Chapter Six
SHE WAS LATE.
Andrew sat on the benches at the King’s Stables Road end of Princes Street Gardens where he and Lavinia had agreed to meet on Wednesday morning, whacking his walking stick against his foot and wondering where the hell his asset was. It was, he’d discovered in the twenty-three hours since he’d seen her last, easier to think of her as an asset rather than a woman, let alone one he’d once wanted to marry.
What he absolutely under no circumstances would think of her as was the woman he’d once loved. That should be easy enough. Lavinia had done him a great favor in teaching him that love was the exclusive province of fools, and Captain Andrew Colter, skipper of the Endeavor, was no fool.
You’re not a skipper anymore. The thought slid through his mind, nagging at him, but he pushed it away. Retirement was what he wanted. A quiet life where he didn’t have to worry about shipping times, bribing harbormasters at far-flung ports of call, cargo spoiling in the hold, storms, or rough waters. In a few short weeks, his career for Home would be over and gone would be the days of risking his life to recruit assets, ferry messages, and—on the most brutal of occasions—commit the very acts that had probably already resigned him to hell in the afterlife.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Soon he’d unpack his sea chest for the last time, but until then, he had to stay sharp.
But that would be a lot easier if his asset would actually show up.
Whack, whack, whack went his stick against the edge of his boot. Whack, whack—
“Andrew, I’m late. I apologize,” said Lavinia, rushing up the park’s fine gravel path, one hand holding a tiny confection of a hat on her head to keep it from blowing off.
She stopped in front of him, the hem of her skirt kicking out to give him a glimpse of a boot that showed the faint gray of worn leather even though, he imagined, it had been blackened many times. Unlike the past two times he’d seen her, when he suspected she’d dressed in styles meant more for ease of movement than for fashion, she was wearing the same kind of dress as her clients. Gone were the loose skirts she could kneel in as he imagined she pinned hems. Instead, she wore a purple creation with some sort of black ribbon on the edges that flowed over her legs like falling water, showing off the line of her hips. His eyes trailed up, skimming over the dip of her waist and—because he was only human—over the lush curves of her breasts.
No, no breasts. Assets don’t have breasts.
He tore his eyes away, rose stiffly from the bench, and walked a few steps away as though he’d suddenly become rather interested in a bird perched in one of the trees.
Lavinia followed, angling to get in front of him.
“I hate when people waste my time unnecessarily, so I really do apologize,” she said, clearly flustered.
He clasped his walking stick a little tighter and out of the corner of his mouth said, “Stop following me.”
Her brow crinkled. “I’m trying to apologize, but—”
“We cannot talk.”
She reached for his arm. A frisson of heat at the pressure of her fingers against his arm pulled him up short, and he faced her just as she planted a hand on one of her glorious hips. “That doesn’t make a modicum of sense. What was the point of dragging me out here in the first place if all you want to do is pretend that you don’t see me?”
“This is supposed to be a clandestine meeting,” he bit out. It annoyed him more than it should that, along with her tardiness, he had to contend with her inconvenient loveliness. When she licked her full lips, he almost growled with the memory of the way she’d tasted of ginger candies when he kissed her last. An infuriating part of him wanted to know if that was still the case.
“A clandestine meeting?” She glanced around. “In the middle of a park? What are we supposed to do, sit on two adjoining benches and try to speak without moving our lips?”
“Yes.”
She threw her head back and laughed, but then she abruptly stopped. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“That is how it’s done,” he said, a touch defensive yet also intrigued. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had laughed at him. Up until a few days ago he’d been captain of a ship, and there was little room for levity when one was responsible for the lives of one’s men.
“Anyone walking by would be able to see our lips moving. Isn’t it quite a bit stranger if we don’t face each other?” she asked.
She had a point—rather a good one too—but he didn’t trust himself to get through an entire conversation with her when she was like this. The last two days she’d been prickly and short with him, but now she seemed to have relaxed a bit. It was this playfulness that he’d found irresistible when they were younger. She’d been a spot of brightness at the center of his dreary life.
“Do you see that bench over there?” he asked, pointing to the green-painted bench next to the one he’d just vacated.
“Of course,” she said.
“Go and sit on it and do not look at me.”
With a shrug, she flounced over to the bench and sank down, folding her gloved hands across her knees with the delicacy of a debutante at her first ball.
He took up residency in his old spot, snapping open a newspaper he’d abandoned half an hour ago.
“You aren’t going to use that to try to obfuscate your lips, are you?” asked Lavinia. He could see her peering at him from the corner of his eye.
“Eyes forward,” he ordered.
“I’m not one of your cabin boys,” she said, but he noticed that she did, in fact, set her gaze on an object somewhere in front of her.
“Thank God for that, for you would’ve run roughshod all over my ship.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“That was not a compliment.”
“I choose to take it as one.”
“You’re rather chipper this morning,” he said.
“I’ve decided that since I’ve committed to your cause, I should make the best of it. What happens now?”
Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a slip of paper and slid it across his bench. “Look at this and memorize the address.”
She plucked up the paper and bent her head to read it. “Blair Street. What is this?”
“The location Miss Gibson and I will be operating out of for the time being. The notions shop. Miss Gibson is acting as my sister.”
“I took her for a lover of buttons, ribbons, and trim,” said Lavinia.
“If you need anything from me urgently, you’ll write to the shop.”
“Andrew—”
“Send a note to the shop asking for twelve horn buttons. That will be the signal that you need to see me immediately,” he said.
“No letters then.”
The letters. Of course she’d have to bring those up. She’d been faithful in her correspondence—he couldn’t fault her there—and in return he’d written her stacks of letters with pages about the adventures and boredoms at sea, how he missed her, and, most depressingly, how he loved her. How he thought he loved her, he immediately corrected himself. At every chance he could get, he posted them, knowing they’d eventually make their way back to her no matter how many ships and port towns they had to travel through. Just like him.
Only she hadn’t been waiting when he arrived.
“I can assure you,” he said, “my letter-writing days are behind me. On certain days, as necessary, you will receive a delivery. It will include a message on a piece of paper wrapped into a bolt of the same muslin you use for draping. It will be a book cipher. I assumed it would be too large a volume for your reticule, but I’ll have it sent along to the shop today.”
“And what can I expect on this paper?” she asked.
“The time we’ll meet the following day and any information you need to know about a change in location if I feel as though this spot is compromised.”
“It’s a set of benches in the middle of the busiest park in Edinburgh. When will it not be compromised?” she asked.
“You know, there was another way we could’ve met like this,” he snapped, something inside him breaking.
“What is that?” she asked.
“We could’ve pretended to be lovers.”
She blanched as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and he immediately regretted them. It had been a cheap shot, yet it had felt good to say. What sort of cad did that make him?
He should apologize, but the words were slow to come. He watched Lavinia raise her head and slice her gaze over to him.
“No one would believe that,” she said.
An insult for an insult. That was fair. He deserved the blow to his manly pride, and a blow it was. For years he’d held close the bitter truth that he had never been good enough for Lavinia Malcolm. A ferryman’s son and a gentleman’s daughter? It had been impossible, even if they’d refused to believe that.
“What I’m more concerned about,” she continued in a calm, cool voice, “is what people will believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shopkeepers have a certain reputation, and dressmakers even more so. I suppose there’s something sensual and decadent about the drape of silk against the skin and the richness of fabric that invites men’s imaginations. All of that effort that goes into clothing a woman somehow leaves us vulnerable and bare.
“And then there’s the matter of being a widow,” she continued. “A woman of experience isn’t every man’s desire, but it certainly appeals to a large enough swath of the population that it becomes inconvenient to live on one’s own. I need you to understand that’s what you’re asking me to walk into by encouraging Wark. Because just asking questions and seeing who comes and goes while fitting his mother at their home won’t be enough, will it? You’ll want me to become closer with him, and that means allowing the man to spend time with me.”
The low sickness in his stomach was back. He was thrusting a woman into a situation where she could potentially be ruined. It went against every instinct he had as a man, no matter his feelings about Lavinia and their shared past.
“I wouldn’t begrudge you if you’re having second thoughts.” He selfishly half hoped she’d nod and admit to cold feet. It would be easier not to see her. Easier not to have to worry about her or think that he’d sent her straight toward a man with such obvious designs on her.
“Is the two thousand pounds a promise?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do the work.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why did two thousand pounds persuade you?”
Her back stiffened an almost imperceptible degree, but to a man who’d spent his boyhood with her as the center of the world she might as well have shouted her discomfort.
“It’s a great deal of money,” she said.
“Enough to risk your reputation?”
“Doesn’t every man have his price?” she asked.
That might be true, but he couldn’t help but wonder what else was at play.
“If there’s something I should know about—”
“Nothing,” she said, cutting him off with swift efficiency. “I own a business. That kind of money is fortune making.”
She was lying to him. Each simple lift of her shoulder and casual comment was designed to distract him, but he’d been in this game for far too long.
“If there’s something that will compromise your ability to complete this mission, I need to know about it,” he said.
“All you need to concern yourself with is making sure that I still have a reputation to rely on when you leave Edinburgh,” she said.
Her words hung in the air, the implicit trust in them weighing him down. She was putting her life and her livelihood into his hands, trusting him when everything between them was broken. In a strange, twisted way, he felt honored in that.
“I would never knowingly put you or your business in harm’s way. You have my promise on that,” he said.
Her gaze fell to her lap, where her hands were clasped so tightly that her knuckles were white. “I do hope your promises hold more water than mine did,” she said.
He started, surprised that she would’ve mentioned their broken engagement, and a little thread of doubt began to worm its way into the certainties he’d held for more than ten years. Did she regret the decisions she’d made? Did she ever wonder what their lives would’ve been like if she’d refused the first man who’d come along and asked her to marry him?
Lavinia leaned across the gap between their benches, and he couldn’t help but mirror her, drawn in by his desire to know more.
“I have one very important question to ask you, Andrew.”
His eyes locked on the sensual rounding of her lips again. They were teasing him, lush, pink, and beautiful and more kissable than he wished he knew. He couldn’t help but lean a little closer.
“Do I get a pistol?”
He jerked back. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “A pistol. A mechanized weapon that hurtles lead projectiles at one’s enemies in order to injure or kill them.”
“I’m well aware of what a pistol is and its purpose.”
“Or perhaps a knife. I’m sure I could think of all sorts of ways to modify a gown so that it could be hidden. There’d be no need to go reaching down and hitching up my skirts to get at a stiletto secreted in my garter.”
“No stilettos,” he nearly hissed. No garters either. Bloody hell.
“You’re quite right. They’d be far too large. What I need is a knife with a blade that folds into its handle. Far more compact. What are those called?”
“It doesn’t matter, because you will not, under any circumstances, be carrying or using one.”
“Why not?” she asked. “If I’m to be a spy—”
“You’re not a spy.”
“I am absolutely a spy. Spy.” She jabbed a finger at her chest, depressing the taut fabric across her breasts and inadvertently making the swell of them more prominent as though she were actually trying to kill him. Then she pointed at him. “Spymaster.”
“The spymaster is a man I sincerely hope you never meet. I’m the handler. You are an asset.”
Her face scrunched up in distaste. “An asset? That sounds so . . . uninspired.”
“It’s what you are. And there is no need for an asset who is doing clandestine work to carry a weapon.”
“Is this because I’m a woman?” she asked, her back clearly up.
“No, it’s because if I give you a pistol, you’re likely to shoot Wark the moment he annoys you.”
“I will concede that you have a point.”
“The same goes for a stiletto or any other knife. I don’t care how ingenious your plans are for outfitting a gown with secret pockets.”
The idea of her, an untrained recruit, using a weapon terrified him. Even having it on her might embolden her to use it, and he knew from experience that inexpert men and women usually did more damage to themselves than good in a fight. He wasn’t going to risk having her blood on his hands.
“What am I supposed to do then if the work becomes dangerous?” she asked.
“My responsibility as your handler is to make sure you never have to ask that question.”
“Hmph.” She crossed her arms and sat back but—mercifully—didn’t push back this time.
“How are you going to establish contact with Wark? It’s best if it’s in a public place,” he said.
“It’ll have to be his home.”
“Absolutely not.” That was exactly the wrong sort of place for her to meet Wark. If she was inside a private home, he’d have no way of keeping an eye on her. A public place would be far better.
“His mother has a fitting on Friday, and he’s sure to be there. He’s always there,” she said, pulling a face.
“Rearrange for it to be in the shop,” he said.
“No.” Her tone was firm, brooking no argument. “My head seamstress, Siobhan, has all the fitting rooms booked for other clients. If I change my plans to fit Mrs. Wark, it will throw everything into chaos. This morning in the park alone is costing me time on three dresses’ worth of buttonholes, and with the prince’s visit coming up, time is a valuable commodity.”
“That bloody ball.” Andrew screwed up his face. “Why all the effort for one night, I’ll never understand.”
“It’s not just the ball. It’s everything else around the ball too, and no lady of fashion wants to be caught out wearing an old dress,” she said with a shrug.
“The world is mad,” he said.
“And I suppose you would prefer sun-bleached linens patched so many times the fabric will rend in two if you just look at it the wrong way,” she said.
“At least that would be comfortable,” he said, rolling his shoulders under the tight confines of his jacket. Once they were out of port, he’d always preferred to shed the formality of shore clothes, keeping to his shirtsleeves and waistcoat unless they were sailing through the bitter-cold waters of the North Sea or the Atlantic in winter.
“Do you know, I never would’ve taken you as the sort of man who lets his clothes wear him,” she said.
“Don’t try to goad me, Lavinia,” he said.
She laughed and rose from the bench with a rustle of her purple skirt. “For all that you were a seafaring man and commanded men on a ship, you forget one thing.”
“What is that?” he asked, towering over her now that he too was standing.
“I always won our childhood arguments.”
“Only because you managed to make yourself incredibly annoying,” he said, a smile tipping his lips despite himself.
She shook her head. “It was because you have too much honor for your own good. I’ll send word after I speak to Wark on Friday.”
His hand shot out, landing on her wrist before he could think what he was doing. Heat rushed through him, and he became acutely aware of her parted lips, the quicker-than-normal breaths she took, and the throb of a low, aching desire he’d told himself for years to forget.
“Be careful,” he said.
She cast her eyes down to where his hand touched hers. He was wearing gloves, and her long sleeves covered her from shoulder to wrist with nary a peep of skin, but every touch still fired in him a deep connection they’d both left behind long ago. And he knew that she could feel it too.
“I refuse to be the asset who ruined her first encounter with her target. I’ll be careful,” she said.
Slowly, he released his grip, chastened by her determination but not knowing exactly why.
Dammit, he wanted to be there to assess the way Wark was with her, and it would drive him mad knowing she’d be on her own. He could tell himself his worry was rooted in the success of the mission all he liked, but that would be a lie. He wanted to be there because, despite everything she’d done, he couldn’t lose the flash of the old protectiveness he’d once felt for her.
It was only when she’d disappeared completely from view that Andrew realized that they’d been looking at one another for the entire second half of the conversation. Hardly clandestine at all.