Elizabeth Boyle (54 page)

Lily pushed between them and faced her too-eager champion. “Adam, this is unnecessary,” she said, her voice conciliatory and whisper-soft. “I’ll be all right.” She held out her hand to the man. “Do as he says and go. You know you must.”

He looked ready to protest, but she shook her head at him and smiled, holding out her hand for him.

Adam Saint-Jean, every ounce the gentleman of his aristocratic French ancestors, bowed over her outstretched hand as if this were nothing more than the end of a country dance.

Then with a curt nod to Webb, he shouldered past him and stalked through the gallery toward the crush of the ballroom.

Lily’s gaze followed him until he disappeared into the crowd; then she turned a blazing glare on Webb.

He couldn’t resist asking, “What? No tears for your betrothed?”

“What do you care?” Following Adam’s example, Lily started to make her escape toward the crowd.

Webb caught her by the elbow. “Not so fast. If you thought your little plan was going to work, you’re wrong.”

He hauled her back into the alcove and yanked the curtain shut. When she started to pull it back open, he caught her hand.

“I have a few things to discuss with you.”

“How interesting,” she told him, “as I have nothing to say to you after that embarrassing scene. Why you manhandled poor Adam like some peevish, jealous lover. It is hardly your place to tell me—”

Tired of listening to her lies, furious that she’d jeopardized the lives of so many agents on the Continent with her selfish deceptions and delays, Webb reached around her and opened the door. Before she could protest, he shoved her onto the narrow balcony, where rain was falling in heavy sheets.

As Lily whirled around to escape the inclement weather, Webb slammed the door in her face. With a quick snap of the latch, he locked her outside.

Now let her see what it is like to have one’s life hang in the balance.

For a moment she stared at him through the square panels of glass, her face a mask of disbelief, then outrage. Especially when the gutter above her let loose an extra measure of water.

The overflow drenched her from head to toe.

“Let me back in!” Holding up the edge of her skirt, she displayed her stocking clad toes wiggling in a puddle. “I don’t have my shoes on.”

He looked around the small alcove, and picked up not only her discarded slippers, but also a black lace shawl she’d left lying across the back of her chair.

“I doubt this would help much now, would it?” He dangled the shawl before her.

Her face turned stormier than the clouds overhead. Given the choice, she’d probably use the narrow cloth as a noose for his neck rather than as protection from the elements.

“Let me in,” she railed, beating on the door frame with her fists.

“A well-brought-up girl would hardly leave her clothing lying about during a ball, now would she?” he teased, hoping to fan the flames that burned through her disguise.

“I’m getting soaked,” came her unrepentant cry.

Setting aside her discarded shoes in a spot where she could still see them, Webb settled into the chair she’d vacated and propped his feet onto the other one. He flipped the shawl over his legs like a small blanket. “Pretend you have an umbrella. You seem quite adept at make-believe.”

She muttered a colorful oath in French, followed by a rather disparaging remark about his parentage.

Finally
, he thought, with some satisfaction,
the Lily I remember
.

Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. For a time he relaxed in silence, with only the patter of rain against the panes.

“Webb, please?”

He knew what that pitiful request had cost her, but still he wasn’t quite ready to relent. She’d wasted two weeks of valuable training time with her calculated scheme.

A scheme for which he’d nearly fallen.

She crossed her arms over her shivering chest. “I won’t make a very good Adelaide if I am dead from a chill.”

Damn her for being correct. And he wouldn’t put it past Lily D’Artiers Copeland to contract something fatal just to get out of going to Paris.

Reluctandy he flipped the latch.

Lily bolted inside in a hailstorm of droplets. She shook most of them on him.

“Why you bas—” she sputtered.

“
Tsk, tsk
,” he told her, opening the door again. “Hardly the language of a gently reared innocent. Do you need another lesson?” He nodded toward the balcony, his fingers wrapping around the curve of her elbow.

“It won’t be so easy for you this time,” she shot back. “I’ll scream until I bring down the house. The scandal alone will ruin whatever plans you have of finding yourself a suitable bride.”

“What do you know about that?” he asked, astonished that she knew of his plans to settle down.

“Your father told me. Good luck once you are seen taking advantage of a poor defenseless widow. And one engaged to another man. There won’t be a mother in England who will allow her daughter to marry you. At least not the decent, well-brought-up one that I’m sure you want.”

“As if you know anything about decent,” he said, letting go of her elbow and the doorknob.

Though wet from head to toe, Webb had to admit the drenched look was hardly an improvement on her wretched widow’s weeds.

The bombazine looked like a funeral crepe that had been left out in the weather for a couple of weeks. Her hair hung in wet clumps, the wind having whipped it free from its confining pins.

Yet the rain had done one thing. It had washed away most of her deceptions.

Her hair now lay in soft, enticing curls. The powder on her face was running down her cheeks in yellowish streams. He reached out and ran his fingers over her skin and looked down to find the painted layer of her deception coloring his fingers. When he looked back up he saw that the skin beneath her makeup glowed with a rosy, healthy sheen.

Nothing, however, could hide the outrage and fire glowing in her eyes. Yet, he had to wonder, how much else had she been hiding behind her pretenses of paint and bombazine?

He had been so quick to dismiss the ardent look in Adam’s eyes when he’d spied the young man gazing at her with such obvious admiration.

The mystery enticed him to uncover what he’d let his memories of Lily and his emotions blind himself to.

Then the thought of their kiss sprang to mind. Her passionate touch, her enticing wiles. If he dared to close his eyes, he would be able to imagine a seductress capable of such intoxication, but before him stood only the outraged and wet little kitten he’d always seen.

Yet Adam had been privy to Lily’s secrets all along—with an easy familiarity and closeness that left Webb fighting back an unwanted jealousy that demanded he find those answers as well.

Webb caught her by the shoulders. “What game have you been playing, Lily? Did you think you could protect your lover from his own stupidity by claiming an engagement?”

Lily shook herself free from his grasp. “My lover? The only one who suffers from stupidity is you.” She shook out her skirt, the water puddling around her stocking feet.

“Perhaps I should have Adam followed and then we’ll see what secrets you’ve been attempting to hide,” Webb offered.

Her gaze shot up, and for the merest flicker, a flash of alarm illuminated her eyes. Then she blinked and shrugged. “You said he could go free. You gave your word.”

“I lied.”

Her jaw set in a stony line. “I don’t know why I should be shocked. Lying must come quite easily to someone of your
ilk
.”

There it was again, that word.
Ilk
.

The way she said it made him sound like some loathsome creature. He wasn’t the one harboring a possible spy.

He turned toward the ballroom. “Well, if I can’t get the truth out of you, then I think I will call that young fool out, just to see if I can knock some facts out of him. I’m sure he knows why you’ve gone to such great lengths to avoid going on this mission with me.”

She caught his arm and held him fast. “You will leave him out of this.” There was no mistaking the intent to her words.

“Too late,” Webb said, turning to leave.

Lily spun him around. “Leave him alone, Webb.”

“Tell me why you’ve put on this great charade to avoid going to Paris.”

“I’ve done no such—”

“Stow it, Lily. I told you before I would follow you. I can just as easily add your betrothed to my list and have him followed as well.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I told you to leave him alone.”

“Mark my words, I will follow Adam and shake the truth out of him, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll toss his hide in Newgate until you both come to your senses.”

She ungrit her teeth, her words level and terse. “If you leave him be, I’ll go to Paris with you. There’ll be no more trouble, no more charades, but only if you vow to leave Adam alone.”

Webb looked down at her hand where it held his arm.

Her fingers were chilled and the cold cut through the cloth of his coat to the skin beneath.

But the ice in her hands couldn’t match the passion of her words. There was no denying Adam was important to Lily and to whatever secrets she held.

Again, a niggle of jealousy poked at Webb’s sensibilities. Why should he be concerned if Lily cared for this man? Her importance to him was her resemblance to Adelaide de Chevenoy and her obvious skills in subterfuge.

Wasn’t it?

Her green eyes, luminous and vibrant against her pale skin, for a moment didn’t glare at him with their usual hostility. But rather they regarded him with a mixture of trepidation and something else, like an unfilled longing.

Later he realized he should have stopped himself, but there were too many questions that could be answered by just one kiss. It seemed so simple.

But he should have known better. Nothing about Lily D’Artiers Copeland was ever simple.

He pulled her close and sought out his answers.

A fortnight of watching her with another man had burned his blood with jealousy. And the memory of their kiss in the garden, which the next morning seemed more phantom than real, still left him breathless.

Her hands pushed at his shoulders. She tried to turn away from his lips.

If he let go, she’d make the scene she promised. Then again, Webb had no intention of letting Lily go until he found out the truth.

His lips closed over hers, taking what he wanted. Her struggles faded away, and soon her arms wound around his neck, her mouth opening quite willingly to his.

And, for a time, he kissed her, let his lips seek the truth, uncover the woman he suspected was hidden beneath her paint and mysteries.

She melded against him, her wet dress soaking his coat, his breeches.

True passion, hot desire coursed through him. Lily’s kiss drove him beyond his questions and past all sanity.

Deceit
, his reason screamed.
This is Lily, a woman of deceit
.

The staggering thought pulled him back from her.

She let go of him instantly and turned, shivering anew. Without thinking, he snatched up her shawl and drew it around her. Wielding it like a fisherman’s net, he pulled her back into his easy reach.

“You’ll go to Paris, and there will be no more of these antics or delays?” Webb’s hands rubbed her wet arms.

She glanced over her shoulder, toward the ballroom. “Yes.” She turned her gaze back to him. “And you will keep your word?”

He tried to look away from her lips, not think about the way they tasted or how they felt pressed against his own.

She was his. Well, at least for this mission.

“Yes,” he finally answered, though he wouldn’t be breaking his promise if he just happened to run into Adam again tonight. Like on the road out of Byrnewood.

“Why did you break your vow, Lily?” he asked, his earlier anger changed now to something else. “You said that night you would go to Paris with me.”

“I didn’t break my promise,” she said. “But I never said I would make it easy for you. Besides, you’re the one who’s been clamoring for another partner. Not me.” Her hand went to her kiss-swollen lips. It hid a small, satisfied smile.

He conceded her point. “Yes, but you helped.”

They stared at each other, and Webb couldn’t help but feel a grudging respect for her nearly successful deception.

The little hoyden had grown up.

She wrapped her shawl around her a little tighter and shivered again. “I should go change. I’ll catch my death if I don’t get warmed up.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to offer his services, but he shook the errant thought aside.

The devil take him, he was losing his mind. This was Lily. Little Lily. Annoying, troublesome Lily. Hadn’t she proved that again with all her theatrics to avoid going to Paris?

She started to leave the alcove, pushing the curtain aside, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “What gave me away?”

“Pardon?”

“What gave me away? I mean how did you figure out that I wasn’t really as bad as I made myself out to be?”

He didn’t know if he should tell her, but decided to anyway now that she was caught. “Your dancing. It was a little too cowhanded.”

She looked vexed. “My dancing? Some agent you are.” Her mouth set in a stony line.

“What do you mean? You deliberately went out of your way to look terrible. Monsieur Beauvoir wasn’t far off—for he isn’t the only one tonight comparing you to a dancing ox.” He laughed. “Really, Lily, no one is that bad.”

Lily didn’t share in his jest. Instead she reacted.

How she did it, Webb never quite figured out, but she moved so quickly, and with the strength of one of Egypt’s famous Mameluke warriors, that he didn’t have time to stop her.

Lily whipped open the balcony door and suddenly Webb found himself outside in the rain, the door latched in his face.

An angry Lily glared at him from the warm comfort of the house.

“The dancing, Mr. Spy,” she said in a tight voice, “was the only thing I did not fake.” And with that she whirled out of the alcove and left him to the elements.

“
Auchew
,” Webb sneezed.