An Extraordinary Lord Read online

  He raised his blade in front of his face in salute. “Please do.”

  With an edgy smile registering her mounting excitement—the same anticipation he felt pulsing inside himself—she returned the salute. “En garde.”

  They took their positions, as if on a refereed piste instead of a slippery cobblestone alley half obscured by thick fog and haze. Their well-practiced stances of seasoned fencers only added to the absurdity of this sparring match. And to the fun of it.

  “Prêts?”

  “Oh yes,” he drawled. More ready than he’d been for any match in months.

  “Allez!”

  Instead of charging, she feinted, surprising him by retreating instead of attacking. But then, nearly everything she’d done so far had surprised him. The simple move forced him forward on the offensive, and he obliged by charging her. The clash of steel against steel jarred loudly through the quiet streets and reverberated off the stone buildings. The noise gave the foggy night an otherworldly feel, as if he’d fallen into a bizarre dream.

  He pressed forward with testing thrusts of his sword to gauge her skill and study her movements. Damnation if she wasn’t doing the same to him as she continued to fall back in a circling retreat, every parry and deflection a chance to assess how he fought.

  She lunged. Her blade pushed his to the side and ran down the steel shaft toward the hilt. But he dodged to the left before she could score such an easy touch.

  There would be no blood drawn; both of them were too well controlled to accidentally prick the other. The match would only be won when one knocked the other’s sword to the cobblestones. Which he had no intention of allowing to happen to his.

  She was good, he’d admit.

  But he was better.

  To prove it, he launched a series of thrusts that forced her to turn her dominant side to him, leaving her weaker left side unguarded. A side he exposed with a lightning quick slash of the flat side of his blade to her leather waistcoat. A spank meant to put her in her place.

  “So we’re playing like that, are we?” she panted out, her eyes gleaming with unveiled excitement. “All right, then.”

  She let loose an offensive of thrusts and slashes that had him parrying her blade from all directions. Then she dropped into a crouch and swung her sword in a wide slash at his lower legs.

  He jumped, and the blade passed harmlessly through the air beneath.

  “So we’re playing like that, are we?” he repeated. He lunged, catching her blade with a hard slash of his. The strength of the thrust knocked her arm far to the side and forced her to stagger back half a dozen steps to regain her balance and once more find her fighting stance. He leveled a hard look at her. “Then do it.”

  With a sound that was half exertion, half pleasure, she ran at him, hacking and slashing in a flurry of movement, not to cut him but to force him to parry each move so that he’d leave himself open to attack. So that each hard and quick thrust forced him to swing slightly wider, putting him increasingly off-balance and leaving his sword arm exposed. What she’d unleashed wasn’t at all the controlled, tight movements taught to dandies at fencing academies but the tactics of a fierce fighter.

  “You’re in the streets every night,” he forced out breathlessly between parries and thrusts, still holding his ground despite her attack. Not a question.

  “Yes.” Her answer came just as breathlessly as she dropped back a stride, only to charge again. “Aren’t you?”

  He caught her sword with a twist of his wrist and strode forward, deflecting her blade to the side and closing the distance between them until they were less than an arm’s length apart. A deadly position he never would have taken with any other adversary, but with her, one he felt confident enough to claim.

  “The riots have been increasing,” he stated and seized the opportunity to turn their match into an interrogation.

  “Yes.” Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths of exertion, her face deliciously flushed and her green eyes gleaming. “Every night.”

  “But not tonight.”

  “No. It rained.” With a twist, she freed her blade, stepped back, and thrust.

  He easily parried. “No. It drizzled.” He parried a second thrust to the opposite side. “What kind of rioters have you ever met who would let a little sprinkle stop them?”

  His question caught her by surprise. For a split second, she froze, just long enough for him to advance, twist his arm around hers, and hold both swords pressed immobile between them.

  “That’s why you’re out here tonight,” she mused with a frown. Her voice emerged as a smooth drawl that wrapped around him like a blanket. “The riots.”

  “What do you know about them?” Her face was framed by the crossed swords between them, and he leaned dangerously closer, even as their arms began to tremble from the exertion of keeping their swords pressed so fiercely together.

  “Nothing.”

  Deception flared in her eyes, and his pulse stuttered. What did she know? What was she hiding? “You’re lying.”

  Taking a moment to gather herself, she licked her lips. “They’re just riots.”

  His eyes darted down to her mouth. Good Lord, how kissable she looked. How delectable. The fight had knocked loose the black hair ribbon, and now her hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in a mass of riotous copper curls. Her eyes shined bright; her lips were ripe and red and invitingly sensuous. Each panting breath she took to gather back air into her lungs made her bosom rise and fall tumultuously beneath the leather waistcoat she wore instead of a corset.

  If they weren’t holding swords just inches from each other’s throats, he would have said she looked…aroused. God knew he was becoming exactly that himself, helped along in no small part by the tension pulsating between them so strongly that it buzzed like electricity. The air around them practically sizzled.

  “Who are the leaders?” he pressed, keeping their grappling close by shifting his stance so that he pressed a shoulder and hip against her to keep her still.

  She couldn’t back away now without dropping her sword and letting him win. Something he knew she would never do. “I don’t know.”

  He leaned closer, bringing his face so close to hers that he could feel the warmth of her sweet breath stir across his lips. The attraction between them was as palpable as the cold drizzle dripping across the city. “Then tell me this…who are you?”

  Delight sparkled in her eyes. “Now, now, Mrs. Fitzherbert.” Her voice turned husky. “What kind of lady would I be to confide such personal information to a stranger? One wielding a sword, no less.” She clucked her tongue like a scolding governess. “Who knows what kind of wickedness such disclosure might lead to? I’m certain the archbishop would not approve.”

  “I often find myself at odds with His Grace in matters of wickedness.” His mouth lingered achingly above hers, so close that he could kiss her with just a tilt of his chin. And if he did, she might very well run him through with her sword for it.

  Her brow inched up. “More scandal, less sacred?”

  “His Grace would surprise you.”

  She curled an amused smile at the archbishop’s expense. “Not as much as you.”

  That low and throaty admission played down his spine like seeking fingers of seduction. Sweet Jesus…she was liquid fire in his veins, tensing every muscle in his body. He couldn’t remember the last time such immediate attraction struck him the way it did now with her, the last time his gut tightened with such animal arousal at a first meeting. Irrationally, he wanted to bury himself between her thighs and claim the ferocity inside her…raw and wild and intense.

  “I’m Merritt.” Tell me your name. Dear God, please tell me your name and how I can find you again…

  A light laugh fell from her lips, tickling his. “Of course you are,” she mused, her voice lowering into a throaty
whisper. It was a siren song that had him hanging on every word even though he knew she had the skills to skewer him. Her lips twitched mischievously. “Like an honor to be won?”

  Not when he’d gladly surrender to her. The defeat would be exquisite.

  “Who are you?” His eyes trailed over her beautiful face, engrossed by the fine lines of her cheeks and the creamy smoothness of her warm skin, captivated by the light in the depths of her eyes. And by the way, even now, she refused to give up the fight, continuing to press her body against his so strongly that any slip of his attention might send the sword slicing into his throat. “At least tell me your name.”

  She hesitated, then capitulated, still holding the swords locked between. “Veronica Chase.” The smile she gave him corkscrewed into his gut. “My friends call me Roni. You can call me Miss Chase.”

  Good God. It was impossible. She was impossible. But he knew…damnation, he knew.

  Carefully, he eased back the pressure of his sword until he could shift his hip and shoulder away. When he barely held her blade with his, he stepped back to safely retreat out of thrusting range and lowered his sword.

  Their fight—and the moment of elation it had brought—was over.

  She lowered her own sword, bewildered yet obviously pleased that he was giving up. “You’re surrendering?”

  “No.” He bit back a curse. At that moment, he hated the Home Office more than he could have ever expressed. “I’m arresting you.”

  Two

  Veronica sat handcuffed on a large wooden chair that would have looked right at home in a medieval castle. Fitting, since she seemed to be sitting in the middle of a fortress.

  She trailed her gaze slowly over the room around her. Richly decorated walnut-paneled walls, a massive stone and marble fireplace, pieces of heavy leather and wood furniture…this place would have made every gentlemen’s club on St James’s Street weep with envy, right down to the Aubusson rug and gas lighting. Except that the windowless brick walls rising around her in an octagonal central tower were at least ten feet thick, and no gentlemen’s club she’d ever heard of had twin portcullises guarding the entrance. And when the man from the street and his friend had stripped off her knives and sword, it wasn’t because they didn’t already have enough of their own apparently. Not when what looked like half the small arms of the Household Guards decorated the walls of the adjoining room.

  Where on earth had they brought her?

  “Well, I have to admit,” the dark-blond friend mused as he pulled up a chair in front of her and sat, “you’re not at all what I expected.”

  She tilted her head slightly and returned his curious stare. “And what did you expect?”

  “A cock.”

  At that brusque interjection from across the room, she swung her narrowed gaze to the man who had arrested her. The same man who had sparred with her so brilliantly. He now guarded her, leaning against the wall with a steely expression on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Imagine my surprise not to find one,” he drawled.

  She quirked a brow. “A common complaint of yours, is it, Mrs. Fitzherbert?”

  His jaw clenched even more tightly when the blond man was unable to quash his grin at the man’s expense.

  But she found nothing at all amusing about her current situation. Dismissing the man she’d liked so much better when he’d simply been hacking at her with a sword, she turned her attention back to the one in front of her. “Who are you?”

  “Major Clayton Elliott, Home Office Undersecretary.” He nodded toward Mrs. Fitzherbert. “And that’s Merritt Rivers.”

  She sliced a sideways glance at him. “So your name really is Merritt.” Next, she supposed he’d be attempting to convince her that he truly was a peer of the realm. “How allegorical of your parents.”

  “Veronica,” he volleyed back. “How Catholic of yours.”

  She smiled tightly. He didn’t have a clue… “So now that we know who everyone is, you can release me, and we can all go home.”

  “Not quite.” The undersecretary gestured at her. “We were expecting a man. Ronald Chase, escaped convict from Newgate.”

  “Ah yes. Him.” She forced a curt laugh. “The fault of a court clerk who accidentally wrote down Ronald instead of Roni when he transcribed the trial record.” In that, at least, the record had been correct. Veronica Chase hadn’t done what the conviction was for.

  “I don’t believe you.” Merritt Rivers shook his head. “Everyone in the courtroom could have seen that you were a woman.”

  “Yes, if they were in the court, but the clerk who transcribed the record wasn’t,” she corrected. “Mistakes occur all the time in the court records—wrong dates, wrong directions, wrong names. Surely, you know that.” She dismissed him and turned back to the undersecretary to explain. “The trial lasted less than ten minutes, and I was in Newgate within the hour.” She shrugged. “By then, there was no point in the courts wasting time and ink to correct the record when no one cared one whit about me.”

  “I’m certain they cared when you escaped,” the undersecretary drawled. “The prison guards described you as a man.”

  “And I’m certain they didn’t want to admit that they’d been outsmarted by a woman.”

  The man’s lips curled faintly.

  “How do you know what was in the court records?” Merritt Rivers interrupted.

  “I know people in high places.” When neither man replied to that, she corrected herself. “All right, I know how to bribe people in high places.”

  “A court clerk?” he drawled sarcastically. “Not exactly a high position.”

  “The man who controls the word controls the world.” She lifted a knowing brow. “I didn’t go to university, yet even I know that.”

  The two men exchanged another silent glance.

  All kinds of private communication had been passing between the two since she’d arrived here…wherever here was. The mark of an old and close friendship. They’d placed her in this chair, then they’d huddled together at the side of the room for a long while, speaking in murmurs and whispers. But they couldn’t conceal their surprise whenever they’d glanced in her direction. Or their dismay.

  “You were convicted of theft and the fencing of stolen goods,” the undersecretary stated.

  “Among other things.” Things she’d never done but would let the world believe she had.

  “The judge sentenced you to five years imprisonment.”

  “Yes.”

  “According to the records, you thanked him for it,” Merritt interjected. “Why?”

  “He was lenient.” She faced straight ahead, not daring to take a direct look at him. Sparring with him had been a foolish mistake—an absolutely exciting, heart-pounding, blood-coursing mistake. One she’d gladly make again in a heartbeat. “He could have transported me.” Or ordered her to swing. Yet how many times during those six months in prison had she thought hanging would have been more merciful than the hell of Newgate?

  “After six months,” the undersecretary continued with his quiet interrogation, “you managed to escape.”

  “Yes.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Merritt’s mouth twist. Was that a grimace or grudging admiration?

  “How, exactly?”

  She had no intention of answering that. She’d find herself back there soon enough, and—

  “She might need to escape that way again, so she won’t tell you,” Merritt answered for her, as if reading her mind. Oh, he was sharp. Of the two men interrogating her, he was the more dangerous. “There’s no point in asking.”

  Wisely, the undersecretary left that question alone. “You escaped, yet you remained in London. Why?”

  Because I had no place else to go. What she’d wanted since she was a girl and lost her mother and home was to find a place where she could belong.
This city and the existence she’d stumbled into here wasn’t it, she knew that in her bones. It would never be a true home. But Filipe was here, so she’d stayed.

  “What better place to disappear than a city like this?” she dodged. An overcrowded, impersonal rabbit warren of alleys and passageways…where everyone comes and goes and nothing ever seems to be permanent?

  “So you became a thief-taker,” he murmured thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing as he studied her.

  “I had to support myself somehow. You’d rather I went back to stealing?”

  The two men exchanged another glance, another private communication. But this time, Veronica had the feeling that the undersecretary had somehow gained the upper hand over Merritt Rivers.

  “How does that work, exactly?” He leaned back on his chair and gestured casually toward her to tell her story, as if they were simply making pleasant conversation. “An escaped convict walking another criminal into the watchmen’s house for arrest doesn’t seem the best way to avoid attention.”

  “That’s why I don’t.” Both men’s curiosity settled on her, and she explained, “I work with a man named John Fernsby, a former—”

  “A former thief-taker with Bow Street who cut his teeth for years as a guard at Newgate before he became a runner,” Merritt finished.

  A chill passed through her in uneasy warning. How did he know Fernsby?

  “One of the few thief-takers who wasn’t corrupt.” He frowned. “But he’s old and arthritic now, can barely walk from one end of Hyde Park to the other.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” she corrected. “I bring the criminals to him. He delivers them to the watch, and we split the reward.”

  “Seems an odd way to make a living,” the undersecretary half mused. “You risk being caught yourself.”

  “I trust Fernsby.” And he knows I’m innocent. The man told her what she’d needed to know to escape Newgate, for heaven’s sake. She trusted him.

  “Why not do what most thief-takers do?” Merritt interjected. “Bribe the criminals yourself to let them go and not bring Fernsby and the watch into it at all.”