Page 40 of After the Spy Seduces

Goosebumps broke out traitorously across her arms. “You’ll be rather disappointed, I’m afraid.”

“Highly unlikely, based upon what I’ve glimpsed so far.” He paused for one perfectly timed rakish beat. “Which sadly isn’t at all enough.” Before she could utter the perfect biting reply to that, he added, “You’re keeping secrets.”

An electric jolt pierced her. Only for one fleeting heartbeat, but with the force of a lightning bolt.

She kept her face carefully still and her gaze straight ahead on Meri as the little girl picked up a red ball and tossed it high into the air.Impossible. He couldn’t know. No one knew, except for the general and Garrett.

“You’ve found me out,” she said dryly, hiding the truth behind more truths. “Iamkeeping secrets. I told Susannah Gresham that her bonnet was pretty when it was the most hideous thing I’ve seen all season, and just this morning at breakfast, I told Major Paxton to have a good day when I couldn’t have cared less if he did, then stole a second sticky bun when the butler’s back was turned.”

“Not those kinds of secrets.”

She watched Meri throw the ball across the lawn toward the house and then run to fetch it. “Well, apparently, I’ve also been committing treason by attempting to give information to the French.”

“Thatsecret I know about.” Instead of being discouraged, the man seemed more determined than ever and pressed, “What I want to know is the other secret you’re keeping.” He leaned in and brought his mouth to her ear, close enough that the warmth of his breath tickled her earlobe. “The one that puts a guilty expression on your face when you think no one is looking. The one that makes you seem sad even when you’re smiling.”

“You’re mistaken,” she countered, unsettled that he’d noticed so much about her. But then, hadn’t she noted nearly everything about him, as well? Right down to the little scar at his right brow that gave him a bit of a dangerous appearance.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I am.”

She tore her gaze away from Meri, surprised by the somberness with which he said that. She stared at him, all the thoughts in her head about him roiling in a twisted knot that she couldn’t untangle and her heart doing absolutely nothing to help.Thatfoolish thing wanted to confide everything in him, then beg to be given the solace she knew she’d find in his arms.

Only when the ball bounced across the lawn toward her and stopped at the end of the blanket did she finally tear her eyes away from him.

“And what secrets areyoukeeping?” She picked up the ball and tossed it back to Meri. “After all, you can’t expect me to reveal all of mine as long as you’re hiding your own.”

There.Thatshould silence him for a while. God only knew what he and the general had been discussing since the party.

“I don’t want to be a vicar.”

His confession made her smile, and she threw his words back at him. “That secret I know about.”

Meri tossed the ball toward them again.

“Then how about that I find myself inexplicably drawn to you?”

She turned around to gape at him. The ball went bouncing past, rolling down the lawn and disappearing behind the old dovecot at the edge of the plantation.

When she finally found her voice, she repeated his words, this time in little more than a rasp, “Not those kinds of secrets.”

She scrambled to her feet. She needed to move.Now.And move away from him.

“I’ll fetch the ball!” she called out to Meri, who had already forgotten about it and picked up an armful of dolls, to carry them into the trees to enact her favorite fairytale. But Diana needed air and space. Suddenly being outdoors on the blanket didn’t provide nearly enough, not when Christopher kept stealing it.

Hitching up her skirt, she left him sitting on the blanket and hurried away. Share secrets? She simply couldn’t.Especiallythat kind. And especially not with him.

The little red ball had landed in the weeds near the abandoned outbuilding, which her family had never used except for storage, and hadn’t even used for that in so long that she couldn’t remember the last time. But they hadn’t had the heart to tear down the pretty little brick building that matched the stables and old dairy barn, and now Diana was glad of it, if only to have it there to hide behind while she caught her breath before having to deal with Christopher again. Meri was playing and would be fine without her for a few minutes, during which time perhaps he would go to the house to speak to the general and leave her alone.

He was so very attractive, she’d admit, and not just physically.Allof him was alluring in a way she hadn’t noticed in a man in a very long time. One that sent her heart racing and her body aching to be in his arms, to be kissed and caressed in all kinds of delicious ways.

But if he kept pushing her to reveal her secrets, he’d also prove dangerous.

She knelt down to reach for the ball. A large hand snatched it from her fingertips.Christopher.

Oh, that man! She wheeled on him, the curse that fell from her lips only the first volley in the tongue-lashing the frustrating devil deserved. “Why won’t you—”

Then his mouth was on hers, kissing her hungrily, and all thoughts of secrets and of denying herself his attentions fled. She whimpered beneath his kiss in capitulation.

His left arm slipped around her waist to pull her against him, while the right shoved open the narrow wooden door of the dovecot. Without protest, she willingly allowed him to walk her backwards inside the dusty building, his lips never leaving hers. He kicked the door closed behind them.