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“Where are we?” she asked.
“Lady Catherine’s house. She was here by your side and then she went to bed.” He held up three fingers in front of her face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three.”
“What’s your name?”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to interrogate me. I feel quite normal. I don’t need to be coddled.” She tried to rise again and he held her down.
“Stop restraining me,” she said indignantly. “There’s a throbbing pain in my head but you’re becoming a worse sort of pain in my arse.”
He laughed. “You don’t know how good it is to hear you insult me. Seriously, Indy, please lie still awhile longer. You were hit in the back of the head.”
“I remember,” she said ruefully. She rubbed her skull. “Ouch. That smarts.”
“Do you want something to eat? I’ll ring for a servant.”
“I’m all right. Stop fussing. I don’t like being the damsel in distress. I want to leave this bed.”
She was so tough and brave, his Indy. “Everyone is still sleeping.”
“Then climb into bed with me,” she said. “It’s the only way you’ll make me behave.”
That he could do.
She watched him from the bed, the light from the bedside candelabra shifting across her face and over her long, unbound hair.
His heart hurt to look at her. “Indy, you’re so beautiful. Have I told you that?”
“Not in so many words. But you did say I was a formidable weapon.”
“You are that. You know that you saved me from being beaten to a bloody mess? You charged right up with my pistol. That giant didn’t think you’d fire but I knew better.”
She laughed. “Blasted him right in the kneecap.”
“He won’t underestimate you or any other woman again.” He climbed back into bed. “And neither will I.”
“Now that Le Triton has the necklace, you’ve lost your bargaining chip,” she said.
“Sir Malcolm has a team in place to storm Le Triton’s stronghold.”
“Sir Malcolm? A team?”
He was getting ahead of himself. He slid beneath the covers and fit his body around hers. She felt so right in his arms. He wanted to sleep curled around her for the rest of his life. “Indy, you might not want me in this bed with you after I explain myself to you.”
“Here’s what I know already. You were the one who saved me in Whitechapel. And you definitely don’t need lessons in how to defend yourself. And you probably run around saving the world, and such. because you’re a secret agent for the crown.”
“And you’re too clever by half.”
“I should have realized it earlier. You stopped responding to my letters because you embarked on another life. One that didn’t include me.”
“I’m so sorry. I went about it all wrong, I see that now.” He filled his lungs and exhaled slowly. “My father was a spy as well as a diplomat. Before he died, he wrote in his journal that he wanted me to become a spy. He had planned to induct me into the knowledge of my heritage in espionage when I turned fifteen. Sir Malcolm gave me the journal. He knew it would make me want to become a spy.”
She turned her head. “Sir Malcolm is... also an agent?”
He nodded. “You talk about me being detached from my emotions and that’s because I was trained in the art of detachment. The school I attended in Scotland was no ordinary school. I can’t divulge details, I can’t go that far, but I can tell you that it shaped me in profound ways. Brutal ways.”
She laid her hand on top of his arm where it curved around her waist.
