Page 35 of After the Spy Seduces

So he offered the only medicine he could by pushing himself out of the chair and fetching the decanter of whisky.

“You have two beautiful and loving daughters, general.” He topped off the man’s glass and solemnly returned the stopper with a soft clink of crystal. “Lean on them to get through the days to come.”

“My daughters,” the general repeated into his glass. An odd tone colored his voice, one Kit couldn’t comprehend. “You could have arrested Diana for treason at the inn.Shouldhave. It was your duty as a Home Office agent, but you didn’t.”

He sank into his chair and stared into the fire. “No good would have come from it.”

“Thank you for that.”

The man’s gratitude clawed at his chest. His intentions had been far less noble than that. Kit hadn’t arrested her because he’d wanted to use her to find her brother. But now…Damnation.

“And thank you for saving her life.” General Morgan threw his unwanted cigar into the fire. Then he mumbled into the flames, “I’d sacrifice everything I possess to keep Diana safe, and she’d give the same for Meri.” He swirled the golden liquid in his glass. “We men do everything we can for the women we love.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And God help us if they ever realize that.”

Kit’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Yes, sir.”

General Morgan looked up from his drink and pinned Kit beneath his steely gaze. The same gaze that had stared down Napoleon and other enemies across the empire. “Be careful with Diana,” he warned. “She’s much more fragile than you realize.”

“I’ll protect her with my life,” he promised. And meant it.

Chapter 10

Three Days Later

London

Kit tossed another coin into the center of the table. “Deal.”

As the cards were dealt, he leaned back in his chair and took an assessing glance around the King Street gambling hell. This place was where bluebloods came when they wanted an evening that their private clubs couldn’t provide, right down to the lightskirts that were let in shamelessly through the front door, and where middle-class gentlemen could rub shoulders with aristocrats who would never have let such upstarts into their St James’s Street clubs.

Tonight, he was gladly one of them. He’d already spent hours here gambling, drinking too much into his cups, carousing with chums who were always up for a good time, and flirting with the women. Even as he tossed away coin after coin on one bad hand after another, he kept grinning and shouting boisterously to the men around him at the other tables, bragging about how he planned to fleece them of their fortunes and steal their women.

In other words, behaving exactly like himself.

Or rather, exactly what society thought was the true him. How convenient that he could hide behind such an easy disguise.

Tonight, though, it was only a partial façade, because a large part of him truly longed for any way to push Diana from his head.

That he couldn’t stop thinking about Diana Morgan, of all women—he nearly laughed aloud. Thaddeus “Never Surrender” Morgan’s daughter, the sister of his enemy…an innocent. Pursueher? For God’s sake, he might as well become a vicar after all.

Across the main room of the hell, Lord Stanwyck’s second son, Henry Blythe, shouted out in victory as the luck of the cards finally fell to him. He rose to his feet and made a show of kissing the cards before sweeping in his winnings with both hands. The men sitting at the table with him shot him murderous looks, while others nearby scowled in annoyance. The men tolerated him only because he was the son of a marquess, generous when it came to buying rounds of drinks, wealthy enough to keep the stakes high—and a bad enough player to keep that same wealth flowing into their pockets when he lost. Which was usually every night.

That last hand was a fluke. But Kit would gladly take the opening it gave him.

“Blythe!” he shouted out, loud enough to shake the dusty chandeliers overhead. He leaned back in his chair to get a good view of the man through the crowd and rested his arm across the back of the empty chair beside him. “Did you win? Impossible!”

“Look to your own losses, Carlisle!” Blythe shot back, sending up laughter across the tables. “God knows you have enough of those to keep straight.”

“Losses, you say? What are those? I wouldn’t know.”

Snickers, hoots, and eye rolls went up around him.Good.Every man in the room was used to such antics by Kit. Had come to expect them, in fact. Tonight, he wouldn’t disappoint.

“But I hear you’re quite familiar with losing. Heard your horse lost at the Ealing races last week. A mare, too.” Kit slapped the shoulder of the gentleman sitting to his right, bringing the unfortunate man into the fray as an accident of proximity. “Just like every female in Blythe’s life, the old nag gave up before she finished!”

Peals of laughter exploded around the room.