Lady Gone Wicked (Wicked Secrets)(3)

“Hmm,” he said, and then he did the last thing she would ever expect.

He stepped away from her, toward the window, and turned his back.

She saw her chance.





Chapter Three


Nick had learned a great many things during his years of service to the Crown. Such as always look behind you. And even seemingly inconsequential information is useful to someone. Most important, and quite relevant to his current predicament—never turn your back on a woman who shot you.

He stared out the window and listened. There was a soft thud, then the rapid footfalls of a smallish lady running on her tiptoes. A scrape of metal and wood, more footfalls, and finally the quiet creak of the stool.

He turned around and once again found himself facing the barrel of a pistol.

“Ah,” he said, endeavoring to look surprised, because she would expect that. “Have you decided to kill me, after all?”

“I am not here to kill you,” she said. “I am here to negotiate.”

He crossed his arms, ignoring the sharp stab of protest from his wound, and regarded her carefully. The woman who faced him now was much changed from the girl he had met in Cornwall two years prior. Then she had seemed to him like an angel, an ethereal creature of goodness and joy.

She was an angel still, but the avenging kind who burned cities to the ground and turned people to salt.

It was no more than he deserved. He had played his role to perfection—the dashing, mysterious agent of the Crown. Hers had not been his first seduction, after all. He knew how to instill desire in every look, urgency in every word. Danger lurks behind every shrub. We only have tonight. Let me have this one sweet moment before death comes for me. He had said it all before.

For the first time, that summer, he had actually meant it.

He had not behaved as a gentleman ought, but a gentleman’s rules were easily forgotten when one presumed to be dead within a fortnight. He had taken every precaution, of course, even leaving her with the address of a business partner—one could not receive letters if one were dead.

He had not expected a letter from her any more than he had expected to survive his last assignment.

And now she was here to negotiate.

Fascinating.

“The pistol is unnecessary, angel. I’ll marry you,” he said.

The pistol wavered slightly, but did not lower. “Marriage? To you?” She frowned. “That would be very disagreeable. No, thank you.”

This time his look of surprise was sincere. “No?”

She shook her head. “You would make a very bad husband, Nick. Surely you know that.”

Actually, he had never given the matter much thought, one way or another. “Would I?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then what are you here to negotiate, exactly?” he asked and waited to hear the precise terms of his surrender. Of course he would give her whatever she wanted.

“Money,” she said flatly.

Except that.

“How much?” he asked.

Her gaze slid sideways before returning to meet his eyes. Her chin tilted. “Five thousand pounds.”

A large sum, but hardly exorbitant. If used frugally, it would allow her to live comfortably for many years. It would tie up his loose end quite nicely, really. If she had been someone other the daughter of a viscount, and his brother’s future sister-in-law, perhaps he could even have said yes.

But this was Adelaide.

“Money is for whores,” he said. “Marriage is for ladies.” It was ridiculous that he needed to explain this to her.

She dismissed his lecture with a wave of her hand. “It is all the same.”

He tried to decipher her meaning. Were ladies whores, or was marriage a monetary transaction? Perhaps she meant both?

“Scandal is a difficult thing to keep hidden, you understand,” she continued. “I must find a means of supporting myself, or I must marry—before it catches up to me.”

He frowned. Her scandal was his scandal. Scandal went hand in hand with notoriety, and that was something he wished to avoid at all costs. When war ended, enemies still remained. And then, of course, there was the issue of the marquessate. He would prefer the proceedings go smoothly. Until the letters patent were signed by the prince regent, scandal must be avoided.

So marriage, then.

Marriage done correctly, to avoid arousing unpleasant interest or suspicion.

“Then we will marry, because five thousand pounds is quite impossible,” he said.

Her eyes closed and her head bowed. He wasn’t sure what was worse—the look of despair on her pale face, or that once again the pistol wobbled. Good Lord.

Then her eyes opened, and he saw that she had rallied. “We will go to Gretna Green tonight, then.”

“Gretna Green is out of the question,” he said. “There must be no hint of haste. I won’t have it whispered that I seduced my future sister-in-law under the very noses of our families.”

She shook her head with a low laugh. “Oh, Nick. Do you take me for a fool? You will disappear the moment you are free of my pistol.”

Ah, so that was what she thought of him? He would have been offended had he not been accustomed to people thinking the worst of him. And he could admit that her reason, at least, was better than most.

“What do you suggest, then?” he asked.