile. “Indeed—”

A sound above stairs made him drop his gloves and sent him flying up the stairs two at a time, with Creighton at his heels. He arrived on the first floor to be greeted by the duke with a squirming, crying bundle in his arms.

“It’s a girl!” he exclaimed, tears on his cheeks.

“A baby girl. She’s so beautiful, look.” He held the bundle out and Robert got his first look at his baby sister.

Her little face was scrunched up and red and her little mouth was open, squalling fit to burst, little fists waving about.

Her fingers were perfect. In fact, everything about her was perfect.

Robert’s heart, which had been worried in spite of his outward seeming calm, gave a little leap of joy.

He allowed himself to smile and looked up at his jubilant sire. “How is Mama?”

“Well—tired but well. I’m so proud of her.” The duke wiped tears off his face with his cuff, clutching the baby close. Robert passed into the bedchamber where his mother lay banked against pillows, her blonde hair confined in a plait.

“Robert.” She reached out a hand toward him, and he came to her bedside, taking her hand in a sustaining clasp. The duke followed, still clutching the squalling infant.

“How are you, Mama?” Robert scanned her face to satisfy himself that all was well. One heard so many horror stories of women’s labor. But to his relief she seemed, as his father had said, tired but well. She smiled at him.

“Well, Robert. What do you think of her?” Her eyes strayed to the duke, with a warm light in them, a look she reserved only for him. Robert felt like an intruder between them. “A girl at last, Costin. I think I shall call her Ava.”

“My dearest Jocelyn,” said the duke fondly, leaning forward to deposit their daughter back into her arms. “I couldn’t be happier.

Ava it is.” He kissed her cheek and then her lips.

Feeling decidedly de trop , Robert backed out and left his parents to it, going up to the next floor to inform his brothers they had a baby sister at last. He wondered how the boys would take the news, but he for one, was pleased.

She was a dear little thing, and it would be his privilege to guard and protect her.

*

London, 7th of February 1818

Madeleine Kinsella adjusted her mask and entered the ballroom, her sky-blue domino billowing over the full skirts of her old-fashioned ball gown in rose pink brocade.

Her powdered wig and the patch beside her mouth completed an ensemble that would have been the envy of Marie Antionette, before she lost her head.

It was the first time she had ventured out of her house in Clarges Street since the Duke of Troubridge delivered the news that their “arrangement” was ending.

He had been generous, she had to give him that.

He had extended the rent on the house until the middle of the year, including the servants’ wages, and made a present of the carriage and two horses that drew it.

And of course she got to keep all the clothes, jewels, and knick-knacks he had given her over the years.

You couldn’t accuse him of being stingy.

On the contrary, he had been exceedingly generous and kind.

Which resulted in her suffering a greater degree of heartbreak over the severing of their relationship than was wise for a lady in her profession.

She had wept and been inconsolable for two months.

But it was time she moved on. She needed to find another protector, as unpalatable as the notion was.

But first, before she did, she needed a palate cleanser, a man to rid her of her deep-seated hankering for the duke.

Thus, here she was at this masked ball in search of such a man.

She moved farther into the room, skirting the dance floor where couples twirled to the tune of a waltz, dominos flying.

The candles glinted off the chandelier’s cut-glass teardrops, and the room was filled with the murmur of conversation over the music.

She found a position with a good view of the room, near an alcove that offered privacy if required, and waited, plying her fan lazily against the growing heat in the room and the overpowering smell of pomade, perfume, and human sweat.

Behind her mask, she tracked various gentlemen around the room, looking for a suitable quarry.

She was surprised by a soft voice in her ear, “all alone, Princess?” Startled, she turned to gaze upward into blue eyes dancing with wicked delight behind a black mask, a sensuous mouth curved in a charming smile and a thatch of blonde hair cut in a fashionable Brutus.

The man was tall, well-made, broad through the shoulders, and lacking any signs of a paunch.

Beneath his black domino he wore unrelieved black evening dress, a stark contrast to the whiteness of his neckcloth.

A diamond glinted among the snowy folds and a gold signet ring upon his finger, with the coronet of a peer, told her that she was looking at a perfect specimen.

She smiled. “Not anymore, it would seem.”