One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,47

husband, you see, was to have got well.”

He squeezed her fingers and, mercifully, said nothing.

“And afterward…well, at first Lord Dulsworthy told me that if I wanted to play at nursery-governess, he would not stop me. Now…” She shrugged her shoulders but found herself hoping Langley would not mistake it as a bid for freedom and release her. If she were to continue this explanation, she needed to be able to draw strength from his touch. “In a matter of days, Jamie will be twelve. The book from Porter’s was to be a present for him, you see. He’s very bright. But I…I do not think he is ready for Harrow.” She paused, tried once more to gather her wits. “And when you arrived this morning, Lord Dulsworthy was on the point of declaring that if only I would…then he wouldn’t…”

While speaking, she had deliberately focused her gaze elsewhere. The loose knot in his cravat. A spot somewhere over his shoulder. Now she lifted her eyes to his face, searching for the words to explain.

Jamie’s fragile spirit.

Dulsworthy’s abhorrent proposal.

Her selfishness.

Her guilt.

“If you would…what?” he prompted gently.

“If I marry him,” she whispered, “he won’t send my sons away.”

A pause. “And you don’t wish to marry him.”

Not a question, but she shook her head. “I’ve been married, Major Stanhope. I see little benefit to repeating the experience.”

Lightning flashed, near enough that she shivered against the electric charge in the air. The storm was getting close.

By that sudden glare, Langley searched her face, his expression unreadable. “You are never…lonely, then?”

Heat prickled through her, a mixture of awareness and embarrassment. She knew the sort of loneliness to which he referred. “If I am, must I marry to find a cure?”

When he spoke again, it was not an answer to her question. Or not exactly, at any rate.

“I am more than prepared to set your sons’ lessons in algebra and Latin. More than willing to tell Dulsworthy whatever you wish about their prospects. But,” his grip on her fingers grew tighter still, past the point of reassurance, almost past the point of endurance, “I think you know that’s not why I’ve come to Bartlett House.”

At just that moment, the sky split open, pelting them with cold rain. He glanced upward as if in disbelief. Then he turned, releasing one of her hands, clearly intending to tug her along after him, into the shelter of the morning room.

She set her feet.

Her resistance slowed him, though she hadn’t the strength to stop him entirely if he were determined. He looked back at her, baffled, water streaking over his brow, spattering his spectacles, plastering his hair to his head, dripping off his chin.

“It’s too late,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the clatter of the rain. “We’re already soaked. Just tell me—tell me why you’re here.”

He closed the arm’s length between them, bringing them once more toe-to-toe. Nearly chest-to-chest. The fine cambric of his shirt was almost sheer now, and she tried not to imagine the similar state of her muslin gown. With his free hand, he pulled off his spectacles, blinking against the raindrops that struck his lashes.

“You’re in danger, your ladyship.”

She was tall for a woman, but he was taller. She had to tip her face into the rain to meet his eye. “From you?”

Something sparked between them, like lightning traveling between ground and sky and back again. Almost involuntarily, she lifted onto the balls of her feet, bringing her body closer still to his. She could feel his breath, almost taste the rain on his lips.

“I’m here on assignment, Amanda,” he growled, his voice rumbling through her, stronger than a peal of thunder. Until that moment, she had not known that the sound of man speaking her name had the power to turn her inside out—and that she would crave the sensation. “Another kiss between us would be a grave mistake.”

She shook the rain from her eyes. “But two nights past…?”

His gaze cut away. “That was…unavoidable. Regrettable.”

In those callous, indifferent words, she recognized an attempt to persuade himself he believed what he was saying—and perhaps to persuade her as well.

But for all his talk of mistakes and regret, he still had not let go of her hand.

“I’ve been ordered here to protect you,” he went on. “The men who took my fellow agent captive have figured out the identity of the person to whom he passed the codebook.”

Cold knifed through her, born of the shards of icy rain driving into her skin, his