Courting Danger With Mr Dyer

They reached the entrance hall, met by the drumming of small footsteps down the back hall and the dark hair of her nephew as he rushed to meet them.

‘Here’s my sweet angel.’ Moira knelt down and held out her arms.

‘Aunt Mara.’ Nicholas threw himself against her and wrapped his chubby arms around her neck.

She rose, holding the squirming three-year-old who smelled of milk and wet dirt. ‘How is my little love today?’

His deep green eyes widened with excitement. ‘Birdy day.’

‘You saw a bird today?’

He slipped two chubby fingers into his mouth and nodded.

‘Nicholas and I just returned from the park,’ Miss Kent, the young nurse, explained when she approached. Only eighteen with a round face and petite figure, she was the youngest daughter of a baronet who lived near them in Surrey. With few prospects in the country, she’d come to Moira to offer her services and had proven an excellent choice for Nicholas’s nurse. ‘We took some old bread to feed the ducks.’

Freddy took Nicholas from Moira and held him firm against his chest. ‘Perhaps Cook can give you a few more crusts and you can feed the birds in the garden.’ His suggestion made Nicholas clap with delight. Freddy smiled at the boy and then Miss Kent, who blushed and stared at the floor. ‘Miss Kent, if you’ll come with me and Nicholas to the nursery, we can discuss Nicholas’s new clothes and the Falkirk party.’

‘Of course, my lord.’ She dipped a curtsy to Moira then started upstairs after Freddy, who carried Nicholas, asking more questions about the park and what he’d seen.

Moira brushed little dusty fingerprints from her skirt, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy in her chest. She loved the boy as much as she did her brother, but no matter how much she took care of Nicholas, he was not hers. She had no child to comfort her in her widowhood. It was the largest regret of the many she carried from her marriage.

‘You spoil Nicholas,’ Aunt Agatha remarked, entering the hall from the sitting room. She wore a copper-coloured morning dress which followed the curve of her ample and well-concealed bosom before flaring out to drape her stout form. Tight curls pinned to the sides of her head were touched with grey and further decorated by a turban of yellow silk pressed down over her coiffure.

‘I can’t help it.’ Moira attempted to straighten the rather lopsided arrangement of lilies in a vase on a side table.

‘Some day, you’ll have your own to spoil. After all, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Some gentlemen prefer a lady of, shall we say experience.’

‘Aunt Agatha!’ She wasn’t sure what astonished her more, Aunt Agatha’s bluntness or how little experience Moira had garnered with Walter before his heart troubles had taken him. Intimate relations were the one aspect of marrying again she did not look forward to. She’d never cared for the deed the few times Walter had bothered her, but she’d done her duty as a wife, praying each time it would result in a child. She stilled her hands on the lilies. This sacrifice had been the most bitter because it’d been for nothing.

‘It’s true. After all, with your husband’s estate and the bulk of his wealth having gone to his nephew, gentlemen won’t pursue you for your fortune,’ Aunt Agatha proclaimed and Moira snapped a brown lily off its wilting stem and laid it on the table, biting back a few choice words. Her aunt’s candidness was growing more vexing with each passing year. ‘Besides, with Freddy ready to face society again, I don’t expect him to remain unmarried for long and then you will be nothing but the widowed aunt, and we can’t have that. But let’s not fret about it now. We have the whole Season to worry about it.’

Having dropped her truth, and careless of the craters it left, Aunt Agatha patted Moira’s arm, then headed down the hallway.

Moira stared at the blue willows painted on the vase, the reality she’d suspected since leaving the country revealing itself a little too loudly for her liking. If Freddy did remarry, his new wife would become the mistress of Fallworth Manor and Nicholas’s care would become her responsibility, and not Moira’s. Should Moira fail to take this Season, she might find herself without purpose at Fallworth, with no real place and nothing but endless and lonely days to fill. Having Aunt Agatha state it with her usual bluntness didn’t help ease her concerns. Neither did seeing Mr Dyer again.

She frowned at the memory of Mr Dyer rather than the tilting flower arrangement. When she’d crept along the hallway, her heart racing while she’d carried the weapon after hearing the raised voices downstairs, she’d never imagined it would be Mr Dyer she’d meet. Moira’s cheeks reddened at the memory of her aunt, in this very hall, laying out to him in blunt terms how his lack of station made him an unsuitable suitor. During her aunt’s tirade, Moira had stood by, unable to meet Mr Dyer’s eyes. With her father’s health failing, she hadn’t been willing to cause him more grief or to throw the house into further turmoil by defying him or her aunt.

Except her father was gone now and Mr Dyer had returned. The flicker of life which had been dormant for so long flared inside her, growing brighter at the thought of him.

He didn’t come here to court me. She walked back to the study to retrieve the pistol and return it to its box, trying to put the encounter, and his proposal, out of her head, but she couldn’t. What he’d told her, like his confession about his work, had changed everything she’d come to believe about him since their failed engagement.

In the study, Moira slid the pistol off the table and turned it over in her hands, admiring the fine scrollwork on the metal. Even after she’d treated him like a common thief, he’d had enough confidence in her to believe she could assist him with something as important as saving England.

I wonder if I could help him? It wasn’t her habit to deny anyone seeking her assistance, but she couldn’t involve herself in something like this. She’d returned to London to re-enter the world, not to entangle herself in the affairs of state, but if Mr Dyer was right, then even innocent diversions had the potential to embroil her in a great deal of danger.

No, I can’t get involved. Her place was here with her family, not out pursuing traitors. Turning on her heel, she made for upstairs. Helping Mr Dyer was a ludicrous idea and one she could not shake.

Chapter Two

‘Bart, I didn’t think I’d see you in Rotten Row today.’ Richard, Bart’s eldest brother, the heir and the only Dyer son who could do no wrong in their father’s eyes, laughed as he manoeuvred his horse beside Bart’s. ‘I didn’t think you one for the fashionable hour.’

‘I’m not, but I ride here from time to time to meet with clients.’ Court business didn’t bring him here tonight. He sat on his mount off to one side of the crowded Row and watched the merry parade of titled men and ladies to see who was meeting with whom and the connections they revealed. With the Rouge Noir planning something, the members might be working to recruit more converts or make arrangements with one another. Rotten Row was a good place to do both. So far, he’d seen nothing but an overabundance of velvet and horse droppings.

‘Mother said she hasn’t heard from you about coming to their soirée the night after tomorrow,’ Richard chastised, his horse shifting position. It blocked Bart’s view of the Row at the same moment the Comte de Troyen entered in his red phaeton, his pretty, brown-haired daughter, Marie, on the seat beside him. The French émigré enjoyed the top place on Bart’s list of suspicious people. The Frenchman had been observed meeting with the young Marquess of Camberline more than once over the last few days in parks or on street corners when they thought no one was watching. Bart’s men had noticed, but none of them had been able to get close enough to hear what the two men discussed.

‘Mother hasn’t heard because I haven’t responded.’ Bart clicked his horse to one side to watch the Comte as his carriage paused. A man approached the Comte’s conveyance, a beggar to all assembled, one of the many who lingered by the gates in search of a penny, but Bart wasn’t fooled. The man’s quality breeches beneath his dirty coat betrayed his disguise. These two were meeting about something and Bart needed to find out what.

‘Mother will be disappointed if you aren’t there,’ Richard pressed.

‘And Father will be disappointed if I am.’ Bart’s father’s concern for his sons decreased the further down the line they were from inheriting the title. It was a wonder his father even knew the names of his last two progeny. ‘He doesn’t want to pollute his drawing room with a mere barrister.’

Bart watched as the Comte slipped the beggar a piece of paper Bart would bet his horse was a note. He needed to discover who it was for and what it contained.

‘Father doesn’t disapprove of what you do, but he would prefer it if your cases were not so well known,’ Richard continued, trying like their mother often did to mediate between father and son.

‘If Father wants me to have quieter cases, he should tell his aristocratic friends to stop trying to swindle widows out of their inheritances. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ Bart kicked his horse into a trot and rode over to one of the benches lining the row. The man sitting on it and reading a newspaper looked up over the top of the print at Bart. ‘Follow the beggar walking away from the Comte de Troyen’s carriage, the one with the stained coat and fine breeches. See where he goes and who he might meet with. Get a look at the letter the Comte gave him if you can.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Joseph, one of Bart’s best men, folded up the newspaper in his fine hands. He was the kind of man blessed with the ability to blend in and deal easily with the merchants he sometimes impressed or the dockworkers he might drink with. Joseph tucked the paper under one arm and made for the beggar, following him at a discreet distance as he left the gates of the park and blended into the crowd in the road.

The Comte manoeuvred his phaeton into the endless stream of riders and conveyances. He drove at a leisurely pace, casually offering waves and greetings to many of the people he passed. Bart wasn’t among those. They’d never been formally introduced and he couldn’t simply approach him or his daughter and strike up a conversation. The most he could do was follow him and see who else he spoke with. Bart raised his feet a touch, ready to tap his horse into a walk and get closer to the Comte, when a female voice stilled his boots in the stirrups.

‘Mr Dyer, I didn’t think you one for Rotten Row.’

Bart shifted in his saddle to watch Lady Rexford bring her piebald mount up beside his with the admirable skill of a woman accustomed to riding. She wore a deep blue velvet habit, the skirt of which draped her curving legs where they arched over the pommel before flaring out to cover the saddle and the back of her horse. Across the front of the bodice, gold cord in a military style broke the severity of the blue and drew his attention to the swell of her pert breasts and the hollow of her neck visible above the collar. A short top hat set at an angle over her blonde hair cast a shadow across her nose and cheeks, but it didn’t dampen the twinkle in her eyes. The sight of her startled Bart as much as her smile. It was a radical change from the way she’d greeted him this morning. ‘You and my brother are of the same opinion.’

‘I’m not usually one for it either, but I’m here in London to re-enter society and so here I am.’ She opened her arms to the mash of people around them.

‘Here you are. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’ She’d been eager to see him gone this morning and yet she’d approached him voluntarily now. She wanted something, he was sure of it. It was too much to hope she’d changed her mind, but Bart was an optimistic man.

‘I wish to ask you something, an idea I’ve been considering since you left us this morning.’ She nudged her horse closer to Bart’s. Over the smell of the grass and the sweat of horses, he caught a hint of her lilac perfume. With it came the memory of her in his arms at Lady Greenwood’s ball, her lips as sweet as her voice and the small peals of laughter he’d drawn from her with jokes and flattery. Her laughter and grace had been a relief after the difficulties of war and the endless haranguing by his father about his decision to become a barrister. Then the aunt had ended everything and Lady Rexford had allowed it.

Bart adjusted his grip on the reins, this fact as difficult to ignore as her while she watched him from atop her horse. The height of her animal brought her closer to him, allowing him to study the pretty face which had not been marred in the slightest by widowhood.

‘It’s about Freddy,’ she clarified.

Bart nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised until this morning how much he’d changed.’

‘Few have. We stayed in the country because Aunt Agatha was afraid people might talk of madness if they saw how dark Freddy’s grief was for Helena and she was determined to keep it a secret. It was the same way with my father after my mother died. She feared people would think madness ran in our family and it would prevent Freddy or me from making suitable matches.’

He ignored the uncharitable thought of how unsuitable her match to Lord Rexford had been and nodded his understanding of the danger of allowing people to believe madness ran in a family. He’d once defended a widow from losing her inherited lands to Lord Hartmore, her late husband’s brother, when he’d tried to brand her a lunatic just because her father had been afflicted with madness.

‘Like Father, Freddy was so deeply entrenched in his grief,’ she continued, ‘he lost interest in everything after she died, his estate, his son, but he’s finally coming around.’

‘With a great deal of your help, I’m sure.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. He deserves your care and concern.’ Bart flicked a speck of dirt off his thigh, conscious of how much he’d failed his friend who’d done a great deal to help stop the assassination plot. On the battlefield, he’d excelled at keeping his soldiers safe and in court he was victorious when defending the weak against those attempting to twist the law to their advantage. When it came to those closer to him, despite his best efforts, he sometimes fell short. ‘He deserves happiness instead of misery.’

‘What did Freddy mean when he said he’d lost Helena to plotting scoundrels?’ she asked with startling candidness. He was usually the one asking direct questions.

‘Your brother didn’t tell you after I left?’

‘I didn’t ask. Almost any mention of Helena sends him spiralling into a black mood. I’d like you to tell me.’

‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I did.’

She eyed the other riders with a suspicion similar to his. ‘Before this morning I wouldn’t have, but a great deal has changed since then.’

‘It hasn’t changed. You’ve simply become aware of it.’

She turned to him. ‘And I’d like to know the rest.’

Bart pulled his reins through his gloved hands before at last answering. ‘Your sister-in-law was not shot in her carriage by a random thief in St Giles. She was murdered by a member of the Scottish Corresponding Society.’ Lady Rexford’s full lips parted as if she intended to deny what he’d told her, but she didn’t. ‘Freddy was their intended target. He was supposed to be with her in the carriage that night.’

‘But he was sick, so she went to the theatre without him,’ Lady Rexford whispered.

‘The man who attacked the carriage had orders to kill whoever was inside. He didn’t know who she was and it made no difference to him. He did what he was paid to do, but he was paid through informants. When we pressed him—’

‘You caught the scoundrel?’

‘I have a number of connections in the underworld. It’s how I’m able to win so many cases against fraud. Unlike other barristers, I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. The murderer was hanged soon afterward. Freddy was there when he dropped.’

Except his death hadn’t brought Lady Fallworth back. Nothing could.

Lady Rexford traced the stitching on her glove with her finger. ‘Thank you for telling me. It explains a great deal about Freddy’s grief.’

‘He blames himself.’ When he should blame me. I could have done more and I should have done more to protect her. He was glad Moira had turned down his request for help. He couldn’t fail her the way he’d failed Lady Fallworth. He’d been a fool to even ask, but with precious few leads he’d grasped at any chance to learn more about the Rouge Noir and their plans before it was too late.

‘He does.’

* * *

Moira continued to trace the lacing on her glove with her finger, so many things about the last two years finally making sense. While Aunt Agatha had always written to Moira wringing her hands over Mr Dyer and Freddy’s friendship, Helena’s letters had never mentioned any concern about Freddy’s late nights out. Then, when she’d been murdered, Freddy’s grief had been so intense it used to make her ashamed of the shallowness of hers for her deceased husband. Walter had been amiable and pleasant enough, but she’d never possessed the depth of feeling for him that Freddy had held for Helena.

‘It’s why the Rouge Noir must be stopped before they can ruin any more lives.’ Mr Dyer watched the endless parade of people riding by, the hardness in his eyes startling. ‘These noble traitors hate the country giving them their very lives, incomes, titles and influence and are plotting to bring it down with a ruthlessness and glee to make you sick. They haven’t seen the starving people in France, the wounded and dead in Germany and Austria, the suffering, disease, and misery Napoleon’s army leaves in its wake. All they have are their ideas from afar, their so-called noble ideals and the disgusting willingness to see them carried out. I intend to make sure they don’t succeed.’

Moira studied everyone around them, wondering who among them were as evil as Mr Dyer claimed. They all seemed so innocent, going about their day, caring for almost nothing except dresses and society, scandals and balls. Even the shallowest among them didn’t deserve to have their security and livelihoods ripped from them. She remembered the tales her grandmother used to tell her of France during the early days of the revolution and how everything solid they’d built their lives on had been pulled down, leaving them with nothing. Moira would listen, wide-eyed, at the dinner table while she spoke, trying to imagine what it would be like to have everything torn from her and replaced with fear. If Mr Dyer was right and the Rouge Noir wasn’t stopped, Moira might find out.

She adjusted the collar of her riding habit against a brisk breeze, but it wasn’t the fear of the Rouge Noir making her shiver, but an awareness of Mr Dyer beside her. His strong presence overshadowed everything, including her reason, as she’d discovered when she’d allowed him to lead her behind the topiary on Lady Greenwood’s portico. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her before pulling back and smiling like the devil, as if he’d known before she did she would agree to his kiss and his proposal. The thrill of it had been as intense as this morning when she’d faced him with the pistol. If things had been different and she hadn’t given in to the pressure from Aunt Agatha and her father, she wondered where she and Mr Dyer might be now.

She lowered her hand and adjusted her skirt over the saddle. It didn’t matter. Things were as they were and she could not make the past any different. It was the present she needed to concern herself with, the one which had become very uncertain in the space of only a few hours.

Then something across the park jerked Mr Dyer’s attention away from her. She followed the line of his gaze to see Aunt Agatha being driven in the open-topped landau towards them. Mr Dyer’s horse danced with his rider’s agitation before he brought him firmly under control.

‘Moira, I’m pleased to see you here,’ Aunt Agatha observed, eyeing Mr Dyer as if he were a pickpocket. ‘Although I’m not as enamoured of your chosen company.’

Mr Dyer’s horse snorted.

‘Mr Dyer, you remember my aunt, Lady Treadway.’ Moira made the introduction, trying to keep the ice between them from hardening further.

‘I do.’ His response was glacial.

‘I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr Dyer, but after our last conversation, I’d expected you to think twice about approaching Lady Rexford.’

‘Remind me of our conversation, Lady Treadway,’ Mr Dyer urged with a smile as sharp as broken glass. ‘After all, it has been some time since we last spoke.’ Bart remembered exactly what she’d said to him, but he wanted to make her repeat it. He wasn’t about to leave without a fight or be shooed off like some kicked dog because the Dowager scowled at him.

Lady Treadway shifted her shawl on her shoulders, more reluctant this time to speak so boldly to him. ‘As you know, my niece is a countess, the daughter of an earl, the sister of an earl. Her prospects are quite high.’

‘Aunt Agatha!’ Lady Rexford exclaimed, trying to stop her aunt, but she was as determined to put Bart in his place today as she’d been five years ago.

‘It’s true, my dear. I’m only looking out for you.’

‘And once again you’ve deemed me unsuitable.’ It was all Bart could do to sit in the saddle with dignity as he stared down at the small woman dressed in purple and lace, her bearing as stiff as a female workhouse warden. There was no longer a promise between him and Lady Rexford, but it didn’t mean he’d allow anyone to dictate anything to him. What Lady Rexford allowed others to dictate to her was her own affair.

‘My niece is a very generous young woman. I don’t want her friendliness to be mistaken for an invitation.’

‘Aunt Agatha, you have entirely misread the situation and Mr Dyer,’ Lady Rexford protested, to her credit. It was more than she’d dared to say to her aunt the last time they’d been in a similar situation.

‘No, she’s read me exactly as she wishes to.’ Bart leaned over in his saddle, the horse’s height combined with his allowing him to tower over the diminutive woman. The aunt didn’t back down, but straightened, meeting his hard look with an even more determined one. For a brief moment he admired the little force in silk. Despite her snobbery, she truly had her niece’s best interest at heart and he begrudgingly admired her for it. ‘Did you wake up this morning, madam, with the express intent of insulting me?’

This made her back down and she looked away, fiddling with the handle of her unopened umbrella. ‘I don’t mean to insult you, merely to remind you of the facts of the matter which, as a barrister, I’m sure you can appreciate.’

‘Yes, I do.’ He turned hard eyes on Lady Rexford, wishing she possessed as much strength of spirit as her aunt. It might have changed a number of things about the past five years. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Rexford.’

* * *

‘Mr Dyer, wait,’ Moira called after him, but he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and bolted off down Rotten Row.

‘Let him go, my dear, it is for the best,’ Aunt Agatha declared as if the topic was finished and it was most certainly not.

‘Why did you insult him?’ Moira demanded. ‘There was nothing taking place between us except conversation.’

‘It always begins with conversation.’ Aunt Agatha sniffed in the superior way which annoyed Moira.

‘And it ends with me being pressured to marry a man twice my age, one I didn’t love and who was incapable of giving me any of the things I wanted.’

Aunt Agatha’s pale skin went pink near her greying hair. What Moira said wasn’t a secret, but it’d never been openly acknowledged either, not by her or any of the people who’d insisted she marry Lord Rexford. Her horse tossed its head and Moira tugged the reins, wishing she could control her emotions as easily as she did her mount, but ever since this morning, the many thoughts and feelings she’d done her best to bury and forget had been rising up, refusing to be ignored.

‘We did what we thought best for you, Moira,’ Aunt Agatha answered at last without apology.