Avenging the Earl’s Lady: Book Five, Sons of the Spy Lord

by Alina K. Field

  “And so, if you paid those wagers…” He leveled a hard gaze at the boy.

  “The Major has taken up all my other vowels, even from friends who’d assured me they would happily wait.”

  “How?”

  “The moneylender I…er…dealt with was, of course, quite happy to be paid by him. As for my friends, when they’ve wagered with him and lost, he’s accepted my vowels in repayment.”

  “Has he indeed. Well, sit down, and let’s have a reckoning of the debt.”

  * * *

  Jenny hefted her basket, letting her gaze sweep the street and the passersby as she headed back to the house on Gerrard Street.

  She’d lingered at Hackwell House until Lady Jane’s carriage had returned empty. The coachman had dropped Lady Jane at Barton’s shop.

  Jenny had hurried to join her there. Something was wrong with the lady, something more than just feeling a bit mad—as many women did from month to month, and wasn’t Lady Jane still having her courses?

  She’d heard of that paunchy old gent’s offer of marriage, but she suspected Lady Jane had received plenty of such offers, if not of marriage, then of the other sort, men being men.

  It might not be any of her affair, but she was curious, and a bit worried, like one might be about a favorite aunt, if she’d ever had one of those.

  At the modiste’s shop, she’d found Lady Jane in the thick of it with an oily old Frenchman, who’d put her in mind of a fence she’d once seen in her old life. Their crew had filched a whole set of miniatures and—

  At the back gate of the Gerrard street house, a tall gent stepped out of the shadows, halting her train of thought.

  Chapter 10

  Her heart clacked and then settled again. Though perhaps she oughtn’t to feel so reassured about this tall gent being his lordship, the Earl of Shaldon. Dressed as he was, he looked much like a street boss she’d known in the Seven Dials.

  She curtsied and drew closer—but not too close. Out of arm’s reach, she needed to be.

  “Jenny,” he said.

  Well. He hadn’t called her girl this time.

  She held his gaze, probably too boldly for his sort, but never mind. Lady Jane needed her boldness.

  His lip quirked ever so slightly. “I’m glad you are safe.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “Jenny, I’ve knocked on the door, and no one will answer.”

  She let out a breath. It was lucky Mr. Lewis could read. Lady Jane had somehow got wind of Shaldon finding out where she lodged and had sent a note of warning. “Her ladyship’s orders. She’s not receiving visitors.”

  “She’s not home.”

  He was certain, was he? He’d probably followed Lady Jane all the way to the dress shop. A laugh gurgled up, and she swallowed it.

  The dark gaze drilled into her. “Is she coming back?”

  A right wily man was Lord Shaldon. His gaze revealed nothing, not what he thought, not how he felt, not what he knew. He wasn’t looking at her like she was a plain servant, or a chit to be swived, or a criminal he could threaten with the law. It was hard to lie to a man like that. “Yes, my lord, as far as I know, she’s returning here.” Though she supposed that might change if Lady Jane knew Lord Shaldon was lurking.

  “Will you let me in? I’ll wait in the parlor for her return.”

  She lifted her chin. He was a powerful lord, and she a mere maid, but she knew her duty. “No, sir. She’s…she’s having a rough go.”

  He opened his palm and a coin caught the light. A gold sovereign. The urge to grab it and bite down was powerful.

  A sigh escaped her. “Not even for that, my lord.” She steeled herself against his gaze, waiting.

  “The Service can use a stalwart heart like yours,” he said.

  MacEwen’s boasts about dallying with the inn maid flashed in her memory, and her blood rose. “No thank you, my lord. I could have had that life in the Seven Dials.”

  “That’s not—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve seen your kind of life, and the one I had before, and I’ll stick with what I have now. I like regular meals and a roof over my head, and it hasn’t been boring. And I know, even if you dismiss me, I’ll be able to find honest work.”

  “Very well.” He pocketed the coin and drew out something else. “I promised to deliver this to Lady Jane.” He handed her a sealed letter. “Will you place it into her hands?”

  “Yes, my lord. That I’ll do.”

  She watched him move down the mews wondering why that had all been so easy.

  * * *

  Jane arrived home in the last of the late summer twilight and found Jenny and the Lewises waiting for her in the kitchen.

  She declined a warmed-over meal, having already dined with Barton and Madame, and Jenny followed her up the stairs to the bedchamber.

  “If you’ll but help me out of this gown, you can be off. I’m for bed.”

  “Are you well, my lady?” Jenny asked, unfastening her gown.

  “Only fatigued,” she lied.

  Madame’s cousin, Monsieur Guignard, reported that the advertisement placed in the paper had spurred strong interest.

  But he’d also heard murmurs, that others had heard of the painting’s discovery even before they’d placed the notice. Worse, the substitute painting she’d wrapped for transport to Cransdall, the landscape from the Gorse Point Cottage bedchamber, had disappeared. The men conveying it had been attacked. One of them had died of his wounds.

  Moisture clogged her throat. Because of her actions, a man had died. Did he have a wife or children who loved him? What was her sorrow about her son’s rejection compared to that sort of loss?

  But had the murder truly been because of her? The men were attacked and the package stolen before they’d ever opened it.

  Still…she wanted to curl up and weep over this day.

  “There now.” Jenny had reached the last hook. “Lord Shaldon was here, my lady, asking to be let in.”

  She tugged out of her sleeves and pulled down her bodice, her head pounding. Running into Shaldon at Quentin’s had been a stroke of terrible luck.

  He had seen the Hackwell carriage. He had puzzled out Lady Hackwell’s ownership of this property.

  Ewan had tracked her to the modiste’s, of course, and promptly informed his master. Had they seen Guignard at the shop? Shaldon would know who he was—Shaldon knew everything.

  She would need to act quickly. She’d instruct Guignard to take the best offer and make the deal, tomorrow if possible.

  “I turned him away. He offered me a gold sovereign, the cheeky old codger.”

  “Jenny.” She choked back a laugh. Cheeky the man was, and old she supposed, but he was no codger.

  She stepped out of her gown. “I’m glad you didn’t take it.” She couldn’t have faced him again this day. She couldn’t face him tomorrow either when he would surely return.

  Perhaps Marie knew of another place she could lodge for a few days.

  Jenny shrugged. “It might have been painted lead.”

  Jane turned and took the girl’s hand. “Dear Jenny, coming from him, it would have been genuine. But never mind. In a few days, I’ll have enough money to give you a gold coin before I leave England. You may even tempt some bounder like Fergus MacEwen to marry you.”

  Jenny stepped back and put her hands to her hips. “I’ve no interest in a faithless man, my lady. And you’ll need a maid wherever you go. Lady Perry once said we could live well in France at far less cost.”

  “Should we run off to Paris together?” The girl’s steadfastness cheered her. “Help me out of the rest of this.”

  Jenny went to work, undoing her stays and dropping the nightgown over her head. This one was a sheer lawn, with soft lace framing the deep rounded neckline and capped sleeves.

  “This looks new,” Jane said.

  “Madame sent this home for you.” Jenny smiled. “The nights have been too warm for Lady Hackwell’s old woolly nig
htrails.”

  Jane held back a sigh. She had yet another debt to Madame. She sat and began removing her stockings. “Go on then. Off to bed with you.”

  “There’s just this, my lady.” Jenny reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter, placing it into her hands. “From Lord Shaldon.”

  She knew Shaldon’s writing, and this wasn’t his.

  When the door closed on Jenny, she poured a glass of sherry and downed it, examining the letter again, unable to determine who’d sent it.

  Once Shaldon took hold of a notion, he was relentless. What was he up to now? He would insist on an interview. He would persist until she’d told him everything.

  And then, if he didn’t see her arrested, he would drop her, just as he’d dropped her father after her brother’s death. He’d rushed out of Kent as if nothing had happened, as if she and her father had not had their hearts torn out. Shaldon had been involved, her father had implied, but he wouldn’t say how.

  Damn the man and his games—this letter could wait for the morning, when he’d launched his next move.

  When she’d recovered more courage.

  She propped the letter on the mantel next to the china shepherdess, settled onto the armchair near the cold fireplace and began taking down her hair. Long and still thick, it hung almost to her waist. She’d once had dark blonde hair. Now, it was a light brown, and in the light of the lamp, the strands of gray threading through it shimmered like silver. She should cut off a good length of it, but she often felt this was all she had left of her femininity.

  On the one full night they’d had together, Reginald had marveled over her unbound hair. She squeezed her eyes shut on that memory.

  A mere girl of fourteen—how could he have done what he did? True, she’d been more than willing, a thoughtless puppy seeing men for the first time. She’d even been breathless around Shaldon—who hadn’t noticed her at all—until Reginald had appeared.

  She poured another sherry and drank it down. The past was over. The son Reginald had left her with still required her help. She needed to sleep for just a few hours and move quickly tomorrow.

  She rubbed her eyes and raked her fingers through her tangles. A stiff brushing was just what she needed.

  The dressing table stood behind an ebony-framed screen painted with fading cupids and wreathes. In the shadowed corner, she groped for the brush.

  A rustle of cloth sent chills through her, freezing her breath.

  Her hand found the brush and she clutched it, lifting it high, ready to strike. Around her, the air filled with scents—horse, leather, and a subtle cologne, the sort a wealthy man’s valet applied to a noble cheek after shaving it.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she backed slowly away watching him rise.

  Tall, darkly clad, at home in the night, he loomed over her. She heard her own pulse, heard her tight gasps, smelled her own fear as it turned into rage.

  Somehow, she managed a breath.

  “Who took your gold sovereign?” she asked.

  * * *

  “Jane,” Shaldon said.

  It was the only word that would come. Her hair swirled around her in a riot of silky waves, and with the light behind her, the diaphanous nightgown made her look nakedly lush.

  His body’s response was instantaneous and gratifying.

  By God, she was beautiful, and by the way she was strangling that brush, she was also infuriated.

  He didn’t care. Heat poured from her in lilac waves, sending her scent to addle his brain more, to drown him.

  When had he last had a woman he’d truly wanted?

  There’d been Addy, his son Bink’s mother, and Felicity, his wife. Both had betrayed him for their personal causes. For Addy, it’d been the Irish rebellion; for Felicity her love of fine things.

  And it was a certainty, Jane had stolen the painting. More hot blood rushed to his groin.

  She’d stolen out of loyalty, not betrayal. She’d stolen to help her child fathered by Reginald Dempsey, the man whose death had weighed on his conscience for twenty-odd years.

  She had good cause to steal from him.

  And he wanted her desperately. The madness of it made him want to laugh, another thing he hadn’t done in far too long.

  The drugging he’d suffered had blown the lid off the simmering pot of desire he’d become since he’d spotted Jane entering the Hackwell ballroom last winter with Lady Sirena. Bakeley hadn’t been the only Everly pole-axed by a lady that night.

  He gently loosened her grip on the brush. “Come.”

  She went, stiff, vibrating with anger held in while he seated her on the hassock, taking the armchair behind her.

  “You have lovely hair.” Riotous, wild, glowing.

  All that passion restrained, for so many years. What had Jenny said? She was having a rough go. She’d had a rough go for too long. He would take care of her now.

  He plied the brush lightly, again and again, lifting the thick mane from her stiff back, stopping to work the tangles free with his fingers, gently loosening knots.

  Slowly, her breath evened out and the high color drained from her neck. Her shoulders turned creamy again under the lace of her gown, her breasts probably also—by God, he wanted another look at her breasts, unbound by stays and bodices.

  Her sigh, when it came, sent his heart pounding higher. She’d signaled resignation, not pleasure, but he’d soon enough change that.

  Not that Jane would make it easy. How could he have discounted her spark and her strength?

  “No one took your gold coin,” she said, her voice cracking. “You broke into the house on your own.”

  To get to Jane, he would have managed a climb to the upper story, even at his advanced age, but it had been more practical to go in through a door. “I shall recommend the Chubb detector lock to Hackwell. Very hard to pick.”

  “You should not be here.”

  “Why not, Jane?”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Because…because, I am…finished, Lord Shaldon, with you, with society, with everyone. If that sounds ungrateful, so be it. I am finished.”

  “Where will you go? To your cousin, Cheswick?”

  “No. He is better off without me.”

  No one was better off without Jane. How had he not seen that before? She added grace and kindness and beauty to every room she entered.

  “To Paris, then?”

  “Perhaps. Or even farther away. Perhaps the Antipodes.”

  He would not like to chase her that far.

  “You would like Dijon, or the south of France better. The people are more congenial. Paris is not a kind place.”

  “It is surely kinder than it was thirty years ago.”

  “Madame Guillotine is not killing earls’ daughters, if that’s what you mean.” He leaned close to her ear. “So, you are going to the Continent to live on the proceeds of the sale of the painting?”

  A vein thumped under the porcelain skin of her neck.

  He dropped the brush and took both of her shoulders, leaning in, inhaling her clean scent.

  The shiver that went through her sent an answering thrill through him.

  “You know,” she said tightly. “Of course you do.”

  “I suppose I should be cross with you, but I’m not.” Jane’s unintentional diversionary tactic had saved the painting from whoever attacked his men on the road. “Dear Jane, will you tell me what happened?”

  Her chin dipped. Oh, how he wished he could see her face, but for now, supporting her was enough. He slid his arms around her, the weight of her soft breasts warming his forearms.

  His heart pounded as fiercely as hers, her breasts, by God, her breasts, rose up and down over his arms.

  “What part?” she whispered.

  He eased her off the hassock onto his knees and then fully onto his lap, turning her sideways to cradle her.

  For now, she accepted it, the quake going through her the only evidence of resistance.

  “You�
��re cold?” he asked.

  She made a scoffing noise. “I’m angry. You shouldn’t be here.”

  He moved a hand to her head to soothe her and took it away. Jane wasn’t a mark to be seduced. He wanted her trust, her agreement.

  Through the filmy cloth, her nipples hardened. More blood shot to his groin.

  Devil take it—since the laudanum had loosened him, he’d been obsessed with seducing her. And he would. Honorably. And he’d never discard her. Never.

  He touched a thumb to the peaked nipple and she gasped, clapping her hand over his.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Coming to my senses.” He set his lips to hers and nibbled.

  When she squirmed, he cupped her breast fully.

  She jerked away, perspiration sheening her brow, her eyes flashing.

  Spirit, and passion, and heat—by God, he must have her.

  “Jane,” he said. “We’ll marry.” It was the best solution, the most logical. “Make love with me tonight, and in the morning, I’ll apply for a special license and we’ll wed in the afternoon.”

  * * *

  Heart pounding, she covered her ears.

  Had she also been drugged? Shaldon’s words set a fever swirling through her, a madness of touch and scent and carnal desires. His, hers—they were both caught up in the insanity.

  One hand fondled her breast, with the other he tugged her against his solid strength. And her backside encountered a firmness that sent heat flaming through her.

  “Jane?”

  Eyes gleaming in the light of the lamp, he waited for her response.

  This man was not Shaldon, the managing patriarch, Shaldon, the unemotional spy lord.

  She wrestled the hot yearning between her legs.

  When this was all over, she would take a lover. Tonight, one of them must be sensible.

  “Are you…are you drunk, Shaldon? Has someone fed you another drop of the poppy?”

  His low chuckle sent a shiver through her and he whispered a firm, “No.”

  He leaned in, crushing her breasts to his chest. “I am completely sober,” he said.