by Julia Kelly
The problem with such vivid recollections was that even when he’d returned to Eyemouth and learned of her betrayal, they hadn’t left him. For years those memories had plagued him, creeping into his thoughts in his unguarded moments, and now she was here in front of him. Now he was forced to be near her, when all he wanted to do was slam the door on this part of his life and settle into his quiet retirement. Instead she was so close that he could reach out and touch her—which he emphatically did not want to do, even if every glancing look at her lips reminded him of the way she used to sigh into their kisses and melt under him.
“Andrew,” Gillie said, shaking a box of buttons at him like a rattle.
With a scowl, he took it and dumped the contents into the open drawer.
“There’s no point in pretending that you’re a notions merchant who is restocking his wares if you don’t actually restock your wares,” she said.
She was right, not that he was going to admit it. Instead, he yanked open another drawer with such force that the buttons in it cascaded all over the wood floor.
“Damn,” he swore.
“I’m sure you have other skills, but playing at being a shopkeeper isn’t one of them,” said his liaison with a laugh.
“I’m not supposed to be working at all. I’d given up my ship, I’d traded in my sea clothes for shore clothes, and I was all set to retire, but Home interceded.”
Gillie’s eyes softened. “They have a nasty habit of doing that. Come along, I’ll help you clean up the buttons.”
They spread out, scouring the floor for rogue buttons.
“We’ll be finding them in corners for weeks,” said Gillie.
Three weeks, maximum. That had been the agreement he’d had with Home, and he had no intention of being here for any longer than it took to stop Wark.
“Can I ask you a question?” asked Gillie from her corner as she plucked up buttons that had come to rest against the baseboards.
Andrew grunted. He’d only known Gillie Gibson for a day, but he suspected that if she wanted the answer to a question, nothing would stop her until she got it.
“Did Home authorize you to pay Mrs. Parkem two thousand pounds?”
He hesitated. “No.”
Gillie tilted her head as though considering this. “I thought not. I have to fight with them for every sheet of writing paper and every lump of coal. Where will the money come from?”
“I’ll write to Rickman,” he said, even though he knew that in all likelihood that would be a lost cause. He could practically hear the ass pontificating about how an agent of Home should be able to recruit an asset with charm, brute force, or threat—not that Rickman had any experience in the field.
“And when Rickman says no?” Gillie prompted.
He flattened himself on the ground to reach for a button that had rolled under the shop’s counter. “I’ll pay it myself if I have to.”
“Two thousand?” The skepticism in Gillie’s voice was clear. “What sailor has two thousand pounds lying around?”
“I was very good at my work, never married, and never had children. The last two can be expensive pursuits,” he said.
“Will working with your former fiancée be a problem?” Gillie asked.
That was the trouble with spies. They collected information about everyone and then used it for their own advantage. Even their own colleagues weren’t safe.
“My past with Lavinia will not be an issue,” he bit out. “There are things at stake that are more important than our pride.”
Gillie nodded. “Good.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Only a suggestion that you try to secure an appointment to see Sir Reginald Palmer-Smythe. He’s a disagreeable man, but he’s been charged with ensuring the prince’s safety during the visit and has been in Edinburgh for the last month in anticipation.”
“It sounds as though you’re already well aware of him,” he said.
Gillie arched a brow. “Well aware, yes. Have clapped eyes on the man, no. I’ve been writing ever since the cache of weapons was found and the letter sent from Wark’s home was intercepted, but Palmer-Smythe won’t see me.”
“Why not?” he asked
“The Queen’s Guard doesn’t like the idea of the War Office instructing it on how to do its job. There are too many men beating their chests and reminding each other of how superior they are at keeping the British people safe.” She hesitated and then huffed out a frustrated breath. “And as Palmer-Smythe’s secretary reminds me, the gentleman has more important things to worry about than seeing a lady who is all aflutter because a royal is coming to the city.”
“Idiocy,” he said flatly.
“My thoughts exactly,” she said.
“I’ll write to him and see if I can get us an appointment. Both of us.”
“And in the meantime, we’ll have to hope you and Mrs. Parkem can get along well enough to work together,” said Gillie cheerfully.
“We can be reasonable,” he said.
“And instructing her to flirt with Wark?”
“Will not be an issue,” he said sharply.
Gillie shot him a look. “Somehow I’m less than optimistic.”
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, trying to ease the muscles that were as taut as bowlines. He would do what he needed to in order to make this operation a success, but he wasn’t going to like it. He’d known that from the moment Sir Newton had described the plan to him, and it had only been confirmed Monday when he’d walked through Lavinia’s shop door to find Wark leaning over her counter, a lewd glint in the man’s watery eyes. Instinct had taken over, and he’d nearly gripped Wark by the collar and tossed him across the shop. It was only the flash of surprise and distrust in Lavinia’s eyes that had jolted him back to reality and made it possible for him to assume the easy, careless manner of an acquaintance rather than a former lover.
“Gillie, I’m going to give you a bit of advice about working with me. Don’t question how I do my job, and I won’t question how you do yours,” he said.
Gillie stared back, not at all intimidated by his glower. “That, I assure you, is a practice we can both agree on.”
Chapter Six
SHE WAS LATE.
Andrew sat on the benches at the King’s Stables Road end of Princes Street Gardens where he and Lavinia had agreed to meet on Wednesday morning, whacking his walking stick against his foot and wondering where the hell his asset was. It was, he’d discovered in the twenty-three hours since he’d seen her last, easier to think of her as an asset rather than a woman, let alone one he’d once wanted to marry.
What he absolutely under no circumstances would think of her as was the woman he’d once loved. That should be easy enough. Lavinia had done him a great favor in teaching him that love was the exclusive province of fools, and Captain Andrew Colter, skipper of the Endeavor, was no fool.
You’re not a skipper anymore. The thought slid through his mind, nagging at him, but he pushed it away. Retirement was what he wanted. A quiet life where he didn’t have to worry about shipping times, bribing harbormasters at far-flung ports of call, cargo spoiling in the hold, storms, or rough waters. In a few short weeks, his career for Home would be over and gone would be the days of risking his life to recruit assets, ferry messages, and—on the most brutal of occasions—commit the very acts that had probably already resigned him to hell in the afterlife.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Soon he’d unpack his sea chest for the last time, but until then, he had to stay sharp.
But that would be a lot easier if his asset would actually show up.
Whack, whack, whack went his stick against the edge of his boot. Whack, whack—
“Andrew, I’m late. I apologize,” said Lavinia, rushing up the park’s fine gravel path, one hand holding a tiny confection of a hat on her head to keep it from blowing off.
She stopped in front of him, the hem of her skirt kicking out to give him a glimpse of a boot
that showed the faint gray of worn leather even though, he imagined, it had been blackened many times. Unlike the past two times he’d seen her, when he suspected she’d dressed in styles meant more for ease of movement than for fashion, she was wearing the same kind of dress as her clients. Gone were the loose skirts she could kneel in as he imagined she pinned hems. Instead, she wore a purple creation with some sort of black ribbon on the edges that flowed over her legs like falling water, showing off the line of her hips. His eyes trailed up, skimming over the dip of her waist and—because he was only human—over the lush curves of her breasts.
No, no breasts. Assets don’t have breasts.
He tore his eyes away, rose stiffly from the bench, and walked a few steps away as though he’d suddenly become rather interested in a bird perched in one of the trees.
Lavinia followed, angling to get in front of him.
“I hate when people waste my time unnecessarily, so I really do apologize,” she said, clearly flustered.
He clasped his walking stick a little tighter and out of the corner of his mouth said, “Stop following me.”
Her brow crinkled. “I’m trying to apologize, but—”
“We cannot talk.”
She reached for his arm. A frisson of heat at the pressure of her fingers against his arm pulled him up short, and he faced her just as she planted a hand on one of her glorious hips. “That doesn’t make a modicum of sense. What was the point of dragging me out here in the first place if all you want to do is pretend that you don’t see me?”
“This is supposed to be a clandestine meeting,” he bit out. It annoyed him more than it should that, along with her tardiness, he had to contend with her inconvenient loveliness. When she licked her full lips, he almost growled with the memory of the way she’d tasted of ginger candies when he kissed her last. An infuriating part of him wanted to know if that was still the case.
“A clandestine meeting?” She glanced around. “In the middle of a park? What are we supposed to do, sit on two adjoining benches and try to speak without moving our lips?”
“Yes.”
She threw her head back and laughed, but then she abruptly stopped. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“That is how it’s done,” he said, a touch defensive yet also intrigued. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had laughed at him. Up until a few days ago he’d been captain of a ship, and there was little room for levity when one was responsible for the lives of one’s men.
“Anyone walking by would be able to see our lips moving. Isn’t it quite a bit stranger if we don’t face each other?” she asked.
She had a point—rather a good one too—but he didn’t trust himself to get through an entire conversation with her when she was like this. The last two days she’d been prickly and short with him, but now she seemed to have relaxed a bit. It was this playfulness that he’d found irresistible when they were younger. She’d been a spot of brightness at the center of his dreary life.
“Do you see that bench over there?” he asked, pointing to the green-painted bench next to the one he’d just vacated.
“Of course,” she said.
“Go and sit on it and do not look at me.”
With a shrug, she flounced over to the bench and sank down, folding her gloved hands across her knees with the delicacy of a debutante at her first ball.
He took up residency in his old spot, snapping open a newspaper he’d abandoned half an hour ago.
“You aren’t going to use that to try to obfuscate your lips, are you?” asked Lavinia. He could see her peering at him from the corner of his eye.
“Eyes forward,” he ordered.
“I’m not one of your cabin boys,” she said, but he noticed that she did, in fact, set her gaze on an object somewhere in front of her.
“Thank God for that, for you would’ve run roughshod all over my ship.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“That was not a compliment.”
“I choose to take it as one.”
“You’re rather chipper this morning,” he said.
“I’ve decided that since I’ve committed to your cause, I should make the best of it. What happens now?”
Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a slip of paper and slid it across his bench. “Look at this and memorize the address.”
She plucked up the paper and bent her head to read it. “Blair Street. What is this?”
“The location Miss Gibson and I will be operating out of for the time being. The notions shop. Miss Gibson is acting as my sister.”
“I took her for a lover of buttons, ribbons, and trim,” said Lavinia.
“If you need anything from me urgently, you’ll write to the shop.”
“Andrew—”
“Send a note to the shop asking for twelve horn buttons. That will be the signal that you need to see me immediately,” he said.
“No letters then.”
The letters. Of course she’d have to bring those up. She’d been faithful in her correspondence—he couldn’t fault her there—and in return he’d written her stacks of letters with pages about the adventures and boredoms at sea, how he missed her, and, most depressingly, how he loved her. How he thought he loved her, he immediately corrected himself. At every chance he could get, he posted them, knowing they’d eventually make their way back to her no matter how many ships and port towns they had to travel through. Just like him.
Only she hadn’t been waiting when he arrived.
“I can assure you,” he said, “my letter-writing days are behind me. On certain days, as necessary, you will receive a delivery. It will include a message on a piece of paper wrapped into a bolt of the same muslin you use for draping. It will be a book cipher. I assumed it would be too large a volume for your reticule, but I’ll have it sent along to the shop today.”
“And what can I expect on this paper?” she asked.
“The time we’ll meet the following day and any information you need to know about a change in location if I feel as though this spot is compromised.”
“It’s a set of benches in the middle of the busiest park in Edinburgh. When will it not be compromised?” she asked.
“You know, there was another way we could’ve met like this,” he snapped, something inside him breaking.
“What is that?” she asked.
“We could’ve pretended to be lovers.”
She blanched as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and he immediately regretted them. It had been a cheap shot, yet it had felt good to say. What sort of cad did that make him?
He should apologize, but the words were slow to come. He watched Lavinia raise her head and slice her gaze over to him.
“No one would believe that,” she said.
An insult for an insult. That was fair. He deserved the blow to his manly pride, and a blow it was. For years he’d held close the bitter truth that he had never been good enough for Lavinia Malcolm. A ferryman’s son and a gentleman’s daughter? It had been impossible, even if they’d refused to believe that.
“What I’m more concerned about,” she continued in a calm, cool voice, “is what people will believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shopkeepers have a certain reputation, and dressmakers even more so. I suppose there’s something sensual and decadent about the drape of silk against the skin and the richness of fabric that invites men’s imaginations. All of that effort that goes into clothing a woman somehow leaves us vulnerable and bare.
“And then there’s the matter of being a widow,” she continued. “A woman of experience isn’t every man’s desire, but it certainly appeals to a large enough swath of the population that it becomes inconvenient to live on one’s own. I need you to understand that’s what you’re asking me to walk into by encouraging Wark. Because just asking questions and seeing who comes and goes while fitting his mother at their home won’t be enough, will it? You’ll want me to become closer with him, and
that means allowing the man to spend time with me.”
The low sickness in his stomach was back. He was thrusting a woman into a situation where she could potentially be ruined. It went against every instinct he had as a man, no matter his feelings about Lavinia and their shared past.
“I wouldn’t begrudge you if you’re having second thoughts.” He selfishly half hoped she’d nod and admit to cold feet. It would be easier not to see her. Easier not to have to worry about her or think that he’d sent her straight toward a man with such obvious designs on her.
“Is the two thousand pounds a promise?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do the work.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why did two thousand pounds persuade you?”
Her back stiffened an almost imperceptible degree, but to a man who’d spent his boyhood with her as the center of the world she might as well have shouted her discomfort.
“It’s a great deal of money,” she said.
“Enough to risk your reputation?”
“Doesn’t every man have his price?” she asked.
That might be true, but he couldn’t help but wonder what else was at play.
“If there’s something I should know about—”
“Nothing,” she said, cutting him off with swift efficiency. “I own a business. That kind of money is fortune making.”
She was lying to him. Each simple lift of her shoulder and casual comment was designed to distract him, but he’d been in this game for far too long.
“If there’s something that will compromise your ability to complete this mission, I need to know about it,” he said.
“All you need to concern yourself with is making sure that I still have a reputation to rely on when you leave Edinburgh,” she said.
Her words hung in the air, the implicit trust in them weighing him down. She was putting her life and her livelihood into his hands, trusting him when everything between them was broken. In a strange, twisted way, he felt honored in that.