Hi everyone! This is the prologue to my WIP, Mr. Darcy's Charade, Book 2 of the Spies and Prejudice series. While this story stands alone, you will enjoy it much better if you read the first book so I recommend you start there. Warning: this is an unedited, WIP. I have run it through spell check and ProWritingAid, but there will still be proofreading errors. I intend to publish this as an eBook on Amazon after it is fully edited. Any and all feedback is welcome on this WIP though! I want this to be the best book it can be!

Note: Due to popular request, I am adding a brief summary of what happened in the previous book here. In Mr. Darcy's Cipher, Mr. Bennet is a crack code cracker working indirectly with the Prime Minister's office during the Napoleonic wars. Mr. Bennet is also losing his sight, so Elizabeth, his one daughter who inherited his love of puzzles, has been working with him since she was a child and is currently doing a lot of the deciphering work. Mr. Darcy comes to Mr. Bennet because his younger brother, Reginald, died in France but sent a letter, partially in code, to their sister Georgiana. Mr. Darcy has taken the letter to be decoded because he doesn't want the contents to thrust her back into crippling grief. As Elizabeth works on the code, she discovers that there is a French spymaster in England and also a plot to assassinate the Prince Regent. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy fall in love while unraveling this plot and saving the Prince Regent. At the end of the book, Mr. Darcy has proposed and Elizabeth has accepted.

Prologue

It was a truth, universally acknowledged, that a married lady who made secret assignations with strange men must have unfulfilled passions. For Lady Isabelle Valmouth, those passions included sedition, espionage, and the ultimate collapse of the British monarchy.

Louis lifted a flute of red wine as Lady Isabelle slipped into the room. She was dressed as a servant, black dress, white apron, her blonde curls pulled up beneath a simple cap. Without her fancy frocks, rouge and feathers, she seemed ordinary. A mask, but a comfortable one.

"You are late." Louis handed Isabella a glass of wine. He was a picture of a dandy, intricate cravat, chocolate curls, trim waist and long, sleek and proud like a Godolphin racer.

"My modiste wanted details."

"I trust you made much of my prowess."

Isabelle sipped her wine. The taste was expensive and bitter. "I demurred as was proper."

"You, my lady, are more proper than any would suspect."

"I am no lady," Isabelle said, shifting to the gutter French of her childhood.

Louis, in the same tongue, said, "I doubt Aldous expected his loyalty to be rewarded with a knife in the gut."

"The gut stab resulted from his incompetence. His loyalty ensured his throat was slit shortly thereafter, so he did not suffer."

"One would almost say you've gotten tenderhearted, Belle." Louis chuckled. "Sit with me." He sat on the edge of the bed. His gaze lingered on her lips.

"Shameless."

"Old Valmouth cannot satisfy you as I could."

"it will satisfy me when we have brought freedom to this pisshole."

Louis sighed.

"Twice this week I have had to call on the services of my modiste. There is no telling how ridiculously bespoke I will be for the upcoming season. Why could you have not have sent your news in a letter?"

"You wanted to know about the betrothed pair who saved dear Prinny's life."

"What did you discover?"

"Some things of interest." Louis raised the wine to his lips.

"You will be paid. Your kind is always paid."

"We cannot all put our entire faith in revolution."

Louis put his faith in nothing but himself. It was one thing Isabel found useful about him. Craven and disgusting, but useful.

"Mr. Darcy is gentry, landed, with a good income."

"All of this I have learned from the gossip rags. Go on."

"His younger brother was killed in France."

"In battle."

"In Paris, to be specific."

Isabelle's fingers tightened on her glass. She forced herself to sip the wine. "Is that so?" If the younger Mr. Darcy had been in Paris, then he was no ordinary soldier. Which made it less likely the elder Darcy had at the been at the Autumn Masque to foil Aldous's plan by coincidence. "Interesting," she said. The younger Mr. Darcy must have informed his brother of Aldous's plot. Possibly. The younger Darcy had been dead for over six months. "Still, I am uncertain this required we meet."

"His fiancé is also interesting. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is the daughter of Erasmus Bennet. Aldous had sent a man to look into his correspondence. He has deciphered a number of our codes."

"You think he sent his daughter." Mr. Erasmus Bennet was a calculating man. Isabelle respected that. Isabel's heart pounded. The brother of the spy the daughter of code cracker sent together to foil an assassination that had been planned for months. This was no coincidence. The only question was how much they knew, and how quickly they had informed.

"Miss Bennett is to all appearances, wholly ordinary."

So was Lady Isabelle Valmouth. The daughter of minor Scottish nobility, orphaned when her father and sister succumbed to illness while Isabelle was away, fostered by her country aunt. Perhaps Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the more ordinary type of ordinary. Or perhaps, like so many ordinary women, she was more than she pretended?

Lady Isabelle suspected the latter. "Miss Bennet has Prinny's favor now. She will attempt to use it at court."

"Miss Bennett left town the day after the autumn masque. She never attended court. Nor has she yet a season in town. Now, as she and Mr. Darcy are to wed, it is likely she never will."

"Likely not," Isabella agreed. It was best not to give away one's own hand. She had already shown that too much interest in these details. She could trust Louis insofar as she could pay him. Which made him more reliable than those who acted on their own conscience.

"Thank you for your service," Isabelle said and pulled from her apron a small, leather bag. "A small token of our employer's appreciation."

"Thank you, my Lady Butterfly."

Isabelle laughed as fury, cold and diamond hard, rose inside her. Isabelle was careful never to intimate she was any more than a link in the chain. If any suspected her of being Chrysalides... better not to give her underlings reasons to slit her throat in kindness. "What are you insinuating?"

Louis paled. "Only that you set my heart a flutter, Lady Isabelle."

"I am not interested in a liaison, Louis."

"I understand."

"I hope you do. Taking liberties with another man's wife, or her secrets, can lead to unfortunate consequences."

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Thank you for reading! The first chapter will be up soon. I've done multiple outlines, but the book (as usual) isn't exactly following them so we shall see. I plan to update this book regularly and look forward to your feedback.

Best,

Violet