Elizabeth Boyle (79 page)

“Get out of this carriage right now,” she repeated instead.

“Are we going over that again?” He reached out and toyed with a stray tendril of her hair.

Lily didn’t like him touching her, any part of her, for it was too distracting. She needed to concentrate and to do that she needed Webb out of the carriage and her life. “I’ll scream. The driver will not be as forgiving as I am.”

“I rather doubt that,” he said, rapping on the trap door to the roof.

The hatch opened and the young man looked down.

“Stop this carriage and get this ruffian out of here,” she told him.

The driver shook his head, and then turned his gaze to Webb. “Oh aye, m’lord. She’s a right live one, jest like you said. Have you a change to our plans or should I do as the lady asks?”

“Continue on, Ned.”

Much to Lily’s horror the trap door slammed shut and she found herself face-to-face with a rather smug Webb Dryden. She scrambled out of his lap and took the seat opposite him.

“Ned?”

“Yes, Ned. My driver. Didn’t you make his acquaintance this morning?”

Her hands balled into fists. “This is kidnapping. I’ll have you brought up on charges, I’ll have—”

“And how exactly will you explain to the court what you were doing skulking around your aunt’s mews dressed like a footpad?” he said smugly. “Where did you get that outfit? It looks like you stole it from a climbing boy.”

Damn, Lily hated it when he had her like this. But she wasn’t going to let him off just yet. “I was on my way to a masquerade if you must know. My aunt is expecting me to meet her there and she’ll be quite worried if I am late. So please let me out.”

“A masquerade? How quaint. Tell me where and I’ll drop you off.” He paused, scratching his chin. “No, come to think of it, that would hardly be the gentlemanly thing, now would it. As a viscount I have to think of my reputation and the reputation of my wife.”

“I am not your wife.”

“I beg to differ. And if you refuse to acknowledge the French court’s view on the subject, then I intend to rectify the situation tonight, so that not even an English court could argue that we are not legally wed. You’ll be my wife, whether you like it or not.”

Not sure how to argue this, Lily glanced out the window. She smelled it before she caught a glimpse of it—the foul stench of the Thames. They were near the river. “Where are you taking me?”

“The Foreign Office. That is where you were headed, isn’t it?”

Her mouth opened and then closed.

“Come now, even in this meager light, I can see it in your eyes. You were going to free Adam. What I can’t figure out is why? Because you love him?” He paused. “Now that I doubt, given the strength of your passion a few moments ago, so I have to find another reason. Guilt perhaps?”

She looked away.

“I thought so. You weren’t lying today when you told my father that he had the wrong man, were you?”

Looking into his blue eyes, Lily sought to find something there to guide her—cynicism, concern, compassion.

Nothing but the dark blue depths of his unfathomable soul.

“Tell me, Lily. For once, tell me the truth. Who is Adam being sacrificed for?”

She shook her head. Even now, she couldn’t do it. “You don’t want to know. Please, can’t you just let me go? Let me do what I have to do tonight. If anything happened to you, I’d be …” Lily tried to finish her sentence, but found the words lodged next to the ache in her heart. Amelia had told her to trust Webb, but how could she? Especially now?

“You’d be?” he prompted. “What would you be?”

Lost
. But wasn’t she already?

Webb leaned forward and placed his hands on her knees, turning her so she looked at him. Gently, he cupped her face, his fingers smoothing back a stray strand, touching her cheek. Lily closed her eyes, unable to look at the depth of emotion in his eyes.

Concern. Admiration. And love.

Webb loved her still.

Mercy and Mary, why couldn’t they have gone on as it was before? Hating each other. It had been so easy, so clear, so familiar.

“Why? Why won’t you tell me?” he asked. “Because you think I’ll stop loving you? I doubt it. I wish I could. But I don’t think there will ever be a day that I don’t love you, even if you drive me to distraction most of the time.” He leaned forward and caught her hands in his. “I’ll love you no matter what. You could tell me that you are the head of this American spy ring and I would still love you,” he said with a little laugh, as if the idea were preposterous.

Lily blinked, her vision blurring with tears. “But I am.”

W
ebb felt as if the floor of the carriage had given way. He couldn’t have heard Lily right. “You’re what?”

“The head of the American spy ring your father thinks he’s routed out.”

He laughed, though to his ears the notes sounded slightly unbalanced. “Lily, this isn’t a time for jests.”

“I’m not jesting.” Something in the weary droop of her shoulders told him she’d just let go of a horrendous burden—the secret she’d been hiding from him since she’d arrived at Byrnewood. “I was recruited by Vice President Jefferson to represent American interests while I was here in England. There’s more, but I’d prefer not to discuss it.”

Numbly, he nodded in agreement. The treason of her words stunned him, but she was right not to say more. The less he knew, the safer it was for both of them.

When Celeste had told him not to believe Lily, he thought she’d meant Lily’s promise not to rescue Adam, but not her denial of knowing about Adam’s involvement.

No wonder she’d turned so pale at his father’s announcement about Adam.

Right man, hah! His father had missed it by a mile and had had the correct answer sitting practically under his nose.

“Say something,” she whispered.

“I’m trying to think what one says when one finds out his betrothed is a spy. A real one.”

“Well, it never bothered me,” she snapped. Lily glanced up at him ever-so-slightly, her feathered lashes concealing most of the sparkling emeralds beneath. “Do you mean it? Betrothed? After what I just said, you would still want to marry me?”

Webb took a deep breath. Marry a traitor? Not in a thousand years had he ever thought that possible. The road before him suddenly turned more bleak than it had moments earlier. He’d thought he’d be spending the coming months honeymooning with Lily somewhere far from England, once he’d helped her break Adam out of jail.

His father would not be happy when he found out, but Webb had left him a long note explaining all, in the hope that one day his father would understand. How, he’d written to his father, could saving Adam Saint-Jean from the hangman’s noose be treason when they both knew his father had the wrong man?

Lily, the leader of the American spy ring. The person who should rightly swing in Adam’s place.

But he couldn’t let Lily die. He couldn’t betray her and live. So was there any course other than the one he’d originally plotted?

Treason. He took a deep breath. Now he was committing treason.

But was he truly giving up the life he loved? More like trading it for another type of trouble. Marriage to Lily would be wild, tempestuous, and foolhardy. Just the way he liked to live.

So if he’d already made up his mind before, why should her revelation make any difference?

If anything, it finally answered all his questions. Her reluctance to go to Paris, her wild schemes and uncanny skills at subterfuge—everything now made sense.

Glancing out the window, he gauged that they were drawing near the Foreign Office.

“Lily, I—”

“—I’ll understand,” Lily interrupted, “if you feel obliged to turn me in to your father.”

“Well, Lily, I—”

“No, don’t explain.” Her words fell out in a terrible rush. “If this means Adam can go free—”

Webb reached over and clamped his hand over her mouth. “Hoyden, if you say one more word, I will clap you in irons. At least until
we
get your former betrothed out of jail.”

Her green eyes lit with uncertainty.

“I love you, Lily. My life is with you, wherever that takes us.”

The doubt faded away to be replaced by a fire of excitement. He pulled his hand away from her mouth to replace it with his lips, sealing his promise and their future.

This time, as she opened herself to his kiss, he knew there would never again be any secrets between them. And while he was losing everything he’d ever worked for, he knew he held in his arms a love he’d never thought possible.

The carriage stopped in an alleyway not far from the solid row of government buildings. Reluctantly they parted and alighted from the carriage. He took her hand and led her to the end of the alley before he turned to her and said, “Promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” she whispered.

“No more fiancés. I don’t think I can take getting rid of anymore of them.”

“Cecil! Cecil!” Lord Dryden bellowed.

His harried secretary hustled into Lord Dryden’s office, his wig askew and his spectacles practically falling off his nose.

“M’lord? I didn’t think you were coming back tonight,” Cecil sputtered as he caught his breath.

“I wasn’t planning on it, but I decided to drop by before I joined my wife at Sir Wentworth’s New Year’s party.”

“Is there something I can help you with, m’lord?”

“You can start by telling me who’s been in my office.” Lord Dryden pointed to the folded letter on his desk. “I want to know who brought this letter into my office this evening.”

Cecil’s narrow shoulders rose in a shrug. “I haven’t the vaguest notion, m’lord. I only went out for some supper and just returned as you arrived.”

“Supper, eh? When did you start taking supper?” Lord Dryden only asked because Cecil was legendary in the Foreign Office. It was said he hadn’t left the building in over forty years, but then again Lord Dryden knew that was impossible, though there was rarely a moment in his long days and often nights that Cecil wasn’t at his familiar post just outside his office. “Well, never mind. I don’t like the idea of just anyone coming and going about my office.”

He picked up the letter and examined the seal. Though familiar, it was one he didn’t recognize offhand.

“Whose is that?” he asked, handing the letter to Cecil.

“Lord Weston, m’lord. Your son.”

Lord Dryden brightened, but at the same time felt suddenly sad. He wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. His job, always demanding, loomed heavily over him of late. And now he’d gone and made an ass of himself in front of Cecil, not recognizing Webb’s new seal.

He was getting too old. And so was Cecil.

Taking supper, indeed.

“Well, yes,” he said. “Just testing you, my good man. I’ll take that.” Retrieving his letter, he ripped it open as Cecil withdrew.

He lit another taper on his desk and tipped the letter into the illumination to read Webb’s scrawling words. At first the letter made little sense, littered as it was with words like “resignation,” “hard choices,” and “woman that I love,” but as he got to the end, the entire message spelled out the shocking truth.

“Why the stupid, headstrong idiot.”

“Yes, m’lord?” Cecil asked from the doorway.

“Summon the guards,” Lord Dryden bellowed.

“The guards, m’lord?”

“Yes, you gaping jackanape, the guards. Assemble all the guards outside my office. All of them, immediately!”

Cecil scurried from the office and fled down the hall, repeating Lord Dryden’s order in his own high-pitched squeak.

Lord Dryden pulled his spectacles off and began polishing the lenses.

“Damn fool,” he muttered. “Damned reckless, fool.”

“Where are we going?” Lily asked, as they turned away from the Foreign Office and continued on toward the river.

“To break Adam out of jail.”

Lily glanced over her shoulder. “Isn’t the Foreign Office over there?” she asked, jerking her thumb in the direction opposite the one they were traveling.

“Yes, but you weren’t planning on just marching in the front door and demanding his release, were you?”

Lily shrugged, embarrassed to admit that was exactly what she had planned on doing.

“Americans,” he muttered. “No wonder we let you go.”

“The Americans won their independence, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes, but they didn’t do it by barging into Parliament and demanding it.”

He walked over to the embankment and took a narrow, broken set of stairs down to the water’s edge. He tore a large splinter of wood from the stairs and tossed it into the water. For a moment it swirled around in the eddies and flow of the river, but then slowly began to move upriver.

“Devil take it,” he cursed.

“What?”

“The tide is coming in,” he said.

Not wanting to know why this was a bad piece of information or how that had anything to do with Adam, Lily held her tongue. She stayed where she was, perched at the top of the stairs, doubtful the rickety wooden frame would hold both of them. Down below, Webb held up the small lantern he’d brought from the carriage, and with his other hand, felt along the embankment. Around his ankles, the wretched water and refuse swirled with the moving tide.

“What are you doing?” she asked, afraid he was about to ask her to follow suit and dip her feet into the murky swill.

“Getting us into the Foreign Office,” he said as he pushed on a portion of the embankment and a small doorway opened up. “Come on.”

She gamely followed, with Webb guiding each step. She grimaced as she got to the end and the cold water of the Thames rushed into her short boots. Before she could complain, Webb stepped into the doorway and pulled her along with him. The door swung shut behind them, the hinges pulling it closed and plunging them into almost complete darkness. He turned up the lantern and her eyes slowly adjusted to their surroundings.

They were standing in a narrow passageway. She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of them. The walls dripped incessantly, and the stench enclosing them brought tears to her eyes. As she tried to walk, she discovered her feet were encased in a thick mud that sucked and pulled at her boots with each step.