This was not the wilds of the continent, or even a foreign city apart from her usual life. This was London, her territory, and he was here. She waved her maid away. And then he was enveloping her, taking up all of the air in the room even as his breath mingled with hers, his hand cupping her cheek, hips, lips merely an inch from hers, even though the last time they had seen each other the tension had been thick and nothing had been resolved.
“If something had happened to you…”
She pushed him away, her conflicted emotions settling into pique. “Except you hired a bodyguard for me.”
“And I am thankful I did.”
“As am I, but you should have told me! I had to decide to trust him. I had no way of verifying that what he said was true.”
Gerard was silent.
“Keep your secrets that you feel bound to keep, but do not treat me as if I am not capable, as if I cannot be trusted with the truth. You say you love me, but…the reason I am not married yet is that I do not wish a man who treats me as inferior.” As her father did despite the years she had assisted him. Despite the knowledge she had amassed over the years, the fact that her judgment had never failed her yet. At least, not when she had enough knowledge to make an informed decision.
But loving Gerard had been one of those decisions.
At the same time, loving Gerard had not been a decision at all, which was why she had not resisted the emotion but had resisted the unwise decision to commit herself to him together.
“You are right. I endangered you even more.” He looked incredibly remorseful. More than that, he looked…devastated. That excess of emotion angered her more.
“Oh, don’t flagellate yourself over it. That isn’t my point. If I wanted to be with a man who did not think me intelligent or strong enough to hear the truth, however painful or difficult it may be, then I might as well have married years ago.”
“Jane.” Gerard looked aghast. “I have never met a woman or man I have esteemed more.”
She let out a deep breath, feeling her anger deflate. “Then promise me you will trust me.”
“Come here.” He pulled her into him and she let him surround her again. “I am done with secrets, Jane. I do not deserve you but you are still mine. I am still yours.”
She buried her face against him. This man had been her caretaker as well as her lover. She could show him weakness because he did believe in her strength.
“I have not led an honorable life such as you would like me to have led.”
“I understand that.” She didn’t like it but it was what it was. This was the man with whom she had fallen in love.
“Jane…I went to see my grandfather.” His arms tightened around her.
“He would not help you.”
“All these years I thought he knew what Badeau was teaching me.” There was pain in Gerard’s voice, emotion breaking through the words. Her heart swooped up to catch his. “I thought he intended it. I understood that there was work Badeau wished me to do that was not likely to be what my grandfather had ordered, but I did not understand that there was a limit to Landsdowne’s orders.”
“The assassinations.”
He buried his head in her neck, even as she still held her breath, as she struggled to come to terms with this man she held in her arms. He had told her so little of his life, and of the work he had done. But Powell, at least, she knew had been to repay a debt on behalf of his mentor. In a way it was an act of honor. Not traditional honor but… She closed her eyes against the stupid way she was trying to justify his actions. They were what they were. She had fallen in love with him despite them, and perhaps in part because of the rawness of his power. The angel of death.
“Jane.” The note of pain in his voice made her chest ache. She stroked his back, breathed in his scent. “I loved Badeau. I wanted—needed—a father, and he was that. But what father…”
She swallowed hard, focused on his need. “I suspect he did not regret his life or his actions, and therefore did not feel he was doing you harm. There is always good with the bad.” The need to prove herself to her own father that had inspired her to push herself beyond any perceived limits. She moved away so she could meet Gerard’s eyes. “But it is not the life you choose. The past is the past.”
Those dark eyes stared back, searching, intent upon her.
“And my future?”
She sighed, but her chest remained tight. He wanted the answer she could not yet give. Landsdowne had refused to help him, as she had suspected. What sort of life could she have with Gerard as he was? Perhaps this affair was no more lasting than Silvie’s had been with her common soldier. Gerard’s will had taken it this far. She could still stop it. Before this ruined her.
He was already in her sitting room, in her house. He had already been inside her body, joined to her in the most intimate way possible.
“You want to leave your life, Gerard. I do not wish to leave mine. But I do not see how you fit into this world.”
“There might be another way. My brother directed me to a Mr. Anche.”
Anche, the government official who not so secretly was in charge of informants and spies. She had met him before, had disliked him instantly for some reason she could not quite explain. He was a plain man and yet he was threatening, darkness beneath. But he dealt with secrecy as well. Perhaps darkness was a necessary trait to work with shadows.
“How do you know he won’t arrest you? Not all your work has been on England’s behalf. Surely you have done acts that would be considered treasonous for an Englishman.” Gerard didn’t deny it and a chill went down her spine. “You cannot trust Anche. Information for a title, I understand your goal, but it will not be a fair trade.”
“What do you know of him?” Gerard asked. Implacable, determined to achieve his goal, so strong and yet so vulnerable because he loved her.
Loved her. Her eyes stung.
She looked away. “He came up out of nowhere, amassed power, ran his own department independent of the War Office during the war. I have nothing to base my instinct on, but…”
“I am due to see him this afternoon.” Gerard touched her cheek, wiped at the wetness she hadn’t yet blinked away. “You needn’t worry. I will be careful,” he said. “I expect to pay more than my weight in gold.”
She stepped into his arms and lifted her face to his. “I am afraid. Of what could happen to you, of what would happen to us if you do by some chance succeed and what would happen if you fail. But I love you. No matter what, know that. I do love you.”
He crushed her in his embrace, his lips hard against hers, the kiss anything but gentle. The way his emotions were riotous inside of him. She would not yield, and he understood. If he did not understand, he would not now still be vying for her hand in every way he possibly could.
He wanted to hear her say it again, that she loved him. The words were still a marvel to him, both his own emotions and to know she returned them.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
Jane broke away.
The sound of the door shutting filled the room. She brought her hand to her cheek, then let out a nervous laugh. Gerard looked behind him, confirming that whoever had disturbed them had chosen to leave just as quickly.
“My cousin, Silvie, accompanied me from Vienna and is acting as companion in my father’s absence. She knows about you.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow and enjoyed the way that Jane blushed.
“Well…she knows that you exist. Not how we met but that you are Lord Landsdowne’s illegitimate grandson and that I love you.”
It was strange to hear her describe him in such a way. Part of a lineage even if the wrong side of the blanket, and his grandfather had been unwilling to support him, although by approaching Anche and telling him about the part his grandfather had played, he had forced Landsdowne’s hand. It was strange as well to know that Jane had discussed their affair with her cousin.
“She was there the day Szabo’s man tried to abd
uct me.” She rubbed her hands over her arms and Gerard drew her back into his embrace. His stomach clenched again the way it had the minute Bohm told him about the attempted abduction.
“I should never have left you.”
“I feel like such a fool but my life was never truly in danger before.”
The wreckage of the carriage, her warm neck under his hand. A year earlier and he would have killed her without a second thought. In that moment he hated himself.
“I think I knew from the first that you would not hurt me.”
Each word she said was a dagger into him.
“Except I have,” he said harshly. “And still I am asking everything of you, Jane. I don’t care that I am what most people would consider a villain. It is entirely possible I will never be able to come to you and ask for your hand as a gentleman in society, but I want you. I need you. I will move heaven and earth to make you mine.”
“So dramatic. Hopefully the celestial bodies may stay where they are.” Her words were light and his lips twisted in acknowledgment. Except, dramatic as they were, he had meant every syllable of it. “Gerard, I…I want you to succeed. In the meantime, perhaps you would like to stay for lunch?”
Lunch, here in this townhouse, in broad daylight. He had already walked boldly up the front stairs as if he had every right to do so. He had left all the other iterations of identity behind. All that was left was Gerard Badeau. And she wanted him to succeed. The knowledge was a balm to his aching heart. He had told Marcus that all choices were his own, that was true, and now he was making a different choice. One that brought him to a strange moment of sitting at the long dining table in the Langley townhouse, with its polished silver and freshly cut flowers. To have Jane by his side and her cousin—Silvie—across.
The princess was of an age with him, with a face defined more by character and experience than by some ephemeral beauty, and over the noon meal they chatted about the weather, and the journey, about Vienna and the inconclusive congress that seemed to drag on far beyond its original intentions. Jane led the conversation from one relatively safe topic to another until, sitting in the parlor after the meal, enjoying the crackling fire and the pleasure of having had a good meal, Silvie turned to him and asked, “So, do tell me about yourself, Mr. Badeau—”
“Silvie,” Jane said quickly, a warning note in her voice, even as she shot Gerard an apologetic look.
“It might be unsaid, but it is as obvious as if there were a tiger in the room,” Silvie said, persisting and directing her comment to Gerard. “I know so little but that this…affair between yourself and my cousin is something of a secret. Never fear I’ll spill it, but I confess I am curious.”
“My cousin is rude.”
“Your cousin is curious,” Silvie corrected her. “And I have never conformed to society’s expectations. Why should I now?”
“There is very little to tell,” Gerard said with a laugh. He rather liked Silvie, even though her questioning focused on him. “My grandfather, despite the circumstances of my birth, was kind enough to fund my education and ensure I could live the life of a gentleman. As I have. I have traveled much of my life but I call Paris home for lack of a more substantive place.”
“And how did you stumble upon our Jane?”
“I am certain Jane regaled you with the best version of the story.”
“The secret version,” Jane said, her words rushed. “I did tell her that we met when I was injured, that you took care of me. That we couldn’t tell anyone for the sake of my reputation.”
He laughed. “So you left out the very romantic way I carried you in the rain for miles?”
She looked down. “There are certain moments when one is falling in love that one prefers to keep private.”
That love surged inside Gerard, at how quickly Jane adapted the story, at how she picked carefully between truth and lies.
“So there you have it, Madam,” he said. “Your cousin foolishly fell in love with me and now she cannot get rid of me. But I hope to convince her to make an honest man of me.”
“There is more to this story,” Silvie said. “But as curious as I am, as much that I feel in lieu of Jane’s father being here, as her older, and very likely at this moment wiser, cousin, I need protect her interests, I shall leave it at that. My sense is that you are a chameleon, Mr. Badeau, that you would fit in anywhere, charm anyone if need be.”
“Silvie,” Jane said again, but Gerard held up a hand.
“It is quite all right, Jane. Your cousin is perceptive but it is no more than you yourself already know of me. You know my worst flaws and still you say you love me. A love I know I do not deserve.”
Silvie laughed. “You are good, Mr. Badeau. I shall leave it. Jane, you are warned. Mr. Badeau—”
“I take no offense,” Gerard said, even though inside his gut was wrenching. Though he was determined to make Jane his own, she had never committed to him fully. What if Silvie convinced her— He looked to Jane, whose hands were fisted, silently seething. “I must go. I am expected elsewhere.”
“I shall walk you to the door,” Jane said.
They walked silently down the stairs to the front hall. The footman stood at the door, ready to open it. There was little space for privacy here. At the bottom of the stairs, he took her arm, held her still for a moment as he lowered his head near to her ear.
“I am sorry about—”
“Never mind your cousin,” he said quickly. “I will come to you after midnight. Which window is yours?”
She shook her head. “I will leave the garden door unlocked and meet you in the library. No need to scale walls.”
“Warn Bohm, if you will. I have no desire to be attacked. Where is he, in any event?” He looked about, disconcerted that the man was not there. Bohm’s presence was the only thing that allowed Gerard to feel at ease away from Jane.
“Gentleman Jackson’s. He ran into an old pupil and the young man demanded he visit and tell tales to all his friends. As I did not intend to go out this morning, I saw no reason to keep him here.”
Gerard pressed his lips together tightly. He could not fault the man. Or Jane. Though the townhouse was hardly a fortress, she was well protected. “Don’t leave until he returns,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Then I will see you tonight.” He lingered a second more, wanting to make the day progress faster to the hour of his meeting with Anche, but not wanting to leave Jane at all.
Finally he walked to the front door, which the footman opened. And in broad daylight, in full view of prying neighbors and anyone who cared at all, Gerard Badeau left the townhouse and descended back into the world.
The afternoon took him back to Anche, to that office that smelled of wood and sweat.
The man wasted no time in his conversation. “A barony. Alandale. It is a minor estate in Somerset that will be attached. Naturally, there will be a price as well.”
Baron Alandale. Triumph soared through Gerard. Yes, Jane would still be relinquishing some level of position, he did understand the sensitivity of matters of hierarchy, but the schism would be much less. To gain such a position was an impossible feat for the son of a Jew, illegitimate by birth and barely acknowledged by both his mother and his father’s family. Yet he would.
“Of course, the crown requires a test of loyalty.”
Before Anche continued, Gerard knew. A darkness seeped into his bones even as he tried to shake it. This he should have expected. The information he shared was not enough. Of course not. He was a resource they could not let go to waste.
He wanted to say no, but how could he return to Jane and say that he had failed, that the most he could offer her was a home, material comforts, his love. She would lose her position in society. There were ramifications to their union of which he could only guess. More likely than not, Jane would refuse. He could not fault her for that. Her cousin Silvie would be satisfied.
He smiled tightly, pushing back the insidious terror that s
naked through him, and presented to Anche only the calm, collected exterior, the assassin who would consider such a thing.
It was simply one more mission. The key to his freedom and his future.
Nothing he had not done before.
Chapter Sixteen
It was not unusual for Jane to stay up late in the library, nor even unheard of for her to fall asleep sitting sideways in one of the deep, high-backed chairs, legs dangling over the arms. But this night she did not sleep. She was too full of restless anticipation.
Her cousin’s interference had surprised her. They were second cousins, their grandmothers sisters. They had only seen each other a handful of times throughout their life, and though their friendship had blossomed since Vienna, it was still relatively fledgling. That Silvie would think she had a right to say anything to Gerard still infuriated Jane.
Not that Silvie was wrong, which infuriated Jane more. She could not defend him. She loved him but as he said, she loved him despite the flaws she knew. She loved the way he was with her. The way he took care of her and made her feel beautiful, intelligent and, most of all, loved.
But who would he be once he left his life of shadows behind? A man of leisure? She could not imagine Gerard enjoying an endless progression of dinners, routs, and balls. House parties and hunts. Though he claimed his actions had impacted international politics, though he was better educated than many of the gentlemen who made their way through Cambridge and Oxford, he did not seem particularly interested in the jostling of countries for strategic supremacy. As a landowner, would he find the local affairs interesting?
All of that assuming he was successful in his quest. What if he were not? How much was she prepared to give up?
He would not admit to it, but she knew he had been hurt, knew that in his attempt to be a better man, live a better life, the inability to escape the old was like poking a wound. She wanted desperately to be able to say yes to him, to take care of him the way he had taken care of her. To help him be reborn.
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