Julia Quinn - To Catch an Heiress

She nodded vigorously.

"Then who did?"

She mouthed something he didn't understand - something he had a feeling he wasn't meant to understand.

He sighed wearily .and walked back over to the window for a spot of fresh air. It just didn't make sense that she couldn't write legibly, and if she truly couldn't, then who had scribbled in the notebook and what did it mean? She had said-when she could still speak-that it was nothing more than a collection of vocabulary words, which was clearly a lie. Still...

He paused. He had an idea. "Write out the al­phabet," he ordered.

She rolled her eyes.

"Now!" he roared.

She frowned with displeasure as she carried out her latest assignment.

"What's this?" he asked, holding up the cylindri­cal quill holder he found on the window ledge.

Water, she mouthed. Funny how she managed to make him understand her some of the time.

He scoffed and put it back on the ledge. "Any fool could see it isn't going to rain."

She shrugged, as if to say, It could.

"Are you done?"

She nodded, managing to look very irritated and very bored at the same time.

Blake walked back over to her side and looked down. The M, N, and O were barely legible, and C he supposed he could have picked out if his life were at stake over it, but beyond that...

He shuddered. Never again. Never would he risk his life, and in this case his very sanity, for the good of Mother England. He had sworn to the War Office that he was through, but they'd nagged and cajoled until he'd agreed to take care of this one last piece of business. It was because he lived so close to Bournemouth, his superiors had said. He could look into Prewitt's activities without arousing suspicion. It had to be Blake Ravenscroft, they'd insisted. No one else could do the job.

And so Blake had acquiesced. But he had never dreamed he'd end up nursing an oddly fetching half-Spanish spy with the worst handwriting in the history of the civilized world.

"I'd like to meet your governess," he muttered, "and then I'd like to shoot her."

Miss De Leon made another strange sound, and this time he was certain it was a giggle. For a treasonous spy, she had a rather decent sense of humor.

"You," he said, pointing at her, "don't move."

She planted her hands on her hips and gave him a silly look, as if to say, Where would I go?

"I'll be right back." He stalked out of the room, remembering only at the last minute to lock the door behind him. Damn. He was getting soft. It was because she didn't seem like a spy, he rationalized. There was something different about her. Most peo­ple in his line of work had a hollow look to them, as if they'd seen too much. But those blue-green eyes of hers-well, if one could get past the fact that they were a bit bloodshot from lack of sleep-they were... they were...

Blake stiffened and banished the thought from his mind. He had no business thinking about her eyes. He had no business thinking about any woman.

Four hours later he was ready to admit defeat. He had forced six pots of tea down her throat, which had resulted in nothing other than her mak­ing wild, crazed motions with her hands that he eventually interpreted as, "Leave the room so I can use the chamber pot."

But her voice didn't return, or if it did, she was rather skilled at hiding it.

He'd been foolish enough to try the quill and ink approach only one more time. Her hand had moved with grace and speed, but the marks she left on the paper resembled nothing so much as bird tracks.

And, blast the chit, she seemed to be trying to endear herself to him. Worse, she was succeeding. While he was grumbling at her lack of communi­cative skills, she'd folded one of the scribbled-on sheets of paper into an odd birdlike shape and then proceeded to shoot it straight at him. It glided smoothly through the air, and once Blake had dodged out of its way, it landed gently on the floor.

"Well done," Blake said, impressed despite him­self. He'd always liked little gadgets like that.

She smiled proudly, folded up another paper bird, and sailed that one right out the window.

Blake knew he ought to berate her for wasting his time, but he wanted to see how well her little contraption did outside. He rose from the table and went to the window, catching sight of the paper bird just as it spiraled into a rosebush. "Brought down by the flora, I'm afraid," he said, turning to face her.

She shot him an irritated look and marched to the window.

"Do you see it?" Blake said.

She shook her head.

He leaned out next to her. "Right there," he said, pointing. "In the rosebush."

She pulled herself upright, planted her hands on her hips, and shot him a sarcastic look.

"You dare to mock my rosebushes?"

She made scissors-like motions with her fingers.

"You think they need pruning?"

She nodded emphatically.

"A spy who likes to garden," Blake said to him­self. "Will wonders never cease?"

She cupped her hand next to her ear to let him know she hadn't heard him.

"I suppose you could do a better job?" he quipped.

She nodded again, moving back to the window to get another look at the bushes. But Blake hadn't seen her coming, and he stepped toward the win­dow at die exact same moment. They crashed into each other, and he grabbed her upper arms to keep her from falling.

And then he made the mistake of looking into her eyes.

They were soft, and they were clear, and heaven help him, they weren't saying no.

Blake leaned down a fraction of an inch, wanting to kiss her more than he wanted to breathe. Her lips parted, and a small gasp of surprise escaped her mouth. He moved closer. He wanted her. He wanted Carlotta. He wanted-

Carlotta.

Damn, how could he have forgotten, even for a second? She was a spy. A traitor. Completely with­out morals or scruples. He shoved her away from him and strode to the door. "That won't happen again," he said, his voice dipped.

She looked too stunned to respond.

Blake swore under his breath and stalked out, slamming and locking the door behind him. What the hell was he going to do with her?

Even worse, what the hell was he going to do with himself? Blake shook his head as he bolted down the stairs. This was getting ridiculous. He had no interest in women for anything other than the most basic of reasons, and even for that Carlotta De Leon was monstrously inappropriate.

He had no wish to wake up with his throat slit, after all. Or not to wake up at all, as the case would probably be.

He had to remember who she was.

And he had to remember Marabelle.

nos-trum (noun). A medicine, or med­ical application, prepared by the person recommending it; a quack remedy.

He doesn't seem to have much faith in his nostrums, but still he forces them down my throat.

- From the personal dictionary of

Caroline Trent

Blake left her alone for the rest of the day. He was too enraged to trust himself near her. She and her bloody mute throat were infuriating, but the truth was, most of his anger was self-directed.

How could he have thought of kissing her? Even for a second? She might be half-Spanish, but she was also half-English, and that made her a traitor.

And it was a traitor who had killed Marabelle.

As if to mirror his mood, it started to rain as the sun went down, and all Blake could think about was the little quill-holder she'd left on the ledge to collect water.

He snorted. As if she were going to perish of thirst after all the tea he'd forced down her throat that afternoon. Still, as he ate his evening meal in silence, he couldn't help but think of her upstairs, locked in the tiny room. She had to be starving. She hadn't eaten all day.