Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer Read online

  A stolen kiss from a spy!

  Working undercover for the government, Bartholomew Dyer must expose a nefarious plot to make Napoleon the ruler of England! He needs access to the highest echelons of Society to find those involved, so he’s forced to enlist the help of the woman who jilted him five years ago—Moira, Lady Rexford.

  Moira’s widowed yet still as captivating as ever, and Bart’s determined not to succumb to her charms a second time. But, as they race against time, Bart suspects it’s not their lives at greatest risk—it’s their hearts...

  “You’re in a position to become better acquainted with Lord Camberline, but your involvement will be strictly limited to social engagements and nothing else,” Bart insisted.

  Her astonishment gave way to a sideways teasing smile. “You mean I won’t be able to point a pistol at other people or you?”

  “You can point a pistol at me any time you like.” He enjoyed this saucy Moira and was elated by her tacit agreement. It meant they didn’t have to part just yet.

  “I can’t simply call on a marchioness and discuss her son,” she protested.

  “You can if you become better friends with her. There’s a painting exhibition tonight at the Royal Academy and Lord Camberline and his mother will be there.”

  “If they suspect anything, what shall I say?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to come up with something.”

  “Oh well, if it’s as easy as that, I should have no trouble.” She laughed.

  He winked at her. “Welcome to the world of intrigue.”

  Author Note

  Writing Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer was a fun new challenge for me. Some of my previous stories have had elements of intrigue in the plot, but intrigue wasn’t as critical to those stories as it is to this one. It was fun to write the story not only from Bart’s perspective as a member of the espionage community, but also from Moira’s position as an outsider. Her innocence, where plots and treason are concerned, was kind of like mine when I began my research. I didn’t realize how much cloak-and-dagger work was going on during this time period.

  In order to craft the treason plot that Bart and Moira work to uncover, I did a great deal of research on spying and plots in and around the Regency period. William Wickham and Mr. Flint, two men I mention in the story, are real people who helped pioneer early British espionage and the British Secret Service. It was Mr. Wickham’s involvement in the London Corresponding Society’s plot to assassinate the Prime Minister in 1793 that inspired the plot in Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer. I also reached a little further back into history to research the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes. Not growing up with the Bonfire Night tradition, it was fun to really learn about all the key players involved and how the plot was eventually uncovered and thwarted.

  I hope you enjoy following Bart and Moira through the danger and excitement of saving Britain and falling in love.

  GEORGIE

  LEE

  Courting Danger

  with Mr. Dyer

  A lifelong history buff, Georgie Lee hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then, she fulfills her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading nonfiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent. Please visit georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.

  Books by Georgie Lee

  Harlequin Historical

  The Business of Marriage

  A Debt Paid in Marriage

  A Too Convenient Marriage

  The Secret Marriage Pact

  The Governess Tales

  The Cinderella Governess

  Scandal and Disgrace

  Rescued from Ruin

  Miss Marianne’s Disgrace

  Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer

  Stand-Alone Novels

  Engagement of Convenience

  The Courtesan’s Book of Secrets

  The Captain’s Frozen Dream

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  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from An Innocent Maid for the Duke by Ann Lethbridge

  Chapter One

  London—1813

  ‘You must do it.’ Bartholomew Dyer banged Frederick Chambers, Fifth Earl of Fallworth, hard against the wall, trying to knock the fight back into him. The unprovoked swing the Earl had taken at Bart gave him hope it could be done. ‘We need you.’

  ‘I can’t, don’t you understand?’ Freddy growled, fingers biting into Bart’s forearms. ‘I’ve given enough. I won’t give any more.’

  ‘Let go of him.’ The lady behind him punctuated her command by cocking a pistol hammer.

  Damn. Bart cursed under his breath. She’d just made the weapon more dangerous. If she wasn’t competent with it, the ball would tear through him and the Earl under his elbow.

  Bart took his arm off Lord Fallworth’s chest and stepped back.

  ‘Moira, it’s not what you think,’ Lord Fallworth choked as he leaned away from the wall and tried to wave his sister off.

  Bart ground his teeth at the mention of Lady Rexford and the way it made his neck, and something much lower down, tense. A maid or the elderly aunt would have been preferable to Lord Fallworth’s sister, and his one-time fiancée, having stumbled in on them. The young Dowager Countess of Rexford was as stunning as she was a complication Bart didn’t need.

  ‘Then what is it?’ She kept the pistol pointed at Bart’s chest and her beautiful green eyes fixed on his.

  She’d changed since he’d last seen her five years ago when she’d been a young lady new to London and he an ex-soldier beginning his career as a barrister. The innocent, uncertain tilt of her head was gone, replaced by a confidence he imagined widowhood and the deaths of her father and sister-in-law must have given her. It made her sharp cheekbones set in an oval face and framed by blonde hair more striking and more tempting. He knew better than to fall for it. He had no desire to hear again from her family how he wasn’t good enough for her or to have his official duties curtailed by her incorrect reading of this situation.

  Bart bent into a bow. ‘Good evening, Lady Rexford. It’s a pleasure to see you again.’

  ‘I can’t say the same, Mr Dyer. If you weren’t one of the most celebrated barristers in England with as many magistrates in awe of you as the public, I’d put a ball through you and end your scourge on this house.’

  He opened his arms to increase the size of her target. ‘Why not take the chance?’

  She frowned at his defiance, the disapproving yet intriguing downturn of her mouth tempered by the still-raised weapon. ‘Since I have no desire to be hanged for murder, I demand you leave at once and never return.’

  Any other day her order would have been c
harming. This morning it was merely irritating. ‘Your aunt used to make the same request and it didn’t work.’

  ‘I’d like to think I’m a touch more persuasive.’ She nodded at the still-raised pistol.

  He admired her desire to protect her brother, even if it was woefully misguided. However, what had brought him here in defiance of her widowed aunt’s dictates was far more important than his or anyone else’s life.

  ‘Moira, it’s all right. Leave us be, we have business to discuss.’ Lord Fallworth took up his drink and drained it.

  ‘What business? Which gaming hell to visit?’ she challenged. ‘Don’t think Aunt Agatha didn’t write to me about what you got up to with Mr Dyer when you were in London two years ago. I won’t have you ruining yourself again a mere week after we’ve returned to town.’

  Bart suppressed a growl of irritation. If Lady Rexford knew the real motives behind those nights out, she’d lower the pistol, throw her arms around his neck and thank him for his service to their country.

  ‘Freddy, I won’t leave you to the influences of a man like this.’ Lady Rexford waved her free hand at Bart. ‘Not with you already so vulnerable since Helena’s—’

  ‘You needn’t say it.’ Lord Fallworth snatched up the brandy decanter and refilled his glass.

  Bart opened his mouth to tell Lady Rexford to step out of things she didn’t understand, then closed it again. With her brother slipping into a liquor-induced fog, his suitability for this mission waned while Lady Rexford’s possible involvement played on him like a hunch. She stood straight, one foot in front of the other to make her gown drape across her shapely thigh. The firm set of her full lips beneath eyes as focused as a fox’s made him take more notice of her than the pistol or her reluctant brother. No one would suspect a woman. Bart knew better. ‘You’re friends with Lady Camberline?’

  A crease of confusion appeared between her shapely eyebrows. ‘Not friends so much as acquaintances. We’re both patrons of the Lady’s Lying-In Hospital.’

  ‘But you know her well enough to call on her and to receive invitations?’

  ‘No, Bart, don’t do it,’ Lord Fallworth warned.

  Lady Rexford glanced back and forth between Bart and her brother. ‘I do.’

  ‘Are you attending her ball tonight?’

  ‘Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘I said don’t do it.’ Lord Fallworth banged his glass down on the table, making the brandy slosh over the sides.

  Bart ignored the glowering Earl. ‘I need your help to—’

  ‘No, not her.’ Lord Fallworth grabbed Bart by the lapels and gave him a shake. ‘I lost my wife to plotting scoundrels. I won’t lose a sister, too.’

  If Lord Fallworth were any other man Bart would drop him like a sack of flour, but the other man had sacrificed a great deal by helping Bart two years ago. Until today, Bart hadn’t realised how much it’d changed his friend.

  ‘What are you talking about, Freddy?’ Lady Rexford asked in a shaky voice. ‘What scoundrels?’

  Bart exchanged a concerned look with Lord Fallworth. His sister didn’t know the truth about Lady Fallworth’s death, but then few people did. This wasn’t the moment to enlighten her.

  ‘Nothing,’ Lord Fallworth answered in a voice to convince no one. ‘I misspoke.’

  Lord Fallworth eyed Bart with unease as he let go of him and shifted back. Bart studied him, aware of the pain he was causing his old friend. He would leave him in peace if he could, but this time, there was too much at stake. ‘If I don’t uncover their plans soon, the Government, the King could be brought down and Napoleon installed on the throne.’

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ Lady Rexford demanded.

  ‘Let me tell her and allow her to decide,’ Bart asked the other man in the same measured tone he normally used when delivering bad news to a client.

  Lord Fallworth retrieved his drink, his signet ring clanking against the glass. Then he slumped down into his chair, the promising fight he’d shown when he’d lashed out at Bart gone. ‘Go ahead then, tell her.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Lady Rexford lowered the hammer with impressive and surprising skill. Anyone else would have slammed it down and set the damned thing off. It was another mark in her favour.

  Bartholomew took a deep breath. What he was about to reveal could place his entire mission in jeopardy if she whispered it around the wrong tea table, but with Freddy unable to assist him, Lady Rexford might be his only chance. She’d proven herself discreet in the matter of their debacle of an engagement, making sure no one outside of her family and his had learned of it. He was certain he could count on her prudence again.

  Bart turned to her with the same deference he showed when approaching the bench. ‘I’m not just a barrister, Lady Rexford, but a stipendiary magistrate given power by the Alien Office to root out traitors working to undermine our country. I have a number of men under me, one of whom used to be your brother. The many nights I came here to collect him two years ago, the ones your aunt wrote to you about, weren’t to waste money at cards but to uncover a plot by Lord McCreery working on behalf of the Scottish Corresponding Society to assassinate the Prime Minister. We spent nights drinking and gambling with many of the men involved with the society in order to learn the details of the plot. Alcohol is a great opener of mouths. It makes people forget themselves.’ He cocked one suggestive eyebrow at her. The full lips he’d savoured five years ago drew tight at his reference to their past and the time they’d spent on Lady Greenwood’s balcony in each other’s arms. Bart ignored the appealing blush sweeping her cheeks and continued. ‘Thanks to your brother’s help, we stopped the plot, but now there is another. A group called the Rouge Noir, a collection of London aristocrats with ties to Napoleon, is actively working to undermine the Crown and install the Emperor on the throne.’

  ‘You expect me to believe titled gentlemen are plotting to bring down the Government?’

  She crossed her arms, the gun dangling beneath one elbow as she stared at him in disbelief, as sceptical as he’d been when Charles Flint had first approached him on William Wickham and the Alien Office’s behalf. Even after his work uncovering fraud in order to protect his clients, and his time as a captain with the English army in Austria, the story had been hard for him to swallow. It must sound preposterous to a lady who’d been sequestered on a country estate for the last few years.

  ‘I know you despise those of our class, but I didn’t think you’d sink so low as to accuse them of treason.’

  Bart narrowed his eyes at her, struggling to remain as collected as when he was arguing a case. She’d struck a nerve, one of the few people in a long time to do so. ‘I may not like a great swathe of the nobility, but I swore to protect them. I won’t see any of my countrymen, not the poor or the rich, trampled under Napoleon’s boots.’

  ‘It’s true, Moira,’ Freddy concurred. During their interrogation of the Scottish Corresponding Society conspirators, there’d been whispers of the Rouge Noir but never anything solid, until recently.

  She turned her shock on her brother. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘It is,’ Bart insisted. ‘The Government is weak, with no strong prime minister and a handful of colourless men running things. The King is mad and his son a worthless dandy. If the Rouge Noir can wipe them out it will bring this country to its knees, allowing Napoleon to sweep in and restore order through tyranny. I and my network of informers were able to ferret out a number of lesser members of the Rouge Noir some time ago and we thought we’d disrupted the group enough to stop them. Then, last week, a courier was caught in Dover with a message for Napoleon telling him to prepare for the coming of the Rouge Noir. I believe something is going to happen and soon, but I don’t know what and I don’t know where but I must find out. I suspect some in Lady Camberline’s circle to be involved, but I ha
ve no way to get close to them without drawing suspicion.’

  ‘If you think Freddy will help you, you’re wrong.’ She crossed her arms and stepped between Bart and Lord Fallworth, as if protecting her brother. ‘He isn’t well enough to have any part in your scheme.’

  ‘I’m not asking him to have a part in it. I’m asking you.’

  * * *

  Moira dropped her arms to her sides. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but the hard angles of Mr Dyer’s chiselled face and the steeliness of his dark eyes told her it was. ‘Me?’

  ‘Lady Rexford, I need you, England needs you,’ Mr Dyer pleaded. This was the first time they’d spoken since the morning five years ago when she’d called off their engagement with fumbling words about her duty to her father and upholding the Fallworth reputation. He hadn’t taken it well, railing at her about the misguided priorities of the aristocracy and her failure to stand up for what she wanted. She’d tried to make him understand her father’s concerns for her and her future, but he’d refused to listen. They’d parted with no small amount of bitterness on each side, and when Aunt Agatha’s frantic letters about Freddy had begun to arrive, Moira had thought she’d avoided a bad mistake. Yet all along Bart had been fighting for something more worthy than bragging rights about a card win. ‘You can get close to Lady Camberline and many of those in her circle, especially the ones I suspect.’

  ‘You’re Baron Denning’s fifth son, so why not use your own connections?’ she protested, unsure how to answer him. Surely she was not so important to the security of the Government.

  ‘My work as a barrister and my father’s railing against it—’ the lines at the corners of Bart’s brown eyes tightened, then relaxed ‘—have prejudiced too many against me and his rank isn’t high enough to garner the notice of a dower marchioness and her marquess son. However, you can use your familiarity with the Camberlines to gather information on suspects.’

  ‘Who might kill me if they discover what I’m doing.’ She knew little about plots and schemes, but she’d read enough stories about them in the newspapers to understand what happened to those who dabbled in intrigue.