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Instead, he closed the door behind him and crossed his arms over his chest.
“What is going on?” he demanded to know, still speaking in French, even though they were alone, remaining wary and cautious.
“You need to leave,” she responded in the same language. “This is a trap.”
Alarm flared within him, but he glared at her rather than doing as she commanded.
“Then why did you bring me into it?”
She rolled her eyes at him, glancing back out the window.
“I am not the trap, you fool. Thisbrothelis the trap. The soldiers will be coming any minute now, looking for a man with a red cravat and a blue flower. You should take those off.” She gestured at his chest. “I will burn them, and you can go back down and out through the main door. Try to look at inconspicuous as possible.”
Despite the concern that rose inside of him, Anthony still did not move to do as she said. There was no proof that she was on his side. Perhaps she was there to interfere with his meeting, keeping him busy and away from the main room where his contact was.
How she might know about it, he had no idea, but he didn’t know how she had come by the knowledge of this supposed trap either. Living for so long in enemy territory made one rather untrusting. Anthony liked to think he could trust his instincts, and normally, he could read people very well, but… not her.
His instincts about her were jumbled by the desire he couldn’t completely ignore. He could not tell if her nerves were due to the supposed incoming soldiers or general nervousness from whatever role she was playing in interfering.
Looking back at him, she frowned.
“What are you doing? Hurry up.” She waved her hands at him.
“I have no proof that you are helping me. In fact, you could be hindering my agenda for the evening. I am to here meet someone, which you are preventing.”
Green eyes flashed with anger. Whoever she was, she was not used to being denied. It gave him some small amount of pleasure to know he was not dancing to her tune, the way she was clearly used to having men do.
“I am preventing you from being swept up by General Moreau, who is coming here tonight to capture an English spy with a blue flower in his lapel and wearing a red cravat,” she snapped at him. “He boasted of it to one of the women here.”
Anthony crossed his arms over his chest. It stretched the boundaries of his belief that a man, a general no less, would be so loose-lipped and careless as to announce such things to a whore.
Yet… it was such a ludicrous story that he could not dismiss it out of hand. Why come up with such a bizarre lie? Why not claim something more believable?
The woman looked back out the window.
“How—”
“Blast,” she hissed and came toward him. “They’re here. We need to burn these!”
Anthony would have protested, except he could hear a scream coming from below, and the sound of heavy boots on wooden floors, men shouting orders…
Bloody hell.
Either this was a coincidence of incredible timing, or she was right.
The woman rushed forward, and he almost grabbed her, but she was doing no more than reaching for his flower and cravat. She nearly choked him getting it off, then hurried over and tossed them in the fireplace, picking up a log and setting it atop them to hide them. The flower disappeared immediately, but the cravat would take longer.
“Hurry up and get undressed,” she ordered, her hands going behind her back to undo the laces on her dress.
“What?” Anthony stared blankly at her. She looked back at him with a slightly contemptuous expression on her face.
“Get undressed! We have to make them think you’re a normal patron.”
“I can just go back downstairs,” he said stubbornly, though his resolve was weakening as her dress dropped to the floor in a puddle of fabric, leaving her in nothing but her stays and stockings. She was wearing nothing else beneath them and his gaze caught on the curvy lines of her hips, the thatch of curls covering her womanhood, and the smoothness of her thighs.
“With no cravat?” She rolled her eyes, coming at him again. Despite her lack of attire, her attitude was all business. “Someone might remember what you were wearing. Don’t be a prat. I’m sure you’re no virgin, and we need to make this look real, or else this might well be your last day on earth.”
That grim statement uttered, she reached for him and shoved his jacket from his shoulders, her breasts brushing against his front. Anthony’s reservations were rapidly deteriorating under both her nearness and her logic.
