Enticing the Spymaster (War Girls)
Read Enticing the Spymaster (War Girls) Online
Authors: Julie Rowe
Enticing the Spymaster
By Julie Rowe
Book two of War Girls
German-occupied Brussels
,
Belgium
,
April 1915
Judith Goddard is hiding in plain sight. A dual citizen with
family ties to Belgian royalty and the British military, she works as a Red
Cross nurse in a German hospital, learning what she can, ever fearful her true
allegiance will be discovered.
British Expeditionary Force Captain Michael Lawrence is on a
mission to rescue the daughter of his mentor. He doesn’t expect to find a strong
beautiful woman in place of the naïve girl whose love he rejected years
earlier.
Jude is shocked when Michael turns up in her hospital,
wounded and in German uniform. Though he broke her heart, she agrees to flee
Belgium with him—she has information about an imminent attack that she must
deliver to the British War Office, before it’s too late.
Posing as a married couple, Jude and Michael journey to the
border, in constant danger of discovery—and of giving in to their mutual
passion...
For more stories of love and war
,
download
Saving the Rifleman,
available now!
34,000 words
Dear Reader,
I’m writing this just after having returned from Disney World. It wasn’t my first trip to Disney and it won’t be my last. Even though I’m not fond of big crowds, I get sick if I even look at a twisty ride (though I still like to ride a few) and by the end of our visit we’re all invariably cranky, I still love it there. Disney truly has created something magical.
Luckily, for those of you who don’t have a trip to Disney in your future, they’re not the only ones who can create something magical. Every month, Carina Press authors deliver us books that transport us to new times, new places and new adventures. This month is no different!
I’m pleased to introduce
New York Times
bestselling author Stephanie Tyler’s new series, launching this month. This romance, set in post-apocalypse America, centers around the survival of the fittest: the motorcycle gangs of the future. Dark, edgy and steamy,
Defiance
is the first in this can’t-miss new series.
Another
New York Times
bestselling author, Marie Force, is back with the next installment in her bestselling romantic suspense series. An error on the baseball field leads to murder in
Fatal Mistake.
And I’m happy to welcome Victoria Davies to Carina Press with her newest paranormal romance,
Seducing the Demon Huntress.
Joining these three is a lineup of fantastic authors returning to Carina Press. Don’t miss the latest installment of
Love Letters Volume 3:
Wicked Whispers.
Verbal foreplay goes a long way in these four steamy stories. From author Christine d’Abo comes
Sexcapades.
Sparks fly between two rival internet bloggers in this erotic contemporary romance.
Our last erotic offering for the month of June is the long-awaited sequel to Dana Marie Bell’s
Blood of the Maple
. In
Throne of Oak
, dark forces are converging on Maggie’s Grove, and a horde of hunters stalk supernaturals from the shadows.
If you’re looking for more paranormal romances, Sheryl Nantus, PJ Schnyder, and Eleri Stone all have releases this month. Check out the new installments from Sheryl and Eleri respectively,
Family Pride
and
Witch Bound.
Meanwhile, join PJ on a new adventure as she kicks off her London Undead series with
Bite Me
. Zombies have taken over London and a werewolf finds himself protecting a woman who seems determined to put herself in harm’s way.
Still in the “other world” genres, we have two releases: Fae Sutherland’s
Sky Runners
, a delicious male/male space opera; and the conclusion to Vivi Anna’s steampunk romance trilogy.
The League of Illusion:
Destiny
wraps up with sorcerer Sebastian Davenport’s story.
If you’re a fan of
Downton Abbey
, you’ll want to make sure you’re not missing out on Julie Rowe’s War Girls books. World War I generated many heroes—only some of them were men. Check out
Enticing the Spymaster
, her newest release, and go back and catch up with
Saving the Rifleman
, the first in this series. And while you’re in the past, why not stay there? Wendy Soliman’s
Beguiling the Barrister
also transports readers to a past time in this regency romance.
Last but not least, two powerhouse authors have new releases to center you in the here and now. HelenKay Dimon explores love and lust in her return to Holloway with contemporary romance
Just What He Wanted.
Sexy Travis is the story we’ve all been waiting for!
Adrienne Giordano rounds out our month of magical releases with
Opposing Forces.
In this romantic suspense, when a pharmaceutical distribution manager uncovers secret drug shipments at work, she and a savvy executive with political ties must risk everything—including their hearts—to stop the criminals and stay alive.
No matter where your reading tastes take you, whether it’s the past, the future, or an alternate world, we’ve got an extensive catalog to help give you a magical experience without ever leaving the comfort of your own house (or needing to stand in line!).
We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to
[email protected]
. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
www.carinapress.com
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Chapter One
Brussels
,
Belgium
April 16
,
1915
The ballroom of the Belgian Royal Palace had rarely been this full. Not even on special occasions when the royal family invited guests from around the world to celebrate momentous events.
Judith Goddard stood in the main doorway, looked out across the room and swallowed a mouthful of worry and fear. So many men in the room, most young, one hundred sixty-three at last count, but she wished it were empty. She wished none of them were here at all.
A ballroom like this should be filled with music, light and elegantly dressed couples dancing to an orchestra. Not rows of wounded men, their clothing torn and bloody, their groans and harsh whispers the only sounds. But the rank smell of burnt flesh and old blood overpowered everything else. She stepped inside, approaching one of the wounded who’d just come out of surgery, and wondered if the stench would ever come out of her hair or clothes.
Possibly, if one used enough soap.
Would it be possible to wash away the smells of suffering and death from her memory?
Unlikely.
Since the war started, she’d seen a never-ending stream of wounded. The palace had been completely overrun by the German army at the beginning of their aggression. First as a military headquarters, but within weeks the larger ballroom had been converted into a hospital.
She focused on the man she was caring for, bandaging his leg where the surgeon had stitched the skin closed. There wasn’t time for woolgathering.
There wasn’t even time for regrets.
“Nurse? Nurse, can you help my friend?”
Judith looked up...and discovered the last man she expected.
Shock held her immobile for several long moments as she gazed into the face of Captain Michael Lawrence, a protégé of her father. A man who shouldn’t be in the middle of an enemy hospital, miles behind enemy lines, surrounded by enemy soldiers. A man she’d been in love with for years.
Her heart pounded out a fast tango in her ears as she stared at him wide eyed, taking in his muddy clothing. Michael, a proud member of the British Expeditionary Force, was wearing a
German
infantry uniform.
Frowning, she opened her mouth to demand an answer to the first of many questions, but he spoke before she could with a sad, tired lift to one side of his lips.
“Please, a little water.”
Wearing a German uniform and speaking German with the accent of a man from Hamburg.
Behind him, a wave of men staggered into the once elegant ballroom. Some on their own, most in pairs and threes holding each other up, all of them wounded. Nurses directed them to any open space.
She swallowed her questions. “Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.” She tied a knot in the bandage, securing it around the stump that used to be a leg. Thank God the soldier was still unconscious.
Watching Michael out of the corner of her eye, she washed her hands in a basin of bloody water with a narrow bar of strong soap, then shook them dry. He led her across the ballroom, manoeuvring around gurneys, cots and pallets littering the floor.
Michael brought her to a man whose breathing was visibly fast and shallow. She grabbed a canteen of clean water and knelt next to him. “Here’s the water. Drink it slow.”
He pursed his mouth to catch the precious liquid, but his lips wavered and his head dropped back so it spilled across his face.
Jude tried again. This time she was able to trickle the water into his mouth and his throat worked furiously for several seconds. When she judged he’d had all he could for the moment, she let his head rest on the filthy gurney beneath him and lifted the grime-encrusted blanket covering his body to assess his wounds.
Bandages were wrapped around his middle. She peeled them back with great care, revealing a gaping hole where his gut should have been. The reek of rotting meat rose from the wound, clawing into her nose, and she had to restrain herself from flinching and turning away.
He smiled, his quivering lips barely able to make the motion.
He was a dead man, and he knew it.
Swallowing tears, she glanced at Michael, who remained silent, then asked the wounded man, “Are you in pain?” There was laudanum for cases like this. Not enough for everyone, but enough to make the last minutes or hours of life easier.
“Not anymore.” His voice no louder than the rustle of dead, dry leaves stirred by a thin wintery breeze. “I was just thirsty.” He stopped talking to catch his breath and smiled again. “Thank you.”
She covered him back up and took his hand, rubbing and patting it. “Save your strength. Sleep. You’ll feel better soon.”
“I’ll be dead soon.” The soldier’s chest gurgled and he gasped, struggling to speak. “In my pocket... Tell my wife I lo—” His voice trailed off into nothing as his last breath sighed past his lips and his head fell to one side.
Jude bowed for a moment, cursing under her breath the immoral demons who caused this war, then closed his vacant eyes. She said a short prayer, stood and turned to Michael.
“I knew he was near death when I found him in the trenches,” Michael said. “But I couldn’t leave him to die in the mud.” She took in a deep breath to speak, to ask her questions, but the horrified expression on his face stopped her. “There are too many bodies already there.”
She nodded, choosing her words carefully. “He was...your friend?”
“A fellow soldier.” Michael touched his own bandaged arm. “Saved my life yesterday. I wish I could have returned the favour today.”
A German soldier had saved his life? “I’m sorry for your loss.” Michael did nothing without reason. Usually he had several.
“What are you do—”
“I’m not the one you should feel sorry for.”
So, no talking in public about why he was here. He slipped a hand into the dead man’s breast pocket, pulled out a picture of a woman and handed it to Jude. A name and address was on the back.
“I’ll write his wife.” She put the photo in her apron pocket. “What about your injury? Has it been tended?”
Michael shook his head. “It’s only a bullet through the arm. I volunteered to move those with wounds in more urgent need of care.”
She glanced around. Good God, the injured were still arriving, trooping in like a macabre parade of the dead.
“Well.” She glanced at the dead man in front of her and all the many living crowded into the room. “I could certainly use your help.”
He stood a little straighter. “What do you want me to do?”
She almost snorted. It was never that easy with him. The Michael she knew didn’t take orders well. Rather, never at all. He issued orders and expected them to be carried out with the same economy he himself used. Whatever game he was playing at, it was a deep one.
She waved a hand at him. “Come with me. I’ll bandage your arm before you damage it further.”
He bowed at the waist slightly, and she had to stop herself from inclining her head in return. Royals were hunted here—she could afford no suspicion directed towards her. A fact he knew as well as anyone.
She directed him to a small antechamber. Once a cloakroom, it now held the makeshift hospital’s meagre medical supplies. Gesturing at him to sit on a wooden crate, she drew close and began untying the bandage around his arm. “Why are you here?” Her whisper didn’t carry far. It wasn’t meant to.
“Your father sent me.”
Father? She’d had a message from him only three weeks ago.
An armed soldier walked by and she concentrated on exposing Michael’s wound. The bandage, caked with dirt and blood, had solidified into a crusty, sticky mass. She winced. “I’m going to have to cut this off.”
A knife handle was suddenly thrust into her line of sight. Michael’s eyes were hard and flat.
Holding his gaze, she took the knife from him, then calmly cut the bandage off.
He didn’t flinch.
The wound, surrounded by red, angry skin, bled sluggishly. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
She felt his forehead. No fever yet, but that could change. “It needs cleaning.”
* * *
“Is it infected?” Michael could hardly believe the tough, capable woman before him was the same young girl who’d once professed to love him. Her courage remained in spades, now tempered with the sort of knowledge he wished Adam had left unpicked from the tree.
“Not yet.” She glanced up and over his shoulder, watchful as any professional spymaster. “My father knows why I’m here.” She turned, dipping a clean cloth into soapy water until it was saturated. He watched as old blood mixed with dirt and gunpowder ran down his arm to puddle on the floor.
“Things have changed.”
She sighed and flushed the wound a second time. “Same old Michael, avoiding specifics and sounding mysterious. Well, that won’t wash anymore. Not with my life and the lives of other women like me hanging in the balance.
What things?
”
Not just tough but stubborn too. “Your messenger was captured. The Germans know you’re in Brussels.”
“But not where. We always met at a taproom on the other side of the city. I never told him where I was staying.”
She pressed hard, cleaning away some ground-in dirt, and Michael sucked in a breath at the stab of pain. “It’s only a matter of time before someone recognises you.”
She grunted. “The Germans only see what they want to see. Besides, officers don’t look at nurses too closely. We remind them they’re mortal.”
“As are we all.”
She threw the now dirty gauze in a bucket and dosed a fresh one with brandy. He lifted his arm. The bullet had penetrated his biceps cleanly as far as he could tell, leaving an entry and exit wound. She reached for a third clean bandage, soaked it too in brandy and pressed it around his arm so both wounds were covered, then wrapped two dry bandages over it. It stung, but to no great discomfort.
“You should try and drink as much water as possible.” It was an order.
“Why?” He allowed himself to gaze at her with the single-mindedness a man who’d spent weeks in the trenches might give to the first pretty woman he’d seen in much too long. That he felt the same, though he’d been in the trenches for only two days, was a statement of how much he’d missed her observations and daring in the year since she’d left London.
She answered readily enough. “To replace the blood you lost and to speed healing.”
He chuckled. “To think at one time you would have bled me.”
“Medicine has come a long way. Not so long ago, a woman wouldn’t have been allowed in a place like this.” She glanced out at the room filled with the sick and dying.
“Why would any sane person want to be here?”
“Because I wanted to serve my country and my people in the best way I know how.”
“I’m not sure it’s acceptable for women to be exposed to such suffering,” he said in a normal tone of voice then added in a whisper, “I’m not leaving without you.”
She ignored him and moved to stand in the doorway.
“No matter what choices we make now, none will be without cost.” She picked up a basket full of bandages, brandy and sewing needles with thread. “Can you help me for a few hours? There are so many and not enough of anything, including us.”
“Yes, ma’am. My commanding officer gave me orders to return in twenty-four hours.” He showed her the edge of some papers from his breast pocket. He had a number of different sets of orders, all authentic enough to pass most scrutiny.
Movement at one of the main entrances into the ballroom caught his attention. Several armed soldiers entered along with two men in the uniforms of high-ranking German officers.
“Officers.” Michael stood and joined her. “These appear to be looking for someone.”