LITMIR.BIZ

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      To Marcia Evanick,

       one of the best friends a person could have, a marvellous writer and truly the bravest lady I know. I love you, Marci!

      Speak low if you speak love.

      —William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing

       PROLOGUE

      DICKIE CARSTAIRS, pudgy of body and pleasantly vacant-eyed, stood a little too close to the yellow circle of lamplight across the street from the Duck and Wattle to remain undetected. That was Dickie’s job, to be detected, and he performed this office with such brilliance that government clerk Miles Duncan was not only confident but smiling as he nipped out the back door of the inn whilst Dickie was so obviously watching the front.

      The smile faded quickly as a firm hand clapped down on his shoulder even as a sharp tug on the satchel he carried relieved him of its burden. “Good evening, Mr. Duncan. Going somewhere? Mind if we join you?”

      Miles Duncan did mind, but not for long, all his earthly cares forgotten as he slipped almost gracefully into the fetid puddle that had once been the contents of several chamber pots recently dumped from an upstairs window. Poor Miles Duncan, another victim of the violent crime rampant in certain quarters of London.

      Will Browning calmly retrieved his knife from Duncan’s mortal remains and wiped the blade on the deceased’s coat. He then slid the weapon into the cuff of his boot before relieving the dead man of his purse and inferior garnet stickpin, to lend credence to the crime of robbery. “Jack? Mind if we join you? What a strange choice of words. Not where he just went if you don’t mind, thank you.”

      Don John Blackthorn, best known as Black Jack, was already undoing the flap of the satchel, to assure himself the pilfered papers the prime minister had commissioned them to retrieve were inside. “Very well, Will. Next time you talk, and I’ll wield the sticker.”

      “Ha! Isn’t it just like you to want the fun for yourself.”

      Jack ignored the remark, knowing Will Browning employed his knife and sword without conscience or compunction. It was probably a good thing he’d found government service; otherwise, he’d have been hanged by now.

      They were an odd trio of rogues. Dickie, third son of an earl, was socially inept, regarded as pleasant enough but rather dim, yet one of the bravest men Jack had ever met. Not just anyone would constantly set himself up as the most visible and vulnerable target. Dickie’s was the public face that made it possible for the rest to work.

      Will was the weapon. Handsome, wealthy, smooth, an impeccably dressed darling of the ton, and always ready with a pleasant word and a smile. His sense of right and wrong, however, was his own, and quite singular. There was a certain civilized madness about Will. If you knew you weren’t quite a friend, you never wished to be his enemy.

      And then there was Jack, the brains and nominal leader of the trio. Jack, who’d never quite felt at home anywhere. Bastard son of the Marquess of Blackthorn, he hadn’t felt at home on the estate, with his brothers, or with the world in general. He was different, and he’d recognized that difference early in life. He had a fire deep inside him, a need that he couldn’t articulate, let alone grasp. That had made him a wild, impulsive youth, and he’d learned life’s lessons the hard way.

      Finding work as one of the government’s most trusted covert agents had fed the fire, for a time. Now he was growing tired of always being on the outside of life, the observer, never a real participant. Once, he’d thought he’d found the answer, a way to the unnameable acceptance he’d always been seeking, the one place where he knew he would fit. But then he’d lost his way, his purpose in living, and knew he could never get it back. Get her back. What he did now was merely exist from mission to mission.

      “It’s all there?” Will asked as Dickie joined them, both of them leaning in to see the contents Jack quickly began returning to the satchel.

      “I wasn’t made privy to an inventory, but there’s enough here that Lord Liverpool should be satisfied,” Jack answered noncommittally. “And more diligent about whom he trusts with the Crown’s business in future. In any event, we’ll be well recompensed for tonight’s work, and that’s what matters—correct, gentlemen?” He hesitated for a moment, and then pulled one of the pages back out of the packet when he saw a name he recognized. “Damn.”

      “Shouldn’t be reading that, Jack,” Dickie pointed out. “We know too much, we could end

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