by Win Hollows
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2020 Win Hollows
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0163-9
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For Lela—you might have been born a few lifetimes before me, but I have a feeling we would have been the best of friends. Instead, God let me be your granddaughter, and I can’t imagine a more marvelous privilege than that.
ESPIONAGE AND THE EARL
Lords of Havoc, 2
Win Hollows
Copyright © 2020
Chapter One
Edinburgh, Scotland
March 25, 1843
He should have known she’d be here.
Max steadied his perch on the spindly stool and debated whether to shoot her, maybe just in the leg. He could barely make out the profile of her pert nose and stubborn chin from between the bookshelves, the rest of her covered in a hooded black cloak.
At least it was interesting now. They never tell you when you sign up to work for the Crown that it could be so deucedly boring at times. He’d been reading the Cairdygyn Accounts at the small lectern for almost two hours, scouring the lists and transactions for any mention of the Damarek. The lower catacombs of Scotland’s General Register House were empty today as it was the Celtic New Year and the whole city of Edinburgh was out parading in the streets. The Scottish knew how to throw a party, he’d give them that.
Dust motes filtered in and out of the beams of sunlight coming through the one broken window that was level with the street up above while distant sounds of carousers barely made it through the thick stone walls of the building. It had been peaceful, if he was honest, up until this moment.
Evidently, the French had also gotten wind of the Cairdygyn Hold lead. How, he had no idea. That information had only been shown to a select few people inside his organization.
The hem of her cloak rustled along the stone floor as she turned away from him to scan the shelves for her target. He was only ten feet away from her now, and Max was surprised she hadn’t seen him yet. He watched as she drew back her hood, and the familiar punch to his gut caught him again. Her pale wheat hair was braided into a rope that twisted around itself and nestled at the nape of her neck. Elegance and practicality. That was Elorie Lavoie, all right.
Or, as she was known in his circles, the Viper, so named in honor of her penchant for throwing darts. She could kill a man at twenty paces with a flick of her wrist, and he wouldn’t even know he was dead until the poison from her dart tip dropped him seconds later.
Damn, if his blood didn’t boil every time she came near.
She had been one step behind him this whole blasted mission, and now she’d finally caught up with him.
“Looking for this?” he said, waving one of the pages of the heavy tome.
She whipped around, drawing a dart from her sleeve. He saw her eyes register the gun pointed at her chest, and her hand dropped. A smile slowly made its way over her cupid’s bow lips. “Hello, Max.” Her French accent dropped the H, the lilting pattern raising the hairs on the back of his neck. “I was hoping I’d be here before you.”
He eased off the pedestal, keeping the gun leveled at her. “Sorry to disappoint you, Elorie.” He closed the book with one hand and scooted it to the edge of the lectern. “You’re looking well these days.”
She began to walk toward the end of the bookshelves. “If it didn’t come from your lips, I would take that as a compliment.”
“You’d enjoy the things that come from my lips,” he retorted, tucking the book under his arm.
She laughed, throwing her head back. “Oh, Max, I have a feeling I truly would.”
Heat built in him. He had wanted her ever since he had first met her in Rome two years ago, but he’d rather have taken one of her darts straight to the jugular before admitting it. She was the only woman he had ever truly wanted without taking for himself. She was off-limits. “Although it’s good to see your lovely face, I fear I must be going now. Books to burn, you know.” He smiled, shrugging with the tome in the crook of his arm.
Elorie narrowed her eyes, all business once again. “You wouldn’t.”
Max began to back away toward the archway to the stairs. “But I would, which you very well know.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You haven’t found it yet, have you? If you had, you would have simply torn the page from it, but you’re taking the whole thing.” She tsked. “Maxwell, you’re slipping. I could have sworn you knew about Cairdygyn Hold a full week before I did.”
He gritted his teeth. “How is it you know about it at all, I wonder?”
She smiled and stepped toward him, matching his pace as he walked carefully backward. “Charming English earls are not the only people who can exert influence over others when it suits them.”
“I’m sure your … influence is something to behold.” He let his eyes peruse her form, though her cloak hid what he knew to be the lithe figure of a siren beneath.
“A pity you’ll never know,” she replied, eyeing the muzzle of his gun.
“I don’t consider it a pity at all, Viper. More of a blessing.” Max cleared the archway and grinned from the next room.
Her lip curled, and he saw the pale skin of her cheeks redden. “How typical a statement coming from a stodgy English lord with a stick up his arse.”
He hefted the heavy book to fit more securely in his grip, watching as she twiddled a dart in her fingers. Her anger could be deadly, and he couldn’t risk baiting her for too much longer without consequences. He switched to speaking French. “My, my, someone is bitter about the Vienna debacle.”
She spoke in her native tongue as well, her voice sending prickles of awareness through his limbs. He loved it when she spoke French. “You boast about something you had no control over. Just because your family has connections you use for your own gain doesn’t mean you’re a more valuable asset to your country. It just means you’re lazier.”
He hmmed as she came toward the door. “Yes, I can see how being that count’s consort, eating figs and drinking wine all day, was so difficult for you before I arrived and swept your plan out from under you.”
Her knuckles whitened in fury, and she switched back to English. “I was not his—”
But Max was done lingering. “One thing you should have remembered about me, Elorie, is that, though I might have only had a slight head start on you, I always prepare for the worst.” He held up a key he’d hidden up the sleeve of his jacket and grabbed the edge of the heavy door to that section of the catacombs. “I’m sure there are other things worth reading in here until someone comes back from the festivities to let you out.”
Likely seeing his intention, her eyes widened and she lunged forward.
“Good luck.”
She flung a dart directly at his heart, but the door slammed between them, the dart embedded in its planks. He chuckled, but not loud enough for her to hear on the other side. She wouldn’t shout for assistance from him or anyone else. She had too much pride. Although he’d made sure there were no other exits, the Viper was resourceful, and he didn’t anticipate her being stuck for long.
The things Max did on a regular basis mig
ht make him a legitimate scoundrel, locking women in underground rooms, lying, bribing officials, manipulating people to get what he wanted… But he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy moments like these.
He climbed the stairs and out through the main exit, no one there to stop him from taking the ancient book. This street was relatively empty, but up ahead, the celebration for the Celtic New Year was in full swing, people dancing, drinking, and playing street games. Max turned away from the revelry and made his way down a side street.
The mail coach station was just up ahead, so he dug around in the belt of his breeches and removed the letters he intended to post. Although the station was closed, he slid the missives through the drop-slot to be posted on the morrow. Even agents of the Crown had to write to their mothers and sisters, else he’d have a hell of a lot more trouble on his hands than hunting for an ancient artifact. He knew his family looked forward to his correspondence even more since his father’s death two years prior, and he’d made it a priority to post a letter once a week, one to his sister and one to his mother.
It didn’t matter that he stretched the truth about what he was doing while traveling. They just wanted to hear anything from him, so he provided anecdotes of people he’d met and things he’d seen during his travels for his “estates and investments.” He couldn’t receive letters from them since he moved frequently, so it was a boon when his work took him back to London and he could spend time with them. They were his responsibility, but more than that, they were his family, and one didn’t abandon family, no matter what international incident loomed on the horizon.
Max tapped the mail slot with a smile and continued down the street. The pale Scottish sun made him squint as he turned the corner to step into the alley where he’d parked his carriage.
Except it wasn’t there—at least not the one he wanted to see. In its place was a bright yellow eyesore of a thing that he had hoped he’d never see again.
Elorie.
It had begun back in Rome when she’d first stolen his fashionable black carriage and left hers in its place. She’d left a note explaining how she hated the color yellow and thought he wouldn’t mind trading. Ever since, they had “traded” carriages back and forth, five times in all. This made six.
The funny thing was, it wasn’t even the same carriage any longer. A year ago, he had been working a case in Bristol, and he’d had the opportunity to steal her conveyance, which happened to be just a horse. Without the original yellow carriage to leave in its place, he had paid an exorbitant amount of money to have one quickly painted a glaring buttercup and left outside the stables at her inn. The landau that sat on the street before him wasn’t even the one from Bristol, but a showier phaeton that must have cost a pretty pound note.
That conniving wench. She’d known he was here all along. She was probably laughing at him from the archive room this very moment.
“Touché, Lavoie,” he murmured, not managing to stop the grin from spreading across his face. Searching for the Damarek wasn’t going to be as dull as he’d thought after all, if Elorie was this close on his tail.
“Let the games begin.”
****
Elorie touched her hands to her hot face and growled as she turned away from the door. She hadn’t expected the lock to budge with her lock-picking skills, but she’d had to try. Balling her fists, she attempted to control her fury.
That man was going to get her killed.
It had been made clear by her superiors that if she didn’t get to the Damarek before the British, the wonderful French tradition of the guillotine would await her when this was all over.
That aside… It had been wonderful to see him again. That lazy smirk he did when he tipped his square jaw, his golden gaze that shot through her like a cup of scalding tea in a Moscow winter. The powerful muscles of his torso had never been more obvious than when the sunlight was showing through the white shirt he’d been wearing today.
Elorie sighed and went to the door, pulling out the dart embedded chest-high in it. Clear liquid dripped down the grain of the wood, triggered to release from the dart by the impact and vacuum of the door. Pulling up her skirts, she holstered the used dart in her custom leg strap alongside the extras she always carried.
Why did she lose her wits when he was about? She should never have let him maneuver himself between her and the exit. That was practically lesson number one in espionage.
Lesson number one was even more pertinent: Never let emotions get in the way of your objective.
Not that what she felt were feelings, per se. More of a mutual respect for another agent, albeit one who was annoyingly handsome. Just because she always hoped she ran into him, even when it jeopardized her mission, didn’t mean she had feelings for the man. She’d given up feeling anything long ago, except the rush she felt when besting an enemy.
A chittering sound emitted from the inside pocket of her cloak.
Well, and her feelings for Porthos, that was. She opened the front of her cloak to let his tiny head out. The five-inch long pygmy marmoset took a quick look around, yawned, and curled back into her pocket. She shuffled him around, and he squeaked in protest. “Get up, you lazy fluff. Time to work,” she said softly. Porthos lifted his fuzzy brown head out of her pocket again, this time more alert. He knew what work meant: dried fruit rewards.
He wrapped himself around her finger, and she lifted him out to sit on her shoulder. “See that window?” She pointed upward. “Find Ruben.” She gave the monkey a coin, which would be a signal to Ruben that she needed extraction. Porthos tapped her hand with his minuscule palm, indicating he understood the command. She placed him on the stone wall above her head, thankful the architect had loved gothic archways and had incorporated their shape as protruding flourishes from the walls of the Register House at every opportunity. She watched as Porthos nimbly scaled the wall and slipped through the hole in the broken glass pane.
Now she waited.
Ruben was posted on the street outside, but she hated calling for his help. He made her feel as if she owed him something every time, even though it was his job to assist her in her missions for the clandestine division of the French government.
It had always been clear to her that Ruben didn’t care anything about politics or loyalty to his country. His sole reason for his position in the Hand of Charlemagne was to derive pleasure from the interrogation process when it was warranted. She had seen the obvious delight he took in torturing those the Hand felt it was necessary to extract information from. She had also seen him go beyond what was necessary, after the victim had already told him what he wanted to know.
His presence made her skin crawl, but there was no denying he was the best when it came to getting a job done. Handsome and charismatic, he was of similar coloring to Elorie, making it easy to pose as brother and sister when required. But his gray eyes were cold and penetrating, whereas Elorie’s were an intense green that she hoped looked nothing like her partner’s. He was unsurpassed at making friends in all the right places, sleeping his way into the right beds, and obtaining information others had spent lifetimes trying to get.
For all that, she wished he wasn’t here. Why couldn’t someone like Maxwell, the Earl of Eydris, be her partner?
She pursed her lips. It was dangerous to think about things that could not be.
After a few minutes of pacing and thinking too much about the way Max’s tight breeches clung to his long, defined thighs, the door’s mechanism clanked, and it swung open.
Ruben leaned against the archway. “Well, well. Eydris again, I presume?”
Elorie glared and strode up to him, collecting Porthos from his tall shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why don’t you dispose of him and be done with it?” He followed her up the stairs and out of the archives. “He has been in our way too many times to count, especially of late. Then again, he does give me an excuse to keep getting you out of these situations.”
“As if unlock
ing a door is such a trial,” she mumbled.
He continued, “One day, I’m going to collect on all the times I’ve rescued you, Elorie.”
Chills went down her spine as she stepped onto the street. “And when you do, you’ll find my moniker is well-earned.”
Ruben chuckled. “I’m not so sure of that. I’ve only ever seen you actually kill someone once since Bristol. Just the once.”
“I’ve only ever needed to just the once.” She drew out a piece of dried apricot from her pocket and gave it to Porthos. He grasped it with his little fingers and began to chew on it, dark eyes shining with joy. She ran her finger down his back and smiled at him as he climbed back into his inside pocket.
Ruben put his hands on her shoulders from behind. “Where is the fun in having the Viper for a partner if I never get to see the snake use her fangs?”
Elorie shrugged him off, her hairs standing on end. “Come on. We have to get to that book before he destroys it.”
“Or simply follow him to the prize and then kill him.”
Her ears roared. No matter how much of a pain in the arse Maxwell was, she would never kill him. Never once had it entered her mind to make her life simpler by permanently retiring him.
“Killing an earl will invite too much attention. And there is such a thing as honorable spying,” Elorie spat. “I am lead on this mission. No killing unless I say it needs doing.”
Ruben snorted. “You still believe that? I think that’s why I want you in my bed, Viper. You’re still so innocent.”
She ignored him. He had no idea the depths of her innocence or her ruin. She lived with both burdens, and the weight of them threatened to crush her every day.
“Eydris hasn’t found anything yet. We can still beat him to it if I get a look at that book,” she said firmly, striding down to the corner where she had left the yellow landau for him.
