Chapter Twenty-Five
The confounded woman left him without a bloody backward glance.
Maximilian did his best to slink into the shadows. How did the Flower seem to become the darkness? Feeling like a fool, he hunched between two front doors and tried to pretend he was a brick, just minding his own brick-like affairs. She, however, with her dancer’s grace, dashed across the street without even the slightest whisper of boot on cobblestone.
He was coming to admire that stealth now that he knew how difficult it was to achieve.
Her figure paused at the front door. He could not see what she did, but it seemed to him she bent over. He had a sudden image of what her buttocks might look like in such a moment, then cast it out of his brain with a mental oath. What her buttocks looked like was of no concern. Mostly. But the vision was burned into his brain now.
When he looked for her again by the door, she was missing.
Hell, where did she go? The front step was empty. At what point had she disappeared into the town house? He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, rubbed. That should teach a man a lesson. Best to keep your eyes on the spy, not her derriere.
Now he was stuck in the street, unable to go anywhere. Logically, if she were to come looking for him, she would return to the place she’d told him to wait. So he couldn’t move, but had to go on being brick-like in the shadows he couldn’t hide in, watching the sky lighten above him.
He was ten times a fool.
He should have turned around when he saw her leave her town house. Better yet, he should have stayed at home with his work, but the apology had been burning on his tongue. Highchester and his acquaintances might dishonor women, but Maximilian had made a point of not doing so. Except this little foray of chivalry was costing him. He could be translating something for a paying client. Instead, he was—
A window opened high above the street. Silent, but quickly. Against the white casement, he saw a dark leg thrown over sill, then a small, quick body emerged from the window. The Flower. She was in a hurry, judging by her fast, fluid exit from the building.
Three sets of windows above the street. There were no railings under that window to assist her. Nothing but brick and stone. His damn fool feet were already running across the road. Did they think he was going to climb up there and save her?
The Flower didn’t need his assistance. By some miracle of espionage training, she was pulling the window closed at the same time she was nimbly slipping down the side of the building. Watching the black-clad figure dance across the face of the building was a study of strength and proportion, of confident feet and clever fingers that found purchase in nothing but brick and stone.
When she leaped from one windowsill to another, his heart slammed into his chest. The daft woman was twenty feet in the air and leaping over the razor-sharp points of the iron area fence. If she fell— He shuddered and stepped beneath her. Then he realized what she’d done. Moved from the window over the area fence to the window above the front door. There was nothing to stop her drop to the front step.
Except him.
He looked up, saw her body falling through the air, and raised his arms to catch her.
Damn, she was heavy for such a little thing.
The impact knocked the breath from him, but he flexed his muscles to prevent her from falling through his arms. They fell with a tumble of limbs and a bone-jarring thud. He twisted to keep her from landing on the stone, jarred his shoulder, then rolled so that he lay on the ground and she lay above him.
She was not soft in his arms, as some women could be. She was spare. And strong—damn, she was strong. Pushing hard at him, she sprang to her feet. By all that was holy, the Flower was gorgeous, standing above him and blazing like all of hell’s fury.
“Stupide! I knew where I was landing. Then you were there. Just there, where I did not want you.” She reached down, her small, gloved hands fisting into his coat. “Idiote!”
“Oi! Who’s there!” The shout was masculine and above them. A head poked out of a window.
Instinct seized him. He rolled to his feet and shoved her against the front door of the town house. The door was set into the wall so there was some protection from the view above, but not enough, confound it. Not enough.
“I woke him.” The Flower’s voice was muffled against his chest, but he still heard the fear lurking beneath the velvet tones. “I was not as quiet as I should be.”
“Did you get what you needed?” He breathed the words into her ear. Her body warmed his skin as he pressed against her. Each curve seemed to fit perfectly against his angles.
“No. The room was empty.” Not only fear in her voice now. Despair lurked there as well so that her words quavered.
Above them, the window slid closed.
“We should leave,” he whispered.
She seemed frozen. Shock, fear, something held her in place, tightening her muscles so she was motionless in his arms. When she didn’t exhibit any intent to move, he took her hand and pulled her away from the building. Setting their pace at a quick jog, he was pleased when she matched him without question. He wasn’t accustomed to the Flower being so biddable.
“What were you looking for?” He waited to ask the question until they turned the corner onto another street.
She only shook her head as an answer, lips pressed together.
“Very well. I won’t inquire further.” He grabbed her arm, swung her around to face him. “Whatever it is, you can trust me to help you.”
Her eyes were huge in the pale light of the coming dawn and seemed dark against her skin. Her chin trembled, then firmed. She wasn’t going to cry—he knew that much of her—but she was troubled. The unusual vulnerability tugged at some guarded place in his heart. He gathered her in, trying as best he could to protect her. It would not fix whatever was wrong, but that did not stop his need to try.
“What I wanted was there but is gone now.” Her words were like the sun that would soon break over the horizon. Quiet, but significant. “The room was empty.” Her hands clutched at his arms, fingers working against the muscle.
Did she know how much information those quick, clever fingers could impart?
“What will happen now?” He didn’t even know what he was asking, or what was supposed to be in the room, but despair echoed in her ragged breath and the tightening of her dancer’s body.
“I don’t know. I had planned—” She stopped. “I must go home and rethink.”
Breaking away, the Flower began sprinting down the street. Her footsteps were light on the walkway, despite the exhausting pace she set herself. Even infused with such utter terror that each muscle and sinew was tight and tense, she still moved with fluid grace.
Some primitive, animalistic part of him craved to follow her.
He should not. The gentleman inside refused to let his feet move. He didn’t understand the Flower, couldn’t untangle the secrets of her heart and mind, and whatever made her so afraid was not something she was ready to share.
Turning away, he hunched his shoulders against the fact that she didn’t want to let him in. Very well. He could respect her need to be private. She was a spy, after all, and he a gentleman.
Except he couldn’t help her if she wouldn’t let him.
Dash it all.
He spun around and studied the black coat and narrow shoulders beneath it as she fled. Her feet flew over the walkway, arms pumping with a desperation that left him sick in his gut.
To hell with being a gentleman.