Sweet Deception (29 page)

She was glad to know that they hadn’t been living with a traitor in their midst. It was difficult enough to accept that a man who had lived in her own household for several years was most likely a killer.

Derick gave a quick shake of his head. “No. The man we found tonight is—er, was—Thaddeus Farnsworth, another agent with the War Department. He’d been investigating rumors of a traitor operating out of this area whilst I finished up another case. But he stopped communicating with us a little over two months ago, so I was sent to find him.”

Emma’s unease returned. Her brow knit as she tried to puzzle out what he’d meant. Getting a straight answer from a spy was proving more difficult than solving a Diophantine equation. “Then are you saying you no longer believe there was a traitor? And if so, what do you think befell your Farnsworth?”

“No. I said ‘not anymore’ because I believe the traitor to be dead,” he said. “However, there must be an accomplice. One who learned that Farnsworth was onto him
and was able to catch our agent by surprise. I need your help figuring out who that might be.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. Something wasn’t adding up. “How do you know the traitor is dead? Because you know who he was? And if you needed my help, why didn’t you just tell me the truth when you first arrived and ask for it then? You have to know I would have given you every manner of assistance.”

If possible, Derick’s eyes became even more shuttered, which sent a frisson of alarm bubbling up from her middle.

“What matters here is that we catch the accomplice. Now that he knows the government has agents sniffing around, there’s no telling what he might do. The rest is strictly the business of the War Department.”

The unease in Emma’s chest expanded until it burst into anger. “War Department, my derriere,” she said, even as her cheeks heated up at her crass language. “What matters is that
you
stop being evasive. All of this time, you’ve been keeping this from me?”

What a ninny she’d made of herself…trying to coax him into working with her, thinking she could help him find a new purpose for his life. How he must have chuckled to himself at her naivety.

“If you want my help, you can start by telling me everything,” she demanded. “As you should have from the beginning.”

“Do you forget that with one word to the Commission of the Peace, I can—”

“Go right ahead,” she said recklessly. She didn’t fear his threat anymore. In fact, she had feared it only because he’d been acting like a typical chauvinistic male—a spoiled aristocrat who didn’t believe a woman capable of tying her own bootlace. But she now knew he didn’t really feel that way…

Emma stilled, her anger going cold. He hadn’t felt
that way then, either. And yet he had threatened her anyway. Bullied her into letting him “assist” her. Why would he do such a thing? Why would he antagonize her, force himself into her investigation?

“You don’t think Molly’s death was part of this, do you?”

Derick was watching her carefully. Too carefully.

“No,” he said. “I think Molly’s death is what it seems—a lovers’ quarrel gone wrong.”

“Then why were you so interested in her? So insistent to be included?” She dropped her gaze to the ground, barely conscious that she was rubbing her fingers and thumb together as she tried to remember everything about their early interactions. “Unless you were trying to get close to me, but that makes no sense unless you thought I knew something…”

She gasped, snapping her head up to look at him. “You didn’t think
I
could be the traitor, did you?”

The briefest flicker passed over his face. Someone who didn’t know Derick might have missed it, but the tiny wince stunned her.

“But that’s ridiculous! I never leave Derbyshire. The only contact I have with people outside of my little sphere is the occasional Peak District traveler who comes through, and even that’s limited, as they tend to stick to the sights or to the inns—with the exception of Mr. Stubbins, of course.”

“I only thought it for the briefest of moments,” he murmured.

“You shouldn’t have thought it at all.” She waved her hand in an irritated swipe. “Aside from what I read in the papers, the closest I’ve ever come to knowing anything about the war or military goings-on is what I’ve learned from—” The words died in her throat. She stared at him, unbelieving. “My…brother.”

Her hand dropped listlessly to her side, the ugly truth
dropping into her mind like a missing integer she needed to solve a complex problem.

“You used me to get close to my brother?” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own to her ears.

Emma saw the truth in Derick’s tight stance, his stoic expression, recognized the pitying tenderness in his gaze.

Fury was the first emotion to hit her. At him. At
herself
. If she hadn’t been so childishly lovestruck, she might have recognized his attention for what it was—or at least questioned it more.

But no, she’d seen him only the way she’d wanted to. As the boy she’d once known, now grown into a noble, wounded hero who needed her to heal his soul. She’d made assumptions and justified his every word and action to fit into her stupid little equation so that she could dream of a happily-ever-after with him.

A sharp ache burst in her chest, stinging her throat and nose and pricking the backs of her eyes.

“At first,” he allowed, and the pain in her heart grew acute. “Your brother
is
the most likely source of the kind of military secrets that were passed to the French.”

“My brother was a war hero, for goodness’ sake!” she cried.

“Yes, he was. And I was just a dissipated young rake, trolling the ballrooms of Europe…”

Oh God, what a fool she’d been. And him! She turned a glare on Derick. He’d been…

I was a very good spy. I was just given a different type of mission than most.

His words rang in her memory.

Some I seduced because they actually had secrets I was commanded to get from them—their own or those of someone
close
to them.

Emma’s world started to spin. She reached out and tried to grasp thin air, as if it would keep her steady.

“Emma?”

She heard his voice from far away. She startled when he appeared by her side, reaching out to support her. His mere touch sent warmth streaking through her, but that sensual heat quickly flamed into fire of a different kind. She shoved him away, hard.

Derick stumbled backward, amazed at the force of Emma’s vehemence. He’d known she wouldn’t be happy if she ever learned the truth, but he hadn’t expected she’d react this strongly. What was going through her brilliant little mind?

He couldn’t see her face to tell. After she’d pushed him, she’d hunched her shoulders, pulling her arms across her middle as if she were a boxer trying to protect herself from another gut punch. She’d also drifted out of the circle of light, leaving him eerily alone even though he knew she was only feet from him, across the border of darkness. He could hear her tight exhalations of breath.

“You seduced me because you thought I might be able to give you evidence against my brother.” Her wounded voice drifted to him through the light fog that was rising from the ground now that the night temperature had cooled around them.

At first, Derick couldn’t speak.
That’s
what she believed of him?
Of course that’s what she thinks, you ass.
Hadn’t he extolled his sins to her just hours ago in an effort to drive her away?

But then righteous indignation fired his tongue. After all the pains he’d taken to resist her…“I did no such thing.
You’re
the one who kissed
me
in your study if you remember.”

A huff came out of the darkness, followed by a suspicious sniff. “Oh, and who was it that proposed that very first kiss as a wager? You knew I’d have risked anything to be rid of your intrusion.”

Her arrow hit its mark. He was the one who had
started them down this path, though it hadn’t been his intention.

“Yes, well, how do you explain today, with your sultry dress?
Sans
fichu,” he reminded her. “And your pastries and your
two
bottles of wine?” After all of his agonizing, his resolve—his selfless resolve, he might add—to leave her untouched. While she’d done her utmost to tempt him beyond reason. And she had the nerve to accuse
him
?

“You knew what I thought! I thought we would be partners. I thought you would stay here. You said—”

“No, Emma. I never agreed to either of those things. Use that perfect memory of yours. I may not have corrected your misassumptions, but I never lied to you. And I never tried to seduce you.”

Derick’s chest tightened in the long silence. He imagined Emma, there in the dark, her thumb working furiously against her fingers as she tried to remember.

She stepped back into the light, and Derick felt himself pale at the sight of her tear-ravaged face. Though she’d wiped it mostly dry, her eyes, cheeks and nose were red and splotchy. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself.

But the bitter laugh that emerged from her lips wrenched his chest. It was a sound unlike any he’d ever heard from her. Part angry, part hurt, part defeated.

“Then it’s no wonder you are the premier womanizing spy of the century,” she said tonelessly. “You even got me to do the seducing for you.”

He closed his eyes, just briefly, as if he could blot out his guilt and her pain if he just didn’t look at her. But it was useless. Hell, he’d made a mess of things. And like Emma was wont to do, she was taking it all on herself, withdrawing into her shell. Only maybe this time, she would retreat so far inside that she wouldn’t venture out again. He couldn’t let that happen. Trying to put his sincerity into his eyes, into his expression, into his voice, he said, “Emma, it wasn’t like that.”

Pain slashed over her face. “How you must have laughed yourself silly at my clumsy attempts at seduction.”

“Laughed?” He’d been undone, charmed by her innocent enthusiasm in a way he’d never been by any other.

“Indeed. In fact, I’m sure it was an awful trial to bring yourself to do the deed with one so inexperienced as myself. But then, you did it for your country, I suppose. Closed your eyes and thought of England, and all that.”

“That’s quite enough!” he roared, surprising them both.

Emma jumped back and stared at him with wary eyes. He immediately regretted making her start like that, but at least she was no longer hugging herself protectively.

“Damn it, Emma, you are going to listen to me and get this foolish notion out of your head. Yes, I coerced you into letting me act as your assistant, but it wasn’t to get into your drawers. I just needed you to ease my way with the locals. Lend me your experience and insight. Provide me with a cover for any questions I might need to ask.”

She pressed her lips together in patent disbelief. “So you weren’t after information about my brother?”

He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “Yes, I was. But I had no
need
to seduce you for that. You’d already told me about your brother and the people who interacted with him on a regular basis.”

She turned her face away from him. “Then I guess that just makes me easier than most.”

Her words fell between them like stones.

“Ahhhh,” he growled, starting toward her. He was finished with her self-flagellation. “Hell and damnation—”

But she held up a hand in surrender, and that fragile gesture stopped him cold. The broken look in her eyes when she looked directly at him sent that cold sluicing through his body.

“Just stop,” she said quietly, and turned away, walking back toward the darkness.

“Where are you going, Emma?” he asked, quickly gathering the lantern and burlap sack from the ground, set to follow her.

“I’m going to collect the rest of Mr. Farnsworth,” she said, her words floating back to him. “And then I’m going home.”

Emma eased into the door of the back kitchens, not wishing to wake the servants, and turned the lock securely behind her. It had taken a couple more hours to thoroughly collect all that they could find of the unfortunate War Department agent, and another hour to bring him back to the manor and place him in the cold cellar, where she could conduct a more thorough investigation tomorrow.

Blessedly, she’d had no more time alone with Derick. When she’d tromped back to the cart, John Coachman and the other three men had been waiting for them and had accompanied them back to Wallingford Manor. She didn’t think she could have listened to any more of Derick’s lies anyway.

She waited for more pain to pierce her at the thought of his deception, but instead she felt strangely numb. Numb was good, however. It would allow her the capacity to think and remember, unhindered by wretched feelings.

She removed her coat and mud-stained boots and walked them wearily over to the cloakroom. Well, someone’s coat. Could have been her mother’s for all she knew, as she didn’t recall buying it. The boots were hers, though. Derick had insisted.

I won’t have you tripping in the dark and breaking your pretty neck.
A surge of irritation cut through her numbness at his high-handedness. As if he truly cared.

She tossed the boots to the floor harder than was probably necessary. They bounced, tumbling in opposing directions but both landing near a pile of similarly
mud-covered boots of all sizes. Hers, her brother’s…some maybe even her father’s and mother’s. She’d probably worn them all in the last year or so, grabbing whatever was most convenient. She really should clean out the cloakroom, pass on all of the too big greatcoats and ill-fitting footwear to those less fortunate—after she cleaned the dirt off of them.

Why in the world was she thinking about a pile of blasted boots?
Maybe because you don’t want to face the rest, my girl—your gullibility, your foolishness.

“Oh do be quiet,” she told the negative voice in her head, almost surprised to hear it. It had been largely absent these past few days, days when she’d been so happily thinking of and being with Derick instead.