Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 04]

by Seducing the Spy

  He was alone. He absorbed that fact with no concern. It was easier that way, always had been. The earthen floor beneath his cheek was damp and cool. It became a pillow, soft and soothing. No, a breast, full and warm. He kissed it gently. Tender fingers tunneled into his hair, soothing the pounding in his head. Alicia.

  “You didn’t leave.” Joy bubbled through his veins. He’d been a fool, an idiot, yet she’d stayed with him anyway.

  “Yes,” she said softly, as she turned her body into his and pressed her warm, naked bounty against him. “I did. I’m quite gone, you see. Just as you wished. Never to return.”

  He laughed. She was teasing. “You’re not gone. You’re right here. I can feel you. You stayed with me. You love me.”

  She kissed his neck, his chest. He could feel the heat from between her thighs sinking into his own groin, hardening him. “No,” she whispered into his skin. “I don’t. I tried to, but I couldn’t. You made sure of that.”

  Fear stuttered his heart. He had done her so much harm—

  He reached for her. “Stay. I’m sorry. I didn’t want—I love—” His arms closed around nothing at all but the chill of her not being there. “Alicia!” There was no one there, nothing but blank, gray, aching solitude. Forever. “Alicia!”

  Alicia leaned back against the tufted cushions of Wyndham’s carriage and refused to cry. She was only an hour or so from Cross’s estate, but she felt a million miles from Wyndham.

  Of course, one might feel that way while in the same room with Wyndham, when he was in one of his brooding states.

  It didn’t matter. All his most annoying and painful attributes meant nothing when she thought about the fine and noble man shining out from inside him. When he—if he—opened his heart someday, some lucky woman was going to be blinded by the magnificence that hid behind those careful, watchful eyes.

  The Falcon Lord, Lady Greenleigh had called him. How apt.

  Her eyes burned in a rather permanent way that led her to believe that she might run through numerous handkerchiefs in the next months.

  Years.

  No. She wouldn’t allow it. Her affair with Wyndham had been ill thought out, but it had not been a mistake. Or if it had, it had been a most glorious and worthwhile mistake. She would not spend her life regretting that he could not love her as she loved him.

  She leaned her head back against the cushion and let the tears leak down her temples, into her hair. He was worth crying over, damn it.

  The carriage slowed suddenly and Alicia leaned from her small window to discover the reason. There was a horseman riding beside them, waving the driver to one side. A horseman in Cross livery, yet.

  The driver flipped open the trap to speak to her. “What d’you want me to do, milady? ’E says Lady Dryden sent him. Ought I to stop?”

  Julia? “Yes, please do.”

  When the carriage halted and Alicia opened her door, the young man on the horse dismounted and bobbed his head respectfully. “Milady asked me to bring you this, milady.” He handed over a folded missive. “And to fetch you back straightaway, she said.”

  Alicia took the note and unfolded it. It contained two lines in a long, elegant hand.

  “He has made his move. Our husbands are missing and so is Wyndham.”

  30

  Stanton was lying with his head on an anvil and a large, foul-smelling smith was hammering his temples.

  No, wait . . . he was sitting up, with his hands bound behind him and he was fairly sure he was snoring.

  He opened his eyes and blinked. No . . . that was Dane. The giant was sitting, bound like Stanton was, with his back to the other wall of the shed. The big man’s snores were the smith’s hammer. Stanton wished he had something to throw—and some hands to throw with.

  “Dane!” Ow. His own rasping voice hurt his brain. He tried whispering. “Dane!”

  “It won’t do any good.”

  Stanton turned his aching head to see Marcus gazing blearily at him from the right wall. “Why not?”

  Marcus’s lips twisted in a not-smile. “He must have taken in more of the smoke than we did, because I’ve been yelling at him for a quarter of an hour and all that happened was that you woke up.” His voice was as rasping as Stanton’s. He shrugged. “I’m not very loud at the moment.”

  Stanton looked across the shed to where Nathaniel sagged against his own bonds. “What about Nate? Why hasn’t he come around yet?”

  Nate stirred and opened his eyes. “Nate came around first, thank you,” he muttered. “Nate’s bloody sick of listening to the rest of you snoring the roof off the place. My head hasn’t hurt this much since Willa knocked my horse out from under me.” He looked around them at the stark interior of the shed. “The view when I woke up was a hell of a lot better then, however.”

  “Ooh. Ugh.” At last, Dane halted the offensive racket and opened his eyes. He shut them again instantly. “Ow.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Marcus’s voice was weak with sincerity. “He’s finally stopped.”

  “No talking,” Dane mumbled, his eyes shut tight. “He who talks, dies.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to die anyway, Dane,” Nate said with a sandpaper laugh. “Also, you’re not very intimidating when you drool in your sleep.”

  Stanton drew his knees up and tried to get his feet beneath him. He was tied cleverly—his hands bound too high to allow him to sit comfortably, too low to allow him to stand. From what he could see, the others were in the same condition.

  “Dane, are you strong enough to break your bonds?”

  The blond Viking glared at him through one reddened eye. “I hate you, Wyndham. I just wanted you to know that.”

  “Yes, right. Try anyway.”

  Dane took a deep breath and pulled forward. Then he pulled to one side. Then the other. The shed creaked promisingly, but the post did not give.

  Stanton let out a breath. “What about you, Marcus? Have you learned any tricks from that group of gypsy lunatics you call servants?”

  Marcus grimaced. “They’re called ‘showmen.’ Or ‘fair folk.’ Gypsies are another thing entirely—and I think I—”

  He pulled his feet in, then arched his back until he was able to pull them beneath him to sit on his heels. He went into a series of very uncomfortable gyrations that got him nowhere but red-faced and severely out of breath. At last, he gave up and stretched his legs out before him once more. “Sorry, lads.”

  Stanton looked at Nathaniel. Nathaniel looked back at Stanton.

  “I don’t suppose you have some of Forsythe’s magic matches in your pocket? If we burn the ropes . . .”

  Stanton shook his head. “I couldn’t reach them if I did. Nor do I think fire is advisable with all these explosives above us.”

  Nathaniel frowned. “Yet our friend risked it. You don’t think we’re in danger now, do you?”

  Stanton tilted his pounding head back against the post and surveyed the ceiling of the shed. “He made a small fire at the base of the door that was mostly smoke, I think. Quick to put out with a stamp of the foot, most likely. Whatever he burned knocked us unconscious fairly quickly. I don’t think there was much chance he did more than scorch the door.” Then he grimaced. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t planning on watching us burn to death when the fireworks go off tonight.”

  Marcus scoffed. “That’s not likely, is it? Someone will be by before then. All we have to do is call out to get their attention.”

  Dane opened his eyes. “Maybe, or maybe not. We’re all hoarse from the smoke. The display is ready to go. The fuse is already in place several yards off. By the time someone comes near enough to hear us, it might already be lighted.”

  Marcus looked worried. “But our horses? Someone’s going to notice four horses milling around out here.”

  Dane shook his head carefully. “The Chimera is everything that is thorough. I wager that our horses are even now back in their stalls, munching oats, with every appearance of being properly put a
way. That’s what I would do.”

  Nathaniel considered that for a long moment. “Well, bloody hell.”

  Stanton didn’t bother to agree. There was no point in belaboring the obvious. Unless someone noticed their absence and made the rather outrageous leap of logic that they were therefore locked in the middle of the fireworks display, they were indeed going to go to bloody hell.

  “You know,” Marcus said, his tone mildly gleeful. “He missed Julia entirely—and she’s the most dangerous one of us all.”

  Greenleigh brightened slightly. “That’s true. That mistake might just tilt the scales, I think. If she realizes we’re missing in time. Is she expecting you back at any certain time, Marcus?”

  Marcus’s demeanor fell once more. “No. She might think nothing of our being gone all day.”

  Alicia was scarcely aware of the ride back to Cross’s estate, except that the journey seemed to take twice as long, though the driver went at twice the speed. She was greeted at the door by one of Lady Greenleigh’s staff and led immediately to the room where she’d spoken to Sirens before. They awaited her there, tense and pale.

  The explanation came from Lady Dryden while Lady Greenleigh and Lady Reardon sat close together, their eyes on Alicia.

  The men had gone riding at about the same time that Alicia had called for Wyndham’s carriage. They were accustomed to conferring together out of doors, then Marcus would immediately report every detail of the meeting to Julia. “It works best that way, while we move so publicly here. It would look odd indeed for me to disappear with three other men for hours each day,” Julia said wryly.

  Alicia tilted her head and regarded the woman impatiently. “Are you not aware that you are at an orgy? You could have disappeared with a regiment every day after tea and no one here would have blinked an eye.”

  Julia looked much taken aback. “I—that is—”

  Lady Reardon regarded her friend for a long moment. “I’m not sure I could pull off such a feat, but anyone would believe you could inspire three virile gentlemen to such . . . cooperation, Julia.”

  Julia opened her mouth to speak, halted, then blushed hotly. “I find it difficult enough to be the one woman working among men. You two have become my friends. I would not like minds to . . . to wander to that thought.”

  Lady Greenleigh flapped one hand. “Julia, don’t worry about us. We don’t envy you your beauty. It’s too much bloody work, if you ask me.”

  Alicia practically shivered with impatience. “Right. You’re beautiful. They aren’t jealous. Wyndham is missing. Am I keeping up so far?”

  Julia gazed at her evenly, though she was as pale as the others. “Yes. I knew immediately that something was wrong, especially after the incidents involving you, which seem much more sinister in retrospect.”

  “They were abundantly sinister in the moment, I assure you.”

  “Yes, well.” Julia hesitated. “You must understand, Lady Alicia. Until today, we were not even sure our . . . mutual enemy was truly here.”

  Alicia regarded her stonily. “I was. I tried to convince Stanton—but you could have, if you had believed me.”

  Julia’s lips twisted slightly. “I was more concerned with the effect you were having on Wyndham than in the case itself. I suppose I never truly believed that you heard what you heard.”

  “Because I am a liar.”

  Julia nodded. “Because you are believed to be a liar, yes, and because Wyndham could not read you as he can everyone else.”

  Alicia was weary of being left in the dark. “Speak to me. There might be something that I don’t know that I know, or that I think you already know, but you don’t, or—”

  “We are called the Royal Four. We run England, more or less, although we try to keep ourselves to the needs of security and wartime.”

  “You run England. Not the Prime Minister? Not the Prince Regent?”

  Julia lifted her chin. “Lord Liverpool answers to us, not the reverse. And George—as fond as I am of him—is not capable of truly running the country. Nor does he care to.”

  “So you and Wyndham and Greenleigh and Reardon . . . you are the Four.” Alicia shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve been calling you the Four Horsemen—how close I came!”

  “There is a man, a French spy who has been working against us for years, and who has been searching for what he knows as the ‘Quatre Royale.’ ” Julia seemed serene, but she betrayed her tension by winding and unwinding her fingers. “He is doubtless the ‘scarred man’ you heard about in the courtyard of that public house—I did that myself, thank you—he is brilliant and ruthless and he knows far too much about us all from his days among us, pretending to be a young valet. He is not young, however. He is . . . old enough to be my father.”

  Lady Reardon patted Julia consolingly on the arm. Alicia half-expected Julia to pull away, as Wyndham would have done, but the pale beauty merely covered her friend’s hand with her own and kept it there. “Now that we know that the attacks on you were real—” Julia waved Alicia’s reputation away with one indifferent hand, as she very well could in truth, come to think of it. Lady Dryden was the talk of the xtown and everyone kowtowed to the exquisite beauty. If Julia supported her, Alicia could help her sisters without needing a penny—

  After she found Wyndham.

  “So, this enemy is here. He has been in this house, in our bedchamber. He can pass for a servant, in dim light at least—” She turned to Julia. “How badly did you slash your father? Would he be ill from those wounds?”

  Julia drew back. “My, you are quick. Yes, he could very well be ill of infection.”

  Lady Greenleigh leaned forward. “He was ill even before that, remember? Dane almost drowned him.” She went paler than pale. “The Chimera will hold that against him.”

  Lady Reardon shook her head slowly. “I don’t think there’s any shortage of hatred toward any of us.”

  Julia held up one hand, thinking aloud. “You heard others refuse his plan, you say? And he has done all the legwork on this himself—no lackeys in sight, correct?” She smiled grimly. “He has no money to hire help, nor is he in a position to convince even the foolhardy. He is alone and ill and possibly slipping into madness, if the tone of that letter is anything to go by.”

  Alicia frowned doubtfully. “Does that make him less dangerous? I would imagine it would make him more so.”

  Julia shook her head. “Not less dangerous, perhaps, but it may make him more predictable. With no help, he could not transport four large men any real distance. He could not overwhelm them except by subterfuge . . . poison, perhaps, although how he could trick them into taking it—” She stopped when she looked up to see some tearing eyes and quivering lips. “Oh, sorry. I’m trying to think like him, you see.”

  “Well, if anyone could, it would be you,” Alicia said. “Let me tell you all I know.” She counted on her fingers. “One, he is fevered. I could feel the heat of him behind me in the garden. I think he is perhaps very ill. Two, he is enjoying causing us all pain. He wants to see us hurting, I can feel it in him.”

  “So he would remain close, close enough to watch and relish.” Willa frowned. “We have discreetly sent our servants to search all over the house and grounds. We have found nothing out of the ordinary. The men went for a ride. They did not return at their customary time. When we inquired, we learned that their horses were quite properly returned and stabled, although no one remembered seeing anyone do it.”

  “He does seem to slip in and out of the house very easily, for someone so disfigured,” Alicia said, frowning.

  Julia shrugged helplessly. “It is a very large house and there are so many unknown servants here. I’m sure he’s been seen, but no one would know that he is dangerous unless we put out an alert—which would invite far too many questions.”

  The thought of half-dressed, drunken Society ladies and lords fleeing the manor almost made Alicia smile, until she remembered why they were here. “So he and the men are close. He is
alone and ill. We have people looking everywhere. What more can we do?”

  “We can wait,” Julia said grimly. “Until he makes the next move.”

  That was logical, Alicia supposed. Sensible and well-thought out.

  She didn’t like it one little bit.

  31

  The door to the fireworks castle opened, casting a bright flare of light into four pairs of dark-accustomed eyes. Stanton blinked back the smarting ache and strained to peer through the blur.

  The figure in the doorway was slight, merely a sliver of darkness against the glare.

  Alicia?

  No, Alicia was no longer here with him.

  “Bastard,” Dane growled.

  Stanton warily relaxed against his bonds, careful to relate nothing of the hope which had just died within him.

  The Chimera had arrived.

  He strutted into the room, a small man whose face was horribly torn, whose eyes gleamed with fevered madness, who was worn so thin it did not seem possible he was still alive.

  He walked to center of the floor and gazed at all of them in turn. “Look at you four, bound and helpless, overcome so easily by one man.” He cackled, a mad sound that lifted the hairs on the back of Stanton’s neck. “The mighty Royal Four—the legends themselves, laid low by a bit of opium and black tar. Don’t they teach that particular trick in that spy school of yours?”

  Stanton lifted his chin. “What spy school would that be? And who is this Royal Four you speak of?”

  The Chimera smiled. Something unpleasant oozed from his scars when he did. God, the man was entirely mad to let that infection continue untended.

  “You could play your little word games with Napoleon,” the man said, “If I planned to let you live that long. I wish I could take you back with me, for that upstart dared to tell me I was suffering from an excess of imagination—he dismissed me because of you lot! Me!”

  “Or perhaps he realized you’ve gone stark, staring mad,” Reardon said conversationally. “I’ve heard that about you myself.”