Read My Surrender for Free Online

bid on it.”
    Dand leaned back in the settee. “Bloody hell.” He steepled his hands before his lips and fell silent for a long moment. “Where is Comte St. Lyon now?”
    “Preparing to leave for his castle, forty miles northwest of Sterling. The place is a fortress. He has hired a veritable army of men to patrol the grounds and building. The land it sits on is barren and uninhabited except for a drover’s village some miles south. Everyone in the vicinity is known to St. Lyon. A newcomer would be remarked. And dispatched,” she explained, anticipating his asking whether a fox had been set amongst the hens.
    “Why doesn’t someone simply eliminate the man?” Dand asked with such cold callousness Charlotte felt a shiver of her earlier fear. Not that Ginny Mulgrew hadn’t thought of the same thing, she reminded herself.
    “Because he made it clear that should any harm befall him the letter would be opened and made public.”
    “Steal the letter?” Dand suggested but in such a tone that it was clear he understood that this most obvious solution would already have been explored.
    “No one knows where it is. On two separate occasions, the best cracksmen in London have attempted to gain entry to his town house. Both men are now dead.” She managed to say this without revealing the distress she had felt over the discovery of their bodies.
    “Servants?”
    “All handpicked by St. Lyon. All men and women he brought with him from France. All loyal or so afraid of him that no bribe can entice them to risk his vengeance.”
    Charlotte could almost see various schemes and plans taking form and being dismissed in the narrowing of Dand’s eyes, the slight furrowing of his brow, and the frustration in the tightening of his jaw.
    “Damnation! I have to return to France within a fortnight.” His hand fisted against his knee “I take it the abbot has been informed?”
    “Yes. A messenger pigeon was dispatched but he hasn’t answered. The bird may have been lost. But do not worry,” Charlotte said softly, “the matter is well in hand.”
    At this, Dand’s brows shot up. “Oh? Who has the matter well in hand?”
    “Ginny Mulgrew. She and those with whom she is allied have devised a plan to steal the cylinder back.”
    Dand stood up. “What plan?”
    “A few weeks ago I introduced her to the comte—”
    “You?” Dand interrupted. “How do you know this comte?”
    She shot him a terse glance. “Come, Dand. You must know my reputation. I am exactly the sort of high-spirited romp a man of St. Lyon’s ilk would find interesting. I told you he is well connected.” She didn’t see any need to tell him that the comte had picked her out for even more special attentions until he had discovered her brother-in-law was the powerful new marquis of Cottrell. “How I know him is of no consequence. What is important is that Ginny Mulgrew has been invited to the castle. As his mistress. And there she shall steal the cylinder.”
    She met his gaze with practiced aloofness, waiting for him to comment on her association with the courtesan. He did not.
    “How will she accomplish this, if the place is so well guarded?”
    “The comte does not think highly of my gender. He considers us volatile, mercenary, emotional, and hen-witted. Any threat a woman poses—and he does allow that women might be used as tools, but only by men—could only be negligible.
    “Ginny will be watched but not to the degree she warrants. Added to which, we have studied blueprints of the castle that the comte does not know exist. Indeed, we know of secret passages and priests’ holes of which he is completely unaware. It may take a few days, but Ginny will find the letter. She has found many things before that were meant to have stayed hidden.”
    “And your involvement?”
    “Mine?” she asked. “I’m not involved at all.”
    For a long moment their gazes held.
    “Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

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    Jermyn Street, Piccadilly
July 15,