New York City Late April. Present.
I was probably the only undercover agent in history who'd
get fired for removing her prosthesis in an airport and
pissing off a French gendarme. But the hyper frog barking
at me in French at the security checkpoint at Charles de
Gaulle had far exceeded my limit of patience when he
refused to understand that my leg was setting off the
alarm, not a hidden weapon.
Ever since the accident, I'd been sensitive about my leg.
So when my cell phone rang shortly after my flight touched
down in New York and I was summoned to tea at the Gotham
Rose Club, I was sure the ax was about to fall and I was
going to get booted out of their secret agency.
The car service dropped me off in front of the gray cut-
stone townhouse that housed the Gotham Rose Club on Sixty-
eighth Street between Park and Madison on the Upper East
Side. I stood outside the black wrought-iron security
grate over the carved wood front door with its rose design
and pretended to admire the architecture. Mostly I was
composing myself.
Renee Dalton-Sinclair ran the Gotham Rose Club, an elite,
members-only club intended to attract young, wealthy New
York women like me to fund-raise and volunteer their time
for charity. I was doing both for the Horses of Hope
Foundation long before Renee asked me to join. But Renee
also had another use for the club — taking down high-
society criminals. And that's why I was here today, and
why I couldn't decide if the nerves jumping around like
fleas on a barn dog were from anger or anxiety.
I tugged at the hem of the silver-leaf sleeveless V-neck
top and smoothed the ivory Vera Wang cotton-tulle skirt
with my sweaty palms, then pressed the doorbell. Olivia
Hayworth's voice sang across the intercom. "Welcome,
Alexa. Come on in."
A security buzzer released the latch and I walked into a
white Italian marble foyer that reminded me of a gilded
cage. The place smelled of old money and older traditions.
And despite my background, I never felt like I quite fit
in.
Olivia, Renee's assistant, greeted me with an extended
hand and a bright smile that eased some of my anxiety.
Okay, so maybe I'd just get a warning.
"Hello, Alexa, how was your trip to Paris?"
"Nonstop crazy."
Olivia chuckled. "With Nathalie Huston, what else did you
expect?"
I winced. Maybe this was about the incident with the
gendarme.
My silver Delman ballet flats echoed against the marble as
Olivia led me back to the Irish tearoom, one of the many
that served as meeting rooms. Renee sat alone at the
table. That couldn't be good. My stomach took a sharp dive
south.
Renee's hair was pulled into a French twist. The hint of
gray snaking through her auburn locks here and there
merely added to the air of dignity that surrounded her.
The winter white of her Chanel suit complemented her
creamy complexion. As always, her smile was warm and
welcoming and her striking royal blue eyes assessing.
The reason I'd joined Renee's secret agency was to prove
to myself that I could do anything I wanted — even catch
bad guys. Not to mention the promise of excitement —
which, I should mention, had failed to materialize. Unless
you counted poring through piles of business reports as
exciting — which I did not. For some reason, Renee
insisted on treating me as if I were Swarovski crystal.
Frankly, I don't know why Renee asked me to join the
Gotham Rose Club when she barely made use of my skills. My
guess was that it was some sort of employer requirement —
round out the roll call with a token cripple and get
patted on the head for following all the equal-employment
opportunity rules. She knew how I felt, and that didn't
make me one of her favorite agents.
I often thought that the illusive Governess was the one
who'd insisted Renee hire me, and Renee had done so only
reluctantly. Of course, who the Governess was and what she
had at stake in this cloak-and-dagger agency was as
mysterious as why Renee had agreed to play front woman for
the agency. I had to admit curiosity was one of the things
that kept me coming back.
Renee pushed away a file and rose. A small smile lifted
the corners of her lips. "Come in, Alexa. Sit. Tea?"
A file was a good sign, right? Unless it contained a list
of my transgressions.
I greeted Renee with a stiff air kiss. A vintage linen
tablecloth covered the round Charles X table set with
Hewitt Gold bone china and Pelham Gold flat-ware. Scones
from my favorite bakery on Madison crammed a three-tiered
silver Tiffany tray. Steam curled from the blue-and-white
Lynn Feld porcelain teapot. White tea roses in a Lalique
vase spiced the air. Renee had impeccable taste and it
served as a perfect veil for the true work she did here.
Still, I couldn't help wanting to throw a Tupperware tub
on the table at one of the functions just to hear the
proper ladies gasp.
"I'd love a cup of tea." I took the chair across from
Renee's. Fragrant bergamot scented the air as Renee poured
hot Earl Grey tea with slow precision into pale-blue, gold-
trimmed cups.
"Where is everyone else?" I asked. Tea with Renee usually
meant dealing with Tatiana Guttmann, Becca Whitmore and
one or two more of the agents. I didn't have anything
against them personally, but they got all the good
assignments.
"It's just the two of us today." Renee slanted me another
one of her cryptic smiles as she served me a cup.
"Oh." I forced my fingers to relax against the china. Was
she going to fire me before I ever got any of that
promised excitement? I tried to delay the inevitable. "How
is Emma doing?"
Emma Bromwell, another agent who'd gone through the same
training class I had, suffered a severe arm fracture and a
concussion during an explosion at a post-Oscar fund-
raising party for the Miller Children's Home in California
a couple months ago.
Renee glanced away. A certain sadness seemed to weigh on
her soul. I figured the sadness existed because her
husband, Preston, whom she dearly loved, was serving
prison time for fraud. Five years ago the case made
headlines in all the papers. But asking about Emma seemed
to carve deeper grooves into that sadness, aging her. Was
she taking Emma's accident personally? Was this sense of
personal responsibility why Renee never gave me a real
assignment?
"Emma's doing as well as can be expected," Renee
said. "She'll have to have physical therapy for a bit
longer, but she'll regain full use of her arm."
"That's good." When I noticed my hand unconsciously
rubbing at the edge of my socket, I snapped it back to the
warmth of the teacup. "She was worried she wouldn't be
able to play the piano anymore. And that brought her such
joy." I knew how I'd felt when I'd thought I'd never ride
again.
"How are the preparations for the Horses of Hope
Foundation wine-and-cheese party going?" Renee asked.
"Fine." I placed my cup back on its saucer. "Tickets are
selling well and sponsors are lining up to host a table,
including the esteemed mayor of our city, Mr. Siegel."
"Can your assistant handle the rest of the preparations?"
Ah, so that was it. An assignment, not an indictment on my
lack of propriety at Charles de Gaulle. My shoulders
sagged with relief. "Yes, of course she can."
"Good." Renee added a slice of lemon to her tea. "The
Governess has asked me to send you on an assignment. I'll
take over your hostessing duties at the show."
Send? As in field? I sat up a little straighter, and
anticipation shot through my veins. Thank you, Governess!
At least someone had faith in me.
None of the agents had ever met the mysterious Governess,
not even Renee. The only thing we could agree on was that,
whoever she was, she was well connected. And when the
equally mysterious Duke entered the conversation, you'd
think we were a book club discussing an old Victoria Holt
novel.
The Duke was said to be some sort of Godfather-like figure
who ran in elite circles and had fingers in all sorts of
dirty dealings. If you believed the rumors, he had a hand
in everything from corruption to gambling. I had a
suspicion he was one of the reasons the Gotham Rose Club
was started. But if Renee knew who he was, she wasn't
spilling the secret.
It was all supposed to be hush-hush, but I'd heard that
Renee had struck a deal with the Governess to create and
run the Gotham Rose Agency in exchange for her husband,
Preston's, early release from prison. Someone had to go to
jail for the Sinclair family's illegal business dealings
and poor Preston was the scapegoat.
"Have you been keeping up with the news of the show
circuit?" Renee asked, reaching for a scone.
"No, not really." What was the point of salting a wound? I
got my fix of horses through my foundation and my weekly
trips to my estate in Darien, Connecticut, where I kept
two horses. "Why?"