Page 63 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

“It’s no joking matter, Fitz. Not to me. Don’t you see? I…I can’t let myself need you. All my life I’ve been defined by my relation to a man: a daughter, a wife, a widow. I’ve done what’s expected, what’s proper. I’ve stayed in. I’ve kept house. But now? Now I’m a spy.” She breathed excitement into the word, the promise of adventure. “And I don’t want to go back to what I was before.”

“I see. And you think that if we—”

“Do more of that—”

“You’ll have to—”

“Give it all up. Colonel Millrose will know how weak I am, how womanish. General Scott will insist we marry.”

Given the general’s propensity for matchmaking, Fitz rather thought he might try to insist on it, regardless. “And you don’t want that?”

“I…don’t. It’s nothing to do with you,” she quickly added, reaching for him in the darkness.

Until his sister’s recent, and unexpected, decision to wed, he had not given much thought to his own matrimonial prospects. He liked his work well enough not to be in any hurry to settle down, and General Scott seemed to expect men to choose domesticity over danger and leave his service when they married, though there had been a few notable exceptions to that rule.

“Oh, it’s something to do with me, I’d say. After all, you’re deciding my future too.”

He felt as much as heard her swift intake of breath. “You mean, you thought of pr-proposing?”

Had he? Truth be told, his thoughts regarding Fanny had been neither coherent nor gentlemanly. He only knew he wanted her. Desperately.

Enough to want her to be happy.

“This is hardly the place for a discussion about it,” he said, dipping his head to brush a silencing kiss across her lips before ducking through the low door and descending the three wooden steps.

“Nor the time,” she agreed as he reached up to help her down. “We’ve got to—”

“Warn the duke and duchess? Not just yet.” He peered into the bathing machine behind her. The blade of moonlight slicing through the doorway revealed no sign of a hidden message. Though of course Leclerc might just as easily have been retrieving as leaving one. “I’d like a little more than raw speculation about thirsty servants and tainted coffee before revealing myself to a possible double agent. I’ve given enough of myself to the French already.”

She cut her gaze away, her lips parted on an inaudible gasp. “How could I have forgotten what you went through?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Fan,” he said, reaching out a hand, careful not to touch her, but to wait until she laid her fingers in his. “But I’d rather you didn’t spend your time thinking of it too.”

She’d been there, of course, when he’d returned to the Underground, weak and battered, both body and spirit bearing the marks of the tortures he’d endured. She’d covered him with blankets, for the Underground was cool despite the hot summer weather. She’d brought him strained soups and mashed vegetables, until his teeth had decided whether to stay in his gums.

No surprise, he supposed, that he had fallen a little bit in love with her. And no wonder that she did not regard him with the same passion. He’d been captured. He couldn’t even say he’d been strong enough not to give up any secrets, because the truth was, he hadn’t been important enough to know any. He’d found the codebook quite by happenstance, passed it to a stranger on the street when it became clear he was being followed, and prayed his fellow spies would be able to find it—and him—again. Hardly the stuff of heroes.

“I’ve been so excited about the possibility,” she said, her voice almost too quiet to be heard over the rumble of the tide, “I pushed aside all my fears of the reality. The dangers…”

He squeezed her hand, trying to offer reassurance. “You’ll make an excellent secret agent, then. Because that’s what you have to do, carry on despite the risks.”

Her fingers curled around his in an implacable grip. “Despite the risks,” she echoed. Her expression suggested she was about to say something more.

But at just that moment, a low, terrible groan came from a neighboring bathing machine.

Fitz cursed under his breath, wishing he were armed. Fanny strained toward the sound. “I think someone must be hurt,” she whispered. He nodded and motioned her back, to indicate he would investigate. Her eyes rolled—to her credit, the motion was slight; it might not have been visible if not for the moonlight sparkling in them—and she reached for his hand. “Together,” she mouthed.

They stepped toward the next bathing machine in line, almost identical to the one they’d been examining. The door, Fitz realized belatedly, hung open a fraction of an inch, as if impeded by something. Had they misjudged which bathing machine Leclerc had visited? After another squeeze of Fanny’s fingers, Fitz freed his right hand and formed it into a fist as he reached for the door with his left.

A man’s head lolled out into the opening, and even in the moonlight it was easy enough to guess that the dark smear at the corner of his brow was blood. His hair was matted with it, in fact. With unseeing eyes, he stared up at them, silent now. Fitz wondered whether the groan they had heard had been the man’s last.

“It’s Caro’s father,” Fanny breathed. “Is he—?”

“I’m not sure.” After a quick look inside the bathing machine, to make certain the attacker no longer lay in wait, Fitz bent and laid his ear against the man’s chest. After a moment, he found a faint pulse. “Not yet. But…” Grabbing the duchess’s father under his arms, he dragged him almost from the bathing machine. “Catch his feet.” Fanny nodded, taking a booted heel in each hand. “We’ll have to carry him. Can you manage?”

“I’m not as frail as some people think.” And indeed, she had not quailed at the sight of blood. She bore her share of the man’s weight without complaint as they made their way back along the beach.

“Trefrey’s house isn’t far.”