Dear Reader,

      It is 1813. England is fighting on two fronts, against both Napoleon and the United States. There is a third, smaller front—but hardly less important in certain quarters—and this front is on England’s own shores, the combatants England’s own citizens.

      Anywhere the smallest boat might land, everywhere the Crown’s war-tightened purse has made day-to-day living precarious, there is the chance that the local populace is dabbling in a bit of free trading—smuggling.

      The Beckets of Romney Marsh do not engage in smuggling themselves, but they have jumped in with both feet to protect those of their neighbors who do. Their Black Ghost Gang has secured the area and operated in peace for two years. But now that peace and the entire enterprise are being threatened by the Red Men, a large, vicious gang whose tentacles reach from France to London’s exclusive Mayfair.

      And so is born an unholy alliance between Ainsley Becket’s business partner and his own oldest daughter, Eleanor, who travel together to London posing as man and wife to unmask the leaders of the Red Men Gang. Trust between the two is paramount if they are to succeed, but one is tightly wrapped in lies and the other has a potentially explosive secret to protect.

      It had all seemed so simple. The man Ainsley Becket had been, the family he had built would all die and come to Romney Marsh to be reborn—safe, hidden, hopefully forgotten.

      But the world keeps creeping in…

      Please enjoy Eleanor’s story and watch for more Beckets in 2007.

      Best,

      Kasey Michaels

      To Tom and Carol Carpenter

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

      CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      1813

      ELEANOR BECKET SAT in her usual chair near the fire, bent over her embroidery frame.

      Her sisters Fanny and Cassandra, the latter still downstairs only because their papa had retreated to his study and didn’t know she’d left her bedchamber, were playing a card game they’d invented together, and neither of them quite knew the rules.

      Morgan Tanner, Countess of Aylesford, sister to the three and quite happily pregnant, sat with her legs up on a Chinese hassock, wiggling her slipper-clad toes in delight, for the slippers were new, and she rarely saw them. At least not while standing up and attempting to peer straight down.

      A log fell in the large fireplace in the drawing room where they sat, and all four women momentarily looked up from what they were doing, then settled back to passing the time as best they could.

      “They’re fine,” Eleanor said a few minutes later in answer to the unspoken question that had been hanging in the room all evening, and Fanny agreed that of course they were.

      “Just enough mist over the water to hide the Respite, not enough to hamper them. And the moon couldn’t be more perfect,” Morgan said, looking toward one of the large windows and the dark beyond. “Callie, stop chewing on your curls. You’ll end up with a hair ball in your belly. Odette will pour castor oil down your gullet, and there will be no lack of volunteers to hold you down.”

      Fifteen-year-old Cassandra Becket used her tongue to push the light brown corkscrew curl from her mouth, then frowned at its damp length. “I can’t help it, Morgie. I’m nervous.”

      “And hours past your bedtime, as it’s nearly three,” Eleanor pointed out, taking another stitch in her embroidery, pleased that her hands were steady. “You, too, Morgan.”

      “Me? I’m pregnant, Elly, not delicate. In fact,” she said, looking down at her stomach, “I’m about as delicate as a beached whale.”

      Fanny giggled. “Maybe if you didn’t eat so much…?”

      Morgan reached behind her and drew out one of the small silk pillows she’d placed there to make her comfortable, then launched it at her sister’s head.

      Fanny neatly caught the pillow, then stood, pressed it against her own flat stomach. She bent her spine back as far as she could, still holding the pillow to her, and began walking across the room, her feet spread wide. “Do I have it right, Callie? Enough of a duck’s waddle to look like our dear, sophisticated countess?”

      Callie considered this, then said, “Perhaps if you had first stuffed your cheeks with sugarplums?”

      Eleanor smiled as she continued to bend over her embroidery. It was so good to have Morgan home with them after so many months away, but if her baby didn’t come soon even Eleanor would be harboring a few fears that the girl would simply explode on her own, and not need Odette’s midwifery.

      “What was that? Fanny, Callie, sit down and be quiet. I think I heard something. Elly? Did you hear anything?”

      Eleanor stood and walked over to Morgan, gently pushing her back down into the chair. “We don’t want to appear to be too anxious, Morgan. It’s bad enough we’re all sitting up with you, just as if we don’t expect them all to be fine. Ah—now I hear it, too. They’re back. Everyone, do your best to appear unconcerned.”

      Fanny and Cassandra had already picked up their cards again, and Eleanor was once more bending over her embroidery frame as the Becket men entered