Chapter One

D elilah Vale wanted to waltz.

Just one final, enjoyable dance in farewell to her youth, and then she would step discreetly back onto the shelf and turn to face her new life. It was not so much a decision as an acknowledgment of reality. She had turned thirty, and her opportunities for marriage, always slim, were now nonexistent. She didn’t mourn their passing—there was no point, and in any case, she had always been too independent in spirit to seek the subservience of matrimony. She merely wanted to mark the boundary in some way, an ending of the old, the beginning of the new.

For the first time ever, she and her siblings were all living together in their childhood home of Black Hill. There was both fun and security in that, but she knew very well it was a mere interlude, while everyone drew breath and found their own ways forward. Delilah had found hers, and she wanted to dance into it.

Her siblings all seemed to be dancing, even her brothers, those of them she could see, and her widowed sister Felicia, who regarded it as her prime duty to introduce prospective partners to everyone else. Delilah was no debutante. She would find her own partner in her own way.

Rising, she picked up her wine glass and strolled around the room, watching the dancers with an odd twinge of melancholy. Nostalgia, no doubt. She had frequently accompanied her diplomat father to important state events all over Europe, even played hostess at embassy receptions. That kind of company, that undercurrent of power and decision beneath the amiability, was what she missed most.

Well, soon she would be able to travel again. For now, there was this ball at the Blackhaven assembly rooms, where, surely, she would find her last dance with a partner of her own choosing. She was a diplomat’s daughter and could arrange anything.

She spotted her little sister Lucy laughing happily as she twirled down the line with her enthusiastic companion. It made Delilah smile as she reached the pillar that had been her goal. From here, with only the musicians’ gallery above and a curtained alcove behind her, she could watch the dancers more discreetly and identify just the right waltz partner.

It should be easier than she had once feared, for the ball was well attended, and by many distinguished people, such as the Earl of Braithwaite, who lived in the local castle with his family, and several town dandies who seemed to have accompanied ailing relatives to take the famous Blackhaven waters. There was a scattering of red-and-gold-coated army officers, presumably from the regiment stationed nearby, while the ladies were almost universally well dressed in expensive silks and jewels that sparkled under the chandeliers.

It could have been a ball in London, or Paris, Vienna or St. Petersburg, Madrid or Rome… A hundred different scenes merged in her mind, blurring the movement of the dancers so that she could no longer make out their faces or admire their grace. Suddenly, it was like a puzzle from which half the pieces were missing and the rest had been covered with disintegrating gauze.

Oh, the devil! It was happening again, and most inconveniently. She drew back fully behind the pillar and closed her eyes. Perhaps she could still will it away.

“Surely you cannot be hiding?” a light male voice speculated close by. The timbre seemed to soak through her skin in an oddly pleasing way, and it was several seconds before she realized he might be addressing her. “Or are the rest of us so gruesome you cannot bear to look?”

She opened her eyes. A tall man in smart evening dress stood before her, with parts of him missing. The parts she could see appeared to be handsome. She tilted her head in an effort to see the rest, but she could not catch the whole man at once.

“I would gladly look, sir, were I given the opportunity.” She spoke her mind and generally did, though for once she had no real desire to be fully understood.

Too late. Something had changed in his posture. And in his voice, no longer so light or teasing. “Are you quite well, ma’am?”

“Perfectly,” she replied. If he would get out of her way, she could retreat into the alcove until her sight returned to normal. “Excuse me. I believe I would like a moment’s quiet.”

Unexpectedly, he took her free hand and placed it on his arm. For a moment, she dug in her heels, reluctant to move when she could not see properly where she was going.

“There is an alcove, just here,” he said, his voice oddly soothing. She advanced with him, saw the curtain swish dizzyingly, and made out two chairs and a small table between. The man handed her civilly into one chair and took the glass from her fingers, placing it on the table. “May I fetch a companion for you?”

“No!” The word erupted with unexpected force, taking both of them, she suspected, somewhat aback. “Um, I mean, I shall be right as rain in just a moment. My thanks, sir. I shall do better alone.”

“You have a migraine?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. There is no pain, and I shall not faint or have a fit of the vapors. You may leave me with a clear conscience.”

“I find I don’t wish to leave you at all.”

“I don’t believe you have a choice, sir, as a gentleman, since I have made my wishes plain.”

“All true gentlemen are flexible,” he said, sitting down in the other chair. “You may ignore me until you feel more the thing.”

“And then?” she asked, allowing an irritable edge into her voice.

“Oh, then you may scold me at your leisure—or, if you prefer, whoever it was you were seeking with such assiduity.”

She laughed. “And, of course, ladies of a certain age exist only to scold.”

“Ladies of a…” He sounded both amused and flabbergasted. His voice turned light and quizzical once more. “Is the cause not character rather than age?”

“You wish to insult me further? Carry on.”

“I meant the character of the scoldee as much as the scolder,” he said mildly. “Who were you looking for, and what has he done? If you require a champion—”

She turned and stared at him. She could see most of him now, and he really was handsome, in a refined, understated sort of way—much like his evening clothes, which spoke of good taste and gentlemanly restraint.

“What, you’ll rush over and threaten to run him through?” she said in contemptuous disbelief. “On my word alone?”

“Good heavens, no. Merely point him out and I’ll give him a dashed good—er…scold.”

“I don’t know anymore which of us is making fun of the other.”

“Oh, I’m not making fun of anyone, merely talking nonsense for the sake of distraction.” He turned his head toward her and smiled. The effect was devastating. “Ah, there you are.”

She gazed into steady, smiling gray eyes, and memory tugged.

“Have we met?” he asked.

“I cannot think where. I do not go out in Society.” As she remembered where she was, heat seeped into her cheeks. “As a rule,” she added.

“A rule I am very glad you broke.” He rose to his feet and bowed. “And now I shall leave you in peace as you originally requested. Madam.”

She inclined her head with a hint of mockery. “Sir.”

*

Denzil Talbot, first Baron Linfield, strolled out of the alcove with very mixed emotions. She was not at all what he had expected. Too beautiful and too vulnerable, she had struggled to see him, her eyes darting, unfocused, blinking as though to clear them. Of course, the excuse of taking her somewhere quiet until she recovered was a gift to him, and he had happily made use of it. But he hadn’t expected to like her.

Nor could he shake off that odd feeling that they had met before.

Perhaps they had. He had encountered her father often enough. He should not have been surprised to discover Sir George Vale’s daughter was a woman of character… Even if she was a traitor.

Well, with luck, he would also have made an impression on her, so that she would look forward to their next encounter, even if only to spar. He looked forward to it himself, and not just because it was duty. No wonder he was uneasy as he skirted the dancers.

He found his sister Elaine chatting to a couple from the hotel, though as they greeted someone else in passing, she whispered to him, “Antonia has met an old friend.”

Antonia Macy was Elaine’s companion who had traveled with them to Vienna and back, along with her young son. It was an odd arrangement by most standards, but it worked for all concerned.

“Is that good?” Denzil asked.

“It seems to have shaken her up,” Elaine replied with odd complacence.

“And that is good?”

“She is too young to settle down as companion to a spinster.”

A familiar twinge of guilt twisted through him. Elaine was only a spinster because she had given up a settled life in order to travel with him wherever the Foreign Office sent him, from the Americas to the Ottoman Empire. He was well aware she added to his comfort—and to his career—which had certainly left him free from the constraints of marriage.

He knew she had enjoyed herself in the process, but now she was no longer young, and her recent spell of exhaustion, which had provided the excuse for this visit to Blackhaven, was also a genuine worry to him. Elaine needed a settled home.

“Can I fetch you some wine?” he asked, including the hotel couple in his offer. When no one took him up on it, he left them to continue their comfortable gossip and sauntered off in search of his next prey.

He found her—at least, he supposed it was her—walking arm in arm with Blackhaven’s acerbic physician, Nicholas Lampton. Denzil had made a point of consulting Dr. Lampton about Elaine, for two very good reasons. One, of course, was Elaine’s health and the benefits of the local waters. The other was the doctor’s wife.

“Ah, doctor,” he greeted Lampton with a smile. “I’m very glad to see you do make the odd escape from the demands of your patients.”

“Oh, I just neglect them,” Lampton said.

“Nicholas!” exclaimed his companion. “You will have no practice if you keep saying such things!”

Denzil laughed. “Fear not, ma’am, I am in no danger of believing him.”

“My love, I don’t believe you are acquainted with Lord Linfield,” Lampton said. “He is a distinguished diplomat, lately come home from Vienna. My lord, this is my wife, Princess Elizabeth, formerly of Rheinwald.”

“Mrs. Lampton will do very well,” the princess said dryly, offering her hand, which Denzil bowed over.

Somehow, it fitted with the character of Blackhaven that the local doctor was married to a princess.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Lampton,” he said, instinctively sensing which title pleased her more. “I believe I met your brother-in-law in Vienna.”

Her eyes changed very subtly, enough to tell him she did not care for her brother-in-law, which was a relief to Denzil.

“He was certainly there.”

“It did not seem fair to me that your son was disinherited.”

“It suits me that he is away from the whole toxic situation in Rheinwald. When he is grown, he may make his own decisions.”

“Quite.”

“Join us, if you wish,” Lampton said, pausing beside a table where a good-looking couple sat. “Do you know our vicar and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Grant? Grants, Lord Linfield.”

The Grants too were an interesting couple, he a one-time army officer turned country vicar, she a formerly scandalous leader of the London ton ’s fast set. Denzil, always happy in unusual and charming company, found it easy to make friends and to find a moment to draw Mrs. Lampton into a deeper conversation about German politics.

“Perhaps you also know the Princess of Hazburg?”

“I did, and I like her,” Mrs. Lampton said frankly. “The congress did the right thing in allowing her to keep the principality. She is the choice of her people and an excellent ally.”

“It disappointed her half-brother, Prince Karl,” Denzil pointed out. “Who is not without his own following.”

“But too autocratic and likely to bring the country to the verge of revolution—or ruin. Prussia would then swallow Hazburg and upset the balance of power.”

Denzil smiled. “You retain a firm grasp of the situation.”

“I might have no influence, but I never lacked understanding.” Her gaze went beyond him, and she smiled. “Mrs. Maitland, how do you do?”

She was greeting a rather beautiful young lady who, Denzil knew, was the widowed sister of Delilah Vale. He rose to bow over her hand, and since Mrs. Lampton had turned aside to answer some remark of Kate Grant’s, he invited Mrs. Maitland to dance.

She looked surprised. “Oh, why not? I have missed dancing, though I am really here to chaperone my sisters.”

Mrs. Maitland danced with enthusiasm, like a child suddenly released out of doors on a previously wet Sunday afternoon. She conversed cheerfully and amusingly whenever they came together. It wasn’t difficult to see her father in her. He was much too subtle to ask directly about her sister Delilah, although he gathered rather more from her chatter than she was probably aware.

The Vale siblings had come home to discover their family estate on the verge of ruin. Sir Julius, who had inherited it, was doing his best to repair the damage, with the aid of his brother Cornelius, a land steward by profession, while the other siblings contributed what money or skills they had in making Black Hill into a home. Denzil gathered that this was good for everyone in the family, leaving him with an impression that they were all healing in their own way from unspecified troubles—which might have been simply mourning for their larger-than-life parent, who had dragged them all around the world with him at some time or another.

This caused a faint bell to ring at the back of his memory, but before he could pursue it, the dance came to a close.

“Allow me to escort you back to your family,” he said. “Or to Mrs. Lampton, if you prefer.”

“It had better be to my family, who should be over there . I should make sure Lucy…”

Denzil missed the rest because he had just caught sight of Delilah Vale gliding across the room at some speed. He was about to steer Mrs. Maitland in that direction and increase their own pace in order to intercept Delilah when, rather to his surprise, Mrs. Maitland made the adjustments of her own accord.

As they met, a hunted look crossed Delilah’s face. She did not look at him—quite deliberately, he suspected.

“Oh, Delly, have you been dancing?” Mrs. Maitland said as though surprised to run into her. “So have I. This is Lord Linfield, who is visiting the town with his sister for the benefits of the waters. My lord, my sister, Miss Vale.”

Delilah responded with a distant curtsey, and yet a hint of color stained her cheeks. “How do you do, my lord?”

“How do you do, Miss Vale?”

“Ah, excuse me,” Mrs. Maitland exclaimed, and shot off, leaving them alone together in the midst of the swarms milling across the dance floor.

“We are not supposed to have met?” he guessed.

Her chin lifted. “My sister is on duty, you might say, believing that she alone can ensure that the rest of us enjoy the ball, which involves making sure we all have dance partners—respectable ones, in Lucy’s case. Since I am no Society debutante, Felicia and I have an agreement that she does not drag appalled young men over to dance with me.”

“Is that your way of telling me you do not wish to dance? Before I embarrass myself by asking?”

“I’m not sure you ever embarrass yourself, Lord Linfield.”

“It’s the impression I like to create, but, sadly, a damnable lie.”

Amusement crept into her eyes, which was something of a relief, for in truth he hadn’t been sure what to make of her, or been able to tell if his charm was entirely wasted on her.

“How did you know?” she asked abruptly. “About my sight?”

“It was only a guess. I used to suffer migraines as a youth. Have you consulted a physician?”

“Goodness, no, it is hardly debilitating.” She met his gaze. “But I would be grateful if you did not mention it to my family.”

“I won’t,” he agreed, “though it puzzles me why you don’t.”

“Do you tell your siblings everything?”

Instinctively, he glanced toward Elaine, who once more had Antonia Macy by her side. “No.”

“The next dance is a waltz,” she said casually. “You should hurry to secure the young lady of your choice.”

Now that was interesting. She was providing him with an excuse to leave, and yet at the same time almost prompting him to ask her .

He felt his lips twitch of their own accord. “You are quite right. Would you do me the honor, Miss Vale?”

She smiled at him, and all the air seemed to leave his lungs. “Thank you, my lord. I believe I will.”

And that was when the memory slid into place. He had seen her dancing, and smiling like that … Where?