"Done, Hawkesly," Ross said, loosening his neck cloth as he slid a leather packet across the map table.  "One whining, over-ripe Hapsburg prince delivered safely to the cellar door at Buckingham Palace."

"At great risk to our personal fortunes," Drew added with a wry smile as he dropped into a wing-back chair.  "Gad, Jared, the man's a bloody card sharp."

"You did leave him with a quid or two, Drew," Jared, Earl of Hawkesly, asked, certain that the surly prince wouldn't soon forget his card game with Drew.

"Two quid and his hat," Drew said, propping his polished boots on the edge of the brass hearth fender.

"Good work, man."  Jared gave Drew's shoulder an affable cuff, pleased to be home and in familiar company, and to have the matter of the prince finished so neatly. 

Neatly enough to finally have time to take care of some long-neglected personal business.

Brushing off the glint of a perfumed memory, a moment's guilt, Jared handed a report to each of them.  "Fortunately we're finished with rebellions and insolent monarchs for the moment.  A routine gun-running investigation."

"Ah, that American merchant ship," Ross said, flipping through the pages. "The Pickering.  Impounded in Portsmouth now."

"Customs found two thousand rifles," Jared said, pulling a map tube out of his saddlebag, "countless crates of ammunition, and all of it hidden beneath a shipment of Indian cornmeal."

"Guns and grain," Drew said, shaking his head, sobered considerably.  "I'll wager they're bound for Limerick or Cork." 

"My thoughts exactly."  Word of the potato crop failure had reached Jared months ago in the China Sea, a blight that seemed to have only intensified.  "Doubtless it's the Young Irelanders."

Ross tossed the report to the middle of the table.  "Damn fools, if they mean to rise again.  With marshal law and another 17,000 of Her Majesty's troops on their way to Dublin."

"In any case," Jared said, adding Lord Grey's note to the report.  "The Home Office has given me charge of coastal inquiries during the trouble in Ireland.  We're to investigate the captain of the Pickering, his politics, the shipping company, the receiver, the warehouses.  A simple, domestic inquiry--"

"Domestic?" Drew asked, a jaunty brow cocked at Jared.  "An interesting choice of words, don't you think, Ross?"

"Absolutely," Ross said, his smile scheming and wry as he stood.  Hazardous to the unsuspecting.  "Because as I recall, Jared leaves this morning on a domestic mission of his own."

So that was it, the blighters.

"Possibly the most dangerous mission of his life."  Drew's dark eyes glinted like knife points, an expression as familiar as the easy drone of voices coming from the club room beyond.

"A lot you two blackguards know of marriage."  Jared went to the map case beneath the bow window and yanked open a drawer.  "Think what you will; I know what I'm doing."

Ross laughed, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the samovar.  "But we also know what you haven't done, Jared."

"Couldn't possibly have done," Drew said.

"To the devil with both of you."  Grateful that he was no longer prone to blushing like a callow lad, Jared lifted out the stash of maps and dropped them onto the top of the case.

"How long has it been since Hawkesly got married, Ross," Drew asked, "two years?"

"Longer than that, by my counting."

"Eighteen months, you bloody pair of magpies."  Doing a lousy job of ignoring their usual blathering, Jared found the map of the western England coastline and set it aside.

"Still, it's a loooong time to leave your bride unattended."

His bride. 

The thought always stopped him in motion, left only the briefest image, burned into his memory, impossible to shake.

The blue-eyed mist of her, the silky promise of fire and smoke and long summer evenings.  Or had she only been a mirage, heat shimmering off the harbor, the deep cerulean Egyptian sky?

"An eternity, Jared," Ross said, joining him at the map case, coffee cup in hand.  "Especially for a bride that you didn't know. . . that you married in haste on the deck of your ship in Alexandria, and then left at the altar a minute later."

It had been at least five minutes later, Jared thought but thankfully didn't speak aloud, because it would have been a ridiculous point to press.  They all knew the reason that he'd had to leave Miss Trafford in Alexandria. 

A convenient wedding at an inconvenient moment.  As damnably inconvenient as this one.

"You'll have to begin the gun-running investigation without me.  I'll be spending the next few weeks at Hawkesly Hall."

"Is that wise, Jared?  Going home?  What if, instead, Ross and I send word to your lovely bride that you died at sea in the service of your queen.  That we tossed your rotting body reverently, but irretrievably, overboard--"

"Thanks anyway, Drew, but I'm fully capable of making my own peace with Miss Trafford without--"

Drew sputtered.  "Miss Trafford?  Good Lord, Jared, you're in worse trouble than I'd imagined!"

Bloody hell, Drew never missed a slip of the tongue.  And yet this was more than a slip--he'd been thinking of the woman as 'Miss Trafford' all this time.    

Kathryn Trafford, heiress and only child of the late Victor Trafford of Trafford Shipping.  He knew little more of her than that. 

Light eyes, bright as the sky, as blue as the sea.  Sun-gold hair and ribbons and a bonnet that had fought the wind with all its might.

A deep memory of her mouth, softly red and full and firmly bowed.  And frowning up at him, furiously working with resentment.  Tugged at by her perfectly straight, white teeth.

Frown all you want, my dear wife, it was a business venture that wed us.  Nothing more.

"A simple mistake, Drew, made out of habit."

Even Ross looked scandalized.  "Do yourself a favor, Jared, and don't let your bride hear you call her Miss Trafford."

"She does know you're coming?"

"She knows, Drew."  He'd written her recently. . . a few months back.  Maybe six.  But he'd informed her then that he'd be arriving home by the end of the year.  And here he was.

As to his delay in following her back to England after their wedding, he'd had no choice at the time.  She would just have to be grateful that he had finally routed out some time to devote to their marriage.

And to their children. 

Yes, it was time that he beget an heir to the Hawkesly fortune.  With a few to spare.  Miss Traff . . . Kathryn would surely be receptive to finally consummating their marriage. 

He certainly was. 

More than receptive.  Eager, in fact.

"Ah!  There you are, my Lord Hawkesly!"  Arthur Pembridge had suddenly appeared at the door of the map room with his usual, impeccable timing, impeccably dressed, impeccably composed.  "Your trunk has arrived from your cabin on the Garnet Moon.  Shall I have it delivered to the railway station?"

"And then sent ahead to Hawkesly Hall, Pembridge," Jared said.  "Except my saddlebag here.  I'll see to it myself."

"Ah, carrying a gift for your bride then, sir?" 

A gift?

Pembridge arched a well-groomed eyebrow then cast him a half-smile.  "Doubtless too delicate an object to be transported by any means but your own hand?"

Damn!  A gift.  Leave it to Pembridge to think of that.

"Precisely, Pembridge."  Jared patted his saddlebag as though he had a fragile treasure hidden there.  "A gift."

Pembridge nodded an impeccable, glad-to-save-your-skin-sir smile and then left.

Drew was staring at Jared, aghast.  "You forgot to get your bride a wedding gift, didn't you?"

"Bugger off."  A gift was easy enough to acquire, though he knew virtually nothing about her.  Her letters to him had been few and terse--sterile information, always seasons-old and dripping with unspoken censure.

But she was a woman after all, and women liked pretty things.  Soft things.

"Oh, he's in trouble now, Ross."

He had crates of Chinese porcelain in the hold of the Garnet Moon.  And silk.  And perfume from Paris. 

Ross straddled a chair.  "How about some Belgian lace?  All brides like lace."

A clock!  There was a handsome floor clock stored at his hunting lodge, right there on the estate, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl.  Very expensive–a gift from a grateful Swiss count.  Which made the clock a gift suitable for any bride.

He'd stop at the lodge, have the clock loaded onto one of the panel wagons, if he could find someone to help him, and then have it in tow when he arrived home.

Easy enough.  Ruffled feathers smoothed, her female temper cooled, pride easily purchased.

Excellent!

"Well, I'm on my way, gentlemen."  Jared rolled the map into its case, tucked it into his saddlebag, then hooked the strap over his shoulder.  "Do keep me informed of your investigation."

Drew caught Jared by the elbow.  "Just one thing before you head off to this belated wedding night."

"What is it?" 

Drew crossed his arms over his chest.  "A wager."

"No."  He'd long since stopped placing wagers against Drew.  The man had the devil's luck, and a mind that stored and sorted every fact he'd ever learned.  Jared brushed safely past him and out of the map room into the club room, with Drew on his heels, Ross close behind, laughing.

"Just a simple wager."

Jared laughed as he strode along the mezzanine, with its gleaming mahogany balustrade and brass fittings, always pleased at the richness spreading out before him; the grand staircase, the thick carpets and luxurious furnishings, liveried servants and well-kept secrets. 

The sinuous marble designs on the floor of the lobby below had been the crowning touch: a broad, inlaid crest, a lion rampant, a ship in full sail, and three swords, blades crossed.

The Huntsman; the grandest club in all of London.  Prized for its grandeur, its exorbitant fees, its powerful, luminous, exclusive membership, the everlasting rumors about its mysterious owner.

St. Thomas, he was called.  A duke, they whispered, doubtless a young European prince with too much money and power for his own good.

Let them think what they will.

Jared stopped one step down the staircase and turned to face his two friends, men he had loved and admired and trusted with his life for so long that it was second nature to him.

"No need for a wager, Drew.  I'm fully confident that you and Ross will succeed in Portsmouth--"

"Of course we will."  Drew laughed and draped his arm over Ross's shoulder.  "My wager is far more personal and quite simple: that you'll be at least a week getting your wife into your bed.  Seven days.  I'll even mark it into the betting book."

Jared laughed again, because the huge man could be every bit as amusing as he was deadly serious, with barely a breath between.  "You are completely mad."

"Not me, friend.  You, if you really think you're going to just walk through her door for the first time in your married life and happily waltz your little bride into bed without paying a painful penalty for your neglect."

"First of all, my personal life has never been the subject of one of your frivolous wagers."

"Bloody hell, you've never had a personal life."

"Secondly, my marriage is bloody well none of your business."

Drew frowned and leaned against the banister.  "Then you truly won't take the wager?"

Ross crossed his arms against his broad chest, a dare on his face.  "A least grant us the warning."

"Et tu, Ross?"  The solemn one of the pair.

Ross shook his head.  "Let's just say that were I in your boots, Jared, I would tread lightly.  Or better yet, I'd go barefooted and on my hands and knees." 

An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them, the remains of Ross's quiet warning filling the gilded vaults above the lobby, drifting downward into the polish and brass, and settling hard on Jared's shoulders.

"Good then, Ross," he said, shaking off the unexpected hitch in his confidence.  "When you decide to marry, do let me know and I'll be sure to take lessons from you." 

Drew snorted, Ross only grunted and said, "Don't say we didn't warn you."

"Now if you'll both excuse me, I don't want to miss my train."

By the time Jared had left the Huntsman, he was once again feeling in complete control.  And scoffing at Drew's absurd wager and Ross's warning, certain of his own success in the matter of his much delayed wedding night. 

"As a matter of fact, I'll take your wager, Drew," Jared said under his breath as he climbed into a carriage outside the door of the Huntsman, "and I'll raise you a tenner."

Miss Trafford would become Lady Hawkesly in truth sometime tomorrow tonight because...

Bloody hell, because she was his wife!

Jared made Liverpool by evening, spent a restless night at the Foxbury Railway Inn, then two more hours on a train, another hour in a post carriage, until he was finally trotting through the late September afternoon on a horse hired in Mereglass–his village–and rounding a familiar bend in the lane that led through the woods toward his hunting lodge.

The queen had granted him the lodge, along with the newly-created earldom of Hawkesly and its magnificent hall, the town and the harbor, the mountains and the fields. 

A heady accomplishment for a boy who'd escaped from a workhouse with the law on his heels and two young friends in tow.  But fate had made him the queen's champion at twenty, her trusted emissary at twenty-one, and in the decade since, her clandestine intermediary in times of dire need.  He gladly risked his life for her, for his country, and was well rewarded for it.

An occupational hazard which kept him away for long periods of time and the estate nearly deserted.

At least the lodge should be deserted.  Yet as he cleared a hillock and its thick grove of yew, he was certain he'd seen a light where the lodge should be.

More than one light.  And motion.

"Bloody hell!"  Jared loped his horse along the winding lane, every switchback revealing more activity.  Men and horses and then the sound of voices, until he reached the edge of the shadowy forest. 

The instinctive habits of survival kept him from riding his into the melee without knowing the facts.

The forecourt of the lodge was teeming with men, a half-dozen just coming up the path from the river, bristling with fish and fishing paraphernalia.

His fish, of course!  His lodge!!! 

Bloody hell, and there was another group lounging at a long table under a tree, drinking his ale, from his tankards.

"Can I take yer horse, sir?"  A boy was coming toward him, doffing his cap, an eager little hop in his gangly step. 

"My horse?"

"Shall I stable 'im for ya?"

His stables, too?  His hay and his horses?  Damnation, his private hunting lodge looked like a bloody country inn!

"You do that, boy."  Jared threw the groom the reins, grabbed his saddle bag and started toward the courtyard, prepared to do battle with whoever the hell had taken over his lodge.

Which seemed to be doing a hopping business.  Jared tried to brush past a trio of poachers, but the stoutest of them stepped in his way.

"I say, sir!  Are you a course man or game?"

Bloody nonsense.

The lean one gave Jared a close look as he scratched at his thickly bearded chin.  "No, Fitchett, he's got the look of the course about him."

"Nah, he's game, Gilmott."  The younger man pointed at Jared with the tip of his fishing rod, not knowing how close he was to being tossed to the ground.  "A grayling, I'd wager.  At home on the Tay as well as the Tweed."

"Well, then what is it, man?" the first one asked, with a broad laugh, venturing a jabbing knuckle against Jared's upper arm, then wisely retracting the offense.  "Breame, here thinks he can tell a man's sport just by looking at him."

Seething with anger, Jared merely touched the brim of his hat and left them with a nodded, "Gentlemen."

Jared pressed his way through the blustering crowd, past the tippling squires and their tall tales; a seventeen pound barbel, a dozen woodcock, bagging a hill hare with his bare hands . . . .

Bloody hell, someone had turned his lodge into a sportsman's retreat.  And he was bloody well going to throttle whoever had done it.

Jared stalked through the front doorway and the entry passage, then into the brightness of the great room with its clerestory windows and it massive hearth ablaze with wood–from his forest, of course.

Last he'd seen the lodge, everything had been draped in dustsheets; from the furniture to the paintings and sconces and even the mounted game on the walls.

Now the place looked like a bloody hotel for country gentlemen, and smelled of roasted boar and woodsmoke, of brandy and leather . . . .    

And something else . . . .

A haunting sweetness.  Subtle.  Familiar somehow, blending with the other scents.

He stood in the center of the room, amidst the trespassers who were lounging in his plush chairs, their muddied heels grinding into the inlaid tops of his tables, into the thick carpets.

Drinking his whisky, by god! 

Stolen from his cellar!

And served up by a tall, gray-haired barman, who was struggling with a keg behind a brand new counter tucked inside one of the archways beneath the east balcony.

The man would damn well serve Jared the truth in the next moment, else he'd find himself on his way to Newgate in the next breath.

"You there," Jared said across the top of the counter, startling the man into straightening.

"That fashed for a pint, are ya, sir?" his brogue was far thicker than the groom's.  "So what can I do for ya."

You can get the hell out of my lodge, he wanted to say.

Instead, Jared leaned toward the man, wanting to take him by the collar and throttle the truth out of him.  "You can tell me who's in charge here."

"Here?"  The man frowned, scratched at the back of his neck.  "Well, I am, I suppose.  Curtis McHugh's the name sir," he said, sticking out his hand for Jared to shake, retracting it when Jared didn't reciprocate.  "In charge of the bar and the spirit cellar here at Badger's Run.  And proud of the honor, I am."

"Badger's Run?"  Like hell it was Badger's anything.  This was plainly his hunting lodge on the Hawkesly estate.  There was no mistaking where he was.  "I'll ask you one more time, McHugh, who is in charge here?"

"Here at Badger's Run, you mean?"  McHugh smiled, sighed, nodded almost fondly.  "Well, then you should have said."

"I'm saying now, McHugh, as plainly as I know.  Tell me who runs this place."

"Ah, now that would be. . . ." 

An odd expression drifted over McHugh's features, softened them, pinked his cheeks like a schoolboy's.  He canted his head, then nodded over Jared's shoulder.

"That would be herself, sir.  Comin' down the stairs."  He sighed again, his smile gone wistful.  "Our Lady Kathryn."

Miss Trafford?

Kathryn.

God, he hadn't thought for a moment that . . . never, ever imagined that she . . . . that his wife was the--