The Lady Chosen (45 page)

Dalziel did, with an inclination of his head. He rose. Met Tony’s eyes. “If there’s any change in the situation, do let me know.”

With a polite nod, he headed for the door.

Tony saw him into the hall and handed him into the care of a footman; retreating to the library, he wondered, as he often had, just who Dalziel really was. Like recognized like; he was certainly of the aristocracy, with his finely hewn Norman features, pale skin and sable hair, yet Tony had checked enough to know Dalziel wasn’t his last name. Dalziel was somewhat shorter and slighter than the men he had commanded, all ex-Guardsmen, yet he projected an aura of lethal purpose that, in a roomful of larger men, would instantly mark him as the most dangerous.

The one man a wise man would never take his eye from.

The door to the street shut; a second later, Hungerford appeared with a tray bearing a steaming cup of coffee. Tony took it with a grateful murmur; like all excellent butlers, Hungerford always seemed to know what he required without having to be told.

“Shall I ask Cook to send up your breakfast, my lord?”

Tony sipped, then nodded. “Yes—I’ll be going out shortly.”

Hungerford asked no more but silently left him.

Tony savored the coffee. Along with the premonition Dalziel’s appearance and his few words had sent tingling along his nerves.

He was too wise to ignore or dismiss the warning, yet in this case, he wasn’t personally involved.

But
she
might be.

Dalziel’s query gave him the perfect excuse to learn more of her.

Indeed, given Dalziel’s interest, it seemed incumbent upon him to do so. To assure himself that there really wasn’t anything more nefarious than murder behind Ruskin’s death.

He needed to find the lady.

Cherchez la femme.

The Bastion Club novels came about when I returned to a character who appeared in my novel
Captain Jack’s Woman,
with a view to writing his story. Anthony “Tony” Blake, a secondary character in that earlier work, was always destined to be a hero in his own right.

In asking the question,
What happened to Tony?
the answer grew from and was based on a logical extension of the adventures and dangerous life we’d seen Tony living in 1812 in
Captain Jack’s Woman,
that of a secret operative going behind enemy lines, exploiting his French background to identify and nullify French spy networks which were, at that time, trying to get details of Wellington’s campaign plans back to France for Napoleon and his generals.

Captain Jack’s Woman
therefore stands as a prequel to the Bastion Club novels, establishing the reality of how the gentlemen of the Bastion Club served throughout the Peninsula Wars, as well as telling the story of Jack and Kit, both of whom reappear in Tony’s story.

However, in telling Tony’s story, I found that, of necessity, I had to tell the story of the Bastion Club itself, and
ultimately the stories of all seven of its members, for these stories are all interwoven.
The Lady Chosen
was the first novel of the group; in it, you’ve learned how the club came about and seen it established. Tony’s story will be the second volume in the series,
A Gentleman’s Honor,
to be released in October 2003.