Page 86 of After the Spy Seduces

“Two days later,” Grey added solemnly. “You’ve been unconscious for the past two nights.”

Morgan shook his head. “Damnable shame you didn’t sleep longer.”

Kit clenched his teeth. One of them alone was barely tolerable. The two of them together was sheer torture. “Shouldn’t you two be off somewhere, rescuing kittens up trees or whatever it is that the Foreign Office does these days?”

He clucked his tongue with mock offense at the idea. “When we could be right here, showing you our support?”

“Well,” Grey corrected with a sideways glance at Morgan, “let’s not get carried away.”

Gritting his teeth, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took a deep breath to hold down the pain and shoved himself to his feet. He grumbled, “I think I’d rather be dead than suffer yoursupport.”

His mutter drew amused grins from the two men at his expense. Despite their teasing, though, Kit could see concern darken their gazes as they watched him sway on his feet. But they also knew not to offend him by rushing to his side, thus pointing out how weak he was. How close to death he’d actually come.

Neither man said it, but he could seethatin their eyes, too.

“Meri’s safe,” Morgan assured him. The teasing amusement that had been in his voice earlier was completely gone. “While the surgeon was still digging that ball out of your arm, I sent a message to the men who were guarding her, to take the general to her and escort them both home. She should have been tucked safe and sound into her own bed last night.”

Thank God.Relief rushed through him. That news was better at easing his pain than any spoonful of laudanum ever could have been. “And Diana?”

“Asleep in the room across the hall.” Morgan looked tired and older than Kit had ever seen him. He wasn’t certain how he felt about Morgan’s role with the Foreign Office, but the man loved his sister and niece. “She was awake for the last two nights. Never left your side. I finally convinced her at dawn that she needed to get some rest.”

“Thank you.”

Morgan shrugged a shoulder. “After all, what good would she have been at planning your funeral if she were at the point of exhaustion?”

Kit grimaced. “Thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

“Well,” Grey repeated his earlier words with another glance at Morgan, “let’s not get carried away.”

Kit rolled his eyes in aggravation. “And the diary?”

Morgan pulled it out of his waistcoat and tossed it onto the foot of the bed. “Safe and sound. And, unlike you, free of bullet holes.”

But dark brown splotches stained the cover. Paxton’s blood.

“What will you do with it now?” he asked Grey.

“You’re no longer considered a rogue agent,” he answered, dodging the question. “I sent word to Sir Robert Peel at the Home Office in London yesterday morning, explaining that you were working on an extended assignment that involved the War Department, by special request of the Secretary of State for War. I also sent one to the Foreign Secretary that I have no intention of declaring you a traitor.”

“How kind of you,” he muttered wryly and rubbed at his shoulder. “After I got shot in service to England.”

Instead of smiling in amusement at that, as Kit expected, Grey’s expression remained somber. “Peel returned the message. You’re not considered a rogue agent, but you still broke the rules. So you’ve been expelled from the Home Office. He’s discharged you and asked the War Secretary to strip you of your army commission as punishment.”

The news hit like a punch to his gut, and he took a long moment to recover. When he did, the bitterness consumed him. “Because I’m worthless to them now, you mean. Because I’m too visible.” After ten years of loyalty to them, of putting his life on hold and risking his very existence—for this. Fornothing. Discarded without a second thought, when he could no longer be of service to them.

“Because you defied orders and burned too many bridges,” Grey corrected. Then he admitted grudgingly, “And yes, because there’s no such thing as loyalty inside the Home Office these days.”

Being right didn’t ease his resentment.

“You’ll need a different future for yourself now.” Grey stepped toward him. “So unless you truly do want to become a vicar, you should consider the offer I’m about to give you.”

Kit leveled his eyes on Grey. The two men were of the same height and build, just as tall and broad shouldered, and now, just as world-weary and experienced about the ways Whitehall mercilessly double-crossed the men who dedicated their lives to it. They respected each other, even if no trust lived between them.

Grey pulled out a note from his breast pocket and held it up. “A message from the Foreign Secretary. I told George Canning what you did tracing Fitch-Batten’s murder to Paxton, how you protected General Morgan and his family. He’s offering you a position within the Foreign Office.”

Kit’s heart skipped. He didn’t know whether to jump for joy or run away. Hadn’t he just left a life of secrecy and lies? No—hadn’t he just been kicked out of that life? The question now…did he want to go back to that same hollow existence, living at the pleasure of Whitehall over his own wants and needs?