The Valet Who Loved Me - Valerie Bowman Page 0,53

but it was pure luck that Lady Wilhelmina was looking for a lady’s maid at the same time. I found the advertisement in the paper, actually.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you came to work with Grimaldi,” Beau pointed out.

Marianne nodded. “Grimaldi found me.”

“Of course he did.” Beau braced his hands on his hips and cursed under his breath. This story smacked entirely of Grimaldi.

“He’d heard rumors that I was asking a lot of questions about the special council and he came looking for me one day. I met him in the park near the Copperpots’ London residence.”

“And he knew who you were, didn’t he?” Beau continued to shake his head.

Marianne nodded. “Yes. He knew right away that I was the sister of the murdered solider. I told him I would never stop looking for Frederick’s murderer, so he asked me to join him instead of working at odds.”

Beau believed every word of it. That was precisely how Grimaldi liked to work. He showed up when he needed someone and convinced them to work for him. But why that damned puppet master hadn’t seen fit to let Beau in on the secret, he’d no bloody idea.

“You didn’t know I was working for Grimaldi until today?” Beau asked next, narrowing his eyes on Marianne’s face to gauge whether she replied with the truth.

“Not until I read this letter this morning,” she replied, her voice sounding tired, resigned.

She was telling the truth. The devastation in her reply told him as much. It mirrored how he felt.

Beau paced away from her and scrubbed the back of his neck. “Forgive me for asking this, but didn’t you say you have an older brother, too? Why isn’t he looking for Frederick’s killer?”

She pursed her lips and arched a pale brow. “That’s a nice way of you asking why I’m involved, being a woman—and the answer is that, regardless of my sex, the moment I learned that my brother had been killed, I vowed to avenge him. Men are allowed such emotions. I see no reason why women cannot be. And if you must know, my elder brother has been captured by the French.”

Beau cursed under his breath again. “I’m sorry. Of course. You have every right to avenge your brother’s murder. It’s just that…This whole thing has taken me by surprise, and I’m not used to being taken by surprise.” He put his hands on his hips again and stared at the floor.

“Likewise,” Marianne replied, primly, “and speaking of being taken by surprise… Were you ever going to tell me that you’re a marquess?”

Beau’s head snapped up to meet her gaze. “Who told you that?” Confusion marred his brow, and he re-read her letter that he was still holding. “It doesn’t say anything about that here.”

“I know,” Marianne replied. “I figured it out on my own.”

Beau bit the inside of his cheek and let his hand holding the letter fall to his side once again. He’d been bested by another spy. A female spy. A female spy to whom he was ridiculously attracted. He refused to ask her the question that was perched on the tip of his tongue: had she been pretending when she’d slept with him? Had she merely done it to get close to him, to learn more about who he was? Because in that, he hadn’t been playacting. No. He hadn’t. Not for one moment.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Do you mind telling me how you figured it out?” He had to ensure that no one else knew.

“Don’t worry,” she replied, obviously guessing his concern. “No one else knows, that I’m aware of. After you told me your name is Beau, I overheard Lady Copperpot and Wilhelmina talking about a ‘Lord Bellingham.’ And they mentioned that Lord Clayton had referred to him—you—as ‘Bell.’ After that, I put it all together when Lady Wilhelmina told me Lord Bellingham’s Christian name was Beaumont.”

“Damn it.” Beau shook his head. “I knew I never should have told you my name.”

“Well, now that it’s all out in the open, I might as well tell you my full name. As I said, my Christian name is Marianne. But like my brother—as you’ve probably already guessed—my surname is Ellsworth, not Notley. Notley was my mother’s maiden name.”

Beau tossed the letter onto the desk in front of him and faced the window. “I suppose we both should have told each other more before we…slept together.”

“I don’t regret it,” she said, lifting her chin.

“Neither do