Jacquie D’Alessandro - Touch Me

She watched his entire body tense. He tried to nod and clearly thought better of it. “Yes. Is he-”

“He’s dead, Simon,” she said in a soothing tone. She gently brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead, a dark slash against his frighteningly pale skin.

That news seemed to relax him. “Good.”

Baxter entered the foyer. “All’s clear. I’ll be back with the doctor and the magistrate.” He departed, closing the door behind him.

Simon pulled in a few more breaths, then asked, “How did you find me?”

“When you didn’t return at sunrise, Baxter and I were worried. We came here and found you bleeding and unconscious, and the other man dead, with your knife sticking out of his chest.”

Simon kept his eyes closed and waited for the room to stop spinning and for the thunderous pounding in his head and the nausea roiling through his stomach to subside. After several slow, careful breaths, he again opened his eyes and saw Genevieve. The worry clouding her beautiful features filled him with guilt-and dread. He harbored no doubts that after he had told her what he must, all that caring and concern would fade from her gaze.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

With the nausea gone and the pounding in his head lessened to a dull roar, he nodded, then moved to sit up. Even with Genevieve’s assistance, the going was slow and the effort left him panting and coated in sweat. After several minutes, however, he felt better, and he forced himself to look in her eyes. His breath caught at the emotion swimming in those beautiful blue depths. There was nothing guarded in her expression-even a blind man could have recognized that the tenderness in her gaze meant she cared for him. Deeply. His heart sank. Yes, cared deeply for a man whose true name and occupation she didn’t even know. A man who’d lied to her. And who, he knew she would believe, had used her.

Damn.

His gaze shifted, his lips tightening at the sight of Waverly’s body behind her. Then he glanced to her pelisse, the pale-gray wool ruined with his blood. The array of compresses stained with colors ranging from bright scarlet to barely pale pink. Finally he looked at where she held his hands, hers ungloved and stained with his blood. Would this be the last time he’d ever touch her?

He pulled in a breath, then raised his gaze to meet hers. “You admitted to me yesterday that you hadn’t been entirely honest with me, that your circumstances weren’t what you’d led me to believe. Now I must say the same thing to you. I don’t work for a Mr. Jonas-Smythe. Indeed, there is no such person. I’m employed by the Crown.”

Confusion passed over her features. “You’re a steward for the Crown?”

“No. I gather information for them and assist in capturing individuals whose actions could threaten Britain.”

She blinked. “You’re a… spy? ”

“Yes.”

“A spy,” she repeated in a bemused voice. “For how long?”

“Eight years.”

“And how did you come to be a spy?”

“I volunteered.” He hesitated, then continued, “My family was wealthy and I’d never wanted for anything. Until eight years ago, I’d spent my life pursuing my own enjoyments, indulging my whims and desires, denied nothing. One night, while out carousing with a group of friends, we ventured into a pub, one in a less-fashionable part of London than we would normally visit. I struck up a conversation with the barkeep. His name was Billy. I asked him how he came to work at the bar-not because I was really interested, but because I thought his words might bring a laugh. Instead he…changed me.”

He paused, shame filling him as it did every time he recalled the callow, selfish youth he’d been. “How?” she prompted.

“He told me about his life. He’d served in the navy and nearly died in battle. He’d survived, but lost a leg. When he came home, he needed work. Had a wife and son to look after. A friend of his owned the pub and he’d worked there ever since. Listening to him, hearing him talk of that battle, knowing it had to be painful for him to stand behind that bar for hours on end, that he did so out of love for his wife and child, gave me quite a jolt. It made me take a good at myself and my life. And I didn’t like what I saw.

“I saw that while other men were serving our country, I’d simply moved from party to party, club to club, pleasure to pleasure, from one useless pursuit to the next. Frankly I was disgusted with myself. I wanted to change. To do something important. Something good. Something I could be proud of.”

She nodded slowly. “I see. So…if we’d met eight years ago, I wouldn’t have liked you.”

“Most likely not. I don’t see how you could have when I didn’t like myself.”

“And now? Do you like yourself now?”

“At this particular moment-not really. I lied to you. But in general…yes. I’m proud of the work I’ve done. The people I’ve helped. The lives I’ve protected and saved. Unfortunately with that sort of work comes secrecy, and with secrecy come lies. For eight years I’ve lied to my friends and my family-none of them know what I’ve just told you.” He gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “I wouldn’t have lied to you, Genevieve, if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary.”

She nodded slowly, clearly digesting his words. “All this means you didn’t come to Little Longstone for a holiday while your employer was away on his wedding trip.”

“No, I didn’t.” He took a bracing breath and forced himself to say the words he knew would drain the caring from her eyes. “I came to Little Longstone to find you . To retrieve the letter Lord Ridgemoor sent you for safekeeping.”

All the color leaked from her face. He could almost hear the pieces clicking together in her mind. And then all the emotion faded from her eyes, until she stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. Even though he’d known it would happen, it still felt as if he’d been cut off at the knees. Without a word she slowly eased her hands from his. He wanted to snatch her hands back, to keep that connection, but he let her go. The loss made him feel as if his heart had been punctured.

“Tell me how you know about that,” she said, her voice not quite steady.

And so he told her. All of it. Of Waverly’s plot to kill Ridgemoor and frame Simon for the crime. Of Ridgemoor’s last words. Of Simon confiding in Waverly and being granted the time to clear his name. Of renting the cottage. Repeatedly searching her home. Of her almost catching him that first time. She listened to all of it in complete silence, her gaze never moving from his, only growing bleaker until, when he finished, she simply stared at him with eyes that resembled two flat stones.

A full minute of the loudest silence he’d ever heard swelled between them. He wanted so badly to touch her, but he knew, knew she’d pull away from him. And he also knew that would break whatever small piece of his heart still remained intact.

“Richard is dead,” she finally said in a voice as flat as her expression.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I know you cared for him.”

“You knew all along that I wasn’t a widow. That I’d been his mistress.”

“Yes.”

“You befriended me, flirted with me, spent time with me, seduced me-all to get the letter.”

“No-”

She held up her hand to halt his words. The emptiness in her eyes was gone, replaced with a combination of pain, anger and betrayal that twisted his heart. “Do not lie to me again, Simon.”

“I’m not lying. I admit that’s why I came here and why I initially sought you out. But once I met you…you weren’t what I expected. Genevieve, what we shared together, it’s all been real.”