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PROLOGUE

“The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.”

Giacomo Casanova

AUGUST 3, 1821

Lord Julius Trafford, honorary viscount and heir to the Earl of Stirling, toyed with the gold-and-emerald signet ring on his finger, twisting it again and again. It had been a gift from his maternal grandfather, a blithesome fellow whom Julius missed with a fierce yearning. He would give almost anything to debate with the old man one last time about the various merits of phaetons versus curricles on the streets of London.

Recent days had been troubling. His friend, Brendan Ridley, had returned home in the early morning after the King’s coronation to find his father slain on the study floor. That had been more than two weeks earlier, and the study had since been cleaned and rearranged. Yet it was still macabre to consider that he was now seated in the very room where the brutal crime had taken place.

In the aftermath of the murder, Brendan had been moments away from being arrested for patricide, but a young lady had cleared his name at the cost of her reputation. Miss Lily Abbott claimed to have spent the evening with him. It was ridiculous, of course, because she was an innocent miss. However, Miss Abbott had borne witness to both Brendan’s arrival at and departure from his paramour’s home that night, so when the capricious widow would not stand as an alibi, Miss Abbott had taken her place and claimed it was the Abbotts’ home where Brendan had spent the night.

All a lot of tosh, in Julius’s view. Polite society’s rules were cumbersome and inept, or the young woman could have simply told the truth without all the unnecessary fuss. Brendan might not have swung from a hangman’s noose, but he was snared by the parson’s trap in its place. He was now encumbered with a proper wife.

Which left Julius as the last free man standing within their set.

Nevertheless, despite his pique at recent events, he had poked around in an attempt to discover who was the true perpetrator of the atrocity. Brendan was a dear friend, after all. It could not be allowed to stand that a murderous fiend had set up his chum to swing.

Nothing had yet come to light until two days earlier, when Brendan’s bride was attacked by a panicking footman. The killer had hired the servant to hide his identity and to search for a supposedly damning letter that the victim, the late Baron of Filminster, might have written before his untimely death.

It had been fortunate that Brendan’s cantankerous butler, Michaels, was the son of a gamekeeper—an excellent shot, by all accounts. The new baroness had been saved by a musket ball to the head of her attacker.

Julius disliked the anxiety that came from fearing for his friends, which was precisely why he found himself seated in Brendan’s study, now the new Baron of Filminster, for the third time in as many days.

“I need your help.”

Brendan’s declaration punctuated the tension in the room.

Across from Julius, Lady Filminster’s brother straightened in his seat, presumably eager to help resolve the danger his sister faced.

“What has happened? Is Lily safe?” Abbott looked worn to the bone, the dark circles framing his eyes betraying his lack of sleep.

Brendan cleared his throat. “I have discovered the letter that my … father … wrote. I now know what led to his murder on the night of the coronation.”

Julius picked at the lapel of his purple silk coat, repressing his annoyance. Brendan had not shared vital information with him, despite their years of friendship, and he would no longer maintain his silence.

“Your father … or your uncle?” Julius purred, knowing full well it would grate on Brendan’s nerves.

The baron turned from the window to scowl at him. “You know of that?”

Julius arched an eyebrow in response.

Abbott interjected in a belligerent tone. “What is Trafford talking about?”

Brendan sighed. “I suppose the gossip has been circulating, so I might as well speak the truth. The late baron was my uncle, who married my mother to save the family from shame. My true father, his older brother, died weeks before the wedding.”

Abbott pulled a face at this unsavory disclosure. “Faugh!”

The beleaguered baron responded with a sardonic laugh. “Just so.”

“May I read the letter?” Julius straightened from his languid sprawl, energized to find any clue to the happenings of the past two weeks.

Brendan pulled a folded page from inside his coat and walked over to hand it to Julius. Abbott watched with the tension of a tuning fork while Julius digested its contents, which had been censored by dripping ink that marred key words into infinite obscurity.

Sir Robert Peel

London, July 19, 1821