After the Spy Seduces

by Anna Harrington

  A melee erupted as the roomful of drunken men and desperate lightskirts scrambled after the money. Fists flew and loud curses went up, accompanied by fierce shoving and kicking, and followed by thrown tankards and plates, smashed glass and chairs, the flash of knives—

  The Frenchman raced out of the tavern into the night.

  The boy charged after him.

  With a curse, Kit chased after the boy. Christ. He was getting too old for this!

  He rushed out the door and into the inn yard only a few strides behind the much slower lad who ran with his arms swinging at his sides. With each pounding length, he gained ground quickly on the boy, until he was almost close enough to reach for him.

  But the boy kept running, foolishly chasing after the Frenchman who was several yards ahead and increasing the distance as he raced toward one of the horses standing at the hitching posts at the edge of the yard. He untied the horse and leapt up onto the animal’s back. Grabbing the reins in one hand, he spun the horse toward the road. His hand dove beneath his coat, and metal flashed in the dim lamplight.

  “Get down!” Kit yelled at the boy and lunged.

  He tackled the lad to the ground as the sound of gunfire shattered the night, followed instantly by the ball striking the cobblestones just inches from his head.

  The Frenchman dug in his heels and charged the horse straight at them.

  Kit grabbed the boy as he lay winded from the force of the tackle and rolled him over across the muddy ground. Pounding hooves flew past, barely missing them, and thudded onward to disappear into the night.

  “Damn fool!” With a growl, Kit grabbed the lad by his lapels and threw him onto his back with no more effort than tossing a sack of potatoes. The boy was even younger and slighter than he’d thought. That coward Morgan had sent a mere child in his place. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  But the boy lay motionless on the ground.

  Fear plunged through him. Had the boy had been injured—or worse? Straddling him to keep him pinned to the ground in case he caught back his breath and came up swinging, Kit ran his hands over the lad’s head to check for wounds, then carefully down his neck. Nothing. He swept his hands over the boy’s slender shoulders, then along his arms, feeling for broken bones.

  Worried that he might have crushed the lad’s ribs when he rolled him across the cobblestones, he slipped his hands beneath the jacket to feel for the ribcage, tracing his fingers upward along each rib, moving systematically higher.

  He froze. His hand cupped around a soft fullness for one baffling moment when his confused brain couldn’t comprehend what he was feeling—

  A breast.

  He yanked his hand away. What the hell?

  He grabbed for the boy’s hat to snatch it off and accidentally released a curtain of golden tresses. With a curse, he reached for the fake moustache which now drooped low over the woman’s ripe lips, ripped it away, and revealed the face beneath. The very beautiful face. One he recognized even in the darkness.

  “Diana Morgan,” he murmured in disbelief.

  Her blue eyes flew open, blazing as she stared up at him.

  Of all the women— Good God. “What the hell are you—”

  Her small fist plowed into his chin.

  Chapter 2

  “Get your hands off me!” Diana bit out as she drew back her fist to punch him a second time.

  But he grabbed her wrist before her knuckles made contact. “Then stop trying to hit me!”

  She drew her other hand into a fist and swung, but the devil dodged the blow with all the skill of a natural-born athlete.

  When her elbow landed a hard blow to his stomach, he winced and let out a growl of aggravation. He pinned both of her arms to the ground beside her head, holding her immobile beneath his heavy body.

  “You cad!” She knew him, this man who’d tackled her to the ground and had his hands in places they had no business being. Oh, that made all of this so much worse! “You—you Carlisle!”

  That last was accompanied by such venom that his head snapped back in surprise. “Hey now,” he chastised. “No reason to bring my ancestry into this.”

  “Every reason,” she ground out through clenched teeth. Despite the sharp pain in her side where she’d hit the ground so hard that the air had been knocked from her lungs, she struggled fiercely against him, only to barely move at all. “Let go of me!”

  “The hell I will,” he snarled, placing his long leg over both of hers as she kicked at him to free herself. “Not until you stop fighting me.”

  She twisted futilely with a cry of rising panic. “He’s getting away!”

  “He’s gotten away.” He glared down at her with a harsh grimace, not at all happy with her.

  And she certainly wasn’t pleased with him! “I have to ride after him. I have to give him those papers, make him—”

  “He doesn’t want them.”

  “He does.” He had to! That man was the only link to her brother, the only way to free him from the men who had kidnapped him. Hot tears of frustration stung at her eyes, knowing that with every second she delayed her brother’s life was put in increasing danger. “Let me up!”

  “So you can go riding after him and get yourself killed? How do I explain that to the general?”

  “So you can keep me here, lying on top of me?” She somehow managed to jab up her chin defiantly despite being on her back on the ground. “How do you explain that?”

  “I was checking for wounds on the boy I saved from being killed.” His eyes narrowed as he lowered his head, bringing his face so close to hers that she could feel the heat of his lips shadowing hers and the anger pulsating from him. “And you were meeting with unauthorized foreign agents on English soil to give them military documents.” When her lips parted, stunned into silence, he pressed in a low yet carefully controlled voice, “How do you explain that?”

  Her heart plummeted to her knees with a dizzying jolt. Sweet mercy, she was going to be sick!

  She asked hoarsely, her voice lost beneath her shock, “How do you know about that?”

  “I’m looking for your brother and heard that he’d be here tonight. Imagine my surprise to find you instead.” He raked his gaze over her with a look that made her skin sizzle. “Dressed like this.”

  “I certainly couldn’t have come here as myself.” So she’d donned some of Garrett’s old clothes from his Eton days, and with the help of a fake moustache adhered to her lip, she’d called on every detail she could remember from her bother’s boyhood about how he’d swaggered and behaved and gestured. It had worked, too, so well that even Christopher Carlisle had no idea that she wasn’t a man. Until he’d accidentally touched her breast.

  Her face heated from humiliation, and from something else just as hot. Something she had no business feeling for this man in particular and on this night of all nights, when her focus should have been on her brother.

  “Let me go,” she pleaded. “I can still catch up with him and—”

  “He’s gone. The exchange failed.” The finality in his voice sliced through her like a knife. “All you’ll do if you try to go after him is get yourself hurt.”

  Or worse. The words hung between them as clearly as if he’d uttered them.

  She didn’t care about herself. But her brother— Dear God, Garrett was gone. What might have been her only chance to save him had vanished into the night along with the Frenchman, and the enormous guilt that swept over her left her trembling with helplessness. His life had rested in her hands, and she’d failed him.

  She turned her face away before Carlisle could see the tears swelling in her eyes, before one slipped free in self-recrimination and grief. To break down in front of him, a Carlisle no less— She couldn’t have borne it.

  “Miss Morgan.”

  The formality of that struck her as absurd, given the way he lay on top of her, his body pressed along the length of hers.

  But an anger simmered inside him as well, and not just
because she’d accidentally started a fight from which he’d felt compelled to save her. It went much deeper than that. An anger she knew involved Garrett.

  “Where are the papers now?”

  “Didn’t you feel them when you were running your hands over me?” she asked caustically, letting her own anger push away her mounting worry.

  In reply, he took her chin and turned her head back until she had no choice but to look at him. He shot her a warning glare so stern that she knew not to try his patience further.

  “In my left jacket pocket,” she snapped out.

  Not trusting her even then, he took both of her wrists into one large hand and delved into her pocket with the other. He pulled the papers free, then slipped them inside his own jacket.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. She needed those pages to free Garrett.

  “Taking these.” He muttered, “After all, you might decide to give them to the Americans next.”

  She glowered at him, her hands drawing once more into fists. “I am not—”

  “Where is your brother?”

  The unintended irony of his question pierced her like a blade of ice. “I wish I knew.”

  His eyes flashed. That wasn’t at all what he’d wanted to hear, apparently.

  “I was told that Morgan was meeting with that Frenchman here tonight.” From the tone of his voice, he was furious to find her in her brother’s place.

  “A Morgan did meet with him,” she confirmed. “Me. But not for the reason you think.”

  “Tell me,” he ordered, easing his hold on her wrists but not enough to let her go.

  She bit her lip. How much could she trust a Carlisle? And this Carlisle, in particular? “I received a message a few days ago.”

  “From the man you met with tonight?”

  She nodded warily. “A ransom note, telling me that Garrett had been kidnapped.” She sucked in a deep breath to gather herself. “The man said he had Garret and would let him go in exchange for those pages, pages he wanted me to deliver tonight. Alone. If I told anyone, he—” She choked, then found the strength to force out in a whisper, “He threatened to kill Garret.”

  “That’s why you’re here?” He spoke slowly, as if hoping she would contradict him. “Because you believe your brother was kidnapped for these pages?”

  “I know so.”

  “And that was all you received—just the note?”

  She blinked. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. Ransom notes usually come with proof that the victim has been taken—a scrap of handwriting, a lock of hair, an ear or finger.”

  The blood drained from her face. Dear God, she was going to be sick!

  “No.” She swallowed to keep down her accounts. Hard. “Nothing like that.”

  “But you acted upon it.”

  “Yes. I brought the papers, just as I was told to do. But the man didn’t want them.”

  “So I saw. Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” Grief clawed at her belly. “He looked at them and said they weren’t the right ones.”

  He frowned. “What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. But those are the pages asked for in the note. I’m certain of it.”

  “Pages from what?”

  “Not military documents.” She didn’t like his earlier accusation that she was giving away secrets. Her father had been a distinguished general in His Majesty’s army, for God’s sake! She would never do anything that would even remotely aid the French. So he might as well just forget any chance at gaining a reward from turning her in for it. “They’re from the general’s memoirs. Just scribblings that he’s been trying to put together into a book.”

  Disbelief darkened his face. “Why would the French want those?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t care.” Her eyes burned with self-recrimination at how she’d failed to exchange the papers. “All that matters is saving Garrett’s life.”

  No sympathy showed in Carlisle at that. If anything, his jaw clenched even tighter at the mention of the danger her brother was in. “You think that the Frenchman who sent that note and met with you tonight is going to kill your brother because he didn’t take those pages?”

  “Yes.” The word emerged as a desolate rasp, and a single tear slipped free.

  “Then you can stop the tears.” With a fleeting expression of sympathy, he brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. “Because most likely your brother hasn’t even been kidnapped.”

  Not kidnapped? She searched his face, desperate for answers. Clearly, he believed that, but his words brought no spark of hope. “They have him, I know it.”

  “Because you received a note?”

  “Because he’s missing. He left two weeks ago to visit friends in the North, but when I received the note, I didn’t know what to believe, if it were true or simply some childish joke that his chums were playing on us. So I hired a messenger and attempted to reach him. But his friends replied that Garrett wasn’t with them, that he had never arrived.” She gave voice to her deepest fears. “I think he was captured just after he left home.”

  He paused for a moment, chewing that over. Then he mumbled, half to himself, “Why don’t I trust you?”

  “Why would I lie?” she shot back.

  “Because people are seldom as they appear and rarely tell the truth.” To make his point, he replaced the fake moustache on her upper lip and tapped it into place with his fingertip. But there was nothing at all teasing about the black expression on his face. “Even beautiful ladies.”

  Her belly fluttered at what was little more than an empty compliment, and one given in chastisement at that. What a goose she was! This was why she avoided men like Christopher Carlisle. Far too easy to be caught up in their web of charms, even when lying on her bruised bottom in an inn yard in what she hoped was nothing more than mud.

  A loud shattering came from the tavern. He glanced across the yard toward the fight. His face hardened, and he let out a soft curse.

  “What is it?” She twisted around to follow his gaze, just in time to see two very large men stumble outside. They paused to search the night, as if looking for someone to blame for the fight.

  “We have to get out of here. Now.” He dropped his gaze back to her face—no, to her mouth—and she could have sworn regret flitted across his features at being interrupted.

  But before she could be certain, he released her wrists and rolled away. He took her arm and pulled her to her feet, then quickly led her across the yard toward the horses. She struggled to keep up with his long strides. Worse—she winced at the sharp aches that portended nasty bruises in all kinds of unmentionable places from the way he’d tackled her to the ground.

  When they reached a large gray gelding who stood calmly amid the commotion, he released her arm to untie it and swung up onto its back. The horse instantly came alert, his eyes clear and bright, his nostrils flaring.

  He leaned down in the saddle and held out his hand to her.

  She hesitated.

  Of all the men to come rushing to her defense tonight, like a parody of a well-intentioned knight in shining armor—of course, it had to be him. Christopher Carlisle. One of the men formerly under her father’s command, who now belonged to the same clubs and attended the same sporting events as her brother. A noted rake and scoundrel who seemed determined to bed every woman in society, just for the sport of it.

  And now the only ally she had.

  Surely, fate was laughing at her.

  “There!” An excited shout went up from the two men. “That’s them!”

  With a curse, Carlisle grabbed her arm and swung her onto the horse behind him.

  “Hang on,” he ordered as the gelding danced beneath them. “We’re in for a wild ride.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist as he kicked his heels into the horse’s sides and sent it racing into the night.

  Chapter 3

  By the time Kit reined his horse to a stop in the fog-dre
nched shadows behind the old stone stables, the anger that had pulsed inside him at the tavern had dulled into simmering resentment. At Morgan for not being there as expected. At Diana for coming in his place. And especially at himself, for letting his hopes rise that he’d finally find justice for Fitch tonight.

  Nothing. Months of investigating and desperately tracking down leads, of risking his career…and nothing to show for it. None of the pieces of information he’d learned tonight fit together. Especially not Diana’s piece of the puzzle. Morgan had been kidnapped and was being held ransom for a few memoir pages? He couldn’t believe that story.

  Nor did he want to believe that his only lead was a society miss who had nearly gotten herself killed.

  Damnation. He was just as far from finding answers now as he’d been six months ago.

  Pushing down his irritation, he scoured his gaze across her father’s small manor house. Idlewild was shuttered against the darkness, except for the first floor, where the glow of lamplight shined through one of the windows.

  “All locked up for the night,” he muttered. Any chance he might have had of searching her father’s house for answers disappeared like the shadows as the moon slid out from behind the thickening clouds.

  She loosened her hold around his waist and shook her head, misunderstanding. “I can slip inside without anyone seeing.”

  Of course she could. She’d set out to commit espionage, after all. And a woman who had enough cunning to not only dress like a man but also study a man’s movements and gestures to fool everyone in the tavern—including him—would have had the forethought to leave one of the doors or windows unlocked.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. Garrett Morgan was a traitor and murderer. But where did his sister fit into all this?

  He saw the pain and distress on her face when he’d questioned her at the tavern. She wasn’t good enough of an actress to fake that. But her belief that her brother had truly been kidnapped kicked up even more questions inside his head. Because whatever Diana’s role in all of this, Morgan hadn’t been taken. Kit knew that the way old sailors sensed oncoming storms. In his bones.