Espionage and the Earl

by Win Hollows

  Apparently, Raquel had known the Marquess of Blackbourne since childhood and called him by his first name regularly, though it wasn’t proper. Ivy didn’t seem to mind the use of her husband’s first name though.

  “We don’t usually deal with rodents,” Lilah ruminated, settling her teacup in her lap. “It seems strange, to be honest, but I suppose it’s possible.”

  Ivy shrugged and swallowed a bite of a sandwich. For such a small person, she seemed to relish eating quite a bit. “I don’t know either. But he’s back to being obsessed with it and is planning to travel to France next week to consult with his research partner, Pasteur, again.”

  “Miss Crescenfort, you have relatives in France, do you not?” Raquel asked, and the trio all turned to her.

  She set her teacup down and cleared her throat. “Yes, as a matter of fact. My mother is from Bourges,” Elorie told them. “I haven’t been there in quite some time, I’m afraid.” It was very strange to tell people true things about herself because she hadn’t been herself in four years. She could make up stories about her own history at the drop of a hat, but to tell the truth? That was much harder. It made her feel very vulnerable, but her past was so far away from who she was now that it almost felt like another story that wasn’t hers.

  “Oh, I knew your lovely complexion had to be French!” Lilah declared. “It isn’t fair every other country has sun, and we are stuck with our sickly pallor and rain.”

  Raquel rolled her eyes. “Try being a redhead as I used to be.”

  “You still are,” Lilah stated.

  “I’m not. Grant is a redhead. I’m a blonde now.”

  Lilah snorted. “Of course you are.” Turning to Elorie, she explained. “Grant is my cousin, the Viscount Bastion, and he has bright red hair. Even though Raquel has red hair too and is pale as death, she feels she has the upper hand over him.”

  Elorie laughed. “If it makes you feel any better, my mother despairs of my sunned face, and Bourges is cloudy much of the time.”

  They continued to speak of past travels, and Elorie couldn’t help thinking of how impressed, or more likely scandalized, they would be to learn she had been to no less than eighteen countries. Traveling, seeing wondrous sights so different from anything else, eating new foods, seeing fearsome and strange animals… She might miss that most of all.

  When she had made the choice to join the Hand of Charlemagne, she had not known just how well she would take to the job, having been quite sheltered before that point. But now that the entire wide world had been made available to her, she doubted she could ever be satisfied with the tiny slice of it that was England.

  She wished she could fit in with them. She wished she was content to sit in a parlor and make conversation or embroider pillows for the rest of her life, but it simply wasn’t her, not anymore.

  With a deep and ponderous weight in her chest, she thanked the ladies for their company and took her leave of Scythemore Manor, wondering if she would ever have the chance or inclination to return. The “otherness” that had now come over her, however, prevented her from picturing it.

  Thankful that her mother had not required a chaperone for this visit as it had only been a short walking distance from their own home, Elorie walked far enough down the sidewalk so as not to be seen, and then hailed a handsome cab.

  243 Whistlethorn Road.

  It seemed inevitable, her meeting the Earl of Eydris now. As if the fates had accepted her zig-zagging in and out of an acceptable path in life, an invisible string pulled her toward him without anything able to halt it.

  After alighting from the carriage, she paid the driver and then looked around her destination, frowning.

  Where in the world was she?

  The cramped streets and worn façades of the buildings around her normally would have been accompanied by unpleasant smells and more unpleasant characters in the vicinity. However, the area was free of refuse and empty of anyone else.

  Just then, two men stepped out of one of the doorways near her, speaking to each other in a foreign tongue. They had on bright-colored clothing with loose-fitting pants that sagged around their thighs and matching turbans wrapped their dark-skinned heads.

  Elorie took a step back to let them pass as they came toward her. When one spotted her, he smiled and nodded, saying something to his companion, who looked at her and shrugged. Elorie didn’t want trouble, but they didn’t attempt any interaction as they passed her and kept walking off into the dimming light of the street.

  It was then that she looked to the place where the men had come from that she saw the sign above the doorway:

  Vishnu Gr̥hasthī

  243 Whistlethorn Road

  Elorie smiled. At least she was in the right place. Taking a breath, she walked up to the door and pulled it open, readying herself for anything.

  As a blast of heated air wafted out to greet her through some sort of curtained entrance, strange scents and sounds assaulted her senses. Laughing, talking in foreign tongues, and a sharp, tangy smell made imprints upon her.

  Curry.

  She hadn’t eaten curry in years, but her mouth watered at the distinct scent she remembered from her travels.

  What was this place?

  Elorie pushed aside the curtain and stepped into a large, bustling room lit by bulbous hanging lanterns of various colors. People, all dark-skinned like the men she had seen outside, sat at tables throughout the space, serving themselves from gigantic bowls of heavenly smelling food. They talked and laughed, only a few people noticing her arrival at all. Men sat at the edges of the room on large cushions, smoking from what she knew were hookah pipes, the clouds of vapor giving the room an otherworldly haze.

  A short man in a red turban came toward her from the side of the room. “Miss Lavoie, yes?”

  “Yes.” Elorie nodded. She wasn’t surprised he knew who she was. After all, it probably wasn’t every day a pale-skinned blonde woman in lady’s attire came into this place. Max must have told them to expect her.

  “Come this way, please.” He smiled, indicating she should follow him. He led her through the room of mostly male patrons. A few stopped what they were doing to watch her pass, surveying her with dark eyes through puffs of scented smoke. At the back of the open space, a door was opened for her. “You will dress here, and then Shefali will take you to him.”

  Elorie blinked as he turned away from her. “I’m sorry, I’m to do what?”

  He just smiled and made motions with his hands that she go through the door he had opened. Elorie gritted her teeth and blew out through her nostrils. She didn’t like going into a situation completely unaware of what was supposed to be happening.

  Yet a part of her unfurled and came alive at the sensation of the unknown. Whatever this was, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than a tea party at a duke’s manor.

  Max would always be the most interesting part of the world for her. Tiger eyes set into his square-jawed, aquiline features created an intriguing contrast that tempted one want to learn what could make his eyes turn to molten honey. Add to that his roguish smile and athletic build, and there was no need to wonder why she had heard of the many women in various ports he left wanting more of him. He was handsome, yes, but his appeal was more than that to her. Max knew how to use his assets the same way she did, but it was never with the sort of bravado that handsome men usually employed. He simply did whatever he wanted, and somehow always looked good while doing it. She somehow doubted she gave off the same air of offhandedness he seemed to have been born with.

  Elorie was led into what turned out to be a small dressing chamber, where she was told in broken English to strip naked by a dark-skinned woman with a red dot in the middle of her forehead. Although it wasn’t the strangest command she’d ever been given, she hesitated before complying. The woman then rubbed Elorie’s skin with warm orange- and jasmine-scented oil. After being massaged by the woman’s expert hands, she was dressed in gauzy red silk, with pantaloons that sat
low on her hips and belled around her legs for freedom of movement. The bodice piece of the ensemble covered only the top half of her chest, leaving most of her stomach bare. Next, the woman, whom she learned was named Shefali, tied gold scarves with tiny metal medallions hanging from them around her hips, their clinking like infinitesimal raindrops in a tin cup when she moved. Her hair was parted down the middle, and a chain with the same medallions was laid atop her center part. Shefali then carefully lined her eyes with kohl around the edges. Finally, Shefali stepped back and bowed to her, pronouncing her finished.

  Elorie reveled in the freedom of the clothing, remembering how it felt to wear such a thing. When she had been assigned to infiltrate a harem in Marrakesh to find a slave trader who had betrayed an arrangement with the French monarchy, she had been scandalized to have to wear such revealing clothes. Elorie had thought of it as being lowered to the level of an animal, forced to show her skin to anyone who looked. However, after a few days, she had begun to enjoy it, rejoicing in the freedom of it and the way sensations were able to reach her skin instead of being encased in layers of constricting clothes that made it impossible to feel anything at all around oneself. The English always did find physical impressions distasteful, and she had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be rid of such confines.

  Shefali smiled at the way Elorie moved and tested the flowing garments. “Follow me. You go to him now.”

  Elorie’s heart stuttered. Him. The thought of appearing before him like this caused her mouth to go dry. She was thankful now that Shefali had rid her body of tension with the oiled massage, for her bones seemed to move of their own accord as she followed her toward a door on the other side of the chamber.

  The Indian woman moved aside to let Elorie pass through the door and then bowed as she left her alone in the room.

  Heart thudding, she looked around to find herself in another circular chamber, this one with transparent, colored curtains falling at various angles throughout it. She couldn’t see Max anywhere through the veils surrounding her, but something reflective winked at her through them from the other side of the room. As she moved toward the gold shine, Elorie felt her instincts warring, telling her to run. This was beyond the bounds of propriety she knew she was expected to follow, and Max was more dangerous to her than anything she had faced on her assignments.

  Pushing aside the curtains as she went, shapes of things ahead became clearer. There was a low table on which sat a brass carafe, which was what had been reflecting the lamplight. Large cushions of varying shapes and sizes littered the floor around the table, as she knew was customary in the Indian way of eating. A series of small lamps hung from the ceiling in progressively lower tiers, but the area was still mired in dim obscurity. As she pulled the last veil away, she took in the feast set out on the table, bowls of hot curries, white rice, chicken and lamb shanks, fresh fruits, and flatbreads spread over it.

  However, it wasn’t the food or the intimate décor that held her gaze.

  Amidst the cushions toward the back of the space where darkness still reigned, Max lay on a large pile of the soft pillows, head propped on his elbow. His golden eyes glittered as he watched her approach, looking very much at ease. Then he spoke, the words low and thrumming with heat.

  “You came.”

  Elorie swallowed to wet her parched tongue. “I came.”

  His gaze swept her from head to foot, and Elorie felt prickles of awareness follow. She had never been this exposed to an Englishman before, and it both frightened and excited her. When she had lived in the sheik’s harem for almost a month, she had never been seen by a male except for the eunuchs who served the women. Being seen this way by Max and seeing the desire in his face was intoxicating.

  She stopped and stood in the center of the room, unsure of what he intended.

  “Were you expecting a raks sharki dance?” She raised a brow, resting her hand on her scarved hip.

  He raised himself up further and smiled. “Would you perform one for me?”

  Elorie let a small smile creep over her lips. “Perhaps later.”

  She watched his throat work, the stubble like pinpricks of shadow. “That you even know what it is makes you the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.”

  “In this country, mayhap. You English are stodgier than the rest of the world, and it’s not the women’s fault they are brought up to be as bland as the tea you all drink.”

  Max seemed to consider this. “Fair enough.” He rose to his feet, and Elorie’s lungs seized as he came nearer. Standing over her, he didn’t touch her, but she could see the way his eyes lingered on her exposed skin. He smiled and skimmed his fingers down her forearm, taking her hand. She met his eyes warily as he slowly crouched and pulled her down beside him so they both sat facing each other, she with legs crossed and he with one leg extended and the other bent.

  His hungry gaze almost made her sway with the power of it, but he didn’t act on what she could see there. “Eat,” he said instead, tipping his head toward the food.

  Elorie bit her lip and gazed at the food on the table in front of them. She smiled and looked back at him before grabbing a piece of triangular flatbread and dipping it into a steaming bowl of yellow curry that was bigger than a washbasin. Taking a bite, she moaned as the smooth spices tripped over her tongue, the singular taste something she thought she’d never experience again. Max watched her enjoy it with a small smile, and when she had swallowed, she asked him, “How did you know?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “I saw you in Marrakesh. You were walking through the marketplace, and you bought a skewered meat for yourself. You looked … happy. I thought perhaps you might miss such things since you have been on English shores for a while.”

  Elorie cocked her head. “You were there?”

  He nodded and shrugged. “It wasn’t a mission. I was on holiday after completing an assignment in Algiers. It was complete luck that I saw you in the market.”

  She blinked, her mind running in a thousand directions. “You never spoke me to me,” was all she could think to say.

  “Yes, well, you were very beautiful, and I didn’t even know if you spoke any of the same languages I did.” He sighed, selecting a piece of shaved mango from a platter and putting it in his mouth. If Elorie didn’t know any better, she would say the man was … blushing?

  “I… I didn’t know.” She looked away from him. “Marrakesh was only my third assignment. It wasn’t very dangerous, really.”

  Max snorted. “Maybe not for you, but I was almost executed for trying to sneak a peek into the harem’s courtyard. It was only my title that saved me that time.” He smiled wryly.

  Elorie laughed. “Well, you really shouldn’t have been peeking.”

  He smiled unrepentantly. “I wanted to see you dressed in nothing but transparent linen with your skin turned golden from the Moroccan sun.”

  The way he said it made curls of delicious warmth spread inside her. “And now you have, at least partially.”

  Max’s eyes swept over her curves and her bare arms. “Yes,” he said softly, reaching up to run the back of his knuckle down her arm. “You’re lovelier than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  Elorie was used to men telling her such things when she played certain roles, and it had always left a bitter taste in her mouth, but coming from Max’s lips… The hairs on her arm rose at his touch, and she realized she had stopped breathing momentarily.

  “I have fantasized about you like this, bound to me like a harem girl and mine for the taking,” he murmured, smoothing the tip of his pointer finger over the back of her hand that rested on her leg.

  Elorie inhaled, trying to control the way her heart reacted to his words. She wanted nothing more than to give him exactly that, but there were things he didn’t understand. “I cannot be yours,” she replied, afraid that was exactly what she was becoming without him ever claiming her.

  Max’s eyes rose to hers, the warm sherry color of them alight with
want. “We’ll see.”

  ****

  He saw the fear rise up in her irises and knew he would have to go slowly with her. Taking his finger from her hand, he smiled and looked away. The way her luminescent bare skin called to him, only inches away from his touch, made him forget himself.

  Hell, he needed to slow himself down, having never intended to tell her anything about past missions. Treason wasn’t something he was interested in committing, and yet he found himself crossing lines with her that he had never thought would be tested. What he had told her didn’t amount to anything in the scheme of things. They had crossed paths and been in each other’s way before, and there was no harm in admitting to another such occurrence, not now.

  Despite this, Cunningham’s interest in the Viper and her “death” was not something he could afford to overlook. If he were ever to be caught like this with her…

  Yet guarding himself with her was like trying to stop a herd of rampaging bulls, as it always seemed he was more truly himself with her than with anyone else. Things just came out, and he couldn’t seem to stop them.

  Since talking clearly wasn’t a good idea, he knew of many other things he wanted to enjoy with her. He took a slice of orange from the tray and asked her, “May I?”

  “May you what?” she asked in confusion.

  It was funny to see her unsure of herself, considering she was the best opponent he’d ever faced. He briefly wondered if she’d found a way to hide any weaponry or darts in her revealing clothes.

  “Let me feed you,” he told her, watching her as she seemed to think about it.

  “All right,” she said slowly, clearly not understanding why he would want to do such a thing.

  Surely she had made men her puppets with such sensual undertakings as this. Perhaps she feigned innocence because she thought he preferred it. Either way, he didn’t care. He just wanted to be the one to make her give herself to him willingly.