by Win Hollows
There. She’d done it now. She’d wounded him just enough to stop him from pursuing this madness.
Max just scoffed, appearing completely unperturbed at her confession. “We both know that’s not true.”
Elorie’s nostrils flared, and she turned away from him, gathering her thoughts. What in the world was it going to take to get him to stop prying? When she glanced back at him over her shoulder, she tried to take all emotion out of her voice. “What we both know is that I’m unsuitable for you in every way, and there’s no point in continuing it.”
Leaning forward, Max rested his elbows on his thighs as he watched her. “I think you’re perfect for me in every way, so on that, we disagree.”
“Max, I’m a French spy!” She whirled on him, hating the way his shirt hung open so she could see the panels of muscle beneath. “How much more unsuitable can I become?”
“I don’t know,” Max mused, rising to his feet and coming toward her. He grabbed her arms and forced her gaze to his. “Marry me, have three children, and ask me again in twenty years when I’ve debauched you properly.” Even he looked surprised at his words, but something had come into his eyes just then and solidified into a burning certainty.
Elorie wrenched herself from his grasp, her heart pounding so loudly she was surprised she could hear the absurd words he’d just spoken. “I can’t do that!” she cried, taking steps back. Tears formed and spilled over her lower lids.
He kept coming, an unrelenting force. “Why? Why can’t you?” he demanded. “You keep saying you can’t do these things, but it’s really that you’re afraid to, isn’t it? That’s all it ever was. Defect to England, Ellie. I’ll keep you safe from the Hand of Charlemagne. They’ll never touch you again.”
“You have no idea of what you speak.” She trembled with fury and a screaming sadness so deep she might drown in it.
Max threw his arms wide. “Then enlighten me, Viper! The Elorie Lavoie I know would never let anything stand in the way of what she wanted, if she wanted it badly enough. The Elorie Lavoie I know would never be such a coward.”
“That’s not my name!” she yelled, pushing at his chest as he towered over her.
Max stopped. “Fine. I won’t call you Viper ever again, if you wish.”
“No,” Elorie said miserably, hanging her head. “I mean, I’m not who you think I am.”
“You never were,” he replied reasonably. “I’ve never cared.”
“You don’t understand.” She wept, drawing herself up to look him in the eye.
It was time. She could no longer extricate herself from him without telling him. “I told you who I was that night at the Littonway Ball. I wasn’t lying, Max.” Swallowing, she stated, “My name is Deirdre Elorie Lavoie Crescenfort, of the Norwich Crescenforts. My father is Hamish Crescenfort, the eighth Earl of Crescenfort. My mother is Lady Cosette Lavoie Crescenfort, the Marchioness. I am, and always have been, a lady with a pedigree as high as yours, Lord Eydris.”
The stunned expression on his face wasn’t one the Earl could be accused of sporting often. “That’s impossible,” he whispered.
She continued, fissures in her heart opening with each admission. “You should read Debrett’s more often. I don’t need to defect to England because I’m already English, for the most part. My mother raised me in between England and France most of my life.”
Here came the nail in the coffin. “And I have been engaged to the Duke of Morley since I was fifteen years of age. In a month’s time, I will be a duchess, and I will retire to Hampshire to begin the task of continuing the precious ducal line.”
Elorie didn’t care that she was crying in front of him or that her nose was red or that he finally saw her for what she was: a terrified girl who couldn’t even make her own choices. “So you see, when I told you you didn’t want to know, you should have left it alone.”
Elorie wiped tears from her cheeks mercilessly. “You should have left me alone so I wouldn’t know what you taste like or how good it feels be cared for by you. You’d ruined me before you ever touched me.” Her voice broke. “But I can never let you ruin me in truth because on the twenty-ninth of June, I will marry the duke in a church in front of everyone who thinks I’m nothing but a perfectly proper miss whose only dream is coming true.” Her shoulders slumped as the wind went out of her. “I could never have been yours, Max. I was never even my own.”
Max’s face was blank. Through the sheen of her tears, she tried to read what he was thinking, but every line, every spark in his eye was flat. She watched him for any sign of a reaction, but it was as if the puppeteer who usually animated Max’s body had taken a holiday and left him without the means to move or speak or do anything at all.
Elorie took his silence as answer enough and began to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm with a sudden movement. When he spoke, she heard nothing of Max in his voice. “You’re right,” he told her. “I never knew you. Traitor.” He let her arm drop as if it scalded him to the touch.
She inhaled sharply and rushed from the room, leaving the man who now despised her alone with the heart she wasn’t certain she would ever get back.
****
One week was a lifetime when all one had to think about were all the reasons one was a failure at life.
Reason number one, Max mused, was his failure to deduce that the Viper was as much a lady as his own mother.
Reason number two was his failure to do anything at all so far with the knowledge of the location of the Damarek, even though the future of his country depended on it.
Reason number three was his idiocy in letting Elorie Lavoie, traitor to England and his arch-nemesis, flee his home in the middle of the night with all the secrets she had no doubt gleaned from her time with him.
And reason number four, which truly topped the cake, was that he had no intention of turning her in at all. He was an utter failure at his profession because he had broken the cardinal rule of spying and fallen in love with the enemy.
Even larger among his regrets was number five, his failure to ruin her in the eyes of the duke the second he’d had the chance. Screw politics. Screw her engagement. Screw everyone else. She belonged with him. She’d bared her soul to him, her deepest secret, and instead of wrapping her in his arms and claiming her once and for all, he’d called her out as a traitor.
Which brought him to reason number six—his failure to do anything about that either because no matter how much she belonged with him, he couldn’t make himself ignore all the rest of it.
Indecision was a paralysis with which he wasn’t familiar. His life had hung in the balance more than once as he’d made instantaneous decision after decision, always weighing his options in the split second before disaster or discovery occurred.
So why couldn’t he seem to do anything now except sit on a balcony and stare blankly at the sun rising over his pristine lands that suddenly meant nothing at all to him? Granted, the numbed effect he felt was most likely due to the copious amounts of gin he’d drunk over the past twelve hours, but he’d made smashingly good decisions on less sobriety than this.
Gin. He hated the stuff. Tasted like pine needles, but he hadn’t been choosy when he’d sunk into the chair and accepted the bottle from his all-knowing butler. Besides, he’d deserved whatever odious liquor he had to force down, pathetic mess that he was. Looking at the cut-glass decanter in disgust, Max turned to instruct his butler to bring him something slightly more palatable.
But the shuffling he’d heard behind him wasn’t his butler.
“Losif,” Max exclaimed, caught off guard by the monk’s sudden appearance at his home.
“Yes, it’s me,” Losif answered with a chuckle, wedging himself into the other chair on the balcony.
How many identical robes did the man own? Max wondered. And what did he wear underneath them? Pants? Shirt? Shift? Nothing at all?
My, how far he’d fallen if he was musing about a monk’s undergarments.
“It seems I�
�ve caught you at an inconvenient time,” the man said, his bright black eyes not apologetic in the least.
“There’s really not anytime better these days,” Max admitted wryly, slumping further down in his chair. “If you’re waiting for me to sober up, you might as well take a holiday to Dover while you wait.”
Losif smiled. “Sometimes, conversation over spirits is more insightful than without.”
“Are you, a monk of the Order of St. Bartholomew, encouraging a man to drink?” Max narrowed his eyes at his companion’s bearded face.
“Jesus himself turned the water into wine,” he said, looking out over the same view Max had been glaring at since yesterday. “It’s not the drink that’s the problem, but the manner in which a man drinks it, and in which he conducts himself thereafter.”
Max snorted. “I’ve had a bit more than Jesus would approve of.”
“Perhaps.” Losif nodded, white teeth showing amidst his wiry beard.
“Come to rake me over the coals about the Damarek?” Max sighed.
“Yes, we Russian monks are quite adept at various modes of torture,” he quipped.
Max laughed. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“That is cause for concern,” the monk replied.
“Losif, why did your order decide to defy Tsar Nicholas?” Max asked. “Isn’t treason a crime where you’re from as well?”
“I don’t see it as treason at all,” Losif mused. “It is in the best interests of both our countries to avoid conflict. And my loyalties have always been to my God rather than the temporal powers of the earth. I do not believe he would want blood shed over his own holy places. So you see, I think of it as doing what is best for Tsar Nicholas and all his people.”
Max nodded slowly. “I wish everyone thought as you do, my friend.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, letting the gentle afternoon sunlight warm their faces. Truth be told, Max had a terrible headache, but he was afraid if he stopped drinking, it would be worse.
“Would you like some tea, Losif?” Max offered.
He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t quite understand the English obsession with tea, if I’m honest.”
“There will be cakes and sandwiches as well.” Max looked over at the monk.
“I would be delighted,” he replied immediately.
Max grinned and looked back out at the rolling green hill. Getting drunk and talking politics with a Russian monk wasn’t getting him any closer to figuring out what to do in his current predicament, but it sure sounded preferable to spending another moment pining for the duplicitous Deirdre Elorie Lavoie Crescenfort, spy extraordinaire and recent holder of every possible future he could now conceive of.
Once he’d updated Losif on his progress in locating the artifact, Max found himself the subject of Losif’s nonchalant scrutiny once again.
“So what is the real reason you hadn’t informed me until now?” the monk asked.
Max rubbed a hand over his face, not sure he was sober or drunk enough for this line of talk. “It only happened yesterday morning. Not sure that’s considered waiting.”
Losif didn’t say anything.
“Fine,” Max exclaimed. “You’re right. I waited. Why does any man do anything foolish? A woman. It’s always a woman,” he said with a growl, gesturing to everything and nothing in particular, as if that explained the point he was trying to make.
“Ah.” Losif stroked his beard. “Although my experience in this area might not rival yours, Master Eydris, might I give you some advice?”
Max looked at him incredulously. “You don’t even know what’s going on.”
“Then you can confidently choose not to take it, should you prefer.”
Max sighed. “What is it?”
“When you are an old man, what you choose to do now will either be a deep regret that dries your bones, or a sigh of relief that salves your spirit. So whatever you do, make sure your choice reflects who you want to be when you look back on your life.”
Max thought about his words. “And what if no matter what I choose, I will probably regret it?”
Losif smiled. “If the decision amounts to regretting one thing or the other, you only need ask yourself which regret you can live with, and which one you can’t. The downfall of nations is nothing compared with the downfall of the human soul, Master Eydris.”
The monk’s words ricocheted in his mind. How could he live with himself if he betrayed all he believed in for his own happiness? Yet, could he live with himself if he let the woman who had become his world walk away to marry another? The monk was right. Guilt was a powerful thing, and he felt it now, even though he hadn’t done anything.
But he knew his guilt was because he’d already chosen. He’d already chosen from the moment he’d touched Elorie Lavoie on that parapet above the ocean. No matter how much he loved his country, he feared he loved her more. If there was a way to have one without betraying the other…
What if she had been telling the truth, and she was really done with the Hand?
What if he were no longer an agent for the Crown?
There wouldn’t be a conflict if both of them vowed to get out of the game. If they left all of it behind and never spoke of it again. Was such a thing even possible? Could they forget about their allegiances and simply live?
“Losif, we’re going to France,” Max stated.
The monk nodded once. “I assumed.”
“But I have to stop in London first.”
He nodded again, as if it had been a given from the start.
“Now. We’re leaving now.” Max rose and began to stride down the hall away from the balcony. “You’ll have to get those tea cakes in a hamper,” he called.
With a twitch of a smile, Losif bounced up and followed. “Quite so.”
****
Light from the windows in her bedroom glared off the silver instruments lying on the outstretched tool roll on her bed. The doctor wasn’t here to tend to her abdominal wound, as that was healing rather well. No one in her home even knew about that injury, thank her lucky stars.
No, this man was here for a very different purpose—one she had forgotten she was expected to endure until now. It was apparent that her current situation was not uncommon, however, given the very portable, specialized implements the doctor in front of her had at the ready. It was also the fact that he’d come right out and said it when he’d introduced himself to her parents earlier.
“No need to worry, My Lord. I am England’s most trusted authority in these matters. I have performed this on no less than sixty-three daughters of the aristocracy in the past five years. Your daughter will be quite comfortable during the procedure,” the short doctor had said.
That had been a lie.
He’d continued. “This examination is a historically proven test and has a long-standing tradition respected by men of your consequence. I can assure you my findings will be accurate, and His Grace has the utmost faith in what I report to him.”
Elorie gritted her teeth and looked up at the canopy above her bed as the “doctor” continued his examination. At least this part of her humiliation was in private, unlike the rest of the entire debacle. She had to admit he’d been professional, as much as it was possible to be when inspecting someone’s private parts with only begrudged permission.
She suspected she was faring better than most. Although she was still innocent in the ways that would matter to the duke, her experiences had hardened her to such reactions as histrionics, fainting, and the like. Her mother had expressed she would have smelling salts ready should she need them, and Elorie had barely kept herself from rolling her eyes.
Still, it certainly wasn’t something she was anxious to repeat any time soon. In fact, the more she thought about it as the doctor prodded further into recesses that shouldn’t have been any of his business, the more enraged she became. When she had signed the cursed betrothal contract all those years ago, she hadn’t given this part of it a second
thought. It had seemed perfectly reasonable that the duke would want to ascertain whether or not she had remained pure. That, and she hadn’t had any say in it anyway. The only stipulation she had been smart enough to make at the time had been her relative freedom from scrutiny until the duke collected on her debt.
Four years had changed her from a naïve and sheltered girl into a woman who had killed for less than the intrusion this doctor was now performing. Besides the physical unease, being subjected to this indignity was a visceral reminder of how much control Morley now had over her. She wouldn’t cry and complain of pain afterward, as she was sure the Duke would revel in hearing of such things—she would get even. Anger was so much better than tears, Elorie had learned over the years, and when she was furious, people paid.
Morley would pay.
Whether it was today or in a year or ten years from now, she would make sure he felt every moment of this in one way or another. If he thought she would meekly take such an invasion of her person before they were wed, he had clearly underestimated the woman he was tying himself to. He wanted Lady Deirdre Crescenfort. He would get the Viper.
The doctor gathered up his tools and left the room. From the hallway, she could hear him speaking to her parents as she laced up her dress in the front. Her parents, especially her mother, had to have been nervous since the man had shown up at their door. Elorie was certain her mother suspected she had not kept herself for the duke in the four years she had been gone.
She laughed to herself. Good. Cosette deserved to fear that all their futures were in jeopardy.
“She is chaste,” the doctor declared.
Lady Crescenfort let out an audible sigh. “Lovely. I assume His Grace will be informed posthaste, given the date of the upcoming nuptials?”
“Of course, My Lady. I always handle such things with the utmost discretion and expediency.”
Listen to them, she thought, talking about her sexuality as if it were a pesky piece of estate land they wanted to sell off. Of course, that was exactly what they were doing: selling her off to pay for the continued enjoyment of the lifestyle to which they were accustomed.
