Page 42 of The Pleasures of Passion
“You do it very impressively. I would never have guessed you weren’t genuinely interested in pleasing Papa and playing cards with his scurrilous friends.” Her face clouded over. “I’m afraid I wasn’t nearly as adept at it. I hope I didn’t ruin things.”
“Not one bit. And of course you weren’t as adept. You’re a novice at this, while I am not.”
She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
He hesitated, but couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. This was his last mission. He was back in England, where his efforts for his country would be lauded, not despised, if they were ever discovered. And if knowing something of his past made her feel more secure, more convinced that she was in good hands with him, it could only help their scheme.
“Has it not occurred to you to wonder about my friendship with Fulkham?” he said. “And why he was so sure I would agree to help him?”
“You said it was because he got you that pardon.”
“Yes, but they don’t just hand out pardons willy-nilly, even for men like me. Fulkham was able to argue that I deserved one because, among other things, I spent most of my exile feeding him information I gleaned while moving among the aristocracy of Spain and Portugal.”
She gaped at him. “Wh-what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, sweeting, that for the past seven years, I’ve been serving as a spy. Off and on.”
The expression on her face made it quite clear that she found the very idea preposterous. “I don’t understand.”
Her obstinate refusal to accept what he was telling her annoyed him. Did she really think him so feckless? “I’m not sure how I can put it any plainer.”
“A . . . a spy. For England?”
“Of course for—” He muttered an oath. “I just told you I was feeding information to Fulkham. Who do you thinkheworks for, for God’s sake?”
“Yes, but why would he choose . . . Why, given your . . . well . . . reputation, would he think you would be good at . . . at such a thing?”
“He didn’t. He took a chance on me since I was ideally situated and in something of a pickle, given that I couldn’t return to England.” When she merely stared at him with incredulity, he added irritably, “I first met him when he was posted in Spain. In the beginning he only knew me as Mr. Lindsey, but he eventually pieced together who I really was.”
“An escaped murderer.”
Although technically that was true, he hated thatshesaw him like that. Still. “Yes. He confronted me about it, and I was, as you might imagine, alarmed, but he said he was willing to keep my secret from the authorities in England if I would . . . keep my ear to the ground and send him information from time to time.”
“What kind of information? I mean, what could you possibly—”
“I was still a viscount, you know. And after Father died, I was a newly minted earl—except that I couldn’t return to officially accept the title. It put me in a rather unique position. As an exiled lord, I was expected to be bitter, so I could move among foreign aristocrats more as one of them, than as a suspicious intruder. And it helped that I made a concerted attempt to improve my Spanish and Portuguese.”
“So that’s why you and Lord Fulkham are so . . . chummy.”
“Exactly. Fulkham had just been promoted and was returning to England. He wanted someone he could trust to give him the sort of reports he needed. And he deduced that I would be good at that.”
“Excellent deduction,” she muttered, but she still looked as if she was trying to reconcile his admission with her own opinion of him.
“What did youthinkI was doing all that time?”
“I don’t know.” She flicked her hand dismissively. “The same things all men of your sort do on the Continent.”
A slow burning began in his throat. “Men of mysort? What sort is that?”
“You know, wild-living gentlemen of rank and means. You . . . you gamble and drink and cavort with mistresses and—”
“Wait one moment,” he cut in. “Why on earth would you think I’d had a mistress?”
“Come now, Niall,” she said coldly. “Did you really expect me not to find out the truth about the duel?” When he froze, she added, “Oh, of course you did. Men like you blithely do as you please, and the women in your lives are supposed to look the other way. Well, it was hard to do that when I learned that you and Mr. Whiting fought over a mistress whom you shared. So if you had one while you and I were courting, then—”
“What the blazes?” He leaned forward, outrage boiling up in his belly. “Why would you think we dueled over a mistress, much less one we shared?”
She tipped up her chin. “Because everyone said that you dueled over some woman.”
