My Favorite Marquess

by Alexandra Bassett

Genres: Historical Romance

Synopsis

Sebastian, Marquess of St. Just, resorts to scare tactics and sabotage to make Violet Treacher sell her crumbling ruin of an estate, which is a haven for smugglers and spies, but his plan backfires when the beautiful widow steals his heart. Original.

Release date: July 1, 2006

Publisher: Zebra

Print pages: 416

Sample

December 12, 1814

Mrs. Perceval TreacherPeacock HallYorkshire

My Dear Mrs. Treacher,

Pray do not think it presumptuous of me to write to you this way, with little in the way of introduction. I am the Marquess of St. Just, and I have the honor to reside at Montraffer Place, near Widgelyn Cross in Cornwall. Montraffer is a near neighbor to Trembledown, the estate that I understand came into your possession after the unfortunately premature demise of your late husband. Allow me, dear lady, to extend my belated condolences on that esteemed man’s untimely parting from this life. Though I could claim no great intimacy with your husband, Percy Treacher was remarked by all who knew him to be a man possessing a sober and punctilious character as well as a remarkable kennel of hounds.

As you may or may not be aware, Mrs. Treacher, Trembledown only recently fell into the possession of your husband’s family. Indeed, prior to a lamentable bet on a curricle race, the house and lands had been in the St. Just possession for many generations.

It has long been an ambition of mine to reunite the St. Just holdings of Trembledown and Montraffer. Therefore, I am pleased to inform you that I am willing to make a very generous offer for Trembledown, despite its lamentable state of deterioration.

With this intent, I have had my man of business draw up the necessary papers, which you will find enclosed. All that remains is for you to sign the sales agreement and return it to my direction. Upon its receipt, it will be my pleasure to release the funds to your man of affairs.

I trust you will believe me, madam, when I write that it gives me the utmost satisfaction to be of service to you.

Yours faithfully,Sebastian CavenaughThe Marquess of St. Just

 

December 20, 1814

The Most Hon. the Marquess of St. JustMontraffer PlaceCornwall

My Lord Marquess,

It was with the greatest interest and no small gratification that I read your recent letter. Your kind words about my late husband’s character and hounds honor his memory most fittingly.

I confess that I was wholly unaware of the history of Trembledown and your estimable family’s tenuous connection to it. That fact alone will make me appreciate my dear Percy’s legacy to me all the more.

For while I am gratified by your offer, I fear I must decline the honor you do me. In good conscience I could not part from an estate left to me by my departed husband, at least not before viewing the property myself. I am sure you can understand a widow’s sensibilities regarding this matter. While there was—unhappily!—no issue from our marriage to whom to pass Trembledown as a legacy, my husband surely had my own security at heart when he left the property to me. I am certain he would not have wanted me parted from it for less than its true value. A value which, despite whatever condition your relations left it in before their unfortunate gambits with curricles, I have always heard is considerable.

I hope to visit Cornwall within the next twelvemonth. After viewing my property, I will be happy to consider negotiating a sales price with you or your representative.

I have the honor to be,

Your Lordship’s obedient servant,Mrs. Perceval Treacher

 

January 3, 1815

Mrs. Perceval TreacherPeacock HallYorkshire

Dear Mrs. Treacher,

Thank you for your swift reply to my letter of December. Alas, I must disbosom myself of a bit of confusion. It was my understanding that, to forfend an extended lawsuit, the Treacher family settled the unused property on you after your husband failed to provide for you to your satisfaction.

No doubt this was merely wicked rumor.

Nevertheless, while I am always sympathetic to a lady’s sensibilities regarding her doubtless much lamented husband, I fail to see that these should still be a factor some three years after said husband’s parting from this world. As for his providing for your security, you could do no better than to sell the property now, before it deteriorates further from its present condition—a state, I assure you, that has occurred since the property was acquired by the Treacher family.

Meaning no disrespect to yourself, I gleaned from your missive that perhaps your reluctance could more likely be ascribed to a desire for me to raise my offering price? If so, consider it done. I hereby raise the selling price to 10 percent over my original offer.

I am confident that this will soothe any widow’s qualms you may still entertain and you will see that selling is the best choice for yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Sebastian Cavenaugh

The Marquess of St. Just

Cavenaugh House

London

 

January 15, 1815

The Most Hon. the Marquess of St. JustCavenaugh HouseLondon

Dear Lord St. Just,

I am all gratefulness at the kindness you have shown me in trying to take my estate off my hands. I only wonder why, if Trembledown is crumbling, you would want it at any price. You must have a remarkable desire to see the St. Just empire restored to its former glory.

Although I must again decline your offer, still not having seen the property with my own eyes, perhaps in the near future we may come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement regarding the estate? I notice that you are currently residing in London. I, too, shall be in town directly in order to assist in the presentation of my youngest sister. She is a very promising girl of lively temperament, and my family is naturally anxious to see her succeed. I, of course, know many esteemed personages in London, but I always believe that widening a young lady’s circle of society, especially among the aristocracy, cannot but help but benefit a young lady.

Perhaps we could meet in person and discuss these matters?

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Perceval Treacher

 

January 24, 1815

Mrs. Perceval TreacherPeacock HallYorkshire

Ma’am,

While I do not see the need for a personal meeting, I will agree to one if I must. However, let me assure you that I will not be manipulated by any feminine wiles into offering you another penny more for such a dilapidated piece of property. Nor have I any intention of becoming involved in any activities regarding your sister’s come-out, which doubtless would benefit from the patronage of one of my station.

When you wish to proceed with the sale of Trembledown, please sign the enclosed sales agreement (that includes the very generous 10 percent mentioned in my previous epistle) and bring it with you to London. Upon your arrival, you may schedule an appointment with my secretary and we will finalize the sale at that time.

St. Just

 

January 28, 1815

The Most Hon. the Marquess of St. JustCavenaugh HouseLondon

My Lord,

Enclosed find your unsigned contract. You may herewith consider your offer rejected.

I also regret to inform you that I no longer anticipate being in London in the near future. Your assurances of Trembledown’s state of neglect, although belied by your eagerness to purchase this same shambles of an estate, lead me to believe that the house is in need of my attention. It is now my intent to travel into Cornwall immediately to view the buildings and grounds and personally see to any restoration work that might be necessary. Once any improvements have been accomplished, I will then evaluate whether I wish to sell the property or not, and to whom I wish to sell it.

Regards,

Mrs. Perceval Treacher

Peacock Hall

Yorkshire

February 1815

John Cuthbert’s lips turned down grimly as he stared at Violet Treacher’s latest letter, a communication which put certain plans in a bit of a coil. He picked up the missive, sending a shower of confetti spilling down on his desk blotter. “What is the mess in this last envelope? There are tiny bits of paper spilling everywhere.”

Sebastian’s lips flattened into a rueful expression. “I believe that is the ‘enclosed contract’—she failed to mention that she had shredded it into a thousand bits before including it.”

“You certainly have a shrewd way with the ladies, St. Just.”

Sebastian, warming himself before the fire of Cuthbert’s office, smiled in spite of this unfortunate turn of events. “That is quite a compliment, coming from you!”

Cuthbert shook his head. His stooped shoulders and perpetually funereal expression gave the impression of a man who had received a mortal blow from which he had never recovered. Happily, no such event had ever occurred. Cuthbert was merely a sober man dedicated to his work…and nothing else. “It is true I give the ladies a wide berth, but that is because I have no business with them. I am fortunate in that regard.”

“Life cannot be all toil.”

“It can if one has the temperament for it, which I fortunately have. And because of this, and because I am a bachelor and likely to remain in the single condition for all my days, I am a happy man.”

Sebastian laughed as he considered his companion’s morose countenance. “A happy man? I would never have thought of you as that!”

Cuthbert lifted a long finger crooked from years of service maneuvering a pen for the Crown. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. We eternal bachelors exist in perfect contentment because we know our lives shall never become disordered by the presence of a woman. We shall never be reduced to that state of fevered agitation known as love. Not for us the restless nights, the consuming distractions, or the clownish antics of the male in pursuit of a female. Our vocabularies will remain free of insipid words of endearment. We rest easily in the assurance that the words ‘My little partridge’ shall never issue from our lips.”

“I, too, am a bachelor,” Sebastian said, “yet I can enjoy the company of women. Some of them can be quite amusing.” He cleared his throat. “In all sorts of ways.”

Cuthbert regarded him sadly. “Then you are putting yourself at great risk, my friend. A man may dedicate his life to whatever he chooses—service, his family, work, God—but all women are designed to seek out husbands. It is their natural avocation, and some of them pursue it with the cunning and gusto of a Wellington.”

“Ah, but they are not all successful,” Sebastian rejoined. “That is the sport of it.”

“But look at the ones who are.” Cuthbert tapped the letter on the desk blotter before him. “Even this Treacher termagant charmed a poor fellow to taking up the harness.”

Sebastian scoffed. “Percy Treacher was a fool whose only requirement for finding a wife was that she be rich, and Mrs. Treacher’s father is Sir Harlan Wingate, who made a fortune in trade.”

Cuthbert drummed his fingers in thought; his musings on marriage were at an end and he was back to business again. “It would seem that Montraffer and Trembledown are doomed to remain un-reunited, then. And now not only do we not have unfettered access to the Trembledown property, we shall soon have to maneuver around Mrs. Treacher’s troublesome presence there.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I told you that it was better to let sleeping dogs lie, John. No doubt if I had not instigated negotiations—upon your urgent request, I remind you—Mrs. Treacher would be snugly ensconced in London for the Season instead of now winging her way to Cornwall.”

Cuthbert sighed. “Well, it can’t be helped now.”

“Do not feel too bad, John. If Mrs. Treacher does take possession of Trembledown, she will not be in residence long. I did not exaggerate when I described the dilapidated condition of the place. And from what I have heard of Mrs. Treacher, she is not the type to endure hardship for any length of time—these merchant cits are deplorably dependent upon modern comforts in their abodes. She will doubtless flee the place at the first sign of hardship.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Sebastian gave his companion a rather devilish smile. “Then I will have to ensure that during her brief visit to Cornwall she encounters plenty of trouble.”

“More trouble is all we need.”

Both men sobered as their thoughts turned to the current political scene. For a while it had seemed that with Napoleon exiled on Elba, Europe’s problems would soon be over. But here it was, almost a year later, and negotiations at the Congress were still ongoing. Not to mention, rumors abounded that in France the tide was turning against the King and antiforeigner sentiment was running high.

Now Sebastian would have to waste valuable time ensuring that Violet Treacher did not interfere with the smuggler’s network operating near, and sometimes actually on, her property so that they could continue to receive such reports from France. His contact in Cornwall, Jem, would have to be alerted that Trembledown was about to be inhabited.

Cuthbert looked soberly at the stack of papers on his desk, including an intercepted letter that hinted of an existence of a spy loose in the country, code-named Nero.

Nero had made himself odious to Cuthbert during many years of the war with France. More than one of Cuthbert’s men’s lives had been lost as a result of this traitor. But Nero’s activities had stopped with the sudden suicide of a certain nobleman whose uncle was in a position of some authority in the government. It had been assumed that said nobleman was Nero himself. Now, Cuthbert and Sebastian were wondering if they had been mistaken and Nero had only coincidentally stopped operations at the time of Lord Waring’s death. After all, it had only been a short while after the disappearance of Nero that Napoleon had surrendered.

“The situation on the continent is very precarious, Sebastian. It’s more important now than ever that we have an ear to the ground and that we find out who this Nero is and what he could be up to now—you’ll remember he had an uncanny knack of nosing out vital information during the war. According to my sources, Nero has been instructed to head to your area and keep an eye out for a certain famed Cornish smuggler—one Robert the Brute!”

“That is quite interesting. I believe I can safely say that if Nero comes anywhere near Montraffer, I shall be there, waiting for him.” Sebastian grinned. “Or rather, that blaggard Robert the Brute will be waiting.”

Cuthbert shook his head. He and Sebastian did not always see eye to eye on the necessity of Sebastian’s traveling about in the disguise of a smuggler—not to mention cultivating such a reputation as a cutthroat—but he had to admit that Sebastian and his connections had garnered results for the country back in the days of the war. They had also garnered a cabinet well stocked with smuggled French brandy for both of them.

“I wish you would inform the local authorities of what you are doing.”

Sebastian shook his head. “What if Nero is one of the local authorities? There’s no knowing for sure that Nero isn’t already ensconced in the area. A man in uniform can turn traitor as easily as anyone else. More easily, sometimes.”

“And what if one of these local constables finally takes it in his head to catch Robert the Brute?”

“That is a risk I take,” Sebastian declared. “But I only take it knowing the inefficacy of the local constabulary as well as I do.”

“Be careful there, Sebastian, and mind you don’t get sidetracked by the Treacher woman.”

Sebastian laughed. “That is unlikely.”

“Temptations abound in this work,” Cuthbert said, sounding decidedly curatelike. “Remember Lord Hawthorne? He was supposed to be gathering information in Paris and instead ended up besotted with an opera singer!”

“You needn’t worry about anything of the kind happening to me.” Sebastian chuckled. “There are no opera singers in Widgelyn Cross.”

Not to mention, Sebastian was nearly as averse to romantic entanglement as Cuthbert was. Especially to the type of woman—Mrs. Percy Treacher and the like—who would marry a man for his title, as his own mother had done. His parents had endured twenty gloomy years of unaffectionate matrimony before both had succumbed to rheumatic fever one winter while Sebastian was at university. Watching his father’s conjugal misery had made him determined never to marry himself. There were several St. Just cousins to assume the title when Sebastian’s time was up.

He kept his relations with women strictly on a business level and managed to enjoy himself in his own reserved way. Sebastian was known to be dedicated to a life among the highest ton. He enjoyed a well-cut coat, a spectacular piece of horseflesh, and other amusements of society. He took inordinate pride in his homes, his privileges, and his duties as a peer. No one understood custom and noblesse oblige better than Sebastian Cavenaugh. He was well aware of his reputation as rather cold and standoffish. In fact, he cultivated it. It made it that much easier to enjoy the double life he had made for himself, which was not only stimulating work but of great use to his country.

“A woman doesn’t have to be an opera singer to be a nuisance,” Cuthbert said.

“Never fear, John. By the time I am through with her, Mrs. Treacher will be happy if she never sees Cornwall, smugglers, or a marquess ever again!”

As the carriage and four trundled through inky darkness over the rutted moors of Cornwall, Violet thought, and not for the first time, that this journey had stretched on too long. Far too long. Agonizingly long. They were to have reached Trembledown by nightfall, but the driver, Hal, seemed to have misjudged the distance. Now the inhabitants of the carriage—herself, her manservant Peabody, and her cousin Henrietta Halsop—were all cold, hungry, and on edge.

Violet, of course, was managing to control her own travel fatigue in an exemplary fashion. (True, she had brought Hennie to tears by calling her a tiresome magpie, but that had been a full hour ago.) Peabody and Hennie, unfortunately, were showing no such restraint.

“It’s so frightfully dark out!” cried Henrietta, releasing one of the dramatic moans that now seemed to come out of her with the regularity of the cuckooing of a Swiss clock. “Woe betide us all if we should be overtaken by Robert the Brute on this black night!”

Exhibiting heroic courtesy, Violet turned toward the curtain of the carriage’s window so her cousin would not witness the extravagant rolling of her eyes. Hennie had been prattling on about this Robert the Brute character since they had left the last posting inn, a horrid little hole with no private parlors. There Hennie had tended to linger whilst eavesdropping on the conversation of the uncouth characters milling about. No doubt tales of this smuggler were greatly exaggerated for the benefit of an impressionable spinster. But such was the gullibility of her cousin.

Yes, it was as dark as pitch, and the fact that the road was riddled with pits and stones did nothing to soothe anyone’s nerves inside the carriage. But smugglers? Really! Violet feared the only thing in danger of being overtaken this evening was what was left of Hennie’s feeble brain.

Until recently, Hennie had resided with her great-aunt Matilda, a querulous woman who had been the greatest nipcheese of Yorkshire. When the old lady died shortly before Christmas, the family discovered that she had amassed a sizable fortune in the funds. While the house that they occupied had been entailed to her husband’s great-nephew, the majority of the money went to Hennie. Some said that Matilda had only so favored Hennie to spite the nephew who, having no notion that a fortune was in the offing, had failed to ever once visit or even so much as write Matilda since her husband’s death.

Thus it was that the heretofore penniless spinster, who was fast approaching forty, while currently homeless, need never worry about finances again if she was careful. Hennie was so pathetically grateful that she had ordered an extensive mourning wardrobe and planned to spend the entire year in unrelieved black—half-mourning was not good enough for such a benefactress, Hennie was fond of claiming.

As the coach hit another pothole, Peabody braced himself on the edge of the seat. Even in the darkness, Violet could make out his bulging eyes. “Did you hear that?” he quavered.

“What?” Hennie went rigid. “Was that a gunshot?”

“No—a different sound…more horrible…like that of breaking china.” Peabody’s voice cracked. “Yes, I’m sure of it. The Limoges will be all in shatters by the time we arrive at Trembledown!”

Since the china had been scrupulously wrapped by Peabody himself, crated, and securely lashed on top of the carriage, it stretched credulity to think that one could have actually heard it breaking from where they were sitting. Violet pointed this out.

“But the road is so ill kept!” Peabody said.

“And so dark!” Hennie echoed.

Hennie and Peabody were united in their disgust with the conditions of their ride through Cornwall. From their complaints, you would think that Violet was hauling them across England by donkey cart rather than in the relative comfort of her father’s well-sprung traveling coach.

“I had not reckoned on what punishment the china would have to withstand,” Peabody lamented.

“Or what dangers we might have to withstand at the dread hands of Robert the Brute!”

Just then, Peabody gasped.

“What is it?” Henrietta cried, startled.

The manservant collapsed, clasping his hands to his head as if he were suffering the agonies of the damned.

Violet feared he was having an attack of apoplexy. “What is the matter?”

“The soup tureen!” he wailed.

Violet stared at the agonized figure with waning forbearance. “Surely you cannot tell exactly what piece of china you imagine to be broken. Really, Peabody!”

“No, it is not broken.” He lifted his head up with resignation, like a schoolboy ready to receive his punishment. “I—” He released a shuddering breath before confessing, “I forgot to pack it!”

Violet absorbed this information with astonishing equanimity. Perhaps at some point in her life such news would have thrown her into peevish displeasure. (In fact, at any point in her life before she had begun this wearisome voyage it would have.) But now she rated such a triviality as unimportant.

The only important thing was getting out of this blasted carriage.

“No matter,” she said, trying to reassure Peabody.

Peabody mistook her indifference for remonstrance. “You see, it wasn’t in the display cabinet, but in the cupboard. Things were at such sixes and sevens when all the packing was occurring…It was all so hurried, with your making the hasty plan for this trip…Please forgive me…There was so much to tend to…And then at the last minute we were forced to make room for the harp.”

Hennie, who was sensitive on this issue, looked as if she were under attack. “I’m sure I never forced anyone to allow me to bring my harp. That I would never do. I merely pointed out that since I do feel that I am being of service by accompanying Violet on her little adventure and since my pleasures are so few…” She swallowed. “But of course I know I am lucky to have been asked. After all, I am nothing but a homeless spinster. I thought that if my harp could provide a few moments of enjoyment for us, it would be a partial repayment of the debt I owe Violet for the honor she does me by consenting to let me join her household.”

Violet gritted her teeth—after all, Hennie could now afford an establishment of her own, but Hennie had expressed horror at the idea of herself, an unmarried lady, living alone. “It is I who am grateful to you for accompanying me, Hen. And as to your harp”—which, when plucked by Hennie, was as effective an instrument of torture as anything Torquemada had to work with—“it was no bother at all to bring it.”

Actually, it had caused a great deal of trouble, and explained the presence of Peabody, who would normally be riding in the baggage coach with Violet’s maid, Lettie. Hennie had objected as vociferously as she was able to the harp’s being secured to the top of the carriage. Something about its tone being ruined. Violet had never been present when anything approaching a pleasing tone had ever escaped that wretched instrument, so she was skeptical of this claim. Nevertheless, Hennie was adamant, and there had been nothing for it but to place the harp inside the baggage carriage, which barely left room for Lettie. That Peabody would suffer to ride in such discomfort was out of the question.

Violet secretly hoped that the evil lyre would meet with an unfortunate accident as it was being unloaded from the baggage carriage, which, due to a broken wheel, was now almost a day behind them.

“Nevertheless,” Peabody said, “the harp did rather confuse matters at the last minute. And that is how the soup tureen came to be left in the cabinet.”

“I said it does not matter, Peabody.”

“But, madame, what shall we do?”

“Do?” she snapped, finally reaching the frayed end of her last nerve. “We shall drink soup directly from the pot if we have to! Who cares? At this rate I shall count ourselves lucky if we ever get close enough to a hearth to have soup served to us in any container!”

“Indeed!” Hennie couldn’t help injecting fretfully. “Especially with Robert the Brute about. They say he has waylaid carriages such as this one before!”

“Enough.” Violet clapped her hands like one of her tiresome old governesses. “I will hear no more of crockery and cutthroats.”

Hennie nearly fainted. “Do you think he would cut our throats?”

Violet attempted to stifle her cousin’s growing hysteria with a glare that could have cut through stone.

Difficult as it was for Violet to believe now, when she had embarked on this trip a week ago, she had been grateful to have these two accompanying her. Especially Peabody, who was her father’s butler at their home, Peacock Hall, in Yorkshire. Normally the butler would be considered indispensable to her father, but this spring Sir Harlan had decided to travel to Italy. He explained his newfound mania for travel by saying that he had secretly longed to go to the continent for years, a desire now made possible because Napoleon was confined to Elba. But Violet suspected that his sudden wanderlust had more to do with his youngest daughter Sophy’s first Season.

Sophy, a man-mad youth, was now loose in London—a town brimming with Corinthians, dandies, rakes, and all manner of other males, both suitable and unsuitable. Violet feared her sister would naturally lean toward the latter. No doubt contemplating the potential havoc his youngest was likely to wreak on the capital accounted for their father’s sudden yearning for foreign soil.

Violet only hoped (though rather doubted) that their aunt Augusta was up to the demanding task of chaperoning such a minx.

In fact, she feared that the two of them together would just result in twice the mischief. That was one of the reasons she had so easily relinquished her plan to accompany Sophy to London and share the chaperone duties with Aunt Augusta. Chief among the other reasons was the fact that she was not quite prepared to be seen as a chaperone, the older sister (emphasis on old ). She was not yet twenty-eight, and while that could no longer be considered the first bloom of youth, she hadn’t been able to contemplate with indifference the experience of being set to the side at Almack’s like that institution’s notoriously stale cakes.

Then had come her correspondence with the Marquess of St. Just.

That top-lofty toad’s snide remarks angered her so, nothing would have induced her to come within fifty miles of London while the insufferable creature was there. Treating her as if she were some sort of social barnacle! Indeed, it had made her want to hurry her departure to Cornwall to take care of business while she had reason to believe he was not in this area.

If she were of a charitable mind, and less cold and fatigued, she might have thanked the irritating marquess. His correspondence had started a plan spinning in her brain. After being cast out by the Treachers, she had been at loose ends, unsure of her future, wasting away her life on her father’s estate in Yorkshire.

This had been especially brought home to her last summer when her other sister, Abigail, had managed to make a happier marriage than Violet had ever supposed was possible for the rather plain, reclusive, bookish spinster. But it turned out Abby hadn’t been wasting her time under their father’s roof. Instead she had secretly been penning successful gothic novels under the pseudonym Georgina Harcourt. Violet had never seen their father so impressed as when he had discovered the secret. And on top of that, Abby had managed to win the heart of the only semi-eligible bachelor in the area. Not that Violet herself would have considered marrying Nathan Cantrell for one moment, but she had to admit that it looked to be a very good match for Abby, and the couple obviously doted on each other. Quite bourgeois, but rather sweet.

The whole episode made Violet realize that since Percy’s death she had been frittering away her best years instead of making a new life of her own choosing. Now, thanks in part to the odious marquess, she saw a path to self-sufficiency. She would see to Trembledown’s repairs, have the estate appraised by a reputable third party, and then offer it for sale. With the proceeds she could set up her own household in a more pleasant part of the world.

Once she would have set her sights on London, but not now. She had finished with attempting to break into the haute ton of London. Perhaps she would try Bath. If she shared a household with the newly well-off Hennie, they should be able to acquire a very nice accommodation in that quaint town.

Hennie was already eager to go there because Imogene Philbrick, an old school friend, lived in that city. Violet shuddered to think what that woman—who had been described by Hennie as “Not quite as outgoing as I”—could possibly be like. Violet had no intention of joining a tiresome band of tea-drinking, needle-working women; yet there was no reason that they could not share expenses and largely go their separate social ways. With the sale of the house in Cornwall, she would have enough money to create an impression of lavish gentility that she rated necessary for success in Bath.

As she eyed her cousin’s ensemble, she noticed that her cousin’s petticoats were showing. Typical of the rather untidy Henrietta, Violet thought. Then, narrowing her eyes, she squinted to make out the color. Good heavens! Hennie had even procured black undergarments!

“I was just remembering some more of the conversation I overheard at the inn,” Hennie informed them. “It’s said that Robert the Brute is horribly disfigured! That’s why he wears a mask.”

Clearly, the smuggler had lodged in her brain.

Peabody, always interested in fashion, was unwillingly drawn in. “Always?”

“Yes, and no one, not even his most trusted associates, knows his identity. For no one who looks on his visage is allowed to live, they say!”

“Has he killed many men?” Peabody asked.

“Oh my, yes! Hundreds, according to the innkeeper at the last stop. That kind man was most concerned that we make it to Trembledown before nightfall, lest we fall into the blackguard’s hands!” Hennie gazed anxiously out the window, though by now there was nothing to be seen but blackness. Clearly, they had failed to follow the inn. . .