Nick understood at an elemental level what came of love matches when the love went sour and curdled into a noxious, stinking heap of acrimony. And as much as he tried to convince himself and others that his and Mariana’s was a Society match, he knew exactly what sort of match they’d made.
Shoulders hunched and braced against another gust of northern air, he dug his hands deep inside his overcoat pockets. The fingers of his left hand hooked a long chain and yanked from its depths a locket—Mariana’s locket. He clicked it open, expecting to find miniature portraits of the twins inside, when a different image met his eyes. It was the cameo.
His pulse jumped in his veins, and his pace slowed. Yet another memory came at him—there seemed to be an endless supply of them tonight—and his thoughts flashed backward to that long-ago day when he’d claimed the cameo from Pistrucci. He’d held the carved sardonyx in his hands, awestruck by its beauty. Mariana’s alabaster profile underlain by a rich, dark red and encircled by a band of rose gold. The world-renowned cameo maker had surpassed his reputation in the execution of it.
The man had asked Nick what words he would like inscribed on the back, and he’d gone mute. What sort of words?
For the entire previous year, he’d struggled to find the words that captured his feelings for Lady Mariana Montfort. There were too many emotions to count and most of them conflicting. But that wasn’t to say he’d left the space blank.
He clamped the locket shut and turned it over in his hand. The backing was nothing more than a smooth gold surface. She’d had the cameo set inside the locket for none to see. Only she and he knew the words he’d had inscribed. And she kept them close to her heart . . .
Right.
If he truly knew what was good for him, he would break his promise to Mariana and refuse her anotherspy lesson. But he wouldn’t break his promise to her. Too many promises had already been broken.
Tonight, he would teach her one of the most fundamental elements of espionage, and in doing so give her the one thing she wanted in Paris. Never mind that he would be giving himself the gift of watching her face light up with joy when she beheld it.
From a lone corner of his mind, he saw that his spiral out of control had already begun. His words from last night came to him:Men break laws, walk across flames, and start wars to give a woman like youeverythingshe wants.
Nothing he’d done tonight had come remotely close to any of those acts, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of each and every one. For her.
This was what he’d fled all those years ago: the knowledge that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for this woman, to be worthy of her. It was absolute weakness, worse than opium, and, despite ten years spent trying to outpace and elude it, it had caught him.
Chapter 15
Nack: To have a nack; to be ready at anything, to have a turn for it.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Next Day
Mariana crouched down into a dark, filthy corner and attempted to make her body as inconspicuous as possible. Nick’s instructions tonight had been as succinct and paltry as those from the previous two nights:
Rue de Buffon. Small black door behind the iron railing.
After skulking up and down the avenue a few times, she’d finally located the small black door behind the iron railing, but she hadn’t known how to proceed from there. So, she’d ducked into an unobtrusive alcove on the opposite side of the street where she could wait and watch. Now twenty minutes later, she was still waiting and watching. Tonight might be a complete failure—another one.
On the bright side, at least, Nick had been wrong on one account: the absinthe hadn’t affected her head this morning, and she’d been able to call on Helene to collect the twins’ letters. All seemed right in their respective worlds with Geoffrey reminding her about the bon-bons and Lavinia buying new ribbons for her ancient mare’s mane. What a sweet, patient old thing Bessie was, and what a horse-mad, dreamy girl Lavinia was. To be sure, it was the perfect match of horse and girl.
Mariana poked her head out and scanned the street up and down. Thankfully, she remained its sole occupant, save a few rats she’d spied scurrying along walls. She shifted her cramped bum from left to right and clutched her knapsack tight to her chest.
Tonight’s note had been accompanied by a long, slender piece of metal resembling a hat pin and the set of clothes she now wore. Nick seemed to have developed a penchant for dressing her, but this time he’d gone beyond the pale. Of course, it didn’t escape her notice that these clothes were the reason she was able to blend with the shadows, dressed as she was in unrelieved black: black knit cap, black woolen sweater, black leather gloves, and snug, black . . . trousers.
What could tonight’s lesson possibly be? Duplicity . . . guile . . . invisibility . . . nowtrousers. To what end?
As far as she was concerned, trousers were a functional and boring article of men’s clothing. Some men wore them better than others, but she’d never given them a moment’s thought. They didn’t feel terrible, but not quite right either. The fact was she couldn’t help feeling exposed. Trousers were sofitting. They left a woman no secrets.
There was something else, too. After she’d slid them up her legs and began tentatively circling her bedroom in an attempt to adjust to their fit, an odd feeling had stolen over her. She’d felt light . . . free. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily adapt to this particular feeling.
Stranger still, once she’d donned the full costume and tucked her hair into the knit cap, her reflection in the full-length mirror had revealed a man. Well, not a man precisely, rather an ambiguous person who could be anyone. The idea was . . . liberating. It was another feeling to which she could grow accustomed. She was coming to understand what attracted Nick to espionage.
She opened the knapsack, dug out the long pin, and glowered across the deserted street at the innocent door. She had a feeling about this long pin, that door, and the task before her. Namely, Nick was setting her a task doomed to failure. She felt it in her bones. He hadn’t wanted to agree toone more lesson. Most likely he figured that if she failed, she would tuck her tail between her legs and flee Paris.
Captain Nylander, the path not pursued, and his boat came to mind. He could sail her to Margate and on to London, where she would forget the last few, strange days and resume her life as normal.
Except it wouldn’t do.
