Page 23 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

“Finally realized he chose the wrong man for the job, eh?”

Langley wasn’t entirely sure who the right man would have been. But he was positive the task should belong to someone who wouldn’t have connived for a kiss with the countess at the first opportunity, who had the self-control not to grope her arse. It was more than likely Scott had assigned him to this mission to humble him, to teach him a lesson. But impossible that Scott had foreseen his supposed best agent lusting after Aman—Lady Kingston.

Millrose ignored his words. “He’s heard—don’t ask me how; it’s as if the man has some vast secret network, spying on his spies—that Hopkins’s captors have managed to figure out who has the codebook.”

They would have had to torture the information from Hopkins. But that was not the first concern that rose to Langley’s mind. He dragged himself upright and eyed Billy, who sat a few feet away, his arms folded over the back of the chair he was straddling. “I pray you mean Dulsworthy.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Christ.” He was on his feet before he knew he’d moved, the heavy table skidding forward with the thrust of his arms and his chair toppling onto the floor behind him. “Then she needs—she and her family need protection.”

Unperturbed, Billy waved the fingers of one hand, gesturing for calm, for Langley to sit down again. But he couldn’t. Not if—not when—

“I’ve got men guarding the house, front and back. So long as she stays inside, she’ll be perfectly safe.”

“But?” Langley spoke the word the other man had left unspoken.

“It seems she has plans for the theater tonight. Covent Garden. A box with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Hurst.”

Langley raked a hand through his hair. “A ball last night, the theater tonight. Didn’t the dossier—didn’t you imply the woman never left the house?”

Hell, she had implied it. You haven’t the first idea how dull my life is, she’d told him, pleading up at him with those rich brown eyes as she’d insisted on a chance to play a part in the search.

Billy shrugged as he rose from his chair and swung his leg over the seat to stand beside it. “It would seem the Countess of Kingston is finally out of mourning.” He reached a hand into his breast pocket, withdrew a folded paper, and laid it on the table. “Your ticket to Cymbeline. Eight o’clock. I’ve heard Kemble is extraordinary as the hero.”

Langley swore and kicked the fallen chair for good measure. “Which exactly is it I’m being ordered to do? Search for the codebook? Or tail her ladyship about the town?”

A knowing smile split the man’s face. “Yes.”

* * * *

Well before the longcase clock in the entry hall chimed seven, Amanda had been ready and eager to escape Bartlett House. She felt rather as she imagined a fox must feel during the hunt, hurried and harried from its den, and from every subsequent hiding place it found, until it simply gave itself up to the hounds.

With no other plans for the day, Mama had been at liberty to follow her from room to room, enquiring about the ball in that saccharine voice that set Amanda’s teeth on edge. And with every remove, Mama had ordered poor Lewis to fetch the vase containing George’s flowers, ostensibly to discover the ideal place to showcase their beauty.

They were lovely, a hothouse arrangement studded with red roses that echoed the gown she had worn to the ball. Amanda wondered whether they had been chosen for that purpose, and if so by whom, for George was unlikely to make the connection. Their heavy perfume had done nothing to alleviate her headache.

Lord Dulsworthy’s call late in the afternoon had been mercifully brief, to enquire after her health and to return her hot, tired sons to her care. But his parting request for a private audience with her in the morning—“to discuss young Kingston’s future”—had left her palms as damp and her mouth as dry as they had been when she’d first waked. As they would have been if he’d got down on one knee right then.

Worst of all, though, were the memories that nipped at her heels, undiscouraged by an occasional kick.

Once, in her first season, she’d allowed a notorious rake to maneuver her onto a secluded terrace and pretended to believe his whispered promises, hoping he would teach her what the matrons whispered about and the wallflowers would never know. Mama had discovered her missing before any damage had been done—and before any real knowledge could be imparted. In all the years of Amanda’s marriage, in Kingston’s kind but dispassionate embrace, she had refused to let herself remember the possibility that there might be something more. Until last night…

Kiss me, Major Stanhope had commanded, and it had taken but half a moment for her to understand why: such a pose would both excuse their presence in the darkened room and persuade the other couple to leave them in peace.

And as a result, Amanda did not think she would ever know peace again.

Because she had kissed him with the hunger she had pushed down, deep inside herself, so deep she had almost forgotten its existence.

But oh, she remembered it now.

It still quivered in parts of her body she generally tried to ignore.

“Amanda, dear, are you feeling all right?” Rebecca Hurst leaned toward her in the carriage, concern etched onto her delicate features. “You’re quite flushed. Open a window, Charles,” she urged her husband. “She needs fresh air.”

“I’m quite well, thank you,” Amanda insisted, though not quickly enough to forestall Mr. Hurst’s efforts. The pane of glass slid down into the door, and a warm breeze gusted into the carriage, scented strongly of horse.

“Now, where did I lay my fan?” Rebecca patted the seat around her until Amanda reached out a staying hand.