Surrender to a Wicked Spy (2 page)

"I've one free," he said exultantly, stretching out his arms for balance.

Olivia kicked too slowly and sank beneath his movement. It took all her strength to push back to the surface. She wasn't chattering anymore. Her brain felt sluggish, but somewhere she managed to dredge up the knowledge that that was a bad sign.

He lurched in her grip. "I'm free!" He pulled her close with one great arm, carefully treading water so his feet would not touch down again. "Miss?"

Olivia closed her eyes. Her lids were far too heavy to hold open any longer. She hung there in his grasp, too cold and numb to save herself now that she'd saved him.

"Miss!"

Being one of the most eligible bachelors in London Society, Dane Calwell, Viscount Greenleigh, was actually rather accustomed to saving damsels. In fact, they seemed to drop from the sky to land at his feet in various states of distress.

There was the time he'd rescued Miss Waverly from a near collision with a bog cart (although it was odd how she happened to be standing in the street just as he left his abode). He'd rescued Miss Morton when her hair ribbons had suddenly become mysteriously wound about a branch at the Teagardens' house party (they had been such unusually long ribbons). He'd swept Miss Hackerman from the saddle of a suddenly fractious horse when taking his daily ride through Hyde Park last week, although the horse had been perfectly docile until Dane had drawn near (but evidently he had a strange effect on young ladies' mounts, for that sort of rescue was becoming a regular event).

The Season was nearly over and Society's mamas were becoming desperate indeed. They might have been reassured had they known that Dane had every intention of marrying this year. After all, he was in his thirties and his wild days were long done. A man with his responsibilities required an appropriately demure, composed, well-bred hostess and mother for his heir. Therefore, Dane looked on all of this attempted entrapment with amused tolerance.

After all, it was not inconceivable that he might actually meet a suitable girl by plucking her from the path of a bog wagon. Unfortunately, the Misses Waverly, Morton, and Hackerman had all failed to impress him with their steadiness when they had indulged in outrageous fits of hysterics after being rescued. Still, Dane had hope that he'd find a young woman with a bit more substance before the Season ended.

So when a young lady fell into the Thames right before his eyes, Dane hadn't hesitated before leaping from his horse to dive into the water next to the struggling miss.

Except that this particular miss hadn't needed rescuing, at least not until she'd nearly frozen while rescuing
him
.

She lay in his arms now as he carried her up the grassy bank of the Thames. He didn't think it was precisely proper for him to be holding her so close, but the limp girl's mother—who only now had thought to run back down the bridge to the bank—was currently indulging in a rather overblown fit of panic and there didn't seem to be any servants with them.

Dane wrapped his sodden coat more closely about the pale, chilled form of his rescuer. He always did his best to see that his—er, damsels ended up properly taken care of after their ordeals, but there didn't seem to be anyone to take care of this one.

She wasn't quite unconscious, but her frozen state concerned him greatly. He was feeling deadly cold himself, and he was far larger than the young woman he held.

He glanced up at the gathering crowd—where had all these people been while the two of them had been floundering in the Thames?—and picked out a mild-looking young man at random.

"You there," Dane called. "Fetch a hackney coach here at once." The fellow nodded quickly and ran for the street. Dane glanced at the woman he was beginning to think of as "the mother from hell" and tried to smile at her reassuringly. This only sent her into a fresh bout of sobbing and carrying on as she clung to his side. She seemed to feel that she was to blame for some reason. Dane listened for a moment to see if the woman might let drop any hints as to her and her daughter's identity or what had happened or anything useful at all.

There was no sense coming from that quarter, so Dane tuned the woman out.

A shabby hack pulled up on the grass. It was a pretty poor specimen and small to boot, but Dane was in no mood to care. He ordered the mild young man to load the mother into the vehicle and carried the girl on himself. Seating himself in the cramped interior, he settled her into his lap, keeping a protective hold on her.

Perhaps he ought to be ashamed of noticing that she was a healthy armful and that she fitted rather nicely against him. Most young ladies seemed to aim for a sort of wispy daintiness. It was refreshing to be this close to such a sturdy female. She felt rather… unbreakable. He always felt somewhat uneasy when he came too close to some of the more petite women in Society. His common sense told him that he was not going to crush them during a dance, but his imagination supplied many an awful vision anyway.

She was attractive, as well, in a healthy country-bred sort of way. Not beautiful, but appealing enough… and vaguely familiar as well. He knew he'd seen her about, but he could not recall much more than the impression of quiet and stillness. Not a flash sort, then. Interesting…

So when his coat briefly fell away from the young woman's bodice during the jostling carriage ride, Dane fell prey to his manly instincts rather than his gentlemanly ones and didn't precisely avert his eyes from what the thin, sodden muslin wasn't covering very well.

Well, well. Very nice. Very nice indeed. He could safely change his description from "sturdy" to "buxom."

Olivia wasn't unconscious, unless one counted being too cold and humiliated to be able to fend for oneself. Besides, her Viking lord was large and warm and strong and she found herself rather loathe to "wake," for then he'd surely set her aside.

However, when she felt the cold air wafting over her bared bodice, she could not resist taking a peek to see if he was taking a peek.

He was.

Then he promptly tucked his coat back around her. It had only been a tiny lapse, one she could hardly hold against him when she thought about how much she would like to see him nearly naked and soaking wet…

Dane saw her open eyes and smiled at her, glad to see that she was alert once more. Her wry, assessing gaze told him she'd seen him peeking, but he certainly wasn't going to affirm her suspicions by appearing guilty. Besides, the brief glance at her full bosom capped with rosy points that pressed tightly to the translucent muslin had been the highlight of his rather trying day.

Her gaze left his, however, and slid to where her mother sat opposite them, now sobbing somewhat less vociferously.

"Mother," the girl said firmly through blue, chilled lips. "T-tell this nice gentleman that you're
s-sorry."

The weeping woman uttered something unintelligible, which seemed to satisfy the girl in Dane's lap, for she then turned to look back up at him with a air of expectation. Dane hesitated, having the feeling that he was the only one who didn't know what they were talking about. "Ah… apology accepted?" he said finally.

The girl seemed to relax. "You're t—taking all of this very well, I must say," she told him as her shivers continued. "That bodes well f—for your character. You must be a man of g—great parts."

Perhaps it was the fact that he'd recently been peeking at her own rather "great parts" or perhaps it was the fact that his own "parts" were becoming more and more stimulated by the motion of a curvaceous bottom being jostled against them, but the commonplace saying struck Dane in quite a different way than it was intended to. He laughed involuntarily, then covered it with a cough. Smiling with bemusement at the very unusual creature nestled on his lap, he nodded. "Thank you. I might say the same about you." It was a pure delight to come across such a combination of robust voluptuousness and resilient poise.

The girl eyed him speculatively for a moment, then turned to her mother again. "Mama, you should allow this gentleman to introduce himself to you."

"Mama" nodded vigorously, then visibly repressed her sobs and dabbed at her eyes with a tiny scrap of lace that truly didn't look up to the task of drying all those tears.

"That's not necessary, my dear," the woman said, with a final sniffle. "The Viscount Greenleigh and I have already been introduced."

Dane sat there for a long moment with a smile frozen on his face while he racked his memory to place the red-eyed woman across from him. Finally, light dawned. Cheltenham. She was the wife of a destitute earl, but the family was of excellent lineage and spotless reputation. "Of course we have, Lady Cheltenham," he said smoothly, as if he'd recognized her all along.

Then he looked down at the self-possessed and voluptuous young woman in his arms. So this was Cheltenham's daughter…

«
^
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I shall be a willing and obedient wife. I shall be a willing and obedient—

Olivia—Lady Greenleigh now!—put down the boar-bristle brush that she had been absently drawing through her fair hair. There was that word again.
Obedient
. Drawing a deep breath, she placed both hands flat on her new mother-of-pearl-inlaid vanity and closed her eyes against her reflection in the fine gilded mirror.

The bedchamber in which Olivia waited shimmered with tasteful luxury, from the creamy silk brocade bed draperies, to the generously heaped coals in the hearth, to the very nightdress she wore, a floating confection of gauzy batiste that likely cost more than all her previous wardrobe combined.

The only thing it lacked was the presence of his lordship.

Men, Olivia decided, were rather like rain. If one needed it, it never seemed to come.

It is an honor to be chosen by such a gentleman
. Her mother's voice echoed through her mind again and again.
You have little to recommend you but your bloodline. If your brother had managed to marry that awful Hackerman Shipping heiress, things would be very different for us all. If Walter had lived
…

If Walter had lived, Cheltenham would be saved, the family coffers would be full, her parents would be content, and Olivia would not be without her dear brother. She certainly would not have been constrained to accept the only offer of marriage that she had received.

Lord Greenleigh is a very handsome man. Lord Greenleigh is a very powerful man. Lord Greenleigh
—

Lord Greenleigh was beginning to plague her off.

Enough. Olivia began to braid her hair for bed. She would get out of this silly, provocative nightdress as well. She may as well not have taken that second rosewater bath of the day, either. There was no point in waiting for the fellow—he obviously wasn't coming, just as he had not come to court her, just as he had not come to ask her if
she
wanted to marry
him
.

It wasn't as though she would have had the wherewithal to turn him down. She wasn't an idiot—she knew the family and all their dependents at Cheltenham had no other recourse but this marriage.

It simply would have been nice to have been asked.

Of course, Father had been no better, selling her off without the slightest thought to whether or not she even
liked
the man. No, Father had arranged the entire thing behind her back, like trading a recalcitrant horse.

Men were not like rain. Men were more like an outbreak of rodents. One never knew what they were doing out of sight. Just when one thought the cats were managing everything nicely, it turned out that the dratted things were plotting against one all the while.

Men were most definitely rats!

Feeling better having put that question to rest, Olivia removed her diaphanous wrapper—silly thing! It wouldn't serve a spider for its web!—and reached to untie the delicate tapes that held closed the neckline of her even more transparent nightgown'.

A sound at the connecting door stopped her cold. Her indignation fled as she was forced to face anew the fears she'd been fighting for a month.

She was wife to a stranger. She was dependent on a man who could—well, who could do as he liked with her.

That could mean a great many things. She was not as sheltered as some of the young ladies she'd encountered during the last month of the Season. She'd not been governessed to bits, nor chaperoned by more than a lazy housemaid or two. As the years went by at Cheltenham, the servants had correctly assumed that Lord and Lady Cheltenham had no intentions of arranging a grand match for Lady Olivia.

Instead, her mother and father had pinned all their hopes on Walter, who was a year younger and a much better bet, being vastly more attractive and charming. Olivia could hardly blame them, for she'd been as dotty over Walt as any elder sister could be. He'd been full of life and humor yet not light-minded in the way of some spoiled young lords. She'd adored him, as had everyone who met him.

When Walt and her parents were gone from Cheltenham, which was much of the time, the entire estate seemed to go into a sort of hibernation. Most of the time, Olivia managed to occupy herself nicely with the cares and welfare of her family's dependents. The village of Cheltenham had suffered as much as the estate through the years of destitution, so Olivia did whatever she could to allay that suffering.

She was every bit as fond of her Cheltenham "family" as she was of her real one.

Which is why you wed Lord Greenleigh.

Right. Hopefully, pots of money would soon be on their way to Durham County in the north of England, earmarked for all the improvements that had been needed for so long.

Lord Greenleigh was a very generous man.

And he truly was a handsome giant…

The fluttering in Olivia's middle was becoming a panicked beating of wings. She swallowed hard.
I shall be a willing and obedient wife
.

Unfortunately, obedience had never been one of Olivia's finest virtues. Not that she was intentionally rebellious or even especially contentious. She was more likely to be…
accidentally
disobedient.