Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 01] Read online

  His face was all romantic lines and sensual strength. His golden hair was thick and much too long, but she rather liked the way it fell past his jaw. His unshaven face bristled with just a touch of golden-brown beard.

  All in all, a somewhat lawless specimen. It made her wonder if he was something of a rebel. His collar was plain but fine, his cravat simply tied, elegant but not foppish in the least.

  His face was also rather dusty after all that rolling. Willa pulled out her handkerchief and moistened a corner of it with her tongue. Moira would have conniptions if she knew, but no one was around to see Willa do such a common thing and she couldn’t bear to see her fellow so rumpled.

  Gently wiping his cheeks and brow, she wondered who he was and from whence he’d come. If she didn’t know him, then he didn’t live nearby. Derryton was well-known for its fine ale locally, but it wasn’t really on the way to anywhere from anywhere, so few truly exotic travelers journeyed through it.

  His breath came evenly on her face and his heart beat in regular time next to her ribs. Willa had some experience with injuries—at any rate with witnessing them. He didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger from his fall.

  Nevertheless, she ought to fetch help for him soon. She lifted her head slowly to peer through the grass at the broken nest. It was now so covered with angry hornets that the nest itself was hidden beneath restless winged bodies. She could feel the concerted buzzing vibrate through the very ground. Yet more were coming to land with every passing moment.

  It was a sobering sight. Hornets in such numbers could be dangerous indeed. Slowly, projecting harmlessness with every fiber of her being, Willa sank back down next to her latest victim. “Vespa crabro,” she explained to him in a whisper. “The common hornet. Really quite docile and pretty … normally.” She listened to the furious drone just a few feet away.

  “Unless the nest is disturbed, of course,” she continued, her words a mere breath on his unconscious ear. “I’d describe that nest as quite disturbed. Ruined even. But don’t feel too badly, for with the passing of summer they would have only lived a few months more at most.”

  She heaved a weary sigh and settled more comfortably into the tall grass. “We merely need to stay quite still and wait. They’ll settle down at dusk and I will fetch you some help from Derryton.”

  Dusk was not far away. In fact, one could hardly call it day anymore, the way the blue twilight was taking over the sky. It was getting chill as well, a sure sign that the mist would rise. Excellent. The chill would slow the hornets’ defensive fervor and the mist would confuse them yet more.

  Then she would fetch help. She sighed. There was bound to be a row when she did. And she was so terribly tired of being the cause of uproar.

  Oh, she knew they all loved her, but the horrid thing about being an orphan raised by an entire village was that everyone felt quite free to criticize one. And they did.

  Bad enough that she had stayed out so late, but to have caused such an accident when she ought to have been safe by the hearth? She’d never hear the end of it.

  No one would be mollified by her reason that it had taken all evening to find the traps laid by old Mr. Pratt and trigger them with the sling she’d borrowed. She’d told John that she was only going to seek out the last of the ripe wild currants.

  Her guardian didn’t approve of poaching, but he didn’t think it was Willa’s place to stop it. Of course, it also wasn’t her place to fell innocent strangers on the lane.

  Perhaps if her handsome fellow came walking into the village under his own power, there would be less of a ruckus over her latest escapade. She craned her neck to gaze hopefully into his face.

  No such chance. He was most assuredly not in walking condition. Resting her chin on one fist, she gazed at him. She had never been so near a man, especially one so fine.

  None of the men she knew would come close to her, fond of her as they might be. Not a one of them would so much as give her a kiss, not after what happened to poor Wesley Moss. And now, with Timothy, her reputation would no doubt spread far beyond.

  Why, she might go all the rest of her days without being kissed. Since this man was already unconscious, she may as well take advantage of a unique opportunity.

  She leaned over him again, given courage by the growing darkness. He smelled wonderful, like spice and horse and a heady scent she didn’t have a name for but that she responded to anyway.

  Taking another deep breath, Willa fancied she could smell adventure on him. This was a man who had smelled the scents of the world, she would wager. He’d breathed in exotic scents like those of the dusty streets of Cairo or the perfumed salons of Vienna.

  He might even now be on his way to London. This road didn’t go there, but Willa knew that it eventually met a greater road south of Derryton, although she had never been that far. Imagine, London!

  Willa shook her head. She was being silly. Yet simply the way the man’s lips had felt under her fingertips made her all breathless and fairly dying of curiosity.

  No one was about. No one would ever, ever know.

  Sliding slowly up her fellow’s chest in a fashion that made her catch her breath in a whole new way, Willa hesitated. Was it wrong to kiss someone without his permission? Timothy had very politely asked her first. Not that it had done him any good, what with the broken bones and all.

  “Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?”

  Well, she could quite truthfully report that there was no protest. After running the tip of her tongue over her lips, Willa pressed them to her handsome fellow’s mouth.

  It was lovely, to be sure, but somehow not what she was expecting. With a disappointed sigh, she slid off his chest and lay low in the grass beside him.

  He was terribly untidy, with his coat twisted about and his limbs splayed. If she left and someone else discovered him like this, he’d likely be embarrassed by his disarray. Not to mention that settling him would provide an excuse for her to touch him once more.

  By the time she’d gotten him rearranged to her satisfaction, she was out of breath again. Wasn’t it odd how touching a hard thigh or a large, roughened hand could take one’s very air? Perhaps she should stop touching him if she wanted to ease her breathing.

  Leaning on her elbows and tipping her head back, Willa contemplated the growing dusk. She could leave him as soon as the hornets settled. She would go before long, for he had not woken yet, and that was not a good sign.

  Just as soon as the hornets settled …

  2

  The chamber tucked away in a tower of Westminster Palace would scarcely interest the offhand observer, for it was simply a round room whose curved walls were punctuated at intervals by arched panels portraying absurdly idyllic country scenes, frescoed by a nameless artist of a previous century. The colors were dimmed by soot and careless housekeeping, giving the plump peasantry depicted there a grimy quality. Not that anyone noticed.

  In the center of the room, beneath a not exquisite chandelier, stood a single round table with four chairs placed equidistant from each other. The chairs were very nearly identical in design, but for slight differences in the fanciful carvings adorning the wooden chair backs. Amid the much overdone greenery depicted there, one could, if one looked carefully, discern a different set of eyes carved into each design.

  One pair of eyes seemed rather reptilian. Another set reminded one of the watchful gaze of a raptor. There were the unmistakable slanting eyes of a fox on yet another seat, and the last depicted the heavy brow and deep-set eyes of a lion.

  The Royal Four had convened.

  Or at any rate, the Royal Two. Present today were only half of the four members of the most select and exclusive of gentlemen’s clubs, a handpicked group who secretly advised the Prime Minister and the Crown—four brilliant, principled men with such a depth of honor and commitment to England that no amount of power and promises could sway their conviction.

  They even abandoned names and rank within their secret circ
le. No “Lord This” or “Earl of That.” Here there was only the Fox, the Falcon, the Lion, and the Cobra.

  At the moment, the Lion and the Falcon were at hand. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the Fox and the Cobra were not.

  The Fox had a fairly acceptable excuse. The elderly statesman was on his deathbed, after all, being nursed by his lovely, much-younger wife.

  The Cobra had no such defense, being merely halfway across the country attending to a matter of national security. Yet the Falcon and the Lion carefully avoided any breath of censure against the Cobra. When they did speak of him, their voices dropped slightly lower to a more sympathetic register.

  At the moment, the Lion had his feet up on the ancient central table and the front legs of his chair off the floor. He was a big man, blond and powerful. One only had to look at him to visualize a far-flung Viking traveler chatting up a Norman lady long centuries ago. The Lion quite by chance resembled his title, for the Four were chosen not on looks but on keen intelligence, nearly royal ancestry, and deathless loyalty.

  However, there was no denying he did look like a great cat as he lounged in his chair. The Lion yawned mightily. His cheroot sent a spiral of smoke into the arching heights of the chamber.

  “Must you smoke that in here?” The Falcon grimaced. The Falcon looked nothing like his namesake, unless one counted the intense intelligence behind his sharp eyes. He was tall and lean against the Lion’s breadth, but no less powerful in his presence. “Can you not wait until we recess?”

  The Lion blew an irreverent gust of smoke his way. “Won’t taste as good later. Forbidden fruit is all the sweeter.”

  The Falcon was unimpressed by this argument. “The Fox would have a cat fit if he were here. He holds these chambers nearly sacred.”

  The Lion shrugged. “I don’t see why. It’s simply four rather ugly walls and a grotty old table that I wouldn’t allow my dog to eat off.” Nonetheless, he pulled his feet in and sat forward to stub out his cigar in a waiting saucer. “We could meet in a public house, for all it matters. It is the office that is sacred, not the chamber. Not even the man who holds the office, apparently.”

  They both went silent for a moment, mourning the loss that their comrade had suffered. Not that they wouldn’t have done the same—given up all that they treasured for England and the Crown. In that silence, however, echoed the fervent wish they might never be asked to.

  “So has this meeting come to order or not?” The Lion pulled his chair into a more dignified position.

  “We two are it tonight, I fear,” said the Falcon. “After contacting the Fox and the Cobra, I informed them that the Liars found documents in the safe of a certain Lord Maywell. These, when decoded, led us to believe that Sir Foster was returning from his self-imposed exile—”

  The Lion grunted. “That’s one way of putting it. I prefer ‘hiding out under his rock like the cowardly traitorous slug he is.’”

  The Falcon looked sourly at him. “May I continue?”

  The Lion waved a hand magnanimously and the Falcon resumed. “I informed them that Foster is expected to arrive in London shortly with something—we have no concrete information on what it is yet—that Maywell felt would be very damaging to the Crown.”

  The Falcon tapped the document he’d laid on the table. “I have here the missive from the Fox in response, brought by fast courier.”

  The Lion reached into his coat. “And I have the same from the Cobra.”

  The Falcon nodded, then glanced down at his own document. “The Fox relates that he is still of the opinion that our first priority ought to be the trailing of the traitor. The Liar’s Club should continue their investigation into the identity of the Voice of Society and how it seems to know a bit too much about their covert activities. We have higher concerns.”

  “It’s just as well. I don’t think the Cobra will ever entirely trust the Liars.” The Lion unfolded his document. “The Cobra has already begun tracing Foster’s path from the town where he landed, but he also reminds us that we are still investigating the possibility that there is someone pulling the strings of the French espionage in England, someone that might very well be an influential member of Society.”

  “Is the Prime Minister still hoping to dig that name out of Louis Wadsworth?”

  The Lion nodded. “Liverpool is letting Wadsworth stew in the Tower at the moment.”

  The Falcon did not quite smile. “Ruing his greedy ways, I hope. Imagine selling faulty arms to the British government on behalf of the French!”

  The Lion scowled. “He got paid twice, the bastard.”

  “Considering his present position, I’d say he’s still collecting on that ill-considered plan,” the Falcon said.

  The Falcon and the Lion put their cohorts’ messages down at their respective places at the table, in effect making it look as if the two had just stepped out of the meeting for a moment.

  The Falcon leaned back in his chair. “I concur with the Cobra’s plan. First Sir Foster, then the Voice. I believe that the traitor will lead us to this puppetmaster.”

  The Lion nodded. “I concur as well. The Cobra has insisted on personally taking the Foster mission, since he has previous acquaintance with the traitor.”

  “Meaning his ill-fated entry into the Knights of Fleur, I assume. It was a good idea to crack them by joining.”

  The Lion nodded. “It is to the Cobra’s credit that he insisted on taking the fire for the royal arse when things went to hell.”

  The Falcon shook his head ruefully. “Can you imagine being painted with that brush for the rest of your life?”

  The Lion let out a gust. “Sometimes I have nightmares that it is I.”

  The moment of sympathy stretched on. Then the two men visibly shook off the pall.

  “Well, I suppose that brings us to our close.” The Falcon stood and gave his waistcoat a single precise tug. The Lion, who tended to be perpetually rumpled, didn’t bother.

  “I hear you’re going to be married,” the Falcon said as they moved toward the door. “May I offer my congratulations?”

  “Thank you. She’s a lovely girl, well brought up and demure. She’ll make a fine Lady Greenleigh someday.”

  The Falcon slid his companion a look. “Is it a love match, then?”

  The Lion wasn’t fooled by the casual tone. “Have no fear. I won’t fall in love and reveal all our secrets on the pillows. She’s merely an attractive girl who will breed me an heir.” He dug for another cheroot in his coat pocket. “You should consider marrying. It could only improve your cover, you know. You’re beginning to be far too intriguing a mystery to the eligible ladies in town.”

  The Falcon sent him a long-suffering look. “I’d rather not, thank you. The Falcon’s responsibilities do not make for a good husband. Why would I want to do that to an innocent woman?”

  The Lion looked thoughtful. “Why indeed?”

  “Do you suppose the Cobra will ever marry?”

  The Lion shook his head. “I’d say ‘tis doubtful. After all, what self-respecting woman would tie herself to a publicly branded traitor?” He reached for the latch of the ancient oak door. “Poor bastard.”

  Someone was stomping on Nathaniel’s head. They’d been stomping for hours, apparently, since every thud of Nathaniel’s brain had the bruised feeling of long acquaintance.

  He tried to roll his head away from the pain, only to be transfixed by a spike of pure agony through his skull. His eyes shot open in response, then slammed shut against the bright dawn.

  Dawn?

  Nathaniel tried to raise both hands to his aching head, but only one hand would obey him. The other was cold and numb and pinned by an immovable weight.

  Exquisitely alert now, he remained still as he assessed the possibilities. He was lying on his back, pinned by one arm, with a splitting head, outdoors in the morning dew.

  None of this was good.

  It was no longer today. It was now tomorrow. Frustration roiled through
Nathaniel when he realized that Foster was lost to him. The man was traveling hard. He would be far ahead by now.

  At the moment, however, there was no sound near him but the chirping of birds, the chuckling of a beck of some kind, and soft, kittenish snoring. Opening one eye, out of both slyness and anticipated pain, Nathaniel was able to see that he lay in the shelter of a hedge, on a bank of grass, by a road.

  There was no sign of immediate danger. The trickling water was somewhere off to his left. The snoring was coming from the vicinity of his chest.

  By stretching his neck and angling his head, Nathaniel could see a mop of untidy brown hair and one delicate hand that lay on his waistcoat, half slipped inside. Well, he’d woken to worse things in his life.

  He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon,” he said softly, “but we seem to be sleeping together.”

  The person lying upon him gave a drowsy snort and snuggled deeper into his armpit.

  “‘Tis very flattering, to be sure, and you snore quite prettily, but would you mind very much giving back my arm?”

  Still no response. Carefully laying his head back on the ground, for he wouldn’t want it to break, Nathaniel forced his deadened muscles to move and rocked the sleeper farther onto his chest. Pulling his arm free from beneath the weight, he hissed as feeling began to flood back into his flesh.

  Then he gently rolled his companion to the ground on her—yes, most definitely her—back. She was very pliant and went without protest. He went up on one elbow and leaned over her.

  “Miss?” Gingerly, Nathaniel brushed his knuckles across her cheek. Her skin was warm and very soft.

  She stirred and stretched away from him in a sensual arch, her sleeves sliding up white arms to show dimpled elbows. Lips working sleepily, she sighed, then slowly opened wide blue eyes the distinctive deep color of twilight and blinked at her surroundings.

  She smiled at him. “Hello.”

  Her voice was husky with sleep. Very pleasant, actually, but Nathaniel was in no mood to be pleased.