with aglass of warm milk, along with a few biscuits and a raspberry tart served on a blue china dish.
“Now, tuck in and rest. We’ll have much to plan for on the morrow.” Mina kissed her forehead, much like she had done when Letty was a child. She hadn’t done that in a very long time. It made Letty want to cry. She’d been a grown woman far earlier than other girls her age, having to care for a mother whose memory had faded until it was no more. And now—now she felt like a very small girl who was facing the world far too soon.
“Good night, Mina,” Letty said softly.
Now left alone with her thoughts, Letty replayed the events of the night over and over, trying to puzzle out her reactions, especially to Lord Morrey. When the man held a knife at her throat, and later when she was nearly shot, she ought to have been terrified. And while shehad been afraid, the reason she’d trembled as Lord Morrey held her in his arms was because of something else. It was another sort of fear entirely,which made no sense at all.
Letty finished her milk, licked the sugar from her fingers, and set the plate and glass on the nightstand. She got up and cleaned her teeth before climbing back into bed and blowing out the candle. She watched the smoke coil in the moonlight from the windows. The light and smoke seemed to merge, forming a mist that enthralled her. It made her think of Morrey. He was like mist, smoke, and moonlight, a mysterious dream.
Could a woman marry a man like that and be happy?
A feminine figure dressed in a deep-blue silk gown with a black velvet cape wrapped about her walked down the narrow mews behind Twinings tea shop. She held her breath against the stench that lingered in the still night air around her. The stagnant smells brought back memories of home, far across the English Channel.
She moved quickly through the shadows, careful to keep out of sight. Dangerous men prowled the streets like wild dogs, and while this woman could take care of herself, she was loath to tangle with anyone tonight. Her fingers gripped the hilt of a pistol, ready just in case.
Soon she reached a private room at a certain coaching inn that belonged to the man she’d come to see. She knocked on the door and listened for the command to enter. Only then did she step inside and pull the hood back to show her face.
“My beautiful Camille,” a deep voice purred in delight. “How did you fare in your task this evening?”
Her master, the man she knew only as the Lord of Shadows, sat in a chair by the fire.
“Bonsoir,monsieur.” She curtsied deeply, her eyes cast to the ground.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“The English lady spy is still alive. I could not get her alone to force the message from her lips. But I did find out her name. It is as you suspected, Lady Edwards.” Camille waited for her master’s wrath. She had failed him as his left hand and would most likely be punished.
“Tell me what happened.”
She took a seat by the fire and told of how she’d gained entry to Lady Allerton’s ball. She explained locating the woman she’d been sent to torture for the message and then dispose of when no one was around.
“You know how these English ladies are—they are never alone. They always travel in flocks like twittering little birds. Lady Edwards left the ballroom with another woman. I followed them, but a man came between me and my target.”
“How?”
“I do not know, monsieur. I had memorized all the faces in the ballroom, of course, butI did not recognize him.He seemed to materialize out of the shadows.” Camille was proud of her uncanny memory. She could recall any picture or diagram and could even remember every word ever spoken to her. She’d once been a lowly stage actress in Paris, barely surviving on the coins tossed at her feet after each performance.
But this man had been sitting in the front row at her last performance. He had not tossed a coin. He had, with quiet intensity, met her gaze as he left a letter, sealed with wax, at her feet. She had retrieved it and opened it later that night. It had given her instructions, told her how to find him, and he had closed it with the following words: Someone with your talents can