by Lara Archer
His instincts as an agent kicked in.
He’d been at the Game far too long to deceive himself. Back in Helm’s office, he’d seen something in Miss Covington, something fierce and steely. A different fierceness from Sal’s, but formidable nonetheless. Surely that had not all depended on her attire.
The task might be even harder than he’d thought. They might yet be forced to abandon it. He hoped they’d abandon it. But duty was too strong in him to ignore her potential.
A good agent never undermined his partner. Never. If this mission went forward, loss of confidence in her ability to impersonate her twin could be fatal, to one or both of them, to agents all across the field, and their chances were slim enough as it was.
If what he truly wanted was to end this now, to send this soft girl somewhere safe and make his own endless, waking nightmares go away . . . well, he forced those feelings down. Crushed them, pummeled them, beat them into pulp.
And if it meant the last little vestige of his heart was to be crushed, pummeled, pulped along with them—well, the most cynical voice within him said, that might be a nice side benefit. Be rid of the damn thing, once and for all.
He smiled, the sort of lazy, aristocratic smile Miss Covington no doubt expected of him.
“The resemblance astonishes, my dear,” he assured her. “Aside from the length of your hair, you look like your sister. To the most precise degree.”
Miss Covington let out a sigh, seemingly gratified, and blushed again. She turned and regarded herself in the cheval glass. “Did she look just like this? Truly?”
The intense way she studied herself betrayed no trace of vanity, and it struck him that Miss Covington hadn’t seen her twin sister since late childhood.
It was her sister’s image she was seeking in her glass.
A chill went down his back. He was very much afraid of what he would see next, what he did indeed see next. Damn it all—tears springing to her eyes.
He was not in the habit of comforting women. In truth, he spent little time with the sort of women who needed to be comforted. He greatly disliked the sensation it was creating in the center of his chest.
Before he considered what he was doing, he’d reached out his hand and touched his fingertips to Miss Covington’s shoulder. She tensed a bit, but she let his fingers rest there a few moments as she dashed her tears away.
Without a word, he dropped his hand back to his side. Even such a little touch was something Sal would never have accepted from him. Sal would have swatted his hand away. Stamped a heel into his instep. Snapped an elbow into his ribs. All while calling him vile names in a remarkable assortment of languages, for daring to imply there was anything vulnerable about her.
The two of them had supported one another, of course; they’d willingly have died for one another. He’d die for her now, God knew, by the cruelest tortures, if it would bring her back, give her even five minutes more of conscious life. But comfort? No. They acknowledged only strength.
Why had he never realized that before?
Ah, well, now he had yet another subject to keep his brain brewing in the middle of the night.
Miss Covington turned back to him with a tentative smile, though her posture had tightened, became more correct again. “Forgive me,” she said, brushing her hands self-consciously over the silk of her skirts. “I’m just a little . . . disoriented right now. All this is confusing.”
“Yes,” he heard himself murmur.
She tilted her head a bit, looked at him perceptively. “For you too, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated perfunctorily, though he didn’t care to pursue the thought.
He swallowed hard. Damn it all, why did Jenny not return? How long could it take a lady’s maid to have a good sob, then get back to care for her new mistress?
A mistress who, by the by, was in dire need of having her hair dressed, of having it cut a foot or two shorter preferably, as was the fashion, instead of hanging loose halfway to her knees. Instead of spilling everywhere in wanton tangles, reflecting firelight with a flare like a siren’s call, so any male in the vicinity might feel compelled to reach out to catch some silken strands between his fingers and . . .
He thought seriously about slapping himself.
He needed a return to normality. So he cast his gaze over Miss Covington again, assuming the air of a jaded connoisseur, which, in the usual run of his life, he was.
“That gown looks well on you,” he told her, with a judgmental quirk of his lips. “A shame to abandon your old dress, though. So practical, that dark wool. Ready for a prayer meeting, or a funeral, at a moment’s notice. And with cloth that thick you’d survive a snowstorm overnight, given a decent pair of boots.”
Her eyes flashed at him, and for a moment he expected he’d get the sharp edge of her tongue. But then she seemed to decide not to take up the challenge of his insult. “I prefer this color to gray, actually,” she declared. “And I prefer the silk.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. “Interesting. Unexpected.”
The color was coming up in her cheeks again. “Why should it be unexpected? What fool prefers the scratch of wool to the slide of silk?”
The slide of silk. He really wished she hadn’t used that phrase. Quite without his conscious permission, his eyes skimmed down the gleaming fabric to where it cupped her breasts. Quite lovely breasts. The wool had concealed, somehow, both her slenderness and her curves.
Where in hell was Jenny?
“I’m not the fool who’s been wearing woolens,” he managed to say.
Miss Covington made a tsking sound with her tongue. “A governess cannot wear silks, even if she could afford them. The lady of the house would have her flogged.”
He hadn’t expected to laugh any time within this conversation, but he laughed now. “Flogged? Is it really as bad as that for governesses?”
“Yes!”
“You were flogged?”
She hesitated, slightly flustered. “No, not literally flogged. But worse, somehow. Worse than you can imagine.”
His brow furrowed. “What in heaven’s name did they do to you?”
She was frowning; he had the impression she’d just lost patience with him. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing . . . physical. It’s difficult to explain. But actual flogging might have been preferable.”
“You’d have preferred flogging?”
“At least then, you’d be free to scream. Scream all you’d like. At least it would be something to feel. Something actually alive.”
His mind was floundering, skidding on ice. This girl really did look so very much like Sal, disconcertingly like Sal. Her voice was Sal’s, the same depth, the same timbre. The rhythm of her speech. She held her shoulders in exactly the same way. Even her fingernails were the same shape, efficiently short, with neat half-moons at the tips.
Part of his brain was convinced she was Sal, and that part was slipping, quite without his consent, into that old, easy familiarity. Yet, the other part knew she . . . wasn’t. She was an utter mystery to him, a complete stranger. And he wanted to understand her.
What must her life have been, locked away up in Lancashire, a servant in a stranger’s home, embalmed in dark wool? Sal would’ve gone mad in a month.
Was this girl weaker than Sal, or stronger? “Is that why you’re helping us?” he asked. “To feel alive? To have an adventure?”
Abruptly, she was the stiff little governess again, her eyes blazing. “No! I’m doing this for my sister. For Sarah. Not for adventure. Not for England, either.” She held up a hand, palm out, though he hadn’t made the least move towards her. “And I’m certainly not doing it for you!”
Odd thing to say. He paused. Made himself breathe. Turned himself arch and combative. “Did I suggest otherwise?” he asked. “Well, I’m glad to hear it, in any case. If the worst ends up happening, I’d hate to have you on my conscience.”
At that, her face shuttered.
“Might you find Jenny for me now?” she asked, her tone quite crisp again. Their conversation was clearly over. “I’d like to change back into my own clothing.”
“The scratchy wool?”
“Yes. This is . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “I’d prefer something familiar just now. I feel scarcely dressed in this.” She blushed again, and crossed her arms over her chest, clutching her upper arms with her spread fingers, as if to hide herself.
Oh, Lord, he wished she hadn’t done that. There was something so graceful and feminine and inadvertently sensuous in the gesture—the gesture of a nymph, not a nun. Not to mention that the pressure of her crossed wrists plumped her breasts into a truly luscious cleavage.
He edged closer to her again, but deliberately kept his eyes fixed on hers, not a quarter-inch lower. “I assure you, by the standards of the demimonde, that gown’s fairly modest.”
She regarded him warily, took a step back. “But I do not belong to the demimonde.”
“If you wish to avenge your sister, you will. You must.” Thankfully, his voice sounded stern and entirely composed, the voice of a cool professional. “Covering yourself like that would reveal to anyone who knew her that you are not Sal.”
A troubled look crossed the girl’s face. She clearly understood the difficulty of the challenge she’d accepted, but understanding seemed to make it no easier for her. Her arms still clamped her bosom.
He could not afford to show her pity.
She was to make her first appearance as Salomé at Lady Barham’s in three nights’ time. If she passed muster, they’d set out for Spain soon after, headed for the place where Sal died. Where Rachel would die as well, if she made the smallest error.
This was about training, pure and simple.
He slid his own fingers between hers and the bare flesh of her arms, and pulled her stiff hands loose. She tried to step away from him.
“Now, that won’t do, love,” he chided her, wrapping his hands around her upper arms, just below her shoulders. He caressed her skin, down to her elbows and back again, just enough of a hold to keep her close to him, just enough stroking to make her shiver.
Her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat.
He kept up the caress, with his fingers and with his words. “Sal might laugh in a man’s face and push him away, or give him a playful slap of her fan. Perhaps promise him pleasure later, at her own convenience. But she’d never show fear. She was in control always, confident always. The way a skilled collie handles sheep.”
Miss Covington’s mouth fell open in a gasp, the alarm on her face quite palpable, just a step away from panic. Or horror maybe. No doubt it shocked her to hear him talk of her sister that way.
He almost relented, but . . .
Pity now could get her killed later.
“Laugh, Miss Covington!” he commanded, his gaze drilling into hers. “Push me away! If you want to get rid of me, that is. Widening your eyes like that, in that innocent manner, will only serve as an enticement.”
A strange restlessness seized him, a sizzling new awareness of her flesh under his hands, of her scent and her heat, her quickening breath, and the delicious softness of her. He was also aware—very, very deeply aware—that she was not Sal.
“There’s nothing to fear,” he whispered, bringing his mouth down close to her ear. “If you knew the first thing about the pleasure men can give to women, you might not want to resist at all.” He met her eyes again, and found hers widening still more, their bright green depths like pools for drowning.
Her lips parted softly.
She expected him to kiss her, he realized. She wouldn’t stop him if he did.
And at the moment, the idea of kissing her became mesmerizingly appealing. This whole encounter had unbalanced him, as if confusion over who she was had muddled his sense of himself. The room was suddenly over-warm, the air dizzying.
He had to stay rational, keep the sensible part of his brain in control. He recalled the last time he’d fallen prey to the drugging pull of desire, and that memory struck him like an icy blast of rain, bringing him back to instant self-mastery. Victoire.
His shoulders stiffened. He knew nothing for sure about this woman either.
He was not going to be the one to lose control.
But she would.
She needed to learn something of pleasure, and quickly. Besides, she deserved to be knocked off balance, after that kiss she’d sprung on him the other day.
He looked down at her with a more strategic eye. Well, he most certainly shouldn’t do what she expected—kiss her the way a young girl expected to be kissed. Deliberately, though, he let his mouth drift closer to hers, relishing the feel of her softening under his hands, surrendering, succumbing. Perfect. Her gaze went to his lips.
But then he darted sideways, and down, and pressed his mouth into the warm curve of her neck instead. She gasped and jolted at the contact. For a moment, it seemed she might fight him—but then she arched into him instead as he sucked lightly at the tender flesh of her throat, and flicked his tongue along the long line where her heartbeat pulsed. He brushed his lips up under her jaw, and back to the silken lobe of her ear, which he drew between his teeth, and sucked again, harder.
Her breathing went ragged. Lord, how perfectly innocent she was!
She shifted slightly, instinctively offering him more of her throat. Her fingers drifted over the sides of his coat, and clutched at the fabric there, convulsively, as if to keep herself from falling.
Triumph pulsed through him—but, damn it all, the scent of her beneath the soft fall of her hair was extraordinary. The taste of her, the warmth, the overwhelming proof that she was, after all, flesh and blood and woman.
He relinquished his hold on one arm and traced his hand teasingly over her shoulder, down over the smooth neckline of her gown, and down further, increasing the pressure as his palm molded to the shape of her breast. The silk had warmed to her flesh, like a peach ripened in the sun, and despite all his intentions his own blood heated dangerously.
He let his fingers knead her, his thumb flick inwards over her nipple. She jerked and moaned, and his groin reacted with alarmingly speed.
The one practical thought that came to him involved Miss Covington’s gown. In accordance with Sal’s sophisticated style, it had been fashioned with the more subtle, softly luminous side of the silk showing outwards. That meant the glossier, slicker side turned in against the skin. It was a whore's dress, worn without a shift and with minimal stays that lifted but did not cover the breasts. He smiled.
That fabric could be a most effective weapon, in the right hands.
His hands.
He pressed his palm against her breast, shifting it slightly and sliding his thumb so the glossy silk moved along with his stroke, over the taut nub of her nipple. She nearly fell forward into him. Her hands clawed upwards over his back, and gripped the muscles of his shoulders.
Hooking his index finger into her neckline, he kept up the stroking, pressure and silk, flicks and swirls, his other fingers kneading relentlessly, until her fingertips dug through his coat into his flesh. She swayed, leaning backwards, head thrown back. Still trailing kisses across her throat, he added his other hand to the subtle torture, claiming her other breast.
Though, blazes, at this point, he itched to tear the damn fabric away entirely, to get his palms against the silk of her flesh itself, and touch her everywhere. He was hard as a steel rod now. He pressed himself against her, instinctively, alive with the need to lift her skirts and seek out the greater heat he knew he’d find there.
Almost without his conscious intent, his right hand slipped from her breast and skimmed down over her belly, to that enticing V at the very top of her long legs.
The silk slid freely under his hand, against her skin. She gasped, and then moaned again, louder. Her spine bowed, mashing her breasts against his chest. He let his hand play against her, at the joining of her thighs, just the slightest teasing pressure again
st her sensitive flesh, letting the silk do most of the work.
Chancing a glance at her face, he found her eyes tight closed, her lips open and ripe. Her skin was flushed, deliciously rosy. Her expression half pained, half blissful. On the cusp of new and exhilarating knowledge.
And he’d hardly begun with her yet.
Had no one ever touched her, truly? Never given her even this little taste of pleasure?
Good God, what fools she must have lived amongst.
What a fool he was to have stopped and looked at her face. The sight made his head whirl, and he could scarcely remember where they were, or recall her name, or his own. He knew only that she was beautiful. Lush and desirable. Delectable. Soft.
He bent down. He was . . . going to kiss her mouth.
Before his lips could touch hers, though, she shifted in his arms. Her fingers eased from his coat. A new tension tightened the set of her jaw, her spine. She was gathering herself, steeling herself.
She pulled away, letting her weight settle back on her own legs.
Her eyes opened, and she looked at him.
Her gaze was sharp and self-possessed again—if perhaps a little dazed around the edges. “Thank you, my lord,” she said with deliberate calm, as if he’d just brought her a glass of iced punch in a heated ballroom. “That was most useful.”
“Useful?” He took a full step back.
“The lesson. In pleasure.” Her breathing was not quite back to its normal rhythm, but her manner was decidedly polite. “Very helpful.”
“Helpful?” He wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh, or grab her, toss her on the bed, flip up those silky skirts and teach her just how helpful he could be. He’d drive her over the brink a dozen times before he’d let her up again. “I’m always glad to be of service.”
“You were right, you know,” she said. “There’s no reason to fear letting men close.”
“Men?” His jaw clenched hard. He disliked that plural.
She nodded cheerfully. “Perhaps we can continue the lesson another time. There must be more you can show me.”
Blast it all. She might have talked to her tutor in exactly this no-nonsense tone.