In Love with the King's Spy (Hidden Identity)

by Colleen French

  "Goodbye, wife," Simeon said, passing her arm to Griffin's. "Safe journey. I shan't expect you until week's end."

  Griffin gripped her arm and ushered her out the door. Julia felt as if she were being handled by all of them—Simeon, Griffin, Lizzy, even Gordy—and she didn't like it, not one bit.

  "Go right to bed," she called to Lizzy. "And have some chamomile tea sent up from the kitchen."

  Simeon closed the great door abruptly behind Julia, giving her no choice but to climb into the carriage and take her seat across from Griffin.

  "Relax," Griffin said with a wink as the footman closed the door behind them. "She's going to be fine. And we're going to have a hell of a week."

  Julia lifted her arms above her head and moaned as Griffin sank deep into her. The magnificent royal blue bed curtains swirled overhead. She closed her eyes and clawed at the bed covers, the linen soft beneath her fingertips as she strained against him. Yet another sweet wave of ecstasy washed over her.

  "Griffin, Griffin," she whispered as the sensations ebbed. "Enough." She laughed huskily. "No more, else you'll be the death of me."

  Griffin covered her damp, quavering flesh with his body and kissed her behind her ear. "Enough?" He thrust and she moaned. "Can there ever be enough of this?" He licked the puckered bud of her nipple, and against her will she moaned again. "Or this?"

  Julia opened her eyes and grasped his corded neck. Slowly she lifted her legs until her ankles rested on his shoulders.

  "Cheat," he accused with a groan.

  She lifted her bare buttocks off the sheets and took him deeply.

  "Cheater, cheater," he moaned into the tangled tresses of her hair. "I hate a cheater."

  Julia lifted her buttocks again and sighed with her own enjoyment. "Wish to call me to a duel on the issue, my lord?"

  He let out a gasp. "A—aye. Just . . . just as soon as I finish here."

  She laughed and drew him closer, faster. He was hers now, lost to her feminine wiles. In the four short days they had been at the lodge, she had learned much of the giving and taking of pleasure between a man and a woman.

  Julia lifted once, twice more, surrounding Griffin as he spilled into her with a final gasp.

  For a moment they were still, panting in unison. Then Griffin rolled off Julia and flopped back on the bed beside her. He tucked his hands behind his head. "Where did you learn that little trick, minx?"

  With a satisfied giggle, she rolled onto her side to fetch a glass of refreshment from the bedside table. "You." She rolled back and held the goblet to his lips.

  He frowned and took a long drink. "Me? You certain?"

  She pulled away the cup and caught a dribble of red wine from his chin with the tip of her finger. She licked the wine from her finger with a calculation that she knew would stir him. "Aye," she agreed innocently.

  With a growl worse than any ogre's, Griffin leaped on top of her, sending the goblet flying from her hand to the floor below.

  Julia squealed as she tried to scramble away.

  "Too late! Too late!" he said triumphantly as he straddled her hips and pinned her wrists to the feather tick. "You're mine now, body and soul. Submit, wench!"

  She laughed and tried to wiggle free. "Never, never, never." The heady scent of their lovemaking was still thick and warm in the air.

  He lowered his face near to hers. "Submit!" he murmured. "You must submit!"

  She managed to free one hand and grasped his flaccid penis.

  He gave a grunt and was instantly still.

  "I believe, my lord, it is you who must submit to me now." She batted her lashes and then eyed the object in her hand. "Everyone knows that she who has control over the pizzle, has control of the kingdom."

  Griffin burst into uproarious laughter.

  Julia released him and he rolled off her onto his back. "P—p—pizzle?" he guffawed.

  She knitted her brow, knowing he made fun of her, but not certain why. "Y . . . yes . . . pizzle." She sat up and propped her hands on her hips. "Well, what the bloody hell do you call it?"

  He laughed so hard that tears ran down his cheeks. "Ah sweetheart." He wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her down beside him.

  "It's not funny. How am I supposed to know?" She elbowed him indignantly and squirmed out of his embrace. "What do you call it?"

  He started to speak and then began to laugh again.

  She elbowed him hard this time.

  "All right, all right." He threw up his hand to protect himself from her blows.

  "Well?" she demanded.

  He wiped the tears from his cheek. "Well, men have many names—some general such as rod, or sword, or stem." He kissed her on the forehead and rose. He picked up the empty goblet on the floor and crossed the chamber, lit with a hundred candles, to a table to refill it. "And then there are more personal names."

  "Personal?" She rolled her eyes as he sat beneath the bed's high canopy.

  "Yes." He walked toward her, glorious in his nakedness.

  "Such as?"

  "Such as . . . Big mighty . . . or . . . Edward."

  "Edward?" It was her turn to burst into laughter. "Edward?"

  "Well . . . "

  She could have sworn she saw his cheeks color with embarrassment.

  "Edward was a cousin I once had. Long dead and gone now." He took a sip from the goblet, reminiscing. "Anyway, Edward had the largest pizzle my cousins or I had ever seen." He glanced at her with enthusiasm. "Like a horse."

  She sniggered.

  "So . . ." he finished.

  "So you named it after your cousin?" She burst into laughter again and threw herself back on the pillows, kicking her legs wildly. "I think I like pizzle better."

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and took a drink. "Pretty foolish for a protector of kings, eh?"

  Julia halted in mid-laugh and sat up, suddenly sober. His laughter, too, died away.

  She paused. "That's what you are, aren't you?" she said softly, knowing it was the truth the moment the words left his mouth.

  He stared into the goblet. "I told you my responsibility was great."

  She crawled across the bed to kneel behind him, pressing her bare breasts against his back as she hugged him tightly. "You do know him. Well enough to name your cat after him," she whispered. "I'm in awe."

  He continued to stare into the cup.

  "That's how you were able to arrange this hunting lodge," she said. "The privacy, the elegant food, the servants, but no guests."

  He brushed his hand over hers. "Oh, Charles is coming. We just came early. I was afraid we wouldn't have time to be alone together once he arrived."

  "So you arranged for us to come early."

  "We've nothing to fear from Simeon. The servants here are beyond reproach, many my own men and women. They see nothing, hear nothing, many have heard and seen worse."

  Julia crawled over to sit beside him on the edge of the great four-poster bed, her bare legs dangling over the side beside his hairy ones. "You protect the king in secret. That's why you play the fop."

  "Men and women both find it easy to confess their sins to me. I'm seen as . . . harmless."

  Even though Julia had spent the last four days with this man, making love to him, talking late into the night, she suddenly felt as if she didn't know him. She was almost intimidated. "But how do you protect him?"

  He swished the red wine in the goblet and watched it wash up the sides and down again. "There are plots, my sweet."

  "Plots?"

  "To murder His Majesty."

  She sucked in her breath. "I've heard such gossip, but I thought it all nonsense. No one would really kill him, would they?"

  He laughed without humor. "More than you would suspect." He paused and then continued. "When our Stuart came home to his rightful throne, all men were expected to pledge their allegiance. Charles had to forgive those who had gone against his father and against him to side with Cromwell, because he had no choice. It was the only way to
gain unity once again. It's very complicated, but it all has to do with empty royal coffers and political ties. Anyway, he knew that there would be those who would lie, but—"

  "But he had to accept their pledges as truth—"

  "Until proven otherwise," Griffin finished for her.

  "And that's your role? To seek those who lied, who would plot against him?"

  "Who do plot against him."

  She stared at her hands in her lap, suddenly feeling rather small. "Makes our own trials seem rather trivial, doesn't it?"

  He turned slowly to gaze into her eyes. "It doesn't make them any less real, any less painful." He set the goblet on the floor and took her hand between both of his. "And it doesn't mean I love you any less. Only—"

  "Only your duty is to our king. I understand entirely." And she did.

  "I love you, Julia," he murmured.

  She smiled as their lips met. "And I you."

  As he pushed her back into the sheets, the dogs in the hallway outside their bedchamber began to bark wildly. Somewhere in the distance, outside the draped windows, a trumpet hailed.

  "Ah, hell," Griffin muttered and sat up.

  "What? What is it?"

  Griffin climbed out of the bed and grabbed his breeches from the back of a chair. "It's him."

  She frowned. "Him who?"

  He snatched a linen shirt from the floor. "Charles."

  Julia's eyes widened, and she grabbed for the nearest corner of counterpane to cover herself as if Charles had actually entered the room. "The . . . the king?"

  "Aye." He hopped on one foot trying to thrust the other into a boot. "You might as well get up and dress. He'll want to meet you."

  Julia was frozen. "The king will want to meet me?"

  "Mm hm." He reached the door and jerked it open, while running one hand through his disheveled hair. "It'll be fun. You'll like him, really." He kissed the air in her direction and, before she could respond, closed the door behind him.

  "The king? Fun?" Julia breathed. "Sweet Father." Then she fell back and pulled the counterpane over her head.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  "Lizzy, where are you taking me?"

  Lizzy took Amos's hand and led him through the dark corridor, away from the kitchen. "Somewhere wonderful, you'll see."

  He tripped over something on the floor or over his own big feet and laughed. She laughed with him, though she hadn't sampled nearly as much of Drusilla's raspberry wine as he had.

  "You can't take me into the big house," he whispered loudly. "Cooks . . . cooks don't belong in the master's house with the ladies. Ye heard your sister's words yerself."

  "Sister's not here." She tugged on his warm hand. "And I'm not taking you into the house, just through it."

  Amos halted and took a drink from Drusilla's bottle. It was almost gone. Drusilla would be angry in the morning when she woke up and saw the wine was gone, but Lizzy would get her another from the earl's cellar, two if Drusilla would keep her wrinkled mouth shut and not tell Julia when she got home.

  "Come on," Lizzy insisted. "We're almost there."

  Amos allowed her to lead him through the quiet, dark house to the rear addition, and through the doors into Julia's orangery. The moment they stepped inside and closed the doors behind them, they stood in a puddle of moonlight. Here Lizzy could see Amos's face. The way he smiled at her made her stomach flip-flop.

  "Right pretty," he remarked, glancing up at her sister's orange and lemon trees as he took another swallow of the wine.

  "Right pretty," Lizzy echoed and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  Amos finished off the bottle and let it fall to the stone path and roll into Julia's flowers. Lizzy would have to remember to fetch it later and hide it in the big pile in the cellars.

  He wrapped his arms around Lizzy's waist and made her feel warm and safe. "If I didn't know better, if I wasn't a learned man who could read and write his own name, I'd think you got me drunk so's you could have your way with me."

  Lizzy thought she knew what Amos meant, though she wasn't sure. She giggled and snuggled her cheek against his rough wool coat. He smelled like flour, cinnamon, and cloves, but he smelled like Amos, too. His smell made her as light in the head as the berry wine. "I wouldn't do that."

  He kissed her forehead and spoke softly. "No, I don't guess you would."

  She lifted her chin to look into his eyes and he kissed her mouth, just like she wanted him to. "I love you," she whispered.

  "You shouldn't . . . we shouldn't say—"

  "I love you, Amos," she repeated firmly.

  "And I love you." He answered almost as if he didn't want to say it.

  "I want to marry you and make babies with you."

  He laughed deep in his throat and kissed the side of her mouth. "You even know how babies are made?" He buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply.

  "Yes, I know how babies are made . . . sort of. I've seen dogs doing it in the yard."

  He laughed, but she knew he wasn't laughing at her to be mean. Amos was never mean to her like others were. "We're not dogs, Lizzy honey."

  "I know that." She kissed his chin. "And I'm not saying I know exactly how it's done. I only know I want to do it."

  He kissed her neck. "And how is it that you know ye want to do it?"

  The way he was kissing her was making it hard for her to think straight. "I know. I just know." She panted like she'd been running a long way. "I know because it hurts . . . not really hurts. . . . here." She took his hand and guided it to the warm place that tingled between her legs. Even through her gown and petticoats, she could feel his hand.

  He made that sound like he was hurt, but when she took her hand away, he didn't move his. She knew he liked touching her as much as she liked having him touch her.

  Lizzy kissed Amos's mouth, hard. His hand down there made her want to kiss him hard. It made her want to wiggle against him.

  "I'm a full-grown woman," she whispered in his ear. "A woman who knows what she wants. I'm a woman who wants you, Amos Wright."

  He started to say something, but instead he just kissed her with his tongue in her mouth. She liked his tongue in her mouth.

  They kissed some more. Amos ran his hand up under her petticoat, and all of a sudden Lizzy's legs didn't want to hold her up anymore. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking, but she wasn't afraid. "Let's lay over here."

  She caught his hand and tried to lead him off the path, but he held her back.

  "Lizzy . . . "

  There he was, sounding like he was hurting again, but she understood. He didn't want to get in trouble with Julia. He didn't want her to get in trouble.

  "It's all right," Lizzy whispered in his ear. Then she let go of his hand and spread out her cloak on a patch of new grass beneath some kind of tree she didn't recognize. She held her hand out to him, watching his face in the moonlight. "I'm not a child," she said. "I know what I want. You."

  Finally Amos came to her and knelt beside her. As Lizzy felt the warmth of his arms around her, she knew everything really was going to be all right. Amos was going to make a baby inside her, and then Julia would have to let her marry him.

  Sometime much later, when the pool of moonlight had moved, Lizzy rose from her cloak in the grass and began to tuck her wrinkled bodice back into the skirt of her gown. Shyly she watched Amos as he pulled on his breeches and tied the flap.

  "I liked it," she whispered. Then she giggled behind her hand. "Think we could do it again tomorrow night?"

  Amos slipped his hand under her hair to her neck and kissed her on the lips. "We done a hell of a dangerous thing here, Lizzy love."

  She yanked up her drooping stockings and retied the ribbons. She was so pleased with herself and with Amos, that she was bursting inside. "Seems to me we've done something wonderful here."

  He laughed deep in his throat the way she loved to hear him laugh. Even if he was frowning, she knew she'd sa
id something that made him happy.

  "Yer such an innocent, Lizzy." He picked up her cloak and shook off any grass or dirt that might have stuck to it. "Ye need a man to look after you."

  She let him wrap the cloak around her shoulders. "I need you." She spun inside her cloak and lifted up on her toes to kiss him.

  "Come on." He pressed his hand to the small of her back. "You gotta get to your room afore Drusilla wakes and finds you gone. And I got to get out of this house afore I'm caught."

  Hand in hand they walked back up the orangery path to the door. "Tomorrow night," Lizzy said. "Meet me here."

  "I don't know, Lizzy love." He held the door open for her. "I got to have time. Time to think on this matter. Time to figure out what we're going to do."

  "Time? Amos Wright, how much time—"

  "Who is that? Who goes there?" A deep, loud voice came out of the dark, startling Lizzy. Instinctively she grabbed for Amos's arm.

  "Hells' bells, almighty," Amos whispered under his breath.

  Candlelight suddenly filled the stone-walled corridor. "I said who goes there?" It was Mr. Gordy. He lifted the candlestand higher. "Lady Elizabeth?"

  Lizzy held tighter to Amos hand. She didn't like Mr. Gordy. He was always watching her, following her when he thought she didn't know it.

  "Lady Elizabeth?"

  "Mr. Gordy?" Another voice came out of the dark. Lizzy had never realized so many people were wandering in Bassett Hall in the middle of the night.

  "Mr. Gordy, what have you found there?" His lordship, Julia's husband, appeared in the candlelight. He was wearing a red silk robe with dragons on it, and a turban around his bristly bald head like the rag turban Drusilla wore.

  Now Lizzy really was scared. She could do nothing but stare at the two men as she clung to Amos's side.

  "God's bloody bowels!" Simeon bellowed so loudly that Lizzy cringed.

  Lizzy hated loud mouths, and she hated the Earl of St. Martin and his sour face and stinking garlic smell. Lizzy buried her face in Amos's coat, afraid she was going to burst into tears like a baby.

  "I said, what have we found here? Man, what is your name?" He spoke to Amos. "What are you doing with the Lady Elizabeth?"