Pursuing The Traitor (Scandals and Spies Book 5) Read online

  Pursuing The Traitor

  Scandals and Spies Series Book 5

  Leighann Dobbs

  Harmony Williams

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Also by Leighann Dobbs

  About Leighann Dobbs

  About Harmony Williams

  Prologue

  Lady Belhaven’s manor, London

  January, 1807

  The chatter of the guests only seemed to add to the swell of the music, not detract from it. Couples swirled in the center of the ballroom, each garbed in a fantastical outfit and mask from a common domino to an elaborate Queen Elizabeth and everywhere in between. The dizzying whirl of color made it difficult to keep one’s eye on a single figure.

  Lady Lucy Graylocke, youngest sibling to the Duke of Tenwick, believed in equality even if her older brothers preferred to sequester her away from danger and intrigue. In the books she wrote, the lady was always the dashing hero able to save herself. Although she’d navigated Society long enough to learn that not all men—or, indeed, even women—shared her views, she liked to think that her family agreed with her. The three brothers currently residing in England had each married strong, capable women, after all. Therefore, Lucy didn’t think it was beyond the realm of possibility that, had they been in her shoes, they would have done the exact same thing she did now.

  The Graylocke family tolerated no disrespect toward a member of their household, after all. And although Rocky was their lead gardener, she was also a personal friend to the family. When Lucy cornered this masked King Henry, she was going to wring his neck for what Rocky had confessed he’d said.

  No, probably not that. As much as she’d like to, violence was never the answer. But she would give him a thorough redressing and change his mind. Not only did women deserve to be in lead gardener positions, but Rocky was more capable than most. Every bit as brilliant, in fact, as Lucy’s botanist brother, Gideon.

  Giddy wouldn’t let the man escape unscathed if he’d known, either.

  Lucy followed the bobbing feather with her gaze as King Henry—or whoever he was, outside of that costume—traversed the length of the ballroom. He aimed for the orchestra, nestled in a corner of the room between potted flowers and a closed door. As he sidestepped couples and groups, she caught further glimpses of his costume; a black cloak embroidered with gold thread, his puffed pantaloons in jewel-bright colors that matched his doublet. His face was clean-shaven. Hadn’t King Henry VIII sported a beard? Shaking her head, Lucy trailed him.

  Unlike Henry, Lucy found herself recognized by those she passed. Women stopped her to ask after her family. Men tried to finagle a dance. Not one of them asked after the book she was writing. Not one of them truly knew her, or tried to—they cared only for the favor they could curry with her family. Using the skills Mother had taught her, Lucy left them disappointed as she expertly extracted herself from every conversation without veering from the realm of politeness.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Henry slip through that shut door near the orchestra.

  No. She balled her fists. She’d promised Rocky she would keep him from escaping the ballroom. If she couldn’t do that, she would damn well follow him.

  Pulling up the hood of her cloak to hide her telltale Graylocke ebony hair, Lucy hoped to conceal her identity as well. If one of her brothers spotted her sneaking after a man, she would never hear the end of it. Thankfully, despite the blazing hue of her cloak, she wasn’t the only woman dressed as Red Riding Hood during tonight’s masquerade.

  The music deafened her as she reached the door. Darting a glance over her shoulder—no one appeared to be paying her any mind—she lifted the latch and snuck inside. The light from the chandelier in the ballroom illuminated a narrow staircase a moment before her body blotted it out. She shut the door behind her.

  The wood muffled the music somewhat, but although she strained her ears, she couldn’t hear anything beyond the strains of the orchestra. Even her pulse pounded soundlessly in the base of her throat. He might already have gotten away. Using the walls for balance, she hurried up the steps to the next floor. Once she reached the landing, she paused.

  It was quiet up here, and dark. Light streamed from cracks under the doors to various rooms along this corridor. The dim illumination gave no more indication of her surroundings than the outline of furniture in sconces along the hall. One door along the hall was ajar. For a heartbeat, the light wavered as a shadow passed over it.

  Triumph surged through Lucy like a heady draught of spirits. She squared her shoulders and stormed through the door, ready to confront the scoundrel who had insulted her friend.

  She stopped in the doorway, meeting his gaze as he turned from the desk in one corner of the room. All four walls were filled with stuffed bookshelves, looking down on a long sofa and matching arm chair. A branch of candles glimmered from the desk top.

  The man—ten or perhaps fifteen years older than her, it was difficult to tell in the shadows crisscrossing his face—had doffed his mask and hat, revealing short-cut, brown hair. He looked…plain. Not particularly handsome, with the slight rugged cast to his chin and nose, but not abhorrent. The doublet stretched tight over a round stomach, though given the breadth of his shoulders and muscular forearms, she suspected his rounded physique was more due to padding than fat. His calves filled out his hose in a way that might have been due to padding or simply an extension of his muscular form. Despite his quick ascent to this floor, he wasn’t out of breath. It was too dark to make out the color of his eyes as he narrowed them, taking her in. As he leaned his hip against the desk, he fiddled with a purple lily, rolling the thick stem between his fingers.

  She brushed the red hood off her coiffure and crossed her arms. “Have you retreated here to think about what you’ve done?”

  A bemused smile curved his lips. “And what, pray tell, might that be, innocent miss?”

  Innocent? Lucy dropped her arms and fisted her hands in her skirts. He emphasized the word, like it was a bad thing. “Not miss. Lady. I’m the sister of a duke, I’ll have you know.”

  Normally, she would throw formality out the window, but if it would help earn the apology her friend deserved, she would act every bit as ducal as her brother.

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “Forgive me, my lady.”

  She strode closer to him, unrelenting. “I will not forgive you. That was a very bad thing to say to my friend.”

  He didn’t budge or show cowardice, not even when she stood toe to toe with him. From the way he lounged against the desk yet still remained of a height with her, she guessed that he would be near the height of her brothers Tristan and Morgan. Six feet tall or a little over, though not as tall as Giddy
.

  He stopped twirling the flower. This close, she noticed that his eyes were pale—or perhaps they only appeared that way due to the tawny cast of his skin. Odd, for a man to be suntanned in the middle of winter. Had he been abroad?

  Her gaze caught on a small design embroidered in white under the lapel of his collar. Four triangles, the points meeting in the center, like the blades of a windmill.

  “Which friend might that be? I imagine your friends are myriad. They blend into one another.”

  Lucy narrowed her eyes as she focused on his face again. Was he such a callous man that he didn’t realize when he insulted a woman? Or was he innocent, after all? Rocky had mentioned that she didn’t know which of the Henrys in the room were the man she searched to confront, and she’d left after another as he’d departed the ballroom.

  She brushed her momentary doubt aside. Despite the fact that he was plain-looking enough to blend in with any ballroom, there was something about his smug amusement and the twinkle in his eye that told her she’d found the right man. “You know of whom I speak. Joy Rockwood. The lead gardener for Lady Belhaven—” Temporarily, only until the orangery was fixed at Tenwick Abbey. “—A position she deserves, because she is every bit as capable as any man.”

  His smile widened. When he straightened, he confirmed her suspicions by looming over her. She held her ground.

  “Ah. I let slip something I should have locked in the back of my memory.”

  Lucy glared. “You never should have thought it to begin with. There is nothing—nothing—about a woman that makes her any less intelligent than a man. Nothing.”

  To her astonishment, he said, “You’re right. Men like me fade from the mind in comparison.”

  That was…all? She’d expected some debate. Perhaps even a lengthy tirade that proved him the villain Lucy had concocted in her mind. Instead, the entire encounter fell flat. Somewhat forgettable.

  She couldn’t put something like that in a book. Readers would never feel satisfied at such an ending.

  He held out the flower to her. “Please, give this to Miss Rockwood as a token of my apology.”

  Reluctantly, Lucy took it. “I will.”

  Had Rocky misjudged him? Was he innocent of the kind of venomous thinking that she’d claimed?

  As he turned away from her, striding across the room, she said, “Wait! What’s your name?” When she gave the flower to Rocky, she should at least be able to name the man who’d entrusted her with it.

  He reached the window nestled between two tall bookshelves, he flicked open the latch on the glass. It was freezing out there! Surely he didn’t mean to open the window.

  He turned, meeting her gaze a moment more as he pushed the panes. The glass swung out on its hinges, letting in a rush of cold air that raised gooseflesh on her exposed skin. She pulled her cloak tighter around her.

  “I have many names, my lady. You’d forget the moment I slipped out of sight.”

  In a feat of athleticism that proved his paunch was a hoax, he swung himself through the open window and was gone. Lucy gaped after him. Had he just jumped from the second story of a building? She dashed to the window, afraid she’d see his broken body littering the snow beneath.

  Instead, she glimpsed his figure as he hugged the wall of the manor, slipping around the corner. “That isn’t an answer,” she shouted in his wake, not that he made any response.

  Though it would be a deliciously mysterious line for a book.

  1

  Tenwick Abbey

  Three months later.

  Never ever, ever, would Lucy insert childbirth into one of her books. Nor would she have a child. Or put herself in such a situation that risked pregnancy. Her sister-in-law, Philomena, screamed loud enough that she was likely heard in London, two days’ travel away. Given the language she used, Phil never intended to let her husband, Morgan, touch her again.

  Although she didn’t intend to put her heroines through quite that much agony, Lucy did scribble down an epithet or two that a ruffian or pirate might say.

  Her entire family crowded in the corridor of the family’s quarters, outside the Duchess’s room. Tristan had his arm wrapped around his wife, Freddie, while her sister and Lucy’s best friend, Charlie, bounced on the balls of her feet, anxious. Mrs. Vale, their mother, hovered in the corner, out of the way. Giddy paced anxiously while his wife, Felicia, viciously stabbed at a handkerchief with a needle and thread. Jared, Phil’s lanky brother, fidgeted in the shadow next to the closed door. Catt—Giddy’s best friend, Mr. Catterson—though not technically a part of the family, leaned against the wall as he comforted his anxious wife, Rocky, the lead gardener at Tenwick Abbey.

  Rocky wasn’t the only servant in attendance. Behind Lucy’s mother, who appeared serene if one didn’t notice the tight way she clasped her hands or the white rip around her pressed lips, was a barrage of servants, each stopping for a minute to speak with each other and gain an update on Phil’s condition before they moved on. As the first ducal child of the new generation, this birth was an important one. Everyone hoped for a healthy delivery, whether the child was a girl or boy. Morgan’s assistant, Mr. Keeling, made no attempt to pretend to be at work, but headed the swarm of servants and answered the same question over and over again.

  “Has she given birth?”

  “Not yet.”

  Everyone stared at the closed door to the room, waiting anxiously for an update from within. Although they’d tried to while away the time in one of the parlors, when Phil’s contractions had quickened to within a mere minute apart, everyone had barreled into the corridor.

  Except for Morgan. He was inside, with the midwife and his wife. He’d insisted, even when the midwife had protested and suggest Mother be in attendance instead. As a duke, Morgan had gotten his desire.

  As Phil cursed him again, Lucy wondered if he wished to reconsider. From inside the room, a bird squawked and repeated the impolite word.

  As Lucy slipped closer, cocking an ear to hear what was conspiring inside, Morgan wrenched the door open. He shoved a large, red parrot with green- and indigo-tipped feathers, into Lucy’s arms.

  “Take him. He’s not helping.”

  The bird cocked his head at Lucy and squawked. “You’re in a…pickle!”

  Slim smiles ghosted over the faces of her family members as Morgan shut the door again. They were gone, quickly replaced by worry and anxiousness, in the blink of an eye.

  “No,” she corrected softly, “I think you’re in the pickle.”

  “Pickle!” the bird exclaimed. As he kicked up a racket, Lucy retreated down the hall into the swamp of bodies.

  Mr. Keeling, a thin man with a weak chin in an otherwise forgettable face, stepped up and reached for the parrot. “I’ll take that, my lady.”

  Lucy shook her head. “It’s fine, Keeling. I’ll put him with Antonia in the parlor.” When Phil’s contractions had started coming quicker, the family had decided it was better for Lucy to leave her pet behind than have her contribute to the tension of waiting. Phil’s bird, on the other hand, had been with her from the moment she went into labor.

  The servants parted as Lucy slipped between them. She kept one hand on Pickle’s claws, wrapped around her wrist, so that he didn’t decide to fly off. Pickle was much more curious than Antonia and could spend days flying around Tenwick Abbey while the family and servants chased him. He was used to having free rein of a much smaller house.

  As Lucy left the corridor behind, the amount of anxious faces she passed thinned. She breathed a sigh of relief as she gulped in the cooler air. Truthfully, she was happy for the excuse to leave. Sitting idle was not her strong point.

  After she deposited Pickle into the parlor with Antonia, Lucy left both birds behind and snuck through the corridor toward the antechamber of the abbey. It was deserted. Her shoes clicked on the marble floor as she crossed the wide, dim expanse. The only light came from the high cathedral windows along the vaulting stone wall that faced the second
-story balcony abutting the family wing. Lucy pressed her lips together, cocking an ear to hear whether or not Phil had given birth. The drone of conversation revealed no decipherable message or tone of congratulations.

  She slipped through the wide double doors and onto the front steps. The gray sky showered her with a fine drizzle like wet powdered sugar. It clung to her skin and hair, leaving a bit of a film, but refreshing her at the same time. The steps, having endured such treatment for more than a few moments, were dark with moisture. Lucy elected to remain standing. She fished out her hand-sized notebook and shielded it with her body as she flipped through the pages, studying her shorthand notes as she mulled over whether anything written recently could be usable in her book.

  Her book was missing something. Over the past year, she’d made great strides with the heroine, a swashbuckling princess who after fleeing her country to sail the high seas had become an expert in fencing and inventing her own weapons, namely guns. The story was an adventure, in which the heroine learned more about herself and her true place in the world despite her pampered upbringing. Although Lucy had written at least one hundred pages of her book, she didn’t know how it would end, how her heroine would find her place. She needed to find something else, some way to make her characters grow and reveal more of themselves.

  She sighed. Aside from a few epithets, nothing she’d scribbled today would help.

  A rider galloped down the long drive, between the double row of trees. As he reached the stables, a hostler emerged to tend to him and his horse. The man lunged from the saddle and barely spoke for a second to the hostler before he jogged toward the abbey proper. Frowning, Lucy tucked away her book.