A Dance with Seduction

by Alyssa Alexander

  “Henri confronted me—”

  “Your commander did this?” Oh, yes, now there was temper in his words, but not in the rough pads of his fingers. They had ceased their circles and began to caress her, a trail of fingers over her belly.

  “In his eyes, I committed treason. Worse, I betrayed him.” In all other eyes it would appear the same. “I fought him. Perhaps, even, I have killed him.”

  “Good.” The corners of Maximilian’s mouth turned up in a grin that was both satisfied and bloodthirsty.

  “I did not stop to check, or to finish the work. It would be murder.”

  “You could’ve checked to see if he was breathing, at least.” He raised a brow. “Seems simple enough.”

  “Whether he kills me today or another day is not at issue.”

  A breeze fluttered over her cheek. A soft one.

  Suddenly they were not alone in the room. Jones loomed over them, one pistol pointed carefully at Vivienne, another at Maximilian. His eyes held nothing. She could not read them, even a little.

  “It might be at issue,” he said.

  Maximilian pushed up from the floor, spinning to shield her from view so that both pistols were trained on him. “She’s not decent,” he barked.

  “Aye,” Jones agreed, stepping to the side so he could see her again. Raindrops glinted on his shoulders. “At least I know she’s not hiding any knives under her jacket. I only have to worry about the ones in her boots.”

  Vivienne knew that moving would likely result in her death. So she continued to lie there, reclining, naked from the waist up. Jones did not once look at her breasts. He only saw her face, held her gaze.

  Even when aiming to kill a fellow spy—a suspected traitor—Jones was a gentleman.

  Maximilian lunged forward with a fiercely protective growl. Jones snapped his head around to aim a sharp glance at Maximilian, the pistol following suit.

  “Don’t move, Westwood. I won’t hesitate to kill her if you move again.”

  Maximilian stopped, though his body seemed to quiver with the need to attack. “Let her dress, at least.”

  Jones was silent, keeping his gaze on Maximilian, though Vivienne knew he was taking in every element of the room. “Give her your shirt.”

  Gritting his teeth, Maximilian complied. Coat, waistcoat, cravat, watch fob—all dropped to the floor before he shrugged out of his starched linen shirt. He held it out for Vivienne. “I had a pistol in there earlier today,” he muttered. “Pity I removed it.”

  She accepted the shirt with a small smile. “Thank you.” It was said to both Jones and Maximilian.

  And perhaps fate, as well. If she were to die, it would be clean and quick and at the hand of a friend.

  “How did you know I would be here?” She pulled the shirt over her head. It held Maximilian’s scent and was soft against her skin. It was also very large.

  “I know you, Vivienne.” Jones’s smile was dry and humorless. “And you officially became my assignment yesterday. I simply hadn’t yet determined what you were doing.”

  She paused, the shirt halfway down her torso. “I was already under investigation.” It was not a question, but a statement.

  “What trouble have you found yourself in, Flower?” Jones asked softly. “I wouldn’t have believed you could commit treason.”

  Maximilian opened his mouth to speak. She quickly shook her head. His lips snapped shut again, but she could see it cost him as fists clenched and strong, bare shoulders tensed.

  “It’s complicated, Jones.” It was better, now, with the shirt on, but she still felt naked without a weapon in her hand. Most disconcerting to stare down the barrel of a pistol with no method of defense. “I did not know the note was coded.”

  “You delivered it.”

  “I will not lie.” She met the gaze of the quiet boy she’d once made love with and hoped he’d grown into a just man. “Yes, I did.”

  “Then I have to take you in, Vivienne.” Jones’s expression did not change, though his voice lowered. “I am sorry for it.”

  “Wait. Wait.” Maximilian put his hands up, trying once again to step between them. This time, Jones did not stop him. “She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t know it was coded.”

  “She still had dealings with Lessard that were not an order from her commander.” He looked back at Vivienne. She had not noticed the lines on his face before. They seemed very deep just now. “I gave you what warning I could, but I can’t let those connections continue.”

  “No.” Could she kill Jones in exchange for her life? He was outnumbered. Her knives were in her boots, her pistol not far in the bags she had brought. Except the very idea hurt her heart—though she would have no choice but injury or death if she wanted to find Anne. “Do not think I will go easily.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it of you, but if you balk, Westwood dies.” Jones jerked his head toward Maximilian, knowing, of course, that he would be her weakness.

  “I’m not letting you take her.” Maximilian, her brave scholar, seemed very fierce now. He stepped forward, a savagery in his voice Vivienne had never heard.

  “The same goes for you, Westwood. If you try to stop me, I’ll kill her outright.”

  Silence vibrated in the room, gossamer thin, but still as vast as an ocean.

  “Tell me why, Vivienne.” Jones was serious, almost sad. “I’m searching for a reason.”

  “I—” If she told him of Anne, her final secret might be revealed to all of the agents. But perhaps, if she failed and was killed, Jones would need to know that Anne might be turned against England. “Marchand has taken my sister.”

  A long pause, then, “The servant girl.”

  “You know?” She straightened, incredulous. That he should know—how was this possible?

  He was slow to answer, as though weighing very heavy words. “I suspected the girl had a relationship with you. Your cover was deep; you had become the Flower so long ago, I couldn’t be sure, but I guessed. The housekeeper?”

  “A neighbor from my childhood.” And the closest person to a mother since she was eleven years old.

  “So Marchand has taken the girl, and you are working for him to get her back?”

  “In a way. My goal is not to work with Marchand. It is only to find him. If I find Marchand, then I find Anne.” She looked at Maximilian. She would not implicate him. “I have delivered messages, but I read them to inform our side if need be—it is why I asked about Jean-Phillippe Citron.” She paused, breathed carefully. “I would not betray England.”

  “That is not entirely truthful.” Maximilian stepped beside her, set a wide, strong hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it. “I was reading the messages. I knew what Vivienne was doing.”

  “Maximilian.” She could save him if he did not say the wrong words. “Do not be an idiote.”

  “Idiot or no, Vivienne.” He looked down at her, eyes grimly resolute. “I read the letters for you. I knew.”

  She almost groaned out her anger. Pressing her fingers against her eyes, she closed them a moment. “Then you, too, will hang for treason, Maximilian.”

  “That’ll hurt, I suppose.”

  His hand slid down her shoulder to brush her waist. He pulled her in, settled her against him. She should push him away, but just now her body would not obey her brain. And so they faced a considering Jones, locked together.

  “Do you know where the girl is?” Jones asked, after a very long moment. He carefully set one pistol down on Maximilian’s desk, moving his hand away. It was a sign of trust. A sign that he would not attack. Yet. He retained the other pistol, though he lowered it now.

  Hope clogged her lungs, but words tumbled out nonetheless. “I have an idea. A person is inquiring and will give me an answer soon. I am close, Jones. Very close to finding Marchand.”

  Once again silence vibra
ted in the air. This moment—it could decide her life or death.

  “Find her, then.” Jones uncocked the remaining pistol and shoved it into the waist of his trousers. “Quickly. You can’t stay at Westwood’s. There are others that will look for you here. You have to go underground.”

  Relief flooded her. She sprang for her coat and shirt and the knives secreted there, all thought of bruises and aches gone.

  “I’m going with you.” Maximilian spoke the words as if they were a command.

  She turned toward him, opened her mouth to tell him no, she would be faster on her own. But he stood there, broad shouldered and without a shirt, appearing as immovable as a mountain.

  He had not hesitated to remove his shirt for her, or to step in front of her. He had not hesitated to draw her into his arms that night, even knowing what she had done. And he did not hesitate now.

  His green and gold eyes met hers, held.

  “Jones,” she said, not looking away from that steady, strong gaze. “How long do I have?”

  “I can’t give you more than a day. Tomorrow morning, I have to bring you in.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The rookeries stank.

  They were ugly.

  Maximilian was accustomed to the wide, mostly clean streets and graceful architecture in the West End. They weren’t perfect streets, but they were not…this.

  “Why are we in St. Giles?” He was as conspicuous as a Sanskrit symbol in the middle of the Greek alphabet, even with the borrowed clothing Vivienne had found for him that afternoon. He could feel eyes on him, though half of the tiny windows above them appeared dark. He felt them on the back of his neck, and it set him on edge. Every shadow they passed made him want to reach for his pistol.

  “No one asks questions here, Maximilian, particularly at night,” Vivienne said to him. She walked beside him, guiding him through the warren of alleys as though she were as accustomed to these streets as those in Mayfair.

  She likely was.

  “I don’t doubt it. This is worse than the docks.” He shuddered. The stench was the same, either way. “Which pub are we going to?”

  “To the Queen’s Bathtub to visit an old friend. The barkeep serves a good, bitter ale. Just—do not be friendly, please.”

  “Don’t be friendly with a friend?” He raised a brow and slid his gaze toward her.

  She responded with a wry half smile. He liked seeing it, under the circumstances. “There are many nuances in the word ‘friend.’ In this case, the barkeep is not an enemy. So he is a friend, but one you must watch. It is like the dancer who happily dances beside you until she can push you down and become principal.”

  “You dancers are a friendly lot.” He nodded toward a low, squat building just ahead and to the right. “Judging from the naked woman wearing a crown and sitting in a hip bath on the sign, this would be the place.” The woman’s crown was crooked, and her legs dangled out of the tub as though she were languidly enjoying her bath.

  Vivienne paused to study the sign swinging above the door. Rain clung to her lashes like tiny diamonds. “Oui.”

  Maximilian stopped walking. His feet were as heavy and useless as the cobblestones beneath them. That single word had twisted something inside him. It was vaguely painful, and made him furious.

  “Don’t do that,” he said. Perhaps it was harsher than he’d planned, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Do what, Maximilian? I do not understand.” The light from the pub windows shone over her face so that he could see her clearly. Wide eyes, confused brows.

  How could she not understand?

  “Don’t speak French to me.” He reached out, hand gripping her forearm to draw her close. He leaned forward so he spoke only to her. Invisible ears as well as eyes might be lurking in these alleys. “Don’t speak French. It’s bad enough I have to call you Vivienne when I know it isn’t your real name. Don’t speak with a French accent, or speak in French.” His muscles tightened beneath his skin. “It’s all a lie.”

  “Yes. It is a lie.” She whispered it back, with no French words, no French accent. Hearing her voice that way soothed the fury clamoring in him. “I’m sorry for it, Maximilian. I wish I could stop, but stopping means I might lose all that I am.”

  His hands roamed down her body, gathered her in, before he spun her into the alley and pressed her back against the pub wall. There, away from the windows where no light could reach them, he looked down at the various shadows that formed her face. “Now I don’t understand.”

  She rose up a little, curving her hand around the back of his neck and lifting her face so her mouth was near his. They’d look like lovers to anyone passing on the street, which was the intent, he supposed—assuming the watcher didn’t notice they both wore pantaloons. Maybe a passerby wouldn’t in the dark.

  “Explain,” he said. He couldn’t see more than a few contours of her features, but he could smell her. Still a little of that clean soap, though it was mixed with the liniment he’d rubbed into her skin.

  “I have been Vivienne for so long, I do not know how to be only Sarah.”

  Sarah. It was a simple, pretty name. One any number of women could claim.

  “Sarah.” He needed to say the word aloud, test the sound and weight on his tongue.

  “I am not Sarah any longer.” Her thumb slid to his jaw, rubbed there against the stubble, the movement soft and unbearably intimate. “Yet I am not Vivienne. The Flower is not only a spy, Maximilian. She is a dancer. A thief. She is not French, she is not English. She is a little of each. And she is a little Sarah, a little Vivienne. I am all of those things, and they are all me.”

  “That’s very…abstract.” He couldn’t quite get his brain to think in such a way. The facts didn’t add up equally. “And philosophical.”

  Her lips curved up, though her smile was edged with sorrow. “Your scowl, it is most ferocious.”

  He wanted to kiss her. Even in the dark, in the rookeries of St. Giles, where he might end up with a knife between his ribs, he wanted to kiss her. Since he wanted to—her lips were there, sweet and curved, after all—he did.

  Dear God in heaven. Her body pressed against his, and he could feel each curve of her. The hand on his neck threaded through his hair, gripped. Their tongues tangled, and for a moment, he forgot where he was. He could only taste and smell and feel Vivienne. Or Sarah. Or— He drew away.

  “Damnation.” He loosened the fingers gripping her hips and let them fall to his sides. “I can’t understand it. I don’t want to be in love with a woman who doesn’t use her real name. Or her real language. It’s just too illogical.”

  She froze, every lean muscle in her body going taut. Her eyes widened. Even in the dark he could see that. The whites of her eyes gave it away.

  “Love?” The word was barely audible above the wind whistling through the alley. “Maximilian, did you say love?”

  “Did I?” He thought back. God’s knees. “I suppose I did.”

  “You love me?” She sounded terrified. Utterly and completely terrified.

  Well, he felt terrified. “I don’t know. I don’t know who I love. Or what I love. Or—is this feeling even love? I can’t tell.” Not just terrified. Panicked. “It hurts. In my chest.”

  “It hurts in my chest, too.” She sounded like she was breathing shallowly through her teeth. She gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into coat and muscle. “We’re in St. Giles. At the Queen’s Bathtub.”

  “Not the best location to discuss love.” He pressed his face against the curve of her neck to suppress the laughter bubbling up. He was bordering on hysteria. Unfortunate that the Flower didn’t carry smelling salts. “This feeling can’t be love. It’s not possible. I don’t know who you are, or what you’re thinking. I don’t even know what language you think in. You’re a mysterious woman with a past I can’t fathom, a present consist
ing primarily of deception, and an occupation I abhor.”

  She reared back as though he’d struck her. Guilt twined with panic and the huge, aching knot in his chest.

  “‘Abhor’ is a strong word, Maximilian.” She slid out from beneath his arms, stepping out of the dark and onto the street. “Come. Into the pub.”

  “Wait.” He put out a hand to stop her, but it was too late.

  She had already slipped through the front door.

  …

  Vivienne heard him enter the pub after her, only a few paces behind. She could not decide if she wanted him there or not. He did not want to be in love with a spy. That was what all of his words meant.

  He did not want to be in love with her.

  Yet this did not make a man follow a woman into a sordid pub. Maximilian had done just that. He had stood in front of her to block Jones’s pistol, had shouldered her burden of finding Anne, and now, here in this pub, Maximilian was standing beside her facing the unknown.

  She would not cry. Just because a man did what was right, what was necessary, even though he did not want to, did not mean she should cry.

  The barkeep would find her soft.

  Her old friend stood behind the bar, wiping a gray cloth over a tankard, almost exactly as he had before. Except this time the pub was closed. No patrons were swearing in the corner or playing dice or getting drunk and fondling the barmaids. Just a young boy methodically moving between the tables and sweeping up spilled food.

  She stepped to the bar but did not take a stool. This was not a friendly visit.

  Maximilian took a place beside her, but a half step behind. There, but not there. With her, but not in front of her.

  She would not cry.

  “Little girl.” The barkeep, he did not look up beyond the merest glance. “People are looking for you.”

  Fear swirled in her so that her heart bumped inside her ribs, but she did not answer. Sometimes silence was one’s best weapon to gain information, as people felt compelled to fill it.