Acknowledgments
Thank you so much, Kimberly Witherspoon and William Callahan of InkWell Management, for your continued support of my writing career.
Selina McLemore, most excellent editor at Grand Central/Forever Romance, thank you for wrestling through this story with me and providing much-needed help and insights. And thank you to all at Grand Central Publishing who do such a wonderful job with art, production, and publicity.
Franzeca Drouin, you have my everlasting gratitude and awe. I really hope one day I get to sample your cooking. In France.
Thank you again, Rachel, Melody, and Bobbi for “critique meetings with coffee” and, as always, to my family for putting up with both me and the people who live inside my head.
30 September 1854
My dear brother Sebastian,
I send this via personal courier from Paris to ensure the haste and secrecy of its receipt. Herein is further information regarding my request for your assistance. When I corresponded with Monsieur Jacques Dupree about his inventions, he revealed the existence of plans he had drawn up for the construction of a machine that creates cryptographs.
I have recently learned that prior to his death, Monsieur Dupree sent the cipher machine specifications to a former apprentice, Mr. Granville Blake, at Blake’s Museum of Automata, 20 Old Bond Street, London. It is my belief that Monsieur Dupree sent him the plans to ensure their safe-keeping.
The machine appears to have numerous wartime uses, but I must study the mechanics, code, and transmission of cipher messages before determining its efficacy. To that effect and with recent difficulties in the Crimea, it is important that you do not tell anyone what you are looking for.
Should you find the plans for me, I will compensate you well. I understand from Grand Duchess Irina that you have returned to London for an indeterminate stay, so it is my hope this task will prove advantageous for us both.
Yours,
Darius
Chapter One
She was carrying a head.
Sebastian Hall squinted and rubbed his gritty eyes. He blinked and looked again. Definitely a head. Cradled in one arm like a babe. It was a woman’s head with neatly coiffed brown hair. Though at this distance he couldn’t see her expression, he imagined it to be rather distressed.
He watched as the young woman crossed the empty ballroom to the stage, her steps both quick and measured and her posture straight in spite of her gruesome possession.
Sebastian pushed himself away from the piano. The room swayed a little as he rose, as if he were on the deck of a ship. He had once spent countless hours at the Royal Society of Musicians’ Hanover Square building, but now the place felt unfamiliar to him, almost oppressive. A hum, seasick-yellow, droned in his ears. He dragged a hand over his face and scrubbed at his rough jaw as he crossed the room.
The woman didn’t appear to see him, her path set unswervingly on her destination. A basket dangled over her left arm.
Sebastian cleared his throat. The guttural noise echoed in the vast room like the growl of a bear.
“Miss.” His voice sounded coarse, rusted with disuse.
The woman startled, jerking back and losing her grip on the head, which fell to the floor with a thump and then rolled. A cry of surprise sounded, though in his befuddled state Sebastian couldn’t tell from whom it had emerged. He looked down as the head rolled to a stop near his feet like the victim of an executioner’s ax.
A perfect, waxen face stared up at him, wide blue eyes unblinking, pink mouth, her hair beginning to escape a smooth chignon.
After a moment of regarding this turn of events, Sebastian bent to retrieve the head. The woman reached it before he did, scooping it back into her arms and stepping away from him.
“Sir! If you would please— Oh.”
Sebastian looked up into a pair of rather extraordinary eyes—a combination of blue and violet flecked with gold. Something flickered in his memory, though he couldn’t grasp its source.
Where had he—?
“Mr. Hall?” She tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear, hugging the head closer to her chest. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
She frowned, glancing at his wrinkled clothes, unshaven jaw, and scuffed boots. For an uncomfortable moment he wanted to squirm under that sharp assessment. He pulled a hand through his hair in a futile effort at tidiness, then experienced a sting of annoyance over his self-consciousness.
“Are you…” He shook his head to try to clear it. “I’m afraid this room is closed until Lady Rossmore’s charity ball on Saturday.”