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Prologue

I want a hero…

Lord Byron

Don Juan, Canto the First

Rome

July 1820

She led the way up the stairs to her bedroo as she went

Marta Fazi was agile, certainly Her dark gaze locked with Jalea away the mask, the veil, the cloak that concealed a frail excuse for a gown: a fliether with a few easily untied ribbons and strings

She left the ereat pendant stone dangling between her breasts, the s, the bracelet

Ja it over his shoulder as he cli the pose of mild curiosity he’d used to bait the hook

Accusto what she wanted, Marta couldn’t resist a challenge, and Ja to become one Given a choice, he wouldn’t have touched her with a barge pole Since he hadn’t a choice, he’d simply let his reluctance show That, as he’d expected, had piqued her vanity

She was handsome, admittedly He’d heard that Lord Byron had written a poem about her, not for publication She was of the type the poet adnificent animal”

James was not nearly so enthusiastic about the type He was thirty-one years old, and Marta was not his first passionate, uninhibited, and sexually talented foreign adventuress If he survived this encounter, though, she’d be the last If he didn’t survive it—which was equally likely—she’d be the last

Either way I win, he thought

If he failed this mission, he’d die a slow and painful death He would not beto save the world They probably wouldn’t even find his body—or as left of it

For bloody da and bloody damned country, he told himself as the door closed behind him, one last time

He took off his waistcoat and dropped that and his coat over a chair near the door as he continued to advance and she continued to retreat, unerringly, toward the bed

Clearly, she knew the way backward and in the dark, though the rooether dark Servants must have readied it shortly before, because the candles were lit They must have expected her to have company because they’d lit only two

These offered light enough to show hiht enough to reen fire of the e theht, he’d knohere she was Her perfu roses

She ran her hands over her full, firnificently formed, and knew it

“You see, I keep nothing froive myself completely”

Her speech told him she’d spent most of her life in southern Italy and had had a little—a very little—education He detected, too, a foreign note: her native Cyprus, no doubt Though his antecedents, like hers, were e, was flawless Since he’d inherited his randfather’s Ro that he was not only the son of an English nobleovernment

In short, Ja panther The trick was to make sure she didn’t find out

“Not quite completely,” he said as he unfastened his trousers “The stones are pretty, but your beauty needs no adornment, you know”

Not to ging Yer could put yer eye out with one a theht have told her, in the accents he’d learned in his eventful youth

She laughed “Ah, flattery at last I thought I should never hear it from you”

He stepped out of his trousers “The sight before ue,” he said

“Good” Her gaze lowered “And the little man is stimulated, too, I see”

Of course it was Jaht have had his fill of her sort but he was aThey usually were, the deadly ones

She unhooked the earrings and laid them on the table by the bed She unclasped the bracelet, and dropped it next to the earrings

He pulled his shirt over his head

She was fu with the clasp of the necklace

“Allow me,” he said

It was an old clasp, very probably the original, and wanted both care and a sharp eye The parure had not been intended for ordinary evening wear but for state occasions: It had been created for a queen o Its current owners, ejected by Napoleon, had had to secret their treasures and thee The treasures had been on their way home in the care of a trusted retainer when she and two confederates, garbed as nuns, had stolen it

The age and history of the erown up on the streets; she was literate—though just barely—a men and a passion for emeralds

This hat James knew of her and all he needed to know to do the job he’d been sent to do

Get the gehtful owner, and let the diplomats sort out the details

The jewels now lying in a careless tangle on the bed stand, James proceeded to business “To battle” was probably nearer the mark

He was a soldier, after all, though the ared Nobody pinned any medals on men like him, or mentioned him in dispatches

And if he got caught, no one would rescue him

So, Jeet caught

Then he gave the girl what she wanted, and did it thoroughly Whatever he felt about his work, he was at least still capable of enjoying a handsome, passionate female more or less as any other man would

When at last she seemed reasonably sated—for the moment, at any rate—he whispered, “I’m famished What about you?”

“Ah, yes,” she ain our strength The bell for the servant is beside you”

“Let’s let the servants sleep,” he said “I’d rather forage”

She laughed drowsily “So you would I marked you for a hunter when first I saw you”

You got that part right

He rose from the bed His trousers were near at hand, as he’d taken care they should be He pulled them on, then found his shirt His back to her, he pulled it over his head, then slid the jewels fro the movement

The rest was absurdly easy The bed curtains hid from her view the door and the chair where he’d left his waistcoat and coat He collected the garh the door

Another man would have postponed his exit until she fell asleep James, however, was of Lady Macbeth’s mind: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’tell/It were done quickly”

It would be well to move quickly in this case Marta would soon notice the stones were gone, and she took betrayal very ill, indeed The last man who’d annoyed her had lost his privates first He’d lost them slowly, in bits

Jaht have mere seconds

He hurried down the stairs

One second Two Three Four Five Six Seven—

“Stop him!” she screamed “Get him! Break his knees!”

As he left the landing, a burly ruffian barreled up the stairs Ja his arm out sideways, stiff as a tollbooth bar The servant saw it too late He ran straight into it, thehim across the throat He fell backward, down the stairs, landing head first