Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (15 page)

One brush of Tristan’s lips, and all that she was, all that she had to be, fled. Worse, she didn’t care. When he touched her, she was more alive than she could remember. She was free and she loved it.

With a low sob of frustration, she stopped in the middle of the staircase and sank to a seated position. Covering her face with her hands, she attempted to pull herself together.

How far she’d fallen in just a few weeks. She had put herself in a situation where emotion warred with evidence. Where intuition led her to a suspect’s bed, and allowed that same suspect into her heart piece by piece.

“Pardon me, my lady?”

She removed her head from her hands and found herself staring at a footman who was shifting uncomfortably as he tried to pretend she wasn’t sitting on the stairs, or at least that the position was totally normal.

She scrambled to her feet. “No skills left at all.”

“I’m sorry?” the young man asked.

“Nothing.” She smoothed her wrecked gown and tried not to recall how Tristan’s hands had put it in its current state…along with her. “Was there something you needed?”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a thick letter. Holding it out, he said, “This was delivered a few moments ago.”

Meredith froze as she saw the hand. Anastasia.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she reluctantly took the message.

“Are you quite well, my lady?” he asked with a concerned expression at her suddenly pale face. She could feel the blood draining away, certain he
could see the same. “Do you require anything?”

“No,” she whispered as she turned and continued her journey to her room. “I’m fine.”

“Should I send your lady’s maid to attend you?”

She didn’t even look over her shoulder. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the missive. “I want to be alone. Thank you.”

He must have answered, but she didn’t hear his voice. She made her way to her room without seeing her surroundings. All she could do was stare at the envelope bearing Ana’s meticulous handwriting.

Inside were answers. Meredith crossed her room and sat down in a chair beside the fire. Answers she had to know.

But if they incriminated Tristan, did she
want
to see them? No. She didn’t. For the first time she accepted what had long been the truth: She didn’t want to know if Tristan had done all he was accused of. She didn’t want to know anything except that he moved her. That she wanted him, and he retuned that desire with a powerful version of his own.

She looked at the letter for another moment before her gaze slipped to the fire. It would be so easy to toss Ana’s communication into the flames. Let them devour whatever hateful things were surely inside. She could go back to Tristan and pretend she didn’t know the things she knew. That she hadn’t seen the things she had.

Couldn’t she?

Her hand trembled as she held the letter out. Heat from the fire warmed her skin as her hand moved closer and closer. Tears pricked her eyes, burned her as she watched her hand tremble near the flames.

“I can’t,” she whispered, pulling back with a sigh. “I am what I am. I cannot pretend I’m not simply because I wish I never received this assignment. I must finish it or I’ll never have peace.”

Turning the letter over, she broke the seal and pulled the pages out. Ana had broken the code in Devlin’s letters to Tristan. Meredith had been able to remember nearly a page of text, and Ana had included it.

Her heart hurt with every word. Devlin wrote incessantly about “the item” they had spoken of and his desire for Tristan to obtain it. Apparently they’d talked about “the item” at an earlier time because Devlin did not describe it. He also spoke about finding a perfect place to turn over “the item” and how Tristan would receive what he wished if he could do this. Entrance into the inner circle of Devlin’s group.

More tears stung, but she blinked them back violently as she read the last few words of praise for Tristan’s work with Devlin so far.

“Your loyalty will be rewarded, Lord Carmichael. I assure you of that,” she read aloud as bile rose to her throat.

The words were her every nightmare come true. They weren’t enough proof to arrest Tristan, but clearly the painting was “the item” Devlin referred to. Tristan had done things for the bastard, had offered to do more. The painting was a last step, a final barrier between him and a position in the inner circle of one of the worst groups of traitors in the history of the country.

Heartbreak wracked her, but it was joined by anger. Why would Tristan do this? Why would he align himself with such treachery when he had no financial reason to do so? Even if he believed the government responsible for his brother’s tragic death, why would he turn to a group that had caused even more deaths like Edmund’s?

And more importantly…what was she going to do about it? Time was ticking down and there were decisions that had to be made. Ones about her case.

And ones about her heart.

T
ristan shifted uncomfortably. The moment Meredith had hurried from the room in embarrassment, his mother’s shocked expression faded to one of a cat who’s found a vat of cream unattended. And now she was just…
staring
at him, which made him all the more aware of his disheveled appearance. And just how he had gotten that way.

Guilt washed over him as he thought of the position he found himself in now. And the position in which he had put his family, not just with this display of lust, but also with everything else he’d done in the last year.

Dipping his head, he muttered, “My apologies.”

His mother seemed surprised by his statement. “Apologies?”

He nodded with a frown. “I’ve done my best to protect this family from any scandal of my creation, to live up to Father’s expectations of how a marquis lives his life. Everything I have done has been to control that. But now I’ve failed.”

She wrinkled her brow. “You think I am humiliated by this…” She waved her hand. “This little indiscretion?”

“I—”

She cut him off by coming across the room and laying a hand on his forearm. “I am not, Tristan.”

Powerful and unexpected relief surged through him. Even though his mother didn’t know even a fraction of the things he had done, the fact that she didn’t despise him gave him hope.

She smiled, and the expression made her look far younger than her years. “My dearest, I have never made it a secret that I wish to see you settled, married with children.”

“No, never a secret,” he agreed with a wry smile before he went to the bar in the corner of the room. He held up a bottle of sherry in offering. His mother nodded and he poured two, barely resisting the urge to drain the remainder of the bottle.

She continued after a sip of her drink. “You have
obviously
made a connection with Meredith.”

He jolted at the comment as his thoughts turned back to the one subject he’d been trying to avoid.
Once he started pondering Meredith, he had a hard time stopping. And he had to stop. For a wide variety of reasons, he couldn’t allow this obsession to continue. It never should have come as far as it had, but he could no more resist her than he could stop breathing. Wanting her had become a part of him.

“I suppose it would be foolish to deny that after what you witnessed,” he said with a sigh.

She smiled again. “In all honesty, I could not be more pleased. A swift engagement is in order, but that doesn’t mean we cannot still plan a lovely family wedding.”

Tristan backed away. “Engagement? Wedding?”

“Of course. You’re my last child to marry. We’ll have a few weeks, even a month or two, to enjoy the pleasures of an engagement.” She hesitated and her cheeks darkened with a blush. “Unless Meredith is already with child?”

He reeled back even farther. The thought had been one he refused to consider, as foolish as that denial was. “No. I—I don’t know. Mother, Meredith and I have no understanding of anything beyond—beyond—”

His mother’s lips thinned as she locked gazes with him. He knew that expression. He’d seen it as a boy when he’d done something naughty.

She put her hands on her hips. “You are pursuing a—a—” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“—physical relationship with a lady of society and you have no understanding?”

Hearing the words come from someone else’s lips made them sound even worse. “It is complicated.”

She shook her head furiously. “No, it is not. There are choices we make, Tristan, and consequences to those choices.”

Pain ricocheted through him like a well-placed bullet. “You think I don’t know that?” His voice was low as he once again considered all the actions he’d taken lately. And all the consequences to those actions.

She ignored his statement. “You have admitted you do not know if the lady could be carrying your child.”

That powerful possibility moved through him a second time. Meredith, her belly large with his child. Holding his son or daughter. Creating a family with the woman who had filled his life in such a short time, a woman he’d wanted for so long but had denied himself.

“You
must
offer for her hand, Tristan.”

Augustine Devlin’s image invaded his pleasant musings and swept the future away, crushed it…and Meredith with it. Tristan flinched. “I cannot.”

“You must.” She grabbed his hand. The images in his mind fled and he looked down to see only
his mother. Not his fantasies or his nightmares. “I know you have been troubled since Edmund’s death. You’ve tortured yourself with all the things you think you should have done.”

He turned his head in pain. “I failed him.”

“You didn’t!” she snapped as tears filled her eyes. “You have this image in your head of what you
should
do,
should
be, because of your father.”

“He was the best of men,” Tristan began with a frown.

She nodded. “Yes. He was. But he was also human! He had flaws. He wasn’t perfect, and despite what you recall, he never expected you to be either.” She sighed. “You did not fail your brother. But if you don’t do what is right by Meredith, you will fail her. And yourself.”

He pulled away. His mother was right, of course, though he hadn’t considered it in that light before. He had put Meredith in a precarious position. It didn’t matter if he’d been trying to protect her when he began, of if he felt like he was protecting her by keeping her at arm’s length now.

His mother tilted her head, and there was a kindness, a gentleness in her eyes he wasn’t sure he deserved. “You obviously care for the young lady. It’s the right thing to do. And not only for the social reasons. But because the times you’ve spent with her are the first I have seen you smile in an age.”

Tristan pondered that. It was true. Meredith
made him…
happy.
And he wagered she would keep him happy the rest of his days.

He could only endeavor to do the same for her.

Surrendering himself to his fate, Tristan gave his mother a brief hug. “Of course you’re right. I’ll speak to her tonight.”

Meredith should have burned Ana’s letter hours ago to protect her case. Even though it was encoded, there was no reason to keep it.

But she still held it in her hand. She read the words over and over, despite the fact they were branded in her mind. She doubted she would ever forget them or what they meant.

“Meredith?”

She rose to her feet when she heard Tristan’s voice at her door. Turning, she shoved the letter that spelled another piece of his doom behind her back and forced a smile.

“Tristan, you startled me!”

He took a step into her room and her awareness doubled. It was ridiculous at such a distance, but she swore she could almost feel the wall of his body heat and smell the scent of masculine skin and a hint of lust.

The corner of the envelope in her hand dug into her palm, and she winced at both the sharp sting and the reminder of the truth.

“I’m sorry. I knocked, but there was no reply,”
he said, stopping as if suddenly aware he was moving toward her. “Is everything all right?”

She jumped. Was her upset so clear? Had he seen the letter in her hand? Slowly, she backed toward the fire. Once he wasn’t looking, she could toss it in.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be fine?”

He cocked his head. “You seemed upset after my mother discovered us. And with good reason. I’m sorry my carelessness put you in such a position.”

She paused, and for a moment everything else was forgotten except for heated memories of them in the parlor, tearing at each other’s clothing and throwing caution to the wind. Her heart throbbed with the memory and her body tingled to attention.

“You needn’t apologize,” she said softly. “We were both carried away by—” She hesitated. By what? Desire? Emotion? “—by everything.”

“I wanted to speak to you about that,” he said. “Do you mind if I close the door? It’s a private matter.”

She nodded. When he turned his back, she tossed the letter into the fire and hurried to a chair in her sitting area. She motioned to the other and he took it.

For a moment only silence hung between them. She cocked her head. A thin sheen of sweat had broken out on Tristan’s upper lip and he was pale.
Nervous. Her curiosity and worry grew in response.

“Tristan—” she began.

He cut her off by clearing his throat. “Yes. The point of why I’m here. I—I know I told you before that I could offer you no future, but today that changed. When we were caught in such a delicate situation, our choice to keep our affair quiet was taken.”

She wrinkled her brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” He took her hand. His thumb stroked across the top of it once, setting her skin on fire and turning her knees to mush. “Marry me, Meredith.”

Her mouth dropped open as she snatched her hand from his. Rising, she backed away to the window and turned to stare outside.

She couldn’t breathe. Her already jumbled thoughts exploded. Snippets of evidence collided with the memory of his kiss. Lies met with making love. Feeling met with intuition.

But one thing rose above the riot.

Meredith
wanted
to marry him. Despite her understanding that he was probably a traitor. That she would not be able to save him from the fate of such a criminal. That she ought not
want
to save him. She wanted to be his wife. To run away from her duty, from his activities, from the heartache that waited in the not too distant future. Her heart
and soul screamed for her to turn around and accept the proposal without hesitation.

She spun on her heel and from the corner of her eye caught a glimpse of the letter from Ana. It was so thick that the flames were just now devouring the last of the packet. She could still see its shape in the cinders, and in her mind the words Augustine Devlin had written to Tristan rang clear.

She turned her head a little farther and saw a small pile of papers on the table nearby. Encoded bits of other evidence. Notes for Ana and Meredith and the beginnings of her final report for Charlie. They were bound to destroy this man. And the wheels of his destruction had already been set in motion. By her. By him.

She met his eyes. Everything in her soul roared at her to simply tell him the truth and demand the same of him. She opened her mouth, drew a breath to do just that, but her training stopped her.

If she broke her cover now, Tristan could shut down in an instant. He could use the knowledge that the government was following him to warn Devlin, to hide evidence. Everything she had worked for, sacrificed, would be for nothing.

“Tristan,” she whispered, her heart breaking with a pain unlike any she’d ever felt before. “I cannot marry you.”

Tristan’s world slowed to a painful degree, and Meredith’s words echoed in the suddenly quiet
room. Then disappointment took seed in his chest, burrowing through his body, blooming until it was all he felt. He hadn’t realized just how much he wanted this. Wanted her.

How much he loved her.

The idea that he loved Meredith didn’t come as a shock. Perhaps because, when he considered it rationally, he realized he had loved her from the moment he’d gone into that pub so many years ago and discovered her being manhandled. When he rescued her, when he took her home, he’d fallen in love with the fragile strength that glittered in her terrified eyes.

At the time, he’d convinced himself that the reason he’d pushed her away was because he’d nearly killed a man defending her honor. That the rage he felt that night was too potent. But it wasn’t the anger he feared. It was the love.

He’d believed he could forget it, but over the years her strength had only grown. Secretly, so had his feelings. Avoiding her hadn’t helped, but by the time he’d sought her out, she’d been married. He’d shoved the pain of losing her aside and moved on, but hadn’t he always been utterly aware of her?

In every ballroom, in every soiree over the long intervening years, he had found her. Never approached, but always watched and taken warmth from her light. He had loved her through the year of her grief, but by then he had too many
responsibilities of his own to contemplate pursuing anyone.

But still he had loved her. Loved her even while his world was falling apart. When his brother ran away, and later when he died, Tristan still found himself looking for Meredith. When he found her, it was the one moment of light in an otherwise dark and guilt-filled existence.

But he never allowed himself to recognize his feelings, to acknowledge he searched for her, until she approached him in London. The power of his attraction and his feelings had been too hard to ignore, despite his best efforts.

So here he stood, in a room with the woman he’d loved for so long he hardly remembered a time when he did not love her, but she refused to be his wife. Refused to return his feelings.

“Tristan?” she whispered, not meeting his eyes but allowing herself a concerned glimpse.

He quietly gathered his emotions. “Why can’t you be my wife?”

Perhaps it was foolish to demand she explain her rejection, but he wanted to know. Needed to know.

She hesitated, and he realized she, too, was fighting strong feelings. That gave him a little hope.

“The night we made love,” she said, and finally met his eyes. A storm of emotions made them a dark and dangerous blue. “We lay in your bed together and you told me you couldn’t offer me a
future. That what was between us could only be temporary passion. Did something change?”

“We were caught, Meredith,” he answered, though that was a lie. In truth, his mother’s insistence had nothing to do with why he was asking for her hand. It had only been the last shove down what seemed to be a preordained path leading to her. “Propriety dictates—”

She frowned. “So this union would be one based on societal expectation? One based on the fact that when a gentleman takes a lady to his bed, he must in turn take her as his wife?”

He shifted. Now that she had refused him, he found it difficult to offer her any better explanation. Giving her too much of his heart could result in greater pain than already exploded inside him.