No True Gentleman Read online

  Slowly, reluctantly, he stopped kissing

  her and stepped away . . .

  “I daresay you’d like to backhand me for that,” he said, his voice low and thick.

  “Sh-should I?” she managed to ask as he drew her just a little nearer.

  “Slap me?” His mouth quirked into an uncertain smile. “Yes, soundly.”

  Strangely, she had no wish to strike out at him. Instead, she forced a smile. “Did you enjoy it enough to make it worth a good wallop, then?” she asked, tilting her head to one side to study him. “I’ve a rather strong right arm, you know.”

  “Oh, I enjoyed it,” he admitted, his voice rueful. “Enough to be drawn and quartered, instead of merely knocked senseless.”

  Catherine started to laugh, but it faltered. Good heavens. This wasn’t funny. It was . . . she didn’t know what it was. But she knew his hand beneath her elbow was warm and strong.

  “Tell me your name,” she softly commanded, stepping slightly away from him. “You’ve taken some rather blatant liberties with me. So perhaps we should be introduced?”

  Praise for Liz Carlyle

  A Woman of Virtue

  “Sensual and spellbinding.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards

  “With A Woman of Virtue, Liz Carlyle shows she deserves fan support from mystery aficionados as well as romance lovers.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “An intriguing love story enhanced by an entertaining historical police procedural–amateur sleuth tale.”

  —AOL Romance Fiction Forum

  “A Woman of Virtue is a beautifully written book. . . . I was mesmerized from the first page to the last.”

  —The Old Book Barn Gazette

  “I can’t recommend this author’s books highly enough; they are among my all-time favorites.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The ever-talented Liz Carlyle brings us a romance that will appeal to amateur sleuth aficionados with its edge-of-the-seat suspense and a love story that merges seamlessly.”

  —Romantic Times

  A Woman Scorned

  “Carlyle delivers great suspense and . . . sensual scenes.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “When the soft summer breezes are caressing you, this is the book you want to have in hand.”

  —The Oakland Press

  “Fabulous! Regency-based novels could not be in better hands than those of Ms. Carlyle.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “A complex and beautifully written story.”

  —Rendezvous

  My False Heart

  “My False Heart is a treat; romance readers will want to read this one and remember her name!”

  —Linda Howard, New York Times

  bestselling author of Open Season

  “My False Heart is a spellbinding tale of betrayal, intrigue, and the healing power of love, from one of tomorrow’s romance superstars.”

  —AOL Romance Fiction Forum

  Thank you for purchasing this Pocket Star Books eBook.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  To my dear friends:

  Jean Sandilands Steele,

  whose expertise in history, politics, culture, cartography,

  and life in general

  is forever dragging me back from the brink of folly,

  and

  Denise Cavanaugh, D.Phil.,

  a lovely French girl with dancing eyes and a wicked wit,

  who can probably translate Beowulf

  into a half-dozen languages without mussing her hair.

  I have been blessed by your friendship.

  Prologue

  Give me virtuous actions

  and I will not quibble about the motives.

  —LORD CHESTERFIELD, 1776,

  The Fine Gentleman’s Etiquette

  April 1826

  She was an old woman now. Many believed she had been born so—that she had sprung from the womb that was Tuscany, swathed in bombazine and old black lace, weighed down by her obstinacy and her rosary and her temper, which could, admittedly, be very bad. Sofia Josephina DiBiase Castelli had buried three husbands, her precious daughter, and, sometimes it seemed, even her grandson.

  She had seen the world; fallen in love in Paris, married in Florence, and grown old, wise, and weary in London. But once, long ago, she had been as young and as romantic as the starry-eyed lovers who strolled through the square beneath her windows on a Sunday afternoon. And she was not now so old that she could not recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness when she saw it in others.

  No afternoon sunlight permeated the heavy velvet draperies of Signora Castelli’s vast dining room. The fire in the hearth fairly roared despite the spring day beyond the stout brick walls of her town house. Regally stiff in her black, high-backed chair, the old woman sat at the table, her hands cold—a circumstance she was resigned to—and her heart churning with thwarted intent. That she had never tolerated with any measure of grace. And so, with gnarled fingers, she lifted the covers from the four small, delicately adorned urns before her.

  “Earth, water, wind, and fire,” the old woman muttered as she took one pinch from the contents of each and tossed it into the ornate brass bowl before her.

  In the shadows of the dining room, another woman lingered uncertainly.

  “Maria!” Signora Castelli commanded, snapping her fingers. “I Tarocchi! Fetch it here!”

  The woman in the shadows bobbed. “Subito, Signora Castelli.” But she opened the small double doors of the sideboard with obvious reluctance. Her hand shook as she withdrew a box carved of ebony wood and banded with tarnished copper.

  With an awkward clunk, she set the box down on the table but did not remove her hands. “Signora Castelli,” she hesitantly whispered. “You think it wise?”

  The old woman’s eyes were keen and narrow. “I am old, Maria,” she proclaimed in the voice of doom. “My grandson leaves me no choice. He will be wed! And his wife will bear me my grandchildren beneath this roof ere I die!” With each syllable, she jabbed a crooked index finger toward the portrait which hung over the hearth.

  Maria’s skeptical glance spoke volumes. “Your pardon, signora, but Maximilian is no longer so young and innocent.”

  “Scusa, Maria, but you have seen how the women look at him.”

  Maria’s gaze dropped to the black box. “Si, but Father O’Flynn—”

  “—has a new barouche!” the signora snapped. “One which my money paid for. He will have no quarrel with this. Besides, Maria, Our Mother speaks in many ways. You do not listen.”

  Lips pursed, Maria thrust forward the box as if it had just burst into flame.

  Lovingly, Signora Castelli took it in hand and withdrew a bundle wrapped in black sil k. With a deft snap, she jerked away the fabric to reveal a thick pack of cards which—unlike their owner—had been worn soft around the edges with the passage of time. Holding the pack aloft in one hand, the signora lifted one candle from the table with the other and dipped it into the brass bowl, setting the herbs afire. Writhing snakes of white smoke spiraled up. With her right hand, she passed the cards back and forth through the haze.

  “Earth, water, wind, fire,” she solemnly repeated. “All must be purified.”

  The smoke receded. Carefully, the old woman cut the cards three times to the right, then dealt them into the formation of a cross with quick, efficient snaps. Her hand darted to the center card, hesitated briefly, then turned it. “Oh, Dio mio,” she whispered.

  Maria leaned eagerly forward. “Il Re di Spade,” she whispered reverently. “The King of Swords. It is Maximilian, no?”

  Sourly, the old woman eyed her servant. “Si, my cousin. Now you wish to observe?”

  Sheepishly, Maria pulled out a chair and sat. Signora Castelli returned her attention to the spread, quickly turning up the next three cards. Maria gave a little shriek and drew back. “Nerone!” she hissed. “Oh, my God! Who is to die?”

  “No one, you foolish creature,” chided the old woman, flicking up three more cards. At the third, she lifted her brows sharply. “Well . . . not yet.” Her fingers touched each card in turn. “But there is great evil. A fair-haired man with an impure heart. Deceit. Treachery. But it is elsewhere. Not in this house.” The last was said with a touch of hauteur.

  Another card was turned. Muttering under her breath, the old woman crossed herself. “Ah, Maria, here is the answer. A woman in grave danger. The Queen of Chalices.” With a dry fingertip, she pecked on the card. “A vase full of serpents. A heart filled with avarice. I do not know her, thank God.” Under her breath, she made a tch-tch sound and studied the adjacent cards. “A pity, a pity!”

  “What?”

  The old woman shook her head sadly. “She is doomed, Maria, for greed will lead her to a bad end,” she said, flipping the Five of Wands with a flourish. “There! You see?”

  “But what of Maximilian?” Maria pleaded, leaning insistently forward. “What has this to do with him?”

  The old woman lifted her shoulders beneath the stiff black silk of her gown. “The evil is drawing near to my grandson. This woman represents . . . some sort of danger.” Slowly, her fingertip traced back across the series of cards. “More than this, I cannot see.”

  Maria sighed, and Signora Castelli turned over the next card. “Ah-ha!” she shouted, her mood shifting mercurially to one of joy. “Look, Maria! Do you see? La Regina di Dischi. She is coming at last! All which we have prayed for is within our grasp. Si, I felt it! I felt that it was time!”

  “The Queen of Pentacles?” mused Maria. “But you never turn that card . . .”

  Signora Castelli cut her off with an impatient hiss. “Because she has never before come!”

  Maria lifted her gaze to Signora Castelli. “Who is she?”

  The old woman gave a faint, inward smile. “She is the one, Maria. The Earth Mother. She is all things—benevolence and sensuality, goodness and truth. You see here—” Signora Castelli paused to tap upon the face of the card. “She holds the mysteries of nature in her hand. But the balance is delicate. There is much cosmic disharmony in her heart. I feel it strongly.”

  She paused to draw her heavy black brows into a frown. The last cards were turned, a series of pentacles. At once, her head snapped up, her bright, jetty gaze snaring Maria’s. “Che la fortuna ci assista! Quickly, quickly, where is my rosary?”

  Maria leaned forward and pulled it from the pocket of the old woman’s gown. “What else did you see, signora? What do you mean to do?”

  “Now I must pray.” The old woman clasped the beads between her palms and lifted her trembling hands toward Maria’s face. “She is close. Very close. But the evil is closer still. We must pray that the evil does not touch Maximilian. And we must pray that this woman, la Regina di Dischi, will be delivered safely into our hands, so that we can do what must be done.”

  Chapter One

  A true gentleman must take care never

  to seem dark and mysterious.

  —LORD CHESTERFIELD, 1776,

  The Fine Gentleman’s Etiquette

  Terrible accidents can befall anyone who plunges into the unknown. Catherine knew that all too well. And yet the fog which lay before her, slate gray and cloying, did not give her pause as it should have done. Instead, she pressed heedlessly forward, allowing the damp to envelop her like cold, wet wool. Orion’s rapid hoof beats were muted by the soft earth as she mindlessly urged him into the thatch of rhododendron ahead.

  Much of her behavior had been just so of late, impelled not by logic but by an inexplicable need to flee something which lay behind, with little thought to what risk might lie ahead. She had let grief and confusion drive her from Gloucestershire. Then into London. But perhaps she should not have permitted it to drive her into this fog alone. Perhaps she should have waited until full daylight, instead of rushing into the distant reaches of Hyde Park before dawn had scarce broken. But as usual, the silence inside the house—inside her heart—had been suffocating.

  With an impatient signal, she urged Orion on, vaguely considering how her brother Cam would scold if he learned of her recklessness. Suddenly, a noise sounded in the fog ahead. Sharp yet muffled, like the snapping of a twig beneath a layer of wet leaves. And then she saw him—at the precise instant Orion did. Like a pagan warlock summoning up a dragon’s breath, the big man loomed up before them, his long black cloak swirling in the mist, his height eclipsing the path beyond.

  With a shrill cry, her horse reared and spun right, pawing wildly at the mist. Floating from the fog, the man snared the gelding’s bridle, dragging down his head as if the beast were little more than a willful pony. Orion’s eyes flashed with white, his hindquarters wheeled nervously, kicking up divots of turf. But with relentless calm, the tall man held his head. At last, the horse gave a final snort of censure and yielded.

  For a long, uncomfortable moment, silence held sway in the gloom.

  “Your pardon, ma’am,” the man finally said, his voice like gravel. “I fear the dampness muffled your approach.”

  Catherine stared down at him, then let her gaze slide to his impervious grip on her bridle. “I can hold my mount, sir,” she snapped. But, inexplicably, blood was pounding in her ears.

  At once, his spine stiffened, and she watched, intrigued, as his long, elegant fingers slid away from the leather. “I thought perhaps you could not,” he said coolly, his gaze burning through her. “Apparently, I was mistaken.”

  “Quite,” she managed.

  Suspicion was etched on his face, and as he glanced up and down the path, Catherine had an uneasy sense that the man could see things which she could not. “Madam, you ride unaccompanied?” he asked, his tone deceptively casual.

  Catherine realized her folly at once. She was completely alone in a pea-soup fog with an intense, intimidating stranger. Straightening herself in the saddle, she looked down her nose and feigned her elder brother’s haughty glare. “My business is my own, sir,” she retorted. “But if we’re to remark upon the obvious, one might mention that you were strolling rather carelessly on the bridle path.”

  A flash of what might have been acquiescence lit his eyes, and he cast her an odd, sideways look. “Regardless, this is no place for a lady alone.”

  To her chagrin, Catherine realized he was right. Quickly, she took his measure. Lean and dark, the man was younger than he’d first appeared, though his face was edged with the weariness of age. His eyes were more shrewd than kind. And with his high, hard cheekbones, one would not call him handsome. But he certainly was . . . arresting. Oh, yes. Oddly, he spoke with just a hint of an accent. German? Italian? But it mattered little. Despite the heavy, silver-knobbed stick he carried and the grace with which he wore his somber clothing, the man was no English gentleman. He looked far too dangerous for such a civilized term.

  The man must have heard her soft intake of breath. His cold, black gaze returned, capturing hers. “Take yourself home at once, madam,” he said tightly. “Hyde Park is not safe at this hour.”

  Catherine wasn’t sure why she lingered. “I must confess, you gave me quite a start,” she said, deliberately arching her brows. “Do you always lurk about in the fog like that?”

  Orion tossed his head uneasily. With a quiet oath in some foreign tongue, the man seized his bridle once more. “Trust me, madam, my lurking should be the least of your concerns,” he snapped. “The worst of London’s rabble has yet to see their beds.”

  He was, she saw, entirely serious. Reining her mount back a step, Catherine inclined her head in agreement. “Perhaps you are right, Mr. . . . ?”

  His expression inscrutable, the man swept off his top hat and bowed in a gesture which was both graceful and insolent. It was also oddly . . . un-English. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he walked past her and vanished, his greatcoat swirling into the mist, absorbed by it.

  Only then did Catherine notice the huge black beast which followed at his heels. Catherine cut a sidelong glance down, but even on horseback, she had not far to look. A dog—? God in heaven. She hoped it was a dog.

  A little shaken, Catherine found that her wish to escape the confines of town had suddenly flown with her nerve. And so she did precisely as the stranger had ordered. And an order it had surely been. He had snapped out the command as if he were a man to whom authority came easily.

  After winding back along the path for a few minutes, Catherine cut Orion sharply left and uphill, bursting from the trees into the open green space. Here, the muted light of a late April morning had finally leached through the cloud cover, and she could see her way clear for some distance. It was then that she caught sight of him again, standing high on the ridge to the northwest, leaning his weight gracefully onto his walking stick. His stern eyes followed as her horse picked its way along the path up to Oxford Street. Such scrutiny should have made her uncomfortable, but it did not. It felt oddly reassuring. As if he had waited to ensure her safety, or perhaps even hoped to speak with her again.