Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies]

by Seduction Is Forever

  “P-Perhaps I should try disguising myself again,” she murmured as she tugged his mouth even closer. “Become another lightskirt in the club. If I could get closer to Leary, there is even a chance he would talk to me, boast about his deeds.”

  Grant stiffened, his head coming up and away from her skin. For a moment, his vision blurred and all he could think about was Cullen Leary chasing after Emily, his eyes filled with malice and violent intent. All he could think about were the consequences if he could not protect her.

  “No,” he spat out, pushing away and backing up a few steps. “Absolutely not!”

  Chapter 13

  Emily twisted in her chair to face Grant at his sudden, unexpected response to her suggestion. What she saw on his face had her stumbling to her feet.

  There was raw pain there. A vulnerability, even a panic she had never seen from him before, never expected. But she understood it. Those emotions mirrored her own.

  It was a powerful glimpse of why the War Department was treading so carefully around him.

  But she had seen Grant attack Cullen Leary with no hesitation before. So the anxiety that darkened his stare had nothing to do with being a coward. He was horrified for other reasons. Something deeper. Darker.

  She feared exploring that raw emotion. It was too personal, and could draw her too close to the deeper involvement she feared. Still, she couldn’t just leave him like this. She had to help him.

  “Grant—” she began, stepping toward him.

  “No!” His dark chocolate eyes grew almost black. “I forbid it, Emily.”

  Her empathy was pushed to the background, replaced by a pounding anger that stopped her approach in its tracks.

  “Forbid it,” she repeated, her tone deceptively quiet when she considered her roiling emotions. “I beg your pardon but I thought we were partners, Grant, not ward and guardian. You have no right to forbid me to do anything.”

  He moved forward, hands clenched at his sides, and desperation etched in deep lines across his face. “You are determined to get yourself shot again, then? To die this time? Perhaps your friends are correct. Perhaps you are no longer worthy of the field.”

  Emily recoiled, staggering as his words hit her with the force of a slap. Her throat constricted painfully and tears stung behind her eyes, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t let him see how much that charge hurt her. Especially coming from him.

  “I would say, Lord Westfield,” she said softly, resting her fingers on the back of the chair she had vacated and digging her nails into the brocade fabric, “that you are just as unworthy of the field if you refuse to take some level of risk in order to investigate a case.”

  Grant’s face darkened with her words, but she felt no triumph in hurting him the way she had been hurt. There was no pleasure or sense of vindication. Only a hollow emptiness that seemed magnified as she looked into his eyes.

  “I won’t do this,” he muttered, breaking the boiling gaze between them. “I cannot do this again.”

  He paced past her and Emily jolted as she realized he was moving for the door. Panic clawed at her as she staggered toward him. “What are you doing, Grant? Where are you going?”

  He froze, hand suspended above the door handle, his back to her. His head dipped down and his shoulders grew taught with tension.

  “Perhaps you are correct, Emily. Perhaps I’m no good for the field anymore. Perhaps everyone is right.” He looked at her over his shoulder and her heart broke at the defeat in his stare. “But I cannot watch you put yourself in danger. I just can’t.”

  “Grant—” she began, but he walked out. Out of the parlor. Down the hallway. Past Benson and his gaping mouth. Out the front door. He ignored her calls. Ignored her.

  As the door closed behind him, Emily stumbled back into the parlor. Only when she collapsed into the closest chair did she realize she was shaking. Not trembling, fully shaking.

  What the hell was she going to do now? She needed Grant.

  Her heart throbbed at that thought. They had worked together all of a day and already she needed him? She had worked dozens of cases on her own in the past. Ones that were just as dangerous, just as important. She’d never needed anyone. But she needed Grant. How could that be?

  She didn’t know. But those were the facts. She had to find a way to coax him back to her side. And to do that, she’d have to uncover just what had happened to him a year before. She’d have to deduce the source of the darkness in his eyes, move deeper into the recesses of his soul.

  She would have to become acquainted with more than his body. More than his talent. She would have to know him, even though it was a perilous prospect to dig deeper into his soul. Knowing him better meant opening herself up to pain, to heartache. To something deeper than mere desire.

  Rising to unsteady feet, she made her way into hallway.

  “My lady?” Benson stepped toward her, his eyes filled with concern for her, an emotion he normally masked behind disapproval. “What can I do?”

  She smiled for his benefit, though it was a weak one and did nothing to lessen his concern. “Fetch Henderson, please. I must go to Anastasia’s home.”

  Grant clutched the tumbler in his hand. By God, he wished he was rip-roaring drunk. He had indulged last night after he left Emily’s, and woke with a splitting head, but he was ready to drown his pain yet again.

  Ben was the only thing stopping him. His blasted brother was sitting in a chair across from him, staring at him with a rare look of seriousness in his brown eyes.

  “You have danced around the subject long enough, Grant. What is wrong?” his brother asked.

  Grant swirled the liquid in the tumbler with a humorless laugh. “I never dance so early in the day.”

  Ben’s lips thinned at his sarcasm. “You don’t generally drink so early in the day either. Look at yourself. You haven’t shaved. Judging from the state of your clothing, you slept in what you’re wearing. And I’d wager this is not your first drink in the last twenty-four hours. So what is it? You haven’t been like this in a long time.”

  Resisting a sudden urge to throw the tumbler against the wall above the fireplace, Grant set the glass down on the table beside him and rubbed a hand over his eyes. How exactly did one tell one’s brother, one’s best friend, that one was an utter coward?

  His stomach rolled at the thought.

  “Grant!” His brother’s voice was sharp enough to pierce through the painful fog. “Talk to me.”

  “Perhaps the officials at the War Department are correct,” he answered, staring up at the ceiling high above. “Perhaps it’s best if I don’t work in the field any longer. A desk job is better for men like me. Men who don’t have a stomach for danger anymore.”

  His brother’s snort of derision brought Grant’s attention back to him. “You are driven to danger. I don’t believe for a moment that you’ve lost the stomach for the thrill of a chase or the excitement of being shot at.”

  “Then why did I walk away from Emily yesterday?” he asked, arching a brow. “Why did I tell her I wouldn’t participate in a scheme she suggested—one that would likely work—simply because it would involve danger?”

  Ben leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his pointed stare made Grant shift uncomfortably. There were very few people who knew him so well. Ben could see into his soul if he chose to do so. And that wasn’t always a pleasant thing.

  “Danger to you or danger to her?” his brother asked, low and even.

  Grant ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. He understood exactly what Ben was alluding to. That night. Davina. The nightmare that had begun and never seemed to end.

  “To her,” he admitted. “I think about Emily walking into danger and I…I freeze. I can hardly think. I can’t move. What if that happened in the field? What if she needed me?”

  Ben pushed to his feet. “You would come. What happened that night a year ago was not your fault. You must give yourself permission to let it go. Let D
avina go.”

  “She’s dead,” Grant ground out. “It was my fault, my life that caused it. How can I ‘let it go’ as if the woman was nothing more than a dog?”

  “There is more to this than Davina,” Ben said after a long moment of hesitation. He tilted his head, examining his brother more closely. “Is it because Lady Allington has turned out to be a spy? Because she was shot? It reminds you of that night?”

  Grant flinched. He’d confided in Ben about Emily’s new role in his life: partner. But he hadn’t admitted they were lovers, as well. That fact still felt too private to share, even with his brother.

  “After Davina’s death, I swore I would never allow my duty to endanger another woman. But Emily endangers herself on a regular basis. You should see the way her eyes light up when she discusses her work.”

  Ben shook his head. “But you’ve worked with other spies before. Any problems you had with those partnerships had nothing to do with worry about their well-being. Is Emily less qualified?”

  Grant shook his head. “No. She’s very talented and highly intelligent.”

  “Then why take so much responsibility for her?” Benjamin hesitated. “Unless there is something deeper between you than a mere case.”

  Grant turned away, pacing the length of the room. Emily did mean more to him than a case. She was his lover and the desire he felt for her was so shockingly powerful. He’d never experienced anything like the need he felt to touch her. Be near her.

  “Do you have feelings for her?” his brother asked, surprise in his tone.

  Grant spun to stare at him. “No! Of course not. A future with Emily would be impossible.”

  “Why?”

  He pondered that. There were so many reasons to keep her at arm’s length. Emily didn’t want a future. She had been the one who said they had to leave emotion out of their affair. And even if she hadn’t made that rule, a relationship between them would never work.

  “Some spies do their job and will happily retire some day. Others are driven. Hungry for the work. Emily is a spy at heart,” he explained, almost more to himself than Ben. “She would never give that life up. Even if I did feel more for her than friendship, which I don’t, I could never live like that. If I knew she was at risk every day…I would go mad. I went through that already with Davina.”

  Ben wrinkled his brow. “But Emily is nothing like her.”

  Grant opened his mouth to reply when the door behind them creaked open and his butler appeared.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord, but you have a visitor.”

  Grant wasn’t sure whether to be relieved at the interruption or frustrated. Did he want his brother’s council in this delicate matter or not?

  Finally he looked over his brother’s shoulder to the servant. “Who is it, Pettigrew?”

  “Lady Allington, my lord.”

  Grant took an involuntary step forward. After his departure the day before, he hadn’t expected her to seek him out.

  “Show her in,” he said, his voice hardly carrying despite the utterly silent room. “I want to see her.”

  Emily came to a halt as she entered Grant’s front parlor. It wasn’t just the surprise at seeing Grant’s brother with him that made her stop. Benjamin Ashbury gave her a cool appraising stare as he nodded a welcome.

  It was Grant that brought her up short. She hadn’t seen him like this before. Despite his size, he was always pulled together. Sleek. Every hair in place, not a wrinkle in his clothing.

  Today he was not. He wore no jacket or cravat and his white linen shirt was crumpled and gaped at the throat to reveal a tanned expanse of chest.

  He hadn’t shaved either. Dark stubble slashed across his jawline and when combined with the tangled locks of hair that fell across his forehead, he looked every bit as dangerous as Cullen Leary.

  And yet she didn’t fear what she saw. She feared the cause of the changes in him, but not him. Even now, with so much to say, she ached to touch him. To kiss him until he forgot the pain that haunted him.

  In some ways, his brother’s presence was a godsend because she couldn’t indulge in those desires. She shouldn’t until she’d spoken with Grant about what she now knew about his past.

  Just the thought gave her a shiver.

  “Emily,” Grant finally choked out. He smoothed his big hands over his hopelessly wrinkled shirt and motioned to a chair awkwardly. “Will you join us in a drink?”

  She tilted her head at his attempt to feign normalcy when it was so very clear that nothing between them was normal.

  “No. Grant, I would like to talk to you.” She glanced at Benjamin Ashbury apologetically. “Alone.”

  Ben nodded. “I should be going anyway.”

  He moved to his brother and clapped a hand on Grant’s forearm. Grant looked at him and a world of communication moved between the siblings.

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Ben said softly.

  Grant shrugged rather than answered and his gaze flitted away from his brother’s. Ben turned to her and a ghost of his usually jovial smile softened his expression.

  “Lady Allington.” He took her hand and dropped a very brief kiss against it. “It is always a pleasure to see you.” He moved to pass her and whispered, “Perhaps you are what he needs, not I.”

  Emily didn’t have time to respond or even register her shock at his comment before he was gone.

  “Does he know?” she whispered, clenching suddenly sweaty palms behind her back.

  Grant looked at her and gave one nod. “He’s been aware of my profession for some years now. He knew I was assigned to follow you. And while he isn’t privy to all the details, he knows you and I are now working side by side on something. You don’t have to worry about my brother.”

  Emily pondered that for a moment and then nodded. She wouldn’t trust her own family to return a book to the library in her stead, but Grant’s family was very different from her own. She hadn’t come here to argue over that issue. Something far more pressing weighed on her mind.

  “I apologize for leaving so suddenly yesterday,” Grant said, shifting as if he were uncomfortable. She wondered how often he forced himself to say he was sorry. Somehow she doubted it happened regularly.

  She stepped toward him, drawn to him though she knew how very dangerous that was. Taking him to her bed was one thing, merging her emotions with his was another. A mistake she was precariously close to committing now that she understood more about the man he was.

  “You…” She hesitated. “I’ll admit your adamant denial of my suggestion, your anger when I refused to accept your decision, and then when you left without even a glance in my direction…those things frightened me.”

  He lifted his gaze and she saw his surprise at her choice of words. “You, afraid?”

  She shut her eyes. If she expected him to open up to her, she couldn’t refuse the same. She had to give him a little…just a little.

  “Terrified,” she admitted, ignoring the choking pressure bearing down on her, the effort it took to admit her feelings. “Because I need you, Grant. I mean, I need your help. I didn’t realize how much until you walked away and I thought you might never return.”

  He lifted a hand as if he wanted to reach for her, but instead he gripped it into a fist and shoved it back down at his side. His gaze moved away from hers.

  “Why would you want a coward?”

  She started. “I never thought you were a coward,” she said softly and she did what he would not. Reaching for him, she curled her fingers around his clenched fist and held tight. He looked at her hand covering his, then his gaze moved to her face.

  She swallowed. “I—I know about that night a year ago, Grant,” she whispered. “I know there was a woman. I know she died. And that is why you’ve been struggling. That is why the War Department is hesitant in making new assignments for you. Why they pushed you to follow me on a fool’s errand.”

  He lurched and she felt his fist grip tighten beneath her fi
ngers. She clung to him so he wouldn’t back away, lifting his hand to her chest and pressing it against her pounding heart.

  “Please, Grant. There are very few details available. I want to hear the truth from you. Will you tell me what happened?”

  Grant could hardly breathe as the room began to swim, the walls crowding in around him. It almost felt like Emily’s touch was the only thing keeping him upright as the past he had so desperately tried to convince himself was not affecting him came pounding up behind him.

  There was nowhere left to run.

  “Grant,” she whispered and he found a point of focus in the startling ice blue of her eyes. A place that seemed safe. “You can trust me.”

  He found himself nodding at her promise. Yes, he could trust her. That fact was becoming increasingly clear the more time he spent with her. Grant had never worked well with partners, but Emily was…different somehow.

  And he owed her the truth since it colored everything between them. Perhaps once she understood, she would abandon the case and let him take over.

  He cleared his throat and began. “Davina Russell was her name. The woman. She was a gentleman’s daughter, though not a peer. I met her through her father, who had assisted me many times through his shipping business. Over time, she and I developed a friendship. And then more than a friendship.”

  Emily’s face twitched ever so slightly and a shadow crossed through her eyes. But she didn’t interrupt. Of that, he was relieved. He wasn’t sure he could continue with the story once he stopped.

  “I kept the true nature of my profession a secret from her for many months, but one evening she overheard me talking to her father.” He bit back a curse. “I was foolish, overconfident. I should have been more aware of my environment, of where she was, but I was too intent on my case.”

  “The case concerning the arms shipments?” she asked softly.

  “Yes. The one involving Cullen Leary.” He shook his head. “I shall never forget her face when she found me after that meeting.”