Page 81 of After the Spy Seduces

Her breath hitched at his menacing tone. When he took a step toward her, she reflexively stepped away, only to hit her back on the cabin wall. She gasped in fear.

“That’s the only thing I regret, Diana. That you had to make my intention to marry you so difficult.”

He took another step closer, and she flattened herself against the wall to keep from touching him.

“It would have been beneficial for both of us. Me, to marry Thaddeus Morgan’s daughter, when your father would have pulled every string he could to get me promoted and assigned to a coveted post, if only to make life easier for his daughter. And you—you should have been grateful that a man wanted to marry you at all, given your past. Let alone a man of my rank.”

When he leaned toward her, she slowly reached her hand down her skirt toward the knife.

“But you were so distant, so cold—behaving as if I wasn’t good enough for you, when all along you’d already been ruined. I could have saved you from all hints of scandal and disgrace.” He reached up to her hair, to rub a stray curl between his thumb and finger. His touch snaked revulsion through her. “Who’s going to save you now, Diana?”

As her right hand poised to grab the knife, her left fisted her skirt. She took a deep breath and resolved to pull—

“Redcoat!” A shout broke the stillness of the ship. One of the sailors who had tossed her into the cabin that morning strode toward them through the shadows.

Paxton stepped back immediately.

A ragged breath of relief escaped Diana, and she sagged back against the wall, her skirt slipping through her fingers and falling back into place. At her sides, her hands flexed open and closed at the shock of what she’d been about to do. To kill a man—and not just any man, but one she’d known for almost a decade, who practically lived inside her home and one her father considered family…

But she would have done just that if he had laid one hand on her.

“It’s time,” the sailor called out. “The boat’s ready.” He leered at her and held out a leather strap and piece of cloth to Paxton. “Ye’ll find that gag t’ be a godsend wi’ her.”

“I should use the gag and strap on you, you damned idiot!” Paxton snatched them out of the man’s hand and threw them away. He took Diana’s arm, and although she fought to keep from yanking away, she couldn’t stop a shudder of disgust. “Tell the captain to get the ship ready. I want him to raise anchor and set sail the moment I return, understand?”

He led her to the railing, where a rope ladder had been draped over the side of the ship.

“Climb down,” he ordered, helping her over the rail and onto the first rung of the ladder. “I’ll be right behind you.”

She hesitated, dropping her gaze down the ladder to the rowboat waiting below, lit by a small lamp sitting on its seat.

As if reading the daring thoughts running through her mind, he reached beneath his coat and retrieved a pistol. He handed it to the sailor. “If you do anything to try to escape, he’ll shoot you.”

The man flashed a toothy grin of glee. “Aye, sir.”

Diana trembled and held tightly to the rope as she tentatively stepped down to the next rung. Then the next, and the next…one at a time, descending into the darkness toward the little boat below.

When she’d moved far enough away that she couldn’t overhear, Paxton ordered the sailor in a low mutter, “Get Kearns. Grab weapons and come behind us in the second dinghy. I want to make certain we get away with both the diary and Miss Morgan.” He added before climbing down the ladder after Diana, “And that you kill Christopher Carlisle.”

Chapter 26

Kit stood in the main room of the old boathouse. Every inch of him was alert.

Around him, the building which had once served as a customs house was dark except for the moonlight that shined through the row of windows and lit the scarred floorboards. And silent. Only the soft lapping of waves on the lower level broke the quiet, pulsing against the wide stone ledge where ship officers used to tie up the dinghies they’d rowed to shore to record manifests and settle fees before unloading their cargo.

He’d been here since nightfall, and long enough that his clothes had dried. Using the night’s first darkness for cover, he’d silently swum into the boathouse from the harbor. The sound of the waves had covered any noise as he climbed onto the ledge, collected the two pistols and a knife that he’d paid the boy to leave there for him, and made his way up the wide steps to the main floor above. Then he’d settled in to wait, marking time by the tolling of the church bell.

And thinking about Diana.

He allowed himself that small luxury of distraction when he still had several hours to wait. How could he not? He’d thought of little else but her since the night he found her at the tavern.

Oh, he’d always known how beautiful she was, how intelligent and inherently graceful, with a touch of an imperial air that had been crafted from a lifetime spent as a general’s daughter. But he’d had no idea that her outer loveliness was no match for her inner beauty, or the kindness that reached all the way down to her soul. Or how resilient she was. How utterly strong and fierce.

What still sent his head spinning, though, was that she cared about him.Him. Not the scoundrel second son he pretended to be, not even the Home Office operative he actually was. But beneath all that, she saw him as nothing more than a flawed man, yet she loved him anyway. The absolution she’d brought to him was the greatest gift he’d ever been given.

No—not absolution.Salvation. In her arms, he’d been redeemed, and he’d go to his grave a better man because of her.

But before that happened, he had one last duty to complete. He would make certain that Diana and Meri would be safe.