Better Off Wed

Book 3: Love and Let Spy

by Susanna Craig

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

If Miss Laura Hopkins desired a husband, her beauty, brains, and fortune would make it easy to acquire one. Instead, she prefers to put her charms to another purpose entirely. Using the alias Lady Sterling, she helps young women who have been mistreated or compromised by their employers. Some might see it as theft and blackmail. For Laura, it is a small measure of justice. But while in pursuit of her latest target, she is unexpectedly aided by a gentleman who announces that he is Lord Sterling. As a spy for the Crown, Captain Jeremy Addison, Viscount Sterling, has been assigned all manner of dangerous missions, though none as complicated as investigating the beguiling Lady Sterling. Forced to pose as newlyweds at the home of a disreputable earl, Laura and Jeremy forge an unexpected alliance… and a passionate connection. But can such a dangerous masquerade possibly lead to a real, lasting love?

Release date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 384

Sample

Prologue

Lady Sterling had been born of darkness.

Not the darkness of night, though much of her work was done between dusk and dawn. No, her name had been forged in the dark souls of men—men whose lust for power extended beyond empires and crowns, beyond land and titles, beyond even trade and politics, into the comfortless garrets and cellars of their domestics, often mere girls, whose pleas fell on deaf ears and whose refusals meant nothing at all.

On behalf of those innocent victims, Lady Sterling let herself be branded a thief.

Tonight, her hunting ground was Vauxhall Gardens. Paper lanterns danced languidly in the breeze, and beneath them strolled smiling couples, eager young men, even families. The warm air was thick with their awareness that the pleasures of summer must soon come to an end. In the distance, she heard music playing and people chattering over their suppers of ham, sliced paper-thin.

But her eye was drawn to the unlit alleys where other appetites could be satisfied.

On the fringes of a crowd of gentlemen stood Lord Penhurst, ripe for culling from the herd. Painting a seductive smile on her lips, she tugged her bodice half an inch lower and strolled past.

He had been a difficult one to track down, preferring as he did the hallowed halls and balls of the haute ton, where he angled for a wealthy bride and where Lady Sterling had no right of entry at all. She could almost regret her success in finding him here tonight. She had enjoyed the challenge, the chase.

But she must think of Betty, who would soon be unable to hide her swelling belly, who had lost her position and the roof over her head, thanks to Penhurst’s depravity. Well, those who danced must pay the piper, as the old saying went.

And tonight, she meant to present the baron with his bill.

She knew the exact moment he saw her—or at least her décolletage. She slowed her steps, the better to roll her hips. He would answer her silent summons. Of that, she had no doubt.

The only question was whether he would come alone.

“I say,” drawled one of the men, not Penhurst, “that bird’s ripe for plucking.”

A shiver of uncertainty passed through her, but she disguised it by turning her head away from the other man’s voice, displaying her slender neck, making the scarlet silk of her gown shimmer. With a backward glance, she boldly caught Penhurst’s eye, then fluttered her lashes down.

“Aye,” the baron agreed hungrily. “Not often one sees such a plump breast paired with such a fine tail.”

The men were all already drunk. If she had not known it by Penhurst’s unsteady steps toward her, she would have guessed from the comments his cronies exchanged behind him—ribald jokes about roasting spits and cream-filled sauces that evidently sounded quite clever to their ears.

Drink made some men easier marks. It made others mean. From what Betty had told her, she could guess the effect it would have on Penhurst. Another chill scuttled along her spine.

Then one of Penhurst’s friends spoke to him in a low voice. “There’s better sport to be had at Pandemonium, old man.”

Penhurst waved him off with a laugh.

A blaze of satisfaction drove away her fear. Pandemonium was a notorious, high-stakes hell, and a man with Penhurst’s reputation for failing to honor his vowels could not expect to gamble there on credit. If he had managed to scrape together some sum of money in preparation for tonight, he must have it somewhere about his person.

Of course, a fat purse could never make up for what Betty had suffered and would suffer. But even a thin one would satisfy the girl’s immediate needs better than the pocket watch Lady Sterling had come to find.

Pleased by the additional prospect of bankrupting him, she did not even flinch when the baron’s arm circled her waist to urge her along the shadowy path and his brandy-soaked breath wafted over her skin. “I’ve got a busy night ahead of me,” he said, “but I’ll give you sixpence for a quick spit and polish, dove.”

Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back. She had never yet had to make good on what men seemed to regard as the promise of her courtesan’s garb. Tonight would be no different.

Unlike Lord Penhurst, she was clever, perfectly sober—and armed.

Fearing nothing so much as injustice, she turned and ran a palm over his fitted silk waistcoat, deftly snatching his watch as she passed. Even as she seemed to lavish her attention on him, her eyes were focused on that promising bulge lower down—the purse his friend ought to have advised him to guard. Her eager fingers drifted to his waist. “Ooh, gov. Me mouth’s already waterin’.”

It was not. But her eyes were. Why did gentlemen prefer dousing themselves in cologne to a thorough application of soap and water? Holding her breath, she leaned closer, clinging to him, curling her fingers against his chest, tracing the decorative stitching on his waistcoat.

As she had suspected, the purse was hooked to his clothes, probably by a loop of thread over a hidden button, so it couldn’t easily be lifted by a pickpocket. Nevertheless, she managed to dislodge it when she pressed closer still and wrapped her arms around him. Though they were only just off the gravel path, hardly out of sight of passersby, his hands settled heavily on her shoulders, urging her toward the ground. Her body slid over his, obligingly, sensuously. By the time she was face-to-face with the front of his satin breeches, the purse was sagging free, visible below the hem of his waistcoat.

He gripped the back of her neck as she knelt before him. “That’s it. I do like the sight of a girl on her knees.”

That much Betty had already made clear.

Fighting the impulse to deal the man more than a pecuniary injury, she spread one hand over his thigh and dug her fingertips into his flesh. He hissed and tipped back his head in anticipatory pleasure. Now, while he wasn’t looking, she made her most important move, leaving her calling card where the watch had been.

A necessary risk. Men—all men, as far as she could tell, but most especially ones like Lord Penhurst—were presumptuous, avaricious. Creatures of their appetites, yet sure of their superiority over the so-called weaker sex.

She wanted them to know the identity of the woman who had bested them, wanted them to understand who held their secrets, and their futures, in the palm of her hand.

Thanks to the reputation she had built, a simple rectangle of stiffened paper bearing the name Lady Sterling had the power to ensure that a man would think twice before continuing to tally victims.

With nimble fingers, she tucked the card into the slit pocket of his waistcoat, while with the other hand she pretended to fumble with the buttons of his fall as she slipped the purse from its hiding spot. When the little leather pouch landed on the damp leaves beside her, the weighty chink of coins was the blessed music of reassurance. Betty and her child would not be condemned to starve.

Penhurst froze, tightening his hand against the back of her skull. For a moment, she thought he too had heard the sound of his purse hitting the ground.

But no, his attention had been caught by another noise entirely: footsteps. Someone strolling along the path, coming from the opposite direction. The perfect distraction. Luck was definitely on her side tonight. She would not have to resort to her weapon to get free. Surreptitiously, she danced the fingers of her free hand over the dirt until she found the little leather pouch, and then drew back her head against the baron’s hand, intending to rise.

Penhurst, however, was not to be so easily put off. “Go on,” he ordered, jerking her by her wig and tightening his hold so that she could not turn toward the sound. “They’ll pass by, if they know what’s good for them.” A grunt of laughter. “Unless they’re the sort who like to watch.”

They. A group of men, perhaps? Men who might conclude from her present position that she was more than willing to entertain…

For the space of several breaths, she feared she had pushed her luck too far.

Then she heard a man’s voice say, “Let’s turn back, Julia. We shouldn’t have come this way.” Relief flooded through her. The footsteps belonged to a man and a woman. Just a couple who had got into one of the darkened alleys by mistake—or intended to claim as much, if they were caught.

“But we’re nearly to the end of this walk.” The woman sounded young, though not a child. “See, the light’s much brighter just over th—oh! Oh, my.” Shock warred with curiosity in the young woman’s voice. Easy to picture her craning her neck for a better look. “What are those people doing in the shrubbery?”

Lady Sterling didn’t wait to hear her companion’s reply. Instead, she seized her chance and shrieked. Startled, Penhurst released her, and she scrambled to her feet, gathering up her skirts in two clenched fists, the better to disguise her bounty. “How dare you, sir?” she shouted as she scurried back into the relative safety of the unlit walk, indifferent to the bite of gravel through the thin soles of her slippers. “He was trying to—to f-force—” she stammered to the couple as she darted past, intending to disappear into the night.

And she would have done if the man had not caught her by the arm.

“Are you harmed, ma’am?”

She could make out little of his features in the near darkness, but she wanted to damn the solicitousness in his voice. If men truly cared about the fate of women, they would stop their brethren from doing to innocent girls what Penhurst had done to his parlor maid.

“Unhand me, sir.” The shakiness in her voice was not put on. She had no more than a moment to get away. Even a notorious slowtop like Penhurst would soon discover—

“Why, you little—!” the baron exclaimed, the hedge behind her rustling as he fumbled with the buttons she’d undone. “Our business isn’t finished yet!”

Expecting the other man’s fingers to tighten around her upper arm in response to Penhurst’s words, she did not at first realize he had released her. When she didn’t move, he whispered, “Run.”

For a moment, she remained frozen in disbelief. Her gaze skated over what little she could see of the stranger’s face, the shadowy profile of a Grecian nose and glittering eyes whose color was indistinguishable. Then, tightening her grip on Penhurst’s pocket watch and purse, she escaped into darkness.

Chapter 1

Even before Captain Jeremy Addison stepped into General Zebadiah Scott’s study, he had some inkling of the trouble he must be in.

After all, being called before one’s commanding officer was not ordinarily a good sign. Given that the general made a point of keeping his domestic affairs strictly separate from his military affairs, the order to appear at Scott’s Audley Street home was even more ominous. Receiving said orders several hours before noon was worse yet.

But Jeremy had spent most of the past few weeks in the Underground, a network of subterranean offices that housed and hid the activities of some of the most skilled intelligence officers in the British army. General Scott’s note had provided a welcome excuse to stretch his legs and clear his head, to escape a dungeon, grown musty with the stench of his failure. He had all but given up on cracking the cypher contained inside what appeared to be a French cookbook.

The moment Jeremy’s booted tread passed from the marble tile of the foyer onto the plush carpet of the study, however—which was to say, the moment he found himself eye to eye with General Scott’s speculative gaze—he knew a wiser man would have found any excuse to have stayed put.

Scott inclined his head in greeting. “Much obliged, Captain Addison. I wonder if you have been at leisure to read today’s paper?” He gestured toward the copy of the Times spread across his otherwise empty desktop.

Only twice in nearly a dozen years of army life had Jeremy seen the inside of General Scott’s office in the Horse Guards. Both times, the sight of the sloping, sliding mountain of books, letters, and maps on the man’s desk had made Jeremy’s palms sweat.

Somehow this—this blank expanse of mahogany, not even a blotter or an inkstand, only a small slice of the glossy wood covered by a single sheet of newsprint—was worse.

Officers in Scott’s service had long speculated that the general was a first-rate actor. The genial, grandfatherly air. The haze of pipe smoke. The rumpled clothes and the forgetfulness and even the spectacles, perpetually perched on his forehead and usually too smudged to be an aid to vision. All props, so it was said, for a performance Scott directed with scrupulous care.

Jeremy had always had his doubts about such theories. Why would a man in Scott’s position bother with theatrics?

Now, however, with the cleverly painted backdrop no longer disguising the stage’s scaffolding, the dreadful truth of it settled over him. A man might fancy he had caught an accidental glimpse past the costumes and the greasepaint. But the fact of the matter was, he had seen those things only because Scott had invited him backstage.

And the show was about to begin.

Under Scott’s watchful eye, Jeremy stumbled toward the desk, a reluctant understudy pushed from the wings. As he leaned over the paper, he thrust his hands behind his back and drew a steadying breath. Not a whiff of tobacco hung on the air.

A quick scan of the densely printed page revealed the item that must have caught General Scott’s notice. The words struck Jeremy with all the subtlety of a swift poke to the eye:

Pandemonium! Sly Lady Sterling has struck again, this time vexing a visit to Vauxhall Gardens for the ordinarily penurious Lord P—, a plump pigeon plucked before he could play.

Scott had dragged him away from his work, all the way across town, to read some prattle about a gentleman who had fallen victim to a pickpocket? Though his upbringing had been sheltered, army life had expanded Jeremy’s vocabulary significantly. He was tempted to let fly with an impressive string of epithets in response.

But he settled for a glare in the general’s direction. He knew exactly why Scott must have sent for him.

The unmistakable beginnings of a smile creased the corners of Scott’s mouth. “Ah. I take it you have heard of the Lady Sterling?”

Who had not? Her scandalous career, seducing gentlemen of rank in order to steal their fortunes, had been fodder for gossips, in both high society and low, for months.

“My sister Julia finds the woman’s exploits amusing and takes it upon herself to keep me apprised.”

Wait until she learned that Lady Sterling had paid a visit to Vauxhall on the same evening they had. Julia had rambled excitedly for hours about that brief encounter with an unfortunate young woman fleeing from some rogue. What would she say to the possibility of a brush with Lady Sterling? She would be convinced their paths must have crossed, despite the crowd and the size of the park. She would speculate endlessly over whether she had been the woman in green or the one in blue. He would never hear the end of it.

Those telltale curves crept higher, into Scott’s cheeks. “An interesting choice of alias for a thief, is it not? Sterling. Hints at excellence, trustworthiness. Purity—of motive, perhaps, if not of method.”

Jeremy’s gaze narrowed further. “I gather you didn’t call me here over a trivial coincidence. Sir.”

With a huff of exertion that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Scott sat down behind his desk and motioned Jeremy into the chair opposite.

“Like your sister,” Scott said after a moment, “I’ve been following the Lady Sterling’s career with interest. She targets men whom I would call vulnerable in some way. Men with secrets they would like to keep. And while money may be one motivation for her exploits, I suspect it is not all she takes from these men.”

In spite of himself, Jeremy was intrigued by the hypothesis. “She’s gathering information, you mean?”

“Yes. Information that can be used for blackmail. Indeed, she may already be in possession of secrets capable of doing real damage—to the war effort, the King, even the nation. I need to know whose side she is on.” Scott’s fingers had been steepled in a contemplative pose. Now he slid them together and laid his folded hands before him on his desk. The paper beneath them crinkled softly. “So I’m sending you to find her.”

Jeremy, who had been nodding absently as Scott explained his interest in the case, jerked to his feet. “I? But I—I don’t—” He dealt with books and paper, not people. He choked back an outright refusal to follow orders and asked instead, “What am I to do with her if I succeed?”

“When,” Scott corrected, picking up the newspaper and handing it across his desk to Jeremy, as if a gossip column could be mistaken for a set of orders. “And I should think the answer would be obvious, Lord Sterling.”

Jeremy narrowly avoided a shudder of surprise at the use of his title. No one in the army called him that. Occasionally, Jeremy wondered—nay, hoped—the men with whom he worked had forgotten he was also a viscount.

If only he could return to that state of blessed ignorance himself.

At seventeen, he had been unaware that his father had belonged to a so-called cadet branch of one of those grand families with lands, mansions, titles, and the like. Richard Addison, a rector with an antiquarian bent, would have delighted in the discovery, in tracing how the twig of his family tree intersected with the main trunk. But he had died the year before, leaving Jeremy next in line.

For a time, Jeremy had fantasized that the people in London who made determinations about the succession of titles would realize they had inadvertently turned two pages of their well-thumbed guide to the peerage and skipped over some more suitable heir.

His reluctance had only grown with the discovery that he had inherited not just lands and mansions, but also a stack of baize-covered ledgers in which the number at the bottom of the Losses column was always greater than the figure in the column headed Gains. Jeremy—more than usually skilled in arithmetic, well-organized, responsible—had known instantly what those numbers meant: The property was mortgaged; Lord Sterling—he—was heavily in debt.

All his hopes to use the blasted inheritance to benefit his mother and sister, to allow them to live in not just comfort, but luxury, had flown out the window. After four days of quiet rage, Jeremy had set aside his plan to attend Oxford in the next term. By selling off what wasn’t entailed and renting out what he could of the rest, he had scraped together just enough to buy an officer’s commission instead, resigned to setting aside his studies in favor of bullets and bayonets.

But his true nature had eventually brought him to the notice of General Zebadiah Scott, the mastermind behind Britain’s intelligence operation. For the past ten years, Jeremy had turned a gift for mathematics and wordplay into success as a code breaker, fighting enemies made of paper and ink, waging battles entirely of wits.

Until today, he had never had cause to regret the general’s attention.

Now, Jeremy flinched when the paper landed with a thwack across his palm and Scott announced, “I want you to marry her.”

For a moment, silence reigned, and the two men faced one another, impassive, though Jeremy’s heart thudded in his chest, pumping blood to his limbs in an instinctive preparation for flight. After a long moment, he tipped back his head and managed to drag a laugh from his chest. “Marry her. Good one, sir. You almost had me.”

Scott’s smile widened, and his eyes twinkled with something that wasn’t quite—or wasn’t only—amusement. “Did I?” A chuckle. “But of course, my command does not extend quite so far as that, Captain Addison. Though I confess,” he went on, “it was your title that suggested you for the assignment—the, er, coincidence of names, as you put it.” He paused and tilted his head. “You see, I need someone to get close to her. Someone who can encourage her confidences. Find out what she knows—and whether she would be willing to ply her extraordinary gifts on behalf of the Crown.”

As the nature of the mission grew clearer, Jeremy’s fingers curled around the newspaper, wrinkling it past the point of legibility. All this, because Scott wanted the Lady Sterling to turn spy?

“And you think I am such a man? Wouldn’t a field agent be better suited to the task?”

As Scott well knew, Jeremy’s skill set lay elsewhere—which was to say, alone with his books.

Then again, he had been struggling to unlock a cypher that others had risked their lives to secure—the most important assignment with which he’d ever been entrusted.

Perhaps Scott had lost faith in his code-breaking abilities. Perhaps this strange new mission was intended as a sort of retraining.

“It will do you good to spend more time in the fresh air, Captain Addison,” the general said, an oblique reference to the dark spaces and secret work of the Underground. “You’re too pale. Besides, I haven’t a field agent to spare.” Scott fixed him with a pointed look. “They’re being drawn into the greener pastures of wedded bliss at an alarming rate.”

Fighting an unaccustomed urge to fidget, Jeremy instead smoothed and folded the newspaper until it was a neat square, no larger than a letter, and slipped it into his breast pocket. “No need to worry about me, sir,” he said with a crisp bow of his head.

There would be—could be—no true Lady Sterling.

Not while he was alive.

And as for the one who called herself Lady Sterling? Just a thief with a flair for irony. Scott’s order was a chance to unmask the woman, to put an end to speculation, gossip, his sister’s teasing—and the sharp pang behind his ribs that accompanied every reminder that he was destined to end up alone. “I suppose I should begin by tracking down her last victim. Who is this Lord P— the paper mentions?”

“Roderick Penhurst. Resides on Brook Street, near Hanover Square. By all accounts, the man is pockets to let—and apparently desperate enough to gamble away what little he had left in the vain hope of improving his fortunes.”

Though unfamiliar with Lord Penhurst, Jeremy had recognized the name of Pandemonium. The streets near the Underground were thick with gaming establishments, some reputable, most not. Not so long ago, he had been tempted to pay one or two of them a visit, given his skill with numbers. Only fear of a greater loss—the respect and trust of his mama and sister—had brought him to his senses.

Scott’s lips parted, as if he were we. . .