Prologue

London, England ~ June 1806

L ady Louisa sat on a stone bench in the garden behind Carlton House and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

Back straight, chin up!

Louisa adjusted her posture to allow her white muslin skirts to fall gracefully about her ankles and adopted a poise of sophistication beyond her sixteen years. If she pretended that she was supremely indifferent to her solitary situation, perhaps no one would be any the wiser.

On a whim, her father, the Duke of Warrenton, had brought her with him to Prince George's residence that afternoon, assuming that she could amuse the eleven-year-old Princess Charlotte. But then—when he had seen that Princess Charlotte was not in attendance and had observed the rackety set of roués who were—he had sent her outside to sit in the garden while he stayed inside the royal mansion to finish up his cognac and conversations. Louisa sighed. It was six o'clock already, she had missed tea, and she suspected that her father might have overindulged in a stronger drink and forgotten about her altogether.

She hoped that her father had not been distracted by something in the petticoat line. That was always a fear where the Duke of Warrenton was concerned. Thankfully, Louisa's sharp eyes had noted that there were only a few ladies inside the great house. One of them, whom her father had addressed as Lady Hertford, seemed to be the unquestioned queen bee of the bunch, but the fat fellow whom Louisa recognised as Prince George was hovering around her like a bear by a honey tree. She could tell from the way he touched Lady Hertford's arm and leaned in towards her rouged cheek that she was his mistress. At least Louisa was safe from seeing her father coquetting in that direction.

She ought to have been unaware of such liaisons. Most sixteen-year-old girls of good breeding would have been. But then, Louisa had been raised in a rackety household herself. Her flighty French mother, the former Comtesse Dammartin, had died when she was only eight, and she had been left for indifferent servants to mind as the duke gadded about from hunting lodge to horse race to house party. Throughout her adolescent years, her father had materialised at infrequent intervals like an Arabian djinn—neglectful, but then regretful; austere, but then ostentatious with his largesse.

This "treat" of bringing her to Carlton House and then shuffling her off to the gardens was just another example of his mercurial nature. How self-indulgent of him to assume that his own amusements would be equally amusing to a girl of sixteen. How typical of him to forget her existence as soon as the prince ushered him into the inner circle. No doubt this was how he had treated his younger brother, Uncle Nigel, all his life—as an entity to be considered only when completely convenient. No doubt this was how he had treated Louisa's mother, until the two of them led such separate lives that her father had barely mourned when her mother passed away from a sudden pneumonia.

Idiot girl! Take yourself home in the carriage.

The Warrenton coachman would be obliged to take her home if she asked him. But she kept hoping—against past experience—that her father would join her within the next quarter hour, making it unnecessary for her to depart on her own.

For a while, Louisa had wandered the Carlton House conservatory, eyeing the fan-vaulted ceiling above and the tropical flora below. Then, hoping for a cool breeze, she had strolled out to the garden, explored its florid pathways, and inhaled the scent of the roses. The prince's party of sycophants was keeping indoors today. The grounds were empty aside from a few workmen on the other end of the garden. From what Louisa could surmise, they were constructing stables to house Prince George's magnificent menagerie of horses, a collection funded by the prince's generous allowance from Parliament. She adored riding horses, herself. It was just one of the many accomplishments in which her tutors had trained her. But the horses, like little Princess Charlotte, were not in residence at present.

What can you possibly do with yourself until your father comes to fetch you?

She had seated herself on a stone bench that surveyed much of the garden. A tall wall shielded the royal garden from the public eye and the impudent public from the aristocratic one. This opulent garden with its stone pavilion and climbing trellises was not for the ordinary folk of London to enjoy. It was a private retreat for the upper class of the prince's circle .

Gurgle, gurgle, urgh! No matter how elegant and exotic Carlton House was, Louisa's complaining stomach reminded her that it did not make up for a missed meal and a missing parent.

Silly girl. You should have asked the prince's butler for some biscuits an hour ago. Why must you go on pretending that you don't need anything? That you don't need anyone?

Above the garden wall, Louisa could see the colonnade of trees that separated Carlton House's grounds from St. James' Park. Wafting above the stones came the faint clip-clop of carriage horses and the shouts of passers-by. St. James' Park was far less elegant than the gardens but far more lively at this time of day. A pity the wall was too high to watch the goings-on in the park—

No!

Louisa wrapped her arms around herself as tightly as a strait jacket at an asylum. There was no need to pine for a sight of the public park. How often must she remind herself that she enjoyed her own company best of all?

The sound of shoes scraping on stone caught her attention. Louisa scanned the horizon till she saw a mop of chestnut curls appear at the top of the wall. Someone was climbing into the Carlton House gardens!

Too surprised to be afraid, Louisa rose from the bench and strode toward the emerging intruder. At age sixteen, she was tall and well-proportioned and had almost reached the height of the average Englishman. She was mature enough to stand her ground against a stranger. "Who are you and what are you doing?"

The pleasant face of a young man only a few years older than her crested the wall. "I beg your pardon. I only wanted to see the garden." With an admirable display of strength, he pulled himself into a sitting posture on the top of the wall.

Louisa's violet-brown eyes narrowed. She assessed the young man's clean face, neat cravat, and proper waistcoat. He looked like an Oxford student getting up to a lark rather than a typical street ruffian searching for ill-gotten gains. But still, he was entering the prince's grounds uninvited….

"Now that you've seen it, you ought to go back the way you came. I'm certain that Prince George doesn't take kindly to trespassers."

"But I haven't seen the roses yet, and that's the reason I climbed up here."

Louisa's full lips set themselves into a firm line. "You'll be seeing the inside of Newgate if somebody catches sight of you." She filled her voice with authority. She was the daughter of the Duke of Warrenton and the Countess Dammartin. She would make him listen.

" You've caught sight of me, haven't you? I don't see you summoning the constables." Rotating his legs over the side of the wall, the young man began to lower himself into the royal grounds.

"Stop it this instant—" But Louisa's words came too late as his worn leather boots hit the grass with a soft thud.

"Just a peek at the rose garden, if you would be so kind, miss, and then I'll trouble you no further."

Shouldn't you summon the prince's footmen? That's what a sensible girl would do.

His brown eyes looked at her appealingly, and Louisa did not know whether to rebuke his presumption or admire his dogged persistence. He did not seem violent or unhinged—and he really was too handsome of a fellow to condemn to a fate like Newgate.

"Oh, very well," she said crossly, throwing up her hands as her French mother would have done. She would turn a blind eye to his lark. He inclined his head in silent gratitude and then hurried over to the rose garden.

Louisa followed him. Having allowed him entrance to the garden without outcry or public complaint, she almost felt as if it were her responsibility now to mind him like a beagle on a leash.

What if he is an anarchist? Or a French spy sent to assassinate the prince? Why are you letting yourself be taken in by a trim waistcoat and a neat cravat?

Once he reached the roses, the young man became so thoroughly engrossed that Louisa began to consider him more eccentric than dangerous. She watched him cradle one of the red blossoms in his fingers and noticed that he was measuring the length of the stalk against the span of his other hand. "One, two, three…"

Was he counting the petals now? What a peculiar individual!

"What are you doing?"

He looked up with an abstracted smile. "This is a new variety to me. I want to discover how it is different from the Provence rose, so I am taking measurements and making some observations."

Louisa blinked. It was absurd, but his enthusiasm was beginning to make her wonder just what made that bush special. She had always assumed that a rose was a rose, but now he had given this flower another complexion entirely. "Why is it in a pot? I should think the gardener would want to plant it in the ground. "

"I daresay he may want to move it into the conservatory in the wintertime, particularly if it is used to warmer climates. Sir Abraham Hume recommends the practice to all rosarians. If I had the means, I would plant all my rose bushes in pots."

Rosarians? So, there was a name for this kind of eccentricity.

"Do you possess a great many rose bushes?"

"Two dozen at our home in Derbyshire." He looked at her sheepishly. "My father has forbidden me from planting more."

As she had suspected, he was not yet of age and still under the tight rein of parental authority. She, on the other hand, had done exactly as she pleased ever since her mother had died eight years ago. "You're right. Two dozen is meagre indeed."

Her stomach gave an unladylike groan, reminding her how long she'd been enjoying the gardens without any tray of sandwiches to support her spirits. She watched as the young man moved on to the rose bush in the adjoining earthenware pot. "Do you mean to measure all these bushes?"

He nodded, not at all self-conscious. "Yes. You needn't watch if you find the activity dull."

"I do. Incredibly dull," said Louisa.

Liar! You know it was far, far duller here in the gardens before this handsome intruder arrived.

But Louisa's self-conceit was too great to admit any such thought aloud. "I shall leave you to it then."

Lifting her chin and turning on the heel of her trim half boots, Louisa strode down the path. She resisted the urge to see if the rosarian was watching her departure. Within a few moments, she arrived at the stone pavilion. Here was another place to sit. Here she could pretend that she was enjoying her trip to Carlton House and that the outing her father had planned for her was thoughtful and kind and tenderly paternal. Here she could effectively quash any interest in the chestnut-haired intruder.

Louisa had not rested long in the pavilion, however, before her solitude was invaded once again. This time, the intruder was someone who belonged at Carlton House—a member of the prince's set. His thinning red hair and pale white complexion looked strangely similar to Prince George's paramour inside the house, and his physique was not the kind that would lend itself to climbing over a garden wall. To Louisa, his thirty years seemed almost ancient. From his florid face, it was clear he had spent the afternoon indulging in something stronger than tea.

"Hallo there! And who might you be?" The man attempted to strike a pose by leaning against a pillar of the pavilion. But unfortunately, his balance bobbed precariously like a bottle in the ocean, and he almost fell on his posterior.

What a jackanapes!

Louisa rolled her eyes. Even at the young age of sixteen, she knew better than to introduce herself to a fellow that was foxed. She decided that mute hauteur was the better part of discretion.

"A silent Aphrodite, eh?" The man gave an effeminate titter mingled with a hiccough. "Egad! I never thought such a thing possible." Without warning, he stumbled over to the same bench on which she was sitting and sprawled beside her.

Disgusted, Louisa shifted away from him. But before she could abandon her place, the foppish fellow took hold of her arm and pulled her back down into her seat. Louisa stiffened like a larch tree and tried to control her rising panic. "Unhand me, you rude fellow." But even though he was drunk as a wheelbarrow, his grip was too strong to shake off.

"So, you do have a tongue?" The villain licked his lips. "But you've misplaced your manners. I'm an earl, doncha know? Name's Yarmouth." His tittering mouth was far too close to her ear now. "I say, you're a pretty bird of paradise. White as a turtledove. I wager you'll coo for me." His hands were fumbling with the fabric of her dress now.

Silly girl. Why did you wear white? Let go, let go, let go!

Unable to free herself, Louisa felt the hunger in her stomach transform into a yawning chasm of fear. The encroaching earl attempted to pull her against his chest, and the fear transformed into fire. She was Lady Louisa Lymington, not some trollop like the painted ladies inside Carlton House. She willed her body to go limp as his disgusting lips began to nuzzle her cheek. Once he relaxed his hold, she would elbow him with all her force—

"Julia!" called a voice. "Julia! Oh, there you are!"

The young man from the rose garden entered the pavilion. Startled, the inebriated earl was shamefaced enough to let go of his quarry and slide over on the bench. "Good afternoon," said the young man earnestly. "I beg pardon for the sudden intrusion, but I've come to collect my little sister, Julia. Look here! I've gathered the rose clippings the prince promised us, but we must hurry. Cook has dinner ready at home, and our coach is waiting for us near the stables."

Dinner at home? Coach near the stables?

The young man with the mop of chestnut curls gave a careful nod to Louisa.

"Thank you, brother," said Louisa, trying to stop her knees from trembling. No doubt she would have been resourceful enough to extricate herself on her own, but the danger of the bygone moment did not escape her. She rose from the bench and crossed the pavilion hoping to take her rescuer's arm. His arms were full, however, and instead, he offered her some rose stems to carry. Without a backward glance at the gaping earl, they exited the stone pavilion and stepped into the sunlit gardens.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the pavilion, the young man gave her a concerned look. "Are you all right?"

All right? Why would he think you could possibly be "all right"?

"Perfectly," said Louisa, exercising her iron will to stop her legs from trembling. Her hands clutched like claws at the rose stems, and she could feel a thorn entering the soft skin of her index finger. Somehow, the pain was a blessing. It made her certain that this dream-like rescue was as real as gauze and sticking plaster. She pressed her thumb against the wound so that she would not drop blood on her white dress. She already felt stained. She would not add to it with literal blood.

"Do you have family here? Where shall I take you?"

"Nowhere," she said, ignoring the first of his questions. "I am perfectly able to take myself wherever I need to go."

"I beg your pardon," said the young man, with a half-smile. "I see my interruption was superfluous."

"No," said Louisa, grudgingly. "It was…welcome."

And unexpected. Unheard of. Unprecedented. You had better say nothing more about it, for he's likely regretting it already.

She looked down at the rose stems in her hands. "You're a bold one to steal plants from the prince's garden. What are these clippings for?"

His smile changed into an apologetic grin. "My garden in Derbyshire. I'll graft them onto other bushes in my garden." He explained away his theft with a bit of gardener's logic. "It doesn't hurt the plants, you know. They needed to be pruned anyway."

They had rounded the corner of the half-built stables now. None of the workmen challenged their presence, and they soon entered the carriage yard. The young man took the rose stems back from her, navigating the thorns skilfully as he layered them all in a bundle.

Louisa's finger throbbed miserably, and she wished it were ladylike to put it in her mouth and suck away the pain. A welcome sight in the carriage yard distracted her, however, as she spotted the Warrenton coachman. "Michael, harness up the horses, for I mean to go home now."

"Yes, my lady," said the surly fellow. "But what about his grace?"

That was his answer? What about his grace?

"You'll have to come back later for him."

Louisa could hear the coachman muttering under his breath as he brought the horses over to fasten them in their traces. She had no sympathy. The coachman was paid handsomely for his job of tooling the Warrenton carriage about London, and he had no call to complain about making two trips. "We will drop this young man off at his lodgings," instructed Louisa, adding yet another task to the coachman's list.

The young man took one look at the coat of arms painted on the carriage, and a look of doubt came into his eyes. "I'd best sit up in the carriage box."

Clearly, he is gentleman enough to know that he should not be in a closed carriage with you alone.

The difference between the young man's behaviour and the Earl of Yarmouth's boorishness was marked. The service this young man had rendered her was nothing short of heroic. And yet, he had done it as nonchalantly as if he regularly sauntered into royal gardens and saved white-gowned damsels every day after tea. And now he was trying to preserve her reputation even further .

"As you like," said Louisa with a shrug, trying to conceal her disappointment that their conversation would be curtailed. When Michael had finished harnessing the horses, Louisa listened as the young man gave the coachman the address for a hotel in the less fashionable part of town. Then, she allowed the young man to open the door for her as she climbed into the coach.

She cleared her throat. "I suppose I ought to ask your name."

That sounds far too eager. Do you really mean to appear so friendly?

She wanted very much to know who this fellow was to whom she was indebted, but her self-possession would not allow her to seem needy or dependent.

He shut the door carefully with one hand, maintaining hold of his rose clippings all the while. "Gyles."

That was it, then. No surname that would allow her to discover more about him. Just a simple "Gyles."

Will he ask your name in return? No, he seems far more interested in gathering up a rose stem fallen from his grasp.

"Good-bye, Gyles," said Louisa crisply, pulling back from the open window.

He looked up at her with a good-natured smile on his face, no doubt the same smile with which he greeted the butcher, the baker, or the vicar. "Good-bye, Julia." Then, with the same lithe grace that he had used in climbing the Carlton House wall, he swung himself up, one-handed, into the carriage box and the vehicle lurched into motion.

Thrown back into the corner of the seat, Louisa fumbled for her reticule and found a handkerchief inside. She pressed it against the wound on her finger. However beautiful the prince's garden might be, she knew from firsthand experience that all roses had their thorns. And one of the sharpest pricks she had endured that afternoon was that the gentleman who had saved her with his chivalry would not even take the time to ask after her name.