A Risk Worth Taking (16 page)

“Oh,” she whispered, her breathing ragged and gasping. Her blood thundered against her ears and her heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. And still she wanted more.

He kissed her again, then lifted his mouth from hers. His gaze lowered, then locked with hers. A frown deepened across his brows. “We shouldn’t have kissed.” His voice was hoarse. “It was a dreadful mistake.”

“Kissing me was that terrible?”

He turned his back on her. “Yes,” he answered.

Anne reached out her hand to the railing to steady herself. His single word hurt more than she thought possible.

“It might be best if we don’t go back inside together,” he said from the shadows. “Are you all right, or should I send Patience out here to you?”

“No,” she answered, pressing her fist against her stomach. The ache she experienced was the result of a painful lesson. She would never let a man do this to her again. “I am fine, Mr. Blackmoor. You are an excellent teacher. A little harsh in what you hoped to prove, but an excellent teacher. I have learned a lesson I will never forget.”

Without looking to see his reaction, she stepped around him and walked away. On legs that trembled beneath her, she made her way through the ballroom.

Anne found Lady Patience discussing the latest fashions with the Duchess of Weston, and joined in. She forced
herself to smile, and glanced occasionally at the terrace doors, but didn’t see him again.

That was just as well.

He was gone when she rose the next morning. The Earl of Covington called her into his study to inform her that Griff had moved to his own town house late last night and would not be returning.

The earl said Griff had given no explanation other than it was time for him to go home and that he trusted her good judgment in choosing a husband.

She accepted Griff’s decision the only way she knew how—with a calm, serene outward appearance. She vowed to devote every second of the next weeks to finding a husband who would put a roof over her head and provide a generous dowry for Becca.

If she searched diligently enough, she was certain she could find a man who was desperate enough for a wife.

One who wouldn’t care if she no longer had a heart to give him.

G
riff made his way down the dark, deserted London streets. When he was sure no one was following him, he turned down the familiar narrow alley that would take him to the office of British Foreign Intelligence. He had left as soon as he received the message from Colonel Fitzhugh asking to meet him.

When he reached the well-concealed entrance, he opened the door and entered. After locking the door behind him, he walked down the hallway to the colonel’s office. He knocked twice, then waited and knocked again before opening the door.

“I’d almost given up on you,” Fitzhugh said, laying his spectacles on the desk and rubbing his eyes.

“I wanted to make certain I wasn’t followed.” Griff sat down in the chair facing Fitzhugh’s desk and stretched out his legs.

“Were you?”

“No. Sometimes I think this is all my imagination. Maybe it
was
a robber who killed Freddie, and I’ve spent too much time working intelligence to tell the difference between an ordinary robbery attempt and something else.”

“And maybe not.”

Griff focused his attention on the colonel. “What have you learned?”

“Nothing I’m certain means anything, yet something I wish I’d never discovered.”

Griff took the sheets of paper Fitzhugh handed him and moved his chair closer to the desk so the glow from the lamp would light the words enough to read what they said. He skimmed the report first, then went back and read it slowly. A lump formed in his chest with every sentence.

“I don’t believe this.”

“Neither do I,” Fitzhugh said, breathing a deep sigh. “At least I don’t want to, but if this information is right, it opens the door to a lot of questions. And a lot of conjectures.”

“Why didn’t we know this before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he lied. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know.”

Griff looked at the information one more time, thinking that if he stared at it long enough, it would change, that the words would disappear that told them that one of the intelligence agents they’d executed as a spy was Jack Hawkins’s brother.

Griff raked his fingers through his hair. Jack Hawkins had been a fellow agent with him. He’d saved his life more than once. He’d jumped in front of an attacking Russian soldier and been injured himself. He couldn’t believe that same man was capable of trying to kill him. Or that he’d been the one who’d killed Freddie.

“What do you want me to do with this?” Fitzhugh asked.

Griff looked at the paper one more time, then held it over the lamp until it caught fire. “Nothing. Do you think if Jack Hawkins wanted me dead, I’d still be alive to
wonder when he was going to do it right? He’s too good. He wouldn’t have missed me and killed Freddie instead.”

“But we executed his brother as a spy, and
you
were the one who captured him and brought him in.”

Griff bolted from the chair and paced the cramped room. “But Hawkins wouldn’t play it out like this. If he wanted revenge, he’d have had it by now.”

“Maybe he’s getting his revenge. Maybe he’s methodically killing anyone you get close to.”

A feeling of dread sucked the air from his chest. He couldn’t believe Jack Hawkins hated him that much, and yet…Griff
had
been responsible for his brother’s death. Blood was often a much closer bond than even patriotism.

Griff took a deep breath. With a shaky sigh, he focused on Fitzhugh. “I want you to pretend you never saw that report. I won’t have a good man’s reputation questioned because of my gut instincts. Hawkins’s never done anything to make us question him. I’m not going to start now.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not. Hell, other than the bullet that killed Freddie, there hasn’t even been another attempt. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

“And maybe the other agents following you have kept you alive.”

Griff felt like he’d taken a sucker punch to the gut. “It isn’t Hawkins. I know it isn’t.”

Griff walked to the door and lifted the latch. “I don’t want Hawkins to know we found out about this.”

“Very well. But watch your back,” Fitzhugh warned.

He gave Fitzhugh a smile. “Johnston, Turner, and Hawkins are doing that.”

Griff left Fitzhugh’s office and made his way to the quiet street, where only an occasional carriage carrying some late-night revelers home from a ball or party intruded on his thoughts. He didn’t want to think that Jack Hawkins could have killed Fespoint and Freddie. Just like he didn’t want to think about Anne. But he couldn’t stop himself. He wondered what she was doing, where she’d been, who she’d been with.

It had been nearly a week since he’d seen her. Perhaps she’d already found the man she intended to marry. The breath caught in his throat.

He walked slowly, not caring how soon he got home. There was nothing waiting for him in his empty town house, nothing except memories of the way Anne had looked the last time he’d seen her—and an ever-present craving for a drink.

He pushed that thought from his mind and concentrated on Anne. He could still feel her in his arms, still feel her lips pressed against his, and her arms wrapped around his neck as if she never wanted to be separated from him.

Bloody hell! If only he’d never kissed her. What a fool he’d been. But he’d wanted her so badly he hadn’t been able to stop himself. And she’d wanted him. It was obvious by the way she answered his kisses. In the way she held him, and touched him, and moaned when he deepened his kiss.

But when the kiss was over, a ton of guilt pressed down on him until he couldn’t breathe. How could he have been so selfish to take advantage of her like that when he knew nothing could come of it? When he knew loving him was a death sentence for anyone foolish enough to take the risk?

Julia, Andrew, Fespoint, and Freddie had already given their lives because of him. They were all dead and it was his fault. And now he’d taken an even greater risk and involved her.

It had been wise to move out of Adam’s town house. The sooner she found someone and was safely married, the sooner he could resign himself to having lost her.

He made his way up the steps to his town house and let himself in the door. He’d instructed his butler, Childers, not to wait up for him. He preferred to be alone. He wanted to sit in the dark and gather strength from the soft, gentle voice he remembered from the days he’d spent driving the liquor from his body. He knew he’d been hallucinating, but it was almost as if Julia had been there, holding his hand, talking to him, taking care of him.

He made his way to his study and sat before the lifeless embers in the grate. It was times like these that he allowed himself to think of the past. Times like now that he opened the door to the precious people from his past—the special people he’d lost. There had been too many.

He closed his eyes and struggled to remember the person he’d loved most—Julia. His heart ached when he thought of her, and that ache refused to go away. Dear God, but he missed her. She’d been his wife. He’d loved her.

But her memory seemed to fade with each passing day. There were even times when he feared he’d lost her.

She’d been gone four years now, and sometimes it was difficult to remember what she’d looked like.

The face he thought he would never forget was now a blurry memory. And her features were being replaced by a picture of Anne’s smiling lips and laughing eyes.

A
nne sat on the end of the sofa and kept a smile on her face for the sake of pretense. She joined in the conversation frequently enough not to draw attention to herself, but not more than was required of her.

The room was full again today, five suitors who’d come to beg a moment of her time and request either the honor of a dance at the next ball or an afternoon ride through Hyde Park. The attention she received even after all these weeks still astounded her. She never thought she’d be so popular. She was still puzzled that she was.

There was nothing extraordinary about her. She wasn’t a great beauty and she wouldn’t come to her marriage with any landholdings or accumulated wealth. She had only the gowns Mr. Blackmoor had purchased for her.

Anne stiffened her shoulders and focused again on the suitors who’d come to pay her court. She wasn’t going to question her good fortune or her acceptance since coming to London. Time was running out. She needed to find a husband soon.

She acknowledged their invitations, one and all. How was she to find a husband if she had no one to choose from? How was she to find a husband if she allowed herself to crawl into hiding like she wanted?

The emptiness in her chest ached more painfully. Memories haunted her continually. All she had to do was close her eyes and she would see his dark, handsome face in front of her, feel his arms around her and his lips pressed against hers. How had this happened?

How had she fallen in love with him when he was the last man on earth she wanted to love? How, when he obviously disliked her so much? It wasn’t something she’d planned, something she’d let happen intentionally. If only she hadn’t let him kiss her, hadn’t kissed him back. If only she hadn’t gone to him when he was ill—hadn’t talked to him and held his hand and told him that she loved him.