Lady Rogue

by Suzanne Enoch

  Alex ignored the rest of Francis’s yammering as he strode through the wide parlor, dodged Lord Ranley and an inquiry as to his feelings about the army’s drain on the economy, and stepped into the billiards room. It couldn’t be her father, he told himself as he glanced about. Stewart Brantley would never show his face in a club, not in the middle of Mayfair, and not when he was selling weapons to enemies of England. For a bare moment, though, Alex hesitated. If it was Brantley in there, he would have to arrest him. He would have to arrest both of them.

  He didn’t see her for a moment as he pushed past an eager Thadius Naring, scarcely noting the man and his bootlick greeting. When he finally found her, leaning over a table toward the back of the room, breath returned to him with a tight shudder. It wasn’t Brantley beside her. The gentleman leaning at her elbow was the same handsome, dark-haired stranger who had stopped her outside Cale House, and Alex’s eyes narrowed.

  “Kit,” he said, stepping forward and clenching his hands to keep from grabbing her, “apologies if I’ve kept you waiting.”

  She looked up, the surprise in her green eyes swiftly replaced by a warm, welcome look that did little to ease his disquiet. “No, you’re early,” she responded in her low lilt, and glanced over at her companion. “Alex, have you met Jean-Paul Mercier, the Comte de Fouché? Jean-Paul, my cousin Alexander Cale, the Earl of Everton.”

  “Enchanté,” the comte said, studying him with hawk’s eyes.

  Kit had described Fouché’s eyes as mysterious, but Alex would have termed the other’s expression wary. This was the man whose nose she had bloodied, he recalled, yet Fouché appeared to have forgiven her. Forgiven her enough to seek her out in an exclusive London club and speak to her in the language of an enemy country.

  “Good afternoon,” the earl returned mildly, holding out his hand. “Kit mentioned that he had met you in Paris, I believe.”

  “Ah, I hope his words about me were kind,” the comte said in a heavy French accent, gripping Alex’s hand for a moment. There was no powder stain, and there was no cause to suspect him for reasons other than his presence and his association with Kit, but Alex continued to watch him warily.

  “Of course, Jean-Paul,” Kit said, her eyes returning to Alex. “What happened to you?” She reached up a finger to her own cheek, then motioned at his.

  “Carriage kicked up a stone,” he answered, searching her voice and eyes for any indication that she knew how he had acquired the wound.

  Fouché set aside his billiards cue and nodded at Kit. “As I said, I only wanted to give you my farewell.” The dark eyes glanced at Alex. “I am returning to France this evening,” he explained.

  Then he likely was involved, and was supposed to leave with Kit and her father. Quick panic touched Alex again at the thought of her going. “Ah,” he commented, furrowing his brow with what he hoped was an expression of mild concern. “That seems a dangerous place to be, at the moment.”

  Fouché gave him a patient smile. “Not if one is careful. Which we always are, are we not, mon ami?”

  “Bien entendu,” Kit answered absently, her eyes on Alex. “Of course.”

  The comte sketched a quick, elegant bow. “A pleasure to meet you, Everton,” he said. He gripped Kit’s shoulder in a gesture that seemed altogether too friendly. “Je te verrai encore bientôt.”

  “Adieu,” Kit returned, nodding as he turned and strolled away from them.

  “What did he say?” Alex asked quietly.

  She shrugged. “Just to be careful,” she replied.

  Alex wanted to shake her, to inform her that I’ll see you soon sounded nothing like be careful in any language, but instead he took the cue out of her hand and placed it on the table. “Come with me,” he murmured.

  After a close look at his face, she nodded and turned to follow him. He led her back to the coatroom and waited while they were given their things, then headed outside and had a footman hail them a coach.

  “Where’s Waddle?” Kit asked, pulling on her hat.

  “Sent him home,” he returned, concentrating on breathing calmly. A hack stopped beside them, and Alex motioned her to climb in. “Twelve Park Lane,” he told the driver.

  As soon as the door shut, the driver sent the team off. “Alex,” Kit said from beside him, “what’s wro—”

  He grabbed her hands, yanked them up to his face, and breathed in deeply. They smelled of chalk, not gunpowder, and he relaxed a fraction. At least she hadn’t been the assassin. He truly hadn’t thought her capable of such a thing, but he wasn’t thinking clearly where she was concerned.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, pulling her hands back to examine them when he released her.

  “What were you and that damned Frenchman talking about?” he demanded.

  “Jean-Paul?” she faltered. “Nothing really. Just—”

  “Tell me, Christine!” he roared, beyond patience, beyond any sort of subtlety, beyond anything but a desperate, splintering need to be with her and to be able to trust her.

  “He…he just told me that he’d spoken to my father. Papa had unexpected business in Calais, and was delayed another few days.”

  No doubt that business had something to do with an expected weapons shipment. Time was even shorter than he had realized. “How did you and your father make a living in Paris?” he continued, his hands tight around her upper arms.

  “Alex, you’re hurting me,” she protested, struggling.

  “And you’re hurting me, damn it. Answer my bloody question, Christine.”

  She shrugged. “However we could.”

  He shook his head, yanking her closer beside him. “You will tell me the truth,” he snarled. “No more lies.”

  “What’s happened?” she asked, her expression growing alarmed.

  “Someone shot Reg a few moments ago.”

  Christine went still, her face turning an alarming shade of white. “What?” she whispered, reaching out to touch his singed cheek. Her fingers jumped, and she sagged to cover her face with her hands. “No, no, no.”

  He pulled her hands away from her face, reminding himself that she was a superb actress, and that he couldn’t trust her. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “Is he…” she began, then took a quick breath, as though to steady herself. “Is he dead?”

  “No. The ball grazed his skull. Luckily he has a hard head.” He slid his hands on both sides of her face, compelling her to look him in the eye. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “Yes,” she answered almost soundlessly, a single tear running down her cheek. “But I didn’t—”

  Alex shook her hard, trying to ignore the sensation of his world shredding around him. “You tell me exactly what I need to know. How did you and your father make your living in Paris?”

  She took another shaky breath. “Papa gambled, and I did a little, as well. After Napoleon, and I suppose before, though I was too young to pay much attention, he smuggled.”

  “Smuggled what?”

  “Whatever he could. Fresh fruit, vegetables, blankets, flour, silver, gold.” Her words were coming more quickly, as though now that she had begun, she was anxious to tell the whole story. “Once the British set up their blockade, he couldn’t do it on his own anymore. That’s when he started working with Jean-Paul.”

  “The Comte de Fouché.” So he was involved after all. And Alex had let him walk free as well, because of the woman beside him.

  She nodded. “Yes. Over the last few months, Fouché found a new buyer. Papa kept saying it was some eccentric old lord, and whatever odd things he occasionally wanted, he paid well enough for us to get them for him. He kept pretending it was nothing, but…I knew it wasn’t vegetables.”

  “And Reg?” Alex prompted quietly, hating every answer she was giving. “Why was he shot?”

  She wrapped her hands around his, keeping him close to her. “Someone stopped the last shipment the old man wanted. Apparently he was furious, and threatened to…
have Jean-Paul kill Papa if he failed again. So Papa and I came here. I was to help him find out who was behind all the trouble, so he could bribe whoever it was, give him a cut.” Her green eyes held his steadily, while he searched her face for any sign she was lying. Another tear ran down her cheek. “Only it was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you wouldn’t be bribed.”

  “So why Reg? Or was it supposed to be me, after all?”

  She shook her head tightly. “No, no,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I never told anyone about you.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” he hissed. “After this?”

  Kit blinked. “Papa hates the English. I always did, too…until I met you. I…I didn’t want him to know I thought it was you.”

  “So you told him about Hanshaw, instead. Sweet—”

  “No! I didn’t! Please, Alex. I know all about you and Reg and Augustus. But I didn’t say anything. I should have. But I couldn’t.”

  The desire to believe her was almost overwhelming, but with the last of his willpower he shook her again and shoved her away from him. “Another lie!”

  Kit flung herself back at him. “No! I know there’s more to this than Papa will tell me, but I swear to you, Alex, I did not tell Fouché, or anyone else, what I know.” Alex tried to shove her back again, but with a wrenching sob she grabbed on to his coat, pulling herself against him. “Please, Alex. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “I want to believe you,” he whispered raggedly, clutching at her arms. “God, I want to believe you.”

  “Then believe me,” she returned, and closed her mouth fiercely over his.

  If she truly didn’t know what was being smuggled, and if she hadn’t given their names to Fouché, there was still a chance. For her. For them. He slid his arms around her slim shoulders, pulling her tighter against him, and kissing her as desperately as she was kissing him. She lifted herself across his thighs, curling into him as though trying to get inside of him, to get as close to him as he wanted to be to her.

  The ill-sprung coach lurched to a halt, and the coachman rapped on the door with his crop. “We’re here, gov,” he called.

  Alex lifted Kit to her feet, though he didn’t want to let go of her. Irrational though it was, he knew if he let go of her, he would lose her. He was certain of it. She held on to the lapel of his coat as she climbed down from the coach, him right behind her. He flipped a coin at the coachman and followed her up the steps. Wenton pulled the door open for them, but he might as well have been a stump for all the attention they paid him.

  Kit, her hand still wrapped through his coat, pulled him toward the nearest door, the morning room. He balked at the doorway, but she wrapped an arm about his waist and leaned up to kiss him, and he stepped inside with her. He slammed the door shut with the palm of his hand, ignoring Wenton’s stunned expression behind them, and locked it, while with his other hand he undid her breeches and tugged them off her legs.

  Her mouth hungry against his, she backed with him toward the couch and pulled him down on top of her. Still without saying anything, Kit reached between them and freed him from his own leggings. Alex spread her legs apart with his knees, lowered himself down over her, and thrust forward. She gasped, lifting her hips to meet him, as he entered her hard and deep. Christine wrapped her long legs about his thighs, to pull him deeper inside, closer to her hot, tight center, closer to her soul. They took their release together, and for a moment, were one.

  For a long time after they made love, Alex lay with his head upon her shoulder, and Christine softly stroked his hair. She had told him the truth, finally, and he hadn’t turned her out, and he hadn’t turned away. More than anything else, that was what she had been afraid of, that he would hate her.

  Finally he lifted his head to look at her face. “I think we surprised Wenton,” he murmured, laying his head down again.

  She chuckled then, and a moment later his deep chuckle joined hers, resonating against her breastbone. “Good,” she replied.

  Alex was quiet again for a few moments, then shifted to raise up on one elbow beside her on the deep couch. He reached out and tucked a straying strand of blond hair behind her ear. “You have to marry me now,” he said, his beautiful eyes serious and worried.

  Worried because of her. “No, I don’t.”

  “Christine, do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? Smuggling during wartime?”

  She held his gaze, looking for an answer in his eyes. “So you want to protect me.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I can take care of myself, Alex. I told you before, I am not going to trap you into any—”

  “Would you rather I arrested you? I could, you know.”

  “For smuggling vegetables and blankets?” she returned sharply, though she knew it wasn’t about that. “Is that your idea of doing your duty to Prince George?”

  He scowled. “You don’t know everything that’s going on.”

  “So tell me.”

  Alex shook his head. “No.”

  “You still don’t trust me,” she whispered. She could understand why, after all the lies she’d told, but it hurt, nevertheless.

  “I want to, Kit. But if you don’t know, it’s safer for you, for everyone concerned.” He ran the palm of his hand under her shirt, along her flat belly.

  “So what happens now?” she asked slowly, studying his face.

  Very softly he touched his lips to hers, again the gentle, controlled lover, as though the mad passion of a few minutes ago had been someone else entirely. “We keep you here. Safe.”

  “Will you tell Reg and Augustus about me?”

  He frowned. “Hanshaw doesn’t need to know right now. Eventually, maybe. Augustus can go to hell before I include him in any of this.”

  That sounded a bit odd, whatever their personal animosities. “Why not Aug—”

  “He doesn’t concern me, or this, Kit.”

  That made no sense. Of course, Augustus was a spy. She’d seen him. Perhaps not going off to meetings, but sneaking about at night, as though he didn’t want even his friends to know what he was up to…“Alex,” she whispered, her blood freezing. She hadn’t told Fouché about Reg and Everton, but someone had. “I think you’re wrong about Devlin.”

  “Why so obsessed with Devlin now?” he asked, heat coming into his expression again.

  Looking at his distrustful, jealous gaze, she realized that he would hardly listen to her suspicions about his former brother-in-law. If their positions had been reversed, she would think him merely trying to distract her. “I’m not—”

  Alex touched her lips with his fingers and took a slow breath. “Not now. I want you to promise me one last thing.”

  “What?” She would let Devlin go for the moment, but if he was helping Fouché, then Alex was still in danger.

  “Promise me you won’t go back to Paris with your father.”

  Kit looked at him. “You just don’t want to lose track of him!” she snapped, trying to shove him away. “How dare—”

  He shook his head, pinning her down with his shoulder and arms. “Don’t turn the subject,” he countered, grabbing her jaw so she had to look at him. “You know this has nothing to do with that. Just promise me that you’ll stay. No obligations. Just stay.”

  He wasn’t simply asking that to keep her safe, she sensed. He wanted her to stay in London with him. Only he couldn’t ask it that way, because he was a man, and because he was likely worried that she would turn him down again. “All right,” she whispered.

  At two in the morning someone began pounding on the door downstairs.

  “Sweet Lucifer,” Alex snarled, while Kit sat bolt upright beside him. “Not again.”

  “It can’t be Papa,” she said, looking over at him. “I doubt he’d make such a ruckus.”

  That made sense, and it was something of a relief, as well. She might have agreed to stay, but Alex doubted she co
uld stand by and see her father arrested. He wasn’t certain he could put her through it. “It’s not bill collectors,” he ventured, sitting up beside her. “Unless you’ve been using my note of credit again.” He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back down beside him. “Let Wenton see to it.”

  “Alex!” Gerald Downing’s voice came a moment later, and feet hammered on their way up the stairs.

  “Good God,” he grumbled, and grabbed for his nightshirt. “Stay here, chit.”

  Yanking the shirt on over his head, he strode for the door, pausing to retrieve his robe and pull it on. Gerald reached the door at the same time he did, but Alex managed to step out into the hallway and shut it before his cousin could see inside the bedchamber. “What in damnation is going on?”

  James Samuels reached the top of the stairs behind Gerald. Alex glanced between the two of them, uneasiness tugging at him. There was news, and it wasn’t good.

  “Napoleon’s less than a hundred leagues from Belgium,” Gerald announced.

  “And you were right, m’lord, about the crates going north,” Samuels added. “Hanton spotted ’em two days ago.”

  “He’s picking up supporters along the way,” Gerald continued.

  Two simultaneous conversations in the middle of the night was rather disconcerting, particularly when most of his thoughts were behind the closed door and in the warm bed behind him, but Alex found himself shocked into alertness. “He’s trying to cut off Wellington, then.”

  Gerald nodded grimly. “If he can run Blücher and the Germans down, Wellington doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “That would depend on how well armed Bonaparte’s soldiers are,” Alex mused darkly.

  “Which would depend on how quickly we can snap up those damned weapons,” his cousin snarled.

  “Keep your voice down, if you please,” Alex returned, glancing unconsciously toward his bedchamber door.

  Gerald followed his gaze. “Kit?” He read the answer on his cousin’s face. “Damnation, Alex! You know better than that.”