Page 26 of The Spy Wore Silk (Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Extraordinary Young Ladies #1)

Chapter Twenty-Six

“ I assume you are waiting for this, sir.” Looking more like a waif than a warrior with an old holland cover draped around her shoulders, Siena handed over the document. On discovering the house in an uproar when they emerged from the cellars, she had refused all suggestions of blankets and brandy, demanding instead to report immediately to the marquess, whose presence had been mentioned by the agitated butler.

Lynsley took a cursory look beneath the wax wafer, then tucked it into his coat. “Well done,” he murmured

“Is that all you have to say?” growled the earl.

Siena, bruised and bleeding from the cheek, managed only a lop-sided grimace. “James?—”

Kirtland shook her restraining hand from his sleeve. “Nothing more? No bon mot , no pithy pearls of wisdom?”

The marquess’s show of placid patience was far more provoking than any retort.

“Then allow me to express my sentiments.” The punch, a right cross to the jaw, knocked Lynsley to the floor. “ That is for sending Siena alone into a nest of vipers, knowing full well the dangers.” He rubbed at his bruised knuckles. “The next one will be for questioning her loyalty. And mine.”

“I can’t say I blame you for being upset.” Lynsley still wore a look of unruffled calm. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but I do what I must. Some things are worth fighting for.”

Slanting a look at Siena, the earl could not help but agree.

The marquess got to his feet, rather more quickly than Kirtland expected. Perhaps Osborne had not exaggerated the cursed fellow’s credentials. His movements seemed a great deal more nimble than those of any deskbound bureaucrat. “It isn’t often that I am delighted to discover that I was wrong,” went on Lynsley as he dusted the seat of his trousers. “My apologies to you, Kirtland. Might we declare a truce before any more shots are fired?”

“You ought to be apologizing to Siena,” he muttered. ”She is the true hero of all this.”

“Indeed. She has come through with flying colors. A true Merlin.” Lynsley turned slightly. “I will need a full report, of course, but it can wait until morning.” He angled a glance at the two corpses. “As you see, I have several more pressing matters to clear up. The physical evidence must be removed and an explanation for the events must be decided on. Though I confess I am still searching for one that will suit.”

“You might call it a lover’s quarrel,” ventured Siena.

Lynsley blinked. “An interesting suggestion. That would certainly be grist for the gossip mills. Especially if there is a grain of truth to the story.”

“There is, sir.”

“Again, you have made my job a little easier.”

“Speaking of which.” Siena could not contain her curiosity. “How did you come to be here?”

“Having heard conflicting reports about your actions, I thought it best to come see for myself. I have been enjoying a few days of leisurely fishing along the River Ex. While at night Oban and I have been keeping watch on the castle. I told the magistrates that I heard shouting while out for a late ride and came to offer my assistance.” Lynsley turned.

“Sir—a last question. Did Shannon . . .”

The marquess shook his head. “No. Not that I would not consider it a black mark against her if she had. It seems it was Orlov who administered the coups de grace .”

“Orlov?” she exclaimed. Kirtland saw a war of emotions wage across her features. He suspected she had a softer spot for the rogue than she cared to admit. “But why?” she asked, half to herself.

“For the same reasons as you,” answered the earl. “He told me he had been hired to steal the government dispatch, and was willing to go to any extremes to get it.”

“Then why didn’t he simply cut your throat and come after me?”

“I do not pretend to understand what game he was playing,” replied Kirtland. An inquiring look at Lynsley elicited naught but a shrug. “He did, however, claim it was to keep it out of the hands of the French.”

“Perhaps. Then again, there is the chance that he was using the document as a distraction, and his true intentions were always to steal the Psalters,” said the marquess in answer to the unspoken question. “They have, by the by, disappeared. As has Orlov.”

“The devil you say!” Was it a touch of jealousy that gave an extra edge to his disappointment? Kirtland decided he was in no frame of mind to grapple with that question. “It seems I have more than one score to settle with that spawn of Satan.”

“Whether he is in league with Lucifer or not, the fellow has proved hellishly hard to pin down,” said Lynsley with a tight-lipped grimace. “My sources still cannot say whom—if anyone—he is working for. And though I have sent out alerts to the towns along the coast, I doubt we shall catch him.”

All thoughts of the Psalters were suddenly forgotten as he watched Siena’s face. No gold-leafed Madonna, no pigment made of powdered jewels was half so precious to him as the curl of her dark lashes, the curve of her lips. The courage of her convictions.

The earl suddenly quirked a smile. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes widened slightly.

“Let him have the blasted books and be damned. Considering the stakes, I consider myself the winner by far.”

Lynsley looked thoughtfully to Siena and back again. “Your personal loss has been England’s gain.”

“We shall see,” he said, a reply which won a cryptic smile from the marquess. “The final tally has yet to be made.”

“If punishment is to be dealt . . .” Siena’s voice dropped a notch. “I should not be here if not for Shannon. Nor would the dispatch. I know that her passions sometimes get the better of her. But she has the heart of a Merlin. Please do not clip her wings.”

“She said much the same of you.” The marquess clasped his hands behind his back. “I shall take your support into account when making my final decision.”

“Might I add?—”

Kirtland touched her arm. “Duty can wait until dawn.”

“But—”

He cut her off with a request of his own. “If you don’t mind, Lynsley, I would like a few words in private with Siena.”

“Of course.” The marquess coughed. “But before I go, I would like to extend one last apology, Kirtland. And an offer. That is, if you would consider putting your considerable talents to future use for your country.”

Still a bit wary of Lynsley’s wiles, the earl was slow to answer. “How so?”

Strangely enough, the marquess was looking at Siena rather than at him. “There is a good deal of unrest in Italy at the moment. I could use an experienced eye to take a first hand look around and report on the situation. Seeing as the two of you seem to work well together, I am hoping you might agree to continue as a team. A rich gentleman taking the Grand Tour would be the perfect cover. And a female companion would add to the appearance of it being merely a personal pleasure trip.”

“You are proposing that Siena and I take on another mission?”

The marquess replied with a straight face, but Kirtland though he detected a shade of a smile. “Just a thought. In case it might dovetail with a more private proposal.”

“Two birds with one stone?” The earl arched a brow.

“In a manner of speaking.” There was now no mistaking the twitch of Lynsley’s lips. “No need for an answer right now. I will leave the two of you to talk it over.”

A brief bow and he was gone, leaving only the echo of his last words.

Siena seemed hardly aware of them as she continued to fret over her comrade’s future, rather than her own. “If I have caused Shannon to lose?—”

Kirtland silenced any further recriminations by sweeping her up in his arms. “Enough, amore . You have done your duty. And far more.” Seeing that he had her full attention, he followed in Lynsley’s footsteps and hurried through the door. “From what you have told me, your friend is quite capable of fighting her own battles. Right now, I don’t want to speak of war, or of others, but of us .”

Whether it was the dizzying pace as he veered off sharply and started up the stairs, or the fact that his lips were teasing a trail of kisses across the nape of her neck, Siena replied with only a soft sigh. He reached the first landing before she recovered enough of her equilibrium to speak.

“D—did you just say ‘love’ in Italian?”

“Would you care to hear it in Greek or Latin? Mitteldeutch? I can even manage it in Russian— lubov .”

“I would rather hear it in plain English.” Her fingers threaded through his still-damp hair, twining them closer. Their cheeks touched. “Unless, of course, you are merely playing word games.”

“It is no game, Siena. It never has been, this powerful attraction that had drawn us together from the very first.”

“Magic. There is no other word for it.”

“Yes, there is.” He spun in a circle, his heart feeling light as a feather. “Love.”

“James—”

“Ah, that’s another word that sounds delightful on your lips. Say them both again, Siena. Together, in concert, if you please.”

“I love you, James.”

Sweet music to his ear. For all the cuts and bruises, the shivering doubts and painful memories, his world was suddenly in perfect harmony. “And you, my midnight Merlin, are the light of my life. I love you.”

The sparkle of his eyes, the lilt of his laugh. It was, she knew, a moment she would always treasure, no matter how quickly it might pass. No one had ever said those three words to her before. Nor had she ever uttered them aloud. Such a simple string of letters. How was it they changed everything?

Everything and nothing. They dwelled in different worlds. He lived in light, she in shadow. Their paths from here must eventually take them apart.

And yet . . .

She stifled such wishful thinking in a small sigh. Lynsley’s proposal, however enticing, would only prolong the moment.

“Just a little longer.” Kirtland seemed to sense the tension taking hold of her. “We are almost there.”

“W—where are you taking me?”

“To your bedchamber. You need warm blankets and a swallow of brandy to bring the color back to your cheeks.” He grinned, looking sinfully handsome despite his disheveled state. “And perhaps a bout of heated lovemaking, once I have your glorious limbs tucked in among the silk sheets and eiderdown pillows.”

Her eyes clouded, dimming for an instant the gleam of his gaze. What else could he offer her but to continue in the role of a courtesan? It was, after all, what the marquess had suggested. The prospect should not hurt, but it did. “You are asking me to be your mistress?”

He pressed a kiss to her brow. “I am asking you to be my wife, Siena.”

“The earl and the urchin?” She dared not let hope take wing. “Or worse, the lord and the lightskirt. Think of the scandal. Your name would be savaged by the gossips. You can make so much higher a match.”

“I have weathered far worse slander. Let the tabbies talk. You know how little I care for their opinion.” He stopped, set her down, and took her face between his hands. They were rough yet warm, scarred, yet strong. So like the rest of him. “I learned on the battlefield that title and pedigree mean nothing. It is heart and soul that are the true measures of a man—and a woman.”

“The challenges will be daunting.”

“Perhaps. We are both unused to letting down our guard. Expressing our feelings does not come so easily as wielding a sword to keep others at a distance. But I am willing to try. What say you, Siena? I think we match up quite well—I shall teach you a proper rompere di misura and you shall show me the footwork of a Tai Chi flying dragon.”

She started to speak.

“There is just one catch.”

Her lips stilled.

“We shall have to get a special license so we can married be right away, rather than plan a fancy wedding, for I would like to take up Lynsley’s offer of the Italian mission. The chance to serve King and country plays some part in the decision, but I have some very selfish reasons as well. I want to ride through the streets of Siena with you, meander through piazzas of Florence, float along the canals of Venice, with arias of amore serenading our ears.” His face was alight with a warmth that no Renaissance master could ever capture with paint and canvas. “What say you?”

“Yes.” Siena wished to sing to the heavens, but barely managed a whisper.

“To Italy or to me?”

“I think,” she said softly, “that both sound wonderful beyond words.”