How I Married a Marquess (29 page)

Good Lord
.
Defeating Napoleon had been easier.

L
et me see if I understand correctly.” Colonel Nathaniel Grey slid an inscrutable glance from Thomas to Edward Westover, former colonel of the Scarlet Scoundrels and current Duke of Strathmore, who sat beside him at the table in the Islingham Village posting inn.

Both men appeared bedraggled from riding straight through on horseback from London. In plain, dark clothes and sporting two days' growth of unshaven beard, they were unrecognizable, although Thomas also counted on the fact that no one in the tiny Lincolnshire village would ever suspect that among them sat two of the most important men in England.

“You came to Lincolnshire to stop a highwayman, only to discover that the highwayman is a baron's daughter who's been playing Robin Hood and robbing Royston's rich guests to give to poor orphans. The same woman who accidentally stumbled upon Royston's treason and who now wants to hand herself over to the authorities in order to free a local sheep farmer from gaol
.” Grey paused. “Do I have all that correct?”

“Yes,” Thomas affirmed glumly.

“The same woman who is now his lover, don't forget,” Edward put in dryly.

Thomas gritted his teeth. “Yes.”

“Tell me.” Grey leaned forward across the table and arched a brow. “How did you manage not to get yourself killed by the French?”

Thomas scowled at the two men. As his closest friends in the world, Edward and Grey were like brothers to him, and so they'd certainly never let him live this down. But he was in no mood today for their antics. Time was running out. “Will you help me or not?”

“Of course we'll help.” Grey signaled for another round of ale. “We rode all the way here as soon as we received your message, didn't we?”

“I sent that message four days ago, before I knew about Royston's real motives.” And before he'd fallen in love with Josie. But his feelings made no difference now. He knew what he had to do, and he needed Grey and Edward's help to carry out his plans. His shoulders sagged as he blew out a breath. “But I'm damnably glad you're here.”

“You're certain that he's selling the identities of agents to the French?” Edward's expression softened with concern. “Accusing a peer of treason is no small charge.”

“I recognized the names.” Withdrawing the book from his inside jacket pocket and sliding it across the table toward Grey, he pinned his brother-in-law with a look. “Including mine.”

Without a word the former army officer turned War Office agent took the book and thumbed through the pages. Thomas watched him closely for any trace of a reaction, but Grey was one of the best spymasters the War Office had ever produced, and not a flicker of recognition of any of the names listed inside registered on his face, although Thomas was certain he knew every one.

“I've no idea how Royston came by it,” Thomas told him quietly. “But someone inside the War Office is supplying him with information.”

Closing it slowly, Grey passed back the book so Thomas could return it to the study before Royston realized it was missing. “That's enough to hang both the earl and whoever gave him the names. And the girl?”

“I'd rather she didn't swing,” Thomas said quietly, avoiding his friends' gazes as he slipped the book inside his jacket pocket. “I've grown quite fond of her neck.” And other parts of her as well. Parts he would most likely never again see.

“She did plan and lead the robberies,” Edward stated in that deceptively smooth and aristocratic tone of his, the same one that belied all the horrors he'd witnessed in the heat of battle before he'd inherited. Anyone who looked at the duke now and thought he was just another dandy blue blood highly underestimated him. “Who else knows of her involvement?”

“A handful of men who help her, all of them former orphans. None of them will give her up.”

“What makes you so certain?” Grey asked suspiciously.

“She's been robbing carriages for the past two years, and Royston's offered a reward since the first holdup. If they'd wanted blood money, they would have divulged her by now. Those men are loyal.”

“And the farmer?”

“Cooper has refused to answer questions. The only evidence the constable has is the horse.”

“Flimsy evidence to try him as a highwayman,” Edward mumbled.

Thomas shook his head. “Royston's pressuring the constable. He wants this ended. Immediately.”

Grey and Edward exchanged glances, but Thomas understood the silent communication. Cooper might swear that he'd go to the gallows before he gave up Josie, but the three men sitting around the table knew better. As spies and army officers, themselves trained in interrogation to get whatever answers they needed, they knew Cooper would break eventually, especially if Royston threatened his wife and children.

“Well, then,” Grey said solemnly but with brotherly concern, “I suppose Edward and I need to get busy saving your ars
e.”

Hiding his grim relief, Thomas reached for the ale. With Grey and Edward's help, he could put an end to this mess. They could stop Royston before any more agents died or went missing. No more unwanted children would be abandoned at the orphanage in exchange for political favors, and no one would ever know that Josie was behind the robberies. His recommendation to the War Office was secured in the evidence inside that book, and Bathurst would have no choice but to reinstate him. Of course, he would lose Josie
But then, she never could have been his. He'd been right about that from the beginning. Yet he would have everything else he'd spent the past year so desperately trying to regain, and he'd once again have purpose.

So why did he feel dead inside, more lifeless and broken than he'd been since the bullet pierced his side?

“I have a question,” Edward interjected quietly, watching as Thomas raised the tankard to his lips. “Does the girl know you're in love with her?”

Thomas choked. Coughing on the ale, he shot a piercing glare at his former colonel. “How I feel isn't important.” The expressions of his two companions never changed, but he knew they'd both noticed that he hadn't denied the accusation. “We make certain she's safe, and we stop Royston. Then we all go back to London, and I return to the War Office. End of story.”

The two men exchanged glances, then Grey nodded slowly. “All right, if that's what you want.” He tossed a coin to the barmaid, who set down three more tankards of ale and smiled flirtatiously at the three men before sashaying away, not one of them paying her a second look. “When do we begin?”

“Tonight.”

Thomas was staring at her.

Again.

Josie knew without having to glance down the long dining table at him as he sat at the opposite end, stuck between Mrs. Peterson and Miranda Hodgkins, that his eyes had once again drifted toward her, just as they'd done all through tonight's farewell dinner. She felt his gaze on her as surely as if he'd brushed his fingertips down her bare arm, and even from so far away, he made her tremble.

Blasted man!

Swallowing hard, she kept her gaze firmly on Admiral Wesson beside her as the gray-whiskered naval officer finished some story about facing down pirates in the West Indies. She refused to glance at Thomas.
Absolutely
refused! She would not give that man the pleasure of knowing she was doing anything other than ignoring him, as if she couldn't care less that he existed at all. And she didn't. And just as soon as she was able to stop thinking about him, she planned on telling him so.

“That was when the cannons fired on us,” Admiral Wesson told her, and she forced a smile as if she were paying attention to him instead of the bothersome man at the other end of the room.

From the moment Thomas had sauntered into the farewell dinner—late, of course, which was why he'd ended up at the opposite end of the table, much to her relief and to Miranda Hodgkins's sheer delight—he'd been staring as if trying to catch her gaze. Whether in silent apology or condemnation, she didn't know, but neither signified. She was done with him now. True, he made her feel alive and special in ways no other man ever had, and she hadn't known until she met him what physical pleasures men and women shared together. Or what emotional mountains and valleys caring about someone could create.

Thomas Matteson, Marquess of Chesney, made her feel all that, and more.

But Thomas Matteson, War Office agent, had caused her to commit the biggest mistake of her life by trusting in him to make the morally right choice.

From the head of the table, Royston laughed easily, relaxed and confident now that he was certain he'd caught the highwayman, and she forced her eyes to stay glued to Admiral Wesson even as her chest squeezed so painfully with frustrated anger that she couldn't breathe.

Oh, she'd made a
terrible
mistake!

Admiral Wesson frowned and rested a hand on her forearm. “My dear, are you all right? You've gone suddenly pale.” He leaned toward her and smiled reassuringly. “I fear I've upset you with my story, but do not worry. We handed it to those pirates right smartly, and not one of His Majesty's sailors perished!”

A deep breath escaped her, one of irritation at herself for letting Thomas rattle her to the point that even the old naval officer could see her distress. “Thank heavens for that.”

“Yes,” Sebastian muttered from the other side of her, also forcibly caught up in the admiral's tale as a result of proximity, since Elizabeth Carlisle had carefully seen to the seating arrangements that put Miranda Hodgkins and the other eligible young ladies as far away from her sons as possible. “Thank heavens that story ended.” He reached for his glass of wine. “Happily, that is.”

Scowling at her brother's lack of manners, Josie turned toward him—

And caught Thomas's gaze directly. Her breath strangled in her throat at the heat she saw in those blue eyes.
Dear God
.
Why was she so helpless over him, this infuriating, impossible, utterly devastating man?

She let him hold her gaze for only a moment, just a few heartbeats that pounded through her ears like a drum corps and drowned out the rest of the world, then she forced her eyes away. No one who happened to be watching them would have suspected anything more than an accidental meeting of gazes. But in that moment Josie remembered every tender word he'd ever spoken to her, every laugh they'd shared, the feel of the fire spreading beneath her skin as she shattered in his arms—just as she sensed the painful onslaught of the void her future would be without him, of the emptiness she'd carry forever inside her heart.

Blinking hard against the sting of her unshed tears, she turned away in her chair, put her back toward him, and fixed a far-too-bright smile onto her face for the admiral.

Tomorrow Thomas would be gone. He'd return to London and the life he wanted in the War Office, thriving among the exclusivity and excitement of the
ton
. In a few weeks, perhaps a few months if she'd made a bigger impression on him than she realistically believed, he would think of her as nothing more than a woman with whom he'd shared an intimacy at a house party. By next year he'd most likely not even remember that.

Lady Royston rose from her chair to signal the end of dinner, and Josie gave a shaking sigh of relief. The men would stay behind in the dining room for at least an hour before rejoining the women, and during that time, while Thomas was trapped with Royston and his cronies, she would pretend a headache and beg her mother to take her home so she would never have to see him again. Because she knew she wouldn't be able to bear it.

Everyone stood, the room suddenly in motion as the ladies moved to excuse themselves and the men shifted to sit closer to Royston at the head of the table and to make passing the port easier. Pockets of conversations flared up as dinner companions shared their last polite banter and friends who had been sitting apart from each other paused to briefly exchange pleasantries. In the shuffle, Josie kept her gaze low and made her way toward the doorway.