Page 4 of After the Spy Seduces

“Diana Morgan,” he murmured in disbelief.

Her blue eyes flew open, blazing as she stared up at him.

Of all the women—Good God. “What the hell are you—”

Her small fist plowed into his chin.

Chapter 2

“Get your hands off me!” Diana bit out as she drew back her fist to punch him a second time.

But he grabbed her wrist before her knuckles made contact. “Then stop trying to hit me!”

She drew her other hand into a fist and swung, but the devil dodged the blow with all the skill of a natural-born athlete.

When her elbow landed a hard blow to his stomach, he winced and let out a growl of aggravation. He pinned both of her arms to the ground beside her head, holding her immobile beneath his heavy body.

“You cad!” She knew him, this man who’d tackled her to the ground and had his hands in places they had no business being. Oh, that made all of this so much worse! “You—youCarlisle!”

That last was accompanied by such venom that his head snapped back in surprise. “Hey now,” he chastised. “No reason to bring my ancestry into this.”

“Every reason,” she ground out through clenched teeth. Despite the sharp pain in her side where she’d hit the ground so hard that the air had been knocked from her lungs, she struggled fiercely against him, only to barely move at all. “Let go of me!”

“The hell I will,” he snarled, placing his long leg over both of hers as she kicked at him to free herself. “Not until you stop fighting me.”

She twisted futilely with a cry of rising panic. “He’s getting away!”

“He’sgottenaway.” He glared down at her with a harsh grimace, not at all happy with her.

And she certainly wasn’t pleased with him! “I have to ride after him. I have to give him those papers, make him—”

“He doesn’t want them.”

“He does.” Hehadto! That man was the only link to her brother, the only way to free him from the men who had kidnapped him. Hot tears of frustration stung at her eyes, knowing that with every second she delayed her brother’s life was put in increasing danger. “Let me up!”

“So you can go riding after him and get yourself killed? How do I explain that to the general?”

“So you can keep me here, lying on top of me?” She somehow managed to jab up her chin defiantly despite being on her back on the ground. “How do you explainthat?”

“I was checking for wounds on theboyI saved from being killed.” His eyes narrowed as he lowered his head, bringing his face so close to hers that she could feel the heat of his lips shadowing hers and the anger pulsating from him. “And you were meeting with unauthorized foreign agents on English soil to give them military documents.” When her lips parted, stunned into silence, he pressed in a low yet carefully controlled voice, “How doyouexplain that?”

Her heart plummeted to her knees with a dizzying jolt. Sweet mercy, she was going to be sick!

She asked hoarsely, her voice lost beneath her shock, “How do you know about that?”

“I’m looking for your brother and heard that he’d be here tonight. Imagine my surprise to find you instead.” He raked his gaze over her with a look that made her skin sizzle. “Dressed like this.”

“I certainly couldn’t have come here as myself.” So she’d donned some of Garrett’s old clothes from his Eton days, and with the help of a fake moustache adhered to her lip, she’d called on every detail she could remember from her bother’s boyhood about how he’d swaggered and behaved and gestured. It had worked, too, so well that even Christopher Carlisle had no idea that she wasn’t a man. Until he’d accidentally touched her breast.

Her face heated from humiliation, and from something else just as hot. Something she had no business feeling for this man in particular and on this night of all nights, when her focus should have been on her brother.

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “I can still catch up with him and—”

“He’s gone. The exchange failed.” The finality in his voice sliced through her like a knife. “All you’ll do if you try to go after him is get yourself hurt.”

Or worse. The words hung between them as clearly as if he’d uttered them.

She didn’t care about herself. But her brother— Dear God, Garrett was gone. What might have been her only chance to save him had vanished into the night along with the Frenchman, and the enormous guilt that swept over her left her trembling with helplessness. His life had rested in her hands, and she’d failed him.