The UnTied Kingdom (29 page)

Until she had fallen through the hole in the world, Eve had regarded herself about average in height and weight, but now she’d landed in a twilight zone of men and women who apparently lacked the health and nutrition to grow to what Eve considered normal proportions. Tallulah, tall and willowy, was a notable exception.

As was Harker, tall and broad and strong and–

‘You look fantastic,’ Tallulah said, regarding Eve as she stood in front of the mirror, seams bursting.

Either the head housemaid was exquisitely petite, or she was a slut who liked overly tight dresses, because the frock, which had looked like couture on Tallulah, looked cheap and tight on Eve. It suctioned in her waist and shoved her breasts up under her chin, far too high for comfort. There was a high split, which enabled her to walk, but also displayed rather a lot of thigh. After a battle and an explanation of who Britney Spears was, Eve had been allowed to keep her knickers on, but no bra.

‘I look like a – well, a tart,’ she said, depressed.

‘You look fantastic,’ Tallulah repeated firmly.

She requisitioned some stockings that had been darned a couple of times and were secured with a red lace garter, which showed through the skirt’s split, and also rustled up shoes that were Eve’s approximate size, and pinched like hell.

‘There,’ Eve said, having crayoned on lipstick and exaggerated her eyes with kohl. ‘Do I look like a nightclub floozy yet? Or do I just look like a drag queen?’

‘A what?’ Tallulah asked uncertainly.

‘Never mind.’

‘You look very glamorous.’

‘I look like I’ll split this damn dress if I try to sit down,’ Eve sighed. ‘All right, let’s go.’

If she’d been hoping that Harker might return the favour and stare in astonishment when she made her entrance to the drawing room, she was disappointed. He barely glanced at her, grumbling, ‘You took bloody long enough. Right, we need a getaway driver. Banks, I’m volunteering you.’

Banks, who gratifyingly
had
stared at Eve, stumbled off to the back of the house.

‘Well?’ Eve asked Charlie and Daz. ‘How do I look?’

‘Cheap,’ Charlie said.

‘Excellent. Just the effect I was going for.’

‘You look incredible,’ Daz said admiringly.

‘No, she looks very credible,’ Harker scowled. ‘Come on, Miss Credible. Got your papers?’

‘Yes, but I don’t know where the hell I’m going to put them.’

‘Does she get a weapon?’ Tallulah asked as Eve followed Harker out.

‘Nowhere to put that, either,’ Harker said.

Outside the kitchen, one of the footmen was sharing a cigarette with a couple of stable boys. They all whistled when they saw Eve, who grinned and curtseyed.

‘Stop that,’ Harker snapped. ‘Get in the bloody car.’

Eve rolled her eyes at him. ‘Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,’ she said without thinking, and Harker caught her arm as she climbed into the car.

‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes hot, ‘and it wasn’t me.’

Chapter Twenty-One

As the car moved away, Harker was desperately craving strong liquor.

This is the woman
, he reminded himself as she pressed up against him in the back of the dark car,
who has the potential to ruin your whole mission. Who could even now be taking a message to the enemy. She couldn’t just ruin the whole mission, she could ruin your career. Maybe even the whole army. The whole war.

And you’ve encouraged – no,
ordered
her – to put on a tight red dress and impersonate your girlfriend. When you fancy her rotten and can’t have her. Well, that was a nice move, Major Fathead
.

‘So,’ she said, all round and lush next to him, as he determinedly didn’t look at her. ‘Is there a plan?’

‘Yes,’ said Harker, who’d been too sandbagged by the sight of her to think of one.

‘Are you gonna share it with me?’

‘No.’

‘Excellent.’

Her tone said she wasn’t happy with him. Yes, he should have complimented her, but if he’d looked directly at her for a second longer, he’d have gone blind. Or dragged her off to his room and ripped that dress off her–

‘Not being funny or anything,’ Banks said from the driving seat, ‘but you don’t smell right.’

There was a short silence. ‘Pardon?’ Eve said.

‘I mean … look, cheap women should smell cheap. Like, cheap perfume or something.’

‘He’s right,’ Harker said. ‘Or at least alcohol.’

‘Know a lot of cheap women, do you?’ Eve asked, and he ignored her.

‘Banks, I need you to drop us at the Kirkgate, and then go and wait for us at that weak spot in the defences, remember it?’ Banks nodded. ‘All going well, we shouldn’t need to use it, but I’d rather have a contingency plan.’

‘So, you have a contingency plan, but not an actual plan?’ Eve sniped.

‘Yes, I have an actual plan. Stop bothering me.’

The car bounced on. Harker could smell the scent of Eve’s skin, and that expensive shampoo Tallulah used. Only, on Eve it smelled different. Hotter and richer.

Eve muttered something to herself, and Harker said, ‘Pardon?’

‘I said, thank God I’m only pretending to be your girlfriend. If anybody ever fills the role for real, remind me to send her a condolence card.’

Harker tried to count to ten, failed completely and rounded on her after five.

‘Look, what have I done to you?’

‘Oh, you want a list?’

Banks sucked his breath between his teeth, and Harker suddenly remembered he was sitting there up front. Listening to every word. Probably taking notes so he could recount it to the others later.

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t. Just do me a favour and shut up, would you?’

Eve did. In fact, she stayed pointedly silent for the rest of the journey, curling away from him and staring out of the window.

Hell and bloody damn. If he survived the night it’d be a miracle.

Banks pulled up half a mile from the Kirkgate, which was busy with people rushing to beat the curfew. Harker came round to open the door and Eve gave him a murderous look but said nothing, stalking off towards the road to join the crowds, her heel getting stuck in the mud within thirty seconds.

Banks watched her go. ‘Good luck, sir,’ he said.

‘I hope you’re referring to the mission there, Private,’ Harker said severely.

‘What else would I be referring to?’ Banks said with an innocence that didn’t suit him.

‘Go,’ Harker said. ‘Wait for us. Could be a while.’

Banks’s mouth stayed still, but his eyes gleamed with a grin.

‘Yessir,’ he said, and got back in the car.

Harker trudged after Eve, who had her arms wrapped around herself as she walked. Belatedly, Harker realised she’d be freezing in that skimpy dress, and was trying to calculate the chances of her accepting his jacket when he drew level with her and saw the way her crossed arms pushed her breasts up even further. Half-an-inch more and they’d be spilling out of the dress.

‘Here,’ he said, hurriedly taking off his respectable teacher-man jacket, which he’d nicked from the head coachman. ‘You must be freezing.’

‘I’m fine,’ Eve said.

‘You’re lying. I can see goose-bumps all over you.’

She shrugged.

‘Besides which, you’re about to fall out of that dress.’

She looked down, adjusted her arms, and said, ‘Thought you wanted me looking cheap.’

‘Yes, but you’re going to get arrested looking like that.’

Grudgingly, she took the jacket and wrapped it around herself.

‘And please try to look as if you actually like me.’

She gave a brittle smile. It was the least convincing thing Harker had seen since Saskia had pretended she liked drinking Old Whiskers, when she was trying to impress him by drinking a working-class brew.

As they neared the gate, he put his arm around her shoulders, perversely enjoying the way she stiffened up. But as soon as they got within sight of the gate guards, she changed completely, leaning soft and warm against him and smiling as she tilted her face up to his and murmured, ‘Where are our papers?’

‘In my jacket.’ Which she was still wearing.

‘Hadn’t you better get them, then?’

Damn
. Harker reached inside the jacket, which involved a lot of brushing against tight satin and lush curves, and bloody Eve only made it worse by lolling in his arms and nuzzling his neck. He’d kept a cool head during sieges and pitched battles and even during divorce proceedings, but with Eve Carpenter’s splendid assets pressed up against him, he couldn’t put two thoughts together.

Oh dear heaven, she’s going to kill me
, Harker thought, trying desperately to remember which of the inside pockets he’d put the papers in before he gave in and ravished her up against the city wall.

Finally he found them, thrust them at the gate guard, and leaned in close to Eve to whisper, ‘What are you doing?’

She pressed her body full against his. ‘Being a floozy. Is it working?’

O, hell, yes!
‘The guards are impressed.’

‘Well, good.’

The guards seemed far more interested in Eve’s stockings and glimpsed cleavage than in checking their papers. They were waved through with no questions asked, although one of the guards did give Harker an enormous wink.

‘What was that for?’

‘Probably fancied you,’ Eve said. She was still pressed tightly against his side as they walked. ‘Your papers say you’re married, don’t they? And yet here you are with me.’

Yes, here I am. With you
.

She took his hand, reaching across his body for his left hand, and tsked. ‘No wedding ring,’ she said.

‘Never wore one,’ he said without thinking. ‘Oh – you mean – no, well, I must have taken it off, eh, while I’m out picking up floozies.’

‘Never wore one?’ Eve said, her eyebrows raised.

‘Ain’t really practical, is it? Gets in the way, don’t want to worry about losing it, sliding off if it gets too bloody.’

‘Well, you’re an old romantic,’ Eve said, and before he could even think of a response, she asked, ‘So, where’s this grammar school?’

‘By the river,’ he said. ‘But we’re not going there first.’

‘We’re not?’

‘No. First, we’re going to get drunk.’

He took her to a tavern – a real noisy, dirty, smelly tavern, with rushes on the floor and men with beards spilling foul-smelling beer from leather tankards. Eve started to wonder how many bacteria were living in the place, but quickly tried to distract herself before she went mad and refused to touch anything.

You’re a floozy,
she reminded herself.
The tavern is your natural habitat. Act like it.

She slid Harker’s jacket from her shoulders and handed it back to him, adjusting her cleavage and smiling at all the men who noticed.

‘’Ello, luv,’ leered one. ‘What’s your name, then?’

‘What do you want it to be?’ Eve said with a flutter of her eyelashes, and Harker grabbed her arm and yanked her away as the man and his friends roared at her.

‘Ow,’ she said pointedly, and he relaxed his grip a little.

‘Are you trying to cause a bloody riot?’

‘No, I’m trying to act like a floozy.’ Eve leaned over the bar and smiled at the grizzled landlord. ‘What are we drinking?’

Harker glanced at the big barrels lined up behind the bar and said, ‘Old Whiskers.’

The landlord looked surprised, but drew two pints directly from the barrel by means of a tiny tap. The beer was thick and dark and poured into two leather tankards that made Eve’s stomach curl.

Harker handed over some coins and pushed one of the mugs at Eve.

‘Must I?’ she muttered.

Harker took a long drink of his beer.
Must have an iron stomach,
she thought,
to survive drinking from something that unhygienic
.

Then she thought about just how hard his entire body was, and gulped some of the beer to cool herself down.

Then she spat it out.

A couple of drinkers nearby sniggered at her. Eve narrowed her eyes at Harker, who was grinning. ‘You did that on purpose,’ she said.

‘It’s an acquired taste.’

‘It’s disgusting.’ Eve looked at the treacle-like brew in her mug, then down at her tight satin dress, and thought,
what the hell
. She stumbled and tipped the beer all down her dress.

‘Oh
no
,’ she said theatrically. ‘And now I’m going to smell of beer all night long.’

Harker laughed at that, and ordered her some cider instead. It came in a wooden mug, which she supposed was marginally more hygienic than leather, and was actually quite pleasant. He lit up a cigarette, and she took it from him, puffed a few times but didn’t inhale.

She wanted to smell like cigarettes. The fact that she was smoking the same cigarette Harker had put between his own lips was completely by the by.

‘So,’ she said, ‘where does your wife think you are?’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, working late. Doing all that … teacher paperwork.’

‘That sounds very boring.’

‘It is.’

She adjusted her cleavage again. ‘I can see why you came looking for me.’

He smiled at that, a slow smile that did fizzy things to her insides, and she gulped more of the cider. When someone pushed past her to the bar, Harker curled his arm around her waist and pulled her close against his body, and Eve lost her breath. His whole body was so lean and hard, as if he’d been made from rock, steady and invincible.

Eve found herself leaning into him, her arms around his neck, trying not to breathe in the hot-man scent she’d nearly overdosed on outside the gate. Trying not to betray that she was actually developing a giant-sized crush on Harker, who after all didn’t even like her very much.

She tried to draw back a little, give herself some breathing space, and then she caught his injured shoulder and he flinched, ever so slightly.

‘Sorry,’ Eve mouthed, wincing, looking up and meeting those hot gunmetal eyes.

He nodded silently, holding her gaze.

The background of the tavern seemed muted, distant, like a TV burbling in the background, and all Eve was aware of was the tall, broad-shouldered and very handsome man holding her close against his hard, perfect body.

This isn’t fair
, she thought wildly.
He’s not even nice to me. God, I must be going mad if I’m this attracted to someone I don’t even like
.

Searching desperately for something to distract herself, she said, ‘So, this plan! Do I get to hear it?’

Harker cleared his throat, and she watched the muscles in his beautiful neck move. ‘Plan,’ he said. ‘Yes. Right. We … uh, go to the school.’

‘And? Do we have a reason for going there?’

He hesitated, then in a voice that suggested he was expecting to get shot down said, ‘Uh, you get turned on by books?’

Eve laughed. She couldn’t help it. ‘Books,’ she said. ‘Right. Fine. I’m an intellectual floozy.’

He smiled again, that slow and gentle smile, and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, which was wickedly unfair of him. How was she supposed to resist him when he kept doing things like that?

Forcing herself to breathe deeply, she closed her eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ Harker asked.

‘I’m fine.’
Just having palpitations
.

‘It’s warm in here. Do you want to get some air?’

Eve nodded, because maybe outside she could get some distance from him, get her brain working again, remind herself he was just pretending with her, and she was pretending with him, and that as soon as they’d stolen this modem he wasn’t going to be cuddling her any more.

Dammit.

Taking her hand, he led her out of the crowded tavern, sat her down on a bench outside, and crouched down in front of her. ‘Better?’