“You’re the only witness, my dear. If you caught him at doing something else wrong, or admitting to killing his wife, you’d still be the only witness.”
She plunked her plump, smelly form down on his couch. “I know that. But I can’t simply sit in the Tantalus and hide. I’ve hidden enough. I have…” She trailed off. “Good things are happening to me now. Finally. I don’t want to give them up.”
By “them,” did she mean him? He’d never been anyone’s “good thing” before. And as desperate as he was to keep her in his life, a small part of him hoped that she wanted him in her life just as badly. A friend, a confidante, a lover—while previously and occasionally he’d been able to find, separately, two of the three, he’d never encountered them all in one person. Nate wanted to tell her just that, tell her that he’d fallen in love with her. But to do so now, when she might need to make a quick decision that could cost her or ensure her freedom, if not her life—he didn’t want his own sentiments to muddy the equation. He could wait until she was safe, though that would only mean an entire new set of obstacles.
Nate sat down beside her, running his thumb across her cheek and then examining it. “What is that she’s put on you, talc?”
“Yes, mixed with charcoal, to make me look unwashed.”
“It makes me want to give you a bath, so call it successful.” He took her hand, pulling off the worn black gloves she’d donned. “I want to help you, Em. You’re not forcing me to act.”
Abruptly she stood again, pulling her fingers free of his grip. “But I’m—I’m not—You’re a hero, Nate. More than most people will ever know. This is … it’s beneath you.”
He tilted his head at her. “Have you looked at my life, love? I became a spy because it paid enough for me to support my mother and my brother. I became an earl because my cousin, who was a nice enough fellow, but not so nice that he ever offered to provide for a widowed in-law and her two sons, fell into a lake while fishing and drowned.” Nate gestured at the well-appointed morning room around them. “I don’t belong here, any more than you think you do.”
“Yes, but you’re still an earl, and a cousin to a former earl, the son of an earl’s younger brother. I’m a Tantalus girl at best, and a common thing who’s put on airs above her station at worst.”
Standing, Nathaniel slid his arms around her enlarged waist and tugged her up against him. “Wouldn’t they all wag their tongues at us, if they only knew?” he murmured, and leaned down to kiss her.
“Nate,” she breathed, wrapping her own arms around his shoulders. “You’re going to break my heart.”
“Never. There’s always a way, and I don’t mean to let you go.” As he spoke, he realized that he meant every word of it. She was not getting away, even if it meant giving up what he’d received by accident. Even if it meant killing one very powerful marquis.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Emily whispered, almost hoping she’d spoken too quietly for him to hear. His words sounded so very lovely, and it would be so pleasant to be able to sink into that dream, if only for a moment.
“I never do,” he whispered back, which was even nicer.
It would all cut even more deeply when this was finished with, but she’d made something of an art at pretending. For now, she could imagine that Nate Stokes, Earl of Westfall, could be hers, could marry her, could be the one thing in her life that was permanent. She certainly wanted him to be.
He reached up under her frumpy, ill-fitting gown and found the tie that held most of the pouches of rice and beans in place. When he untied it, ten pounds of weight fell about her feet. Ten more followed a moment later, and then he tugged her oversized dress down her shoulders. It puddled to the floor, the shift she’d donned to keep the pouches from itching at her skin joining it a second later.
“You still smell,” he muttered, lifting her up and dumping her onto his couch.
Emily chuckled. “My perfume doesn’t seem to have dampened your enthusiasm.” She reached up to brush her fingers across the front of his trousers, and he jumped. “Not a bit.”
“Your face paint doesn’t seem to matter, either,” he returned, shrugging out of his coat, then swiftly unbuttoning his tan waistcoat and dropping it somewhere behind him. “It’s you I want. The you behind all that nonsense.”
Heat deepened between her legs. “That is a very nice thing to say.”
Nate shook his head as he opened his trousers and shoved them down past his thighs. “If I was nice I would be conjuring a way to get you out of this mess instead of doing … this.” He lowered himself onto the couch over her, kissing her openmouthed while his hands roved over her breasts, pinching and nipping until she couldn’t breathe.
Then he shifted, sliding down the length of her, his mouth and lips and teeth following his hands until she moaned, bucking beneath him “Nate, stop teasing me,” she managed, gasping when he slid two fingers inside her.
“You want me,” he rumbled. “You’re wet for me.”
“I want you,” she agreed. “Now.”
Rising up over her again, he slid deeply inside her. “You’re mine,” he groaned as he pumped his hips forward. “No one else’s. You’re mine.”
Emily dug her fingers into his shoulders, panting in time with his thrusts. At this moment, she believed him. And he belonged to her, as much as she to him. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes.”
He gazed into her eyes, his light green with the black rim around them. “I’m not leaving,” he went on, deepening his thrusts.
She’d already thought of that, and while a few weeks ago she would have argued, today she only nodded. Everything was about to change, whatever became of her and Nate and Ebberling. For the first time, she thought she was ready for it.
Then she drew tight and shattered, clutching at Nate as he continued his rhythmic assault. Groaning, he held himself hard against her as he spent his release deep inside her. “You’re mine,” he repeated, lowering his head to her shoulder.
“And you’re mine,” she agreed, tangling her fingers through his hair and wishing with all her heart that it could just this once be true.
* * *
The Marquis of Ebberling looked up from his morning newspaper as his butler showed the caller into the breakfast room. “Colonel Rycott. How pleasant to see you.”
Jack Rycott looked nothing like a spy, which was likely why he was so good at his profession. In fact, in his dark green, well-tailored jacket, gray waistcoat, and brown buckskins tucked into his polished black Hessian boots, he looked like any well-heeled aristocrat come to Mayfair to enjoy the Season.
Even his dark blue eyes and raven-black hair a bit disheveled from horseback riding, the lean jaw and straight nose, all made him look a landed gentleman. Much better than the moth-eaten, spectacle-wearing professor.
“You paid a great deal to convince me to come down here, my lord,” Rycott drawled in his cultured tones. “So I’m listening. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
“I sent for you nearly a week ago.”
“I’m not your dog. I serve a very different master, in fact.”
The marquis attempted to ignore the insult. “Would you care for some tea? And you’ll find Velton House always puts out a splendid breakfast. Help yourself.”
Instead the colonel pulled out the chair at the foot of the table and sat, one leg out to the side. “If you want me to be your friend, it’ll cost you another thousand quid. Otherwise, get to the point.”
Ebberling clenched his jaw, then forced himself to relax again. The idea that he would have to pay someone to befriend him was beyond insulting, but he let it pass. After all, he did have another duty in mind for his guest. “You recommended Westfall to me.”
“I did.”
“The man’s a fool.”
Rycott cocked his head to one side. “How so?”
For a moment Ebberling had the distinct sensation that he was being eyed by a leopard, sizing him up for a meal. He picked up his cup of tea and drank to cover his discomfiture. He made men nervous; not the other way around. “He bumbled about for a several weeks, spending more time asking my son questions about Rachel Newbury than going about looking for her, and then he returned my money and said she couldn’t be found.”
“Interesting.” The colonel sat back an inch or so. “If you wanted to complain about Stokes, you might have written me a letter and saved us both some time.”
“I didn’t ask you here to complain; I’m telling you what happened.” Ebberling put both hands on the tabletop and leaned forward; Rycott wasn’t the only one who could cut an imposing figure. “And now I’ll tell you what I want. I want
you
to find Rachel Newbury, and I want you to bring her to me. No authorities, no legalities. She stole from me, and I want my pound of flesh. In exchange for your services, I will pay you twenty thousand pounds.”
“That’s a great deal of blunt over a hundred-quid necklace and a runaway governess.”
Ah, the necklace. It didn’t exist; at the time he’d needed to provide a motive for Miss Newbury’s misdeeds and flight, and jewelry had seemed both logical and believable. “The necklace is secondary,” he said aloud. “She killed—murdered—my wife. I have no proof, but I don’t require any. The courts would. Hence my wanting to deal with her myself.”
Extending one finger, Rycott drew a lazy figure eight on the polished tabletop. “Twenty thousand pounds. How much did you offer Nate?”
“Half that. I’m willing to wager that you’re twice the man he is, so I’m doubling my offer.” There. Flattery always worked, even on hard-bitten sorts like Jack Rycott. “And time is shorter, as well. I’m marrying in three weeks. You’re to find her before then.”
“And if she’s not in the country?”
“I looked for her three years ago. Spent a great deal of money over it. She hadn’t headed for any of the ports then. I doubt she’ll have done it now, when she thinks she’s safe. A stiff-spined chit like her wouldn’t favor living like a red Indian in the Americas, anyway, and the Continent was at war. In addition, Westfall found nothing to indicate that she’d left England, either.”
His guest nodded. “That makes sense.” He kept his finger moving for another long moment. “We’ll shake hands on it. I want nothing in writing.”
“I prefer that, as well. You’ll do it, then.”
“Aye. I’ll do it.” With that discomfiting abruptness of his, Rycott sat forward. “And I’ll give you my opinion in advance of any coin. Nate Stokes would never admit to failure, especially by quitting a task unfinished. I’d wager every quid of my fee that he found her, and decided he didn’t want to turn her over to you.”
A shiver of anticipation ran down Ebberling’s spine. He’d been suspicious, but this confirmed it. If the chit had talked to Westfall, convinced him of her story, then he would have to be dealt with, as well. Once she was finished, though, any direct witnesses would be gone. He could deal with the earl at his leisure. The fool couldn’t walk without a cane. Hunting him would be simple. And … amusing.
“I want no mistakes,” he said aloud. “Show me proof before you grab the wrong woman.”
“I can do that.”
He stood. “Then shake my hand, and get on with it,” he said.
Rycott rose smoothly as a panther. Shaking Ebberling’s outstretched hand, he grinned. “Get that blunt ready for me, my lord. This shouldn’t take long.”
* * *
Nathaniel backed Blue a few steps farther beneath the trees when the front door of Velton House opened. Ebberling himself walked Rycott down the granite steps to his horse. For a few moments after he’d returned the marquis’s money he’d nearly convinced himself that Ebberling would give up the hunt, but he wasn’t surprised at all that Jack had been summoned.
At best he could only be thankful that Ebberling hadn’t been able to persuade Jack to leave Brighton at the beginning of all this. Because if he’d been able to find Rachel Newbury, Rycott would also have been able to do so. And Jack was less sentimental than he was.
He’d learned over the years that fate was a bloody fickle mistress, but the lady had been kind to him up to this point. And to Emily, as well. Clearly now Ebberling meant to end all that, and he’d certainly found the right man for the job.
Rycott rode past on a grand bay stallion, and Nate stayed motionless until his employer, recruiter, and friend was well out of sight of Velton House before he kneed Blue in pursuit. He’d donned a groom’s clothes and a floppy brown hat, together with worn work boots. Dressed this way, and without his spectacles or cane, Ebberling likely wouldn’t have recognized him from more than three feet distant.
On the other hand, Jack Rycott had likely known him from the moment he’d stepped out through the marquis’s front door. Even so, he kept his distance until Rycott cantered into St. James’s Park. A few moments later he found Jack standing in the shade of a grand oak tree while the big bay grazed close by him. Taking a deep breath, knowing he was as prepared as he could ever be and hoping to God it would be good enough, Nate swung down from Blue and walked up to his fellow spy.
“Nate. You look like shit,” Rycott commented, leaning one shoulder against the tree and chewing on a long stem of grass.
“That was the idea. You look well.”
Jack shrugged. “Pretending to be retired sits well with me. Ebberling said you were a buffoon. I hate recommending people who don’t do the jobs I send their way.”
With a brief smile, Nathaniel inclined his head. “The game has a way of changing, as you well know. How much did he offer you?”
“Twice what he offered you. Evidently I’m twice the man you are.” He narrowed one sky-blue eye. “I told him you’d likely found the chit after all, and had a change of heart.”
His changed heart thudded. “Nothing but the truth, then. Do you want to meet her?”
Rycott straightened, tossing aside the grass stem. “The woman who stole Nate Stokes’s iron heart? Of course I do. Where do you have her stashed?”
“The Tantalus Club.”
“I’ve heard of it. Is it true the women running the gaming tables are naked?”
Nate snorted. “No, more’s the pity. Even so it’s the club adolescent boys’ dreams are made of.”
“And not-so-adolescent boys, as well, I wager.” Rycott walked over to his bay and swung into the saddle. “You’re dressed as the groom, so I suppose I lead the way.”