Chapter Seven
Lucas stared at Stalwood. He could see his spymaster had trouble on his mind when he said he wanted Lucas back in the field. The idea of it made his palms itch and his heart race.
“If you want me back after denying me all these months, you must have something you need my particular skills to work out.”
Stalwood glanced past him to Diana, and Lucas jolted. He’d been so excited about the prospect of being back in the field, he’d almost forgotten her presence. Now he looked over his shoulder and found her pale, her expression one of deep concern.
He winced at that look. He knew it. It was loss, something he had felt so many times in his life. She was thinking of her father. Of what this profession had taken from her. What he had allowed to happen even before he burst into her life and her home.
“Perhaps you two would like to be alone,” Diana said, rising. “I will…I’ll go make some tea for us all. See if I have anything resembling a biscuit even though it’s early for it.”
She didn’t wait for the response, but left the room. When she was gone, Stalwood shook his head. “Perhaps I should not have involved her in this.”
Lucas arched a brow. “I tend to agree, actually.”
“Questioning authority? That sounds like the old Willowby returned at last. She has worked some magic on you,” Stalwood said, his tone dry as firewood.
“She has lost a great deal.”
Stalwood wrinkled his brow. “Yes, she has. She loved her father deeply.”
“And I’m the reason he is dead,” Lucas said, pushing to his feet and limping to the window. “How that woman doesn’t despise me speaks to the sweetness of her character. I do not deserve her help or…or anything else.”
Stalwood was watching him. Lucas could feel his stare boring into his back. Feel him putting pieces together from the little moments he’d seen with the two of them together.
“Oakford made his own bad decisions that day. Your foolhardiness is not all that is to blame. I didn’t send you here to prostrate yourself for punishment over whatever wrongs you have or haven’t done,” Stalwood said softly. “Nor did I send you here to corrupt her.”
Lucas turned slowly and met his superior’s eyes. Stalwood knew. But of course he did. The tension between him and Diana was palpable. Sex hadn’t released any of it, only made it stronger. Only gave him knowledge of what he would do to her later to make them both feel better.
Stalwood’s disapproval wouldn’t change that, even if it should have.
“I don’t want to corrupt her,” he responded.
“Good, she deserves better.” Stalwood folded his arms. “But that isn’t what we need to discuss.”
Lucas straightened. “You have news.”
Stalwood nodded. “Carter Mackany was killed last night. Murdered.”
Lucas’s stomach turned, and he stumbled back to the settee and stared at his superior. Stalwood’s expression was heavy with grief and anger, emotions he was sure his own reflected. He’d known Mackany for years. He’d trained Lucas on the intricacies of different accents so he could take on whatever role came to him on a case. They’d even worked together in Scotland when the queen’s jewels had been stolen, Lucas’s first successful case.
“Murdered,” he repeated when he could speak.
“He was on a case in France. It involved the running of weapons past the blockades.”
“Deep cover?”
Stalwood frowned. “The deepest. No one should have known his whereabouts unless they were in our organization.”
Lucas stared at him as that news sank into his gut and sat there, cold and heavy. “Our traitor.”
“He’s been silent for months, since the attack. I think killing Oakford and injuring you must have put him off for a while. He knew there was heat on him. But he seems to be functioning still within our organization.”
Lucas focused on the crackling fire. “I want him. I want to catch him and punish him for what he did to me. To Oakford. To Mackany. To how many others?”
“I understand.” Stalwood reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a stack of folded pages. “This is the full report about the day you were attacked. It contains not only your account, but those of the others who came after, the remaining witnesses and details of the investigation we’ve done since that day. I want you to look at it, if you’re up to it. See if you can weave any of the pieces together or see anything we’ve missed.”
Lucas took the papers with shaking hands. It had been months since he’d gotten to do anything useful. And while this was not exactly heading to the field to lead the chase, it was something.
He would take something over nothing any day.
“Be careful of Diana with those things,” Stalwood said softly, drawing Lucas from his thoughts.
He looked at the papers again. “Yes, of course. She needn’t know every bit of her father’s last moments. And she’s too clever not to involve herself if she knew I had these.” He stood. “Help me back to my chamber. Tell her I got tired. It will give me time to hide the paperwork. I’ll go over it later when she is busy.”
Stalwood nodded and followed Lucas from the room. But as they moved up the stairs, Lucas couldn’t help but feel guilty for the subterfuge. Diana was doing everything in her power to help him and now he was going to lie to her.
That didn’t feel good as her friend, her patient or her lover. He could only hope those lies would lead to the revealing of the man responsible for her father’s death. At least he could give her that peace. But only if he withheld the truth from her now.
Diana stood at the door with Stalwood, saying her farewells after the two had shared tea. When she returned and found Lucas gone to bed, she’d expected the earl to depart right away. But he’d stayed for over an hour and they’d chatted of nothing at all.
It had been nice, actually, not to have the dark cloud of her father’s loss hanging between them.
But now he held one of her hands and was examining her face far too closely. The cloud was back. “You are not sleeping well.”
She blushed. That was true, though the cause for her current state of unrest was not the unpleasant one he assumed. Her night had been spent with Lucas. And she intended to repeat that night. She longed to do so, if only to forget everything else in her life that troubled her.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him.
Stalwood shook his head “I’m no substitute for your father, Diana, I know that, but I do feel some responsibility for your well-being. As his friend as much as his superior.”
“You were always his friend,” she said softly “And I appreciate that. As did he. But you needn’t worry.”
He was silent a long moment before he asked, “Did I make a mistake, asking you to help Willowby?”
She stiffened. “No,” she said. “I can already see improvements in his condition. I have no idea how far they can go, but considering that my father cared so much for the man, I see it as my duty to do whatever I can to help. I don’t regret taking on his care, my lord.”
Stalwood held her stare. “He is a good man, Diana. I would never have exposed you to him had I any doubt about that. But he is a spy. You know what that means. So be…wary.”
She blushed again. It seemed Stalwood had sensed some level of connection that had formed between them, even if she doubted he had guessed the whole truth. If he knew Lucas had bedded her, she had a feeling there would be a much larger explosion.
“I’m always wary, I assure you,” she said, then squeezed his hand and pulled away. “I’ll send an update on his condition in a week. Good day.”
“Good day,” he said, touching his hat to her before he returned to the fine carriage that was waiting for him in her small drive.
She shut the door and turned toward the stairs behind her. She’d promised Stalwood that she was always wary, and it wasn’t entirely untrue. She knew better than to trust Lucas with her heart. With her soul.
But her body was something else. She longed for his touch. Longed to finish what had been interrupted when Stalwood arrived.
She longed, and that was undeniable. She shook her head as she went up the stairs. Lucas’s bedroom door was closed and she hesitated a moment before she knocked lightly.
There was a sound of brief movement before he called out, “Come in.”
She stepped inside. He was propped up on the bed, still fully clothed, though Stalwood had apparently helped him with his boots.
“He is gone?” Lucas asked, his gaze flitting over her from head to toe. She shivered at the intimacy in that stare. At the intensity.
“Yes,” she said. “I wish you had called for me when you got tired. I could have helped.”
A brief flash of emotion moved across his expression, but then it was gone. “I did not want to interrupt you in whatever you were doing. Stalwood was up to the task of assisting me.”
She stepped closer. “I have a hard time picturing the very proper Earl of Stalwood being up to such a menial chore.”
Lucas’s brow wrinkled. “Do not mistake him. His title has never made him soft. He once worked heavily in the field before he took over as leader of the spies.”
She nodded slowly. “I suppose I should know more than any other not to judge a spy by his outward appearance. They are rarely what they seem or claim to be.”
She winced the moment the words were out of her mouth. She’d said far too much, revealed it to a man who was always finding deeper meaning in what was said. It was in his nature. And she saw him doing it now, examining her like he was collecting evidence.
“Come here.” He held out a hand to her.
She swallowed hard before she did as he’d ordered. She came to him and slipped her hand in his. There was an instantaneous reaction through her body. Heat and tingling desire and…comfort.
It was the last that made her want to jerk her hand away. She did not want to seek, nor find, comfort in this man. That was the most dangerous trap she could fall into.
“We were interrupted earlier,” he said softly, lifting the hand that wasn’t holding hers and gliding it into her hair. He massaged her scalp gently and she let out her breath in a long exhalation of pleasure.
“Yes, we were,” she murmured, letting him tug her in.
“I’d like to finish what we started,” he said as he drew her across his body and pressed his lips to hers.
She melted into his heat, happy he had chosen not to pursue anything but the desire that coursed between them. That was all she wanted, nothing more. Remembering that was paramount to her own safety.
But all those thoughts faded as he drove his tongue between her lips, swirling it around and around her mouth, tasting her and softening her and making her weak with wanting him. She shifted to move beside him on the bed and lifted against his body, rubbing against him like a cat as the kiss deepened and spiraled and went on forever.
She was lost in him and she loved it. She never wanted to be found if the pleasure and peace she experienced in his arms was what she could have forever.
The thought of forever jolted her, and she pulled back, staring up into his face. Not forever. There were no forevers for her. None that she wanted and none that were offered. Getting caught up in any thoughts otherwise was an exercise in pain and foolishness.
“I do not like that look,” he drawled, pushing her onto her back gently. “You are thinking…overthinking.”
She smiled despite her thoughts. “Am I so obvious?”
“Only to a keen observer of the human experience,” he said, sliding a hand down her body and catching the edge of her skirt. He began to slide it up inch by inch. “Which I am.”
She pursed her lips. “You forgot to mention modest.”
“I would never lie and say I was that,” he said. The skirt was at her knees now, and he skated his fingers over the flesh there until she arched up with a shiver of pleasure. “I know my…talents. Why should I not be proud of them?”
She could hardly think now. The skirt was around her thighs and his fingers were warm against her skin when he parted her drawers and touched her.
“What talents exactly?” she gasped as he left her skirt in a pile around her waist and placed his hand flat against her sex.
He lifted his gaze to her face and grinned. “I’m so glad you asked.”
He inched down her body, making his movements carefully so he did not create any more pain that he had to. He settled between her legs, lying on his stomach so he didn’t have to support much of his weight on his bad arm.
“Lucas,” she whispered, but hardly got his name past her lips when he leaned in and blew a gust of warm air against her sex. Her body was so ultra-sensitive that she bucked at the sensation.
His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, very good,” he murmured, then ducked his head and licked her.
She fisted the coverlet in his hands with a mewling cry at the sudden and unexpected feeling of his mouth on her so intimately. At the very unexpected electric pleasure that he created. Experience or no, she’d never felt anything like it. Never imagined a man doing such a thing or that it would create such a sudden, immediate and volcanic reaction through her entire trembling body.
It was magic, pure and simple.
And it was relentless. Because of course—it was Lucas driving it. He stroked his tongue over her in long, even strokes, swirling the tip around her clitoris every time.
“Please,” she gasped out, her fingers coming down into his hair, pulling him close, pushing him away, uncertain how to get more and yet lessen the intensity of what she was experiencing.
He glanced up. “All in good time, my dear,” he whispered, then returned to his work.
She collapsed back, her eyes fluttering shut and her world becoming nothing but sharp sensation. She found herself lifting her hips to him, meeting the rhythm of his tongue over and over again as pleasure built within her.
And as it did, his focus changed. No longer did he lave her entire sex. Now he focused entirely on her clitoris. That sensitive nub of nerves sent shockwaves through her. She was on the edge and she wanted to fall and fly.
He sucked her and she got to do both. Wave after wave of intense pleasure rocked through her. She arched against him, her hips slamming out of control as he drew the sensation out further and further, past the point where she felt she could bear it, past the edge of what felt like sanity and safety. It was everything, and it pushed out the boundaries of her small world until it felt like she could do anything.
Slowly, the pleasure faded. Eventually, he lifted his head, smiling up at her with feral, male confidence.
She couldn’t even move, but it didn’t matter. He inched back up her body, unbuttoning her dress, shoving it down her arms. She lifted her hips to let him glide it away. He left her chemise, but removed her drawers.
“Roll over on your side,” he said.
She did so, facing away from him. He lay on his good side next to her, his mouth against the back of her neck, his breath hot and steamy against her skin. The hard thrust of his cock pressed to her backside and he spread her open, smoothing her wet entrance before he speared her body in one long, heavy stroke.
She ground backward against him, burrowing into the crook of his body as his arms came around her. He rolled his hips as he thrust, probing deep inside her sex, pressing her body in ways she had never felt before. She met him stroke for stroke, that pleasure she had only just abandoned returning in rapid and even more powerful succession. She came a second time, moaning his name as he increased the power and pressure of his thrusts and finally, as he grunted out her name, he withdrew and she felt the heat of him pump between their bodies.
She shivered and he drew her closer, his mouth brushing her skin, tattooing her with his whispered, empty words of desire. And she drifted off to sleep with all that in her head. And nothing else that normally troubled her.