Georgie Lee - Courting Danger With Mr Dyer

‘I might as well.’ Heaven knew when Bart would return or if he needed her any longer. Spying Freddy leading young Miss Filner on to the dance floor, she realised people not needing her was fast becoming an all-too-familiar pattern in her life.

* * *

Bart followed the Comte de Troyen at a discreet distance through the refreshment room, past the one reserved for gambling and down the long hallway leading to the back of the house. The number of guests thinned as they walked and Bart dropped further and further behind the Comte to avoid being noticed. The Comte paused at a juncture where the main hallway was crossed by another one. Bart stepped back into the narrow alcove of a closed door and pressed himself deep into the shadows, not daring to move.

After a long breath, Bart leaned forward, but the Comte was gone. Bart hurried to the juncture, the thick rug muffling the fall of his shoes. He hazarded a look down one side and then the other. In the centre of the right hallway, the Comte stood with Lord Camberline, less regal and more irritated than he’d been in the ballroom. Bart leaned back against the wall, near the corner to listen to their heated exchange.

‘Don’t think I’ll allow you to renege now, not with so much at stake,’ the Frenchman insisted, showing no deference to the young man’s superior rank.

‘I won’t renege,’ the Marquess answered, as agitated as the Comte. ‘But it’s been more difficult than you realise to put everything in place.’

‘I think you’re stalling for time, to avoid doing what we agreed must be done.’

‘I want this as much as you do. It will change everything and I want it changed. I’ll send word when all is ready. I promise, it will be soon.’

‘It better be or you’ll regret it,’ the Comte threatened.

The Comte’s shoes thudded against the carpet as he stalked away from Lord Camberline. Bart dashed down the hall and into the first room he found. He left the door cracked open slightly, hiding behind it while the Comte passed by, muttering to himself in French. Whatever he and the Marquess were embroiled in, the Comte held power over the younger man and he wasn’t going to let him get cold feet. Bart would make sure the young man’s feet froze solid before he let him compromise himself or the country.

Bart waited in the empty room to give the Marquess time to pass, his eyes adjusting to the moonlight falling in through the windows along the far wall. Above the scent of wood oil, he caught another familiar and more deadly scent.

Gunpowder.

If this were a masculine room he wouldn’t be concerned. Stored hunting rifles improperly cleaned by a footman might leave a lingering scent, but the gilded chairs and comfortable sofa set before a delicate writing table near the windows told him this was a lady’s domain. The scent of gunpowder shouldn’t be here.

Bart made his way around the room, searching for the source of the scent. He found it near the writing table. He pulled open the drawers on the left side and rifled through them, but there was nothing inside except blank papers, pens and extra ink. He closed the last one and moved to search the right-hand drawers when his foot came down on something. It was a small envelope and it grated like it held fine gravel. He picked it up and carefully opened the envelope to examine the substance inside. It was gunpowder, but a redder and more pungent variety than any he’d encountered before. The colour and smell of it concerned him as deeply as the conversation he’d overheard. He tucked the envelope in his coat pocket, then peered cautiously through the cracked door to make sure the hallway was empty before he left the room.

He retraced his steps, the people and conversation growing thicker as he approached the gaming room. He moved past them and into the ballroom, intending to return to Moira. She might know something about Lord Camberline and a way for one of them to get closer to the young lord and learn more.

He stepped into the crowded ballroom, searching for her light hair, the elegant line of her jaw and the captivating eyes that had met his across a ballroom similar to this one five years ago, making him forget the need to be cautious about young ladies of higher rank. She’d accepted his invitation to dance without the snide condescension of other ladies in search of more lucrative elder sons of lords. They’d wanted nothing to do with a fifth son who earned his living from hard work, and he’d refused to endure their insolence. Moira hadn’t cared about his rank or dismissed him because of it.

No, she’d left it to the aunt to do it for her.

He spied her across the room standing with her aunt and a number of other elderly ladies, irritated at the old slight and captivated by her present beauty. Whatever the aunt still thought of him, it was clear Moira didn’t share her opinion or her aunt’s enthusiasm for her present company. She appeared as bored by the gaggle of biddies as Bart was disappointed. He couldn’t approach her while she was with them.

Damn.

Lord Camberline and the Comte were up to something and he was sure it had something to do with the gunpowder in his pocket. He needed to give the sample to Mr Flint and have his man, Mr Transom, examine it, and tell his superior what he’d overheard in the hallway. Maybe Mr Flint had received some more intelligence to help them make sense of it. It meant leaving the ball and Moira early, but he’d find a way to meet her again tomorrow and explain everything without the aunt interrupting them. He was sure Moira would understand his abrupt departure. He hoped she did because he needed her. She’d shown him tonight how she could charm men like the Comte with an ease none of his other agents could match and she was already an acquaintance of the Camberlines. It gave her access to them and their house, one he could not otherwise obtain. In light of what he’d overheard and what he’d found, it was a critical connection he had to take advantage of.

He reached into his pocket and rubbed the envelope with the gunpowder between his thumb and forefinger. The granules grated beneath the paper and his fingertips. He didn’t want Moira involved in this or in harm’s way, but her help might prove crucial to stopping the Rouge Noir. If he could keep her work to chatting to titled men and women at parties, asking the right questions or simply listening, she should be safe. He would do all he could to ensure it and not fail her or England as he’d failed Lady Fallworth.

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