Seducing the Spy (28 page)

"Oh, that's a good girl!"

Alicia looked askance at him, but the driver was already clambering rather badly from the seat to the ground. He ended his precarious journey with a bit of a stagger, then turned to bestow a wide smile on her. "That's the ticket, lovey!"

Alicia had had a very long night. The last thing she wanted was to be called pet names by a strange—
very
strange—man. She frowned at the fellow. "If you call me that again, I shall not only let go, I shall swat him smartly on the rear and wave as he takes off with your goods!"

"Of course you will. Don't blame you a bit. I've atrocious manners, always have." He grinned unrepentantly. Large white teeth gleamed through the grizzle of many days unshaven and his eyes danced beneath outrageously bushy brows. "You're a tasty morsel in that fitted riding habit, so I'll endeavor not to frighten you off. I'm long past courting buxom women, but I'll never tire of gazing at them!"

She couldn't help the short laugh that bubbled up. The fellow took encouragement and bowed briskly. Good heavens, that wasn't so much a hump as it was the most horrendous slump she'd ever seen. It looked as if he spend every moment of his life bending over something that interested him so much he'd not a care for his posture. She could just see him poring over ancient manuscripts or perhaps modern marvels of clockwork.

"I am Forsythe, mad inventor and fire-starter." He nodded again, bobbing his head repeatedly. "That's why I like you, I think. You look like a candle in the gloom, yourself."

She smiled slightly. "That's a rather elegant way of saying I've red hair."

He blinked rapidly, peering more closely. "Is it really? I can't see a thing under those horrid bonnets you lot wear." He turned away to begin untying the many ropes that bound his top-heavy load upon the cart. "You don't happen to have a few stout lads hanging about, do you? Aren't all pretty ladies surrounded by stout lads?"

Alicia grimaced. "Not this one, actually."

He glanced back at her, although he had to look under his arm, not over his hunched shoulder. "Ah, then there is only one stout lad, and he's giving you fits."

Alicia leaned one arm on the withers of the stolid horse. "Absolute cat fits," she agreed wearily. "I rather think I've had enough, thank you."

"Ha." He turned back to his knots, which looked complicated and numerous enough to take up most of the day. "You're mad for the blighter, more's the pity. I'll bet he's a big lad—tall, dark and looming. He'll be as rich as Midas and titled to boot, for only a man like that could be arrogant enough to give cat fits to a fire-goddess, when he ought to be on his knees in worship."

Alicia blinked at the compliment. "Not that I disagree with your assessment, mind you, but how did you know all that? Are you acquainted with Lord Wyndham?"

The fellow rolled his head back under his armpit to blink at her. "Wyndham? That's your stout lad?" He pulled hard upon a single strand of rope—and the entire matter undid itself to slither to his feet. "There, that's done it. Now I need those strong backs." He started for the stable at a strange loping pace, looking for all the world like a stork in a hurry.

Alicia remained where she was, for now she dared not let the horse take a single step for fear of toppling the piled cart load. It was only a moment before Mr. Forsythe returned with several eager "stout lads" from the stable staff.

One took the horse from Alicia, who stepped back out of the way to watch curiously as they began to unload the crates and boxes under the leaping, gyrating direction of Forsythe.

"No, no, you lout! You mustn't jostle the contents! Do you want the Chinese rockets to explode before they've even reached the sky?"

The stable lads were more respectful of their burdens thereafter, and Mr. Forsythe stepped back to join Alicia in watching the show.

"So you're Lady Alicia Lawrence."

Alicia turned her head to gaze at the man. Here it was again—that odd awareness people had of Wyndham and the circle of his personality. The Prince Regent had known, the Sirens had known, and now this man. Moreover, they seemed to know Wyndham himself as more than common gossip would have him.

The Four Horsemen—or whatever they called themselves—were becoming more mysterious by the moment. Prince George had enacted some sort of personal revenge upon Stanton by declaring him the Lord of Misrule. The Sirens and their husbands remained ever on the periphery of Stanton's presence, watching and waiting—for what, Alicia couldn't imagine.

And now this man, who had just arrived, knew enough about her and Wyndham to turn to her and say, "You'd be good for him. The lad's not the easiest sort."

Alicia lifted her chin. "Neither am I, I have heard." She certainly didn't seem to be easy for Wyndham to—well, to accept.

To need.

To love.

"Would you like to see my creation?" Forsythe asked, changing the subject with abrupt kindness, his rheumy gaze sympathetic without being syrupy. He stepped aside to bow her gallantly forward. "We're almost done, if you'd like to see."

The "creation" turned out to be a whimsical structure seated on a vast side lawn of the great house. As they neared it, Alicia at first thought it much larger than it was, for the scale was somehow oddly wrong. It was as if a fairy castle had been plucked from some place where people were perhaps half the size they were in this world.

It was all there, ramparts and fantastical minarets, arched windows and even a delightful drawbridge over a recently dug moat that servants were even now filling with pails of water.

"That's to keep the fire from spreading," Forsythe confided. "We wouldn't want to burn in our beds."

Alicia turned to gaze at him in confusion. "You're going to burn it down?"

"Ah," Forsythe danced away, spinning with arms wide. "We're going to burn it
up
!"

"Fireworks!" Alicia exclaimed in delight. "I haven't seen fireworks in years!"

"You've never seen fireworks like these," Forsythe boasted. "This display will be visible for miles. No one will be able to hear for a week!"

Now that she knew what to look for, Alicia could see that the castle structure was bristling with rockets and spinners and there were countless iron brackets, ready to hold more. "When?"

"On the last night of the party. It is a special commission by the Prince Regent. Georgie always did love the toys I made for him."

Alicia smiled, but it faded when Mr. Forsythe turned away to encourage his moat-fillers. A man who called the Prince Regent "Georgie."

She turned back to the stable to tell the groom that she didn't need a horse after all. There would be no riding away, not from this game.

She was playing with fire herself, coming into circles such as these, with nothing but her wits and her smile to arm her. She must keep her thoughts to herself, for she was a pawn on a board full of royalty—with her own future and her sisters' at stake.

Truth and lies. The truth we know and the lies we tell ourselves.

She was in love with Lord Wyndham.

You're a lady, more than high enough to wed a man like him.

If she wasn't notorious. Although that could be repaired.

She would be the Marchioness of Wyndham. No one in Society would dare to speak a word of her past. Her life would be wiped clean with the strength of Wyndham's wealth and power. She would be new.

She would be a fool not to want that. Her sisters would be raised back to their former level, higher even with the dowries and connections she could give them. Her parents would welcome her home with open arms, smiles wide. She could save them all.

But what of me? Am I to be sold for their sakes once more? Am I nothing to them, to myself?

Am I merely currency in this business of status and society?

She returned to the room to change. Now that she was no longer bent on escape, she felt rather silly in the riding habit. Wyndham was there, obviously waiting for her. When she entered, he stood quickly from his seat by the fire.

He looked rather weary and worried himself. She thought perhaps he was worried about what had happened last night—or rather, this morning. She put on a warm smile to reassure him. If she could make his mind easy, then he might tell her what kept him at such a distance.

"Good day, my lord. Have you had an enjoyable morning?"

His jaw clenched visibly and he looked away. Heavens, that wasn't her meaning at all!

Stanton felt something stretch painfully inside him, as if two warring armies were pulling at his soul. She was so lovely, and all he could think about was her sweet abandon that morning. He'd been sitting in that damned chair, remembering, and getting harder by the moment.

She was also a liar, and had brought him to this bedeviled party—this shameless orgy that had trapped and haunted him with the sounds and sights of sex for days on end! He was here on the whim of an irresponsible madwoman who had tricked him out thousands of pounds and made a fool of him in a way he could never forgive.

And still he wanted her. He shook inside from the ache of wanting her—now, in the chair, on the floor, up against the mullioned window for all the world to see—

He hated her as much as he lov—

No
. He cut that thought off harshly. No.

So, one last test. One last chance for her to prove her story, one last chance for him to save his heart from the razor talons of loving someone who was undeserving.

"There is something I must ask of you."

Alicia leaned away, alarmed. "You are very serious today—rather, even more serious than usual."

Please do not mean to propose
! She had not resolved her emotions on that count. If he asked too soon, she could not give him the ready answer he deserved.

"Lady Alicia," he began formally, "I have a request that is of the utmost importance to us both."

She swallowed. Oh, dear.

"My lady, I must ask—nay, beg of you—to take on a most serious purpose. I must know…"

She held her breath. Suddenly, she was no longer unsure. Suddenly, her feelings for Stanton snapped into perfect, lovely clarity.

She loved him. She wanted to be his wife. She wanted to spend her days with him, to hell with Society and its expectations, to hell with the included reward to those who had betrayed her. Let them benefit, for she had no more reason to hate them. They had brought her to this moment, to this man.

"I must ask that you allow me to offer you as a lure to our mystery lord."

She frowned. "But we found him last night! Did he escape you?"

He worked his jaw. "That man is not the man you heard outside the White Sow. That man is a close friend of the Prince Regent's, who was with the prince—
in sight
of the prince yet—on the night you claim you heard this conspiracy."

You claim
. Something was not right. Alicia stepped forward, intent on discovering what had gone so terribly wrong. "You caught the man I handed to you last night—you questioned him—you heard his voice! Is he not precisely as I described?"

Stanton nodded shortly. "He is. He is also undeniably innocent."

"But how can that be? I heard him—"

A flicker of distaste crossed Wyndham's expression—a mere shadow, but she had seen it before. The morning she'd awoken to the shocked gasps of her parents and their carefully planted 'witnesses'—the morning she had told her story over and over to an unreceptive audience—the moment she had become a liar.

Alicia felt as though a pit had opened at her feet and her very blood was draining from her body, leaving her hollow and cold. Someone wanted to harm the Prince Regent. Someone wanted to harm
her
.

And that someone was still out there.

"A lure, you say? I'm to be bait, you mean." Her voice was scarcely more than a harsh whisper, when she had rather been hoping for a scream.

He looked her in the eye, of course. Always honest, always true—to himself. She could see through him like glass and what she saw was nothing. He meant to throw her before the lion, his own heart safe outside the cage.

"I shall do my best to see to your safety, but I must apprehend this man. You are the one thing I can offer him that will surely bring him from hiding."

Sold again. She felt her lips stretch in a brittle smile. "At least someone wants me."

He stiffened further, if iron could get any stiffer. "I regret that I can see no other way. We have only one day left. If you begin to tell the story of what you overheard, minus a few pertinent details, then he will hear of it and seek you out. He will want to know if you have more information, and whom you have given that information to."

She gazed at him, the man she loved, the man who had just proposed she tease a killer. "And while I'm flinging myself bodily before the speeding pit cart, what will you be doing?"

"I will be close by, watching for him. When he approaches and you have positively identified him, you will wave to me and I will intervene."

He sighed. "I regret deeply asking you to do this."

"And yet you have done it so well," she said softly. She met his gaze with a brittle smile. "Oh, don't let it bother you, mate. It isn't as though I need a hero." She turned away and took up her hat, setting it on her head with a cocky tilt. "What do you think? Am I tasty?"

Stanton, of course, being Stanton, could not let it go. "I must beg your forgiveness, Alicia."

She shook off his hand. "Beg, beg, beg. All you need to do is ask. Either I will forgive or I won't. Begging won't affect the outcome either way, unless you make me sick of it."

His pride snapped into play, just as she had counted on. He bowed his head sharply. "Then my thanks are in order, my lady. You are doing a greater service than you know."

He turned then and strode out of the room, his back straight and his brows together.

"Oh, I know what I doing," she said softly to the empty room. "I want this man caught as well, for I am well done with this false love affair." She rang for Garrett and prepared herself to reenter the social whirl of the party, this time armed with entertaining conversation of the highest order.