Page 37 of To Love A Spy
Turning her gaze from the night sky, she tightened the sash of her wrapper and moved away from the window. The clock on the mantel showed it close to midnight. Tomorrow evening they were due to meet Rochambert face to face. Surely Lynsley would want to discuss their plan of attack.
And yet, he had passed by her door a half hour earlier without so much as slowing his step. Tiptoeing closer to the door connecting their suites, Valencia listened for any sound. If she heard a snore, she just might burst in and shake him out of his comfortable slumber. Her own nerves were so on edge that sleep seemed impossible.
“Ahem.” A soft cough and the clink of glass announced that the marquess was still up.
Valencia hesitated for a moment, then snapped the brass latch open.To hell with waiting and wondering.Lynsley had no right to treat her as if she were not an equal in this mission.
“Any new information I should know?” she asked, masking her misgivings with a brusque question.
Lynsley looked up from his notes. He, too, was dressed in naught but a silk robe, his bare feet stretched out to the banked embers of the bedchamber fire. “None to speak of,” he answered. He lifted his brandy glass to his lips. “If you are having trouble sleeping, feel free to help yourself to a drink.” There was a tray of decanters on a sideboard by his chair. “The sherry is excellent, but you may find the armagnac a bit strong for your taste.”
“I’ve owned a tavern for a number of years, sir.” She marched straight for the spirits, refusing to retreat in the face of his icy calm. Did nothing ruffle the man’s composure? He was always so cool, so collected.
While she, with her limping step and prickly moods, always felt so awkward, so unsure in front of him.
“Trust me,” she added. “I can drink any man under the table.”
“No need to prove it tonight,” he answered. Both his voice and his expression remained perfectly neutral. “We both must keep a clear head for tomorrow.”
“As to that, sir.” Valencia paused beside his chair, fighting to keep her smoldering anger from flaring into flames. “Don’t you think we ought to be discussing our strategy for confronting Rochambert?”
“Actually, the last thing I want is to confront the man at this point.”
“Then what have you in mind?” she demanded.
Lynsley shrugged. “If I think of anything specific, you will be the first to know. Otherwise we will just have to play it by ear.”
She bit her lip, wondering if he was holding something back. Not that she had any hope of forcing him into a verbal slip. When it came to dueling with words, the marquess was the master.
Still, the idea that he was toying with her piqued her pride. “I trust . . .” Seeing the back of his collar was twisted, she reached out to smooth the fabric. Her fingers slid lightly over the folds, tangling with the curling strands of his hair.
The sudden sensation—a tantalizing tickle of silk on silk—sent a strange tingling through her.
“Lud, your muscles are tied in knots,” she said, feeling him tense beneath her hand. Without really thinking, she began to massage the back of his neck.
“The meeting went on for hours.” His voice took on a sharper edge. “I will unwind in a moment.”
“Sit still and lean forward,” she ordered, drawing her hands out from the ridge of his spine. The sloping stretch of his shoulders was broader than she had imagined, and the contours more chiseled. Intrigued, she deepened her touch, exploring the subtleties of his shape. “Try to relax.”
Valencia heard his breath rasp in and out. Increasing the tempo of her strokes, she worked her fingertips in slow, circlingpaths. Beneath the silk dressing gown, she could feel the warmth of his body and sculpted strength of the slabbed muscle.
Her pulse began to quicken. There was something acutely intimate about his closeness, and the faint thud of his heartbeat against her palms. She leaned a bit closer, inhaling the subtle spice of Madame Aix’s cologne mingled with his own male scent.
“That’s enough,” he growled, shifting abruptly and trying to brush off her touch.
“Lud, why are you so snappish tonight, Thomas?” She deliberately used his given name, the first time she had done so in private. After all, she was no longer a young fledgling, in awe of her superior. “You are acting like a bear with a thorn in his arse.”
Swearing softly, Lynsley shifted the papers in his lap.
Good Lord, was that a telltale twitch?
Was it possible that the stone-faced Lord Lynsley was not impervious to normal masculine desire?
Cocking her head, she regarded him with a curious stare. “Are you in an ill-tempered because you haven’t had sex for a while? In our Academy class on seduction,La Palomasaid that men get awfully edgy if they go too long without it.”
Lynsley’s shoulder muscles went rigid as steel beneath her lingering hand.
“Thank you for the lecture on male biology,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I assure you, as the head of the school, I am quite familiar with the curriculum. And if I need any further elucidation on the subject, I shall ask.”
