Authors: Alyssa Alexander
“S
HALL
I
TAKE
your pelisse, Mrs. Fairchild?” The butler closed the door of Fairchild House and reached for her outerwear in a vain attempt to do his job.
“Thank you, Graves, but I will be going back out in a few moments.” Lilias moved away, keeping her hand to the side and out of view. She was lying through her teeth. She needed the pelisse to hide the pistol. “I shall keep my pelisse on.”
Graves sent her the silent stare butlers excelled at. “As you wish, ma’am.” He disappeared into the quiet recesses of Fairchild House, leaving Lilias alone in the hall.
She looked down at the butt of the weapon. Delicate pearl flowed from a warm cream to a pale yellow, then back again. Such a pretty color. It had felt alive in her hand when she aimed it at Hawthorne. She couldn’t decide if that terrified her or not.
“Oh, good,” Catherine trilled. “You’re back.”
Lilias jumped a foot at least. Thumping her pounding chest with her free hand, she turned around as Catherine brushed past her.
“Do come into the salon, dear,” the older woman said, traipsing through the open door.
“Ah. Hm.” She couldn’t go into the salon to chat with Jeremy’s pistol still clutched in her hand. Thank goodness she had been facing the other way. Catherine had not seen the weapon.
Catherine’s turbaned head poked around the doorjamb. “Well?” She blinked. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, of course. Just for a moment.” She didn’t enter the room, but hovered in the doorway.
“I wanted to talk to you about attending the opera.” Catherine settled into a spindly chair with curved legs.
“Yes?” She could barely concentrate with the blasted pistol behind her back. It felt as though she were waving a flag behind her—one that was embroidered with the word
Lie
.
“I do so want to see Miss Byrne in
The Beggar’s Opera
.” Catherine pulled a basket from beside the chair. She rummaged through it and pulled out her latest embroidery project. White curls bounced around her face. “Perhaps Grant’s box is available tomorrow evening. Unless, of course, you have a previous engagement with Angelstone?”
“Angelstone?” She nearly dropped the pistol.
“You haven’t come to that type of understanding then, have you?” Catherine’s eyes lit from within. “Then you’re still in that lovely phase where you are having fun.”
Lilias sighed and closed her eyes. She needed one moment of quiet thought. One moment. She couldn’t balance assassinations and pistols and operas with the logistics of an affair. When she opened her eyes, Catherine was regarding her with amusement.
“Have fun with that rake, darling.” Catherine’s needle poked through a swatch of thin linen. “There aren’t very many of his type around.”
Footsteps rang on the hall floor. Lilias whirled, still trying to keep the damn pistol hidden from the front door and Catherine.
Graves set his hand on the front door handle, waiting. He had a sixth sense for visitors. A moment later, a quick rhythm was knocked out on the front door. Graves waited just the right amount of time before pulling open the door. A draft of cool fresh air blew into the hall.
Three women stood on the steps. They were decked in jaunty hats and military-style pelisses, though one of them wore the most garish shade of pink. Curls of mahogany and gray and blond-brown waved in the wind.
“The Dowager Marchioness of Angelstone, Elise, Lady Angelstone and Mrs. Whitmore.” The oldest of the three ladies held out a card for Graves, looking as harsh as any British general. She stopped, her hand in midair, when she spied Lilias.
Lovely. Just lovely. Angel’s family had come for an unexplained social call when she was still idiotically holding Jeremy’s pistol and trying to hide it from Catherine. As though threatening a man with a pistol wasn’t enough excitement for the day. She needed to dispose of the weapon. Quickly. Before someone noticed she was acting as though she belonged in Bedlam.
Graves cleared his throat. He would have normally put the ladies in a salon while he checked to see if Lilias and Catherine were at home and receiving callers. But here she was. Clearly at home.
Devil take it.
She couldn’t disappear with the pistol while the Whitmores stared at her from the doorstep.
“Lady Angelstone,” she called to the dowager. “Please. Come in. We are most certainly at home.” Sweat slicked her palms and dampened the inside of her gloves. She didn’t know the Whitmores aside from the briefest of acquaintance at the concert. There was no reason these women would come to call.
No reason but Angel.
The three women on the doorstep of Fairchild House moved into the entryway. Skirts rustled, boots clicked on the floor. The scent of rain came with them and she saw that the sky had clouded over. A storm hung in the air.
Catherine whispered from just beyond the salon door. “Do you know them? I have not been introduced.”
Lilias shook her head and hoped the dowager couldn’t hear her mother-in-law.
“I don’t think one is supposed to call on her son’s paramour.” Catherine’s whisper quieted as she returned to her seat. “I wonder what they could want?”
“I can only imagine,” Lilias muttered. Raising her voice, she said, “Please, join us in the salon.”
The dowager’s sharp eyes scanned Lilias’s pelisse, the entry, the paintings, the stair. One quick glance to take it all in. Behind her, the other two ladies watched Lilias with bright-eyed curiosity. The brunette was pretty in that soft, round, comforting way. She’d been amused at the concert. The other wore the hideously pink pelisse and studied Lilias with narrowed eyes.
Lilias had, apparently, become a display. Irritation pricked. Still, she pasted a gracious smile on her face. “Please,” she said again, gesturing into the salon.
She waited as the three visitors walked into the salon, her frantic gaze bouncing around the hall. She still had the pistol to hide. With the vigilant Graves remaining in the entry, there was nothing she could do.
Disaster loomed on the horizon.
Catherine, bless her, was already welcoming their guests. “We are quite pleased to have you join us. Lilias has just arrived from—” Catherine’s voice faltered.
“A walk,” Lilias filled in. “My apologies, I have not yet removed my pelisse.” All eyes turned her way. Four gazes started at her head, moved down to her feet, then back up again. Well. Now she
had
to remove her outerwear. And she had to distract them. “We were just remarking upon Lady Milbanke’s concert. Catherine, didn’t you mention how much you enjoyed it?”
The eyes swung away from her and she sighed in relief as Catherine began to chatter. Lilias stepped into the room and edged along the wall. There was a potted plant only a few feet away with conveniently abundant foliage. It would do for the pistol’s short-term hiding place.
“. . . But I did tell Lilias she should dance more often.”
The eyes came her way again. She huffed out a breath. The plant was only a few steps away. She could drop the pistol into it—if only they would look the other direction.
“I do love music.” That bright tone sounded idiotic coming from her mouth. She looked at the dowager, hoping to deflect attention. “Lady Angelstone, do you like music? You seemed to enjoy the concert.”
The eyes swung away again.
“Yes, I do, indeed. Particularly violin music.” The dowager’s severe face softened. “My son plays, you know. He’s quite accomplished.”
Lilias’s fingers convulsed. The pistol fell into the potted soil with a dull
thwack.
The eyes turned to her again. “I didn’t know.” The whisper tumbled from her lips.
Angel
had
lied. She’d thought perhaps she’d been mistaken. She couldn’t think why it would matter, except—no, there was no reason why he should lie. What did they share? Sex? Murder? There was very little holding them together.
Yet she felt an inexplicable something luring her in to bind her to him. She wanted to know he played the violin. She wanted to know his favorite food. Whether he preferred winter or summer.
“Yes. He plays the violin.” The dowager spoke again. Her voice was sweeter, her eyes brighter.
“Has he played since he was young?” Did those words come from her lips? Lilias moved forward. Part of her thought of the pistol and hoped it wasn’t visible through the leaves of the potted plant. The other part of her thought of Angel’s long fingers moving over the strings of the violin. The same fingers that skimmed over her skin with such expertise would play a violin with heat and desire and pain. All the things needed to create beautiful music.
She felt the pang in the deepest part of her heart. Music was of the soul. It would be Angel’s soul. Yes, he would guard that.
“He started playing when he was only six.” The dowager’s dark eyes were fathomless.
“He plays almost every day. The instrument comes alive under his hands.” The widowed marchioness, Elise, spoke softly. “Sometimes it makes me cry.”
Lilias dropped into a chair. She didn’t notice the plush cushion, but she did feel the tightening of her pelisse as she tried to snatch a breath. Swift fingers unbuttoned the garment.
“I have never heard him play.” But oh, she wanted to.
“He is attempting to teach my daughter, Maggie.” The widow of the second son, Lady Whitmore, laughed. “She’s abysmal, but he keeps trying.”
“Do you play?” the dowager asked Lilias.
“Not even a little. I cannot play any instrument. Nor can I sing, I’m afraid.” She intended her laugh to be merry, but it sounded strangely sad. “I do enjoy music. Very much. The violin particularly. It has the most—” She struggled to find the word. “Emotion. Depth.”
“Ah.” The dowager’s eyes focused on her. Lilias fought the urge to squirm as silence descended.
Catherine broke it. “We were just discussing the opera. I was hoping to see Miss Byrne in
The Beggar’s Opera
in the next few days. Have you seen it yet? I have heard her performance is stunning.”
“We are attending the opera next week.” Elise, the younger marchioness, smoothed her pink pelisse over her lap.
The dowager turned her head to look directly at Lilias. “Perhaps you and your mother-in-law would like to accompany us. There is enough room in the box, and Angel is escorting us.”
Tentative approval.
She recognized it in the slight curve to the dowager’s lips, the tilt of her head. Unfortunately, the dowager would be thinking marriage. But there was nothing between her and Angel besides lust and espionage. Marriage was not even a glimmer, nor did she want it to be.
She almost said no, they could not attend the opera. She would not lead his family to believe there was more between them. But she wanted to see him again somewhere that was not clandestine. Somewhere not under the cover of darkness.
“We would enjoy it very much,” Lilias said.
“Good.” The dowager stood. “We must take our leave. But I look forward to seeing both of you later this week.”
The rest of the women stood and moved toward the door. Platitudes fell from multiple lips. The dowager set a hand on Lilias’s arm and held her back.
“Mrs. Fairchild, thank you for receiving us today.” Dark eyes held Lilias’s gaze. The hand on her arms squeezed lightly.
“Yes, of course.” She looked down at the dowager marchioness’s kid glove. Tiny fingers, but they held strength. She would have thought them comforting, if she weren’t being eyed by her lover’s mother.
The dowager leaned closer. “I don’t think the dirt will be good for the pistol. You might want to retrieve it quickly.”
“Ah.” What could she say? “Hm.”
“I won’t ask why you have it—though I should—because I learned long ago with my son not to ask such questions. And if you can receive us so graciously with a pistol behind your back, you shall do nicely for my son.” The dowager squeezed her arm again, and this time the squeeze radiated approval. “When you are ready.”
With a final, brilliant smile, the dowager and her daughters-in-law left Fairchild House.
Lilias dropped into the salon chair and ignored the bevy of feminine footsteps in the hall.
She had once been married to an assassin. She couldn’t possibly spend the remaining days of her life married to a spy.
A woman could not make that many poor choices in a single lifetime.
“W
HAT THE BLOODY
hell do you mean, ‘Mrs. Fairchild approached Hawthorne with a pistol?’”
Very slowly, very deliberately, Angel stood. He set his hands on the desktop and stared menacingly at his informant. It wasn’t quite rage gripping him. Disbelief, perhaps. Shock, even. Utter incredulity, most certainly.
“She approached Hawthorne with a pistol, my lord. I caught a glimpse of it in her hand as she left Fairchild House and entered the carriage.” Jones did not blink. He simply continued in his report. He might have been recounting his dinner meal. “The carriage then went to Hawthorne’s lodgings. A boy was hired to take a message to the door. Hawthorne joined her in the carriage and they proceeded to drive around the block a few times. Then Hawthorne was set down in front of his lodgings again.”
Lilias had approached Hawthorne. With a weapon. She must have confronted him. There was no other possibility. Damn the woman, if Hawthorne were an Adder she had tipped his hand. Four years of secrets and grief and hard work, gone in a fit of temper.
He set his hand over the round medallion on the corner of his desk. Small and silver, and washed of Gemma’s blood—but never clean.
“Where is Mrs. Fairchild, at this moment?” He needed to know so he could throttle her.
“At home, my lord. It is nearly eleven in the evening, and she did not attend any social engagements this evening. I believe she has already retired.” Jones stepped aside as Angel strode past.
He didn’t bother calling the carriage. He went to the mews to saddle his horse himself.
He knew which bedroom belonged to Lilias. He had spent numerous nights these last weeks standing watch outside Fairchild House. He knew her nightly habits. She would read. A light novel, perhaps. Poetry. Then her light would be snuffed out and she would sleep. Sometimes the candle would be relit in the early hours of the morning. Nightmares, he suspected. He had seen the pattern a few nights himself and Jones had noted it as well.
The room was still lit when he tapped on the glass of her window. He could have entered on his own—there were ways to accomplish such things—but it would be faster and easier for her to open the window. And he was clinging to the side of Fairchild House like a damn spider to a chandelier, miles above the earth and just as precariously.
Her head jerked up, her eyes unfocused for the briefest of moments. The book she read fell from her hands to the bed. He might have noticed the long rope of braided hair over her shoulder. Or perhaps the candlelight playing on her collarbone as she pushed back the coverlet.
He was too infuriated by the case of dueling pistols set prominently on a chest of drawers.
Then she was flying across the floor in a blur of white linen and bare feet. The window popped open and her fingers scrabbled for the lapels of his coat. She drew him in, over the windowsill and onto the carpeted floor. He’d be gratified under other circumstances at her hurried movements. Just now he was itching to battle with her.
“Have you no brains in your head?” She shoved lightly at him, then turned toward the glass. “You are three stories above the ground!” The window closed with a snick.
“You confronted Hawthorne today.” The idea of it, the picture of Lilias trapped in a carriage with a potential assassin, chilled his blood.
He saw only her back as she reached for the window latch, but it went rigid. Shoulders tightened. She stilled, hand poised just above the fastener. He did not have even an ounce of sympathy for her.
“I did speak with Hawthorne.” She did not turn around. Her hand landed on the fastener, twisted it to lock the window. Her skin shone translucent in the candlelight, revealing blue veins beneath. Then her fingers flexed and dropped away. She turned to face him, eyes bright, color high. “He is not an Adder.”
She might have compromised everything. Everything. Years of investigations into assassinations. Monarchs, politicians, countries. Alliances with Britain. So many men and women murdered by the Death Adders. Gemma. Even her husband.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” He stalked across the room toward the chest of drawers. The pistol case lay atop it, as volatile as if the weapons were alive.
“I believe you are about to enlighten me.” Temper sparked in her voice.
Well, he had temper of his own. “If Jason Hawthorne is a Death Adder, you’ve warned him. He’ll go to ground before I’ve gathered enough evidence to—” He stopped the flow of words.
Link Hawthorne to Gemma’s murder.
The words were just there, on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them. “To link him to the Death Adders.”
He flipped open the lid of the pistol case. They were exceptional pieces. All the more reason she should not touch them.
“Hawthorne isn’t an Adder. I’m sure of it.”
She stalked forward and flipped the lid of the case down. It snapped on his fingers and he stupidly jumped back, no better than a small boy caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Did you confront him with a pistol?” He flipped the lid open again. The pearl handles of the pistols glowed yellow-gold. He picked up one of the weapons, tested the weight, the shape. “With one of these?”
“Yes. They were Jeremy’s. And don’t insult me by asking if I can use them.”
It didn’t matter if she could use them or not. He sighted down the barrel, aiming it at the wall. “You might have died, Lilias. Even with the pistol, if he were an assassin, he could have killed you before you even fired a shot. It was an utterly foolish idea.”
“He is my close friend. I have every right to—”
“No, you don’t.” He turned to look at her, still aiming the weapon at the wall. That she even thought she could approach an Adder was beyond bearing. Voice cold and even, he said, “This is my investigation. The
government’s
investigation. You are impeding and interfering with an investigation affecting His Majesty.”
She sucked in a breath. The linen of her nightgown rose with the indignant movement. “This affects my life as well. It was
my
husband that was an assassin. My friend who is under suspicion now.”
She reached for the weapon in his hand. Did she think to wrest it from him? It might be loaded. This proved she was incapable of understanding the gravity of her actions. He lifted it high above his head. She would be unable to take it unless she climbed up his body.
“You’re being ridiculous.” Eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, she began to circle him. “Have you been reduced to childhood games? Keep the toy above your head, so other children can’t steal it from you?”
Confound it, she had a point. But he didn’t lower his hand. “I want your word, Lilias, that you won’t interfere again.”
“I won’t give it.” She pressed her lips together and set her hand on the lid of the case, though she did not touch the second pistol tucked into the velvet. A subtle threat. “I’m part of this.”
“Only when I allow it, and I do not.”
Her eyes went dark with fury, her chin rose, spine straightened. If possible, she’d grown by inches. “Only when you
allow
it?”
He lowered his hand, slowly and carefully, keeping the pistol pointed at the ground. He knew he was breaking some tie between them. Whatever relationship was building on their attraction would be broken. But he could not think of another way to keep her safe. “There is no reason for you to be involved. I have gathered all the information I need from you. I will manage Hawthorne.”
She stepped forward, making no move toward the weapon. She must have learned not to approach an armed man. But her eyes were just as lethal as the pistol. “Bastard.”
He did not answer. So he was—at least in character.
Color rose high on her cheeks. Not embarrassment. Anger. “Get out of my room.”
“Do not approach Hawthorne or any other Adder alone. Ever. Stay out of the investigation.”
She ignored him. “Give me the pistol.” She held out her hand, palm up.
He was tempted to take the set with him. He should, for her own good. But leaving her unarmed didn’t sit well, either. She’d only obtain another pistol, he was sure. He knew that much about her.
“Is it loaded?”
“No. Jeremy taught me how to safely unload a pistol when—” She broke off, let her hand drop. “Your mother and sisters-in-law called upon me today. Your mother saw the pistol.”
“I beg your pardon?” He couldn’t quite understand what she’d said. The words did not make sense.
“Your mother called upon me. Did you ask her to?”
“I did not.” His mother had been in Fairchild House, on a social call. That was not good. In fact, it was very, very bad for his marital prospects. He’d have to explain the pistol away as well. “I’ll set her straight. She won’t inconvenience you again.”
“It is not your mother that is the nuisance. It is you.” She held out her hand again, her eyes daring him to keep the pistol from her.
Oh, it stung to give her the weapon. But leaving her with nothing—he narrowed his eyes and watched how she handled it. Gingerly. Respectfully. And quite comfortably. Frighteningly so.
“Stay away from Hawthorne,” he ground out. “Don’t embark on any more personal missions.”
She paused in the act of setting the pistol in its velvet bed. “Not even when it elicits information? Such as the fact that Hawthorne has a bastard daughter? That he has no knowledge of Jeremy’s actions?”
“Damnation,” he whispered. He scrubbed a hand over his face. Jones hadn’t discovered the bastard. Yet.
She had learned something useful. And wasn’t that a thorn in a spy’s side. She knew it, too. He couldn’t let that matter. One incorrect step, one word in the wrong person’s ear, and she would be dead.
“Do you think Hawthorne would not lie to you?”
“Yes. If he were an Adder, he would.” She turned to face him, her eyes cold and distant. “I do not believe he is lying.”
“You do not believe.” Well, they would see about that. “No more, Lilias. Your word.”
None of the sensual warmth he’d come to recognize was visible in her face. Only disinterest. She angled her head. Not a gesture of assent, not a refusal.
That, too, did not matter. For the foreseeable future she would be watched by his agents.
“Good night, my lord.” Not Angel, nor even Angelstone.
My lord.
Very well. “Good night, Mrs. Fairchild.”
He strode to the window and opened the latch. It took only a moment to push it open, hoist himself onto the ledge and reach for the rope hanging from the roof.
“Do take care not to fall to your death,” she said. “It would leave a nasty mess in the morning.”