by Tessa Dare
Thump.
The most enormous hand she’d ever seen clapped on Piers’s shoulder, startling her in her skin.
The enormous hand was connected to an enormous man. One with broad shoulders and dark, wavy hair. “Piers. I thought it was you.”
Piers pushed back from the table and rose to his feet. “Rafe.”
The two men shook hands warmly before turning to offer Charlotte introductions.
As if she would need introductions. All England knew this man by name and reputation.
“Miss Charlotte Highwood, allow me to present Lord Rafe Brandon. My brother.”
“You left out ‘Heavyweight Champion of Britain’ and ‘Proprietor of England’s Finest Brewery,’ ” Charlotte teased. To Lord Rafe, she said, “What an unexpected pleasure, my lord.”
She extended her hand, and the broad-shouldered giant bowed over it before pulling up a chair to join them.
His manner was as easy and informal as Piers’s was proper and restrained. Charlotte liked him at once.
“I hope that’s Champion Ale.” Rafe nodded at his brother’s glass.
“Always.” Piers sounded offended to have his loyalty questioned. “Are you in the area collecting new accounts?”
“I’m scouting locations for a regional brewery. Clio’s keen to expand operations northward.” He motioned to a serving girl for a fresh round of drinks.
“She’s well, I hope.”
“Oh, yes. Though she works herself harder than I’d like.”
Charlotte was surprised at how easily the two men discussed her, considering that Lord Rafe had married Piers’s former betrothed. Piers didn’t appear to bear them any ill will.
“What a coincidence to find you here.” Lord Rafe leaned back in his chair. “Funny isn’t it, how often business puts us in the same place.”
“Oh, Lord Granville isn’t here on business,” Charlotte said.
Lord Rafe looked from her to Piers, amused. “So it’s pleasure, then.”
Her face warmed. “I didn’t mean to imply that, either. We’re both guests of Sir Vernon Parkhurst for the fortnight. Lord Granville was kind enough to bring the ladies into town for some shopping, but there was an incident and we had to separate into two groups for the return trip.”
“An incident, you say.” Rafe accepted his drink and downed half of it in one swallow. “I know how often ‘incidents’ happen around my brother.”
“Whatever frequency that may be,” Charlotte said, “they occur doubly often around my mother. Lord Granville can attest to the fact.”
Piers shrugged. “Mrs. Highwood believes her daughter deserves the admiration of highly placed gentlemen. As well she should.”
She put her fork down and smiled. “Now, really. Why are you taking her side?”
“I beg your pardon. I believed I was taking yours.”
Charlotte blushed a little, and had to look away.
Lord Rafe cleared his throat. “Well.”
“Come back with us for dinner,” Piers said. “Sir Vernon would be glad to meet you, and he has a son who could do with some distraction.”
Charlotte doubted the invitation was for Sir Vernon or Edmund’s benefit. Piers might be restrained, but even he couldn’t conceal true brotherly affection. She was comforted to know that he had this much love in his life, at least. After losing his parents, his betrothed, and even his dog—he needed it.
“Afraid I can’t,” Rafe said. “I’ve promised to start back this afternoon.”
The brothers chatted for a few minutes longer, exchanging news about their homes and business dealings. Piers excused himself to settle the bill.
When they were alone, Rafe turned to Charlotte and lowered his voice in confidence. “Forgive me for leaving so quickly, but it’s not only my brewery that’s expanding. My wife’s doing a bit of enlarging, too. To put it delicately.”
“How wonderful. Please relay my congratulations.”
“You’ll have a chance to offer them in person soon, I hope.”
“Oh, I doubt I’ll have that pleasure.”
He chuckled into his porter. “I don’t.”
Oh, dear. This was an unforeseen complication. Charlotte had been hoping to put a swift end to the lover mystery and nip any gossip in the bud. The last thing she needed was Piers’s own brother spreading tales of an impending engagement.
“Did Piers . . .” Drat. “Did Lord Granville say something to you? Surely he didn’t give you any indication that—”
“Other than the fact that he just happens to be having luncheon alone with you, in a coaching inn in Nottingham, on very same day I happen to be traveling through? He must have wished for the two of us to become acquainted.”
Feeling frantic, she whispered, “Lord Rafe, please. Don’t misunderstand. There was—”
“An incident.”
“Yes. This is all mere coincidence.”
“If you know my brother, and it seems you do, you understand this much.” He raised an eyebrow. “With Piers, there’s no such thing as coincidence.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I saw the way he looked at you. For God’s sake, he teased you. Piers doesn’t tease.”
Strange that he would say that, since Piers had been teasing her since their first meeting. And what did he mean, no such thing as coincidence?
“He likes you,” Lord Rafe said.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“So it’s love, then?”
“No.”
Charlotte didn’t have time to argue further. Piers returned from settling the bill.
He didn’t take his seat but instead offered Charlotte assistance in standing. “Miss Highwood, I suspect the carriage will have returned for us by now.”
“And my stagecoach will be leaving, too.” Lord Rafe gave his brother a clap on the shoulder and slid Charlotte a look. “Bring her around to the castle when your schedule allows. We’ll ready a room.”
Chapter Nine
As he bid his brother farewell and they left the inn, Piers hoped Charlotte had lost interest in pelting him with questions.
“Let’s have it,” she said. “What’s your big secret?”
He scowled at the pavement to disguise the hitch in his step. “Secret? What makes you believe there’s any secret?”
“Meeting Lord Rafe just now.”
He silently cursed. Rafe was one of only a few people who knew Piers’s true role with the Foreign Office—and even so, they avoided discussing detail. If his brother had given something away . . .
“Did Rafe say something to you?”
“Nothing specific, if that’s your concern. It was all in the way he treated me. As if I’d be the latest member in an exclusive club of people who comprehend the real Piers Brandon. So what’s the secret handshake? What is it you’re not telling me?”
Good Lord. What had he done, becoming involved with this woman? Everything was a puzzle to her. A knot that needed untangling. Meanwhile, whenever he was near her, his own powers of discernment and dissembling went promptly to hell. He blurted out old family secrets. He let her stroke his hair. He dragged her behind window seat curtains and held her close.
If she were an enemy agent, this problem would have been so much easier to solve. He wouldn’t have needed to marry her. He could have had her captured, or killed, or exiled to Corsica. Come to think of it, perhaps that last was still an option.
If only Nottinghamshire weren’t landlocked.
“It must have something to do with that time you spent overseas,” she mused.
“I worked as a diplomat for the Foreign Office. You know that already.”
“And I’ve been wondering about it ever since. I knew there was something more to you. What kind of diplomat picks locks and kisses like a rake?”
“This diplomat, apparently.”
She gave a theatrical sigh. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll be forced to guess.”
He gave her a firm silence. Which she
interpreted as an invitation. Because of course she did.
“Let’s see. You ran an illicit gaming hell in the glittering Vienna underground. Half the Habsbergs owe you their fortunes.”
“I’ve no interest in collecting fortunes. I have my own.”
“Burglary, then.”
He recoiled at the suggestion. “I’ve even less interest in petty theft.”
“It wouldn’t have to be petty theft. It could be significant theft, performed for a good reason. Let’s see . . . You liberated priceless works of art from the homes of French aristocrats, saving them from certain destruction at the hands of revolutionaries.”
“Wrong again.”
“If not art, then . . . secrets? Ah, I have it. You were an international spy, completing dashing missions and foiling assassination plots under the guise of a diplomacy career.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
She stopped dead in the lane. “Oh my goodness. Oh my word. That’s it.”
“That’s—”
“That is it. That’s the truth. You were a spy.” Her eyebrows soared, and she clapped both hands over her mouth, squealing into them.
Damn it.
He took her by the elbow, steering her out of the lane and pulling her into a dark, narrow alleyway.
“I tell you, I am not—”
“Don’t bother lying to me. I’ve learned how to tell when you do.” She raised her hand to his face. “Your left eyebrow. It wrinkles every time.”
“I,” he said, ignoring her touch by sheer force of will, “am not a former international spy. There, did it wrinkle?”
“No,” she said, disappointed.
Piers relaxed. “Well, then.”
“So you’re not a former spy.” After a brief pause, she gasped. “You’re an active spy.”
Jesus Christ.
She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Oh, well done, you. And you have the world believing you’re just a boring, stuffy, proper lord? No wonder your brother looked like a cat who’d swallowed the goldfish. This is tremendous, Piers.”
Tremendous?
This was decidedly not tremendous. This was a grave problem. And, quite possibly, the end of his career.
He’d been good at this once. Hadn’t he?
She had some naïve, fanciful idea of espionage that involved downing stiff drinks and swanning through gaming hells. If she knew the cold, brutal reality, she would regret having ever guessed.
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You must let go of this silly notion. The truth of it is, I am a boring, stuffy, proper lord. There are no dashing missions, nor thrilling escapades. And I am most emphatically not a sp—Down.”
He pushed Charlotte to the side.
A footpad lunged from the shadows, reaching for her reticule strings with one hand and brandishing a grimy knife with the other.
Years of training took control.
With his left hand, Piers grabbed the cutpurse’s wrist, immobilizing his knife hand. Then he lowered his right elbow in a vicious strike—not quite hard enough to break the rogue’s arm, though he would have deserved it.
Once the knife went clattering into the shadows, he dealt the scum a swift kick to the stomach and flung him into the gutter.
It was over in less than five seconds.
As the criminal lay doubled up and groaning, Piers straightened his gloves.
Charlotte’s eyes widened. She looked at the cutpurse, then back at Piers. “You were saying?”
Charlotte ought to have guessed how well Piers would take it when she unraveled his secret.
Which was to say, not well at all.
He abandoned any further discussion, hustling her with purpose to the corner where his coach stood waiting, and all but shoved her into it.
“It’s all right,” she assured him, once the carriage was in motion and they were alone. “I promise, I won’t tell anyone.”
He looked straight ahead. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“I really can’t believe I didn’t guess earlier. I should have known from your special Finch pistol. Or the stickpin that opens locks.”
“Any pin would have opened that lock.”
“Do you have other spy tools?” She began to look around the carriage compartment. “False mirrors? Bullet-deflecting doors? Oh, I’ll wager there’s a hidden compartment under this seat.”
“Every carriage has a compartment under the seat.”
“Secret codes tucked in your hatband, perhaps? Ooh, what about this walking stick?” She reached for a cane he kept on the back of the seat. “A man in his prime of life doesn’t need a walking stick. I bet it’s really a sword or a rifle, if one knows the trick of opening it.” She turned it this way and that, swishing it experimentally through the air.
He wrested it from her and set it aside. “It’s a walking stick. Nothing more.”
“But you’re an agent of the Crown. You must have some kind of exciting, lethal weapon on your person.”
“Since you mention it . . .” He caught her by the waist, dragging her onto his lap. He said in a seductive growl, “That’s not a pistol in my pocket.”
She laughed. Where had he been hiding this wicked, dangerous charm?
The irony was rich. She should not have been so keen to uncover his secrets. This revelation made him desperately attractive. She might start to like him even more. Not only in flashes and rare moments, but at regular intervals.
From there, it was only a short jaunt to friendship. Then a mere hop to affection . . . or worse.
Oh, drat. Why had she been so curious?
But there was no undoing it now.
She hadn’t nearly puzzled him out yet—but she’d gathered enough pieces to understand this: The entire picture of Piers Brandon was wider and more complex than she’d ever dreamed it could be. He wasn’t maddeningly perfect.
He was perfectly thrilling.
“Are you on a mission here in Nottinghamshire? Is that why you hid in the library?” She slapped a palm to her brow. “Of course. It all makes so much sense now. You couldn’t leave your assignment. That’s why you insisted on proposing. No one’s that honorable, and I knew it couldn’t simply be that you’d taken a fancy to me.”
“Listen to me.” He caught her chin in his hand, forbidding her to look away. “You are dead wrong about me in almost every particular, but you are right about that last. I hadn’t simply taken a fancy to you.”
“No?”
He shook his head slowly. His thumb traced the shape of her lips. “Fancy doesn’t begin to describe it. This is closer to . . . an obsession. An enchantment, or perhaps a curse. You’re like a little fair-haired witch who cast a spell on me, and I can’t concentrate. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but hearing you laugh and holding you close and imagining what you’ll look like naked in my bed. Do you understand that, Charlotte?”
She nodded, breathless. His left eyebrow hadn’t moved once.
The longer he stared at her, the more excited she grew. This was a game they’d been playing all day . . . his hand on her waist at the coaching inn, his breath on her ear at the perfume shop.
“What’s your plan, Agent Brandon?” she whispered. “Do you mean to kiss me so long and so hard that I’ll forget your identity?”
“No.” His hand slid to the back of her head, tangling in her hair—so tightly she gasped. “I mean to kiss you so long and so hard that you’ll forget yours.”
His lips fell on hers, and this time he offered her no light, patient kisses as a preliminary. He claimed her mouth, thrusting his tongue deep to toy with hers.
She clung to his neck, trying her best to keep pace.
He bent to kiss her neck, her ear, her cheek. She loved the urgency in his kiss, how much he seemed to want her.
Perhaps even need her.
Arousal pounded through her body, made her swell and tighten and yearn. It was as if the more boldly he tried to possess her, the more indepen
dent she felt.
He gave her power, and she wanted to use it. She wanted to choose passion over propriety, knowledge over innocence.
He stroked her breasts through the fabric of her frock and spencer, driving her mad with need. It wasn’t enough. She needed more. His hands on her bare skin. His fingers pinching, pulling. Anything to ease the ripe, coiling tension in her nipples. The need was so intense, so urgent, it made her wonder how she’d lived this long without his touch.
Her shame was gone, and yet she didn’t know how to ask for such things.
“Please,” she whispered, arching her spine to thrust her breast into the cupped palm of his hand and hoping it would be enough. “Please.”
Please touch me. You know what I need.
As they kissed, his fingers went to the buttons of her spencer, sliding them free one by one. At the same time, his other hand slid up her spine to find the hooks closing the back of her frock. She was being undone from both sides at once. This man had a great many skills indeed.
Her body sang with joy and anticipation of what was to come. Once he had the edges of her jacket parted, he slid his hand inside. His fingertips found the low, bosom-skimming border of her frock’s neckline. Pushing aside the gauzy fichu she wore for modesty, he pushed two fingers under the neckline and skimmed up to her shoulder, cleaving the loosened bodice from her body and then easing the sleeve down her shoulder, revealing her breast.
He broke the kiss, staring down at her bared breast. A twinge of modesty shivered through her, but it was lost in the rapid pounding of her pulse.
Upon contact with the crisp late-afternoon air, her nipple tightened. She felt as if a whole body’s worth of yearning had gathered in that single, aching point.
Please.
Please, please, please.
The first pass of his thumb was so light, so teasing. Almost like the brush of a feather. She could have believed she’d imagined it. He drew maddening circles around her ruched areola, tilting his head to examine her from a slightly different angle. As if she were a bit of clockwork and he was curious to see how she worked.
And then—finally—he covered her nipple with his thumb and pressed down. The jolt of pleasure zinged through her. She gasped. It was better; it was worse. It was wonderful.
