Chapter Fourteen

Jenkins' absence had, in fact, been noted. Possibly it had been noted the very night that Chris had made the man disappear, though they hadn't caught any additional miscreants skulking about Emma's home in the nearly two weeks that had passed since the incident. Probably Sir Roger had grown suspicious of a potential trap, and was even now working to slither around it.

"Ah," Chris said, as he slipped into the chair across from Rafe's at the tavern, with a gesture of his fingertips toward the folded paper Rafe held in his hand. "S'pose ye got one, too, then?"

"If you mean a summons from Sir Roger, yes." The next clear move in the game. Rafe chased the words with a sip of whisky and tucked the note back into his pocket. "When?" he asked.

"Tomorrow morning," Chris said.

"Tomorrow afternoon for me." Rafe flexed his fingers, gripping his glass in his hand. "It's to be divide and conquer, then." It was a good strategy from a master of the art. It wasn't even unusual. They were rarely called in to report together, since their association was known to relatively few, even within the Home Office.

Sir Roger's note had arrived late in the afternoon, as they usually did. It hadn't been suspicious in and of itself. It was what it had not arrived alongside it which was suspicious. Notably, other invitations.

They had been slowly tapering off for days now. As if there had been some unseen war waged against him, turning the tide of social acceptance until a cascade of invitations had turned into a bare trickle. An isolation of sorts, he thought. An invisible hand that had begun the process of choking him out of society.

He had expected something like this, and so he found himself less than surprised—but more than a little concerned. He had known that Sir Roger had the ear of powerful men. But so effective a campaign against him only served to prove how much damage could be done with so little effort.

He hadn't been followed recently; of that much he was reasonably certain. But that meant only that he'd managed to subvert whatever suspicions Sir Roger might have held regarding the current whereabouts of Ambrose's journal. Until the journal was recovered, and while Sir Roger harbored doubts of their loyalty, this silent war would continue. And a war, any war, always had casualties.

Chris rubbed his jaw with his gloved hand, wiping away the last traces of the scowl that had settled there. "'E knows we're after the same thing ‘e is," he said. "'E wants to know what we know. ‘Ow much we've been keeping from ‘im."

"I thought the same," Rafe said.

"Ye already gave the game away, what wiv yer letting that man pickpocket Dannyboy," Chris said. "But it worked, didn't it? I've not been followed since."

"Nor have I." It had, at least, gotten them out of the frying pan. But now that Sir Roger knew them to be in pursuit of the journal, it might well have landed them in the fire.

"S'pose we keep on wiv it, then," Chris said. "We tell ‘im what ‘e already knows. Use ‘is own perfidy against ‘im." With one hand, he gestured to a barmaid to bring him a glass. "'E knows we know about the journal. So why not tell ‘im ourselves? Make ‘im think ‘e knows everything we do."

Sacrifice a pawn to save the queen. "Lull him into a false sense of security, you mean," Rafe said. "Tell him just enough of what we know to let him think he's safe. To make him think we have no suspicions of him."

"Will it work?"

"Difficult to say. We'll have to get our stories straight. He'll be searching for deviances, any tiny discrepancy that might hint at subterfuge." And with so many years of experience in espionage, Sir Roger was damn good at it. "But he's avoided even so much as a sliver of suspicion for years. He'll want to cling to the status quo—possibly even against his better judgment."

If they could sell the fiction well enough, toss the man just enough rope to let him imagine it a lifeline extended to him, well, then, he might just hang himself upon it.

∞∞∞

Obligation.

The word swirled around Rafe's head as he watched Emma brush out her hair. He had, he realized, been arriving earlier and earlier each evening, as if his subconscious had been pulling him back toward her. It came with the queer sense of time moving in reverse, moments stolen from earlier in the day with each arrival. Midnight had become eleven, eleven had become ten, and so on until today, when he'd arrived just as she'd finished with dinner.

Close enough on its heels to share in the strawberry trifle that had been her dessert. To chat over shared bites and glasses of wines, like a married couple might. Of inconsequential things, the minutia that had taken up the daylight hours they had spent apart—like her intentions to visit her modiste to acquire a new wardrobe and set aside the mourning attire that she had lived in for so long. And it had been so damned comfortable to be there, to sit beside her and to offer up his opinions on which colors would suit her, and to know she would take them into account. As if his preferences held as much weight as her own.

If he were not careful, perhaps he'd find himself going to her in the daylight hours, the mutually-understood boundary of the hours between nightfall and dawn so thoroughly eradicated that it might well have never existed at all.

An impossible dream, no matter how compelling. It was a kind of torture, he thought, to watch the pleasure spread across her face at his arrival. A pleasure he knew was built upon a foundation of subterfuge. And yet he greedily snatched at every moment that she would spare for him, because sooner or later—sooner, no doubt—they would be lost to him forever.

And she thought he had continued to come out of obligation. Out of selfishness? Worry? Love? Yes; all of those. But never obligation; not like she imagined.

"You're very quiet this evening," Emma said as she gave a last flick of the brush through the silky strands of her hair, which glowed a fiery gold in the firelight.

"Forgive me," he said. "I have much on my mind." How most effectively to dodge whatever thrusts Sir Roger might strike out at him with tomorrow afternoon. Whether he and Chris could both manage a convincing enough performance to buy them the time they desperately needed to surmount the monumental task of deciphering the damned indecipherable. What steps they would take in the interim to secure Emma's safety.

And most pressing, presently, how quickly he might divest her of the voluminous, gauzy nightdress she was wearing. It was modest enough, he thought—or it would have been, if the light of the fire did not shine straight through it, silhouetting the curves of her breasts, her hips, the dip of her waist.

"You could tell me," she suggested, as she set the brush down at last, rising from her seat to meander toward the bed, where he already reclined upon the pillows. "You've listened to enough of my troubles. I would be happy to listen to yours in return."

It was yet another swift strike to his aching conscience that she meant it. Truly and honestly. Despite how their relationship—if it could be called such a thing—had begun, she had grown attached to him. Seeking ever more intimacy between them, inviting with gentle questions, careful suggestions, and subtle prods for him to share more of himself with her.

"I don't wish to trouble you with such things," he said, and it was a truth, if not the truth. But even such small truths had a way of injuring, and a flicker of hurt slid across her face at the gentle rebuff. He lifted the covers as she approached, allowing her room to slide onto the bed, into his arms.

She settled there like it was a place of peace, of respite. Her cheek rubbed against his chest, and he felt her lungs expand and empty on a sigh. "I'd still like to know," she said, as her fingertips slid along the taut muscles of his abdomen in a soothing stroke. The fragility of her voice scored him, and he found himself pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head, over hair so bright he could feel the heat of it beneath his lips.

Emma drew a short, sharp breath. "Rafe, could I ask why…why you have never kissed me?"

"Of course I have," he said. "I just did."

"Not that sort of a kiss." Her shoulders lifted and fell in a hesitant little shrug. "I just…wondered."

If perhaps he didn't want to kiss her, he thought she meant—when the truth was that the smallest thought of it terrified him. There was an intimacy in a kiss that went even beyond the intimacy of sex. While the purpose of sex might be something as simple as to fulfill a primal need, kissing was an act for the simple pleasure of shared affection.

He'd refrained, more for his own sake than for hers. Some part of him feared that she might know if he did. That she might be able to taste all the love he held for her on his tongue, when he had never wanted to burden her with it. And it would be a burden, eventually. A secret kept out of the love from which it had spawned; his cross to bear and never hers.

"Did you wish me to?" he asked.

"Yes." The delicate motion of her fingertips stalled. "Yes," she said again, in a slow, wondering tone. "I want you to kiss me. And I want—I want you to tell me the things that trouble you. I want to tell you those that trouble me." The more she spoke, the more rapidly the next words followed. As if she had been bottling them up a good long while now, and she'd popped the cork on all of them. They spilled out in a tangle, a rush, a reckless admission. "I want to see you for more than a few hours in the evenings. I want more than only sharing a bed with you. I want to share meals and thoughts and opinions and—and—"

Lives, he thought. She wanted to share lives. And he could not even share with her his surname. Was there a layer of hell deep enough, agonizing enough, to make him accountable for his sins?

"I'd settle for a kiss," she said, in an aching whisper. "If—if you don't mind."

Obligation again. As if she thought it might present a hardship for him. It would be a kindness, he knew, to refuse her. What she might perceive as cruelty or indifference now would inevitably prove itself a benevolent act in the end. At least it would be one less transgression to hang itself upon his conscience, one less sin to weigh against the ever-deepening darkness of his soul.

Her fingertips traced the line of his jaw, and she levered herself up on one elbow to look down upon him, just the hint of a plea there in the stunning blue of her eyes. Every good intention fled, chased from his head by an insidious little whisper: What was just one more transgression, really? She would never forgive him for those he'd already committed.

She was going to know, and he—he would be wrecked when he lost her. Beyond salvation; unfixable. But at least he would have this.

His fingers slid into her hair, fisting in the soft strands. Her breath whispered across his cheek, his chin. Her lashes lowered over her eyes as he eased closer. A delicate brush, testing the plush softness of her lower lip. She made a small sound in her throat—a plea, he thought, to linger just a bit longer. His hand opened, cupping the nape of her neck through the thick skein of her hair to pull her closer, and as the seam of her lips parted at the insistence of his, the muscles there beneath his fingers went lax and pliant.

She knew. Immediately and completely. Just as he'd imagined she would.

"Oh, Rafe," she said on a sweet sigh as she laid one hand upon his chest, just over his heart. "I—"

God help him, he could not let her get the words out. Not those words. Never those words. So he distracted her from them in the only way he could. With his hands. With his mouth. With his body. With countless minutes of passion that left her—blessedly—breathless. Without the energy or the will to do more than sigh in utter contentment. Every word stolen from a head left spinning with heady delight.

She would recall them eventually, he knew, as her lids fluttered closed beneath the weight of exhaustion, as she curled against his side, one hand resting straight over his heart. She would recall those words she had wanted to tell him. And there would come a point where he could not dissuade her from speaking them. When he could not distract or disengage or otherwise divert her from them.

And he—he could not accept them. They wouldn't even be meant for him. They would be meant for another man entirely; one who did not exist.

Obligation, he thought again, as he wrapped his arm around her waist. He owed her so many things, but nothing quite so much as the truth. They had kept so much from her, he and Chris, and it no longer mattered if their intentions had been noble.

In her sleep, Emma turned her cheek against his shoulder, and a contented smile tugged at her lips. With a sort of fatalistic sense of inevitability, Rafe looked down upon her and did his damnedest to paint that soft expression into the backdrop of his mind, to memorize the feel of her pressed up against him. Probably, he thought, he would never hold her like this again. She would never again want him to. Still, it was her right to make that choice.

He could not conceal the truth from her any longer. Now he had only to inform Chris of it.

∞∞∞

"Punctual as always," Sir Roger said, lifting his head as Rafe walked into his office, peering over the gold rims of his circular-framed spectacles. "Would that I could say the same of others I could mention." There was the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice, which Rafe supposed meant that Chris had kept him waiting. But then, Chris had never been known for his punctuality.

"Oh?" he said, keeping his voice deliberately light and even. "Has Chris been by recently?"

"Yes; to report," Sir Roger said. "I was given to understand that you have been keeping a good deal of company just lately." He gestured to the chair before his desk. "Do sit," he said with an affable smile, and Rafe had to give credit where credit was due—not an ounce of deceit showed upon the man's face. He had the affect and mannerisms of a kindly old grandfather, every appearance of openness and honesty. "I've heard some…disturbing rumors just lately."

It was so damned easy to forget that the man had been a master spy himself before he'd been charged with the supervision of his own set of underlings.

"As it happens, so have I," Rafe said, and released a great sigh as he sank into his chair. "We didn't wish to concern you if it came to nothing," he said, as if it were no great surprise that Sir Roger had learned as much. "I suspect we've heard much the same rumors. That Ambrose kept a journal."

There—a faint flicker in Sir Roger's eyes. Not only interest, but something more nefarious than that. Easily missed, if one were not looking for it.

Sir Roger leaned back in his seat, folding his hands over the prodigious girth of his stomach. "Well, now," he said, "You ought to have told me immediately."

"We would have," Rafe said, "had there been anything of significance to report. An unsubstantiated rumor has little value, you understand. We thought it best to investigate quietly."

Sir Roger frowned. Not in the way of an angered superior, but more in the way of a disappointed parent. "I see," he said, on a long, gusty breath meant to convey some manner of exasperation. "And what have you learned, then?"

Rafe feigned a rueful laugh. "That Ambrose is no writer," he said, with a shake of his head. "Nothing worth reporting upon. Unless one cares to hear vivid descriptions of the horses he thought most likely to win at Newmarket."

There; that was relief just at the corners of Sir Roger's eyes. His fingers flexed and relaxed, and his chair creaked as he leaned back into it, as if he had deflated somewhat. "I'll admit," Sir Roger said slowly, "that I had some concerns of it. Given Ambrose's history, I had thought it might contain some revealing information."

"So had we," Rafe said dryly. "But it came to naught in the end." He paused a moment, and lowered his voice. "Though there is something which does concern me."

"Oh?"

"Emma's house was burglarized recently," Rafe said.

The apples of Sir Roger's cheeks flushed even beyond their usual floridity. "Was anything taken?"

"Not to my knowledge. Perhaps a few sticks of silver. But the timing is too coincidental. I think it possible—likely, even—that the would-be thief had come for the journal. It speaks to the potential of someone within the Home Office working against us."

A queer silence drew out, during which Sir Roger attempted to temper his relief at being so informed with the shock he was meant to be displaying. "I see," Sir Roger said, arranging his features in a bland expression. "This is a serious accusation."

"One that merits investigation," Rafe said. "And you are the only man whom I know I can trust implicitly."

"London can be a dangerous place," Sir Roger said evasively. "I would not discount the possibility that it is mere happenstance. Of course I shall make some…discreet inquiries."

More likely he would say nothing and then, at some point in the future, pronounce the matter resolved to his satisfaction. "Thank you," he said, nonetheless. "Some matters are beyond my ability to resolve."

"One does what one can," Sir Roger said lightly. "Now—I have some events that I'd like for you to attend." He rifled through the papers upon his desk, selecting a list which he passed to Rafe.

"That might also present a problem," Rafe said. "I can only assume I have offered some insult somewhere. My invitations have slowed to a trickle."

"Don't trouble yourself about the invitations. I'm confident that I can secure this much for you," Sir Roger said, with a magnanimous—and relieved—smile. "Fancy a game of chess before you're on your way?"

Rafe managed a smile of his own, sufficiently abashed. "All right," he said. "I suppose I can spare the time for just one wretched loss."

Sir Roger rubbed his hands together with a chuckle, jovial at the prospect. And when Rafe walked out of the office some twenty minutes later, Sir Roger had indeed scored a magnificent victory. But then, so had Rafe. Sir Roger had been only too eager to swallow down the fiction he'd been presented.