Page 12 of The Spy Who Loved Her
A nod, half-agitated, half-titillated.
He let her up. She sprang upright, naked but for her shoes and stockings, pink and flushed and with knees that trembled like a newborn fawn’s. She could have shouted the house down if she had a mind, brought every servant within it racing to her rescue. Instead she stared at him just for a moment, as if he were a mystery she could not quite grasp. Huge, luminous eyes, lips parted so slightly, hair a wretched tangle, long freed of its ribbon and hanging half over her shoulder.
And then she ran.
He leapt up and gave chase, and their footsteps thundered through hallways and up staircases and just once, he thought, he heard the faint echo of a wild, reckless laugh—hers.
He caught her barely a step over the threshold of her bedchamber, lifted her straight off of her feet, slammed the door shut, and tossed her onto herbed.
Not cold. Not lonely. Not tonight.
And then he satisfied her lusts and his own, until at last she had fallen into an exhausted slumber, her cheek cradled in the cup of her palm as she snuggled into the downy softness of the pillow beneath her head.
It hurt his heart, how badly he wanted to stay there beside her, to hold her as she slipped away into dreams—sweeter ones than usual, he hoped.
Instead he dressed quietly and went to work at the other half of his obligations here this evening. It wasn’t hard. Emma was no spy, not skilled in the art of subterfuge and deception. Didn’t even know she had something worth concealing.
The journal was in the very first place he looked, tucked away in the drawer of the nightstand beside her bed, as any competent thief would have expected of a sentimental, grieving widow. He could have just as easily picked a lock on one of the doors below, let himself in, and retrieved it without ever having touched her.
But he’d done it anyway.
He let himself out of her house in the wee hours of the morning, having gotten what he’d come for on both counts and feeling like the worst sort of villain imaginable.
Chapter Five
It wasn’t Thursday, but Rafe had found himself at the tavern he and Chris used for their meetings anyway. Chris would be along, he was certain. Even if it wasn’t the appointed day.
There at the scarred table at the rear of the tavern, he traced the initials they had carved beneath the very edge so many years ago, concealed from prying eyes—Afor Ambrose;Cfor Chris;Rfor Rafe. When he had been younger and more idealistic, it had felt like a vow, every bit as solemn as the one he had sworn to king and country.
A fool’s promise. Ambrose had betrayed all of them, and he—he had fucked his once-friend’s widow. Not like a gentleman or a lover, but like a damned brute. A savage, rutting beast.
He’d made her moan his name, whimper it, scream it, and it had never once held any meaning. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger to her.
It hadn’t been himshe had wanted in her bed. Anyone would have done.
It was never going tobehim.
Another whisky down. The tavern served the worst sort of rotgut, and he’d likely be sick as a dog in the morning. The inevitable consequences were still preferable to the guilt. The shame.
“You have it?”
Rafe hadn’t even noticed Chris’ approach—but then, the tavern was crowded and noisy. And he’d been too busy trying to locate whatever absolution might be found at the bottom of a bottle besides. The tone of Chris’ voice and the clipped, properly-enunciated syllables told him that he was hardly the only one aggrieved by the turn of events. Chris was making an effort—reining in his temper right alongside his wretched accent.
“I do.” They had never attracted attention here, but it was habit to give a furtive glance around just to be certain. Satisfied that they were unobserved, Rafe slipped the little leather-bound journal from the interior pocket of his coat, and laid it on the table between them. The tavern’s dim interior servedthem well; even Rafe had to squint to read the text carefully inscribed within.
Or…notread it.
“Bloody damned hell.” Chris thrust his gloved fingers into the unruly strands of his hair, scratching at his scalp in aggravation. “A cipher.”
Worse even than that. It was not, from what Rafe could glean through a cursory examination of the frequencies of the letters upon the page, anything so simple as a Caesar cipher; a simple letter shift or transposition. If it was the sort of cipher he thought it might be, it was unbreakable unless one were in possession of the key.
Which they damned well were not.
A muscle worked in Chris’ jaw, and even through his gloves, the blunt edges of his nails carved divots through the aged varnish from the surface of the table. He was working up the nerve, Rafe thought, to voice what both of them were thinking.
They had never been certain. They had taken every precaution, made countless plans, rounded up a good number of the criminal conspirators with whom Ambrose had once associated. But they had never beencertainthat Ambrose’s network of allies had been entirely dismantled.
For that first year after Ambrose’s death, Emma had been watched like a hawk. Not only under their protection, but also under surveillance by a discreet cadre of other government agents. Their purpose had been twofold: ensuring her safety and ascertaining whether Rafe and Chris had been truthful in their attestations that Emma had known nothing of Ambrose’s criminal dealings, the treasonous activities he’d gone to good lengths to disguise. That she was every bit as innocent of it all as they had claimed.
