Hello Stranger

by Lisa Kleypas

  Casting a wild glance at Ethan, Garrett saw that he had set the stack of materials back into the safe and was fiddling with the lock.

  A key was inserted into the door.

  Garrett’s heart performed acrobatic feats, seeming to launch skyward as if it had been shot from a cannon, descending with gathering velocity, then catapulting again. What in God’s name should she do? How should she react? In the midst of her panic, she heard Ethan’s quiet voice.

  “Don’t move.”

  She obeyed, frozen and struggling in every muscle.

  With a swiftness that defied the laws of physics, Ethan closed the safe and pushed the paneling back over it. He tucked a handful of folded pages neatly inside his coat. Just as the key twisted in the lock, he vaulted sideways over the desk with stunning ease, the fingertips of one hand touching the surface lightly as he passed over it.

  Garrett turned toward him blindly as he landed with catlike grace. In the next moment, she felt his arms close around her. A panicked sound escaped her, and he smothered it with his mouth.

  Her head was pushed back from the hard, hungry pressure of his kiss, but he gripped the back of her neck with a supportive hand. The tip of his tongue flicked between her lips like the touch of flame, and she couldn’t help opening for him. He gathered her more firmly into his embrace, the kiss intensifying until her bones turned molten and she felt faint. All she wanted was to relax into darkness and sensation.

  Ethan’s hand stroked her face as he eased his mouth slowly from hers and guided her head to his shoulder. The sheltering tenderness of his touch contrasted sharply with the soft menace of his tone as he spoke to the man who had entered the study. “What do you want, Gamble?”

  Chapter 13

  “This room is off-limits,” came an accusing, rough-sawn voice. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Ethan asked dryly.

  “I’m going to report this to Jenkyn.”

  Tucked securely against Ethan’s chest, Garrett risked a quick glance at the intruder, who was dressed in the evening livery of a butler, or under-butler, but certainly didn’t behave like one. He had the same air of alert physicality as Ethan, although his build was more wiry and spare. His hair was black and cut tight to the skull, emphasizing the aggressive angle of his brow. The skin of his face was youthful, unlined, a few pockmarks pitting the cheeks and chin. An unusually thick neck pressed the front notch of his standing collar slightly open. As Garrett found herself staring into eyes as hard and flat as a pair of stove plates, she thought he looked like the kind of man she would have crossed the street to avoid.

  Feeling her stiffen, Ethan toyed with the soft hairs at her nape. His touch soothed her, communicating a wordless message of reassurance.

  “Of all the rooms you could have chosen,” Gamble asked, “why Tatham’s office?”

  “I thought I’d help him out by doing some filing,” Ethan said sarcastically.

  “You’re supposed to be helping with security.”

  “So are you.”

  The air was charged with conflict. Garrett stirred uneasily within the covert of Ethan’s hard arms. Earlier he’d warned her that she was holding a wolf by the ears. Well, at the moment, she felt as if she were in the company of a pair of wolves, both bristling with aggression.

  Gamble looked at Garrett as if he were lining up rifle sights. “I’ve been watching you.” At first she thought he was referring to the soiree. But then he continued, “Going wherever you please, any time of day or night. Doing a man’s work, when you should be at home with a mending basket. You’d do more good for the world that way than trying to become a man.”

  “I have no desire to become a man,” Garrett said coolly. “That would be backsliding.” Feeling the iron tension in Ethan’s arm at her waist, she clamped her fingers on the hard muscle, silently willing him not to react to the other man’s baiting.

  Her assessing gaze returned to Gamble’s notched standing collar, where one side was pushed outward a few millimeters more than the other. A hint of swelling was just visible at the top edge. “How long have you had that lump on your throat?” she asked.

  Gamble’s eyes widened in surprise.

  When it became evident that he wasn’t going to answer, Garrett said, “The location on your thyroid gland would indicate the presence of a goiter. If so, it can be remedied quite easily with iodine drops.”

  Gamble regarded her with raw animosity. “Bugger off.”

  Ethan gave a faint growl and started for him, but Garrett spun around and set both her palms on his chest. “No, Mr. Ransom,” she murmured. “Not the best idea.” Especially not when his coat pocket was filled with information stolen from the Home Secretary’s private safe.

  Gradually the wall of muscle relaxed beneath her hands. “If he leaves the lump untreated,” Ethan asked hopefully, “how long before he chokes on it?”

  “Get out,” Gamble snapped, “or you’ll choke on my fist down your gullet.”

  After they left the private study, Ethan escorted Garrett down the hallway and pulled her into the space beneath the grand staircase. They stood in the shadows, where the unmoving air was cool and slightly stale. Ethan filled his gaze with her, so feminine and fine, with glimmers dancing across her dress and little crystal things sparkling in her hair.

  Despite her outward delicacy, there was something remarkably sturdy about her, an unyielding toughness he admired more than she would have believed. The life she’d chosen had come with the never-ending obligation to demonstrate what a woman was and was not, and what a woman could be. People would allow her no room for mistakes or ordinary human frailty. God knew she endured it all far better than Ethan would have.

  Thinking of the way she’d put Gamble in his place, he said a touch sheepishly, “The lump on Gamble’s throat . . . I may have been responsible for that.”

  “How?”

  “The other night, when I found out he’d been following me and reporting to Jenkyn, I caught him in an alley and put a stranglehold on him.”

  Garrett made a few little clicking sounds of disapproval that he secretly enjoyed. “More violence.”

  “He put you at risk,” Ethan protested, “and betrayed me in the bargain.”

  “His actions needn’t have turned you into a brute. There are choices other than retaliation.”

  Although Ethan could have made an excellent argument in favor of brutish retaliation, he hung his head in a show of penitence and covertly assessed her reaction.

  “Nevertheless,” Garrett said, “you didn’t cause the lump on Mr. Gamble’s throat. It’s almost certainly a goiter.” She leaned into the hallway to make certain no one was approaching, and turned back to him. “Did you leave any evidence behind in the study?”

  “No. But they’ll realize the safe was breached when they try to open it. I scrambled the combination to protect the account ledgers.”

  Garrett moved closer to him. “What about the information you took?” she whispered.

  The stolen pages inside his coat seemed to be burning their way through to his skin. Just as Nash Prescott had told him, the ledgers contained information beyond price. The secrets in his possession could end or save lives. At least a dozen people would have been willing to shoot him on the spot if they knew what he’d just done.

  “I found proof that Jenkyn, Tatham, and others in the Home Office have been conspiring with political radicals to commit bomb attacks against British citizens.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Ethan had told her far too much already, and involved her to an extent that appalled him. But if he moved quickly to deliver the information into the right hands, it would prevent her from becoming a target. “I’ll bring the pages to Scotland Yard,” he said. “The commissioner will leap at the chance to be rid of Jenkyn. Tomorrow, hell will break loose at Whitehall.”

  One of her hands came lightly to his coat lapel. “If all goes as it should, will you and I be free to�
��”

  “No,” Ethan interrupted gently. “I told you before, I’m not for the likes of you.” Seeing her bewildered expression, he floundered for a way to make her understand his limitations, the things she would want that he couldn’t give. He would never be civilized enough for her. “Garrett . . . I’ve never had the kind of life with dinner bells and mantel clocks and tea tables. I roam half the night and sleep half the next day. I live in a rented flat on Half Moon Street with an empty pantry and a bare wooden floor. The only decoration is a picture of a circus monkey wearing a top hat and riding a bicycle. It was left by the man who lived there last. I’m too used to being alone. I’ve seen some of the worst things people can do to each other, and I carry it with me all the time. I don’t trust anyone. The things in my head . . . God help me if you knew.”

  Garrett was silent for a long moment, her gaze thoughtful. “I’ve also seen some of the worst things people can do to each other,” she eventually said. “I daresay there’s little left in this world that would shock me. I’m aware of what kind of life you’ve led, and I would hardly try to turn you into a tame man about the house.”

  “I’m too set in my ways.”

  “At your age?” Her brows lifted.

  Ethan was simultaneously amused and offended by the way she spoke to him, as if he were some cocksure lad who considered himself more worldly-wise than his experience merited. “I’m nine and twenty,” he said.

  “There,” she said, as if that had proved something. “You can’t be such a hardened case as all that.”

  “Age has nothing to do with it.” The conversation was a thin veneer over the real discussion taking place between them. Ethan felt his insides tighten with yearning and dread as he let himself think of what she might ask of him, what he might promise in a moment of insanity. “Garrett,” he said brusquely, “I’ll never fit into a conventional life.”

  A curious smile edged her lips. “Do you think my life is conventional?”

  “Compared to mine.”

  She seemed to look inside him, taking his measure. Ethan stood there helplessly, more bound by those green eyes than by forty fathoms of ship’s chain. He was filled with regret for all the moments he would never have with her. God, his desire for her was intolerable. But there was an inescapable reckoning laid up for men like him.

  “Then I’m to have nothing of you?” she asked. “A few pressed violets in a book and a new front-door lock—that’s all I’ll have to remember you by?”

  “What would you like?” he asked readily. “Name it. I’ll steal one of the crown jewels for you.”

  Garrett’s eyes softened, and she reached up to stroke his cheek. “I’d rather have the monkey picture.”

  Ethan looked at her in bewilderment, thinking he hadn’t heard right.

  “I would like you to bring it to me after you’ve taken care of your other business,” she said. “Please.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  Ethan was thunderstruck. She looked so innocent, as if she weren’t proposing something that went against every social and moral principle. “Acushla,” he managed to say, “I can’t spend the night with you. That right belongs to the man you’ll marry.”

  Garrett leveled that direct, disarming stare at him. “My body is my own, to be shared or withheld as I choose.” Standing on her toes, she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Her slim hands framed the sides of his face, her thumbs on his taut jaw. “Show me what you can do,” she whispered. “I think I might like to try a few of those one hundred and twenty positions.”

  Ethan was almost too aroused to stand upright. His head lowered until his forehead rested against hers. That was the only place he could touch her—if he let his hands take hold of her, he would lose control entirely.

  His voice was scratchy. “They’re not for virgins.”

  “Then show me how you make love to a virgin.”

  “Damn you, Garrett,” he muttered. There were things about her he didn’t want to know: the curve of her naked back, the secret scents and textures of her skin. The intimate colors of her. The rush of her breath against his neck as he entered her, the quickening pleasure-rhythms of their joined bodies. Knowing such things would turn the pain of leaving her into agony. It would turn living without her into something worse than death.

  On the other hand, chances were he’d end up in a weighted sack in the Thames before the week was out.

  Garrett stared up at him, her eyes bright with challenge. “My bedroom is on the second floor, to the right of the stairs. I’ll keep a lamp burning.” Her lips curved slightly. “I would leave the front door unlocked . . . but since it’s you, there’s no need.”

  Chapter 14

  Ethan went directly from the soiree to the upper-class Belgravia address belonging to Fred Felbrigg, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Taking the stolen evidence to Felbrigg was a logical choice, since he had both the authority and incentive to bring the Home Office conspirators to justice.

  When Tatham’s and Jenkyn’s crimes were brought to light, a great deal of unpleasantness would ensue: arrests, resignations, select committees, hearings, and trials. But if anyone could be trusted to do the right thing, it was Felbrigg, a devoutly religious man who prized order and routine. On top of that, the police commissioner despised Jenkyn. It was no secret at Scotland Yard that Felbrigg was appalled by the spymaster’s unauthorized position at the Home Office, and the unsavory intelligence-gathering methods of his handpicked agents.

  Disgruntled at having to leave his bed in the middle of the night, Felbrigg came down to his study with a dressing robe thrown over his nightclothes. With his ginger whiskers, short, spindly build, and the flaccid nightcap with a tasseled end dangling over the back of his head, he looked like an elf. An irate elf.

  “What’s this?” he asked, scowling down at the pages Ethan had set on the desk of his study.

  “Proof of an operational link between the Home Office and the Guildhall bombers,” Ethan said quietly.

  As Felbrigg had sat there in shocked silence, Ethan proceeded to tell him about the Home Secretary’s safe and the records of secret government funds diverted to known hostiles and radicals.

  “Here’s an entry concerning the missing shipment of explosives from Le Havre,” Ethan said, nudging one of the pages closer. “The dynamite has been supplied to a group of London-based Fenian activists. They were also given cash money, and an order for admission to the visitors’ gallery at the House of Commons.”

  Pulling off his nightcap, Felbrigg blotted his perspiring face with it. “Why would they want to visit Commons?”

  “It’s possible they were reconnoitering.” At the commissioner’s blank look, Ethan added in a matter-of-fact tone, “For a potential attack on Westminster.” It was no wonder, he thought privately, that Jenkyn kept outmaneuvering this man over and over again. To call him a plodder wouldn’t have been entirely fair, but neither would it have been inaccurate.

  Felbrigg bent his head over the pages, reading slowly.

  Something nagged at Ethan as he watched the commissioner pore over the evidence. He was certain Felbrigg would never look the other way if he had any inkling that Jenkyn was conspiring to kill the innocent citizens he’d sworn to protect. Felbrigg hated Jenkyn. He’d suffered more than his share of slights and insults from the man. Felbrigg had every reason, personal and professional, to use this information against him.

  Still, Ethan’s instincts were jangling unpleasantly. Felbrigg was sweating, tense, nervous, and while that could easily be attributed to having been taken by surprise, his reaction didn’t feel right. Ethan had expected some clear signs of outrage and perhaps a hint of triumph at being given the instrument of his enemy’s downfall. But Felbrigg’s white-faced quietness unnerved the hell out of him.

  The move had been made, however. There was no way to take it back. Something had been set in motion, and whatever it was, the only choice now was to keep to the shadows until Felbrigg
had taken action.

  “Where will you be tomorrow?” Felbrigg asked.

  “Out and about.”

  “How will we be able to communicate with you?”

  “You have enough evidence for investigations and subpoenas,” Ethan said, watching him closely. “I’ll communicate with you when it’s necessary.”

  “The account ledgers are still in Lord Tatham’s safe?”

  “Still there,” Ethan said, neglecting to mention that he’d changed the combination. He kept his eyes on Felbrigg, who found it difficult to hold a shared gaze for more than one or two seconds.

  What aren’t you telling me, you bastard?

  “This matter will be handled properly and swiftly,” Felbrigg said.

  “I knew it would be. You’re known as a man of honor. You swore before a justice at Westminster to execute the duties of your office ‘faithfully, impartially, and honestly.’”

  “And so I have,” Felbrigg retorted, visibly annoyed. “Now that you’ve ruined my night’s rest, Ransom, I’ll bid you good night, while I deal with the damned mess you’ve set before me.”

  Which made Ethan feel slightly better.

  He returned to his flat and changed into a workingman’s clothes: cotton trousers, an open jacket, a workshirt, and short leather boots. Taking a moment to wander through the spare rooms, he wondered for the first time why he’d lived like a recluse for so long. Bare walls, hard furniture, when he could afford a fine home. But he’d chosen this place. His job required anonymity, isolation, with Jenkyn as the hub of his existence. He’d chosen that, too, for reasons he didn’t understand and didn’t want to examine.

  Stopping in front of the monkey engraving, Ethan stared at it closely. What would Garrett make of it? It was an illustration for an advertisement, with the product name cropped off. A grinning top-hatted monkey, pedaling circles in front of onlookers who kept their distance. Its eyes were melancholy—or maniacal—Ethan couldn’t quite decide. Was there a ringmaster just out of view, who’d dressed him up and set him to his task? Was the monkey allowed to stop when he was tired?