Lady Notorious (Royal Rewards #4) Read online

  “COULD I... WHAT ABOUT A KISS FOR LUCK?”

  When George stared at her, she explained, “It seemed the sort of thing your Benedetti cousin might say.”

  “Well. For the sake of getting into the role, then.” In a second, he had dropped his evening gloves on the floor, crossed the room, and taken her face in his hands.

  As she caught her breath, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.

  It was a sweet brush, a slow savor of mouth upon mouth. She shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing else in the world, to sink into the sensation and wrap herself in its boldness.

  It was not so easy to turn off her thoughts.

  What did she hope would happen? Would the world shift? Would he drop to one knee again and offer her a ring under his own name? Would his heart pass into her keeping? Would hers become his?

  Books by Theresa Romain

  Season for Temptation

  Season for Surrender

  Season for Scandal

  Season for Desire

  Fortune Favors the Wicked

  Passion Favors the Bold

  Lady Rogue

  Lady Notorious

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  LADY NOTORIOUS

  THERESA ROMAIN

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  “COULD I... WHAT ABOUT A KISS FOR LUCK?”

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Theresa St. Romain

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-4545-8

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4546-5 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-4546-0 (eBook)

  Chapter One

  June 1819

  On night watch, this was the hour when anything seemed possible but nothing seemed likely to happen.

  The longcase clock in the study had just struck one in the morning. Cassandra Benton heard it through the closed door, mere feet away from where she hid in the shadows beside the main staircase of Deverell Place.

  This watch was a nightly ritual, one she’d adopted along with the guise of housemaid when she’d been hired a week ago under false pretenses. What with keeping up the daily duties of a maid and shadowing Lord Deverell each night until he went up to bed, she’d hardly slept since then.

  Ah, well. One couldn’t expect infiltrating a Mayfair household to be effortless.

  One could, however, wish something would happen to break up three to four hours staring at a shut door. Her twin brother, Charles, always got the more interesting parts of a job. Placed as a footman due to his height, he could move around anywhere in the house. Their employer had asked Charles to keep an eye on the safety of the ladies of the family: his lordship’s two half-grown daughters, plus her ladyship. In theory, this meant dignified vigilance.

  In practice, Cass kept up the dignified vigilance in her maid’s garb, and Charles disappeared for long afternoons alone with pretty Lady Deverell, the earl’s much younger second wife.

  She’d no idea where her fool of a brother was now, but finally, her own nighttime vigils had begun to yield results. The most interesting had been two nights before, when Lord Deverell, wearing worry like a mask on his dissipated features, had welcomed an associate to drink with him at midnight. Cass hadn’t recognized the caller, but from her hiding spot, she’d memorized his features before the two men closed themselves into the study. She’d risked listening at the door after that, catching only one word out of every few. But she had caught the hush, the worry, the change in mood as they’d mentioned the special term: tontine.

  That was why Cass was here, and Charles, too. George, Lord Northbrook—son and heir of the Duke of Ardmore—had hired the Bentons privately to learn more about this tontine, a wager placed decades before. And to make certain nobody died as a result of it.

  Privately, Cass thought it was likely to be no more dangerous than any of the wagers noblemen were constantly placing. But for the exorbitant fee of five pounds a week, she’d hold her tongue and keep her eyes and ears open for Lord Northbrook.

  So far tonight, the darkness pressed heavy, and the silence in the house was a weight. There was nothing to see but the faint outline of the study door, traced by the light of the candles within, and the great snaking spiral of the staircase stretching up overhead. Nothing much to hear, either, save for the crystalline clink she knew to be decanter against glass, decanter against glass. The earl liked his spirits strong and plentiful. Though for a while now, there had been no sound at all. Perhaps his lordship had gone to sleep, the lucky old dog.

  She shifted against the wall, easing creaks and pops out of her spine. Being a housemaid wasn’t a good cover identity. It was far more labor than investigating, and she didn’t even perform the work all that well. If she did, her nose wouldn’t be tickled with dust right now. But who had time to wipe down every baluster and newel post and bit of trim on the handrail—especially when there was an earl who needed to be observed?

  She settled more deeply into the shadows, pinching at her nose to hold back a sneeze.

  Then the screaming began.

  Cass tipped her head. “That’s odd,” she murmured.

  Screaming at one o’clock in the morning was always odd, but in this case, it was particularly so. The screaming was not coming from the study in which his lordship had sequestered himself, unaware of possible threats to his life. It was coming from upstairs.

  And it was hardly the slurred baritone of a drunken lord faced with a pistol or stiletto. This scream was that of a woman, probably Lady Deverell from the timbre of it.

  As Cass strained to hear, the scream changed from wordless panic into a call for help. He’s fallen, it sounded like the voice was shrieking. He’s fallen!

  Oh. That meant the scream wasn’t odd at all. Cass blew out a breath, relaxing back against the wall.

  All that had happened was that Charles had fallen out the window. Again.

  She was certain of this not because of a miraculous connection between the minds of twins, but because of past experience. Her brother, someti
me Bow Street Runner and incorrigible flirt, was notorious for conducting affairs in an impractical way. He fancied himself a Robin Hood, or Romeo, or some other disastrous creature starting with an R who pursued women he ought not and climbed about on the outside of buildings. Charles found it romantic—another disastrous R—to climb up and down ivy or trellises when conducting an assignation, instead of using stairs like a normal adulterer.

  Lady Deverell’s calls for help hadn’t yet shut off, which meant that not only had Charles fallen and startled her, but he had probably hurt himself when he fell.

  Hell.

  By now footsteps were thumping as the servants were roused and ventured forth from their attic or basement rooms. A door opened at a distance, spilling anxious voices out, and then slammed shut again. The household jerked awake in startled fits.

  Cass sidled along the wall, looking up into the dim nighttime heights of the first-floor landing, then back at the still-shut study door. His lordship was foxed, as usual—too foxed to respond to the panicked cries of his wife. This was good, since he wouldn’t call Charles out in a duel. Though if a threat on Lord Deverell’s life materialized, as Northbrook seemed certain it would, the old fellow wouldn’t be able to do much about it except offer brandy to his would-be killer.

  Another step sideways as Cass craned her neck to look up the sweeping staircase. Who was passing on the floor above? Was that the butler running toward her ladyship? If she could just get to a better vantage point—

  With her next step, she smacked into a person, tall and unyielding.

  An intruder! Reflex took over. She pressed her lips together, cutting off a scream, and drove her fist forward hard.

  A muffled curse. “Cass,” came a whisper. “It’s me. George. Northbrook.”

  Lord Northbrook. She drew back, squinting, as if that would help lighten the shadows. Why had no one lit candles, if they insisted on thundering about the house at night?

  “Sorry about that,” she apologized. “You caught me by surprise.” Her hands were unsteady, and she hid her fists behind her back.

  She ought to have expected the presence of the young marquess. Every night near this time, he tried to meet her at this spot beside the stairs so she could share what she’d learned. She always unlocked the front door for him when she took up her post, then secured it again before she went off to bed. It was a process that left her vulnerable, but she carried a pistol and was, as her employer had just learned, effective with her fists.

  “I let myself in when I heard screaming,” he replied. “After a crash.”

  “You heard it from outside?”

  “The crash was outside. The screams I heard through an open window.”

  Cass smothered a sigh. “I believe the window is Lady Deverell’s, and the crash was my brother, Charles.”

  “Charles’s what?”

  “Charles himself. His person.”

  “What? Was he climbing to her ladyship’s window? But why?”

  Cass waited a moment while Northbrook’s realization sank in.

  “Oh. He—oh. Well done, Charles,” murmured the lord.

  The study door remained stubbornly shut, but candlelight now spilled down the stairs along with a clamor of voices. Backlit though Northbrook was by the dim light, Cass could pick out his familiar form. Like her, he was dressed in black, and his face was all hollows and shadows and grim planes. He was scented of citrus, another characteristic she ought to have recognized at once. Whether it was his soap or whether he was uncommonly fond of oranges, she’d no idea. But it was not unpleasant.

  Footsteps sounded on the main staircase—close and coming closer. Quicker than thought, Cass grabbed the front of Northbrook’s shirt and yanked him into the corner where the staircase met the back of the entrance hall.

  Pressed beside her, he whispered into her ear, “How forceful you are, Miss Benton. If you wanted to catch me alone in the dark, you had only to say so.”

  She hissed back, “Next time I’ll be more direct. I’ll bash you on the head and drag you off to my lair.” Then she covered his mouth with her palm. Double hell! Her hands were bare. Why hadn’t she covered her hair and worn gloves? In this darkness, a redhead with pale skin might as well be carrying a lantern about.

  Blessed relief; the footsteps halted. “No, he’s still in the study,” said a woman. “I can see the door. He hasn’t even opened it.” Cass recognized the voice of the housekeeper, Mrs. Chutley. The elderly woman’s knees pained her, and she wheezed slightly when she took stairs.

  An indistinct reply followed in a male voice.

  “You ought to go on back to bed, Jackson,” answered the housekeeper. “He won’t need you tonight. Time enough in the morning to tell him—whatever her ladyship wants to tell him.”

  Mrs. Chutley chuckled, and the man to whom she’d spoken—Lord Deverell’s valet—laughed as well. The panic was over, the servants now more annoyed at broken sleep than worried about their mistress. Charles, Cass guessed, was not Lady Deverell’s first lover.

  A week ago, Cass would have thought it strange that the servants saw to their master using the main stairs instead of the back staircase, which had a door letting directly into the study. Now she knew that the earl’s study was sacrosanct. When the door was shut, no one was to enter or even speak to him, on pain of dismissal.

  As the housekeeper retreated up the stairs, grunting at the effort of each step, a hot tongue stroked the center of Cass’s palm. Northbrook. She hissed and drew her hand back, wiping it on her skirts. “My lord! I haven’t washed that hand since I cleaned the grates.”

  Northbrook clapped a hand over his own mouth, gagging.

  “Only kidding,” Cass whispered back. “I didn’t clean the grates today.” She really was a terrible housemaid. “But don’t do things like that. I’m trying to keep you quiet, and you’ll be no help to either of us if you start licking me.”

  He smothered a laugh.

  “See? You’re no help at all.” Her palm felt strange, though she’d wiped it. Northbrook had put his tongue to it, hot and sudden, and now it didn’t feel like her own hand anymore.

  The marquess was silent then, seeming to catch the urgency in her whispers, and held still at her side. She counted the moments off, her back tense against the wall, and waited for whatever would come next. Someone else passing on the stairs? Lord Deverell bursting forth from the study? Charles limping in through the front door, apologizing for causing such a rumpus?

  None of those things happened. The candlelight spilling down the stairs was snuffed, the voices dimmed. All that remained was a gold-outlined study door, with silence behind.

  No one was going to check on Charles? It seemed not. And no one was going to check on Lord Deverell, either. That closed door was a powerful barrier to his staff.

  Cass counted off another minute, each second tediously long, then blew out a breath and relaxed her posture.

  “Crisis averted?” Northbrook murmured.

  “Hardly,” she replied in a low tone. “In fact, there are three crises. A damsel in distress is upstairs, a possibly injured sapskull is outside, and an intoxicated lord who may well be unconscious is in the study. Which would you like to address?”

  “You do lead a most exciting life. Rather than account for my presence here, I’ll go after your brother.” For a tonnish heir, Northbrook was not short of understanding. Injured sapskull, he perceived at once, could only be Charles.

  “Thank you.” Cass bit her lip, looking at the study door. “I should stay here. But it’d seem wrong if I didn’t see to her ladyship, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not at all. Let her lady’s maid comfort her. We just heard other servants planning to return to bed; you ought to stay here in case the uproar was all a diversion.”

  “Caused by Charles? Nonsense. He’s part of the investigation.” Offering protection to the ladies of the household. Practicing dignified vigilance. Ha.

  “The distraction could have been caused by her ladys
hip,” Northbrook pointed out. “A lot of money is at stake in the tontine.”

  This tontine—what a dreadful affair it sounded. Northbrook had explained it to Cass and Charles when he’d hired them privately the previous week. Part an investment scheme, part a wager, it had been organized forty years before when ten younger sons of the aristocracy had each contributed an equal amount to a certain fund. The interest and principal were left to grow together over the years, untouched, as time reaped the lives of the contributors. When only one survivor of the investment group remained, he would receive the full amount of the fortune.

  “A peculiar bet for friends to make,” Cass had observed, “since it encourages them to pray for each other’s demise.”

  “Who said they were friends?” Northbrook had replied. “And they arranged to stay in the tontine even if they inherited a title. So these men could also pray for the demise of an elder sibling or other relative in the line of succession.”

  Not much better.

  The conversation had been held in a sky-bright drawing room in Ardmore House, the Duke of Ardmore’s London residence. The space was as dainty and pale as a fancy pastry, yet a sense of dread had crept over Cass despite the sunlight and elegance. It was a feeling, honed by experience working alongside Charles for Bow Street, that something was not as it ought to be.

  Charles didn’t seem to feel the same, for he had asked, “What’s the problem, then, after forty years?”

  “The problem,” Northbrook had replied, looking very tired and rather pale under his shock of black hair, “is that in the first thirty-nine years, only two men died. Their deaths were clearly natural. But in the last year alone, three more of the investors have passed away under mysterious circumstances. I would prefer my father not be next.”