His Sinful Secret (17 page)

Michael stepped aside to let a matronly woman go by, and scanned the jammed room. It was huge, with arched Gothic ceilings and elaborate moldings, the chandeliers sending flickering light over the milling guests. It was almost impossible to find anyone, even with the advantage of his height.

“Longhaven.” A hand clapped his shoulder. “Looking for someone?”

He turned, seeing the familiar face of Niles Beckham. They were actually first cousins on his mother’s side, and Niles was both likeable and intelligent. They even looked alike in some ways, though Niles was a little shorter and his eyes were dark. At the moment they held an amused look.

“In this damned crush, how could anyone find another person?” Michael’s mouth curved in a wry smile.

“If you’re looking for your beauteous young wife, I just saw her over there by the terrace doors.” Beckham gestured with his champagne flute toward the southeast corner of the ballroom. He grinned. “So, tell me, what’s life like as a married man?”

That same question had been posed to him a multitude of times—mostly by bachelor acquaintances—and Michael was getting tired of it. He suggested dryly, “Try it and find out.”

“That’s no answer.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Michael glanced in the direction his cousin had pointed. “As a matter of fact, I
was
looking for Julianne. Is she dancing?”

“No. Chatting with Taylor’s widow, I think.”

Michael stopped, arrested in the act of taking a drink from his own glass.
Chatting with Antonia?

That was interesting. No, that was
alarming
. With studied casualness, Michael murmured, “I see. If you’ll excuse me, then, perhaps I’ll go claim her for the next waltz.”

Niles inclined his head, waving him away. “By all means. Can’t blame you. Your marchioness is a diamond of the first water. Everyone thinks so.”

Why the statement annoyed him, Michael wasn’t sure, but somehow it did.
Julianne is lovely and men are bound to notice,
he reminded himself as he found a passing footman, handed over his glass, and then shouldered his way toward the location Niles had indicated. The pressing issue right now was,
what the devil is Antonia up to?

She was a creature of passion, and he knew she wasn’t happy about his marriage, for she’d made it clear. Their past bound them together in some ways, but not the one she wished. He regretted her disappointment, but knew her feelings for him were a complicated mixture of emotions she probably didn’t even understand, and he doubted any of them were truly love.

He wasn’t even sure true love existed. What she deserved was a man who would give her back the same fierce fire and utter devotion, and he had known that from the very moment he’d met her, forsaken, alone, and devastated back in Spain. Her family had been slaughtered, their home commandeered by the French, and she had escaped only because two loyal servants had forced her to leave when the first soldiers arrived. They’d smuggled her out the back way and dragged her to the relative safety of the nearby hills, where they had hidden for three days.

When they finally did go back, there was nothing but rubble and carnage. Michael, in charge of a small British intelligence patrol behind French lines, had seen the wisps of smoke still rising from the fires and found her there, vacant-eyed and in shock, sitting in the littered courtyard of what had once been a beautiful villa. He decided to take her with them, for leaving her behind was as good as murder, and it had taken nearly a week to get her to speak. Her first words had revealed a clear glimpse of her fierce spirit.

She’d become one of his best operatives, and true to her word, she’d dispatched more than her share of the enemy. Vengeance was a powerful motivation, he’d found, and Antonia felt it in full measure still.

Having her attention focused on Julianne made him a little uneasy.

Michael finally spotted them by the open terrace doors, half shielded by a potted plant, a contrast of dark and light, Julianne’s fair beauty offset by Antonia’s dramatic, sultry coloring. They
were
talking, he observed grimly, and Antonia seemed particularly animated, gesturing with her hands and smiling. When she was out to charm, she could be very skilled at it. As Michael approached he heard Julianne laugh.

“Good evening,” he said pleasantly as he strolled up, making them both turn.

“My lord,” Antonia murmured in a throaty tone, extending her hand in a graceful gesture.

He took it and bent over it, and the betraying quiver in her fingers told the story. She was definitely up to something. Releasing her, he straightened and tried to gauge her expression. This evening she wore lemon silk, the color a flattering contrast to her raven hair and olive skin, a jeweled comb holding her elaborate coiffure in place. She looked sophisticated and beautiful, but he didn’t miss the calculating gleam in her dark eyes.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you. I trust you are enjoying the party?” He looked at them both in neutral, polite inquiry.

Antonia waved a careless hand. “It’s a terrible crush, so your darling wife and I took refuge in this corner. It was delightful to get a chance to talk for a few moments. I explained you and I are old friends.”

“Did you?” Michael cursed inwardly, wondering just what the hell she’d said. Julianne looked more curious than anything, those long-lashed indigo eyes, he admired, thoughtful as she gazed at him.

His wife said, “Lady Taylor tells me you met in Spain.”

“Indeed. She was married to a fellow officer.” After all, half-truths were his specialty.

Antonia interjected, “Michael actually introduced me to my husband.” The languid wave of her fan matched the heavy-lidded look in her eyes. Both were indicative of a motive he did not trust.

He said in a noncommittal tone, “As predicted, Lord Taylor was entranced immediately.”

“You are too gallant.” Antonia sent him a glimmering smile.

“Not at all.” In a more proprietary gesture than he intended, he took Julianne’s arm, uninterested in further intrigue. Luckily, the orchestra struck up the desired tune. “I realize husbands and wives are not supposed to be in each other’s pockets, but if Lady Taylor will excuse us, would you grant me a dance?”

 

It was interesting, Antonia thought, a false smile plastered on her face, to watch a usually detached man like Michael come to the rescue of his pretty, naive little wife. What was he afraid of? That she might tell the truth? Confess they had once lain in each other’s arms and she had tasted the passion of his kiss? That she knew the potent power of his desire? Recount how her hands had traced hard muscles and lines of sinew, and knew the texture of his hair?

That was not at all her plan.

She flicked her wrist, sending an unsatisfying gust of stale, warm air from the ballroom across her face from the lace fan in her hand. With a critical eye she watched from her vantage point in the little alcove. They waltzed well together and were a striking couple. Julianne Hepburn was graceful and feminine, and he was so irresistibly handsome and all male. She said something and he answered, a brief smile crossing his face.

Antonia recognized that smile. It was practiced, and usually meant he was thinking about something else.

Probably wondering what
she
might be up to. Good. Just what she wanted.

When Michael had approached them and looked at her with that usual inscrutable expression on his face, she’d still seen the unspoken question in those vivid hazel eyes.

Antonia turned toward the French doors onto the terrace and practically stumbled outside across the flagstones, dragging in a breath of fresh air. For a moment she leaned against the balustrade, listening to the swell of the music, the faint chirp of the insects in the trees surrounding the garden, the tinkle of a nearby fountain.

She wondered if Michael had made any progress with the coded missive she’d handed over. Some things she wasn’t privy to. In the past she used to ask the outcome of their missions, and she usually got an evasive answer, if she got one at all.

As long as they foiled the French, it was all she cared about.

And Michael. She cared about
him
, unfortunately.

Was it any wonder? She could still remember the first time they met. It had been dusk and the air cooling, but it hadn’t accounted for her shivering. Antonia had heard the approach of the horses, but in her dazed state she hadn’t cared any longer. She’d spent that afternoon burying her parents and sister, the brutal evidence of what they’d suffered before their deaths so horrifying, her mind had gone numb. The house had been sacked, all the food was gone, and the servants were dead or scattered. What wasn’t burned was destroyed, the desecration so complete she suspected her soul had also been shattered into a million fragments.

So she just sat there and let them come. If it was the French, they could murder her also. She would not have cared.

But it wasn’t the French. It was a tall man wearing a dark coat, nondescript fitted breeches, and dusty boots, with a hat pulled low. She watched, no longer afraid, no longer even really interested, as he dismounted in the ruins of the courtyard of what had once been a splendid hacienda, and came slowly toward her. When he reached the pile of rock she sat upon, he’d crouched down and looked into her eyes.

She’d seen something in those green-gold depths that pierced through her shock. An intensity, a resolve, and a compassion that still glittered with anger.

Then he reached out and gently touched her cheek and she knew—she
knew
—the anger was on her behalf.

It flickered something to life within her cold apathy. In the following days he’d coaxed her to eat and finally to speak, and at night, when she screamed in her sleep, he’d held her quaking body. Never, not once, did he offer any platitudes that everything was going to be fine. Michael wasn’t one to give meaningless sympathy. He knew her life had been altered forever and he was pragmatic in the extreme. She had no money, no family, no home. She had
nothing
.

But as the hatred stirred inside her, he offered something wonderful. With her sheltered background as a genteel Spanish lady, she hadn’t considered that she had any power, much less this gift.

It had kept her alive.

“May I ask just what all
that
was about?”

The quiet voice made her turn, a slow smile curving her lips. It was
him
. How long had she stood there, recalling the past . . . their past? She didn’t think much time had gone by since he’d hurried off with his little wife. Very sweetly she said, “I am not allowed to make the acquaintance of the marchioness? After all, you introduced us.”

Michael glanced around in a quick, assessing sweep of the darkened gardens, his gaze flicking over the shadows, his vigilance evident. “You were in the receiving line at our wedding reception. Did I have a choice?”

“I thought you were dancing with her.” Antonia leaned backward a little, the stone railing at her back. “It was rather touching to see your husbandly devotion.”

He was apparently satisfied there was no threat, for he transferred his attention to her face. “The waltz ended. She is now dancing with Lord Pearson. Please answer my question, Antonia.”

“I was merely being pleasant.”

“Were you, now?” Elegant in tailored evening wear that suited his lean build, he sounded skeptical. “Please remember, I know you quite well. That’s not even a convincing lie. You can do better.”

“Perhaps. I learned from the best.” Antonia’s smile was brittle. “Tell me, how often do you offer her falsehoods? Or I suppose an easier question would be, how often do you tell her the truth?”

Something flickered across his face. Frustration, maybe. Regret? No, not Michael; he couldn’t afford regret. “How I deal with my wife is none of your concern. Given our circumstances, I think you should keep your distance.”

“Our circumstances? Do you mean because I work for you or because we once shared a bed?” She prodded him deliberately. “Both concepts would shock Miss Innocence, I suspect.”

Antagonizing Michael was never a wise idea.

He glanced away for a moment, his profile remote and stern, and when he turned back, the set of his mouth implacable. “I envy her that innocence. I am sure you do also. I would give yours back to you if I could, but it is out of my hands. It was ripped from you before we even met.”

Michael had the disturbing habit of being able to touch her conscience. Just when she was convinced she no longer had one, he dragged it from its slumber and nudged it awake. Antonia flicked open her fan, snapped it closed, and then let out a ragged sigh of surrender. “I’m merely watching out for her. I intend no harm. If I wanted to disenchant her over your nefarious past, I could have done so already. Don’t be so suspicious.”

He still was. It was there in his eyes. “Fitzhugh is watching her.”

“A woman would be more effective,” she argued.

To her surprise, he hesitated and then admitted, “You are right, but I need someone I trust, and I assumed you weren’t interested in the task.”

“Because I’m jealous?” She said the words delicately. “Hmm. If I were any other woman, perhaps. Oh, I
am
jealous, it’s true, but don’t forget, I want Roget more than you do. I want to carve out his heart and hold it, still beating, before him in the palm of my hand. To that end, I would gladly guard your bride in case one of his men comes after her. If I capture an assailant, trust me, he will talk or lose his ballocks.” She added, “One by one.”

A look of horror crossed Michael’s face and he gave a choked laugh. “You are, as always, very fierce,
senora
. I hope we always remain on the same side.”

“I will guard her, then?” Antonia tried not to question her perverse need to get to know this young woman who had what she wanted so much.