Page 53 of After the Spy Seduces

“To irritate my brother.”Sweet Lucifer.He called on all his restraint not to sweep her up in his arms and carry her to the bed, to make love to her the way he’d wanted to do since that night at the tavern. And to ease her pain, if only for a few hours.

“Is it working?”

“Beautifully, in fact.” His smile faded, and he let his gaze linger on her, far more longingly than he should have. “Beautiful.”

She caught her breath, the soft sound pulsing into him.

He’d wanted to distract her. Well,thathad certainly done the trick. For both of them.

He cleared his throat, then took a long step away from her. There was safety in distance, no matter how frustrating. And other ways to distract her. Ways that were far more proper, if far less pleasurable.

“You’ve been cramped up in coaches for the past two days,” he told her, grasping onto any excuse to leave the room. And to get far away from that bed. “Why don’t you take a few minutes to finish settling in and then meet me downstairs? We’ll explore the village and festival, and you can stretch your legs and take in some fresh air.”

“And after?”

She was asking about the French, but he didn’t want to steer the conversation back there any sooner than he had to. So he dodged. “After, we’ll come back here, where I’ll pay an exorbitant amount of money to have a dinner tray and hot bath brought up for you, and then we’ll get a good night’s sleep.” He grimaced. “With me on the floor. All right?”

She shook her head. “I just want to stay here, in the room, until I have to deliver the diary.” She wrung her hands in front of her and began to pace the small room. “I couldn’t—not while Meri’s being held. I can’t think about anything else except how frightened she must be, if she’s being cared for, or—”

Her voice choked off, unable to bring herself to say it. After all, speak of the devil…

“I understand.” Truly, he did. But then, hadn’t he spent a decade depending upon such coping mechanisms himself? After all, that was how he’d gotten through the world. One lie at a time. Until he was forced together with Diana. Now he wanted nothing more than for all the lies to stop. “Which is exactly why we have to go out. We have to make ourselves visible to the French, to let them know it’s safe to approach us. The sooner they find us, the sooner you can return to Meri.”

And perhaps give her an hour of thinking about anything else but her child. If he could. He’d certainly do his damnedest in trying. Because she would be no good to Meri or anyone if she went into the exchange as nothing more than a ball of churning emotions.

He reached for her arm, to stop her pacing. “Understand?”

“Yes.” But the nervous word was barely louder than a breath.

“I’ll be right by your side the entire time.” He tenderly tucked a curl behind her ear. “And most likely, the French won’t make contact until tomorrow morning.”

She gave a jerking nod.

His chest tightened with her pain. Despite a voice inside his head screaming that he was a damned fool, he pulled her into his arms and held her against him. He wanted only to protect her, to soothe her fears and bring her comfort, however small.

When she slipped her arms around his waist to snuggle herself deeper into his arms and find comfort there, a warmth swelled inside him unlike any he’d ever known. Any lingering doubts he had about doing this for her vanished like morning fog.

He lowered his mouth to her ear and, as if sharing a secret, murmured, “You are one of the most capable women I have ever met, Diana. You’re strong and beautiful…so very resilient. You will survive this, and you will come out even stronger for it.”

Reluctantly, he released her from his arms and stepped away. Then he turned to leave the room, to find enough distance from her to clear his head and keep his focus on what was coming for them.

“You never answered my question,” she called after him. “About what youwant for yourself?”

He paused in the doorway. What she was asking for—the impossible.She wanted him to consider a different future for himself than the one he knew was coming, because he had no future. Once he handed over the diary to save Meri, Whitehall would end him.

“I know,” he answered quietly. Then he stepped into the hall and closed the door.

Chapter 16

“Look there!” Christopher pointed across the aisle at one of the fair booths. “I was hoping someone would be selling those.”

Amid the crowded festival, Diana turned to watch as Christopher tossed a coin to a woman beside a griddle that lay across the coals of an open fire at the edge of the fairgrounds. She scooped up a large spoonful of whatever it was that she was frying and deposited it into a paper cone, then handed it to him.

Beside him, Diana rose up onto her tiptoes to see what he’d bought. He was trying very hard to distract her tonight by taking her to the festival, and she was trying very hard to play along. The attempt was endearing, and drat the rascal for making her feel even more special when she was with him. But worried thoughts of Meri still hovered at the forefront of her mind.

Yet curiosity got the better of her, and she couldn’t keep herself from peering into the cone. Tiny fried bits about the size of small grapes with a briny, fishy scent… “Cod pieces?”

As he led her away from the fire and back toward the heart of the night-time fair, he popped one into his mouth. “Periwinkles.”