A Masquerade in the Moonlight

Chapter 1

When needs must, the devil drives.

— Irish Saying

LONDON

The Season, 1810

Thomas Joseph Donovan tossed his cloak and a coin in the general direction of one of the liveried footmen and strode to the wide marble staircase that clung to the curved wall rising to the first floor of the Grosvenor Square mansion. Always grease their palms early on, Thomas Joseph believed. It’s too late to flash your silver when your brand-new cloak is already riding home on someone else’s shoulders.

He had made certain to be unfashionably late this evening, so that the stairs were empty of the usual crush of bored ton members waiting their turn to pay their respects to their host and hostess. His long legs made short work of the climb, his mind intent on seeking out his quarry as quickly as possible, so that he might be quit of this place before the lure of the card tables drew him into spending another long night attending to any pursuit other than the mission he had been sent to accomplish.

Not that he had any fears for his purse. Thomas, although he had lived in America since his twelfth year, was Irish to the soles of his fashionable evening slippers, and had been blessed with the devil’s own luck with the cards. He could garner himself a tidy fortune in London if he continued to stumble over inept, chinless lords who seemed intent upon divesting themselves of their money night after night, but he had to keep his mind clear and remember his mission. After all, even a true patriot knew fleecing the enemy and routing the enemy were not exactly the same—although the former was jolly good sport.

His host and hostess had deserted their post at the head of the stairs, saving Thomas the tedious business of trying to remember their names and titles. Rid of the need to do the civil and expend any of his solid store of empty flattery, he contented himself by snagging a glass of wine from a loaded tray carried by a passing servant, then stopped just inside the doorway to take in the scene at his leisure.

The ballroom, besides being stiflingly hot and decorated to within an inch of ridiculousness with hothouse flowers and pink bunting, was packed almost solid with elite members of London society—which Thomas considered to be a damnable pity, for that exalted, almost incestuous group for the most part consisted of giggling pullets and cocks, flabby-armed old hens, and posturing roosters.

Thomas swept an elegant leg as Miss Araminta Frobisher tripped by on the arm of a gentleman whose evening coat sported buttons as large as dinner plates, unable to hide a grin as dear Miss Frobisher winked at him. A lovely girl, Araminta, and more than willing to stroll in any convenient dark garden with a man intent on capturing a few naughty kisses. If his quarry didn’t show his face soon, Thomas might rethink his notion of an early night and introduce dear Araminta to the accommodating, concealing stand of shrubbery he already knew lay just outside the French doors to the left of the ballroom.

The young fop with Miss Frobisher did not so much as nod a greeting to Thomas, for he was an Englishman and refused to bother with upstart “colonials.” He probably didn’t even see me, Thomas decided, which suits this colonial just fine, although the effete dandy might have learned something if he had only observed my attire and demeanor, for he looks even more queer in that rigout than a holy Sister in red taffeta.

Thomas, never one to waste time in false modesty, knew he cut a dashing figure as he lounged at his ease against a marble pillar, his taller-than-average, wide-shouldered, leanly muscular frame molded into well-cut midnight blue evening clothes à la that master of sartorial understatement, Beau Brummell. His mirror had told him his thick mane of tawny, sun-streaked hair and his unfashionable yet flattering mustache set off the deep bronze tan of his skin, as did the startling white linen tied so negligently at his throat and extending a discreet inch beyond his cuffs, drawing attention to square, long-fingered hands.

Hands that penned an editorial, turned a card, held a rein, cradled a blade, or played over a woman with equal, satisfying expertise.

Now his sky-at-dawning blue eyes, ringed as they were by overlong black lashes and edged with faint lines that crinkled delightfully whenever he smiled, surveyed the crowded ballroom as if in happy anticipation, his outward appearance one of a jolly enough fellow on the lookout for nothing more serious than an evening’s amusement.

Where is the bastard hiding? he asked himself, still genially smiling and nodding at passersby. He said he’d be here. And what sort of paper-skulled idiot am I to be taking an Englishman at his word?

His thoughts were momentarily diverted as he noticed a hulking, red-faced young peer who must have last seen his feet when his valet held them up to squeeze them into his black patent dancing shoes. The fool was actually attempting the intricate steps of a lively country dance, and looked as dashing and delicate as a sow caught in muck. Clod. Fully half of the Englishmen Thomas had met in his fortnight in England were featherbrained, posturing, pleasure-seeking idiots, and the other half were sneaking, conniving, back-shooting intriguers who would sell their firstborn for a thimbleful of gold.

No wonder his fellow Americans, those brave colonials still so despised by the English, had been able to thoroughly trounce them in their great war for independence. All that had to be done was to prick their island-wide pig bladders of pride and supposed superiority and watch them blow themselves back across the water to the safety of either their overheated ballrooms or their private counting houses!

Just as Thomas was about to turn away, planning to search the game room for his quarry—and perhaps play a hand or two while he was at it, for a man couldn’t be dedicated for twenty-four hours of every day—the red-faced peer let out a high-pitched yelp of pain. “You kicked me! Don’t deny it, for it won’t fadge. You kicked me! What did you do that for, gel?” the ungentlemanly gentleman bellowed, hopping about on one foot as he attempted to rub at his shin. “That bloody well hurt!”

“For which you should be unendingly grateful, sir!” Thomas heard the young lady in question reply with some heat, so that he noticed her for the first time—which instantly caused him to curse himself for a blind blockhead for not having espied the beautiful, fiery-haired creature before this moment. “If I had not hurt you I should be obliged to have at you again. You’ve torn my flounce with one of those clumsy great feet of yours. If you treat your horseflesh as cowhandedly as you do your dancing partners, I am surprised you haven’t been trampled by one of the poor beasts long since.”

The young woman’s former dancing partner, now showing all the signs of a man who would dearly love to cuff her on the ear but knew he could do no such thing and still be considered a gentleman, blustered a time or two before turning on his heels and limping away, leaving her quite deserted on the edge of the vast dance floor.

Thomas watched in open amusement as the young woman—hardly more than a girl, actually—jammed her fists onto her hips, glaring at the man’s departing back. “That’s it—run back to your mama. Perhaps she’ll feed you a sweet,” she declared vehemently, if quietly, so that Thomas supposed she hadn’t yet realized she’d been placed in the position of having to navigate her way back to her own mama by herself.

Now here, Thomas thought as he swiftly tossed off the remainder of his wine and discreetly pitched the empty glass into a nearby pot holding a large, wilting palm, was an opportunity no gentleman of initiative could pass by without hating himself in the morning.

Pushing away from the pillar, his eyes roaming the length of Miss Opportunity’s demurely clad body and finding himself well satisfied by what he saw—and even more pleased with what he imagined but could not see—Thomas approached, bowing as he said, “How unremittingly rude of that fellow, abandoning you this way.” Straightening, he smiled at her from beneath his mustache. Oh, yes, this was a most delectable morsel. “And you’ve been abandoned, fair lady, never doubt it. My name is Donovan—Thomas Joseph Donovan, to be precise about the thing—and I could not help but notice your plight. May I possibly be of some service?”

“Possibly.” She coolly returned his assessing look, not seeming in the least discomfited by either his laughing blue eyes or his preemptive introduction, so that he quickly amended his assessment of the young lady to include at least a modicum of brains along with her considerable beauty. “Do you dance, Thomas Joseph Donovan?” she asked, smiling up at him, displaying a most enticing dimple just to the right of her full pink mouth.

No milk and water puss, she! Englishwoman or not, Thomas decided, there had to be at least one enterprising Irishman hanging from the shady side of her family tree. He could love this cheeky miss—for at least a fortnight, which was a full week longer than Thomas Joseph Donovan’s loves usually lasted. He grinned in spite of himself, and the brogue he’d long ago lost but never really abandoned leapt to the fore as he deliberately set out to charm her. “Aye, and that I do, miss. Would it be asking me to partner you that you’d be?”

“What do you think, Mister Donovan?” she countered, tilting up her faintly belligerent, eminently adorable chin. “My chaperone is at the other side of this ballroom, which is almost to say she is in far-off China, and I cannot face the thought of attempting to thread my way through this throng without a companion. Enough gossip tags along after me as it is. You did offer your assistance, I believe?”

“That I did, aingeal girl.”

“Oh please, sir, don’t spoil your kind offer by becoming impertinent. I once had an Irish nanny, you see, and I know you are not to address me so familiarly, even when using the brogue. An angel, indeed! I have already been forced to rout one importuning creature this evening, and it would fatigue me to have to repeat myself. No, sir, what I require necessitates a gentleman’s cooperation. I assure you, it will add greatly to your consequence to be seen with me, for I’m considered all the crack, you know, if a hair notorious. Although I would suggest you stop grinning like a bear beneath that ungodly growth beneath your nose and attempt to project a more civilized countenance. Wide grins, sir, are frowned upon by our society, which highly values the bored, blank stare of ennui. And now, Mr. Donovan, if you please—your hand?”

A woman with fire! And she invites me into the flames! She held out her gloved hand and Thomas accepted the challenge eagerly, recklessly, feeling the fragile strength of her fine-boned fingers as they rested in his palm. What an intriguing, bewitching bundle of contradictions—extraordinary beauty, delicious wit, and an acerbic, slashing tongue that, if he was not careful, could slice and stab and leave him mortally wounded.

Ah, he thought, intimately squeezing her slim fingertips, but what a glorious way to die!

“By the way, Mister Donovan,” she said as they rejoined the set, “my departed partner, the not-quite-so-Honorable Julian Quist, is a dear friend of yours and, as he became unexpectedly indisposed, poor fellow, he graciously introduced us so that I would not be alone on the dance floor. You do understand my chaperone, Mrs. Billings, will wish to be apprised of this information once you’ve returned me safely to her side.”

Thomas felt himself being further bewitched by the young woman’s intriguing, green-as-shamrocks eyes while he conveniently dismissed his mission of the evening, ignored the notion that a small fortune most probably awaited him in the card room while Araminta and the shrubbery awaited him without, and mentally shelved the idea he was supposed to be disgusted by English men and bored by English females. “Dearest Julian,” he drawled, fluidly guiding his partner into the next movement of the country dance. “It can only be hoped he makes a rapid recovery—upon which time he might complete our introduction.”

The young woman’s free hand flew to her mouth, covering a sudden giggle that momentarily stripped away her air of brittle sophistication, revealing a charming, adorable child. “Oh, dear! I have been remiss, haven’t I? Do you know, I don’t believe I have ever introduced myself before, as that office has been performed by others. It does limit one’s acquaintance, this business of correctness, doesn’t it? Very well. My name, sir, is Marguerite Balfour. I, like you, have a second name, but I have not allowed anyone permission to employ it within earshot since I turned five, decided I detested it, and summarily rejected the thing. Do you mind?”

Mind? Thomas didn’t believe he would mind if the sun was snuffled like a candle and all the stars fell into the sea—as long as he could hold the hand of the beautiful, spirited Marguerite Balfour as the world died. Or at least until she cried out in ecstasy as he introduced her to one of the more enjoyable delights of living.

And seeing no reason to postpone the commencement of what he hoped would be a whirlwind courtship leading to a blissfully satisfying capitulation in some darkened back garden in their not-too-distant future, he told her so just before the movement of the dance separated them, saying quietly, “I would be exceedingly honored to be your companion tonight, Miss Balfour, and your devout slave forever more. Do you know, dear creature, that you are extremely beautiful?”

“Yes, Mr. Donovan, I do,” she replied matter-of-factly a moment later, as the movement of the dance brought them together once more. He watched the dimple reappear, and longed to trace it with his fingertip, his lips, his tongue. “I am told about my beauty almost unceasingly from morn till evening, and I blush to report that such shallow flattery no longer has the power to set my silly, girlish heart aflutter. Now, sir, do you believe you have it within you to say something original? If not, I would appreciate greatly if you would allow a soothing interlude of silence to be our only companion save this atrocious music that has us hopping about like agitated frogs leaping from lily pad to lily pad.”

Thomas held fast to Marguerite’s hand as she made to draw away to enter into the next movement of the dance, causing her to look up at him, he was gratified to see, in some small confusion. Why should he be the only one who suddenly felt baffled by this highly unusual conversation? “Originality fails me, my dear lady, so forgive me if I quote from the bard—‘Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday.’”

Marguerite’s emerald eyes flashed fire for a moment, and then she laughed. “I think not, Mr. Donovan. ‘I’ll not budge an inch,’” she told him, turning another line of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew to her advantage. “And before you recite any more, Petruchio, I believe I should inform you the set has ended, and you have as yet to relinquish my hand. Or are you indulging a lifelong yearning to be the center of attention?”

Thomas looked to his left and right, surprised to see that all around him couples were departing the dance floor, the majority of them heading for the stairs and the supper rooms situated on the lower floor of the mansion, and the musicians were leaving their chairs and instruments as they disappeared behind a curtain. This wasn’t like him. What manner of minx was this, that he should be so captivated by her that he hadn’t noticed?

He inclined his head slightly to Marguerite, then slipped her hand through his crooked elbow as he ushered her in the general direction of the stairs. “You will do me the honor of going down to supper with me, won’t you, my most beautiful, most enchanting Miss Balfour?” he asked quietly. “I am but newly arrived in London, and have so few acquaintances I fear I shall fall to gaming or some other such destructive pursuit if I am left too long to my own devices.”

“Of course I would like to join you for supper, Mr. Donovan,” Marguerite replied sweetly. “I would like it above all things—if only so that I might amuse myself listening to your outrageous flummery and your accent that smacks of America, yet hints of Ireland. But only if you agree to continue in the same vein as you have begun, as I believe I am enjoying myself. Before he attempted to destroy my gown with his hulking foot, Mr. Quist was prosing on about his plans to pen an ode to my dimple. You have noticed my dimple, haven’t you, Mr. Donovan? According to Mr. Quist, it is a most amazing feature. Does it not likewise inspire you to poetry—or are you stymied, Shakespeare’s vast accomplishments not having extended to include the subject of dimples, at least not to my knowledge? Come, come, now, Mr. Donovan. I have grown to expect at least one cloyingly sweet dollop of flattery per minute, or I shall be forced to believe you have lied, and do not truly adore me.”

“You’re making a May game of me, aren’t you, Miss Balfour?” Donovan asked, vaguely discomfited by her outspoken manner, and also feeling oddly naked, as if she had not only pierced through his none-too-subtle flirtation and seen clear to the bottom of the inch deep depth of his commitment, but that she despised him for it. How strange to discover this first real hint of intelligence, not in any of the men he had met thus far, but in a slip of a girl. Perhaps this game wasn’t worth its possible cost.

Out of the corner of his eye he espied a gentleman—the gentleman, as a matter of fact—advancing toward them, and seized upon the chance to rid himself of this beautiful, but entirely too discerning female before he was tempted to either box her ears or rush her onto the balcony and kiss her senseless.

“How unfortunate,” he said, assuming the role of frustrated swain. “Here comes the gentleman I promised to meet with this evening, Miss Balfour. We have important matters to discuss—dreadfully important matters. How could I have forgotten? No, no—don’t tell me, for I already know. I was blinded by your loveliness, distracted from my mission, and have nearly disgraced myself in my own heart. I have placed my own pleasures above the considerations of my government, on whose behalf I am on these shores at all. Please, dear lady, allow me to return you to your chaperone, so that I might yet do some good tonight.”

Marguerite frowned, looking to the man Thomas was now staring at in, he hoped, mingled alarm and greeting. “Lord Mappleton?” she asked, turning back to Thomas once more. “Arthur is somehow involved with the Lord of the Treasury, isn’t he? These government doings are so very much above a woman’s simple intellect, of course—but I do believe I’m correct. And you say your government has sent you to speak with him? Then you are an American after all. How very droll.”

“We are attempting to avert a war between our two countries, Miss Balfour,” Thomas said, waving to Lord Mappleton, who had been momentarily delayed, as he had stopped to kiss a young debutante’s hand, holding on to the kid gloved paw a moment too long, Thomas noticed. Randy old goat. “Not that I would think to parch your lovely ears with such dry talk.”

“No, indeed, sir,” Marguerite countered sweetly, snapping open the fan that hung from her wrist on a riband and waving it coyly beneath her chin. “I should be most fatigued if you were to prose on forever about your country’s most distressing Embargo Act—passed by your legislature in 1807, I believe, and supposedly aimed at both France and my own country—or if you were to speak of this stubborn business of perversely forbidding England to exercise its sovereign power to ask its own citizens to serve their country in time of war.”

“You’re boarding our ships, interrogating our crews, and pressing good Americans into naval service for your own gain,” Donovan was stung into replying before he could stop himself. “I’d hardly call that neighborly.”

Marguerite’s smile was dazzling. “Ah, so you are here in the role of diplomat, Mr. Donovan? Yes, yes, I can see that you must be. And will you also bite off Lord Mappleton’s head in order to serve your government, or do you reserve your vehemence for innocent females who merely parrot lessons learned in the schoolroom?”

“My most profound apologies, Miss Balfour,” Thomas countered, stepping away from her slightly in order to bow over her hand, deliberately lowering himself to meet her expectations. “I am a boor and a brute, and I should be flogged on the morrow for reacting in such an ungentlemanly way. I grovel before you, abashed at my crude behavior, and too overcome with remorse to continue to be a pleasant supper companion to anyone of such fine sensibilities as yourself. Please allow me to return you to your chaperone, so that I might flee the scene of my crushing faux pas posthaste, seek out a dark, deserted alleyway, and hurl myself on my sword.”

“If you are expecting me to attempt to dissuade you from any such melodramatic gesture, Mr. Donovan, I suggest you rethink the matter, as I believe I have wearied of our little game,” Marguerite replied tersely, withdrawing her hand from his purposely limp grip. “And there is really no need for you to seek out my chaperone, for Lord Mappleton here will be happy to escort me down to supper. Won’t you, Arthur?” she inquired sweetly, turning to hold out her hand to the portly gentleman who had at last torn himself away from the debutante (who appeared greatly relieved to see him go), and was now hovering close beside Marguerite, busily wiping at his perspiration-sheened brow with a large handkerchief.

Lord Mappleton’s fleshy jowls quivered like blancmange as he shook his head in obvious confusion. “What? What? Take you down-to supper? Odds fish, gel—ain’t that what we was planning all along? Check your card! I’m sure I had you put me down for supper. Can’t expect me to dance, now can you? Not with this gout! Oh, hullo, Danton. Recognize the mustache. Silly thing, ain’t it? How d’you keep it from dripping marmalade at breakfast? Never mind, I don’t really care. Well, now, fancy meeting up with you here.” He frowned and waggled his head once more, so that he resembled nothing more than a benign English bulldog. “Was I supposed to?”

“That had been my belief, yes, your lordship—and the name is Donovan,” Thomas replied evenly, looking to Marguerite, who now stood smiling at him with an expression that told him he was no longer wanted and should know enough to take himself off. “However,” he added hastily, seeing the cloud of displeasure that descended on Lord Mappleton’s face, “I, too, can no longer remember precisely why. I believe my brains have become muddled from the moment I first was introduced to the most delightful Miss Balfour by that nice gentleman, Mr. Julian Quist. Do you by chance know the fellow, my lord?”

“Quist? Wonderful lad. Ten thousand a year, I hear, but with not a jiggle of sense of how to set up his stable.” He took Marguerite’s hand and laid it on his forearm, patting her fingertips with not quite avuncular affection. “Not nearly good enough for you, though, my sweet child. And an encroaching mama to boot. No, no, not good enough by half. Well, a pleasure seeing you, Danvers. We must be off now, mustn’t we, m’dear? All the good seats will be snatched up if we don’t hurry. I hear they’re serving up some lovely fat shrimp.”

“Donovan, Arthur,” Marguerite corrected the man, inclining her head slightly in Thomas’s direction as Lord Mappleton made to pull her toward the stairs. “I believe Americans are very touchy about things like that. We wouldn’t wish to seem unneighborly, now would we? Good evening, Mr. Donovan—and thank you so much for rescuing me. I’m sure I could not have asked for a more eventful interlude.”

“What? What? Donovan, you say?” Lord Mappleton blustered as the pair moved out of earshot. “Ain’t that Irish? Bad enough we have to do the pretty with these colonials without them being bloody Boglanders into the bargain.”

“And the top of the evening to you, too, Lord Mapletree,” Thomas muttered under his breath in disgust as he watched the tall, slim Miss Balfour and the shorter, decidedly stouter peer join the throng of people descending to the supper room. And then, left without many options, but not without questions, he repaired to the game room. There he proceeded to handily separate one very disgruntled, talkative Julian Quist from five hundred pounds of his “encroaching” mama’s money.



“Well, now, Tommie, you’re late enough, aren’t you? Did you see him? Did you talk to him?”

Patrick Dooley had thrown open the door to the suite of rooms in the Pulteney Hotel the moment he’d heard his friend’s distinctive, confident tread in the hallway outside, then stood back smartly to let Thomas pass by him and into the stylishly furnished sitting room that had been the scene of Dooley’s agitated pacing for the shank of the evening. Thomas’s dark, tight-lipped expression didn’t cheer Dooley’s heart after several long hours spent in nervous expectation of good news.

Thomas collapsed into the closest chair, his long legs sprawled out in front of him as he ripped at his neck cloth, freeing it, only to send the thing winging in Dooley’s direction. “What do you think, Paddy?”

“I think you’re getting the same runaround these bloody Bugs are giving every one of our diplomats, that’s what I think,” Dooley spat, grabbing the neck cloth out of the air and wadding the starched material into a ball before dashing it to the floor. “I’d not have dealings with the likes of them. We’re going to have to whip their tails again in an out-and-out war if we mean to see an end to this. Madison was mad to send you. It’s like sending a goose to the fox’s den, that’s what it is.”

“We all know it will come to war. It’s just the when and the how of the business that we don’t know.” Thomas pushed himself up out of the chair and went over to the drinks table, pouring himself three fingers of brandy. He took a lusty gulp of the liquid, then grinned at his companion. “And if you don’t mind, my good friend, I’d like to think our esteemed president has sent the fox to mind the geese. Besides, the evening wasn’t a total waste.”

He reached into his pocket and drew out a satisfyingly thick wad of notes, tossing them onto the table. “We’ve added another five hundred pounds to the war effort, Paddy. Another such month in this fair metropolis, and we won’t need Harewood or any of his troupe. We’ll simply bankrupt all of England and have done with it.”

Dooley snatched up the money and stuffed it into the top drawer of the sideboard beside the rest of Thomas’s winnings. He took a moment to look into the mirror, seeing the worry lines that creased his forehead beneath his thick shock of liberally graying red hair. He was on the shady side of sixty and years too old for this sort of thing—and that was the truth. “It’s a lovely talent you have, boyo,” he said, turning back to Thomas, “but it’s not enough. You know what we were sent to do. Cooling our heels waiting in antechambers all the day long, only to be told this minister or that has gone for the day, is not my idea of the way to get things done. Treat us like dogs, they do—less than dogs!”

Thomas put down his drink and stretched his arms into the air, yawning widely. “Enough, Paddy. We both know they’re only treating us as they’re supposed to do—the way they’ve been abusing all of Madison’s emissaries. If they fell on our necks we’d be under immediate suspicion, and so would Harewood and the others. Although I must admit I have my doubts about the business. If Lord Mappleton’s behavior tonight is any indication of the caliber of these great intriguers, I fear Madison has placed his hope in the wrong quarter. Why, the young lady I met tonight is twice the man Mappleton will ever be.”

“Young lady, is it now?” Dooley smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Well, call me seven kinds of fool for thinking you were serious about this thing, Tommie Donovan. May the good Lord save me from any patriot whose brain lives between his legs.”

Thomas grinned, causing Dooley to wish he wasn’t almost thirty years older and only half so strong as his companion in intrigue, for he’d dearly love to whack the youngster upside his handsome head. “Now, Paddy, you wouldn’t begrudge a man for looking, would you? And that’s all I did, I swear it. Although Miss Marguerite Balfour might merit watching.”

“A pretty puss, I wager. Is that watching you plan to be doing, boyo, or tumbling?”

“She calls Mappleton by his Christian name, Paddy, and—or so I have heard tonight from our latest contributor to the war effort—she’s also known to openly favor the attentions of rich old men like Totton, Chorley, and even Harewood—among others. Gaining quite the reputation, our Miss Balfour is, for a young lady who is just making her come-out.”

“Oh, is she now?” Dooley asked, suddenly interested in the conversation once more. “Marguerite, you say? Isn’t that one of those fancy Frenchie names? Could they be courting the Froggies, too? That isn’t fair, Tommie—they came to us first.”

Thomas subsided into the chair once more, again cradling the snifter of brandy. “Don’t read too much into this, Paddy. All of these men are old as dirt—although Harewood is slightly younger than the rest—and they all have fortunes no ambitious young lady would sniff at. Perhaps she hopes to wed one of them this year and bury him the next. God knows she’s sharp enough to have thought of such a scheme, and independent-minded enough to wish to have the social freedom of a young, beautiful widow.”

Dooley looked closely at Thomas and saw that he was gnawing on his lower lip, something he did when in deep thought—or when he was frustrated. “Independent? That’s a strange word for it. Gave you the brush, didn’t she?” he asked, grinning. “Sounds like a woman after m’own heart.”

Thomas rose from the chair once more, stripping off his jacket with more haste than care, so that Dooley could have sworn he heard the seams groaning. “And you can have her, with my blessings,” Thomas said, flinging the jacket onto a chair in a heap. “The last thing this American needs is an intelligent woman. All this man wants is a willing one. Good night, Paddy—we’ve a long day in front of us tomorrow, numbing our worthless colonial rumps in the anteroom of the Department of the Admiralty.”

Dooley picked up the discarded jacket and folded it over his arm, knowing he would be the one called upon to take a pressing iron to the thing the next time Thomas needed it so he could go strut about in society like some damned peacock. “And a goodnight to you, boyo—but remember this. I’m in this with you, and not your bloody maid of all work.”