Page 38 of Better Off Wed

Their pillows sat close enough together that he felt her nod. “That was the same year Fitz joined the army.” Finally, she turned over in bed and lay facing him, somehow in the process gathering most of the counterpane about herself. Though the room had grown cool with the dying of the fire, he did not begrudge her the blanket; he begrudged the blanket its closeness to her. “I hope it has not made him coarse.”

“Coarse?” Jeremy echoed uncertainly. She could have no notion of what her brother had likely seen and done in Scott’s service, just as Julia and Mama imagined that Jeremy did nothing more dangerous than shuffle papers in a pristine office in the Horse Guards, albeit at somewhat irregular hours.

“Forgive me, Captain Addison. I did not mean to imply that all soldiers… You are, have been, the very model of a gentleman. If my brother is not, I’m sure the blame lies with our father.”

Jeremy did not know Fitzwilliam Hopkins well, but he knew that field agents played many parts, not all of them gentlemanlike. Knew, too, the weight of a father’s legacy on his son. “I hope he has not behaved badly toward you?”

“Certainly he would never condescend to accompany his sister to the theater as you do.” Jeremy could not decide whether the mocking note in her voice was meant for him or herself. “But on the whole, he treats me well enough. Still,” she said, rolling onto her back, “I worry.” He could too easily picture her gray eyes, clouded with concern, staring into the yawning blackness of the canopy above them. “When he brought me the money from the sale of the cookbook, he had a black eye and a split lip and looked as if he hadn’t slept or eaten in a week. I could not help but think of how Papa looked sometimes, when he’d brawled over a hand of cards or something equally trivial.”

In one sense, Laura had the right of it. Hopkins had been engaged in a deadly game of chance. During the days in which she had been waiting for him to return, her brother had been the prisoner of French ruffians in search of the codebook, which he had only just managed to pass on to an unsuspecting woman. He had been lucky to escape with his life.

“I should not like to have to pay Fitz a visit as Lady Sterling,” she said.

Jeremy felt certain her brother would like such a visit even less.

“His commanding officer would not tolerate brawling, gaming, or drunkenness,” he reassured her. It was not a lie; Scott frowned on all of those things, and Colonel Millrose was stricter yet.

But the whole truth was something an intelligence officer was rarely at liberty to divulge.

He could not, for instance, explain what the cookbook actually was, or that her brother’s safety had been imperiled because of his involvement with it. He could not reveal his work as a code breaker. He could not even tell her what he suspected about Thornton—at least not yet; at present, he hardly knew whether his theory about the man deserved to be honored with the name of suspicion. Thornton was a lecher and thoughtlessly cruel to those who depended on his benevolence.

That did not make him a spy.

So many things Jeremy could not say to her, though he ached to do so. Then again, what would be the point in speaking of desires on which he could not act?

Hardly had the thought crossed his mind, when her fingers slid over his. In comparison to what she had done as Lady Sterling, it could scarcely be called an act of daring to let her hand cross the inches of bare linen that separated them. Yet he marveled at it, at the quiet intimacy of that innocent touch, at this silent yet extraordinary proof of her trust. A woman who had seen what she had would have been justified in never trusting any man, to say nothing of a near stranger.

“Thank you.” Her words were barely a whisper, a breath of sound to match the brush of her hand.

For a moment, he could not think what he had done to earn her gratitude. That paltry reassurance about her brother? Or was it an expression of her faith in him? If she could see into his mind, know his thoughts, learn his secrets…

She deserved far more than he could give.

So he settled for what he could offer in return and hoped it would be enough. “Thornton’s library here is full of books. Perhaps a closer examination will reveal something useful to Lady Sterling.” And the British army. “We can look tomorrow, after Mr. Phelps has another look at your ankle.”

Her fingers curled, tangling his in a gentle squeeze. “Why not now?”

“Now? It must be after midnight.” A feeble excuse under any circumstances, but particularly for a secret agent who often worked under cover of darkness. But, selfishly, he wanted nothing to disrupt the present moment.

“Too tired?” she teased, releasing his hand and pushing herself onto her elbows. If the laudanum had had any sedative effect, it had clearly worn off. “The longer we delay, the more time Thornton will have to hide anything that’s truly interesting. And it’s just downstairs—we can go and be back without anyone spotting us.”

“Let me go, and report—”

“Not on your life. After what you described this afternoon, I need to see his collection for myself.”

“Laura,” he chided warningly.

“Really, Jeremy. What is it you imagine you’re protecting me from?”

Me.

To think of examining those sculptures and paintings with her by his side—or worse, in his arms… He swallowed back the groan that rose to his lips, realizing that he was trying to protect himself most of all. “And if we’re caught?”

“We’ll say I couldn’t sleep, which is true, and that I wished for something to read. Surely there must be something in that library that would pass for innocuous. And if not? Well, I am a married woman, after all.”

He had to squeeze shut his eyes, despite the darkness all around them. “Indeed.”

“So, what are we waiting for?”