The Undercover Duke Read online

  The Undercover Duke

  (The 1797 Club Book 6)

  By

  USA Today Bestseller

  Jess Michaels

  The Undercover Duke

  The 1797 Club Book 6

  www.1797Club.com

  Copyright © Jesse Petersen, 2018

  ISBN-13: 9781947770065

  ISBN-10: 1947770063

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For more information, contact Jess Michaels

  www.AuthorJessMichaels.com

  To contact the author:

  Email: [email protected]

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  Dedication

  For Jenn LeBlanc, Kate Smith, Grace Callaway, Sara Ramsay and all the wonderful writers who have helped me figure out what to do and reminded me I love to do it.

  And for Michael. Twenty-one years and you still listen to me as I pontificate about Star Wars, soap operas and the best kinds of cheese. You are a saint.

  Prologue

  February 1811

  It was wrong. It was all wrong. Lucas Vincent, Duke of Willowby, felt that wrongness like an icepick in his gut as he crept around the perimeter of the country estate. He paid attention to the feeling, for he had long ago learned to trust his instincts. They were what kept a spy alive.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t still do his job. Today he moved forward despite that feeling. Perhaps because of it. After all, he’d also long ago determined that it was his destiny to die in the field, for his country, with honor.

  If today was that day, then so be it. There was little to live for beyond that sense of honor. He had no relationship with his family and he had cut away his friends—his dear friends who had once been like brothers—over the years since he had discovered the truth of himself.

  “Willowby!”

  The harsh whisper of his name drew him from maudlin thoughts and he turned, weapon drawn, to find George Oakford’s wise, lined face peeking out from behind a shrubbery. Oakford was a friend and a talented surgeon who used his extensive gifts to save the lives of those who served the crown.

  He was also not supposed to be here.

  Lucas eased over to him. “What are you doing here?” he whispered.

  Oakford looked toward the house with a scowl. “I heard rumors that you were coming here to suss out a traitor,” he said, rage potent in his low tone. “And since we’ve lost three good men under terrible and suspicious circumstances in the last six months, men I’ve watched die because I did not have the talent to save them, I knew I had to come and support you. Orders be damned.”

  Lucas reached out and gripped the older man’s arm. There were very few people in this world he trusted more than George Oakford, and relief washed over him in a wave. “I admit, I’m pleased to find you here. I have a sense of dread and I wouldn’t mind the support of your presence.”

  Oakford’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “It’s just you?”

  Lucas nodded. “Yes. I was meant to only observe, Stalwood’s orders. He has an abundance of caution, as you know.”

  Oakford’s lips pursed. “He always has. Sometimes I think to his detriment.”

  Lucas couldn’t disagree, even though he respected the spymaster, as he knew Oakford did, too. He continued, “When I saw the men unloading weapons round the back, when I saw them bringing carriages full of lightskirts as entertainment for their evening, it was evident something very big is happening here tonight. If I can stop it before it does, it could save the lives of thousands of men on the battlefield. And perhaps keep even one more spy from dying for this operation at the hands of a craven coward.”

  Oakford held his gaze for a long moment. “You’ve always been the best of your kind, Willowby. Whoever is running this operation should fear the consequences you are about to rain down on them. I’m certain they deserve it.”

  “We’re raining those consequences down, Oakford,” Lucas said. “But I need to get a look at who our traitor is. There’s been activity in that chamber up there, but I haven’t been able to get a clear view of whoever is inside.”

  He pulled out his spyglass and handed it over. Oakford looked up at the window Lucas had indicated and lowered the glass. His finely wrinkled face was pinched in an expression of disgust. “I see what you mean,” he said. “What’s your plan?”

  “There’s a trellis along the north wall,” Lucas explained. “It leads to a thin ledge on that second floor, which I can use to creep around the window of the chamber next to the one our traitor is occupying. If I can manage to get inside, I might even be able to incapacitate him without causing a stir. We could be in and out without a fight.”

  Oakford lifted his eyebrows. “I’m impressed with you, Willowby. But then, I always am.”

  Lucas fought the urge to puff up his chest at the compliment. Oakford didn’t give them often. “Congratulate me if I can carry out the plan. There are guards circling the property, but they’re like clockwork. In less than one minute they’ll go by again, and assuming we’re not caught—”

  “You intend to climb the wall and have our man dead to rights,” Oakford finished.

  “Shhh,” Lucas said, ducking a bit lower behind the bush and tugging Oakford with him. They stayed perfectly still as two men, the guards Lucas had been tracking, walked by between the line of bushes where they hid and the house. They were talking and Lucas strained to hear them as they strolled off to the next area of their inspection.

  “Where…went…Cal—”

  “Could you understand them?” he whispered, hoping that Oakford’s position closer to the men might add to whatever Lucas had heard.

  Oakford shook his head. “Not really. A few words here and there.”

  Lucas pressed his lips together. “They started saying a name, I think. Started with ‘Cal.’ If they were referring to our traitor, there are quite a few options within the department.”

  Oakford nodded. “But they could have just as easily been referring to someone quite outside your case.”

  “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Stay here, watch for trouble and be ready to ride to the village to bring the magistrate if things go very wrong.”

  He slipped from the bushes without waiting for the answer and made his way to the trellis, where he began to climb. He’d always been good at physical things, even as a child. Now that aptitude paid off.

  He was almost to the top, his fingers reaching out to the ledge when he heard the crack of a pistol being fired below. He didn’t have time to pivot, to look, when the gun fired again and he felt a searing pain in his leg.

  His fingers slipped and he toppled backward. He was falling, falling, and then the ground was there, hard and unforgiving beneath his back. His head bounced off something and the world began to swim, his ears ringing as he struggled to sit up despite the pain that seared through his entire body.

  “Oakford,” he grunted, rolling slightly.

  The surgeon was on the ground behind him, splayed out and still. Dead, Lucas realized through his fog. The first shot. It had struck Oakford. He rolled to his front and was unable to keep from crying out in pain as he belly-crawled toward his friend. A man he’d known since his first days in the War Department. A man who’d saved his life more than once.

  He
wasn’t more than a foot from Oakford when there was a third shot that rang out from behind him. He felt the bullet slice through him and collapsed against the ground. The world was spinning, becoming black. There were voices around him now. He recognized they were the voices of the men who had attacked them. Killed him. He could handle that.

  But that they’d killed Oakford made his last moments pure agony.

  “Why—” one voice said, slow and like it was coming through a deep ocean.

  “You—no—bastard,” the other voice replied, just as unrecognizable. Lucas lifted his head in one last attempt to see what supposed friend had betrayed them all, but the world spun as he did so and then went entirely dark. The last things he experienced were loud pops and then nothing.

  Chapter One

  Fall 1811

  Diana Oakford stood at the low table in her kitchen, binding bundles of plants with twine. She hummed as she did so, keeping a rhythm that made the work go by steadily. She liked the practice, actually. It cleared her mind, doing this repetitive thing.

  It kept her from thinking too much about painful subjects that were best left unpondered. Subjects that would likely drop her to her knees if she allowed them to haunt her. She pushed even the hint of them aside now as she worked and refocused herself on the task at hand.

  She became so lost in the act that she jumped when there was a light knock at the door she’d left open behind her.

  She pivoted and gasped as she found that her visitor was none other than the Earl of Stalwood. Her hands shook as she set her herbs down and stared at him. How well she knew him and how little at the same time. The man had been an old friend of her father and had come in and out of their home for as long as she could remember. But he was also the spymaster for the War Department, as secretive as he could be kind. A man who had taken her father away on more than one occasion until one horrible day when she’d been told he would never return again.

  She hadn’t seen Stalwood since the private memorial service for her father in London more than six months before. Seeing him now brought back a rush of painful emotions that she fought to rein in before she spoke.

  “My lord,” she managed to squeak out as she moved toward him. “I-I did not expect you.”

  He inclined his head. “Perhaps I should have sent word of my impending arrival,” he said. “To be honest, I feared you would not receive me if you knew my intentions. I feared a great many other things, as well.”

  She wrinkled her brow at his cryptic remark and then motioned him into her kitchen. “I would not turn a friend of my father away. Please, do come in. I’m afraid I can only offer you a seat at my kitchen table, for I do not have the fires lit in the parlor.”

  “That will be more than enough,” he reassured her as he entered the room and took a seat at the table where she’d been working. She hustled to move the bound piles of herbs aside and he smiled up at her. “You are like him.”

  She hesitated as she turned away. “Mmmm. Not exactly like,” she said. “May I get you some tea?”

  “Yes,” he said, and was silent for a few moments as she stirred the fire and swung the heavy pot of water over the flame. She felt his eyes on her, though. Felt him watching her. Her stomach coiled in anticipation of whatever he would say next. “I need your help, Diana.”

  She froze in her place, staring into the dancing flames for a long moment before she faced him at last. His expression was impassive and unreadable. So like her father. Spies were like that. She had always hated not knowing what was in Papa’s heart. Not being able to see if he shared her pain when there was loss or damage in their lives.

  It had always made her feel so very alone.

  “My help,” she repeated softly, unable to keep the tremble from her voice.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. We have an injured spy. Badly hurt in the field some time ago. We’ve been fighting as hard as we can, but he has not healed as fully as we’d like. We need a better healer.”

  “You have not yet found a replacement for my father as surgeon?” she asked, folding her arms though that wasn’t any kind of barrier to what this man’s words inspired in her.

  Stalwood’s expression flickered, and for half a second she saw all his grief. “No,” he said, emotions gone again. “There will never be any replacing him, I fear. The men who trained under him are good, of course, but they are only shadows of him. I cannot reach out to anyone outside our circles for fear they would be put in danger by our secrets. Or would not understand the delicacies of working with spies.”

  She lifted her chin. “And you think I do?”

  “I know you do.”

  She flinched and turned back to the fire. She wrapped a cloth around the heavy kettle and poured it out into the more delicate teapot slowly.

  “He needs hiding, too,” Stalwood continued, his words in a rush like he was trying to keep her from fully digesting them.

  Of course she did. They were shocking words and Diana almost laughed at the ridiculousness of this conversation. “Hiding,” she repeated, letting the word roll from her tongue. “So he is in danger. He is danger.”

  Stalwood bobbed his head once. “Yes.” His voice was soft but firm.

  “And you’ve come to me, despite all that. Despite what that kind of danger has cost me.” He flinched and so did she. This man didn’t know the half of it. “Why?”

  Stalwood took a long breath as she poured his tea at last. Only when she’d set the pot down did he say, “Because this man was injured the same day your father died. They were together.”

  Diana’s ears began to ring and she sat down hard in the chair across from Stalwood. She gripped her hands into fists against the tabletop and stared at him. She knew so little of her father’s death. Only that he’d died in the field. Only that she would never see him again or hear his heavy footsteps on the stair.

  She longed to know more. She feared it too. “My father was with someone else?”

  Stalwood shifted. “Yes,” he said softly.

  “I have never asked you for details,” she said, dropping her chin so she would not have to look at him. “But I want them. You are asking me to endanger myself, I want to know how.”

  “I can give you some information,” he said after a long and heavy pause. “Your father went against orders to help this man. He was…he was investigating a traitor from within. It went very wrong. My spy was badly hurt and many servants and your father were killed.”

  Her stomach turned. Her father had made a life out of saving the lives of those in service to their king. And now to hear that one of them had betrayed her father? Killed him?

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to break everything around her. She wanted to find the man who had killed her father and she wanted to destroy him as he had destroyed her.

  Instead, she glared at Stalwood. “How do you know the man who was injured was not the betrayer, himself?”

  “He isn’t.” Stalwood shook his head. “We’ve extensively researched. And I know him. He is not the one.”

  “Who is he?” she asked.

  Stalwood cleared his throat. “When I say his name, it is with the express understanding that this will never leave this home. Never leave your lips.”

  “Am I being indoctrinated as one of your spies, my lord?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “In a way, yes. Am I clear on the subject?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “It is the Duke of Willowby.”

  Her lips parted. “A duke. Do you mean the Undercover Duke?”

  Stalwood drew back in surprise. “You know of him?”

  “My father spoke of him by that nickname sometimes,” she said. “Never by his formal title or his given name. I knew nothing more than that. And that Papa cared for the man.”

  Stalwood was quiet, and she knew he was letting her ponder the information before he said, “Does that mean you will help Willowby?”

  She straightened an
d glared at him. “As I said before, this business of yours, of his, it has taken more than enough from me. More than you can imagine.”

  “I know that, Diana,” Stalwood said. “And I hope you know that I would not ask this of you unless we had a dire need.”

  Diana pushed to her feet and walked away from him, breathing in the fragrant scent of herbs that always filled her kitchen. He was manipulating her, of course. As much as she liked Stalwood, it was in his nature as a spy to do so. To get what he wanted.

  Worse, it was working, no matter how she recognized the truth of it. She thought of her father, dead now for half a year. She knew what he’d say if he were here. She could almost hear him, whispering to her in that voice she hadn’t heard in months.

  He would talk to her about honor and courage. About duty. Always duty, above all else.

  She bent her head. “Very well,” she said on a sigh. “Bring him here, then.”

  Stalwood rose behind her and she faced him. He looked different now. Like he was past the gentleness required to get her agreement. Now she was one of his soldiers and he was in charge.

  “London would be better,” he said. “We’re still investigating, and I can place guards to ensure your safety with more ease there.”

  She pressed her lips together in irritation. She didn’t want to be in London. Not this time of year. But there seemed to be no choice.

  “Fine,” she said. “But at my father’s home there. My herb garden is a necessity I cannot deny myself.”

  He seemed to consider the request and then nodded. “Very well. No one will suspect he is there, for certain. That could work out very well. How long will it take you to get there?”

  She looked around, already making mental lists of what she would need to do and gather. “A week at most,” she said. “I could be there Thursday next.”