Page 1 of Chloe and the Devil (Regency Spinsters Alliance #2)

CHAPTER ONE

April, 1817

Hellsmere House, London.

“—on your forthcoming wedding—” Lucien Lyons, the Duke of Hellsmere, broke off congratulating his best friend, Gabriel Lord, the Duke of St. Albans, on the good fortune of his wedding. A wedding which was to take place in one week’s time, during the Easter weekend.

Instead, Lucien now looked inquiringly at his elderly butler as Fortune quietly entered and crossed the library to where the two dukes were sitting beside the fire. The older man held out a silver tray toward him. A letter sat at its center.

“This was just delivered, Your Grace,” he was informed evenly.

Which caused Lucien to question who could possibly be writing to him at eleven o’clock in the evening?

The obvious answer would be George, the Prince Regent, for whom Lucien occasionally carried out clandestine missions, usually in connection with something the French had done to alarm their Regent.

The two countries might currently be at peace, but there were still French dissenters who would like nothing more than to bring back their emperor after freeing him from his incarceration on the island of Saint Helena.

But as a similar missive had not been delivered to Gabriel, who usually worked secretly for the crown on the same occasions Lucien did, he was inclined to believe this letter was not from Prinny.

The block writing of his name and address on the front of the missive was not familiar either. Deliberately so, Lucien believed, with the intention of hiding the identity of the sender.

“Go ahead.” Gabriel waved his glass of whisky at him as permission for him to read his letter. St. Albans was comfortably slumped down in the wingback armchair opposite Lucien’s own, and the other man now turned his attention to staring into the fire.

The two of them had dined together at their club earlier, followed by enjoying several glasses of whisky in Lucien’s library. It was the last such evening Gabriel would enjoy as a single gentleman before his wedding the following week.

Lucien sat forward to break the wax seal on the back of the letter—a simple red wax, with no family seal to alert him to the sender—before he unfolded and read the message on a thick piece of paper inside.

Your rose garden at midnight.