A Lady Seduces

She watched him warily through narrowed, sharp green eyes, not daring to sit down and join him or lower her weapon. He had caught her at unawares once. She would not give him the chance to do so again.

“I mean you no harm. I do wish you’d put down the gun.” All bravado aside, he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t shoot. He rather hoped she didn’t.

“So you can take me as easily as you took the others?” she challenged.

He was not stunned by her hypothesis regarding the reason for his sudden appearance. “I once thought the same of you.” He answered honestly. In spite of his efforts to protect her, there had been moments in the dark when he’d wondered if such protection was folly. Death had exonerated the others. Survival had condemned the two of them, although his survival had had the good taste to be in question for several months afterward. He’d been left for dead, but she couldn’t have known.

She shrugged. “Much has been thought of me. Not all of it true.”

Ronan smiled. “Most of it is, though.” Like the rumors of her beauty, the raven hair that felt like ebon silk sifting through a man’s fingers, the clear green eyes resembling so perfectly twin glacier ponds, the porcelain skin so fair as to give her an air of misleading fragility.

“Yes, most of it is,” she conceded, gun unwavering. She was indeed the rare beauty of a butterfly brought to life, and far more dangerous, as she demonstrated now: a vision of loveliness with a gun pointed at his chest. Even acutely aware of his exposure, Ronan’s groin had tightened, aroused by the decadence and danger of the situation. He understood well the wanting of her and the futility of it too.

He would not be the first to be so inspired by her. Europe’s most powerful men had coveted the exotic dichotomy she offered of pleasure amid peril. None of them—ambassadors, politicians, generals or princes—had held her. She’d flown away from each of them in turn. If she were his, he would never let her go. After five years of waiting and hunting, it was time to finish his mission and claim her, if she would have him.

She was right to be wary of him. To her, he was nothing more than the spymaster. In Vienna he’d not dared act on his feelings, for fear of putting her at risk. Even now, he did not come free of danger, indeed, he might have brought danger right to her doorstep at a time when she was used to living in the safety of obscurity. She would not thank him for it. But he could protect her, could offer her a new security.

But first she had to trust him. She was stalking him now, moving in a half circle about his chair, showing off her excellent silhouette in a summer organdy afternoon gown of pale blue. A band of white ribbon showcased high breasts; the tight fit of the bodice highlighted the flat of her stomach where it tapered snugly into the flare of her skirts. Some small part of him, the part still thinking like a spymaster and not solely as a man in the presence of a stunning woman, knew she was playing with him as if he were another of her randy, balding ambassadors.

“Stop it. I’m not an aging statesman impressed by your charms,” he growled.

She gave him a coy look, moving close to him, her eyes giving his crotch a moment’s consideration. “Not aging, but still impressed, I’d wager, judging by the current fit of your trousers.”

His breath caught. His pulse ratcheted. She meant to caress him with her free hand. What an erotic prospect to have one hand on him while the other held a gun. What he wouldn’t give to feel both those hands on him. There’d been gossip she’d coaxed a secret location out of the Venetian diplomat once in just such a way. It took all Ronan’s willpower to seize her wrist as if he meant it. “Not now. We have business.”

She stepped back, eyes narrowed, gun at the ready once more, the prospect of her hand on him now removed. “There is no business, St. Simon. What you ask is strictly against the rules. We are never to talk about the contents of the envelopes. Indeed, we were never to even know the contents.”

“I know the rules,” Ronan said drily. He was the spymaster, dammit. He’d made the rules. “But the game is over, Lucia.” Lu-chee-ah. He used the Italian pronunciation, letting his tongue caress the sound of it, savoring the intimate luxury of her name. In their line of work, names were death warrants and he’d protected hers with his very life, whether she knew it or believed it or not. Maybe someday he’d tell her what he’d endured on her behalf, but not today, not when such a disclosure would only serve to raise her suspicions further.

“Rule number two,” Lucia quoted, eyes flashing. “The game is never really over.”

Lord, he’d taught her well. Too well, it would seem. She was not simply going to hand over her envelope, but it was reassuring to know that after all these years she still had it and it would be sealed, untouched. Still, reassurances were not enough. They never were. He needed that envelope. It had been a quest, a personal mission. For his own sense of closure and perhaps even for hers, they needed to open the last envelope and put the ghosts of the past to rest. He’d promised Jonathon’s family nothing less.

He also needed it for her safety. That was the other reason he was here. Danger was on his heels. He had only tonight and tomorrow to protect her and lead the danger away. When all was well, he could return and act on his desires. Everything hinged on Lucia’s willingness to part with the envelope.

Ronan rose, it was time to take charge, gun or not. He pushed aside the twinge of guilt that always accompanied any reminder of Jonathon before it could become a blinding black wall of remorse. There were so many regrets when it came to Jonathon. He never should have let him play, no matter how good he’d been at the game.

“It is gratifying to see that you’ve been so well schooled,” Ronan said softly, “but I think you misjudge my business.” Would she notice he did not deny her claims? He reached inside his coat, knowing full well Lucia’s eyes followed his every gesture with sharp awareness. He dangled a pocket watch from his fingers, letting her take in the singular beauty of the item: the cover in gold with two raised figures of young Greek men on either side of a bell done in copper, the thin, elegant chain weaving across his knuckles. The unmistakable winding key dangled from the chain in slim simplicity. He saw the moment in her eyes when she recognized it and Ronan knew he’d chosen the gift wisely. What she wouldn’t do for him, Lucia might do for a memory. She was not so different than himself in that regard.

* * *

“Jonathon’s watch,” Lucia breathed. Her eyes began to sting, the sight of the watch conjuring a thousand images: Jonathon’s golden head tossed back in laughter, Jonathon bent neck or nothing over his horse as he took a reckless hedge in the Viennese woods; Jonathon elegant and composed at Vienna’s finest dinner tables; Jonathon waltzing, all grace and ease. She pressed her free hand to her stomach to quell the lurching. But she couldn’t stop the last image: Jonathon falling, his body bloody and torn from the gunshot as he’d staggered toward her in the ballroom, his golden glory destroyed in one lethal moment. The guilt rose. If you had stayed, you would have been killed, too, came the usual argument, the one she regularly used to beat back the remorse. Tonight the argument was impotent. St. Simon had stayed and he’d lived, proving her argument false.

Her eyes darted back to St. Simon. “His watch is your business?” She hated how her voice trembled with uncontained emotion and that her mind seethed with suspicion. Had he brought the watch in the hopes she’d open the secret compartment behind the face because he couldn’t?

He nodded, his voice low and private, his words measured. “I thought you’d want it. You and he were close. I thought it might offer some comfort.” They weren’t quite the words she wanted to hear: The game is over, there is no other reason for my coming. Or better yet, I’ve come for you, to see if there’s anything between us besides the heat of the game.

The last was hypothetical conjecture on her part. St. Simon had never once made inappropriate overtures toward her, as so many other gentlemen had. That didn’t mean he was innocent of interest, however. He was guilty of having followed her with his eyes in Vienna’s crowded ballrooms with a predatory look that went beyond the need for basic surveillance. More than once she’d caught him staring at her in an unguarded moment, a moment that was always so quickly masked she questioned whether it had ever happened.

Those moments were never acted upon. The game did not advocate for such a liaison between compatriots. The game was everything to a man like St. Simon, as deep in his loyalties to England as he was in his passions. Engaging feelings meant engaging danger. There was enough danger as it was without adding to it, especially when the object of one’s affections was La Mariposa, Vienna’s most beautiful woman, and the most deadly.

St. Simon stepped close enough to drop the timepiece in her hand, the gun between them forgotten. The watch was warm from the heat of his body as she ran a finger over the cover. She found the hidden catch from memory but did not spring it.

“There’s nothing in it, I am sorry to report,” St. Simon offered in deceptively soft tones, reading her thoughts. Then again, maybe it wasn’t deception. He’d loved Jonathon too, as much as she. He’d protected Jonathon as much as she had. Except at the end. She’d chosen to protect herself. She shook her head and tried to give it back. “You keep it. He was your friend too.”

St. Simon’s hand closed around her fingers, wrapping them over the surface of the watch. The feel of his hand on hers sent a tingling warmth up her arm. “Please, he would have wanted you to have it, and it’s taken me long enough to find you.” He offered a small smile, looking handsome and sincere, a look that had been the downfall of women across the continent. But that didn’t stop a hunger from stirring in her belly. St. Simon in her bed would be a heady experience indeed, and one a long time in coming.

Lucia shook her head. She’d been alone too long. But that didn’t make her stupid. Neither was she about to go to pieces over Jonathon’s watch. If that disappointed St. Simon, so be it. Moved as she was by the gesture, she didn’t believe for a moment bringing the keepsake had been St. Simon’s only motivation. The game might indeed be over. But there was a new game afoot. She was about to bet her life on it. Lucia moved to the sideboard and began her ploy with six simple words. “May I offer you a drink?”

Lucia opened the cupboard to reveal a well-stocked cabinet full of liquors. Without waiting for an answer, she reached for a bottle and two small tumblers that held no more than a swallow or two at a time. She poured in plain sight of St. Simon, out of habit to assure the drinker the liquor was not poisoned, and offered him a glass. “A toast then, to Jonathon.”

St. Simon took the glass, caressing it ever so slightly between elegant fingers that promised to deliver exquisite decadence to any body part they touched. “To Jonathon, who was arguably the best of us.”

Lucia downed her drink in a single effort and swallowed hard against the strong liquor going down. St. Simon followed suit, swallowing with an appreciable smile. “Zubrovka, unless I miss my guess.”

She nodded and poured them another, gesturing that they be seated. “Shall I ring for food?”

“Heavens, no, it’s bad luck! Have you forgotten the old superstition about drinking vodka with food?” St. Simon laughed away her offer, taking the second glass. “You remembered this, though.” He made a toasting motion toward her with his glass. “There’s nothing like Polish bison-grass vodka.”

St. Simon’s favorite. Of course she remembered. She remembered all the little things that made up the sum of men: the cigars they smoked, the liquors they drank, the colognes they wore, the tailors they preferred. Such knowledge had kept her alive, made her invaluable to men, made her worth saving, and more than once that knowledge had given her the ultimate key to any man: control, the one weapon she never surrendered. She’d surrender her gun before she’d surrender that. Control made all things possible and it was time to start exercising some of that with St. Simon.

Lucia made a show of putting the gun back in the drawer before she settled into her chair and sipped her vodka, the pale-yellow liquid going down easier with each swallow. She set the bottle on the little table between their chairs. “I remembered.” Did he? This might be his favorite drink, but she had yet to meet anyone who could tolerate Zubrovka like she could.

Lucia smiled at St. Simon, letting her gaze warm him along with the vodka. Good. The subtle signs of interest were there. His pupils had darkened in his tiger eyes; his gaze rested on her lips. The spymaster was not immune. That boded well for her. After all, she had vowed to take a lover of the very next man through her door, and Lucia Booth never went back on her word. She licked her lips over the rim of her glass. She would have Ronan St. Simon, body, soul and secrets before the night was out, and then she would decide if she could trust him.

Chapter 3

The plying of liquor was going well. St. Simon was well into his sixth glass and umpteenth story. “Jonathon was all dressed up as the finest of Venetian courtesans and waving his fan faster than a fainting matron at Almack’s.”

Ronan leaned close over the table, a trace of his cologne catching her nostrils—sandalwood and vanilla. His smile was wide, his glass of Zubrovka empty once more. “Jon puts his hand on his stomach and says to the guard at the gate, ‘I’m expecting and in a very delicate condition.’ The guard lets us through with a gallant bow to Jonathon and well wishes for a safe confinement, but he stops the wagon right behind us and makes them unload their entire cargo while he searches under the floorboards for a suspicious diplomatic pouch. A pouch, I might add, which was playing the part of Jonathon’s ‘delicate condition’ underneath his skirts and halfway to Amsterdam.”

“I can just imagine it!” Lucia laughed. It was an honest response. There was no playacting here on her part, and that worried a small part of her very much. In her dealings with men, she’d always been able to hold a portion of herself back, the portion that was just for her.

That piece of her was under attack tonight. Ronan’s stories touched an intrinsic part of her soul. These were her experiences too, and when he talked of Jonathon dressed as a pregnant Venetian courtesan, she could indeed imagine it. No gambit had ever been too large for Jonathon. His smooth-cheeked élan and his long golden lashes would have served well paired with Ronan’s dark masculinity.

There would have been no question of Ronan playing the pregnant traveler. Dark stubble already peppered his strong jaw and dusk had barely fallen. But she could picture him perfectly in the role of protective husband, an image that sent a tremor of desire skittering through her. To have such a man at one’s side would be heady and empowering. If one could claim St. Simon’s loyalties, nothing would be impossible.

Lucia poured them another glass. It would be Ronan’s seventh, not that he was counting. But she was, and she was certain St. Simon had lost track quite some time ago.

Amid the stories and the endless glasses of Zubrovka, late afternoon had passed to twilight and twilight to the darkness of a summer night. In such company it was easy to forget so many things, not the least being the potential danger posed by St. Simon’s presence. Ronan reached for his newly filled glass, slopping a bit over the rim as he lifted it. The vodka was getting to him. Her own hand held steady. It was time to ascertain whether he’d come as friend or foe.

She held his eyes. “Here’s to the danger,” she said softly in the dusky intimacy of the parlor. “It is easy to laugh now with the peril behind us. But we were all just steps, minutes, away from discovery at any given point. And we know how that would have ended.”

They drank their toast and Ronan sobered. “We do know how such a fate ends, in fact.”

Yes, she knew. Death, but not before torture to extract every piece of what they might know. Was that what had happened to him? She thought to draw him out. “But not for us. You and I are the lucky ones. We survived. We escaped.” She hoped he would contradict her here, argue that he had indeed paid a price.

When nothing was forthcoming, Lucia rose to stand in front of him to press her case. “Jonathon and the others would not have wanted us to mourn unduly. They’d want us to celebrate life, to take our pleasures where we could. Perhaps we might take those pleasures tonight.”