Closer To Sin (4 page)

Air whooshed from Liliane’s lungs. This was not what she had been expecting to hear. ‘So, why me?’

‘Because I’m too well known to the Jacobins.’

Liliane set her teacup back in its saucer with a clatter. Despite the cheerful warmth of the fireplace, the room had a sinister chill. With nerveless fingers she reached for Grandpère’s diary once again and her face leeched of colour. A number of pages had been ripped out, but on this last page, his final words were,
‘All is not lost.’

Except they had been turned out of their beds that night and executed two days later. By the Jacobins.

Liliane hugged herself tightly, and tried to absorb the horror that had marked the last hours of so many family members. It was futile to think she could avenge their deaths, but if she’d had any doubts about her role, they were obliterated by the conviction of that final diary entry.

Liliane stood and wandered over to the window that looked out onto cultivated vegetable gardens abundant with cabbages and other winter plantings. At the bottom of the garden, a path lead down to a beach lined with colourfully painted fishing boats. The cottage was small by English standards, but nonetheless it had a simplicity that was inviting and homely. It reminded her of the gardener’s cottage at Manning Grange. What different worlds she and Solange inhabited.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ Solange finally commented, mistaking Liliane’s silence for trepidation.

‘Yes I do, Solange.’ And she didn’t have time to prevaricate. Great-Aunt Woolner was expecting her in London for Easter to complete the final preparations for her betrothal to be announced. Or more precisely, Great-Aunt Woolner wanted another opportunity to brow-beat her into accepting Freddy Parkes’s offer so a betrothal could be announced.

The Dowager Countess of Carrick had made it abundantly clear that at the age of five and twenty, Liliane was no longer in a position to refuse an eminently eligible offer of marriage. Liliane sighed. She was not going to marry Freddy Parkes, but that was an argument for another time and place.

She turned back to face Solange. ‘I can’t right the wrongs of the past, but just maybe, I can change the future.’

‘Come then, let’s discuss what needs to be done.’

***

Sinclair Charlcroft, Marquis Esselton, lay on the bed in his room above the inn, his feet crossed at the ankles and his hands tucked behind his head while he stared at the spider tracking its way across the ceiling. The innkeeper had insisted this was his best room with its private sleeping arrangements, a window and a fireplace. Other than that, there was little to recommend it. Although the linens were clean, the bed was nothing more than a lumpy straw mattress tossed upon a wooden frame, the fireplace smoked and the window was layered with years of grime.

‘Blast it to hell,’ he muttered to himself. He’d stayed in worse places than this, but what the hell game was Solange Beaumont playing, entrusting the welfare of a woman like Liliane to him. Did they truly think she would be an asset? A distraction more than bloody likely.
Damn it
. He would spend all his time worrying about her safety, and her smart mouth.

Good God, but the woman was exquisite. She was a vision with those tendrils of sable hair that had drifted around an oval face graced with high cheek bones. He closed his eyes and his body tightened at the memory of a mouth that was full and sensuously ripe. But her eyes, he thought. Her eyes were sapphire.

His reaction to her was disconcerting. From the moment she had turned and looked at him he’d been thoroughly distracted from his surrounds. While mildly annoying now, it could be fatal under other circumstances. It wouldn’t be the first time an attempt had been made to distract an operative with the enticement of a pretty girl. It was just fortunate Solange Beaumont was such a reliable ally, for he could think of no other circumstance where he would so willingly accept a substitute courier to accompany him.

Mentally replaying their conversation, he cringed inwardly. It was bad enough he’d been distracted by her presence, but his treatment of her had been inexcusably rude. It was little wonder she had bristled when he’d questioned her virtue. Bloody hell, with five sisters of his own, he knew better than to talk to a woman like that.

A bump, followed by a rustling noise sounded from the corridor and jolted him to awareness. Sinclair looked over to see an envelope being slid under his door. He reached for the pistol he’d placed on the dresser beside the bed and held still. This didn’t bode well. Only two other people knew he was here, and they were both in England. With the stealth born from years of necessity, he rolled to his feet and moved to position himself beside the door. He pressed his ear to the wall and listened intently. Satisfied that he could hear footsteps retreating back down the stairs, he bent and retrieved the missive, and turned the crumpled brown paper envelope over in his hands. Other than an indistinguishable seal, there was nothing, not even his name on the front. He tore it open. Whoever had sent it had been very sure of where to find him.

My dear son,

Your dutiful brother fell from his horse some weeks ago while on his way to repair a leak in the sea wall. His health is precarious and we fear he may soon pass from this earth. Pray you suspend all other obligations and locate a physician to deliver a favourable prognosis. Once you have identified a cure, I beseech you to return home with all haste. Your Mama and I await news of you.

In devotion we are bound,

Papa.

Fuck. Sinclair closed his eyes and swallowed back the wave of foreboding that arose from the pit of his stomach. The phrase ‘dutiful brother’ identified his friend Gareth Whitby, the Earl of Saynsberry, twenty-eight years old and now presumed dead.

Gareth had finally had a breakthrough in identifying the traitor who was selling intelligence intended for the British Admiralty to the French. Except he had not been heard from since December and they feared the very worst.

Sinclair read the carefully coded letter through once more. He was to do all in his power to locate Gareth—or his body—and discover the identity of the traitor. Then he was to return home to England with all haste.

He dropped to the bed and leaned his head upon his arms. A loud roar sounded through his head, drowning out the noise from the tavern below and threatening to overwhelm him as he thought of Gareth possibly dead or grievously wounded.

Along with Nathaniel Manning, the Duke of Martinbury, the three of them had been inseparable since childhood. A montage of memories assailed him with the force of an axe; particularly the recollection of the three of them seated in the dining hall at Eton while Gareth slipped food to the abandoned puppy bundled inside his shirt. The blasted thing had turned out to be a wolfhound, and while rewarding Gareth with a lifetime of devotion, it had grown to be the size of a horse.

Sinclair recalled the three of them sitting in a local Oxford tavern planning their first foray to London’s gaming halls, their first foray into Covent Gardens and the letter that had summoned them to that first meeting with Sir Avery.

A dull ache lodged in his chest, and he felt his throat constrict. For the first time ever, he felt the weight of the isolation that came with living a life of deceit and subterfuge. He gave himself a few more moments to assimilate the news of Gareth’s disappearance before drawing the memories back and compacting them down tightly. He wasn’t ready to give up on Gareth, and he would sure as hell do all in his power to find him.

He withdrew paper and writing implements from his satchel and moved across to the deeply gouged table by the window to pen a message. The nature of his mission had changed, but Liliane Beaumont had just become essential to his cover.

Liliane inhaled the earthy scent of her horse and shivered a little against the cold afternoon breeze. She fidgeted slightly in the saddle, trying to find a more comfortable position. They had maintained a demanding pace throughout the day but, other than seeing to comfort breaks, Monsieur St Clair had not once tried to engage her in more than cursory conversation. All of which would be alright, except her backside was growing numb and she was tired of conversing with the voices in her own head.

They had taken the north road after leaving the village, but a couple of hours ago they had turned down a country land and started inland until coming upon a deeply rutted track that meandered in a southerly direction. Her initial thought had been that they were heading to Boulogne-Sur-Mer, but the ocean was nowhere in sight; for all she knew, they could be on the way to Paris.

She stared at the back of the seemingly sullen and uncommunicative man. He’d been unfailingly polite to her when he’d collected her from the cottage, if not a little distracted. Well, sooner or later he would have to start talking to her, and there was no time like the present. Guessing the last of the afternoon’s sun would shortly disappear from view, and feeling in need of a comfort break, she prodded her mare to move up alongside his black gelding. ‘Monsieur St Clair?’

‘Yes,
mon fleur
?’

‘Liliane.’

He nudged his horse closer until their legs were nearly brushing together. She could feel his heat radiating towards her, wrapping its tendrils about her. Her mouth dried. This man was a distraction, and he obviously didn’t subscribe to the dictates of polite society. ‘But sweetheart, we come from a very close family. What could be more appropriate?’

‘You must be deluded,’ she blurted. His laughter washed over her and she looked up in time to catch the glint of humour in his sparkling eyes. Her grip momentarily tightened on Satin’s reins; men had flirted with her before, a couple had even kissed her, but Monsieur St Clair was a complete enigma.

‘We need an alibi, an excuse why a young woman would be travelling unaccompanied with a man such as me. So, for the purpose of this mission, we are brother and sister.’

Liliane snapped her mouth closed. Well, that would teach her to read too much into his good humour. While she’d been imagining he was flirting with her, he’d relegated her to the role of little sister. How mortifying, but she at least now had a reason to learn more about him. ‘So what should I call you? If I’m your sister I can’t continue to address you as Monsieur St Clair.’

‘Sin,’ he interjected.

‘Monsieur Sin—’

‘Just Sin, sweetheart, pure and simple.’

‘Ha, I doubt there’s anything remotely pure about you.’ She clasped her hand across her mouth. Oh my God, one day she would learn to think before speaking. No wonder Great-Aunt Woolner despaired at her lack of self-control.

In an act of contrition, she offered an apology. ‘I’m sorry, that just slipped out. I’m often accused of speaking first and thinking later.’ To her surprise Sin simply chuckled, the sound rich and warm. As he laughed, his eyes creased at the corners, softening his features and drawing her gaze down to his full wide mouth.

She bit her lip and tried to ignore the little flutters in her stomach. If he wanted her to act like his sister, then he really had to stop smiling at her like that. It was damned distracting, not to mention damned attractive. She shook her head to clear away the memory of him pressed intimately against her in the tavern yesterday. ‘So, why is it that I’m travelling with my sinful brother?’

Sin gently checked his horse and put a bit more space between them. ‘Sweetheart, I’m escorting you to meet your bridegroom. You are to be married next Tuesday.’ Glancing sideways at her, he smirked. ‘It’s a very felicitous match. He’s agreed to take you off my hands in return for forgiving my gambling debts. Cock fighting and bear baiting.’

Liliane gasped. She abhorred violence of any type, but abusing innocent creatures was beyond forgivable. Surely he wasn’t serious—it didn’t fit with the warmth and kindness that she felt sure was an innate part of his being. ‘I’m so pleased to hear that we are a family of such good standing,’ she murmured dryly, unable to hide her disgust. ‘Surely you could have come up with something a little more decorous?’

Sin simply shrugged. ‘What can I say, we bourgeois enjoy our blood sports.’

Liliane grimaced at the irony of his statement. Eleven years ago those blood sports had been laced with malevolence and directed with murderous precision at the aristocracy—her grandparents, aunts and uncles included. Papa had only been spared because Grandpère had sent him to live with an old friend, the late Duke of Martinbury. When Papa had fallen in love with and married the Duke’s daughter, he’d chosen to stay in England. But Sin was a Frenchman working to oust Napoleon and it was a mystery how he had come to be working on the side of the British. For now, though, she’d just have to settle for discovering more about their mission. She turned and gave him, a hoity sniff. ‘What paragons of virtue you and my betrothed must be.’

‘Just so,’ Sin chuckled in response.

The warmth of his laughter was reassuring and the light-hearted banter felt natural. No man who indulged in violent blood sports would be able to feign congeniality so easily. She rode beside him in companionable silence for a few minutes, pleased to have broken through his reserve.

Unable to sleep last night, she had tossed and turned, her stomach tied in knots at the thought of being alone with Sin. Some of that tension eased slowly from her. She snuck a look at him from the corner of her eye. His greatcoat was open at the front and fell casually from his shoulders, fanning out across the rump of his horse. His posture appeared relaxed, but she could tell by the set of his jaw that he was alert to the surrounding countryside and the dangers it might pose.

Intuitively she knew she could trust him, that he was a man whose first instinct would always be to protect those around him. And what’s more, she knew beyond doubt that while he had an obvious fondness for women, he would never take more than what was offered. Ironically, he reminded her of Uncle Nate in many ways. In fact, they were probably even about the same age, except Uncle Nate was more reserved, burdened as he was by the responsibilities of the Dukedom and the weight of his Parliamentary duties.