One Night With a Spy (31 page)

"We have nearly half a day left until the Four meets again. Go on," he whispered. "Tell me another one."

"Hmm… well, there was one where we douse each other with sweet oil and—"

His eyes nearly crossed. "And?" he begged hoarsely.

"And I happen to know that Pickles put a bottle of sweet oil in that drawer." She pointed without opening her eyes, a small smile lighting her profile.

Marcus was across the room in a flash. The oil wasn't in the first drawer, or the second. He shoved everything about, shifting the accumulated post without regard to the finely embossed quality of the invitations that slid to the floor unnoticed.

Finally he laid hands on the oil and rushed back to the bed. "Shall we lie before the fire?"

It was a seductive question, said in a husky, hungry voice, so there was no reason at all for her to turn her head to laugh riotously into the pillow.

"What is it?"

She lifted her head with a helpless snicker. "If all the post carriers dressed like you, I would pay them a great deal more per letter!"

Marcus looked down to see a slim envelope balanced on his erection. Julia rolled over to pluck it from his dampened skin and began to open it.

"You're going to read it now? Not now. Please, not now. I have oil!"

"It will only take a moment. It must be good news," she said with a grin. "How could it not be, with such a delivery?"

Still smiling, she unfolded the letter and began to read. Her smile faded. After a moment, she looked up at him with brows drawn. "When did this arrive?"

Marcus shrugged. "We haven't left the room in two days. I think Pickles brought it in with the rest of today's post. Why? Who is it from?"

Julia sat up cross-legged on the bed and regarded him with the strangest expression. "It seems that Aldus's solicitor has finally found the heir to Barrowby."

Marcus knelt on the mattress beside her. "You knew he was bound to turn up someday," he said gently. "And your people will be welcome at Ravencliff, you know that."

She shook her head, chewing on her bottom lip. "That isn't the issue," she said slowly. "He is writing to tell me that he has just fulfilled Aldus's other requirement—the notification of certain individuals—three of them, in fact—of my very excellent lineage."

She looked up at Marcus, eyes wide. "He said that Aldus must have confused the priority of such requests, so he took it upon himself to search for the heir first, and to notify their lordships second."

Marcus gazed down at the letter in her hand. "The stupid sod. Do you realize what you would have been spared? Yet I cannot blame him." He smiled and stroked her curling hair from her dampened brow. "After all, what could be the urgency of proving Lady Barrowby's obviously superior breeding?"

"Oh, stop." She pushed at him. "You have breeding on the brain."

He kissed her neck. She shivered, then she slid him a roguish look. "Hmm. Where's that oil? We have half a day…"