The Lady Who Came in from the Cold

by Grace Callaway

  He rose at her entry, his impeccable manners almost amusing given the situation. That was one of the things she’d always loved about Marcus. He was a gentleman not merely by birth but by his behavior: he showed regard for others… even if they didn’t deserve it.

  “Feeling better?” she said.

  “As good as a man who’s been drugged and kidnapped by his wife can feel.” His tone was neutral.

  If he thought that would set off her conscience, he didn’t know her. Didn’t know the lengths she’d go to save their marriage. If being a spy had taught her anything, it was that sometimes the best choice was the lesser of two evils. Her arms tightened around the box.

  “Would you care to have a seat?” Marcus gestured to the chair on the other side of the table, metal links rattling as he did so. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to unchain me first?”

  She took the seat. It was the safer of the two options. Especially since she’d measured the length of the chain and knew she remained precisely ten inches out of his reach.

  He followed suit, his posture in the chair lordly, his torso erect and his thighs slightly sprawled. She did her very best not to ogle his naked chest, the way the parted blanket accentuated the hard planes…

  “You wanted to talk. So talk,” he invited.

  She didn’t know what to make of his bland tone. Or his impassive expression. He didn’t seem angry—but, if the past two months were any indication, it wouldn’t take much to get him there.

  Stop stalling. Get on with it.

  Exhaling, she said, “I know you don’t want to hear about my past, but you’re going to have to. I’ve come to the conclusion that honesty is the only way for us to get past this.”

  “By all means then, be honest,” he said.

  What did he mean by having such a calm tone? His blue eyes were steady, and he seemed so much like her Marcus of old that she experienced the urge to just drop everything and crawl into his lap. To beg him to hold and cuddle her, to experience again the succor of being in his arms—the safest place she’d ever known.

  Instead, she set the box on the table. It took up almost the entire surface. She put a hand on the lid before Marcus could lift it.

  “We’ll start at the beginning,” she said. “The first time we met.”

  “You mean at the Pilkington Ball?”

  In for a penny… “No, actually, that wasn’t it.”

  A line formed between his brows. “I’m quite certain it was.”

  Deciding to let the truth speak for itself, she took the lid off the box.

  Casting a puzzled glance at her, Marcus reached inside, parting the layers of protective tissue. He pulled out the jacket, examining the scarlet fabric, the insignia … and incredulity shot across his features.

  “What the devil? My officer’s jacket. Why do you have…?”

  She saw the moment that the truth hit him.

  “It… it was you,” he stammered. “The prostitute at the camp. The one who was being attacked by one of my men.”

  So he remembered her.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t understand. Why were you there?” His gaze suddenly sharpened. “Dear God, that night… Christmas. Starky was found dead. Natural causes by all appearances.”

  She wasn’t surprised that Marcus made the connection so quickly. Lieutenant-Colonel Harrington was a brilliant man. She sent up a prayer that he’d believe her explanation.

  “He was a traitor,” she began.

  “Yes, I know,” he surprised her by saying. “Several months after his death, we came into possession of letters he’d written. Plans he’d drawn of our battle positions. The missives proved that he’d been selling military secrets to the French.”

  Relieved, she said, “Yes, he was.”

  Blue eyes bored into her. “Starky didn’t have a heart attack?”

  “No.” She held her husband’s gaze. “He didn’t.”

  Marcus stared at her. Raked a hand through his hair. “By Jove… poison?”

  She nodded, her heart an erratic presence in her chest. Not because she’d admitted to killing a turncoat—that bastard Starky had cost countless British lives by leaking information to the enemy—but because she didn’t know what her husband would think of her. Of the fact that she was capable of taking a man’s life.

  “When Starky’s betrayal came to light,” Marcus said slowly, “Wellington declared that God had looked after us by taking a traitor from our midst. If Starky hadn’t died when he did, he would have compromised us further, made the months leading up to Waterloo even more bloody and hellish. But it wasn’t God’s work.” He sounded stunned. “It was you.”

  Penny wetted her dry lips. “Octavian said there was no other choice. Eliminate Starky or let innocents die in his stead.”

  “I understand his reasoning. I can even understand that actions during wartime are judged by a different set of morals than during times of peace. But what I don’t understand,” Marcus said, his voice low and dangerous, a muscle leaping in his jaw, “is why he’d send you—God, a mere girl at the time—to do such bloody, dangerous business!”

  He was being protective… of her?

  A lump rose in her throat. She didn’t think it possible, but her love for this man grew even more. At the same time, she realized that he didn’t quite grasp the entirety of what she was trying to communicate to him. Of what she was disclosing about who and what she’d been.

  “Octavian sent me because I was one of the best.” She said it without pride or emphasis; facts didn’t require embellishment. “It wasn’t my first of that sort of mission; it wasn’t my last.”

  Marcus said nothing. His assessing gaze didn’t leave her face. Perhaps the truth of whom he’d married was finally sinking in.

  “Why did you keep it?”

  His question was unexpected; it took her a moment to comprehend that he was referring to his jacket.

  “Because I wanted to remember that night.” In this, she had nothing to hide. “The night I fell in love.”

  His pupils darkened. “You didn’t let on.”

  “How could I? For one, I was on a mission, and for another, I was disguised as a harlot. You would have turned me down flat.”

  He didn’t refute her; they both knew it was true. He wasn’t the type of man who’d stoop to consorting with a whore, to taking advantage of someone less fortunate than he.

  “Why did you wait until the Pilkington Ball to approach me? That was nearly four years later,” he said, frowning.

  “At first, the business of Napoleon kept us both occupied. Then there was the aftermath of war to contend with. And I suppose the truth was,”—she shrugged—“I wasn’t ready to meet you. I needed time to prepare myself, to become the sort of lady you might be interested in. Flora was helping me, giving me lessons in all the things a debutante ought to know.”

  “In between dispatching traitors and protecting your country, you were learning how to pour tea and make proper conversation?” Marcus said incredulously.

  “Trust me, the former set of skills was far easier than the latter. I’d rather face a firing squad than a roomful of gossiping matrons.”

  He didn’t respond to her attempt at levity. He said intently, “What if I had met someone else in the interim?”

  She bit her lip before admitting, “I was keeping an eye on you.”

  One dark brow winged. “Define keeping an eye.”

  She released a breath. “I was there at Toulouse. In April of 1814.”

  Surprise rippled across his face. “That was a bloody fight. We were tasked with capturing the Heights of Calvinet, and I was lucky a sniper’s bullet only grazed my…” His eyes widened, comprehension flaring in them. “It wasn’t luck?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice. “It was such a fracas that I didn’t see the sniper until too late. He got off the shot—although I did manage to alter the trajectory of his aim.”

  “Good God.”

  Not knowin
g what to make of his expression, she decided to forge on. “And I was there, in the village near Quatre Bras, two days before the battle. When that other sniper had you in his sights. But I got him in time.”

  “The bullet… it whizzed past my ear.” Marcus wore a stupefied look.

  Knowing her husband, she guessed that he might not be best pleased at the discovery that she’d taken an active role in keeping him alive. He was a proud man, not the kind to hide behind a woman’s skirts. Or her pistol.

  Sliding him a cautious glance, she decided she might as well get it over with. “After you left the army, I stayed apprised of your activities. I loved you, but I wasn’t sure that I could win your love in return. When I heard the rumors that you were on the verge of offering for Cora Pilkington, however, I knew I had to act. I gave Octavian my resignation and came to London to find you.”

  Silence fell. His eyes were hooded, his features carved from granite. She gathered her courage to face the darkest of her sins—the men she’d bedded—but Marcus spoke first.

  “Come here.” He rose to his feet.

  Her heart beat madly at the blazing heat of his eyes. How angry was he at her? Would he let her finish what she had to say?

  “I’m not done.” She drew a breath, squared her shoulders. “I… I have to tell you about… Pierre Chenet, Jean-Philippe Martin.” She had to force out the last. “Vincent Barone.”

  “I don’t give a damn about them,” he stated. “They don’t matter.”

  “They… don’t?” She stared at him, confused.

  “I realized that after the Winter Ball. After I acted like a bloody fool, nearly bungling our marriage beyond repair, I realized that nothing matters but us being together.”

  “But I thought… you… you said that things could never be the same between us. That you couldn’t forgive me,” she stammered.

  “Can you forgive me for being an imbecile where Cora Ashley is concerned?” he returned.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then I can forgive you for the past. For things that were done before we were even together.” The flames in his blue eyes mesmerized her. “Now get your pretty arse over here.”

  Her nipples tingled, but she held onto her remaining ounce of self-preservation. “Why?”

  “Come here, and you’ll find out.”

  It was a risk, she knew, but she couldn’t resist the command in his voice, the smolder in his gaze. She rose, closing the distance between them, taking those last ten inches into uncertain territory. She was a woman who’d stared death in the face more than once and run away laughing, and yet now she trembled as she stood before her husband.

  He curled a big finger under her chin, tipping it up, and the tenderness that softened his hawkish features made her eyes sting.

  “Pompeia, Pandora Smith or Hudson, whatever you choose to call yourself—I have loved you from the moment we met. Or, I should say, from the first time you revealed yourself to me. I have loved you every moment since, and I will love you,” he said solemnly, “until my dying breath and beyond. Because you are my lucky Penny, my wife, the other half of my soul.”

  A sob worked its way up her throat; overwhelming joy and relief prevented her from speaking.

  As it turned out, she didn’t have to. In the next moment, his mouth claimed hers in a kiss more eloquent than any words.

  Chapter Twenty

  Marcus swung his wife up into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  With one knee on the mattress, he gazed down at her like the treasure that she was. Humbled by her beauty and strength and the fact that she’d pledged both so steadfastly to him, he cupped her soft cheek and whispered, “I always knew you were an angel. I just had no idea you were my own Guardian Angel.”

  She flushed. “That’s doing it a bit brown. I just… lent a hand. When I could.”

  “Darling, lending a hand is helping with my cufflinks. Adjusting my cravat. What you did at Toulouse and before Quatre Bras…” He shook his head, unable to express the feeling burgeoning in his chest. It was too much, too large to put into words.

  “It doesn’t disgust you?” she whispered. “To know that I’m… capable of killing?”

  There it was. That complexity of hers that had captivated him from the start. Mystery combined with candor, sultry confidence mingling with the sweetest vulnerability.

  “Did you kill indiscriminately?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Murder innocents, babes in their beds?”

  Again, her head rocked against the mattress.

  “Then to know that you’ve killed turncoats and enemies of our nation? That you would kill to save my life?” Bending down, he brushed his lips against hers. “No, my love, it doesn’t disgust me.”

  “I would do anything for you,” she said.

  There was no hesitation, no shame in her words or the lush depths of her eyes. He couldn’t help but marvel at the woman he now knew her to be. She’d survived such darkness in her life, yet her love… it had always been clean and pure. The truest thing he’d known.

  “God, I adore you,” he said roughly and possessed her mouth once more.

  He’d intended to take things slowly, to make up for his stupidity and the weeks they’d lost because of it by making sweet and gentle love to his lady. But when her lips parted, her tongue luring him inside, he knew this would be no sedate reunion. The kiss caught fire, heat searing his insides, and before he knew it they were tearing at each other’s clothes, fighting to get rid of anything between them.

  “The chain,” she gasped. “The key’s in... the other room…”

  “Damn the chain. There’s no escape for me or for you, my love. Not from the start. Not ever.” He tossed her robe over the side of the bed. “And now I have you exactly where I want you.”

  Hunger reared in him at the bountiful feast that was his wife. Kneeling at her side, he dove right in, manners be damned, latching onto her sweet tits. Jasmine and neroli ignited his senses, his blood running hot and fast as he suckled her nipples, wetting them in turn, rubbing and playing with those decadent rosebuds while she panted his name.

  His gluttony led him farther down, his tongue tracing the grooves of her ribs, the sultry indentation of her belly. His mouth watering, he clamped his hands on her white thighs, spreading them wide, and paused to gaze at her pussy. To admire the delicate ebony thatch and the peekaboo view of dewy pink flesh beneath.

  Lust pounded in his head, his heart, his cock.

  “Damn, I’ve missed you,” he muttered.

  Too impatient to maneuver himself between her thighs, he simply swooped down and buried his head where he wanted it. The view was topsy-turvy, but being well acquainted with his wife’s lovely quim, he figured he knew his way around from any angle. He parted her folds, swiping his tongue into her honeypot, desire roaring through him as he lapped at her sweetness. Behind him, he heard her panted moans, and he doubled his efforts, exposing her peak, flicking the center of her pleasure in rhythm to his own thundering heartbeat.

  Just when he thought things couldn’t get better, her hand circled his throbbing cock. She fisted him, tugging with just the right pressure to drive him mad. As he sought to return the favor of exquisite torture, she suddenly shifted, her head nudging beneath him and between his legs. He bit off a curse when her lips closed around his throbbing cockhead.

  “Christ, Penny,” he groaned.

  She’d pleasured him with her mouth in the past­­—and he’d always loved it, considered it a decadent treat. But this position was new for them. New and unquestionably erotic.

  “Damn, I’ve missed you.”

  Her throaty voice, throwing his own words back at him, sent a hot quiver up his spine. And that was before she got busy trying to cram as much of his cock as she could into her mouth. His hips moved, unable to resist the sweet and generous lure. He plunged deeply, groaning as he simultaneously buried his erection in her throat and his mouth in her cunny. The sound of h
er muffled moan, the feel of it vibrating against his turgid shaft, brought him right to the edge.

  But he wouldn’t go over, not without her. He tongued her proud bud, working two fingers into her sheath at the same time. Her slick muscles clutched at his pumping touch, and when he felt her panting against his cock, unable to focus on what she was doing, he judged that she was there. Lost in the raw pleasure. He suckled her pearl, and she bucked against his mouth.

  Gorgeous and wild. His Penny. All his.

  In the next breath, he shifted direction. He was on top of her, face to face, front to front, the tip of his cock lodging against her soft, wet entrance. Looking into his beloved’s heavy-lidded eyes, her flushed face, he thrust himself home. Heat—lush and wet. Fire raced up his spine, incinerating his self-control. He drove into her, deep and deeper, and she responded by circling his hips with her legs, giving him more access. Giving him everything.

  “God, that’s good,” he growled.

  “Yes, my love. Yes.”

  Her lips parted, and he took her mouth the way he was taking her pussy: hot and hard, nothing held back. Nothing but the joy of being how they were meant to be. Together, loving.

  Her body heaved against his in perfect counterpoint. Soft against hard, sweat glazing their skin and heightening their closeness. Pressure burgeoned in his stones as they slapped rhythmically against her giving flesh. He was barreling toward his climax, and this time there was no stopping it. But he knew his wife and knew how he wanted to go over.

  “Come again, Penny,” he grated out. “Take me with you.”

  “Oh, Marcus, yes—”

  The first spasm of her pussy made his neck arch. Groaning, he pounded into her, her passage wringing his length and demanding his bliss. Heat exploded from his balls, his seed boiling up his shaft and jetting from him in luxurious torrents. Even after the shudders faded, he couldn’t stop pumping into her, continuing to claim her with gentle strokes.

  Looking into his wife’s sated eyes, he murmured, “How was that for making up?”