In Bed with a Spy (25 page)

F
IRELIGH
T FLICKERED OVER
the battered violin case. The warm glow fragmented over the nicks and scrapes in the leather. Angel ran a hand over the thin tear from a knife. The edges of the cut were smooth. He remembered the occasion vividly. He remembered a hundred other occasions just like it.

It would never change. Even now that he had the title, his life would not be different. Though his mother wanted him to marry, he would not. His life wasn’t one that could be shared. He had tried that once, and his lover had ended up dead. It was an immutable, absolute fact.

But that still left Lilias. The lovely Lilias, with her bright eyes and her tough nature. He turned his head to look at her, sleeping fitfully in his bed. She had not settled into restful sleep, but rolled over and murmured in her sleep. One hand fisted into the bedclothes and brows moved into the shadow of a frown.

It was like loving a Valkyrie. Her sabre was as bright as her eyes, her smile as fierce. She carried such passion inside her. It could not be hidden. That passion had led her onto the field of battle. If they lived, and they stayed together, where else would that passion lead? Marriage? It would be too conventional. They would be stifled. Could he bring her into the Service? That would only lead to her death. If she survived the Adders’ knives, that was.

He looked away again, as desperate fear pounded in his chest. If he sent her to Fairchild House and the lord
was
an assassin, then it was Angel himself who killed her. Her blood would be on his hands.

With a heavy heart he lifted the lid of the violin case. It would travel with him next month or next year, wherever his assignment took him. It always did. But he would give it up, let the music go unplayed forever, if he could take Lilias with him instead.

The wood was smooth beneath his cheek when he tucked it there. Fingers brushed over rough strings. He closed his eyes and let her melody play through his head. When he set the bow against the strings, it was only Lilias that he thought of.

It was Lilias he played for.

—

M
USIC FILLED HER,
drawing her out of sleep. The melody haunted the air, coloring it with vivid violin strains. But it wasn’t just a violin. It was a heart weeping. She could feel the sorrow echoing in her own heart. The music swelled and her throat ached from the sheer beauty of it.

She almost didn’t want to look. Music that deep, that visceral, was private. It was a piece of someone’s soul. But she had to look. She
had
to.

Powerless to resist, she opened her eyes and saw Angel, standing in the center of his bedchamber, his eyes on her. Somehow, seeing him with the violin tucked under his chin was the most natural thing in the world. He wore only a shirt and trousers. Beneath the straight gray trousers, bare feet shifted in time with the music. Beside him, a small table held a battered violin case and a single candle.

The candlelight flickered over his face, lighting the planes and hollows of it. They were smoothed out, more relaxed than usual—but not peaceful. Even now, lost in music, there was no peace about him.

The sorrow of the music gripped her as the lonely violin notes rose and fell. The bow glided over the strings in long, sinuous movements. His fingers played over the instrument. Long fingers. Strong fingers. What a joy to discover they were a musician’s fingers.

Those fingers were calloused. She’d felt the calluses on her skin and had wondered at them. She knew how they felt skimming along her thigh. Cupping her breasts. His body carried other scars, other calluses. She had touched all of them when he lay above her, when his body slid against hers. Low in her belly something began to pulse, beating with the rhythm of her blood. With the rhythm of the music.

Pushing back the coverlet, she slid from the bed and walked toward him. His gaze fastened on hers and his arms fell slowly so the violin and bow dangled from his fingertips, as though he felt awkward now that she had seen him play.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured. Her feet swished against the carpet as she came forward. “Play for me.”

“I don’t usually play for anyone.” His face held little emotion. Perhaps, after baring so much in his music, he was hollowed out. For a moment, he did not look at her. Then slowly, he brought his head up, set those eyes on her face.

“Lilias.”

A single word could impart all the emotion of the soul.

“Just one time, let me play for you.” He took her hand. “Come,” he said, leading her to a cushioned chaise.

She settled onto it, anticipation thrumming in her veins. She could smell spices in the air and wondered where else the violin had traveled. Beneath the spice was wood, polish, resin. He set the instrument beneath his chin.

His eyes held hers as the bow hung suspended above the strings. “This is ‘Lilias’s Song,’” he said, and set the bow to the strings.

Understanding rushed over her even as the first note sang on the air. It was his song, for her. His eyes drifted half closed though he watched his fingers move over the strings. A stroke, a slide. The sorrowful music of before had vanished and in its place was something ripe and sensuous. A little lively, a little brazen. The notes were full and rich, with a lick of heat that sounded like a battle of notes.

He played with a half smile on his lips, but it was not mocking amusement or charm that she saw on those lips. It was sensual and erotic, as though he caressed a woman instead of the instrument.

She felt as taut as one of those strings, just waiting to be plucked.

His eyes moved from the violin to her, and though the music still played she heard none of it. What more did a woman need than a lover’s steady gaze and a song just for her? The bright gold of his eyes focused on her, the music stole into her breath, her heart. As though he knew the core of her and had drawn it out for the music.

Her fingers dug into the cushion beneath her. She barely felt the give of the fabric. Her body had grown tight, aching. The melody mesmerized her, the brush of his fingers against the strings made her yearn. It wasn’t a sob that caught in her throat, but the sound was close.

He had turned her soul into a song. And she had done something stupid and fallen in love with him. It was impossible not to love a man that saw you with such clarity he could translate it to notes.

Her heart simply fell at his feet. Not because he was beautiful, or because he could play for her, but because he saw her. Truly saw her. No one else ever had. And worse, she had never known it.

She could not sit. Her legs carried her to him, into the circle cast by the single candle. When she stood before him, he only watched her, his body swaying with the music he created, those eyes at half-mast so that he looked at her with two brilliant slices of gold.

The notes became elongated, the smile on his face faded. His lips turned serious, his eyes full of heat and hopelessness and, God help her, love. When the last note lost itself to silence he stood there, waiting. The violin still pressed against his cheek.

“Did you like it?”

He should not have to ask. Tears welled, pressing against her eyes as love pressed against her heart. She swallowed, then curved her lips in a slow smile. Instead of speaking, she laid her fingers against his free cheek. He was a feast of textures, rough stubble, smooth skin, firm jaw. As complex as the musician beneath the spy.

“Make love to me.” Her heart swelled with a fierce and joyful pain. She didn’t think. Her body was too wound, her heart already pounding. Heat had already gathered between her legs. “Now.” She tipped up her chin. “Here.”

His eyes went hot and dark. Silence pulsed between them, full and ripe with need. A heartbeat passed, two. Perhaps he would turn away. But no, the arm holding the bow came around her waist to draw her in. She met him eagerly, sliding her hands up his shoulders to wrap her arms about his neck.

His mouth took hers, hot and urgent. For an instant it was like being consumed by fire. She couldn’t think beyond the heat. His lips were firm and hard, a brand on her own mouth. She met him. Matched him. Need for need. Her mouth moved beneath his, their breaths mingled.

His lips trailed down from her mouth to her jaw, to the sensitive place where her pulse pounded. Then he simply pressed his face against the curve between her neck and shoulder.

H
E WOULD ALWAYS
remember the look of her, just that way. The sly smile, the curve of her cheek, the play of the single candle over flushed cheeks. A luminous light in her eyes that brimmed with emotion he could not name. Would not name.

Music swelled inside him. Her song. The never-ending melody in his mind. For the first time in his life, he did not want an instrument in his hands. He only wanted Lilias.

The smooth surface of the violin dropped away. He replaced the instrument in its case. He barely had to watch his hands. It was an efficient habit. Pack the instrument quickly so he could leave quickly. Time was precious, even when he thought it wasn’t, and he could never be certain when he would play again. So he did not neglect to lay the fabric over the violin, or set the bow in its little velvet bed, or even flick the clasps. When he turned back to her, he saw she watched him with sultry eyes and a half smile.

“Angel, do you know that you touch a woman with the same care with which you touch a violin?”

“I would hope I give the woman more attention.” Her collarbone was a peak of soft flesh and strong bone. It sloped into a valley of candlelit shadows. His fingers followed the peak, the slope. The calluses of his fingers rubbed against her skin. “You are not delicate. I always expect you to be fragile, but there is steel beneath your skin.”

“Steel is not very attractive. But then, an angel is not particularly entertaining.” She held his gaze. “Neither of us are what we appear to be.”

The wide scoop neckline of her chemise beckoned. Frilled ribbons cinched it tight. They slipped in his fingers as he loosed them. “Are you cold?”

“No.” She set her fingers on the edge of the fabric where it kissed her shoulders. A touch of her fingers and the garment slipped from her body, brushing her breasts, skimming her hips. It pooled at her feet, a white froth of linen that hid slender ankles and pretty feet.

She could not be more beautiful. Or more untouchable. He would be damned for this single act alone, if he was not damned already. He would make love to her one last time. Then he would save her.

“‘Lilias’s Song’ came to me that first time on the battlefield. I heard it in my head.” Her breast fit perfectly within his palm. Ripe, round fruit, full and ready. He brushed a thumb over the peak and reveled in her sigh.

“A man doesn’t compose a song on the battlefield.” Her eyes drifted closed as he tested the weight of the other breast. His thumbs met in that lovely space between them. The candle glowed on her skin, burnishing the white skin gold, the pink nipples a warm rose.

“I didn’t compose it, Lilias.” He could not explain it properly. Not with her body standing slim and straight and tempting before him. “It was just there. Inside me.”

She shuddered beneath his hands. He could not hold back. He wanted to touch every inch of her skin, to breathe her scent. His hands roamed over her. Hip, stomach, the long muscles of her thighs.

She pressed her naked body against him. But he could not feel her through his clothes. Hungry to feel her skin against his, he removed his trousers. They landed on the floor in a heap. Drawers followed. Then finally they were skin to skin.

The construction of a man’s body was an odd thing. Bone, sinew, skin. Knitted together into a moving whole. But parts of it were made simply to fit together with a woman’s. He could feel the cadence of her heart against his chest. The cleft between her legs. That soft space between her shoulder blades. He could not touch her enough. He could not kiss her enough.

He set his arm beneath her thighs and lifted her. She sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“You make me feel utterly female when you do that—and a little foolish for it.” She nestled her face against his shoulder and laughed at herself. He smiled, content to hear that soft amusement.

He carried her back to the chaise and laid her there. Willing woman poured over brocade. Limp and pliable and ready. When she reached trusting arms for him, the fist of betrayal punched his belly. But his need was greater.

The last time. He would make it perfect. He started at her toes. Nibbled and kissed and sucked his way to her calves. Strong calves. Beautiful calves. He lingered at the soft spot behind her knees. The little moan deep in her throat told him it was sensitive.

He moved up to the long arch of her thighs. She had walked for miles, ridden for days. Traveled for months. Endurance. It was etched into the very flesh of her thighs. Every military march could be found here, in the memory of her muscle and bone. In the lean shape of the thighs that had gripped the side of a horse. Thighs that wrapped around him and brought him home.

His gaze moved to the curve of her hips, the indentation of her waist, the roundness of her breasts. The shapes didn’t matter. Only that they were her shapes. Her hips, her waist. And when he spread her thighs apart to touch the core of her, it only mattered that it was her.

Her scent was intoxicating. Her heat, alluring. He captured her mouth with his and moved his fingers within her. Strong thighs quivered, her hips bucked. Lovely hands clutched the edge of the chaise. He felt her come undone in that slow, bone-melting way. His gift to her. Satisfaction burgeoned within him. A gift, but it would not be the only one.

Some sound of pleasure purred in her throat. She drew him to her, wrapping long legs around his hips. Her heels pressed against his buttocks. The slick heat of her core pressed against him. Her touch was the flutter of butterfly wings against his shoulders. He propped himself above her and looked down.

The candle was too far away. He had wanted to see her eyes when he entered her. But her eyes were only shadows among lashes. So he watched the rest of her face. Her lips curved when he pressed himself at her opening. He held himself still, just there, at the edge of heaven. His muscles trembled with the need to plunge into her. Yet to go quickly would never be enough.

A small movement. The fire of her lured him in. Deeper. The smile faded as her mouth opened on a sigh. Deeper again. She opened to welcome him. Now the sigh was his.

Her head tipped back, the sweep of her jaw outlined in the candle’s glow. He pressed his lips there. Not a kiss, just a touch. A taste. And he slid deeper until he could go no farther. Until there was nothing in the world but her heat, her scent. The press of her thighs, the embrace of her body. He was steeped in her. In Lilias. In love.

“Say my name.” His request was a whisper. She had never said his first name. He needed to hear it.

A sigh on the air. “Alastair.”

He was lost in her now. Taste and texture, shadow and light. Strands of hair swirled between them. She was all that was need. All that was comfort. She was sensation and sound. He could not touch enough of her, or kiss enough of her.

Her fingers dove into his hair, tugging at the thin leather binding it. He felt the urgency in her movements. Her mouth was sweet and desperate. Her muscles clenched around him, driving him farther and harder.

Sorrow met joy as he dragged his mouth back to hers. He wanted to taste her pleasure when she took it. And she did, shuddering around him, her whispers both meaningless and full of knowledge.

He could not prolong release. Desire to stay here forever with her, on the edge of the precipice, did not overcome physical need. So he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her as close as he could until they did not have an ending and a beginning. And when he withdrew, their hearts bumped along in unison.

—

T
HE BROCADE WAS
itchy against her back. Angel was heavy on her body. She did not want to move, however. Perhaps she would be able to move next week.

It was the brush of his breath against her neck that held her pinned beneath him. The rough stubble of his cheek and jaw rubbed against her and sent little vibrations through her body. She set her lips to the stubble, kissed him.

“I love you.” She wasn’t quite certain how it had happened. She ran a finger through his hair. “I had not expected to fall in love again. But there it is.”

He did not answer. Instead, he pulled away and sat up. It was as much a withdrawal from her declaration as her body. She scooted herself up and leaned back against the upright portion of the chaise. Perhaps she had miscalculated by telling him.

“Angel?” He did not look at her. “Alastair.” A quick shudder ran through him.

Alarm ran through her.

“You are not returning to Fairchild House.” He stood and strode toward his clothes. Snagging his trousers from the floor, he pulled them on.

She narrowed her eyes. Had he somehow misunderstood Sir Charles’s plans? Had he forgotten the hour he’d spent instructing her on how to conduct a search? He sent her a quick glance, but she could not read his face. His spy look had dropped into place.

“I am not leaving this mission incomplete, Angel. Sir Charles has agreed I must return—I thought you had as well.” She was
not
going to have this conversation while in the nude. She shimmied her chemise over her head and body.

“You aren’t going. I’m taking you out of London. Perhaps even out of England.”

She froze in the act of tying her bodice ribbons. Angling her head, she watched him continue dressing as if the earth hadn’t crumbled beneath her feet.

“Bastard.” She said it softly. His head jerked up. “You think I will fail.”

“I think you will die.” His face was set. Grim and hard, nearly emotionless. But she could read his eyes now.

“You bloody idiot.” Temper and fear and hurt streaked through her. She thumped a fist on his chest.

“Lilias.” He rubbed a hand on his chest. But the grim face and sad eyes didn’t change. “It’s for your own protection.”

“My
protection
? It is up to me to see enough evidence is found to charge Grant. This is not about protection.” She jerked at the ribbons of her bodice, trying to close it so her breasts didn’t leap out. She pulled her hair away from her face. Tears threatened to overwhelm the temper. She would not allow it. She knew where this sudden course stemmed from. “I’m not Gemma. And even if I were, I don’t think she would walk away from this.”

“I’m not confusing you with Gemma.”

“No? You’re afraid to love again, Angel. You’re afraid I’m going to die like she did. Well, that’s a risk I have to take.”

“I’m not afraid to love.” He stepped forward, anger sparking from him.

“Do you think I’m not afraid you will die?” Her voice broke. She felt the tears on her face. Salt stung her tongue. Stupid to cry. She never cried. But for who? Jeremy or Angel? Once again, they were all wrapped up together. Just like she and Gemma.

“Lilias.”

“We both loved.” Weariness pervaded the very marrow of her bones. She could not fight such emotion. “We both lost. There can be no undoing that. You have to live with it, or not at all.”

His face hardened. “This is not about Gemma, or Jeremy.”

It was. How could he not see that?

He didn’t speak again, but simply stood with his shirt balled in his fists. Immovable as a mountain, eyes dark as a fallen angel.

“I’m returning to Fairchild House,” she said. “Now. It’s close to dawn.” She picked up her dress from the arm of the chaise.

“Lilias,” he said softly, stepping forward. He set a hand on her cheek, sent a thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m not commanding you. I’m committing insubordination and risking my position. I’m
asking
you. Do not go back. I could not bear your death.”

She wished she could comply. Her heart ached with the desire to ease his pain. But there was more than love at stake.

“I will not leave Catherine and the servants under Grant’s power. If he’s an Adder, I’m the best chance we have of protecting them and bringing down the entire ring of assassins.”

His face hardened, his eyes becoming two blank, golden stones. “So be it.”

He strode from the room. His bare back faded beyond the candlelight and into quiet shadows of the house. Unseen footsteps faded away.

Alone. It could be as easy as an hour to oneself. Or as enormous as forever. It could bring peace, or stifle the breath. She stared at the single candle and its circle of light. It held no warmth. But perhaps that was just her body. It had become nothing but an icy wasteland where she could not breathe.

Except for the tears. They branded her cheeks and blazed a trail of anger through her heart. She swiped them away again and wished desperately for a handkerchief—or a large, blunt weapon to beat Angel with.