Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] Read Online Free Page B

scythed lawns nearest the buildings. The wall must be a dozen feet high, seemingly grown up out of the twenty-foot-wide ditch that then gently sloped back up to the level of the rest of the property. A sheep could amble in and out of the grassy ditch easily enough, but only on the same side on which it had entered. The same could be said for any man hoping for entry anyplace other than one of the gates, unless he brought his own ladder with him, and a stout pair of leather gloves.
    Green grass, white sheep, the sunlight dancing on the broken glass and setting off small rainbows of color. Bucolic. Picturesque. Deceptively deadly.
    All that was needed was a drawbridge. Then Simon remembered where he was: southern Kent, not more than a mile from Hythe and the Channel. Beautiful, but with a sometimes violent history. Smugglers had been active here for centuries, and probably would see the coast for what it was, a spot seemingly fashioned perfectly to ply their trade.
    Invading armies saw it likewise, most recently Bonaparte himself. Although Simon agreed with the current theory that the new self-proclaimed Emperor Napoleon was now too busy annexing every country in Europe to attempt an assault of England by sea.
    All the strong brick Martello watchtowers hastily constructed along the southern coast in earlier years of the new century were left now to inferior troops who spent their days napping and their nights in the local dockside pubs as guests of the friendly local smugglers.
    Hopefully, nobody noticed the building of the towers, mostly abandoned a few years ago, was quietly taking place once more, with the goal of having more than one hundred of the things fully manned before they were done, their cannons all aimed out over the water.
    It took an army to win a battle, but only a few determined men could completely alter the tide of a war. That those men could be English, and their goal the collapse of their own country was why Simon now found himself the guest of a man he’d met only the once, and a reluctant actor in a romantic farce dreamed up by Prime Minister Spencer Perceval himself in order to appease Gideon Redgrave and gain his cooperation.
    Or as the earl had affably stated as he relaxed in Perceval’s office as if it were his own: “We Redgraves will see these traitors brought down, I assure you. However, if you wish for me to continue to share information, you’ll do things my way. I keep you apprised, you keep me apprised, and nothing appears so much as vaguely suspicious at Redgrave Manor.” He’d then stood up, shot his cuffs and smiled one of the most appealing yet threatening smiles Simon had ever seen. “We’re agreed? Otherwise, good day, gentlemen, and good luck.”
    Only days earlier Simon had still thought Gideon Redgrave a possible traitor himself because of who he was, and suddenly his family was to be their savior. He didn’t like it. In fact, he was all for bringing in troops and ripping Redgrave Manor apart, and the devil with this tiptoeing about as if the man were in charge.
    But as the prime minister had pointed out, Simon hadn’t made much progress on his own in the matter. With one of the two men he’d been investigating now dead, and the other claiming illness and retiring to his country estate, Simon had to agree. Now, thanks to the Redgraves, they had hopes of more information, and had already uncovered one nasty plot at the Ministry level to criminally divert the timely delivery of food and ammunition to their troops on the Peninsula.
    Perceval was no more comfortable with the thought he’d been unknowingly harboring traitors in his own midst than Gideon Redgrave had been to realize his family’s long-ago shame could end up trotted out for another airing, this time with high treason not an accompanying rumor but a proven fact.
    “All of which has resulted in me arriving here, about to play houseguest to a man I don’t know and possible suitor of his bound to be half-witted