Elizabeth Boyle (78 page)

“What is going on?” Celeste demanded, her arms crossed over her chest. “What has happened?”

“Adam was—” Lily started, until Webb cut her off.

“—Your mistress has been playing me for a fool.”

“Oh, that,” Celeste said, immediately looking bored with the entire theatrics.

“That, as you so blithely point out,” Webb said, “is treason.”

“Webb, as I told your father, Adam is not responsible for this. They’ve arrested the wrong man.”

Celeste laughed. “Mr. Saint-Jean? You think that man is a spy. Oh, more the fool you are.”

Lily shot Celeste a cautioning look.

The woman only shrugged and continued. “He is no spy, Mister Webb, not that one. I’ve seen his palm and I can tell you, very truly, Adam Saint-Jean is no spy.”

“I am afraid, Celeste, the British courts do not hold palmistry as proof positive of one’s innocence.”

“Then they are fools, too,” she said, sounding more than a little miffed at the very notion. “Anyone who looks at Mr. Saint-Jean can tell he is no spy.”

“I agree, Celeste, I don’t think Mr. Saint-Jean is a spy at all. But I do wonder who could have been directing him.”

Much to Lily’s relief, Celeste had the good sense to close her lips and keep her overdrawn divinations to herself.

Webb glanced from Celeste to Lily. “What? No speculations? No predictions? From either of you?”

“Please, Webb, you have to do something,” Lily pleaded. “Adam is no spy. These charges are false. You have to do something to save him.”

He sat back in his seat. “I’m sure if I had the name of the true leader of this spy ring, the mastermind behind these incredible feats, I could convince my father to get a stay in Adam’s execution, but I wouldn’t know where to start to find this fellow. Would you?”

“How would I know?” Lily snapped. “This is all a mistake.”

“You damn well know, and I’m not about to let you go until you tell me everything.” Webb stared at her, the heat of his gaze so searing, she felt forced to glance away or be revealed by its penetrating light.

This time Lily didn’t have to struggle to force her tears, they came in a torrential burst of pent-up emotion and the struggle to continue her lies. But even that didn’t stop her from lying again.

“I don’t know.” She turned her tear-stained face to Celeste’s shoulder. “Oh, such a nightmare. Poor Adam,” she sobbed, as Celeste, joining in the charade, wrapped Lily in a motherly embrace. Lily continued unabashedly, now that she had the tears to back her up. “It’s all my fault.”

“How’s that?” Webb asked, leaning forward.

“Because I didn’t want the Copeland matters to be mishandled. I should never have had him come to England with me. He’s so naive and foolish. It’s obvious he’s been set up. Can’t you see that?”

Lily peeked out from beneath her tear-soaked lashes and gauged the effect of her performance.

The tears were working, to some degree, for Webb’s features were now a mixture of concern and suspicion.

She went to work on the concern. “How will a man like Adam survive in prison? Where do you think they have him? If it is some horrid dark cell, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

Webb shook his head. “More than likely they have him locked away in the Foreign Office cellar. It’s damp, but hardly a stay in Newgate.”

Lily couldn’t believe her good fortune. The Foreign Office! That would surely be easier to break into than a real prison.

She sniffed a few times for good measure. “It sounds horrible. This is all my fault.”

“Yes, you can sure say that,” Celeste muttered.

“Are you positive you knew nothing of this, Lily? Nothing whatsoever?”

Lily sat up, wiped her tears away, and looked Webb square in the eye. “I can say quite honestly that I knew of nothing that would indicate Adam could ever be the head of a spy ring. It is unfathomable, it is completely a shock, why it’s—”

Celeste gave her a small nudge in the ribs with her elbow, as if to say enough was enough.

She sputtered to a stop and went back to dabbing her eyes.

If only Webb looked more convinced.

Never one to shy back, Lily knew she had to satisfy his doubts utterly and completely if she was going to do what had to be done.

Find a way to free Adam and his mother and get them out of England.

She couldn’t ask Webb to help her or trust her now. There were too many lies between them. All of them from her.

“Webb, you believe me, don’t you? I know Adam is innocent. He had nothing to do with any of this. I know it in my heart.”

Webb studied her, and then much to her relief, his stance relaxed.

“Yes, Lily, I believe you.”

Just then the carriage stopped in front of Lady Dearsley’s town house. Lily didn’t waste any time, she bounded out of the carriage with hardly a glance back. Then she stopped and turned.

“Webb, I’m sorry about how things turned out. About the mission,” she paused.
About us.
Afraid she would say what was so close to her heart, she turned and fled up the stairs into her aunt’s house.

Celeste watched her mistress’s hurried flight and turned her most disgusted expression on Webb. The man was busy watching the empty space left in Lily’s wake. Gathering herself up, Celeste started to get out of the carriage, but she paused at the doorway.

Reaching over and catching Webb’s hand, she turned it palm up and glanced over the deep strong lines that marked his destiny.

And Lily’s.

She could see they would end up together, but she couldn’t help but push the stubborn pair along.

“What do you see, Celeste?” he asked, a bemused expression on his face.

“
Harrumph
.” Celeste dropped his hand back into his lap. “I see a foolish man.”

His brows arched. “How so?”

“For now, of all times, you have chosen to believe her lies.”

W
ebb arrived at the Dearsley house after dusk, nodding to one of the men he’d assigned to watch the place. He doubted Lily would make her move until she had the cover of night. In the meantime, he’d heard all the reports from the Bow Street runners he’d hired to track anyone who’d come and gone during the course of the day.

She’d make her attempt to rescue Adam then, and he’d be right here waiting for her.

As he watched a maid lighting the rooms of Lady Dearsley’s town house, he recalled Celeste’s words, words that had struck deep in his heart.

And to think, he’d been about to believe Lily.

Not that he didn’t think she wasn’t involved, but because if he chose to think of Lily as innocent of those crimes, he could move on with his life and forget about the enticing hoyden who’d stolen his heart.

But as his carriage rolled away from her aunt’s house, away from Lily, he saw his new life stretched out before him in one long, boring line.

Viscount Weston. The necessary trip through the Marriage Mart. A respectable English bride. Seasons in London, summers and holidays at Weston Hall. Eventually, a brood of well-behaved children.

Exactly what he’d always planned.

But now, that life would be missing something he’d never planned on—Lily. A life without her crazy, scheming ways. Without those long, storm-tossed nights of passion.

He turned up the collar of his coat and shivered against the cold.

So as he’d allowed himself to get further and further from her and the traitorous plans he was positive she was hatching, he’d mused over his choices.

Turn her in to his father.

Haul her off to Weston Hall and lock her in the cellar until the entire Adam mess blew over.

Or help her.

If he helped her, he would be turning his back on everything he’d worked for and believed in up to now. His King, his country, his father. To help Lily would mean having to walk away from all of it.

It was hardly a decision to take lightly. And one he’d spent a number of agonizing hours going over before he’d finally made up his mind.

He looked down at his palm and wondered for the hundredth time what it was that Celeste saw when she looked there earlier in the day.

For once, the woman had unnerved him with her West Indies hocus-pocus. He’d felt as if she’d parted his soul and peered into places deep in his heart, places not even he liked to know existed.

For in that moment, when Celeste had told him nothing about his future, she’d told him exactly what he had to do.

Lily slipped into the dark mews of her aunt’s house and moved toward the shadows alongside the street. She blew into her hands to warm them against the bitter winter chill, hoping she wouldn’t have to wait long for her contact to pick her up. She would remain well hidden until the carriage arrived, concealed as she was by the dark breeches and jacket Celeste had stolen from one of the footmen’s rooms.

While Aunt Dearsley had fussed and cooed over her unexpected arrival, she’d been able to convince her elderly aunt that all she truly wanted was to stay at home for the evening.

By the relieved expression on the woman’s face, Lily would have bet her aunt was thankful that her presence was not required.

If there was one thing Aunt Dearsley didn’t do well, it was stay at home.

While her aunt had been out most of the afternoon making her round of calls, Lily had been receiving visitors of her own—contacts who had determined where Adam was being held and how best to get her friend out of the Foreign Office cells.

Lily hadn’t any choice but to get him out and to do it herself—for she wouldn’t have anyone else risk their lives for what was her responsibility. She’d brooked no arguments from her fellow agents and explained that all she needed was a hackney to carry her to the Foreign Office, to Mrs. Saint-Jean’s residence, and then on to the docks where she would personally see the Saint-Jeans placed on the first boat out of the London pool.

Much to her relief, that boat turned out to be the
Charity
, the ship on which her youngest brother, Julien, served as first mate.

Julien D’Artiers, unlike his elder brother Lucien, cared little for the trappings of titles and his lost French heritage. Instead, the youngest D’Artiers had followed his heart and taken to the sea at the age of twelve, barely a year after their family had escaped the Terror in France.

Since Julien had always wanted to be a pirate, he was more than happy to assist Lily in this illegal venture, assuring her that his captain would welcome the two extra passengers.

Especially, he explained, when it meant thwarting the British—who on the
Charity’s
recent crossing had taken eight sailors off their ship, claiming the Americans were deserters from the Royal Navy.

The men, Julien cursed, had been born and raised in Boston and had never once set foot in England.

Seeing Adam Saint-Jean slip out from a British noose would be a fair exchange, in Julien’s estimation. So he had promised to be at the dock all night with a crew and rowboat ready to take her “shipment” at a moment’s notice.

Pleased that she had an escape route for her friends, Lily turned to the more difficult part of her plan.

Getting Adam out of the Foreign Office seemed almost easy when she considered she’d also have to get the verbose Mrs. Saint-Jean out of London without the lady waking half the constabulary and Bow Street with her complaints.

Patting her pocket, she reminded herself that she had her own measure of insurance for keeping the woman in line.

Down the street, a hackney turned the corner, the horse plodding a steady course straight for her.

Just as she was about to step out and make herself known, a hand clamped down over her mouth and she found herself being hauled back into the shadowy mews.

She fought, swinging her arms and trying to hit her assailant, but his arm swept around her, pinning her to his chest, trapping her in his hold.

She brought her foot up, thinking she could give the bounder a sharp taste of the heel of her boot, but the cold, hard voice in her ear stopped her mid-stomp.

“Going somewhere, hoyden?”

Lily brought her heel down and caught him on the shin and the top of his foot.

He cursed in surprise and she took off running for the hackney now directly in front of her. She grabbed the door and jumped in, yelling at the driver, “Quickly, I am being chased by thieves.”

The young man atop the hackney picked up his reins and gave them a sharp snap, sending the horses plunging forward.

Thrown off balance, Lily landed awkwardly in the seat, her cloak covering her face. As she whipped it off, she found a breathless and angry Webb Dryden climbing into the moving vehicle.

“Get out,” she ordered, pointing at the door. “You have no right to—”

Before she could continue her tirade, Webb’s hand snaked out and caught her by the wrist. With a quick, determined motion, he hauled her across the interior of the coach and settled her onto his lap.

She opened her mouth in surprise and found her lips promptly covered with his.

Whatever protest she wanted to utter, the words were quickly swept aside.

Once again in Webb’s arms, his mouth devouring hers and arousing her senses, Lily couldn’t think or breathe. How long had it been since they’d kissed? Since they’d made love?

By the intensity of the passion coursing between them, Lily felt like it had been forever. And she wanted this moment to continue for just about that long.

His hands cupped her cheeks, and she tasted once again the searing desire in his kiss.

“This is how it is supposed to be,” he whispered into her ear as they both gasped for breath. “We are meant to be together.”

Together
. It seemed so perfect.

Perfectly impossible, she realized, as the carriage hit a hole in the road and jolted them apart.

Webb caught her and pulled her close, but she couldn’t risk being carried away by his powers of persuasion—most notably his kiss.

“Get out,” she ordered again, this time considering using the pistol in her pocket to get the meaning of her words across.

But she discarded the idea immediately. She would never be able to shoot Webb and he’d just take the pistol away from her.