Alex kissed Lucy with all the pent-up frustration and passion that he possessed. He surrendered to the feel of her body against his. The sweet taste of her, from seedcake she must have had at lunch, went to his head like a stiff drink. And her response… She kissed him back, every bit as voracious as he was. She twined her arms around his neck and met the bold strokes of his tongue.
Lucy…
When he feared he might take the kiss too far, he lifted his head. She tightened her arms around him as if trying to urge him to continue. He ached to oblige, but now that common sense had intruded, he couldn’t rid himself of it. He straightened and licked his lips. Once she met his gaze, her thick eyelashes fluttering in front of her coffee-dark eyes, he swallowed hard.
“I’m not trying to get in your way, but I do intend to protect you. I care for you, Lucy.”
The words resonated in the air between them like the peal of a bell. Lucy’s lips parted.
Alex did care for her. He hadn’t realized how much until she’d slipped into the room with him, once again bent on pursuing a French spymaster without a partner or a plan. This was dangerous work and if she insisted on doing it, he wanted to be there to ensure that she didn’t kill herself in so doing. He worried for her. He wanted to keep her safe. He didn’t see anything wrong in that desire, despite the way Lucy reacted with aggravation.
Her brother might disapprove of him, but it was too late for him to worry about that. He desired Lucy. He esteemed her for her intelligence, her charm, her determination and even her wild imagination. He didn’t expect to find himself so drawn to her, but how could he resist her? She was a singular woman. Never would he meet another woman who was quite like her.
Slowly, she unhooked her arms from around his neck and dropped them to her sides. She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak. Instead, she gnawed on her lower lip.
She didn’t feel the same for him. Why had he expected her to reciprocate? Perhaps hope was a better word. A chasm of tension opened between them. Ignoring the ache beneath his breastbone, he took a step back.
Monsieur V. They both had a similar goal, to find the heinous spymaster. They should focus on that instead.
“Shall we continue the search? I’d only just begun when you entered.”
Whatever emotions Lucy felt, they didn’t show on her face. She nodded, her features composed. “Very well. Which side of the room would you like?”
“I’ve already started here. You can take the bedside.”
Alex’s heart beat fast as they split apart. He turned away from her, trying to rein in his wild emotions. She was the first woman he’d ever confessed to having any feelings for. Especially now, when he was so focused on finding Monsieur V, he hadn’t expected this attachment to surface. He didn’t know what to do with the fact that it had—let alone the fact that she didn’t seem to return his feelings.
Work. They had to focus on work.
He returned to the task he’d set himself when she’d walked in. Unlike with the footman, the maid had left behind a sheaf of seemingly blank papers. They might truly be blank, or perhaps they only seemed so. Why else would she have left them, if not to alert any lingering cohorts that her identity had been compromised? He knew better than to hope that something in this room would lead him to Monsieur V, but perhaps if he searched hard enough, he could find a clue that would root out the whereabouts of the two spies who had tried to kill him. With the truth serum that Morgan had commissioned his brother to make, those spies would sing like songbirds. It was a start, at the very least.
One by one, he held the pages up to the window so the light shone through them. The papers themselves weren’t overly thick and he could see through them easily when lifted against a light source. Blank, blank, blank. He was ready to give up and admit that his instincts might be wrong in this case when he found one paper with faint symbols on it. These symbols became visible when he pressed the page against the windowpane. Where something had been written, there was a darker shadow than the page itself. He needed to copy that out so he could decipher it.
“Lucy, can I borrow your pencil?”
“Why? Did you find something?” Her heels clicked as she approached.
He felt her presence acutely, an awareness against his right side as she offered him the pencil. “Thank you.” Perhaps he could have found some ink, but tracing out the symbols against the window would have been impossible. The ink would have dripped down and ruined his efforts, not to mention the note.
Lucy leaned closer. So close, that her body nearly pressed against his. She didn’t appear to notice. He swallowed hard and feigned composure.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to one whorl on the page.
“A code, no doubt.” His voice was a bit tight, but he was proud of its evenness nonetheless. “She must have written in vinegar or perhaps lemon juice. When it dries, it is invisible except when the page is held up against a light.”
“Fascinating.” Lucy sounded enthralled. Her comment was more than a polite response to his explanation.
Accepting the pencil from her, he used the tip to lightly trace out the symbols on the page. When he finished, he turned to find Lucy standing entirely too close.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t paying any attention at all, but was flipping through her notebook. “Can I see that?” She held her book up next to the page, then shook her head and continued flipping.
From the glimpses he saw of the book, it might as well have been written in code, too.
“What are you searching for?”
“I copied some ciphers off Morgan’s desk. I might be able to decode the message if I can find the right one…”
That would be handy, carrying around a sheaf of ciphers at all times. Alex had volumes of ciphers at his home. Well hidden, of course. Too many to bring with him. He’d had to memorize the most likely ones, which unfortunately this message didn’t qualify as.
“How do you fit an entire cipher into that little book?” Not even using the entire book. It was ingenious, if it worked.
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t write down the entire word, only enough of it for me to know what it is that I’m trying to say. See this word?”
She stopped on her current page and pointed to three letters. CNG. He wouldn’t precisely call that a word.
“That means ‘change.’ If I want to use ‘changed,’ I add a D to the end; if I want to use ‘changing,’ I add a G. It’s really quite a simple shorthand.”
To her, perhaps. It seemed ingenuity and quickness of mind ran in the family. Her brother Gideon was a renowned and respected scientist, whereas Morgan was known in the spy world to be especially quick with codes. Lucy seemed the same.
“Does this look like the same thing?” She found a new page and held it up next to the paper. Her eyebrows knitted together, a small furrow forming between them. She held her lower lip between her teeth as she examined the two pages.
She looked beautiful as she thought.
“Alex?”
When she turned those brown eyes up to him, he realized that she’d asked him a question. “Oh. Forgive me. Yes, they might be the same. It’s worth a try.”
“Is there a blank page for me to use to decode it?”
He pulled out the chair at the writing desk, gesturing for her to sit. She arranged her skirts gracefully as she did, then picked up her pencil again. She paused before putting it to paper.
“These are all blank?”
“Yes. You can write on any of them without fear.”
Nodding, she did so. For a moment, he watched her, his gaze lingering on a strand of hair caressing her cheek. He mentally shook himself. They had work to do. He couldn’t afford to be distracted, not with Monsieur V. While she decoded the message, he searched the room, leaving no proverbial stone unturned.
“I think I have it.”
He stopped running his hands along the underside of the mattress and stood. “What does it say?”
She turned in the ch
air, her face set. “It’s another message to me from Monsieur V.”
His chest constricted. How could she say such a thing so calmly? At first, the fact that Monsieur V seemed to have plans for her had seemed a blessing. Follow Lucy, find Monsieur V. But that had been before he’d spent time with her. Now he was afraid that they weren’t smart enough to outwit the spymaster, after all. If Monsieur V killed Lucy as well…
Alex swallowed around the lump in his throat. He wouldn’t. That, Alex vowed. He would protect Lucy, whether she wanted his protection or not.
When he thought he would be able to keep the worry from his voice, he asked, “What does it say?”
“It sets another meeting and instructs me to come alone.”
She met his gaze, her eyes unreadable. He couldn’t breathe.
Don’t do it. He would follow her, one way or another.
After a moment, he rasped, “And will you meet with him alone.”
Her mouth hardened. “This might be our last chance to catch him. If he sees you, he could flee for good.”
Given the obsessive way he’d been trying to make contact with her of late, Alex doubted as much. But he didn’t say so out loud. Instead, he stepped closer. He perched on the foot of the bed. With the limited space in the room, his knees brushed hers as he did so. He tried to ignore the contact.
“Please don’t go alone. I can remain hidden, but you need someone there in case the situation gets out of hand.”
He said nothing more. He feared that if he pushed, she would refuse him. She would try to sneak past him and do it on her own and it would be as much of a cock-up as the last supposed meeting.
After a moment, she hesitantly nodded. “Very well. We can work together, but I intend to apprehend him. And you must stay out of sight unless it seems as though he will escape or harm me.”
Relief gushed through Alex. “Yes, of course.”
With Lucy’s help, he was finally going to have that slippery spymaster in his grasp.
18
Why had Alex believed for even a moment that he could watch Lucy deliberately put herself in danger and do nothing? From his concealed position behind the wide trunk of an oak, Alex aimed his pistol twenty paces and slightly to the right of Lucy’s slim form. She made targeting easier by setting the lantern at her feet. If he could aim and be reasonably certain of hitting his target from this distance, so too could any French spies hidden nearby.
This time, Monsieur V had dictated a different meeting location. The pearly-gray light of dawn sifted down from the sky along with an intermittent drizzle. Lucy stood, exposed, on the crest of a small rise. No trees grew on that grassy knoll, necessitating for Alex to remain behind where he wouldn’t be seen. He’d circled the hill three times, checking the woods for spies and finding none, before he’d admitted defeat and let Lucy await the spymaster.
Now, he wanted to retract that acquiescence. Allowing her to put herself in such an exposed position in order to meet with the traitor seemed like too big of a risk.
Even to catch Monsieur V?
For nearly a year, that had been his single-minded focus. Now, his resolve was shaken, simply because of one imaginative woman with a smile that lit up the room. His instincts warred with the vow he’d made himself to ensure that Monsieur V was one day at Alex’s mercy. With Lucy’s help, the fiend would finally be in Alex’s grasp. But his heartbeat sped at the thought of Lucy being so close to him.
They couldn’t underestimate Monsieur V. Last time, the man had had spies lying in wait that he’d sent in his place. If he sent two more, Alex would be hard put to keep Lucy alive. He had one pistol—one bullet. Reloading took time, twenty or thirty seconds during which Lucy’s life would be in danger. No matter what, he had to ensure he didn’t miss.
He bit the inside of his cheek to try to steady the tremble in his hand. If this meeting went poorly and he took his shot, he didn’t want to hit Lucy by accident. He smothered the worry invoked by this dangerous situation. He would feel better if he was standing next to her, or better yet if he was there in her place. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t reciprocated his feelings. He cared for her and somehow, he would manage to exact his revenge and keep her safe. He had to.
The minutes blurred into one another. His arm ached and he dropped his hand. Did he risk another tour of the woods surrounding the hill? He didn’t want to leave Lucy unguarded if Monsieur V arrived, but he didn’t want the spymaster to surround them, either. Gun in hand, Alex moved as quickly as he dared while keeping his passage as silent as possible. He kept Lucy in view at all times as he circled the hilltop. He found no trace of any other people, friendly or otherwise.
He’d nearly completed the full circle when movement caught his eye on the tree line. He pressed himself next to the nearest trunk, using it for cover as he aimed his gun in that direction. Shadows swathed the line of the trees and he’d spent so much time looking at the lantern as he passed along his route that it left an imprint on his vision. A figure separated from the trees, but he couldn’t tell who.
A man. Definitely a man from the silhouette. Alex guessed him to be about six feet tall with an athletic build. Monsieur V. It had to be.
The blood roared in his ears. His vision narrowed on that figure as he reached the bottom of the hill. Alex had him. He finally had him. He cocked his weapon, took aim, and prepared to fire.
The light wavered as Lucy picked up the lantern. What was she doing? She was supposed to wait at the top of the hill for Monsieur V! She would ruin everything.
He had to get a clear shot. For that, he had to get closer.
Abandoning his cover, he dashed around the side of the hill. The light from Lucy’s bobbing lantern as she picked her way through the grass illuminated the man’s face. The cut of his jaw, the shape of his hairline—Alex recognized him from the crude sketch Lucy had drawn.
He saw red. The blood rushed through his ears. A memory stabbed at him like a knife. The family solicitor, delivering the news that he was now the Marquess of Brackley.
Stepping into the too-neat study, where his father and brother had been found dead. Their bodies cleared away and everything put back in its place. But the room had a lingering shadow, a dark cloud that tainted the atmosphere.
Poison. The solicitor had informed him it was believed to be accidental, a batch of liquor gone bad, but the servants tiptoed around him, whispering of a different story: suicide. And Alex had uncovered something far more heinous still.
He had him. He finally had the man who had killed his father and brother. Lifting his hand to aim, Alex tightened his finger on the trigger.
“No!” Lucy jumped between them. He nearly shot her instead. At the last minute, he pulled his hand away, aiming the gun toward the trees. It fired, the blast deafening in the too-still air.
The spymaster bolted. The lantern rolled down the hill, guttering out. Alex swore, blinking quickly as he squinted to see where the fiend ran.
He started after him, but Lucy held up her hands, pressing them against his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. “What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with you?” he snapped. “He’s getting away!”
Stepping around her, he sprinted for the tree line. Her footfalls fell behind him as she struggled to keep up. After stuffing the gun in his pocket, he raised his arms to ward away the tree branches.
Blindly, he followed the noise of the crackling brush ahead of him. The bramble nearly tripped him, but he forced himself to keep moving. Monsieur V couldn’t get away. Not this time. The noise ahead warred with the noise behind him as Lucy followed him into the forest. He squinted, but the dawn light didn’t penetrate the foliage. Only the barest shadow of the man he chased survived the bleary light. Alex put on a surge of speed, desperation granting him renewed energy. Monsieur V slipped around trees, hopped over bushes, and avoided rabbit holes. Unfamiliar with the terrain, Alex bumbled into all three.
He lost him. Staggering to a stop, his ankle thr
obbing from one of the rabbit holes, he searched the shadows. His heart galloped. Monsieur V had to be around here somewhere. He had to be. Alex didn’t know what he would do if he wasn’t. He couldn’t spot the traitor.
“Alex?” Lucy’s breathless voice emanated from behind him.
A hot, molten feeling bubbled in his chest as he realized that Monsieur V had slipped through his fingers again. Alex punched the nearest tree trunk. Agony ricocheted up his hand, mitigating some of his rage and self-loathing.
Not enough of it. Monsieur V was long gone, and this time, it was Alex’s fault.
Lucy hesitated in mid-step as Alex viciously punched a tree. That thump and his resulting hiss of pain couldn’t be good. She took a moment to catch her breath, letting her eyes adjust to the thin light.
Alex’s shoulders were hunched as he faced the tree, as if he warred with himself. And well he should. He had just scared away the spy Monsieur V had sent! If Alex had waited a moment or two longer instead of jumping out like that, Lucy might have been able to wheedle information out of the traitor. Such as why Monsieur V had yet again sent someone else to meet with her in his place. And where the spymaster was now.
As Alex shook out his hand, Lucy asked tentatively, “Did you hurt yourself?”
He released a short breath. “No.” His tone was curt.
If he wasn’t hurt, then he was going to answer for this cock-up. Striding up to him, Lucy crossed her arms. “What in the blazes were you thinking back there?”
“What were you thinking?” he snapped, rounding on her.
Although his voice was cutting, she pinched the inside of her arm and managed not to jump.
“You were supposed to stay on the top of the hill!”
“And you weren’t supposed to shoot him!” She dropped her arms and balled her fists at her side. The heat of his body radiated in front of her, but it gave no indication of his mood. She wished she could see his expression right about then.
Pursuing The Traitor (Scandals and Spies Book 5) Page 14