Kat Martin - Dangerous Passions

v1.5

July 29, 2008

To the men who have fought in battle through the years and the brave women who have loved them. To peace and an end to war wherever it is waged.

C ornwall , E ngland

O ctober 1808

"I have to do it, Mama. I have to do it for KarlI have to do it for Peter." Slender, blond Elissa Tauber paced in front of the stone hearth in the family cottage on the outskirts of Tenabrook, a small rural village near St. Just.

Across the warm, modestly furnished parlor, her mother sat rocking in a ladder-back chair near the fire, her once-blond hair now graying at the temples, her narrow face lined with worry. Long, slender fingers gripped the nightgown she had been embroidering with small pink roses for her daughter's twenty-first birthday.

"We've been through this before, Elissa. You can't possibly travel to Europeit's too dangerous. I've lost one child already. I could not bear to lose another." In her youth, Octavia Tauber, Countess von Langen, had been the image of her golden-haired, blue-eyed daughter. She had been an actress of some renown on the London stage, a beauty whose sensuous allure had a dozen men falling at her feet.

The handsome Count von Langen had been among them, and Octavia had fallen in love with him practically the instant she had seen him. Octavia ached just to think of him, so tall and blond and fair. Two years ago, her beloved Maximilian had died in a riding accident and without him she had withered and begun to age. The bright spark of life that had always burned inside her had flickered and died, the fiery, passionate nature so like that of her daughter.

"I'll be careful, Mama. I won't take any unnecessary chances. There is money left over in the trust fund Papa set aside for my schoolingI can use that. As soon as I have the slightest proof against the man who killed Karl, I shall go straight to the authorities."

Octavia fingered her stitchery. "Perhaps we should go to them now."

Elissa stopped pacing and turned. "You know we cannot. We have only the one single letter. Accusing a man of spying against his country is not a matter to be undertaken lightly. The very people whose help we seek might be the ones involved, We have to have more evidence. We have to find out who this man is."

The countess shook her head. "I won't take the risk. I cannot."

Elissa crossed to where her mother sat hunched over her embroidery, rocking faster now, tension making her hands shake where she rested them in her lap.

She knelt beside her mother's chair. "You would do it, Mama, if you couldI know you would. If your health were better, you would go. You wouldn't let the man who killed Karl get away with it. You would find him and see that he paid. You must let me go in your stead."

Her mother shook her head. "You're too young, Elissa, too inexperienced. You know little of the world and even less of men. You could not possibly"

"I can do this, Mama. Think of the hours we used to spend pretending we were onstage. You taught me to act, to pretend I was a great and beautiful actress just like you. Remember the elaborate plays we put on for Papa? Lord of Misrule at Christmas, A Midnight Summer's Dream, the comedies and dramas Karl would make up?"

"That is hardly the same."

"You are rightthis will be much easier. I shall pretend to be the Countess von Langena woman much like you when you were the toast of the stage."

"You are not old enough to be Maximilian's wife."

"I shall pretend to be the count's younger, second wife. I'll be a thousand miles from homewho is to know?" When her mother looked skeptical, Elissa rushed on. "Remember when I was a child? You used to laugh and say I could have been an even greater actress than you were. You said that, Mama. Do you remember?"

Her mother sighed. "I remember."

"Let me go to Vienna. Write to your friend the duchess. You can trust her, can you not?"

"Of course. Her husband was your father's best friend."

"Ask her to help us. Beg her to let me stay with her. Explain why this is so important. Tell her I'll travel as a widow just out of mourning, a woman eager to experience the glitter of Vienna. That will give me the freedom I need to mingle with the men we suspect." She clasped her mother's hand. "With the threat of war so near, it's imperative this man be stopped. If he is passing secrets to the French as Karl suspected, such a message could turn the tide of war and Peter's life could be forfeit. Karl saw how important this wasthat is why he was murdered. The duchess will see it, too. Help me do this, Mama. Help me do this for Karl and to help keep Peter safe."

The countess chewed her lip. Things had changed so much these past few years. The grand lifestyle she had known, first as an actress then later as a young woman married to a handsome Austrian count, had slowly faded. It hadn't mattered that in the end her husband's money had dwindled to only a modest income. There was enough to educate their three precious children, buy the boys a military commission, and send Elissa to a fashionable finishing school.

Money had never been important, not when they were so happy. Then Maximilian had died, and the boys, fulfilling their father's dream, had enlisted in the Austrian Army. Now her handsome, warm, intelligent eldest son, Karl, was dead, and his younger brother, Peter, might be in danger.

"Help me, Mama," Elissa pleaded softly and Octavia sighed in defeat.

Perhaps her daughter was right. There were things you had to do in life, some of them painful. You had to live life to the fullest, to do your duty, even if it meant putting yourself in danger. Without Maximillian there to stop her, there was every chance her strong-willed daughter might attempt the journey on her own, which would prove far more dangerous. And, as Elissa had said, there was a time when Octavia would have done the same.

"Fetch the quill pen and ink," she said softly. "Then leave me in peace for a while. I must have time to think if I am to write to the duchess."

Elissa started in surprise, then gave her a fierce, desperate hug. "Thank you, Mama." A smile brightened her face, the first real smile Octavia had seen since Karl had died. From the time she was a child, Elissa had worshiped her brother like the hero he had become.

"You won't be sorry, Mama. I know we are doing the right thing." Turning, Elissa dashed away, her slender feet flying up the stairs.

Setting her embroidery aside, Octavia stared into the low-burning flames. There were plans to make if their mission were to prove successful. Thinking of her beautiful, passionate, and headstrong daughter; of her son, barely cold in his grave; of the ominous letter that had been his last words, Octavia prayed that it would be.

A ustria

M arch 1809

Plump milk-white breasts, an impossibly narrow waist, and lush, womanly hips. Colonel Adrian Kingsland, Baron Wolvermont, thought of the pleasures awaiting him in the villa below and smiled.

Dressed in his scarlet and white cavalry uniform, he had ridden this night with single-minded purposean evening of pleasant debauchery buried to the hilt between the pale, creamy thighs of Lady Cecily Kainz. Cecily was the wife of a wealthy viscount, much younger than her ancient, doddering husband, lusty in her appetites and ripe for the attentions he had lavished upon her since his arrival in the country.