He opened the door and moved to step out, but she motioned him back in. “I can manage,” she said, her voice tight and cold.
She climbed up into the vehicle without his assistance. He frowned, but reached out to close the door behind her. In the dim quiet of the carriage he watched as she pushed the hood back from her face and caught his breath.
She was absolutely beautiful. Every time. Without fail.
“Are you certain you want to do this? To talk to me alone?” he asked.
She arched a brow. “We have things to discuss, and as much as I adore Rosalinde, she is too protective to allow us to be alone now to do so. So yes. I still feel this is our best option.”
He leaned back to tap the wall. The carriage rumbled forward, maneuvering back to his townhome just a short distance away.
The few moments in the vehicle were quiet. If he had expected Celia to launch directly into a condemnation of him, she didn’t do so. Instead, she leaned her head on the window, staring out into the darkened streets with an unreadable expression on her face.
She never looked at him.
When the carriage stopped at the townhouse he had been staying in since his arrival in London, she straightened up and leaned forward. “I realize I never came herebefore,” she said.
He flinched at that characterization. She had split their relationship into two sections. Before the truth and after. Before she despised him and after.
“No, I suppose you didn’t.”
“His?” she asked.
He nodded without needing clarification. “Yes.”
She was silent a moment before she asked, “How did you manage the servants?”
“The real Clairemont was reclusive, remember. Most of his servants never even met him. But we hired a new group just in case. The old ones got very good references.”
“Seems you found a way to make sure no one suffered,” she said, turning her face.
He frowned. The unspoken words hung between them. No one had suffered but her. He pushed the door open and stepped out, then turned back to help her. She hesitated before she took his hand and barely touched him as she exited.
They moved to the front door, which Clairemont opened himself. She looked at him in surprise as they entered. “Ordidyou hire servants?”
“When you asked me for privacy to discuss everything, I gave them the night off. No one is home but us,” he explained. “I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
She glared at him. “Uncomfortableis not the word I would use, no,” she said. “Where should we talk?”
He motioned to the parlor where he’d had his servants lay a warm fire before they departed for the night. Once inside, he closed the door behind them. He moved toward the sideboard.
“May I make you a drink?” he asked.
She turned on him suddenly. “What is your name?”
He froze in his spot, hand outstretched to the decanter of liquor. Slowly he faced her and leaned back against the sideboard. She was watching him, hands folded before her, gaze unwavering.
“It doesn’t matter what my name is, Celia,” he said softly.
Her expression, which had been so unreadable until that moment, twisted in a mask of anger and grief. “I haven’t earned it?” she hissed out, fingers clenching in a fist at her side.
“You have likely earned it more than anyone I’ve ever known,” he explained. “But if you knew it, you could very well be in danger.”
“Why? How? It isn’t as if I’d ever use it in public,” she said.
He shook his head. “You would never mean to do so. But a slip can happen to even the best and most well-trained of agents. Or if you were questioned by a skilled interrogator, he would know you were lying if my real name was in your mind. So I can’t give it to you because it is the best way for both of us to be hurt. You’ll notice even Stalwood only ever calls me Clairemont.”
“Stalwood,” Celia repeated, the name like a curse. “And he seems to be so very important in all this, yourhandler, so I suppose that should appease me.”
