One Night With a Spy (23 page)

A roar split the morning quiet.

"Sebastian?"

Julia threw back the covers on her cot and sprang from her borrowed wagon without sparing a moment to don her wrapper. Carelessly running through mud and muck with bare feet, she crossed the camp in mere seconds to where the menagerie was housed.

Behind the cart where the monkeys sat dolefully scratching at one another, Sebastian sat morosely in a battered, wired-together beast wagon. His mane was matted and his eyes were running and he had never looked thinner.

"Oh, sweet baby," Julia breathed as she knelt in the mud next to the bars. "Don't you worry, Mummy is here now."

"Oy! Get away from that beast!" A burly fellow in muck-spattered canvas trousers ran up to pull at her arm.

Julia slapped him away and turned back to Sebastian. "Don't worry, my darling. I won't let the bad man hurt you."

"Hurt 'im? Miss, I paid a year's profit for 'im! Bought 'im off a farmer what was set
t' kill 'im. But 'e won't eat and he won't let no one near 'im!"

Julia was working at the twisted wire holding the wagon door shut. "You must chop his meat fine and take out all the bones. He needs brushing and he has a cold. Lions are from Africa, you idiot! You cannot leave them out in the chill night air!"

A big dirty hand appeared before her intent gaze, blocking her. "Miss, yer ought to go back to the girly wagon and leave the beasts to them what knows their business."

Julia turned on him. "Girly wagon?
Girly wagon
?" The man took a step back before her fury. "My family owned their own show, you muck raker! I'm Jilly, the trick rider, and this is
my
bloomin' lion!" She took another step and poked the man in his grubby waistcoat with one finger, hard. "Now go chop the meat!"

"Y-yes, ma'am." The man ran for his life, followed by a rousing roar from Sebastian.

Julia reached through the bars and ran her hand through Sebastian's mane. "That's right, sweet darling. You tell him."

Sebastian took her wrist in his great, toothless jaws and tugged gently.
More
.

Julia laughed damply and pulled her hand from the cage. "On my way, love." She wiped the spittle carelessly on her borrowed nightdress and bent to the tangle of wire once more. "If the idiot ever meant to tend you," she muttered, "he would never have tied this up so."

"Someone who doesn't love the Beast?" The deep voice came from behind her. "I don't believe it."

Julia's heart stuttered in its beat. She whirled to see Marcus standing there. "How did you find me? The fair folk would never—"

Marcus shook his head. "They didn't. I tracked Sebastian. People don't soon forget seeing their first lion." He tilted his head and gazed at her for a long moment. "You love that mangy beast. I knew wherever he was, you would not be far away."

"Marcus, you must leave."

He stepped closer. "You know I cannot," he said softly.

I cannot let you go.

Marcus above her, inside her, on the damp ground. The ache in his voice, the need in his eyes—

There was no point to those thoughts now. Her mind was firmly convinced, her heart was too shattered to voice an opinion, but her body still felt the pull of his nearness. She lifted her chin. "I want you to leave. I can make you go, you know I can. The fair folk will come running at a word."

The corner of his lips lifted a fraction. "Two words, actually. Now I have two words for you. Marry me."

The mere mention of such an impossibility cut deep into her heart. "I will not bring you down so."

"Would you say yes if I left the Four?"

She crossed her arms to hide her chill. "No one leaves the Four."

"Etheridge did."

"Within himself, Etheridge will be the Cobra until he dies. He's simply fulfilling his duty as our—your spymaster instead. You must serve as the Fox. There is no other."

No one leaves the Four
. The truth was, the Four never left them. She
was
the Fox now, and she always would be. Could she ever simply be Jilly again, knowing what she knew, having tasted the power and profoundly exalting commitment of the Four?

"Isn't it wonderful?" The wistful words escaped her before she could stop them. Before her stood the one person in the world who understood what she'd lost.

He raised his hand slightly as if he wished to touch her, then abruptly aborted the gesture. "Sometimes it is. Sometimes… it is not."

"I think I finally understand why I cannot be the Fox," she said softly.

"Because you think with your heart?"

She looked up to see the utter understanding in his gaze. It ruined her inside. She reached out impulsively.

He moved back slightly, avoiding contact. "It is no bad thing to feel so deeply," he said. "But such passion does not belong in the Four."

She put her hands behind her back. "No, of course not. The point is moot, however, for I can never be part of the Four."

"Perhaps, but you have changed us, like it or not. It turns out that we would have considered allowing a highborn woman to take the seat. That is a vast relief to those of us who find scant possibilities for successors in the current crop of young men."

She blinked. "Would you choose a woman to succeed you?"

"It is a possibility." He didn't smile, but his eyes grew brighter. "I have the highest esteem for intelligent women."

She smiled at nothing in particular. "You'll never guess who I had decided to appoint."

"So that is all." He took a breath. "We'll not meet again, you and I."

She swallowed. "So final. Yet, how else can it be?" She held out her hand. "I shall always…" She stopped. "Well, perhaps that's best left unsaid. I shall always remember you," she finished.

He took her hand so briefly, it was almost as if they hadn't touched. "And I, you."

She bit her lip. "Is that all we should say?"

"Is there anything else?"

She shook her head. "No… yet, how can it be that we can simply decide this? I'd become rather used to having no control over my heart."

Marcus said nothing. He still had no control over his heart. It was only the rest of him that would be riding away.

She raised her chin and gave him a watery smile. "I am not sorry, not for a single thing."

I am. Oh, God, I'm so sorry for everything I took from you.

"I'm glad," was all he said.

I'm sorry that I shall live the rest of my life with a rip in my soul, just penance though it be. I'm sorry that you will never become who you were meant to be. I'm sorry I wasn't who you thought me. I'm sorry I am not actually Marcus Blythe-Goodman, destitute gold-digger and free man.

I'm sorry I caused you to love me.

She took a breath. "I will keep an eye on the gossip sheets for you. I'm sure there will be notices of… marriage and such."

"I will have no such resource."

She looked around the encampment. "You could always ask the fair folk. They won't tell you where I am, but if I allow it, they'll let you know if I live or die."

Marcus had a moment of his future flash before him, where someday he would rise from before the hearth fire in Ravencliff to find a graying Igby at his door with terrible news. In his imagination, the house was cold and empty.

There would be no marriage—not even for the required camouflage of the Four could he bear to do that. In his heart, he felt as wed as if he and Julia had stood before the Bishop of Canterbury himself. He gazed down at his beautiful, maddening, brilliant Julia.

"Be well," he said.
Live forever
, his heart echoed.
Be happy
. He reached a hand toward her, but did not touch the flyaway strand of hair that had escaped her workaday braid.

She gazed up at him, her helpless pain in her eyes.

"How did we come to this?" she whispered.

He swallowed. "Fate, I suppose. We were simply not meant to be."

She shook her head. "No. Fate brought us together. And I will always believe that for at least one night, we
were
meant to be."

There was nothing more to say. Marcus took one last look into her pain-glazed eyes and then turned away. His lungs felt tight, as if there wasn't enough air to breathe. Somehow, it didn't seem like punishment enough.

«
^
»

Perhaps it is better to be alone, for I cannot bear to be left again.

As Marcus walked back to his horse, the grounds of the encampment seemed oddly sharp in his vision, the colors jarring. Pulled to the edges of the circle were the plainest wagons, yet even they were brightly painted once upon a time.

The fading colors told a story of long years on the road, as did the shabby curtains hanging in the tiny windows. Julia's had been a hard life, it was obvious, yet the people who worked and laughed and gazed openly and curiously at him as he passed seemed quite the happiest crew he'd seen outside of Barrowby itself.

No conservative village restraint here. The laughter was loud, the voices were boisterous and full of rough humor. The children ran happily about in their varying degrees of dirtiness. One naked infant sat, fat bare bottom in the dust, sucking a finger as it watched Marcus with unblinking absorption.

Marcus spotted his stallion. The beast was tied to a shabby wagon, absorbed in his nose-bag of oats, being buffed to a gleaming shine by several admiring children standing on overturned pails. He'd never looked happier.

Marcus hesitated. He'd paid a king's ransom for that horse, who was meant to be the stud of the Ravencliff stables someday, not some nomadic angel's show pony.

Then again, Marcus was leaving behind his heart, cut from his chest and left in the hands of the above mentioned fallen angel. He turned and went on his way. His best horse seemed a small loss after that.

She'd be gone in minutes, he knew. Even now, she was likely pouring last minute instructions into the beast master's ear. In less than an hour, she'd be headed down whatever fast road would take her as far from him as possible.

Forever.

He didn't realize he'd turned around until the menagerie wagons came into sight again. Julia stood with the beast master, just as he'd pictured her, burdening the fellow with all the facts of the tender care of spoiled, toothless lions.

Marcus came up behind her. "Julia."

Julia spun about, her lips still parted around her last words. Her first thought was that he'd come back to kiss her goodbye forever. Her second was that he'd come back to clap her in irons and carry her off.

Frankly, she didn't know which was worse.

"Yes?" She hated the breathless, hopeful tone of her voice.

"I don't know what to do," he said simply. "I cannot turn you in. I cannot let you go."

She licked her lips. "Are you asking for my advice?" She truly hoped not, for she strongly suspected she might do the stupid thing and help his career by turning herself in.

"We only had one night together. If I must live the rest of my life without you, then I want one day to match it." He reached out again, and this time he stroked his finger down her cheek. "I'm asking for time. I want one day. With you."

Her heedless heart leaped. "With me?"

He smiled and turned his palm to cup her cheek. The heat of his skin on hers threatened to melt the vault in which she kept her tears.

"With you," he whispered.

Julia clung to her sanity and will. She raised her chin. "Not if you're going to browbeat me into marriage or the nunnery."

He grinned. Her heart spun in her chest.

"No browbeating. No national crisis. No nunnery, no Fox, no Royal Four." He removed his palm with a last, lingering touch of his fingertips, then held out his hand to her. "Only you and I, together. Will you grant me that?"

Julia looked down at his open hand, then up at his face. He looked so weary, just the way she'd felt last night until the warm hearts of the fair folk had lifted her hopes.

She put her hand in his. "Stay with me."

"The toff's stayin', is 'e?" A big voice boomed from beside them.

Julia turned. "John." She introduced her burly, bearded childhood friend to the immaculately dressed Lord Dryden with a smile. "Marcus, may I present John Wald?"

Marcus stuck out his hand, only to find himself drawn into a bear-like embrace.

"Marcus, you won't find a better lady than our Jilly-girl! Now, it's time you come help me shovel horse—" John glanced at Julia. "Shovel horse-apples," he finished.

Marcus looked down at the muddy shovel that had appeared in his hand, then up at the brawny man standing next to Julia.

"Ah…" Julia seemed taken aback. "John, I don't think—"

The big man crossed his arms. "It's our way, remember? Now, come on, then," the man said to Marcus with satisfaction. "There's work to be done."

Marcus blinked. "But—"

Julia was backing away, one hand raised, fingers waving, a small helpless smile on her face. "I shall see you at my wagon for dinner."

Marcus took a step to follow her, then looked down. His boot was inches deep in a steaming manure heap that could not have come from a mortal horse.

"Told ye there was work to be done." John chortled deeply. "Pile's not getting' smaller with you standin' there."

Marcus watched Julia disappear in a flutter of ill-fitting linen and sighed. Horse-apples it was, then. Not quite what he'd had in mind when he'd asked for one day. Still, the brightness in her eyes told him he wouldn't be alone for long.

Julia watched John put Marcus to work from a distance. She hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him that this was the custom when two of the fair folk were about to marry. The others kept the two apart, busy with other things all day. In a small encampment, where two lovers might well have grown up side by side, it was a way to increase anticipation and renew the joy of being together.

She could not tell him and she couldn't bear to explain to her friends, so she let him be drawn away and put to work. The separation did not matter, for there was nowhere in the camp that she could not find him in a moment. As it was, she could feel his nearness like the warmth of a campfire on her skin as she went about the tasks she was set to as well.