TheCharmer

Rose steadied her nerves with all the will in her soul. She would not react, would not give the advantage. This was simply another sort of attack, after all. Besides, she was much practiced in the art of concealing her emotions.

Except for that tiny portion of her that thrilled to his closeness, that noted the virile scent of well-warmed man, that longed to push that single dark lock back from his forehead, that was achingly aware of his near-nakedness
…

Rose pulled herself from that fruitless world of fantasy with an exertion of will. "Having trouble finishing a sentence, Tremayne?" She affected a bored tone. "Then again, the aristocracy doesn't precisely breed for brains, does it?"

For a moment, she thought he might actually laugh. Then his expression returned to that manipulative smirk that swayed so many women but only left her cold.

"I have an idea. Why don't you wrap your hands around my thick… hard…" He plucked a weapon from the rack. "Staff?"

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Epilogue

This book is dedicated to Hannah,

who decided that one of the spies should be a girl.

Thank you, Bill, my wonderful husband and best friend, for bringing me flowers every week, even after 20 years.

Thank you, H & G, for already showing me the women you will someday be. I did good!

As always, I must thank Darbi Gill, Robyn Holiday, Joanne Markis, Jennifer Smith, Alexis Tharp, Cindy Tharp, and all the gang from Music City Romance Writers. Hanging with the girls keeps me sane.

^
»

England
1813,
AUTUMN

His naked, sculpted chest gleamed in the candlelight. His shoulders, broad and muscled, narrowed to a hard waist and flat belly. He was tall enough to make her feel small, although she wasn't, particularly. His gray eyes watched her as intently as she watched him. She didn't want to miss a thing—not the way his tousled dark hair hung over his brow, not the way his chest rose and fell with his quickening breaths. Especially not the way his sweat-dampened breeches clung to powerful thighs that were already braced to receive her advance. She knew his form well, knew the feel of him, the shape of him. Yet there was always more to learn.

Rose couldn't blink, couldn't look away. Her eyes became her only conduit to him as she shut out everything else. There was no
London
, no
England
, no war. There was only this man—this beautiful, half-naked man who gazed at her with such intensity.

She stepped closer. Careful. She mustn't seem too eager, nor too nonchalant. If she was to fulfill her wish here in this dimly lit room, she must play wisely and well.

His chest swelled as he inhaled and the golden glow from the candles played like music over his hot and rippling body. He exhaled in a rush.

She almost smiled. It was a sign.

As he moved toward her, she spread her knees and readied herself. Her patience had repaid her, for as he wrapped his arms about her—

She rolled him cleanly over her shoulder and tossed him hard to the mat beneath them.

Collis Tremayne lay there, gasping back the breath that had been knocked from him by the fall. Rose Lacey, former housemaid turned spy trainee, only cocked her head down at her opponent and folded her arms.

The hand-to-hand combat trainer stepped forward and grunted. "Should have rolled out of that fall," Kurt said.

Kurt was the premier assassin of the Liar's Club, the band of Crown spies that operated behind the facade of a gambling hell that stood opposite the school. Who would ever have thought it? Assassins and spies had become everyday associates of Rose's ever since the day she'd been liberated from her former position and installed as the first woman ever to be trained to be a Liar.

Kurt, who also cooked for the mixed band of gentlemen and street thieves that made up the Liars, was very, very good with puff pastry and anything bladed and sharp. Ever a man of few words, the scarred giant turned his back and returned to his place along the wall.

The weapons training room, or the arena, as Kurt had dubbed it, was the largest portion of the cellar of an unassuming building in a not-quite-respectable area of
London
. Of course, it no longer resembled a place for storing root vegetables and casks of ale. Pity about that ale. Rose wiped perspiration from her face with the back of her forearm. She truly could use a pint about now.

Currently the stone walls were adorned with racks of weapons and other training accoutrements. Against one wall stood a rack of straw-stuffed canvas figures that served as the enemy for students too likely to kill one another accidentally. She herself had graduated from dummies very quickly, thank you very much.

Fortunately, there was plenty of room for errors, as the great space was broken only by six thick oak foundation pillars that supported the building above. Alarmingly painted targets adorned another wall, while above it all hung a rather medieval candle-holder that reminded Rose of the giant oaken cranks that had once lifted a castle's drawbridge. It held forty candles or more, which she knew because she paid her board at the school by cleaning it as well.

Most of the students lived at the school and did as she did. Tiny bedchambers had been carved from the top-story attic. A bit cramped, it was true, but Rose felt the charm of her very own room more than made up for the lack of space.

And Kurt lived there, when he wasn't tending the kitchen of the other establishment. She glanced at him, awaiting further instructions. The giant instructor made all the other students lined up against the wall look like children. Some of them were, compared to her and Collis. They two were the oldest in the group by several years, having both come late to the school.

To the world, it was known as the
Lillian
Raines
School
for the Less Fortunate.

To those few who knew better, it was the Academy, the training ground for the most elite gang of thieves and spies ever in the service of the Crown—the Liar's Club. Rose and Collis, all of them, were the next generation of this mixed band of badness and bravery.

That is, if they didn't kill one another before graduation.

A rumble came from Kurt. Rose nodded. She looked back down at her opponent. Collis Tremayne, the stuff of a maiden's dreams. Even with one arm rendered useless Collis was a prime specimen of manhood.

He was quite tall, making Rose feel like standing as straight as possible to make up for her own middling height. Some said he looked like the younger brother to his uncle, Lord Etheridge, and he did, in a literal way. Collis had the thick, nearly black Etheridge hair and the pale gray Etheridge eyes, though not as eerily silver as his uncle's. Collis was far more high-spirited and playful than his uncle. Too playful by half, if anyone were asking Rose's opinion.

Handsome, charming Collis was also the heir to the great fortune and title of Etheridge—and the bane of Rose's existence.

He'd caught his breath at last. Rose offered him a hand up. He grinned up at her. "Now, if only you fought in skirts, being tossed to the floor might be a pleasurable experience. I might at least be paid for my troubles with a glimpse of those lovely ankles."

Rose snatched her hand back. "Oh, but trousers keep off the vermin and other
pests
," she said pointedly.

"Again," came Kurt's order from the shadows. "You're two and two. Last fall," The great candle-bearing wheel above them hissed and flickered as Rose and Collis circled each other again.

"Don't give it away, lad." Kurt's rumbling advice seemed to come from all directions. "You're gusting like a bellows afore you rush her."

Blast
. Rose wished Kurt hadn't told Collis that. It was her best clue. Collis was far stronger than she was, even with his disabled arm. She was perhaps a hair quicker, but that was only from years of dodging blows and gropes from her employer and his son, Louis.