Sebastian's Lady Spy (9 page)

She sighed and rolled onto her back to stare up at the ceiling, causing his gut to clench. His world was tilting and his control was slipping and he despised the feeling.

“I'm not from Italy,” she said to the ceiling. “I've never been married. I'm technically not a contessa. My past is completely false, made up by the Office of Intelligence.”

Sebastian didn't move because he couldn't move. He didn't say anything because he had no idea what to say. He'd given little thought to Gabrielle's past, completely swallowing the story of her being a widowed contessa. Beyond that, he hadn't thought about how she had become an operative. What an idiot he'd been. He should have wondered. As a premier operative, he should have questioned everything, but he hadn't.

She turned her head to look at him. “You have nothing to say?”

“You were never married?”

She laughed. “
That's
what you want to say first?”

He shrugged because, yes, it was the first thing his mind stuck on. She'd never been married, and yet when he'd made love to her in Venice, she had not been a virgin. Despite his sluggish thought process over the last few days, he was well aware of what that meant. He'd met other female operatives and knew the lengths they went to in order to gather information. He knew and yet his mind shied from it.

She pressed her lips together and scooted up the headboard. Carefully she arranged the bedclothes one-handed in an attempt to cover her breasts while she pressed her injured arm close. She drew in a deep breath. “I am a weapon of my country. A good little soldier. I go where they send me, do what they tell me.”

“And that involves sleeping with whom they tell you?”

“Yes.”

He winced, cut to the quick for some reason. “I'm sorry.”

“For what? You do the same.”

“That's different.”

“Is it? You've never slept with a woman in the course of a mission?” She laughed again, the sound brittle and bitter. “Men's tongues loosen when they've become intimate with a woman. As if they think that bedding a woman will make her more loyal. Fools.”

He burned with anger. Nay, fury. It took everything he had to appear calm. He despised to the depths of his soul the Office of Intelligence for making a woman do such a thing.

“You may as well know the rest,” she said.

He closed his eyes. Good Lord, there was more. Of course there was more.

“I was born in London,” she said. “Seven Dials, to be exact.”

He let out a sound as if he'd been punched in the stomach. Seven Dials was the worst, most dangerous place in all of London. Hell, in all of England.

“My mother was a prostitute, and I have no idea who my father was. Mama died when I was twelve, and I was tossed into the streets, where I learned to survive by picking the pockets of nobs and generally stealing whatever I could. I was good at it, too.”

Of course he knew the Office recruited such people. Hell, he'd used pickpockets and thieves as contacts too many times to count.

“The Office of Intelligence recruited me when I'd been nabbed after I bit the blow.”

He knew enough cant to understand she'd been caught after stealing from someone. “At the age of twelve?” he asked, surprised. He had no idea there were operatives that young.

She nodded. “I was shipped off to Venice, where I learned to be an Italian contessa. My cover was created back then and my path already chosen. They wanted someone who could flit between Italy, France, and England. Who could rub shoulders with the nobs as well as the demimonde. Who could infiltrate any part of society.” She cleared her throat and gave him a saucy wink. “Aye, gov, I can be a natty lad, a lone wolf, a pennyweighter.” Then she was transformed into one of many women he'd seen beckoning to him from alleyways and dark doorways. Her eyes turned sultry. “You wantin' some of this, gov? I got what you be needin'.”

In the blink of an eye, she became a lovely seductress with a smile that heated his blood and caused his cock to rise and his bollocks to tighten. When she spoke, her voice was rich, low, seductive. Her fluent Italian was so erotic that he nearly groaned out loud and found that his hand was moving toward her. But he pulled back, giving in to the anger stirring inside him that the Office had taken an innocent and corrupted her for their gain. They had created a perfect weapon, a person who could adapt to any situation, become whoever they needed her to become. He was both amazed and appalled. Impressed and horrified.

“You were twelve years old, for God's sake.” He sat up and rubbed his hands down his face. If he hadn't known so much about his employer, he never would have believed her tale.

The skin around her eyes was pinched. Her face was pale. Her arm more than likely hurt like hell. “That was my age in years, but I was far older than that in experience. I'd lived on the streets for months, surviving the best I could. If the Office hadn't found me, others would have, and they wouldn't have been as nice as the crown was.”

“Seven Dials is notorious for its sex trade,” he said.

“Yes, and I narrowly escaped it. I'd evaded it as best I could, but even I knew time was running out. I had a few more nights at best before I was nabbed by those who peddled little girls.”

“My God, Gabrielle.”

“It's not so bad,” she said. “I appreciate everything the crown has done for me. If not for them, I would not be here today.” She looked away, her expression desolate. “I would have rather died than be sold into prostitution.”

“And so you sell yourself for government secrets?”

She looked at him steadily. “Is that how you think of me, Sebastian? As a high-priced prostitute?”

“No, of course not. Forgive me. I misspoke.”

She looked at him for a long time, the firelight flickering across her face, playing hide-and-seek with the shadows.

“Gabrielle—”

“I make no apologies for my life. And now that you know, you will also know that anything between us is impossible. An earl does not marry the daughter of a Seven Dials whore.”

Each word was like a stab to his heart. His throat closed up and he swallowed against it, railing inside at the truth that he could not deny. “But the world will never know,” he said. “If the crown allowed the information to come out, it would expose the Office of Intelligence as well, and that simply cannot happen.”

Her look told him that he was grasping at straws, denying the undeniable.

“I hate what the crown has done to you,” he whispered.

“Ah, Sebastian. Don't hate the crown. They plucked me off the streets and saved me from a far worse fate. They've put a nice roof over my head, rich food in my belly, and pretty clothes on my body. In payment for all of that, I investigate threats to the crown, just as you do.”

All of that was true, and yet there was so much more to it. He didn't blame her for sleeping with other men. He blamed the Office. He blamed a society that forced a woman to do such things in order to survive.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” he said.

Her laugh was bitter and harsh. “You don't understand, do you? It's not a sacrifice. I
like
what I do. I
like
that I can travel and see a world I never would have had the opportunity to see. I like that I can help in some small way to rid the world of people who threaten our nation. I'm not that much different from you, Sebastian.”

He felt the same way she did most days. He liked knowing that he stood between evil and the people of England. He experienced a sense of accomplishment that being an earl had never given him. No one would ever know what he had done, and most times he was fine with that.

“You think less of me,” she said, her expression closed off.

“No.” He squeezed her hand. “I think more of you.”

Sebastian sat in a chair by the window in Gabrielle's bedchamber. As he watched her sleep, he rubbed his finger along his upper lip and contemplated the evening's revelations.

It had been quite an eventful evening. Gabrielle had been attacked, they'd made love, and she'd turned everything he believed upside down. His mind was reeling but his thoughts were very clear.

Before she'd drifted back to sleep, her eyes had been shadowed with stories she wouldn't tell, memories she wouldn't share.

He did what he always did in difficult situations. He prioritized. Right now he had to stop thinking about Gabrielle's past and remember that someone out there wanted to hurt her.

Gabrielle had been too long without someone to protect her, and damn, but he was feeling very protective of her at the moment. She would hate that, of course, and truth be told, he wasn't pleased about it, either. Gabrielle was a drug he didn't need in his system, and yet he was helpless against her.

He dressed quietly, searching for his clothes in the near dark, and soundlessly slipped out of her room.

He ran into Riggs on the staircase and motioned for him to follow him into the drawing room. “Gabrielle is still sleeping.”

Riggs nodded, expressionless. Sebastian wondered at Riggs's past but didn't have time to ask. Obviously the man was committed to Gabrielle, and he didn't look at all surprised to see Sebastian emerging from her bedchamber.

“I don't know why she was attacked last night, but I intend to find out. In the meantime, whoever wants her is still out there. I need you to be extra vigilant.”

Riggs nodded again. He seemed to be a man of few words unless he was ordering Sebastian about.

“I'm leaving to confront the man who attacked her last night.”

Ah, finally a reaction. Riggs shifted, his stance widening, his fingers flexing as if he wanted to get his hands on Wilcott as well.

“Please try to keep her inside until I return. Together we should be able to protect her.”

“Very well, sir. Will there be anything else?”

“I don't think so.”

“Would you like me to accompany you?”

Sebastian smiled. “As much as I would love to have you watch my back, I feel you're needed here to keep an eye on Gabrielle.”

Sebastian stood in the shadows and pushed his anger to a place deep inside where emotion wouldn't rule. He practiced patience before entering the house, watching, listening. No servants were up and about, but the sun would rise soon and with it the household. He wanted to be gone by then.

It hadn't been hard to enter Wilcott's home. The ineffectual locks had been easy to pick, and he'd walked right in.

Wilcott stirred and groaned. Apparently Gabrielle's knife wound had not been life-threatening. Pity, that. But it was also a good thing, because Sebastian could interrogate him.

Sebastian slid out of the shadows. The bed dipped beneath him as he sat on the edge of it. Wilcott came awake with a jerk and another moan, his gaze flitting about the room until it landed on Sebastian.

“Good morning, Wilcott.”

Wilcott scrambled to sit up, clutching his side and gritting his teeth. Sebastian held a dagger in his hand but didn't think he'd have to use it. The man was positively green. And terrified. Interesting, that.

“How did you get in here?” Wilcott demanded.

Sebastian smiled and allowed the moon's glow to glint off the edge of the dagger. Wilcott's wide eyes locked on the knife. “Did you come here to finish me off?”

“Would you like me to?”

Wilcott's head fell back to rest on the headboard. He stared up at the ceiling and swallowed. “Mayhap,” he said softly.

Intrigued, Sebastian stifled the questions he wanted to ask, sensing that Wilcott was at the edge of a precipice. He felt the man's terror and wondered who had put it there.

“I never meant to hurt her,” Wilcott said.

“But you did, and now you have me to answer to.”

His face paled. “I didn't want to do it.”

“Then why did you?”

“I had no choice.”

“Everyone has a choice.”

“Not everyone.”

“Tell me,” Sebastian said.

Silence hung between them, thick with Wilcott's fear. Sebastian toyed with the knife, never taking his eyes off him. The man before him now was entirely different than the man he presented to society. He seemed small, lying in the overlarge bed. Diminished. Defeated. Stripped of his puritan clothing and haughty expression. Funny what fear could do to a man.

“I can't say,” Wilcott finally managed.

“Wrong answer.”

Wilcott looked at Sebastian with a weary expression, as if he'd simply given up. “No. I mean I don't know.”

“It's probably best that you start from the beginning.”

“I'm not allowed.”

Sebastian sighed. “The way I see it, you have two choices. Keep your secret and you die by my hand. Tell me your secret and live.”

Wilcott let out a weak laugh. “Either way I die. If I tell you, he will kill me.”

Sebastian stilled. “Who?”

“We weren't properly introduced, I'm afraid. He never said his name.”

“Where did you two meet?”

Wilcott laughed again. “Here. He broke into my house, just like you did.”

“What did he look like?”

“He kept to the shadows, but he was taller than average, brownish-red hair. Long, unkempt. He wore no cravat.” There was a note of disgust in that last remark that had Sebastian biting back a smile. “He was thin but muscular.”

“What did he say?”

Wilcott swallowed. “The second time he came—”

“He was here twice?” Sebastian asked sharply.

“Yes. The first time he told me I was to bring Lady Marciano to him. I, of course, refused. I like Lady Marciano. She's…nice.”

Oh, Gabby, you do know how to win them over, don't you?
Sebastian was impressed that she'd enthralled a man like Wilcott, who looked down his nose at nearly everyone.

“And what did he do when you refused?”

Wilcott looked away and pressed his lips together. “He threatened me.”

“How?”

“He threatened to reveal a secret. Something that would be quite devastating to me and my family.” Wilcott's expression became mutinous, defensive, yet still frightened.

“What did he say on his second visit?”

“He told me when he wanted her and where to take her.”

“And where was that?”

“Brunswick Dock. Warehouse number three.”

Sebastian turned the knife over in his hand, lost in thought. Brunswick Dock was one of many owned by various companies along the Thames. “When?” he asked.

“Tonight. Well, last night.” Wilcott bounced his head against the headboard several times and groaned. “What is he going to do when I don't bring her? I'm doomed. Ruined.”

Just what in the hell was this secret Wilcott guarded so desperately that he had put Gabrielle's life in danger? Though Sebastian didn't want to care, he knew that Wilcott was an asset he needed to keep safe. Damn, but that went against his protective instinct toward Gabrielle.

He stood. “I will put guards on your house, and we will be watching, so don't think you can get away from us.” He leaned in close. “You will be followed, your every move reported to me.” He wasn't certain Wilcott was listening, for he stared straight ahead, his eyes wide, unseeing. Sebastian shook the man's leg. “Wilcott. Listen to me.”

He turned to Sebastian.

“I will protect you, but you must cooperate.”

“What can you do?”

“You'd be surprised by the resources at my disposal.”

Wilcott seemed to go to a place deep inside, and Sebastian gave up trying. It wasn't his concern if Wilcott's secret was revealed. He would put men on him only because he wanted to catch this man who wanted Gabrielle.

Grant McFadden watched the man shimmy down the tree he'd climbed to get to the upper floors of Wilcott's home. Sebastian Addison, Lord Claybrook, climbed trees as well as he danced at the balls he'd been attending with Lady Gabrielle Marciano.

Claybrook headed around the house and Grant followed, keeping silent and to the shadows. Claybrook walked for a few blocks before hailing a hack. The hack didn't turn around and head toward Claybrook's fancy address in St. James, but made its way in the direction of the docks. Which meant Wilcott had told Claybrook that someone wanted Lady Marciano kidnapped. The fool.

Grant stood at the side of the road and watched the hack take the corner. He'd stay away from the docks for a few days; no doubt Claybrook would put men on the number three warehouse in the hope of catching Grant.

No worries. Grant knew where Claybrook lived, and more important, he knew where Lady Marciano lived.

He cursed in his native Gaelic, feeling the net closing in on him. He'd not told the spineless Wilcott his name, but the man could surely describe him, which meant that Claybrook was that much closer to him.

He'd known when the Italian contessa had been pulled back to England that something was amiss. The crown had gotten wind of France's plot to invade England and had brought in its best agents.

Ah, shite, but this was not good. He would have to report this to France.

He headed toward The Coxswain, where he was billeted for the time being. When he'd been recruited by France, he'd thought it would be easy to find like-minded soldiers willing to fight England. He'd been more than surprised to discover that his brethren would rather move on and forget Culloden and the carnage the Sassenach had inflicted upon their land and their people.

Grant would never forget. He would fight until there was no fight left in him. He would rather die fighting for his country than stand aside and let them rape the Scottish lasses and set fire to their land and inhabit the homes they'd lived in for centuries.

His hands curled into fists and he snarled. His anger was bone-deep, eating at him like a fatal disease. He would avenge his country.

And Aileen.

Sweet, sweet Aileen, with the sunny smile and the bright blue eyes. Aileen who'd loved him and believed in him. Who'd believed he would defeat the Sassenach and keep her safe. Aileen, who'd promised to be his forever.

Aileen, who'd been beaten by the Sassenach, then brutally raped until her life was snuffed out.

Aye. He was doing this for Aileen and his sister, Mairi, and all the other women who weren't protected by their men because the Sassenach had butchered them.

His eyes watered and he viciously wiped the wetness away with the back of his hand as he entered The Coxswain by the back door. Gabrielle Marciano and Sebastian Addison needed to be stopped so Grant could complete his mission and join Aileen in the rolling green hills that he pictured as heaven.