Chapter Six

NATE

After wandering around Bath for a while, I was clear-headed enough to drop into a pub for lunch. Things between me and Charlie were incontrovertibly over. My judgement had been momentarily clouded by the shock of seeing him again and his astonishing suggestion of getting back together, that was all.

I headed back to the Fortescues' in the overcast afternoon, wondering what my next move should be regarding Bim's investigation. During my absence, a red Ferrari F12 had been parked outside their home. Charlie used to own an F12 before he wrote it off, driving too fast in the wet for even a Ferrari to make the corner he was trying to screw it around. How he hadn't been badly hurt, I had no idea.

I turned my back on the car and the memories it evoked to head into the house.

"Is Charlie in?" I asked Taylor as he took my jacket. I wanted to avoid him and the feelings he still had the power to stir up in me.

"Mr Charlie and Ms Ella, together with Mr and Mrs Fortescue, have gone out with the Teagues," he told me. "All except Mr Alex Teague."

That provided me with an unexpected opportunity. I could scarcely believe I'd been this lucky two days in a row. I swiftly climbed the stairs to the first floor and saw Alex ahead of me, moving purposefully towards the study. My initial irritation turned to reluctant amusement—whatever he was up to, of course he'd take advantage of an empty house. We'd have to continue our unspoken pact not to give the other away.

He must have heard me as I lengthened my stride to catch him, because he turned around.

I still don't know what it was, whether I caught a movement from the corner of my eye or if it was pure instinct, but I suddenly knew that someone was watching us.

"Alex," I said loudly. "I'm flattered that you're searching every room for me, but I'm right here."

His brows drew together. As his mouth opened—doubtless to ask me, disastrously, what I was talking about—I reached him. The only way I could think of to stop him from saying anything was to kiss him.

He jolted back in surprise. I chased his mouth, desperate for him not to give us both away, and then he opened up beneath my lips, his mouth warm and welcoming, and his tongue flicked against mine. He began kissing me back in earnest. I'd never believed anyone's knees became weak in real life, but I swiftly found out that it wasn't hyperbole. At least, it wasn't hyperbole when Alex Teague was kissing you.

His hands were on my arse, pulling me tight against him. I reluctantly tore my mouth from his and nuzzled into his neck, where I could mutter into his ear. "We're being watched."

He stiffened for an instant, recovering so swiftly that I wondered if he was a professional spy. He dropped a light kiss against my lips. "Are you still going to show me Jane Austen's haunts in Bath?"

"Of course," I agreed, over-heartily. I made a terrible spy.

Once out in the Circus, I glanced over my shoulder at the windows and caught a movement on the second floor. Too fast to see any detail, though I had the impression of a male figure. As I turned away again, I saw the personalised numberplate on the Ferrari. It was Steven's car. Charlie's younger brother, who hadn't been among the family members Taylor had listed as being out of the house. I was furious with myself for not realising that at the time, but I'd tried my best to forget Steven's disagreeable existence. Presumably, it was he who'd been watching Alex.

"So where does the literary trail begin?" Alex asked. It was a relief to hear he was speaking too loudly. I wasn't the only one overcompensating for a possible audience.

"The Jane Austen Centre is down Gay Street." I was still somehow at broadcast volume.

We walked in silence out of the Circus, and as my panic cleared, I wondered why I'd prevented him from betraying himself. It had been instinct. I suppose I'd felt on some level that we were collaborators in deceiving the Fortescues. I hoped I wouldn't come to regret rescuing him.

Safely out of sight of the Fortescues' house, we both glanced behind us to check no one was following and came to a halt. He leaned against the black railings outside one of the identical Georgian townhouses lining the street.

"I owe you one," he said, before his expression began to change. Suspicion slowly filled his face as he studied me closely. "I watched them all leave. If you intended to prevent me from entering that room again, nicely done."

"There was someone at the window when we left the house. Didn't you see them?"

"No." That generous mouth was tight-lipped, his eyes almost hostile.

"Why the hell would I want to stop youfromgetting in there at the cost of missing the opportunity myself?" I asked.

"Why is a member of the Mortimer family poking around in the Fortescues' private business?"

"Why's a Cornish dragon poking around in his host's email?" I countered.

His eyes were fierce on my face as if trying to wrest my intentions from me. I held his gaze. I had no intention of telling him about Mortimer family business, but we'd reached an impasse.

"Do you mind? Those are freshly painted." The imperious voice came from behind us.

I turned to see the front door of the house open and an elderly lady glowering at where Alex was leaning against the railings, the buckles on his leather jacket threatening her precious paintwork. Flapping her hands, she shooed us away like wasps from a jam jar.

Biting back a grin, Alex stood up straight, and we carried on down the hill. I was thinking furiously. Bim would flay me alive if he knew I'd told someone else our family's business. But it was ridiculous and potentially dangerous that we were both sneaking around at the Fortescues without knowing what the other was doing. If we combined forces, perhaps we could cover for one another.

I made my decision. "Let's go to Queen Square," I told him. "It has enough Austen associations if anyone asks where we went, and we can sit in the gardens and talk privately."

ALEX

We crunched up the path towards the tall obelisk that dominated the gardens and took a seat on one of the benches. It was too cold and damp for anyone else to hang around for long out there. On the way, I'd decided to tell Nate what I was doing. There'd be no reason for him to trust me with his business if I didn't spill, and I was nosy as hell about what he was up to.

"I don't know why the Fortescues invited us here," I said. "I was hoping to find out."

He turned on the bench to face me fully. "You're risking the wrath of James Fortescue because you're curious?" His voice was incredulous.

I'd been warned many times that curiosity could kill a dragon as easily as a cat, but it had never taken. "We haven't had any contact with the Fortescues for centuries. Why would they suddenly reach out to a bunch of dragons from the Cornish countryside and invite us here?"

"For them to move so far outside their usual milieu is definitely noteworthy," Nate mused. "They usually avoid associating with anyone from a different socio-economic background."

My nostrils flared. It was one thing for me to think about the differences between us and another for him to lay them out so bluntly.

"They interact mostly with the Swifts and the Carews, although a few other families are allowed on sufferance." His eyes narrowed on my face. "What does your family have that they want?"

"That's precisely what I was trying to find out."

Nate was silent for a moment, then it looked like he made a decision. "Someone's been hacking our banks. The attacks come from Bath and Bristol, and as I'm the only one in our family who's ever been close to the Fortescues, my grandfather sent me to find out what I could. It's annoying we were interrupted so swiftly last night, but it didn't look as if James's emails would have borne much fruit, in any case."

"I don't know," I said slowly. "That title—‘Le Mort d'Arthur'. Our family's descended from King Arthur."

His sceptical expression reminded me that, no matter how hot he was, he was a banker, just like the rest of them. "You think you're descended from King Arthur? The king of legend who probably never existed?"

"Arthur Pendragon," I reminded him. "Means chief dragon. Now where do you think that name came from?"

He was still staring at me, though I didn't think he was seeing me any longer. "It doesn't matter whether it's true. All that matters is that James believes it. I assumed that email referred to the Mortimers because Charlie sometimes called me Mort, and his family started using that nickname for me. But what if..." He looked away across the park, and I sat silent, waiting for him to share what he was thinking. "What if it refers to both our families? What if this is all connected?"

I huffed a laugh at such a stupid idea. "You think he's stealing your money to become even richer than you, and he wants us on board so he can claim some sort of historically derived authority for becoming the leading family of the dragon world?"

As I said it, suddenly it didn't sound so ridiculous. "Is that why he keeps throwing Ella at all the straight male Teagues? If she has a child from our bloodline…"

"That poor kid. No wonder she's so unhappy about you being here," Nate said, and I tried not to be offended on behalf of my straight male relatives. "Though with the banks, I think it's not only about stealing our money but about ruining us. He intends to humiliate us in the eyes of the world, both dragon and human."

"Which would remove your influence as well as your money," I pointed out. "I'm kind of surprised your families are at war. I thought you rich, banker types spent your time doing rich, banker-type things together."

He shot me a disenchanted look. "The Mortimers and the Fortescues have nothing to do with one another. It caused a hell of a storm in both families when Charlie and I got together."

I twisted around on the bench and hitched my knee up, making myself more comfortable. "What were you doing with that wanker in the first place?" From what I'd seen so far, Nate was nothing like Charlie Fortescue.

"He's not a wanker." It came back swiftly. Surely too defensive for an ex. Perhaps I'd misread his reaction to Charlie.

"So, the way he spoke to you before groping you without permission…" And that was without all the ways I'd seen him act before Nate arrived. He'd come into the room when we were having our first welcome party, subjected every member of our family to an insultingly evaluating examination, and then walked out again. None of us was good enough for him.

Nate had looked away from me, staring across the gardens. "He wasn't like that then," he said, and paused for so long that I thought he'd finished speaking. "At least, I don't think so." He rubbed his forehead. "Perhaps he was, and I didn't see it because I was a wanker too. I thought—"

He broke off, shook his head slightly and turned back to me. Determination replaced the distant look in his eyes. "We may be looking for the same information. Even if we're not, we can help one another."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Though if they're responsible for the attacks, I'd have thought they'd be suspicious of you. Instead, they've invited you to stay."

"I suspect James wants to keep me under observation."

"Can we use that? Can you distract them so I can do some more looking around?"

Nate hesitated, perhaps suspecting I wouldn't pass on to him whatever I found.

"I wouldn't mind being the distraction," I assured him, "but if they're already suspicious of you, they're not going to leave you unsupervised." Maybe that was why Ella was all over him.

"I suppose I could," he said at last, reluctantly. "Though I don't know how I can distract them, short of stripping in the drawing room."

"I said distract them, not me." I was heartened to see the flash of humour in his face. He wasn't impervious to my flirting. Speaking of which… "Was there any particular reason why you kissed me earlier?"

"To stop you saying anything stupid," he said, a glint in his eye.

"Oh, really? What if I was about to say something stupid right now?"

His gaze strayed to my mouth before he looked away again. "If we're going to do this properly and stay safe, we'd better go to the Jane Austen Centre in case anyone asks."

I'd thought he was about to kiss me, but something had changed his mind. I still didn't understand who Nate Mortimer was, though that didn't stop me wanting to screw him. Seemed like he was a bit less eager. Oh, well. Now we were working together, I'd win him over with my charm and captivating personality.