Page 17 of After the Spy Seduces

She jerked her arm away and retreated to the door, tucking the coin into her bodice between the tightly laced corset and her plump breasts. When she reached the safety of the doorway, she paused, her curiosity keeping her halfway in the room and half in the noisy, smoke-filled hallway behind her.

Around them, the building was alive, with music playing from the downstairs drawing room and laughter, shouts, and moans coming from the rabbit warren of rooms on the upper floors. The whole building pulsed with a crazed mix of desperation and debauchery, and over it all lingered a seedy depravity that put a bitter taste in Kit’s mouth.

But such places had their benefit to him, because such places gave him access to men like Ivanov.

“Will you be here when I get back?” she asked Kit, foolishly not realizing the rash jealousy such a question would stir in the Russian. Or what she would have to do later to appease him for it.

“No.” The sharpness of that blunt, dismissive answer was for her own good. If he was kind to her, Ivanov would be cruel. “Leave.”

With a toss of her head and a flounce, she stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. Instantly the noise of the brothel was shut out, if not the musky scent of sex and the faint vibration of movement conducted through the building’s beams.

Ivanov ignored the gun pointed at him and crossed to the bedside table, where a bottle of cheap port and a questionably clean glass waited for him. “So you are holding me at gunpoint.” With an amused chuckle, he splashed the dark liquid into the glass. “Do you have any idea who I am?” He gestured at Kit with the bottle. “Or what I will do to you for interrupting my evening?”

“Nikolai Mikhailovich Ivanov.”

The man paused, the port raised halfway to his lips.

“First Secretary to His Excellency Khristofor Andreyevich von Lieven, Russian Ambassador to London.” Kit arched a brow. “And currently the man who’s bedding the ambassador’s wife, Dorothea.”

The glass lowered as all amusement fled from Ivanov’s face.

“And you won’t do one damned thing to me.”

Murderous rage blazed in the man’s eyes for a fleeting heartbeat. Then with a laugh, it was gone, or at least hidden behind a cavalier smile. He took a long swallow of port and paused to study Kit over the rim of the glass.

“Who are you?”

“Just a man making use of a brothel.” Kit sat forward in the chair, finally bringing its two front legs to the floor and resting his forearms over his knees, the end of the pistol never moving its aim from the man’s broad chest. “So let’s have a little chat, shall we?”

Ivanov said nothing.

“You and your men have been monitoring French communiqués between London and the Continent.”

“You are mistaken. I am a diplomat, not a—”

Kit raised a hand to cut him off and repeated the statement, “You and your men have been monitoring French communiqués. Do not insult me by attempting to deny it.” He lowered his hand, although every muscle remained coiled and ready to spring. The Russian said nothing. “I want to know about the movements of one of their operatives. An Englishman named Garrett Morgan.”

“I do not know of him.” But the flash of surprise in his eyes said otherwise.

“Think hard.”

When the man said nothing, only continuing to slowly sip at his port, Kit reached beneath his overcoat to his breast pocket, to the bundle of letters tied with a pink ribbon.

“Perhaps you need something to jog your memory.” He held them up. “Correspondence between you and the lovely Dorothea von Lieven. I must say,” he mused as he turned them back and forth, contemplating them, “I doubt His Excellency the Russian Ambassador wants the contents of these letters spread throughout the Court of St James’s, wouldn’t you agree, Secretary Ivanov?”

The man’s lips twisted, as if he suddenly found the port distasteful.

“The man who wrote them might find himself sent packing from London, just in time for a long, cold Russian winter.” His eyes flicked between the letters and Ivanov. “So, let’s try again, shall we?” He held the letters up to the candle on the washstand beside him and let the flame singe the corner of the top letter, tempting the Russian into cooperating with the promise of destroying them. “Garrett Morgan. The past fortnight. Tell me.”

Ivanov said nothing.

Kit pulled the letters away from the flame and made to put them back into his coat.

“Fine!” He bit out a string of Russian curses at being bested, then broke into laughter at Kit’s audacity. “What do you want to know?”

“Garrett Morgan is working with the French.” Months of tracking down leads and information had proved it to him, and now Ivanov’s silent reply to that statement confirmed it. “A fortnight ago he went missing, apparently kidnapped and held for ransom.”

Ivanov laughed.