In Bed with a Spy (11 page)

“G
RACIOUS, THE SCREECH
of violin tuning is enough to put one off one’s tea.” Still, Catherine sipped from her painted teacup despite the quartet of stringed instruments howling on the air. “Shouldn’t the gels do that before the concert begins? Perhaps upstairs? This is their home.”

“I think they need to tune the violins immediately before they play.” Lilias sipped her own tea and tried not to wince at the latest squeal of strings. Across the room, four young ladies were seated side by side with their violins. Plucking, turning pegs, plucking again, then a stroke of the bow. “Do you suppose the ladies are talented?”

“I hope so, for their sakes.” Catherine shifted in her seat and craned to look around the turban of the lady in front of her. They were in the fifth row of Lady Milbanke’s salon, in which chairs and ottomans and sofas were lined up for guests to watch her daughters slaughter Beethoven.

“Do you know why their mother is having this private concert?” Catherine asked.

“No.”

“Look at the guests, dear.”

She did, and saw nothing unusual at first. There were about forty guests arranged throughout the salon. Some carried glasses and little plates of refreshments from the next room, where tea was laid out. And then she saw the pattern. No young ladies. No debutantes. The women were older or married, the men, quite eligible bachelors of varying ages.

“Lady Milbanke is not particularly subtle, is she?” Lilias couldn’t decide if she should be shocked or amused. “How on earth did she orchestrate this?”

“She has four daughters to marry off. One becomes quite scheming in such circumstances. It really is a desperate situation.” Catherine tipped her head toward the four female musicians still tuning their instruments. “Hardly a dowry for any of them. The youngest just came out this year. They are all a year apart. Goodness, the oldest is now twenty-one and on her fourth Season and not a single marriage offer to show for it. The youngest will be offered for within a few weeks, I’m certain. Lovely chit. The others—well. Look at them.”

They were not pretty. They were not ugly. They were simply plain. Hair, clothing, face, manner. Three older plain girls, and then the utterly exquisite youngest daughter. Lilias imagined the older three expected to be passed over for the youngest. No dowry, no beauty. “Poor girls,” she murmured.

“Not that poor,” said a low baritone voice into her ear. “Lady Milbanke has managed to invite half the eligible men of the ton by appealing to their mothers.”

And there he was. Angelstone. Smelling of man and cologne and sounding like sin. Sitting beside her on the sofa, his leg brushing against her skirts. When she’d last met him, they’d made love. In a chair. And then he kissed her in the moonlight.

Ah, but flesh held memory, did it not? She breathed deep as her body remembered.

“Lord Angelstone, it is delightful to see you again.” Catherine peered around Lilias from her end of the sofa, eyes bright. “Now that you are here and Lilias will not be left alone, I need to speak with an acquaintance of mine. Please excuse me.” She stood and was walking away before Lilias could say anything.

“Catherine is as subtle as Lady Milbanke,” she ground out. She turned to look at Angelstone and found him smiling into his glove. “
You
can laugh. Your mother-in-law is not attempting to play matchmaker.”

“My mother has been attempting to do the same for the last six months, which is doubly irritating. I am only too happy to see someone else in the same predicament.” He waved his hand toward the women in the row just in front of them. “You are currently looking at the backs of all the ladies in my family, excluding my niece who is too young to attend.”

Three heads. One gray haired, one brunette and a woman with hair that was not quite blond, not quite brown. It was evening, and the ladies were dressed accordingly. The dowager in light gray, the brunette in a pretty shade of pale pink with white trim. The woman with hair of an indeterminate color wore an odd combination of plum and orange. She chose that moment to turn and look curiously at Angelstone.

“Mrs. Fairchild, the lady staring at us quite rudely is Elise, the Marchioness of Angelstone, my eldest brother’s widow.” Angelstone said it lightly. It sounded like any polite introduction, despite the words. “She has ghastly taste in clothing.”

“I can hear you, Angel.”

“I know.” He grinned at her.

She grinned back. Then she nodded politely at Lilias. “I do apologize for foisting our family blackguard on you, Mrs. Fairchild. But there were not enough seats in our row.” Her smiled widened. “And I wish you good luck with him. Angel is quite tedious at concerts.”

“Because I expect music.”

“I don’t think you will hear it today,” his sister-in-law said.

Unperturbed, Angelstone settled more comfortably in his seat. “Then I shall take a nap.”

The dowager marchioness turned her head, just slightly to the right. She did not even look at them fully, but spoke from the corner of her mouth in that way mothers had that left a child quaking. “If you nap, Angel, I shall force you to attend Lady Milbanke’s amateur theatrical next week, in which her daughters feature as Greek goddesses.” Threat properly delivered, she faced front again.

The third Whitmore lady, the brunette, snickered into her palm.

Lilias decided she liked all three women. They were just shy of perfectly polite.

“Perhaps I will go in search of coffee, then, instead of the tea you ladies are currently drinking.” Angelstone’s voice sounded properly chastened, though Lilias saw the gleam in his eyes. His mother’s threat was no real threat, but he let her think it was. She liked that about him, though she didn’t want to. Arm’s length was where she wanted him to stay.

“Mrs. Fairchild, I intend to throw myself upon your mercy.” He leaned toward her as he had when he’d first sat beside her. His thumb slid along her thigh, hidden beneath her skirt. But the contact sent hot little zings from her thigh to her center. “May I lean my cheek against your bosom if I fall asleep?” he murmured, quiet enough his family couldn’t hear.

Oh, and was he ever a rake. But two could play at that game.

She angled her head down, sent him a look from beneath her lashes. “Only if you pay proper attention to it.”

“A bit difficult in this venue.” But he smiled wickedly at her. No doubt he was trying to determine how best to accomplish the task she’d set him.

“If you become fatigued enough as to require my bosom, I imagine you’ll find a way to lavish attention on it.” She raised her teacup, sipped. Flirtation was an accomplishment she was skilled at.

“You credit me with creativity.”

“I am certain of it. After all, I’ve experienced it.”

A man’s face could move so little, yet convey so much. Amusement, desire, laughter, need. He lifted her free hand, set it to his mouth. A brush of lips on glove. She couldn’t even feel it through the fine kid leather. Her heart bumped against her ribs nonetheless. It wasn’t the kiss on her hand—that was a simple matter. Easily dismissed. But those lips had tasted hers. Those hands had touched her body.

But they had not touched
her.
Some part of her had been held in check. Hidden beyond where he could reach. She slid her hand out of his grasp.

“If you do find coffee, please bring two cups.” She set her teacup on its saucer and balanced the pair on her knee. The pretty white china was an oasis in a sea of cerulean blue. “I had hoped to hear music today as well and need all my wits about me.” It sounded like a dismissal. Perhaps it was. Perhaps she needed to retreat and regroup.

He made a careful study of her face. Eyes, mouth. His gaze lingered on both cheeks, even her forehead, as though learning the creases that had formed there and the meaning of each dip and line and dimple.

“Coffee it is, then,” he murmured. “Your cup, if you please?” He held out his hand for the china. When she placed the set in his hand, he stood and looked down at her. “I fully intend to return to this seat. Please stay, as it would be difficult to chase you down and retrieve you while holding two cups of coffee.”

He was asking her to sit beside him during the concert. He was not quite sure of her answer, perhaps, and so he did not outright ask. She was not sure herself. And yet, sitting anywhere else would be impossible now.

“Yes.” A simple word, but mired in meaning.

He strode away, her teacup cradled carefully in one hand. A man with purpose. One who did not flinch at duty.

A man that did not shy away from a needy woman marked by scars.

She smoothed her skirt, running gloved fingers over the blue. Wrinkles leveled out to an even field of muslin beneath her fingers. When she looked up, Elise, Marchioness of Angelstone, was watching her with curious eyes.

“I did not know you were acquainted with Angel,” she said carefully.

Neither the dowager nor Mrs. Whitmore turned around. But of course, they could hear.

“We were just recently introduced.” The phrase could cover a multitude of sins. But not all sins.
Deflect. Quickly.
“Have you heard the Milbanke daughters play? I’m curious how long they have been studying.” A legitimate concern if she was to protect her ears.

“I have not heard them.” The lady nodded toward the four young musicians. “I think they are starting.”

And indeed, a hush had begun near the front of the room and was rippling its way to the rear. Lilias looked around for Catherine, expecting the lady to return to her seat. But her mother-in-law was seated near the front next to her girlhood friend Leticia, heads bent toward each other as they whispered, much as they had done at the ball.

With an amused smile, Lilias clasped her hands together and prepared for an evening of music spent in the company of Angel.

Only it wasn’t really music. Perhaps each lady on her own might have sounded passable, but together, it was an off-tempo caterwauling of angry cats.

Angel returned with coffee and she accepted her cup gratefully. Perhaps it would dull the pain. He seemed unperturbed by the sounds, until she noticed the white of his knuckles on the cup. But he watched the group, vigilant gaze on their fingers, on the rush of bow over strings.

“The second oldest.” He whispered the words to himself, a light frown between his brows.

“What of her?” She kept her voice low, silence being the most proper method of speech in this venue.

“She has talent. Watch her bow. It’s nearly straight. Except . . . there.” His breath caught. “There, she knows when to angle it. It’s instinctual.”

She studied Angelstone’s profile. He had straightened, even leaned forward in his chair. Brows down, eyes squinting at the makeshift stage. She turned to look at the lady and saw nothing unusual. Just a girl, playing a violin.

“The bow is nearly right for staccato,” he said. “Just a bit off, but she knows it. She is trying to compensate.”

“You play.” It was obvious.

He turned his head. There was no expression on his face now, nothing she could read. Then it softened and drew her in. “I simply understand violin playing. A friend.”

“A friend.” She did not believe him in the least.

“
Shhhh.
” An ancient lady two rows up turned around and held her fingers to her lips. Gray brows beetled over watery eyes. “Sh.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Lilias began.

But Angel shook his head and set his finger to his lips.
Quiet
, he mouthed.

She frowned at him, lips pursed. He’d started the conversation, after all. And he was clearly lying to her. She had told him of her love of music, of violins specifically, on their very first meeting.

But that didn’t signify, she supposed. They had been lovers only a single time. And though he knew many of her secrets, he did not know all of them.

Just lovers. But not in love.

His queue of hair gleamed bright against his dark evening clothes, catching the eye amidst all the fashionably tousled curls and cropped hair of the other men. He was watching the violinists again, without the focused concentration of before. Instead, he leaned elegantly against the sofa back and crossed his legs.

Angelstone flicked his eyes her way. Perhaps she should have flushed, as she’d been caught watching him. But she was not embarrassed. Desire did not shame her. He could keep his secrets. She would keep hers. It did not change what her body felt.

His expression changed from polite interest to something bright and hot, and her body answered that need. It grew, a sharp hunger she didn’t bother to hide. Like a thin, golden rope strung between them, that desire held them together.

Lilias looked down at the painted silk of her fan. Pretty little seashells marched across the cream fabric, playing hide-and-seek between the ribs. She flicked it open, closed, open. Being with Angelstone was likely to be one of the worst decisions of her life. Aside from marrying an assassin, of course.

But making love had been glorious. Thrilling. Carnal. And she wanted to do it again. Just thinking of all that golden skin sliding against hers and the thick, soft hair she could grip in her hands sent little waves rippling over her skin.

Slowly, she raised her head, met his gaze. Her lips curved. Flicking open her fan, she sent him a look over the painted silk knowing precisely how he would read it.

She was rewarded with the flash of hunger in his eyes and a wicked, wicked grin.

—

T
HE ASSASSIN LAID
his knife on the tabletop. Candlelight danced over the immaculate blade. One long, clean, deadly line that divided the expanse of filthy tabletop beneath.

The leader ignored the weapon. And the filth. Unfortunately, he had become accustomed to it. The back room of the Goat and Goose was as disgusting as the rest of the tavern, but at least it was private.

The assassin slid into the opposite chair. Cloth whispered against wood. His dark eyes pulled the light from the room instead of reflecting it. “The Fairchild woman went to the Marquess of Angelstone’s townhouse again tonight.”

“I wondered.” He’d watched them together. The seduction in her smile had been unmistakable. He had not seen that particular look on her face before, not even when she was still married. “Has she returned to Fairchild House yet?” He pushed one of the two tankards of ale he’d ordered across the table.