My Lord and Spymaster sl-2

by Joanna Bourne

  But Lazarus was just reveling in it. “She came to me with the blood still on her. She’s one of us. She’s mine. Men who come asking for what’s mine get hurt.”

  Sebastian didn’t look impressed.

  “I don’t need rescuing, Captain,” she said. “Clear off and leave me to—” Crikey. Now she’d got Lazarus irritated at her. She’d made it worse. She knew better than that.

  Lazarus said mildly, “Jess, do you have advice on how I should deal with the Captain?”

  She shook her head quickly. Stupid. Stupid.

  “I didn’t hear you, Jess.”

  “No, Sir. Nothing to say. Not a word.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  He turned back to the Captain. “It took me months to teach Jess silence. For a long time, whenever she begged me to leave someone alone, I was forced to be especially loathsome to them. It was a difficult time for both of us.”

  The Captain’s eyes glinted like sharp knives. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Was it?” Lazarus held the bauble up. “Report to me, Jess. The necklace.”

  The Medici Necklace. Easy. “Eleven rubies, perfectly matched. All flawless, except the central stone. That one’s twelve carats and historic as hell. Legend is, it dates to the Rajput in the ninth century. The upper right-hand quadrant holds a crystal inclusion, visible to the naked eye. The third on the left is from the twelfth-century diadem of the princess of Navarre. The necklace was assembled in 1480 for Lorenzo de’ Medici. Louis Bolliard lifted it from the Romanov treasury two years ago and fenced it in Geneva, where Whitby’s bought it. Intact, it’s worth eight thousand on the gray market in London. Its white market breakup value is less than six, after three identifiable stones are recut.”

  The Captain’s face was stony cold. She stopped, abrupt like, having caught on to what Lazarus was up to. This wasn’t about the necklace.

  Lazarus whispered, “I took infinite pains with her, Kennett. One of my most valuable possessions. I never found another like her.”

  That made her sound like a pocket watch. But it wasn’t like that. Hours, they used to spend talking, in the old days. He’d taught her everything. How to pick locks. How to rope her way down a building. How to plan a caper. That last time, when she’d fallen so bad and got herself trapped in the dark in the old warehouse, it had been Lazarus who came in for her. He’d crawled in the whole way and pulled her out, with the building collapsing around their ears and bricks and timbers hitting them. He’d risked his neck. She hadn’t been a bloody pocket watch. He was goading the Captain, pure and simple.

  The Captain and Lazarus stayed, eyes locked, not making any sudden moves. It was like they were two men on a tightrope, neither of them shaking the rope.

  Then Sebastian leaned forward. “I’ve taken her to bed. She’s my possession now.”

  Oh, bloody hell. The Captain expected her to lie to Lazarus. She couldn’t do it. Lazarus could read her like a newspaper.

  “Jess?” Lazarus poked her.

  The Captain swung round and ran his eyes up and down her, looking like a man who’d tumbled her, maybe a couple dozen different ways, and enjoyed all of them. She remembered lying beside him in his bunk on board ship with the rain hitting the deck above—him dark and strong as a black angel, smelling of salt and sweat. She’d wanted to bite into him, like bread. She’d wanted to open her legs and tell him to touch her there . . .

  Damned if she didn’t blush like a schoolgirl.

  “I see. Oh, yes, I see. She has grown up, hasn’t she?” Lazarus laughed, a great bass rumble that came up from his belly. “Makes ’em just about useless.” He gestured impatiently. The Hand jumped up and Lazarus coiled the Medici Necklace down into the boy’s cupped palms. “Take that and put it away someplace. ”

  “Sir.” The boy gave a cheeky grin, stuffed fifty carats of rubies in his breeches, and sauntered out.

  Lazarus watched him. “You can’t get good help. On her worst day, Jess was worth thirty of that one. She doesn’t strut when she carries valuables. That astonishing object in her pocket, and even I didn’t know she had it on her till she tossed it to me.” Without changing tone he said, “She thinks you’re the spy, Kennett. The whole time she’s warming your bed, she’s fingering you for the drop. Interesting bedsport, even by my standards.”

  “I enjoy it.” Sebastian just kept on lying to Lazarus. Nobody lied to Lazarus.

  Lazarus took a last swallow of wine and held the empty glass out. Fluffy scrambled to take it from him just before he let it drop. “Josiah Whitby can rot in hell. And I leave spies to Adrian Hawkhurst. But Cinq came into my streets and hired Irishmen to kidnap one of my people. That I don’t allow. Where were you when Cinq almost grabbed her?”

  “Protecting her.”

  “You’re doing a damn poor job of it, you and Josiah. My Jess walks in here, covered with bruises. She’s so scared she came to me for help. Why should I let her go? At least I protect what’s mine.”

  “By keeping her . . . here?” With a flick of his fingers, the Captain said what he thought of the padding ken. “She’s not twelve years old anymore. Let her go before you have to hurt her.”

  They did more of that staring and talking back and forth without saying anything.

  The Captain laid out another line of words, like hard pebbles. “If you don’t kill me, I’ll come back for her. If you kill me, you can’t hold on to Jess. Look at her.”

  They both did. What was she supposed to do with her face? Flummoxed her.

  “Come here, Jess,” Lazarus said. That was when she noticed she’d been edging over toward the Captain all this time.

  So she went over and stood square in front of Lazarus, not trying to talk. He hadn’t changed much in the years between then and now. There were more lines in his face.

  “You should have told me you were coming,” he said at last. “Weren’t you paying attention all those years? You tell me when you’re going to pull one of your damfool stunts. What am I supposed to do with you, anyway?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “Since you’re mine, I should probably keep you here and do try to make something of you.”

  It was quiet, for the padding crib. She couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in her head. She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

  “Ten years ago, I tried to get you back from Josiah. Did you know that? He got you out of England too fast for me. I sent men after you a few times when you were still young.”

  “In Athens. And Oslo. And again in St. Petersburg. You almost got me in Athens.”

  “You were remarkably hard to kidnap.”

  “I tried to be, Sir.”

  “And you’re still not scared of me. You’re so clever in every other way, but you were never scared of me.” Lazarus turned to the Captain. “It has a certain attraction. It’s like owning that bloody necklace—the finest thing of its kind in the world. If her father hadn’t taken her away, I’d have made her the best thief in Europe.” He brooded on it a bit more and added, “I still could, but I’d have to train her all over again. When I think of the trouble she was last time . . .”

  “You have the power to keep her. Or you can let her go. That’s absolute power, if you want it.”

  “Don’t push me, Kennett. An hour ago I didn’t expect to ever see her again. And bedamned if I’ll give her back to Josiah. Where does that leave me?”

  More silence. She didn’t even try to think.

  “Sell her to me.” Kennett said it so calm and reasonable she couldn’t believe she’d heard right. “We can settle on a price.”

  The unreality of this was so dense she could have gone floating in it.

  “Sell her? Sell Jess Whitby?” After a long minute, Lazarus began to chuckle. “Oh, that’s a sweet thought. That is a beauty of a thought.” Lazarus was on his feet, tromping around the room, looking at her, looking at Sebastian.

  Sebastian stood up, too, ignoring everything but Lazarus. She’d swear the
y were both blazing amused. She didn’t see anything funny, herself.

  Lazarus murmured, “Sell Josiah’s daughter to a sea captain. That’ll make the old bastard mad enough to spit nails. That is a beauty of an idea, that is. Damn. I could get ten thousand pounds for her.”

  “Easily.”

  “Or double that. I could get his damned warehouse. We just need to agree on an appropriate amount, don’t we? Does there happen to be a shilling on you, Captain Kennett?”

  Sebastian was already fishing in his pocket. He held up a shiny new Dundee shilling between thumb and forefinger. Tossed it. She watched it flip through the air, spinning silver.

  Lazarus caught it. “Done. She’s yours. And may God help you. Jess!”

  “Sir?”

  “Who do you belong to, Jess?”

  “I belong to . . . I . . .”

  “Exactly. You’re not mine. Don’t call me ‘Sir’ again. Get her out of here, Kennett.”

  Sebastian gripped her arm, applying somewhat more than necessary force, pulling her along.

  She dug her heels in. There was one thing she had to say. “Lazarus.” She’d been eight, the last time she called him Lazarus. The people who belonged to him called him “Sir.” “I didn’t just leave. Not willingly.” It’d been the week after she fell so bad. Papa hired men who just picked her up and walked off with her, right out of the padding ken. She’d been knocked out with opium for the broken arm. Broken couple of things. Her ribs, too. “I didn’t even wake up till we were two days out at sea. That first year . . . I tried to get back to you.”

  “But not later.”

  “No. Not later.”

  He considered her from under heavy, sleepy-looking eyelids. “You’d better get her out of here before I change my mind, Kennett. The challenge of it alone. If holding on to her wasn’t so damned complex . . .”

  The Captain gave her a fine, hearty shove in the direction of the door.

  “One more thing,” Lazarus said.

  The Captain was carrying a knife somewhere on him. That featherlight change of balance was him thinking about pulling it and using it. “Yes?”

  “Take that girl with you. The one you’ve been pretending not to notice. Fluffy. Give her to that interfering aunt of yours. I’m tired of looking at her.”

  Twenty-four

  Kennett House, Mayfair

  LOTS OF PEOPLE SOBBED DOWN THE FRONT OF Eunice’s dress. Fluffy—Flora, her name was—started doing it the minute she saw her. How did they know?

  The Captain fumed the whole way back in the hackney. The minute Flora disappeared upstairs, with a maid helping her on one side and Eunice on the other, Sebastian shoved Jess out of the black and white foyer, into the library. Nice and private, the library, but Lord, it was cluttered. Old books lay everywhere and broken pots wherever there weren’t books. She hadn’t bothered to look for secret papers in here, it being what looked like a lifetime career sorting through that, not to mention nobody would keep his secrets where Standish puttered around all day.

  Sebastian pulled her inside, and found the only piece of bare wall in the place, and backed her into it, and began kissing her.

  “Captain . . .”

  “Be quiet.”

  It was glorious. He was a lot better at kissing than Ned had been. Realms better. Guess he’d had about ten thousand times more practice. With Ned, kissing had mostly been bumping teeth, all clumsy and not quite fitting together. Kennett knew what he was about. He kissed her for a while, showing her a whole new way of doing it. There were depths and complexities she hadn’t known about. There was this business of doing things with your tongue, for instance.

  Sebastian couldn’t be Cinq. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t be.

  She said, “Look, I think—”

  “Just . . . bloody . . . stop . . . thinking.”

  Shivers took over her body. Hot shivers that jostled and quivered under her skin and tried to jump right out. Nothing helped but getting closer and closer to him. He’d been waiting for that.

  He couldn’t be Cinq. Cinq wouldn’t come to the padding ken to rescue her. Wouldn’t face Lazarus to buy her back. That had to be proof. Had to be.

  Kiss by kiss, her mouth got more numb and tingly. He tasted like wine. She held on and kissed back and it felt wonderful. Felt wonderful with her whole body. Felt like being rubbed with velvet over every inch of her.

  His boots shoved her feet wide. Wider. Ready for him. He treated her like someone he was about to make love to. He ran his hand all the way down her stomach. Stroking. Assessing. It was a shock, feeling him touch her there, between her legs, vulgar and confident.

  “I don’t . . .” She had something she wanted to say.

  When he pulled her against him, he was ready and hard, pressing eagerly. Feeding hunger and heat into her. He wanted this swaying back and forth. Wanted her rubbing herself against him. His hands told her what to do. This way, then back again. Till she was doing what he wanted. By this time, it was what she wanted, too.

  There was a glow on him, he was so alive. It was like there was lightning under every inch of his skin, striking at her in tiny sparks. Made her twitch and jump every time he touched her.

  Then he stopped and held her tight. Held her wanting and aching, open against him, and not able to get to him because they had too damn many clothes on. “I didn’t mean to come this far.” He stroked her hair, which seemed to have come undone all on its own. “You don’t know anything at all, do you? None of it. I should have been gentle.”

  “I’m not a damn virgin.” She was embarrassed all of a sudden. He had her wedged in between one lot of dusty old pots and another. No room to move. She was halfway to making love with him right here, and there wasn’t a square inch for it.

  He said, “We’ll go slowly. I promise. Much, much more slowly. I’ll go slow as grass growing with you, Jess.”

  She didn’t want to hear that. Didn’t want to think about it.

  “I can always tell when you’ve been to the warehouse. You come home smelling of spices.”

  “Not always. Sometimes I go look at wool cloth and come home smelling like sheep.”

  She reached up and ran the edge of her thumb along his cheek. Scratchy. This was where he shaved. His face was darker, here on his jaw. She touched the corner of his mouth. Smooth there. That was what had been giving her so much pleasure—his mouth. It was the color of madder, the shade they made in Lyon, in that silk factory where they dyed it twice. That was the color of his mouth. A dark undercoat with a sheen on top, just a shade lighter.

  He turned toward her hand and set his mouth against her knuckles. Disconcerted the hell out of her. While she was wondering what to do next, he pulled her hair forward, around her face, and kissed it. She couldn’t feel his mouth there, but it made her tremble anyway. Someone kissing her hair. So strange.

  He said, “I like your hair.”

  “I like yours, too.” Those Greek boys who dived in the sea and brought up sponges had the same jet black hair. It was soft when she put her hands up in it, the color and texture of Russian sables. If Badger had stabbed her this afternoon, she would have missed all this—the feel of a man’s harsh shaved chin, the black hair slipping through her fingers.

  He played with his mouth on her earlobe. So damned skillful. It was all meant to be enjoyed.

  There’d never been a man who made her want to close her eyes and let him take over. Not ever. Not even Ned. But here she was trembling, letting Kennett wash over her like a wave, drowning her in pleasure. If she let go, he’d pull her under. The pleasure would be worth it. To forget for a few minutes . . .

  So much she wanted to forget . . .

  She pushed away from him. About an inch away. “Bloody damn cripes. I can’t do this.”

  It was the right thing to say. Instead of trying to convince her that she could, indeed, do this, Sebastian threw his head back and laughed. “All right Jess, then you don’t have to.”

  He didn’t let her go. What
ever he planned to do with her next, having her backed hard against the wall seemed to be the starting point. “Why did you walk into that place? You almost got yourself gutted in front of me. Do you want to die?”

  “It was one of those calculated risks.”

  “Calculated madness. Did you really kill somebody for him when you were eight?”

  “Not exactly. Look, I don’t want to talk about that.” There didn’t seem to be any pins left in her hair. She shoved him away some more and bundled her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m cautious, generally. Ask anyone. You barging in there and asking Lazarus for me—now that was daft.”

  She’d watched the two of them, Lazarus and the Captain, trading for her. Dickering. Somehow, Sebastian said the right words and she walked out of there. There wasn’t another man in London who could have managed it. Only the Captain.

  She’d never meet another man in her life like him. It hurt, how much she wanted to make love to him.

  “If you’re going to look at me like that, we might as well get back to what we were doing.” His hands just took up where they’d left off. He started kissing her eyebrows, for pity’s sake. Whoever heard of someone kissing eyebrows?

  It worked, though. He went back and forth across her with his lips and his fingers, and it was like he was weaving some complicated spell with her flesh. When she said, “I think I want to stop doing this,” he sucked the words right out of her mouth as she spoke them. She might as well have kept quiet. She shook her head back and forth. It didn’t budge his hands any at all. They just played across whatever was going by—cheek, lips, hair. It all worked fine for him, whatever part of her he touched. “It’s not going to work. I’m not going to make love with you.”

  “Some people enjoy just kissing.” He breathed it warm into her ear, casual and innocent, as if he didn’t know how that felt to her. He was going much, much more slowly, just like he said he would.

  “I don’t want to enjoy it.”