Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (4 page)

He drew a breath, but she kept moving forward. Now her body heat joined her perfume to twist its way around him. Lucas could no longer deny that the burning in his blood was desire. And if she came much closer, Anastasia wouldn’t be able to deny it either. It would become perfectly clear to her.

“It was only when I was invited into the Sisters of the Heart Society for Widows and Orphans and was told of their real cause…female spies, that I felt like I had found a new family,” she continued, her voice harsh and low. “For all this time, Mr. Tyler, I have fought to protect my friends in the field through my inventions, through my work deciphering their evidence. But I couldn’t protect Emily, who is my best friend. The woman who took me in when I could no longer survive on the settlement my husband’s heir allowed me.”

She took another step and her body actually brushed
his. Tingling explosions erupted where she moved against him, and they rushed through him to heat every ounce of his blood. To make every nerve ending aware of her in the way men had been aware of women for millenniums. Powerful urges drummed through him. To pull her closer. To kiss her until she stopped talking. To stake some kind of claim.

Lucas sucked in his breath, trying to rein in his reaction to her. Trying to find some level of control in the face of her bald emotion.

“So don’t tell me I have been sheltered,” she whispered. “Because you do not know me at all.”

The world came to a halt as she stood there, so close that his breath stirred the hair around her upturned face. He could find no words to say, and she had said so many that there seemed to be none left. But then the fire left her eyes and her face changed from the fierce champion back to timid society widow. Her eyes widened as she realized just how close they were, but to his surprise, she didn’t move immediately.

His hand stirred at his side and he clenched a fist so he wouldn’t lift it and stroke her cheek with his fingertips. His skin tingled to feel the satin of hers. Finally, she stepped back. A huge shiver rocked her small frame before she mumbled, “I—Excuse me.”

Then she stumbled out of the room, leaving him alone.

Lucas shook his head as the paralyzing effect of Anastasia Whittig finally faded. But it was replaced by
a strange emptiness now that she was no longer in the room, taunting him. Challenging him. Arousing him.

What had just happened?

He turned to look out the window and catch his breath. A better question was how could he keep it from ever happening again? Because such a powerful exchange could be nothing but dangerous in a case like this. And the case was all that mattered.

It had to be.

A
ball. How could she be going to a ball? Ana twisted her black handkerchief in her fist. The carriage rocked and she bumped against its wall.

Peeling back the curtain, she watched the lights of the city roll by. They were getting close to the home their hostess, Lady Westfield, had taken when her husband passed away a few years before and her son ascended to the title. Moving closer to the moment Ana had been avoiding since Gilbert’s death.

Oh, of course it was well past the appropriate time to come out in Society again. Gilbert had died five years before. But it still felt like a betrayal to go to a dance. After all, as he lay dying, she had known things would never be the same for her again, and so she had
preserved her life just as it was that horrible day. She had worn black and never taken it off. She had sequestered herself away. For the first few years it had been out of pure heartache. Her husband’s death had left a hole in her very soul, and she felt no desire to fill it with the frivolity of Society, which had never given her much pleasure.

And now? Emily and Meredith often said she used her mourning to hide. She denied it, but she wasn’t so certain that her friends were not correct in that assessment. Gilbert had always been the one to guide her into a room, to ease her natural nervousness around people whom she didn’t know. With him, she had felt safe. Her life had been defined. She was Gilbert Whittig’s wife.

Without him, she wasn’t sure how she was defined or how she would manage. She certainly couldn’t rely on Lucas Tyler to be her support. If she faltered tonight, he would be there to crow at her failure.

He didn’t have faith in her abilities in the field…in any woman’s abilities. Just the previous afternoon, he’d called her sheltered and hesitant and a danger to their case and their very lives. She blushed as she remembered her impassioned reply and the look of utter disbelief that crossed his handsome face.

Well, tonight was her first chance to prove him wrong.

She started as the carriage door swung open to reveal her footman, his hand extended to assist her from the vehicle. Her knees shook, and she couldn’t seem to
make herself move as the young man waited, blinking at her.

“My lady?” he finally ventured, his head cocking with confusion.

“Yes, Thomas, I’m just a bit slow.” Tamping down her fear, she slid to the door and let him help her down. As he stepped away, she smoothed her gown and looked up at the large home. She had to show more than just Lucas Tyler that she could do this.

She had to show Charlie. To show Lady M. To show Meredith and Emily. They all had faith in her. She had to prove their faith to be well placed.

She had to show herself.

Somehow she moved into the crowd now entering the doorway and in a few moments, found herself inside the buzzing ballroom.

It had been a long time since Ana was in such a crush. When The Society for Widows and Orphans held events to raise funds, it was Meredith and Emily who took center stage. Ana normally stayed home, crunching figures and researching ways to increase attendance. The gatherings she did go to were teas and ladies’ luncheons which consisted of twenty women, rarely more.

Truth be told, sometimes twenty seemed too many for her comfort. Yet here she was, in a ballroom with hundreds of people. They were laughing, they were talking, they were utterly comfortable in their fancy attire.

And Ana felt miserably out of place. Lost. Weak. She longed for the ease of her day gowns and spectacles and inventions. Every fiber in her being told her to turn around and run back to her carriage. Every ounce of her soul reminded her how unprepared she was for the field, that Lucas was right about her being sheltered no matter how forcefully she denied that accusation.

The only thing that kept her frozen in place on the edge of the ballroom floor was Emily. If Ana did not do what she had come here to do…if she didn’t swallow her fears, then all of Emily’s work would be for nothing. The man who had nearly put her best friend in a cold grave would very likely escape capture.

And the begrudgingly good name of the Lady Spies would be tarnished in the eyes of the government forever. They might use her hesitation as proof that the organization wasn’t valid. God, they might even disband the group. She wouldn’t do that to Meredith and Emily. She couldn’t.

“Anastasia Whittig? Lady Whittig?”

Ana started at the sound of her name being squealed from across the ballroom. She spun around in time to see a pretty, plump woman in a blazingly violet gown come hurrying around the perimeter of the dance floor toward her at a shocking speed. Her face was flush with color and her eyes danced as she reached Ana. “By heavens, it is you!”

Ana stammered, looking for something to say when recognition dawned on her. “Victoria Nethercourt!” she exclaimed, numbly allowing the woman to grasp her hands. This was one of her friends, albeit a friend from another lifetime, long before she lost Gilbert, long before she became a spy.

“It’s Victoria Brightoncraft now,” Victoria laughed. “A Countess, can you imagine?”

“Of course.” Ana nodded as the surprise of seeing someone she once called a confidante faded, replaced by an almost shy pleasure that she had been remembered after so long. “I heard of your marriage. Many felicitations. I hope you are well.”

Victoria nodded emphatically and began to launch into a detailed accounting of the past few years of her life, but before she could proceed too far in her hurriedly spoken tale, yet another woman approached to reintroduce herself to Anastasia. And then another. And then another.

Within a quarter of an hour, Ana found herself surrounded by a flock of friendly faces, all welcoming her back to Society with excited glee. Even Lady Westfield herself, whom Ana had never been close to even before her self-imposed exile, stopped by to say hello and express pride that
her
invitation had been the first Ana accepted in so many years.

Ana listened to their giggling words, stored away the plethora of information she learned from their gossip, and generally marveled at their reception of her. These
people not only remembered her, but they welcomed her back to their fold. Her old friends, ones she had lost contact with except in passing,
cared
for her.

It was shocking and thrilling all at once.

“Isn’t that Lucas Tyler?” one of the women asked, rising up on slippered tiptoes to glance across the busy ballroom.

Immediately, Ana shook off her excitement as a new emotion flooded her. Dread. And when she looked deeper, anticipation. Lucas was here. She craned her own neck with as much subtlety as she could and immediately found him in the crowd, talking to another man.

But he was looking at her.

Her heart leapt into her throat where it cut off her air for a brief moment before she managed to control her reaction.

“My, he is a handsome one,” Victoria said with a nod. “You probably don’t remember him, Anastasia, as he wasn’t in country when you came out and married.”

Ana remained silent, unsure of how much she could or should reveal about her relationship with Lucas. Telling the women she knew him could either garner her much desired information or destroy her cover.

Another woman, Lady Taberton took up the story. “Despite his not having a title, he does have money. And just
look
at him. Why, he’s one of the most sought-after bachelors in Society at present, Lady Whittig,” she said
with a smile that was a little more knowing than Ana wanted to think about. “He’s considered a catch, several ladies have wagers running about who will snag him first, either for a husband or…” She trailed off with a suggestive wave of her hand.

Ana bit back a gasp. Of course she remembered how frank the talk of the married ladies and widows could become, but she never recalled it bothering her so much. These women were betting on who would bed Lucas first!

Assuming none of them already had.

“I don’t suppose you would like to put yourself into the contest?” asked another woman, Lady Valleyton.

Ana turned her gaze onto the pretty redhead who was watching her with a teasing, playful grin. Her offer was made in all friendliness, but it grated along Ana’s spine like metal on slate.

“No,” she managed to say with what she hoped was a smile. It felt more like a grimace.

Victoria patted her hand and gave the women a shushing glare. “Come now, ladies. You know how attached to the late Lord Whittig Lady Whittig was.”

Lady Valleyton’s cheeks colored dark crimson as she glanced down at Ana’s mourning gown. “My apologies, my lady,” she stammered. “I never meant to offend.”

Ana nodded stiffly. Actually, for the first time in a long time, she hadn’t been thinking of Gilbert at all. “It’s fine, of course.”

“Well, those of you still in the running, get ready,”
Lady Taberton interrupted. “Because he’s coming this way!”

The group of women caught their collective breath, and Ana was ashamed to admit she caught her own with it as she watched Lucas shoulder his way through the crowd, dodging footmen and overly eager mamas with the grace of an athlete. All the while he moved toward
her
…not the group of giggling women, but
her
with all the focus of a hawk hunting a field mouse.

When he got nearer, she saw that he was smiling, a friendly, rakish expression that made more than one woman around her blush. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, there was a dangerous, almost angry light in his gray stare that put her on notice. She had done something wrong, and Lucas wasn’t pleased with her.

“Ladies,” he drawled as he reached their group.

Clearly he was acquainted with at least one of the women to approach them all so boldly. Her gaze darted around her as she tried to determine which one…and how. She prayed it wasn’t Lady Valleyton with her pretty pale skin and silky auburn hair, not to mention the philandering husband who probably wouldn’t care who she took a tumble with since his legacy had already been insured by the birth of twin boys a year before. Drat the woman for already having her figure back.

The women smiled, but no one answered. Ana waited
as the awkward silence stretched and finally realized that Lucas was staring at
her
, eyebrows raised. He meant for
her
to be his conduit in introduction.

“Er—Yes, good evening, Mr. Tyler,” she managed to croak. The women in the group spun on her with surprise mirrored in every gaze. After all, she hadn’t spoken up about an acquaintance with Lucas when they were fawning over him like debutantes. “How—How nice to see you again.”

He smiled, but again she noticed the tightness around his mouth, the tension in his forehead. “Yes, it has been a while. Since your last charity ball, was it not?”

Ana nodded, following his lead. “Yes. You were quite”—she swallowed hard—“helpful in obtaining funds at the last function.”

He nodded in encouragement, and her pounding heart began to slow to a more normal rate. “I beg your pardon, how rude of me. Have you met these ladies?” she asked, motioning to the staring group.

“I have seen many of them, but I don’t believe I’ve been formally introduced.” Lucas flashed a winning grin that showed off the dimples Emily had mentioned. Despite herself, Ana’s heart did a strange little flip.

Gripping her hands into fists, she gave the introductions and watched as Lucas exhibited every asset he had as a spy. He actually listened to each name, staring at the women long enough to recall their faces, but not so long as to be forward. He repeated their names
as if he were putting them to memory, just as she sometimes did with tricky elements in a code.

“Well,” he said with a bow when the pleasantries had been exchanged, “I hate to be rude, but may I steal Lady Whittig away from you? I have longed to speak to her about her next event for the Sisters of the Heart Society. Perhaps I could beg the next dance, my lady?”

He met her gaze evenly, and she saw his order in his eyes.
Don’t refuse
. She was about to follow that order when she caught sight of her own black gown and remembered her reasons for wearing it. A woman in mourning did not dance.

She sucked in a breath. “I have no intentions on dancing this evening, Mr. Lucas,” she said, ignoring the soft sounds of surprise made by the women in her party. “But I would be more than happy to discuss the details of our next Society event with you on the terrace if that would please you.”

His eyes narrowed before he gave a curt nod. “Yes, of course.” Offering her his arm, he said, “Perhaps your friends will be more amenable to dancing later.”

With their enthusiastic murmurs ringing in her ears, Ana took Lucas’s arm and allowed him to lead her past the dance floor to the terrace doorways in the distance. But as soon as they were out of sight and earshot of her renewed friends, his grip on her arm tightened and his steps filled with purpose and emotion.

“You needn’t manhandle me,” she said as she tried to pull herself free of his grip.

“Not a word,” he ground out as he maneuvered them onto the wide terrace and away from the others outside. “Not yet.”

“When then, Mr. Tyler?” she snapped, yanking her arm free when he brought her to a stop in a shadowy corner at the end of the terrace.

His eyes narrowed and a dangerous gleam lit up in them. “Now.
Now
you will explain yourself.”

Lucas folded his arms as he waited for Ana’s answer. Instead of doing as she’d been told, she gave him a withering glare and stomped over to the terrace railing to look down over the gardens below. Her hand snaked up and she began to rub her arm…right on the spot where he’d touched her.

He tilted his head. His grip hadn’t been tight enough to hurt her, so the reason for her to touch herself there intrigued him.

“Well?” he asked, trying to bring his focus back to matters at hand.

She spun on him, eyes flashing in a way that made the brown come alive with lighter color. “Why don’t you begin by explaining
yourself
, Mr. Tyler? What purpose did you have in dragging me away from those women? You created a spectacle.”