Lord and Lady Spy (17 page)

“No, my lady.”

She shook her head. A few tendrils of her hair, loose from their earlier lovemaking, tumbled down about her neck. “Call me Saint.”

Blue nodded at her then Adrian, who joined Sophia on the matching couch opposite Blue. “Why are you here? Did Melbourne send you?”

“No. Why would he?” The question was phrased carefully.

“We’re on a special case, and I sent Melbourne a missive, asked him to take a look at…” He glanced at Sophia, wondering at the best way to describe a dead assailant.

“A piece of evidence,” she supplied.

“I see. He hasn’t asked me to look at it.” Blue withdrew a slip of paper from his coat. “Yet. I bring this from Lord Liverpool.”

Adrian waited for Sophia to take the paper, but she gestured to him. He took it and slipped it open, angling it so she could see as well. It was a request for them to meet him at eleven the following evening at Lord Dewhurst’s ball. The phrasing was such as to leave no doubt Liverpool expected answers. Adrian glanced at Sophia. She was watching him. Clearly, neither of them had answers. Adrian thought of the dead assailant and the valet they would interview on the morrow. He hoped one of them possessed a clue to Jenkinson’s murder. At this point, he was no closer than Bow Street to ascertaining the identity of the killer.

Adrian looked at Blue. “Anything I can do to be of service?” Blue asked.

Adrian began to shake his head, but Sophia said, “Can you meet us at Lord Melbourne’s office in two hours? There’s something we’d like you to look at.”

Adrian cocked a brow at her. He wasn’t so certain they should bring Blue in without consulting Melbourne first.

“Of course,” Blue said, rising. “I’d be happy to assist.”

Adrian rose, showing Blue to the door. “We’ll see you shortly,” Adrian said.

“Looking forward to it. Agent Saint?”

Sophia was a few steps behind Adrian. She raised an expectant brow.

“You might want to have your draperies replaced.”

Adrian was still watching Sophia, and he saw the color flood her cheeks.

“I’m afraid they don’t obscure much from the street.”

“O-of course,” she stammered. Blue tipped his hat and exited with a flourish.

Adrian took Sophia’s hand. “I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen you blush, and it’s definitely the first time you’ve stammered in front of me.”

She glared at him. “It’s your fault. What were we thinking earlier?”

“I know what I was thinking.” Adrian allowed his gaze to slide over her. He could picture her naked quite easily now he’d seen her with sunlight streaming over her lovely body. He wouldn’t mind doing more than picturing her. “Perhaps you can find a way to pay me back.”

She looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. But right now we ought to discuss the case.”

She was right, and yet his body still burned for her. He gritted his teeth and tried to focus. He went to the small writing desk, sat, and set a sheaf of paper and a pen on the polished wood. “If we’re to proceed in the most logical fashion, we should make notes about the knowledge we have and the questions still outstanding.”

Sophia gave him a vague look. “I don’t know about the benefit of notes, but my nose itches every time I think of Millie’s valet. I have a feeling he knows something important.” She paced behind him. “And our assailant. There’s something we’re missing there. That’s why I asked Blue to take a look at him. Blue knows everyone and everything. If this man is an agent, Blue will know him.”

“I trust your judgment in the matter.”

She stopped pacing and stared at him.

Adrian raised a brow. “Is that so difficult to believe?”

“Yes, actually.” She caught a lock of her hair and attempted to secure it in one of her many hairpins. “You’ve spent the past few days questioning my every method.”

Adrian shuffled the papers before him. “I still don’t agree with your methods.”

“And I don’t agree with yours, but I respect your results. If we’re going to work together, let’s discuss what we know so far.”

Adrian dipped his pen in ink. “First, Millie Jenkinson. The most pertinent piece of information she gave us is that her husband had secret meetings, possibly with foreigners.”

Sophia glanced over his shoulder as he wrote. “And I got the feeling this morning she knows something she’s not telling us.”

Adrian’s hand stilled. He’d had the same feeling, but he wasn’t bloody well going to admit he put any credence in
feelings
to Sophia. Not yet, anyway. He wrote
knows
more
and leaned back. “Jenkinson owed Hardwicke money and was suddenly able to pay it back.”

“Hardwicke also mentioned foreigners.”

Adrian frowned, made a note, then said, “Only after you did. Linden didn’t mention foreigners.”

“No, but he did say Jenkinson was lying to Millie about where he was going.”

Adrian waved a hand. “Men lie to their wives all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, perhaps Jenkinson was a spy, like you.” She rubbed her nose. “That would give him reason to lie to his wife.”

Adrian sighed. “Be serious. He could have been going to see his mistress or Hardwicke…”

“Or some of those foreigners.” She flopped on the couch. “We’re not getting anywhere. Who would want Jenkinson dead, and why?”

Adrian made several more notes then said, “And are we so close that the murderer felt the need to protect himself—”

“Or herself.”

“—today?”

They stared at one another, and Adrian could almost feel how close they were.

Sophia stood. “I’m going to dress. Perhaps Blue or Melbourne will enlighten us.”

When she was gone, Adrian studied his notes, added details. He put his pen next to Millie Jenkinson’s name, then an
X
. He did the same with Randall Linden. He paused at Hardwicke’s name, thought about the assassin this morning. Hardwicke hadn’t hired the man. Hardwicke didn’t have the funds or the connections. Adrian put an
X
next to Jenkinson’s partner.

The valet was the key—both he and Sophia agreed on that much. He rubbed his eyes and thought about that first night, meeting Liverpool in the East End. Adrian had been so distracted by Sophia—her beauty, her fighting skills, the revelation she’d been a member of the Barbican group—he’d hardly taken in Liverpool’s comments.

He thought back to them now. The prime minister had been visibly shaken by the state of his brother’s body. He’d called it
shocking
and
gruesome
. What had he meant? Adrian had seen men die from stabbing. Was the prime minister upset by the blood? The violation of the body?

Or was it something more?

He paced, looked at his notes again, stared at his bookshelf, running his fingers over the volumes. He paused when he touched Shakespeare’s
Julius
Caesar
and thought of Marc Antony bemoaning Caesar’s wounds, calling them “poor, dumb mouths.” Adrian would speak for Jenkinson’s poor, dumb mouths. And if he wanted his position in the Barbican group back, he would find his Brutus.

Sophia stood over the dead body of their attacker from this morning and tried not to breathe. She desperately wanted to put a handkerchief over her mouth and nose, but none of the men had done so, and if they could handle the smell of death, so could she. The man hadn’t been dead long, and she’d smelled far worse. Still, her stomach wanted to rebel, and even though she firmly forbade it to do so, it churned and threatened. A year or so ago, she’d been trapped in a closet with a ripe corpse for two hours, and she still shivered when she thought of its yellow fingernails scraping the flesh on her arm.

Blue peered at the man again and frowned. Melbourne walked around him, apparently studying him from several angles. Sophia wanted to scream for them to hurry up, but instead she clutched her hands behind her back and tried to look bored. She’d thought she was relatively successful until Adrian gave her a look of concern. Perhaps she’d been looking grim rather than bored.

“He’s not one of ours,” Melbourne finally said. Sophia blinked, exceedingly grateful for the interruption. She’d never actually met Lord Melbourne, leader of the Barbican group. She’d received dozens upon dozens of missives and directives from him over the years, but this was the first time they’d met face-to-face. He was no less impressive in person than the stories of him had led her to believe. He was an older man, midfifties, with hair graying at the temples. He had an athletic build, broad shoulders under his finely tailored coat, and long, muscular legs, highlighted by fitted breeches and stockings.

When they’d arrived, he hadn’t seemed the least surprised to see her with Adrian and had treated her as though they’d been acquainted for years—which she supposed in a way they had been. Adrian had greeted his mentor rather coolly, she thought, but perhaps she had misunderstood their relationship.

“What do you think, Blue?” Melbourne looked at the agent beside him.

“I concur.” Blue stepped away from the body and wrinkled his nose delicately. Thank God someone besides her was bothered by the odor! “I’ve never seen him before, which makes it unlikely he’s an agent at all. I know most of the French, Spanish, American, and Italian agents.”

This was news to Sophia, but she didn’t ask for details, not that they’d be given to her anyway. She supposed she’d run into a fair number of foreign agents herself.

“Then who is he?” Adrian asked. Sophia would have liked the answer to that question as well, but was this room really the place to hold the discussion? At the moment, Melbourne’s office was infinitely more appealing.

“When you find Jenkinson’s murderer, Agent Wolf, you’ll have the answer to that question.”

“Then you think the attack was related to the Jenkinson case as well?” Adrian asked.

“I do.”

The men were standing over the dead body, arms crossed, casually discussing the case. Was she the only one who couldn’t wait to be out of here?

“Might we discuss this in your office?” Adrian said. Sophia flicked her gaze to him, saw he was watching her, and gave him a grateful smile. She didn’t care if he saw her need to leave as weakness. She didn’t care if he realized she had a vulnerability. All she could think was Adrian was taking care of her—not that she needed him to, but it was lovely all the same.

She could handle herself. She could stand in this awful room with its rank smell all day if she had to. And she would have, if that was what it took to prove herself. But she no longer felt she needed to prove herself—not to Adrian, at least.

They removed to Melbourne’s office, Blue crying off as he claimed to have other duties. When it was just the three of them, and Adrian had gone over the work they’d done on the case thus far, Melbourne sat back. “I knew I was right in recommending you to Liverpool. It may not feel like it, but you’re close.”

“I agree,” Adrian said. “The attack proves that much.”

Melbourne turned his green eyes on her. “What’s your opinion, Agent Saint?”

She straightened. “Someone wants to protect his or her identity. We’ve stumbled on something, even if we don’t know what it is yet, that could compromise our killer.”

Melbourne steepled his fingers, looked from Adrian to Sophia and back again. “You’re working well together. I didn’t foresee that.”

Adrian shifted, and Sophia could almost feel the waves of anger radiating off him. “So then you knew, all along, who she was. Her identity wasn’t a secret.”

“Not to me.” If Melbourne was at all disturbed by Adrian’s poorly disguised annoyance, he didn’t show it. “I knew who she was long before you ever set eyes upon her.” He leaned forward. “What I didn’t expect was for the two of you not to realize who the other was. No other agent, with perhaps the exception of Blue, could have kept the secrets you two did.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” Adrian growled. “But I would have preferred you, of all people, to have been honest with me.”

“Oh, I see.” Melbourne’s eyes softened. “You see this as another betrayal.”

Sophia thought of Adrian’s father and wondered how much Melbourne knew.

“I don’t see it that way,” Adrian countered.

“Don’t you? Did you ever think perhaps I was doing you a favor by keeping your identities secret from one another?”

“How so?” Sophia asked.

“I was giving you some semblance of a normal life. That’s something most agents never have.”

A normal life. That was all she’d ever wanted, until she couldn’t have it. But what was her definition of
normal
now? Now that she and Adrian knew the truth about one another, she couldn’t imagine not working together. “If we’re as good as you claim,” she said to Melbourne, “why not reinstate us into the Barbican group now?”

Melbourne laughed. “That’s why I like you, Saint. You’re bold. If it were my decision, I’d reinstate you both today, but it’s Liverpool’s call. He made the determination we needed to cut agents. There are others with skills more necessary than those you two possess.”

Adrian was on his feet. “What skills? I can—”

Sophia touched his arm, and he stalked away. He hated not having control. It frustrated her as well, but she’d had more experience with loss of control than he. Melbourne spoke to her but kept his gaze on Adrian, now standing with his back to the Barbican’s leader. “Have you considered that you might enjoy retirement?”

“What’s to enjoy?” Adrian barked behind her.

“We both miss being in the field,” she said.

“Why? What precisely do you miss? The long days away from home? The uncomfortable travel? The hours of surveillance? That’s not life.” He lifted a file on his desk, turned it over. “But perhaps I’ve misjudged. Perhaps you don’t want to have a life together.”

Sophia opened her mouth then closed it again. She was afraid to look at Adrian, because Melbourne was right. The Barbican group would only take her away from Adrian, just as she was beginning to want to be with him. But one of them would be reinstated. One of them would leave the other. If she’d had a child, she could have borne Adrian’s absences. She could have doted on her son or daughter and not counted every hour, every minute Adrian was away.

But she had nothing but a big empty house without him. Better she leave it than walk its echoing halls alone.

She rose, feeling unsteady. “It’s late, and we have several engagements tomorrow.”

Adrian was immediately at her side. “One of us will see you again soon.”

Sophia nodded absently. He seemed to want this position so badly. Did he still care about a life with her? What about his promises to support her if she conceived again? Where would those promises stand when he was given an urgent mission?

Melbourne stood. “I’ll be on pins and needles until one of you walks through that door again.”

She followed Adrian into the corridor then out of the nondescript building. The Mall was dark but far from quiet. Groups of men dressed in tailcoats and breeches hustled by, giving Sophia appreciative looks. Carriages clopped past, and Sophia caught quick glimpses of white-gloved arms and jewel-laden necks. The
ton
was out and celebrating tonight, but Sophia didn’t feel a part of it. What would her life have been like if she were a typical viscountess? Would she live for routs and balls, think of nothing more strenuous than what she should wear and with whom she should dance?

She glanced at Adrian, but his features were dark and unreadable. He’d signaled to their coachman, but it would take a moment for their man to steer the conveyance through the throng. Sophia put her arm on Adrian’s elbow. “I didn’t realize you were so close to Melbourne.”

“He taught me everything I know.”

Her father had taught her, and, she supposed, in a way, so had Adrian’s.

“He couldn’t tell you I was Agent Saint,” she said, “any more than he could reveal your identity to me. You know the rules.”

“I know the rules,” he said. “I’m tired of the rules.”

So was she. But did Adrian mean it? “They’re for our protection,” she said weakly.

He looked at her, his intent gaze making her heart leap a little. “Did I need protection from you? My own wife?”

Sophia thought of Henry. He’d needed protection from the woman he almost made his wife.

“But I know the motto,” Adrian said darkly.

So did Sophia.
The
mission
is
everything.

Sophia had always agreed wholeheartedly. Henry’s death had taught her not to trust. Her own losses had given her position with the Barbican group even greater importance. But now she wondered if missions were all there was to life. Was Adrian having second thoughts as well?

The carriage stopped before them, and their footmen jumped down. “Let’s go home,” Adrian said as he assisted her into the conveyance. “I want to go over everything one last time.”

Sophia settled on the squabs. It was going to be a long, and not particularly enjoyable, night.

***

Adrian woke early, warm and violently aroused. He was also violently uncomfortable. He slit his eyes open and realized the reason for both the arousal and the discomfort. He and Sophia had fallen asleep in his library. She was curled in his arms, and the couch was too small for one person, let alone two.

The room was dark, the fire in the hearth low, but Sophia was facing it, and he could make out her features in the soft light. She looked so young when she slept. When she was awake, she inevitably narrowed her eyes, tightened her mouth, and notched her chin high. But in sleep, her mouth looked soft and relaxed, her long, dark eyelashes swept across her eyes, and her chin was tucked against his chest. Her hair had come loose, and he could feel the silky curls against the skin of his forearms, where he’d rolled up his sleeves the night before.

He didn’t know how late they’d argued, debated, and pulled apart every facet of the Jenkinson case. He only knew he’d lain on the couch, thinking to close his eyes for a mere moment. At some point, Sophia must have joined him.

The buttons on the bodice of her lavender gown were open, and Adrian admired the slim column of her neck. He leaned close and inhaled the scent of oranges. He could stay here all day—well, perhaps not here, but he could hold her in his arms for hours. He liked the feel of her body against his. He liked the soft sound of her breathing.

Once again, he found himself questioning his need for the Barbican group. He’d loved the adventure and the excitement of it, but more than that, he’d liked that he could do something noble. He liked proving, if only to himself, he was nothing like his father.

But now, looking at Sophia sleeping so peacefully in his arms, he wondered what else he needed to prove. For years, he’d wanted nothing more than to serve his country. Now, it seemed more important to serve his wife, his future children.

He didn’t believe Sophia couldn’t carry a child. She could do anything. They’d had bad luck. True, they might fail again, but there were orphanages, children in need. Why had they never discussed that option?

Because he needed an heir to inherit the title. But Adrian could live without an heir. He wasn’t so sure he could live without Sophia.

“What are you thinking about?” she said without ever stirring or opening her eyes. He hadn’t even known she was awake.

“How beautiful you look.”

Her brown eyes opened, and she smiled. Why had he never noticed what a sultry smile she had? He liked the way her lips turned up at the corners just so.

“Is that all?”

“I’d like to stay here all day with you.”

She put her arms around his neck, drew him down. “That sounds heavenly.” She pressed those still-smiling lips to his mouth, and he drank her in. Kissing Sophia was unlike kissing any other woman. He’d kissed his fair share—perhaps more than his fair share—before they’d married.

He’d always enjoyed it, but more than the act of kissing, he’d liked the other acts it led to. But he could have been content—almost content—to kiss Sophia all day. She never kissed him the same way twice. She kissed him shyly; she kissed him boldly; she kissed him lightly and deeply.

Now she kissed him sweetly. Warmth, slow as honey, flooded his veins.

“I see every part of you is awake this morning,” she murmured and stroked a hand along the hard length of him. He didn’t know how she managed the feat in their cramped position, but he didn’t care enough to try and figure the logistics. He dipped his mouth to her neck and kissed the bare skin.

“You have too many clothes on,” he said when he reached the material covering her breasts.

“I think we can rectify that. But first, you.” She tugged on the waistband of his trousers, freeing his shirt. Her hand stroked his chest as she raised the material.

“Oh!” a female voice squeaked from the doorway. The door slammed shut just as Adrian raised his head.

“What the hell was that?”

Sophia kissed his chest, flicking her tongue out and distracting him. “Parlor maid. She was probably planning to clean in here. We’re supposed to be in our beds.”

“Splendid idea.” He rose and pulled her to her feet. She looked wonderfully disheveled. He had to resist the urge to pull her clothes off right there. “Your bedroom or mine?”