The Secrets of a Scoundrel

by Gaelen Foley

  What a shame.

  Chapter 2

  She returned with Ross, who gave Nick a warning glower and told him to pack his things: He’d be leaving.

  Nick complied uneasily, still filled with a sense of unreality. Part of him feared this was all a cruel hoax soon to be reversed, but he took out the single box he had arrived with and placed in it the few belongings he’d been allowed to keep, along with the various small comforts sent to him by his friends. He took the map of America down off the wall, folded it somberly, and put it in the box in which all of his possessions now fit.

  Then Ross unlocked his cell, not to grant him his usual one hour a week outside but to remand him into the custody of the lovely Lady Burke.

  With his wrists and his ankles shackled, Nick was first escorted upstairs for a final meeting with the graybeards. There was paperwork to fill out, a short but intense interrogation, dire warnings issued.

  This, he was advised, was his one chance to prove to them he could still be trusted. One chance to clear the slate. Good God, he thought while their lecture droned on, what did this woman want from him, really?

  It had to be a lot worse than anyone was admitting for them to let him go. Ah, well. If it was for Virgil, he was in.

  In any case, the last thing the graybeards did before he left was to return his signet ring to him. Feeling rather dazed, he stared at it for a second as if he had never seen his family’s coat of arms before: a black wolf on a scarlet ground.

  Despite the awkwardness of the shackles on this wrists, he managed to slip it onto his pinky finger, and thus became the baron again.

  Heir to an ancient, but quite bankrupt family.

  Not exactly cursed bloodlines, but damned unlucky—­and plagued by a self-­destructive streak.

  Lady Burke looked at him. “Is there anything else you need before we go?”

  Nick shook his head, mute and overwhelmed. The only thing he wanted was to be gone from here.

  Before the bastards changed their minds.

  “This way, then. Come with me.” Concern flickered in her eyes at his lost expression; she gestured toward a waiting coach-­and-­four in the square.

  He stepped outside, blinking in the light.

  He was not so far gone not to feel the searing sting to his pride when he had to cross to her carriage in front of all the young students, with his chains clanking like a cautionary tale. Now then, pupils, pay attention. Here’s an example of what not to do in life. Always follow orders, do not think for yourself, or you might end up like him.

  He kept his head high and stepped up into his new owner’s coach, then sat down with his shoulders squared and a stoic stare fixed straight ahead at nothing.

  Lady Burke said her good-­byes to the graybeards with a murmur that she would be in touch. Nick saw Ross (how he’d miss him—­!) give her the key to his manacles, but when she joined him in the carriage, she did not release him from them. Not that he could blame her.

  He wouldn’t have trusted him, either. Even now, low, dishonorable thoughts of escaping at the first opportunity were going through his mind. Of course, he ignored them. This was Virgil’s daughter. He could no more betray or abandon her than he could give in to the pull of lust that he felt already heating the space between them.

  Any other woman in the world, he’d have been happy to cheapen with his long-­pent-­up needs, but this was Virgil’s little girl. No, he stoutly informed his starved libido. He would treat her as chastely as if she were a nun. At least, he’d do his damnedest to try.

  After all, if he made a move on her, and she didn’t like it, she could send him back to prison. For the first time possibly in his life, Nick resolved to be an angel.

  The mysterious baroness rapped on the coach, commanding her driver to make haste; in the next moment, the carriage rolled into motion.

  They were off.

  Good riddance, Nick thought.

  Watching him intently, Gin wondered how he was doing. Expert assassin or not, on a very human level, the man beside her seemed overwhelmed to taste freedom once again—­such as it was, considering he was still in chains.

  The stench of the prison still clung to him. He needed washing, fresh clothes, a few weeks’ worth of good meals, and Heaven only knew what else.

  Considering all he had been through, she realized that, realistically, he might need a day or two before he was ready to start their mission.

  Well, she wasn’t made of stone. She was a mother, after all, with a certain nurturing instinct. Besides, she needed him strong for the challenges ahead.

  Physically, he was obviously more than fit, but mentally, emotionally, it was hard to say.

  Yes, she could spare a day or two to let him recover and get his bearings, Gin mused as she discreetly watched him gazing out the carriage window.

  He was absorbed in staring at the bleak November countryside, and though Gin could only see his face in profile, his expression looked stricken, his dark eyes wide, his sculpted lips parted slightly.

  She bent her head a little, masking the fact that she was studying him with increasing concern. Perhaps she should simply leave him alone, but how could she ignore his pain? The man seemed quietly distraught.

  “Are you . . . all right?” she inquired with cautious tact.

  He kept staring out the window. “Everything’s more beautiful than I remembered,” he answered in a slightly strangled voice.

  “Ah.” Gin was embarrassed for having intruded on his anguish. She looked away, reminding herself that this was the first time in months that the man had been set free from the confines of the prison.

  When he sat there a moment longer, still brooding, she attempted to lighten the mood. “You have interesting taste if you find this day is beautiful. Wait till the sun comes out at least. Today is all gloom! The fields are so brown, the sky is gray—­”

  “The sky. Exactly,” he echoed. Then he glanced over at her with a rueful half smile that nearly stole her breath.

  Gin gazed at him with a pang of understanding but was reluctant to admit even to herself how his words, indeed, his vulnerability in this moment thawed some of the frost she was so careful to keep around her heart.

  A protective layer of indifference.

  “Well,” she managed at last in a wry tone, “they do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  He smiled at her, then gazed out the window again, his starved stare greedily consuming all there was to see.

  The carriage rolled on.

  After a time, her prisoner must have looked his fill for the time being.

  He stretched out his long legs as best he could in the cramped carriage; with his manacled hands resting on his lap, he put his head back and finally closed his eyes.

  Till now, he had been acutely vigilant, but the rhythmic rocking of the carriage must have finally lulled him into a state of relaxation. Or perhaps he was just saving his strength to give her a fight later.

  She knew better than to trust him, of course. But on the other hand, she couldn’t stop staring at him with an odd and gratifying sense of ownership, possession . . .

  You’re all mine, for now, she thought in amusement.

  She couldn’t help but furtively study him, this novelty. Her father’s problem agent. The unpredictable one.

  He wore no cravat, of course, and she soon became fascinated by the elegant line of his neck and his Adam’s apple. Her gaze roamed casually over the sleek waves of his dirty black hair, in need of washing.

  The inky fringe of his lashes.

  His sculpted lips.

  The scar not quite hidden by the dark stubble on his jaw. Why, he even looked like a proper cutthroat, and so he was, she thought, but she could not deny that he was a beautiful man.

  Older, wiser, no doubt scarred by the world, but just as appealing now as
he had been the first time she had seen him, only in a different way. She had been seventeen . . .

  As she watched him doze, her thoughts drifted back to the day many years ago when she had tailed her father to a fencing studio in London to get her first look at “Virgil’s boys.”

  After hearing her father, her dearest friend and confidante, heap praises on the new crop of agents he was training (though he would never say it to them); hearing the warmth and pride in his voice when he spoke of them; the respect he had for each of these brave young warriors who became like sons to him while she was merely a daughter, she had grown jealous, resentful.

  Who were these strangers who took so much of her father’s time away from her? She even feared that he might love them more than he loved her, his illegitimate daughter.

  Virgil had obviously not known how much she had needed his attention at that point in her life. Hoping that at least she might be included in that aspect of her father’s secretive existence, she had asked to be introduced to these supposed flowers of chivalry.

  He had forbidden it. He wanted her nowhere around them, for a long list of reasons. Well, as disappointed as she had been, a spymaster was not the sort of father that even so rebellious a daughter as she disobeyed lightly.

  Nevertheless, she had inherited from him a certain talent at sneaking; in her jealousy, she had decided to go and see “Virgil’s boys” for herself. Spy on the spies, as it were, just once—­so she could see them and prove to herself that they weren’t so great as all that.

  That she, too, could’ve become just as skilled as they if only her father would give her a chance.

  But Virgil refused that, too, beyond some basic training in self-­defense and reading ­people.

  Females were not allowed to join the Order. She had hoped to be the first, but he would not hear of that, either.

  At last, after furtively tailing her father to a London fencing studio where the lads were having a casual training session one afternoon, she had finally glimpsed the group of them, all in their early twenties, one more beautiful than the next.

  Fighting like demons against each other in practice, then laughing and roughhousing good-­naturedly like brothers between rounds.

  Though their vibrant male beauty had left her breathless, their close-­knit warmth had struck her like a stab in her girlish heart.

  For this, she had realized, was her father’s real family, and she was just as woefully excluded from it as she was from the family she lived with.

  The Earl of Ashton’s palatial home had been a very chilly place for the redhead who wasn’t quite His Lordship’s daughter.

  Gin lowered her head, tamping down the pain from the memory of that lesson; it still smarted. In any case, her most vivid memory of that day had been of Nick, the young Lord Forrester, leaning by himself against a column, sharpening his blade.

  She had picked him out when one of the others had called his name. He had looked over, and her stare had homed in on him: she knew that name.

  Now she could put a face to the one who drove her father to distraction. “Nefarious Nick,” as his brother warriors called him, was her father’s greatest headache.

  To be sure, the young, intriguing, black-­haired knight was deadly. But Order teams were trained to work as a seamless unit, and Nick had always been a bit of a lone wolf.

  Apparently, the Order’s prison was where his stubborn, independent streak had got him.

  How she could relate to that.

  For, indeed, her own stubborn, independent streak had landed her in a prison of sorts herself for a number of years: marriage.

  But she wouldn’t be making that mistake ever again.

  Putting the past out of her mind, she closed her eyes and leaned back beside him as the carriage rumbled on.

  After three hours of travel, it was necessary to stop and change horses. They pulled into the cobbled yard of a busy, galleried coaching inn called The Owl.

  It had a pub on the ground floor, guest chambers above, and a livery stable in the back.

  Nick lifted his head from the squabs, eagerly watching out the window at the hustle and bustle of ordinary life going on. Travelers spilled out of newly arriving stagecoaches; others filed into departing coaches while the tin horns blew.

  Gin glanced at her prisoner when they both caught the scent of food coming from the pub. She heard his stomach grumble loudly in response and gave a sympathetic wince.

  She wished it was possible to release him so he might come in with them—­it would probably do him good—­but she did not dare. Not here, in a busy transportation hub.

  If he took it into his mind to escape, there were too many opportunities for him to grab a horse and go. She would never see him again. And then there would be hell to pay from the graybeards.

  “Would you like to get out and stretch?” she offered.

  He shook his head. Cynicism flickered in his dark eyes when he realized she had no intention of taking the shackles off him. But his pride outweighed practicality.

  “No, thanks. I’ll wait,” he said, stone-­faced.

  “Suit yourself.” She gave her two grooms strict orders to guard him. With a nod, one brought his hand to his pistol, then they both went to stand on either side of the carriage doors.

  Gin strode into The Owl to make the arrangements for the horses and order food.

  Inside, she stayed near the window to make sure her valuable prisoner did not try to overcome his pair of guards and get away. Meanwhile, the coachman unhitched the horses from the last stage and traded them for fresh ones.

  Before long, the food was ready. She carried it outside, distributing the small hampers of provisions to her men before climbing back into the carriage.

  “Beef stew or chicken pie?” she asked her prisoner when she returned to her seat.

  He looked startled by the question and blurted out, “I have a choice?”

  Gin paused, feeling another unexpected pang of compassion. “Actually, why don’t you take them both,” she mumbled. “I don’t have much of an appetite today.”

  As the coach rolled into motion once more, Nick asked to start with the beef stew. She reached into the hamper the innkeeper had prepared and carefully gave him the bowl of stew and a spoon. His chains clanked as he took the precious substance in his hands.

  “This goes with it.” She handed him a light, fluffy dinner roll. He took it reverently; she watched, bemused, as he lifted it to his nose and inhaled the buttery smell of it as though it were some rare perfume.

  He squeezed it between his fingers gently, savoring the texture.

  Gin smiled and wished she had bought more. Poor man. Slowly, he looked over at her, wordless thanks in his dark, soulful eyes. She held his gaze; he didn’t need to say it aloud. Then she looked away to let the starved lone wolf eat in peace.

  Unfortunately, it soon became clear that it was difficult for him attempting to eat soup in a moving carriage while wearing heavy iron manacles.

  Gin did not dare offend his pride by offering to help him, but when calamity struck and a particularly large pothole sent the dinner roll flying out of his hand, he let out a vile curse.

  She raised a brow.

  He mumbled, “Sorry.”

  She brought up her hand and showed him that she had caught the dinner roll in her hand before it fell. She gave it back to him, then decided to move closer, crossing the carriage to sit beside instead of across from him. “Why don’t you let me . . .”

  He watched her every move as she took the bowl of stew from him, along with the spoon.

  “You could unchain me,” he pointed out in a low tone.

  She just looked at him. Then she filled up the spoon and fed him a mouthful of the stew. He accepted it, staring into her eyes all the while. She proceeded to feed him.

  But the intimacy of this a
ct soon had her squirming and casting about for some way to dispel the climbing tension between them.

  “So,” she started in an idle tone, “what about this bullet you took for the Regent?”

  He snorted. “Oh, yes. I am one heroic son of a bitch.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Such language in front of lady.”

  “Is that what you are?” he challenged her with a taunting gleam in his eyes. “Traipsing into a dungeon to buy a traitor’s freedom isn’t exactly delicate behavior.”

  “You’re not a traitor.”

  “Well, they didn’t put me in that cell for being a saint, love. And you weren’t even chaperoned.”

  “Unless we count this.” She lifted the hem of her gown just high enough to pull her pistol out of its garter holster. She gave the black barrel of it a kiss.

  Nick grinned. “I think I’m in love.”

  She flicked a playful scowl at him, her lashes bristling. “Don’t annoy me, or I can always find another cell to put you in.” He gawked at her stockinged leg as she put her gun back away. “There’s always room in the kennel where I keep my hounds, and if they won’t share, I’m sure I find an extra chicken crate.”

  “Lady, I have been called many things, but never chicken.”

  “Obviously not. You slapped the entire Order across the face, then stepped in front of a bullet to save the life of a man I wager you don’t even respect. Why?” she prompted in a confidential tone, glancing into his eyes. “Why did you take that bullet for the Regent?”

  “What makes you think I did it for him? I’m a selfish bastard. Didn’t you read that in my file? I did it to save my own neck, of course. Put me back in the Order’s good graces.”

  She considered his answer for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Here’s a better use for that mouth of yours than telling lies.” She fed him another mouthful of beef stew, leaning closer.

  As she did so, she could feel his raging sensual interest—­and her own response, the quickening in her blood.