Page 75 of The Spy’s Song

"I said they were our last chance. I did not say I would pay whatever price they named."

She took the largest breath her lungs allowed. "My father needs me. France needs me."

I need you.

Rodrick turned to her. "Stop. That. France can burn for all I care."

"If not for France, then for me."

He stopped his mad pacing and stared at the wall. His breaths were rapid, too loud in the silent room.

She took a careful step closer. "I know sometimes I'm impulsive, and that makes it hard for you to like—"

He whirled on her. "Hard to like? You are impossible to like."

Louise halted.

"You don't believe me? The Corsican princess thinks herself agreeable?" He came closer. "My skin prickles when you are near. Did you know that? I can have my back turned in a room full of people and still know when you walk in. How would you enjoy carrying a weather vane beneath your skin that points toward one person whether you wish it to or not?"

She closed her eyes.

"You disappear for five minutes, and I count them. You stop speaking, and I notice. You breathe differently, and I notice that too. Do you have any idea how irritating it is to know another person's breathing? You have turned my own body into an informant, and the damned thing reports on you constantly. So yes. I dislike you intensely."

She wanted to touch his cheeks, hold his lapels, scream in his face. To kiss him so hard he would not find so many words when she had none.

He pointed at the wall opposite the bed. “When that curtain opens, Lady Trent will be watching from behind that screen, and you expect me to fuck you?”

Louise shook her head. No. When it opens, I want you to make love to me. I miss you that much.

The clock struck midnight. Her heart rivaled its beats. They both turned toward the curtain. The velvet slid along the rail, revealing an ornate giltwood lattice worked with curling leaves and flowers. Beyond its openings lay only darkness, but Louise knew Lady Trent stood on the other side, able to see everything the candlelit room revealed.

Her pulse beat a march in her throat. If Rodrick walked out, she would be lost… If he stayed, she would be lost.

Rodrick glanced toward the mirror, and Louise watched the spy return. His shoulders settled. His breathing changed. Even the anger seemed to move somewhere he could use it.

"You wanted a performance," he said softly. "Let us make certain Lady Trent receives one."

A moment ago his mouth had been hard with anger. Now it curved slightly as he crossed the room and offered his hand. Edmund Vane had arrived.

Louise looked at the hand. A hand required an answer. She placed her fingers in his and let him draw her closer. He did not pull too hard. A husband of three years would not need to.

Louise adjusted her shoulders, softened her mouth, and lifted her eyes to his. Onstage, a movement had to be clear enough for the people at the back to understand it without becoming so broad that it looked false. Louise let her thumb brush over Rodrick's knuckles, then left her hand in his instead of taking it back.

A wife would do that. Isabelle Vane had slept beside this man for three years. She had seen him without his coat, without his boots, without the expression he wore for other people. She would not stiffen because his breath touched her cheek.

She did not have to wonder whether he would still want her tomorrow, or whether Brussels would change whatever existed between them. Lady Isabelle Vane had already answered all those questions. She was married to Edmund. She belonged beside him. She could touch him without asking what the touch promised.

He tugged at the fingers of her glove one by one, then kissed her knuckles. Removed her earrings. The Empire dress was gone in seconds.

Rodrick dropped to one knee. He reached for her ankle, unfastened the garter's delicate clasp with steady fingers.

Then his hands found the top of her stocking, and his knuckles brushed her thigh. He looked up once, eyes unreadable, and then bent his head. His mouth grazed the silk over her skin, a touch so light it might have been breath.

Her hand twitched at her side.

He rolled the stocking down slowly, his fingers dragging along her calf, catching behind her knee. He did the same with the second, and her skin prickled with awareness. With heat.

Left in her corset, she was about to catch his wrist and ask him to leave it, but thought better of it. As Louise Bonnechoix, she might have fought for her clothes, but Lady Vane could do without.