How I Married a Marquess (26 page)

“Make me a spy again, huh?” he asked as he fell into step beside her. The anger inside him couldn't keep the pain and vulnerability from creeping into his voice. She knew him well now, too. “How do you plan on doing that, exactly?”

“I'm going to search Royston's study for proof that—”

“
I'm
going to break into his study.” His fingers closed in warning over her elbow. “
You're
going back to Chestnut Hill.”

She stopped so suddenly he almost crashed into her, and his expression hardened, as if he were readying himself for another fight with her, another biting comment or harsh accusation. Instead she murmured softly, “It's my fault, Thomas, all of it. The robberies, the fight last night, Mr. Cooper's arrest…I have to be part of this.” His eyes flickered at the intensity in her voice as she insisted, “I
have
to. Do not send me away, not now.”

He stared at her silently as he clearly considered the ramifications of keeping her with him. Then, with a decisive nod, he took her elbow again and led her down the hallway at a sauntering pace. Anyone who happened upon them would think they were simply making their way to join the other guests in the downstairs drawing room.

“All right,” he acquiesced with a hard sigh. “We'll do this together. But you'll do as I say without question. Understand?”

She nodded her compliance only because she didn't have a choice. “Do you think we'll find any evidence?”

“I don't know, but we have to hurry. Royston was still in the village with the constable when I left them. We'll have about an hour, maybe less.”

They stopped outside Royston's study. Thomas casually tried the handle, but it didn't budge.

“Of course he wouldn't make this easy,” he muttered. Then he slid a sideways glance at her and scrutinized her from head to toe.

“What is it?” A self-conscious blush rose in her cheeks.

“Give me one of your hairpins and your necklace.”

“Why?”

“Don't question me, Jo.” He held out his hand. “Just trust me.”

She hesitated, then unfastened her necklace and removed one of her hairpins. When she handed both over, her fingers brushed against his. Only a fleeting contact, but it stirred the familiar warmth of arousal low in her belly.

He dropped the necklace onto the floor, then took her shoulders and positioned her at an angle to the door. “Stand here and keep watch. If anyone comes into the hall, even one of the servants, warn me.”

Nodding, she watched as he crouched in front of the door and slid the long pin into the lock. His fingers worked expertly, and with a twist of the pin and a sly smile at her, he turned the handle and opened the door. As he rose to his feet, he snatched up the necklace and pulled her inside, closing and locking the door behind them.

He fastened the necklace around her neck and placed a quick kiss on her nape before stepping away. A warm tingle slithered down her spine.

“That was smoothly done,” she murmured, nodding toward the door as she returned the hairpin to its place. “One would think you often broke into locked rooms that way.”

He sent her an inscrutable glance as he hurried to the desk. “That skill comes in handy sometimes.”

“I can imagine.” Yet she tried very hard
not
to imagine as she watched him search through the desk drawers, her mind conjuring unbidden images of Thomas picking the locks of dozens of doors belonging to beautiful women.

He carefully turned over the contents of each drawer and left no visible evidence they'd been searched. “Have I picked the lock on your bedroom door?”

Her throat tightened. “No.”

He looked up and steadied a piercing gaze on her. “Then don't assume I've done it to any other woman.”

She glanced away, duly scolded. Thomas Matteson was not only a spy but apparently also a mind reader.

He searched the last drawer but came up empty.

“What can I do?” she asked as he methodically began to search through the cabinets and side tables.

“If Royston's locking the door, there's information in here he doesn't want found.” He nodded toward the shelves. “Look through the books, one by one, and check for anything which might be hidden behind them. But make certain to put them back
exactly
as you found them. And keep a close eye out for any threads, hairs, or the like that might be sitting on the shelf or the books. If you find one of those, don't touch it and call for me.”

“Whyever not?” Standing on tiptoe, she reached for the first book on the top shelf.

“A stray thread or hair can be planted to show whether someone's been looking through your things.” He swiftly searched the liquor tantalus in the corner. “It's an old spy trick.”

“Hmm, then it's a good thing you're an old spy.”

He glanced at her briefly over his shoulder, a half grin at his lips, before stepping to the next table and searching it. Her chest warmed at the thought that they were searching for the proof together. For once they weren't at odds, and it was wonderful.

“So why the necklace?” she asked as she made her way through the row of books and shook out the pages of each one.

“In case someone came upon us.” He slid his hands under the table to search for any documents hidden beneath it. “An excuse to explain why I was on my knees in front of the door.”

She gaped at him, remembering how he'd taken the same detailed care last night with the cottage. Apparently, noticing the details truly was central to a spy's life. “Because I'd dropped it, and you were picking it up?”

“Exactly.” With narrowed eyes he surveyed the room. “This is taking too long. We'll never finish searching before Royston returns.”

When he looked at her, she knew he wasn't seeing her as the highwayman or even as the lover he'd taken last night. For once he looked at her as an equal partner, and that realization sent a wave of heated pleasure spilling through her.

“Think, Josie,” he urged her. “You know him, you know this house. Where would he hide something he'd never want anyone to find?”

She replaced the last book on the shelf. “I don't know. Royston is a typical aristocrat, I suppose. He loves to ride and shoot and has no patience for parties or idle dinner conversation, but the countess adores that so he tolerates it for her sake. Spends every season in London. His son Charles studies at Oxford but rarely comes home.” She shook her head in frustration. “But Royston isn't what he seems.”

“So look around. What do you see that's out of character for him?”

She turned from the bookshelves and scanned the room. “His desk, the liquor cabinet, the side tables—”

“Already searched.
Think
.
”

“I
am
thinking,” she countered peevishly, her hands on her hips. “A plain desk, brown chairs, beige rugs…there's no personality here, nothing unusual.” She pointed at the wall in frustration. “For goodness' sake! He even has the most boring painting of fishing gear imaginable—” Her breath strangled. “The painting! Royston hates to fish.”

He rushed across the room and lifted the painting from the wall, then grinned over his shoulder at her in amazement. “It's a good thing you didn't side with the French.”

Holding her breath, she watched him reach into a shallow niche in the wall behind the painting and pull out a small black book.

“That's it, then?” she asked as her excited heart raced. “The proof we need?”

“I'm not certain, but it's important enough for Royston to hide it.”

“Let us hope it's—”

Metal scraped against metal as a key slid into the lock from the hallway. For a split second her eyes locked with his, then she flung herself at the door.

T
homas made a grab for her but missed, and with a loud cry, she pressed herself up against the door.

“No!” she called out. “Don't come inside!”

She braced herself to put all her weight against the door, but she was just a slip of a woman and wouldn't be able to hold Royston back for long.

“Who's there?” The earl shoved at the door. “I demand to know who you are and what you're doing in my study!”

“It's Josephine Carlisle, my lord.”

Thomas bit back the curse at his lips.

“Miss Carlisle?” Royston paused. “What the devil!”

“I had an accident, and I tore my dress.” She wedged herself hard against the doorframe. “So I had to duck in here to fix it.”

She grasped her neckline and ripped the fabric, tearing both dress and shift low across her shoulder.

Thomas's heart leapt into his throat, fear and anger rising inside him even as he admired her cunning. Oh, she was brilliant! If Royston barged in on them together with her dress like that, he'd think he'd stumbled onto nothing more than a lover's tryst. And even if the earl suspected more, he'd never be able to accuse them of searching through his private study without raising an alarm throughout the entire house and raining scandal down upon all their heads.

But Thomas would be damned before he let her be disgraced in front of a houseful of guests who would all certainly come running at the first sound of uproar. With a furious glare and a warning finger to his lips, he ducked beneath the desk just as Royston forced the door open and sent her stumbling backward into the room. The last glimpse he caught of her before he hid was of her hand yanking the bellpull by the door.

“What are you doing in my study?” Royston demanded.

Hidden behind the desk, Thomas reached beneath his jacket, tucking the book into his waistband at the small of his back and withdrawing his pistol.

“I told you, sir,” she answered with a nervous quiver in her voice. “I tore my dress. I was coming up the stairs, looking for my brothers. They said they were heading to the billiards room when they finished fishing.”

Thomas drew a deep but silent breath. She'd made a mistake by adding so much to her story. Too many details always made a story sound like, well, a
story
. And right now he needed her to put on the best performance of her life if she wanted to save herself from the gallows, or both of them from the altar.

“I tripped on the stairs and ripped my dress. See?”

A long pause followed. In the silence Thomas could imagine Royston leering at her breasts. She was bringing the earl's attention to herself in order to help him, he knew, but knowing that didn't stop the jealousy from flooding through him.

“Are you all right?” Royston asked.

“I'm fine, thank you.”

A deep chuckling. “Well, you've always been a clumsy one, haven't you?”

Thomas clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to jump up and plow his fist right into Royston's face, old family friend be damned. Josie wasn't clumsy. She was one of the most careful, most graceful women he'd ever known.

She forced a light laugh of self-deprecation. “You're right, my lord.”

“And what are you doing in my study?”

“This was the first room I came to where I could fix my dress. Surely you don't think I could let someone see me? Not like this—just look at me, for heaven's sake!”

Thomas gritted his teeth. As soon as he finished smashing in Royston's face, he was going to throttle his little hellcat.

“The door was locked. How did you get inside?”

“But it wasn't locked,” she answered smoothly.

“It
was
locked,” Royston corrected, and Thomas could hear him moving across the room. Toward Josie. His hand tightened its grip on the pistol. “I locked it myself this morning. No one else has a key.”

“It wasn't locked.” She laughed, not a trace of nervousness in her.
Good girl
.
Thomas pictured her placing her hands on her hips, scolding like a governess, as she added, “If it was locked, I wouldn't be inside, would I?”

But the shifting direction of her voice told him that Royston was backing her around the room. If the man laid a hand on her, Thomas would kill him. Without hesitation.

“Just look at me!” she gasped. “I'm so embarrassed.”

Oh, he was definitely going to throttle her! But the distraction seemed to be working, because Royston stopped mentioning the locked door. If they were lucky, the earl would believe her, but Thomas had no idea how he was going to get out of the room without being seen. He could do nothing but wait and put his faith in her, the woman he was only now beginning to trust.

“Pity, though, to ruin such a pretty dress.” Royston's voice was huskier now, and an ice-cold warning shot down Thomas's spine. “And one that looks so stunning on you, Josie, dear.”

Josie
.
Thomas ground his teeth together.
Dear
.
Royston was a dead man. Just one squeak from her, and he'd put a ball through the man's heart.

“Not nearly as stunning as your wife's dresses, though, don't you agree?”

In the awkward silence following her reply, his lips twitched in silent amusement. She'd swiftly reminded Royston that he was married and that she wouldn't tolerate his attempt to be unfaithful to the countess
. Thomas smiled. His little hellcat was capable of taking care of herself.

His
?
His heart thudded. When had he started to think of her as belonging to him?

But that was exactly how he felt about her. She'd given herself to him last night, and now she was his. And truthfully, he didn't know anymore if he could part with her.

“My wife,” Royston repeated stiffly. “Yes. Well.”

A knock came at the door, and Josie gave a loud gasp of feigned surprise as Greaves called out for Royston. “Oh no! No one can see me like this!”

Her voice bordered on the hysterical as she played up the moment for all she was worth. Thomas smiled with pride. She'd have been a fabulous stage actress.

“Please calm down.”

“Calm down?
Calm down
!
” she angrily threw Royston's words back at him. “If anyone finds us like this—with my dress torn—alone with you in your private study—I'll be ruined. Ruined!”

“There's no need to—”

“And so will
you
,” she added pointedly.

Her words of warning crackled through the air like electricity. Thomas fought hard not to laugh aloud.

“If your wife finds out, if she thinks…Oh, I'm going to faint!”

“No, don't do—”

“We can't be seen like this! Please, go downstairs and take Greaves with you.” Thomas heard the faint rustle of fabric, the scuff of shoes on the floor as Josie presumably took Royston by the arm and pulled him toward the door. “While you're distracting him, I'll sneak down the hall to the music room and fix my dress there. Please, go!”

“All right,” Royston agreed. But his voice was cold, and Thomas heard the menacing tone in its depths. “But, Miss Carlisle, stay to Blackwood's public rooms in the future. I would hate for you to wander somewhere you didn't belong.”

“Of course, sir.”

The tread of feet across the floor, the sound of the door being opened and Royston ordering Greaves downstairs with him, then the soft click of the closing door and the sound of footsteps in the hall retreating away—

She hesitated. “Thomas?”

He waited patiently for her to circle around the desk to him as he sat on the floor, his hand holding the pistol resting casually by his wrist over his bent knee. When she knelt in front of him, he quirked a brow at her.

“Tore your dress, did you, Jo?” he murmured dryly, his eyes straying to the deep rip and the exposed tops of her breasts, noting how they nearly fell out of the wrecked bodice.

A guilty look flitted across her face. “It was the only excu—”

His hand shot out to wrap behind her neck and yank her forward, catching her off-balance and tumbling her down onto his lap. He seized her mouth greedily beneath his and kissed her with a possessive ferocity that burned in his gut. Unlike anything he'd experienced before.

“Don't ever do that again,” he warned, and slid his lips back along her jaw.

She shuddered as the tip of his tongue darted against her ear. “I won't.”

He knew she thought he meant putting herself in harm's way, but he also meant calling another man's attention to her breasts. The thought of Royston openly leering at her sent a stab of fury through him so piercing he shook from it. He hadn't been prepared for that.

He tugged gently at her stay and slipped it lower to reveal a single breast to his jealous gaze. Making her breath come in soft pants, he traced his fingertip around the dusky pink nipple. “If Royston had touched you, Jo,” he murmured quietly, watching as her nipple drew taut into a hard point as he slowly circled it, like magic, “I would have killed him.”

She trembled, although he couldn't tell if the shiver that sped through her was because of the possessive way he was touching her or because she believed the brutal honesty behind his words. “He didn't,” she whispered. “He didn't even try.”

Relief poured through him, and he trembled as he placed a delicate kiss on her breast, then pulled her bodice back into place as neatly as he could given its gaping tear. He took her hand and helped her to her feet.

He paused to gaze down at her face, upturned slightly toward his, with her wide, expressive green eyes and those sensuous lips that tasted of peaches. He almost gave over to the urge to assure her that everything would be fine. That she would always be able to trust in him, to depend upon him never to hurt her or cause her to doubt her faith in him…

“Thomas?” she whispered, her brow furrowing with bewilderment.

Blinking, he shook himself to clear his mind. Madness—it was madness to think of anything more with her than the few hours they had left together, no matter how tempting. Just as it was madness to think she could ever truly belong to him.

He led her toward the door, warning her with a finger to his lips to be silent. And warning himself as well. There would be time later to sort out all the confusion swirling through his head and come to terms with this inexplicable way she drew him. This insatiable way his body tingled with an awareness of hers as her warm fingers tangled securely in his, even now wanting her panting and eager beneath him again. And the growing desire to find a way to keep her with him, long after the party ended.

But the worst thing he could do was admit to feelings he couldn't even be certain he was capable of possessing. Later, when he was alone, when there was quiet and time and he could concentrate, he would finally figure out how he felt about Josephine Carlisle.

And then he'd have to find a way to forget her.

Half an hour later, Josie stretched lazily across the bed in his room and watched shamelessly as Thomas dressed, buttoning his breeches and pulling his shirt over his head, then letting it hang loose around his hips. She'd never realized before how arousing it could be to watch a man dress.
Goodness
.
The muscles of his back and shoulders rippled as he pulled on his tan waistcoat and let it fall open over the white shirt beneath, the same waistcoat and shirt she'd practically ripped off him just minutes before.

She drew a deep breath, then exhaled slowly in a futile attempt to steady the rapid skittering of her heart. He was magnificent. Every inch of him was hard and sculpted, and oh, what an expert lover! Her body still pulsed deliciously from the way he'd taken her so hard and fast as soon as he'd pulled her through the door.
Against
the door, in fact. In scandalous, stand-up sex. As if he couldn't
not
have her. Simply…amazing.