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She rather liked her brother’s family, particularly Rawley, whose easy humor, incisive intelligence, and unswerving loyalty to her brother had won her over. Bronwyn had been so tempted to call herself Bronnie just to aggravate her mother, but the punishments were never worth the overstep. The last time Bronwyn had gone toe-to-toe with the marchioness had been by betraying her, as her mother called it. When Bronwyn provided the documents of birth for her half brother’s claim to her grandfather’s dukedom, the marchioness had cut the family’s season short and taken everyone back to the country in a fit of pique.
Bronwyn and her younger sister, Florence, had been confined in seclusion for weeks. Florence had blamed her, of course, but Bronwyn would not have changed a thing. She’d done what was right. Courtland Chase had been the rightful heir, regardless of her mother’s unlawful machinations to make her own son duke. Bronwyn loved Stinson, but her full-blooded brother had always been their mother’s puppet. He had a thing or two to learn from their half brother, Courtland, who was a decent and honorable man.
She had a feeling that Courtland wouldnotendorse her actions now, however.
Heiress turned international spy was a scandal in itself.
While they had been in Kettering, the marchioness had relented, driven by a desire to see her daughter marvelously wed. They had attended a few country house parties, including a daring masquerade, whereupon Bronwyn had discovered her latest purpose.
Always a magnet for trouble with a curious eye, she’d seen one of her old finishing-school mates, Miss Sesily Pleasant, with her mask askew and arguing with a well-heeled gentleman in an alcove off the retiring room. Sesily was a Black heiress from San Francisco whose business-owning and very wealthy mother had sent her only daughter to England with an immense dowry.
Like most of the American “dollar princesses” who came to England to marry into the nobility, Sesily had been sent for the same reason. However, unlike many of the other young ladies of their acquaintance, she had been kind and sweet, and one of the few girls Bronwyn had counted a friend at school. Sesily’s entrepreneur mother had also been an empowering influence on Bronwyn—that a free Black woman could amass such a fortune on her own was a testament to women everywhere.
A bored Bronwyn had shamelessly eavesdropped on the conversation.
“He won’t listen to me, Wentworth!”
Bronwyn hadn’t recognized the mysterious Wentworth who was masked, but he had been agitated, his palm slamming into the wainscoting. “This is our only window before Ashley leaves for London. Find a way to get the message to him, Sesily. He cannot be on that train.” Bronwyn had been thoroughly intrigued by the hushed urgency in the man’s tone, but what had interested her even more was the mutinous look on Sesily’s face. She was most distraught. “I do not care what you have to do,” Wentworth had commanded in a brutal whisper before striding away. “Get it done!”
Bronwyn had approached quietly and handed her friend a handkerchief when she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes with a groan. “Can I help?”
“Oh,” Sesily had said, startled and looking up, tight ebony spirals springing into her brow. “No, you couldn’t. It’s… Never mind.”
“Tell me what to tell him and I will.”
“Tell who?”
Bronwyn had canted her head. “Ashley.”
Panic had ensued, Sesily’s dark-brown eyes going wide, her breathing rapid as though she was going to swoon at any second. “Oh, no. You cannot!”
“Tell me the message and I will take care of it, Sesily,” Bronwyn had whispered, determined to help. “I’m masked. No one will recognize me, I promise. Now tell me what to do.”
Clearly torn, Sesily had wrung her hands, but then her spine had straightened and she’d swallowed, her pretty face drawn. “See the man over there in the gray mask? That’s him. There’s a raid planned to attack his train to London tonight. Tell him not to get on.”
“A raid?” Bronwyn had blinked her confusion. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t beenthat. She’d thought Sesily’s distress had had to do with courting or some such. Silly her. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Sesily?”
“No, nothing like that. I help deliver messages from time to time.” Her face had gone more pinched if that was possible. “But I made a mistake. I thought Wentworth could get me an introduction to Lord Cupid, er, Pam.”
“Pam?” The word had emerged on a gasp. Lord Cupid was a moniker printed by theTimesabout the prime minister, and Pam was yet another of his nicknames. What on earth were Sesily and this mysterious Wentworth into? Surely she did not mean…
“If Ashley gets on that train, he willdie.” A hand had gripped her elbow as her brain whirled to connect the obvious dots. Dear God, Ashley was Palmerston’s private secretary. This intrigue was beyond anything Bronwyn had ever imagined. The excitement in her blood had spiked to dangerous levels.
“I’ll do it.”
And she had, and never looked back.
She’d pretended to approach the Honorable Anthony Evelyn Melbourne Ashley, with her dance card in hand and looking suitably shy.
“I believe we might have this dance, sir,” she had murmured. When he’d looked confused, she had pressed a gloved hand to her lips, eyelashes dipping in fabricated mortification. “Oh, I do beg your pardon. I’m mistaken. I must have muddled the masks.” Embarrassed laughter had tumbled out of her. “And it appears I have mistaken the dance as well because this is the polka and it’s blank. I don’t suppose you wish to dance?”
His look of shock had been comical. “This is a bit untoward, Miss…er…”
Ratheruntoward since they had not been introduced, but it was a country masquerade and rules weren’t as stringent as they would have been in London. Her fingers had brushed the edges of the feathers on her mask. “Miss Bee.”
“Yes, well, I…” Looking decidedly uncomfortable, he’d tugged on his collar and his voice had trailed off. Clearly, Ashley wasn’t nearly the type of womanizer his much older employer was purported to be.
“Never fear, sir, I shall let you off the hook then, but I have a message for you.” Voice low, she’d brushed passed him so close that her feathers had skimmed his arm. “Do not get on the train to London tonight. I’m told to advise you that there will be a raid.”
