“Indeed. They’ve been mistresses there for decades. They might not have wished to surrender control.”
“Apparently now peace has been established, they’re keen to travel and see all the sights the wars prevented them from seeing.”
She smiled. “From what I remember of them, they’ll thoroughly enjoy harassing some poor courier-guide.”
The notion made him grin.
They’d reached the end of the main hall. Glancing up the long room, he saw a number of other people, including two men who didn’t seem the sort to spend their hours studying ancient statuary. “I believe”—he turned back to Deliah—“that we’ve collected two watchers, but sadly, they’re not cultists.”
“But they might be…what’s the term? Scouting? For the cultists. Mightn’t they?”
“They might. Let’s go back along this side—we’ll pass them as we go up the room, then we’ll turn into the first rooms on our right.”
She nodded, and obligingly glided beside him as they perambulated up the room, stopping at every statue to admire and exchange comments.
As they left the main hall for the minor rooms, she returned to her earlier interrogation. “You don’t seem the sort to be a gentleman farmer.” She glanced at him. “Or at least, not to be satisfied with being only that.”
Very true. “I’ve been thinking, what with Kingston so close, and York and Leeds not that far away, that I might look into investing in manufacturing. Manufacturing what, I’m not sure.” He glanced at her. “Textiles, perhaps.”
She dipped her head. “There are all those mills about Leeds. I had wondered if there might be a market for cotton there.”
“And silk.”
“Actually, there are a number of combinations of silk and cotton that are quite valuable commercially.” Her skirts swished as she paused by a glass case housing pieces of pottery. “Are they still following us?”
“Yes. And they’re drawing closer.”
“Hmm. Then again, these rooms are smaller.”
“True.”
They continued ambling, and their watchers continued to follow, close enough to observe them, but not close enough to pose a physical threat. They seemed intent on watching only, thus giving Del no excuse to react.
Whether it was the possibility of impending danger abrading his protectiveness, or the airy nonchalance of her replies, or, loweringly, that he remained acutely aware of her, of the body he’d spent hours possessing thoroughly through the night that now seemed so elusive, drifting close yet beyond his reach, he didn’t know, but her continued apparent imperviousness, her insensibility to his nearness, his presence by her side, pricked him, increasingly on the raw.
Enough to have him reach for her, his hand brushing the side of her breast as he wound her arm with his.
He detected the faintest tremble, the slightest quiver in her breathing, but her serene smile never faltered. A second later, she was enthusing about some ancient scroll.
Once started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Some part of him interpreted her refusal to let any sensual awareness of him show as a challenge, even though his rational mind knew he should be grateful. Instead, as he guided her deeper into the labyrinth of smaller rooms surrounding the main hall, he let his hand linger at the small of her back. Her breath caught. When she tried to move away, he moved with her, letting his palm brush upward, then slide down.
She sucked in a breath, tighter, more constrained, and shot him a sharp, if wary, glance.
Wariness wasn’t what he wanted. When she stopped before another glass case and stared in apparent rapt contemplation, he slipped his arm from hers and stepped behind her, his palm trailing from her waist down over her hip, and around to, as he stood behind her watching her reflection in the glass, lightly caress the swell of her derriere.
This time she sucked in a more definite breath, caught her lower lip between her teeth, then looked up—and glared at him.
Her breasts swelled more definitely. She glanced swiftly across the room to where the two watchers were pretending to examine a wall plaque, then swung to face him. “What are you doing?”
Her hissing tone was music to his ears. She was no longer so unaffected.
He opened his eyes wide. “Me? Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Eyes narrowing, she prodded him in the chest. When he stepped back, she swept past and, with more of a swish than a glide, headed toward the next open door. She spoke over her shoulder in an irritated whisper. “Just because I lost my head last night doesn’t mean I’m going to—”
“Acknowledge it?”
She shot him an angry glance as he drew near. “Acknowledge what? And how?”
He halted just inside the doorway. The room was more of a small alcove; it had only one door, the one at his back. Returning his gaze to her face, he replied, “Acknowledge that you transformed into a veritable houri, and that you enjoyed every minute of what I did to you.”
“A houri? Nonsense!”
“Trust me, I know a houri when I have her beneath me.”
She nearly choked. “What about you, and what I did to you?”
“You want me to acknowledge that?”
“Why not? If you want me to do the same?”
He studied her for an instant, then nodded. “Very well.”
She frowned. “Very well what?”
He reached back and closed the little room’s door.
Her eyes flared wide. “What are you doing?”
He caught her arms, stepped back so his shoulders were against the door, then yanked her to him. Met her eyes as he lowered his head. “I’m doing as you asked—acknowledging how much I enjoyed being inside you.”
He kissed her—and every particle of pretense instantly fell away. Her lips parted beneath his, her mouth instantly yielded. Inviting, inciting; it was as if he’d waltzed them straight back into the fire that had burned so hotly through the night.
He had his answer, all but immediately. She had been pretending not to be affected; the discovery was balm to his primitive male soul.
Yet he couldn’t resist taking the kiss deeper, angling his head and taking more, demanding more. Filling his hands with the bounty of her curves, he lifted her against him, shifted his hips against her, felt her hands grip his head, felt her melt….
Hauling on his reins, he abruptly drew back, staggered that she’d been able to lure him so far so quickly, to so deeply snare him in her sensual web.
A houri, indeed.
Thank God she didn’t know how thoroughly he was smitten.
Deliah blinked dazedly up at him. Her lips throbbed, her skin felt heated. She wanted….
Then she remembered where they were. Feeling his hands gripping her bottom, she wriggled—caught her breath at the press of his erection.
Felt marginally better when he cursed through his teeth and set her down.
She was still horrified. “Don’t you dare do such a thing again—not in public!”
He arched one dark, infuriating brow. “Why not?” His lips lightly curved. “You liked it.”
“That’s not the point!” She felt flustered to her toes. The same toes that had been curling bare seconds before. Which was the point. She clearly couldn’t trust herself—her wayward, wanton, according to him hourilike self—to hold to any socially unimpeachable line. Not when it came to him. Not if he touched her, kissed her.
She felt like fanning herself, but it was the middle of winter—a muff wasn’t much use. Gritting her teeth, she tried to glare at him.
He merely smiled charmingly, stepped aside and opened the door. “Shall we go on?”
All she could do was elevate her chin and swan through the door back into the room they’d left.
Their watchers were still there; her reappearance interrupted a hasty conference, which abruptly ended.
Ignoring the two men, she led the way on.
They completed their circuit of the Egyptian gallery, then she insisted on looking through the Etruscan
rooms as well, which gave her blood time to cool, but otherwise failed to advance their cause. Their watchers simply wouldn’t approach them.
Disappointed on that front, they quit the museum, only spotting Tony and Gervase as, a few minutes later, they followed them through the doors.
“Well,” she said, settling onto the seat in the hackney Del had hailed, “that gained us nothing.”
Sitting beside her, he smiled a knowing, self-satisfied, masculine smile.
She stiffened, waited, but he contented himself with looking out of the window as the hackney ferried them back to Grillon’s.
The smile, however, remained on his lips.
They returned to the hotel and repaired to the suite. Minutes later, Tony and Gervase joined them.
“Those two are still watching from down the street,” Gervase said. “They come, they go, but they don’t go far.”
“They have to be the Black Cobra’s hirelings.” Del grimaced. “Unfortunately, I can’t see any benefit in the direct approach. Like the others, they won’t know anything.”
“The best we can do is follow them this evening and hope to get a bead on the man to whom they report.” Tony turned as the door opened. “Ah—luncheon.”
They sat and ate. Deliah preserved a certain aloofness. Even she could hear the warning edge to her voice. Neither Tony nor Gervase could interpret it, but that didn’t matter—he who needed to hear the warning could.
From the look in his eyes when they met hers, Del heard her message loud and clear, but to her irritation he didn’t pay it any great heed. When, the meal concluded and their plans for the afternoon confirmed, he and she left the suite on their next foray—a visit to Hatchards, again shadowed by Tony and Gervase—in ushering her through the door, he let his hand linger at the back of her waist.
Rather than respond, she decided to ignore him. And the reactions he evoked. Nose in the air, she led the way to the stairs.
Hatchards bookshop wasn’t far. Remembering the image they wished to project, when they stepped out into Albemarle Street and Del offered his arm, she took it. Together they strolled down the street and into Piccadilly. The day had remained overcast, the heavy clouds a steel-gray; the brisk breeze carried the scent of snow, although none had yet fallen. She’d brought her umbrella just in case; getting drenched formed no part of her plans.
The bell over Hatchards’ door tinkled as Del opened the door. Deliah walked in; he followed at her heels. “Do you think they’ll come in here?” she murmured.
Pausing, they both took stock of the shop, tightly packed with bookshelves forming narrow corridors leading into the depths, with a goodly number of customers excusing themselves to each other as they passed up and down the aisles, searching the shelves.
“If I were them,” Del replied, “I’d stay outside and watch. There’s only one door for customers to use. But still, it’s worth a try—we might lure them in. Pick an aisle, and let’s disappear down it and see what happens.”
“Poets, I think.” She set off down the third aisle.
Despite the look he cast her, he followed.
“Did you ever read Byron?”
“No. Not my style.”
She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “You might be surprised. ‘Childe Harold’ was quite…adventurous.”
He merely looked at her.
She smiled and faced forward.
They spent some time loitering deep between the shelves, pretending a spurious interest in this or that, while he kept a weather eye on the others who drifted quietly up and down the aisles.
An assassin would have found the shop very much to his liking. It would have been quite easy to take someone intent on the books unawares. But Del was fast coming to the conclusion that those following them had been hired merely to watch, and nothing else.
Which worried him.
Where was the Black Cobra and his assassins? He couldn’t believe there weren’t more cultists in England, supporting their evil master. Aside from all else, their evil master was far too canny not to have brought as many men as he could with him. And he’d had days, if not weeks, to build up his troops.
His mind absorbed with speculation, his eyes scanning their surrounds, he didn’t see the danger directly before him.
Deliah didn’t intend it, and neither did he. She was about to slip past an elderly gentleman when the man turned, blocking the narrow aisle, then, eyes down, stepped toward them. Deliah stopped dead. The gentleman, apparently hard of hearing, and then shocked to find them so close, took a moment to realize and halt—forcing her to hurriedly step back.
Her neatly rounded derriere pressed snugly into Del’s groin.
An instant later, realizing the problem courtesy of his inevitable reaction, she tried to shift sideways and succeeded in making matters even worse. Biting back a curse, he closed his hands over her shoulders and forced himself to step back.
Oblivious, the elderly gentleman, with profuse apologies and an attempted bow, excused himself and squeezed past.
Deliah swung to face Del. The look with which she pinned him was full of accusation.
Eyes narrowing, he stepped closer.
She started to edge away. Reaching across, he clamped one hand on the shelf beyond her shoulder, caging her; with his shoulder against the shelf alongside her, his body shielded her from anyone starting down the aisle. There was no one else presently in it.
All points she’d already noted.
He leaned close, met her aggravated gaze. “That wasn’t my fault—not in the slightest.”
Her lips thinned. Her eyes searched his, then they widened. Her breath hitched. Her gaze lowered to his lips. “Don’t you dare kiss me—not here.”
Part protest, part order, part whispered plea.
For one defined instant, all about them stilled. The very air seemed brittle, charged, all but crackling.
Her breasts rose and fell. His gaze lowered to the tempting mounds, before rising, inevitably, to her lips….
He saw them quiver. He looked up, into her eyes, and realized she was…every bit as aroused, as tempted, as he.
But she was frightened, not of him but of what might—would—happen if….
“No. Not here.” He straightened, and she sucked in a much-needed breath.
Then she shot him a glance close to a glare. “Good.”
Spine stiff, she entirely unnecessarily shook out her skirts, then, nose once more elevated, preceded him up the aisle.
He fell into step behind her, far enough back so he could appreciate the view as they walked back up the long aisle.
That view did nothing for his painfully unsatisfied state, yet the realization that in the aftermath of their earlier kiss—and its as yet unfullfilled promise—she was every bit as exercised as he, every bit as on edge and wanting, went a long way toward easing his temper.
When they stepped out of the shop and the door closed behind them, he could still feel the charged atmosphere between them, but they were standing in Piccadilly in the middle of the afternoon. He wasn’t surprised when she squared her shoulders, then, glancing vaguely down the street, said, “It seems senseless to waste the entire afternoon. I assume they’re still watching—why don’t we give them an opportunity they can’t refuse?”
“Such as?”
Deliah bludgeoned her wits to keep them in line, to keep them focused on his mission and what they were supposed to be accomplishing, rather than on what they might instead do if they returned to the hotel.
Her pulse was still tripping, her heart still pounding, but aside from all else, there were Tony and Gervase to consider. She couldn’t see them, but they would be near, watching, waiting.
“What about Green Park?” She turned to look down Piccadilly to where, a little way along, leafless trees overhung the pavement. “I doubt there’ll be many nursemaids airing their charges in this weather.”
She cocked a brow Del’s way. He hesitated, then, it seemed with great reluctance, incline
d his head. He offered his arm. Steeling herself, she took it, and let him lead her down the busy street.
The sky was darkening, the clouds louring, and, as she’d predicted, there weren’t many people strolling under the large trees in Green Park. A scattering of maids and governesses were gathering toddlers and young children, preparing to take them home.
To warm hearths and comfort, out of the chill of impending icy rain.
Deliah gave thanks for her thick pelisse. The shiver she fought to suppress wasn’t due to the cold. They were being followed, she was sure of it, and this time with more definite intent—although she might be imagining that. She glanced at Del. “There’s more of them, aren’t there?”
His features hard, his expression impassive, he nodded. “At least three, but I think there are more.”
They strolled on a few paces. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
Del wasn’t sure he agreed. “It’s what we wanted to do.” To draw the cultists into an attack. Only he didn’t think they were cultists, although he still held a faint hope. More importantly, however, he had Deliah beside him—and that went against every tenet in his book.
With every step he took deeper into the park, he felt increasingly torn, one part of him urging him to take Deliah’s arm and march her straight back to the safety of the hotel, while the rest of him argued that this was a chance—a chance his mission committed him to take—to engage the enemy’s troops and reduce their number. His decoy’s mission hinged on that.
And she would fight him every step of the way if he tried to remove her from the action she’d instigated.
They slowed, but remaining apparently oblivious was essential to tempt an attack. Yet the edge of the park drew steadily nearer, and still their pursuers hung back.
“What do we do?” she asked. “Turn and saunter back?”
Mentally reviewing the areas through which they’d passed, he grimaced. “It’s too open—they’re worried others will see and come to our aid. There’s still plenty of people walking along Piccadilly—anyone could glance into the park and see.”
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