What a Hero Dares
Authors: Kasey Michaels
Desire and loyalty collide in the riveting conclusion to
USA TODAY
bestselling author Kasey Michaels’s series about the Redgraves—four siblings united by their legacy of scandal and seduction…
Punished for his father’s crimes and scorned by society, fearless soldier Maximillien Redgrave fights to protect England. But his quest to restore his family’s reputation is his own private battle. Trusting the irresistible young Zoe Charbonneau, whose betrayal destroyed his closest comrades and nearly unraveled his covert mission, is a mistake he intends to never repeat. So when the discovery of a smuggling ring compels him to embark on a voyage straight into danger, he’s prepared for anything—except to find Zoe on his ship.
Believed to be a double agent for England and France, Zoe must clear her name in order to save her life. Convincing Max of her innocence seems impossible, until inescapable desire tempts them both to trust—and love—again. But a circle of enemies is closing in, and their time together might run out before they outrun danger….
Praise for
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Kasey Michaels
“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”
â
New York Times
bestselling author Nora Roberts
“Michaels holds the reader in her clutches and doesn't let go.”
â
RT Book Reviews
on
What a Gentleman Desires,
4½ stars, Top Pick
“Michaels' beloved Regency romances are witty and smart, and the second volume in her Redgrave series is no different. The lively banter, intriguing plot, fascinating twists and turnsâ¦sheer delight.”
â
RT Book Reviews
on
What a Lady Needs,
4½ stars
“A multilayered tale.⦠Here is a novel that holds attention because of the intricate story, engaging characters and wonderful writing.”
â
RT Book Reviews
on
What an Earl Wants,
4½ stars, Top Pick
“The historical elementsâ¦imbue the novel with powerful realism that will keep readers coming back.”
â
Publishers Weekly
on
A Midsummer Night's Sin
“A poignant and highly satisfying readâ¦filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You'll enjoy the ride.”
â
RT Book Reviews
on
How to Tame a Lady
“Michaels' new Regency miniseries is a joy.⦠You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”
â
RT Book Reviews
on
How to Tempt a Duke
“Michaels has done it againâ¦. Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”
â
Publishers Weekly
on
The Butler Did It
(starred review)
Also available from Kasey Michaels and Harlequin HQN
The Redgraves
What a Gentleman Desires
What a Lady Needs
What an Earl Wants
“The Wedding Party”
Rules of Engagement
The Blackthorn Brothers
The Taming of the Rake
A Midsummer Night's Sin
Much Ado About Rogues
The Daughtry Family
“How to Woo a Spinster”
A Lady of Expectations and Other Stories
How to Tempt a Duke
How to Tame a Lady
How to Beguile a Beauty
How to Wed a Baron
The Sunshine Girls
Dial M for Mischief
Mischief Becomes Her
Mischief 24/7
The Beckets of Romney Marsh
A Gentleman by Any Other Name
The Dangerous Debutante
Beware of Virtuous Women
A Most Unsuitable Groom
A Reckless Beauty
Return of the Prodigal
Becket's Last Stand
Other must-reads
The Bride of the Unicorn
The Secrets of the Heart
The Passion of an Angel
Everything's Coming Up Rosie
Stuck in Shangri-La
Shall We Dance?
The Butler Did It
KASEY
MICHAELS
What a Hero Dares
Dear Reader,
I’ve spent three books listening to Maximilien Redgrave’s siblings talk about him, drop snippets about him here and there for me to pick up on—for readers to pick up on. Now it’s time to see what all the fuss has been about.
He’s a handsome fellow, this Max Redgrave, not to mention cocky. Bright, outwardly confident, determined, daring. But he isn’t perfect. He’s been betrayed, had his heart badly broken and his trust in his own judgment shaken by one Zoé Charbonneau, the French beauty who made him the man he is today: deadly dangerous.
Now Zoé’s back, just as Max is up to his neck in intrigue. She’s got a score of her own to settle, and doesn’t care if she’s in his way—not as long as he stays out of hers. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds, not when they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other, enemies or not.
All I have to do now is sit here at my computer and let Max lead me where he wants to go…everywhere a hero dares!
Please visit me online on Facebook or my website to catch up on all my news.
To Mike, with all my love.
In good times and bad these past fifty years,
you've always been there for me.
Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing!
âJonathan Swift
PROLOGUE
S
OMETIME
IN
THE
mid-1700s, Charles Redgrave, sixteenth earl of Saltwood, took it into his head that the amount of royal Stuart blood in his veins trumped that flowing in the Hanovers now (erroneously, obviously) occupying the English throne.
Charles did not like sharing what he perceived as his power, but realized he did need a few reasonably intelligent aides, inferiors who would obey his every command and help secure those goals (no matter their own petty motives).
And thus the Society, a most unique hellfire club, was born.
Charles handpicked his inner circle, the Devil's Thirteen as they were then dubbed, offering them, if not the sun and the moon, a secret world of more earthly delights, along with wealth and power such as they'd never dreamed could be theirs. Once he had his chosen ones, like-minded traitors all, they sought out their minions, as all the best courts had minions, sycophants, useful, loyal, yet expendable.
He outfitted a hidden pleasure palace on Saltwood land geared to satisfying every desire, indulging every carnal pleasure, encouraging every vice, from women (always a grand draw, Charles knew), to heady opium pipes. There was also the promise of intellectual discourse in there somewhere, and the lofty goal of a more justly ruled England, but mostly the more minor members were there for the silly costumes and the diddling.
It was only after their desires were met, even exceeded, and the first demands were voiced that they truly realized this particular hellfire club, this Society, now owned themâthem and their reputations, with Charles's every wish suddenly their command.
Charles knew he needed one thing more: an army. For that he turned to France, and struck yet another devil's bargain, truly believing he was about to embark on the path that would lead him to the throne.
Instead, Charles turned up quite dead one morning (a plate of bad fish, so sad), before the French army could be launched, its destination the welcoming shores of Redgrave Manor. The Devil's Thirteen and the minions melted back into a more humdrum society, hopeful the masks they'd worn during ceremonies, the code names they'd used, would protect their identities.
Whispers of debauchery and perhaps sedition to one side, the Society might have been forgotten, if not for one thing. Charles had decreed every member keep a journal. Those journals were yearly turned over to the Keeper to update the bible, the key to everything about the Society.
When the time was considered ripe, the Keeper had dutifully turned over the journals and bible to Charles's only son. Barry Redgrave, as hoped, had
oohed
and
aahed
in sincere appreciation, and apparently decided his late sire had been nothing less than a bloody genius. Along with an almost eerie resemblance, Barry had inherited an attraction to the more perverse delights life had to offer. Although Barry believed himself to be more handsome than his father, and most definitely smarter.
And that plate of bad fish? The Keeper had another tale to tell about
that!
Even before he reached his majority, Barry had clearly taken over the running of Redgrave Manor, cajoling his doting yet oddly nervous mother, winning her over with his smiles, his outward affection, while operating quite secretly behind her back. The morning he turned one-and-twenty, after a long night of revelry with his chums in Town, he flung his unsteady, drunken self into his mother's chambers in the family's Cavendish Square mansion, to rouse the woman with a cruel slap followed by a boozy, punishing kiss on her mouth.
He was followed by a trail of maids and footmen prepared to “Pack you up, you murdering whore,” and denied her an allowance unless she limited her visits to the Manor to one month out of each year.
He then paid a covert visit to Grosvenor Square. He politely thanked the aging Keeper and mentor in the ways of the Society for all he'd done, and told him to say hello to Charles a moment before tossing the old fool down the marble stairs.
Two weeks later, he purchased that same Grosvenor Square mansion, leaving his father's outrageous monstrosity in Cavendish Square for his mama's use. Let her live with the ghosts there.
And let the games begin!
While his still young and beautiful mother traveled on the Continent or partied in Mayfair, he appointed his very best friend, Turner Collier, to act as the group's Keeper, guardian of the bible. They then went about gathering up any of the original Devil's Thirteen and minions still aboveground, and the Society was soon back in business. He met and married a barely royal Spanish beauty he deemed a suitable broodmare, put a child in her as often as he could, enlarged both the Manor house and its lands. And plotted. And schemed. And added more and more like thinkers and helpful minions to
his
Society.
All within the confines of his first and truly only love, Redgrave Manor.
For nearly ten years of planning and conniving and bribing, all seemed to go quite swimmingly. His negotiations with the French king would soon come to fruition. Until the fall of the Bastille dealt the first crushing blow to Barry's ambitions. That was closely followed by his drunken decision to stand up in a duel against his wife's French lover, only to fall on his handsome face when a weapon fired from the trees put a bullet hole in his back and a period to his existence. The new widow, smoking pistol supposedly still in her hand, promptly deserted her four young children and ran off to France with her lover.
What followed was open conjecture throughout the
ton
concerning some sort of salacious hellfire club, and even speculation that Barry Redgrave had been whoring out his wife to his devil-worshipping friends, and that was really why she shot him. There were whispers of sedition and treason as people remembered his father and those rumors, dragging them out for another airing. But, mostly, it was the titillating scandal of the murder, the reason behind it, and the insult to those who deemed the Redgraves immoral, unsuited to retain the earldom (or the Manor, or all that lovely money).
It was as if Barry was more of a danger dead than he'd been while alive. The Redgraves were about to lose everything...including control of their secrets.
Enter the determined Beatrix, Dowager Countess of Saltwood, and fiercely protective grandmother to Barry's four good-as-orphaned children. The by now deliciously notorious Trixie, who had spent her entire widowhood playing May games with society, most especially the menâthose she loathed, those she admired, and those she might someday be able to use.
She'd learned a lot from Charles....
Perhaps because she had more brass than a chamber pot, but most probably because she knew more than most men would like the world (and especially their wives) to know, she managed to make it through the scandal. She spent decades tenaciously (and perhaps more cleverly than legally), holding on to the earldom for her eldest grandson, Gideon, who had been only nine when his father was hastily interred in the family mausoleum.
Her husband's Society, her son's intention to follow in his father's footstepsâthese were never mentioned within earshot of the grandchildren. Trixie would rather die a thousand deaths than reveal what had gone on within the Society, the part Charles had forced her to play those long years ago. Her grandchildren knew of the scandal caused by their parents' actions, yesâthat would be impossible to hide from them as they matured and traveled to London, but with the Society long since gone, there was no reason for them to know anything else.
In truth, they seemed to delight in being
those scandalous Redgraves
. Welcomed everywhere, because to deny them would be folly. Quick, intelligent,
dangerous,
no door was shut to them
.
Who'd dare?
But now, suddenly, the Society was back for a third go-round, even using Redgrave land as its headquarters. Its methods the same, its
partner
this time none but the upstart new French emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. For years, he had longed to add England to his long list of conquered countries. The Society would be more than eager to assist him in that endeavor in exchange forâGod, what
did
they want? Certainly not the Crown; that silly Stuart business could only be gained through the Redgraves, and they certainly had no part in this new incarnation of the Society.
No, the methods might be the same, but the aims were different. Still, at the end of the day, if the Crown got so much as a whiff of what was going on, the Redgraves would pay the price, and this time no amount of Trixie's machinations would save them.
Gideon, already suspicious that something odd was going on at Redgrave Manor, had learned about the resurrected Society through Turner Collier's daughter, Jessica. He immediately confronted Trixie, demanding she tell him everything she knew. Consulting with his siblings, they then decided they were left with no other choice than to secretly, quietly ferret out the members and this time bury the Society too deep for it ever to be raised again.
First and foremost, of course, the Redgraves were all loyal to the Crown. But they were also loyal to the Redgrave name, and to the incredibly brave woman who had raised and protected them. They knew neither could survive the possibility of being connected to this or any earlier incarnation of the Society.
Plus, even with some early quick successes, they knew they were running out of time, having been forced to bring Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in on what they'd learned about Society efforts to sabotage troops and supplies heading to Wellington on the Peninsula.
Gideon's sister, Lady Katherine, had scoured Redgrave Manor, locating the journals from both her grandfather's and father's time but not, alas, the all-important bible, the tome having been reduced to ashes by the Keeper. His brother Valentine, following clues found in those journals, had dared to infiltrate a portion of the Society, nearly losing his life in the process, but adding to their knowledge.
They were getting ever closer to the core of the Society and these new, unknown leaders who hid behind masks and code names while going about their dirty business.
Unfortunately, these successes also alerted the Society that the Redgraves were onto them, most certainly fueled by information given to them by the dowager countess.
Only a few short days ago, following a nearly successful arson in the mansion in Cavendish Square with a bold attempt on Trixie's life on the streets of London, the hunters had suddenly become the hunted.
There couldn't be a better time for Maximillien Redgrave, currently doing his own investigating from the other side of the Channel, to return to the estate where, unbeknownst to him, his family was all already gathered, and under siege.
Max also didn't know his own past was sailing to Redgrave Manor with him.
But he was about to find out.
