Lady Rogue (14 page)

“Hm?” he said absently, raising his eyes to hers again. “How did you learn to tie your cravat like that?”

“Antoine taught me,” she returned. “He says it’s the very latest thing, only you won’t wear it.”

“It looks foppish.”

“It does not,” she protested, looking down at her chest. “I’m the pink of the
ton
.”

“By God, you are, chit,” he said admiringly, the cynical, slightly drunken twinkle in his eyes mocking her good-humoredly. He stepped over to the liquor table and procured a second bottle, for they had nearly consumed the first one.

“You must remove your coat as well,
monsieur le châtelain
,” she demanded as he returned.

Alex glared at her as he removed his own gray coat. “And what does that mean?”

“I only called you the lord of the manor. Not very insulting at all, really.” His sleeves were unsoiled, so he’d been drinking every glass she’d set in front of him. Even so, the advantage remained his, for he outweighed her by better than five stone.

She stood there for a moment, looking at him in his shirtsleeves, fighting the abrupt, scandalous desire to unbutton his waistcoat and pull his shirt free, to run her hands over his bare chest. The curl in her stomach tightened deliciously, and spun downward.

Alex resumed his chair, and leaned forward to grasp one end of her cravat and pull her back down opposite him. Her splendid knot came undone. “Stop that,” she said belatedly. The protest seemed weak, so she reached out and tugged his cravat loose, as well.

Before she could retrieve her hand, he grasped the ends of her fingers. Alex examined her palm for a moment, running his fingers featherlight across her skin, then turned her hand over to brush his lips slowly along her knuckles. His breath was soft and warm, nearly as soft as the touch of his mouth on her fingers. In her guise as a man she’d never had her fingers kissed before—but this was no polite greeting, anyway. Her eyes met his, and he yanked her half over the table again and closed his mouth over hers.

Christine shut her eyes and kissed him back, kissed his lips which were soft and firm at the same time. She had expected a kiss, even his kiss, to be mauling and sloppy, like those she’d seen in Parisian taverns since she was fifteen. But there was nothing mauling and sloppy about Alexander Cale at all, or about the shuddering pulse in her veins, or the sudden electric heat coursing along every nerve in her body. When he let her go she sat slowly back down in her chair again, for a moment still unable to breathe. Her cravat, caught in his long fingers, slid loose from around her neck. Azure eyes spent a long time looking at her, then blinked and glanced down. “We seem to be missing half the deck,” he muttered.

Her body trembling, Kit slipped sideways out of her seat and gathered up the scattered cards. When she sat again, he was slowly winding her cravat around his fingers and watching her from half-closed eyes. “Don’t you wish to concede?” she suggested instead, her voice unsteady.

“Why?” he said softly. “Did you have something else in mind?”

“You are under a debt of honor, Everton,” she stated, as though the words were some sort of shield. Byron’s poetry ran through her mind, soft and sensuous, making her want to give in to what she’d been imagining from the first moment she’d set eyes on him.

“And you have sweet lips,” he murmured.

“You’re drunk,” she said, even less steadily.

“
In vino veritas
.” He grinned lazily. “That’s Latin, chit.”

“I know what it is.” Kit stacked the cards. “It’s my deal.”

Distracted as she was, she didn’t stand a chance, and of course, he won the hand. He studied her face, then reached out one hand to tug the ruffles of her sleeve up to her elbow. As his fingers brushed her skin, she shivered again.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked.

“No. And no more cheating,” he repeated huskily, watching closely as she set the glass to her lips and drank. “All right. When did you last wear a dress?”

She hadn’t expected the question, and glanced down before she faced him again. If he was trying to unsettle her, it was working better than she cared to admit. “I was six. Nearly fourteen years ago.”

Surprisingly, she bested him the next hand with a flush of hearts. “Who was the first woman you kissed?” she asked, deciding turnabout was fair play. And she wanted to know.

He chuckled. “My mother,” he answered, and slid the deck over in front of her.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what you asked.”

“Coward.”

“Beg pardon?” he returned, raising an eyebrow.

“You heard me.”

“What an aggravating female you are,” he said, then smiled again. “Lucy Leviton. My tutor’s daughter.”

“How old were you?”

She didn’t expect him to reply, for he’d been quite adamant about only giving one answer away at a time. Alex pursed his lips. “Fifteen.” He tilted his head to eye her sideways. “Do I get a free question, as well?”

Kit shrugged, half-afraid to meet his gaze in case he should kiss her again, and wanting nothing more than to feel his mouth on hers. They were both too drunk to be having any sort of conversation. “I suppose.”

He stood and walked around behind her chair. “Do you consider kissing to be dishonorable?”

His tall presence behind her seemed to radiate heat. Questions about her past and her father, she had answers ready for. Questions about her heart and her feelings were far more difficult. And dangerous. “Dishonorable? No, I wouldn’t call a kiss exactly—”

He leaned down over her shoulder, tilting her head back with his fingers on her cheek and touching his lips to hers again. “Good,” he murmured, straightening and coming to stand before her. “Then I couldn’t possibly be dishonoring any debt with a mere touch of the lips.” Everton pulled her to her feet. “The rules seemed a bit strict, anyway.” Slowly and softly he lowered his mouth to hers.

Somewhere this evening had completely slipped out of her control, if it had ever been there. His lips tasted of brandy. Kit shut her eyes, trying to shut him out, but the warmth and strength and nearness of him seemed to engulf her. She found herself seeking his mouth, running her hands along his arms and down his ribs to his waist, pulling herself harder against him, yearning for more, and knowing that she’d stepped far beyond the bounds of where she should be. “Alex,” she finally murmured.

“Shh,” he replied, running his hands down the small of her back and kissing her again. “Be foolish for once.”

No one would know, she thought for a wild moment as she clung to him, drinking in his nearness. Everyone thought she was a man. If she were to begin an affair with Alex, no one would know. Kit tried to take a breath, reaching for her lost senses, and then turned her
head away and shoved at him. “Everton, stop it.”

Slowly his hands slid away from her shoulders, and she finally looked up at him. His expression was unreadable, his eyes focused on her mouth. “All right,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat. “If you insist. Back to the questions, then. Am I the first man you’ve kissed?”

“My father is,” she returned flippantly, turning back to take her seat.

He caught her by the arm, keeping her on her feet. “And your father hates the English.”

It wasn’t a question, but she sensed that he wanted a response. Lying would serve little purpose, and it took a great deal of effort to keep any tale straight. At the moment she couldn’t even keep her eyes from trailing longingly down his body. She let them shut again, feeling weariness trailing over her, despite the fact that falling asleep in Alex Cale’s presence was the last thing she wanted to do. “Yes, he does.”

“And do you?”

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” she countered, pulling free of his arm and stumbling backward into her chair. The deuced thing was entirely too soft and comfortable. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Because I wanted to,” he replied, folding his arms.

“And you always do whatever you want to?”

Slowly he shook his head. “No, not always.”

“Why not?”

He gave a slight, lopsided grin and, before she could protest, leaned forward to place his hands on the arms of her chair. “Stupidity,” he murmured, kissing her once more with the softness of a sigh.

It truly could be him, she realized, as he straightened and dropped into the chair opposite her again. He could be the one her father was seeking. And if his politics were anything like his card-playing and his seductions, he would be a dangerous opponent. But then again, perhaps she was just tired. And perhaps she just needed to put her head down for a moment, because she wasn’t thinking clearly at all. She wondered if she could con
vince Alex to kiss her when they were both sober, because he seemed rather good at it. But now, just for a moment, she needed to shut her eyes, to escape from the azure gaze watching her from across the table.

Alex sat back in his chair and watched her, watched the soft flutter of her eyelids and the slow, steady lift and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. So much for his angry, calculated interrogation. If his friend and former Bow Street detective James Samuels hadn’t come by with news he would have given good blunt not to hear, there was no telling what he would have been doing right now with Christine Brantley. He sighed. He knew damned well what he would have been doing. And there was a certain portion of his anatomy that was uncomfortably reminding him that it was something that he still wished to be doing, whatever he had learned about her.

He’d known for months that someone was working to steal British armaments and transport them to France, just as he had suspected that Bonaparte would not sit and quietly rot on Elba. What he had never expected to hear, and what Samuels had sworn on his honor not to pass on yet to his compatriots, was that the shipment of muskets they had intercepted on its way to Calais two months ago had been arranged for and purchased by one Stewart Brantley. And that, in accompaniment with the information he had received earlier, that a thousand more muskets had just vanished, was news he simply had not been prepared for.

At the moment he would be within his rights to have Kit Brantley arrested and tried for treason. “Are you a spy, chit?” he murmured.

A slight smile crept across her face, and he felt one touch his own lips in response. What a conundrum she was. An enigma, a puzzle, a mystery, a riddle, and a very great problem. And a very intriguing one. She was becoming more tangled into his life than he had ever expected, than he had ever meant to allow.

With another sigh he stood and crossed around the
small table to her side. Very carefully, aware that he was less than graceful, he leaned over and slid one arm under her knees, and the other behind her shoulders. In boots she lacked only a few inches on him, but she was far lighter than he expected as he lifted her into his arms. Her head sagged against his shoulder, her breath warm against his cheek.

He managed to pull open the door and stepped out into the hallway. Wenton had apparently given up on them and gone to bed, and all the lamps but the ones lighting the hallway and stairs had been extinguished. The door of her bedchamber was open and the bed turned down, and he carried her inside and gently laid her down. Both sleeves of her shirt were hopelessly stained; he would have to purchase her another.

He opened the top button of her waistcoat, then pulled off her boots and lifted the sheets to her shoulders. She sighed again and turned on her side, curling up with her hand resting beside her cheek on the pillow. Whether she was a spy for Napoleon or not, until he knew more about her motives, he couldn’t turn her in. And he wouldn’t turn her out. For a few more days he could keep her from learning whatever it was she had come to London for. He would track down the muskets, and while she would learn nothing of his own activities, he could easily keep an eye on hers. When her father came for her she would have nothing to report, and once they were gone he would turn the recovered weapons over to Prince George and make his own report.

Only secondarily did it occur to him that he was willing to withhold information from, and lie to, his compatriots until he discovered the truth about her—even knowing that at least one of them was going to be exceedingly angry at him for it. The strength of his desire to see that no harm came to her was surprising, but he wasn’t yet ready to question whatever tendencies toward chivalry seemed to be surfacing in him.

Very slowly he leaned over and brushed his lips lightly over her forehead. With a sigh he straightened, and stepped over to blow out the candle by her bedside. For a few more days, he could resist her.

K
it awoke to find that half her clothes had been removed or unbuttoned and, even worse, that she had apparently fallen asleep just when things were beginning to become interesting.

With her fingers she traced the outline of her lips. They had both been far too drunk last night. Otherwise, whatever she might secretly wish, whatever thoughts had been burning at her for the past few days, she would never have let him near her. Nor should she have.

She sighed, surprised at how miserable she felt. And the sensation had nothing to do with her blistering headache. But whatever unbidden thoughts crossed through her mind, there was more to consider than the Earl of Everton and what she might feel toward him. From this point on, until she discovered otherwise, she was going to have to assume that Alex was the one she had been sent to find. There were too many fragments that didn’t quite fit together until
royal agent
was added into the equation.

She had been careless. Nearly unforgivably so. “Damnation,” she muttered, sitting upright and rubbing at her throbbing skull. He’d won their wager, carried her upstairs, and left her sleeping like a babe. No doubt she’d even managed to snore or drool for his amusement.

After she made use of the chamber pot, she pulled off her ruined shirt and yanked a clean one on over her head.
That accomplished, she ran a comb through her disheveled hair and retied it in its short tail, then stomped out her door and over to Alex’s. She was not a child he could tease and trick into a confession. Nor was she some pea-headed female to be seduced for amusement and then set aside, untouched. And if he laughed at her, well, she would hand him a flusher he wouldn’t soon forget.

When she pushed open the door to his bedchamber, though, Alex was not laughing at her. In fact, he was sound asleep, sprawled across the bed in much the same state of disarray she had been in earlier.

It made her pause, seeing him so…vulnerable. Kit licked dry lips and glanced about for Antoine or one of the other servants, but none was in view. Silently she closed the door behind her and stepped into the room. Alex lay on his back, one leg bent and crossed under the other, and both arms outflung as though he had simply tumbled backward onto the bed and fallen asleep that way. His gray and black waistcoat lay tossed on the floor, beside his boots and his rumpled shirt. That was apparently as far as he had gotten in undressing, for he was still clothed in his breeches and stockings.

She leaned her cheek against the cool, polished wood of the post at the foot of the bed. A lock of his wavy black hair had fallen over one eye, and his lips were slightly parted. A light tangle of curling dark hair dusted his chest, and followed the line of his well-muscled abdomen to disappear into his breeches.

“How can I hate you?” she whispered.

That small sound was enough. The dark lashes fluttered and opened. Alex blinked, then sat bolt upright as he spied her. “Sweet Lucifer,” he hissed, then clutched at his head and fell back onto the bed again. “Oh, good God,” he continued, digging his fists into his temples.

A fine pair of spies they were. Despite the pounding of her own skull, and the fluttering along her nerves at the mere sight of him, Kit managed a chuckle. “Serves you right.”

He opened one eye. “You nearly scared me witless, lurking there like the grim reaper.”

Everton certainly didn’t sound as though he suspected her of anything. Perhaps he had been more drunk than she realized, and didn’t remember anything that had happened. “I was not lurking,” she protested.

Gingerly he sat upright again. “Skulking, then.”

“I came in here to shout at you, but you were asleep, and I thought it would be unkind.”

“Shout at me about what?” he queried, sliding to the edge of the bed and gripping the post she leaned against as he stood. His fingers brushed over hers, and she quickly pulled them free. He glanced at her, a hesitation in his gaze that made her realize he did remember everything about last night. Everything. And that he was trying to decide in which direction to steer, as well.

“You undressed me,” she stated, though she wanted to shout that she knew he was a damned British spy and she didn’t want him to be one, because kissing him had been the most enjoyable thing she could ever recall experiencing.

“If I’d undressed you, you would have been naked. I loosened your clothing so you wouldn’t strangle,” Alex retorted. He made his way over to the curtains and tugged them open. “Good God,” he repeated, squinting and turning away. “Sunlight.”

She looked at him, lean and shirtless and handsome, as he stepped across the room to pull on his dressing robe. Even hungover and cranky, he moved gracefully, comfortable in his own skin. And she was standing gawking at him, when she should be trying to decide how to obtain proof that he was indeed who she suspected, and whether he had any clue about when her father planned to smuggle out the next shipment.

Alex stopped before his chamber pot. “Go have someone get us some coffee,” he ordered over his shoulder.

She scowled at the order, but stalked out into the hallway. An upstairs maid was placing a vase of roses on
the table there, and Kit requested the coffee as she had been instructed.

“Alex?” she asked, scratching at his door.

“Come in, brat,” he returned after a moment.

When she entered the room again and shut the door behind her, she saw the earl had seated himself at his dressing table and was engaged with lathering shaving soap over the stubble of beard that covered his chin and cheeks. He glanced at her in the mirror, then lifted the razor. “Did you, ah, sleep well?”

At least it was an innocent question. She didn’t feel ready for anything more complicated than that. And neither did he, apparently. “Yes. Did you?”

“Yes.” His jaw twitched. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat, glanced at her again, and began shaving.

The silence felt awkward, but cast her mind about though she did, she could come up with no topic of conversation that didn’t feel suspicious. And yet, there weren’t many days left before she was to leave, and she needed more proof than her own emotion-twisted, pathetic hunches. “I suppose you have more meetings today?” she ventured, watching the blade slide along the tanned skin of his face.

The razor paused, the eyes in the mirror speculative. “No meetings today.”

“Oh.” He lifted his head to scrape beneath his chin, while she watched, fascinated. “Why not?”

“Why do you care?” he retorted sharply.

“I was just attempting to determine how to amuse myself today.”

“Ah. Well, I am going to purchase a hay rake.” He pursed his lips as though weighing his next words. “You’re welcome to accompany me.”

“Oh,” she repeated. His cheek where the razor had passed looked so smooth, her fingers twitched with the effort of not reaching out to stroke it. “I actually thought I might go with Hanshaw and Francis. There’s some sort of boat race on the Thames or something.”

“You spend a damned lot of time with my friends, chit,” he snapped.

Kit put her hands on her hips. “Stop being such a lout,” she suggested, “and I might go with you, instead. But you’re never nice to me, and you’re always dragging me about, so I don’t see why you’re surprised if I don’t—”

He yanked her arm, pulling her off balance, then twisted her slender body sideways so she fell backward onto his lap. “Shut up.”

“You big, stupid—”

His kiss was hard and rough, and ran like lightning through every inch of her body. His hands at both sides of her face kept her imprisoned against his mouth, and she reached up to cup his jaw, cool and warm at the same time, and still damp from the shaving soap. He slid one hand down around her waist, his mouth hungry on hers. She shivered at the feel of his lean body cradling hers, at the desperate craving to be close to him.

Out in the hall, a feminine voice called, “I can find my own way, thank you very much!”

With an oath, Alex broke the kiss. Swiftly he shoved Kit off his lap and stood her upright, as the door rattled and burst open. Barbara Sinclair, out of breath, her skirts twisted in one hand, shoved into the room. Wenton entered behind her, his expression even more dour than usual.

“Apologies, my lord. She insisted on—”

Alex raised a hand. “That will be all, Wenton.”

“Yes, my lord.” The butler nodded and pulled the door shut behind him.

“You need something, do you, Barbara?” Everton suggested, crossing his legs at the ankles, and Kit was amazed at his composure. She was having difficulty just steadying her breath.

Barbara Sinclair stepped over to the bed, noting its rumpled appearance. She ran a hand along the quilted coverlet and then turned back to face the earl. “At first I thought you were merely occupied with showing your cousin about,” she began, “but then it occurred to me that you would never bestir yourself to be any kind of
proper host. Something else must be occupying your time.”

The black eyes turned to view Kit, and the abrupt speculation there left her uneasy. As Alex had warned her, if he had discovered her secret, someone else might as well. Barbara strolled up and raised one finger toward her face. Though her instinct was to slap the woman’s hand aside, a man would not, and so Kit stood still. Lady Sinclair’s finger brushed her chin, and came away with a thin froth of shaving soap.

Though for a moment her breath caught, Kit looked down at the soap and scowled. “Damnation, Alex, I told you to quit flinging that blade about when you talk,” she complained, and made a show of examining the rest of her person for splotches of soap.

“I would, if you would cease being so opinionated regarding matters about which you obviously know nothing,” he shot back with excellent timing, and tossed the towel at her.

He meant to keep her secret, then, even from Lady Sinclair. Kit was unable to keep from glancing swiftly in his direction, but his vaguely annoyed gaze was on his mistress.

Kit wiped at her face while Barbara glided up to Alex with a rustle of taffeta skirts. “It’s not that I’ve begun to care for you,” she murmured, turning her head sideways to regard the earl with an expression that made Kit wish to do some damage to her perfectly coifed raven hair.

Everton pushed to his feet. “Good,” he returned. “I told you never to do so.”

Barbara stepped aside to take the towel out of Kit’s hands, and then returned to Alex. “Yes. It’s only that Viscount Mandilly has been absolutely hounding me, and he’s such a bore.” Slowly she wiped the remaining shaving soap from Alex’s face. “When you’re about, you merely give him that contemptuous look of yours, and he slinks away.”

“Well, that’s sterling of you, cousin,” Kit interrupted.
Damn Barbara Sinclair, anyway, for barging into the middle of everything.

Barbara glanced over her shoulder at Kit, her expression cryptic, then turned back and leaned up to whisper something into Alex’s ear.

The earl stiffened, his swift glance at Kit unreadable. “Indeed,” he murmured, his gaze returning for a moment to his mistress. “Kit, do leave us alone for a moment, won’t you, my boy?” he suggested, not looking at her again.

That was simply too much. “I am the guest here,” she stated angrily. “Simply because she decides to be an idi—”

Everton strode over and grabbed her by the arm. “That’s enough,” he said flatly, and jerked her forward. “Go get some breakfast.” He opened the door and shoved her out into the hallway.

Kit stood looking at the door as it slammed in her face, all the delirious, desirous thoughts that had been spinning through her mind crashing to the carpet. She was nothing to him, after all. Simply a distraction until his mistress could arrive and offer him up what Kit would not. Could not. She wiped at her eyes, unexpected tears running down her face.

If she had needed any more proof that she was being a fool, Alex Cale had just provided her with it. With a sniff, she turned for the stairs and her hat and gloves. She certainly had better things to do than hang about while Everton and Barbara Sinclair humped all over one another. Now that she had a suspect, she merely needed to ask a few careful questions to be certain she was correct. And then it would be time to tell her father. However odd and foolish Everton might think her, she had still outmaneuvered him. She had still won.

“All right, Barbara,” Alex said, leaning back against the bedpost and folding his arms across his chest. “Would you care to elaborate?”

“As I said, I’ve been checking into your family history,” his mistress commented, strolling to the window
and gazing with feigned interest at the roof of his carriage house. “You had no Aunt Marabelle. Therefore, you have no cousin Christian Riley.”

A dozen swift responses coursed through his mind, and were just as swiftly rejected. Barbara would never have confronted him unless she was certain of her facts. “And?” he responded, deciding the wisest course would be to determine exactly how much his mistress did know about his houseguest. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her expectantly.

“And,” Barbara repeated, turning to face him again, “so who is she?”

He’d known all along, he told himself, that Christine Brantley was trouble. Worse than trouble. She was a virgin, dressed like a boy, swore like a sailor, cheated at games of chance, and was likely working in the service of Bonaparte or one of his followers. And she was easily the most beguiling woman he’d ever encountered. “No one you need concern yourself with,” he returned slowly, making the words a warning.

“But I am concerned,” Lady Sinclair countered, not taking the hint. “I value your wealth, and your…companionship. I don’t wish to lose them to some skinny-legged whore in breeches.”

Alex regarded his mistress for a moment. He’d known Barbara could be arrogant, but it was an unpleasant side of her character she generally reserved for social climbers and inept servants. With him she was for the most part pliable and pleasant, but as she had said, she needed him for something. It had now become a question of how far she was willing to go to keep hold of what she wanted.

“Don’t look at me that way, Alex,” she continued when he said nothing. “You would do the same if someone stepped between you and something you wanted, and you know it.”