Beauty and the Spy (33 page)

Then comprehension set in, and Kit's world tilted on its axis.

"You never were investigating
Morley
, were you?" he said softly. "This entire time… you were looking for Caroline… for yourself, weren't you?"

John kept his gaze level with Kit's, not speaking.

But finally, he squeezed his eyes closed. He opened them again, and pride and a plea for understanding, were taut in his face.

"I wish I could explain it to you, Kit, but I'm not sure you'd understand. I just… never could forget her. I thought of her so often… more than I could ever confess to you. I was ashamed of it, if you must know. I knew it was a foolish obsession and yet… well, I finally surrendered to the urge to look for her. I began with Morley. I intercepted his mail."

"No one assigned you to do that," Kit said, half-wonderingly.

"No."

"If anyone other than me had learned you were doing that, John…" The risk had been extraordinary, the consequences grave, disastrous for John.

"I know." John's mouth twitched ruefully. "Are you beginning to see now? It was a risk I was willing to take. For her."

Kit opened his mouth to speak, and John waited. But no words came.

"And then… well, once I began with Morley… I started with you, too, Kit. And I don't expect you to forgive me, but I honestly couldn't explain this to you. I didn't think you'd understand.
I
didn't even fully understand. But somehow I knew she would come back to you. Because it was always, always you." He gave a short laugh, a little wondering, a little bitter. The sound of acceptance. "And I thought if I could help her… perhaps she would turn to me instead. I just couldn't let the two of you meet again. God, I wanted a chance with her." John looked uncomfortable. "Most of your mail is fairly dull, you know." He tried a joke.

"Sorry to bore you," Kit said dryly.

"But damned if she didn't try to reach you. I was right" John gave a humorless laugh.

"Ah, must be your spy instincts," Kit said. Again, dryly.

"I thought… with the information you gave me—the story Makepeace told you—perhaps I would be able to find those documents before you did… and if anything among them pointed to Caroline, I would destroy it, and just leave enough to hang Morley. And then… perhaps when I found her…"

He looked at Caroline now, who was regarding him with utter astonishment. "I'd take her away where no one could ever hurt her again." He said this with quiet, almost deadly, conviction.

John turned to Kit again. "And again… she came right back to you, Kit." He sounded half-amused. "Here she is."

"But John…" Kit was staggered. "She isn't…"

He was about to say,
She isn't worth it
. The very same words John had said to him that morning seventeen years ago, when they'd faced each other over pistols. Bitter words, Kit saw now. Words of self-defense. The loss had somehow been greater for John. Had always been greater for John.

And Kit couldn't bring himself to say those words about any woman.

"I
can't
let you do it, John. I can't let you take her. She helped
murder
a man. Two men, if you include what became of Makepeace. Her actions may have led to the deaths of English soldiers, John. Surely this
matters
to you."

"I don't care, Kit." John sounded weary and bemused and faintly awed by his own confession. "I'm more sorry than I can say, and I know it's all true of her, but when it comes to Caroline… God help me, but I don't care."

"John—"

John's voice rose, tense, impassioned now. "Kit, I have only ever truly wanted one thing, so help me. And I don't know whether or not it will make me happy. I'm not sure that I
care
whether it does." He gave a short, wondering laugh. "But I do know that I want Caroline. Know this: I love you as a brother. And if you've ever loved me—and I know what I've done is nigh unforgivable—let me win
just this once
. For God's sake."

Another fragment of marble
chinked
to the ground. No one moved.

"Don't throw everything away, John," Kit pleaded softly.

John Carr said nothing.

"She doesn't love you, John." Kit could hear the resignation creeping into his own voice. John heard it, too.

A ghost of a smile touched John's face. "Oh, she will, one day. I mean… look at me."

Kit smiled faintly, too; he couldn't help it. But his heart was breaking again. He thought again about all the kinds of love there were in the world. Love, it turned out, was a constant surprise, in its mutations and permutations.

Susannah spoke, her voice a soft note in the tense silence. "Kit… I think you should let her go."

Kit jerked toward her. "This woman, Susannah… what she did to your family…"

"I know what she did, but… but nothing can undo that now. Hanging her won't bring either my father or James Makepeace back. Mr. Morley… isn't he the one truly at fault? Don't we have enough to bring him to justice?"

Kit's sense of justice, his patriotism, his need to put things right, his sense of right and wrong—all were at war here with something that adhered to no laws. He thought of the words of Pascal:
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of
.

"I don't know if it's the right thing to do, Susannah." He said it quietly, almost desperately.

"Perhaps not everything can be either right or wrong. Perhaps you must simply choose."

And so, a moment later, he chose. He did it out of love, and not patriotism, knowing that no matter what he chose, John Carr was lost to him.

Kit turned to Caroline. "Will you go with him?" he said gruffly.

"Hmmm…" Caroline looked up toward the ceiling. "Goodness… the gallows, or handsome John Carr. Let me think… let me think…"

Kit sighed, and gestured with his chin toward John, and Caroline went to him. John quickly worked the bonds loose from Caroline's wrists.

"Good knots," he complimented Kit, quietly.

Kit said nothing.

When Caroline was free, she turned to look at John, and he fixed his eyes on her face for a long moment, absorbing her. Neither said a word.

Caroline broke their gaze, finally, and turned to Susannah.

"Your mother… well, your parents talked often of Italy. I truly don't know where she might have gone that evening… but she might have tried to go there."

Susannah gave a shallow nod of thanks.

Kit looked at his best friend in the world, the man who'd known him from boyhood, the brother of his heart, his rival. Bloody handsome John Carr.

"You'd better leave, John. Before I change my mind."

John Carr lifted a hand to Kit, smiled crookedly. Then turned and pushed the door to the mausoleum open. And walked away from Kit forever.

Caroline was behind him, but she paused in the doorway. She looked at Kit, uncertain; she appeared to be deciding whether she should speak.

"Thaddeus has… a cat," she faltered. "Will you see that someone… that someone takes his cat?"

She lifted her chin. Daring Kit to mock her. Still, she kept her eyes fixed on him, waiting for an answer.

And Kit gazed back at her, stunned.
How about that? She does love Morley
.

But Caroline wasn't burdened with a sense of honor; she traveled lightly, burdened only with her own sense of self-preservation, living from moment to moment. It wasn't love the way Kit understood it.

He found himself nodding just once, curtly.

"Good-bye then. Good luck to both of you." Caroline gave an ironic curtsy, turned to leave again.

"Caroline," Kit said sharply.

She stopped and turned, lifted her soft brows inquiringly.

"Endeavor to be worthy of him."

She laughed, as though he'd just said something tremendously witty, and shook her head wryly.

And was gone.

He didn't want to speak during the ride home. Silently, he led Susannah into the house, past the servants, up the stairs, into his chambers, where she'd never before been, and sank down on the edge of his bed. And Susannah could see in his posture that every fiber in his body, in his soul, was achingly weary.

"I'm sorry about John," she said softly.

"Come here," he said softly in return.

She drifted over, and stood between his legs, and he looped his arms around her. He looked up. She could peer right down into the nostrils of his arrogantly arched nose, right into those beautiful blue eyes fringed by those gold tipped lashes.

"I love you, Susannah."

"I know." It didn't seem nearly as important anymore to hear him say the words aloud; she knew he simply lived his love for her every moment.

"But I should have told you before now. When Caroline pointed a pistol at you, I—"

He stopped abruptly, turned his head.

"Hush…" Susannah murmured, and cupped her face in her hands, pressed her lips against the top of his head. "It's all right."

"It's not all right." He sounded irritated. He looked up at her again. "It's just that I—"

"Perhaps you weren't sure you loved me, and needed to be cert—"

"Susannah." He sounded amused and impatient. "Please stop defending me. It wasn't any of that… it was…" He paused, searching for words to describe an amorphous terror. "It was as though if I'd said the words aloud… you'd just disappear. And I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear the thought of loving you as much as I do… I love you so much… and then losing you."

He sounded ashamed. As though he thought he wasn't entitled to ever fear.

She didn't know what to say. Probably nothing at all would be best.

"In summary," he concluded wryly, "I was a dreadful coward, and I love you."

"Well, that's quite an astonishing confession." Her voice was husky. "From a man who's been crushed by a horse and stabbed in my defense, and shot at by the French, and God knows what else. But you can stop confessing now. I love you, too."

"I know," he said on a sigh, looking dazed and pleased, and his hands wandered lower, until they were looped beneath her behind. He pulled her into him, held her close.

He was just about eye-level with her breasts, and so he pulled her in closer, and pressed his lips to one, over the soft muslin. And his hands wandered up beneath her dress, lifting it until his fingers found the silky insides of her thighs. He leaned backward onto the bed, bringing her with him.

"Hush, now," he ordered on a whisper. "Lie still."

He tipped her to the bed and then knelt over her, reached behind her back and gently, deftly, unlaced her gown, eased it over her head, placed it carefully aside. Next, he applied himself to her garters, untying them, adding them to the dress, rolled her stockings down, still deftly, while she quietly submitted.

And when she was entirely bare, he sighed, and lay alongside her. He kissed her mouth, softly. His lips found her brows, her temple, the pulse in her throat; his hands pulled the pins from her hair, stroking it out until it fanned over his pillow.

And this is how he made love to her: The overwhelming, aching tenderness, the desire and reverence, in his every touch, more eloquent, more profound, than words could ever hope to be. Susannah closed her eyes and only once murmured his name, floating in the center of a bliss that had edges of flame. His hands, his mouth, seemed everywhere, everywhere, from her shoulders, to her breasts, to the round curve of her belly, relentlessly knowing, sure and delicate, setting slow fire to every cell of her until she arched and rippled beneath his touch, until she was nothing but a creature made to be touched.

And then his mouth moved between her legs, and he parted her knees so he could taste the silkiest, most sensitive part of her. Her fingers gripped the coverlet as his tongue dipped, and circled, and savored, loving her, until her blood roared in her ears, until she was nearly sobbing from the pleasure of it, until she splintered into light and sensation.

Then, at last, off came his clothes, which he did as deftly as he did everything else, and his beautiful body hovered an instant over her. She surrounded him with her thighs, pulled him to her with her arms, took him into her body. This joining always seemed never to last quite long enough to Susannah, because she could never fully be part of him, but the finite nature of it made it all the sweeter. And this was slow, slow, too, and his eyes never left hers; he burned his love into her with his eyes. He moved, inexorably to his own release, which came for him with a sigh of her name.

He kissed her. He turned over gently, with her in his arms. They held each other, face to face.

"
That's
how much I love you, Susannah," he whispered.

* * *

They lolled together, until Kit remembered that Aunt Prances would worry, and so they dressed, somewhat haphazardly and quickly, and made their way down the stairs.

Bullton was hurrying toward him again. This was becoming unnervingly familiar.

"Sir—" he began desperately.

He didn't need to say anything more than that. Because Kit heard the sound of an all-too familiar throat clearing in the portrait parlor.

"Sir, he has… he is…" Bullton whispered desperately. Then gave up trying to explain. "Well, perhaps you best go to him, sir," he said resignedly. "And you'll see."

Because, of course, it was the very worst thing Kit could possibly imagine happening, the earl was standing in the middle of the room holding Susannah's sketchbook, which she had of course left in the portrait parlor.

He seemed riveted by a particular page. Frozen in place, in fact, staring down at it.

When at last he slowly lifted his head, his expression was… well, indescribable, really.

Though "priceless" did go some way toward describing it.

Kit almost squeezed his eyes closed. One never, never,
never
wants one's father to get a good look at one's face in the aftermath of lovemaking. But that's precisely what that particular sketch afforded.

He glanced at Susannah, whom he'd tried to hide behind him. Her hair was sliding out of the pins on one side. She looked beautiful and, unfortunately, entirely wanton.

A cripplingly awkward moment staggered by, while Kit grappled with what he should say to his father. He mentally packed his trunks for Egypt, hoping Susannah wouldn't be disappointed to find herself living in the desert rather than on Grosvenor Square.

"Is this the artist?" his father asked, eyebrows raised in Susannah's direction.

"Yes," Kit confessed.

A silence as vast and arid as the Egyptian desert yawned while his father stared at the two of them.

"We're going to be married," Kit offered tentatively.

"Good God, I should
think
so," the earl said fervently. "Who is she?"

Kit went mute again.

"Well?" the earl gestured with his brows.

At last Kit found his manners, or some vestiges of them. "Father, allow me to introduce to you to Miss Susannah Makepeace, my fianc6e. This is my father, the Earl of Westphall."

Susannah paused, and then—because what else could one do under the circumstances?—she curtsied.

Kit almost laughed.

"Makepeace, eh? James's daughter?"

She hesitated, but apparently decided her real story would have to wait. "Yes, sir." Susannah's voice was remarkably steady.

"And did you make these sketches?"

Her face was a brilliant, flaming, summer-sunset scarlet, but her composure held up admirably. "Yes, sir."

The earl stared at both of them again for some time, clearly struggling with a number of diverse thoughts, among them, judging from the twitch of his features, hilarity and horror.

He cleared his throat. "They're really quite good."

Kit was in awe. The earl had clearly chosen the most benign thing from the myriad things he'd
wanted
to say, or could have said.
My father, the diplomat
, Kit thought.
I
really should take lessons
.

"She's very talented," Kit said quickly.

Kit realized too late how this must sound, given the sketch his father had no doubt been reviewing. He nearly slapped his forehead.

The earl just sighed.

"Miss Makepeace, it is a pleasure to meet you. I should like to speak to my son alone now."

Susannah shot Kit a sympathetic look, and looked relieved to be leaving the library. Kit was tempted to pull her back by the elbow.

"I'm sorry about the folio assignment, father," Kit began quickly. "I'll complete it, I promise you. Rather a lot of things… came up. That you will find very interesting."

"You were seen in London, Kit."

"By whom?" he said swiftly.
Bloody John
!

"Miss Daisy Jones said a Mr. White had come inquiring. I knew it was you."

"You conducted your
own
inquiry?" Kit asked. So his father
hadn't
thought he was mad when he mentioned Makepeace. It was a little mollifying.

Wait
. Or maybe… "How do you know Miss Daisy Jones?"

His father just smiled enigmatically. "Did you find what you were looking for, Kit? What you should
not
have been looking for, I should say?"

"Yes, and it's true, sir. Everything Makepeace said was true. I'll show the documents to you, if you'd like to see them. Correspondence, lists of ships… and Morley is mentioned specifically. Lockwood really did gather valid evidence. It looks bad for Morley, sir. I spoke to an antiquities dealer who might be persuaded to testify."

The earl went still. After a moment, his face reflected a deep sadness. "It's a shame. All of it. He wasn't a bad politician, Morley. An intelligent man. A waste. A pity. A murderer."

"And a traitor, sir. He was a traitor."

"It was dangerous, what you did, Kit. Going about this alone. You could have been killed."

"I could have been killed any number of times in my life," Kit said wryly. "There's still time."

"But I
expressly
told you not to go anywhere near London." His father's tone had the ring of pyramids now.

"I swear to you, sir, I'll finish the folio assignment. I…" He paused when he realized this was true. "I
want
to finish the assignment."

The earl sighed again. "There was no assignment, Kit."

A silence.

"I beg your pardon?" Kit said flatly.

"There
was
no assignment. It was just…" The earl turned away from him and rotated to look about the grand room, stopping to admire the portrait of his family. He smiled softly up at it, perhaps remembering the sittings. "I was worried about you, son. You seemed so…" His father paused. "Lost. Wallowing in various pleasures, but finding no
real
pleasure. A little too reckless. Unhappy without realizing it. And it had gone on for too long. It's the sort of thing a father notices."

Kit knew he should have been touched. But—

"And so you threatened me with
Egypt
?"

The earl looked placidly back at Kit. "I thought perhaps you could use a little time away from the
ton
to clear your head. Perhaps even rediscover an earlier, less dangerous passion. And I knew you wouldn't take any time away if I put it quite like
that
… and so, I invented an assignment. And…" The earl paused again, sounding bemused. "Once more, you've greatly exceeded my expectations. Then again, you never did do anything by halves."

His father gave him one of those sunny but evil smiles. The smiles that said,
I
will always be cleverer than you, as long as I'm your father
.

Kit was speechless. His bloody father had
tricked
him.

Kit didn't know whether he wanted to throttle the man, or fall to his knees and thank him abjectly.

But he did know when he'd been bested.

"And it's good work, Christopher. Are your notes as good as these drawings?"

"What do you think?" All arrogance.

His father smiled. "Well, then, you
should
complete the folio. It bears publishing, you know, as good as these drawings are. We'll just… exclude a few of them."

"The voles?" Kit suggested innocently.

His father finally laughed. Then he glanced down at the sketchbook, and up at his son again, and shook his head slowly, to and fro. It took every fiber of Kit's self-control not to blush, and he could not remember ever blushing in his entire life.

"What is she like? Susannah?"

Damn
. How Kit hated these kinds of questions. Whenever Susannah filled his thoughts, words seemed to flee. He thought of her, and it was just…

But his father must have read the answer on his face, and he gave a soft laugh. "Never mind, son. The sketches speak for both of you. And I'm more glad for you than I can say."