Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 04]

by Seducing the Spy

  Alicia tried to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come past her pain-tightened throat.

  What if it was true? What if she was as unnatural as he claimed? She’d wanted Almont’s body as much as she’d wanted his proposal. She wanted Wyndham until she could not sleep at night.

  What if she was abnormally, innately wicked? What if her desires were the real reason she’d never been able to be the daughter her parents had wanted, the lady Society wanted . . .

  The woman Wyndham could want to spend his life with.

  Male voices rose through the darkness. Alicia dimly heard her name called.

  The man shifted his grip, pulling her harshly to him. She realized from some distant place of reason that he was truly no taller than she.

  “Filthy, shameful whore,” the stranger whispered in her ear. “I cannot stand to touch you for one more moment.”

  He released her, letting her slither limply down his body to fall at his feet. “Ah,” he said mildly. “I see you’ve found your place after all.”

  Alicia curled away from him, sickened beyond fear by his words and the pain he’d caused her. She didn’t move as she heard his footsteps recede just as the light of many lanterns began to brighten behind her closed lids.

  “Wyndham.” Her broken whisper couldn’t have carried much beyond arm’s length, yet she miraculously heard him reply.

  “I’m here, Alicia.” Large, gentle hands came to brush aside her hair and to gently inspect her for injuries.

  “You are unhurt,” he said with relief.

  And by some miracle—or more likely by some sinister plan—she was completely unharmed . . . in any way someone could see. Her shoulder was immobilized with pain, but there was not a mark on her but a bit of redness about her wrist and the ache in her knees when she’d dropped to the gravel.

  She could not speak of what was said to her. Never, not to anyone. The madman had read her mind, conjured up her deepest, most hidden fears, and reduced her to a helpless animal with one hand.

  No, she had no proof. And she could not bear to be accused of more lies.

  21

  Stanton carried Alicia swiftly through the house, avoiding the ballroom entryway. He wanted no one to see her in this condition. That would invite questions and the only questions he wanted answered were his own.

  Once in their bedchamber, he deposited her in the chair by the fire. Garrett rushed forward, his brow knitted in concern, and Stanton stepped back, unsure of what to do for her.

  Stanton had no words to describe the emotion that had swept him when he’d seen his lovely, lively Alicia curled up on the path, so still and quiet. It had shaken him to depths he hadn’t known he had—and alarmed him to the point of dread.

  He could not allow himself to become so involved. He had a duty and a life that could not include an untamed creature such as Lady Alicia Lawrence. She was everything the Falcon must avoid. She was everything he’d never wanted.

  As much as he wanted to take her in his arms again and hold her while she sipped the hot tea pressed upon her by Garrett, Stanton maintained his aloof pose a few feet away, one elbow braced upon the mantel. Only with that distance could he keep himself from dropping to his knees at her side and taking her hands in his.

  He cleared his throat against the emotion choking him. He had work to do. He was more than some fawning swain. He was the Falcon.

  “What happened to you in the garden?”

  Alicia flinched slightly from his authoritarian tone, although she kept her gaze fixed on the fire. “Do not question me like that, Wyndham. I am not a criminal.”

  “Perhaps not, although one might call you criminally stupid to wander alone through a dark garden during an orgy!”

  “I heard the voice. I tried to find you, but you had left!”

  He had stepped away, of course, to take a breath and cool the rising lust within him. Only for the briefest moment, and then he’d turned back to find her gone from her throne and her flock of converts milling about like ducklings without their mother.

  It had taken less than ten minutes to find her, curled on the gravel path in the garden, obviously terrified. It terrified him even now, thinking on it.

  And yet, her condition raised questions, suspicions he was unable to ignore.

  If someone had attacked her, why would she not accuse? Where were the bruises, the torn gown, the mussed hair?

  “Was he wearing a mask?”

  She looked away. “I did not see his face at all.”

  She was so pale. He hardened himself to her pain. “What did he do to you?”

  “He grabbed my arm and . . . expressed his opinion of me.”

  There were plenty of people at the party with opinions about Alicia, although most of them were women. “So he did not attack you? Did he strike you? Harm you in any way?”

  She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Leave me be, Wyndham. I have told you what happened.”

  It could have been some drunken sot who, upon finding a beautiful woman alone in the garden, had pressed his advantage. Or not.

  “This is the second time, my lord,” Garrett said. “Remember the box at the opera?”

  Stanton had not forgotten the trip wire and the sabotaged railing—such a baroque effort was hard to forget.

  If the two events were related at all . . .

  This time, there was no public display of danger. There wasn’t a mark on her, other than a ring of reddened flesh about her wrist that was already fading.

  She did seem quite convincingly shaken, however.

  “This sort of event brings out the worst in people,” he told her. “Your attacker was likely some drunk who mistook you for someone who was available.”

  She raised her gaze to his for a moment, then flicked it away. “Perhaps.”

  Cradling her left arm in her right, she stood to walk behind her dressing screen. “Garrett, if you would fetch my nightdress?”

  Wyndham watched her go, dissatisfied with her response though he was not sure why. She was behaving as if she’d been viciously assaulted, yet her hair wasn’t even disarranged.

  He reminded himself forcibly of her past reputation. Perhaps the entire matter was just a desperate grab for attention.

  It made him quite furious that she was immune to his talent. He could not accustom himself to this sort of uncertainty!

  “Well, if you’re sure you are fine,” he said gruffly. “I will go speak to our mystery lord—if I can sober him up long enough to make sense.”

  She thrust her head back out from behind the screen. “It is him. I am sure that is the same voice I heard behind the White Sow.”

  Stanton opened the chamber door to see Lady Greenleigh standing in the hallway with Lady Reardon and Lady Dryden, her fist raised to knock.

  “Is Alicia all right?”

  “Did you catch the man who did it?”

  “Is it the Chimera?”

  Stanton glowered at the three beauties. “She is perfectly well. I have someone in hand, and no, it isn’t our esteemed friend ‘Denny.’ ”

  Lady Dryden folded her arms and gazed at him evenly. “Wyndham, we want to see her. She might tell us more than she’s told you.”

  He scowled. “What makes you think she isn’t talking to me?”

  Lady Dryden’s lips quirked. “You have that look.”

  Lady Reardon nodded. “Oh yes—the ‘damn it’ look.”

  Lady Greenleigh peered at him. “Actually, I think it’s the ‘damn it to hell!’ look.”

  Lady Dryden tilted her head. “Indeed. You look frustrated, Wyndham. Let us in. Perhaps we can—”

  Garrett popped up next to Stanton, his glorious brow creased in worried lines. “Er, my ladies . . . Lady Alicia asks me to tell you that she is indisposed at the moment, but will be happy to see you all tomorrow.”

  Stanton nodded shortly at the women Alicia had called ‘the Sirens.’ “She will see you tomorrow. In the meantime, I will continue my investigation, if
you do not mind.”

  Lady Dryden shook her head. “You’ve mucked it up with her, haven’t you, Wyndham?”

  Lady Greenleigh nodded. “It’s all over your face, my lord. And I don’t think that fabulously handsome young man is speaking only to us. I think you’ve been banished to the morrow as well.”

  Stanton glanced at Garrett, who shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry, my lord, but my lady has requested that you exit the room.”

  Kicked out of his own bedchamber by a mad, presumptuous vixen of a lady—who probably thought he was going to come begging on his knees to be allowed his own rotten chair to sleep in.

  Stanton managed to not bang his head repeatedly against the nearest wall. He was going to need all his resources to win this contest against the conspirators. He had nothing to spare for games of the heart.

  A few moments later, as Stanton stood over the limply drunken gentleman from the garden, he had to admit that the fellow didn’t look like much of a danger to anyone but himself.

  Then again, conspirators looked just like everyone else. He had to be careful not to fall into that trap again, the way the Liars had allowed the “harmless” valet Denny to lurk on their perimeter for so long. The way that he himself seemed willing to forget this fact that pretty Lady Alicia was a notorious liar. This fellow on the floor might be a master of disguise on a par with the Chimera himself.

  And currently he was playing the role of drunken slug on Cross’s parlor rug.

  Stanton prodded the man with his toe. There was no response. He tried again, more firmly.

  “Ow!” The sot snorted and rolled over, clapping one flap-ping hand to his side. “You kicked me!”

  “You imagined it,” Stanton said. He kneeled to bring himself more on eye level with the man. “I want you to tell me something. Do you understand?”

  The man blinked and nodded. “Uhn?”

  All right, so this fellow likely wasn’t the brains behind the operation. Stanton leaned his crossed arms on one knee. “Where were you precisely one fortnight ago?”

  The fellow blinked rapidly and pointed a finger vaguely south. “Brighton. W’ Prinny.”

  Stanton straightened. If it were true, it would be a rather irrefutable alibi—and would certainly put the lie to Lady Alicia! He signaled to one of Cross’s footmen and asked for paper and ink. When he’d received it, he scrawled a quick note to the Prince Regent—only a single line.

  “Ogilvy with you a fortnight past, all night?”

  The footman ran with the message. Stanton waited. Ogilvy snored.

  Within moments, Stanton was in possession of one winded footman and his answer. “Yes.” Accompanied by the distinctively scrawled G.

  Just like that, the search was over and he had the wrong man.

  If there had ever been a conspiracy at all.

  What would Lady Alicia have to gain from such a lie?

  Did you not see her in that gown tonight? If she wishes to take on a protector now, she will have all the offers a woman could want. And you paid for her transformation from ruined spinster to lavish courtesan from your own pocket.

  The Prince Regent might have misunderstood the question. Stanton left the unconscious Ogilvy and took himself off to the prince’s borrowed wing of the house.

  George was huffy and resentful of losing his sleep—or rather, time with his mistress. Stanton knew that he’d best be quick.

  “Ogilvy is a suspect in a kidnapping attempt against you,” he said. “I need to know precisely how much you saw of him a fortnight past?”

  The Prince Regent scratched at the dressing-gown-clad royal belly and yawned. “I had a small intimate party with some of the friends I would be traveling up to Sussex with. Ogilvy was there, mooching my good wine as usual. He drank too much—as usual—and spent the remainder of the night in the cloakroom sleeping on one of my best furs.”

  “He was identified as being at a Cheapside tavern just past midnight, fourteen days past.”

  “It wasn’t him. See here, Wyndham, Ogilvy is brainless, spineless, and annoying, but he is no conspirator. He is a rather boring fellow who has no record of being anything but a lousy landlord and a worse gambler.”

  As he left the prince’s chamber—whose door shut behind him with a decided slam—it occurred to Stanton that the attempts on Alicia were either bizarre or unwitnessed.

  If someone had wanted to create a commotion at the opera, one might have gone to the rented box at the opera house, sabotaged the railing, and stretched a trip wire—

  Except that he’d never actually seen the trip wire, had he? He’d only taken her word that something had tripped her, something thin and sharp that had cut her.

  But she had almost died!

  His suspicious nature would not let it rest. She’d looked very surprised just as she had gone over. Surprised that she’d been tricked, or surprised that she’d overestimated and tricked herself?

  He shook his head. Alicia wasn’t that sort. Alicia was—

  Oh, yes. He mustn’t forget. Alicia was completely unreadable to him.

  22

  There was only one way Stanton could think of to break down Alicia’s mysterious resistance to his gift.

  As he reentered their room, he moved quietly to where she stood alone by the fire, brushing out her hair. He caught her hand, making her turn with a gasp.

  Her eyes were wide and shocked. Had she perhaps been expecting someone else?

  He took the brush from her fingers. “Let me.”

  Her gaze followed the brush in his hand, then flicked to meet his. He raised the brush to the crown of her gleaming head and began to brush. She watched him for a long moment, then let her eyes fall shut to the relaxing rhythm of his brushstrokes.

  As he dug his hands into the warm silk of her fiery hair, Stanton had to admit that he’d been panting to do so for days.

  Yet that was not why he was stepping over this line.

  He turned her gently away from him and brushed all her hair back over her shoulders toward him. The small cap sleeve of her nightdress slipped aside, falling from its perch as indeed such a nightgown was meant to do to reveal the pale female curve of her shoulder.

  Experimentally, Stanton pushed aside the other side, which allowed the gown to slip down and hang dangerously low upon her luxurious breasts. She made a motion as if to clutch the gown higher.

  “Don’t,” he ordered. Was that his voice, gone so hoarse with desire?

  Yet why not? He was a man, after all, standing behind a sensuous beauty—a vantage point that allowed him a fabulous view down her cleavage. If he wasn’t stirred by that, he wouldn’t be much different than Garrett.

  He took her hair into his fist and hefted it. Such heavy luxury. Such a gift to the man who discovered her secret beauty . . .

  He wrapped her hair around his wrist, pulling it up and back to see her vulnerable neck bared to him. The scent that rose from her freshly bathed skin was an intoxicating blend of verbena and aroused woman. He bent his head to breathe her in.

  Somehow his lips found the tiny tender down on the back of her neck. He brushed his mouth across her skin, breathing out so that he could breathe in again, taking her perfume into himself.

  She was trembling, he realized dimly. “Are you cold?” His whisper ignited another tremor.

  “N-no.” Her broken sigh satisfied him. She was his for the taking, his for the discovery.

  His for the revealing.

  She began to turn. He stopped her with his tender, relentless grip on her hair. “Stay,” he commanded.

  With his other hand, he reached around her to brush his fingertips across each erect nipple. She twitched in time with his touch, her breath beginning to come in shaking gasps.

  “How sensitive they are,” he mused into her hair. He took a step toward the mirror. She followed as if they were already one. He shifted her until they were both reflected in the tall mirror. The angle had the added benefit of casting the firelight right through the ne
gligible fabric of her gown. He could see every curve, every fantasy-fulfilling slope and swell.

  “I see you.” His voice had gone quite guttural. “I see all of you.”

  He took one erect nipple between his fingertips. He could see her gaze fixed upon his hand in their reflection. Rolling her hard peak gently through the spiderweb gown, he felt the quiver that went through her.

  He moved closer, pressing himself to her back to take in every shiver, every erotic tremor that she made. Her soft bottom pressed into his lap, driving his own desire higher.

  He directed his passion into the razor focus of his purpose. He meant to break her down and own her secrets for himself.

  He moved his attention to the other nipple, which poked vigorously through her gown as if begging for his attention.

  This one he plucked softly, as if pulling a ripe juicy berry from the brambles. She quivered against him, although she still did not meet his gaze in the mirror.

  Suddenly he wanted her to. He needed that connection.

  “Look at me,” he ordered huskily.

  She closed her eyes and turned her face away. Her blush was visible, even in the firelight.

  “Alicia, open your eyes and look at me.” Damn it, why was she being so shy? She was no fainting virgin!

  He released her hair and took both her breasts into his hot grip. “Look at me,” he growled.

  Her eyes flew open and she looked at him. He found himself stunned by the impact of her wide, achingly hungry gaze.

  Hot male satisfaction flooded him. She was his, there was no doubt about that.

  With one motion, he pulled her nightdress down and let it slither down her body to pool at her feet. To tell the truth, the made-for-mistressing gown didn’t put up much of a fight.

  Alicia closed her eyes again. She couldn’t bear to let him see into her that way, naked before him in every way, inside and out.

  She felt everything. Her skin prickled to the cooler air on one side and the heat from the fire on the other. She felt the wool of his coat and the silk of his weskit on her back. She felt his erection straining tightly in his trousers. She swayed against it, rubbing her bottom lightly in order to judge its size—which seemed rather intimidating from this aspect.