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“You truly do have a fertile mind, Lady Bronwyn Chase.”
She ambled toward the entrance of the building where she could detect the long shape of him propped against one side. “You know, my mother always called me by my full name whenever she was prevaricating.”
“I am a duke,Bronwyn Madeline Charlotte Chase.”
The mockery was subtle despite the knowledge of her name that made her heart kick against her ribs; the fib, however, was not. “What are you doing with your former spouse in Philadelphia then? Don’t tell me, you’re on a pleasure trip. An attempt at reconciliation? Wait, wait, I’ve got it. Shopping!”
“Business.”
It irked her that he was so smoothly evasive and so blasé about the fact that he was clearly here on some clandestine mission. Then again, what did she expect? That they would trust each other because they had been joined in the biblical sense? That they would sit over a fire and trade secrets, hold hands, and stroke each other’s hair?
Lord Iceberg was back and in fine form…or perhaps he’d never left. He had kissed her and taken her as though she’d been the air he needed to live, but she had rocks in her brain if she thought he’d ever go soft. The man was frost through and through.
And a gifted deceiver.
She didn’t need to see him to know that his impenetrable face would give away nothing, with falsehoods falling so naturally from his lips. He lied as easily as he breathed. It was by default of his occupation, of course, no matter his calm, mocking denials. Bronwyn swallowed a puff of laughter. It wasn’t as if he would have readily admitted such a thing.Shewouldn’t. If he guessed who she was—ifanyoneguessed—life as she knew it would be over.
So what was she so peeved about? Trust went both ways.
As a covert operative, one had to be ready to hide the truth and cover one’s tracks at every turn. Even from curious friends or nosy sisters-in-law. Bronwyn had become quite adept at deceit herself. She had lied about this trip, about a nonexistent sick aunt, about where she was going and who she was. About everything. Discomfort filled her. Her grandfather, the late Duke of Ashvale had always told her that once a person told a lie, all their truths became suspect.
Even the poet Lord Byron had called a lie the truth in a masquerade.
Bronwyn suddenly wanted to take the folded report with his initials from her pocket and wave it in the duke’s face as indisputable proof of his profession. But thenshewould have to explain how she came to have a confidential piece of correspondence on her person in the first place, and wouldn’t that be a pickle?Hullo, guess what, sir? I’m a spy, too. Let’s do the secret handshake and swap stories!
“Why were you in that tavern?” she asked instead. “Were you following me?”
“McGillin’s,” he replied. “Best cottage pie this side of the Atlantic, apparently. Can’t beat a good pie, my Uncle Bucky always said. Kidney pie, apple pie, fruit pie, mince pie. Pie is the true key to a blissful existence.”
“Stop saying ‘pie,’” she snapped.
“You don’t enjoy pie?”
“I hate it,” she said, blood boiling. “Answer the question. Why were you on that ship? You didn’t come to America for the pie.”
“Maybe I didcome…for thepie.”
She faltered when the cadence in his deep voice shifted to something low and much too sultry on two particular words in that sentence. Did…the Duke of Thornbury just make a filthy, bawdy joke at her expense? Her mouth opened and closed, ears going hot. Surely he wasn’t referring toheras the pie. Heat drizzled through her like thickened honey. “If you’re using sexual congress as a decidedly unclever metaphor, I assure you that my pie is burned and completely inedible.”
“I’ll withhold judgment until I can savor at my leisure.”
Oh dear heavens.
If she wasn’t already half-frozen, she would melt, starting from the place between her thighs that felt like it was currently incarnating a waterfall. “Shall we go in?” she asked, changing the subject before she did something stupid like drag him to the floor, mount his face like the lusty heathen she was, and demand to be eaten.
“It’s safe.”
Entering through a low archway that was just a darker shadow, her fingertips drifting over the old stone, Bronwyn found herself inside a roomy ground floor that was miraculously dry, despite the dilapidated appearance of the structure. And not freezing! Vermin or not, this was much better than being cold and clammy.
“I think this might once have been a water tower,” Thornbury said from her right, making her jump. She hadn’t heard him move and she could barely see now that he’d closed the heavy, half-rotted door, shielding them from the bitter bite of the outside air. “But it’s not connected to the old waterworks down the way. It’s clean and should do for the night.”
“Do you think those men are still after us?” she asked softly, rubbing her hands over her stiff arms that felt like two columns of ice. Now that she wasn’t arguing with him, or being stupidly seduced by him, she felt every painful tremor of her tired, cold muscles. Beneath Thornbury’s coat that had lost every ounce of its warmth, her shirt and trousers felt as though they had been frozen directly to her skin.
“Not tonight and not with their injuries.”
Relieved, Bronwyn nodded. “Would a small fire draw notice?”
“No, and there are some pieces of wood over here that should do. Some woodsman or worker must have been in here before us. Either that, or the beams above are old. There’s a pile in the corner.”
