Joanna Bourne - The Spymaster’s Lady

He stroked her hair, like a warm wind. “Marry me.”

It hurt, knowing she must say the many sensible things that must be said. “You will lose your position if you marry with a French spy, which I am, who cannot be trusted, which I cannot.”

“Then I’ll resign my bloody position. There’s a letter in my desk drawer. I wrote it the day I brought you to Meeks Street. Doyle knows. He’ll pull it out tomorrow when I don’t come back.”

“He will not find it, for you will go to your office immediately and tear it up.”

“Would you like to go to India? I have a standing offer from one of the directors of the East India Company. We’d become tremendously rich, if that matters to you.”

“I do not want to be rich. And I know you are already rich. Adrian told me. He thought I should know.”

“Remind me to throttle Adrian. We can get married about five hours from now, at St. Odran’s, if it suits you. That’ll give me time to call everybody in. We’ll invite Soulier…There. That’s made you smile.”

“You are entirely mad. You will doubtless stick straws in your hair and caper about the streets.”

“Let’s find some privacy for that.” He considered the park. It was a big place. One could smell a great extent of greenery and perhaps a lake, somewhere within it. “You have a problem with these spikes and pointy things?”

The gates would be closed at this hour of night. “Hah. You make the joke. This little fence? But I am in skirts, though, and a large cloak, which is very warm and lovely, but awkward to climb with. So if you will…Yes. That is helpful.” She stepped into his cupped hands and was over in a flash. Grey followed her a moment later.

He took her hand. The dark enclosed them. They might have been in the country, it was so quiet, with so many stars overhead. It came to her that she had never walked out under the night, hand in hand, with a lover. Or with the British Head of Section, for that matter.

They’d come to a flat, grassy hillock, deep in the park. He twitched her cloak off and furled it down to the ground before she could protest. “Hush. I’ll keep you warm.” Before she could speak, he spilled her downward, onto the ground, onto the soft wool, and sprawled beside her and put his arm around her and drew her to him. “Is this better?”

“This is foolishness.”

“There hasn’t been enough foolishness in your life. No. Stay close.” He urged her with a whisper, a touch, till she lay beside him, body to body.

The stars spread out above her in patterns vast and mysterious.

“You’ll like Tydings,” he said. “It’s old stone, the color of honey. There’s meadow behind and a view of the hills that stretches on forever. We’ll make love over every inch of it, at night, being sneaky about it.”

How did he do this to her? “You entice me with dreams and entangle me with this sacrifice you make of yourself. It is like fighting shadows.”

“Don’t fight. When we’re old, we’ll stagger down the path to the river and collapse on the bench and watch our grandchildren play in the mud. We’ll remember making love on that bench. And by the river. Maybe in the river, too, some hot night.”

“I have never thought of being old.”

“It’s time you did. Be old with me.” Dreams and impossibilities sheltered in his bones and muscles. When he held her like this, she could almost believe in them.

“I do not like it that you free me with one hand and entrap me with the other. It is not straightforward of you.”

“I’m not a straightforward man.”

“You cannot resign from the British Service, my Grey. Napoleon will not sail in the spring—I have done that much—but someday he will come. You cannot leave your post. You are one of the guardians of this land.”

“So’s Doyle. Let him sit in that stuffy office and be Head of Section for a while.” His hands slid along her side, making themselves busy up and down her body. It had been only a few hours since she was in bed with him, and her body remembered.

“But you are Head. You hold those deadly men of your Service between your hands and protect them, and they trust you utterly. You are responsible for them.” She was becoming limp and needy, clinging to him. “You do not listen. You are seducing me instead.”

“Trying to.”

She had not known that her eyelids would feel that way when someone had his lips upon them. Like silk. Light flowed where he licked with his tongue. “You make it quite impossible for me to think.”

“Really?”

“You need not sound so pleased. It is a weakness on my part.”

“That sounds promising. Are you going to marry me?”

“It is not that simple.”

He leaned up on his elbow and looked down at her. His face was cast in moonlight, inches away, grave and intent. “But it is simple. Not easy, but simple. Even in Wales or India, you’ll have to choose—France or England.”

“Oh, I have chosen. I must fight against Napoleon, insofar as it lies within me. But marriage…It is a matter of loyalties, you understand. I cannot be English, even for you. I cannot tell you all I know. I have too many old friends—”

“Do you think I’d ask that of you?”

“You are a master of spies for the British. It is not unreasonable that you should—”

His fingers touched her lips. “I don’t own my agents’ souls. Adrian has a Frenchwoman I’m not supposed to know about. And Doyle’s half French. His cousins are scattered all through the French secret service. You’d manage.” He caressed her dress till it rose high up on her thigh.

“Sometimes the Rom lie with one another like this, on the ground with the sky above. I will marry you.”

“Now?” His hands clenched, tight, upon her. “This morning? At St. Odran’s?”

“Yes. All of those.”

“Good.” He let out a long, satisfied breath. Those clever hands drifted between her legs to entice and tempt and promise. “Are we going to Wales?”

Sensation flooded through her and swept away her last thoughts. “Not…immediately. We are going to make love, are we not? This is depraved to do in a park, I think.”

“Isn’t it?” As he’d promised, he kept her very warm indeed.

Joanna Bourne has lived in seven countries, including England and France, the settings of The Spymaster’s Lady. She lives with her family, cat, dog, and Siamese fighting fish in the foothills of the Appalachians.