One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,74

be dismissed, eager to put an end to this conversation. “I will claim nothing I have not earned.”

And a man like him did not deserve a woman like Amanda.

No matter how much he wanted her.

Just as he reached for the knob, Captain Collins tapped on the door from the other side. “Lady Kingston’s letters have been sent, sir. She’s awaiting your further instructions.”

General Scott motioned for Langley to open the door, as if his leaving had been the general’s plan all along. “Tell her Major Stanhope will be right out.”

In the outer office stood Amanda, her gaze focused on Collins’s empty desktop, an expression of stunned disbelief on her face. Hardly had Langley crossed the threshold when her chin lifted and her dark, worried eyes came to rest on him. “When she gets that note, Rebecca Hurst will think I’ve gone mad,” she said, hurrying toward him. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “H-have I?”

Yes, he wanted to say when she stretched out her hands for reassurance. His reassurance.

Instead, he caught her fingers in his and drew one hand through his arm, so that he might keep her close to his side without raising suspicions. Including hers.

“I for one am quite used to my schemes being thought mad,” Scott declared as he came around to stand in front of them, his quick gaze taking in Amanda’s fingers curled around Langley’s arm, Langley’s hand covering hers. “But I know good sense when I see it. And you, my lady, strike me as eminently sensible.”

Something—a laugh, a cry of protest—rose in Langley’s throat. Amanda must have sensed it. She sent him a look from beneath her lashes, as she’d done that night in the garden, scolding and defiant and vulnerable all at once. He swallowed the sound with an audible gulp.

Scott chuckled, damn him. “Collins, please make the necessary arrangements for Major Stanhope to escort Lady Kingston back to Bartlett House. If she’s anything like Mrs. Scott, I’m sure she will wish to oversee the packing.” Then he turned to Amanda with a bow. “Enjoy Richmond, my lady. And you, too, Magpie.”

Langley made himself nod. Since when did Scott’s assignments involve enjoyment?

Chapter 14

Amanda lay on her back, staring upward, feeling the walls of Charles and Rebecca Hurst’s smallest bedchamber pressing in upon her, imagining that she could make out the edges of the carved medallion at the center of the bed’s high canopy, though darkness hung thickly all around her. Or perhaps she had been lying there so long, the sky outside the windows actually was beginning to hint at the approach of dawn?

No. Still fathomless, featureless black. Hours to go before morning. She drummed her fingers on the coverlet and sighed.

The Hursts’ house possessed lovely gardens at the rear, sloping down through sparse woodlands to the river. Rebecca had made a point of inviting Amanda to stroll in them at any time. But she did not think Rebecca had really intended for her to wander outside in the middle of the night. Besides, it seemed a particularly foolhardy thing to do when someone out there in the world meant her harm.

The same had been true in London, of course, and the abrupt relocation to Richmond was meant to keep her and her family safe. Somehow, though, the unfamiliar surroundings, the oppressive quiet of the country, only made her more ill at ease.

Or perhaps she was just overtired. The muscles of her cheeks ached from maintaining a smile of reassurance, from laughing at herself again and again as she explained to her family that she had been so scatterbrained as to have forgotten to tell any of them about the Hursts’ very kind invitation, forgotten even to order the servants to pack. Mama had been most seriously displeased by the turn of events and had spent the majority of their hour-long carriage ride peppering Amanda with questions to which the boys, too, had demanded answers. Answers she had struggled to give.

Langley might have been some help, but he had conveniently elected to go on horseback.

The envy with which she had watched him trot alongside the question-filled carriage had been somewhat muted by the discovery that he would be sharing the hastily made-over attic space with the boys, as the small house’s only available guest quarters had been reserved for Amanda and her mother. She imagined him there now, two floors above her, sleeplessly staring at the ceiling too.

General Scott’s insistence that he stay with her—with them—had caught Langley off guard. That much