Chapter 1

ENGLAND, 1882 – TWELVE YEARS LATER

Elise Hamblin raised her skirts with one hand as she climbed the steps up to the townhouse at 223 Baker Street, her heart growing lighter with every step. Just beyond this door, a world of possibilities awaited. A brass plaque hung to the right of the door with the words "Societas Rebellium Dominarum – Established 1821" on it.

Every Monday afternoon, she came here to meet with the other members of the private society. The name was as close in Latin as they could get to "The Society of Rebellious Ladies." She rang the bell, and the butler in charge of the residence answered the door.

"Good afternoon, Miss Hamblin," Mr. Atkins greeted warmly.

"Hello, Atkins." She winked at the butler fondly as she stepped inside and removed her hat and gloves before passing them to a waiting footman. "How many do we have today?"

"Today? Just you, Lady Cinna, and Miss Tewksbury. The rest are still on assignment and will report back next week, I believe." Atkins, despite his appearance as a stodgy old man, was quite supportive of the society's efforts to spread intellectual studies among women. It certainly helped that his daughter, a woman who would have otherwise been bound for a life of service as a maid, was studying engineering and had far more career opportunities than a woman in her position would have had without such an education.

"Ah yes, that's right. Thank you, Atkins." Elise proceeded up the stairs to the drawing room, where Cinna and Edwina, her friends, would be waiting for her.

As the president of the society, she was tasked with keeping up with the assignments the members took, but this past week she had been busy with daughterly duties for her father and purchasing a fine new racehorse. Between hosting dinners for her father's business partners and researching the various breeding stallions and mares, she had been quite busy. At twenty-six, she had grown into the hostess role quite well, but it wasn't her preferred way to spend her time. She lived for the society's meetings, chances to explore the world around her and even attend horse races. She had a thousand exciting dreams that held her heart and none of those existed in the domestic sphere.

She traced the edges of a gold plaque that decorated the wall next to the drawing room with her finger. It read: All those who seek to learn are welcome here.

Inside, she found her two friends in a lively debate. Lady Cinna Belmont was showing off a design for a bridge, while Edwina Tewksbury argued about the bridge supports it would need.

"Yes, but if you add the height of the cables here—" Cinna's dark hair tumbled down her shoulder as she leaned in. "Then you can see how it could support the bridge."

Edwina peered over her shoulder at the paper, her lips pursed. "Well, I suppose it might work. We should test it with scaled models first, shouldn't we?"

"Nonsense. The math is sound. I'd stake my life on it." Cinna glanced up as Elise closed the door to the drawing room. "Elise, what do you think?" She turned the drawing on the table toward Elise so she could see it as she approached them.

It was a lovely cable-stayed bridge design. Elise was no skilled engineer like Cinna, but in her time at the society, she had learned far more about engineering than other ladies.

"I'm sure your calculations are correct, but one can never be too careful. Perhaps a model is the right place to start?" Elise said. "Just to test the strength before we send the proposal to Jacobs and Ellicott?" Jacobs and Ellicott was the engineering firm that Cinna secretly submitted her designs to under a male pseudonym.

"Oh, all right then," Cinna sighed. "Is it time for the meeting?"

"Yes." Elise collected the latest reports from their members from a nearby table. "Atkins will be up with tea and sandwiches soon. Shall we begin?"

Elise chose a seat on the couch beneath portraits of two of the society's founding members, Audrey Sheridan and Lysandra Russell. They, along with others, had founded the society in 1821 to give women a safe place to learn, share ideas, and advance themselves in academic, scientific, or artistic endeavors.

It was the only society of its kind that they knew of, and its membership was kept quite secret. Much like the gentlemen's clubs, they required prospective members to apply for membership, but not everyone was accepted. Those who were turned down were applicants more interested in the excitement of engaging in something they saw as novel or even forbidden, rather than growing their intellectual knowledge. The society had no other restrictions. The women who joined needed to crave knowledge of some kind.

Half of the society's members were married, and many had children, while the rest were single women or widows. Plenty had found it possible to continue to make time for the society despite having husbands or children. Elise, Cinna, and Edwina were single and spent far more time at the society's townhouse on Baker Street than the other members. It was rather fun to have their own place to hide from the world, just as the gentlemen had their clubs when they wanted to hide from their wives.

"I call to order this meeting of the Society of—" Elise's preamble was interrupted by the shrieking strains of a violin. It pierced the walls between the society's headquarters and the townhouse next door.

"Oh, good heavens," Elise muttered.

Cinna covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh, and Edwina let out an unladylike curse that made the others giggle. The violin was so loud that it was quite impossible to continue their meeting.

"Whose turn is it this time?" Cinna asked as the violin continued to shriek like a cat with its tail stuck in a door.

"I can't remember," Elise sighed. "Shall we play stone, paper, and scissors?" They had recently discovered the Far Eastern game of hand gestures to settle their disputes. It was a tradition that had existed in Asia since the seventeenth century but had only just found its way to England. The three of them leaned forward into a huddle and balled their right hands into fists in their left palms.

"One, two, three," Elise counted as they tapped their fists into their palms, then each chose a hand gesture to represent a stone, a piece of paper, or scissors.

"Blast!" Elise said. She had stone, while Cinna and Edwina both had chosen paper.

"Good luck with our neighbor," Cinna called out cheekily as Elise stood and proceeded out of the society's headquarters and headed for the residence next door.

The woman who answered the door was a plain, middle-aged creature, but she had the most gentle and caring soul Elise had ever known. She had often shared afternoon tea with this woman and commiserated over the man she was about to confront.

"Hello, Elise dear," the woman greeted.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, Mrs. Hudson. Can I speak to him?" She nodded toward the stairs, where the loudest strains of the violin were now coming from.

"Yes, of course. He's in a mood, though, dear."

Elise was well-versed in their eccentric neighbor's mercurial moods. She marched upstairs and opened the man's study without bothering to knock. She'd learned long ago that the courtesy of knocking would only be ignored, and so she had taken to responding to this man's rudeness with her own.

The study was dimly lit, the curtains pulled tight across the windows. A red damask wallpaper filled the room with shadows. Books teetered precariously on poorly crafted shelves, and a large black bear rug dominated the floor, the beast's face aimed toward the door, its mouth open in a silent roar at anyone who dared enter the room and disturb its master. Little bottles with labels such as borax, copper sulfate, chloroform, and a dozen others were tucked in surprisingly neat rows beside a chemist's table that lay unused. Thankfully, it was empty of any current experiments. Usually, malodorous scents drifted up from several glowing glass beakers.

A man stood in the corner of the room by the fire, a violin upon his shoulder as he drew a bow over the taut strings of his instrument.

The slender dark-haired man abruptly ceased playing and turned toward her, revealing his aristocratic features that were both harsh and handsome.

"Miss Hamblin." He spoke in a clipped tone as he greeted her. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" His gaze roved over her, not with any masculine interest, but in simple curiosity. She knew it was one of his favorite parlor games, for him to prepare an impressive list of things to tell her about herself.

"If you're bothering to ask me that, Mr. Holmes, you are not the genius detective that the papers make you out to be."

"Ah yes. Society's rebellious ladies—quite a charming little club you have." His tone was completely condescending in an attempt to rankle her.

Elise didn't give the man the satisfaction of letting him see her bristle.

"And what is today's illustrious topic of discussion? The finding of husbands?"

She scoffed. "We study far more important matters than husband hunting, as you well know."

He abandoned his violin on a nearby sofa, which was covered with stacks of newspapers, and retrieved his cherrywood pipe. He stuffed it with tobacco and lit it, then puffed the smoke into his cheeks for a long moment as he watched her like she was a puzzle to be solved. She wasn't perturbed by this. They'd had this battle of wills before.

"Let's see," he drawled in his famous tone as he began his favorite game. "You're not wearing your usual style of unadorned walking dress," he observed. "This one has a more elaborate skirt, a bigger bustle, and the silk appears to be expensive. That blue color does suit your fair skin and blonde hair, which no doubt is to your advantage when facing gentlemen. You have stains upon your fingers, so whatever occasion you wore the dress for ended with you signing papers a few hours ago." He walked over to her and leaned in slightly, breathing deeply near her shoulder. "There's the faintest hint of the stable yard about you, but it's fresh hay and not dung. That leads me to one conclusion. I must congratulate you, Miss Hamblin. I take it you purchased a new racing horse?"

Elise expected nothing less from the famous detective.

"I am quite aware that I've just purchased a horse. You, however, seem to be unable to read the clock and calendar."

"Yes, all right, I shall wait until your gossip session is over before I resume my practice." He waved airily at her as if he was ready to dismiss her from the room.

"Gossip session?" Elise couldn't help but react to that comment.

"Yes." Holmes grinned as he seemed to realize he had struck a nerve at last.

"Mr. Holmes, you know absolutely nothing of women," Elise said flatly.

He quirked one dark brow. "Don't I?"

"You, like all men, believe you understand exactly what makes a woman tick. We are not pretty pocket watches to be carried about and tweaked or adjusted to suit your moods." She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring. "You know only about criminals and murderers. You know nothing of ordinary people, especially women."

"It's rather curious how spinsters end up so shrewish, isn't it? I suppose it's because no man wants to hear them complain," Holmes said as he puffed on his pipe again.

Elise ignored the bait about spinsters and countered with her own verbal attack. "Let's see... you are smoking your cherrywood pipe rather than your clay one. You only smoke the cherrywood when you're feeling particularly disruptive and have nothing better to do than be a nuisance. Judging by the state of this room, and how no chemicals are currently in use and the neatly folded newspapers are stacked rather than strewn about the room like an untidy child's nursery, I deduce that you must be between cases. Therefore, you are delighting in one of your many bad habits, which is disrupting our meetings."

Holmes's eyes narrowed on her and his cheeks hollowed out as he drew another puff of pipe smoke into his mouth. She knew he was impressed by her deductions but wasn't about to admit it.

"I wager," he began as he pointed the tip of his pipe at her, "that I know far more about women than you do about men."

Elise tutted. "Please, Mr. Holmes, do not speak untruths that will embarrass you."

A glint of devilish mischief lit up the detective's eyes.

"Shall we make it official, Miss Hamblin? As you have correctly deduced, I am between cases at the moment and am in need of a diversion."

"I have rather far more important things to do than make a study of men."

"Ah, but that is because you only understand gentlemen. Those are easy creatures to decipher. But what of the rogue, the scoundrel, the cad, the delicious bounder? What about those men who live their lives in a gray area between the black-and-white spheres of your ordered world?"

"I'm not sure I follow you," Elise reluctantly admitted.

"You claim to study creatures, to focus on the natural sciences. Men are creatures just like any other. But the gentlemen you've met, they live by human laws. Their borders are easy to discern, their roads easy to navigate. Don't you wish to study what a man is like when he is unmotivated by laws or if he chooses to live outside of them? What motivates such a man to be the way he is? Study his base nature, his natural instincts. Study him as you have learned other creatures. To truly understand what men are capable of, you cannot confine yourself to those who are so well behaved. There you are seeing them at their best, you are seeing what they wish you to see. You learn nothing of the baser animal that lies within all men. To know what a man truly is, you must find a man who has battled the world and yet is still standing. Find a person at his worst low, yet he still holds on to who he is. That is where the truth lies, not in those fine gentlemen who escort you to the park or meet you for ice cream or picnics.

Elise rarely accepted challenges unless she was genuinely intrigued by something. Holmes's words stirred a flash of intrigue in her as she considered the sort of men she'd grown up around. Polite, perfectly polished sons of the kings of industry who paid court to her with flowers and walks in Hyde Park. By their very nature, those men had failed to hold her interest, and therefore, none had held her heart. Struck with a sudden inspiration for a proper wager that would hammer a blow against Holmes in his war against her society, she grinned.

"If I study men and prove I understand them, you will give me your precious violin for winning the wager."

Holmes glared at the instrument, then turned that scowl upon her. "That is a Stradivarius. It has a value you cannot possibly comprehend."

"Oh, but I do know its value. That is exactly why you will surrender it when I win."

"And if I win?" He steepled his fingers as he took a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs. "You and your society will find accommodations elsewhere in London."

Elise's heart skipped a painful beat. It would be hard to find another home for the society, and it had already moved so many times over the years. Few property owners allowed women to do anything like what the society did. It was a miracle that the current owner had let Elise sign papers for the townhouse without requiring a man's signature. She had told the man that she and the other women ran a sewing society. What she hadn't said was they were sowing the seeds of knowledge rather than sewing clothing.

"You are a terrible human being," Elise replied to Holmes, though it was rude to speak a truth like that out loud.

Holmes chuckled smugly. "I have one more stipulation," Holmes said, unfolding the newspaper on his lap and idly flipping through the pages. "You can't study just any man. You must study this one. In order to win, you must share with me what makes him the man he is. Explain the truth of his nature." He turned the paper her way so she could see an article headline that read: The New Earl of March Returns to England Twelve Years after Being Suspected of Murdering a Man in a Duel.

"But he is a titled lord. I have no way to approach him, nor would he likely agree..." Elise stared at the headline. She couldn't believe Holmes wanted her to study a man who was suspected of killing someone in a duel, let alone a titled lord. There was no way he would agree to let her study him.

"Lure him to you. I'm sure you can find a way. Isn't that what feminine charms are for?" Holmes chuckled darkly. "Make him an offer he can't refuse." He handed her the newspaper with a smug look. "Do we have a wager, then?"

"I suppose so," she said slowly.

"You have two weeks, Miss Hamblin." Then the detective turned his attention to relighting his pipe, his way of telling her she was dismissed.

Elise left the townhouse with Holmes's newspaper tucked under her arm as her mind raced with the idea of studying a man like the Earl of March. She'd been fourteen when Prospero Harrington, the future Earl of March, had fled to France. At the time, she'd been aware of some scandal but had been too young to understand it. She would need to research her target carefully and dive deeply into his past. Then all she had to do was find a way to lure the earl to her door so she could beat Sherlock Holmes at his own game.