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“I am just glad you like me more. If you had woken up and shrieked like that at finding me lying there, I would have been most offended,” Marcus teased.
He eyed the ample mound of Jess’ bosom barely contained beneath the sheet hungrily, and mentally assessed how much time they had left before the other lodgers were due back.
Jess sighed. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“What are you doing up?” She felt a little awkward that he was fully dressed while she wore only a sheet.
Marcus smiled. “I was on my way downstairs to try to find some parchment. I need to write a couple of letters today,” he explained.
“Do you usually use your gun to write letters?” she asked eyeing the wicked-looking object he placed on the dresser.
“Not usually. I carry a firearm with me; that’s all.” He shrugged as if to say that it was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill thing he did.
Jess studied him and knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. This is Smothey, a village where nothing much ever happened. Nobody walked around with a gun unless they were hunting.
Marcus sensed she didn’t believe him. He had a choice now. He could either take her into his confidence, and garner her help if he ever needed it, or keep her in the dark. That meant lying to her. If he did that, at some point he would be forced to tell her everything, including the fact that he had lied, and he could very well lose her.
“I think it is time I came clean,” he began.
When she immediately began to withdraw from him, he sat on the bed and hauled her into his arms, refusing to allow her to pull away from him.
“It’s not what you think,” he hastened to assure her.
She leaned back to look up at him and remained still while she waited for his to explain.
“Are you married?” She asked boldly.
“Jess, I know you don’t know me very well at the moment but, take it from me that I am not the kind of man who would bed one woman while being married to another. No, I am not married.”
He struggled to find the words to say that would reassure her. The last thing he wanted was to cause her undue worry. However, neither could he allow her to live in the house ignorance of the dangers she might face.
“Are you in trouble with the law?” she whispered, eyeing his gun again with a frown.
“No, I am not in trouble with the law. I am the law. Well, sort of.” He slid down on the bed and tugged her close.
“Well, you either are or aren’t,” she said.
“I work for a department of the War Office. Very few people know about it. While we were at war, a group of hand-picked men were seconded to the War Office and worked to protect England’s borders from the French. The work we did was primarily aimed at stopping the smuggling, and we did. When the war ended, our attention turned to more domestic crimes like murders, pick-pocketers, and burglaries. Of late we have been investigating a spate of thefts and burglaries from big houses in London owned by the aristocracy. The man behind it all is a hardened criminal called Sayers. He is into everything illegal. There are no depths to which he won’t sink, an
d there is no depravity he won’t consider. Several bodies of rather eminent gentlemen in London have been strangled and left in woods. We think Sayers is responsible but are gathering evidence to try to prove it. Unfortunately, we are struggling to catch him. He is as elusive as a rainbow.”
“Go on,” she prompted when he fell into thoughtful silence.
Her heart began to swell with pride the more she listened to him. Suddenly, the penny dropped. She sat bolt upright in bed and turned to stare at him.
“Please don’t tell me that this Sayers person is here,” she demanded.
Marcus eyed the innocent way she sat upright, boldly displaying what God gave her, and mentally groaned. She hadn’t even noticed how much she was displaying to his avaricious gaze, but he didn’t tell her in case she covered up again.
“We don’t know,” he replied honestly. “One of our men was in a village where a couple of the bodies turned up. We went to help him, and learned of a planned burglary, and so set a trap. Although we caught the burglar, we lost the jewels he stole because he handed them over to a courier before we got him. My colleague and I followed the courier here. He is in the village somewhere. We are trying to find him.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Jessica whispered. “Do you think he is here, in this house?”
She didn’t object when Marcus repositioned her until she was practically lying over him. Her attention was locked firmly on what he had just told her.
“Where is the rest of your – this organisation?”
