AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
London, April 1815.
“I won’t do it.”
Harry Tremayne, second son of the Earl of Ashton and former cavalryman of His Majesty’s Horse Guards, flicked the corner of his newspaper back up and tried to ignore his Great Aunt Agatha, who loomed in front of him.
He failed. The Dowager Countess of Ashton was a woman impossible to ignore, despite being scarcely five feet tall. She was a formidable presence; even her closest friends referred to her as a ‘battle ax.’
“You have to go and find her. She’s your cousin,” Aunt Agatha bellowed.
Harry scowled and lowered the corner of theRacing Postagain.
“She isnotmy cousin,” he said testily. “She’s your sister’s step-grand-daughter once removed, or something equally convoluted. I’m more closely related to the king of England. I owe her no familial duty whatsoever.”
Aunt Agatha sent him a piercing glare. That look had been very effective when Harry was a boy of seven. It was almost as terrifying now, despite him being twenty years older.
“Well, be that as it may, Henry George Bernard Tremayne,” Aunt Agatha said—and Harry knew she was serious, because she’d used his full name—“you owe a duty tome. I am old and frail and—”
Harry snorted. “What rot! You’re the sprightliest old bird I ever met.”
“I’m eighty-one—”
“No, you’re not. You’re seventy-three. I’ve seen your birthday in the front of the family bible. And you’re as tough as old boots,” Harry finished, unmoved. “Send someone else. I’ve rescued that woman enough times as it is. I spent three years keeping an eye on her in almost every major city in Europe before I went off to serve King and country.”
Aunt Agatha opened her mouth, but Harry wasn’t finished.
“Lady Hester Morden has an uncanny ability to find areas of the world embroiled in political strife. She is a magnet for trouble. At first I thought she was just unlucky to stumble into such unfortunate situations, but then I realized the truth; Lady Hester is usually thecauseof said strife.”
Aunt Agatha tried to interrupt, but Harry held up his hand.
“She is one of those infuriatingly independent women who drive sane men to drink. She is disaster with a capital D.” He raised his eyebrows. “You want to locate her? That’s easy; just look at a newspaper. Find somewhere with a peasant uprising or a nasty revolution, and ten to oneshewill be there in the middle of it. Instigating.”
He shook his head and adopted an expression of mock regret. “I’m sorry, Aunt Agatha, but I don’t want to push my luck. I returned from the wars with barely a scratch. The last time I saw Lady Hester, she threatened to castrate me. Or shoot me. Or strangle me. Or possibly all three at once.”
“That’s because you kissed her!” Aunt Agatha boomed, finally managing to get a word in edgeways. “Two years ago. At Lady Bressingham’s garden—”
“I had to dosomethingto stop her insulting the Turkish ambassador. She kept telling him how dreadful his reforms were. It was the only thing I could think of at the time, short of clubbing her over the head and dragging her body into the shrubbery. Which, come to think of it, would have been a better idea.”
Harry frowned.
Certainly it would have been better for his sanity. Because he’d dreamed about kissing Lady Hester Morden for years, annoying baggage that she was, and the real thing had been just as spectacular as he’d feared it would be. He’d known it would be trouble to allow himself even a taste of her, but he’d been unable to resist.
Of course, after that very public kiss, he’d quite properly offered to marry her, but Hester had stoutly refused. She cared nothing for the scandal. She’d been about to accompany her eccentric uncle Jasper, an eminent scholar and cartographer, on an extended tour of Egypt.
Harry had been about to leave the country too, to fight the French tyrant Napoleon, so he’d accepted her refusal with outward good grace and quite a bit of inner irritation. Why didn’t she want to marry him? He was a good catch, wasn’t he? He had a title, if not a vast fortune, and Hester was an heiress in her own right; she didn’t need to marry for money.
He reminded himself he’d had a lucky escape. He hadn’t been ready to settle down, and he might have been killed in battle and left her a widow. Hester, too, had craved adventure. Since Egypt was far away from the European war zones, Harry had hoped the trip might keep her out of trouble—at least until he returned from the wars and they could continue their delightful sparring.
He should have known better. Ofcourseshe’d managed to get herself into some scrape, even with her uncle’s supervision. The woman was a menace. And yet he was helpless to resist her. Witness the fact that he’d spent the last few weeks organizing his own passage to Egypt, ostensibly to collect some mummies to sell to the Royal College of Surgeons, but in reality because it was high time someone made sure Hester Morden was still alive.
He shouldn’t care if she’d got herself locked away in a harem or robbed by highwaymen. She wasn’t his problem. But if hewasin Egypt, he might as well inquire about her whereabouts.
Aunt Agatha seemed to scent victory. “The family is very concerned, Harry. There’s been no letter from Jasper for weeks.”
“You know how long it takes for correspondence to get here from Egypt. It’s probably just been delayed.”
Aunt Agatha shook her head. “I want you to find her. It’s time she came back to England and settled down.”
