1817
“What do you mean you’re quitting? You can’t quit,” Octavian spat. “Spiesdon’t quit.”
“This one does.” Pandora placed her palms on the spymaster’s desk. Leaning forward, she looked him in the eyes. “I’m done, Octavian.”
His beetled brows drew together—an expression that she’d learned meant a battle ahead. But it didn’t matter. For the first time in her entire existence, she had something truly worth fighting for.
Octavian sat forward in his chair. “What about the others? Marius, Trajan, Cicero, and Tiberius are already on their way to the Spectre’s lair in Normandy. They’ll need your help to capture the villain once and for all: you cannot let your colleagues down. ”
After all these years, did he really think that he could guilt her into doing his bidding?
“We all joined this spy ring of our own volition. What the others choose to do is not my concern.” She straightened from the desk but didn’t break eye contact. “The only control I have is over my own destiny, and I choose to walk a different path.”
Octavian shot to his feet, his wiry frame vibrating with suppressed hostility. He jabbed his index finger accusingly at her. “Youdo not get to choose.Imade you, Pompeia. If I hadn’t rescued you from the gutter, you’d be there still. Powerless. Broken. Have you forgotten what I did for you—how I gave you the weapons and will to survive?”
The dark alleyway swamped her. Sickly cologne mingling with sweat, weight pressing her down, vermin scuttling through the piles of rubbish. The flood of helpless terror: a lifetime of being careful, yet she’d fallen into a trap. No one to blame but herself. No one to help. No one to care. Her basket of blooms scattered and crushed over cobblestone, her screams muffled by leather, pain tearing into her…
When it was over, she lay there, curled on her side. A cool white wall sprung up in her mind, blocking out the fading footsteps. Her face smeared with wetness, her body numb, she reached toward a fallen violet, one that hadn’t been trampled, her fingertips brushing petals that had somehow survived…
“I gave you power.” Octavian’s pale blue eyes pierced her through the fading memory. “Taught you how to avenge your honor and mete out justice. Youoweme.”
His words sliced but with the dullness of a blade much used. Her skin crawled but didn’t break. Instead of blood, bitterness welled.
“I’ve repaid yourkindnessa hundred times over. I owe you nothing. I don’t even owe you the courtesy of my resignation—but I’m giving it to you anyway.” And because loyalty was difficult to die, even between spies, she said in low tones, “Call off the mission. Send word to Marius and the others. They’ll need time to regroup and recalibrate their plan seeing as I won’t be there.”
“I’m not calling anything off,” Octavian snarled, his fist pounding the desk.
His obstinacy shouldn’t have surprised her. It had taken years, but she’d finally realized the truth: Octavian didn’t care about her. He never had. Any pride or approval he’d expressed over the years had been that of a master praising a well-trained beast. The spymaster was ruled by ambition, by his obsessive need to hunt down enemy spies, and everything and everyone else—including the agents he’d trained—were just pawns in the game.
A game she refused to play any longer.
“Their blood’s on your hands, then.” She turned to leave.
“You think I don’t know what this is about? You think I don’t know about your little escapades at Toulouse and Quatre Bras?”
She froze, her heart thumping.
Octavian wasn’t done. “You think I don’t know about your pathetic attachment to Lieutenant- Colonel Marcus Harrington?”
Schooling her features, she faced the spymaster once more. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business when some damned army man takes away my best spy.” His pale eyes narrowed, Octavian said, “Never thought you for a fool, girl.”
“I’m not a fool,” she said, her hands clenching at her sides.
“You are if you think a man like that will have anything to do with you. He’s a blue blood and, what’s more, a military man through and through. You and I both know that sort look down their noses at us, sneer at our methods even when they have us to thank for keeping their high and mighty selves alive. Risk your neck for his all you want, but he’ll never thank you for it. And even if he could overlook the fact that you’re an agent,”—Octavian’s upper lip curled—“he won’t overlook the fact that you’re no genteel virgin. Men like him demand an expensive vintage, and they want to be the ones popping the cork.”
The crude words made her swallow, but she forced herself to shut out the pain.
You have a plan. Marcus need never know the truth. You’ll leave Pompeia behind—become the woman of his dreams. You’ll make him a husband and a father and give him everything he’s ever wanted.
“I thank you for your insights on gentlemen,” she said sardonically, “although, given the source, forgive me if I don’t take them to heart.”
“Damnit, Pompeia, you were born to this life.” Like the master chess player he was, Octavian switched tactics with lightning speed. “Your place is here, not in blighted Society. I want happiness for you—and I can guarantee you will not find it with that sod Harrington.”
“You think I’mhappyhere? With what I’ve done?” A harsh laugh scraped from her throat. “God, Octavian, you really have no idea, do you?”
Because he’d never given a damn about her—about anything other than his own ambition.
