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‘It does?’ Quin slopped water into the bucket and straightened up to look at the structure.
‘It does when you have done it as often as I have,’ Cleo said. ‘Here, there are some spare clothes of my father’s.’ She thrust a bundle topped with a wide-brimmed straw hat into his arms. ‘You will find it easier to relate to the soldiers if you look more like a European.’ She shrugged when he looked a question. ‘They do not trouble to get to know the local people. As far as they are concerned the villagers are either the lowest form of peasants or brigands—or both.’
Quin shook out a pair of loose cotton trousers, a shirt and a long, sleeveless jerkin. Not exactly the thing to be seen wearing at Almack’s, but ideally suited to the heat. ‘Thank you, I must admit to becoming tired of my skirts.’
‘They will be too big,’ she said as she walked back to the tent, ‘but you can use a cord as a belt. I will find something.’
‘Cleo.’ She stopped, but did not turn. ‘Leave it, I will manage I am sure. You look exhausted. Surely there is nothing more to do tonight?’
‘Just supper and heating the washing water and some laundry.’
‘Cleo.’ That brought her round, a frown between the dark slashes of her brows. ‘Come here. Please.’
She trudged back towards him, her usual grace lost in what must be a fog of tiredness. Quin opened his arms and gathered her to him and after a moment she slipped hers around his waist, leaned in, her face in the angle of his neck and shoulder. She relaxed against him and sighed.
Quin held her and breathed in the scent of hot, tired woman, the herbal rinse she used on her hair, the faint scent of mint tea on her breath, the dust that filmed her skin. He was beginning to care too much for her welfare, he knew that. He had a mission to perform and it was not certain yet that she was an entirely innocent victim to be rescued. This was all too near spying to be comfortable and yet it was his duty. This was no place to strike fine attitudes about being a gentleman. He sneered at himself. So anxious to be a true gentleman and not a bastard? This is the best thing for her, the authorities will bend over backwards to look after her welfare, if only for her grandfather’s sake. Your sensitive conscience can rest easy, Quin.
Cleo stirred in his arms and he forced himself to think clearly about her. She professed no loyalty to England, she had married a Frenchman for love and she carried her father’s suspicious paperwork back and forth to the troops. Had she any idea what was going on? She was an intelligent woman, but curiously sheltered from the real world. An innocent, an obedient daughter or a willing servant of the French?
Having a woman plastered to him was having its natural effect on his body and the thin robe he wore was not exactly designed to hide the fact from someone as close as Cleo was. Quin realised the proximity was having an effect on her, too. He could feel her nipples hard against his chest and her breathing had changed.
He wanted to make love to her, but that was out of the question. Back to his blasted gentlemanly sensibilities, he recognised with resignation. To make love to Cleo while he was uncertain of her smacked of a ruse to gain her confidence and extract information through pillow talk. He would die for his country, he would kill for it if he must, but he was not going to seduce a woman for it and if that made him a hair-splitting hypocrite, then so be it.
Cleo wriggled back a little and he opened his arms to release her, half-thankful, half-regretful. Then he realised she was simply putting enough space between them so he could kiss her. Who is seducing whom? he wondered. Or is this just for comfort? If it is, it must be hers, because it is most certainly not going to help me sleep tonight... To hell with it. He bent his head and took the proffered lips. Just one kiss.
Her mouth, hot and soft under his, opened without him needing to coax. She was willing and yet, despite it all, shy. Quin took a firm grip on his will-power and kissed her with more gentleness than passion, his tongue sliding against hers, his palms flat on her back in the loosest of holds. She was trembling slightly, he realised, like a woman fighting emotion.
Quin raised his head. ‘Cleo?’ Her eyes were wide and dark and flooded with unshed tears. ‘Cleo—’
‘Unhand my daughter!’ Over her shoulder Quin saw Sir Philip emerge from the tent, his fists clenched. ‘How dare you, you libertine!’
Quin felt something snap under the layers of carefully cultivated diplomatic restraint. Suddenly he did not care if the woman in his arms was writing a daily journal to Napoleon himself with intimate details of Lord Nelson’s sailing plans, because, if she was, it was entirely the fault of the red-faced, selfish, blustering man in front of him.
