No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(120)

Rafe rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Tell us about that time anyway.” Jasper drank again. “I can’t remember all of the details.”

“Stubble it,” Rafe said. “This problem pales in comparison to those.”

“Is this problem a brunette?” Neil asked.

“With large…” Jasper made curving motions in front of his chest.

Rafe opened his mouth and closed it again. For the first time he realized Miss Fournay was exactly the sort of woman he preferred—beautiful, dark haired, and with ample charms. He’d been so focused on her as a mission, he hadn’t looked at her as a woman. Not that he hadn’t felt an attraction to her. When he’d been about to kiss her on the terrace, not everything he said had been pretty words designed to seduce her. He had been imagining his body pressed to hers and his mouth on hers. What man wouldn’t imagine it? Her plump lips and the straining of her bodice tonight were enough to give any man ideas.

Jasper and Neil exchanged a look. Neil mimed the hammering of a nail.

“What’s the problem?” Jasper asked. “Can’t decide whether to roger her on her back or against a wall?”

“The problem is she’s a mission,” Rafe said. He had no compunction about revealing this here. The Draven Club was entirely safe. The men could talk about anything here and it would never leave the confines of the building. “Draven himself asked me to tease information from her. She’s suspected of being in league with the French.”

“That sounds simple enough for you,” Neil said. “I gave you a score of assignments like that when we were at war.”

“Yes, but…” Rafe sipped his brandy again, then poured more. “But something is wrong with this woman.”

Jasper raised his brows. “Wrong how?”

“She rejected my advances.”

Silence hung in the air for a long, long moment and then Neil and Jasper burst out laughing. Jasper all but fell out of his chair.

“Hell’s teeth.” Rafe gathered his brandy and stood. He should have known better than to confide in those two.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Neil said, grabbing Rafe’s arm and wresting the brandy away. “I apologize. This is very serious.”

And then he and Jasper started laughing all over again.

“You think it’s so amusing? I’ll tell Draven to assign one or both of you. See how you do.”

“I won’t live through one night. My wife would murder me.”

Jasper gestured to his cheek. “I’d scare her away.”

“You couldn’t do any worse than I am.”

Neil grabbed Rafe’s arm again. “Sit down. It can’t be all that bad.”

“She tried to knee me in the groin.”

Both men flinched. “So she has some spirit,” Neil said.

“I wouldn’t have known it until now. She barely spoke before. I could have sworn the chit was tongue-tied every time she looked at me. But she had plenty to say at the ball tonight. And all of it about hedgehogs.”

“Is that a new cant phrase? I don’t know it,” Jasper said.

“Perhaps she is presenting you with a challenge,” Neil said. “You’re not used to that. She wants to be chased.”

Rafe shook his head. “I know that game, and this is not it.”

“Then have you considered she really does have something to hide?”

“Why do you say that?” Rafe asked Jasper.

Jasper shrugged. “That’s the opinion of the Foreign Office. Maybe she fears you’ll pull the plug and all her secrets will spill out.”

Rafe rested his hand on his chin, tapping his fingers on his lip. “She does seem skittish. I called on her last week, and I could have sworn she intentionally tipped over the tea tray.”

“You were too close to something she did not want to tell you?” Neil speculated.

“Or something she did not want me to see.” Rafe thought about the desk in Lady Ravensgate’s drawing room. It had been covered with an assortment of letters and papers. What if one of those had been from her French contacts? Something that might tie her to Fortier? But why would her father ask her to spy? He’d been an ally of Napoleon and now the Bourbons were back on the throne. Or what if the royalists had killed Fortier and threatened to kill her too if she did not work for them? But that made no sense. She could easily run away. Lady Ravensgate was not keeping that close a watch on her.

Rafe sipped the brandy again. “Say she does have something to hide. There were plenty of women on the Continent who had secrets to hide. I managed to persuade them.”

“Married women.” Neil pointed at him. “This one isn’t married. She might have limited experience with men.”

“Then my task should be simple.”

“Not necessarily,” Jasper said. “Your methods of seduction are not exactly subtle. You might scare her.”

“You are schooling me in methods of seduction?”

Jasper grinned. “Best day ever.”

“You need to take another approach,” Neil said. “If she fights seduction, come at her another way.”

Rafe swallowed his brandy and slammed the snifter down. “Hell’s teeth, but I don’t know another way! You called me the Seducer for a reason.”