Prologue

      Near Batavia, on the island of Java, Dutch East Indies. 1815

      “Promise!” The dying man grabbed her arm in a hard-fingered grip. Promise me, damn you, girl!

      Kit Smith winced under the pressure. She glanced down at her father’s thin, elegant fingers biting into her flesh. Gentleman’s fingers. White, soft, aristocratic, seeming too fine even for the heavy ring he wore. Refined hands, good for lifting a lady’s hand to be kissed. For gesturing in an amusing fashion to illustrate a sophisticated story. White-skinned, blue-veined hands. Hands which had never done a hard day’s labour in their life. Hands which excelled at the shuffling and dealing of cards…the clever, extremely discreet dealing of cards…

      Kit bit her lip and tried to ease her arm from under the punishing grip. He did not know his own strength, that was Papa’s trouble.

      People didn’t when they were dying.

      “Promise me!”

      Kit said nothing. With her other hand she picked up a linen cloth and wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

      “Dammit, girl, I want that promise!” He searched her face angrily. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to do anything you haven’t done a hundred times or more in your life!”

      Kit gently shook her head. “I cannot, Papa.”

      He flung her hand aside in disgust. “Bah! I don’t know why I bothered even asking you. My daughter!” The scorn in his voice lanced through Kit. “My only living child! She, who has refused to help her father since she turned thirteen!”

      “Hush, Papa, do not try to talk. Save your strength.”

      “Be damned to it…I’m dying, girl…and I’ll not…be hushed. By sunset tonight—” He spat blood and lay gasping for breath before he could continue. “Dying, curse it…and without a son to…” He rolled his head away from her, muttering, “Nothing but a daughter, a useless daughter—”

      Kit did not respond; she told herself she was inured to the pain of his tirade on the uselessness of daughters. She’d heard it all her life.

      Her maidservant and companion, Maggie Bone, bustled in, carrying a pile of clean linen and a bowl of fresh water. Kit nodded her thanks and, as Maggie removed the blood-soaked wad of linen, Kit pressed a fresh pad against the wound in his chest.

      “Done for, curse it.” He gave a snort of bitter laughter. “And by some clod of a colonial lout! Me! In whom the finest English blood flows…”

      Kit pressed harder, willing the flow to stop.

      “Not so hard, girl!”

      Kit eased the pressure slightly. In moments fresh,