Once apprised of his need, Tom had advised that he would investigate and see what he could turn up by morning.
After consulting with his colleagues below stairs, Tom’s morning suggestion had been to ask at the Half Moon Street house of Michael’s father’s cousin, Demon Cynster. Apparently, Lady Hendon was a superlative rider of exceptional horses, as was Demon’s wife, Felicity. As the Hendon estate was on the north coast of Norfolk, not far from Demon’s estate and stable complex outside Newmarket, it seemed likely the two ladies would be friends.
That prediction had proved accurate; although Demon and Felicity, better known as Flick, were in the country, the butler left in charge of the Half Moon Street house knew Michael well and promptly volunteered the Hendons’ London address.
Michael paused on the pavement, looking at the houses, confirming that he’d finally reached Number 12, Clarges Street. Then he walked up the three steps, seized the knocker, and beat a tattoo on the glossy green door.
Several moments passed, then footsteps, slow but steady—a stately tread—approached. A second later, the door opened, revealing a butler somewhat older than the norm, of middling height and girth, correctly attired, with soft white hair neatly combed over his balding pate, a worn, lined face, and kindly blue eyes.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Lord Michael Cynster.” Michael handed the man one of his cards. “Are any of the family—the gentlemen—at home?”
The butler studied the card, then raised his gaze to Michael’s face. “I’m afraid none of the family is currently here, my lord. Might I take a message?”
“I…no.” Michael grimaced. “I need advice on a matter associated with business, and I need that rather urgently.”
The butler regarded him steadily, then the man’s features eased almost into a smile. “In that case, my lord, if I might suggest, you could ask at the Hendon Shipping Company office. If you ask to see the office manager, I suspect you’ll be able to learn the answers to any questions you may have.”
“The office manager?”
“Indeed, sir. I believe you’ll discover the manager to be a font of information.”
Michael brightened. At last, a possible source—no, a font. Just what he needed. “Thank you.” He hefted his cane. “And where can I find this informative soul?”
“The Hendon Shipping Company office is located at the corner of Fenchurch Street and Lime Street in the City, my lord.”
“Excellent.” Michael raised the head of his cane in salute, then turned, clattered down the steps to the pavement, and hailed a passing hackney.
The hackney drew up.
“Corner of Fenchurch and Lime Streets,” Michael called to the jarvey.
“Right you are, guv.”
Michael settled on the seat as the hackney jerked into motion. Glancing out at the passing houses, he grinned. At last, he was off. At last, he’d found the opening to a trail, and his hunt for the gunpowder was—finally!—under way.
* * *
Miss Cleome Annabelle Hendon sat behind her desk in her private office. With her elbow on the desk and her chin propped in the palm of her hand, she stared at the three ledgers laid out before her.
Sales, Expenditures, and Profits, with all three ledgers reconciled to the last penny.
She surveyed the numbers—figures most businessmen would give their eyeteeth to boast of—and tried to discover inside herself some glimmer of the pride and self-satisfaction such a sight would once have brought her.
But it simply wasn’t there.
When she’d first claimed her position in the company, every week, she’d taken the better part of three days to do the company’s accounts. Now, she barely took two hours. She’d reduced what had once been a major battle to the most minor of engagements. Where once, every week, she’d savored a giddy rush of triumph, she now derived roughly as much satisfaction as she felt on correctly tying a bow.
In the early days of her occupying this office, there had been challenges galore. But now that she’d beaten every one of those challenges into submission, there was no longer any excitement left in her world.
Indeed, the office now ran so smoothly, so very much under her control even without her direct input, there was little reason for her to actually be there…
Her dissatisfaction—her disaffection with her present unchallenged and unchallenging state—welled. She set her jaw, picked up a pencil, and tapped its end on the desk.
Vigorously.
Unbidden, her thoughts veered to her brothers. Jarred, Robert, and Christopher were all out of the country. They’d sailed that summer for the Americas to investigate trading opportunities. Jarred was in New York, while Robert and Christopher had sailed to New Orleans. None of them was due back until mid-November; she had no doubt all three were enjoying their adventures to the giddy limit if not beyond.
That was what she needed—an adventure. A satisfying adventure of her own.
Something to test her, to engage her faculties and sharpen her wits. Considering her parents’ colorful pasts, it was evident her family thrived on adventure; they might possibly even need it, at least in the sense of feeling fulfilled.
So her brothers were adventuring overseas, and in Norfolk, her parents were doubtless pursuing their own adventures of sorts. Meanwhile, she was the one left in London, holding the proverbial fort.
Admittedly, she’d fought to become the de facto lynchpin of the company, the one in control of all finances and more or less at the helm, deeming the position her sure route to independence and also a steady source of interest and excitement. She’d been correct about the former and even the latter; what she hadn’t counted on was her own competence reducing the role to one she now found too easy.
With something close to disgust, she shut the ledgers one by one—slap, slap, slap—then stacked them and pushed them away.
She needed to find some adventure, some novel enterprise to lift her out of this rut.
But what?
She was staring unseeing across the room when a tap on the frame of her open door had her glancing that way.
Fitch, the head clerk, neatly attired, precise, and sharp-eyed, stepped over the threshold and halted. “There’s a gentleman here, miss, asking for assistance with a matter of some importance. A Lord Michael Cynster—he called at your home, and Morris suggested he speak with our office manager.”
Cleo blinked and sat up. Morris knew perfectly well that she was the office manager, and along with all the staff both at the house and the office, generally steered gentlemen away from her. But not this one. What made him so special? “Lord Michael Cynster?”
Even as the name left her lips, she saw him saunter into the doorway behind Fitch. Fitch wasn’t that small, but Lord Michael filled the doorway, casting the slighter man into the shade.
Into near invisibility; Cleo’s eyes and all her senses locked on the tall, broad-shouldered figure.
Very broad shoulders. Wide chest. Long legs and impressive height, with his dark hair—a dark brown close to sable—almost brushing the upper edge of the doorway. Features so chiseled, so perfectly cut and constructed, they would reliably capture and transfix the awareness of all females within sight.
Quite aside from the clue provided by his name, she instantly recognized his sort; blessed with a commanding presence and an easy, almost nonchalant assurance underpinned by the innate arrogance of the nobility, such men were inherently powerful personalities. More, they were men about whom women flocked, to her mind indiscriminately; in her experience, such men invariably held a high opinion of themselves and of their attractiveness to women. Sometimes, perhaps, that opinion was well founded, but often, it was not.
Normally, such men affected her not at all; their power bounced off the shield formed of her will, her intelligence, and her determination.
But this one…
With an easy, strangely gentle smile, one that reached and softened his dark-brown eyes, which, she noted, were f
ringed by ludicrously lush dark lashes, he stepped past Fitch and approached the desk.
That smile shouldn’t have set butterflies flitting in her stomach, shouldn’t have sent a teasing warmth sliding through her, yet it did. She hurriedly firmed her features into a stiffer, unrevealing mask.
When he paused before the desk, she arched a haughty brow. “And you are?”
His eyes met hers in a steady regard. Then his smile deepened a touch. “As your”—he glanced back at Fitch, then looked back at her—“head clerk said, I’m Lord Michael Cynster.”
He drew a card from his pocket and offered it to her.
Cleo stared at the card, at the strong, slightly tanned fingers holding it. She didn’t want to take it, but she forced herself to reach out and pluck the card from his hand.
Sure enough, the warmth of his fingers lingered on the ivory parchment. She dropped the card on her blotter; looking down, she noted that, yes, the name was as he’d said—not that she’d doubted who he was for an instant. His clothes—superbly tailored from expensive fabrics and fashionably cut with a hint of the austere—let alone the way he wore them and the manner in which he moved, like some overlarge, prowling, predatory cat, all screamed his station. The power of his presence, the intelligence in his features, and the strength conveyed by his squared chin simply underscored that.
Tamping down her leaping senses—she couldn’t understand why they were so ridiculously exercised—she forced herself to look up at him, annoyed to find that it was, indeed, a very long way up. Keeping her expression studiously bland, in a distinctly chilly tone, she inquired, “I understand you’re seeking assistance in some matter. How may we help you?”
Michael wasn’t—definitely wasn’t—used to being met by prickliness. In that respect, Miss Cleome Hendon was giving an excellent imitation of a hedgehog—one riled and ready to shoot quills his way. He didn’t try a more beguiling smile; he had a strong suspicion that wouldn’t go down well. Instead, he glanced around and spotted a nearby chair. He looked at her and gestured to the chair. “Do you mind if I sit?” If he didn’t, she’d end with a crick in her neck and probably blame him.
She waved her permission. While he lifted the chair, set it before the desk, then leant his cane against the side and sat, she nodded to the clerk. “That will be all for the moment, Fitch. I’ll ring if I need you.”
The man bowed and departed, but left the door open. Michael glanced at it, but decided it didn’t matter; the room was at the end of a long corridor, and the nearest clerks were at a sufficient distance—no one would be able to overhear their conversation.
“Well, Lord Michael?”
He returned his gaze to her face. “Please, just Michael. Our families are acquainted.”
She dipped her head. A very pretty, well-shaped head with a wealth of strawberry-blond curls piled in a knot on top. The knot, a somewhat old-fashioned style for someone of her years, did not appear to be all that well anchored—wisps, even the stray lock, had already escaped and tumbled down to bob in lustrous curls about her heart-shaped face. Her complexion was soft ivory, with gently rounded cheeks delicately burnished with a rosy tint—a combination often referred to as peaches and cream. Quite delectable.
Eyes that were a combination of leafy green and golden brown regarded him steadily; for a gently bred miss, she had a gaze that was unusually open and direct. Almost challenging in its own right. Her features were delicate—finely arched brown brows over those large eyes, lashes a soft brown and long rather than thick. Her nose was straight, but with a slightly upturned tip. As for her mouth…
His lazy perusal halted with his gaze locked on her lips. Rosy pink, their curves distinctly lush, the upper straight, the lower full and ripe; he was suddenly conscious of a remarkably strong desire to taste them.
A strong enough compulsion to shake him into forcing his gaze to move on…to her figure. A swanlike neck, straight shoulders, and gently rounded, very feminine charms—that much was on show. With her perched behind the desk, he couldn’t gauge her height, but what he could see suggested curves to match her lips. Lush, full, ripe.
His educated guess was that she was a pocket Venus with her curves hidden—or was that disguised?—by draperies. Her clothes were, he supposed, appropriate for the post of office manager of her family’s company, being practical rather than fashionable—a rather severely cut jacket in honey-colored twill worn over a white lawn blouse with a ruffled jabot adorned with lace.
Her hands were delicate, fine boned, her long, slender fingers devoid of rings; as his gaze reached them, in a very deliberate fashion, she tapped the end of the pencil she was holding in her right hand on the blotter—a clear warning of mounting impatience.
He raised his gaze to her face and, more certain now, smiled easily. “I was hoping to speak with one or more of your brothers, but I understand they’re not available to be consulted.”
“They’re in the Americas.”
“Your parents?”
“In the country—at Castle Hendon on the north coast of Norfolk.”
He made a small grimace and nodded. And said nothing more; instead of demanding, he would rather she asked.
She spent several moments regarding him with a mixture of distrust and curiosity; eventually, curiosity won. She sat straighter, reached up and poked the pencil she’d been holding beneath her topknot—favoring him with an excellent view of her distinctly feminine charms—then she lowered her arms, folded her hands on the blotter, and fixed her gaze on his face. “Lor—Michael, as I am the manager of this company, perhaps, if you tell me what you wish to know, I might be able to assist you. Unless your query concerns some subject peculiarly masculine in nature, I assure you that I’m significantly more likely than my brothers to have the answers you seek.”
He was far too clever to grin. He hesitated for only a second before confiding, “I need to locate the drivers of two carts who delivered a particular cargo into London on Wednesday.”
She studied him levelly for several seconds, then bluntly asked, “Why are you”—her gaze fleetingly swept over his figure—“interested in the drivers of carts?”
He blinked. He hadn’t expected her to ask that. “I…need to find, to locate, the cargo they brought into the city.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “Again, I ask: Why?” When he didn’t immediately reply, her eyes narrowed on his. “What is this cargo?”
Michael realized he’d made a serious misstep; provoking the curiosity of a woman—a lady—of her ilk was never a good idea. He stuck to his guns, but strove to make his tone conciliatory. “I just need to find the cargo—some barrels. Ten, to be precise.”
She opened her eyes wide. “Ten barrels of what?”
Cleo scented an intrigue; when she saw his jaw tighten and his lips—finely chiseled and distractingly mobile—firm into a straight line, she was sure of it. More confident, she leant forward, comfortably settling her forearms on the desk and holding his gaze with hers. “A gentleman of your ilk searching for barrels—barrels of anything? You have staff aplenty. And what possible interest could you have in barrels—again, barrels of anything—being brought into London?”
His face hardened. Absolute intransigence stared back at her. The line of his lips had turned to a rigid slash.
She studied his face, then smiled, letting her own confidence show. She lowered her voice and confided, “My brothers will tell you that there is no power in this world capable of overcoming my stubbornness. And trust me—they do know.”
He stared at her as if she was a strange and unexpected puzzle. She waited, unperturbed by his scrutiny.
A scrutiny that steadily darkened until it was close to a glare.
When, with her lips still curved, she simply waited, he finally flung up a hand in a fencer’s gesture of defeat. “Very well.” His accents had turned exceedingly clipped, his tone hard—more real to her ears than his earlier softer, polished, and charming drawl. “If you must know, I’m working with W
inchelsea—Drake Varisey.” He pinned her with a penetrating glance. “Do you know about Drake? About what he does?”
She sifted through the accumulated information filed in her brain. “I’ve heard that he…works, for want of a more appropriate word, for the Home Secretary in pursuing those miscreants the usual authorities find it difficult to investigate.”
Michael nodded. “A sound description as far as it goes. Drake is also tasked with pursuing plots that have the potential to threaten the realm.”
She blinked and straightened. “And these barrels you’re seeking have something to do with the latter?”
His curt nod sent a surge of expectant excitement through her. It had been so long since she’d felt such a thrill, she took an instant to savor it.
“The barrels I’m trying to find contain gunpowder.”
The information acted like a bucket of cold water, effectively dousing her thrill. She stared at Michael Cynster’s face—at the determination and strength so blatantly on display—and accepted that he wasn’t in any way pulling her leg. “Gunpowder,” she repeated. “Ten barrels. Somewhere in London.” When he nodded again, she hesitated, then asked, “Are we talking about the usual barrels—a hundredweight each?”
Again, Michael nodded. “So now you understand why I’m searching for the drivers—I have to locate those barrels, and as soon as may be.”
“Hmm.” Her gaze now unfocused, Cleome Hendon stared past him at the open door. “Finding them will be a challenge.”
He could almost see the wheels in her head turning. He forced himself to rein in his impatience and wait…
Then she blinked and refocused on his face. “I believe I know how to locate the men who drove those two carts. Trust me when I say that no one else in this office is likely to have the same knowledge, at least not to the extent of being able to lead you directly to it. And I am, needless to say, willing to assist you. However, I have one stipulation.”
Her gaze locked on his face, she paused to draw breath, the lace of her jabot rising portentously; even before she spoke, he knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.