by Baird Wells
“No.” The word snapped between them with the force of a steel trap. Then she held up her hand, softening. “An affair, perhaps. Passionate, without care.” She shuddered. “Never as a business arrangement. Can you imagine making love with the same attitude as shipping grain?” Her laugh was musical. “And I could never bring myself to do it while married.”
Annoyance crept in at the near mention of John. Their banter cooled; he couldn't pin a better name to a feeling so much like jealousy. He tried and failed to entirely cast it aside. “I'm certain Talmadge will be relieved to hear it.”
To his surprise Olivia kept silent, attention fixed outside. She must have heard him, and he wondered that her usual retort.
He traced the curve of her forehead, the slope of her nose to its tip. The path led into dangerous territory. Familiar territory. He tried ignoring full lips, the cling of her sky-blue velvet spencer jacket across her bosom. Olivia fell well outside of his usual taste: older, widowed, independent financially and emotionally, and never too invested to walk away with more than a handshake. His continued preoccupation with her was unsettling. Imprudent too, as far as Whitehall was concerned.
“Oh! There he goes.” She tapped a finger below the glass, snapping him back to attention. “Not even time for a cup of tea. My goodness.”
“How long do you think it should take?” He threw up both hands at the lift of her brows. “Hastier than I would have been. Much hastier, but perhaps his calling cards overfloweth.”
She rolled her eyes, looking away. “Mmhm. We'll see about that; it's your turn.”
“For good luck?” He tapped a finger to his cheek, already knowing the answer.
“Absolutely not.” Olivia shooed him with a hand. “Besides, I'm not certain all the luck in France will help you in there.”
“That, madam, is entirely dependent on how quickly you work.”
Olivia shrugged, pretending to examine her fingernails. “Perhaps I'll take my time.”
* * *
He hovered in the doorway, short of an antechamber separating them from the bedroom, taking Alexandra in.
She was lovely, no denying that. Too thin and too much of a boyish figure for his taste. That said, her face, like her body, was long, boasting delicate features. Warm brown eyes and a tumult of honey locks answered her pale skin and ivory gown.
Lovely, but what struck him first was the smell. Sweat. Old, rancid, and sharp. Olivia's fears at Osipova's demanding routine were immediately put to rest. The woman was attractive, exclusive, and he guessed that made her shortcomings excusable, like warm punch and stale sandwiches at a ball. Her day was obviously not spent washing and dressing in clean clothes.
Setting his hat on the table inside her front room, he poked out a small bouquet of violets. “Madame.”
Alexandra smiled, thanking him and flashing a line of yellow teeth as she laid the gift on a low table between their chairs. She drifted down onto the rose-print satin and swept a hand. “Please, Lord Lennox.”
Perching on the edge of his spindly chair, Ty made of show of letting his eyes rake over her. Even under a scant breeze from an open window, the room was stifling. An unpalatable mix wafted from the adjacent bedchamber: unwashed bodies, cheap cologne, and something repulsively musky. He tried breathing through his mouth with limited success.
Leaning farther back, lifting her bosom, she smiled. “What has brought you to call on me, Monsieur Lennox?”
“Henry.” Smiling, he reached out, brushing knuckles over the back of her wrist. “When I arrived last week, your name was everywhere, on everyone's lips. I thought, 'She cannot be such a sensation.' So I went the opera, fixed on being your enemy.” He grinned, sweeping his fingers farther toward her elbow and earning a laugh. “I was nearly converted, only moments after the curtain lifted. 'She is comely enough,' I said, 'but that is all.'” He stared past her for three breaths, playing at thoughtful, and shrugged. “Then I heard your voice. A siren, an angel; I had to make your acquaintance. I could not rest until we had spoken.”
Now she returned his touch, playing her fingers between his. “And we have spoken. What shall we do now?”
Ty widened his eyes. “Converse, delight one another? I'm not certain I follow.”
Alexandra slipped from her chair, moving to stand before him. Small fingers cradled his jaw. “I'm quite certain that you do.”
Ty leaned back in his chair, preening. This was far, far too easy.
* * *
Olivia glanced to the ceiling, at footsteps hammering out of time with giggling and screeching, and snorted in disgust. Maybe she should bring up more feathers; the tickling seemed popular.
Servants. She pressed herself deeper into the darkened ground floor parlor of Alexandra's house, until hushed voices reached the bottom of the steps and faded back through the house.
When all was still, save the ruckus overhead, she darted into the hall. Gaining the staircase a tread at a time, she paused and listened again and again until she reached the first floor landing. Now was the moment of truth. She would discover if her copy of the floor plan, borrowed from the house next door, was accurate.
Resting one hand on the white wood frame, Olivia grasped the knob and turned. It opened without a hitch, swinging silently inward. Thank goodness, because Ty was the one proficient with lock picks.
The guest chamber was large, a canopy bed jutting out from the back wall. Its heavy, carved posts were draped in enough thick blue fabric to make uniforms for an entire navy. There was little else to speak of; a practical straight-legged side table, matching blue curtains drawn to keep the room cool. It must have been Talleyrand's room, when he visited Osipova. Nothing private would be kept in here, not that she'd expected otherwise. Olivia passed it over in favor of Osipova’s chamber. The two rooms adjoined, granting her access while Ty kept their target occupied in the antechamber.
“Aggh!” From next door Ty let out a feral cry. “Now I've caught you! But where shall I take you?”
Hands clapped. “To bed, monsieur! To bed!”
“Soon,” he threatened, “but not just yet.”
“You cannot be serious,” muttered Olivia. Not that she gave Ty much thought, but it had crossed her mind, unbidden of course, once or twice. Awash in his soap and cologne, the thoughts were hard to ignore, lying beside him in the dark. Long, calloused fingers, his hooded gaze; Ty would be a slow burn as a lover. No rushing, certainly no schoolyard games.
Olivia shook her head, freeing her thoughts, and peered around the wardrobe. There it was, a door into the adjacent bedchamber. Once more, she prayed it was unlocked.
* * *
What was bloody well taking her so long? Ty listened for any hint of Olivia.
He winced, flinching from teeth buried in his earlobe. Seduction for the purpose of turning a mark, gaining trust and access, was simple. No one was in a hurry, both sides content to play their parts and enjoy each other. Unfortunately, Alexandra was a business woman, with no interest in preamble. A man in the bed cost her one who had yet to pay, and if haste was any indication she had a good deal more work left today.
Fingers kneaded the buckskin along his thigh and she giggled. She was completing their transaction at a full gallop, impatient with his stalling. He prayed Olivia fulfilled her task at the same break-neck pace.
Alexandra fell back onto her sofa's plush arm, dangling a foot until her pink silk slipper fell into his lap. Toes worked inside the shoulder of his coat, sliding skirts up her hips until she was completely exposed. He spared the barest glance for an angry rash painting her thighs, aggravated by her earlier exertions, and swallowed.
Her big toe traced a line below his lip. “Some ladies find it vulgar, a man using his mouth so. I cannot agree.” She slid the ball of her foot down his shirt, pressing between his thighs. He sucked in a helpless breath at his body's reaction.
Alexandra closed her eyes, smiling. “I allow a man to pleasure me any way he likes.”
He preferred not
to share a bed with four other men. It wasn't just that she'd had other lovers; he had shared liaisons with all sorts of women, on assignment and by choice. Beautiful women, intelligent woman. Experienced women; a few who had never been in the market for an exclusive affair, seeing him only when he was home on leave. Even the aging marchioness with whom he'd spent a delightfully exhausting spring in Rome had been captivating. At forty-five, over two decades his senior, Isabel had shown signs of her years, but she wore the lines and softness gracefully, underscored with dignity. And ability.
Alexandra, for all her beauty and stage grace, had no dignity. Common prostitutes could hardly dream of the life she led. A celebrated career, men quite literally willing to fight one another to wed her. Wealth and influence, but no soap and water. She was steeped in filth, willing to accept as well as offer the absolute minimum. Ty couldn't bring himself to take advantage of a woman he suspected was fundamentally broken inside. No affection, not even genuine emotion; all human interaction was to use or be used.
That was the direction they were headed now, if things didn't move along. Heels bit into his ribs, and Alexandra dragged herself half into his lap.
An air current shifted, pulling back into the bed chamber and softly rattling the parlor window.
Olivia.
Giving silent thanks, he ran a hand along Alexandra's calf, praying they were nearly done.
* * *
Olivia exhaled when the bedroom door sprang open under a breeze, smacking her with stale air. Rather than annoyance, she felt a wave of sympathy for Ty. It would take a great deal of persuasion and probably some coin to convince her even to lie near such a smell, let alone touch it. She quickened her pace.
A door between the bedroom and antechamber stood wide open, making her privy to Ty's exchanges with Alexandra. It also would make her visible to them. This was going to take some doing. Dropping to her knees, she shuffled to the edge of the bed, lifted the yellow satin dust ruffle and peered underneath. Nothing.
She tugged each white porcelain handle of the bedside table drawers, rifling inside. It was filled with the usual pocket tailings: perfume, handkerchiefs, and a few coins. Folded papers, but she doubted anything valuable would be so close at hand. Stuffing them into her jacket, she crawled the length of a pink and blue Persian rug, stopping at the foot of the bed.
“No, no.” Ty's voice rose above a murmur. “Stay here. Mm, just so.”
A pink silk slipper sailed in through the door, bounced off of the foot board and nearly caught her in the face; a warning from Ty.
Alexandra screeched. “Not my knees, monsieur!”
Olivia crouched, still until she caught a rustle and a sigh. She continued around the bed, pausing to lean forward, getting a look out into the parlor.
Alexandra's head lolled against the back of a gaudy floral sofa. Ty leaned over her, one hand grasping its back, one knee on the cushion. He looked comically huge compared to the tiny bit of furniture. A hand clutched Alexandra's naked thigh to his hip. With his mouth he was doing something near her neck which resembled a pig rooting for truffles, desperate to inhale against a permeating odor.
Catching sight of her, his eyes widened to desperate circles. His lips worked without sound: Help me.
Hands grabbed at his collar and coat sleeves, pinched his waistband. If she didn't hurry up, Alexandra would have Ty peeled and skewered whether he wished it or not.
Olivia held up two fingers for his benefit, darting past the doorway. Against the far wall, positioned between a window and a small cherry writing desk, was a shoulder high cabinet. Painted white and trimmed in gold gilt, the box was an abomination of carmine roses, pastel green leaves, and strutting peacocks. Fishing in her bodice, she grasped the iron skeleton key she'd cast a week earlier and stood, testing it in the lock. A mechanism clicked and one door shuddered, wafting a hint of cedar to her nose over the stink of Alexandra's room.
So many compartments. Small ones, for letters, a narrow slot for travel papers and a bankbook, square drawers for a collection of jewel boxes. She grabbed every envelope in sight, then tugged free a writing case, a pale blue wooden box painted with black scrolls and had a fleur-de-lis embossed prominently atop the lid. Flicking up its latch, she opened the case and smiled. She didn't need to read the names, the addresses. Years of examining, sometimes forging Talleyrand's handwriting told her she'd found her prize.
Tucking the thin box under her arm, she darted back across the room, pausing just long enough to signal Ty, whose shirt was creased and half off. His eyes rolled over silent lips: 'Thank God.'
Back to the door, through the guest chamber the way she'd come in. Instead of being discreet this time, Olivia thudded her way down the steps, yanking free a portrait on the landing. “Oh dear. How clumsy.” She kicked it along ahead of her, insuring it tumbled down the steps, garnering maximum attention, Osipova’s included. It was her means of creating a distraction and paroling Ty. Voices rose from farther back in the house, echoing up the kitchen stairs.
In the entryway, she swept a hand across the surface of a half-moon table, toppling candlesticks and breaking a vase. With a sound kick, she drove the table to the marble, sending it bouncing and clattering further into the house.
Olivia ran just until she gained the steps, taking her time from there and joining a stream of passersby coming and going along the walk out front. Blubbering reached her ears from the open window above, Alexandra shrieking something about a jealous lover – Talleyrand.
Ty's voice reached her, brimming with fabricated indignation. “By God, I'll have his neck for barging in here!”
“No, no monsieur!”
“I'll avenge you, madame. Wait here and lock your door. If anything...”
She was too far away, laughing too hard to pick out anything else over the bustling crowd. Olivia dashed for the carriage where a coachman helped her in. She settled just in time to see a disheveled Ty barrel out into the street yelling like a lunatic. Smiling, she leaned, tapping at her driver. “Around to the alley, if you please. Stop when you see the madman.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Olivia smacked a letter against the table top. “Stop complaining!”
An arm draped over his eyes, Ty wrestled deeper onto the couch, getting as much boot heel as possible up onto its arm. “It sodding hurts, Olivia!”
It did, she had no doubt. But Ty had been intractable all evening, testing her patience, bellyaching at every opportunity. She examined another letter, dropping it onto one of their lower priority stacks, and turned back to him. “Who impales themselves on a table leg?”
His arm came up, revealing a glare hot enough to boil water. “Who throws a table in a fleeing man's way?”
Waving a hand, she shook her head to conceal a poorly timed giggle. “Just...stop complaining. If you're not going to let anyone look at it, then hush.”
“I am sorry that my discomfort is a burden, madam. It seemed unwise, revealing my table leg shaped injury to any local physician.”
“Well...” He had her there. If Osipova went to Talleyrand or the authorities, people would be watching for a potential culprit. But still, he was being stubborn. She drained her tea cup and clanked it against the saucer. “Well, I could have helped you, but you didn't ask.” So there.
“You didn't offer,” he drawled, succumbing at last to the gin.
“Well, I'm offering now. Mostly so you'll stop moaning.” She felt terrible for having injured him, and had his accusations not bordered on theatrics, she would have apologized hours earlier. Probably. “Sit up and let me fix you, or go to bed.”
“Fine,” he bit back.
“Fine. Excellent. Sublime.” She checked the urge to poke out her tongue.
Ty's laugh surprised her. His hand flew up, clutching his torn flank, but he went right on laughing. “Dimples, if you were a man, we might have come to blows by now.”
Tension unlaced, and she slid deeper into her chair, smiling. “We still may.”
One hand flew up. “Wait until I'm patched up. Give a man a fighting chance.”
“I accept your terms. Now come on, up with you. Let's go have a look at your scratch.”
Not that she was looking forward to it. Cutting a man open was, for no rational reason, less stomach-churning than putting him back together. Killing a man was a simple matter, but fixing one?
She stood and held out a hand, waiting until Ty wrangled and maneuvered himself into a sitting position, all the while clutching a bandage beneath his shirt. With one foot braced on the rug, the other on the sofa, she hauled him up.
He searched her face with a narrow gaze. “Where are we going?”
“Whoo!” Fanning away his breath, she pretended to cough. “Upstairs. There's some gut twine and needles in a kit under the bed.”
His brow arched. “How do you know that?”
“Because I put them there, in the event I finally succumb and sew your mouth shut.”
He pointed a finger, pressing the end of her nose. “You are going to stitch me up?”
“Mmhmm.”
Leaning past her with a groan, he snatched the bottle of gin from her table and held it aloft. “Very well. Let's go.”
She snatched for the bottle, impressed by how quickly he lifted it out of reach. Sighing, she pointed to the door. “Forward march, soldier. Up you go. And no more down your gullet till I know you can make it up the stairs.”
That earned her a jaunty little salute, and he shuffled past out into the hall.
* * *
The safe house was certainly not palatial, and in some ways functional at best. As she lit the lamp, however, Olivia was reminded that the place was cozy. The décor was plain: white walls, wood plank floors. Their room was small, as bed chambers went. You could lie in bed and nearly stick a hand inside the firebox – an observation that reminded her to double check the quilt before turning in. Worn planks were covered by a thick but unattractive Persian rug whose scratchy pile warmed her feet while she lit the candles. A lone table stood between the bed and the fireplace, a strange piece of roughly- made furniture resurrected from something once much grander. Ty occupied its nicked surface with his gin, and occupied the high narrow bed with his backside. “I don't enjoy it when Miss Foster patches me up. Don't be offended.”