Beauty and the Spymaster Read online

  “I saw you walk in with Bradbury,” she said softly, which he appreciated since he couldn’t be sure there weren’t others nearby in the courtyard. “Did he try to sell you genuine Elizabethan coins from his aunt’s attic?”

  A snort escaped. “You too?”

  “For only forty pounds apiece.”

  “What? He told me fifty.”

  She covered a yawn and rolled her neck. It had never occurred to him before, but hair several feet long, once piled on the back of the head with combs and jewels, must be a heavy weight.

  “It’s a matter of good looks, Sir Julian. Don’t be jealous.”

  He bumped her shoulder with his and found her skin cool; he tucked her against his side, rubbing his palm up and down her arm to warm her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and it fit perfectly in the hollow between his collar and deltoids. The impulse to discover what it would feel like to have the rest of her pressed against him — he almost shot to his feet, an instinctive urge to escape.

  Talk about the case. Right. She nuzzled her face a bit, settling in, which made his heart kick in double time. The case! She was close enough he could whisper, “Did you notice the gold on his ring?”

  “It looked like real gold to me, but not ancient. It was the wrong color.”

  “Smart girl.” He looked over both shoulders and found no interlopers, but lowered his voice just the same. “Do you know what I think?”

  “What?” She yawned again, and a puff of breath warmed his neck. Saints, she was giving him bad ideas. She reached across his ribs, and he nearly squealed like a girl; she was only trying to tuck her other arm under his sleeve, presumably to stay warm, but now she’d pressed her chest against his side. Where his arm rested against her ribs, the corset was stiff, but it only went up so high, and everything squeezing out the top of it was unbelievably soft, and quickly heated his temperature several degrees.

  He swallowed, fearing his voice would crack. “I think he’s buying the gold from the same sources the Treasury uses when the prices are low, then leaks word of the minting to drive up the price for the government, as we suspected. But I also think he’s melting down modern coins to look like the sixteenth-century angels. We saw for ourselves he’s passing them off to investors. He’s making money on both ends, the bast—” He’d left the army with a profanity habit then tried to overcome it when he’d been appointed vicar. Not a smashing success, apparently. “Bounder,” he corrected.

  Helena’s breath had slowed so much she was likely half-asleep. If he thought he had the fortitude to hold her and go no further, he would sleep with her in his arms just to have the memory to take with him.

  She sighed. “You’re probably right. It makes sense. If it’s true, then you’ll find evidence. Doing whatever it is you do for your mysterious people.”

  She went fishing like that almost every day, hoping he would slip. It proved she truly didn’t understand Latin, or else she would’ve picked up tidbits by reading his messages. Even if he wanted to tell her, he simply couldn’t. While he served as liaison for other agents, they all gambled peace and war, as well as life and death, on their hidden identities.

  She covered yet another yawn by pressing her face to his shirt, and he nearly caved. How easily he could tilt her chin and cover her lips with his—

  A hard circle pressed between his shoulder blades. By instinct his right hand flew to the dagger handle in his boot.

  The pressure increased, a gun barrel jabbed his back. “Ah-ah. Touch it, and the ladybird chokes.”

  Helena went stiff and held her breath.

  Julian recognized the voice, but barely, since it wasn’t shouting and slurred with drunkenness. No, Lord Chauncey was clearly in top form. Julian slowly raised his hand to show he had no weapon. His fingers gripped Helena’s waist and pressed down a bit in a silent cue he hoped she understood; he was about to shove her under the bench while he made a move on Chauncey.

  The barrel poked again, harder that time. “Now let’s see the other paw.”

  He heard the hammer cock. Chauncey wasn’t really going to fire a shot in the middle of a party in Paris? But then, he’d yet to do anything rational, and Julian didn’t want Helena anywhere near a loaded pistol.

  “Easy does it,” Julian said, mostly to Helena.

  “My, how quickly you work your wiles, Helena. You had this one eating out of your hand on day one, didn’t you? Or was it eating out of your—”

  “That’s quite enough, Chauncey.” Julian pretended to shift his weight then threw his elbow back, connecting with something warm and hard. With a push Helena went down, and he hoped she’d crawl under the bench for cover.

  He ducked to slide the dagger from his boot in the same motion he charged Chauncey, his other hand reaching to slap the barrel aside—

  The sound of another cocking hammer made him freeze. That came from his four o’clock. He wanted to kick himself; of course Chauncey brought his men.

  “That’s right. Easy does it,” Chauncey mocked Julian’s accent.

  “Helena, get behind me,” Julian called, forcing calm into his voice. Once he knew she was out of the line of fire, he would deal with the pistols.

  Chauncey argued, “Helena, stay where you are.”

  Julian reached a hand behind him, and the three seconds before her cool, soft hand squeezed his passed like years. He drew her against his back and widened his stance. The gunman on his left would be distracted if Julian threw the dagger, which would give him enough time to dive for Chauncey. Split odds he could wrestle the pistol away before Chauncey pulled the trigger—

  Before he could stop her, Helena ducked under his arm and put her back against his chest. “Stop it, Alfred,” she scolded, as though Lord Chauncey was merely a misbehaving choir boy. “Put the guns away, and I’ll come.”

  Chauncey started to speak, but she cut him off. “We can make this easy or difficult.”

  How could she sound so bored? Or was it resigned? Her spine felt like steel against his chest. He wrapped a hand around her waist, trying to pull her back again.

  He wasn’t prepared for her to grip his hand, squeezing rather hard, then toss it aside. As though she was disgusted. She took a step toward Chauncey, then another. “It was fun while it lasted, Julian, but now it’s over. Au revoir.” She halted and propped a hand on her waist. “The guns, Alfred.”

  With a sigh, she half-turned but didn’t look him in the eye. “Go inside, Julian.”

  “No.” She’d put him at a tactical disadvantage, but nothing he couldn’t figure out. Only with Helena between them, he wasn’t sure how…

  “If you ever cared about me at all, you’ll do as I ask.” He never would’ve done it, but then she said, “I’ll always have your gift, and I hope for an opportunity to enjoy it.” The dagger. She’d carried it as he’d instructed. And she was trying to say she would use it to defend herself, and ideally to get away. He backed up a few steps toward the house, his hands held out in surrender.

  Chauncey scoffed, wearing a sneering expression that made him look cruel. “You’d better not mean he’s got you up the duff. The last thing I need is a bastard brat eating up the blunt.”

  He thought Julian had gotten Helena with child? Temper speared though Julian, and in the space it took to draw and release a deep breath, he was at risk of strangling Chauncey, religion and logic aside.

  “Never fear, you’ve quite disabused me of the notion, Alfred. Once was quite enough.” The closer she crept toward Chauncey, the less Julian could do. In fact, any abrupt movement on his part would likely get her shot.

  Walking away from her was like trudging through a waist-deep mire. He’d never felt more shame and anger in all his life. His fists squeezed so hard they shook, and if he couldn’t unclench his jaw, he’d probably shatter his teeth. Julian watched Helena with narrowed eyes, ready to bolt into action if Chauncey laid a hand on her.

  Instead she walked out the gate onto the street, her back ramrod straight and her head held
high. A march to the scaffold if he ever saw one.

  He watched from the shadow of the terrace until the other gunman followed behind Chauncey.

  “Ho, there, Sir Julian!”

  Oh, damn. It was Bradbury again.

  “Have you thought more on the coins? I was just talking to that nice gentleman from Albania, and he’s quite enthusiastic.”

  There was probably a ninety-nine-percent chance that Bradbury was the target he’d been sent to investigate, but Julian couldn’t grasp a clear thought.

  “Is that so?” He muttered, craning his head in time to see Helena cross the street then turn down Rue de Jardinet.

  Bradbury made an odd noise with his lips. “He says he wants the whole lot, but I thought if you wanted to have at it first, I could hold him off—”

  “Excuse me,” Julian muttered and jogged down the stairs. He vaulted over the garden wall then stayed in the shadows until the intersection at Rue de Jardinet. He could still see Helena’s head, lit under a street lamp—

  A cab driver stopped at the curb and called to him in French, but he ignored it. By the time Julian crossed the street, Helena had vanished. He saw three carriages on the street, one coming and two going.

  Even if he caught up in time, which would he follow? He dashed for the nearest one, dodging another cab, winding around one street lamp set in the sidewalk instead of the curb, and a street dog decided to give chase for half a block, barking and alerting the whole world to his presence. Finally it gave up, and Julian sprinted to the next corner when the carriage stopped to let a cab cross.

  Out of breath and shaking, Julian pulled on the door. A scream, and he saw that he’d frightened an old woman wearing black and her young companion. He muttered an apology, and the driver leaned over to call him something nasty sounding in French. Julian made a full turn in the street, hoping for a glimpse of another carriage.

  Nothing.

  He wanted to scream. He tugged on his hair, trying not to think about what Chauncey was doing to Helena. Too well he remembered the black ring under her eye, her shallow breath and wincing every time her cracked ribs pinched, the mottled bruising all up and down her forearm, the hollow cast to her eyes—

  Julian bent over and retched. He backed up out of the road and slumped on the nearest lamppost, feeling one inch tall and unforgivably stupid.

  This was entirely his fault.

  How had he let it happen? Whatever shame he’d thought would come from being with Helena, handing her over to a cruel, violent man on a silver platter was so much worse. What a damned, bloody idiot he was.

  If he ever got her back, he’d never let her go.

  He didn’t know how, but he would fix it.

  Chapter Eight

  The days blurred without the rhythm of daylight and darkness. When Chauncey had thrown her into the room and locked the door, she discovered the draperies nailed to the walls. With no street noise coming through the windows, she guessed it was a third or fourth storey room. Pushing on the curtains revealed bars attached to the window casing.

  If Chauncey thought she might jump, he didn’t know her very well. She wouldn’t rule out some sort of escape, however, so perhaps he did preempt her with the window bars. He’d not found the dagger she’d hidden in her pocket; she waited for the right time to use it, gathering her courage and failing.

  The day after her capture, Chauncey had plenty to say about Sir Julian Grey, all of which she ignored, silently playing Rule Britannia over and over in her head. Then he’d demanded to know where Sophia had gone, and Helena had told him Edinburgh. He’d struck her in the face, so she changed her answer to Boston, which earned her a fist to the temple. And so it went, through Warsaw, Athens, Nippon, and after Timbuktu, she blacked out.

  She woke to a fuzzy head and a dry mouth, thankfully too bleary to hear a word shouted at her. Each time the door shut after a meal delivery or interrogation, she listened for the click of the lock, hoping her captors would forget at least once.

  If only she had her trunk — the hidden jewels would’ve been perfect for bribing Chauncey’s men. They would’ve let her go for the right price, she knew it.

  Weeks must have passed; her nails grew long and her clothes lost their fit as she dropped in weight. The first several days she’d half expected Sir Julian to crash through the window, and every time commotion sounded below, she’d expected him to break down the door and carry her away in his arms.

  Clearly she’d read too many romantic Gothic novels.

  Even though she’d quit waiting for him to come, he lingered in her dreams, and she’d wake with their conversation feeling actual in her mind. She wasn’t bitter — not much. If he could have come, he would’ve done so. He would have attempted to rescue her out of regard for their friendship, because he was a benevolent man. Chauncey must have stowed her someplace strange, that even a spymaster couldn’t find her.

  Late one night she was wrenched out of bed, bound and gagged, dragged out of the room and down three fights of stairs. The men spoke in whispers and hurried, so naturally she put up as much of a fight as possible on the chance that Julian had found them and was fighting his way through to her. She writhed and screamed through the gag, managing to kick a wall and break a window.

  The men stuffed her inside a carriage, where Chauncey waited. He drew back his fist, she didn’t even see it swing — she went down hard.

  Waking up inside a strange space didn’t scare her, but the silence made her shiver, made her tense with anxiety, expecting a blow or jab every moment… No one loomed over her. She sat up, her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she startled to see Chauncey sitting at the desk, his hands templed over his belly. Her hatred, which at first had burned so hot, now simmered into a concentrated, mostly dormant force that motivated her to watch and wait. Otherwise she would surrender to the hopelessness. What that entailed, she didn’t care to know.

  Chauncey waved a folded paper. “Why did that son of a bitch Cox send you a letter?”

  She blinked, trying to glean the meaning despite the profanity. Mr. Cox had sent a letter? Her heart dropped then stalled. He would’ve known to forward it to her Paris address, so Chauncey must have searched her house. If Helena could’ve kissed Julian, she’d have done so — it had been his advice to only include in their letters what could be read by an enemy, as well as plenty of misdirection in case the messages fell into the wrong hands. She didn’t have to read Mr. Cox’s letter to know there would be nothing in it that would lead Chauncey to Sophia.

  “Why, Helena?” His voice rose, but she’d lost the desire to fight him weeks ago.

  “I have no idea.”

  “He mentions a ‘subject,’ who wanted to pass a message to you, but all it said was ‘regards and health.’ What the hell does that mean? Is it Sophia?”

  Sophia was just fine, it meant she was safe and well. That’s all that mattered. Helena tried not to laugh. “Alfred, I haven’t seen the light of day for weeks, perhaps months. If even I did have the slightest clue where in the world our daughter has gone, the information would be useless now.”

  His face turned an unattractive shade of red, and he crumpled the paper. Helena hoped he’d drop it so she could read it later. “Then who is it?”

  She’d almost said she didn’t know when it dawned on her Chauncey would go after Mr. Cox unless she gave him no reason to. With a false yawn, she pretended to think about it. “Conte Soleto sent gifts through Mr. Cox, and even though I ended it, he still chases after me. Did you bring the jewelry that came with the letter? It’s probably worth quite a bit; Soleto has excellent taste.”

  She knew the moment Chauncey decided to believe her. She would bet her last pair of stockings he’d go back and tear her house apart looking for the fictitious jewels. He stood with a curse and left the room, slamming the door. It also revealed his desperation. She knew he was under pressure from some rather unsavory Bombay creditors. They probably didn’t ask nicely when somebody owed them money.
/>   Hopefully Sophia was aware of the precarious situation and was being careful. Even better would be someone trustworthy to watch over and defend her, but was that too much to ask of a fickle cosmos?

  So Helena started praying again each night, if only to irritate Chauncey. Sometimes she went days on end without seeing him, other times he took out his frustration on her. Even without the hope of a rescue, Helena couldn’t be as downcast as she ought. As long as Chauncey held her captive, it meant Sophia had stayed out of reach.

  She’d dozed off when the door opened. It startled her, and she sat up too fast and made her head spin before recognizing the figure in the doorway wasn’t Chauncey, though nearly as large. That’s probably why he’d scared her. She didn’t know the guards’ names, but the man she’d silently dubbed Slouchy usually came with breakfast, so it must be Slackjaw with dinner. He didn’t bother her, but the other guard gave her a bad feeling. It probably had to do with sometimes waking to find him looming over her. But that hadn’t happened for a while, since…

  She’d lost track of the days again, sleeping at odd hours to recover from Chauncey’s latest beating. That had been over a week ago, and now her jaw moved back and forth without shooting pains through her teeth, so perhaps she could chew the—

  The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked up, focused her vision, and nearly shrieked. Putting a hand over her throat, she swallowed and tried not to make a sound.

  Julian!

  He gestured for silence with a finger to his lips and set her dinner plate on the table. Was his appearance altered? She couldn’t identify how at first, but his eyebrows and hair were fuller and darker, and he’d changed the way he carried himself. He looked rougher, a bit seedy, even. It was convincing — he’d fooled her at first. But those steely eyes she’d know anywhere.

  With a hand he stayed her, then he turned and left the room. The familiar click of the lock was surreal. He’d finally come… only to leave without so much as a hello?

  She lay back down, overwhelmed. What on earth was going on? Then she began to doubt whether or not she’d seen him. It could’ve been a hallucination. That’s right, she’d inhaled too much of the guards’ opium smoke through the vents.