The Leading Lady (Half Moon House Series) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and not to be construed as real. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The Leading Lady

  Copyright 2015 by Deb Marlowe

  Cover Design by Lily Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means--except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews--without written permission by the author.

  For more information:

  www.DebMarlowe.com

  Don't miss the other books in the Half Moon House Series

  With Many Thanks to Mary Ann Landers for her idea to name the inn The Sword and the Sheath

  and

  To Deb’s Debutantes—the nicest group of ladies I know! Thanks for listening, sharing your joys and woes, for being fabulous cheerleaders and just for being there, every day!

  Table of 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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Other books in the Half Moon House Series

  Chapter One

  Dover, England

  1814

  You think you can imagine my joy, dear reader, at that first taste of freedom after months of Lord M—’s abuse. You cannot. I could scarcely contain myself. That first glimpse of the half moon and its accompanying stars—that sky was the picture of relief, of hope, of liberty and possibility. It was the brightest light in my life, before or since, and I’ve long labored to bring the same to others in need.

  —from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

  A man who had lost everything is the most dangerous of all. That's what the old wives said, wasn't it? Well, what the hell did they know, after all? Someone should make them amend it.

  Disrespectful, old boy.

  He was sorry for it, perhaps. Most old wives had likely lived long enough to know their share of pain and disappointment, betrayal and death. Still, he would correct that common misconception, if he could.

  A man with nothing to lose is surely the most reckless of all.

  Lord Truitt Russell should know.

  Except, he hadn't lost everything that was important to him. He hadn't misplaced his honor or his good name. They'd been stolen from him. And right now he felt reckless indeed, as if he'd do any damned thing to get them back.

  He leaned back in his chair as laughter ricocheted about the taproom. Loud, infectious and fueled by endless pints of the hearty local brew, it managed to brighten even the smoke-haunted, weary tone of the Cloak and Dagger Inn.

  Contagious, that sort of half-drunken, high good humor. The Inn was the favored post-performance haunt of Dover’s theatrical troupes. Tonight, actor, singer and stagehand alike drank deep, celebrating some triumphant performance. Spirits flew high, along with banter, wit and the kind of happy, ribald ribbing that made an onlooker wish to join in.

  He might have done so, once. Not long ago he might have bought a round and pulled that buxom seamstress into his lap as he took a chair amongst them. He might have spent his evening laughing hard and holding his own in the barrage of fast-flying barbs. He might have finished out the night with a joyous romp betwixt that pretty girl’s curves and between her thighs.

  But that was before—before his disgrace, before his own abysmal lack of judgment led him to unwittingly aid a nefarious plot against his own king and country.

  Before Marstoke.

  He shook off the burning fury that came with the thought of the manipulative marquess and kept his attention fixed on his quarry. Tonight he meant to do any damned thing, and he was bound and determined to do something reckless.

  He focused, keeping track of his prey even as he pasted a benevolent half-grin on his face and pretended to watch the frolicking actors.

  Two men were his real focus, both young and wellborn. They sat hunched, heads together, as if the smoke and the crowd and the shadows at the back of the room were not enough to keep them hidden.

  Tru knew them, though they were younger than he by several years. Nick Penrith, Lord Rutherford’s fifth son and the other, Lyle Rackham, a nephew of Viscount Beryl. He’d never exchanged words with them or sat across from either of them at dinner, for all that they’d nominally belonged to the beau monde. He didn’t think they knew him. He was being careful, nonetheless.

  Damnation, but it was a chore to keep that idiotic look on his face, to hide the great swath of his resentment. But they were but pawns, these two, and a brace of fools in the bargain. Young and malleable enough to be made into zealots. Old enough to be hung for treason.

  The same fate Marstoke and his cohorts had meant for him.

  He wanted to haul the pair outside to the cobbled street and beat them within an inch of their lives. He, at least, had been tricked into carrying out his part in the Marquess of Marstoke’s dishonorable scheming. These two embraced betrayal with their eyes open. They played at it like children, with obvious excitement and smug, self-important whispers. It seemed a miracle that he had been the only one to discern their connection to the missing Marstoke and their clumsy, continued efforts on his behalf.

  But though Tru deplored their actions—and the amateurish way they went about them—he didn’t have to question the why of it.

  He knew.

  They were younger sons, extraneous branches on the family tree. Tru knew the difficulties of struggling to thrive in the shadow of a noble older brother. He knew the lost feeling, the bitterness that came from invisibility, from struggling to find an identity even as the family scion was handed his. And those two were a good bit further down their respective lines than he. Sunlight was scarce so far from the top, as was a sense of purpose and value.

  Yes, resentment and dissatisfaction could easily flourish in the shade. Marstoke would have seen it—and put it to his own twisted use.

  He wiped his mouth with a sleeve. The how, the why, and the wherefores—none of it mattered. Only Marstoke mattered. Where he was hiding, what he was plotting now and how he could be dragged back to justice--those were the subjects that consumed Tru. And thanks to Penrith’s valet, who had a penchant for dice and a willingness to cover his losses by taking a bribe, he knew that these two were even now traveling to join the marquess.

  Perhaps the hefty weight of their mission had at last lent them an air of seriousness. He’d had to be more careful tonight in tailing them. Even now one of them swept the room with a searching glance. Tru took another deep swill of ale, pretending to choke with laughter as one of the actors spun about a pillar.

  “There once lived a maid, quite busty

  Whose thirst could be labeled quite lusty . . .”

  Tru called out encouragement along with the rest of the delighted patrons. But the hair on his neck was bristling, his instincts screaming. He hazarded a glance in the pair’s direction, and just caught sight of them disappearing into a n
arrow door set in the wall at the end of the bar.

  “I vow that this won’t leave ye dusty!”

  The actor finished his limerick with a crude grab at his crotch. Tru stood, intentionally staggering a bit, and shaking with laughter. He hitched up his borrowed, worn breeches and left a thumb tucked into the waistband. A happy drunk in search of a privy could be forgiven many sins.

  He stumbled a bit as he made his way to the door, but he turned the latch with silent stealth. It opened onto a short passage, so narrow a heftier man would have difficulty navigating it, and ending just past a lone doorway on the right. It was lit with a single tallow lamp sputtering on a ledge next to the doorframe.

  Tru slipped in. He eased up to the door to listen. Murmurs? Perhaps. But they were faint.

  He considered. It could be damned difficult to fight free, were he caught in this narrow space. But what if Marstoke was inside that room at this very moment? His pulse quickened at the notion. His gut burned for vengeance, for the chance at redemption. He couldn’t leave without knowing.

  He eased the door open, just the slightest bit.

  Nothing, save darkness. Silence. He tensed. Waited. Not a sound came from the room.

  Just a bit further, ever so slowly.

  He peered in—and with a filthy curse that echoed loudly in the limited space he threw the door open. Just in time to see the wall panel across from him slide closed. In time for the burly man closing it to catch sight of him. In time for the bastard to grin, his gold tooth shining, and toss Tru a saucy wink as the hidden door slid shut.

  “Hell, no,” Tru said. “No, no, no.” He reached the panel in a rush and thumped it with his fist. Was that an answering laugh, faint and fading away? Frantic he pushed against the wall, trying to make it slide back. It didn’t budge. Cursing, he searched with his hands, running them over the dusty plaster, hoping to feel a latch or a trigger. Frustrated, he began to search the shelves nearby, knocking things to the floor in his haste. Nothing. He reached lower and began to shift barrels and sacks of flour.

  “The doors into those tunnels open only from the other side,” a lethally soft voice said from behind him.

  Tru spun about, sinking into a crouch and reaching for the knife in his boot. A form leaned casually against the frame of the door he’d just entered.

  He didn’t hesitate. Without a sound he sprang, and in an instant he had his knife at the stranger’s throat and the man’s arm twisted up high and tight behind him. “Open it,” he growled.

  “Can’t be done,” his prisoner said easily. “Though I would if I could.”

  Abruptly, Tru released the man. “Stoneacre,” he said in disgust. “That’s the second time in our short acquaintance that you’ve surprised me in such a manner.” He stepped back with a scowl. “It’s a habit that could easily get you killed.”

  “Not as quickly as going into these tunnels uninvited will,” the earl countered.

  “What do you know of it?”

  Stoneacre had shown up at the end of last month’s debacle with Marstoke, charged by the King’s Privy Council to investigate the rumors regarding the treasonous marquess.

  “Didn’t you look up when you entered this place? The Cloak and Dagger is built right into the chalk cliffs. The castle is up there, nearly directly overhead.” Stoneacre grinned. “Just a few short years ago, those tunnels housed two thousand army men, ready to defend us from the French. Now the Coastal Blockade means to use it to fight smuggling—which makes it that much more ironic that parts of it have been blocked off and reconfigured and are run by gangs of smugglers and ruffians.”

  He frowned. “It cannot be opened from here?”

  The earl shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  Tru aimed a savage kick at a wine cask, allowing the violence to serve both as answer and opinion. “What in hell are you doing here, in any case?”

  “Watching you watch that pair of wet-behind-the-ears nodcocks, it would seem.” He crossed his arms. “We knew that pair have got themselves mixed up with Marstoke’s scheming. We’ve been watching them—and we were somewhat shocked to find you doing the same.” He raised a brow. “Just how did that come about?”

  Tru wondered at times if the Privy Council was the true extent of the earl’s connections, especially when he spoke so casually of what ‘we’ thought or ‘we’ found. But one thing Tru did know, Stoneacre wanted Marstoke almost as much as he did. Moreover, Stoneacre already knew the worst. He could trust him with the rest. He drew a deep, steadying breath. “That night, in London—the evening when the Russian girl was abducted—”

  “Ah yes,” Stoneacre interrupted with a grin. “The night you so valiantly came to her rescue.”

  “Yes, that night,” he agreed bitterly. “When I stepped in, rescued a girl who didn’t truly need saving, got myself trapped in Marstoke’s nets, destroyed my reputation and ruined my life.”

  Stoneacre raised a brow. “Exaggerating just a bit, are you not?”

  “Why don’t you ask around and discover if it’s exaggeration or not? No one knows exactly what happened that night at the theater with the Prince Regent and all the foreign dignitaries. But they know something happened. They know Marstoke disappeared that night. They know his house has been searched, his servants questioned, his papers confiscated. And they know that I was working closely with the marquess on some quiet project. They see how the Prince Regent has distanced himself from me.” He clenched his fists. “Why don’t you question the tradesmen who will no longer extend me credit? Ask them about exaggerations. Ask the hostesses who no longer invite me to their parties. Or the impudent chit who crossed Bond Street the other day to avoid passing within the pavement’s width of me?”

  And he couldn’t even bear to mention the look of doubt in the Prince Regent’s eyes. They’d been friends for years, comrades if not exactly confidantes. But now Prinny held himself distant, as if he believed Tru might have participated in the scheme to make him look weak and foolish, unfit to rule.

  “It’s not tailors, society matrons, or impudent chits that bother you, though, is it?” the other man asked quietly.

  “God, no.”

  Stoneacre had been there, at the end. He’d seen the depth of Tru’s folly. He’d helped Tru and his brother avert the disaster Tru had unwittingly helped to set in motion. He understood the political chaos that might have come about, the riots, the social upheaval, the shift in history itself, should Marstoke have succeeded.

  But Stoneacre didn’t know what had happened inside Tru when he’d fallen for Marstoke’s manipulations. He couldn’t see the old doubts that came rushing back, the despair at having to face his own uncertainties again. And Tru didn’t want him—or anyone else—to suspect.

  All he wanted was to go back—back to the time when he could hold his head high and he was the only person who gave a thought to his inadequacies.

  “In any case, I got close to a few of those blackguards that night.” The abduction might not have been what it appeared, but the fight to keep him from aiding the girl had been real enough. “I thought I recognized Penrith’s boy, behind his mask. So I did a little investigating. And I found that he is indeed mixed up in Marstoke’s scheming. In fact, I have good reason to believe that he and his nodcock friend, as you so aptly named them, are headed to meet with Marstoke at this very moment.” He turned away and stepped away from the wall. “So stop talking and lend me your aid. If you are the expert, tell me how to get inside there.”

  “You cannot go in there. Some of these passages are ancient. Some are dangerous. The ones that connect here are well and jealously guarded. Those boys entered with advanced arrangements and a good deal of ready coin. If you go in without both, you’ll come out a corpse.”

  Frustration roiled up and out of him. “Damn it, Stoneacre! Did you hear what I said? They are going to Marstoke. I must find him. You know that. This is the best lead I’ve found since the blighter disappeared. If I can’t follow those two, what would you have
me do?”

  Stoneacre straightened. His grin looked eerie in the dim light. “Come with me instead. There’s no need to follow them. I’ll take you where they are headed.”

  Tru stared. “You’ve found him?”

  “We’ve discovered where’s he’s been hiding.”

  A great weight lifted from Tru’s chest. Suddenly he could breathe, as he hadn’t been able to for weeks. A flare of hunger, of purpose, roared to life in his gut. “Let’s go.”

  “It will mean a lengthy trip,” Stoneacre warned.

  “I don’t care if it means storming the gates of Hell. Let’s go get him.”

  Stoneacre nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re going. We have a stop to make first, though.”

  ***

  Callie Grant’s temper had stretched to the end of its tether. Even in the dark and the rain, this end of Dover smelled of tidal mud and rotting fish. A light drizzle began to fall, dampening the stink not a whit. It would have to be a deluge to make a difference in this dimly lit, rubbish-filled lane.

  “Don’t think you can lie to me, Birch.” She summoned her best, most effective snarl and tossed it at the huge man. “I know you and your friend accosted Letty Robbins in London last week.”

  Birch’s cohort, an evil-looking cur with a great scar across his forehead, sidled a bit to his right—the better to box her in.

  “Stay where you are!” she barked. “The both of you.” With deliberate slowness she inched her hand from the folds of her skirt, displaying only the butt end of her pistol.

  The cur froze, but Birch only scrubbed a weary hand across his face. A white smear followed in the trail of his fingers. “Weren’t no accosting goin’ on, Callie Grant. ‘Twere just a job. An escort job, like. What is it ye want? I’m gettin’ wet, but my throat’s still dry.” A raucous sailor’s song drifted from the tavern the pair had been approaching before she stopped them. He glanced toward the door with clear longing.

  “I saw you myself, hustling Letty away,” Callie declared. She’d literally dropped everything—abandoning her full market basket in the street—to follow the trio through London’s busy streets to a coaching inn in the Strand. The two men had obviously planned ahead—they were handing Letty into a stage when Callie rushed into the courtyard. She’d been forced to jump aside as the coach surged out into the street, but a young ostler had informed her that it was bound for Dover.