How I Met My Countess (10 page)

“About ten years ago. She never fit into Hampstead, and Hampstead was just too small for her. One day she was here, and the next …” Lucy shrugged. “As for my skill as a housekeeper, be grateful you weren’t here in the early days. I had much to learn. Thank goodness I have become good at it, for once Papa is gone, it may end up being my livelihood.”

“When your father is gone?”

“Yes, of course. He’s not a young man.”

“No, I suppose not.” George Ellyson was well into his seventies. “But why wouldn’t you stay here?”

Why wouldn’t you marry?

She shook her head as she uncorked the wine and poured him a glass. “The house isn’t ours. It belongs to Parkerton. The old duke granted Papa the use of the house during his lifetime, but when he dies, the house goes back to the estate.”

“But Parkerton would never—”

“The old duke perhaps. But his son hasn’t a notion of what his father did—”

“You mean the spying?”

“Yes.” Then she laughed. “Jack swears it would give his brother apoplexy to think of their sainted father as ‘mucking about with the lower classes.’ Can you imagine the fit the current duke would have if he knew what his brother was doing with Thistleton Park? The smuggling he might not mind, but the spying?” She shuddered.

“Well, the current duke has never been a fan of Mad Jack’s antics—heroic or otherwise.” Clifton smiled, for the current Duke of Parkerton was renowned for his fastidious and lofty notions.

“Exactly,” Lucy said as she returned to the stove and set it to rights. “No, I am resigned that when Papa dies, Mariana and I will have to make our own way in the world.”

“But certainly if you were to ask Jack or Templeton to—”

She turned sharply toward him. “No. Mariana and I would never use our connections thusly. An Ellyson never takes charity. We earn our keep.” She shuddered, as if asking such a favor would be too close to …

Too close to being like their mother. Taking favors and money from men to pay her rent and alike.

And in the bargain, gaining the scorn of proper Society.

Expertly, she moved the conversation in a different direction. “If all else fails, I will make an excellent housekeeper. Though I still hold out hopes that Mariana’s fair face will grant her good marriage despite our lack of decent breeding. That way, if I cannot find a placement, I can make myself useful in her household.”

“I have to imagine your forthright, managing ways will serve you well,” he said, knowing that most ladies would deplore being described in such a manner.

“Thank you,” she replied, taking his words not as censure but the praise that they were.

Without asking, she traded the papers before him for a plate of bread and butter and settled in to start deciphering.

It didn’t take her long to find the problem.

“Bloody hell,” she muttered under her breath.

“Pardon me?” he asked, glancing up from his supper and his musings about the contessa and her remarkable daughters.

“Oh, my apologies, my lord,” she said.

Was it his imagination, or was Lucy Ellyson blushing?

“It is just that this is completely muddled. It is almost as if it was written in a very great hurry and he hasn’t remembered which code to use.” She heaved a sigh and continued to scan the lines.

“Do you recognize the hand?”

“Yes, ’tis Darby’s.” She shook her head. “Dear man. Though a bit high-strung—Baron Risby’s third son. I wonder what has him in such a fettle?”

“Darby?” Clifton managed. “Darby Bricknell?”

“Yes. He’s engaged to the Earl of Wyton’s daughter. Patient creature to put up with Darby’s hijinks. Do you know him?”

“No,” was all he could manage, his mouth dry, his appetite having fled.

Rising, she went to a sideboard and brought over a pen and ink. Taking up a blank page, she began to move the words around, changing letters in an order that was boggling. But finally she had the passage written out.

“However do you know this is correct?”

“Because I wrote the code,” she said. “Though Darby got overly hurried here and substituted the wrong numerical sequence. ’Tis what makes it confusing. Though I can see why. He writes that the French are closing in on his position and that he fears there is a traitor in Marseilles. He wants Larken sent to stop who might be betraying us.”

Clifton’s blood chilled. “
Is
betraying us.”

“Is? No, Darby writes
might
. He isn’t certain of the matter. Papa says to never jump to—”

He didn’t know why he did it, why the words burst out of him. “Darby is dead, Lucy. He was betrayed. There is no ‘might’ about it.”

She stilled beside him. “No, that isn’t so. You see he’s written this. I know his hand.”

“But that wasn’t the only missive in the packet,” he said, shuffling the papers and pulling out the one that told the entire story.

She took it from him, scanning the lines quickly. By the time she got to the end of the page, her hands trembled. “Darby lost?” she said, her voice a strangled whisper. “No, I won’t believe it. You’ve translated this wrong. You must have.”

She rose abruptly and backed away from the table. “It happens often. Bad news turns out to be naught but a rumor, and in a month or so, the truth … the truth is …”

Clifton rose as well, for the tremble in her voice wrenched at his heart.

“I won’t have it,” she declared. “Not Darby. Not any of them. Not … not …”

She looked up at him, her features stricken, her eyes filled with tears that had yet to fall.

Not you …
her words seemed to cry out.

“I won’t allow it,” she continued. “I won’t.”

And then she proved his earlier worries wrong.

For there was someone to grieve Darby’s loss.

With her hands pressed to her face, Lucy Ellyson wept for the man lost to England.

And he knew without a doubt this wasn’t the first time she’d shed tears for one of her father’s students.

Nor would it be the last. Not until there was an end put to this bloody war.

Lucy tried her best to stop crying, but Clifton’s revelation had tipped her world upside down.

If an agent as good as Darby could end up dead, then they were all at risk.

Of course, she knew that. Knew it like one knew not to show Rusty and Sammy where you kept the silver. But it wasn’t something she spent too much time considering as the men came and went from her father’s house. Some gentlemen, like Darby, stuck in her memory because he’d been such an apt pupil and an engaging personality.

Or men like Jack or Templeton or Larken, who served for their own reasons, whose skills were honed by the very devils that drove them into the Foreign Office’s elite ser vice.

She helped her father train them, read their dispatches home, followed their travels on the collection of maps upstairs, worried when no word came from them for months at a time, and drank a glass of wine in quiet celebration when a note finally made its way to Hampstead via a long string of alliances … and small miracles.

But Darby? Not Darby! His parents, his betrothed. He’d had a future planned as a solicitor. And now all that was gone.

Lost to a French firing squad.

Damn the French
, she wanted to cry out.
To hell with Bonaparte and his unholy ambitions
.

She beat her fists against something hard and unforgiving and at that moment realized that the wall before her was Clifton’s chest.

When he’d pulled her into his arms, into the safety of his embrace, she didn’t know. Though it had been long enough to make a wet mess of his cravat and a good portion of his shirt.

And as much as she wanted to stay there, in the warm confines of Clifton’s arms, with the steady, confident rhythm of his heart beating beneath her hands, she pulled back and pushed away from him, embarrassed to have turned into such a watering pot in front of him.

How he must think her a foolish nit.

But he wasn’t about to let her go just yet. Clifton caught her easily and tugged her back into his arms, his hands smoothing back the wayward strands of her hair, gently banishing the tears from her cheeks with soft, tender strokes.

With each touch of his hand, she felt her fears brush away, replaced by a need she couldn’t understand. A need that welled up inside her with the same fierce passion, the same hunger that had left her railing against the French.

A burning desire for something that would last. Something no one could destroy.

Lucy dared a glance up at the man who held her, and in an instant she tumbled headlong into the dark tempest of his gaze.

Knew exactly what she wanted … needed … this terrible night.

She needed to feel something other than this aching emptiness that seemed capable of consuming her.

“Please,” she whispered, reaching up and touching his lips with a single finger. “Please, my lord.”

For what seemed like an eternity, he just gazed down at her, as if he was memorizing every line of her face, every nuance, every curve.

As if he was taking that second look, the one he claimed every man had to seek before he knew.

What he was thinking, what he thought of her, she couldn’t fathom; she only hoped he held the same desire for her, the same need that clamored inside her.

Then something flashed in those dark eyes of his, an acquiescence of sorts. Dare she even think it, a resolve? And without saying a word, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her with a rare hunger that matched her own.

Oh, the other afternoon had been but a hint of what was to come, and now Lucy discovered what it meant for a man to claim a woman.

There was nothing tentative about his hold on her; he tugged her close and kissed her thoroughly, as if he understood her ragged need to
feel
and not be treated with gentle compassion.

His tongue swiped over her lips and she opened up for him, her heart hammering. His lips tasted of the wine she’d just poured, but it was this kiss, this deepening kiss, that was leaving her intoxicated, trembling.

Then again, Clifton wasn’t just kissing her, he was ravishing her, his hands roaming over her, leaving a trail of desire that rang with a dangerous chord.

She even heard the
plink
of a hairpin as it fell victim to his assault, her hair tumbling loose in his fiery wake.

Not that she was about to protest, for his touch was bringing her to life. Sending a very symphony of pleasure down her limbs.

Touch me again, my lord. Oh, yes, again. Never stop
… never.

And when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, when her insides began to twist with an ache that would have begged him to do so much more, she moaned.

At first softly, then louder when his hand came to her breast and cupped it, held it, caressed it. She couldn’t help herself, for his touch was unleashing all the pent-up dreams she’d hidden away for so long.

But it was that earthy, passionate moan that was her undoing, for it seemed to reach inside the earl and awaken some sort of devilishly noble sensibility.

He broke away, his chest heaving, as if he’d just battled Rusty and Sammy. And his face held the same sort of fierce passion that she’d witnessed then as well.

Was he furious with her? Was he taking a second look now and regretting his actions?

Damn this man, if only she could decipher those unreadable eyes of his.

Oh, how she must look! Struggling to catch her breath, her lips swollen from his bruising kiss, her hair all a-tumble.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was just that as I considered what happened to Darby, I feared what could …” Her voice began to tremble again and she pressed her lips shut, afraid of what would tumble out if she dared to say more.

If she said the words that pounded with the same hammering beat as her heart.
I feared what could happen to you …

Oh, heavens, Lucy, pull yourself together
. But every time she tried to banish the image of Darby’s bullet-ridden body from her lurid imagination, it was Clifton’s handsome face she saw lying there. His eyes blank, staring heavenward.

“Was Darby a good agent?” he asked quietly.

She blinked and stared at him. “Pardon?”

“Darby. Was he a good agent?”

Lucy drew a breath to steady herself and nodded. “Yes. One of the best, or so I always thought.”

He straightened a bit, his shoulders going taut. “And now?”

“Well, he failed,” she said, hating herself to have to say such a thing about the man.

“And what would have made him the best?”

“Coming home,” she said, sitting back and looking up into Clifton’s eyes, so darkly serious.

She could see it now. See it so clearly. He knew. He knew now the cost.

But there was no fear in his eyes. Just that resolute determination to do the task ahead.

No matter what the Fates had in store for him.

In the face of his stalwart resolve, something inside Lucy cracked. It wasn’t just the lingering passion of his kiss, or the fond memories of the evenings past. No, something had grown between them in the last few days, so quickly, so stealthily, that she couldn’t quite believe it.

But there was one thing for certain. The very idea of reading some dusty, wrinkled dispatch, a note, a line in a report that held the words that would break her heart, wasn’t one she intended to face.

She wouldn’t even consider.

Lucy tossed her hair back out of her face and drew up her shoulders, much as he had. She gazed into those dark eyes of his and silently made her vow.

Demmit, she was going to make this man the finest agent the Foreign Office had ever seen.

So that no matter what, he would come home.

The next week turned into a whirl of activity for Clifton. Instead of cozy suppers, cards and Mariana’s lively conversation, or
ahem
, gossip, their evenings were now spent—once a hasty supper was concluded—with added lessons, ones that encompassed all the skills that made the Ellyson sisters unique.

Mariana spent hours showing them the intricacies and vagaries of opening locks. Before the dawn, Malcolm had picked George Ellyson’s safe open, as well as the locks to his wine cabinet and the lockbox he kept hidden under the floorboards in his map room.

Under his great chair.

That one had been tricky, for they’d had to go into the room and pry the floorboard up without waking him, but Lucy had shown them how to move quietly through the room, and what to look for.

Clifton hadn’t Malcolm’s touch with the picks, but the next night, Lucy dragged a reluctant Thomas-William up and coerced him into teaching the Greys everything about cards—how to deal from anywhere in the deck, counting cards, how to read the faces of less-skilled players and, of course, how to spot other cheats and the best means to outwit them.

By the end of the evening, Clifton sat at the end of the table with a pile of markers before him, having trounced Lucy soundly in round after round of
vingt-et-un
until she had cried off and declared him the worst cheat she had ever met.

The next night, unsure of what they would find upon entering the parlor, Clifton was shocked to discover a grinning Rusty and Sammy waiting for them. All dressed in black, they’d also brought dark coats for Malcolm and Clifton, whom they then took out to “teach the fine art of being a cracksman.”

“ ’Tis a privilege for you to be learning from the best, I tell you, milord,” Sammy said, before showing Clifton how to use a “bess,” a small pry bar that opened a door quickly and quietly to gain entrance to a house.

They then proceeded to rob four houses in Hampstead. The next day, the entire citizenry was in an uproar over the ring of criminals who had targeted their quiet corner.

As the debate raged around them in the public room of their inn the next morning, Malcolm glanced across the table at Clifton and said quietly, “What do you think they would make of the bess in my coat pocket?”

Clifton laughed, for none of the descriptions of the craven criminals the locals suspected fit the earl and his half brother.

The next day the hullabaloo died out when all the households that had been broken into found rich purses sitting innocently on their front steps and the mystery became a local legend.

The real challenge, Clifton discovered, was trying to ignore his desire for Lucy. To keep his thoughts off that unforgettable moment when she’d sought his arms, his lips, and he’d discovered what a passionate fire burned beneath her determined façade.

The moment when he’d kissed her and discovered that a woman could fit into your arms like no other, that she could move from your arms into your heart in the blink of an eye.

But there was no obvious sign from Lucy that their passionate encounter had ever happened.

She’d gone back to her brusque, no-nonsense manners, consumed by the lessons she laid out each evening. And Clifton let her, for he knew she shared the conflict raging inside him—for he’d caught her on more than one occasion slanting a glance at him with a finger on her lips, as if she were recalling that wayward moment.

So you find this as vexing and utterly impossible as I do, Goosie, do you? Whatever are we to do?
he thought as he stood in the parlor after a delicious supper of roasted chicken and listened as his unorthodox teacher explained the rudimentary arts of picking a pocket.

For it was a skill, she declared, that was indispensable to a good agent.

“Come now, Lord Clifton, try again,” she coached, gesturing him to move toward her, not that he needed any encouragement to draw closer, for tonight she’d donned an enchanting pink silk gown and looked, in his humble estimation, like a vision.

But when he came across the room, she shook her head vehemently.

“No! No! No!” she protested. “You are much too stiff.” She stood with her hands on her hips, elbows thrust out and her face set with determination. “You walk and move like an earl.”

“But I am an earl,” he reminded her with an equal measure of lofty mettle.

“A pity that,” she said, shaking her head as if he had the pox, not an estate, fortune and a name that went back fourteen generations.

Clifton threw up his hands. “A wha-a-at?”

“A pity, Gilby,” Malcolm said, laughing from where he stood leaning against the doorjamb. “She thinks your illustrious breeding and enviable title are a damned pity.”

And much to his dismay, Lucy held out her hands to Malcolm in agreement. “Exactly. You must stop thinking so nobly. So honorably.”

“Good luck there,” Malcolm teased before he started to laugh again. “My brother is Clifton through and through. But I daresay I haven’t such hindrances, Lucy.” He pushed off from the door and nearly collided with Mariana, who was coming in from the kitchen.

“Whatever has everyone laughing?” she asked, joining the party by sitting down on the bench in front of the pianoforte.

“I am trying,” her sister told her, “to get his lordship to loosen up his approach so he seems more nonchalant.”

“Yes, and he’s bungling it,” Malcolm teased. “For he hasn’t got our common touch.”

Mariana laughed. “I wouldn’t be so smug, Mr. Grey, or tease your brother so mercilessly.”

“And whyever not?”

“For you will never realize that your watch and fob have gone missing.”

Clifton glanced first at Malcolm, who began to pat his coat, and then to Mariana, who pulled from her pocket the watch and chain their father had given him.

“Dear me,” she said quite innocently, glancing at the treasure dangling from her fingers, “however did I come by this?”

“What the devil?!” Malcolm exclaimed. “You blasted minx! How did you—”

Mariana laughed and preened, while her sister and Clifton joined in.

“Mind the lesson a little closer, will you, Malcolm?” he advised.

His brother glared at Mariana and then sent the girl a rakish wink. “I’ll get that back.”

“You’ll try,” she said just as flirtatiously.

There was the stomp of a heel from their taskmaster in the corner. “Come now, if you are going to learn this properly, you need to attend me,” Lucy ordered.

Clifton bowed slightly to her, precisely and elegantly so, if only to irritate her.

And it did. “
Harrumph
. Blast it all, my lord, you will never be able to pick a pocket if you persist on being so … so …”

“Stiff-rumped?” Malcolm suggested.

Mariana was polite enough to cover her mouth and cough slightly to hide her amusement.

Clifton threw up his hands. “I ask you, how the devil am I supposed to retrieve the key in your pocket when you know I am coming for it?”

“You need to focus, and concentrate on what needs to be done,” Lucy told him.

“Oh, Lucy, now you sound as top-lofty as he does.” Mariana got up and sauntered toward Malcolm, offering her own advice over her shoulder. “My lord, picking a pocket is nothing more than a seduction.” She turned and flashed a dazzling smile at Malcolm, who stepped back warily.

Apparently he wasn’t about to give up his wallet as well as his watch.

Mariana continued to talk as she stalked Malcolm like a lioness. “Pinching a purse is about seeming to be about one thing when your intention is quite different. You can appear to be choosing items from a buffet supper, distracted by a letter you might be reading, or approaching a lady with a light in your eye that suggests you would like to divest her of something altogether different.”

And with that, Mariana had Malcolm cornered, and simply offered him back his watch.

Malcolm took a deep breath. “Are you asking
my
brother to flirt?”

Mariana glanced over her shoulder at Clifton. “Of course.”

Malcolm laughed, and this time he doubled over until tears ran down his cheeks.

“What?” Clifton protested. “I am damn well capable of flirting with a woman!”

Much to his chagrin, they all began to laugh.

“I’ll have you know I had Lady Galloway on tenterhooks when we were last in town,” he declared.

“Oh, yes, I had quite forgotten,” Malcolm said, then, in an aside to the ladies, revealed, “quite the conquest there. What he neglects to say is that the marchioness is a grandmother of seven.”

Clifton straightened. “She is?”

This time, they all laughed, and in that moment, he realized why he’d done this—let himself get talked into something as ignoble as spying: he’d always envied Malcolm his freedom, and for the first time in his life, the Earl of Clifton was no longer encumbered by his name, his rank, his title, the expectations that clung to him like a Weston jacket.

He was Justin Grey. A man with desires and dreams and a willingness to dare to defy Society’s expectations. The freedom was a heady brew, and it opened up his eyes to a world that had always been out of his reach, out of his realm.

But now that he’d stepped out of his privileged existence, he’d discovered a life worth living. What it meant to feel, to fight, to live. Just as he had the other afternoon when he’d found himself brawling in the lane like a common bruiser, relishing every punch …

Just as he had when he’d kissed Lucy Ellyson. She’d opened a door to a passion he’d pledged to find. One he’d certainly never thought to discover in a kitchen in Hampstead.

That, and this new life gave him a license to commit all sorts of felonies and crimes, real and imagined, that no honorable man would ever consider.

And he rather liked that notion.

Clifton shook off their amusement at his expense and turned his attention to Lucy, who was right now wiping tears from her eyes.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to practice on Mrs. Kewin?” she said, that wry, teasing, daring smile on her lips.

“No, I can manage you,” he said back, drawing a deep breath.

“Oh, can you now?” She swaggered a bit toward him. “So try again, just as I taught you.”

He shook his head. “No. I prefer your sister’s suggestion.”

Her eyes widened just a bit as Mariana’s words rang through both their thoughts.

“My lord, picking a pocket is nothing more than a seduction.”

And when she glanced up at him, her eyes betrayed her.
You wouldn’t dare.

“I don’t think—” she began, her swagger now replaced with a retreat as she edged backward.

And in her sudden change of demeanor, Clifton saw it all so clearly, as if the room stilled and his mission came into sharp focus.

He fixed his gaze on her and began to move forward.

From her place by the pianoforte, Mariana offered encouragement. “Yes, yes, milord. That is it, exactly. Envision Madrid. A ballroom.” She sat down and began to play notes both soft and seductive. “Ask her to dance.”

“Madame,” he said, bowing slightly, his gaze never leaving hers, keeping her trapped in his unmoving scrutiny. “May I have this dance?”

“No!” Lucy told him. Because they both knew it wasn’t merely a dance he sought.

Malcolm had moved beside Mariana and was turning the pages for her as she continued to play. “Convince her.”

“Yes, you must,” Mariana added. “She has the information that will bring you home, my lord.”

Bring you home.

Those words spurred him forward. And as he looked into Lucy’s green eyes, so very much like the color of an English spring, he found his heart. He found the steadfast resolve to face the trials ahead of him. Because demmit, he would come home. He would. He’d come home to her.

It was a startling notion. He wanted her. Her alone. And to get her, he needed to convince her he was worthy.

Worthy of stealing the keys tucked in her pocket. Worthy of unlocking the padlock she kept over her heart.

“Come now, Gilby. Don’t give up. Convince her to dance with you,” Malcolm called out.

Clifton bowed again, lower this time, then caught her hand as he rose and brought it to his lips. “Madame, may I have this dance?” he murmured over her fingertips.

“No!” she said, trembling and snatching back her hand.

No?
So she was going to make this difficult. He liked that about her. No fawning miss, no anxious debutante looking to win his favor.

Just Lucy Ellyson, and her stubborn, obstinate defiance. But he could also see that he had her on the ropes.

“But I insist,” he said, moving closer.

This time she stood her ground. “And I must insist as well. I do not dance with gentlemen whom I haven’t been properly introduced to.”

“Not introduced?” He shook his head and reached out to recapture her hand. “Such an oversight.” He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them, tasted them. It was like being given the merest drop of an intoxicating, tantalizing liquor, for just the feel of her fingers on his lips sent a thunderbolt of desire through him, urging him to pull her into his arms and kiss her again.

But this was a seduction, and he let go of her hand, watching with some satisfaction as she brought it to her lips, to cover her gaping mouth.

Was it him, or was she shivering?

Leaning closer, Clifton paused, his lips not far from her ear, and there he let his words whisper over her. “For you, my dear lady, will one day be my countess.”

“I beg your pardon?” she managed as she tried to move away. But with him in front of her and the fireplace behind her, there was little room for escape. “I don’t think—”

“My countess,” he repeated. He vowed. His other hand planted itself on the mantel behind her; now he had her completely cornered. “My only desire.”

He reached out and cupped her chin, forced her to look up into his eyes so she could see that he meant it. That he wasn’t going to forget her.

“I-I-I … that is, I don’t think—”

Clifton grinned, for he hadn’t seen her this undone since he’d told her he’d marry only for love. And now with her off balance, he let his hand drop, curling it around her waist and pulling her close.

And in that moment, with her wonderfully curved charms tucked up against him, with her mouth parted, ready and willing, he began his larcenous career, stealing from her the one thing he wanted to take… .