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One

September 1816

Coquetdale, Northumbria

It wasn’t supposed to have been like this

Wrapped in his greatcoat, alone on the box seat of his excellently sprung curricle, Royce Henry Varisey, tenth Duke of Wolverstone, turned the latest in the succession of post-horses he’d raced up the highway fro to Sharperton and Harbottle The gently rounded foothills of the Cheviot Hills gathered him in like a mother’s arms; Wolverstone Castle, his childhood home and newly inherited principal estate, lay close by the village of Alwinton, beyond Harbottle

One of the horses broke stride; Royce checked it, held the pair back until they were in step, then urged theh-bred blacks had carried him as far as St Neots on Monday; thereafter he’d had a fresh pair put to every fifty or so miles

It was now Wednesday ain—after sixteen long years—entering holades of its forest lay behind hiely treeless skirts of the Cheviots, dotted here and there with the inevitable sheep, spread around the even more barren hills themselves, their backbone the border with Scotland beyond

The hills, and that border, had played a vital role in the evolution of the dukedom Wolverstone had been created after the Conquest as a land fro Scots Successive dukes, popularly known as the Wolves of the North, had for centuries enjoyed the privileges of royalty within their domains

Many would argue they still did

Certainly they’d remented by their battlefield prowess, and protected by their success in convincing successive sovereigns that such wily, politically powerful ex-kingmakers were best left alone, left to hold the Middle March as they had since first setting their elegantly shod Norlish soil

Royce studied the terrain with an eye honed by absence Reminded of his ancestry, he wondered anew if their traditional nized by custoally rescinded but never truly taken away, and even less truly given up—hadn’t underpinned the rift between his father and him

His father had belonged to the old school of lordship, one that had included theto their creed, loyalty to either country or sovereign was a co both Crown and country had to place a suitable price upon before it was granted More, to dukes and earls of his father’s ilk, “country” had an as in their own domains, those domains were their primary concern while the realm possessed a more nebulous and distant existence, certainly a lesser claim on their honor

While Royce would allow that swearing fealty to the present ent—wasn’t an attractive proposition, he held no equivocation over swearing allegiance, and service, to his country—to England

As the only son of a powerful ducal fa in the field, when, at the tender age of twenty-two, he’d been approached to create a network of English spies on foreign soil, he’d leapt at the chance Not only had it offered the prospect of contributing to Napoleon’s defeat, but with his extensive personal and family contacts combined with his inherent ability to inspire and command, the position was tailor-love

But to his father the position had been a disgrace to the name and title, a blot on the fa as without question dishonorable, even if one were spying on active military enemies It was a view shared by many senior peers at the time

Bad enough, but when Royce had refused to decline the coanized an a when the club was always crowded With his cronies at his back, his father had passed public judg terms

As his peroration, his father had triumphantly declared that if Royce refused to bow to his edict and instead served in the capacity for which he’d been recruited, then it would be as if he, t

he ninth duke, had no son