“You cannot make me stop this.”
His eyes held hers, and Mary would not be the one to pull away, so they stared at each other for long, heated seconds.
“You do understand that my concern is based on fear for your safety, don’t you, Mary?”
“Because I am a woman.”
“Because you are a woman who, from what I gather, has only one person to watch over her when she performs her duties for Alexius. Plunge. Which does not inspire me with confidence. When I leave the house to investigate, visit with informants, or do anything in my duties for Alexius, I have one or four people who carry my blood with me.”
“Of course the fourth is Forrest, not Abby,” she snapped.
He shrugged. “At the time, no women were allowed in Alexius.”
But she knew even if they were, the Deville brothers would never have allowed their sister to join.
“Continue with your story,” he said.
“I am telling you, so direct the driver to take me home. I have no wish for anyone in my household to be alerted that I am not in my bed.”
“Have they found your bed empty before?” He raised a brow.
“Just do it, Zach.” She did not want to be in this carriage with him any longer than necessary. He disturbed her, and she felt that flutter in her belly with him so close. There was also the fact that she had no idea what he would do with the knowledge that she was part of Alexius.
She watched as he opened the hatch and gave the driver directions to her street. He then sat and looked at her expectantly.
“The other man who was in the church that night two years ago said to Geraint that a woman working for Alexius would be an asset,” Mary continued with her story. “That she could do things men could not. After a lot of debate, Geraint said he would allow it once, and if I failed, got hurt, or anything else really, they would have no place for me in Alexius. He said he would deny any claim I made to being part of it, even considering who my father was.”
“And which case did you work on first?” Zach asked her.
“When Lord Haversham’s son went missing I was sent to interview the maids in his household. Something I learned led me to the mistress of someone connected to the case. I secured some information that Geraint found helpful, and so he sent me on another mission.”
“It was you that day at the church who gave us the name Lord Lithgow, wasn’t it?” Zach demanded. “You helped us find Ruby?”
She nodded.
He exhaled loudly. “I have no wish to know how you got that information, but we must thank you for it, as we had no idea until then who held Ruby.”
She nodded and then dragged her gaze from him to the window again. They were traveling out of the park now. It would be only minutes before she was home.
“So where does this leave me, Zach?” She asked the question because with a few words from him, everything in her life could change. She had no doubt that if he put pressure on Geraint with the help of his brothers, the man would remove her from Alexius.
“It is not my right to tell you what to do or not to do, Mary. But I will add that it terrifies me to think of you walking into danger as my brothers and I have a few times.”
“Geraint does not give me missions that endanger me,” she added quickly. Too quickly if the look he gave her was any indication.
“Not quite true, considering where I found you and Plunge. You had to fight, Mary.”
“That was unusual.” Mary crossed her fingers. She had been in danger before, but both she and Monty had handled it. They were a good team.
“Are you crossing your fingers?” He leaned across the carriage to stare at her hand.
“What?” Mary tucked it into her skirts.
“Damn you, Mary, this is not a game!”
“You think I don’t know that? I have heard and seen things that in the normal course of my life I never would have. But I don’t regret it. I do this because it is right that I do. I do this to keep others safe and stop those that would from harming our monarch. Harming innocent people too.”
He exhaled loudly again.
