Deceiving The Duke (Scandals and Spies Book 2) (7 page)

“
Y
ou’re in a pickle
!”

Phil batted the fingers of her free hand at the parrot perched on her shoulders. She scoffed. “I am not. I’m just looking for Jared. Have you seen him?”

“In…a…pickle!”

She sighed. Had she expected another answer?

The flame of the candle she held wavered as she descended the stairs in a rush that had Pickle flapping his wings for balance. The glossy wood bannister reflected the light. Her stocking feet slipped on the steps. She gripped the bannister hard to keep from losing her balance.

Where was Jared? He had been avoiding her all week, ever since the Society for the Advancement of Science meeting that he’d agreed to accompany her to, out of the blue. In fact, he’d been acting more and more distant, closed-lipped and moody, even before that day. He was the only family she had left. She had to fix this rift between them and get her affectionate brother back.

“Jared?”

Distantly, she heard a door slam. Her heart jumped into her throat. Was that the front door? She dashed into a sitting room overlooking the street. Cupping her eyes to shield the light of the candle, she pressed her face to the glass window. That was definitely a man descending the front steps. Given the lanky build, it had to be Jared. He was leaving without telling her where he intended to go.

Again.

She had to catch up to him.

“Meg!”

Pickle took up the cry, repeating her maid’s name at the top of his lungs. Phil raced out the door, nearly colliding with her friend, whose cheeks were pink with exertion.

“What is it?”

Pickle continued to scream Meg’s name. She glared at him as she inched away, rounding Phil’s other side.

“Hush, you silly bird,” Phil commanded.

Pickle made an outraged squawk, ruffled his feathers, and remained silent. That was a neat trick. Phil would have to remember it for a later date.

Pushing the thought aside, she told Meg, “My brother just left the house. I want you to ready the carriage. I’m going after him.”

She nodded, her freckled cheeks flushed. When Phil turned toward the staircase leading to the floor above, Meg called after her, “Where are you going?”

“I have to change into men’s clothes.”

“There’s no time—”

I know.
But if Phil followed in her skirts, she would certainly be noticed. As a man, she was all but invisible.

She hiked her skirts to her knees and sprinted up the stairs. Disgruntled, Pickle took to the air and soared someplace else in the manor. From the startled shriek a moment later, he’d found Meg.

Phil usually ran interference to ensure that her pet didn’t frighten her closest friend, but she had no time to find them and sort it out. Hopefully one of Meg’s siblings would come to her rescue. Phil employed them all, and her parents, too.

She shucked her dress the moment she entered her room. She didn’t have time to bind her breasts flat, or even to wrestle to untie her stays. Instead, she donned her men’s clothes over the feminine undergarments and prayed that the swell of her chest wouldn’t be noticeable beneath the loose shirt and jacket. Breeches, boots, shirt, waistcoat, jacket. By the time she was fully dressed, stumbling out of the room, her hair had tumbled from its pins. She gathered it in a queue and tied it off with the first thing that had met her fingers, a frilly white ribbon. With luck, she wouldn’t be venturing any place that was brightly lit.

She barreled down the stairs, the soles of her boots giving her more purchase this time on the slick wood. As she reached the front door, Meg waited for her. Her hair was in disarray, but Pickle was nowhere to be found.

“Has he gone?”

Meg nodded. “He just stepped into a hired hack. The hostlers are readying the carriage in the mews.”

“Thank you. With luck I can still catch him.”

“What do you mean to do—”

Ignoring the protests of her maid, Phil yanked open the door and jumped down to the street. A stitch started in her side as she reached the gaping doors of the mews. The night air wrapped around her, thick with moisture even though the bullish clouds refused to shed their burdens. The stables were nothing more than an indistinct form with a beacon of light spilling from inside.

The hostlers were nearly ready with the carriage as she burst in. The strong musk of horses and hay assaulted her senses.

“Miss St. Gobain!” They stopped to pull on their forelocks.

“Forget that. I have to follow the hack my brother just stepped into. Are we ready?”

“Yes, miss. Let me help you in.”

The moment the squat hostler let down the stairs, Phil leaped into the carriage under her own power. In the space of two heartbeats, the driver jumped into place, the other hostlers buckled the last clip, and the horses’ hooves clattered as the team of four trotted out of the stables and into the night.

The humidity weighed on Phil. Her hair fought the mooring of the ribbon she’d hastily tied into it. Her heartbeat thundered in time to the horses’ hooves. Sweat beaded on her upper lip as she unlatched the coach window to peer out into the night. The cobblestone streets were swathed in shadows, occasionally punctuated by the dim yellow glow of a streetlamp, poised on the junction of two streets.

The carriage slowed as it met with the thick traffic. The fashionable
ton
was leaving for their evening entertainments, both a deterrent and a boon. It slowed down the hack’s progress, but also made it more difficult to spot. When Phil peered out of the window, she had to wonder if the driver knew who he pursued at all. Phil certainly couldn’t pick out the closed hackney cab from among the other black-topped coaches and the phaetons and carriages open to the balmy night air. Her chest ached as the coach navigated the clogged streets, slowing and speeding up in turns. She realized that she’d forgotten to breathe. She gulped for air.

After what felt like a hundred thousand beats of her rapidly pumping heart, the driver turned away from the fashionable streets of Mayfair and arrowed toward a less respectable part of town. Phil’s stomach clenched.
Jared, what sort of trouble are you involved in?

Ahead, the black coach they’d been following slowed to a stop. Was it the hack? Had the driver been able to pursue it all this way? Phil rapped on the roof, the signal to stop before the occupant of the carriage spotted them. The moment the wheels stopped turning, Phil slipped out of the carriage.

The hack had stopped on the corner of two streets. The streetlamp cast a wan circle of light onto the occupant as he alighted from the coach and paid the fare. That tall, lean build Phil would recognize anywhere, even with a topper.

Jared.

She swallowed heavily before she found the words to instruct the driver to wait while she followed him on foot. She turned up the collar of her redingote and struck out down the street. Her boots clicked on the worn, uneven cobblestones, half of them broken or crumbled to dust around the edges. The houses in this section of the city leaned together, their faces chipping and their windows shut tight with shutters, as the occupants couldn’t afford glass. Gaunt faces pressed against the cracked slats in those windows, young faces with dirty cheeks and sunken eyes. Phil lowered her gaze, her stomach shriveling to the size of a raisin.

She knew there were parts of this city where the less fortunate lived. In fact, she dedicated a portion of her invention earnings to giving the less fortunate a better life. She vehemently opposed slavery and donated to abolitionist causes. Even so, on the rare occasions when she passed through neighborhoods like this one, with too many mouths to feed and somber children staring at her with haunted eyes, the knowledge assailed her that she didn’t do enough.

She couldn’t do enough. Certainly not now. At the moment, her family came first, and whatever Jared was up to, her gut instinct screamed that it didn’t bode well. Keeping her eyes on the figure in front of her as he dodged through alleys strung with clothing lines and past skinny, growling dogs and hostile cats, Phil tried not to notice the steady decrease in the quality of the houses.

When she rounded a corner, she did notice that someone else was tailing Jared, too. Her pulse pounded fast and hard, roaring in her ears as she passed beneath the light of a streetlamp. She ducked her head. As she reached the building on the other side of the street, she risked a glance back.

Her heart did a little, strangled dance in her chest. Like her, the other man wasn’t wearing a hat. It left his short-clipped, black hair open to the air—along with the distinctive white streak.

It was Morgan Graylocke, the Duke of Tenwick.

Blast! Why was he pursuing her brother? She turned her face forward, away from the greatcoat-shrouded figure hot on her heels. She had to tell Jared he was being pursued. Unfortunately, when she quickened her step, so did Jared.

As did the duke. Maybe she could lead him away.

Abandoning Jared’s path, she darted down the nearest alley and strode at a clipped pace down its length. A thin woman wrapped in a shawl and smoking a cheroot, by the smell, raised her fist and yelled an obscenity. As Phil glanced over her shoulder to gauge whether or not the duke had followed her—he had—she tripped over a mangy cat. It yowled and scampered off into the gloom.

“Sorry, kitten.” As she caught her balance, she glanced over her shoulder again. Morgan had already traversed half the alley’s length.

Hell and damnation! He would catch her at this rate. She gave up all pretense of belonging and broke into a run.

The duke followed.

She darted through alleys, lunged over a low wagon to the obscenities of its nearby owner, startled a mule into trotting into Morgan’s path, and got pelted with rocks from a gaggle of children. Through it all, Morgan followed her, growing ever nearer. Her head spun. A stitch clawed at her side. She was hopelessly lost. She ran through a rowdy tavern room stinking of sour ale and sharp smoke, to the shrieks of the barmaids and the shouts of the patrons. She dodged a punch that landed on her shoulder instead of her eye. The ache chased her through the kitchen and out the back, where spilled water from the pump had made the packed dirt slippery. With her feet determined to slide every which way, she stumbled onto the street and found purchase. A grimy street lamp proved a beacon in the sudden darkness in the wake of the tavern. She lunged toward it.

An arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against a tall, muscular, male body a moment before he turned her and used that body to pin her against the side of the brick building. The light spilled across his face, emphasizing the length of his lashes and the chiseled cut of his jaw. Phil panted, though she could barely expand her chest far enough with his sternum pressing against her. The brick at her back was rough. It snagged at her hair.

Morgan’s eyes grew wide with recognition. “Phil?”

What would he do? Fear quickened her heartbeat, spiraling her senses into high alert.

In a swift movement, Morgan bent and pressed his mouth to hers.

P
hilomena tasted
like cloves and cinnamon. Her lips parted beneath his, her body arched into him, and he was lost. She felt even better than he’d dreamed. He cupped her neck as he deepened the kiss. She tasted divine.

She’s the enemy.

If she was his enemy, why did she feel so damn good? He was definitely starved for female companionship—specifically, hers. He pressed closer, sliding his hand down the coarse fabric of her jacket and breeches, around to her generous rear. The feel of her curves beneath the fabric drove him wild. His spinning head conflicted with the assault of reason invited by the men’s clothes she wore. Most women didn’t dress in breeches.

Phil wasn’t most women. She was a French spy.

Although he ached to press closer, reason won out and Morgan forced himself to lift his head. If he expected to find her expression that of an experienced woman who had just been kissed senseless, he was destined to be disappointed.

Her expression was one of indignation and outrage. She looked like a spitting cat. He took an instinctive step away from her and her snapping, stormy eyes.

Lud, what had he done?

He raised his hands, as if that would fend off all ten stone of her should she decide to launch herself at him.

“Forgive me.” His hoarse voice shattered the illusion of stillness induced by the thick, humid air. Noises penetrated his ringing ears; the clamor of a row in a nearby house, the slow clop of a horse’s hooves, the yowl of a dog somewhere in the darkness. Drizzle fell from the sky, raising gooseflesh along the exposed nape of his neck.

She didn’t look likely to forgive him.

“The impertinence was uncalled for. I shouldn’t have kissed you without asking first.”

You shouldn’t have kissed her at all!
He mentally kicked himself.

Phil narrowed her eyes. Strands of her hair had worked free of her queue to frame her heart-shaped face. She thrust her chin out, mulish.

He took another step back. “I’ll marry you, of course.”

Wait…
what?!
Had he just proposed marriage to an enemy spy? He was the worst field agent in all of history. His instincts as a gentleman had nothing to do with the battlefield. For all that he was on British soil, this was a battle—a battle of wits between spies.

Phil’s mouth fell open. Morgan braced himself to be slapped soundly. Instead, she leaned against the wall, laughing.

“By Jove, did you…” A fresh wave of amusement overwhelmed her. She doubled over, clutching her stomach. The movement pulled her jacket tight against her pronounced womanly figure. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes, reflecting the lamplight. “Did you just propose marriage? After a kiss?”

He flew his colors like a battle ship. Ducking his head, he rubbed the back of his neck to hide the heat in his cheeks. “It was a knee-jerk reaction. You’re a delicate young woman of good standing—”

Phil laughed louder, drowning out his words.

He glared at her. “Forgive me if I’ve offended you—again—but it was the honorable thing to do.”

It was the foolish thing to do.

Phil wiped her eyes as she sidled along the wall, farther away from him. He couldn’t blame her. Could he make a bigger idiot of himself?

With a grin, she teased, “I didn’t know being kissed in the middle of a deserted alley was the magic formula to prompt a proposal from a duke. I could sell this information, make a fortune.”

He gritted his teeth. “I assure you, you are a singular case.”

“Am I? Then is it possible you
don’t
propose to every woman you kiss in decrepit alleyways?”

He clenched his fists. “I don’t go around kissing women in alleyways.”

“No?” Her gaze twinkled. “Men?”

“No.”

“Pity.” She gathered the stray strands of her hair and retied her queue. Was that ribbon edged with lace? How could she hope to pass off as a man?

Then again, given the darkness clinging to every building and street, he hadn’t realized he wasn’t pursuing a man until he’d caught her and pressed up against her. Only then had he realized that the Phil from the Society for the Advancement of Science meeting and Miss Philomena St. Gobain were the same person—and nestled against him. Her scent still clung to his clothes, stirring his desire.

With a saucy smile that twisted his innards, she added, “No wonder you’re out of practice. With the proposal, not with the kiss. That was…pleasant.”

Turning her back, she strode away from him, toward the dusty streetlamp. Her heart-shaped rear swung with her decidedly feminine walk. He groaned inwardly.

Wait—he was letting her get away!

“Oh, bugger it,” he muttered under his breath. He’d made enough of a fool of himself tonight. Letting the enemy walk away when he’d had her in his clutches was the least of his embarrassments.

He turned on his heel, his mood blackening. How was he going to explain this cock-up to Strickland?

* * *

G
ideon roared with laughter
. He doubled over, stumbling into Morgan’s side as he struggled to breathe. Morgan shoved him back, into the flower-patterned wallpaper over the wood paneling. Giddy braced his hand on it as he gasped for breath, tears streaming from his eyes.

“It isn’t that funny,” Morgan grumbled under his breathe.

“You…
proposed!
” He bit off the last word on a strangled laugh.

“Hush!” Morgan pretended not to notice the curious glances of the four women in the room.

Mother, Mrs. Vale, and Lucy were perched on the off-white settee. They sipped from delicate, gold-rimmed white china cups. The cups clinked in the saucers as the two dark-haired women—seated on either side of Mrs. Vale, who shared her daughter’s blonde coloring albeit hers had gone to gray—set aside their cups. They exchanged a devious look.

“What was that you said, dear?” Mother asked, her voice light.

Simultaneously, Lucy jumped to her feet and demanded, “What’s so funny?”

Mrs. Vale pressed her lips together and held her cup steady on the saucer in front of her. From the glint in her eye, she wanted to learn of the secret, too. In fact, Morgan would do well to watch her. A seasoned spy like Mrs. Vale might have her own methods of uncovering the truth, especially now that she wasn’t on an active assignment.

The only person in the room who seemed oblivious to the conversation was Miss Vale. Curled up in an armchair she had dragged to the window much earlier in the day to take advantage of the natural light, Miss Vale bent over her embroidery. Her golden curls fell into her face, an annoyance judging by her expression as she batted them away. She narrowed her eyes as she strained to see by the light of the candle on the windowsill.

Beside Morgan, Giddy straightened. He grinned, “Oh, Mother, nothing you’d be interested in at all.”

Mother scoffed. As she refilled her teacup, her sidelong look betrayed her indecision. Judging by her suspicious look, she believed him to be engaged in the worst sort of depravity.

That would almost be preferable. His gloves smelled like Phil, a floral scent mixed with mineral oil. Bizarre at first, but the longer he’d been shut in his carriage without reprieve, the more he’d come to ache for that scent. It conjured the memory of her body pressed against his, of the taste of her lips. Carnal thoughts which shouldn’t be repeated and couldn’t be quenched. He shifted on his feet and avoided his mother’s gaze, uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, Lucy wasn’t quelled by the excuse. She stormed forward, her arms akimbo. “Tell me,” she demanded, staring at Gideon. “I want to know.”

Morgan bit back a groan.
Yes, well, I want to be anywhere else but in this room. We don’t always get what we want.

Giddy held up his hands in surrender. “I can’t tell you, or it’ll ruin the surprise.”

Lucy’s dark brown eyes lit up. “Surprise?”

Morgan smiled tightly as his sister glanced between him and his brother. What in blazes was his brother going on about?

Giddy’s wicked grin widened. “Oh, yes.”

She latched onto his arm. “You must tell or I won’t let go.”

“Are we children again?” The closest to her age, Lucy had latched onto Gideon during her formative years, when Giddy wasn’t tottering after Anthony, three years his senior.

Lucy pouted. “Giddy!”

He laughed, extricating himself with a wink. “Very well. Morgan’s found you a parrot.”

“He has?”

I have?

“He has,” Gideon confirmed. “In fact, he’s arranged for the bird to arrive sometime tomorrow.”

With a shriek of delight, Lucy launched herself into Morgan’s arms. He struggled to breathe as she clutched him tightly. He glared at Gideon over her shoulder.
Why,
he mouthed.

Giddy shrugged, as if to say,
Why not?

He wasn’t the one who had to scour London for the bloody bird overnight. Morgan might feel like a dastard tonight, but he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint his sister.

Or his mother, either. She set down her cup and rose from the settee, her arms outstretched to embrace him, too. She beamed.

Lud, he hadn’t seen her look that happy since Tristan had announced his engagement. Ever since the death of his father, Mother spent the bulk of her time constantly worrying over her children.

And she didn’t even know that two—now three—of them were spies.

Her hug was much gentler than Lucy’s. While he was bombarded by questions from his youngest sister—How big was the parrot? Was it male or female? Did it have a name? Could it speak?—Mother engulfed him in a gentle squeeze and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “It’ll be so lovely to have a pet in the house.”

Because his townhouse wasn’t full enough.

“You’re not listening to me,” Lucy complained, her voice shrill.

Giddy sniggered. He nudged Morgan. “That’s not even the best thing happening tomorrow. Mother, why don’t you tell Morgan your news?”

Morgan’s stomach dropped. He tried to hide his trepidation behind a smile. It felt wooden.

Mother, on the other hand, beamed. “I received an answer earlier today. Miss St. Gobain and her brother have accepted our invitation to visit Vauxhall Gardens tomorrow evening. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Bloody hell. He glared at Gideon. His brother must have known from the second he walked in.

Morgan had made a fool of himself proposing to a woman tonight and he had to face her again tomorrow and pretend as though nothing had happened.

It was going to be a long couple of days.