Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (14 page)

From the light of concern in Meredith’s eyes, her
friend noted Ana’s state, though she had yet to say anything about it.

“I’m very happy you could finally stop by and pay us a call,” Tristan said as he placed a gentle hand over Meredith’s. “I have wished to see you very much since our arrival, though training and business have kept me away.”

Ana nodded. Tristan had been preparing to become a spy for the War Department ever since he married Meredith. Her friend beamed with pure pride at her husband, and Tristan’s hand tightened over hers in a silent message.

Turning her face, Ana concentrated on her cup of tea. The flush of jealousy surprised her. She did not begrudge her best friend any happiness. Meredith deserved every moment of joy she had now.

But Ana couldn’t help but wish her own life were so uncomplicated. That her emotions were clear and well-defined. Up until a few weeks ago, they had been. She’d been a widow. She’d been in mourning. She knew who she loved. She knew who she was.

Thanks to last night, thanks to Lucas’s accusations, now she knew nothing at all.

“Tristan is going to be a wonderful spy,” Meredith said with a smile. “He has amazing instincts.”

Tristan laughed as he got to his feet. “And my amazing instincts tell me that Anastasia wants to speak to you alone.” Ana opened her mouth to protest, but Tristan shook his head. “No, no, I don’t mind. You
are in the middle of a case and need my wife’s assistance. I certainly look forward to the day when I call upon it.”

He smiled as he bent to place a kiss on Meredith’s cheek, then patted Ana’s shoulder before he slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Ana shifted uncomfortably as Meredith’s blue stare settled on her face. “I didn’t mean to push him out of his own sitting room.”

“He understands. Soon enough we’ll be working cases together.” Meredith beamed with excitement at the prospect and Ana winced. The thrill of a case would bring her friends closer together, not push them apart as had happened to her and Lucas.

Not that she wanted to be closer to him. Or at least, that was what she kept repeating to herself.

She shook her head. “I cannot believe you will no longer be a part of The Society. What will Emily and I do without you?”

Meredith drew back in surprise. “I will always be a member of The Society, no matter how many cases I work on with Tristan.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you are trying to change the subject before it has even started. Enough nonsense about my future, Ana. You have been troubled since your arrival. What is wrong? Has something happened?”

Ana plucked at the lacy edging of the tablecloth as she pondered that question. Everything had happened. Everything had changed. But how could she explain
that to Meredith? How could she tell her poised, calm friend that she had been swept away by passion?

She couldn’t. Instead, she focused on the case. That was the only area Meredith could truly assist her with at any rate.

“Do you remember how I asked you to look into Henry Bowerly’s past?”

Meredith nodded.

“Well, I am beginning to believe that someone within the War Department itself may be involved in the attacks on the spies.” She sighed. “And based on a few things Henry said, I wonder if he could be the one.”

Meredith got to her feet and paced to the fireplace. “Have you brought this up to Lucas?”

Ana shivered as she thought of his face the night before. How angry and frustrated he’d been. How he’d shut her out, shut her down.

“Yes. He refuses to give my theory any consideration. He got angry, he turned away from me.” To her horror, her voice broke and she darted a glance at Meredith to find her friend staring at her. Damn it. Of course she wouldn’t miss a thing.

But instead of pointing out her emotionality, Meredith said, “Well, this is troubling, indeed. Although I suppose I understand why Lucas wouldn’t want to believe his friend capable of wrongdoing. Did you speak to Charlie?”

Ana nodded. “I met with him very briefly before I
came here. I asked him to obtain some information about Cliffield’s finances. If he has encountered any trouble, it could be a motive for turning on his own men.”

Meredith nodded. “So with that background information being collected, all you’re worried about is Lucas. His feelings on the subject.”

“No!” Ana struggled to her feet. “I’m not worried about Lucas. Annoyed by him, yes. Frustrated. But not worried.”

Meredith’s eyebrows went up. “Please. I’ve known you a long time, Ana. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. I can see through you.”

Ana winced.

Her friend took a step closer and her expression softened. “What happened, Ana? What has your face so pale and makes you shake when you hear Lucas Tyler’s name? Was there more kissing?”

The heat of a blush rushed to Ana’s face, tingling around her hairline. Meredith stopped moving and the level of her voice notched up.

“Was there more than kissing?”

Ana could hardly draw breath. She tried to calm herself, but Meredith’s words only inspired more of those memories that had been assaulting her all night and all day. Every time they were powerful, every time they were sinfully detailed. They mocked her by forcing her to recall her own pleasure, her own surrender.

“Ana?” Meredith asked, reaching for her hands.

She shut her eyes. “Things got…out of hand between us last night.”

Meredith sucked in a breath and her fingers tightened. “Out of hand? What do you mean?”

Tears pricked behind Ana’s eyelids. She fought them, but they squeezed past her shut lids and slid down her cheeks. “We—I—”

“Did he force himself on you?” Meredith’s voice was sharp.

Immediately, Ana’s eyes flew open. “No! No, he gave me every opportunity to refuse him. And I didn’t, Meredith. I never said no. I never wanted him to stop.”

Her friend’s face relaxed as she drew Ana into a hug. Then she slipped her arm around her shoulders and guided her toward a settee by the fire. Meredith rubbed a comforting hand over her back as Ana swiped away sudden tears.

“You did nothing wrong,” Meredith assured her quietly.

Ana barked out a laugh. “Nothing wrong? I made love to my partner. A man who hardly even likes me. I probably hurt my case. And I did the one thing I swore I’d never do. Forgot my husband.”

Meredith sighed. “As you have said before, Emily and I didn’t love our first husbands, so I know we don’t fully understand your continued attachment to Gilbert. However, I do know that when he died, you didn’t join him in the grave.”

And jolted. That was what Lucas had said, too.

“He has been gone a long time. There is nothing wrong with allowing yourself pleasure.” Meredith hesitated. “There was pleasure, wasn’t there?”

Ana blushed. “Yes, there was certainly that. More pleasure than I knew was possible.”

Meredith smiled.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Ana protested as she covered her face. “Don’t you understand what that means? Not only did I betray my husband by letting another man into my body, but I betrayed him by…by
liking
it more! It shouldn’t be that way. I loved Gilbert. I loved him with all my heart and my soul. Making love to him should have been better because we had our feelings to bind us.”

“And those feelings are a powerful thing,” Meredith said with a nod of her head. “They will always live in your heart. But that doesn’t mean that you cannot or will not feel stirrings for someone else. That your body won’t react to someone else. That you might not even develop a new kind of love for someone else.”

“I don’t love Lucas Tyler!” Ana pushed out of the settee.

Meredith looked at her. “I never said you did.”

“Well, I don’t.” Ana fisted her hands at her sides. “I don’t love him. So why does my body still
ache
, Meredith? Why do I want his touch even though I know it was a mistake to give in to those desires?”

Her friend shook her head. “What happens between a man and a woman to spark that fire of longing is a
mystery, Ana. Desire isn’t something you choose. It simply…is.”

She sighed. “Yes. It is.”

Meredith shrugged. “So what will you do now? Give up the case?”

“No!” Ana shook her head. “I’ve come too far to give up. I owe it to Emily to uncover the truth.”

“Then you will have to find a way to ignore the desire you feel for Lucas.” Meredith smiled again. “Or surrender to the power of it, because you’ll be forced to work by his side.”

Ana groaned. “Yes. We’re attending the ball at General Mathison’s home tonight. Our first true appearance since our ‘engagement.’ In fact, I should ready myself.”

Meredith slipped an arm through hers and walked her to the foyer. As she pressed a kiss to Ana’s cheek, she whispered, “Lucas Tyler is a handsome man, Ana, and you are a
widow
, not a wife. Being with him, wanting him…it isn’t wrong.”

Ana shivered as she gave Meredith a quick hug of good-bye and stepped outside. But as she got into her carriage, her friend’s words echoed in her head. And as wrong as she knew them to be, she couldn’t deny the thrill that rocked through her at the idea that she could continue an affair with Lucas while their case was ongoing. That she could repeat the pleasure of the night before without guilt or recrimination. But that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. The reaction she’d had to Lucas was too powerful, too dangerous.

Her heart belonged to someone else, but she had realized Lucas could easily snatch it away if she allowed him a chance.

So she would come to him with cool businesslike detachment. It was the only way.

L
ucas read the report in front of him a third time and still had no idea what it said. Damn it, why couldn’t he get last night out of his head? He needed to work, he needed to sleep, he needed to forget, but his mind revolted and instead bombarded him with images of Ana.

Ana as her dress drooped around her waist. Ana with her head thrown back, gasping when he touched her. Ana at the height of passion, fingernails digging into his back as she moaned out release and her body tensed and tremored around him.

He shifted as unwanted blood rushed to incredibly uncomfortable places. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

It was
sex
, for pity’s sake. He’d had plenty of it, last
night was no different. It felt different, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He refused to let it be.

“What is wrong with you?”

He started at Henry’s voice. He’d all but forgotten his friend’s presence.

“What? Nothing is wrong with me,” he insisted with the wave of a hand. “Why would you think there was?”

Henry arched an eyebrow as he set aside the paperwork they had been reviewing. “You’re behaving very strangely today. You have been ever since my arrival.”

Lucas dipped his head to avoid his best friend’s eyes. How the hell was he supposed to explain himself? He couldn’t exactly come out with the information that he’d made love to a partner he never wanted, that it had been the most earth-shattering night in his recollection, and oh, by the way, she thought Henry was a vile traitor.

And how was your evening?

“Did something happen after you left your mother’s home last night?” Henry asked, his brow wrinkling with concern.

“It was a nice gathering, wasn’t it?” Lucas asked as he began to scribble nonsense on a paper in front of him. Nothing like avoidance to fill the time.

“Yes,” his friend said slowly, drawing the word out. “Your family is always a pleasure and it was…enlightening to see Lady Whittig on the case.”

Enlightening. Yes, it had been that. Now Lucas knew
much more about her than he had before. Like what her real smile looked like. And what her skin tasted like. And how tight and hot she could cling to him when she shivered with release.

Damn it.

“She—She is a much more complicated individual than I believed,” Lucas admitted. That much was true.

Henry’s eyebrow arched higher. “Really? Do tell me. Because as lovely as she is and as easily as she took on the role of your fiancée with your family last night, I still cannot imagine she’s much use in the field. She’s been so sheltered.”

Lucas tensed as he was overcome by a strange, but powerful urge to defend Ana against the very accusations he’d once made against her.

“Actually, she has some interesting theories about the case,” he snapped and immediately wished he could take the words back. The last thing he wanted to do was trouble Henry with Ana’s ridiculous allegations.

Henry adjusted in his chair using his powerful upper arms. “How fascinating. What is Lady Whittig’s theory? Tell me she isn’t still stuck on the idea that the attacks are related beyond the fact that all are spies.”

Lucas stiffened. Henry had been dismissing that theory for over a week. Now a thin sliver of doubt entered his mind. Why did his friend want to steer him away from the concept?

He shook his head. No. This was just Ana’s foolish theory bouncing around in his mind. Creating doubt in a friend who he knew could not be involved. Henry had nearly been killed, for God’s sake. There was no way he could be some kind of mastermind selling the secret identities of War Department spies.

“I’m not certain that idea is as ridiculous as you seem to believe,” he said, trying to keep his tone and demeanor unreadable. A difficult task with a person who had known him all his life.

Henry’s eyes widened. “You must be in jest. You really think the attacks are linked? By what, by whom?”

“I’m not certain.” Lucas shrugged. “But Ana introduced an interesting idea last night. That the attacks are being orchestrated from inside the War Department.”

Henry straightened up, his fists gripping the armrests of his wheelchair. His face lost all color, and his lips thinned with outrage and horror and anger. Lucas turned away from the emotion on his friend’s face. He understood it all, and also understood that Henry must feel those reactions all the more keenly due to the bullet that had changed his life forever.

“Anastasia Whittig does not know us, Lucas. She doesn’t know us,” he said, deceptively soft. “How can she make such an ugly, disgusting accusation without knowing the men who work so hard to protect this country?”

Lucas nodded. “I know how you feel—”

Henry cocked his head. “Do you?”

“No.” Lucas met his friend’s eyes. “Not completely, of course. But when I think of all those men, working and dying for King and Country, I hate to think that any of them could be a traitor. That is the lowest a man can be, to barter others for profit or whatever the twisted motive is that drives him. But when I let myself move past the anger and the disbelief, I saw a kernel of truth in what she said.”

“A kernel of truth?”
Henry spat out. His fisted hands tightened until his knuckles were bright, bloodless white. “I don’t understand you, Lucas! How you can believe that woman?”

“That woman,” Lucas said softly, fighting to maintain calm despite the fact that he was starting to resent Henry’s tone, “is no fool.”

Henry stared at him. “Are you letting your mind lead you, Lucas? Or something else?”

“What?” Lucas’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“I don’t judge you for wanting her. She has a certain air about her that is undoubtedly pleasing, but I’ve never known you to let desire blind you. I hope you’re not doing that now!”

Lucas bit his lip and slowly counted to ten. He would
not
react to that barb. He would not give in to his natural inclination, which was to defend himself.

“You know me better than that, don’t you, Henry?”

Henry gave a noncommittal shrug before he began to roll his chair backward and turn it toward the
door. “I don’t know what to believe after hearing this nonsense. But I know you must ready yourself to meet Lady Whittig and go to General Mathison’s soirée tonight. I think it’s best if I leave you to it.” He looked at Lucas over his shoulder as he opened the door. “I truly hope you reconsider where your loyalties lie, my friend. I’d hate to see you throw away your friendships over a piece of skirt.”

Before Lucas could respond, Henry rolled away and left him alone. Lucas threw himself back into his chair with a groan. Henry’s anger troubled him, as did his charge that Lucas was being lead by desire, not truth. Considering the fact that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about sinking into Ana’s body since the night before, he feared that barb might be right.

But what was even more troubling than that was the fact that he hadn’t actually told Henry the whole truth. He had withheld Ana’s assertion that
Henry
could be the one behind the attacks.

And as much as he wanted to tell himself that he’d kept that fact a secret just to protect his friend from being torn apart by the idea, there was more to it.

Ana had succeeded in creating doubt. And the more he realized that, the bigger the doubt grew. Doubt in his best friend. Doubt in himself.

And he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

Ana drew in a few deep, calming breaths. She needed to be focused, composed before she opened the parlor
door. Lucas was there waiting on the other side and the last thing she desired was for him to see how torn apart she’d been all day.

She could have no reaction when she saw him. Give away no information that he could twist and use against her.

With a final breath, she went into the room. Lucas was sitting in a chair facing the doorway, and as she entered, he rose to his feet in a slow, cold unfolding that made her all the more aware of the strength in his body.

It also made all her good intentions of keeping emotion from her face fly out the parlor window. She couldn’t help but draw in a harsh breath at the sight of him. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been wearing far less.

The thought brought a fresh wash of need through her. The desire was as demanding and overwhelming as it had been the night before. Perhaps more intense, in fact, because now she knew what it would be like to surrender to his demands. To give and take pleasure in his arms.

Wanting that made her feel desperate and achy. And from the stern, cool expression on his face, he felt nothing of the same. Which meant he had the upper hand.

Again.

“Good evening,” she said.

He nodded once before he returned to his seat. She sighed. So he was still angry at her.

“Since we have a little time before we’re expected at the General’s, would you like a drink?”

“God, yes,” he muttered.

She sighed. It was going to be a long evening if this is how he intended to behave. No, it was better this way. If he no longer pursued her, if he only showed her chilly courtesy, it would be easier to concentrate on their case. After all, she didn’t want to be caught up in desire or emotion or any other troubling feelings he caused.

She just wanted to discover who was behind the attack on Emily. She didn’t want Lucas.

She splashed a bit of sherry in two tumblers and turned to offer him one. His fingers brushed hers as he took the glass and her knees actually went weak for a brief, powerful moment.

So, she wanted him. But want and need were two different concepts. She just had to control the desire. Push it deep down inside herself and forget it was there.

That seemed impossible right now as she met his stare, but she could do it. She had to.

“Have you thought about last night?” she asked and immediately wished she could take the question back. So much for controlling the wanting.

Lucas’s eyes widened and a little smile tilted one side of his mouth, hinting briefly at the existence of one dimple. “All night, I assure you.”

She scowled. He was taunting her. And her traitorous body was responding to it.

“I meant, did you consider my theory?” She wanted ice to drip from every word, but instead her voice trembled. Blast!

His smile fell, and he took a long sip of his drink. “Yes, I thought about that. But my response hasn’t changed. I agree with you that there is a possibility someone inside the War Department could be involved in the attacks. But I refuse to believe Henry could be the one. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.”

She sighed. “Because he was shot?”

Lucas flinched before he nodded once.

“That would be the most convenient cover, wouldn’t it?” she pressed, with the full knowledge that she was treading in dangerous waters. Lucas’s glare confirmed that fact. “His injury would naturally take suspicion off of him.”

The glare sparked with anger, and Lucas got to his feet and slammed his drink down.

“Are you implying he wasn’t really hurt?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “Because I was there. I felt his blood, I heard his pain. He
was
injured that night, Anastasia.”

“I don’t disagree with that fact.” She made her tone softer to counteract his anger. “I’m only saying that his injury shouldn’t automatically remove him from suspicion.”

Lucas froze, his face twisting as he tried to find an argument. But there was none. Her heart went out to him. Despite his protests, his denials, he was a good spy. She could see he had been analyzing the evidence she presented the night before, turning it over in his head.

And it tore him up inside. Her anger toward him and his callous dismissals melted a fraction.

She reached for him, but just as he had before, he pulled away.

“It’s time to go, Ana,” he snapped as he walked past her to the door.

She let a long sigh escape her lips as she followed him out. Her heart stung even though she fought the feeling. It shouldn’t matter how far Lucas pushed her away.

But it did. And she could no longer deny that fact.

The carriage rocked as it pulled around a corner. Ana shifted slightly, drawing Lucas’s attention away from the window and toward her. Not that he hadn’t been utterly aware of her the entire ride.

It was impossible not to be aware of her. He could smell that erotic combination of gardenia and jasmine even from across the carriage seat. And though the light in the carriage was dim, there was enough to see the lines of Ana’s face.

Enough to be entirely captivated by every shift in
her expression, every hitch of her breath. She was holding tension in every part of her body and had been since they left her home less than a quarter of an hour before, leaving him to imagine all the wicked ways he could relieve that anxiety.

But there was so much between them at present. Their argument earlier had proven that. There was the little matter that she suspected his best friend of vile treason.

Oh, and the fact that despite how angry and frustrated he was, he still wanted to peel her gown off and take her right there on the carriage seat. But he didn’t. Mostly because her claim that the night before had been a “mistake” still rang in his ears.

It was a mistake he wanted to repeat again and again, all her harsh denials be damned.

Ana’s gaze moved to his, and he realized he was staring at her. Their eyes locked, and a long moment passed between them in the painful silence of the carriage. He couldn’t tell what thoughts were in her head. Her skills at hiding her emotions were improving. That should have been a satisfaction to him…her openness could get her killed.

But instead he wished he could get a peek at what she thought when she stared at him with such focused intent.

Before he could ask…or worse, act on the wicked fantasies that played on the edges of his sanity, the
carriage pulled to a stop. Her eyes still didn’t leave his, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to look away.

Instead, he reached out and caught the door latch, holding it shut so that when the footman stepped up and began to pull it open, he was inhibited and immediately stopped trying to enter.