Surrender to a Wicked Spy (20 page)

The footman, who had already opened the door, gazed at Olivia with horror. He leaned away to shout something sharply to the driver, who then leaped down to gaze into the carriage as well. In less than an instant, the entire staff stood there, staring at their downed viscountess.

Dane helped her up carefully, then he turned his furious gaze upon the driver. "What do you mean by this, man? Her ladyship could have been injured by your ineptitude!"

The driver could only shrink before Dane's anger. Olivia saw the gazes of the other servants, who of course knew the driver had done nothing wrong, turn toward her with chilling assessment.

She felt like an idiot, a clumsy, lack-witted rustic who didn't know how to ride in a carriage. "Er, my lord, it wasn't Errol's fault." At least she had one name down. "I wasn't in my seat."

Dane turned to gaze at her oddly. "Where were you?"

All the eyes were on her. She didn't want Errol to be sacked, but she certainly couldn't very well say, "I was on your lap."

And, yet, somehow she did, quite without realizing it. Muffled snickers rippled through her audience, reinforced by careful derisive glances. Even Dane put his hand over his mouth, his blue eyes laughing at her above it.

The driver, however, gazed at her with sympathy and near worship. She'd humiliated herself to save him and he knew it.

Dane turned and dismissed the lot of them with a wave. "We're stopping for an hour. Make yourselves scarce, but don't be late or you'll be left."

Dane turned back to her, one corner of his mouth quirked up. "I appreciate your candor, my dear. However, in the future, if you wish to explain something to me in private, you only must need say so. There was no emergency. Errol was in for a tongue-lashing, nothing more."

Of course. She'd been stupid, thinking Dane would impulsively fire a long-held employee over a bumped bottom. Dane stepped outside, but Olivia stayed where she was until she was sure all the servants were out of sight.

She was never going to be elegant or refined or even the tiniest bit poised. She had simply never learned. Covering her face with her hands, she knew she couldn't entirely blame Mother, for Olivia had spent much of her time avoiding those very lessons when her parents were home. She'd preferred to ride to the village or the river or very nearly anywhere just to evade them.

Mother had scolded halfheartedly and always soon left Cheltenham, leaving Olivia to her hoydenish ways, much to her delight. Walter had been the family's bright hope, not her.

Olivia kept her thoughts on Errol's sympathetic gaze as she righted herself and dusted off her skirts. One less servant who despised her. She would win them over one by one, if it took her years.

She was served a meal in a private dining room in the coaching inn, but she merely picked at it. Dane was somewhere with Marcus, doing whatever it was they did for hours on end and—

Olivia stabbed a bit of cold pork with her fork and gazed at it pensively. What did Dane and Marcus do all day long, anyway? Estate matters. Investment matters.

Thinking of the way Dane and Marcus had sought out the company of the other two gentlemen at Mother's dinner party… those matters certainly seemed to include that nice Lord Reardon and that sharply handsome Lord Wyndham.

A bit of memory drifted back to her, memory that had been fogged by the following bout of heated passion in the downstairs hallway.

What we need is the right woman.

A frown creased her brow as she stared unseeing at the bite of pork. The right woman for what?

The watcher kept an eye on the comings and goings in the inn from a dark corner of the taproom where he nursed an ale mug that never emptied. His rough woolen disguise of a rumpled farmer irritated him, and the pads plumping his cheeks dried his mouth, but his focus never wavered.

Something was wrong. Greenleigh should have been completely besotted by now. The girl was perfect for him, according to the watcher's information—which was excellent. His source was impeccable, albeit dead. He knew precisely what Greenleigh wanted, and in a perfect circle, he'd been given it by Lord Walter's own loving description of his sister.

So what could have possibly gone awry? He knew the girl was doing her part, for the incident in her carriage had spread with the first round of ale bought by Greenleigh staff. She was artless and clumsy in her efforts, to be sure, but he'd expected that of her, counting on it to amuse his lordship.

The valet appeared in the doorway, his gaze searching the taproom. The watcher waited until the young man's eye was on him, then lifted his ale in a tiny salute. The valet flinched, then nodded hesitantly.

Excellent. One of his more useful pawns was back in the game. Having a man in the household should speed up those tedious matters of the heart. The valet knew the plan well for he'd helped devise it some weeks ago. Of course, it had been intended to be used on dear, departed Lord Walter, but now Walter's sister could help him capture a king, instead of a mere knight.

How enjoyable it was, to watch the patterns flow and merge. Espionage was an art and a science combined.

And he was a master of both.

"My lord, if I may presume?"

Dane stopped in the inn hallway. As he was intent on the conversation he'd just had with Marcus—in which Marcus informed him that he had the nagging sensation they were being followed—it took Dane several moments to place the fair-haired man with the mournful expression. "Yes?"

The man bowed again. "Sumner, my lord. I only wish to thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve my lady. My prior connection to her family—"

Dane had almost forgotten about Sumner. He'd assigned the Liar's Club to scrutinize the man's history, then he'd put the fellow from his mind. "Yes, well, the choice was her ladyship's." He turned toward Olivia's private dining room.

"I must extend my sincerest felicitations as well, my lord. You and Lady Greenleigh make a most handsome couple. It does my heart good to see her happy. Her brother spoke of her so fondly." The valet smiled sadly. For the first time, Dane noticed that the man could be called handsome. He was tall, but not overly so, and lean like a whippet. Blue eyes, fair hair…

"Lady Cheltenham was a very busy woman, and I believe Lady Olivia was just the slightest bit… abandoned."

Dane went very still. This he knew from personal experience. He certainly didn't appreciate hearing it from a servant.

"Oh, there you are, Dane." Olivia appeared before him in the hall, slightly mussed, with a long lock of fair hair having come down from her pins. Her bottom lip was swollen from being bumped in her fall.

She looked like a woman who had just been taken up against a wall. Dane wondered if she would like it that way, pressed high with her thighs wrapped about him—

The roar increased, drowning out every thought but one.

She belonged to him.

Olivia was greeting Sumner, asking him how he was bearing the trip. Sumner gazed at her moonily and said he wished it could go on forever.

"It is time to leave," Dane blurted. They both turned to look at him, obviously surprised by his forcefulness.

He swept Olivia before him, moving quickly to the first carriage. He installed her with no more than a word or two, leaving her gazing after him curiously when he turned and walked away.

Marcus was readying his second horse, having tied his first to the back of the following wagon.

"You may ride inside now," Dane told him, taking the horse's reins.

Marcus blinked at him, then stared. "Are you unwell, Dane?"

"I need air," Dane said shortly, and mounted Marcus's horse. Thankfully, Marcus rode powerful animals much like Dane's. He'd never have the patience to await the saddling of one of his own right now.

He rode ahead, leaving the servants scrambling for their seats as the carriages rolled out after him.

«
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The inn at Huddersfield, midway between London and the Scottish border, was full. Dane moved the lot of them in anyway. Olivia could not get over what a Viking god with a pocketful of gold could accomplish in less than three minutes.

She felt terrible as she watched the farmers and merchants—and hastily dressed wives—rushed from their rooms to make way for Greenleigh and his staff. Dane seemed to expect nothing less.

He'd not spoken to her once since installing her in the carriage and riding away. Marcus had done his best to tease her out of her worrying mood, but Olivia just knew it was her fault.

She'd been a complete Bedlamite, climbing into his lap in the carriage. And then to blurt it out in front of everyone! She could never hold her tongue, especially not when it mattered.

Mother had been right all along. She was an embarrassment, a millstone, a country clod. She'd finally turned away from Marcus's gentle teasing to gaze silently out onto the darkening fields.

Once in her room at the inn, she'd asked for the bath after all, for she felt chilled inside and out. Dane wouldn't be coming to her tonight, she was sure. She left the case of rods in the carriage, tucked deep under her seat. She didn't even think she could bear to look at the evocative carvings on it at this time.

At last, the bath was poured, her nightdress laid out, and Petty gone from the room. Olivia turned the key and slipped off her wrapper. At least if she cried in the bath, she could always tell herself she had soap in her eyes. She stepped one foot, then the other into the steaming water, then slid entirely into the comforting heat. The scent of jasmine rising with the steam almost made her smile. It seemed Petty had found the other bath scents after all. A thank-you for hiring Sumner, Olivia thought.

She only hoped Sumner returned the girl's sentiment.

Dane spent far longer nursing his ale in the private dining room he'd hired than the mediocre libation deserved.

It was his plan to stay down here until Olivia was asleep. He'd not been able to bribe another room from the innkeeper. Apparently the rest of the guests were of sufficient rank to give the man pause.

If Olivia was asleep, then perhaps he could keep his senses long enough to get some rest. If she was awake, eager and agreeable and so convincingly adorable, he wasn't sure he was strong enough to resist her.

Dane had always held his own position in the world with ease and power, untroubled by doubts. To find such possessiveness within himself was disturbing, to say the least. He ought to have found a servant's infatuation with his wife scarcely worth noticing, or amusing at the most.

Instead, he had felt very much like sacking the smitten fellow. His playful threat to leave Sumner by the side of the road was beginning to sound like a very good option.

He'd obviously been spending too much time in Olivia's company. His constant state of arousal was fair to making him obsessive. There was only one thing in his life Dane was willing to give that sort of devotion to—his duty.

So he'd exchanged places with Marcus on the journey. It ought to have been a relief to be alone with his thoughts, able to focus at last on his plans for Prince George.

Instead, his thoughts had been filled with Olivia. Olivia with her hair falling down. Olivia in his thrall, her eyes closed and her head thrown back. Olivia laughing at him, her gaze bright and fond. Olivia wanting him despite his problem.

She'd just been so damned…
unexpected
.

He gave up pretending to drink the ale and pushed it away. And in Dane's line of work,
unexpected
could be a very bad thing.

He'd never expected his father to turn traitor, had he? He'd never had a moment of suspicion of Henry Calwell. Dane's father had been his favorite person, and they had spent many hours happily debating the state of the union. Dane had relaxed his natural reserve, waxed political, even joked about Liverpool's tightfisted rein on intelligence! He felt sick thinking what he had spilled unknowing to a traitor wearing his father's face.

Dane's one comfort was that he'd never breathed a word to his father about his appointment to the Royal Four. He'd told his father that the previous Lion was mentoring him in investments—the same pretext he now gave for Marcus. Since the Lion had been a visibly prosperous man, Dane's father had approved heartily.

A clock chimed somewhere. Dane let his eyes close briefly. He was so bloody tired. Surely Olivia was asleep by now.

As he left the dining room and crossed the nearly deserted tavern, he felt that ever familiar twinge.

Marcus had said he felt watched. Dane felt it, too, a creeping sensation up the back of his neck. Unlike Marcus, however, Dane was fairly sure he knew who had his eye on him.

Blood will tell.

Certain members of the Four didn't trust him. Not Nate. Reardon was besotted with his own lady and bound to see the best in everyone right now.

Wyndham, on the other hand…

Wyndham had been highly critical of the way Dane's father had died before he could be questioned. It had been Stanton's point that much useful information had died with Henry Calwell and had he been truly repentant, he would have given that information to England instead of taking it to his grave.

His grave on the grounds of Kirkall Hall. There'd been no well-attended funeral, no grand procession to their chapel in Greenleigh. Dane had buried his father quietly in his favorite place in the world. As the miles melted away, so seemed the distance that Dane had built between himself and his father's memory.

Dane hadn't been back since the day he'd found his father in the library, dead by his own hand and the bullet in his brain. A note, with a single line at the top of the page.

I never meant to hurt anyone.

And his signature, sans title.
Henry Calwell
. As if he were just an ordinary man, with feet of clay, not a peer of the realm. Not a privy adviser to the Prince Regent and the Prime Minister. Not an admired and trusted father.

Not that it mattered. He was dead and the whore who had sold herself for the French cause had disappeared like a puff of smoke. A good man, a learned and important man, lured with sex, bound by shame, then crushed like a bug under the bitch's shoe.