Evan tipped his head back and sighed, closing his eyes. “That would make sense, except I haven’t dealt with anyone outside the castle. Well, nobody worth mentioning.”
“Well, that’s just insulting,” an unfamiliar voice said.
Evan’s eyes snapped open as an arm wrapped around his throat and a hand grasped his naked bollocks tightly enough to be painful.
A desperate whine left him.
Thomas whirled on his heel and his eyes widened. “Ned?”
Ned? Who the hell was Ned?
Evan turned his head and caught a glimpse of a young man with sandy hair and sharp features. He stopped moving when the hand on his bollocks tightened further, and he shot Thomas a panicked look.
“Ned’s a local. He offered to bed me—quite persistently,” Thomas said.
Something in Evan’s gut twisted, sharp and unfamiliar, and it took him a moment to identify the feeling as jealousy.
“I was most disappointed when the captain turned me down after I so kindly bought him a drink. But he at least has the good manners to remember me,” Ned said. “You don’t, though, do you?”
Evan closed his eyes and thought hard, and a faint memory came to him. He’d been waiting to meet a nameless contact at a nondescript tavern. It was the kind of place where nobody paid attention to who visited or the company they kept, which meant it was perfect for Evan’s purposes. Ned had approached him and offered to keep him company for the evening. Evan had turned him down without a second thought and promptly forgotten about the entire encounter.
But obviously Ned hadn’t—and it seemed he was holding a grudge.
“I—the tavern,” Evan said, flinching at the press of cold steel against his throat. “I remember now.”
“You told me no, rather rudely I might add,” Ned said. “But I’ve often found that when someone says no, with enoughpersistence it can be turned into a yes. So I followed you home, intending to give you a chance to reconsider. I didn’t expect your home to be the castle, which meant I couldn’t follow you inside, but at least it made it easy to keep an eye on you. I thought you must work here. And you always use the same two little side gates for your comings and goings, so that helped.”
Evan’s breath rasped as he sucked in air, careful not to move and cut himself on the blade, or worse, get his balls yanked from his body. He had to hand it to Ned—the slippery little bastard had managed to make sure Evan wouldn’t pull out of his grasp. Evan truly was at his mercy. “You’ve been following me?”
“I couldn’t help myself,” Ned confessed, his voice taking on a playful lilt. “You were just so pretty. You can imagine my surprise when you appeared at the gate one day and you weren’t wearing your hooded cloak. No, you were done up to the nines in a silk shirt and stockings and trousers and an emerald green coat that was fit for a king—or a duke.”
He shifted slightly behind Evan, adjusting his grip so the tip of the knife jabbed into Evan’s flesh, and laughed low in his ear. “Well, that was when I realised who you were. And I started asking myself why a member of the royal family would be in a place like that tavern and why he’d be in disguise. And then one night someone mentioned the king’s mysterious spy that nobody had ever seen, and it all fell into place. I followed you for a few more days just to be sure, but all the pieces fit. You’re the Rogue.”
Evan didn’t bother to deny it. “How does the ambassador come into all this?” he asked. It was part curiosity, part stalling tactic. The grip on his balls had loosened as Ned talked, and he was hoping that by some miracle he might be able to slip free without sacrificing them.
“Oh, he overheard the other men at the tavern laughing at me when I said I knew who the Rogue was.Hedidn’t laugh, though.He was very interested in what I had to say, and when I told him what I suspected, he paid me handsomely to keep my mouth shut about it. He came back a week later and said that there was a new guard roster at the castle, and he’d pay me if I could get my hands on a copy.”
“Who gave it to you?” Thomas demanded with a face like thunder. “Was it one of the guards?”
Ned shook his head. “No, it was one of the kitchen staff. I got him drunk and persuaded him to draw a map for me. I told him it was so I could come and visit him.”
Well, that explained the shaky drawing and the extra curve on the shaft.
There was just one piece of the puzzle that Evan couldn’t make fit. “What was the ambassador doing at the tavern in the first place?”
“Oh, he always visits me when he’s in town. He loves a good buggering.” Ned glanced down at the body on the floor. “Well, he did.”
“But why are you herenow?” Evan persisted. “Surely the ambassador didn’t hire you.”
“No, but he is given to pillow talk, and he told me his plans last night after I fucked him,” Ned said. “I came because I wanted to see you get your comeuppance after turning me down.” He frowned at the dead body. “But it looks like I’ll just have to kill you myself.”
Ten years of espionage, and his secret had been uncovered by a brat who couldn’t take no for an answer and was planning to kill him in a fit of pique? It was almost enough to make Evan laugh.
Almost.
Except Ned chose that moment to let go of Evan’s bollocks and slide a hand up and over his bare stomach, pulling himclose. Evan’s gut churned. “You missed out on a good time when you turned me down.”
“I don’t sleep with rude little gits,” Evan snapped, and the petty jealousy that was still coursing through his veins had him adding, “You’re probably terrible in bed.”
