Page 13 of The Worst Spy in London (The Luckiest With Love #2)

D amaris took a shaky breath as she peered into the smoky card room. She pressed a hand to her heart, willing it to stop racing. She was still affected by Annette’s nearness.

“See anything?” Annette’s hot breath on the nape of her neck made Damaris shiver.

God, what was she going to do with this woman? Damaris would never, ever forget the gleam in Annette’s eyes and the shimmering wetness on her lips after she finished pleasuring her.

Damaris snatched up her thoughts, not so much scattered as all flying together in the wrong direction, and shoved them brusquely back into order. “No.” She sighed and slipped back, away from the open door. “Though I do see a few of the Russians playing bridge at the farthest table.”

“Perhaps we should try the ballroom?”

Damaris let Annette lead her back toward the crowded room. “Do you think perhaps we might’ve got it wrong?”

“Hmm?” Annette turned her head to glance back at Damaris, and ran straight into a footman. “Oof!”

Damaris looked up at the man in green and blue livery in surprise—and found the familiar sight of Philippe de Morand, Annette’s cousin. She gasped.

Philippe, looking like he’d stepped out of an old fashion plate in his breeches, stockings, and powdered wig, appeared as shocked as Damaris felt.

His jaw dropped, emphasizing his narrow chin, and his watery eyes looked as big as saucers.

“I beg your pardon,” he said quickly, his expression shuttering as he tried to regain composure.

Annette craned her neck to look up and her entire body stiffened as straight as a poker. “You!” She grabbed his wrist and held on tight. “You are coming with us right now. Have you planted the grenade yet?”

Philippe’s eyes narrowed and he scoffed. “What grenade?”

“Your gloves have black smudges at the tips,” Damaris pointed out, heart hammering in her chest. “You must’ve already handled it. How did you get in here? In livery, no less?”

He rose to his full height, puffing out his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Damaris’s patience snapped. She stalked forward, grabbed Philippe’s other cuff, and propelled him into a nearby alcove.

The three of them crowded around a marble bust of Julius Caesar, and Damaris was grateful their skirts weren’t so full as to knock the delicate wooden stand over.

“You are worrying your cousin sick, do you hear me?” Damaris hissed.

“You arrive out of nowhere, spouting all sorts of political nonsense about the Bourbons and Napoleon and the Russians, then make secretive, suspicious comments about a ball her clients will attend, and then we find out you have gunpowder and iron shells and descriptions on hand grenades, of all things. If you do something violent and idiotic, the government will find out, and they will discover your relationship with Annette and her mother. And then her business will be ruined. But.” She leaned in close. “I shall not let that happen.”

Philippe’s eyes grew big. So did Annette’s.

“So,” Damaris summed up, anger making her chest and her face hot, “you are going to tell us exactly what you plan to do with those hand grenades and I swear, if you harm any person here then you will face justice from the British Crown!”

Philippe looked down at Annette. “Who is she, exactly?”

Annette stared at Damaris with shining eyes, her mouth parted. “A dear friend,” she murmured, the look on her face making Damaris go hot for an entirely different reason. “A very wonderful, very dear friend.”

Damaris had never expected anyone to look at her like that.

She’d never realized how badly she’d hoped someone would look at her like that.

Quickly, before she melted on the floor like a pat of butter, she glared at Philippe.

“We saw instructions on your table. This plot to harm Russians while pretending to be Napoleon sympathizers will only backfire on you. What do you have to say for yourself?”

He seethed. “You went into my room?”

Annette rolled her eyes. “You left your direction with Damaris, you imbecile.”

“Yes, and a fat lot of help you turned out to be! We’re cousins. You’re the daughter of a baron. You should be patriotic for once and help the cause to defeat Napoleon.”

Annette’s jaw clenched. “By what, endangering the lives of a handful of Russian diplomats and everyone else around them at a ball hundreds of miles away from the war?”

“Sacrifices must be made,” he said loftily. Rather too loftily, Damaris thought, for someone with a crooked cravat and a coat so large he was drowning in it.

“You didn’t murder the footman this belongs to, did you?” Damaris asked suspiciously.

“Of course not. What do you take me for, a barbarian?”

“Forgive me if I doubt your morality, sir,” Damaris bit out, “since my understanding is that you plan to murder innocent people tonight.”

“Where are the hand grenades?” Annette demanded, patting down his coat. “They’re not in your pockets. Have you set them? Or are you tossing them into the ballroom? And who came up with this blasted plan? I’m quite sure you didn’t.”

Philippe’s expression changed suddenly, going from angry to smug.

The hair on the back of Damaris’s neck prickled. Before she could turn, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.

Her heart jumped, and alarm flared inside her body. She tried to turn, but the arm was strong enough to hold her mostly in place.

“Trouble, Philippe?” The baritone voice, a perfect neutral London accent, reverberated with an unspoken threat.

Damaris was able to turn enough to see the arm and black coat of…one of the musicians? She gazed upward and caught the large Adam’s apple and the growing stubble of a thin young man.

“I have told Bow Street everything,” Annette said sharply. “They will find you. If people are killed tonight…you must know you shan’t survive this. Please.” Damaris turned back to see Annette’s expression turn pleading. “Please take away the hand grenades and anything else you have.”

Philippe ignored his cousin, staring up at the man behind Damaris. “I’ve placed mine in the pots. Ready?”

“What are we doing with them?”

Damaris stiffened, and the hand clamped on her shoulder pressed down even harder.

“Toss them in a closet. And hurry. My break is almost over, and the violinist I’m sharing a stand with is a right prick.”

Damaris tried to fight the man off, but he grabbed her wrists and held them tightly behind her back, then slapped one large hand over her mouth. He jerked her around and she tripped, trying to stay on her feet.

Annette gasped. “You are not going to trap us in this townhouse right before you plan to light hand grenades, are you? Philippe, you are the worst cousin I have ev—” Her words cut off, though her muffled, outraged still slipped out despite Philippe’s hand.

Rage tore through Damaris. She’d never been so manhandled in her entire life. Her parents were in the ballroom! So were dozens of innocent servants, society members, and foreign dignitaries. And Damaris had just found Annette. Would they even survive the night?

No. She wouldn’t stand for this.

Damaris had never considered herself a stubborn or brave person, but a woman had to have her limits, and apparently she’d found hers.

Damaris twisted in the man’s arms, stomping on his shoes and biting at his hand.

The foot-stomping hurt her more than him, since he was in buckled shoes and she wore dancing slippers.

But it startled him enough that she was able to whirl and knee him in the groin as hard as she could.

The musician uttered a strangled curse and bent over, clutching at his male parts. He sagged against the wall with a whimper.

“You bitch!” Philippe jerked backward, shaking his hand in the air.

Annette turned and planted her hands on her cousin’s chest and shoved. Philippe stumbled backward, and Julius Caesar wobbled on his perch. Annette glanced at Damaris, fear written across her face, and stretched out her hand.

Damaris grabbed at it and they ran down the corridor together like the devil was at their heels. They caught up their skirts with their free hands. Damaris lost a slipper along the way but didn’t look over her shoulder. She just kept going.

Footsteps thundered behind them.

“You take the ballroom,” Annette panted. “I’ll take the card room.”

Damaris nodded as she paused at the door to the card room. Before Annette could dart away, Damaris brought their clasped hands to her mouth and pressed a fervent kiss to the back of Annette’s hand. “Be careful,” she demanded.

Heat flashed in Annette’s eyes. “And you also, my love.”

They parted, and it was all Damaris could do to force her feet to move again.

They haven’t lit the grenades yet, she told herself as she grabbed the door frame to the ballroom and propelled herself around the corner and into the room. We have time. Except she was quite sure Philippe and his accomplice were right behind her.

How long did it take grenade fuses to burn? What if the musician had several in his pockets or violin case with matches? And what did he mean, his weapons were in pots?

Damaris’s mind whirled. She refocused on the goal: keep everyone safe.

That should help her when her fears pulled at her mind like vicious birds ripping bread.

She stumbled past a group of people laughing and chattering, ignoring their surprised murmurs as she looked around wildly for any hiding spots.

The musician chairs and stands huddled in one corner of the room, mostly empty save for one man who was gulping water.

Still on break, then. The French doors to the terrace outside were still flung open, and most people were getting weak lemonade or chatting in small clusters by artfully displayed potted trees and ferns.

Her eyes narrowed on the large decorative pots, which rose up to her thighs. She threw a frantic look over her shoulder, then skirted the chairs to her left and ran as inconspicuously as she could toward the first fern.

“Damaris?” Her mother’s voice cut through the air. “Where have you been?”

God, had it been less than an hour? Damaris felt like her life had turned over twice in the span of this time. She focused on the fern, a lively green thing with feathery leaves, and the Etruscan-styled ceramic pot with black painted figures dancing around the sides.

Her heart pounded. She brushed past two young women, both wearing the pale palette of girls in their first Season.

“My goodness, what was that?” one whispered to the other. “Did someone let in their governess?”

“Absolutely no manners,” the other one replied with a scolding, nearly mocking tone. “Who does she think she is?”

Damaris didn’t have time for their opinions. She just wanted everyone to leave the ball alive. She reached the edge of the large pot and plunged her gloved hands into the fronds, parting them and digging in the dirt a few inches below the rim.

“What on earth?” a man inquired as he passed by.

Damaris ignored him, too. Sweat gathered beneath her arms and on her forehead. She only had a moment, likely less, before Philippe’s accomplice, the musician, lit another hand grenade she wouldn’t be able to stop in time.

Her right hand knocked against something hard.