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choker of glittering jet made her gasp in delight. She held it to her throat, imagining how it would look when the finger marks faded. Returning it to the case, she continued her explorations. A small brooch lay buried under a string of Venetian-glass beads. The pin was just a trinket, the kind of bauble a man might buy his sweetheart at a country fair, but the enameled flowers surrounded by tiny seed pearls caught Hattie’s fancy. Surely Lady Barbara wouldn’t miss such a trifling piece.
    Slipping it in the pocket of her cherry striped gown, she straightened the room and went downstairs to find her supper. The murmur of voices in the parlor slowed her step. She was as curious as Lieutenant Morgan as to Lady Barbara’s business with his mother and would dearly love to put an ear to the keyhole. The heavy tread of footsteps forced her to continue on her way to the kitchens.
    She wouldn’t eat with the other servants for long,she vowed. One day—and soon!—she would sit down to dinner with the lieutenant and his family and take her tucker from gleaming silver trays.

6
    B arbara sipped the wine her hostess had pressed on her and gave silent thanks she’d decided to wear her sapphires. Harry had always insisted they must never appear at a disadvantage before their prey, and anything less than the sparkling stones would have put her at a distinct disadvantage before this particular prey.
    Louise Morgan, too, had changed her gown for dinner. The elegant amber satin with its over-drape of gold gauze might have been fashioned by one of London’s finest modistes. Unless Barbara had lost her eye for gems, those were yellow diamonds encircling the woman’s throat and dangling from her earlobes.
    As the two women savored their wine, they indulged in a polite exchange. Her hostess asked how Barbara had fared during her journey. She responded with a few amusing anecdotes she invented on thespot. She knew the time for chitchat had passed when Louise set aside her glass and turned a look of cool inquiry on her guest.
    “My son said you traveled from London to seek me out. Why?”
    Barbara, too, set aside her glass. She’d prepared for this moment for weeks, had rehearsed a dozen times or more the devious mix of fact and fiction she and Harry had concocted. Unfortunately, they’d believed then that Barbara would be dealing with an uneducated aborigine. Instead, she faced a shrewd, sophisticated businesswoman. Hiding her clamoring nerves behind a small smile, Barbara spun a web of half truths and lies.
    “I’ve come in search of you, Mrs. Morgan, because it appears we may be related.”
    The older woman’s eyes widened. “What do you say?”
    “I believe you are my great-aunt.”
    Astounded, Louise Morgan stared at her. “How can this be? My mother was of the Osage. My father of the French.”
    “I, too, have French ancestry.”
    That much at least was true. Barbara and Harry’s grandmother on their mother’s side had fled France at the start of the Terror. From that point on, however, Barbara stole her ancestry from the man who’d died in chains next to Harry.
    “My grandmother’s last name was Bernay. Shewas the younger sister of Julianne Bernay, who married the third son of the Duc d’Argonne. The son’s given name was—”
    “I know his name,” her hostess cut in. “It was Henri. Henri Chartier. He is man I marry before Daniel Morgan.”
    “Yes, he is. Or was. I understand he died some years ago.”
    “ Many years ago.” Frowning, she struggled to trace the convoluted lineage. “Let me be sure I understand this. When Henri comes to America, he leaves behind a wife in France. She dies, and he marries me. You say this woman was your grandmother?”
    “My grandmother’s sister. That makes Henri my great-uncle, and you my aunt by marriage.”
    Barbara smoothed her gown over her knees, caught herself, and silently cursed the nervous gesture. Harry had taught her never to betray nerves.
    “I only learned of