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She found him staring at her. “What is it?”

His gray eyes flickered away. “Nothing.”

She remembered her loose hair and blushed. She pushed the long locks back over her shoulders. “Goodness, I rushed down so quickly, I forgot. Valentine had not finished with my toilette yet.”

He cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t have—”

Her lips tightened. “And leave you to bleed to death?”

“I thank you.”

Only now that the immediate danger was past did she consider how warm his bare skin had felt under her fingertips.

She swallowed, feeling the room very small and intimate at that moment. To disguise her sense of awareness, she picked up one of the soiled bandages Mrs. Finlay had forgotten and took it to the washstand.

“Oh, dear.” His washbasin was full. Frowning, she lifted the sodden
shirt . . . and waistcoat. The water was red with blood. Her glance met his across the room. “Where did you go?”

His gaze shifted away. “Nowhere. I . . . I was just restless lying here so many days.”

An exclamation of disbelief burst from her throat. “It has been but four days since you were shot. Were you mad?”

He swallowed, still not looking at her. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to decide what to make of his strange behavior.

“I realize I was foolish, but there is no major harm done. I do beg your pardon, as this probably means my convalescence shall be delayed a day or so more and I shan’t be able to resume my full duties—”

She waved his words aside, anger rising within her. “Fie on your duties! You shall remain in your bed as long as the doctor orders. If I have to have both Tom and William tie you to the bedposts, I shall not hesitate.”

The look of alarm in his eyes turned to amusement. “Seeing this cot has no bedposts, they shall find that order a bit difficult to carry out.”

Once again, their gazes held. All she could think of was him as a man and how much he meant to her—whether or not he was in her household to spy on her. Tearing her gaze away, she set the bandage in the water and approached the bed once more. “But it has a sturdy set of iron rails,” she ended dryly.

“I shall follow the doctor’s orders to the letter,” he promised meekly.

She sighed. “You had best finish your breakfast if you are to mend quickly. I can ring for more tea or coffee if yours has grown cold.” Her words made her realize she didn’t know what he drank for breakfast.

“This is fine, thank you,” he said softly.

She lifted the tray and replaced it on his lap, realizing how weak he must be with the loss of blood. “There you go.” She released the tray.

His chest rose and fell inches from her fingertips.

“Thank you, my lady.” His voice sounded strained. She told herself to move away. But before her limbs could obey her, her gaze fell to his mouth, then dropped lower until she detected the tiny white scar
on his chin, reassuring her that it was indeed the same man who had displayed such passion the night of the masquerade.

With effort she straightened. “Well . . . I shall leave you to eat your breakfast.”

She took a step away from the bed. “Please ring for someone to take the tray away as soon as you’ve finished so it won’t be in your way. Mr. Simmons will be here shortly, I’m sure. Try to rest until he comes.”

“Yes, my lady.”

It was not until she was back upstairs, sitting before her mirror, Valentine once again in charge of her hair, that Céline was able to think more clearly about her butler’s strange foray.

“Rushing off to a butler! If he bleeds to death, it is no more than he deserves—” Valentine’s outraged tones washed over her, making little impact as Céline replayed MacKinnon’s words in her mind.

Why had he gone out? And if he’d only gone out to stretch his legs and get a breath of fresh air, would it really have caused his wound to reopen?

Where had he gone? To his contact in the Home Office?

She must have Gaspard find out what Roland had decided. Time was growing short.

Rees sat looking at the empty doorway several minutes after Lady Wexham had left his room.

The pain in his shoulder receded as he thought over her visit. She’d rushed down from her bedchamber as if she’d just stepped from her bed. Her hair—that glorious, chestnut mane tumbling over her shoulders, tickling his chest as she’d leaned over him—he tightened his fist, longing to feel her hair between his fingers.

Had she believed his story? It was a flimsy one at best, all he could think of at the moment. She’d startled him so with her sudden appearance.

She’d seemed genuinely distressed over his wound. He shook his head, forgetting his own worry for the moment, at how she’d fretted
over him, the way his own mother used to when he was a lad and arrived home battered or bruised.

Did she care about him so much? Would she show the same concern for any of her servants? Would she sit and read to them and share things about her past? Would she look at them the way she had him? His gut hurt from clenching it so hard to keep from grabbing her to discover if she would offer her lips to him willingly a second time. Did anyone have her heart? Or was he only one of her many admirers?

He’d never wanted a woman as he wanted her. It tormented him to think of anyone else enjoying her favor. Why this woman who was completely out of his reach, he asked, looking heavenward. He’d never known until now what it was to feel this passion, torment, need. He was poised over a precipice that had nothing but a rocky fall below.

Last night he’d taken the irrevocable step off the ledge by lying to Bunting. He had chosen to protect Lady Wexham over protecting his nation.

19

C
éline finally met Roland that night. As she’d foreseen, he was pleased with the document she’d stolen from the Comte.

Roland and Gaspard both agreed she must leave England as soon as possible. Roland promised to make the necessary arrangements to smuggle her past the blockade into Normandy. He and Gaspard had agreed that only Valentine should accompany her. “Three French people traveling together would arouse suspicion.”

“But what about Gaspard?” Would the British arrest him if he stayed behind?

“Do not worry,” Roland told her. “He will travel a different route, farther down the coast.”

Céline paced her private sitting room now, wishing for things that could not be. She had put in motion this move to France by agreeing to spy for her former country, and she had no one to blame but herself now if she no longer knew what she believed.

Valentine was overjoyed at leaving England. Gaspard had shrugged, saying it mattered little where he lived as long as he had freedom in his kitchen.

Céline’s steps slowed, and she paused at her window, looking down at the narrow garden below. If this were her life a year ago, she would be making plans already to go into the country for the warmest
summer months. Usually she visited several acquaintances, spending a few weeks at each country estate, before paying her obligatory visit to the new earl at his seat in Warwickshire. By August, she would be once again at Hartwell to look in on her mother, before heading to Scotland for the hunting season.

She tapped a finger against her lips. Perhaps . . . perhaps if she made her usual plans, pretending to travel north and westward into the country, when in reality she’d be making her way south to the coast.

It would buy them a little time perhaps—before it was discovered she’d crossed the Channel.

According to Roland’s latest information, things would soon be coming to a head in France. Napoleon’s days were numbered, although he seemed to be regrouping after his disastrous Russian campaign. But Wellington had made major advances into Spain, and Céline had no doubts from what she knew of him that he would not give up until he crossed the Pyrenees and was at the French border. How long would it drag on?

Roland had told her of the growing dissatisfaction and outright revolt in France against Napoleon. The French were tired of war; too many of the country’s young men had died. The thousands upon thousands left to perish from cold in Russia had been the final insult. It was clear Napoleon cared very little how many of his people he sacrificed for his own glory.

Céline straightened her shoulders. It was time to return to her native land. A new government would be forming and she wished to have a say in its formation. It was time to put away foolish dreams of love and romance. She was no longer an ingénue.

She must travel while MacKinnon was still bedridden. He would soon be up and about, and she couldn’t be sure how long her ruse would hold.

Her hand clutched the curtain. Yet, she couldn’t just leave him. How could she tell him good-bye?

When she went down to his room with her book the next afternoon,
she found him as usual sitting up in his bed with a book already on his lap.

With an effort, she smiled the way she usually did, pushing aside thoughts of her impending departure. “Good afternoon, Mr. MacKinnon. How are you feeling today? No more nocturnal excursions?”

He had the grace to flush. “No, my lady, though I feel more than ready to get up from this bed.”

Though she knew he was in no shape to leave his room again, she had told Gaspard about MacKinnon, and her chef had kept a watch on his door during the night.

She drew up the straight-back chair to MacKinnon’s bedside and sat down, smoothing her gown. “Well, you have only yourself to blame if you are confined to it several days longer than we had hoped.” She opened
The Absentee
to the place she had left off the day before. “Let us hope Mrs. Edgeworth will help take your mind off your restlessness.”

After she’d read a chapter, she closed the book. He was watching her as she usually found when she read to him. “What were you reading when I came in?”

He glanced down at the book on his lap. “The first volume of Voltaire’s
Philosophical Dictionary
.”

Gratified with how much he was reading the books she had brought him, she cocked her head. “And how are you finding it?”

“Enlightening.”

She returned the smile playing around his lips. “
Touché.
Seriously, Mr. MacKinnon, I would like your opinion.”

His hands rested on the coverlet. “He is not the antireligious philosopher he is credited to be. He is merely against the injustices he perceives the established church, particularly that in France, has committed.”

“Is the church any different anywhere?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. It is made up of imperfect vessels. But even Voltaire never renounces a deity. He was merely against organized religion.”

“Do you belong to a church?”

His gaze remained steady on hers. “I belong to the body of Christ.”

“The difference being?”

He fingered the edges of the book in his lap. “The body of Christ is what He left behind. It is composed of those who choose to accept His deity and to follow Him and His call to ‘make disciples of all men.’”

“Do you consider yourself a disciple?”

“Yes.”

How she wanted to ask him why he was involved in spying. How could he reconcile the two, a man of God with a spy?

She inspected her buffed fingernails. “So your actions are exemplary and open to inspection?”

Once again, she detected a deepening of color along his jawline. “I consider my actions open to the Lord’s inspection. If I do wrong, I trust that He will convict me by His Spirit, and grant me the grace to renounce whatever is not to His glory.”

“You put the rest of us to shame, sir.”

“It is not a matter of shame. It is a matter of life and death.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Are you trying to fill me with fear?”

“Not at all, my lady. I have lived long enough to know that anything that is not in Christ leads to death—whether physical or spiritual makes little matter. My life only has meaning when I am walking with Him.”

“So all of man’s struggle for freedom”—she motioned to the book in his lap—“is all meaningless and futile if it is not dictated by Christ?”

“That is so.” His tone was quiet, robbing her of an immediate rejoinder.

“You seem very certain of yourself and your ideas.”

“Perhaps because they have been tested in my life.” His gray eyes looked intently into hers.

Her eyes traveled down to his chin and the tiny scar that was not visible from where she sat and then farther down to his muscular chest and arms. He had another scar, a longer one on the lower left
side of his torso, like the slash of a sword. What ordeals had he been forced to endure?

She would never know now. She cleared her throat softly. “By the bye, Mr. MacKinnon, I meant to mention to you that I shall be giving a small dinner party tomorrow.”

“I should be up—”

She held up a hand, cutting off his words. “You most certainly will not. Not until Mr. Simmons pronounces you fit enough to do so.

“No,” she continued when he fell silent, “this will be a very small affair. Tom and William will be quite able to handle it. I merely mentioned it to you so that you would be aware of my plans and not fret yourself that you will not be supervising things.”

She moistened her lips, preparing for the heart of the matter. “It will be composed of a select group, individuals I have known for a long time . . . the Duc d’Angoulême and the Duc de Berry, who I believe are back in London from Hartwell, and Lord Castlereagh and Lord Bathurst and their spouses, of course.”

She closed her book and stood. Let him ponder those names. “Well, I hope I haven’t tired you overmuch. Don’t tax yourself with too much Voltaire.”

His smile was brief, but his eyes looked thoughtful. “No, I shan’t. Thank you for reading to me. You really should not take time from your schedule.”

She ignored his words. “I will look in on you again tomorrow. Have a pleasant afternoon.” She would not give up any moment of his company.

Rees rested his head back against his pillows, his thoughts troubled. In the last week, he’d gone from frustrated to impatient to ultimately resigned to his bedridden state.

But the news that Lady Wexham was hosting a dinner party with the guests she had named filled him with deep foreboding. He had to find a way to discover what she intended.