Kasey Michaels - What a Hero Dares

“Or escaped.” Gideon got to his feet, turning the chair around, placing it carefully. “You’re in a dirty business, brother, and I can’t say I’m pleased with the Max standing before me now. It may be time you left his majesty’s service. It may have been time eight months ago.”

Max bristled. “We were suddenly rather short on agents, and then you came to me about the Society and we decided it would be best if I worked the thread from the Continent.”

“And God forbid you could have told me the truth, or I never would have asked that of you.” Gideon looked at him for long moments and then nodded his head almost imperceptibly. “Water already passed beneath the bridge, leaving us with that creature upstairs. I know you’re full of questions, as I am myself. If she was offered her freedom in exchange for selling her talents to someone—well, let’s just say it and have it out in the open, shall we? Is it too large a leap of conjecture to believe she’s now found employment with the Society?”

Max didn’t bother to deny he’d already wondered the same thing. “Very good, brother. I told you, she has talents, and who else would have her? She’s burned her bridges with both us and the French, and treachery would seem to be her only salable talent.”

Gideon pinched thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “So many questions present themselves. You’d spoken to her of Redgrave Manor, of course. She’d be at least loosely familiar with the estate?”

“As I’d waxed poetical about the place, and the family, innumerable times, you can assume so.” And then, because things had already gone too far to keep secrets from his brother, he said, “I sailed tonight with the person who led me to Gravelines and the Society-hired smugglers.”

Gideon looked at him, then frowned. “Allow me to hazard yet another guess. This Boucher person?”

With his hand now on the doorknob, Max turned and asked his brother, “One and the same, yes. So here we are again, the three of us. Do you believe in coincidences, Gideon, because I damned well don’t, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the greatest fool in nature, hoodwinked by the pair of them. According to Richard, it was Anton who hit me with the belaying pin.”

“Go on.”

“Yes. Maybe that bump on my head loosened something brilliant, or maybe I’m delirious, but think about this a moment, Gideon. What if they’d been working together all along? What if I was only allowed to live because they knew our reaction would be to pull all of our agents from the Continent in order to protect them, taking us months to reestablish ourselves there, while more and more French troops were secretly marched to the Peninsula? What if there never was a French prison? It’s possible. If it weren’t for Georges...”

“More and more I’m learning the most impossible things are possible. It will be interesting to hear what your Monsieur Boucher has to say. Did you see him with the other prisoners before they were led away? We’ve got them all locked up in various outbuildings until we can sort them out in the morning.”

“I don’t know. He’s with them, already dead, or if he believes me still alive and now suspicious of him, or saw Zoé on the beach, has escaped somehow. The answer will have to wait until morning. Right now I need to see Zoé, before I confront him. She said something earlier that— No, that’s enough. You, Valentine, Simon and I can talk more tomorrow over breakfast, before you and Jessica leave for London. Since you sent Richard after me, I imagine something important has been learned.”

“Bad news can always wait. No later than nine, if you please. There’s a lot you don’t know, little of it good, all of it shocking.”

Max was more than simply curious. “Does any of it concern the fact that in a house literally overrun with staff, I found myself having to light my own fire in the grate and bathe in only a few inches of tepid water?”

“Yes, it does. Max? We men make most of our mistakes with women. I know it’s not in your nature...but if we’re to learn anything more of the Society from this Zoé of yours, you might want to consider treading softly concerning the past.”

“I suppose you think I should visit the conservatory and pluck a few posies for her, as well? Clearly marriage has softened your head. Let me handle this, Gideon. I know the woman, you don’t.”

“The way you knew her eight months ago? Or the way you think you knew her eight months ago? Love can make fools of us all.”

Max opened his mouth to say something, realized he had nothing to say, yet had more questions than made him feel comfortable, so he let the door he slammed behind him speak for him.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE RECOGNIZED MAX’S distinctive footfalls, could picture him advancing beyond the patchwork of carpets scattered over the thick wood plank floor of her attic cell. There was a near arrogance in his walk, a confidence that had others instinctively stepping aside to give him room to pass.

She’d teasingly termed it his “I am so much more than you could ever aspire to be” walk, as opposed to his equally brilliant old-man’s shuffle, his wounded-soldier limp, his prim and proper vicar’s modest gait, his prancing nincompoop’s mincing step or his drunk-as-a-lord laughable stagger.

He was adept at all of them, but what came most naturally to him was that sure-footed stride that said: I am Maximillien Redgrave; take heed, ignore me at your own peril.

And he was heading straight toward her.

Not that she hadn’t left the mullioned window open, with the light muslin draperies blowing in the breeze.

“Zoé?”

She lay back against the fairly steeply-pitched slate roof, her bare feet firmly braced against one of the ornate iron cleats that lined the edge, and looked up at the moon as the clouds slowly rolled by, revealing its grinning face.

“Look, you’ve either jumped, which you’d never do, or you’ve escaped, which is next to impossible. Which leaves you hiding out there somewhere like a sulky child. Never your best look, by the way. In any event, I’m coming out. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t attempt to push me over the edge.”

She’d known he was her man, her equal, the first time she’d seen him walking toward her, his handsome face a thundercloud as he realized he’d been put under the command of a woman. But that anger hadn’t lasted much more than a sennight before he ceased resisting their undeniable attraction for each other.

She wondered now, as she had then, if he could hear her heart pounding in her chest.

Now, as then, she believed he was about to offer a limited, reluctant truce. As she was currently out of options, she decided to agree with him.

“You always did talk too much,” she said, turning her head to watch as Max gracefully eased his way over the sill of the dormer window, found purchase for one bare foot, and then maneuvered himself onto his back not three feet away from her.

“That’s because you usually devised interesting ways of shutting me up, as I recall.”

Only his tone warned that he wasn’t being teasingly reminiscent.

“You have no fear of me believing seduction would work on you, Max. Not anymore. What do you want? It’s late, and I’m tired.”

“I also wouldn’t suggest falling asleep in your current precarious position. Think of the mess one of the servants might trip over in the morning.”

This time he did sound genuinely amused. Zoé rolled her eyes. “I was about to go in when you barged out here to harass me.”

His gaze met hers in the moonlight. “So this isn’t some sort of attempt at escape?”

Don’t look at me, don’t look at me. You make me want so much more...