Chapter One

Paris -- March 1828

"No. It can't be," Sir Bertram Trent whispered, aghast. His round blue eyes bulging in horror, he pressed his forehead to the window overlooking the Rue de Provence.

"I believe it is, sir," said his manservant, Withers.Sir Bertram dragged his hand through his tousled brown curls. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and he'd only just changed out of his dressing gown. "Genevieve," he said hollowly. "Oh, Lord, it is her."

"It is your grandmother, Lady Pembury, beyond doubt-and your sister, Miss Jessica, with her." Withers suppressed a smile. He was suppressing a great deal at the moment. The mad urge to dance about the room, shouting hallelujah, for instance.

They were saved, he thought. With Miss Jessica here, matters would soon be put right. He had taken a great risk in writing to her, but it had to be done, for the good of the family.

Sir Bertram had fallen, among Evil Companions. The evilest of companions in all of Christendom, in Wither's opinion: a pack of wastrel degenerates led by that monster, the fourth Marquess of Dain.

But Miss Jessica would soon put a stop to it, the elderly manservant assured himself as he speedily knotted his master's neckcloth.

Sir Bertram's twenty-seven-year-old sister had inherited her widowed grandmother's alluring looks: the silken hair nearly blue-black in color, almond-shaped silver-grey eyes, alabaster complexion, and graceful figure-all of which, in Lady Pembury's case, had proved immune to the ravages of time.

More important, in the practical Withers' view, Miss Jessica had inherited her late father's brains, physical agility, and courage. She could r