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CHAPTER ONE

Caine Parkhurst had the instincts of a bloodhound. He could scent trouble a mile away although he was seldom that far from it. A single man in a ballroom at the height of the Season didn't have the luxury of distance. He was smelling some of that trouble now as he and his brother kept company with a pack of Parkhurst male cousins in the sweltering June crush of Lady Barnstable's ballroom.

'Here they come,' Caine growled in low warning tones, nudging Kieran into alertness with a slight nod indicating the approach of a gaggle of giggling girls who were much too young to be circling a ballroom unchaperoned and just much too young, period. He made a grimace. Was that what youthful womanhood looked like these days? From the vantage point of his rather august thirty-eight years, eighteen seemed extraordinarily young and extraordinarily uninteresting. What did such a girl know of the world?

She'd know even less of the particular world he inhabited—a much darker world than this chandelier-lit, sparkling sphere where safety was assumed. The world of the Four Horsemen offered no such assumptions. Death was always a knife tip away. Not that London understood that. They saw the Four Horsemen only as rakes.

'Maybe they won't stop,' Kieran laughed, unconcerned. But then, Kieran was more tolerant of social foibles than he was. 'I certainly wouldn't, not with that grimace you're wearing.'

'No, they'll stop. Five pounds says I'm right. Trouble always smells the same: lilacs, lavender, and lilies.' Sweet smells, innocent smells, sometimes cloying smells worn by idealists and fools who knew nothing beyond the fairy-tale walls of their castles, never even suspecting that tonight his world crossed paths with theirs. Word had it, a saboteur might be in their midst, intent on obstructing a private shipment of funds and arms bound for the Greek independence cause.

Kieran gave a shrug of acceptance, his keen gaze homing in on the group now that there was money in play. He picked out a few. 'There's Townsend's niece, Blackhurst's cousin, and the one in pink is Darefield's girl, first Season, significant dowry to back her. She'll go fast.'

'If she can keep that insipid laugh of hers under control.' Caine scowled. He'd met Darefield's daughter at Somerset House when the art show had opened back in May. She'd made an impression and not for the best. It would be the last time he'd let his sister rope him into attending such an event, whether she was a pregnant duchess these days or not. His gaze lit on the last girl in the group, elegant, willowy, serious. A young woman who'd seen a fair share of Seasons. A clear outlier for this coterie.

'Lady Mary Kimber's a rather odd member of such a group,' Caine remarked. Odd because she was at least two years older than these girls. Was this her third Season? Perhaps her fourth? Yet even Lady Mary, who was generally regarded as an example of perfect English womanhood, looked shockingly young to him—one of many consequences, perhaps, of his participation in his grandfather's diplomatic world, shadowy edges and all. If patriotic intrigue didn't kill a man, it had no qualms about stripping away his innocence.

'They'll pass us by. They just want a peek at a questionable gentleman or two.' Kieran was all nonchalant confidence. Caine hoped his brother was right. His cousins might be here for the debutantes and dancing, but he and Kieran weren't. They were putting in an appearance tonight to satisfy their grandfather, the Earl, who had specifically requested they keep their ears to the ground in case the saboteur gave himself or his plans away.

He and Kieran were here at Lady Barnstable's, while Lucien was at Lord Morestad's birthday rout. Given his own amorous history with Lady Morestad, Caine had felt it in poor taste to attend her husband's birthday party. Meanwhile, Stepan had taken up his post at a deserted inn near Wapping to prepare the horses and await the call to action if it came, which it very well might. Intelligence, via his grandfather's trusted informant, Falcon, had brought to light earlier today that an Ottoman sympathiser was moving among society's higher echelons. Thus, the Four Horsemen's appearances tonight at various events across town in case there was further word about how and when the attempt to interfere with the shipment would come.

So far, nothing more had materialised and now it seemed that nothing might. That was the hope. If an attack was to happen at all, it would have to happen within the hour, which meant it would occur at the docks. By now, the arms would be loaded and the money would be en route under guard. The ship would sail at midnight with the tide.