Unmasking the Spy (30 page)

“Oh!” she gasped, blushing from
her neck up.

Mavis scowled back at her without
saying a word. Alicia wasn’t sure if the unpleasant frown was due to her
squashed toes or if it were an expression permanently etched on the pretty
girl’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Mavis. I
didn’t notice you standing there until it was too late.”

“I saw,” came the laconic reply.

“I think the gardens are
beautiful,” Alicia tried again. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Mavis gave a slow, irritated
blink. “And interrupt what? The butterfly? I was just standing here.”

Alicia flashed an uncertain smile
and hesitated, unsure whether to pursue further conversation or if continuing
out of her way was the better alternative. Mavis sighed and crossed her arms
over her chest.

“Ian told me about your
‘betrothal’. Did you entrap him on purpose?”

“What?” Alicia’s mouth fell open
in surprise. “No! I wanted to marry someone el- that is, I did not entrap your
brother at all.”

“So you don’t love him!” Mavis
crowed in bitter satisfaction. “I knew it!”

“Well, he doesn’t love me
either,” Alicia countered, a defensive edge to her voice. “He could be accused
of entrapment just as easily as me.”

“For what reason?” asked Mavis
skeptically. “Your dowry?”

“That’s one possibility.”

“Ha!”

“What do you mean, ‘ha’?”

“I mean, ‘ha’! You didn’t have a
dowry, not that my brother would need it anyway. Did you think I didn’t know?”

Alicia’s jaw dropped for the
second time. “
I
didn’t know,” she said, goggling at Mavis. Papa really
had revoked her dowry, just as he threatened. And to think, she’d accused Ian
of being a moneygrubber, marrying her for financial gain. Her face flooded with
heat.

“Oh, please,” scoffed Mavis.
“Next you’re going to tell me you didn’t know because you signed the marriage
contract blindfolded.”

“No, I… Of course I should’ve
known, but it happened so fast that I… Oh, Lord.”

Mavis snorted. “You sound like
Ian. ‘It just happened so
quickly
,’” she mimicked falsetto. “Well, I
don’t care how or why you rushed into marriage with my brother, but now that
you’re here, I expect you’ll apply yourself to becoming an exemplary wife. He
deserves nothing less than love, and if you haven’t a jot of those tender
feelings, you can at least pretend. I’ll not have him hurt. He’s been through
enough.”

Not sure which part of that
speech to answer first, Alicia stammered, “I didn’t mean to put him through
anything.”

Mavis glared at her. “He’s been
through a lot worse than you,
sister
. He had to take the place of Papa
when he was nine years old. He thinks we don’t remember, but Poppy was five and
Julia was three, plenty old enough to have memories of Papa. Carlotta and I are
the only ones unfortunate enough to be too young for memories. She wasn’t even
born until after he died. And almost from the moment he took the reins to the
household in his hands, women began to besiege him with their unwanted
affections. We may not be titled or enviously lineaged, but Papa worked hard to
create our little empire in the country, and Ian turned our farthings into a
fortune. I don’t know what tricks you may have been about, but we won’t have
it. Our brother deserves nothing but the best, and if that’s not you then you
had better work on becoming bloody close to perfect.”

Alicia blinked. Mavis was nothing
if not frank, and although she clearly held Ian’s best interests above all
other concerns, she’d left Alicia quite without a word to say. Unfortunately, Mavis
stood before her with her arms crossed in front of her stiff body and her
eyebrows raised, as if she expected some sort of coherent response.

“Er,” Alicia began, running
through a bevy of lame-sounding replies in her head. “I’ve always wanted to
marry for love, too.”

Fearing this was the stupidest
answer she could have ever invented, Alicia looked up through her lashes at Mavis,
half expecting her to box her ears. To her surprise, the hard contours of Mavis’
face softened, and an unidentifiable emotion glimmered in her eyes.

“Very well, then,” Mavis answered
in a softer tone, the stiff hauteur gone from her voice. She gave Alicia an
awkward pat on her shoulder and walked straight past her out of the garden,
leaving Alicia alone with her thoughts.

*          *          *

Ian whiled away most of the day
walking about the grounds, inspecting this and examining that, making sure all
was well and trying his damnedest to stop thinking about his wife.

It didn’t work.

He was haunted by memories of
their ill-fated wedding consummation, and torn by the ungrantable wish that he
had taken the unfortunate news with a bit more grace. If he had, he wouldn’t be
spending his nights in his chambers by himself and his mornings taking
much-needed dives into the cold water of the lake.

Oh, he could share her bed
whenever he desired, but he couldn’t do so without touching her. Why had he
made such a rash declaration? Aloud!

If he hadn’t promised to leave
her alone, he’d be with her right now. Buried deep within her this very moment.
He wanted to force her to love him, but he was afraid if he had her alone for
the merest of moments, he’d be giving her a more physical sort of love. 

Who knew she’d be so responsive?
So beautiful... so passionate.

Ian spent so much time and energy
avoiding Alicia – and thinking about the ridiculousness of avoiding one’s own
wife – that when he heard the soft footsteps following him into the music room,
he knew he’d been caught. Resigned to a bout of lovemaking right there on the
floor if need be, he turned around to face her and was both surprised and
relieved to discover the pantaloon-clad person before him in no way resembled
his wife.

“You!” Ian exclaimed with a
half-choke, half-laugh.

Caspian raised an eyebrow and
settled on the piano bench. “You were expecting Prinny, perhaps?”

Ian snorted and leaned against
the wall. “Not until Tuesday, when he comes by for tea.”

“How’s married life?”

“Don’t ask.”

“I already asked.”

“Then stop asking, you snot.”

“Does that mean ‘not well’?”

“It means mind your own
business,” Ian bit out, glaring at the unrepentant operative lounging on his
piano bench and grinning back at him. “What did you come for?”

“To see you, of course! And to
discover how married life agreed with you. Not well at all, I see, unless these
fits of temper are normal for you.”

“I can’t wait until you find
yourself legshackled to some chit. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

“Now, now,” Caspian replied
hurriedly. He shuddered and the smile dropped from his face. “No reason to
curse
me, old chap.”

*          *          *

Alicia woke up alone for perhaps
the third time in two hours. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be alone –
after all, she was in her chambers, not Ian’s. She just felt lonely, and found
it dreadfully difficult to fall asleep while feeling sorry for herself.

How did a woman go about seducing
her own husband? With thoughts like that, there would be no more rest tonight.
Alicia sighed and got up. Perhaps if she started a story, she could read
herself to sleep. Shrugging into a light robe, she headed downstairs in search
of a library.

As her bare feet tread silently
down the stairs, Alicia chided herself for being so eager to discover the
beauty out-of-doors that she neglected to explore the house itself. She wasn’t
even sure if there would be a library to find.

Soft voices reached her ears as
she padded down the hallway. Someone was awake. Two someones. Alicia frowned.
The voices were both male and one was unmistakably Ian’s – but to whom would he
be talking at four o’clock in the morning? Surely this was not the hour he
chose to discuss matters with his staff.

Knowing very well that
eavesdropping was yet another sin to repent, Alicia crept forward, telling
herself she just wanted to be sure nothing was wrong. After all, as mistress of
Heatherley, she ought to keep herself abreast of potential problems. She almost
tumbled into the door in shock when she heard Ian speak.

“Is Chadwick still under
investigation?” he asked.

Chadwick? Her father?

“No. What else is there to do?
You investigated the family pretty thoroughly,” came the answer.

Ian investigated her family?
Thoroughly?

“Any other clues come in to bring
suspicion on other possible thieves?”

Her husband thought her father was
a thief?

“No, but if I hear of it, I’ll
let you know. Just don’t marry their daughters.”

He married her to investigate her
father?

“Very funny, Caspian. You’re the
bachelor, now. If anyone does any more marrying, it will have to be you.”

“Not my style.”

Alicia sagged against the wall,
her head reeling from a betrayal that completely blindsided her. She had
thought he was so nice, so unassuming, so… gentlemanly! What a fool she’d been.
He wasn’t after her money or her title after all, no, nothing so respectable as
that. He’d been after information! Trying to implicate her father as a thief!
And he hadn’t said a word. Alicia tilted her head toward the door, considering
kicking it in and giving her husband a piece of her mind.

“I wanted out anyway,” Ian said.
“This investigation didn’t make me miss Whitehall one whit.”

“Why, because working for me is
working for free?”

“Don’t be an ass. You know I
don’t care about money.”

“You may not care about it now,
but you did need the money when you first started.” Caspian added with a droll
note to his voice, “But for you it was always about the danger. The thrill of
discovery.”

“And the disguises. I love to
play Robin Hood.”

Ian loved to play… Robin Hood?
The back of Alicia’s head sank down the wall as the first inklings dawned that
his deception was even worse than it first seemed.

“You and that stupid mask. It’s
not like anyone would ever catch you in their house anyway.”

Alicia closed her eyes and
stifled a groan. Rogue was Ian all along?

“You’d be surprised.”

“Give me a break. You just like
how you look, running around dressed all in black and swinging that infernal
silver swordstick. Has anyone ever seen you in that getup?”

A horrible, sick feeling began in
the pit of Alicia’s stomach, sending tremors of acid rage and icy humiliation
skating down her limbs.

After a long pause, Ian admitted
softly, “Once.”

Alicia launched herself from the
wall and lurched back up the stairs to her chambers. “That’s why they say not
to listen at keyholes,” she admonished herself bitterly. “You may find out
something you don’t want to know.”

Like learning she’d been
conquered by a master.

No wonder he hadn’t bothered
pursuing introductions to other women. No wonder every time she slipped
downstairs in the middle of the night, “Rogue” was there to greet her.

He’d used her from the very
moment they’d met. As herself, she’d been nothing but a pawn in some misguided
vendetta against her father. And as “Elizabeth”, she’d been nothing but a
moment’s fancy to a heartless man who truly was a consummate rogue.

Unbelievable. She never stood a
chance.

*          *          *

Alicia awoke angry.

Lucky for Ian he didn’t try to
claim his husbandly rights. She’d have scratched his eyes out, Alicia thought
fiercely. Stabbed him with his stupid silver swordstick. Strangled him with the
straps of his infamous mask. She’d thought nobody would ever need know about
her reckless nights cavorting with her mysterious lover – until she discovered
she was
married
to him, the despicable toad.

She had half a mind to hunt him
down right now. Slap his handsome face. Rip his bloody head off. Papa wasn’t a
thief. The very idea was ludicrous. Of course Ian didn’t find any evidence
against him – nothing existed to find. He should’ve just asked her!

Almost snarling in her fury,
Alicia stalked around her chambers. She had plenty to ask
him
, all
right. Starting with, “What gives you the right to assign guilt willy-nilly and
appoint yourself judge and jury?” And ending with, “What kind of man marries a
woman to perpetuate an investigation against her father?”

Alicia stumbled to a stop, one
hand lying atop her bed and the other covering her chest. She couldn’t ask him
anything. First of all, he’d discover she’d been eavesdropping in the middle of
the night. Second, she’d had the misfortune of becoming his property three
short days ago. Third, she would have to admit that she and “Elizabeth” were
one and the same, and he could throw her own “disguise” back in her face as
justification for his own wrongs.