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Valentine frowned, the name not ringing any immediate bells, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d been out of the game for some time, and Sommers’s case had been handed off to another operative. “Who is she?”
Bronwyn shook her head. “Not here.”
If he clenched his jaw any harder, his teeth were going to shatter, but she was right. This was an open public space and anyone could be listening. He’d just done it himself. “Fine. We are going back to the ship, and you are going to tell me everything from start to finish, do you understand me? No more lies, no more detours, no more games.”
“My things are at the hotel.”
“I’ll send Lisbeth for them.”
The sound of the woman’s name—and what she clearly represented—made Bronwyn flinch as if she had an inkling of what was coming her way. She gave him a weak nod, though resentment glinted in her eyes before her lashes dipped to hide her expression. The Bronwyn he had come to know in less than a day would have something up her sleeve. She was not the sort to capitulate so quickly and so easily. In another life, he might have admired what the Americans called gumption. She had it in spades, but she was on the wrong side of things. The wrong side ofhim.
Why did that grate more than it should? He barely knew her.
You know her well enough to have been inside her.
That had nothing to do with anything, but the reminder didn’t help. He’d coupled with a thief, a turncoat, a liar, and God knew what else. Inexplicably enraged at his own stupidity in falling for a master thespian, Valentine took her by the elbow and she didn’t protest his unyielding grip as he led her to a hansom.
“The docks,” he ordered the coachman.
In the carriage, he stared at her. His jaw ached from holding it so tightly, but if he didn’t keep himself under rigid control, who knew what might happen. Even covered in streaks of ashy grime, brown hair falling loose from her bun, and wearing filthy men’s clothing, she was stunning. The combination of wide-eyed innocence and innate sultriness had been his downfall.
She’s not innocent.
No, she had played him like a child’s top. Spun him around until he’d been dizzy, addled with lust and desire. Valentine could not recall the last time he’d been so bamboozled by anyone, much less a slip of a girl. It itched under his skin like a festering pustule.
“How did you get my report?” he asked in a curt tone.
She licked her lips and he fought not to respond. “Someone in London.”
“The Kestrel?”
She turned her head toward the window, her throat working. Her chin jutted in mutinous silence. In that moment, he saw it. The sight of that profile and the reason he’d had such an odd feeling that he’d seen her somewhere before when she’d first left the hotel dressed like a thin, young buck and sitting at the tavern. It was the profile of the portrait that had been drawn…because the damned Kestrel wasn’t a man at all.
Now that it was clear, everything seemed to fall into place all at once. The mysterious peer who had access to all of the exclusive events and parties in London, the fact that he could elude authorities so easily, and all of the many faces worn for the sake of the assignment.
This beautiful young charlatan had fooled them all.
Valentine went cold. “You’re the Kestrel.”
Ten
Bronwyn was done for.
She’d had that same thought many a time before, of course. One did not tangle with dangerous people and do dangerous things without feeling backed into a corner with no way of escape once or twice. But this wasThornbury. His reputation of being a ruthless bloodhound was something she hadn’t seen in person until now. Sure, he’d been stony and sour, but that had been his general disposition. He wasn’t a man given to warmth or docility.
Butthisman, this hard, hatchet-faced statue who had locked her in her cabin the minute they’d set foot on theValor, was. But he had gone unnaturally still, his face so hard that the only thing moving had been the occasional flicker in his stubbled cheek. It hadn’t even looked like he was breathing. Not one more word had come out of him after his pronouncement.
Not a sound. Not a single expression.
Nothing.
And oddly, that had chafed more than anything else. Those piercing eyes had communicated it all—frustration, resentment, betrayal, aversion, disappointment. The silence had been unendurable, and she would have given anything to know what was going on in that head of his.
Admittedly, the stolen page of his report looked bad. It put her in the wrong, and she couldn’t defend it because she had no idea how Wentworth had come into possession of it. And the message she delivered… How could she explain her actions about thwarting a possible abduction of the American president without clearing it with her own people first? Thornbury wasn’t going to harm her if she didn’t talk. At least she hoped so.
She was trapped between a rock and a hard place. Wedged between Thornbury’s judgment of her conduct and her duty to her chain of command. One would break…she just wasn’t sure which.
“My lady,” Cora said, opening the stateroom door and startling her. “Do you wish for some hot tea?”
