Page 89 of The Bachelor Spy
The man had arranged his blankets cleverly, creating the silhouette of a sleeping form beneath. But Blake had used the same trick himself on enough occasions to recognize it immediately.
Smith was not there.
Blake moved through the corridors leading toward the west wing, careful to avoid any passing nurse on rounds or servants finishing their evening duties. The house settled around him with familiar creaks and sighs, a language he’d learned over the past week.
Then he saw her.
Evie carried a stack of linens—proper camouflage for a housemaid moving through the servants’ areas—but her posture was all wrong for someone simply going about their duties. She stood alert, watchful, positioned near the back stairs in a way that gave her clear sight lines in three directions.
Blake made the slightest movement, catching her attention. Her eyes found him instantly—no searching, no hesitation. She’d been expecting him.
He stepped back toward the shadows of a recessed window, and she followed moments later, setting down her linens on a nearby side table.
“What have you found?” she whispered, those large, deep blue eyes staring up at him as they’d done hundreds of times before, yet not the same.
Now he knew the truth about her heart.
And his own.
And that changed everything.
He barely restrained the desire to push back a single strand of hair behind her ear to taste those delightful lips of hers. Alas, kissing her was much too distracting to his faculties than either of them needed at the moment.
“Smith isn’t in his bed. I was attempting to locate him but haven’t. You?”
“Wilson retired to her room twenty minutes ago. Light’s still on.” Evie glanced down the corridor, then back at him, drawing close enough for him to catch the faintest hint of lavender. “But I managed to get into her room this morning. Only five minutes while she was supervising breakfast service.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing of specific consequence, I’m afraid.” Her mouth tightened into a frown, which seemed a rather unfortunate use of those lips. “No letters, no coded messages.” A small smile emerged. “No convenient diary confessing her sins. But tucked away in her desk drawer, beneath some handkerchiefs, I found German Reichsmarks. Perhaps twenty marks total, along with a few pfennigs.”
Blake’s attention sharpened. German currency. In a British nurse’s private quarters. “Curiosity or confirmation?”
“Too easy to find,” Evie finished, her brows rising. “Too obvious.”
He studied her face in the dim light. “What aren’t you saying?”
“It’s nothing. Probably.”
He raised a brow.
She rolled her eyes, her smile growing. “Right. ‘Doubt is immediately suspect.’”
“Exactly.” And the desire to kiss her returned with alarming vigor.
“The money was simply lying there. Not hidden, not particularly concealed—just tucked in a drawer any housemaid might open while tidying.” She shook her head. “If Wilson is actually the Midnight Angel, she’d be more careful. This operative has evaded detection for months, Blake. She’s meticulous. Why would she leave evidence sitting about where anyone could find it?”
The same thought had been nagging at him since he’d seen that Russian document in Wilson’s medical bag. Too convenient.
“You think someone planted it.”
“Perhaps.” Evie’s brow furrowed. “But who? If she’s the one collecting intelligence, who would frame her? Smith?”
“Smith would have no reason to.” Blake’s mind worked through the angles. “If they’re working together, framing Wilson only exposes their operation. It’s a cross-purpose. And Smith can’t be working alone while posing as a wounded soldier. He doesn’t have as much free access to the patients. No, what your brother shared? It has to be one of the nurses.”
Her gaze flew to his. “What if we’ve been so focused on Wilson that we might have missed someone else entirely?”
Blake’s chest tightened. “Someone who strategically diverted us toward Wilson.”
