Twelfth Night Secrets (21 page)

She didn’t finish the thought, swinging back onto the mare. Raising her crop high in the air, she kicked Ladybird’s flanks, and the horse sprang forward, startled at such an unusual spur. Her lips were pulled back, revealing the strong yellow teeth that could bite a chunk out of a man. Harriet drew back on the reins, bringing the mare onto her hind legs, and her front hooves flailed, catching one of Julius’s assailants on the shoulder, sending him reeling to the ground. Using her crop, Harriet leaned low over the mare’s neck and slashed at the man who was still on his feet. The sudden violence of her appearance had thrown the assailants off balance, and Julius’s blade flashed, a
silver streak in the wintery light. The man on his feet jumped back with a cry, his hand pressed to his side. His companion was up again now, though, and Harriet rode at him again. She thought it was the slight Frenchman from the previous night, Julius’s contact in the French network. Why were they attacking him?

But the question seemed immaterial. Ladybird whinnied frantically as a dagger came perilously close to her neck, and Harriet slashed wildly at the man with her crop. It caught him across the cheek, and a line of blood sprang forth. She did it again and again, some part of her mind astonished at the ferocity of which she was capable.

The Frenchman fell back from the assault, blood pouring from his face. One arm hung at an odd angle against his side. Ladybird’s hoof must have dislocated his shoulder, Harriet thought distantly. She hauled back on the reins again, and the mare reared again, teeth bared, and knocked him to the ground once more. This time, he did not get up.

Harriet turned to see what Julius was doing and was just in time to see his sword slip soundlessly through his assailant’s chest. The man crumpled to the ground. Julius sprang from his horse and swiftly examined the man, drawing his sword free in a gush
of blood. He went over to the other one, who lay on the ground, clutching his shoulder.

“Look the other way,” Julius ordered Harriet in a cold, hard voice, and she obeyed without hesitation. She could guess what he was going to do. And after her own mad frenzy, she knew that she was probably capable of doing the same in the right circumstances.

“All right?” His voice was suddenly very close to her, and she turned her ashen countenance towards him. He stood at her stirrup and placed a hand on her knee. “I owe you my life.” It was a quiet statement. “Fool that I am, I was not expecting an ambush.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice now.

“Who are they?” Harriet kept her eyes averted from the inert shapes on the ground.

“French agents. Somehow I must have made a mistake. I thought my cover was unbreakable . . . not so, it would seem.” He glanced over to his erstwhile assailants, his mouth twisted.

She stared at him, bemused. Her blood was still flowing fast with the violent exertions of the last few minutes, and her mind grasped for something that would make sense of it all. “You’re not a double agent?”

He shook his head. “No, my dear, I am
not
a double
agent. Our friends, however, were supposed to believe that I was. And, indeed, did so most satisfactorily for many months. I don’t know what alerted them . . . but I will find out.”

“But why . . . why did the Ministry believe that you were a double agent? They told me to get evidence against you.”

He gave her a wry smile. “Yes, I rather thought so. But I wasn’t certain until I found you in the woods last night.”

“You didn’t find me,” she protested. “You didn’t see me.”

“I knew you were there, though. Why do you think I locked the door?”

“Maybe so, but still, why did the Ministry believe you were a traitor?”

“I wasn’t ready to tell them what I was doing. Not yet. I was working for myself, without the knowledge of the powers that be, and that, my dear, is forbidden in the agency.” He pushed a hand through his hair, his expression suddenly clearing. “I was too damned sure of myself, too damned arrogant to ask for help. But I did what had to be done in the end.” He swept a hand around the clearing in an all-encompassing gesture.

“Killing them, you mean?” She frowned, bemused. “You needed to kill them for your own reasons.”

“I killed them for Nick,” he stated without expression. “People who kill my friends do not stay alive.”

“They killed Nick?” Some glimmer of enlightenment shone in her befuddled brain.

“Yes,” he said shortly. “And they were about to kill me, if it hadn’t been for your timely arrival.”

“What do we do with them now?” Harriet asked, astounded at how her mind seemed able to absorb everything she’d just heard, everything she’d seen and done herself, and move on to practicalities as if it were all the most natural business in the world. Perhaps the shock would come later. Or perhaps she was following in her father’s footsteps as naturally as her brother had done.

“Nothing,” Julius stated. “Someone will find their bodies soon enough, and it will look as if they killed each other. No one’s going to investigate the deaths of a couple of foreigners, particularly Frenchmen, when we’re at war with them.” He took her reins and led Ladybird to where Casanova stood still, head hanging, at the side of the clearing. The gash on his flank oozed sluggishly. Julius examined it carefully and swore under his breath.

“How bad is it?”

“Not as bad as it might be,” he returned, “but I need to get it attended to quickly.”

“Judd will do that. He’s a miracle worker with horses.”

“That does not surprise me,” Julius said drily. He went to the gelding’s head and spoke to him softly, then took the reins. “Will your mare take us both, do you think? I don’t want to open that gash any further.”

“She’s tired, but she’s strong.” She inched forward on the saddle as he swung up behind her, reaching around her for the mare’s reins, holding them loosely in one hand, his other holding those of the gelding walking docilely alongside Ladybird.

“Lean back against me. I want to feel you close.” It was another matter-of-fact statement, and yet it sent a jolt through her loins. She could feel the hard lines of his body against her back, the warm security of his arms encircling her, smell the musky scent of his sweat mingling with her own.

“Will you trust me, Harriet?” He spoke against her ear as he guided both horses away from the bloodstained clearing.

“Yes,” she said softly. “But you must trust me, too. You must trust me to keep your secrets.”

“I do trust you and will trust you with those secrets I am empowered to share,” he said.

A little shiver ran down her spine. “There will be some you cannot share with me?”

“Those that are given me by others, yes.”

It felt as if they were negotiating some kind of contract, she thought. But what kind?

As if he heard her unspoken question, Julius asked softly, “I want to marry you, Harry. Even knowing what you do about me, could you spend the rest of your life with me?”

“I hadn’t thought to marry anyone,” she murmured, and was disconcerted to feel him laugh behind her.

“I do love your honesty, my sweet Harriet. What you mean to say, though, is that you have not—
had
not, I hope—met anyone you could imagine as your husband.” He nuzzled her neck, and she felt his breath warm on her skin. “Will you answer me now?”

Of course she would marry him. There was no question in her mind. She had never been able to imagine the kind of man she would be happy to share her life with, but she knew he would have to be someone out of the usual run. Someone just like Julius Forsythe, who promised a life of excitement and upheaval and
the deepest loving commitment. He felt for her what she felt for him, it was as simple as that. There would be fireworks, of course. What kind of marriage could exist without them? Julius was strong . . . and tyrannical? Quite possibly. He was accustomed to having his own way. But then, so was she.

“I’m waiting, Harry,” he murmured behind her.

She leaned back against him, letting her head rest for a moment in the crook of his shoulder. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you . . . and it will certainly suit the children. They’ll be over the moon,” she added.

“Harriet.”
He squeezed her hard. “Let’s get one thing straight. You will not marry me for the sake of the children. It’s past time you stopped living your life only according to what’s good for them. Yes, I will be an elder brother to them. I will look after them and welcome them under my roof. But I am not marrying them. It’s you I want. And only you. Is that clear?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, my lord. Very clear,” she responded with a mock docility that made him laugh. “However, you must gain my grandfather’s permission. Have you thought of that?”

“I don’t think that will be an insuperable obstacle.”

“He has to know about you.” All mockery had left her. She stared straight ahead, drawing herself
upright away from him. “I cannot marry you if my grandfather does not know the truth about you, and about Nick, and about your part in his death.” She didn’t know why she was making this condition, and yet she knew it was right. This marriage could not begin in a morass of deception. The Duke had to know.

“My dear girl, the Duke knows everything,” Julius said, pulling her back into his embrace. “He has always known.”

Harriet had not thought anything could surprise her again, but she’d been mistaken. “How?” She twisted her head around to look at him.

“Your father . . . Nick . . . they were both following in the Duke’s footsteps. Spying is a Devere family business, my sweet. That’s why you were recruited. Your grandfather suggested you as the obvious choice to receive Nick’s encrypted messages. You weren’t supposed to get any more deeply involved in the business, and I daresay there will be some very uncomfortable folk at the Ministry when your grandfather has had his say.”

Harriet’s mind was reeling. And yet through the confusion, she could catch at some threads of sense.
It certainly explained the attachment between her grandfather and Julius. “Does he truly know everything about your part in Nick’s death?”

“Yes. And he knows that I did only what he would have done—what Nick would have done—in the same circumstances. We honor our vows in the service, Harriet. And you will be expected to honor them, too.”

A family business,
Harriet thought. And her grandfather had been prepared to lose first his son and then his grandson in his country’s service. The world no longer seemed the one she thought she knew. She could find nothing to say and was thankful that Julius seemed, for the moment at least, to accept her silence. They were approaching Charlbury Hall from the rear and took the horses straight into the stables. Judd was in the yard, giving instructions to a groom about the children’s ponies, but he came over to them instantly.

“Eh, what ’appened to you, then, lad?” He examined Casanova’s injured flank. “Nasty cut, that.”

“A bramble caught him, Judd,” Julius said calmly, dismounting. “It will need cleansing, salve—”

“I know my own business, m’lord,” Judd stated
firmly, giving his lordship a steady stare from beneath bushy gray eyebrows.

“Yes, of course you do. Forgive me.” Julius gave him a ruefully apologetic smile. One did not give instructions to Judd when it came to horseflesh. The man also knew a knife cut when he saw one, and he’d been in the Duke’s service for long enough to know rather more than that.

Julius turned back to Ladybird and lifted Harriet from the saddle. He held her in the air for a moment, looking a question into her eyes.

Infinitesimally, she nodded, and he set her down. “You need a bath, my love. And so do I. Can it be arranged?”

“Together?” Her eyes widened as she thought of managing such a thing in the early afternoon among the great-aunts.

“Can you think of a pleasanter way?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eye.

“No,” she said frankly, and her eyes began to dance at such an outrageous prospect. “Come to my chamber in half an hour. But don’t let anyone see you.” She handed the mare’s reins to the groom, who had come running to take the horse to the stables.

“As if I would . . . give me some credit, Harry,” Julius returned. “This is my business, if you remember.”

“All too vividly,” she replied, and walked away, surprised at how much energy she seemed to have despite the extraordinary rigors of the morning.

Harriet lay back in the deep hip bath before a blazing fire in her chamber, languidly passing a cake of soap over her body beneath the water. She heard the faint click of the door beyond the screen, and her body quickened with anticipation. She closed her eyes and waited.

“A veritable Aphrodite,” his voice murmured above her. “Draw your knees up, and give me some room.”

She opened her eyes. He was standing gloriously naked, gloriously aroused, at the foot of the bath. Obligingly, she drew her knees closer to her body, and he stepped into the water, sliding down, sending a wash of water over the edge onto the sheets that surrounded
the bath. “You’ll cause a flood,” she protested faintly as he pushed his feet beneath her backside.

“It’ll dry,” he responded with a careless smile. His toes wriggled intimately beneath her, and she inhaled sharply. He leaned forward and took her nipples between finger and thumb, rolling them delicately. “Where’s the soap?”