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  Lavish Praise for Jane Feather and

  Violet

  “Great fan…. Feather’s well-paced plot generates lots of laughs, steamy sex and high adventure, as well as some wryly perceptive commentary on the gender stereotypes her heroine so flagrantly defies.”—Publishers Weekly

  Valentine

  “Delicious … * * * * out of 4 stars … Comes much closer to the Austen spirit than any of the pseudo-sequels.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “More than just a few cuts above the average. Each novel she pens is another challenge to her fellow writers because she has raised the quality of the historical once again.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Velvet

  “An exceptional reading experience on all levels.”

  —Rendezvous

  Vixen

  “Vixen is worth taking to bed…. Feathers last book, Virtue, was good, but this one is even better.”

  —USA Today

  Virtue

  “Jane Feather is an accomplished storyteller…. The result—a rare and wonderful battle-of-the-sexes story that will delight both historical and Regency readers.”

  —Daily News, Los Angeles

  Also by Jane Feather

  VICE

  VIOLET

  VALENTINE

  VELVET

  VIXEN

  VIRTUE

  THE DIAMOND SLIPPER

  THE SILVER ROSE

  THE EMERALD SWAN

  THE HOSTAGE BRIDE

  A VALENTINE WEDDING

  THE ACCIDENTAL BRIDE

  THE LEAST LIKELY BRIDE

  THE WIDOW’S KISS

  ALMOST INNOCENT

  TO KISS A SPY

  and coming soon

  KISSED BY SHADOWS

  Prologue

  SUSSEX, ENGLAND: 1762

  The three boys scrambled up the steep grassy incline to the clifftop above Beachy Head. A gust of wind grabbed at the kite flying high against the brilliant blue sky. Philip Wyndham took another turn of the string around his hand as he increased his speed.

  Gervase, the eldest of the three, paused, doubling over to catch his breath with the painful wheezing of the asthmatic. Cullum held out a hand and hauled his brother up with him to the clifftop. Cullum’s sturdy young body had no difficulty taking Gervase’s slight weight despite the two-year age difference, and they were both laughing as they reached Philip.

  The three stood for a minute, gazing down at the funnel carved into the cliff, falling away beneath them to the jagged rocks and pounding surf far below.

  Gervase’s thin shoulders hunched as he shuddered. He always found the funnel mesmerizing. It seemed to invite him to jump, to follow its inexorable narrowing tunnel in a violent swirl of rushing wind to the foam-tipped teeth at the bottom.

  He took a step backward. “My turn with the kite.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m supposed to have it for half an hour.” Philip snatched his arm away as Gervase reached for it.

  “You’ve had it for half an hour.” Cullum spoke with his habitual authority as he too reached for the kite string.

  A seagull swooped low over the cliff, its mournful cry picked up by a second and then a third. The three boys swayed together, grabbing for the disputed kite string while the seagulls circled above them, shadowed against the puffy white clouds.

  Cullum tripped over a loose tussock and fell to one knee. As he scrambled to his feet, Gervase lunged for the string held by a now laughing, taunting Philip. The younger boy’s slate-gray eyes narrowed abruptly. As Gervase leaped upward to catch Philip’s wrist, Philip sidestepped. His booted foot shot out, catching his brother on the calf.

  Gervase’s scream went on forever, vying with the skirling calls of the seagulls. And then it stopped.

  The two boys on the clifftop stared down the funnel at the inert bundle lying on a flat rock far beneath. The waves sucked at Gervase’s nankeen trousers.

  “You did it,” Philip said. “You tripped him.”

  Cullum gazed at his brother, shock and horror on his face. They were fraternal twins, but the only features they shared were the distinctive gray eyes of the Wyndhams. Philip was an angelic-looking child with a mass of golden curls framing his rounded face; his frame was slender, though without the thinness of ill health that had characterized Gervase. Cullum had a wavy thatch of dark-brown hair above a strong-featured face, and his body was broad and strong, his legs planted foursquare on the turf.

  “What do you mean?” he whispered, and there was dread in his voice and a ghastly vulnerability in his eyes.

  “I saw you,” Philip said in a low voice, his eyes still narrowed. “You tripped him, I saw you.”

  “No,” Cullum whispered again. “No, I didn’t. I was trying to get up myself … you were …”

  “It was you!” his brother interrupted. “I’ll tell them what I saw and they’ll believe me. You know they will.” He gazed at his brother, and Cullum felt the old helpless frustration wash through him as he read the triumph and the malice on the cherubic face. They would believe Philip. They always did. Everyone always believed Philip.

  Suddenly, he turned aside and ran wildly along the cliff, looking for a way down to his brother’s lifeless body. Philip stood and watched him until he’d disappeared over the clifftop a few yards away, his fingers for a second grubbing at the springy turf before he committed himself to the treacherously sheer climb to the rocks beneath.

  Then Philip ran back down the incline toward the narrow lane that led to Wyndham Manor, the seat of the Earl of Wyndham, the story of the accident to the earl’s eldest son bubbling from his lips, ready tears filling his eyes.

  The kite he still held flew high and jaunty behind him.

  Chapter 1

  LONDON: FEBRUARY 1780

  The crowds had been filling the streets since before dawn, jostling for the best places along the route to Tyburn, the luckiest finding spots around the gibbet itself. Despite the light snow and the raw wind, there was a holiday atmosphere: farmers and their wives, come in from the country for the entertainment, sharing the contents of their hampers with their neighbors; children dodging in and out of the throng, chasing each other, collapsing in squabbling heaps to the cobbles; sharp-eyed townsfolk, lucky enough to have houses along the route the cart would take from Newgate, shouting their prices for a seat in the window or on the roof.

  It promised to be a spectacle worth paying for, the execution of Gerald Abercorn and Derek Greenthorne, two of the most notorious gentlemen of the road who’d terrorized travelers across Putney Heath for the better part of a decade.

  “You’d think if they could catch them two, t’other wouldn’t be ’ard to get,” a rosy-cheeked woman mumbled through a mouthful of pigeon pie.

  Her husband took a bottle of rum from the capacious pocket of his great coat. “They’ll not nab Lord Nick, woman, you mark my words.” He took a hearty swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You seem very confident, sir,” an amused voice said behind him. “What makes this so-called Lord Nick harder to catch than his unfortunate friends?”

  The other man tapped the side of his nose and winked significantly. “He’s clever, see. Cleverer than a barrel of monkeys. Give the Runners the slip anytime. They says ’e can disappear in a puff of smoke, he an’ that white ’orse of ’is, jest like Old Nick, the devil ’isself.”

  His interlocutor’s smile was slightly mocking as he took a pinch of snuff. He made no response, however. He was close to the front of the crowd and, standing head and shoulders above the majority of the spectators, could easily see the gibbet over the surrounding heads. All trace of a smile was wiped clean from his face as he heard the low rumble of excitement from Tyburn Road that indicated the approach of the cart with t
he condemned men. Using his elbows, he pushed through the crowd, ignoring the curses and complaints, until he’d reached Tyburn Tree.

  John Dennis, the hangman, was already positioned on the broad cart stationed beneath the gibbet. He brushed snow from his black sleeve and peered through the now fast-falling flakes, watching for the arrival of his customers.

  “A word with you, sir.”

  Dennis jumped and looked down from his perch. A man, unremarkably dressed in a plain brown coat and britches, fixed him with a gray-eyed penetrating stare. “How much for the bodies?” he asked, drawing out a leather purse. It chinked richly as he rested it against the palm of his other hand, and Dennis’s eyes sharpened. He examined the man closely and saw that although his clothes were plain, they were well cut and of excellent cloth. His linen was spotless, although without frills, and his hat was liberally adorned with silver lace. His sharply assessing gaze encompassed the fine soft leather boots with buckles that he immediately recognized as real silver. Highwaymen—or at least Mr. Abercorn and Mr. Greenthorne—clearly had well-to-do friends.

  “Five guinea apiece,” he said without a moment’s consideration. “And three for their clothes.”

  The stranger’s Up curled, and an expression of acute distaste flickered over his countenance, but he opened his purse without another word.

  Dennis leaned down, extending his hand, and the man in brown counted the gold coins into his palm. Then he turned and beckoned four burly carriers, leaning on their carts on the outskirts of the crowd. “Convey the bodies to the Royal Oak at Putney,” he said without expression, handing them a guinea each.

  “Like as not, we’ll ’ave to fight the surgeons’ messengers for ’em, guv,” one of the four said with a leering wink.

  “When they’re safely at the Royal Oak, there’ll be another guinea each,” the man in brown said coldly. Turning on his heel, he made to push his way back through the crowd. He’d done what he’d come to do, ensured that his friends’ bodies would not end up on the dissecting table under the surgeons’ knives, but he had no stomach to see their deaths.

  He made fair progress until he reached the middle of the crowd; then the noise swelled from the Tyburn Road, heralding the imminent arrival of the prisoners from Newgate, and he found he couldn’t take another step as the excitement rose to fever pitch around him and the throng pressed ever closer to the gallows. Resigned, he stood still, bracing himself against the buffeting as the crowd jumped on tiptoe, pushed and pulled, cursed and shouted, jostling for a better view.

  “Take yer ’at off, woman!” The raucous yell was accompanied by a none too gentle shove at the monstrous confection of straw and scarlet-dyed feathers.

  The irate owner, a florid-faced carter’s wife reeking of gin, swung round and launched a stream of Billingsgate obscenity that was answered in like form. The man in brown sighed and tried to close his nostrils to the stench of alcohol and unwashed humanity as the atmosphere heated up despite the still-falling snow and the vicious wind. Something brushed against him; he felt a fluttering against his waistcoat, and he was instantly alert. He clapped his hand to his waistcoat, knowing what he would find. His watch was gone.

  Furious, he stared round at the sea of eager, panting faces, eyes glowing with excitement, mouths ajar. His livid gaze fell on an upturned face beside him, standing so close to him a wisp of cinnamon-colored hair brushed against his shoulder. It was the face of a madonna. A perfect, pale oval, with tawny gold eyes set wide apart beneath a smooth, broad brow; luxuriant dark-brown eyelashes fluttered, and her beautiful mouth quivered in distress.

  Suddenly a loud voice bellowed, “Take care of your pockets! There’s a bleedin’ pickpocket around!” and a chorus of indignation rose in the close air as people patted their clothing, felt through pockets, and discovered that they too were missing sundry items.

  Almost instantaneously, the girl standing beside him swayed, moaned, and sank downward. Instinctively, he caught her up before she could be lost in the sea of legs and heavily booted feet stamping on the cobbles. She hung limply against him, her face even paler than before, perspiration pearling her forehead.

  Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured, “Your pardon, sir,” before she collapsed again and began to slip through his hold.

  He hauled her upright, maneuvering her into his arms, and turned to push his way out of the crowd. “Let me pass. The lady is swooning,” he declared repeatedly, the harshness of his voice having some effect so that at last he managed to make his way to the rear of the throng, who were now taken up with the spectacle at the scaffold. He’d reached a relatively empty space when the great roar from the crowd told him that the cart had been driven from beneath Gerald and Derek, leaving them swinging from the gibbet. His expression grew grimmer, and his eyelids dropped for a second over eyes that were gray and cold as arctic ice.

  “My thanks, sir,” the bundle in his arms murmured in a faint voice as the girl stirred. “I have lost my friends in the crush, and I was so afraid I would be trampled. But I’ll manage very well now.”

  Her voice was surprisingly deep and rich. Her velvet cloak had fallen open as he’d pushed through the throng, revealing a simple gown of fine muslin, a discreet white fichu at the neck as befitted a modest young lady of good family. Her hands were buried in a velvet muff. She gazed up at him and offered a tremulous smile when he seemed disinclined to set her down.

  “How do you intend finding your friends?” he asked, looking around pointedly at the seething press of humanity. “They could be anywhere. This is no place for a gently bred young woman to wander alone.”

  “Pray don’t let me trouble you further, sir,” she said. “I’m certain I shall find them … they’ll be looking for me.” She moved in his hold, and he detected more than a touch of determination in her efforts to free herself.

  Suspicion flickered in his brain as he thought of the sequence of events. It had all been very convenient … but surely he was wrong. This sweet-faced, honey-voiced innocent couldn’t possibly have been light-fingering her way through the crowd.

  Philip’s face sprang unbidden to memory. Philip as he had been as a child. Angelic, gentle, coaxing, innocent little Philip. Neither of his parents would hear a word against their darling—not his parents, or his nurse, or his tutor, or any member of the household where young Philip ruled supreme.

  “Put me down, sir!” The girl’s now indignant demand brought him back to the present with a jolt.

  “In a minute,” he said thoughtfully. “But let us first devote some attention to finding your friends. Where exactly did you lose them?”

  “If I knew that exactly, sir, I would have little difficulty finding them again,” she responded tartly. “You have been very kind, and I know my uncle will be very grateful to you for rescuing me. If you give me your name and direction, I’ll ensure that a reward is sent on to you.” She wriggled again with serious purpose.

  He tightened his hold, hitching her higher up against his chest. His voice was suave as he protested, “My dear ma’am, you insult me. It would be the act of a dastard to leave such an innocent girl to fend for herself in these circumstances.” He looked around him with an air of anxious interest. “No, I really must restore you personally to your family.”

  He glanced down at her again. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, and snow was gathering on the glowing brown hair coiled smoothly around her head. Her expression was one of acute exasperation, banishing all trace of the helpless swooning maiden in distress. “Perhaps if you told me your name, we might make some inquiries,” he suggested gently.

  “Octavia,” she said through gritted teeth, praying that he’d be satisfied and set her on her feet. Once on the ground, she’d be free and clear in a second. “Octavia Morgan. And I do assure you, there is not the slightest need for you to remain with me any longer.”

  He smiled, convinced now that he was right. “Oh, but I believe there is, Miss Morgan. Octavia … what an unusual name.”


  “My father is a classical scholar,” she responded automatically, her mind now working swiftly as she finally understood that he was playing with her. But why? Was he intending to take advantage of her present vulnerability? On the whole, he didn’t strike her as a man likely to ravish a young lady in distress. He looked and spoke like a gentleman, although his plain garments and unpowdered hair indicated someone who didn’t inhabit the Fashionable World.

  But if not that, why wouldn’t he let her go? The fruits of her morning’s work were concealed in a pouch tied around her waist and lying snugly against her thigh beneath her top petticoat. She could reach for it through the slit in her dress that enabled her to adjust the position of her whalebone panniers when moving through a narrow doorway. He couldn’t possibly feel the pouch, even holding her as he was, but it was time to bring this dismayingly intimate encounter to a close.

  Her hand came out of her muff, and she drove the heel of her palm into his chin, jolting his head back. At the same time, she twisted her head and bit his upper arm hard.

  He dropped her like a hot brick, and she was up and running, weaving through the crowd with a desperate agility; but she knew he was on her heels, a silent, deadly pursuit. She ducked into an alley, gasping for breath, hoping she’d given him the slip, but then she saw him advancing on the mouth of the alley, a look of set purpose on his face.

  She plunged out of the alley and back into the rowdy crowd that was beginning to disperse. The mood was now quarrelsome and voices were raised in streams of abuse, fights erupting as knots of people struggled to get out of the square. A rank of chairmen touted for custom as the throng eddied past them and Octavia headed for the line. She glanced over her shoulder, praying that her pursuer had followed her into the alley, but he was still behind her, keeping pace with her, pushing through the crowd, seeming not to hurry and yet somehow gaining. There was a relentlessness to this dogged pursuit, and her heart began to thump, the first tremors of panic fluttering over her skin. She had his watch. If he’d guessed and was intending to capture her and bring her before the magistrates with the evidence still about her, then she’d be facing the hangman as surely as the two unfortunates whose deaths had just provided the crowd with such an amusing morning.