“I couldn’t allow you to bleed on these fine bedsheets.”
Cade cleared his throat. “Hmm. I daresay we haven’t even mentioned how inappropriate it is for you to be in my bedchamber. Alas, to my proper brother’s everlasting regret, I refuse to hire a valet.”
Her throaty laughter followed. “I don’t see why it’s inappropriate for me to be here. You’re fully dressed and I wanted to ensure your hand was all right. You English are entirely too proper.”
“I agree, my dear. Thank you for seeing to my hand,” he said, chagrined again. He was never chagrined yet he’d been twice in the span of mere minutes with this woman. Chagrined and sweating. That, along with the oddest feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if something exciting were about to happen. That usually only happened right before he dressed up as someone else and did something dangerous.
“I’ll leave you to your coffee and toast,” she said, turning toward the door, affording Cade the picture of her alluring backside. The flicker of a memory shot through his brain. He narrowed his eyes on her backside.
She got to the door and paused. Her hand rested on the handle, but she didn’t turn around.
“You’re looking at my backside, aren’t you, Mr. Cavendish?”
Cade nearly spat his coffee. In a thousand years he wouldn’t have expected that question from the little slip of a maid, and he certainly wouldn’t have expected her to be reading his bloody mind.
“If I told you that I wasn’t would you believe me?” he asked instead.
“Not a bit.” She pulled open the door, but he could hear the smile in her voice. Oh, he was going to have fun flirting withthisone. He was no fan of the French but a beautiful woman was a beautiful woman. Besides, hadn’t the girl just said herself the English were too proper? They could agree on that at least.
“You can’t leave,” he called after her. “You haven’t yet told me your name. All I know is that it’s not Mary.”
“It’s Danielle,” she said, tossing her straight hair over her shoulder and glancing back at him with mischief in her sparkling blue eyes. “I’m Lady Daphne’s new lady’s maid and last night, I accidentally fell onto your lap while helping you remove your boots and you told me I have the most enticing backside you’ve ever seen.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Danielle hurried down Harley Street. It was in a busy, safe part of London, not too far from Mayfair where her new employer resided. She’d relocated her mother here months ago. Dr. Montgomery lived near here. He was reputed to be the finest doctor in the country when it came to treating consumption. That’s why Danielle desperately wanted to remain in London and the position at Lady Daphne’s house afforded her that for the time being.
Danielle hurried up the stairs and let herself into the small flat using a key she pulled from her reticule. The smell of medicine and illness hit her in the face as it always did when she came here.
“Is that you, Miss Cross?” The nurse called from the bedchamber of the small apartment.
“Yes, Mrs. Horton. It’s me.”
Danielle took a deep breath and pasted the fake smile on her face. The same smile she used every time she came to visit her mother. The one that was designed to be calm and reassuring. She entered the room and addressed her mother’s caretaker. “How is she today, Mrs. Horton?”
“Not worse than yesterday,” Mrs. Horton said with an encouraging but weak smile. Danielle knew the woman didn’t ever want to tell her the worst but her mother was not improving, despite all of Dr. Montgomery’s medicines.
“Yes, well, I’ll just read to her for a bit,” Danielle said. “You may take a break.”
“Of course, miss.” Mrs. Horton excused herself and soon the door to the flat opened and shut. Danielle knew the woman preferred to eat her lunch near the park and take a walk outside. Even London’s smoggy, coal-filled air was a welcome change after being cooped up in a sickroom most of the day.
Danielle settled into the chair next to her mother’s bed as her mother smiled weakly up at her. Her thin body looked so frail and thin, her eyes sunken and shadowed. Danielle didn’t let her smile waver once. She poured some water into a glass from a pitcher next to the bed and held the glass to her mother’s dry, cracked lips.
“Where did we leave off yesterday?” she asked, opening the book that remained on the bedside table. “Ah, yes, we’d just discovered that Manfred is Father Jerome’s son, hadn’t we?” They’d been readingThe Castle of Otranto. Her mother adored a mystery.
Nearly an hour later, Danielle glanced up to see her mother’s eyes closed and her chest moving with the shallow breaths of sleep. The wheezing sound in her chest never went away, but at least Mama was getting some rest.
When Mrs. Horton returned soon after, Danielle left the bedchamber to speak to her about the plans for the rest of the week and her mother’s medicines. The doctor’s assistant usually delivered medicine throughout the week and left the bills with Mrs. Horton. Danielle opened her reticule and fished out the necessary bills to pay first Mrs. Horton herself, then the doctor, then for the medicine. It was all of her money just as it was every week. But at least she had it. Many young ladies in her situation wouldn’t have anything like the kind of money it took to keep her mother in the finest care. Mrs. Horton tried to reach out and pat her hand, but Danielle took an instinctive step away. Any tenderness now and she might break. “Thank you for all of your help,” she murmured instead. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
It wasn’t until she left the house and walked down the stairs to the outside of the building that Danielle allowed the tears to slide down her cheeks. But just as quickly, she brushed them away with the backs of her gloved hands. She didn’t have time to cry. She had to meet the general.
***
Danielle made her way through the tidy little town houses on Shepherd Street. To the outside eye, this was a pleasant neighborhood inhabited by solid London citizens. Clean, neat, nothing extravagant like the mansions of Mayfair. That was exactly why it housed one of the most secret offices in the kingdom. No one would ever suspect it was here.
This place did not exist on any paperwork, did not appear on any reports. It was a location the other spies in the Home Office didn’t know about. This was the second office of General Mark Grimaldi. At the age of thirty-three, Grimaldi was the head of an elite unit of spies. So elite they didn’t know one another’s identities. Only Grimaldi knew them all.
She marched up the stairs to the door marked twelve and knocked once. A slot in the door opened.
