Truly a Wife (Free Fellows League 4)

Miranda was familiar with the lime and spice cologne custom mixed for him by Taylor’s of Old Bond Street. Daniel had worn that fragrance for as long as she could remember. She had caught a faint whiff of it when she’d donned his waistcoat and jacket, but the fragrance had been overshadowed by the metallic smell of his blood. The rain had washed the blood and the scent of Daniel’s cologne from the fabric. But she now was surrounded by it once again, and the added cachet was the feel of his skin and the not unpleasant aroma of Scots whisky surrounding him. An unconventional blend of fragrances to be sure, but a blend she found strangely comforting and appealing.

Pressing her body as closely as possible against him, Miranda closed her eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless, exhausted sleep.

Chapter Ten

“A few honest men are better than numbers.”

—Oliver Cromwell, 1599–1658

“What do you mean he’s late?” Colin, Viscount Grantham, demanded of Griffin, first Duke of Avon, who announced that the Marquess of Shepherdston had sent a note saying he’d been delayed. “Jarrod is never late.”

“Shepherdston sends his apologies,” Griffin elaborated. “He’s been detained and will be late.”

The Free Fellows were meeting in their customary meeting room at White’s on Thursday morning following the Duchess of Sussex’s annual gala. The room was set with enough coffee, spirits, and cigars for six men: the three original Free Fellows—Griffin, Colin, and Jarrod—and the three newest ones—Daniel, Duke of Sussex, Jonathan Manners, the Earl of Barclay, and Alexander, the Marquess of Courtland.

Barclay had settled onto a chair near the fire. Courtland sat at one end of the massive leather sofa, and Griffin sat on the other end. Colin was sprawled on his favorite large chair beside the drinks table, but Shepherdston’s habitual place was empty.

Griff cupped his hand around his ear, exaggerating the motion as the casement clock chimed the half hour. “There is always a first time. And today is Jarrod’s. He’s late.”

“He’s not the only one.” Colin glanced around. The Duke of Sussex’s favorite chair opposite Barclay’s was also empty. “Where’s His Grace? Hasn’t he returned from the coast yet?”

“I saw him last night at his mother’s gala, so he must have returned late yesterday,” Griff offered. “I didn’t get the opportunity to speak with him in the crush of people there, but I saw him.”

“So did I,” Barclay added.

“Then where is he?” Colin asked.

Courtland shrugged his shoulders, then leaned forward to pour himself a cup of coffee from the silver coffee service on the low table. “I was at the duchess’s ball last night, but I arrived later in the evening. I didn’t see Daniel.”

“Sussex knows we’re meeting this morning,” Colin said. “And he knows he’s supposed to brief us on the progress of his mission. It isn’t like him not to be here.”

“Shepherdston is late and Sussex is missing,” Barclay added. “It’s a most unusual morning already.”

Although they’d originally begun as a secret group of schoolboys, the members had put their secret league to work against Bonaparte, working very closely with the Foreign Office and the War Office.

The secret work that Colin and Jarrod and Sussex did came under the auspices of a staff of graduates of the Royal Military College and Lieutenant Colonel Colquhoun Grant. While Grant gathered battlefield information on the Peninsula, Jarrod, Colin, and Sussex gathered information on a much larger field of battle, and all of it was analyzed, enciphered, deciphered, and included in the constant flow of military dispatches overseen by Griffin’s father, the Earl of Weymouth.

When Griffin became a national hero, the Prince Regent and Prime Minister had asked that he retire from active duty in his cavalry regiment, and he’d agreed. But retirement from the regiment hadn’t kept him from engaging the enemy.

Griffin and Jarrod and Sussex occupied higher positions in society and were subject to more social obligations and more scrutiny than the other Free Fellows. They were limited, in many ways, to planning, arranging, and financing the clandestine war against Bonaparte, but they were still very much a part of it.

While Griffin had been publicly honored for his service to his country, the Free Fellows League and each member’s connection to it remained secret to all but a handful of close associates. Griff, Jarrod, and Sussex engaged in the occasional secret smuggling holiday, but Colin, as a relatively unimportant and poor viscount, had been the primary foot soldier in the field, and therefore the Free Fellow most at risk.

But that had all changed when Colin had married an heiress. With two of the original Free Fellows married, more help was needed. Jarrod and Colin had recruited Sussex while Griffin was serving with his cavalry regiment on the Peninsula. And in turn, Griffin and Jarrod and Sussex had approached Barclay and Courtland while Colin was on his honeymoon.

The number of close associates had expanded slightly with the addition of Sussex and the two newest candidates for admission into the Free Fellows League, Jonathan Manners, the eleventh Earl of Barclay, and Alexander, second Marquess of Courtland, but Jarrod, Griffin, and Colin were satisfied that their secret was safe and that the associates close to Sussex, Barclay, and Courtland were entirely trustworthy.

As the newest members of the League, Barclay and Courtland had gradually assumed Colin’s role as primary foot soldiers in their clandestine war with their French counterparts. And Sussex and Jarrod had undertaken more smuggling missions so the married members of the League could stay close to London to fulfill social and business obligations and to spend more time with their wives.

Sussex had spent the past two days on a smuggling mission to France, but had been scheduled to return in time to attend his mother’s annual gala ball.

Jarrod had sent word that he would be late, but they had heard nothing from Sussex, which was unprecedented and very troubling.

“You’re certain you saw Daniel at the duchess’s party last night?” Colin asked Griffin.

“I’m quite certain,” Griff answered.

“But you said there was a huge crush.” Colin began to pace back and forth in Jarrod’s customary pattern.