Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0]

by The Spy

  “I’m honored,” declared Phillipa dubiously. Then her mind cleared as she played back part of the conversation in the other room. “Is it my imagination, or is Lady Etheridge the woman who drew the Sir Thorogood cartoons?”

  “Mm-hmm. She’s very clever.”

  “Oh, dear. And she’s envious of Mr. Underkind’s success, I suppose. I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings.”

  “I doubt it.” Agatha continued serenely down the hall. Phillipa let her go, for in truth it was sometimes difficult to be around James’s sister when they resembled each other so. Agatha’s eyes were the same warm brown, and when she smiled, it only reminded Phillipa that James never smiled at her anymore.

  Clara bustled up behind her then, none the worse for the interlude with her husband, although she was tucking a bit of tousled hair neatly away with one hand while she held a large box on one hip with the other. “Did we misplace Agatha? I’ll fetch her back, for Button has just come with a lovely surprise for you.”

  “Button? Where is he?” Phillipa looked beyond Clara, but saw no one. “I must make my apologies for lying to him so.”

  Clara nodded. “I imagine you should, but now is not the time. Although Button is not directly under the authority of the club, I think Dalton has a few things to say to him.”

  “Oh, no. Button will never be able to forgive me.”

  “He already has, if this box holds what I think it does.” She handed the dress box to Phillipa and dug into one pocket of her gown. “Now, this is from me. I sent to Beatrice Trapp for a solution to your hair and she sent me this.” She held up an apothecary’s bottle of deep brown glass. “This should remove most of the dye!”

  Phillipa raised one hand to her hair. She’d resigned herself to the ragged condition, but she still missed the color that had defined her most of her life. “Shall I be a redhead again, do you think?”

  Agatha approached them again. “Did it come then, Clara? Oh, and a dress!” She rubbed plump hands together with glee. “Jamie Cunnington, you’re not going to know what hit you!”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Hours later, Phillipa was feeling a bit as though she had indeed been hit by something. Perhaps three whirlwinds known as Clara, Agatha, and Rose.

  Her hair had been shampooed until her scalp throbbed. The color had returned, almost as bright as before. Then Clara had cut and set it, using her artist’s eye to shape it into a fluffy cap of curls. The end result was unusual but entirely feminine, especially after Rose had threaded a ribbon of turquoise silk through it all.

  Phillipa stood before the mirror in her room, at long last clad in pretty underthings courtesy of the thoughtful Button, reacquainting herself with the girl she had once been.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said to the looking glass.

  Clara looked up from where she was brushing out the pretty day gown of turquoise silk. “Do what, pray tell?”

  “I don’t know if I can be Phillipa again.” Or even if she wished to be. Phillipa had been a child-woman, willing to be held back from the world, to obey and tend her parents and to put her own dreams aside. “I’m not that girl anymore.”

  She knew she made no sense, yet Agatha, Clara, and Rose came to stand beside her, gazing at her in the mirror with complete understanding.

  “Maybe you needn’t be Phillipa again,” ventured Rose.

  “No.” Clara smiled. “You could choose to be Phillipa anew.”

  Agatha nodded with satisfaction. “Yes, Clara, the very thing. Our intrepid Flip.”

  Phillipa anew. A woman who had learned, and loved, and grown beyond her girlish boundaries.

  “Oh, yes,” Phillipa breathed, her throat tight. “I think I can do that.”

  When James returned to the club that evening, his barely contained fury was compounded by a heavy layer of fresh guilt when he was told by Stubbs that Ren Porter had gone missing.

  “His nurse said he just weren’t there. He’d asked her to let him be and she did most of the day, but then she went to see if he was wanting his dinner. That’s when she saw that he was gone, his things with him.”

  The few things that had been kept in Ren’s room were the odd bits of clothing that had been left in his seldom-used room at the club. At some point, those had been sent to Mrs. Neely’s house to await Ren’s awakening.

  “But how could he just get up and leave? Surely someone helped him.”

  “Mrs. Peel says he were mostly only weak and half-blinded. His legs healed up pretty well, considerin’.”

  James rubbed his face. His friend alone in London, feeble and near blind. He couldn’t bear to think what might happen to Ren in his condition. “Alert everyone. They’re to look for him at every opportunity. He might be right out of his mind—we simply don’t know.”

  A tiny voice told him to check the Thames. Ren had been a fit and hardy bloke once, the sort that didn’t take well to infirmity. James quashed that voice with every ounce of his will. No Liar would take that route, not while he had his brethren to turn to.

  Please, Lord, not another life on my soul!

  Even now, Ren’s assassin was returning to her beautiful home, free to wreak more havoc and death. James turned from Stubbs, his fury threatening to spill over onto his apprentice. Blindly, he climbed the stairs to enter the secret door at the end of the hall.

  As he paused there in the near darkness, he heard something that teased at his memory—

  Phillipa had quite stunned poor Fish with her transformation back to a woman. When she’d entered the Cryptography room, the man had positively stammered in his surprise. He had then made himself scarce as soon as possible, supposedly to fetch some documents for her to give a try at decoding.

  Phillipa watched him back from the room with a bemused smile. Perhaps she hadn’t quite lost her looks after all.

  While she awaited his return, she made an attempt to sort the awaiting decryption work into piles according to what she thought was needed. Numerical codes over there, alphabetical codes over here. While she worked, she hummed idly, for she didn’t mind such puzzle-solving—though it certainly lacked the excitement of undercover work.

  At the sound of a footfall in the doorway, she turned to greet Fish with a smile. “That was quick. I think I’ve made a dent—”

  It was James, staring at her with a dark and painful fury in his eyes. “Amilah.”

  Oh, no. The tune she’d been humming had been the same Arabic song that Amilah had danced to. The breath left her lungs and she took an instinctive step back. Wetting her dry lips, she held up one hand. “James—”

  Phillipa Atwater wore Turkish blue . . . and hummed Amilah’s song.

  James went cold—then hot. Volcanic rage welled up inside him. Amilah had been another lie. The one bright spark of these last hellish days, snuffed out by the sickening realization of his own foolishness.

  This woman—this twisted wicked woman—had invaded his every moment. She had taken over his home as clever Phillip, had charmed his friends, his son, as vulnerable Phillipa, and had infested his very dreams as Amilah.

  Phillip—Phillipa—Amilah. For the first time, he saw all the faces of this chameleon-esque female in one lying, betraying, beautiful face, gazing at him with wide emerald eyes that glinted with a hint of blue.

  Self-loathing crested in him. So stupid, so bloody damned thick. Blinded by loneliness and desire, lost in his guilt—what a simple target he’d made. How she must be laughing now.

  He could hear her in his mind. Laughing at him with that hot, devouring mouth—

  In one swoop, he was upon her. With the force of a charging stallion, he pressed her backward several stumbling steps until her back was pressed to the wall. His hands gripped her shoulders painfully as he pressed her back.

  “What is your game?” he hissed. “Why have you pursued me? What is it that you want of me? If you want a piece of my soul, you’ll have to stand in line!”

  Phillipa shook her head wildly. Her breath hitchi
ng from distress, she could hardly speak. “No—no game!” she denied.

  James growled, pressing his body to hers crudely. “Then this? Is this what you wanted from me?” He released one shoulder to wrap his hand about her breast, kneading it and pulling at her nipple through the silk. “This I can give you, freely. It is what I do best, it seems.”

  Tears of regret and anger began to leak from Phillipa’s eyes. She ignored them to tear his hand from her body with her free hand. “Stop! You don’t want to do this, James!”

  “No? Then perhaps I want to do this!” His mouth came down on hers, hard and punishing. He pulled her close with pitiless hands, ignoring her squirming and her muffled sounds of protest.

  She realized that her struggles were only driving him farther down this unforgivable road. Instead, she gave in to her heart and kissed him back. Kissed him for all his pain and his fury—kissed him for all the damage she had done him, for all the damage Lavinia had done him. She kissed the man she knew he was beneath his anguish and ferocity, the man he had forgotten he could be.

  His hands became less unforgiving, his grip on her more embrace than captivity. He kissed her now with need beneath his wildness and she answered that need with her own.

  His mouth moved from her lips to her neck. “Oh, God,” he murmured, “I need to—”

  “Yes,” she whispered as she let her head fall back. “Yes, please.”

  This time his hand surrounded her breast with tenderness and urgency and she leaned eagerly into his touch. This man was hers—at least for now, hers alone. She wanted his heat and his need. She needed him even as he needed her.

  Hot blood swelled her nipples and sent rich tingles between her thighs. He pressed her to the wall again and this time she welcomed it, for it allowed him to press her close yet freed his hands to explore her ready flesh.

  “Touch . . . yes . . . please!” Broken and senseless, her words seemed to inflame him nonetheless. He pulled her bodice down, trapping her arms in the short tight sleeves. She could scarcely care since it allowed his hot mouth access to her aching nipples. He bent to her, feeding on her, caressing her with his hands until the sweet torture bid fair to make her cry out with yearning.

  In the fog of her overwhelmed senses, she became aware that he had slid both hands down her skirts to her ankles and was now sliding his wide palms up her calves. She could not say nay to him now, wisdom and clarity be banished to hell. When his hands slid between her knees to press outward, she willingly parted her legs for him until he knelt almost between her knees.

  Her new skirts a wadded froth between them, she could not see him at all, only feel his progress up—up over her knees, his hands stroking up her thighs much the way her own had once stroked up his. Over the tops of her stockings now, skin to skin. She shuddered, letting her head fall back to lean limply against the wall.

  Arms bound by her lowered sleeves, legs pressed wide by his shoulders, pinned to the wall by his touch . . . she had never felt so deliciously helpless in her life. With all her heart, she fell into his power, granting him an ownership of her body that she’d never imagined giving up to anyone.

  She felt his mouth on her and started. Shock and thrill moved through her as one. Anyone might walk into the room. Bound as she was, there was naught she could do to stop him—and then she no longer wished to. Wet and warm delight flickered through her from his tongue. There was ecstasy in his lips and, yes, even in his teeth. The danger of discovery only spiced the moment. She had never known—oh, dear heaven, who could have known?

  When her knees went weak, he supported her with broad hands on her bottom. When she cried out loud for more, he gave it to her. And when she shattered at his hands, he would not stop, but drove her upward yet again. She was helpless, bound, and nearly senseless, and he forced her to come apart for him again and again, until she could scarcely draw breath.

  Only then did he take pity on her and pull away, kissing her thighs as he left. Even just the touch of his beard stubble on her skin made her quiver at this point. Then he emerged from the tent of her skirts to rise before her, though he still did not release her hips.

  Pressing fully clothed against this woman who was bared to him was entirely erotic, but not enough for James. “Wrap your thighs about me,” he whispered to her as he lifted her, and she lazily obeyed. He wanted her embrace, so he pressed her to the wall with his hips as he eased her arms free of the tiny sleeves trapping her elbows. At his urging she draped them limply about his neck.

  She was liquid compliance in his urgent hands and he thanked God for it. To go one more minute without her meant the end of him, he would swear to it. Unfastening his trousers was the work of a moment, despite his profound erection and shaking hands.

  She slid onto him like hot wet silk and he groaned into her neck. Her gasp blew over his ear like flame and he thrust deeper just to feel it again. As she roused now at his penetration, her thighs gripped him more firmly and her arms embraced him with urgent strength. No frail flower, this woman. She was supple and strong enough to match each of his deep thrusts with a rise and fall of her own.

  The slide of her around him sent his mind sideways with pleasure. There was something he ought to remember, but he could not pull himself away from the feel, the scent, the heat of her.

  She was generous with herself, offering her breasts to him even as she rode him hard. She kissed him with open hot mouth, making soft sweet shameless sounds that spun him further away from sanity. Her hands stroked through his hair, tugging sensuously at it, adding that tingle to the symphony that she wrought upon his senses.

  “Come to me,” she murmured into his mouth. “Come with me.”

  She began to gasp in rhythm with his thrusts and he followed her willingly into the rushing torrent of their orgasm. For one blinding moment they were one, she was his, and he was no longer alone.

  For long sweet minutes they stayed there, her limbs wrapped about him, her back pressed to the wall. Finally, their breathing slowed and their hearts resumed the rhythm of sanity and logic.

  They remembered who and where they were.

  Phillipa stiffened as she remembered, her softly caressing fingertips going quite still on his neck. James froze as well, though he did not let her go. Tearing his mouth from hers, he let his head fall back to send a gusting exhalation to the ceiling.

  “And there goes the last shred of honor I ever possessed,” he said, his voice raw. “I don’t suppose you can ever forgive me. Nor will I ever forgive myself.”

  He put her from him then, supporting her until she stood steady, but not looking at her at all. He turned away as if to leave, then stopped. “Can I ask—why? Why Phillip? Why Amilah? Why me?”

  Phillipa eased her bodice up over chilled flesh, tugging her sleeves back up to her shoulders. “You know the purpose of Phillip,” she whispered. “Amilah . . .”

  He waited, still turned away. She was glad he was not looking at her, for she didn’t know if she would have the courage to say it to his face.

  “Amilah was because I fell in love with you.”

  He jerked then, as if that were the last thing he had expected to hear. He turned his head until she could see his profile, though he did not try to meet her eyes. “Flip, you don’t love me. You do not even know me.”

  I know you. Phillipa slowly closed her empty hands into fists. He would not listen.

  At that moment, Fisher returned, bringing with him the spymaster. Dalton greeted both James and her with equal ease, although Phillipa felt again that eerie sense that those silver eyes saw more than she knew. She found herself surreptitiously checking the lay of her gown and raising a nonchalant hand to her hair.

  All was in order, if a bit wrinkled. If she was uncomfortably aware of James’s essence within her, it was apparent to no one but herself.

  One hoped.

  Fisher began to show Dalton the progress of some item while she saw James edging toward the door. Dalton, however, didn’t seem inclined to allo
w James his escape.

  “James, I should think you’d want to see this.”

  James turned to join the two men, although Phillipa noticed that he did not meet anyone’s gaze directly. At first Phillipa was happy to be excluded from everyone’s attention, but then when she recognized her father’s journal in the piles under consideration, she moved to enter the discussion.

  “The journal is not coded, Fisher,” she informed him. “I have read it most closely, but I saw no patterns that would indicate coding.”

  Fisher mumbled to himself as he rearranged the stacks of messages. “Here is a pattern that has shown repeatedly in the intercepted letters and messages. But I have not been able to break it.”

  He handed a handful of these to Phillipa. On the surface they appeared to be no more than assorted personal letters, receipts, and written lists. She saw the pattern in the repetition of certain root words.

  “Where did these come from?”

  “Oh, we’ve scouts and couriers all over—”

  “Fisher!” barked James in warning. “Mind yourself!”

  Dalton was more polite, but quite as adamant. “It is not necessary for Miss Atwater to know the source of the information, Fisher. Please confine your eloquence to need-to-know limits.”

  So, Lord Etheridge did not entirely trust her or her father yet. The anxiety that had lain seething beneath the last few months rose to claw at her nerves again. If she could not find a way to prove Papa’s innocence, these men would kill him and call it duty.

  Fisher gulped and flushed, then made himself busy with his documents. James finally allowed himself to look fully at Phillipa. She was pale beneath her calm, and her eyes were wide as she gazed at the spymaster.

  Dalton nodded at the quelled Fisher, and at James. “Cunnington, if you would kindly keep Mr. Fisher on topic while Miss Atwater is participating, I would much appreciate it. Notify me at once if there is any new information.” With that he was gone. James supposed he was not the only one in the room who breathed a sigh of relief, though he was not well pleased to have been ordered to stay in Phillipa’s presence.