To Tame a Dangerous Lord (15 page)

“No.” That wasn’t the case at all. She was brave enough for any ten women. “I don’t question your courage, love. In fact, I admired the way you dealt with Baron Ackerby. But you don’t have the necessary training or experience for this task.”

Madeline’s expression held a touch of skepticism. “You aren’t being overprotective simply because you knew my father so well?”

That was partly true. He wanted to keep her safe, more so because he felt responsible for her. “You cannot claim your father would approve of my putting you at risk,” Rayne countered.

Her retort was sweetly spirited. “Oh, I think he would. Papa taught his children to fend for themselves. He would be more disappointed if we needed to be sheltered. Besides, the danger is not all that great, is it?”

Her life would not be in jeopardy, Rayne acknowledged. If that were so, he would never chance letting
Madeline accompany him. He’d lost more than a few agents in his time, deaths he could not have prevented, yet he still bore the guilt. And his guilt would be magnified a thousandfold if he let harm come to David Ellis’s daughter. “I told you, I don’t want to chance you being taken for a thief.”

“Even so, I truly would like to help. I’ve had little opportunity to make any meaningful difference in anyone’s life, as you have.”

Rayne had difficulty resisting that imploring gaze, especially when Madeline added in a softer voice, “Won’t you allow me any role at all?”

“You
will
have a significant role, love. You will keep Mrs. Sauville in sight at all times. If you see her break away from her guests and attempt to leave her salon, you will distract her. The same goes for any suspicious activity among her servants. And if I require more time to search her apartments upstairs, you may have to create a disturbance of some kind.”

“What sort of disturbance?”

He gave a light shrug. “It depends on the circumstances. You could fall down in a swoon, or spill wine on one of the guests, or tip over a candle…. You’ll have to rely upon your wits to decide the most effective course and then improvise.”

Madeline’s features held both intrigue and disappointment. “So I am only to serve as a distraction if one is needed?”

“Yes. Nothing more.”

“Very well,” she said reluctantly.

Rayne fixed her with a level gaze. “I want you to promise that you will follow my commands to the letter, sweetheart. Otherwise we will call the whole thing off.”

Madeline hesitated before a glimmer of amusement entered her lovely eyes. “Certainly I will, O master.”

When Rayne’s glance sharpened, her look turned innocent. “You won’t let me address you as ‘my lord.’ I thought you might prefer ‘master.’”

Laughter and exasperation battled within him. “Simply Rayne will do.”

Pulling a leather pouch from a side pocket of the carriage door, he handed Madeline a folded paper. “Freddie has drawn up a floor plan of the widow’s house from memory. I want you to study it in the remote event it becomes necessary for you to go anywhere but the drawing room.”

“Do you prepare this much for every operation?” she asked curiously.

“More or less. When your life depends upon the smallest detail, you learn the wisdom of careful planning. But there are always unknown factors that can upend your best-laid plans, including simple ill luck, so you develop contingencies in case of trouble. Now apply yourself to learning the layout, love, starting with the widow’s bedchamber.”

“I won’t ask how Freddie learned so much about
that
particular room,” Madeline murmured impishly before turning her attention to the drawing.

Rayne watched her for several minutes as she frowned in concentration. When she began worrying her luscious lower lip, he recalled doing the same thing to her mouth the night of the ball. In truth, he’d almost lost control of himself that night. Even though he’d merely planned on kissing Madeline, he couldn’t resist the vibrant woman in his arms—her eyes soft and hazy, like silver smoke, her magnificent breasts bared for his pleasure. He remembered
plucking those taut nipples, rolling them between his fingers, pulling them into his mouth, hungry to taste his fill of her….

He’d somehow resisted the urgent impulse to carry Madeline into the nearest bedchamber and take his persuasion all the way, but it had been a close thing. Even now an image of her spread wild and wanton before him made Rayne stir uncomfortably in his seat.

Her response to his passion, however, had only increased his desire to have Madeline in his nuptial bed, while her reaction to his proposal had confirmed his decision to wed her.

Admittedly, Rayne was mildly astonished that she’d refused him with such conviction. Yet after considering it, he was rather glad she hadn’t leapt to accept his offer. He valued a challenge, and Madeline would be a challenge worth striving for.

Meanwhile, he would have to suffer the pain of unfulfilled need. It was another reason he didn’t want her working with him on this operation. She was too much of a distraction.

Even so, he was glad to have Madeline with him. Spending an afternoon and evening together gave him the opportunity to woo her subtly without raising her resistance further. He could show her his home in London and give her a taste of the advantages and pleasures she could expect as his countess. God knew, Madeline had enjoyed few pleasures in her life thus far.

And once they had safely retrieved the letters, Rayne reflected, he could turn his full attention to convincing her to become his wife.

*   *   *

Watching Madeline that afternoon brought its own pleasure, Rayne decided two hours later. He first escorted her to Hatchard’s, where she seemed enraptured to find so many varied tomes available for her perusal. To her additional delight, the proprietor had an excellent French primer in stock, and agreed to write the publisher and order three dozen copies for the Freemantle Academy.

Madeline sighed upon leaving the bookshop. “How wonderful it would be to have so many books to choose from. One could read a different volume every day for years and still not come to the end.”

“I have a fair library of my own,” Rayne informed her. “You are welcome to read them all.”

She gave him a knowing glance. “Is dangling such a treat before me meant to advance your matrimonial plans?”

Rayne smiled. “In part.”

“Your offer is indeed tempting, but with the salary I will earn from my new position, I can afford to subscribe to a lending library.”

“Then let us see if I can conceive of a better way to influence you….”

Continuing his plan to woo her, Rayne escorted Madeline to a nearby tea shop, where he bought her three different flavors of ices over her objections, as well as one for himself.

“This is truly decadent,” she murmured when they were seated at a table by the window overlooking the busy street. “I haven’t tasted an ice in years, and now I have an overabundance.”

Her enjoyment of the sweets, however, seemed to match her enjoyment of watching the passersby outside
the shop window, Rayne noted. Under that spinsterish exterior, Madeline Ellis had a hunger for living that was palpable.

Rayne waited until she had finished every last spoonful of her ices before standing and holding out his hand to her.

“Come, we should go. I don’t want to be late to the soirée.”

Madeline looked puzzled as he helped her to rise. “I thought we had more than an hour before it begins.”

“We won’t be going there directly. We need to make a stop at my London home first to collect a few accessories.”

“What accessories?”

“I want to replace your cloak, for one thing, and dress up your gown a bit.”

“What is wrong with my gown?” Madeline asked, her chin lifting in a position of pride.

His gaze dropped to the lavender crepe dress she wore under her drab brown cloak. “Nothing is wrong with it,” Rayne said, keeping his tone mild. “But for you to be welcomed by Madame Sauville’s guests, you need to look the part. The aristocrats there put great store in dressing well—I suspect because they cling to the grandeur they once knew before the Revolution, or would have known had they not been exiled and stripped of their lands and fortunes. Additionally, I need to change my own attire for something more appropriate to carrying a packet of concealed letters.”

“Oh,” Madeline said, seemingly mollified.

She willingly accompanied Rayne back to his coach, and, while driving to his house on Bedford Avenue, she commented on his choice of professions.

“It is curious that the heir to an earldom would become an agent for British Intelligence. How did you become involved in spying in the first place?”

Rayne’s mouth curved in remembrance. “Would you believe a stolen loaf of bread inspired my career?”

“Truly? I should like to hear
that
story.”

Deciding there was no harm in Madeline knowing how he had gotten his start as a spy, he told her the truth.

“I had a great deal of restless energy as a boy, for which I could find adequate outlets in the country, at Haviland Park. But when my parents came to London for the Season, I frequently escaped my tutors and spent numerous hours prowling parts of the city far from Mayfair. One day when I was eleven, I happened upon a ragged lad about my same age who had been apprehended by a baker for stealing a loaf of bread. The thief likely would have hanged or wasted his life away in prison, and since I didn’t think that fair for so minor a crime, I created a diversion and helped him escape from the baker. We became fast friends after that.”

Madeline’s eyes were bright and eager as she prodded him for more details. “I would imagine your parents were not happy about your new acquaintance.”

Smiling wryly, Rayne nodded. “My parents cared little about how I spent my time, but they would have been horrified to know I was associating with such riffraff. My thieving friend came from the London stews. With no home or family, he was living in alleys, scrounging for scraps to survive.
I
was horrified by his circumstance, so I gave him the funds for food and decent lodgings, but while he was grateful to have enough to eat, he refused to be confined to civilized surroundings. After
living on the streets for so long, he was a bit savage, like a feral fox.”

“So how did that lead to you becoming a spy?”

“To satisfy my curiosity and my longing for adventure, my new friend introduced me to the sordid but fascinating London underworld and taught me some rather unique skills that were critical to his way of life—such as how to pilfer and to slip in and out of places undetected. And in exchange, I taught him how to pass for a gentleman … how to speak properly, to read, to ride, to shoot and fence. I thought it a great lark at the time, but years later we put our skills to good use. We both joined the Foreign Office and then worked our way up the ranks.”

“So you saved a stranger’s life, and in turn, he changed yours,” Madeline said softly, admiration clear in her eyes.

“A fate for which I will always be grateful,” Rayne acknowledged. “Otherwise I might have ended up a reckless care-for-nothing buck with too much time on my hands, getting into the kinds of scrapes Freddie regularly lands himself in, or worse.”

“I doubt that would ever be possible,” Madeline murmured. “You were meant to be a knight in shining armor.”

Perhaps so, Rayne silently agreed. His experience with Will Stokes was his first encounter with the heartbreaking misery and poverty that afflicted much of London’s citizenry and the injustices they bore because of their less-than-genteel origins. It had made him keenly aware how fortunate he was to be a member of the privileged upper class. But even at age eleven, he’d realized it was his duty to help those in need.

In response to Madeline’s observation, however, Rayne merely shrugged.

“What happened to your friend?” she asked, then added when she noticed his fond smile, “What is so amusing?”

“The irony is that now he works as a thief-
taker
for Bow Street.”

“He is a Runner?”

“Yes, and quite a good one, since he knows all the tricks of the trade. Even more amusing is that he married a baker’s daughter and has two sons similar in age to my youngest nephews.”

Madeline digested that information in silence for the remainder of the drive. And upon arriving at his house on Bedford Avenue, she held her tongue when they were met in the entrance hall by his chief aide, Walters, who acted as part butler, secretary, valet, and henchman.

Madeline remained wide-eyed and curious, absorbing everything she saw, as Rayne escorted her through the large house, passing rooms adorned with furnishings designed more for masculine comfort than a display of wealth.

Her eyebrows rose, however, when he led her down the back servants’ stairs. Beyond the kitchens was a door to the wine cellar, and beyond that was a large chamber that resembled part storeroom and part dressing room such as the lead actors at Drury Lane commanded.

“I never considered it before,” Madeline murmured, “but I suppose spies need disguises when they play different roles.”

“Occasionally,” Rayne replied. “This room rarely gets
used anymore. Now it mainly houses equipment I’ve needed at one time or another.”

As expected, Walters had carried out his orders to his exact specifications.

“The accoutrements for your role tonight are on that table,” Rayne said, pointing to one side of the room.

He watched as Madeline inspected the items laid out for her—a shawl of delicate silver lace, a bandeau with white ostrich plumes, and a pair of silver combs for her hair.

Moving behind her, Rayne helped her remove her cloak so she could don the shawl, then had her sit at a dressing table so he could arrange her hair and headdresses to his liking.

“How did you learn to devise disguises?” Madeline asked, peering at herself in an oval hand mirror as he worked.

“Various thespians taught me here and there.”

He didn’t add that one of the actresses in question had been a former mistress.

Reminded of their upcoming task, Rayne related some background information about their target to Madeline, the better to prepare her for what to expect. “Madame Sauville is not considered a courtesan in the usual sense, in that she doesn’t sell her wares overtly. But she has been the mistress of a number of notable figures in the government and elsewhere. I was surprised that she stooped to try her blackmail schemes on Freddie—and that he didn’t have the sense to steer clear of her. She must be getting desperate for funds to support her extravagant lifestyle.”