Espionage and the Earl

by Win Hollows

  Had he really just been thinking about marriage? The very idea was absurd.

  Yet with all his being, he knew he would never be able to let Elorie Lavoie disappear from his life. He didn’t want to picture a future without her, for it was dull and lifeless. Perhaps it was simply that she’d been an unpossessable flame burning in and out in front of him for years now, and he’d finally caught her. It likely amounted to just that, but she seemed to fit everything he was like a bespoke shirt contoured to his every shape. It was madness, this thing between them, yet it felt more right than anything he’d ever done. It was a living, breathing beast that he would keep feeding until the beautiful thing turned on him to devour all his good intentions.

  Sighing, Max went back inside, this time knocking on Elorie’s door and waiting for a response.

  “I suppose you can come in,” came the dour reply.

  Max entered and schooled his features into the most innocuous expression he could muster. “Feeling any better?”

  Elorie was propped up in the bed, her face a study of resigned depression. “No. I was, and then some half-wit walked in on me in the water closet. We’ll never get past this, you know.”

  Max cleared his throat but didn’t completely succeed in keeping the smile from his face. “What if we agree to forget it?”

  She crossed her arms. “Not likely.”

  He approached the bed slowly, taking in the frilly white night rail she wore and her long hair plaited into a simple braid that hung down over her shoulder. The picture she made was far removed from that of the Viper temptress, but now he suspected it was closer to her real essence than anything. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

  “I don’t think there’s a standard thing people can do to wipe that sort of slate clean, as it were.”

  He shrugged, sitting down beside her on the bed. “I don’t know about that. I think kisses are perfect for this sort of thing. Wipes away all manner of less pleasant occurrences, I’m sure.”

  Elorie fought a smile and looked away with a huff. “I doubt you’ll ever forget the sight of me flailing on the floor by the toilet.”

  Max reached for the end of her braid and scooted closer to whisk the soft hairs over his cheek. “You could always give it a really good try.”

  Elorie grabbed her braid back and shoved at him before wincing. Holding her side, she said, “You’re going to make me tear my stitches, you rogue.”

  Max grinned and caught her wrist, landing a quick peck on her lips before she could stop him. But the quick peck left him wanting more, and so he came back to her lips, teasing them more slowly this time until she responded. She let out a little groan, and Max’s entire body vibrated in immediate response to the sound. When he drew back, Elorie was breathing quickly, cheeks flushed a hearty pink.

  Knowing if he didn’t stop now, he’d end up really tearing her stitches out, Max regrettably stood and left the bed to retrieve the tray of food he’d left on the chest of drawers across the room. He brought it over to her and set it down on her lap. “It’s a bit cold now. I can get you a fresh meal if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I like cold soup.”

  Max made a face. “No one likes cold soup.”

  “I do,” she said, shrugging and picking up a spoon. “One can taste the flavors better when it’s room temperature instead of scalding.”

  Max took up a seat at the end of the bed against the post as he had before, watching her sip the creamy mushroom and potato soup as delicately as any lady at Almack’s. His legs, he extended and crossed at the ankle alongside her feet. Her mouth didn’t make a sound, and she held her soup spoon with only the appropriate fingers necessary to do so.

  After a moment, he commented, “I assume you had training in comportment from the Hand of Charlemagne. Your manners are unassailable, even when eating in bed.”

  Elorie paused with a spoonful halfway to her mouth and looked up at him. She set it down in the bowl. “Are you asking another question in return for that kiss?”

  He grinned. “Maybe.”

  Elorie set her hands in her lap and appeared to choose her words carefully. “I did not receive such training from the Hand.”

  Max considered this. Did that mean she had learned it as any regular lady would? If she had, that would mean…

  No. It couldn’t be.

  “How then?” he pressed, leaning forward.

  She looked down and picked up her spoon again. “One kiss gets one answer.”

  Teeth grinding, Max resisted the urge to interrogate her. That had never worked with her, anyway. “You will tell me someday.”

  “There’s no someday for us, Max,” she whispered, eyes still on her soup as she stirred her spoon around in it.

  “Why do you resist this? I don’t care what your game is. Whatever scheme you’re trying to pull off in the ton won’t make you happy.”

  Elorie looked up, fire in her mocking gaze. “And you can? Is that what you mean to imply, Eydris?”

  Max swallowed but remained silent. It was exactly what he meant. Somehow, he had to convince her that he was a better option than some plan to divest the aristocracy of their money or whatever it was she thought she needed.

  Eventually, she looked away and went back to eating her soup in tiny spoonfuls like a demure debutante. If Elorie had been raised a lady…

  That was impossible. No daughter of the aristocracy, French or English, would have been allowed to gallivant around foreign countries as a government operative during the years she should have been presented on the marriage mart. It was more likely she had been raised by a governess or a well-to-do merchant with social aspirations.

  Still, he had assumed she had come from nothing and had been given the tools she needed by the Hand. It was strange to think of her as anything other than a woman molded by higher powers for the sole purpose of accomplishing the murky things the French Monarchy couldn’t do in the open.

  Yet when he thought about it, he didn’t really know her at all. Perhaps he never would, if she had her way.

  Two more days. Two days to make her his and convince her he wanted her in all of her incarnations, whether she was gently bred, a street urchin, or a bloody octopus. They’d live in a fishbowl together, for all he cared. All that mattered was that she stay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the doctor came, Max left the room so the older man could examine her wounds. Elorie clenched her teeth when the dressings came off, and the doctor applied strong alcohol first and then a cream of some kind that smelled like her mother’s tooth-whitening powder, shoe-shine, and lip balm all at once. After the man had re-wrapped her torso, humming all the while, he lowered her night rail in a professional manner and drew the sheets up over her once more. After warning her to take her laudanum tonight, he took his leave to go report her condition to Max. Although she supposed he was paying for her medical care, she didn’t like Max knowing everything about her body without her say-so.

  A wave of terror clamped her stomach as another thought came: her body would no longer be her own in less than a month. It would forever be the plaything of the Duke of Morley. Women who married for titles and security had all faced this and accepted it, she knew, and yet she raged inside at the mere thought of it.

  She had thought about killing him once they were married. Something innocuous like a poisonous sedative, undetectable and unsuspicious. No pain. It would solve all her pesky problems, and she wouldn’t have too many regrets about offing such a cretin. Her conscience had always been clear of such things, knowing that certain men, and women for that matter, did more bad for the world than good. It was simply a fact that more lives would be made better if those sorts of people were no longer breathing.

  Yet the Duke must have thought of such plots, for he’d stipulated in their betrothal contract that her family would only be supported by a monthly stipend while he was alive, and all funds tied to the estate were to be spent exclusively by his estate ma
nager. She couldn’t leave Celise without the means for a debut season and the chance of being well-cared for. Perhaps once Celise was married and settled in a decade or so…

  Elorie watched as Bridget walked past her bedchamber door, humming to herself as she went. She certainly hoped Max’s staff was as discreet as he claimed, for her reputation would be in ruins if anyone were to know she was here alone with the very eligible and very handsome Earl of Eydris. No one would ever believe she was a virgin if this got out. But more importantly, the duke wouldn’t believe it either.

  Oh, it was such a mess. She had been a fool to think she could leave her life in the Hand without consequences. It would be a miracle if her parents didn’t flog her for leaving London without their permission, assuming the even greater miracle of no one ever finding out she had really been at Maxwell Berisford’s Estate this whole time. She wouldn’t believe she was a virgin either, if she were honest.

  First thing tomorrow morning, she would write to her parents, letting them know she was having a grand time becoming acquainted with the duke’s circle of friends at the Blackbourne Estate. That should mitigate some of the wrath she knew would come down on her head upon her return. She just needed to play her cards right. It was what she was good at, and she couldn’t fail now, not when everything was about to fall into place exactly as she had planned it.

  “You look pensive,” Max commented, walking into the room with his usual long-legged swagger.

  Her heart quickened. He was so handsome in his buckskin breeches and a white country shirt. And he could never be hers.

  She pasted a smile on her face. “I’ve naught much else to do but think, being stuck in this bed round the clock.”

  “You didn’t enjoy the books?” He nodded to the stack Bridget had brought in earlier.

  She shrugged. “I’m not much for reading. I suppose that makes me an uncivilized heathen.”

  Max paused. “Perhaps you just haven’t had the right material.”

  She laughed. “Don’t try to woo me with poetry, Eydris. T’won’t work.”

  He smiled back and leaned against the post that she’d come to think of as his. “I wasn’t going to.”

  Max reached forward and pulled back the counterpane completely to reveal her bare legs.

  Elorie screeched and tried to grab at them, but stopped at the sharp jab of pain in her side.

  He came around the side of the bed and scooped her up in his arms with one smooth motion, ignoring her yelps of protest.

  “Max, what are you doing?” She hugged his neck to steady herself. Her heartbeat skittered, and she couldn’t help but notice how close she was to him. The square line of his jaw was clean-shaven, but the barest hint of a shadow shone underneath, as if it didn’t dare break the surface for fear of another scrupulous turn of the razor.

  She had been closer to him before and dressed in more scandalous attire than the full-length nightgown she now wore, but being in the surroundings of a proper house with him made it seem further out-of-bounds than before.

  “Let’s just try something,” Max told her, purposefully chuffing the top of her head with his chin.

  His muscled arms carried her without effort as he walked steadily down the hall before turning into a room three doors down from her own.

  The twinges of discomfort in her side were forgotten as she looked around. It was the music room, clearly converted from a parlor to accommodate the addition of a pianoforte, a viola, and a large, standing harp. The instruments’ area took up most of one side of the room while a grouping of chairs and two sofas inhabited the rest. It was an unusual room in that, although it was internal and had no windows in the walls, a series of overhead windows had been installed to provide natural light from above instead. Now, in the sun’s dying rays, every surface of the space was awash with warmth in purples and oranges and reds. It was a place that seemed outside of time in its otherworldly stillness and light.

  Max took long strides toward the pianoforte and gingerly set her down on the bench in front of it, then took the seat beside her. “Can you read music?” he asked quietly, seeming to sense the silent wonder that had come over her.

  Elorie smiled. “Yes, but I can’t play the pianoforte. My mother preferred the violin.”

  “Hmmm…” She could tell he was storing that tidbit away in his grand scheme to piece together the puzzle of her. His fingers, long, but barely a gentleman’s with faded calluses and nicks scarring them, spread over the keys with the grace of a great winged bird. The stillness was abruptly broken by the sound of a single chord as it rung out and then blended into another. There was sheet music on the stand in front of him, but he didn’t need it, looking down at his fingers caressing the keys with loving and careful precision as he coaxed the melancholy melody from the instrument.

  Elorie watched him, knowing with every note that she was falling more under the spell of the Earl of Eydris. As she watched him, his movements became more familiar, and his profile more dear and yet infinitely mysterious. He played on, and she heard the richness of his enjoyment in every unchained stroke of the keys, the song one she suspected he was making up as he went along.

  She was aware that, had things not gone so far awry in her own life, this moment could have been genuine. Maxwell Berisford could have been courting her honestly, with the full permission and audience of society. This could have been any evening in which her family would visit his to allow them small, innocent moments that might develop into an offer of marriage. It would not have been unseemly to sit beside each other like this, playing music and sneaking looks at one another under the supervision of the former generation.

  Suddenly, Elorie’s chest ached painfully with a longing for that. If only her family’s finances hadn’t been in ruins. If only the duke had never seen her, and she hadn’t signed away her life. If only she hadn’t lived so very much in the few years of freedom she’d had, so that now, she felt older than her years and resigned like a sun-faded painting about to be put away in the attic.

  Wetness rolled down her face and splashed onto his forearm.

  The music stopped.

  “Ellie?” Max murmured, turning toward her.

  Blinking away the tears, she didn’t attempt to hide the emotion in her eyes for once. “It’s wonderful, your playing. You really are quite perfect, you know.” She didn’t smile, though the words held one in them.

  “Why do I have the feeling there’s a but at the end of that sentence?”

  He looked so earnest as he waited for her reply that she saw some of the boy he must have been, unwaveringly loyal to those around him and constantly struggling to be the best. She could picture him fighting for everything he thought important, wanting to be noticed for everything that made him him.

  He was the best now. He had bested her time after time, and she couldn’t even be angry at him for it. He was everything a man should be, and more. Whatever woman ended up as Max’s wife wouldn’t deserve him. No one did, least of all her with her selfish choices and tainted destiny.

  If only he had been there first to take away all her problems and spare her from all the things she had chosen and the things she had not. He could have been hers before it all changed and her path had become set in stone. If only.

  She brought a hand up to his face and let her fingers find the angles of it. “There’s no but.” Elorie leaned in to kiss him, his warm, firm lips against hers like an already gone memory. Max kissed her back slowly, arms coming around to pull her against himself. This kiss wasn’t like the others. The others had been fierce and possessing, quickly growing from a flicker into a flame.

  This was a nap under a willow tree on a summer afternoon. It was a warm slice of blueberry pie on Christmas Eve and a puppy’s velvety ear pushed up into one’s palm and the absolute certainty that the crunch of pebbles in the drive was the carriage containing that favorite person one had been waiting to see for ages. The peace of it enveloped her, and she almost let herself stay there forever.


  When she pulled back, she saw it in his eyes as well. There was a shift of things, and it couldn’t be undone any more than the last bright leaf of a tree could un-fall its way back onto its branch.

  “Stay with me,” Max murmured, the light in his eyes bright. “Stay with me and never look back.”

  Elorie felt her face crumble as she looked away. “It’s not possible, Max.”

  His jaw worked as she felt his fire for her turn to fury. “I know you want to. Whatever is holding you back, it can be taken care of. We aren’t like other people, Ellie. We can be whoever we want to be.”

  “Don’t do this,” she warned, pushing his arms from her. “You know not of what you speak. That can never happen, and the days of being whoever I want are over.”

  “Why?” he asked, taking her hand and smoothing his palm up her forearm. “What is so important that you can’t leave it alone? What secret prize is worth losing this? Just … be happy with me.”

  “Please,” she begged, her words becoming watery. “Don’t ask me again. You don’t want to know, truly you don’t.”

  Max’s grip tightened. “I do want to know. And I will ask you again.” He forced her to look up at him. “This time tomorrow, I’ll ask you again, and then the next night until you answer me.”

  She let the tears fall, her lips quivering too much to respond as she shook her head. She knew this thing between them would end in disaster, and yet it was no less tragic to see it crack apart before her. He didn’t say anything further, but wiped droplets from her cheeks as they came down. “Play,” she whispered, looking at her lap. “Please, just play.”