Shana Galen - [A Lord & Lady Spy Novella] (6 page)

Blue was never hasty. Never impulsive.

Except once.

He looked at Helena now, studying her furrowed brow as they sat over steaming bowls of soup at her table. He didn’t like that she was a target any more than she liked it, and judging from the worried look on her face, she hated her new position.

But Blue knew something she didn’t. He had never failed to protect someone to whom he was assigned, and he would not fail now. She pushed her soup around in her bowl, and he said softly, “You need to eat something.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. My stomach is tied in knots.” She made to rise, and he grabbed her wrist.

“Helena, I told you I would not allow anything to happen to you.”

“But how can you assure me of that? You were almost killed today!”

He rose. “I can keep you safe because that is what I do. Whether I am a target or not makes no difference to me. I
will
keep you from harm, and if that means risking or giving my own life, then so be it.”

“No.”

Blue did not think he could have heard her correctly. “No?”

“No. I cannot let you do that. I am not worth it.”

He felt her hand tremble and looked down to where his fingers encircled her slim wrist. “That’s not true.”

“It is!” She pulled away from him. “The things I did, the things I said.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before.” She waved her hand. “Before, when we were married. I-I was horrible.”

She turned away from him, and he could see her shoulders sag at the memories. Memories he had blocked from his mind. “We are still married,” he said, his voice soft.

She laughed. “In name only.”

“It means something to me.”

She turned to look at him, wonder in her eyes. “How can it? After what I did? After what you saw?”

He moved forward so quickly, she did not have time to move away. His finger grazed her lips, sealing them. “Not another word.” If she brought it up, if he thought too hard about it, he wouldn’t be able to stop the anger, and anger was his enemy right now. Anger kept one from thinking straight, acting logically. And yet, as she stood before him, memories did bubble to the surface, and he felt the old fury rise again.

He grabbed her about the waist, hauling her against him. There was one way he knew to assuage his fury, and that was to turn it to passion.

His mouth came down hard on hers, claiming her lips, her tongue, her every breath. She stiffened and fought the assault on her senses, but gradually she relaxed and her mouth softened. Her lips met his with a hunger just as intense, and he felt her hands in his hair, pulling him closer. Her body was pressed against his now, their forms flush and all but one. He pressed a hand against the small of her back, then traced her spine to the rounded flesh of her bottom. He pulled her against him and groaned as the heat from her body cradled his erection.

He needed her now. He swung her toward the table, made to sweep the dishes away, but as he raised his hand he saw the bloody cat licking his soup and blinking at him. With a growl, Blue changed tactics. He bent and lifted Helena into his arms, carrying her behind the screen in front of her bed.

She blinked at him, then blinked at the floor beneath her. “Why, Ernest, this is so romantic. You’ve swept me off my feet.”

“I can be romantic.” He was the epitome of romance. When he was not away on a mission. Which was always.

“Next you’ll be bringing me flowers.”

And, no, he’d never carried her to bed or brought her flowers.

“Or serving me breakfast in bed.”

Blue stumbled. Was that an expectation? “I like it better when you don’t talk,” he said, depositing her inelegantly on the bed.

She looked up at him from under tousled hair and a heap of skirts. “That can be arranged.”

“Good.” And he knelt beside her and took her in his arms. He pushed her back, letting the feel of her body under his erase the images infuriating him. Now it was only him and her. Nothing was before this. Nothing was after. They had this moment, and he would savor every sensation. He kissed her neck, burying his face in her hair. Most women smelled like perfume or too-sweet flowers, but her scent was light and clean, almost minty. He could remember kissing her before, the scent of stale gin clinging to her hair and skin. No more. He pulled back and looked down at her. She opened her eyes and stared up at him. Her eyes were clear and dark with arousal. No haze of drunkenness, no bleary stare.

He was too afraid to hope it would last. All he knew was that he wanted her again. He needed her again. He could block out the past. He did not know if he could ever forgive her, but he could forget for the moment.

She reached up and ran a finger along his jaw. Her touch was light and sweet, and Blue felt a wave of tenderness rush over him. He brushed his lips over hers, lightly, feeling her shiver beneath him. He nipped at her lip, then flicked his tongue over the spot. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Stop teasing me.”

He ran his hands down her sides, feeling the swells of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the curve of her hips. “You are not supposed to be speaking.”

“Then kiss me like you mean it.” She pulled his mouth to hers. At the touch of her tongue, the heat he’d been banking erupted into an inferno. He could not hold back any longer. His mouth ravished her, while his hands tore at her clothing, opening her bodice and loosing her stays. She sat and wriggled out of her gown while he kissed her bare shoulder, nudging the strap of her chemise down her arm.

“Take off your coat,” she said.

“Later.” He pushed her back. Through the sheer chemise, he could see the dark outline of her nipples and the roundness of her small, pert breasts.

“You don’t care if it wrinkles?”

He blinked. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind—a first. “Wrinkles be damned.” He put his mouth on her warm throat and traced his tongue down the graceful arch of her slim neck. She tilted her head and moaned, digging her hands into his shoulders when he reached her collarbone. When his lips encountered the gauzy material of her chemise, he took the ribbons in his teeth and pulled them open. Then, with shaking hands, he pushed the material away.

He’d always loved her skin. It was pale and milky, the coloring of a redhead without all the freckles. Her breasts were just as perfectly alabaster, but for the dark areolas, the color of plums with the thick nipple in the center. He flicked her nipple now, watched it harden and the skin around it pebble. The dark and the light contrast had always aroused him. He filled one hand with a breast and put his mouth on the other. He sucked lightly, rolling that hard nipple in his mouth, then pulling back and blowing over the wet skin. She gasped and arched her hips as her skin erupted into gooseflesh. The wet sheen of her skin enticed him further, and he kissed her again, this time sucking harder until she was moving against him.

His hands slid down between her legs, pushing the voluminous folds of the chemise out of the way. He slid his palms up her silky thighs, knowing they too were perfectly pale and slim. He felt the wetness at her core, and had to restrain himself from opening the fall of his trousers and burying himself in her heat. She was pushing against his erection with her pelvis. She wanted him.

He dipped a finger inside her, feeling the moist heat and closing his eyes against a dizzying wave of arousal. He knew what she would feel like clenched around him. He remembered vividly now. He inserted another finger then withdrew, sliding up and over the hard nub at her core. Her eyes snapped open, and she inhaled sharply. “I want you inside me,” she murmured. “Make me come.”

“You’re not ready yet.” But he loosened the fall on his trousers anyway, allowing his flesh to feel the heat of her inner thighs. It was exquisite torture, being this close to her but not entering her. Instead, he slid his fingers into her again, then withdrew them slowly, swirling his fingertips over her. She all but screamed and locked her legs around his back. He kissed her breasts again, rolled his tongue over her nipples, and then slid his fingers in again. She was so wet for him now, and when he entered her, she thrust against his touch. He arched his fingers so that he scraped his knuckles against the most sensitive part of her, and he felt her clench and shiver.

He drew back, knowing she was ready for him and knowing too that once he was inside her, his own pleasure would be paramount. He looked down at her, her dark hair spilling over the pillows, her chest heaving in breaths, her porcelain breasts with their dark centers glistening with wetness. Her chemise bunched about her belly, but below that her legs were spread, and he could see his dark hand pressed against her pale skin.

Slowly he withdrew his fingers and pressed them to the pink flesh. He slid wetness over her sensitive nub and stroked her up, then down. “Blue,” she groaned. Her legs parted farther as she invited him in. Her hands were on her own breasts now as she tweaked the nipples. Her hips were off the bed, her thighs shaking with her need. He licked his finger, already wet with the taste of her, and swirled it around that dark, sensitive nub. “Oh,
yes
.” He could see her body expand and then contract, and he bowed over her and thrust into that tight wetness.

She screamed and bucked against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Her body clenched him tightly, bringing him quickly to his own climax. He tried to hold off, wanting this feeling of oneness with her to last. He’d forgotten what this was like—rather, he’d forgotten what it was like with her. She brought him to the summit of pleasure, then took him higher. Every one of his senses was overwhelmed by the touch, the scent, the taste of her. He could not get enough, and yet it was all too much. The pleasure was too keen, the pain, as she dug her fingers into his back, too sharp, and he soared over the edge.

Helena lay in Blue’s arms, her head turned away. She knew he was not sleeping. His arm was draped over her, and she liked its safe, solid weight. She liked everything about the last half hour far too much. Lovemaking between them had never been the problem. He was an attentive lover. He knew what she liked, what she wanted—physically, at least. When they were together she could not get enough of him. The problem was that during their marriage they were so infrequently together. She wanted to be first in his life, but in the Barbican group she faced a demanding mistress with charms she could never match.

Especially when she had her own demons to fight. When she woke each morning wondering when and how she would get her first drink. When she spent the little money she had for food on gin and went without bread and coal to satisfy her cravings.

And perhaps that was why she’d done it. Perhaps that was why she’d invited Alexi back to her room. The tenor singing with her at Drury Lane had been pursuing her for months. She’d resisted him, not really even tempted by his good looks and charming manners. But then Blue had shown up, unexpectedly. After a brief reunion, he’d told her he was leaving again.

They’d argued. She pointed out that this was no way to conduct a marriage. He told her she’d known he was an agent before she’d married him. And then he’d stormed out, and she’d had to go to the theater to perform. She’d been drunk, as she usually was. She could perform drunk. Sometimes she thought she performed better drunk. And afterward, when Alexi joked, as he always did, about seeing her home, she agreed. He all but carried her home and had wasted no time divesting her of her clothing once inside the small flat she’d rented. Blue had returned to find her half naked, and Alexi leading her to the bed.

She’d thought the incident with Alexi would make Blue jealous, but all he’d shown was disgust. Wordlessly, he gathered his things and walked out. She hadn’t seen him again until she found him lying in her bed. This bed, where they both now lay together.

“Was it always like that?” he asked, voice so low she almost thought she imagined it.

“You know it was.”

“I tried to forget.” He rolled on his side, and she made the mistake of looking at him. She liked the way his hair fell over his forehead and cheek, making him look young and vulnerable. One of his hands traced her bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t have been able to stay away otherwise.”

“You were right to leave,” she said.

“I should have stayed and killed that bastard.” His hand tightened on her shoulder and then relaxed.

“It wasn’t his fault. I wanted—”

He put a finger over her lips. “I know. I was not a very good husband to you. I was monstrously inattentive.”

She almost laughed. “And I was a good wife?”

“We both had our first loves.”

Now she’d given up spirits, but he had not given up the Barbican group. She said nothing for a long time. His breathing grew slow and regular, and finally, when she thought he might be almost asleep, she said, “Do you think you can ever forgive me?” She did not think it was possible. After all, she could not even forgive herself.

“I would like to,” he murmured.

She waited.

“But I do not think I can forget. The image of you and him…” He put a hand to his eyes, seeming to indicate something seared there forever.

“Nothing happened,” she said. “That was the first time, and as soon as you left, he left. Nothing happened between us.”

Blue opened his eyes. “Am I supposed to believe that?”

“No. But I wanted to say it nonetheless. I was always faithful to you.”

He looked away. Moonlight streamed in through exposed windows whose curtains she had forgotten to close. Blue’s body was lean and muscled in the pale wash. Here and there she saw scars, evidence of his dangerous occupation. Some were familiar and others new to her.

“Why?” he said finally. She knew what he asked. He’d asked her a thousand times, and she had not been willing or able to give spirits up for him. Perhaps she had not been able to give up drink because of him, because of the pain he caused her.

She sighed. “Shame. I was so ashamed of what I’d done, how low I’d sunk. Alexi was disgusting, a womanizer. I was disgusting to have allowed him to touch me. I hated myself for that. I hated that you had seen how disgusting I was, not just with him, but night after night when I went on some drunken rampage. I couldn’t be that woman anymore.”

He looked at her now, reached over and stroked her cheek. “I like this woman much better. Do you think there’s a chance for a woman like you and a man like me?”

She swallowed and fought back the sting of tears. “No.”

He gave her a sad smile. “I didn’t think so.”

***

“You insist on maintaining this farce?” she asked the next afternoon as they made their way to the Teatro di San Carlo. She was dressed warmly in a wool gown, boots, and a cape. He was dressed as an accompanist, plain black coat and breeches that seemed alien garments on the Blue she knew. “More people could be killed,” she pointed out.

“If we close the theater, more people
will
be killed. Reaper will merely lie in wait. I’d rather go after him now, when I’m expecting an attack. You, however, have no reason to stay here.”

“I’m not going to leave my friends to the mercy of a killer.”

“I’m here to protect them.”

“And who is going to protect you?”

He stopped, a cloud of snow flying out in front of his boot from the swiftness of the movement. “I hope you do not think you will protect me.”

She shrugged, shivering now that they’d stopped. “I saw him. I know what he looks like. Admit it, Ernest. You need me.”

“Blue, and I don’t need you. I will find him on my own.”

“But you’ll find him faster if I help you.”

He began walking again, and she knew what she’d said was true. He didn’t want to admit it because her staying behind put her in danger. And Blue didn’t want her in danger. She supposed that should have pleased her. He obviously cared about her. Perhaps he had not been lying when he’d said he still loved her. And yet she could not allow his feelings to affect her. The truth was that the Barbican group still came first with him. She would do well to remember that when she started thinking, once again, about the warmth of his hands on her bare flesh and the feel of him, hard and swollen, inside her.

They neared the theater, and as by some unspoken agreement, they split apart, entering separately and without acknowledging one another.

The next several days and nights were full of rehearsals, fittings, and skirting around the set construction. Helena usually loved this time of anticipation. It was always exciting to learn new music and wear new costumes. A few weeks from now she would be deathly bored with her arias and the entire score, but right now the music was fresh and new.

But as much as she anticipated the debut of
Don
Giovanni
, she could not help but feel a sense of dread as day after day passed without incident from Reaper. She hoped against hope he had left the city and would leave her and the company in peace.

But when she expressed the sentiment to Blue, he shook his head. “He’s biding his time. The longer he waits, the more secure we feel.”

But Blue did not seem as though he felt secure. When he was not playing accompaniment, he was constantly walking through the theater, inspecting every corner, until he probably knew the place better than any of them. At night, he often stayed at her apartment, but he had not joined her in bed again. In fact, she did not know when or if he even slept. He was constantly on guard, constantly keeping watch, constantly protecting her.

She would have fallen in love with him if she wasn’t still in love with him.

But it was quite obvious that though he might also love her, he did not want her. Perhaps it was the memory of her stupidity with Alexi. Perhaps he had decided a relationship with her was doomed from the start. Or perhaps, as she suspected, his career as an operative would always come first.

In which case, he was right to keep his distance. It would never work between them. Helena was a generous person—loving, caring, and loyal. But she knew herself and her faults. Her biggest fault was her need for attention. It was why she’d tormented her younger sister and generally behaved in a beastly fashion as a child. It was why she’d pursued a career on the stage. It was why she’d married a man who had given her all his attention when she tutored him on the intricacies of stage makeup and dress.

But Blue’s attention had been fickle, and though she appreciated his careful watch over her now, she knew when this incident with Reaper was over, Blue would leave to watch over someone else.

And then, one day in the middle of singing “
Or
sai
chi
l’onore
,” a rope snapped, and a heavy sandbag from the fly system slammed down on the stage beside her. It would have landed on top of her, if she had been paying more attention to work and less attention to her handsome husband playing the pianoforte. She’d moved left instead of right, and the mistake had saved her.

For a moment after the sandbag block fell, all was silent. Damiano, who was on stage with her, stared slack-jawed. Those moving about in the theater or behind the stage stopped what they were doing. Blue played the wrong chord, and the dissonant sound echoed through the theater.

And then pandemonium erupted, and the next thing she knew, she was in Damiano’s arms, being ferried back to her dressing room. Over Damiano’s shoulder, as she was carried away, she could see Blue looking at the fly loft then at the heavy counterweight, and she knew exactly what he was thinking.

That was no accident. Reaper was back.

***

Blue willed his heart to stop pounding. She had almost been killed, almost crushed under the weight of the sandbag. She wouldn’t have survived. The heavy bag’s impact left a small crater in the stage floor. More than anything, Blue wanted to go after Helena, tear her from the arms of that horse’s ass, and hold her tightly, reassure himself she was uninjured.

But she was safe now, surrounded as she was by people on every side. Blue looked up, wondered if Reaper was watching him, waiting for a chance to crush him. The assassin must be fuming at missing Helena. Blue could use that to draw the man out.

But first he needed the stage to himself.

It took little more than a whispered suggestion to Pacca, and the theater’s proprietor sent everyone home for the rest of the evening. The man was shaken, and Blue could not help but wonder if he’d yet realized Foncé was behind this. If Pacca lost his star soprano, he was doomed. Helena was not easily replaced.

Blue watched from the shadows as the company departed for the night. When the theater was quiet, he took a sconce of candles, set the gold and ormolu candelabra in the center of the stage, and held his arms out in invitation. “How does it feel to fail?” he asked the dark theater. “How does it feel to know Foncé is going to carve you like a guinea hen when he learns of this fiasco? You call yourself an assassin, Reaper? You can’t even kill a woman standing in the middle of a stage.”

Blue paused, waited and listened. He heard nothing, not a creak, not a whisper. Still, he had a sense Reaper was here. He would have given anything to have Saint beside him at this moment. Her instincts were unfailing. His were not quite so attuned. He might be wrong. He might be talking to himself.

“I’m going to give you another chance, Reaper. It’s me you want. So…” He removed his coat, tossed it aside, and then turned in a slow circle. “As you see, I am unarmed. Come for me.”

Blue braced himself for the heat of a pistol ball slicing his flesh, or the crash of a coil or a pulley landing on top of him.

Nothing happened.

And then Helena walked out of the darkness backstage. Blue swore. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“Listening to your monologue. Marlowe?” she asked, cocking her head. “Or was it Ben Jonson?”

Blue didn’t smile. “Go home. You should be far away from here already.”

“And leave you in harm’s way? That wouldn’t be very noble of me.”

“This isn’t about nobility, Helena.”

She crossed her arms. “Isn’t it? Then why are you still here, making yourself a target for a madman?”

Blue didn’t speak. He watched as she sauntered to the pianoforte, sat, and played a few bars of a child’s song. She was a mediocre player at best. She’d never taken the time to become accomplished, but she could play well enough to pick out the notes of her sheet music if she needed to. Blue stomped over to her. “Go home.”

She played another few notes, her fingers clumsy on the keys, and he pushed her off the stool in annoyance. He sat and played a few bars of the aria she’d been singing when the counterweight had fallen.

“I will go home,” she said. “But I want you to come with me.”

“I intend to search the theater.”

“You won’t find him.”

“Then I’ll find where he’s been hiding. He must have some secret place I keep missing. How else could he come and go unnoticed?”

“Then I’ll search with you,” she said. “Perhaps if we both look, one of us will see something the other has missed.”

They searched for hours, until both were tired, hungry, and covered with dust and cobwebs. It was nigh midnight when Blue declared the theater empty save the two of them, and Helena ran down the street to fetch what sustenance she could from a tavern with its doors still open.

When she returned, they ate hard bread and cheese and drank watered wine on the floor of the stage. Then she lay down on her mantle, while he rose to play the piano. The simple act of running his fingers along the keys soothed him, relaxed him. He needed the release tonight. His frustration with not finding Reaper was at a peak. He looked over at Helena, her legs tucked under her skirts as she stared up at the open space above the stage. She should be home, in her soft bed, but instead she was here with him. She had always been the kind of woman who stood by those she loved. Her sister had delivered a child out of wedlock, and Helena had been the only one in her family not to disown the girl. She’d given her food, helped her care for the babe, and defended her sister’s honor to no end. Why hadn’t he remembered that when he’d found her in Alexi’s arms? Why had he assumed the worst, when he’d always known she was the most loyal woman of his acquaintance?