Packing didn’t take long because whenever she returned from France, she had her clothing laundered and folded away in her clothes press to await the next mission. It was winter, so she selected her warmest garments and half boots. All were well constructed but drab because her goal was to pass unnoticed.

She was finishing her selections when a knock sounded on the door and a female voice called, “Tea service, ma’am!”

Recognizing the voice, Cassie opened the door to Lady Kiri Mackenzie, who was balancing a tray with a teapot, cups, and a plate of cakes. Lady Kiri was tall, beautiful, well born, rich, and confident to the bone. Amazing that they had become friends.

“How did you know I was here?” Cassie asked. “I thought you and our newly knighted Sir Damian were still honeymooning in Wiltshire.”

“Mackenzie and I returned to town yesterday. Since I was near Covent Garden, I thought I’d take a chance and see if you were here.” Kiri set the tray on a table. “Mrs. Powell said you were, so behold! I arrive bearing tea.”

Cassie poured a splash of tea and decided it needed more steeping. “I’m glad you returned in time for a visit. I’ll be leaving by the end of the week.”

Kiri’s face became still. “France?”

“It’s where I am useful.”

“Do be careful,” Kiri said worriedly. “Having had a brief encounter with spying gave me a sense of how dangerous it can be.”

Cassie tested the tea again and decided it was ready. “That was an unusual circumstance,” she said as she poured. “Most of what I do is quite mundane.”

Kiri didn’t look convinced. “How long are you likely to be gone?”

“I’m not sure. A couple of months, perhaps more.” Cassie stirred sugar into her cup and settled back in her chair. “Remember that I am half French, so I’m not going to a foreign country. You’re half Hindu, so surely you understand that.”

Kiri considered. “I take your point. But India can be dangerous even though I’m half Indian. The same is true of France. Rather more so since we’re at war.”

Cassie selected a cake. “This is my work. My calling, really.” The cake was filled with nuts and currants and very tasty.

“From what I can see, you’re very good at spying.” Kiri chose a spice cake. Mrs. Powell’s kitchen could always be relied on for good food. “Does Rob Carmichael mind you going away for so long?”

Cassie’s brows arched in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

Kiri flushed. “I’m sorry. Was I not supposed to know about your … your relationship?”

Kiri must have seen Rob and Cassie together. Not surprising since the women had lived under the same roof for several weeks. “Our relationship is that we are friends,” Cassie said astringently.

“And I should mind my own business,” Kiri said, her voice rueful. “But he’s a fine fellow. I … I thought there was something more than friendship between you.”

Cassie felt a sharp pang of… envy, she supposed, that Kiri could believe in love. Not that her friend hadn’t had problems to overcome. Her father had died before she was born, and since she had been raised in India with mixed blood, she had faced prejudice when her family came to England.

But Kiri had a loving mother and stepfather, not to mention wealth, position, and beauty to protect against an often cruel world. Cassie had been born with some of those advantages but had lost them early, along with her faith in happy endings.

Newly wed and madly in love with a man worthy of her, Kiri lacked the experience to recognize the many ways men and women might connect. A desperate need for warmth could draw people together even without love.

Not wanting to try to explain that, Cassie said merely, “Friendship is one of life’s great blessings. It doesn’t need to be more.”

“I stand corrected.” Kiri made a face. “I appreciate how patiently you’ve educated me on worldly matters.”

“You learned quickly.” Cassie chuckled. “Kirkland said he’d hire you as an agent in an instant if you weren’t unfortunately aristocratic.” She paused. “He probably has put you to work listening to what is said at Damian’s since so many high officials and foreign diplomats choose to do their gambling there.”

“The possibility might have been touched on,” Kiri said with a twinkle in her eye. After demolishing another cake, she opened her reticule. “While in the country, I spent some time playing with a scent you might find useful.” Kiri pulled a small vial from her reticule and handed it over. “I call it Antiqua.”

“Useful?” Cassie accepted the vial with enthusiasm. Kiri came from a long line of Hindu women who were perfumers, and she created marvelous scents. “I thought perfumes were for allure and frivolity.”

“Take a sniff and see what you think,” her friend said mysteriously.

Cassie obediently unstoppered the vial, closed her eyes, and sniffed. Then again. “It smells … a little musty, in a clean sort of way, if that makes sense. Earthy and … very still? Tired? Not exactly unpleasant, but nothing like your floral and spice perfumes.”

“If you caught this scent in passing, what would you think of?”

“An old woman,” Cassie said instantly.

“Perfect!” Kiri said gleefully. “Scent is powerful. Dab on a bit of Antiqua when you wish to be unnoticed or underestimated. People will think of you as old and feeble without knowing why.”

“That’s brilliant!” Cassie sniffed again. “I detect a hint of lavender, but I don’t recognize anything else.”

“I included oils I don’t use often, and when I do, they’re usually disguised by pleasanter fragrances,” Kiri explained.

“When I’m in France, I often travel around in a pony cart as a peddler of ladies’ sundries. Ribbons and lace and the like. I make myself look plain and dull and forgettable, and this will add to the effect. Thank you, Kiri.” Cassie stoppered the vial. “Would you have time to make more before I leave?”

Kiri pulled out two more vials. “Once I thought the scent worked, I made a larger batch.” She chuckled. “I put some of this on and crept up on Mackenzie and he didn’t recognize me until I caught his attention by doing something highly improper.”

Cassie laughed. “If you could creep up on Mackenzie unobserved, this scent should make me invisible.”

Kiri pursed her lips. “If you’re going to be traveling as a peddler, I have a remedy that might be a good item for you to carry.”

“Perfumes that aren’t quite up to your standards but are still lovely? That would be wonderful,” Cassie said.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Kiri said, “but it’s a good idea. I have a number that aren’t quite what I wanted, but pleasant and too full of expensive ingredients to throw out. You’re welcome to them. But what I had in mind was thieves’ oil.”

“What on earth is that, and why would any honest country housewife want any?”

Kiri grinned. “I found it when researching ancient European scents. The story goes that during the Black Death, some thieves were caught robbing the dying and dead. In return for their lives, they offered the formula that allowed them to commit their crimes without catching the disease. There are different recipes, but they’re usually based on an herb vinegar infused with other herbs like lemon and clove and rosemary. Herbal vinegars are traditional remedies, so that’s a good start.”

“Fascinating,” Cassie said. “Does it work?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps it might prevent someone from coming down with more usual ailments like coughs and colds. Since I’m usually healthy, I don’t know if the thieves’ oil is making a difference. The version I settled on is pungent but not unpleasant, and it smells like it ought to do some good. Perfect for a peddler who won’t be around if it doesn’t work.”

“I’d love to have some,” Cassie said. “I’ll use it myself. Traveling through the French countryside with a pony cart in the dead of winter is a recipe for catching colds. I’ll let you know if the thieves’ oil keeps me healthy.”

“I’ll send some tomorrow, along with my surplus perfumes.” Kiri foraged in her bag again and produced an exquisite bottle of scarlet glass with a delicately twisted stopper. “One last thing. For when you return to England and can be yourself again.”

Warily Cassie opened the bottle and placed a drop on her wrist. One sniff and she became still as stone. The fragrance was an exquisite layering of lilac and roses, frankincense and moonlight, vanished sunshine and lost dreams. And underneath, the shadows of darkest night. It caught at her heart with painful intensity.

“Now that I know you better, I decided to create a personal perfume,” Kiri explained. “What do you think?”

“It’s superb.” Cassie reinserted the stopper with rather more force than necessary. “But I’m not sure when I’ll have occasion to wear anything like this.”

“You hate it,” her friend said sadly. “I thought you might.”

Cassie gazed at the lovely little bottle resting on her palm. “I don’t hate it. I … just don’t want to wear this much truth.”

“Perhaps someday you will.”

“Perhaps.” But Cassie doubted that.


Chapter 4

Castle Durand, Summer 1803

Once he realized Durand didn’t want him dead, Grey fought at every opportunity. Resistance didn’t get him killed, though he acquired numerous bruises and lacerations.

If he’d known what lay ahead, he might have tried harder to get killed.

Durand’s men were well trained and brutally efficient. As soon as Grey was captured, one of the guards appropriated his finely tailored garments, gave him coarse peasant clothing and shoes, and ordered him to put them on.

After Grey dressed, he was shackled, gagged, blindfolded, and tossed into a smelly cart. Foul straw was thrown over him. He struggled frantically for breath as the cart began rumbling over the cobbled Parisian streets. When he fell into agonized unconsciousness, he was sure he would never wake again.

But he did. When he recovered his senses, he learned that he could breathe if he didn’t move too much or allow panic to flood his mind.

As cobblestones became roads and then rutted rural lanes, he thought he would go mad from terror and anguish. Grey had always loved sunshine and bright lights and good company. Now he could not see, could not speak, could not even howl with despair.

He lost track of how long he rattled around the cart. Several days, but it was devilish hard to tell how much time passed when he was in constant darkness.

Morning and evening, he was fed and watered and allowed to relieve himself. His body was so stiff from its bindings that he could barely walk. Chilling spring rain sometimes fell, but his damnable good health spared him from lung fever.

At last the nightmare ended. The cart clattered into a stone courtyard, the ropes securing his ankles were unshackled, and he was marched into a building.

Being blindfolded sharpened his senses. He recognized that the building was large and old and mostly stone. A castle, perhaps. He stumbled down narrow stairs with uneven stone treads that supported that theory.

The guards he had come to know through their scent and voices were joined by another man with a guttural voice, strange footsteps, and a sour smell of garlic. A door squealed and Grey was shoved through. He barely managed to avoid crashing to the stone floor.

The gag and blindfold were jerked off. He flinched backward from the torchlight, which stung his eyes after days in darkness. The guards who had brought Grey there stood silently in the doorway while a broad man with cruel features and a wooden peg leg stood directly in front of him. The man leaned on a cane that had leather streamers falling from the brass head.

“I am Gaspard, your jailer,” the man said, menace in his guttural voice. He spoke the French of Paris’s worst stews. “Durand orders me to keep you alive.” He gave an ugly smirk. “I fear you will not find the accommodations what you are used to, my little goddam lordling.”

Grey had to strain to understand. He’d learned the French of the well born when he was a boy, but he hadn’t been taught the coarse dialects of the poor and the provinces. That was changing rapidly. He wondered if he would ever hear English spoken again.

He remembered that the French had called the English “goddams” since at least the time of Joan of Arc. The name came from the constant profanity of the soldiers of the English army. Resigning himself to being a goddam, he said, “If you wish to keep me alive, food and water would be helpful.”

Gaspard gave a bark of laughter. “In the morning, boy. I have other concerns now.” He glanced at the guards. “Take off the goddam’s coat and shirt.”

The two guards silently moved forward and obeyed. Grey was too cramped and bruised to fight well, and he couldn’t prevent them from stripping off his ragged, oversized coat and shirt. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.