My Notorious Gentleman

MY NOTORIOUS

GENTLEMAN

Gaelen Foley

Epigraph

To everything there is a season . . .

A time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build . . .

A time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes

Contents

Chapter 1

London, 1816

G
eorge was foxed, but that, Grace supposed, was to be expected. The carefree young dandy plopped down beside her onto the bench at the perimeter of the ballroom, and declared: “Miss Kenwood, I adore you!”

“Ah, that’s very nice, George.”

“I mean it, I worship you!”

“Worship God and use your head, dear lad,” she answered, surveying the ballroom.

He laughed as though she had said something charming. “Spoken like a true preacher’s daughter! I daresay you could save even
my
soul, Miss Kenwood. But ’tis true,” he slurred, lifting his glass to her. “You are my ideal woman in all things.” He glanced down innocently at her gown. “What you lack in fashion, you make up for with substance!”

She turned to him, startled. “Er, thank you, my lord.”

Perfect.
Just what she needed to hear. Confirmation from their host’s own son that she
looked
as out of place as she felt in the Marquess of Lievedon’s opulent Town palace.

Miss Grace Kenwood, firmly on the shelf at the advanced age of five-and-twenty, was not accustomed to aristocratic ballrooms.

Everyone raved about the worldly delights of London, but the sprawling metropolis made her miss her garden. The air in the crowded capital made her skin feel dirty compared to the fresh breezes and sunshine of the countryside.

And the people . . . well, one was not to judge, but suffice it to say these were decadent times.

“What are you doing hiding in the shadows like a wallflower, anyway?” her wayward young friend demanded, bumping her shoulder with his own, like an overgrown schoolboy flirting with his governess.

At twenty-one, George, Lord Baron Brentford, or Bratford, as she preferred to call him, was four years her junior. He enjoyed putting her up on this silly pedestal because he knew full well that nothing would ever come of it. He was heir to the Lievedon marquisate while she was but the daughter of the easygoing minister who was continually called in to help steer the young rakehell off the path of self-destruction.

Through an odd series of events, the Reverend Richard Kenwood had become the one moral authority on earth who seemed to have any influence over the fashionable young buck.

Lord Lievedon’s prodigal son still strayed on a regular basis, but at least the scoundrel was willing to listen to Papa’s wise counsel now and then. Heaven knew George’s own father couldn’t get through to him; but then, the grand old marquess only knew how to speak in cold, clipped commands.

At any rate, Papa’s taming influence over His Lordship’s firstborn was what had moved the marquess to give Papa his living. With the understanding, of course, that the Reverend Kenwood would make himself available to his patron’s family whenever he was needed.

In short, when the marquess summoned them to Town, the Kenwoods went.

George tossed back the last of his brandy and signaled to a nearby footman to bring him another.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” she murmured gently.

“Just one more!” he deflected with a grin, then hastened to change the subject. “So, my dear, how’s everyone back at the village?”

The parsonage was just a stone’s throw from the marquess’s ancestral pile in Leicestershire.

There was always a buzz in their tiny village of Thistleton when any of His Lordship’s family came down from Town. To be sure, George certainly brought his own brand of excitement out to the country. Especially last time.

“Are they all still scandalized by my little spot of mischief with the tavern wench?” Though he had the decency to look at least a little sheepish, the merry sparkle in his eyes betrayed the fact that he still thought it was funny.

Grace did not smile. “Marianne is not with child, if that’s what you’re asking,” she answered coolly. “So at least there’s that.”

“Ah! What a relief.”

She clenched her teeth, shocked by his nonchalance. The spoiled lordling had no idea of the harsh scrabble for existence that poor, hard-edged Marianne had left behind in London, trying, with the Kenwoods’ help, to make a new life for herself in the peaceful haven of their country village.

George wasn’t even aware of the damage he had so casually done to all Marianne’s progress, waving more money under her nose than an ex–soiled dove could resist.

“And, er, what about Miss Windlesham?” he asked gingerly after a moment’s hesitation. “Does she still hate me? As you can see, she refused the invitation to our ball tonight.”

“Can you blame her?” Grace countered in surprise.

Back home, the Honorable Miss Calpurnia Windlesham was the ruling belle of the county and had all but branded George for her future husband.

He scowled. “Callie doesn’t own me, you know! Nor her mother, neither,” he said hotly. “Tell them I said so, Grace! Especially Lady Windlesham. That blasted woman’s practically picked out the curtains already for when her daughter’s the lady of Lievedon Hall.”

Grace shook her head and leaned back against the wall. “I am staying out of it.”

One trifled with Lady Windlesham at one’s own peril.

“But Grace, you can’t abandon me! You know I’m hopeless left to my own devices.”

“Why don’t you speak to Papa?”

“Talk to a priest about my dalliance with a demirep?” he whispered. “Hardly! What will he think of me?”

“Ex-demirep,” she corrected.

“You are my only hope, Grace. You are my guiding angel—”

“Are you drunk?” she asked, merely to test his honesty.

He ignored the question. “You have to help me with Calpurnia. You fix other people’s problems, Grace! Come, you know you do. That is your designated role in life and the village, and everybody knows it! Rev wouldn’t be able to find his sermon notes if it weren’t for you. Why, the crops would probably forget to grow if you didn’t remind them, too!”

“They’re not growing this year, actually, if you haven’t noticed,” she said dryly. “You should see my poor little garden.”

The explosion of some massive volcano on the other side of the globe had robbed the earth of summer this year, and the cold was wrecking the crops. Frosts and flurries during the Season, odd-shaped hail, weird yellow skies.

Instead of the loveliness of a balmy British spring, it was gray and wet, cold and dreary.

Some people were starting to wonder if the end of the world was at hand.

The strange turn in the weather seemed all the crueler, with the war finally over. Instead of enjoying peace, now they faced the haunting specter of starvation, at least among the common folk.

There were reports of riots due to food shortages throughout England, and indeed, all of Europe. Such hardship seemed a world away from Lord Lievedon’s ballroom, but as the daughter of a pastor who also served as Overseer of the Poor for their local village, the ills of the land had become her and her father’s personal problem.

Grace didn’t even want to think about what corn prices were going to be like this winter. Not with all the mouths the parish had to feed.

“Well, I’m fairly sure the bloody volcano wasn’t my fault, at least,” George muttered.

“Language, George, please.”

“Sorry.”

Grace gave him a stern look but relented. “Very well. I will tell Calpurnia you asked after her.”

He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “You see? You
are
an angel!” But then he continued, for he’d never been one to know when to quit. “As for Callie, well, if you want my opinion, that girl needs to learn to control her temper.”

“Is that so?”

“To go into such a fury over a bit of fun with a tavern wench? Her vanity, that’s the problem. Too proud! Calpurnia Windlesham thinks she is God’s gift to man, but she’s got bats in the belfry if she thinks she can tell
me
what to do. We’re not even engaged yet!”

Grace gazed at him in calm silence while he ranted on.

“She’s pretty enough, I grant you that, but the chit’s ridiculously spoiled—and yes, I do see the irony of my saying so. You needn’t point it out.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, dear lad.”

“You should warn her if she keeps this up—holding a grudge, going out of her way to try to hurt me with all her little cruel retaliations—she’s going to lose her chance,” he warned. “I could snap my fingers and have ten better than her by the end of the night.”

“Yet here you are wasting your time talking to old, unfashionable me,” Grace teased in a low tone. “What happened to all your usual admirers, anyway?”

“They’ve found a new idol.”

“Oh, you poor, neglected thing.”

“Not at all. Look at ’im, poor bleeder.” George nodded across the ballroom in amusement. Following his gaze, Grace saw a crowd of women hemming in some fellow on the other side of the room. “Up to his eyeballs in matchmaking mamas—and bored Society wives on the hunt for a bit of the rough, I wager.”

“George! You mustn’t say such things in front of me.”

He snorted. “It’s the truth.”

Only the top of the man’s head, a shock of dark hair, could be seen above the feathered plumes adorning the ladies’ jeweled coifs. “Who’s that they’ve got cornered?”

“Lord Trevor Montgomery,” George replied with a wry, knowing lift of his eyebrows. “Yes, we’ve got no less celebrities than the Order agents here tonight in our humble home. Are you impressed?”

Grace furrowed her brow and looked at him in question.

He saw she did not recognize the term and burst out in surprise, “Oh, by Jove’s braces—my little country cousin! Don’t you read the papers?”

“No. It’s all too depressing. Well, enlighten me!” she exclaimed.

“Right. So it came out last month that the men we all thought were merely the depraved members of the Inferno Club were actually spies or warriors or assassins or something.”

“Assassins?” she retorted, sure he was teasing her again.

“I’m deadly serious, Grace! Apparently they’re part of this clandestine, hereditary order of chivalry called the Order of St. Michael the Archangel.”

“You and your cock-and-bull tales.”

“I’m telling you the truth!” he said, laughing merrily. “You should really open a paper now and then. They’re like some remnant of the Knights Templar or something, I swear. Handpicked for it as boys and trained for years until they’re lethal, then unleashed upon the world to fight for England. You’re still not impressed?”

She shrugged, eyeing him dubiously.

Even if he was not making sport of her country naïveté, she did not like violence and was not at all sure she wished to be in the same room with a government assassin.

“Apparently the Order’s been around since the Crusades,” he said. “They’ve been working for the Crown throughout the war. Bunch o’ bloody heroes—”

“George, language.” She sighed.

“Sorry. They were assigned all over Europe during the war, and just a month ago, they uncovered a plot right here in London to kill the Prime Minister.”

“Oh, yes . . . I did hear something about that.”

“I should hope so!” Then he nodded again toward the gentleman hidden by the mob of adoring females. “That chap right over there personally helped to stop the dastardly business. Once the press caught wind of it all, and the Order was exposed, the Regent saw fit to honor them in Westminster Abbey, medals and all. Ever since, the ladies won’t leave poor Montgomery alone. He’s one of the last bachelors left in their set. But don’t bother asking him about his service. He won’t discuss it—though I’m sure he has some wild tales to tell.”

“Spies, you say?” she echoed skeptically, intrigued but still not quite convinced he wasn’t bamming her.

“Well, ex-spies now. They can hardly do that sort of thing anymore, now that they’ve been lionized before the world, can they? Fame has robbed them of their vocations.”

She furrowed her brow, peered again in the ex-spy’s direction, but he was still hidden. She turned to George again uncertainly. “If what you say is true, are you sure they aren’t dangerous?”

“Well, of course they’re dangerous, but not to
us,
you little cake-head!” he said, laughing. “That’s the whole point of the Crown having men like that, isn’t it? From what I hear, they’re trained in all types of combat and codes and ciphers, and how to make explosives.” George bumped her again with his shoulder, amused at her uneasiness. “Shall I introduce you?”

“No!”

“C’mon. I’ll bet he knows nine different ways to kill you with his bare hands,” George declared, grinning at her alarm.

“Then perhaps those ladies should be a bit more careful not to crowd him so,” she retorted, her cheeks reddening.

He relented. “Ah, personally, I’m just glad they’ve found someone else to bother.”

At that moment, the glittering crowd around Lord Trevor Montgomery parted, and Grace caught her first unobstructed glimpse of the visiting Order agent.

She went very still, staring in surprise.
Good heavens.
She had never seen a bona fide hero before, but Lord Trevor Montgomery certainly looked the part, dark and dashing.

He was easily over six feet tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders that seemed to shrug off danger. He exuded virile confidence, as if there was little on earth he would not dare undertake.

He had a hard, rugged face stamped with wary cynicism that remained even when he flashed a dangerous smile at the ladies fawning on him.

At first glance, he seemed to be eating up all the attention. Though he was not a pretty fellow like some of the dandyish London peacocks strutting about tonight, he looked . . . strong.

Proud, she thought. And physically rather mighty.

She recalled what George had said about modern-day Knights Templar, and thought this man would have looked as natural in chain mail as he did in his impeccably tailored evening clothes of formal black and white.

In contrast to the gentlemanly elegance of his garb, he had long dark hair like a barbarian. Pulled back in a queue, it accented the hard angles of his square jaw and tanned skin and made him look a little, she thought, like a pirate.

Which was rather silly of her, she supposed. Odd. She was not normally one given to flights of fancy.