The Thespian Spy

by Cheri Champagne

  “It is your bet, Mr. Spencer.” Lord Kerr tapped the surface of the table agitatedly with the tip of his index finger.

  “Pay attention to the game,” Mary whispered against his neck, as her lips kissed a trail down from his jaw to his shirt collar then up again.

  Gabe clenched his jaw against the tempest of desire washing its way through him in gale after gale, and placed his bet of five pounds onto the table. They were playing a steep game, but Gabe was not concerned about funds, he was concerned about crucial documents being put into Napoleon Bonaparte’s hands.

  If only he could concentrate.

  “Play your four of diamonds,” Mary whispered against his earlobe as she dug her fingernails into the back of his skull.

  How the devil could she pay attention to his game and he could not? She wasn’t even looking at the table! Ah, yes. Of course. She did such things on a nightly basis, while he had been celibate for these long weeks. Arousing men was an ordinary practice for the ever-talented Mary.

  The resentment that suddenly shook him to his core dampened his desire enough for him to play the game. For a moment.

  The tip of her tongue traced the edge of his ear, sending gooseflesh over his skin.

  That was it. He’d had enough.

  He placed his cards face-down on the table, then gripped Mary’s head in both of his hands as gently as he could. He pressed his own lips to her ear and breathed, “You are distracting me from my purpose. Now be a good girl and discreetly question the others.” He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, then pushed her off his lap with a swat to the bottom. “Off you go, sweetling. Let me play some cards.”

  With a pretty pout, Mary left the card table to join the others who lounged in the seating area. Lord Pondridge had fallen asleep on the chaise and was now snoring loudly with his disappointed mistress on his lap. Lord Jackson sat with one mistress on each thigh while he alternately kissed each of their necks. Mr. Piper had pulled out his elaborate, gold snuffbox and was sniffing the white powder from his little finger’s long nail, while his mistress looked on. And Reddington… He had been lounging with his own mistress, Mrs. McArthur, but now turned his attention toward Mary.

  Damn. Gabe had not considered that this might happen. But he ought to have. Perhaps it was a curse that he happened to be facing the seating area and not sitting with his back to it.

  Mary walked past the settee on her way to an armchair when Reddington set aside Mrs. McArthur and pulled Mary onto his lap. Mary squealed and Gabe clenched his jaw tighter, the ache nigh unbearable.

  “Come, love, and give me some of that attention that was wasted on Spencer,” Reddington smoothed the backs of his fingers over the underside of her jaw.

  Focus on your mission, Gabe. Do not let Mary and that villain distract you.

  He looked at the table and tried to make sense of the cards placed there. As his turn came around, Gabe placed his knave of clubs down and hoped it was the right one.

  His gaze flicked back up toward Mary to see her hands running over Reddington’s chest.

  Those hands should be on my chest, he told himself. They had been, don’t ye remember, ye fool? Ye kicked her off yer lap…

  Aye, he remembered. He remembered her kissing a path up and down his neck and along his jaw, whispering game advice or warnings in the same ear that she had licked and nipped. He remembered her hands travelling over his body, heightening an altogether unnerving awareness to his senses.

  That same awareness began to sizzle its way over his skin. He was too hot. Pulling at his collar, Gabe cursed the quick frown that troubled his brow.

  He had to focus, blast it!

  He played a two of…damn, he didn’t know. Was it even a two?

  Mary’s peal of delighted laughter echoed through the room as Reddington pressed his mouth to her neck. Gabe’s gut flipped over.

  How was he to get any investigating done while Mary behaved like a common trollop?

  As luck would have it, just that moment the rubber ended, and Gabe rose, not caring that he had lost dreadfully. “I am out.”

  With purposeful strides he moved to stand before Mary and Reddington, his hand extended and a forced lustful tilt to his lips. “I feel the need to retire, love.”

  Several of the men chuckled or hooted while the women exchanged knowing glances.

  The vile Reddington tightened his grip on Mary’s waist, jealousy written plainly on his features. “Why not let Mary remain down here for a little while longer, Spencer?”

  The anger burning within him threatened to spill over. Gabe had to concentrate to keep his English accent as he spoke. “Because she is my mistress and I require her now.”

  Someone whistled long and high behind him, but Gabe ignored it.

  Obviously sensing his agitation, Mary pried Reddington’s hands from her person and accepted Gabe’s hand.

  He frowned at the tingling sensation caused by her grip. Something must be wrong with him. Perhaps he should see a doctor. This was not normal.

  Gabe helped Mary to rise, then with a showy flourish, lifted her into his arms, disregarding the twinge in his still-healing shoulder.

  More hoots and whistles echoed behind them as he swept Mary from the room. He did not bother putting her on the floor when they reached the hall but kept her in his arms and hurried through the corridors until they arrived at their shared bedchamber.

  He did not allow himself to stop to dwell on the warmth and the comforting weight of her in his arms, either. No, indeed.

  Chapter 15

  Mary felt the wash of cold air envelop her as Gabe set her angrily to the ground. He quickly closed their bedchamber door behind them then turned to face her, a dark scowl marring his handsome features.

  “What the bloody hell was that about?” he hissed.

  Mary frowned in return, hurt by his anger. “I’m afraid I do not know what you mean.”

  He gestured wildly toward the door and whispered heatedly, “Tha’! Yer behaving like a whore ready te lift her skirts fer any man te offer!” His accent slipped through his practiced veneer.

  Pain sliced through her chest, sending ripples down to her fingertips. “There you are, calling me a whore again,” she whispered back. “Somehow you seem to have mistaken me for a lady. I am not highborn; I am a spy, Gabriel, and an actress. It is my job to behave in such a way.”

  “Aye! Tha’ is precisely my argument.” He pointed at her. “Ye should no’ be put in this position from the first, Mary, it isnae right.”

  No matter how many times she had heard him say so, it still hurt to know that he did not believe her capable of being a spy. “I have just as much of a right to be here as you do, Gabe,” she said, her voice growing in strength as she warmed to her topic. “I was offered this life and I accepted wholeheartedly. This is mine, whether you approve of it or not. It is decidedly not your choice what I do with my life and my body.

  “Why is it,” she continued, incensed, “that it is acceptable for a man to have lovers and mistresses, and it is okay for those women to tup as many men as they please, but it is not acceptable for me?”

  Gabe flinched at her coarse language, but she continued anyway. “What is it, exactly, that has you so upset? Do you believe I will fall in love with one of them? Do you believe me capable of switching my alliance to join a traitor?”

  “Nae,” Gabe grumbled, appearing discomfited.

  “Then what is the issue, pray?”

  Gabe stood mutely, his mouth a thin line and his eyes devoid of emotion. “Reddington is very likely a traitor, and fer all we ken, a man capable of unknown evils. And he wants ye.” He stood straighter, as though he believed he found the winning argument. “He even suggested tha’ I share ye with him. He said tha’ everyone ‘shared’ here.”

  Mary could almost laugh. “I am aware of Reddington’s wish to bed me; what do you suppose he was whispering in my ear all through supper?”

  Gabe’s jaw clenched. “And ye encouraged him.”

>   How could she make Gabe understand? “I was trained for this, Gabriel,” she continued in hushed tones. “I went to school just as you did. I learned how to defend myself and how to use this very sort of undesirable situation to my advantage. Which is precisely what I aim to do. If I can bring these men to not only desire me, but to believe me flighty and unintelligent, then they will confess any number of sins in a belief that gloating will gain them my favours. And, should that fail to work, at the very least I am able to distract them while you search for the documents.”

  Gabriel’s disposition was positively thunderous as he scowled at her from under his dark eyebrows. “I do no’ like it. I do no’ think ye should—”

  Mary shook her head, cutting off his argument, both hurt and tired of the entire issue. “You gave up any claim to give me advice when you abandoned our friendship, Gabriel.”

  If he clenched his jaw any tighter, Mary was certain he would chip a tooth.

  He turned away with a mumbled “verra well” and pulled his coat from his shoulders.

  Mary turned to do the same, removing her slippers and stockings then pulling her night rail out of the small wardrobe that they shared. “By the way,” she glanced over her shoulder at him, “you may wish to focus on your accent. You seem to have forgotten it.”

  That statement earned her a grumble as he draped his waistcoat over a chair and began to unknot his cravat.

  “Would you please unfasten me?” Mary gave him her back.

  There was silence for a moment, and Mary began to wonder if Gabe would ignore her request and she would be forced to sleep in her gown and corset, but then she heard the shifting of fabric behind her.

  The moment his hands touched the buttons at her back, Mary was swamped with need. She was brought back to those moments she spent on his lap and a furor of nervous fluttering erupted in her stomach. She must admit, at least to herself, that all of the teasing done to him had not all been for the sake of their cover identities. She could easily have simply sat atop his knee and whispered a few words in his ear. Instead, she had allowed herself those moments to satisfy her curiosity. She had never before felt such emotions while teasing a man, let alone ones so very strong. She wanted to explore…to taste…to nip…to take as much out of the experience as she could possibly manage.

  Mary bit the inside of her cheek to keep from sighing.

  Her buttons undone, Mary held her gown to her chest as Gabe set to work on the ties of her corset.

  She took that moment to correct her wayward thoughts.

  Gabe did not even like her, let alone harbour intimate feelings—or even warm feelings—for her. In fact, Mary was quite certain that he thought rather poorly of her, if his constant comments about her being a whore were any indication.

  Mary cleared her throat of the sudden lump that had lodged itself there and changed the topic.

  “I believe that we may have reason to include Lady Kerr in our list of suspects,” she whispered.

  Gabe’s hands paused briefly before he let out a hoarse laugh and finished with her corset.

  “What is so amusing?” She turned to face him as she removed the loosened articles and hung them over the same chair he had used.

  “What in God’s name,” he said, correcting his accent, “makes you think that Lady Kerr is a potential suspect?” He was not smiling, but she could hear the barely suppressed mirth in his voice and saw the slight crinkle beside his eyes.

  Mary listed the reasons off on her fingers. “She gives me long, calculating stares, she has an excellent bluffing expression as noted by her gameplay, she asked what precisely it was that enamoured me to you, the shrewdness behind her gaze, and…” she crossed her arms defensively as he cocked an eyebrow at her, “I have a feeling about it. Instinctually.”

  He shook his head, laughing. “Have you any notion of how mad you sound?” He lowered his voice, “Lady Kerr is not a spy.”

  Incensed, Mary stepped toward him, her hands on her hips. “You only believe her incapable of treachery because you cannot give credence to her flirting with you only to gain something.”

  “You only believe her capable of treachery because you cannot give credence to her flirting with me at all.”

  Mary grit her teeth at the ring of truth to his words and shook her head. “This is not merely a matter of feminine competition or jealousy, I assure you. I have no desire to be intimate with you or to renew our friendship,” she lied. “Ours is purely a business association and nothing more. So you may trust that when I say I suspect Lady Kerr of wrongdoing, my opinion is unclouded by emotion.”

  * * *

  Gabe gazed at Mary, his stomach knotted so painfully he was certain he would be sick. This entire discussion had bound him in an emotional coil, wound so tightly he did not know which sensation to trust.

  A business association, indeed. Whatever Mary thought, Gabe knew that those youthful years of friendship were more than mere childhood reveries. He just didn’t know what they did mean. Or how he should behave towards the woman that continued to muddle his thoughts.

  He clenched and released his jaw before he shook his head. “You are wrong, Mary.”

  His gaze bored into hers as his mind worked, his throat tightening. Something was there, but the answers were just out of reach. He didn’t yet know what he wanted out of his association with Mary, but it wasn’t a damned business transaction.

  With one last searing glance, Mary turned her back on him and went about her nightly ablutions. Gabe watched her as she moved, both gracefully and almost…mournfully. The shadows cast by the flickering fireplace dancing along her spine like a wicked marionette. Gabe was suddenly very aware that she was mostly nude, her only article of clothing the thin chemise that clung to her every curve.

  Cursing himself for even looking, Gabe removed the remainder of his outer clothing and draped them over the nearby armchair. With agitated movements, he snatched a pillow from atop the turned-down bed and tossed it atop the rug before the hearth. He lowered himself to the floor wearing just his smallclothes and curled his knees up to lie on his side, keeping his back to—and his eyes away from—Mary.

  “Would you like a blanket?” Mary said from behind him.

  “No,” he grunted. “The fire will keep me warm.”

  “As you wish, then.”

  His gut still in turmoil, Gabe forced his eyes to close against the brightness of the flickering fire.

  Chapter 16

  The sound of sloshing water brought Gabe slowly awake. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, his gaze slowly focusing on the banked fire in the hearth. The anger and hurt that he’d felt last evening came rushing back

  Blast.

  He rose slowly and stiffly, then stretched. His position on the puce rug last night had not been as comfortable as he had initially believed it to be. It had been, however, necessary.

  His spine cracked and popped as he bent over to retrieve his pillow, the sound gaining Mary’s attention.

  “Oh!” She smiled at him as she turned from the washstand. “Good morning!”

  Damn her and her cheery disposition. “Good morning,” he grumbled, keeping his eyes averted from her mostly nude and freshly washed form.

  He tossed the pillow beside hers and lowered himself to the bed after it, pulling the counterpane over his lower half. As much as he hated to feel the warmth on the bedclothes left by Mary’s body, he knew that they must keep up appearances, for Mary was a martinet for appearances. She’d reminded him of his slipping façade several times already during this assignment. And she was right. He ought to be more careful. A man and his mistress would not sleep separately.

  Glancing toward the opened window, Gabe noted the early hour. The sun was low on the horizon, its bright, cheerful rays mocking his dour mood. Gabe defiantly closed his eyes.

  Mary cleared her throat. “I am pleased that you are awake. I must dress and I require the help of a maid.”

  His eyes snapped open, but before Gabe could p
onder the sudden tingling sensation racing up and down his chest and Mary’s oddly formal choice of words, she walked toward the bedchamber door and tugged on the thick, corded rope hanging there.

  “I thought there weren’t any maids available.” Gabe raised his arms to rest beneath his head, propping himself up so as to better see Mary while they spoke.

  “Not yesterday, no, but I should think that there would not be many other guests awake at this hour.”

  “Why are you awake so early?” Gabe asked.

  Mary moved to the chest of drawers and withdrew a pair of stockings from the top drawer. “I thought to break my fast—if it has been prepared—and then venture out of doors for a bit of fresh air.”

  “You’re going to interrogate the gardener, aren’t you?”

  Mary raised a cautionary brow at Gabe as she bent to slip on her stocking. “Whether I am or am not going to speak to the gardener is…”

  Gabe did not hear the remainder of her sentence, as all thought—and blood—rushed away from his head. The angle of Mary’s low-cut chemise as she bent gave him a full view of her bouncing beauties…those swaying, rounded, orbs of milky pleasure. Gabe knew instinctively that they would look exactly like that as she rode him. They would hang just above his face and he would lift up to suck one into his mouth. He would bite and lick, and she would moan and sigh. Bloody hell. He would—

  “Have you heard a word that I’ve said?”

  Gabe blinked, his fantasy dissipating like smoke before his eyes. Pray God she didn’t notice his cockstand beneath the thick counterpane. He lifted one knee for the sake of his modesty…and his pride.

  “Beg pardon,” he said, his voice thick. “I must have missed that last bit.”

  Mary placed her hands on her hips, the movement only accentuating her slender waist and—God help him—her stirringly wide hips and generously rounded bosom.

  “I have been detailing my plan to discretely speak with the servants then search the house, while you have done nothing but gaze at me with a vacant expression.”