The Sinner Who Seduced Me

by Stefanie Sloane

  James was the first to climb the wall, his booted feet landing on the windowsill silently as he pushed himself through. He hastily inspected the room then returned to the window and assisted the other agents as they appeared one by one. The last of them climbed over the sill and into the small room. He pulled the ladder up then fastened the window and shut the curtains.

  “Clarissa is gone,” James told the gathered men, checking the knife concealed in his boot and the other tucked into the waistband of his breeches. “She would not have gone unless it was absolutely necessary—or if she was forced.”

  “Pettibone?” one of the men asked, his tone grave.

  James’s heart constricted at the sound of the man’s name. Of course, it made the most sense, but if she’d been identified by the Frenchman? He couldn’t finish the thought, the possible repercussions beyond consideration.

  “We’ll subdue the man at the front before he alerts the others to our presence,” James replied. “If we’re lucky, they haven’t had enough time to call in reinforcements.”

  If we’re lucky.

  He’d found Clarissa again, despite all the odds. If that wasn’t plain, dumb luck, James didn’t know what was. Could God be so kind as to extend His grace, just a bit further?

  There was only one way to find out. “Wait out of sight until I give you the signal. Understood?”

  The men nodded and James silently opened the hall door. He peered into the passageway. Finding no one, he walked through and headed for the stairs, adopting the half stagger of a drunken client who’d just awoken.

  “Bon dieu,” he began in a thick Languedoc accent, holding his head in his hands as he tripped his way to the main floor. “Do a man a favor, would you, and find me something to drink.”

  The Les Moines agent at the door started at the sight of him, his considerable bulk moving with surprising speed. “Who are you?”

  James came within three steps of the man and stopped, dropping his arms at his sides. “I’m the poor sod who went to bed last night with an incredibly flexible brunette and only just now woke up—missing my money and my gold watch, that’s who I am.” His disgruntled voice growled the words with an echo of outrage.

  The guard took a step closer. His eyes narrowed as he looked James up and down. “Our girls would not—”

  James didn’t give him the opportunity to finish his sentence. He slipped the knife from his waistband and drove the blade into the man’s gut, catching the Les Moines agent’s weight as he pitched forward and groaned heavily. James lowered him to the floor and signaled for the waiting Corinthians.

  “You,” James began, pointing at Martin, “hide him. The rest of you, follow me.”

  He moved quickly toward the hallway that led to the basement stairs. Movement from the back of the house caught his eye and he looked down the length of the brothel’s back hall to where Clarissa had entered less than an hour before. Several Les Moines agents crashed through the outer door, increasing their pace at the sight of James.

  “Hopkins!” James shouted at the Corinthian agent nearest him.

  The man looked to where the enemy agents were fast approaching. “I have this, sir. Go—find Lady Clarissa.”

  James nodded then raced down the hall, reaching the stairs and taking them two at a time as he ran toward the lower floor. He stopped at the bottom, orienting himself. Durand’s office seemed the most logical place to start, so he hugged the wall and moved silently toward the room, aware that the noise from the battle above would have alerted anyone below.

  A woman suddenly appeared, her eyes wild with fright. James reached out, pushing her against the wall and covering her mouth with his hand. “The new girl. Where is she? Tell me and I’ll not hurt you.” He gently released her and moved his hand to encircle her neck.

  “In Durand’s care, though I would not go any farther, if I were you,” she whispered, trembling as she did so.

  “Is there a way out on this floor?” James asked in a hushed tone, ignoring the woman’s warning.

  The woman nodded. “Through the kitchens.”

  “Good. Use it—now. Do not come back.”

  She nodded once more as James loosened his hold, then bolted for the kitchens.

  James continued down the hall, stopping just outside the closed door of Durand’s office. He listened for a moment, the absence of a female voice filling him with dread.

  He’d waited long enough. James turned the brass door handle and shoved open the door, not knowing what or whom he would find.

  “Do come in, Marlowe.”

  Pettibone stood just in front of the desk, with Durand seated behind it and another man, whom James recognized instantly, seated in the corner. But Clarissa was nowhere in sight. He tamped down the terror that threatened to take hold and focused on the man.

  “Gentlemen,” James said by way of introduction, sizing up the opposition in mere seconds. Three on one. He’d faced more threatening odds before.

  “You see, Father, Talleyrand, it is just as I said. You hired a turncoat,” Pettibone pronounced, his voice thick with satisfaction.

  “I thought that was you, monsieur,” James addressed Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a French diplomat and valued, though wily, Napoleon ally, as he sat quietly in the corner. “May I assume that I’ve found the leader of Les Moines?”

  The older man nodded his head, his thin lips forming into a bitter smile. “Considering the fact that you’ll be dead within minutes, monsieur, I suppose it would do no harm to admit my involvement.”

  “How kind,” James replied, turning his attention to Durand. “And you? ‘Father’? Now, that is a shock.”

  Durand grimaced. “To you and me both, I’m afraid.”

  “Father, your disgust is hardly warranted, especially considering all that I’ve done—why, I delivered this traitor to your door—”

  “Exactly,” Talleyrand interrupted, tapping his fingers on the arms of his chair. “A more monumentally stupid thing to do, I cannot imagine.”

  Pettibone began to sweat, thin lines of moisture snaking their way down his temples. “But now you know who this man is—what he’s capable of.”

  “The same could be said of you, son,” Durand replied, pushing back his chair. “Another of your failed attempts to overthrow me, non?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking ab—”

  Durand stood and took aim at his son, the pocket pistol that he’d been hiding beneath the desk firing off one deafening shot directly into Pettibone’s heart. “Now, what are we to do with you?” he asked coldly, lifting a second weapon and taking aim at James.

  James stared at the dying man, who’d fallen backward and landed in a boneless heap near Talleyrand’s feet. “Where’s Lady Clarissa?”

  “Locked up tight with her mother. I’d thought to deal with her later,” Durand answered, gesturing with the gun. “But right now my associate and I need to be leaving—without you.”

  “Tell me, monsieur, does your government pay well?” Talleyrand asked of James. “I would think a man of my unique qualifications could do well.”

  James barely had time to absorb the news that Clarissa was still alive before the man’s odd question demanded an answer. “Depends upon the services offered, I suppose.”

  “You bastard,” Durand spit out, pointing the pistol at the older man.

  Talleyrand sighed and offered Durand a look of boredom. “That’s hardly news, my friend. Come now, did you really think my allegiance is only to the emperor, in these perilous times?”

  “But he is the rightful ruler,” Durand countered, his pistol holding a steady unwavering line.

  “Regimes may fall and fail, but I do not,” Talleyrand answered simply. “The Russians are quite fond of me, you see. And I suspect the English would be as well.”

  The noise from the fight abovestairs grew louder, the thud of bodies hitting the floor intermingled with muffled shouts and curses.

  Durand’s stony façade cracked
and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Come. I’ll not kill you quickly—that would be too merciful.” He walked around the desk, motioning both men toward the door. He waited while Talleyrand opened it. He then shoved the nose of the pistol into James’s back and urged him on. “To the kitchens,” he instructed.

  Talleyrand obeyed, walking quickly down the hall. James followed, slowing as they entered the kitchens. Cooks and servants stopped what they were doing to look at the men, though none seemed all that surprised.

  They were nearing the back door when James saw his opportunity. A bucket of potato peelings had spilled onto the floor in front of them. Talleyrand delicately avoided the refuse, while James pretended not to see it, stepping directly in the mess. He feigned a slip and pitched backward into Durand, knocking the man and his pistol to the floor.

  Durand scrambled for the gun and reached it just as James grabbed it, the two wrestling for control. Durand punched James in the nose with his free hand and attempted to roll away. But James kept hold of the pistol and slammed his forehead against Durand’s. They wrestled, moving closer to the stove, the gun between them.

  And then it went off.

  James looked down at Durand, the man’s face contorting with pain. He mouthed something that James could not make out, then his head sagged to the side and he stilled.

  The sound of something connecting with metal caught James by surprise and he jumped up, the gun still in his hand.

  Talleyrand lay immobile on the floor, the woman from earlier standing over him with a cast-iron pan in her hands. “He was trying to get away. An incompetent lover, that one,” Joëlle explained simply. “Took more of our money than he should have too.”

  Agent Martin appeared in the kitchens, followed by two other Corinthians.

  “Under control upstairs?” James asked, poking Talleyrand with his foot.

  The man groaned.

  Thank God, James thought to himself, knowing Carmichael would have been very disappointed by the untimely death of the Les Moines’s leader. He was looking forward to interrogating him.

  “Yes, sir,” Martin answered efficiently.

  James nodded then ran full tilt from the room, his strides eating up the distance down the hallway.

  “Clarissa!” he shouted, trying each door as he came upon it.

  “James!” The scream erupted from the last room on the right.

  He didn’t bother with the doorknob. Instead, James kicked the door in and ran for Clarissa and her mother, taking Clarissa in his arms and holding her tight. Her precious body was warm, alive, pressed against his. “Are you two all right?”

  Clarissa pulled back and looked into his face. “We are now, my love,” she answered, her palms coming to rest on his chest reverently. “But please,” she added, relief in her voice, “promise me we’ll never be parted again, especially by lock and key. Too hard on the door and frame, wouldn’t you agree?”

  He smiled, a deep, relieved, loving, laughing grin. “I love you.”

  “You are our savior,” Isabelle interrupted. “Truly, James.”

  Clarissa smiled brightly at her mother. “He is, isn’t he,” she said possessively, beginning to cry as emotions overwhelmed her.

  “Always have been,” James added.

  “And always will be,” Clarissa confirmed, then tilted her head up to James’s and captured him with a kiss that told him she meant it.

  “She’s more beautiful than I remembered,” Carmichael commented as he watched Clarissa sketch her mother. The light through the windows of the front drawing room at 27 Hertford Street in Mayfair, according to Clarissa’s comment only moments before, was perfect. And so she’d taken up her charcoal and drawing paper and set to work, everyone in the room agreeing that an artist’s intuition is never to be ignored.

  “Yes, she is,” James agreed. “Funny, that. I thought the very same thing when I first saw her again in St. Michelle’s studio.”

  Carmichael nodded. “Lady Westbridge as well.”

  “Yes, I agree there too, though my first glimpse of her in France quite frankly stunned me. Those weeks spent with Les Moines left her pale and thin. Since returning to England she’s greatly improved.”

  James and Clarissa had decided against telling her mother about the Young Corinthians. She’d been in far too much danger already, and it wasn’t as if it would change what had happened with her husband.

  But the day of James and Clarissa’s wedding, Isabelle had summoned James to an antechamber in the church and asked for his forgiveness. Her husband’s infidelity had torn her in two, she’d explained, and she couldn’t let the same thing happen to her daughter. Isabelle had ignored James’s plea that fateful day so long ago and failed to tell Clarissa that he’d come to their home. It had weighed heavily on her conscience ever since, and now that they’d found their way back to each other, Isabelle couldn’t let another day go by without telling James of her part. Seeing them together, so happy—so complete—had forced her to accept that closing one’s heart to the possibility of sorrow also closed it to the likelihood of love.

  The man James had been mere weeks before would have tasted bile in his throat at such a revelation. He would have held tight to his bitterness and told the woman, in so many words, that she deserved to be tortured by her regrets.

  But he was no longer that man. When Carmichael had recruited James for the Les Moines assignment, James had suspected it would be the most important case of his career. But he couldn’t have known that it was to be the seminal moment of his life. He’d found himself—after holding on far too long to the man he thought he was. He’d let go and taken a chance. And he’d won.

  “You’ve not asked after Talleyrand.”

  James felt his jaw threatening to tense and mentally forced himself to relax. “The man deserved to die. Still, I completed my assignment, Carmichael. You have to know that I can no longer serve in the same role—”

  “Talleyrand is very valuable, Marlowe.”

  James leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows on his knees. “Do you think he’ll hold up his end of the bargain and help dismantle Les Moines?”

  “If we pay him enough, yes, I do. Besides, he’s the only one who can,” Carmichael answered. “You did it, James. You not only completed the assignment, you completed it with more than expected success.”

  James looked at Carmichael, and his heart, previously brimming with happiness, tipped over and welled with satisfaction. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Carmichael replied sincerely. “Now, James, I would be remiss if I did not mention a noteworthy observation I’ve made during my visit today: Marriage seems to agree with you,” Carmichael added, an infinitesimal smile appearing on his lips.

  James chuckled, not about to disagree with him. He was, after all, James’s superior. And he was right. “You can’t imagine the fights, Carmichael,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Ah, but the reconciling—well, that makes it all worthwhile.”

  “Is that all?”

  James fidgeted with one of the ridiculously puffy pillows Clarissa seemed so fond of arranging everywhere in the house. “No,” he admitted sheepishly. “I love her. Always have. Always will. But then, you knew that already, didn’t you, Carmichael?”

  “Well, as you know, Marlowe, I’m not one to gloat,” Carmichael began in an even tone, turning his attention back to the ladies. “But, yes, I did.”

  James couldn’t help himself. He let out a roar of laughter, garnering the attention of not only Carmichael, but the two women as well.

  “You, Marlowe, have never looked happier, truly.”

  James clapped Carmichael on the knee, hardly able to suppress the emotions that seemed intent on overtaking him. “I’ve never been better than right now, my good man.”

  “It’s beautiful, is it not?” Clarissa lay against James’s chest, the flickering candlelight catching rainbows in the crystals sewn into the bodice of her wedding gown.

  James chuckled, hi
s chest hair tickling her cheek. “How long do you plan to leave the gown there—on the chair, displayed like a vase of flowers.”

  “Perhaps a year—or two, depending upon a number of factors, which I’ll not bore you with,” she teased, trailing her fingers down his taut stomach to the edge of the silken bed linens, then slowly walking them back to where she began.

  “And you’re absolutely certain you do not want a honeymoon?”

  James had asked after a honeymoon since the day he’d proposed. He seemed to feel that he’d failed her in some way by not packing her up and dragging her across several nations, over large bodies of water, and through battlefields.

  “James, I do believe that three Channel crossings within weeks of each other is all the travel I can possibly endure at the moment. Perhaps, when we’re eighty and our children have their children—”

  “Just how many children?” James interrupted, his interest pleasing Clarissa.

  “Four, I believe. Or eight. I cannot decide. Which do you prefer?”

  James’s muscles rippled in response to Clarissa’s curious fingers. “They’re both nice, round numbers. Perhaps we should simply go forward with one and then decide?”

  “Four it is,” Clarissa declared. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, when we are eighty and our four children have children of their own, perhaps then we’ll take a tour of the world.”

  James sighed. “I can hardly wait until I’m eighty to give you your consolation prize.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Clarissa asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “Consolation—you have to know that my not being able to give you a honeymoon has been—”

  “Hush.” Clarissa sat up and placed two fingers on his lips. “Not the definition of the word, James. The reason why you cannot wait to give me the prize.”

  “Oh,” he answered. “That’s simple enough. He’ll be dead by then.”

  A faint scratching sounded at the door between Clarissa and James’s bedchamber, followed quickly by an irritated “Yeow!”