Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
June 1818

Lady Charlotte Louisa Aveton knew all the rules, and better yet, she knew how to break them. Which was why, in the inky depths of a London night, she wasn’t cozied up under her covers but rather rolling men’s silk stockings up her long legs.

“This is a terrible plan,” said her maid, Ivy, not for the first time. But she handed Charlotte her breeches.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Charlotte. “I’ve been longing for a terrible plan.”

“You’ve been longing for something,” muttered Ivy, not quite under her breath.

Charlotte pretended not to hear. It was always a good trick to refuse to hear anything unpleasant, or to stare blankly at anyone who had the bad taste to repeat themself.

She stepped into the breeches and shrugged on a lawn shirt, and she and Ivy spent a good half hour wrestling with her hair until the rioting black curls were powdered white and pinned in neat coils against her head, ready to be hidden by the hood of the black domino she’d stolen from her brother. Then came the most darling little black waistcoat and the task of tying her cravat into the perfect Mathematical—the gentlemen made such a fuss over the folds, and yet it wasn’t at all difficult—before topping the whole thing off with a man’s evening coat. The final touch was a black velvet demi-mask that dangled from her fingers on grosgrain ribbons.

At last, Charlotte was ready to assume a completely new identity.

“My lady, are you sure you must go?” said Ivy.

“Yes, Ivy, but you mustn’t worry. No one will know me dressed like this.”

Charlotte swished the domino over her shoulders and adjusted the hood so only the curve of her mouth showed. Tonight, she was sneaking out of her grandmother’s town house and heading to a masquerade. It was rash, ill-advised, and reckless—everything she adored.

Too bad it wasn’t thrills she was seeking.

Wolfgang Robert Latham, the Seventh Duke of Warrick, was ambling home in the darkest hours of the morning, enjoying the rare stillness of the Mayfair streets and the even more unusual stillness of his mind, when a slight figure crossed the street in front of him and looked up into the sky. The flickering light of a lamp reached out to tap the tip of her nose before lingering on a wide, generous mouth that tilted up at the corners, as if it belonged to a cat that had only tasted cream.

Charlotte.

He recognized her at once, even though she was dressed as a man. The powdered hair peeking out from beneath her hood couldn’t fool him, nor could the way she loped along with her domino billowing out behind her, revealing a perfectly cut evening jacket and showing off her long legs in breeches—

Wolfgang looked away sharply and growled to himself, but it was too late. Christ. Now her legs were etched on his brain forever.

He didn’t need any more Charlotte in his head, smiling up at him with upturned eyes to match her upturned lips. He noticed too damn much of her already—how she held herself arrow straight when something captured her interest, how badly she slumped the second she was bored. Once he’d watched her sink deeper and deeper into the settee at a lecture at the Horticultural Society, until the upholstery swallowed her up and all he could see was the top of her despairing curls.

He even noticed her dresses, and that was especially irritating, because he cared nothing for clothes. But what Charlotte wore signaled her mood. Sugary pinks and lavenders or any effort to look sweet meant she was up to no good. The more excited she got, the brighter the colors she wore, and when she was angry, she either threw on a cape or buttoned herself into one of her many military jackets. And for some reason, he thought darkly, flounces always spelled trouble.

What the hell did she mean by dressing as a man?

Nothing good.

At the corner, Charlotte turned, and he muttered a curse and followed her.

What could she be up to, skulking over London’s cobblestones in the pitch-black? Although—he narrowed his eyes—that lope of hers could hardly be called skulking. That was the thing about Charlotte. Everything about her was so damn brazen, as if half her pleasure was in doing exactly as she pleased, and the other half was in rubbing everyone’s nose in it.

Didn’t the bloody woman realize it was dangerous to be out alone so late at night? Wasn’t she afraid of pickpockets, or footpads, or drunken idiots? Although knowing Charlotte, her walking stick concealed a sword. Knowing Charlotte, she knew how to use it.

You do not know Charlotte, he reminded himself grimly. He’d thought he had once, after a summer full of letters, both of them writing back and forth until—

Wolfgang squashed the thought under his boot, grinding his heel for good measure. It was an unfortunate fact of life that Charlotte’s half brother happened to be Julian Alaric William Aveton, the Earl Ramsay and Wolfgang’s closest friend. Even more unfortunate, Ramsay was out of the country for several months and had left Charlotte in Wolfgang’s care.

Ramsay had ambushed him one afternoon, lying in wait in Wolfgang’s study and sipping a glass of his finest port. “Excellent stuff, my friend,” Ramsay had said, putting his long nose in the snifter and inhaling deeply. “I’ll pour you one, shall I?”

“How generous of you.” Wolfgang accepted a glass of his own liquor and settled into his chair, propping his boots up on the ever-growing piles of paper strewn across his desk. “Why have you come?”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “Can’t a friend stop by anymore?”

“Not since you’ve been married. I can’t recall the last time you left your countess’s side.”

“In fact, it’s on Anna’s account that I’m here. She’s decided that we must go on a tour of North Africa to look for promising horses.”

Prickles of foreboding climbed up Wolfgang’s spine, but he ignored them and raised his glass. “Good health to you both.”

“Thank you. I’ll be gone for several months, and I’ve come to ask a favor of you.”

“A favor? The estate’s keeping me bloody busy these days. How the hell John managed to—”

“It’s about my sister. Gran’s her chaperone, of course, but she’s getting old to keep up with Charlotte. I wonder if you might keep an eye on—”

“No!” Wolfgang’s boots slid off the desk and hit the floor with a crash, toppling one of his stacks.

Ramsay stared.

“No.” Wolfgang said it again, to make it very clear. “I will not keep an eye on your sister.”

“I see. May I ask why?”

“Because she’s a menace!”

“Then you understand why I require your help.”

“You require a bloody army,” Wolfgang muttered.

Ramsay caught his gaze and held it. “I know it hasn’t been easy lately, Wolfgang, but there’s no one else. I’m asking you.”

Wolfgang made a series of strangled, gargling sounds. No, it hadn’t been easy, but “lately” was a bit of a stretch. It was nearly three years since he’d returned home from Waterloo only to lose an older brother he loved and gain a dukedom he didn’t.

Ramsay hid a smile behind his port snifter. “I assume your fit of choking means you’ll do it?”

Wolfgang grabbed his glass again, and only when he’d drained it completely did he feel able to reply. “I suppose, if I must. But only if you stop that damned smirking.”

“What smirking?”

“There’s a smirk plastered across your face. You look like a damned Frenchman.”

“I’m relieved.” Ramsay hesitated. “My stepmother returned from Prussia early—”

“Good God, you don’t need me if Charlotte’s mother’s in London. Let her live with Lady Margot.”

But Ramsay shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m never quite easy when Lady Margot’s in town. It’s better all around if Charlotte remains with Gran and you check in on them from time to time. Agreed?”

What could Wolfgang do but pour another glass, fortify himself with a long sip, and nod curtly?

“What?” he said, catching Ramsay’s eye on him. “Christ, don’t tell me there’s more?”

A hint of a smile tugged at Ramsay’s mouth. “There’s nothing more. I was simply wondering why you go strange any time I mention my sister.”

Wolfgang said nothing. He could have protested, but it would only have given the bastard something new to smirk about. It was true that Lady Charlotte bothered him, but it was only because…

She bothered him because…

Blast it. The truth was that before John died, there was a time Wolfgang had liked Charlotte very much. He should have pushed that time into the dusty, distant recesses of his mind, but he found it still smarted. Not a big pain, nothing like the others that made him want to howl, but like a small round pebble he could never quite remove from his boot.

A gust of cold night air slapped Wolfgang and brought him back to himself. His head cleared, his heart filled with wrath, he stomped down the darkened London street, hot on Charlotte’s trail.

Was she whistling, the scoundrel, as she strode along?

But his eyes narrowed, because something about her gait was off. It wasn’t quite her usual saunter, but something sharper, more purposeful, as if—

A thought came to Wolfgang, slowly at first but screeching through the air faster and faster until it hit with the force of a twenty-four-pound cannonball. Was Charlotte sneaking out to meet a man? A man too low and sniveling to walk through the front door, who would instead encourage a young woman to meet him secretly at night and—

It’s none of your business.

Except Julian had made it his business, and certainly Wolfgang’s fist agreed, or at least it was already curling toward the military cutlass he no longer carried by his side.

A high note of laughter floated out into the night, and beneath it, Wolfgang heard the low buzz of conversation, the long notes of a violin. His fist unclenched, his guts settled themselves, and the red mist removed itself from before his eyes. Charlotte was headed for a party, that was all.

He squinted up at the imposing white limestone facade of the town house she’d strolled into.

She was going to the Viscountess Hervey’s infamous masquerade.

At least she thought she was.

He stalked up the stone steps after her.