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Angelique could hear the thump of his heart beneath her cheek. His arms were still around her, one hand looping a stray lock of her hair between his fingers. To answer his question would require her to sever the last connection to Stafford. Nate had discovered her true assignment piecemeal so far, and only by guesswork or when she had no choice but to reveal it. Stafford could forgive all that, as long as she succeeded in the end, but not if she completely broke his confidence and told Nate everything he had charged her with. She had already decided to quit Stafford’s service, but not like this; she had expected to collect her last fee, tell him of her decision, then quietly pack her things and leave town. Move to a quiet place in the country—near Mélanie, hopefully, but anywhere far from this life.

But it was too late for that now. Her instincts had been right, that there was something very wrong about this assignment, and her allegiance had been subtly shifting ever since that first day, when Nate flirted and teased and challenged all her presumptions about him. Whatever she did or said, he stayed right beside her, undaunted. Now he was still holding her after what he had seen upstairs and even after what she had told him, and she realized her lot had already been cast, for better or for worse.

With Nate.

“I was to put you onto your ship,” she said. “One way or another. He didn’t care whether you got your money or not, although he was perfectly willing that you should try. It would make you more likely to go without a fight. You were only permitted any role in this because he could not locate Dixon without your help—and, I suspect, you would not help without being deeply involved.”

“No,” he said very quietly. “I would not.” He hadn’t moved a muscle except to breathe. “And you agreed with his plan.”

“I did not want to.”

“I remember,” he admitted. “But you did.”

She made herself ease free of his embrace and lifted one shoulder. “It was not so different from what he had asked me to do before.” The faint scorn in her voice was for herself, but Nate’s face darkened at it. “Why should I not? You even followed me, you were so sure I would agree.”

“I followed you,” he repeated. “Yes, I did. You were only one of several surprises. That was the first day I met Stafford. Not only was he anxious to assist in my quest, he had already sent for you. I couldn’t help but wonder at that, and then you made no secret of your disinclination to agree. Why would he persist in getting this particular woman, I asked myself—and there was no answer. I followed you because this matters to me. I’m not just here because President Monroe sent me. I don’t work for the government at all. Jacob Dixon ruined a good man, my godfather, the man who saved my father’s life. If I hadn’t been satisfied you were equal to the task, I would have gone back to John Stafford and told him in no uncertain terms to find someone else, or I would do it all myself.”

“He wanted me because I am good at killing people,” she said flatly. “It is my main talent.”

Nate’s face grew ominous and dark. “If we’re confessing all our sins, then I should admit to my own.”

“I don’t want to know,” she said quickly. “It will serve nothing.”

For a long moment he just stared at her, his brows drawn in and his eyes as hard as glass. “You don’t want to know,” he repeated, and managed to make it sound like an accusation.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she tried to explain. “I did not admit my sins in order to extract a confession in kind. What can you have done, at home in your shipping office and paying calls on a President, that could compare to what I have done?”

An odd, funny smile crossed his face. “Angelique, I’m not a shipping merchant. I grew up working in my father’s business because he needed help. I sailed with him as a cabin lad and as he acquired more ships, we all worked in the offices, not just me and my brother but my mother and even my sister at times. He expects me to take it over eventually, and I will, eventually. But I yearned for more adventure than a merchant ship. I’ve spent more time exploring the frontier in the last ten years than in any city.”

“Frontier?” she repeated blankly, trying to remember what she’d heard of America. “With the savages?”

He made a scoffing sound in his throat. “Some of them are savage, but no more so than many people in Washington and Boston.”

“You are at ease in London. You speak proper English.”

“My mother’s from Hertfordshire. And I was raised in a city.” He grinned. “Besides, there’s quite as much gossip and social ambition in Boston as there is in London. It just doesn’t aim as high.”

That gave her pause. The son of an Englishwoman and a seafaring merchant, who lived among the savages. She never would have guessed. “Nevertheless,” she began, then remembered stories in the newspapers about the native peoples of America: scalpings, torture, raiding. A place where people used scalping knives. She looked at Nate with new eyes, and for a moment he looked utterly alien to her. Perhaps this explained some of his odd habits, and the way he had caught Ian completely by surprise.

Then she blinked, and the man she loved was back. He was the same. And she realized they had neither of them fully shown their true selves before tonight. Perhaps he’d been as apprehensive as she had been about revealing it. And yet they were both still standing here. The ember of hope glowed back to life in her heart.

“Nevertheless,” she repeated, her voice stronger, “you do not want to tangle with Stafford. He does not know the meaning of fighting honorably.”

“As I see it, he’s tangling with me.” This time there was steel in Nate’s tone. “The man lied to me. He received my honest and frank introduction with a serpent’s smile, and never intended to fulfill the promises he implicitly made to help me achieve my ends. That, my darling, renders my conscience completely at peace in thwarting him. I came to right a great wrong, and he’s not going to stop me.”

She laughed a little sadly. “No? What will you do, then?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “Give me some time. But first we need more accurate intelligence. Is Dixon telling the truth about Selwyn? And if so, does Stafford know it as well?”

“Does it matter?” Angelique lowered herself into a chair, feeling overwhelmed. “If he knew, he sent me out to kill a man to conceal Selwyn’s actions. If he didn’t know, he sent me to kill a man without even knowing the reason why he did so.”

“It matters a great deal.” Nate had begun pacing again, rubbing his hands together and flexing his fingers. It was like watching a musician limber his fingers before taking up his instrument. “If Stafford knew, then he deliberately used his power—and the trust of his government—to exact a personal vengeance. That tends to cause scandal when it becomes known. If he didn’t know, he’ll have no choice but to turn on Selwyn, or else he’ll be exposed as unfit and corrupt. If he can be misled by one fire-breathing aristocrat seeking personal ends, he can be misled by others with less personal intentions. He’d be a danger to the government, and they won’t like that.”

Slowly she nodded. That all made sense. Nate stopped pacing and went down on one knee before her. “Can you find out which it is?” he asked, meeting her gaze steadily. “Is there any way we can discover if he knew why Selwyn wanted Dixon dead without alerting him to our suspicions?”

“I asked Ian to see if he could discover anything,” she said. “He is not the most subtle, but that may be to our advantage. Ian is always asking impertinent questions. Stafford will think little of it.”

“I suppose that will have to do.” Nate sighed. “Now that we have Dixon, time runs fast and short. I’d thought to bundle him onto the ship and leave on the next tide. But now…” He shook his head. “We can keep it secret that we’ve got him for a short while. I’ll go back to the Pulteney with a note from him, indicating that he’s moving to a different hotel and I’m to fetch his things. We can put Hurst off the same way if he kicks up a fuss looking for Dixon.”