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Traitor. Leave the ladies to their work. Frills and silk and stitches. But she did want to look her best tomorrow. For intelligence-gathering purposes, only, of course. Not because she wanted to see Raven’s jaw drop when she appeared at the top of the stairs.
She’d be afemme fatale, as the French said.My Lady Spy.
She’d use all the weapons at her disposal.
Raven didn’t even bother to attend supper that evening.
During the meal, Indy had asked where he was and Lady Sterling had said the gentlemen had gone out. From the resigned way she said the words Indy understood that Lady Sterling’s husband abandoned her quite frequently in the evenings.
He and Raven were probably visiting gaming houses and bawdy houses, doing all manner of foolish things that could expose their secret. Raven thought she was the indiscreet one? She was going to give him an extra-sharp piece of her mind when he returned.
Some partnership.
Indy paced up and down her chamber, peering out the window from time to time to see if any carriages had arrived. When she wasn’t pacing, she made lists of suspects and marked up the map of Paris that she’d brought with her on the journey.
She should have gone to a hotel.
Being in the same house with him was like dousing a fire with oil.
This entire elaborate ruse of theirs—and the events that had led up to it—the hate-kissing, the faux proposal... the whisky incident. Was it all in the name of archaeology, all in the name of her noble goals? Or was it purely selfish?
Had she done it simply because she wanted to be near him?
Was that why she was here, in this house filled with family, pushed and pulled by their whims, when she could be in a quiet, lonely room in an anonymous hotel?
You know the answer to that question, her heart whispered.
She curled up in a chair. The Minerva coin was still around her throat. Her talisman against the dangers of love. Or was it something else?
She unclasped the gold chain and held the coin in her hand. Was she wearing this for another reason?
The thought skirting the edges of her mind was nearly too painful to contemplate.
Did she still have some pathetic hope that Raven would suddenly come to his senses and... what? Declare that he loved her?
And if she secretly hoped that he might love her still... did that mean...
Bollocks!
She gripped the coin in her palm, the edges digging into her flesh.
She couldn’t love him. What a ridiculous thought. She would never be that stupid.
The noise of carriage wheels made her jump out of her chair and run to the window.
Raven alighted from the carriage but not Sir Charles.
She waited for the sound of Raven in the hallway. She thought he might stop by her chamber to explain where he’d been, but his footsteps passed her door.
No explanation. No apology.
They were supposed to be equal partners and she had a right to know what he’d been doing. She would not be excluded, or relegated to the role of silent observer.
She would not be his footnote, and she was going to tell him as much. Why should she be afraid to go to his chamber? She’d faced cutthroats in dark alleys. She was afraid of nothing.
Not even her own treacherous heart.
She shut the Minerva coin necklace in a small compartment in her traveling case. She didn’t need to wear it anymore.
