A Dance with Seduction

by Alyssa Alexander

  She sighed and let his body and mouth soothe all the sadness and need swirling in her.

  Now, she was not so alone.

  His tongue danced along hers. In turn, lightning bolts danced in her body. Her hands no longer gripped his jacket but slid up to his shoulders—the broad, broad shoulders that bore responsibility with such ease. She rose on her booted toes, pressing against him, wanting to be closer.

  “Vivienne.” The word was a whisper against her mouth.

  It stopped her, checking her movements.

  Vivienne was not her name.

  She wanted him to say her name. Her real name.

  The idea was terrifying. Utterly, completely, and deeply terrifying.

  She stumbled backward, only to realize that the sun was over the horizon now. It was brilliant, kissing London’s rooftops as Maximilian had kissed her.

  But he did not know her, did he? The fault of that lay on her.

  “Vivienne?” Hazel eyes were concerned, but also hot with desire, the gold bright among the green and brown. Awareness trilled down her spine, leaping across each vertebra.

  “It is dawn,” she said carefully.

  He studied her face, gaze flicking over each feature one by one. His translator’s mind would be deciphering her expression. She blanked her face. She did not want him to read everything. Some things a spy could not share.

  “I must go,” she said. “We should not be seen.”

  “I suppose not.” His words were very careful. Measured.

  “Good-bye, Maximilian.” She had not said his name aloud before. It hung between them in the air. Meaningful, as the easing of her heartache had been meaningful, as the building of liquid warmth in her low belly had been meaningful.

  “Good-bye, Vivienne.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The training room was a comfort. The knives laid out on the table beside her were infinitely soothing. Each one appeared exactly like the next.

  Except they were not the same. No two knives were perfectly identical, even if touted as being a matched pair. Each knife had its own personality. The center, the weight, the grip. And once you understood the knife, it did not change. The throw, if one was careful, would almost always be the same.

  Maximilian, with his bright mind, would enjoy testing this theory.

  She flattened her hand on the table, fanned her fingers apart. These fingers had gripped Maximilian’s coat, held onto his shoulders.

  Yet the hand belonged to a thief and a spy. She could not recall how many things she had stolen. Hundreds? Thousands? And what of the impact of those thefts? A few pounds as a girl, jewelry, a watch. Anything that could be sold for food. Now it was secrets and politics and strategies that could affect countries, all under the guise of mistress.

  Maximilian knew this, and still he wanted her.

  Or he knew most of it.

  Picking up one of the knives, she tested the weight and found the center. Pinching the blade between thumb and index finger, she eyed the target at the long end of the room. It was the painted shape of a man on the wall and littered with splintered marks. Marchand. If she squinted, this painted target could look like Marchand—if she knew what he looked like.

  Measuring the breath that had become uneven and calming the mind that had filled first with Maximilian and then with Marchand, she let the room, the target, the very air settle inside her. Then she threw. Straight and perfect and into the figure’s heart, just as she demanded of herself.

  “I envy your knife skills.”

  The words made her jump. “Jones?”

  “You are in my home. Uninvited, so to speak.” He stood just inside the room, leaning against the wall. Pushing away, he stepped forward. “I don’t know why I ask every time you turn up, but why are you here, Vivienne?”

  She shrugged, not entirely certain how to phrase it. She was uncertain and lost and alone, and yet she’d been none of those things with Maximilian a few hours ago as dawn broke over London. It had scraped her raw, that moment of intimacy.

  “I wanted to be home.”

  He did not speak, but only watched her, handsome and very serious in his shirtsleeves. His brown hair was cropped close to his head, and she could see a bit of early-morning stubble on his chin.

  “Do you remember?” She ran a finger over the hilt of a knife. Good craftsmanship, that hilt. “We made love once. It was my first time.” Her only time. She turned to face him.

  “I remember, Vivienne.” His tone was dry, as if to say, I would not forget such a thing. She’d thought perhaps he had, as it been many years ago.

  “It was espionage, languages, training, politics. Day in. Day out. We were two lonely trainees.” She walked toward him, thinking of those long, exhausting days and quiet nights.

  “I remember,” he said again. This time he smiled, just a little. Lines fanned out from brown eyes, reminding her they had once laughed together often.

  She had kissed Jones, many ages ago, in this very room. They had made love in his bedchamber on the floor above. She was here now, with a strange heat in her body she did not understand and her heart needing something she could not name. It reminded her of that time. They had been two unschooled apprentices in the art of lovemaking. Though she had always thought she’d felt just short of whatever she was supposed to feel, she remembered that fleeting feeling of belonging, if only for a moment.

  She wanted to feel that again. There had been no one since, and she did not want to be alone. Except she did not want Jones.

  She wanted Maximilian.

  Her head knew he was not available—her body and her heart, though, were confused.

  She must remember she was a spy, and only another spy could understand this life of lies and secrets. Perhaps it was only here, with Jones, she could belong.

  So she walked toward Jones, conscious of the tension in his shoulders, the odd light in his eyes. He was not turning her away, but he was not encouraging her. Somehow, she thought he knew what she needed. She set a hand on his arm and drew herself up on tiptoe. His mouth was cool and firm when she kissed him. It brought memories to the surface that she had not thought of in years.

  But there was nothing there for her.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered, pulling back to look at him. “I thought perhaps—but no.”

  “You’re not here to make love to me, Vivienne.” Affection and understanding softened his face, making the line of his jaw not quite so hard. “I’m not stupid.”

  She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. It was solid and strong, as was the arm that came about her, but there was no heat. Perhaps that was why, all those years ago, she’d chosen Jones to relieve her of her virginity. There was nothing between them but affection.

  If they’d been normal in those younger days, not in the world of spies, they would have chosen others. But when one eats, breathes, and sleeps espionage, one misses the other parts of life.

  “Who is he?” Jones asked, laying his cheek against her hair. “You would not be here, looking for me, if there was not someone else you wanted.”

  “Are you my conscience, Jones?” She could not stay there, wallowing in his support.

  “I know you, that is all.”

  “He is no one.”

  Jones did not speak. The arm around her waist tightened so that he hugged her. A true, close hug. With his face buried in her neck.

  “Love is not for us, Vivienne. Not in the normal sense.”

  “Then what do we do?” she whispered, and was horrified she wanted to cry.

  “Seize the amorphous love that lasts for weeks or months. Because that is all we will ever know.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “If you want him, Vivienne, take him. Do not look for a substitute.”

  “If I have no right to him? If the circumstances are such that I should not be with him
at all?” Her sister was missing. Abducted. Anne was not dead, but until Vivienne found her, she was in danger, and after—there could never be love.

  “Life is for the living, Vivienne. Sometimes, in the midst of battle, when we should think of nothing but survival, we find love. The time may be short and may last only a little while, but we have a right to take love where we can, or we will lose our humanity.”

  Yes, she understood that.

  “It cannot last, though,” Jones added. “Prepare to leave him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Prepare to leave him.

  Sensible. Maximilian was not of her world, nor did he want to be. He had deliberately left her lying, cheating, secretive world of espionage.

  Which was where she was just now.

  She didn’t know where to find Marchand, but she knew where to start. Someone must know something. A man did not work in the underbelly of London without being known. There were always rumors. Always hints. If one listened carefully in shadowed alleys, one could learn much.

  She’d always known how to listen, so when a whisper joined a whisper and Mrs. Asher brought those whispers to her, Vivienne asked her questions and listened to the answers.

  They brought her to the past.

  Vivienne slid onto a stool in the Queen’s Bathtub, a pub that looked and smelled as it had two decades ago. Behind her, patrons laughed and drank, barmaids threaded through tables carrying tankards and stews. The air was filled with noise and merriment and memories.

  “Well, I never thought I’d see you again. Look just like yer ma.” The barkeep clenched a homemade pipe between his teeth and grinned at her. “Ye look well enough, little girl.”

  In the old days, she might have set her elbows on the bar top and grinned up at the scraggly beard and black eyes above the pipe. But it was not the old days.

  “Thought you’d gone and made your fortune on the stage—or on your back. One’s the same as t’other.” He shrugged, then swished a dirty rag around the inside of a tankard and set it down in front of her. “Can’t say yer ma would like that.”

  “How I make my living is none of your concern, sir.” She did not bother with the French accent.

  “Sir, eh?” He chewed on the pipe a moment, as if yellowed teeth clicking on wood assisted in reaching a decision. “Well, a body does what a body must. The good Lord knows I’ve done my fair share o’ things me ma wouldn’t like.”

  “Aye.” She watched him carefully, the rumors she had heard among fog and filth swirling in her mind. “Such as consort with French spies.”

  “Well, now. Seems you know a bit more about my business than most.” Cocking his head, he studied her cautiously over the scarred expanse of bar top. He ignored a young girl who passed behind him, tray full of bread and tankards. “Want a drink?”

  “Ale, if you would, please.”

  “‘If you would’ and ‘sir’ and ‘consort.’” He muttered the words as he poured pale-gold liquid into the tankard. “Seems you’ve found some education.”

  “A bit.”

  As she waited for him to set the drink before her, she decided she did not feel eight years old again. Nor did she feel French or English, but a strange amalgam of all of them. She belonged nowhere. Not in the drawing room, not on the stage, not in the rookeries.

  The ale was bitter in that lovely way good ale had. Better than the French brandy Henri insisted she sip.

  “Why are you here, little girl?” the barkeep asked. He’d yet to say her name. She’d yet to say his. Sometimes, in places such as this with patrons such as these, it was best.

  “I am looking for the Vulture.” She sipped again and watched the barkeep’s eyes become secretive.

  “Well now. That’s not a man to tangle with.” He lowered his voice and leaned against the bar. “I can’t say that I know how to find ’im, but I know how you can put it about you want to be found.”

  That was the last thing she wanted. “No, thank you. I only want to know where he is.”

  “That I can’t help with.” The barkeep rubbed at the disheveled gray hairs scattered across his chin, then scratched a moment while he eyed her speculatively. “What do you want with him?”

  “Business, that is all.”

  “You wouldn’t be interrupting my business, would you?”

  “No.” In truth, she was not certain what business the barkeep was involved in. It could be anything: smuggling, gambling, prostitution, opium. Worse. But she had prodded too much, perhaps, and decided to step back. “A body does what a body must.”

  “So a body does.” He grinned, seeming to exemplify the bustle and humor of this humorless life.

  “I should leave soon.” But nostalgia was a powerful emotion. She leaned back a little, angled her head up at the barkeep, and smiled the smile that had felled many a peer. “How goes it all, then?”

  “Fair to middling, little girl.” He picked up his rag again and rocked back on his heels. “Me wife is expecting our fifth little ’un, an’ she’s hopin’ for a boy, but my girls will all make good wives someday. How goes it all wit’ you, then?”

  “Fair to middling.” She said, falling into the patter of her youth. Then, with a gulp of ale to fortify her, she let her heart open to the memories she sought to forget. Memories brought pain, but they could bring happiness. “I miss me ma.”

  “Aye. And yer sister?”

  Her smile dimmed, she knew. “Not as good.”

  “Eh? That’s a shame.” The rag moved in aimless circles on the bar top as the man polished dirt with more dirt. “She was a right sweet thing as a girl.”

  “The Vulture has taken her. I’m trying to persuade him to return her.” It was a calculated risk to tell even this much of the truth, but still a risk. Yet the barkeep understood the value of little girls.

  The barkeep’s hand stilled. “I see.” He looked her square in the eyes. “The girl doesn’t want that life?”

  “No.”

  He nodded once, decisive. “Check back in a few days. I might hear something.”

  “Thank you.” Gratitude could be all encompassing. “She’s all I have.”

  “No man to watch out for you, then?”

  Was there? Henri? No, though there were others. Jones. Maximilian.

  Maximilian.

  “There is someone.” Was that her speaking? Had she said that aloud? Maximilian was not hers. He did not watch out for her.

  Yet, he did. He climbed up walls, tripped over ambassadors, broke her fall. All of these things he did to keep her safe, even though she did not need safekeeping. That, by itself, seemed like a small miracle.

  “Good.” He nodded again, then picked up his rag to start the polishing process again. “Does he treat you well? Your mother would want me to ask.”

  The barkeep did not look at her now, but he did not need to. The question was there, between them, because they both knew the past.

  “Yes.” Something went soft inside her as she thought of Maximilian. Men were sometimes easily understood, and sometimes they were difficult. Maximilian was a little of each, but each part of him attracted her. Each part of him was good.

  “Keep him, then,” the barkeep said.

  …

  “Are you certain, Miss Vivienne?” Mrs. Asher’s thick arms were folded over her equally thick belly.

  “Yes. I am.” Vivienne laid a hand over one of Mrs. Asher’s. “I will be fine alone.”

  Except she would not be alone. She had made up her mind on that subject somewhere between the rookeries and the West End.

  “I don’t like it. Thomas is off visiting his ma in Somerset. I’m going to see me sister—”

  “I am quite capable of caring for myself. Henri is coming midmorning tomorrow”—which gave her at least sixteen hours—“and I’m well trained.”

  “Stil
l. I don’t like it.” Mrs. Asher’s frown was ferocious, but Vivienne knew the battle was won as Mrs. Asher reached for her valise. “There are neighbors on either side if you’re in trouble. Jones and Angel as well—”

  “I know, and I promise to lock the doors and windows.” She rose to her toes to kiss Mrs. Asher’s cheek and deliver the coup de grâce. “Your sister and her brood—enjoy them. Kiss the little ones for me.”

  Mrs. Asher’s eyes lit up, as Vivienne had known they would. “The girls are four and five years old now, and the little boy nearly two. It’ll be a joy.”

  And so Mrs. Asher bustled out of the house with her feet light and her mind on babies.

  This suited Vivienne. She had a note to deliver. It would be crude writing because she could do little more, but Maximilian would receive it.

  She hoped he would come.

  …

  Maximilian looked down at the small scrap of paper in his hand.

  Come to me. Midnight.

  V

  The letters were printed in a square, simple shape. The lines were neatly parallel and perfectly straight. The curves were measured out cautiously, so they were the correct height and width. Great care had been taken in each letter, though they lacked the tutored precision of one schooled by numerous governesses.

  The Flower must have written it herself.

  He couldn’t say why the idea made him grin happily, but there it was.

  Tucking the note into his pocket, his fingers brushed against his watch. He pulled it out and tilted it toward the nearest lighted window on her street to better read the time. Two minutes to midnight. Too early.

  Waiting on the front step, Maximilian studied the knocker on the Flower’s front door. It was plain and similar to his own. He’d never thought on it before, but it seemed an opera dancer should have a prettier, more ornate knocker.

  He checked the time again. Midnight. Perfect.

  The utilitarian knocker was cool in his fingers and created a satisfyingly sharp rap on the wood. Frowning when the door remained firmly closed, Maximilian checked the time again. She expected him at midnight, and he was now a minute late. He waited, then knocked again. Still no one came.