Page 87 of After the Spy Seduces

“No,” he bit out.

“You wouldn’t be an operative. They’d never allow that. Everyone in both offices will be keeping a very close eye on you in the future.” He held out the note. “But he’s offering a position in London equal in rank.” Grey pressed, “Consider it.”

“Hellno.”

But a knowing grin quirked up at the corners of Grey’s mouth. He laid the unwanted note on the bed and picked up the diary.

“I’ll be going then.” He slid a parting look between the two men as he headed toward the door. “Send word when you’ve returned to London. I’m certain the Foreign Office will want to question both of you.”

Oh no.Grey wasn’t leaving here that easily. Kit had traveled halfway across England and risked his life, the life of the woman he loved, and that of her daughter because of that damnable diary. No way in hell was Grey simply waltzing out of here with it. Not without the final answers he needed to put the last of the puzzle pieces into place.

“And the diary?” Kit pressed.

“It will be taken care of, be assured of it.”

“Forgive me if I doubt you,” Kit drawled in challenge. “And while you’re at it, tell me this—why you? Of all the men in Whitehall, why send someone of your rank after the decade-old notes of a retired general?”

That stopped Grey just as he reached the door. He turned to face Kit, but his face gave away no answers.

“Even if it contained the names of half the French counselors in Paris, someone at your level in the Foreign Office should never have been put into the field after it.” He eyes narrowed. “Why sendyou?”

Grey held his gaze for a moment, as if considering how much he could divulge. “I sent myself. Out of personal interest, you might say.”

Weighing the diary in his hand, he turned toward the fireplace and tossed it into the fire.

None of the three men moved. All of them stood still and watched the little book burn, watched the flames eat it up and flare brightly in gratitude for being fed.

Grey stared down at the fire and said quietly, “Paxton had been slipping secrets out of the War Department for years and selling them for his own gain. Sometimes to France or Spain.” His brow drew down into a troubled frown as he added quietly, “Sometimes to other bidders within Britain.”

When only blackened pages remained, he picked up the iron poker leaning against the mantelpiece and jabbed it into the diary, destroying the charred clump until nothing remained but glowing ashes. Until there was nothing for the French to ever ask for again.

“Do you remember what happened to the Earl Royston?” Grey asked. “You should. It involved the Carlisles.”

“Yes.” That was how his cousin Richard Carlisle had so unexpectedly become Duke of Trent. Because his neighbor, the Earl Royston, had been found guilty of espionage and hanged.

“Royston had obtained a list of secret War Department operatives, men whose names he was selling off to the enemy, one by one. The same list that Thomas Matteson uncovered during a house party at Blackwood Hall. A list that contained his own name.”

Thomas Matteson…the Marquess of Chesney, and the man who had married Kit’s cousin Josephine. Kit had heard stories that the man had once worked in secret for the War Office, but always, he’d dismissed them as apocryphal. The creation of bored society gossips. But now he knew them to be real.

“No one knew how Royston had gotten those names, and he went to the gallows protecting the man who sold them to him.” He returned the poker to its place. “It took me five years, but I finally tracked that list back to Paxton. And two months ago, I set the trap.”

“What trap?”

He grimly lifted his gaze from the fire and locked eyes with Kit. “There is no French official at the Court of King Louis sending information back to the British. That was all an orchestrated lie to bring Paxton out of hiding.”

The room tilted around Kit as Grey’s admission sank over him.Good God.“That’s why you didn’t want me hunting down Morgan.”

Grey acknowledged that with a nod. “I couldn’t let you interfere, but I also couldn’t tell you why.”

Kit’s gaze darted to Diana’s brother, who registered absolutely no surprise on his face. Morgan had known all along yet given nothing away. Downright lied to him about it, in fact. The man was a good agent, Kit had to give him that. Even if he wanted nothing more at that moment than to plough his fist into Morgan’s face.

“But why make a copy of the diary, then?” Kit asked. “Why not just let Paxton hand over the original and arrest him for it?”

“While men like Pierre LeFavre aren’t giving information to the British any longer,” Grey answered for Morgan, “they once did. We owe it to them to protect them. We couldn’t risk that the original would end up in French hands and reveal a past now best left to history.”

After all these months, the last pieces of the puzzle finally snapped into place. The feeling of resolution that swept over him like a wave stung at his eyes and throat, and he sucked in a deep breath to steady himself.

“In the end, I went after Paxton for the same reason you pursued Fitch-Batten’s murderer,” Grey stated deliberately as he moved toward the door. “For justice. He sold Thomas Matteson’s name to the enemy—my best friend and a man I consider a brother.” His eyes gleamed with dark resolve as he glanced back. “No onethreatens my family and gets away with it.”