Deceiving The Duke (Scandals and Spies Book 2) (9 page)

Another spy meeting was set for tonight. Why so soon on the heels of the last, Morgan didn’t know, but he was determined to intercept it this time. Philomena would not slip away, that he vowed. Once he confirmed she was meeting with another French spy, he would let Strickland know in no uncertain terms that she was Harker’s replacement in the
ton
.

What if she wasn’t a French spy?

He tried to tell himself not to be fanciful, but the thought plagued him. If he was wrong and the true spy was someone else, then he would miss this meeting again. Strickland would never welcome him into the field again. He would be stuck filling out paperwork for the rest of his natural born life.

He did enough paperwork to dull even the sharpest of minds. He craved excitement.

He certainly got that from the woman standing next to him. When they were mere feet away from the pavilion, she dug her fingers into his arm and pulled him to a stop.

“How well do you know this Miss Vale?”

He battled the urge to roll his eyes. “Well enough.”

“You’ve bedded her then, have you?”

“
What?!
”

His sharp tone drew the curious gazes not only of his family, but every other peer in eyesight. Heaven help him, was that Mrs. Biddleford and Miss Maize? Before midnight tonight, this was going to be branded a lover’s quarrel. He would read about his own fictitious, doomed engagement in the scandal rag tomorrow.

He lowered his voice. “Of course I haven’t.”

Phil’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “I knew that. You propose to women you accidentally blow a kiss in passing.”

He gritted his teeth. “I do not.”

“I only wondered if you were attending to the conversation.”

“Evidently, I am.” He bit off the words.

That alluring smile of hers grew. Zeus, he’d never wanted to kiss her more.

“How do you know Miss Vale?” Phil asked. Her expression made it known under no uncertain terms that she would not forget the topic.

“She is currently residing in my townhouse.”

He winced as the words left his lips. Phil’s eyebrows soared upward.

Hurriedly, he amended, “She is my sister-in-law.”

“Who is she married to?”

“No one.” He resisted the urge to rub the white streak in his hair, as he did when he was harried. Mother would know the gesture at once. She, along with the others in his family, now stared in their direction with open suspicion—or, perhaps worse, delight. He shifted to put his back to his family.

Phil braced her hands on her hips. The movement pulled her dress flush against her ample figure, making his mouth water. “If she isn’t married, how can she be your sister-in-law?”

“She’s the sister of the woman who married my brother earlier this month.”

Phil canted her head to the side as she thought. For such an innocent gesture, Morgan got a chilling sensation of foreboding. What was going on in her mind?

“Which brother?”

He fingered the streak in his hair. “Well, it isn’t Gideon.”

Phil narrowed her eyes. “I could do without your sarcasm. How am I to know which of your brothers was recently married?”

“Have you opened a scandal rag lately? Tristan’s marriage is all any of them can talk about.”

“I don’t read that drivel.”

Morgan bit his tongue rather than admit to surprise. Most women—and many men—devoured the weekly gossip sheets.

“Are you satisfied now?” he asked, his voice strained.

Phil inclined her head. She laid her hand on his sleeve and they resumed their approach. He relaxed, believing the topic to have run its course.

How wrong he was.

“What are some of her merits?”

“Well, she doesn’t snore.”

Phil’s hand tightened painfully. “I beg your pardon?”

Thank Zeus he’d mumbled that statement. Louder, he amended, “She doesn’t put much in store in gossip.”

Somehow, he sensed that it would not bode well if Phil learned that Miss Vale slept in the chambers next to his. The duchess’s chambers.

What does she care? They aren’t earmarked for her.

No, this was jealousy based on Miss Vale’s perceived pursuit of Phil’s brother. She couldn’t care a whit for Morgan.

But if she did…

Better he not deceive himself.

From the moment he introduced Phil properly to Miss Vale, the evening only grew worse. She constantly tried to insinuate herself between Jared and Miss Vale. This lead to increasingly bizarre excuses to change positions. Each time she changed her seat in the box, her leg or bottom brushed against Morgan and he was reminded of her allure. Mother and Lucy scented his attraction and pounced, concocting elaborate schemes to move Phil back to Morgan’s side. It was maddening.

Finally, the table could take it no longer. Mr. St. Gobain thrust himself into a standing position. His hair flopped into his eyes. “Bloody Hell, Phil. Find a place to sit and stay there!”

As all eyes fixed on him, his cheeks turned ruddy. He stepped back, to the curtain of the box shielding them from the public. “Forgive me,” he mumbled. “It must be the air in here. I’ll take a short walk.” He batted aside the heavy curtain, letting in a strengthened gust of renewed chatter, and strode into the crowd.

Mother, who had been seated across from him, on the end of the booth where Morgan sat, also stood. “Oh dear. Perhaps the air in here is a little stuffy.” She peeled back the curtain and secured it near the wall.

The lamp inside the box cast an intimate glow on the worn wooden booth and the surrounding box. Tasseled cushions softened the bench. The walls were painted with an elaborate Grecian scene that looked to be a marriage by the seashore, given the focus on a man and woman in the midst of all the scantily-clad revelry. Perhaps he shouldn’t look too closely.

Beyond the box, the Vauxhall Gardens were thick with couples and groups, some from the
haute monde
, others workaday families out for the weekend entertainment. Men and women danced in pairs on the dais, laughing as they completed the jaunty steps of the country dance. Lanterns, hung on elaborately-wrought poles, lined the pebbled walkways as they left the square, all save one—the illustrious Dark Walk.

Mother chased everyone at the table out of the box and into the open air. “Perhaps a stroll would be just the thing.”

A stroll would not be the thing. Morgan had to keep his eyes peeled for the spy meeting. His mood had soured enough when they’d been isolated in the box for so long, partaking of the cold meats and cheeses that a servant of the Gardens had brought for them. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, fingering that note. Still, if his instincts were right and Phil was the French spy, keeping her occupied would be enough to avert the meeting.

Inclining his head, Morgan offered Mother his arm. “May I escort you?”

“And old woman like me?” She batted her hands through the air, a smirk on her lips. “Of course not. Why don’t you take Miss St. Gobain?”

Morgan fought back a groan. Of course that had been her design. She and Lucy had exchanged mischievous looks every time he spoke to Phil. Keeping the irritation from his face, Morgan turned to do his duty and ask Phil for her arm.

“Where has Miss St. Gobain run off to?” Mother sounded worried.

Morgan bit the inside of his cheek. She’d managed to slip the party without any of them being the wiser. The spy meeting was occurring as they spoke.

J
ared
, you are not going to slip away from me this time.
Phil, who had been seated beside Jared when he’d sprung to his feet and left the booth, hurried to stand after him and was the first Lady Graylocke shooed out of the box. As the rest of the party joined her in the open air, she scanned the crowd. Blast! Where had her brother gone? He might have hidden it beneath his aloof, surly demeanor, but he’d been agitated. Phil had tried to minimize that by sitting between him and Miss Vale, though that never seemed to work for long. Lucy wasn’t comfortable, or else her mother needed a change of air, and before Phil knew it, she was pressed hip to hip with Morgan once more.

She didn’t want to think about
that
distraction. Where had Jared gone? Was he meeting with his lover once more?

He might have lied.
Or he might have told the truth. She wouldn’t know until she unearthed the truth.

At the mouth of the Dark Walk, she spotted a lanky figure with his topper askew, as if it had been hastily shoved onto his head. The man turned to glance behind him. It was Jared. It had to be.

A gaggle of young women giggled as they strolled past, accentuating their figures for the pleasure of the esteemed Graylocke brothers. Phil insinuated herself in their midst, using them as camouflage until they decided to double back. She skirted the lit promenades until she reached the infamous Dark Walk. Couples used it for illicit meetings. Debutantes found strolling along its length ruined their reputations. Fortunately, Phil didn’t give a fig’s end for her reputation. She had to know the truth.

While they were ensconced in the box, the twilight had deepened to full night gloom. As she marched away from the lights, the darkness pressed in on her eyes. She fumbled at the bulging reticule on her wrist. Once she found her LEGs, she secured them over her eyes.

This was the pair her father had made, her only working pair. The three-inch-wide, round lenses fitted over her eyes and were held in place by an adjustable strap. Once she buckled it on securely, she adjusted the fittings over the eyes. The lenses themselves might only be three inches wide, but in order to gather the ambient light and amplify it, the contraption jutted out from her head. The LEGs didn’t throw the ground in front of her into full light as if it was day. Rather, they enhanced the grayscale of the gloom enough to pick out details that would have been overlooked by her naked eye.

Although it was called the Dark Walk, the path wasn’t entirely unlit. Cozy alcoves at long intervals between the trees each held a bench and a mostly-shuttered lantern. The faint trickle of light was enhanced by the LEGs as she walked, and she was able to move without fear of tripping.

The walk, although far from deserted, was populated as sparsely as the lanterns. Couples found unoccupied alcoves and ensconced themselves out of sight of the path, shielded by the long, sweeping branches of the trees and the cultivated high hedges. Others leisurely strolled between alcoves with their arms tucked around each other. Phil strode briskly, examining each pair only long enough to determine that none of them were her brother.

At last, she found him entering an alcove. She quickened her step, hoping to get a glance of the occupant within. Was he alone? Was he meeting a lover or someone more nefarious? As she strolled past, the interior became clear. A woman, seated on a bench wearing a low-cut gown, gestured to him.

Lud, her brother had been telling the truth. Cheeks aflame, Phil turned her face away. She strode back the way she’d come, battling the urge to break into a run. Jared was an adult. He had every right to engage in romance even if she, as a rule, did not. She had her inventions, a passion that Jared didn’t share.

Not that she was dispassionate about romance. She’d harbored more than one infatuation, before her parents had died. After that, it had been more and more obvious that she didn’t have time to indulge in courtships. Nor did she have the liberty. A man might try to curtail the hours she spent inventing, never mind that it brought in a great deal of money. Surely a husband would make her excursions to the Society for the Advancement of Science meetings as "Phil" a bit inconvenient. She’d fought tooth and nail to win the respect of those at the Society for the Advancement of Science. If she married, she might lose that and become bereft of a space where she was comfortable enough to join in the enthusiasm for technology.

She was better off on her own. If she wanted someone to hang off her sleeve and beg for kisses…well, she had Pickle for that.

Not that bussing the beak of a parrot in any way compared to a man’s masterful kiss. Not, for example, the Duke of Tenwick’s. Maybe it was the darkened walk, shrouded in silence and intimacy that even the LEGs couldn’t banish, but tingles plagued her at the memory of his kiss. A kiss that would have been infinitely more pleasurable if conducted in the privacy of a bedroom. Or, even, one of these private bowers.

She tilted her head down to avoid the gaze of a strolling party as she retraced her steps toward the entrance to the darkened walk. With luck, the Graylockes wouldn’t have noticed her absence—or perhaps she could explain it away by her intention to follow her brother. Although the ladies’ constant efforts to move her closer to Morgan were both transparent and galling, she could use the distraction from what her brother must be doing at that that moment.

Out here, in the middle of a public walk? No, he couldn’t go farther than a kiss. Not that she cared to contemplate that, either.

Her heartbeat stuttered as a tall, broad-shouldered figure separated from the gloom in front of her. She would recognize that gait and manly form anywhere. Morgan. How had he known to follow her here? He’d been speaking with his mother when she’d slipped away, too busy even to notice the abundance of debutantes hoping to catch his eye.

She stumbled. Her toe scuffed against the gravel.
He can’t see you,
she assured herself. He couldn’t possibly, with the shadows decorating the path. If anything, he would see the form of a young lady, in much less detail than she could see him, thanks to the LEGs. Even so, she didn’t want to test that theory should they cross paths. The darkness invited her to succumb to pleasures that were best left to dreams. Especially if a marriage proposal was forthcoming every time Morgan indulged. She had to find a means of escape.

There! The opening between two tall hedges, just wide enough to slip through. She prayed that no one occupied the alcove within, or she was about to interrupt a very private moment. Holding her breath, she slipped between the greenery.

It was empty. The bower stretched no more than four feet wide, ringed by the hedges that soared above her head, trees, and bushes. The middle of the hovel was carpeted in short, tended grass. The bench, its legs made of wrought iron to match the lamp post next to it, beckoned. She sat on the hard, cool surface before her legs gave way. Only a sliver of glass was shown through the shuttered lantern, but the light spilling out was enough for her to spot the individual contours of the leaves on the trees. She pressed her hand onto her chest, over her rapidly thumping heart.

Morgan didn’t have LEGs of his own. He couldn’t possibly have seen her enter the alcove.

He had. His broad shoulders blocked out the only exit as he shifted sideways to enter the bower. He held his topper in his hand, his hair windswept across his forehead, the white streak at his temple a marked contrast from the rest of his inky black hair, melding with the darkness. His buckskin breeches clung to his muscular thighs and his boots hugged calves that had no need for padding to give them shape. The buttons on his jacket gaped, the halves spreading wide to billow around his waist.

The lantern in here didn’t even emit as much light as those in the occupied alcoves she had passed. If she was lucky, maybe he didn’t recognize her and she could pretend to be someone else. She rose to her feet. The moment he vacated the exit, she would slip past and hurry back before someone found them alone.

He took a step closer, the strong pine scent of his cologne washing over her, mingled with the starch on his jacket. Heat radiated from his broad, muscular body. He crowded closer to the bench, leaving her no quarter. She was trapped.

Tilting his face down, he ran his tongue along his lower lip. She was entranced by the movement and couldn’t help but mimic it. The slow slide of her tongue was torture. The ache in her belly bloomed. She forgot entirely about leaving.

Until he spoke her name. “Philomena. Fancy meeting you here, all alone.”

Judging by his tone of voice, he had no intention of letting her leave.

* * *

M
organ had imagined finding
himself alone with Phil too often. With the tall hedges shutting them off from the rest of the world and the darkness providing an even deeper intimacy, he battled the urge to re-enact their kiss in the alley. This time, in a more romantic location, maybe he wouldn’t have to cut it short.

You were almost slapped the last time,
he reminded himself. In fact, he’d been laughed at.

But she’d also said that she liked it. So had he. Too much. If he gathered her close, would she resist?

He admired her silhouette, the only thing he could see in the dim light. The flare of her hips curved up to her generous breasts. He remembered how soft they’d felt against him. The graceful column of her throat was interrupted by one of the locks of her hair that had fallen free of her coif. And her face… What was wrong with her face? The silhouette was…bizarre.

“What do you have on your face?”

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “I forgot to take off my legs!”

“I beg your pardon?” He swept his gaze down her figure once more to the legs concealed beneath her dress. When he’d run his hand along her thigh in the alley, those legs had felt real and very feminine.

She pulled a strange contraption away from her face. “My legs,” she said by way of an explanation. “Light-enhancing goggles.”

Ever since he’d learned that she was the same Phil who had attended the Society for the Advancement of Science meeting, he had known in the back of his mind that she was an inventor. But for some reason, he hadn’t stopped to consider the kinds of inventions she might create. In fact, it had crossed his mind that her attendance at the meeting had been a cover. It seemed that was not the case.

When she offered the goggles to him, he gingerly accepted them. They weighed more than they appeared. What unwieldly things! He lifted one to his face to peer through the lens. The hovel suddenly veered into focus. The silhouettes of the hedges, benches, and tree came into miraculous focus in comparison to only a moment past. When he looked at Phil, he could make out the distinction between her upper chest and the lacy line of her bodice.

He lowered the goggles reluctantly and offered them back. “Masterful.”

She stood straighter. A warmth entered her voice as she admitted, “My father made them. I’ve been trying to replicate them ever since he died.”

“My condolences. My father died, too.” Morgan rubbed at the streak in his hair. What a buffoon he must seem. “Of course he died, or else I wouldn’t be Duke.”

She laid her hand on his sleeve. Her soft touch ignited his desire. He wanted to pin her hand beneath his. Somehow, he resisted.

“Were you terribly young?”

“Twenty,” he admitted. Little more than a boy who’d fancied himself a man. He’d learned altogether too quickly a man’s responsibilities when he’d been forced to grow up overnight.

“I was twenty-one.” Her voice was low. He had to strain his ears to hear. Her hand shifted on his sleeve, but she didn’t pull it away. “Old enough, at least, to become Jared’s regent until he comes of age in a couple years.”

Morgan’s mother had been his regent for a year, but it had been his stewards that had helped ease the transition the most. His father had been smart enough to surround himself with capable men.

He found and squeezed Phil’s hand. He wished for the goggles back, so he could read her expression. “That must have been terribly hard. I had my brothers and sister to think of, but at least I’ve had Mother all this time to help.”

“I do miss Maman. Papa the most, though. We used to spend so much time together, in the invention room.” Her voice sounded sad.

Tentatively, he eased closer. He slid his arm around her shoulders and offered her what comfort he could. He expected her to push him away, but to his surprise, she leaned into him, pillowing her cheek on his chest. The goggles jabbed at his stomach between them, but he ignored the irritation. He didn’t want to shatter this peaceful moment.

Even though he must. He’d found her alone, but she had to be waiting for someone. Could he convince her to tell him who?

“Are you going to tell me why you snuck away?” His body tensed, bracing for a lie. He forced himself to relax.

Her gusty sigh teased him through his waistcoat and shirt. Gooseflesh raised over his arms and the back of his neck.

“I followed Jared.”

Liar.

“And yet I found you alone.” He tried to keep his voice soft, but steel edged it. He wanted to shred every lie between them. At least with the truth out in the open, they could deal with it and move on.