“I’m not leaving you out here.” She was forcing him to sit now. Hell and damnation, but moving hurt. Why could she not keep kissing him? “You are not dying out here.”
He groaned as a slash of pain knifed through him. “Do you plan to drag me inside and murder me again? Leave me.”
“Idiota. Cretino,” she said under her breath.
“I speak Italian,” he reminded her.
“And yet you are an idiot.”
“Must you insult me as I die?”
“Just cease speaking before I decide to leave you out here. I called you an idiot because if you were not an idiot, you would realize I was not trying to kill you. I shot you by accident. I am trying to get you inside to see how badly you are injured.”
Now that he was no longer lying in the cold snow, he could feel the warm, wet blood running over his side and seeping into his breeches. The silk would be ruined. But he did not think the wound was as bad as he’d first feared. Perhaps he might live.
And that thought brought with it the realization that Helena’s warm, round body was pressed against him. She was trying to get under him to support his uninjured side. “So you do not want me dead?”
She glanced at him, and he knew she could tell exactly what he was thinking. “Oh, I want you dead, but I am quite certain you’ll accomplish that feat all on your own.” She prodded him to walk, and he attempted to move his legs. They felt as though they’d been frozen to the ground. He actually considered peering down to ascertain whether or not ice had encased them. But she pushed and dragged, and slowly his body began to respond. He lurched across the icy ground toward her building.
And as she dragged him, all that warm, soft flesh pressed enticingly against him. With all the lush softness tempting him, he remembered why he’d fallen in love with her. She was petite, but her body managed to be rounded and impossibly erotic. Her clothing, her smile, her body… her perfidy.
He remembered why he’d fallen out of love with her.
“If you do not want me dead…” He gasped in a breath as sweat poured down his face from the exertion of walking the few feet to the door of her building. Helena was stronger than he’d thought. They’d almost reached the door. “Why did… you shoot… me?” He sounded pathetic. He would almost have rather died on the snow than face this ignobility.
They stumbled into the building, and Blue was thankful for the warmth. He was thankful he could feel the warmth. Oh but his enemies, Helena included, were going to be sorely disappointed. It looked as though he might yet live another day.
Helena leaned against the banister to catch her breath. Blue was pleased he was not the only one huffing. “I was not trying to shoot you,” she said, inhaling quickly and exhaling slowly. “I was trying to shoot that man in the alley.” She gestured to the stairwell. “Come, before we disturb all of my neighbors.”
Blue looked up the steep stairs and felt his head spin. The stairs seemed to whirl around before his eyes.
“Blue?” Helena said.
He smiled. She’d finally got it right.
“Are you alright?”
“Perfectly fine.” Except for the spinning stairs. She grasped him under the arm again and began to drag him. He stumbled, righted himself, and climbed. I was trying to shoot that man in the alley. “Helena, you mentioned a man in an alley.”
With a grunt, she heaved him up another step. “Yes.”
“Do you always shoot men in alleys?”
“No.”
Another step. Black dots blurred his vision.
“Only those wearing carnival masks and pointing pistols in my husband’s direction.”
“How… romantic.” And it was, except he had a vague memory of that man in the mask. It had been a Venetian larva mask, starkly white when surrounded by a black cloak pulled about the wearer’s head. He’d seen him in the alley, from the corner of his eye, and earlier in the day as well. Usually such a “coincidence” would have alerted him to danger, but he’d been distracted by his lovely wife. And that was exactly why operatives should avoid personal relationships.
Someone was trying to kill him. Someone other than Helena.
That was his last thought before he heard the rushing in his ears and everything went black.
***
He opened his eyes and stared at the rainbow of light on the ceiling. He could remember his fascination with rainbows when he’d been a child. He’d thought they were magic and had made the mistake of stating this to his dour tutor, who had wasted no time showing him that rainbows were not magic at all, but merely the result of light being refracted through a prism.
No one in his family had believed in magic. No one in his family had believed in encouraging fanciful children. He was the tenth child of eleven surviving born to the Duke and Duchess of Ely, and he’d barely known his parents. They’d been shadowy, frowning figures who appeared in the nursery once every three months, nodding at the children and patting their heads. Lying in his bed at night, listening to his brothers squabble, Blue had concocted stories about his parents’ busy lives. They were always splendidly dressed, so perhaps they were actors on a stage. They seemed to come and go mysteriously, so perhaps they were pirates or spies.
As he grew older, the roles in which he imagined his parents became the roles and adventures he wished he could experience. At twenty, he’d joined the army and fought against Napoleon in the Peninsular War. He’d been captured three times and escaped all three, freeing his comrades in arms along with him. He had a knack for extricating himself from difficult situations and sneaking behind enemy lines, and once he’d even convinced a small group of French cavalrymen that he was their emperor.
When he’d returned to England, the Foreign Office wanted him. Blue enjoyed the work, but he wanted to be part of Melbourne’s elite—the Barbican group. He’d joined a theater company in order to better hone his skills and learn the art of disguise, and that’s where he’d met the lovely, irresistible Helena.
Now, he blinked at the rainbows on the ceiling and searched for the prisms creating them. The small chandelier crystals came into focus at the same time as he registered the warmth of the body beside him. He turned his head and stared down into Helena’s riot of russet curls. She was curled up beside him, asleep, her head on his bare chest. She was still fully dressed. She hadn’t even removed her cloak, but she’d taken the time to remove his boots and his coat and shirt. He craned his neck to study his side. The wound stung, but there was no telltale flash of heat to indicate infection. Of course, it was early yet. There was also no blood on the makeshift bandages—strips of linen he assumed came from one of her undergarments. Perhaps the pistol ball had merely grazed him.
He was lucky that way. His injuries were always minor. His aim always true. His instincts always accurate.
Except for her.
He looked down at Helena again. He’d been wrong about her. He should never have married her, never allowed himself to fall in love with her. For a man who never took a misstep, she was a glaring jump off the wrong cliff.
He had the urge to slip her cloak off her shoulders. Once he’d loved those pale, rounded shoulders. They’d been velvet-soft on his lips. She’d liked to tempt him by wearing gowns that accentuated her shoulders. He wondered if he’d be able to see her shoulders if he took the cloak off. If he’d be able to access her slim neck, her sloped collarbone, her firm breasts…
She stirred, and with the self-discipline he was known for, he eased her off his chest until her head rested on the pillow. Slowly, he lifted her hand and placed it on her abdomen.
One look at her, and Blue really did not think he could be faulted for his weakness in marrying her. And it was a weakness, for he was still fighting to resist turning toward her, taking her in his arms and kissing her, touching her, burying himself in her. He was a strong man, not in the least ruled by his baser instin
cts. But Helena was beautiful, so beautiful—and that was before one heard her sing. When she sang, she was absolutely ravishing. She had the clearest, sweetest soprano he had ever heard. The voice of an angel, bestowed undeservedly, for she was no angel.
One wouldn’t know it to look at her with all that long, long brown-red hair, that pale, perfect skin—not a freckle, not a blemish—and those red, red lips. Once he’d believed she used rouge to redden them so unnaturally, but he’d been wrong. Her nose was small and straight, not pert—no, pert would have been too childish for such an exquisite beauty. Her ears were small and shaped like shells. Her eyebrows were thin and arched over large, dark brown eyes. He’d fallen in love with her because of those eyes. They were hypnotizing without detracting, like his own. When she looked at a man with those eyes, he had the sense she really saw him.
The problem, Blue decided, rising, was that she saw far too many men. Her eyes, and her body with them, tended to wander. He was no saint. He had not cared that she was not a virgin when they married, but he sure as hell cared who she shared her bed with after they were wed.
He winced at the pain in his side and hobbled stiffly to a mirror in the corner of the room. He peeled the bindings off and studied the wound. A mere scrape. A bit deeper than he would have liked, but he would survive. If he could avoid fever.
Farrar, the Barbican’s surgeon, always poured gin on every wound he tended. Blue didn’t see the harm in doing so now. Helena certainly had gin somewhere about. He lifted pillows and opened drawers, peering here and there, and finding no spirits of any sort. He’d even moved the cat, which hissed and swiped at him, off its perch on the back of the chair. With a frown, Blue walked back to the bed.
She was still sleeping. He’d been nearly soundless in his search, but he attributed her heavy sleep more to exhaustion from performing the night before than to his own caution. She was used to sleeping the days away, while he had no set schedule to speak of.
Beside the bed he found his shirt and coat and frowned at their lamentable state. He could not go out dressed in these bloodstained items. And yet he had not seen any male attire—other than boyish costumes that were tailored to her smaller frame—mixed among her things in the wardrobe. Had she no lover?
“Helena.”
She threw her arm over her eyes and turned away from him.
“Helena.” He reached down to shake her awake and found the sharp point of a knife pressed to his throat.
***
The brows above the startling blue eyes—eyes that could only belong to one man—rose appreciatively when she pulled the knife. She lowered it just as quickly and put her hand to her racing heart. “You frightened me.”
“So I see. Do you always sleep with a dagger?”
He had a perpetually droll tone in his voice, the upper class accent making him sound both amused and patronizing at the same time.
“Actually, yes. Does that surprise you?” She pushed her hair over her shoulder.
“No.”
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light in the room, she saw he was standing in a shaft of sunlight wearing only his boots and breeches. She recalled removing his coat and shirt the night before, after begging for help in carrying him to her room from one of the young men leaving the prostitute’s room on the floor below.
Last night, when she’d undressed him, she’d been concerned about his injury, staunching the flow of blood and cleaning the wound. But now he was standing before her, bare-chested, and he did not look particularly injured to her. In fact, he was the very picture of health. She’d seen men half-dressed before. She saw them every day. But very few looked like this without their clothes on. All of those muscles… when had he acquired those?
“I need to borrow a shirt and coat.”
“Why? I mean, are you leaving?” She clenched her hand on the hilt of the dagger. She would not reach out and touch his chest.
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t you wait until dark? What if the man in the mask is waiting for you?”
“I am a spy. I take my chances.” He did not need to remind her he was a spy. She was unlikely ever to forget it.
“I want to clean this wound. You did an excellent job bandaging it.” He was peering at the angry red skin on his side. “But I want to wash it with gin or other spirits.”
“I don’t have any.”
His head bobbed up, his eyes narrow and unbelieving.
“You can search,” she said, wearily. “There’s nothing here.”
“I did search.”
Of course he had.
“Where are you hiding it?”
Insulted now, she rose. “You are the spy. You tell me.”
He shook his head in disgust, and now she clenched her fists to keep from flinging something at him.
“I do not have time for this. Give me your cloak. I will wear it and return it to you this evening.”
“Fine.” She yanked the cords loose and shrugged it off. Anything to make him leave. She held it out to him and saw his eyes widen. “What is…?” And then she remembered.
Her focus the night before had been on the role of Elvira. She had meant to bring a change of clothing to the theater and had forgotten. At the end of the show, she’d had to return the costume. As she was headed directly home, she threw her cloak over her chemise and stays and left the theater thus. But now she stood nearly naked in front of Blue.
For some reason, she had the urge to snatch her hand back and throw the cloak back over her body. She was not overly modest. She’d worn far less in front of audiences of hundreds. But something about the way he looked at her made her face heat and her skin prickle with awareness. Suddenly, she was aware of how tight her stays and how her breasts, though not overly voluptuous, spilled out of the stays. She was aware how light and flimsy the chemise material and of the sunlight behind her.
She was aware that Blue was looking at her with undisguised desire.
She tossed the cloak over his head to stop his perusal. “I thought you were leaving.”
He pulled the cloak off his face and donned it, studiously avoiding looking at her body. “I am. Thank you.”
This was unusual. He never thanked her. For anything. She must have really unnerved him.
“Do you—” He glanced at her quickly, then cut his eyes to a spot above her head. “Do you always go out dressed in such a fashion?”
“You mean undressed?”
“I… yes.” Another glance and then his eyes were back on the spot above her head.
“What if I do?” She didn’t know why she’d said such a thing. She supposed she wanted to challenge him. She supposed she wanted to remind him what she did or did not do now was no concern of his.
His gaze met hers, full of complete understanding. And censure. Would he never forgive her?
“I would not be in the least surprised.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He didn’t think she’d ever change, and she was done with people who watched her and waited for her to make a muddle of her life again. She had changed, but she was not going to prove it to him. She didn’t care one way or another what he thought. She simply wished him to leave.
“I’ll return the cloak,” he said, turning toward the door.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get another.”
He looked at her. “This isn’t the end, Helena. I—”
“Go!” She yanked the door open and pushed him through it. “Just go.”
She slammed the door in his face and leaned against it. She would not cry. He was not worth it, and she’d already cried lakes of tears over Ernest Bloomington. Signora Giansante opened her door and began screaming, and Helena covered her ears and crawled back in bed.
It was a cold bed, and she was alone, and her throat burned with thirst.
Three
She woke in tim
e for a light dinner before she was due at the theater for rehearsals. A quick check of her finances was most disheartening. She could afford little more than soup and day-old bread. Signor Pacca, the purveyor of Teatro di San Carlo, owed her a share of the profits from L’Italiana in Algeri, but as was the usual way of things, he had not yet paid her or any of the other singers. She might have gone to work in another theater, but it would be no different.
She dressed in a caramel colored gown with rich brown piping and ventured out to buy her meal. Now she regretted giving Blue her cloak. The weather had not improved, although it was no longer snowing. The cold was so bitter that the clear late afternoon sky looked ready to crack. She ate quickly in the small café where she purchased her meal and a cup of steaming coffee. She could not afford the coffee, but she was so cold she could not resist. Then she hurried to the theater, intent on pilfering whatever cloak or coat she could unearth in the costumer’s room.
She pulled the heavy rear door open and immediately a rich tenor voice wafted over her. She stood in the dark of a scene dock for a long moment, listening to “Dalla sua pace” from Don Giovanni. She knew the voice. It was Andre. He was an ass, but he had a beautiful voice.
“There you are,” Carolina said, hurrying toward her from the direction of the stage manager’s office. The mezzo-soprano had curly blond hair she wore pinned to the top of her head in artful disarray. “Pacca told me to give you this.”
Helena took the sheet music. “Signor Pacca isn’t here?” Only the principle singers were required to attend rehearsal today, but she had thought Signor Pacca would be lurking somewhere.
“He had an important meeting.”
“Of course he did.” Helena sighed. “He’ll pay us.”
Shana Galen - [A Lord & Lady Spy Novella] Page 2