Chapter 1

December 1823

York, England

T he wind yanked at Clarissa Weatherby’s cloak as she hurried across the River Foss. She grabbed it with her free hand to keep it from blowing away, but she did not slow her stride. The mail coach would leave the Black Swan Inn at a quarter past six, and she had to be on it.

It was already six o’clock—full dark this time of year, but there was light enough coming from the shops and taverns that lined the street to prevent her from tripping over the cobblestones. It was still warm enough that the scattered snowflakes being blown about were melting as soon as they hit the ground, but it was colder than Clarissa had expected. The temperature had probably dropped five degrees since she had stepped outside, and she found herself wishing she’d worn her thicker cloak.

She lifted her chin. It did not matter. She still had to get on that coach regardless of the worsening weather. She would just have to hope for the best.

The road widened into Peasholme Green, and Clarissa spotted the old inn, its dark timber frame stark against its whitewashed plaster. She hurried through the door beneath one of its twin gables and approached the bar. “I need passage to Helmsley,” she said, pushing her hood back.

The barman had a friendly look about him, with a balding head and a few grey hairs in his thick mustache. “Helmsley?” he asked, pausing in the act of polishing a pint glass. “Oh, no, miss. You don’t want to be going to Helmsley tonight. Not with the storm that’s brewing.”

Clarissa pulled a handful of coins from her pocket and began counting them out. “I don’t much want to go. But I have no choice in the matter.”

“Oh?” the barman asked. “And what is of such great urgency?”

Clarissa paused. The truth was, she did not know, and she would not know until she had the chance to read the letter her employer, Lady Winnifred FitzSimon, had pressed into her hand as she hurried her out the door.

But her ladyship had communicated that the errand, whatever it was, was of the utmost urgency. It was so crucial, in fact, that Lady Winnifred—who had been laid up in bed for the past three days, trembling with fever—had insisted upon sending Clarissa to Helmsley Castle alone, even though her training as an agent for the Home Office was nowhere near complete.

The barman was waiting for an answer. “It’s my mother,” Clarissa lied. “She has been unwell these past few years. I had a letter from my sister, and she fears it is her time.”

“Ah. I can see why you would chance it, then.” He accepted the handful of coins Clarissa passed him. “It happens that there’s one other soul crazy enough to try it in this weather.”

“Oh?” Clarissa asked, hoisting her valise.

“A gentleman, by the looks of him,” the barman confirmed. “Now, if you’re wanting a hot brick for your feet, that will be an extra penny.”

Clarissa did want the hot brick. Hopefully, that would be enough to get her to the next coaching inn without freezing. Having finalized her arrangements, she returned to the inn yard, where the red and black mail coach was waiting.

As there were so few passengers, the coachman allowed her to keep her valise with her. Clarissa climbed in, curious to see who her traveling companion for the next twenty hours would be.

The only greeting she received upon entering the coach was a soft snore. Her fellow passenger was slumped in a corner of the front-facing seat, head tipped back at an angle that seemed destined to leave him with a crick in his neck. Before surrendering to Hypnos’s spell, he had spread his black, mink-lined cloak over himself like a blanket, meaning that Clarissa could only see his face. He looked to be around Clarissa’s own age, which was to say, young for a man, and hopelessly on the shelf for a woman. She could not tell if he was handsome, with his head lolling back and his mouth hanging open, but she saw that he had blond hair and a bump on his nose.

Settling into the opposite corner of the rear-facing seat, Clarissa debated the merits of pulling out the letter Lady Winnifred had given her detailing her mission. On the one hand, she was dreadfully curious about what it might say. It also seemed like a good idea to know what task she was to undertake before she went strolling into the lion’s den. Besides, her companion gave every indication of being out cold.

On the other hand, Clarissa knew from personal experience that appearances could be deceiving. Pretending to snooze in a chair next to the fire was the preferred method Lady Winnifred employed when there was eavesdropping to be done.

Clarissa was ostensibly serving as Lady Winnifred’s companion. When the world looked at Lady Winnifred, they saw the seventy-two-year-old aunt of the current Duke of Wroxley.

But Winnifred FitzSimon was more than that.

She was a spy .

Clarissa had been introduced to Lady Winnifred by her great-niece, Lady Francesca FitzSimon. Guests at the same house party, Clarissa and Francesca had struck up a friendship while rehearsing a scene from Shakespeare to entertain their fellow guests on a rainy day. It had been something of an unlikely pairing. Lady Francesca was the daughter of a duke, while Clarissa was the penniless daughter of an unsuccessful naturalist. Lady Francesca was beautiful and demure, and Clarissa was a tart-tongued spinster.

But the thing they had in common was that they both chafed at the roles society had laid out for them. Lady Francesca had no desire to marry, but her parents were determined to see her wed to a lord within a year. Clarissa had no taste for marriage, either. Years ago, she had been betrothed to a man named Rupert Dupree, who was the younger son of the Earl of Rottenbury. It had been a match arranged by one of her dearly departed mother’s distant cousins, the Countess of Milthorpe, meaning that Clarissa had never clapped eyes upon her intended.

This had not prevented Rotten Rupert, as Clarissa now thought of him, from penning a scathing letter forcefully rejecting his proposed union with Clarissa. Even worse, instead of having the letter delivered to Clarissa privately, he had sent it to every newspaper from Shetland to Cornwall. This had set off a brief but furious frenzy in which not only Clarissa but also her three sisters, Eleanor, Kate, and Pippa, had been derided in the scandal sheets. The gossip rags had even given them a nickname—the Weatherby Wallflowers.

Fortunately for him, Rupert Dupree had decamped for the Continent by the time those newspapers reached Boroughbridge, the tiny village in Yorkshire where Clarissa had grown up. She might be slight in build and without training in fencing, fisticuffs, and the like, but nonetheless, it would not go well for Rotten Rupert were he to encounter her in a dark alley.

After that, the blush was off the rose as far as marriage was concerned. Not that Clarissa was the type of girl who had been planning their wedding since the age of six. The thing that Clarissa wanted most was the chance to make use of her wits. Were she a man, she fancied she would have been a Member of Parliament, ferociously debating the issues of the day and crafting legislation that would make the world a better place. She wanted to leave her mark, to do something important, not waste away in a tiny village, embroidering handkerchiefs and never getting the chance to use the six languages she had taught herself from books borrowed from the circulating library.

That also happened to be the reason Lady Francesca had thought to introduce Clarissa to her great-aunt. After her jilting, Clarissa had taken to wearing gowns in dull colors, which her sisters referred to as “Clarissa’s dirt-colored dresses.”

“Why would I want to draw the notice of a man?” Clarissa had asked Lady Francesca, who understood. “I prefer to blend into the wallpaper. Although perhaps my drab dresses are a little too effective in this regard. You would be astonished at the things I overhear sometimes. People don’t even realize that I’m standing beside them.”

Clarissa would never forget the way her friend’s spine had gone ramrod straight. Glancing about to make sure they were alone, Lady Francesca had asked, “Have I ever told you about my Great-Aunt Winnifred?”

What Lady Francesca had proceeded to explain was that spies did not look the way they were portrayed in novels. A dashing young army officer in a red coat would draw every eye in the room and arouse every suspicion as well.

The seventy-two-year-old woman snoozing by the fire, on the other hand? According to Lady Winnifred, old women were all but invisible to begin with. Close your eyes and throw in a fake snore and every villain from here to Thurso would discuss their most dastardly plans right in front of you, not even bothering to lower their voices.

And so, spies were usually the last person you suspected. The old lady. The scullery maid.

The wallflower in the dirt-colored dress.

Lady Francesca had offered to make introductions, an offer Clarissa had accepted with alacrity. Sure enough, Lady Winnifred thought Clarissa had great potential, an assessment echoed by her contact at the Home Office, Sir Henry Kenchington. Sir Henry had spent a half hour peppering Clarissa with rapid-fire questions. He had seemed pleased with her command of French, Spanish, High German, Low German, Dutch, and even Russian.

Once the interview concluded, Sir Henry removed his spectacles, rubbing his nose. “I have a theory, Miss Weatherby, that behind every weakness, there lies a strength, if you have the wit to see it. You have described yourself as a wallflower. Society derides wallflowers, of course, as spinsters in the making. They are unadmired and, most importantly, unnoticed.” He had fixed her with his pale blue gaze. “Congratulations, Miss Weatherby. Your weakness is now your strength. I hope this is the start of a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

It had been the best thing to ever happen to Clarissa. No longer would she be stuck frittering her days away embroidering handkerchiefs. She would be able to make use of her natural abilities. She was going to do something important!

She was assigned to train under Lady Winnifred. The two of them had just completed their first assignment, a simple mission to gather information about a gentleman smuggling French wine in Whitby. They had been heading back to London to await their next mission when Lady Winnifred fell ill in York. Her ladyship had sent a letter to Sir Henry to let him know that they would stay there so she could convalesce.

Sir Henry’s reply was presently burning a hole in Clarissa’s pocket.

With a cry from the driver, the mail coach set forth. The man on the opposite bench seat lurched forward, then backward, his head thumping against the thin grey padding that lined the wall of the coach. But he did not awaken.

Clarissa peered at him. He really did seem to be asleep. And what were the chances he could read the contents of her letter from the facing seat? She would be hard-pressed to make out the words by the carriage lamps as it was.

Were he to awaken, all he would see was a woman reading a letter. There was nothing inherently suspicious about that!

Thus resolved, Clarissa removed the letter from her pocket and unfolded it eagerly.