“Hold still. Do not move,” a soft, alluring voice said close by. “Be very still,Lady Edwards, lest I prick you. We wouldn’t want that.”
Christ, he was too late. Some foul French wench likely had a stiletto blade pressed to Lady Edwards’s throat.
Adam’s hands curled into fists as he moved toward the doorway where he’d last heard the voices. He reached up to undo the first two buttons of his green waistcoat and slid his dagger free. Still concealed by the edge of the doorframe, he drew in slow, steady breaths.
“Be still, I say!” the feminine voice commanded.“I don’t wish to hurt you.”
Lady Edwards began to beg. “Oh, please, do have mercy on me. I—”
Adam didn’t wait another second. He shot around the doorframe and into the room, running straight for the feminine figure in a dark-blue silk ball gown. He caught the woman around her waist with one arm and jerked her back against his chest while he held his dagger to her throat.
“Make a sound and you will not live to regret it,” he warned in a harsh whisper. The woman in his arms gasped and went stiff with terror.
“What?”Lady Edwards spun around. Her hands flew to her mouth.“Lord Morrey, what are you doing?” Her blue eyes were wide with fear.
He gave the spy in his hold a tighter squeeze, and she wriggled in his arms.“Saving you, my lady.”
“She’s not a spy!” Lady Edwards insisted in a frantic whisper.
“She had you at her mercy—I heard her,” Adam said.
“Don’t be silly. My hair came undone. She was putting the pins back.” Lady Edwards held a pair of jeweled hairpins up for him to see. Diamond-studded pins glittered in muted lamplight as the reality of the situation sank in.
He’d made a grave error.
Still holding the woman captive in his arms, Adam slowly lowered the blade. Her breath quickened as though she’d been too afraid to breathe the last few seconds. As he released her, he caught her wrist to keep the woman from fleeing until this matter was settled, and she was sworn to secrecy. She turned to face him, and this time he was the one who forgot to breathe.
Letty Fordyce, James’s little sister, a beauty he had admired—desired—from afar these last few months, was his frightened captive. He released her wrist,and she pulled free. She retreated to the safety of Lady Edwards.
“Lady Leticia,” he greeted in a gruff rumble barely above a whisper.
The dark-haired beauty held a hand up to her neck and gazed at him in terror.
“Oh, Letty, I’m so sorry.” Lady Edwards grasped the young woman’s shoulders and tried to soothe her.
“What . . . ?” Letty stared at him. “Why?”
“We haven’t time,” Lady Edwards said to her. “Morrey, have you seen Mr. Russell?”
“I haven’t. I fear something may have happened to him.”
“I must give you the message, then,” Lady Edwards murmured.
“No, not me. I am no messenger,” he reminded her.“I was only meant to protect you.”
He was not one of those spies who played with coded messages and costumes on missions. He was a harbinger of doom, a hand of death for those who tried to harm his country.
“He must be told tonight, Morrey,” Lady Edwards said.
“What are you talking about?” Letty had finally found her voice. “Why did he hold a knife to my throat?”
“I’m sorry, Letty, dear—not now. We haven’t time—”
A creak on the wood floor outside the retiring room made Adam spin around. A pistol barrel, half-illuminated, was aimed straight at them.
He launched himself at the two women, tackling them to the ground.
The crack of the pistol made him flinch as he hit the floor with the women beneath him. A moment later, he rolled off them and leapt to his feet, blade at the ready, but whoever had fired upon them had fled.He charged into the corridor, seeking any sign of where the assailant had gone.
The crowd in the distant ballroom soon turned to chaos as someone screamed about a pistol being fired. Half a dozen men ranin his direction, and Adam ducked back into the retiring room. Lettyseemed to have collected herselfand was assisting Lady Edwards up off the floor. Letty was pale,but she wasn’t weeping or fainting dead away. She was no wilting rose, and for that he was glad.
“Did you catch them?” Lady Edwards asked as she brushed out the wrinkles in her gown.
He shook his head. “A crowd is gathering, searching for whoever fired that pistol. You must go at once, my lady. We cannot be seen together.”
The lady spy nodded and rushed to the open window that led into the gardens outside. Thankfully, they were on the first floor, and Lady Edwards could drop three feet onto the grass outside. She gathered her skirts and slipped through the opening, vanishing into the darkness beyond.
“Godspeed, my lady,” Adam said as he closed the window behind her. Then he turned toward Letty.
“Lord Morrey, what—?”
“Lady Leticia, I’m sorry about this.”
“About what? What just happened? Why did you hold a knife to my throat?”
“I’m sorry about the fact that I have to kiss you now.I cannot be seen in here alone, not if I wish to avoid being connected to that pistol.”
Letty’s eyes widened as the sounds of the men in the corridor grew louder.“Why can’t you be seen alone? Wait . . . kiss?”
He swept Letty into his arms, holding her tightly to him. And he claimed her parted lips with his. She drew in a shocked breath as he kissed her soundly.
Lord, the woman tasted sweet, too sweet. At any other moment he would have gotten drunk on her kiss. But he kept his focus on the closed door,waiting for the moment it would burst open. When it did, he purposely held Letty a moment too long, making sure the men who’d entered the room saw the girl was quite clearly compromised.
“Good God, it’s Morrey!” one man said. Another man called out for Adam to let the girl go.
Adam stepped half a foot back from Letty, his hand still possessively gripping her waist, implying that they had been about to make love. Then he faced the men and dropped his hold on the poor young woman whose reputation he had just put the proverbial bullet through.
“Morrey, what the bloody hell do you think you’re doingwith my sister?” James demanded. He started toward Adam, vengeance in his eyes that Adam knew would likely end up with his face a bloody mess if this matter was not resolved.
“I . . .” Adam struggled for words as he pushed Letty behind him, keeping her well out of harm’s way, lest her brother take a swing at him. He’d given Lady Edwards a chance to escape, but now he was to face an entirely different peril that he could not escape.
“We heard a pistol go off,” a man said in confusion. Adam recognized him as Jonathan St. Laurent. “We feared something had happened. We thought it came from this room.”
“I can’t say I heard anything—I was rather preoccupied,” Adam said with a rakish grin. He’d become a good actor in the last two years, showing only what he wished and hiding what he needed to.
“That much is clear,” Jonathan snorted, his gaze fixed on Adam’s chest.
Adam reached up to touch his waistcoat and realized the two buttons he’dundone to free his dagger were still out of their slits. It painted the situation with Letty in an even worse light because it looked as though he’d been in the process of removing his waistcoat.