Elizabeth Boyle (49 page)

“I’ll remember that,” he told her, as she started back toward the house, her pace now more matched to his.

Her concern knocked him off his course for a moment, but he quickly regained his bearings and laid his trap.

“My dear
Mrs. Copeland
,” he began. “I know you are up to something. Something I intend to uncover.”

“Go play your games elsewhere, Mr. Dryden,” she said. “You’re wasting your time chasing after me. That is what you are doing, isn’t it? Chasing after me? Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Whatever did you do to get yourself such a dangerous assignment?”

Webb was starting to wonder the same thing. “My father wants you for this mission, and I intend to see that you agree to it.”

Not that he agreed with his father’s decision. He personally thought Lily a poor choice, but as his father said, there was no time to start culling the streets of Southwark looking for a likely
émigré
to take her place. So if his father wanted this unlikely chit for the mission, then Webb would do his damndest to see that she went.

“And he’s sent you as his emissary?” At this she laughed. “Here I’d always thought of Lord Dryden as an intelligent man.” She paused for a moment, coming to a halt. “And just how do you propose to entice me to travel with you to Paris? Your kiss failed, and beyond that all you seem to have is your infamous charm, to which I find I am also immune. What do you have left in your arsenal of wile?”

He hated the way she sounded so smug, so confident. But he still had one thing left.

Persistence.

It was obvious Lily didn’t want him around her colonial Corinthian. And why was she so determined to remain in England?

Well, if he stayed with her long enough, he’d find out.

Webb grinned. “What have I got? Let me see.” He tapped his finger to his chin. “Ah, yes, what say you to my companionship. My tenacious, never-ending presence in your life.”

She eyed him suspiciously.

“Listen well, little hoyden,” he said, leaning closer to her, “for I vow right here and now that I will follow you, hound you, and watch your every move until I discover the truth behind your reluctant answers and half-truths. You see, whether or not your family believes this nonsense about your marriage, I don’t. I think you are up to something,
Mrs. Copeland
, and I intend to find out exactly what it is.”

Her brows furrowed. “Stop calling me hoyden.”

He grinned.

“And don’t even think of following me about. It would be unseemly. I am betrothed. Having you, of all people, hanging about my every move would lead to gossip, possibly the ruination of my engagement.”

“Now that would be a terrible shame, wouldn’t it.”

For a moment she glanced away, considering, he guessed, her choices—if the way she nervously twisted her ring back and forth were any indication. “If I agree to participate in your father’s plan,” she asked, her words slow and deliberate, “will I have his word that I will be back by the first week in January?”

“You have
my
word.”

She shook her head. “I want your father’s.”

“Fine, you will have my father’s word first thing in the morning that you will be back in London by your
wedding
date.”

“And you will leave me alone from here on out, not interfere in my engagement until we leave for Paris?”

“As little as possible,” he told her, not quite sure he could believe that she was acquiescing so easily. “We’ll need to start your background training immediately, so you’ll play a convincing Adelaide.”

She pursed her lips before nodding her assent.

“I’ll go to Paris with you. But afterward I never want to see you again.”

“You’ll get no disagreement from me on that point, Mrs. Copeland. We’ll start tomorrow.” But as Webb watched her walk away, her steps once again meting out a confident and sure beat, he wondered again why she’d agreed so readily after her earlier vehement protests.

And when she reached the door and turned, smiling ever so sweetly in his direction, he knew for sure Lily had no intention of keeping her word and tomorrow morning would see not only the rising dawn, but the unfurling of Lily’s next scheme.

Lily closed the door to her bedchamber behind her and, for a moment, stood in the shadows of the room trying to compose herself.

Embers glowed in the fireplace, casting a warm radiance. She moved toward the light, her hands reaching out to catch some of the heat and ward off the chill of the autumn night.

“And what were you doing out so late?”

Lily jumped at her maid’s question.

“Celeste,” she said. Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t seen the tall, mulatto slave woman bundled in the counterpane and sitting next to the fireplace. “What are you still doing up?”

Along with the Copeland lands, Lily had also inherited a plantation of slaves, one of them being Celeste. Though born in Martinique, Celeste had arrived at the Copeland plantation at the worldly age of seven, having been raised for the most part by her grandmother, a fortune-teller of some renown around the French held island. Celeste had been purchased as a companion to Thomas’s sister, and had grown up in the main house and been educated alongside the only Copeland daughter. In the ensuing years, Celeste had grown to be a regal, intelligent woman.

When Thomas’s sister had died of a fever, Celeste had assumed a wide range of the household management duties, that is, until Thomas married Lily. Instead of consigning the headstrong and beautiful slave back to the kitchens, or worse, to the fields, as another mistress might have done, Lily welcomed Celeste’s experience and friendship amidst the loneliness of the Copeland house.

Lily repeated her question. “What are you doing up? I would have thought you’d have gone to bed hours ago.”

“I despise the cold, and I was worried for you.” Celeste rose and pulled another chair closer to the fire. Her coffee-colored complexion, golden eyes, and brightly colored skirts and kerchief made her an exotic standout amongst the fair-skinned and plain-dressed servants of Byrnewood. “Something is wrong, I saw it in my tea leaves tonight.”

Celeste held tightly to her grandmother’s long ago lessons in divination. Lily smiled as she took the offered seat, holding her chilled hands out to the fire.

And though Lily gave little credence to Celeste’s soothsaying, she considered her one of the wisest women she’d ever met and, more to the truth, her dearest friend.

But where she had been able to share her feelings and thoughts with the talkative maid before, she suddenly felt shy about what had just happened in the garden.

“What is it?” Celeste asked. “A man, I think.”

Lily nodded. She ran her fingertips across her still-burning lips.

I can’t go to Paris with him. Not now. Not after …

Celeste laughed. “Tell me it isn’t Master Saint-Jean. I heard that nonsense about you and him in the servants’ hall. Whatever kind of lies have you been telling?”

“I had to tell my family I was engaged to Adam. Otherwise they would have sent me to Paris.”

The maid’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “Paris? You can’t go to Paris.”

“I know,” Lily said. “But it was the only excuse I could think of at the moment.”

“So if it isn’t Master Saint-Jean, then is it that young buck I spied leaving the master’s study?” Celeste grinned. “I knew it. The one from the past. Just like I foretold.”

“You know I don’t believe in that folly,” Lily said. Though Celeste was famous around the plantation and even their county for her accurate predictions, Lily didn’t like the idea that her future was already laid out before her, all in the palm of her hand.

She turned her palms from the fire and stared at the lines Celeste claimed held her destiny.

A man from her past. Her one true love, Celeste had foretold during their long voyage across the Atlantic. A gray, rainy day, when Lily had been so bored she’d welcomed the diversion—until Celeste’s words had come too close to the secrets she held in her heart.

Now she’d all but run straight into a future she didn’t want.

“You kissed him.” Celeste, a romantic at heart, sighed.

“How did you know?” Lily asked. “Surely you can’t see that in a palm.”

Celeste shrugged. “How can you be so certain?”

Lily shot her a suspicious glance.

The woman had the decency to blush. “No, I didn’t see that in your palm. But I do have two good eyes.” She grinned. “I saw you from the window. A fine-looking man, that one. And some kiss, from the look of it.”

“What would you know of kissing?”

Celeste’s dark brows rose. “I know plenty about kissing.”

“Well a kiss isn’t supposed to be like that,” Lily said. It just wasn’t. How could a single kiss make her feel as if the world around her ceased?

It was the passion that she’d dreamed of, but could fate be so cruel that she’d only find it with Webb Dryden? She glanced back down at her hands. “A kiss just shouldn’t be like that.”

“If you have to say such nonsense, then you’ve never kissed a man before,” Celeste said.

“I was married to Thomas Copeland for goodness sakes. And you are well aware of
his
reputation.”

Celeste huffed, sticking her bare feet out in front of her. Her black toes wiggled at the warmth. “Thomas Copeland was no man. Not a good one, that is.”

“Well neither is Webb Dryden. He’s the worst sort of rake.”

“But he can kiss?”

It was Lily’s turn to blush. She hadn’t wanted to stop. Not for a moment. Not until they’d …

At this thought, her cheeks grew even warmer, and telling herself she was just too close to the fireplace, she turned her face away from the soft glow of light and warmth and toward the chill of the distant reaches of the room.

Into the shadows, where she could hide her blushes and her secrets.

“You’ll marry him, you know. Not once, but twice. He is your heart, your fate.” Celeste fingered the wooden beads she always wore.

“Nonsense, Celeste. I won’t marry that devil once, let alone twice. You should find yourself new tea leaves. The man you call my ‘heart’ is blackmailing me into going to Paris with him. He said if I didn’t agree to go, he’d follow me until he learned the truth behind why I lied about Adam.” Lily paused. “And we can’t have that, now can we? Not if we want to live the rest of our lives anywhere other than in an English prison.”

Celeste nodded. “So what did you say to him?”

“What could I do, I agreed to go. At least for now.”

Celeste grinned. “I think you should go. Then you will see he is the man I told you about.”

“I have no intention of going to Paris with him. You know I cannot go gallivanting off to the Continent, when I am expected in London.”

“You wouldn’t have promised that man, unless you wanted to go.” Celeste leaned back in her chair, smiling to herself. “You will go to Paris and he will fall in love with you.”

“
If
I go,” Lily told her.

Celeste’s brown eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“Leave that to me.” Lily hadn’t really been lying when she’d told him she’d go. If there was one thing Lily prided herself on, it was keeping her word.

She’d kept her vows when she’d found out what a wretched beast Thomas Copeland was, and she’d sworn to keep his family’s secrets when her father-in-law died three months after his only son. And while a small part of her wanted to keep her word and go to Paris with Webb, she knew that would only mean disaster.

Still, she’d given her word.

She’d just have to convince Webb to break it for her.

Webb arrived at breakfast the next morning only to find Lily had beaten him to the table. She and his father were thick as thieves at one end, their heads bent together, and as he approached the open chair beside his father, their combined laughter filled the room.

“He didn’t really?” Lily was saying. “Not on his first mission?”

His father nodded, and the little hoyden grinned from ear to ear.

Webb winced. He knew exactly what they were talking about. His first mission. It was still a Foreign Office legend and one field officers used as an example to their trainees of what
not
to do.

“We’re lucky he’s still with us,” his father laughed back. “Ah, Webb, there you are. Have a seat. We were just talking about you.”

“So I gathered, sir.” He sat stiffly in his seat. A servant stepped forward and Webb told him what he wanted. Another poured him a cup of thick coffee.

Across the table, Lily nodded to him, as if acknowledging their agreement last night, but nothing more.

If there was any sign of the passionate armful he’d held and tousled with, she gave no evidence of it. Though she still wore her widow’s black, she’d trimmed it today with a white lace shawl, a feminine and delicate contrast to her bleak gown.

She held a cup of tea up to her soft pink lips and blew lightly on the steaming liquid. Looking over the rim of the gold-edged china, she said, “Your father was telling me you were in France recently and how you acquired your injuries.” Amusement danced in her eyes. “Perhaps you would prefer this chair here,” she offered, patting the overstuffed seat beside her. “Sophia keeps it for my Aunt Dearsley.”

Webb clamped down on the biting remark he wanted to issue at being compared to an elderly and infirm lady. “Despite what my father has told you, I am quite well and comfortable.”

“Now, now. Where’s your sense of humor?” His father leaned back in his chair, a cup cradled in his hands. “I was just trying to calm Lily’s fears about her role in this endeavor. I told her the worst you’ve ever suffered is being shot in the—”

“—Father!” Webb said, cutting off any further explanation. Before his father could butt in again, their host and hostess arrived.

“Ah, good morning all,” Sophia said, as she glided into the room despite the advanced state of her pregnancy. Giles escorted his wife to her seat before sitting down beside her.

“Lily has had a change of heart,” Lord Dryden announced. “We’ll need to start her training immediately and I want each of you to take a turn sharing your advice and insight with her.” With a warm and fatherly gesture, he reached over and patted Lily’s hand. “Girl seems to think she’ll make a muck of it. And you all know I won’t tolerate that!”