To Wed a Scandalous Spy (2 page)

"Ouch," she murmured. She knelt and pushed back the overlong fair hair that covered his face.

The view was only half-reassuring. He was a youngish man, so she needn't feel as though she had thrown someone's grandpapa off his horse. He was also a good deal more delicious than any grandpapa she had ever seen.

If Adonis had owned perfectly chiseled cheekbones and sculpted sensuous lips, he
might
have been nearly as handsome as the man in the lane. He looked like a fallen archangel with a bump on his temple. Willa reached for some more images of perfection to compare the man to, but frankly, her imagination fell short. He was, quite simply, devastating. She felt something twist just a little below her belly at the fellow's masculine perfection.

Still, he was quite pale and definitely unconscious. That was no doubt due to the large rock embedded in the dust of the lane whereupon his head lay.

Only a few feet away lay the shattered remains of the hornets' nest. Several furious insects still clambered over their ruined home, but the majority of them must have taken off after the poor horse.

Willa bit her lip. It was a huge nest. She stood and peered apprehensively down the lane toward the village. The hornets wouldn't leave the nest undefended for long. Willa snapped her skirts to shoo the remnants of the nest from circling her hem. Already they were showing interest in the two humans in their vicinity. The man must be removed before the majority of the insects returned.

Squatting next to the man once more, Willa gave him a gentle poke on his upper arm.

"Please wake up, sir." It was much like poking a rock. She poked a bit harder, but there was no response. Willa took hold of the man's coat with two hands and tugged.

"Oh… my." Gasping, she let loose. He hadn't moved an inch. "You are rather well grown."

Willa was already quite tired from her eventful day, and her back ached at the thought of moving such a big parcel. Then, taking a deep breath, she drew upon her natural optimism. Perhaps she simply needed a better grip.

Gingerly, she picked up his arm and slid her hands down to grasp his wrist. It was a large wrist and an even larger hand. Willa could scarcely wrap her own fingers around it. Backing up until his arm was outstretched, she gave a mighty heave.

The man flipped neatly over and Willa landed on her bottom in the dust. Well. That had done very little good, but it had given her an idea. She would roll him from harm's way.

A bit gingerly, since she was quite unused to touching another person's… person, Willa stretched the gentleman's limbs straight up and down, like a child about to roll down a grassy hill. Then, crouching behind him, she put her shoulder into it and flipped him onto his face.

"Oh dear. I am sorry." Well, it couldn't be helped. Best to get it done quickly, before he suffocated.

Again she flipped him, and again. With a great deal of unladylike grunting and perspiration, not to mention all the fascinating things that she learned about male physiology in the process, Willa maneuvered the man to lie in the grassy channel beneath the hedge.

Flopping him onto his back for the last time, with a groan, Willa found herself half-lying across his chest, breathing heavily. What a great fellow he was.

How very tiring.

Willa blew back an errant strand of hair. It had come entirely undone during her exertions. As she pulled it back to retie the ribbon, she examined her victim by the last dim trace of sunlight.

His face was all romantic lines and sensual strength. His golden hair was thick and much too long, but she rather liked the way it fell past his jaw. His unshaven face bristled with just a touch of golden-brown beard.

All in all, a somewhat lawless specimen. It made her wonder if he was something of a rebel. His collar was plain but fine, his cravat simply tied, elegant but not foppish in the least.

His face was also rather dusty after all that rolling. Willa pulled out her handkerchief and moistened a corner of it with her tongue. Moira would have conniptions if she knew, but no one was around to see Willa do such a common thing and she couldn't bear to see her fellow so rumpled.

Gently wiping his cheeks and brow, she wondered who he was and from whence he'd come. If she didn't know him, then he didn't live nearby. Derryton was well-known for its fine ale locally, but it wasn't really on the way to anywhere from anywhere, so few truly exotic travelers journeyed through it.

His breath came evenly on her face and his heart beat in regular time next to her ribs. Willa had some experience with injuries—at any rate with witnessing them. He didn't seem to be in any immediate danger from his fall.

Nevertheless, she ought to fetch help for him soon. She lifted her head slowly to peer through the grass at the broken nest. It was now so covered with angry hornets that the nest itself was hidden beneath restless winged bodies. She could feel the concerted buzzing vibrate through the very ground. Yet more were coming to land with every passing moment.

It was a sobering sight. Hornets in such numbers could be dangerous indeed. Slowly, projecting harmlessness with every fiber of her being, Willa sank back down next to her latest victim. "
Vespa crabro
," she explained to him in a whisper. "The common hornet. Really quite docile and pretty… normally." She listened to the furious drone just a few feet away.

"Unless the nest is disturbed, of course," she continued, her words a mere breath on his unconscious ear. "I'd describe that nest as quite disturbed. Ruined even. But don't feel too badly, for with the passing of summer they would have only lived a few months more at most."

She heaved a weary sigh and settled more comfortably into the tall grass. "We merely need to stay quite still and wait. They'll settle down at dusk and I will fetch you some help from Derryton."

Dusk was not far away. In fact, one could hardly call it day anymore, the way the blue twilight was taking over the sky. It was getting chill as well, a sure sign that the mist would rise. Excellent. The chill would slow the hornets' defensive fervor and the mist would confuse them yet more.

Then she would fetch help. She sighed. There was bound to be a row when she did. And she was so terribly tired of being the cause of uproar.

Oh, she knew they all loved her, but the horrid thing about being an orphan raised by an entire village was that everyone felt quite free to criticize one. And they did.

Bad enough that she had stayed out so late, but to have caused such an accident when she ought to have been safe by the hearth? She'd never hear the end of it.

No one would be mollified by her reason that it had taken all evening to find the traps laid by old Mr. Pratt and trigger them with the sling she'd borrowed. She'd told John that she was only going to seek out the last of the ripe wild currants.

Her guardian didn't approve of poaching, but he didn't think it was Willa's place to stop it. Of course, it also wasn't her place to fell innocent strangers on the lane.

Perhaps if her handsome fellow came walking into the village under his own power, there would be less of a ruckus over her latest escapade. She craned her neck to gaze hopefully into his face.

No such chance. He was most assuredly not in walking condition. Resting her chin on one fist, she gazed at him. She had never been so near a man, especially one so fine.

None of the men she knew would come close to her, fond of her as they might be. Not a one of them would so much as give her a kiss, not after what happened to poor Wesley Moss. And now, with Timothy, her reputation would no doubt spread far beyond.

Why, she might go all the rest of her days without being kissed. Since this man was already unconscious, she may as well take advantage of a unique opportunity.

She leaned over him again, given courage by the growing darkness. He smelled wonderful, like spice and horse and a heady scent she didn't have a name for but that she responded to anyway.

Taking another deep breath, Willa fancied she could smell adventure on him. This was a man who had smelled the scents of the world, she would wager. He'd breathed in exotic scents like those of the dusty streets of Cairo or the perfumed salons of Vienna.

He might even now be on his way to London. This road didn't go there, but Willa knew that it eventually met a greater road south of Derryton, although she had never been that far. Imagine, London!

Willa shook her head. She was being silly. Yet simply the way the man's lips had felt under her fingertips made her all breathless and fairly dying of curiosity.

No one was about. No one would ever, ever know.

Sliding slowly up her fellow's chest in a fashion that made her catch her breath in a whole new way, Willa hesitated. Was it wrong to kiss someone without his permission? Timothy had very politely asked her first. Not that it had done him any good, what with the broken bones and all.

"Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?"

Well, she could quite truthfully report that there was no protest. After running the tip of her tongue over her lips, Willa pressed them to her handsome fellow's mouth.

It was lovely, to be sure, but somehow not what she was expecting. With a disappointed sigh, she slid off his chest and lay low in the grass beside him.

He was terribly untidy, with his coat twisted about and his limbs splayed. If she left and someone else discovered him like this, he'd likely be embarrassed by his disarray. Not to mention that settling him would provide an excuse for her to touch him once more.

By the time she'd gotten him rearranged to her satisfaction, she was out of breath again. Wasn't it odd how touching a hard thigh or a large, roughened hand could take one's very air? Perhaps she should stop touching him if she wanted to ease her breathing.

Leaning on her elbows and tipping her head back, Willa contemplated the growing dusk. She could leave him as soon as the hornets settled. She would go before long, for he had not woken yet, and that was not a good sign.

Just as soon as the hornets settled…

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The chamber tucked away in a tower of Westminster Palace would scarcely interest the offhand observer, for it was simply a round room whose curved walls were punctuated at intervals by arched panels portraying absurdly idyllic country scenes, frescoed by a nameless artist of a previous century. The colors were dimmed by soot and careless housekeeping, giving the plump peasantry depicted there a grimy quality. Not that anyone noticed.

In the center of the room, beneath a not exquisite chandelier, stood a single round table with four chairs placed equidistant from each other. The chairs were very nearly identical in design, but for slight differences in the fanciful carvings adorning the wooden chair backs. Amid the much overdone greenery depicted there, one could, if one looked carefully, discern a different set of eyes carved into each design.

One pair of eyes seemed rather reptilian. Another set reminded one of the watchful gaze of a raptor. There were the unmistakable slanting eyes of a fox on yet another seat, and the last depicted the heavy brow and deep-set eyes of a lion.

The Royal Four had convened.

Or at any rate, the Royal Two. Present today were only half of the four members of the most select and exclusive of gentlemen's clubs, a handpicked group who secretly advised the Prime Minister and the Crown—four brilliant, principled men with such a depth of honor and commitment to England that no amount of power and promises could sway their conviction.

They even abandoned names and rank within their secret circle. No "Lord This" or "Earl of That." Here there was only the Fox, the Falcon, the Lion, and the Cobra.

At the moment, the Lion and the Falcon were at hand. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the Fox and the Cobra were not.

The Fox had a fairly acceptable excuse. The elderly statesman was on his deathbed, after all, being nursed by his lovely, much-younger wife.

The Cobra had no such defense, being merely halfway across the country attending to a matter of national security. Yet the Falcon and the Lion carefully avoided any breath of censure against the Cobra. When they did speak of him, their voices dropped slightly lower to a more sympathetic register.

At the moment, the Lion had his feet up on the ancient central table and the front legs of his chair off the floor. He was a big man, blond and powerful. One only had to look at him to visualize a far-flung Viking traveler chatting up a Norman lady long centuries ago. The Lion quite by chance resembled his title, for the Four were chosen not on looks but on keen intelligence, nearly royal ancestry, and deathless loyalty.

However, there was no denying he did look like a great cat as he lounged in his chair. The Lion yawned mightily. His cheroot sent a spiral of smoke into the arching heights of the chamber.

"Must you smoke that in here?" The Falcon grimaced. The Falcon looked nothing like his namesake, unless one counted the intense intelligence behind his sharp eyes. He was tall and lean against the Lion's breadth, but no less powerful in his presence. "Can you not wait until we recess?"

The Lion blew an irreverent gust of smoke his way. "Won't taste as good later. Forbidden fruit is all the sweeter."

The Falcon was unimpressed by this argument. "The Fox would have a cat fit if he were here. He holds these chambers nearly sacred."

The Lion shrugged. "I don't see why. It's simply four rather ugly walls and a grotty old table that I wouldn't allow my dog to eat off." Nonetheless, he pulled his feet in and sat forward to stub out his cigar in a waiting saucer. "We could meet in a public house, for all it matters. It is the office that is sacred, not the chamber. Not even the man who holds the office, apparently."

They both went silent for a moment, mourning the loss that their comrade had suffered. Not that they wouldn't have done the same—given up all that they treasured for England and the Crown. In that silence, however, echoed the fervent wish they might never be asked to.

"So has this meeting come to order or not?" The Lion pulled his chair into a more dignified position.