What a Hero Dares

And that plate of bad fish? The Keeper had another tale to tell about that!

Even before he reached his majority, Barry had clearly taken over the running of Redgrave Manor, cajoling his doting yet oddly nervous mother, winning her over with his smiles, his outward affection, while operating quite secretly behind her back. The morning he turned one-and-twenty, after a long night of revelry with his chums in Town, he flung his unsteady, drunken self into his mother’s chambers in the family’s Cavendish Square mansion, to rouse the woman with a cruel slap followed by a boozy, punishing kiss on her mouth.

He was followed by a trail of maids and footmen prepared to “Pack you up, you murdering whore,” and denied her an allowance unless she limited her visits to the Manor to one month out of each year.

He then paid a covert visit to Grosvenor Square. He politely thanked the aging Keeper and mentor in the ways of the Society for all he’d done, and told him to say hello to Charles a moment before tossing the old fool down the marble stairs.

Two weeks later, he purchased that same Grosvenor Square mansion, leaving his father’s outrageous monstrosity in Cavendish Square for his mama’s use. Let her live with the ghosts there.

And let the games begin!

While his still young and beautiful mother traveled on the Continent or partied in Mayfair, he appointed his very best friend, Turner Collier, to act as the group’s Keeper, guardian of the bible. They then went about gathering up any of the original Devil’s Thirteen and minions still aboveground, and the Society was soon back in business. He met and married a barely royal Spanish beauty he deemed a suitable broodmare, put a child in her as often as he could, enlarged both the Manor house and its lands. And plotted. And schemed. And added more and more like thinkers and helpful minions to his Society.

All within the confines of his first and truly only love, Redgrave Manor.

For nearly ten years of planning and conniving and bribing, all seemed to go quite swimmingly. His negotiations with the French king would soon come to fruition. Until the fall of the Bastille dealt the first crushing blow to Barry’s ambitions. That was closely followed by his drunken decision to stand up in a duel against his wife’s French lover, only to fall on his handsome face when a weapon fired from the trees put a bullet hole in his back and a period to his existence. The new widow, smoking pistol supposedly still in her hand, promptly deserted her four young children and ran off to France with her lover.

What followed was open conjecture throughout the ton concerning some sort of salacious hellfire club, and even speculation that Barry Redgrave had been whoring out his wife to his devil-worshipping friends, and that was really why she shot him. There were whispers of sedition and treason as people remembered his father and those rumors, dragging them out for another airing. But, mostly, it was the titillating scandal of the murder, the reason behind it, and the insult to those who deemed the Redgraves immoral, unsuited to retain the earldom (or the Manor, or all that lovely money).

It was as if Barry was more of a danger dead than he’d been while alive. The Redgraves were about to lose everything...including control of their secrets.

Enter the determined Beatrix, Dowager Countess of Saltwood, and fiercely protective grandmother to Barry’s four good-as-orphaned children. The by now deliciously notorious Trixie, who had spent her entire widowhood playing May games with society, most especially the men—those she loathed, those she admired, and those she might someday be able to use.

She’d learned a lot from Charles....

Perhaps because she had more brass than a chamber pot, but most probably because she knew more than most men would like the world (and especially their wives) to know, she managed to make it through the scandal. She spent decades tenaciously (and perhaps more cleverly than legally), holding on to the earldom for her eldest grandson, Gideon, who had been only nine when his father was hastily interred in the family mausoleum.

Her husband’s Society, her son’s intention to follow in his father’s footsteps—these were never mentioned within earshot of the grandchildren. Trixie would rather die a thousand deaths than reveal what had gone on within the Society, the part Charles had forced her to play those long years ago. Her grandchildren knew of the scandal caused by their parents’ actions, yes—that would be impossible to hide from them as they matured and traveled to London, but with the Society long since gone, there was no reason for them to know anything else.

In truth, they seemed to delight in being those scandalous Redgraves. Welcomed everywhere, because to deny them would be folly. Quick, intelligent, dangerous, no door was shut to them. Who’d dare?

But now, suddenly, the Society was back for a third go-round, even using Redgrave land as its headquarters. Its methods the same, its partner this time none but the upstart new French emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. For years, he had longed to add England to his long list of conquered countries. The Society would be more than eager to assist him in that endeavor in exchange for—God, what did they want? Certainly not the Crown; that silly Stuart business could only be gained through the Redgraves, and they certainly had no part in this new incarnation of the Society.

No, the methods might be the same, but the aims were different. Still, at the end of the day, if the Crown got so much as a whiff of what was going on, the Redgraves would pay the price, and this time no amount of Trixie’s machinations would save them.

Gideon, already suspicious that something odd was going on at Redgrave Manor, had learned about the resurrected Society through Turner Collier’s daughter, Jessica. He immediately confronted Trixie, demanding she tell him everything she knew. Consulting with his siblings, they then decided they were left with no other choice than to secretly, quietly ferret out the members and this time bury the Society too deep for it ever to be raised again.

First and foremost, of course, the Redgraves were all loyal to the Crown. But they were also loyal to the Redgrave name, and to the incredibly brave woman who had raised and protected them. They knew neither could survive the possibility of being connected to this or any earlier incarnation of the Society.

Plus, even with some early quick successes, they knew they were running out of time, having been forced to bring Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in on what they’d learned about Society efforts to sabotage troops and supplies heading to Wellington on the Peninsula.

Gideon’s sister, Lady Katherine, had scoured Redgrave Manor, locating the journals from both her grandfather’s and father’s time but not, alas, the all-important bible, the tome having been reduced to ashes by the Keeper. His brother Valentine, following clues found in those journals, had dared to infiltrate a portion of the Society, nearly losing his life in the process, but adding to their knowledge.

They were getting ever closer to the core of the Society and these new, unknown leaders who hid behind masks and code names while going about their dirty business.

Unfortunately, these successes also alerted the Society that the Redgraves were onto them, most certainly fueled by information given to them by the dowager countess.

Only a few short days ago, following a nearly successful arson in the mansion in Cavendish Square with a bold attempt on Trixie’s life on the streets of London, the hunters had suddenly become the hunted.

There couldn’t be a better time for Maximillien Redgrave, currently doing his own investigating from the other side of the Channel, to return to the estate where, unbeknownst to him, his family was all already gathered, and under siege.

Max also didn’t know his own past was sailing to Redgrave Manor with him.

But he was about to find out.

CHAPTER ONE

MAXIMILLIEN REDGRAVE had last seen his birthplace from the seat of his curricle as he set off to London and a quiet meeting in a small office tucked away in the bowels of the Royal Admiralty. He felt he’d been traveling ever since, going about the king’s business, with only a few, flying visits to London. It was during one of those visits that he’d learned about the Society, so that his work on the Continent now included searching out anyone who might be affiliated with the treasonous hellfire group.

This very night he was returning to Redgrave Manor, the magnificent estate that sprawled nearly to the size of a small English county. Sneaking home, as it were, via the back door.

Not that he’d expected to ride through the front gates heralded by fanfares of trumpets in any case, a roasted boar turning on the spit in the massive kitchen fireplace. A few hearty claps on the back from his brothers, an excited hug from his sister, a half-dozen dogs slobbering on his boots. That would be more than sufficient.

Except for the necessary addition of his irascible grandmother reclining at her ease on her favorite chaise longue, hoisting a wineglass as she sent him a knowing wink. It wouldn’t be a proper homecoming without her.

After all, who else but Trixie Redgrave would have thought setting her grandson up as an agent for the Crown held less pitfalls than allowing him to roam Mayfair, wealthy, bored and hot for adventure? To either her credit or as the result of grandmotherly niggles of guilt, she’d then commissioned her own agents to watch over him, report his every move, his every mission to her. According to Gideon, they all had discreet keepers following them about, guardian angels who happened to be wide as barn doors and carry small arsenals with them. Poor Kate, still living on the estate, had everyone from the potboy to the butler to the tenants sworn to keeping her safe.

Not that Trixie would admit to any such thing.

Not that Max would so accuse her, either, or tell her the number of times he’d escaped those same keepers from the first day they’d set off to Eton with him, employing both fair means and foul. Oh, no, he would simply continue as he’d begun all those years ago, and thus wouldn’t tease Trixie later tonight about how their new friend Richard Borders had crossed the Channel and somehow located that one tavern out of dozens lining the water in Gravelines, France, probably to inform him he’d just been whistled to heel by his true master.

Not now, Trixie, he’d whispered inside his head, pulling his hat down far enough to cover his distinctive low, winglike brows and long-lashed, sherry-brown eyes as he sidled out the side door and into an alley smelling of everything foul the human body could produce.

There were occasions his almost startling handsomeness was a boon, but not at times like this; right now Max craved anonymity, and having Richard calling out his name or asking the barmaid if she’d seen him could get both the seeker and the sought filleted. Besides, I’ve got fish of my own to fry, thank you. I’ll be kissing the dear lady’s powdered cheek soon enough.

Max didn’t applaud himself as he melted into the darkness, as it had been easy enough avoiding Richard. The man would be looking for someone who appeared very different from the Max Redgrave who had been slouching in a dark corner of the taproom, his hair and beard unkempt, his clothes not much more than several layers of rags beneath a long, greasy cloak, his wide-brimmed hat filthy and sagging over his face. He did have a gold earring, but any bit of sweepings found roaming Gravelines could use his sticker to slit a drunken seaman’s ear and help himself to a bit of gold. It was almost expected of them.

“And who was that fine, fair, fat gentleman you just left behind, mon ami?”

Max answered Anton Boucher without bothering to turn his head. “Who? You didn’t have to follow me. I only came out here to relieve myself,” and turned to the wall and unbuttoned his homespun trousers. “You’ve been at this too long, Anton. You’ve turned into an old woman, seeing trouble everywhere. It may be prudent of you to step back. The wind, you know.”

“It is picking up, isn’t it,” the man said, retreating a few paces. “And the rain, as well. As long as we’re out here and already drenched, we may as well get on with it. Perhaps they won’t sail, as a full moon does no one any good when it’s hidden behind clouds.”

“Admit it, Anton, you’re a timid sailor. There’s no need for you to travel with me tonight. I won’t be returning with you in any case.”

“Nonsense, as if I’d leave you with no one to guard your back. Besides, I’ve gained their trust. Only the one ship tonight, and they won’t let you board without me.”

Max deliberately kept his tone light. “Braggart. But I suppose you’re right. And you’re confident they’ll have the same destination as last time?”

“Same godforsaken destination every time, just as I told you.” Anton smiled, his pale blue eyes seeming to twinkle in the reflection from a streak of lightning overhead. “Missed all the fun then, didn’t we, sailing in the trailing boat? Pirates, the captain swore as we turned and raced back here, as if he’d know a pirate from a pickle. Probably just other smugglers, thinking to make an easy profit without the trouble of having to cross the Channel. Can’t trust the English, Max, you know that, being one of them.”

“The same stands for you, concerning your fellow Frenchmen,” Max returned, and Anton’s smile vanished.

“Touché. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead, does it?”

Max wished he hadn’t spoken. This was no night for unpleasant memories. “No, it doesn’t.”

They made their way along the docks to the rather questionable-looking vessel their so-called employers had chosen for the run across the Channel. Borrowed from a band of English owlers their French hosts were currently entertaining at one of the inns expressly built for their comfort by none other than the emperor himself. Like so many others, having delivered their cargo of wool, all they’d wanted was full tankards and some sweet mam’zelles warming their laps before loading up their cargos of brandy, tea and silk for the return to the beaches of Romney Marsh or perhaps Folkestone before daybreak.