“Oh? Is that your way of asking if I would like to go riding with you today? Why, I would love to, thank you very much.”
He tilted his head and lifted a brow in a disbelieving look. The horrible thing about all of this was that he was just too handsome for his own good, with that midnight hair and the blue eyes that she knew could heat to flames of passion, though now they were cool as ice chips.
“What was Wilcott doing here?” he suddenly demanded, piercing her with his cold eyes.
“Calling on me.”
“Why?”
She drew back. “Why?”
“What does he want with you?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but he wants me as his mistress.”
His jaw muscle ticked and his eyes narrowed, creating creases at the corners that never failed to intrigue her. “You told him no.”
He was so sure of himself, so matter-of-fact, that she almost said she was thinking about it. “Why is this any concern of yours?” she asked.
“Because apparently I’m courting you, and I don’t want competition.”
“Maybe you need competition,” she teased.
His lips didn’t even twitch in a smile. Where was the man she’d known seven months ago? What had happened to him?
“Atwater says we are to ‘encounter’ each other at the Buchanan ball tonight,” he said, seeming to ignore her statement.
“I’m aware.”
“I’ll arrive a few hours after the ball begins. I expect you to be there on time and ready for our encounter.”
“As you were on time last night, my lord?”
He raised a brow but remained stubbornly silent. What would it take to break through to the man she’d known in Venice?
“Sebastian?” She softened her voice and reached toward his hand but dropped her arm before touching him. There was a part of her that ached to press against him, to lay her head upon his chest, and stand there inside his heat.
He looked down at her hand. The expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes did. They became softer, and she saw the memories lodged in them. He remembered, and it hurt him to remember. It hurt her, too, but she refused to let the hurt and the memories make her cantankerous.
“Yes?” he asked.
“What happened to you?”
His gaze cooled, and the hurt disappeared behind whatever wall he’d erected. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“You are not the same man I knew in Venice,” she said softly.
He stared at her for a long moment. “We agreed not to speak of this, Gabrielle.” His voice had softened, and she considered that a small victory.
“That was in Venice, before either of us knew who the other really was.”
“It will serve us no good to speak of it now. Nothing has changed. We are the same people with the same reasons as before.”
True enough. But before she had time to respond, he was making his way to the door. “Where are you going?”
“I have things to do.” He pulled open the door and stepped into the entryway.
Gabrielle followed. “Wait a moment. What things?” She hurried to step between him and the front door. Riggs was conspicuously absent for once, and she was glad of it. “You’re going to attempt to find the spy, aren’t you? Without me.”
He halted and pressed his lips together but would not look at her.
Gabrielle drew in an outraged breath. “You are.” She pressed a finger into a chest roped with muscle. It didn’t budge him but bent her finger backward. “Atwater said we are to work together. You cannot go off on this mission without me.”
He removed her finger from his chest. “Atwater said I was to take you to balls and such. He said nothing about us working together in any other area.”
“You know that’s what he meant.”
“I know no such thing.” He reached around her to open the front door, and it took everything inside Gabrielle not to flinch. He smelled just as she remembered, darkly spicy and of horse and man. She had to step back, lest she be pushed out of the way as he opened the door.
“We are partners, Sebastian, and we will work on this together.”
He stepped around her, jogged down the steps, and hopped in his waiting carriage—once again walking away from her, while Gabrielle could only stand there helplessly.
Chapter 4
Godfrey Duncan, Lord Wilcott, handed his butler his coat, gloves, and walking stick with a defeated air. He’d been so convinced that Lady Marciano was the answer to his dilemma, and so convinced she would leap at his suggestion, that he had not been prepared for rejection. Distraught after leaving her residence, Godfrey had needed to speak to Charles for a few moments. He tried not to visit Charles’s store on Oxford Street too often, for fear his continued presence would be noted, but today he’d felt the need to see his friend.
Unfortunately, Charles had been irked with Godfrey for revealing their secret to Lady Marciano. But Godfrey didn’t regret it. To his surprise, she proved to be a warm, compassionate woman, and he found himself telling her everything. Secrets he’d kept from even his closest family members. She had a way about her that inspired trust. Besides, she’d promised not to reveal their conversation, and he believed her, much to Charles’s disgust.
She’d even offered to dance with him at the Buchanan ball tonight. He hadn’t planned on attending, but he might now. Just dancing with the widowed contessa would draw attention. His mother was becoming suspicious that he wasn’t interested in any of the debutantes she paraded in front of him. She’d begun to ask him delicate, detailed questions about his personal life that he could never answer honestly. Hopefully, if he danced with Lady Marciano, he could assuage his mother’s suspicions for a bit.
He entered his study and shut the door behind him, searching for peace and quiet and some fine Scottish whiskey. He reached for the decanter of whiskey with one hand while loosening his cravat with the other.
“Good evening, Godfrey.”
Godfrey spun around. The bottle of whiskey tipped and fell over. The rush of liquid spilled onto the table, then the floor, the smell pungent.
His butler hadn’t mentioned he had a caller, yet a man sat in a chair in the corner of the room. He was so far nestled into the shadows that Godfrey had to peer closer to see, and even then he couldn’t make the person out. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The man tsked. “I expected much better manners from you, Lord Wilcott. Word around town is that you cling to propriety.”
The man’s softly spoken words, uttered in a Scottish brogue, had Godfrey’s heart racing. “Who are you?”
The man stood and stepped into the light, though his appearance didn’t appease Godfrey in the least. He was tall and lean, with hard eyes, wide shoulders, and hair in definite need of cutting, for it touched his shoulders in a shaggy mess. He rested a lean hip against the back of the settee, so close that Godfrey could see his eyes were green; his hair was the color that was brown one moment and dark red the next. His shirt was open at the throat, his coat unbuttoned. He wore no cravat. Godfrey would never, ever go calling without a cravat.
“I’m a friend of a friend,” the man said.
“I can’t imagine what friend we have in common.” Godfrey sniffed, displaying bravado, while inside he quaked with a fear he’d never known. “How did you get past my butler?”
The man smiled, a slow, heartless smile. “One should never leave his windows unlocked. All manner of thieves and criminals roam the streets. Even the fashionable streets of Mayfair.”
Godfrey scooted back. Danger radiated off the man, from the cold, emotionless eyes to the rough fingers tapping against the back of the settee.
The man crossed his arms and studied Godfrey for so long that he wanted to squirm but didn’t dare. “Sir, if you don’t leave this moment, I will call my servants and have you escorted out. This is highly irregular. I sincerely doubt we have any similar acquaintances.”
“
You were seen conversing with Lady Gabrielle Marciano at the Eastmans’ ball last night.”
Godfrey frowned, caught off guard. “Yes.”
“It has come to my attention that Lady Marciano was introduced to Lord Claybrook at the same ball.”
“I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
“Late this morning you were seen entering Lady Marciano’s residence, where you spent a significant amount of time.”
“You’ve been following me?” Godfrey’s outrage was cloaked in real fear. How long had he been followed? To Oxford Street? “You need to leave, sir.”
“You don’t want me to leave, Godfrey.”
He hadn’t given this cretin permission to call him by his given name, but at this point it was irrelevant. His bowels quaked and he desperately wanted to walk out of this room, but the door was too far away and he knew he would never make it that far. The man wouldn’t let him leave.
“I want you to bring Lady Marciano to me.”
Godfrey jerked as if someone had pinched him. This was not at all what he had expected. “Absolutely not.” The thought of Lady Marciano in this man’s clutches made Godfrey’s stomach churn. Despite what others said about her, she was a sweet woman, and there was no way he would hand her over to this man.
The man tapped his finger on the settee. “Do I need to remind you of a quaint little bookstore on Oxford Street?”
The blood rushed from Godfrey’s head so fast he swayed. His body was drenched in sweat. The sickly sweet odor of fear permeated the room. Nay, not fear. Terror.
—
Sebastian hadn’t lied when he admitted to conducting some legwork for the newest assignment he and Gabrielle had drawn. However, what he didn’t admit to, and what he would never admit to, was that he needed to get the hell out of her house, because, God save him, she did things to him.
He never should have bedded her in Venice. At the time he’d known it was a mistake, but he’d ignored his inner voice, and now he regretted it. He’d tried everything to purge her from his system. He’d taken on more missions. Dangerous missions he would normally leave for the younger, more foolhardy men. Even that hadn’t worked.
Many nights he would awake in a feverish state, so aroused that he hurt. He would lie there staring up at the ceiling, seething in anger and burning lust, willing it to pass. Sometimes it wouldn’t pass; the dreams were so damn real, he could feel her scorching touch on his heated skin. He could hear her gasps of pleasure and anticipate his own powerful release.
When that happened, he had no choice but to relieve himself or live with the aching erection that had him gritting his teeth. It was on those nights that he hated her and himself the most. He’d never felt this way about anyone, and it angered him that he could not control his own body and his own thoughts when he had such a tight control over everything else in his life.
And then she was there, in the flesh, and he could smell her and touch her if he wished. Every time he was near her, his control slipped another notch, and he found it more difficult to keep his hands to himself.
He’d known he would have to see her again—after all, she was a close friend of his sister—but he’d convinced himself that he could avoid her. Bloody hell. He couldn’t avoid her if the crown forced them to work together, but he could limit his time with her. She’d been so angry when he left her this afternoon, thinking he was working behind her back. Which he was. More to the point, he was avoiding her. Something he wasn’t proud of.
The country’s premier spy couldn’t afford softness. He needed to be controlled, aware, at all times. He could afford no distractions, and if Gabrielle Marciano was anything, she was a distraction.
He had no idea what Atwater thought they could accomplish by invading the ton. Sebastian’s expertise was more behind the scenes, and damn it, that was where he should be now. Not dancing with an Italian contessa.
After a good quarter hour of being stalled in traffic, his coach finally pulled up to the Buchanans’ townhouse. One would think that arriving two hours late to a ball would prevent such congestion, but apparently being late was the norm. Despite that, Sebastian waited an interminably long time before exiting the coach. He hated to admit it, but he needed to corral his courage and shore up his defenses, because seeing her was like a punch to the gut.
When it became clear that he needed to either get out or get going, he climbed down and adjusted his cuffs and the fall of his breeches, then strode up the steps.
Inside, the ball was not the crush that the Eastmans’ ball had been the night before, and Sebastian was glad of it. He deplored all of those people shoved into one room. He hated the stares, the whispers, the speculative looks of the matchmaking mamas. He’d become adept at sidestepping their sharklike advances.
The butler announced him, and much to his relief, there was barely a stir. He made his way down the steps and into the stifling ballroom.
He walked the perimeter of the room until the soft hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he slowly turned around. She was standing a few feet from him, and as it had done earlier that day, and the night before, and the afternoon before that, and seven months before then, his breath left him and his knees went weak.
She was truly stunning, with all that golden skin, black-as-night hair, and dark smoldering eyes that seemed to read his every thought and mock him for it. Tonight she wore a shimmering gold gown that set off her dark skin to perfection. She was a small thing, but her stature was deceiving.
“Lady Marciano, you look stunning.” Truer words he never spoke. Good God, she undid him.
She dipped her head, a small smile playing across her luscious lips. “My thanks, my lord. And you as well.” Her gaze swept him from head to toe, and he found himself shifting to his other foot, his traitorous body heating at her perusal. He’d been with her all of three minutes, and already his body was betraying him. “Black looks good on you,” she continued, boldly meeting his gaze.
“It’s much easier for my valet to dress me when there is only one color to choose from.”
“I can’t picture you in sunshine yellow or popinjay blue.”
He smiled, despite the voice that warned him not to.
As they spoke, heads turned, conversations lagged, accusing eyes sought them out. He offered her his arm, and she took it, and his body calmed. He refused to admit that she felt so right next to him.
He stared down the worst of the gossips as they circled the room. Some had the good manners to look chagrined, averting their gaze, but others didn’t seem to care. They whispered behind their fans while upstanding matrons turned their backs with a sniff.
The men, however, stared avidly. There was something about Gabrielle that drew a man’s eye. The sensuous mouth, the sleepy eyes that promised ecstasy, the saucy look that said they needed to prove themselves to her. And they were all willing to prove themselves. Even he had wanted to at one time.
Gabrielle stared straight ahead with a slight smile, indicating that she knew what they were saying and it didn’t concern her. Sebastian held a grudging admiration for her and yet wondered what Atwater had been thinking by putting her in this position. How in the hell was she supposed to get information from people who wouldn’t even face her?
“You’re late,” she said through her smile.
“Fashionably on time.”
She snorted and he had to bite back a smile. Damn her for making him want to smile.
“What did you learn today?” she asked.
“This and that.”
She glared at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Neither the time nor the place, my lady.”
“Somehow I think there will be no time or place for you, my lord.”
Lady and Lord Eastman approached and engaged Gabrielle in conversation. Sebastian stepped back and studied her while memories of their short time together assailed him. He’d had it all back then, everything he wanted, and he’d walked away from it because he couldn’t
drag her into that lifestyle. He couldn’t endanger her life. Of course, he’d had no idea that she was already in that lifestyle and endangering her own life.
His fingers curled into fists at the thought of her deliberately putting herself in danger, and he cursed Atwater and the crown for using her. The practical part of him knew that they needed female operatives to do things that men simply could not do. He tried not to think of what those things were, but he was aware. He knew, and the thought had him fuming in jealousy.
Yes, jealousy.
He was such a damn fool.
Soon young bucks willing to suffer the wrath of the matrons—enthralled and eager to be near someone whose reputation was both exciting and dangerous—surrounded her, pushing Sebastian farther away. Sebastian glared at them, but they didn’t notice, so enamored they were with Gabrielle.
To her credit, Gabrielle paid them equal attention, never singling one out over the other. She was good at this, as if she juggled men all day long. Which was exactly her reputation.
He cursed under his breath and leaned forward to whisper to her, “I’ll be in the cardroom.”
Her expression froze and her eyes turned cool. Damnation, what had he done now? He’d “encountered” her at the ball, which was what they’d been tasked to do. What more did she expect?
She turned back to the crowd. “Excuse me a moment.” She grabbed Sebastian’s arm and pulled him away. “A word, my lord?”
He projected a bored air, though his arm felt singed. He wanted to yank it away, while at the same time he wanted to wrap her in his arms and feel her body pressed against his. He may have forced his mind to forget her, but his body never would. Already the young lads were looking at him with a little bit of awe, a little bit of jealousy. “What do you need?” he bit out.
She withdrew her hand and looked around. The group had meandered away, the youths laughing and jostling. Others steered a clear path around them.
Gabrielle leaned closer, enticing him with her exotic scent and a view of the tops of creamy breasts that he ached to touch. Every moment with her was torture. “Abandoning me to go to the cardroom will not exactly convince the aristocracy that we are courting.” She kept her voice low and constantly looked around.
Sebastian's Lady Spy Page 3