Page 41 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“What doyou know of him?” Phoebe asked, her brows arched toward her hairline.
“Not much,” she admitted with a wince. “I think he is perhaps a few years older than me. He’s the middle of three children. He…he lives in Soho.” He had not told her that—she had learned it from Dannyboy, who had at breakfast recently attempted to impress the other children with his navigational prowess, which he had proved with his recitation of various landmarks that guided him through the city streets. He had, briefly, described Rafe’s home: a small house with a green-lacquered door, and a bronze knocker shaped like a fisted hand, with a shiny number3hung above it to mark the street address. Absently she sketched the number upon the tablecloth with the tip of her finger—backwards, just as Dannyboy had done.
“Emma, that could describe dozens of men. Hundreds, perhaps,” Diana said patiently. “For God’s sake, my brother fits that description.”
Emma sighed. “I know how dreadful it sounds, how distasteful—” But it wasn’t. At least, it didn’t feeldistasteful. It didn’t feel sordid or tawdry. She had expected at least a littleshame, but there was none of that, either. “He has been…very kind to me,” she said. “I didn’t expect it—”
“You didn’t expect kindness?” Phoebe inquired, horrified.
Emma shook her head. “I didn’t expect to find more kindness, more consideration, in a veritable stranger than I had ever had from my husband,” she corrected. A stranger—and yet the depths of his kindness had surpassed even that which friendship could reasonably expect. “Even if I could tell you the details of his life,” she said, “they would explain whathe is, but not whohe is.”
And who he was, stripped of all of those details—the house in Soho, the siblings older and younger, the plain clothing, and the odd association with her brother—waskind. Honest. Generous and humble. A natural protector; guardian of children and frightened women both. A man who listened more than he talked, and who didn’t brush away her thoughts and opinions with a careless hand, as if she were the witless bit of fluff that women were often expected to be.
“I know his character,” she said softly. “I know what is most important.” And perhaps the rest of it would come in time.
“You love him.” This from Phoebe, who had muffled the words behind the very tips of her fingers. “My God. Youlovehim.”
“I—I don’t know,” Emma demurred. But even the hesitation sounded like a lie. Shecouldlove him, she thought. If she let herself. It would be as easy as taking a tumble. One tiny slip, and she would fall headlong into it. It wouldn’t be the same desperate love she had once held for Ambrose; the love of a child desperately seeking the affection she had always lacked. It would be the love of a woman who understood now, at last, that love was a connection to another that was nurtured and cherished, built of a collection of tiny moments shared, and of respect and warmth, passion and friendship. It was fun and laughter, safety and honesty. It was being understood and valued for the very heart of one’s being.
It was a glorious and terrifying realization. She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t wantedit, but—here it was, the possibility that with very little prompting she might be moved to place the whole of her heart into Rafe’s hands.
But she could not make him surrender his own.
∞∞∞
There it was. Midway down the list that Diana had provided over breakfast; Rafe’s suspicions brought to life.
Sir Roger Banfield and Lady Banfield.
Chris stared down at it with a curious blend of disgust and fury, flexing his fingers until his knuckles produced an ominous crack. “Why in ‘ell would she invite him?” he asked. “She couldn’t know—”
“No,” Rafe said. No one did. He had been so bloody careful. “Dianacouldn’t have known our connection. Neither could Lydia.”
“Then why invite them?”
“Lady Banfield is a renowned patron of the arts,” Rafe said. And Lydia was half-owner of a theatre company which had so far achieved some moderate success. Of course she would wish to curry favor with those most likely to support her business venture.
One ball, one damned event, and everything had gone straight to hell. Sir Roger had enjoyed an entire decade free of suspicion, comfortable in the knowledge that whatever nefarious actions he had been involved in, they had remained undiscovered. Hell, Rafe and Chris might very well have assisted him entirely by accident. They had rounded up Ambrose’s co-conspirators one by one with information that had been fedto them straight from Sir Roger. Swift imprisonments and executions had followed, all very cloak-and-dagger, owing to the gravity of the situation.
Sir Roger had lobbied on their behalf to his superiors within the Home Office, negotiating security for Emma, and Rafe and Chris—they had followed his orders to the letter, imagining themselves working toward the same goal. A quick, quiet resolution to what they had imagined to be a shared problem.
He’d usedthem to further his own ends, used them to remain undiscovered; a traitor hiding in plain sight. His ruse of loyalty had produced exactly that which he had expected—his two best men covering up his crimes. He had made them both complicit.
He’d used Rafe to search Ambrose’s study the very damned night Ambrose had died, gathering up any and every document that might have proved consequential. And Rafe had done nothing more than glance at the pages. He’d simply turned over the armload of papers he’d gathered, delivering them straight into Sir Roger’s hands, trusting the man implicitly to safeguard any state secrets, to act upon any evidence of wrongdoing that might be contained within them.
“We aided ‘im,” Chris said, his voice lowered to a muted murmur. “We‘elpedthe bastard.”
“We weren’t to know,” Rafe said, but his hands trembled in an echo of the way they had that wretched night. He could see them even now, those phantom stains of blood that had never quite washed free of them—Ambrose’s blood, which had remained crusted beneath his fingernails even while he had picked the lock of Ambrose’s study, while he had rifled through the dead man’s desk.
The pounding of his heart, as if it might beat straight out of his chest. His own quick, reedy breaths. The tinny hum inside his ears leftover from the fierce report of his pistol not an hour before. Emma’s horrible, grief-stricken wail, resonant and haunting.
Shock, he thought. He’d been in shock. Probably only years of training had saved him from catatonia. Probably only concern for Emma had kept him moving, kept him working. He and Chris had worked together, followed orders as they had been trained to do, and done the necessary as defined by their superior officer.
For Emma’s sake, they had done what had to be done. And they had thought Sir Roger a good and decent man for his stalwart defense of Emma, for his interference on her behalf. Only it had never been for Emma. It had been to save his own hide. To grasp at what information he could before other hands could get to it. To destroy any evidence of his own misdeeds, laying the bulk of the blame upon Ambrose.
Emma had been only the tool he had used to make them dance to his tune. It had taken just the subtle suggestion that Emma would be ruined alongside her traitorous husband, and there—two young men had pushed straight through the chaos that had enveloped them to do his bidding.
“We weren’t to know,” Rafe repeated, though it would never excuse his ignorance, his folly. “We weren’t to know—but now we do.” But they had no damned proof.
