The Pretender (19 page)

Oh, the
hunger
.

Hot need hit Agatha like a flash flood, sweeping over her, stealing her breath, then left her dissolving in a pool of want.

Her lips were open, and so were his. His mouth was hot and wet and she could feel his tongue sweep across her teeth. He sucked her lower lip between his teeth and bit gently.

Her mind and her recent resolution to treat him as a brother melted clean away. All she knew was his hot mouth. When he gently gripped her braid, she let the weight of his hand pull her head back to expose her neck to his seeking lips and teeth and tongue.

Submitting to Simon's mouth was the easiest thing she had ever done.

His hand in her hair turned to fingers softly combing out her braid. The other became a warm palm cupping her breast. The heat of it seeped through the fabric of her bodice and melted her last resolve.

She pressed her hands against the arm of the chair and dug the toes of her slippers into the carpet, trying to get closer to him. She wanted to feel him against her, the way she had felt him in Winchell's study.

Then Simon slid from the chair to kneel with her on the floor. His hand left her breast to wrap around her waist and pull her close.

Yes
. That was what she ached for, to feel his hardness against her softness.

Yet it wasn't enough. Irritably she pushed his coat from his shoulders. He shrugged it off one arm at a time, never releasing her completely. A wonderful skill, that.

Now she had access to his hard arms and chest, and her hands roamed over him possessively. Her Simon.

Hers.

Then she was on her back, the piles of invitations crackling beneath her. Above, Simon lay half upon her, his knee pressing intimately between her thighs. It was strange to feel him there, strange to open her knees just a bit more to allow him in.

Somewhat surprisingly, she felt no fear. This was no attack.

This was Simon.

She slid her fingers into his thick black hair and brought his mouth back to hers. Lips clung and tongues clashed, all of it feeding the hunger that welled endlessly inside of her. It was as though she wanted to eat him alive, to take him within her. She couldn't get enough.

Simon was lost in the softness of her. She lay beneath him, willingly sharing her lushness. His lungs were full of her scent, his mouth with her taste. He couldn't believe the silkiness of her skin.

Urgent. Throbbing. He filled his hands with her breasts and hungered to take her nipples into his mouth. He pressed his erection against her soft hip and ached to drive himself within her.

Her arms were wrapped about him, holding him close as she gave so generously. Her hands kneaded his shoulders and she writhed restlessly beneath him.

"Simon… please…"

Oh, yes. He moved above her, lodging himself in the cradle of her hips. Through her dress he could feel the heat of her center, and his erection throbbed in response.

"Please… stop."

Stop? The word was meaningless for a moment. Then, he realized that her writhing hadn't been restlessness but resistance.

He pulled away slightly. She was gazing over his shoulder, her face crimson.

Behind him, he heard Pearson clear his throat. Oh, hell. Slowly, Simon turned to look over his shoulder. Pearson stood in the open doorway of the parlor, his gaze firmly on the horizon.

Both eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his hairline.

Simon shot a frantic look at Agatha, but she was no help at all. She destroyed his control with a red-faced giggle. They both dissolved into laughter.

"Madam, there is a Mrs. Trapp and her daughters here to see you," Pearson said over their laughter.

Simon couldn't answer. He rolled away from Agatha and lay on the carpet, one arm crossed over his eyes, laughing helplessly.

Agatha managed to catch her breath to say, "Thank you, Pearson. Will you tell Mrs. Trapp that I will be available in just a moment?" She only hiccupped once.

The door closed, and he could hear the hurried rustling of paper. Agatha was clearing up the mess. He rose and began to help. Perhaps it would take his mind off his aching groin.

Agatha was very carefully not looking at him. This was going to take some thought. He had complicated things considerably, but hopefully not irreparably.

He really ought to be grateful for the interruption. It had kept him from making a classic error. He had almost forgotten the first rule of survival in his business.

Don't get involved.

James Cunnington rubbed his eyes again and stared at the news-sheet with great concentration, forcing his eyes to focus. His vision wasn't much better, but he could make out the letters today.

He hadn't had the memory of filching the papers beaten out of him as he had feared, but the recollection hadn't done him much good for the past three days.

When he'd finally awoken with his body aching and his head throbbing so badly he hardly dared breathe, his vision had been too blurred to make any sense of the writing at all.

He gritted his teeth and willed himself to focus. The writing swam before him, making him dizzy, then abruptly snapped into clarity.

W…H…E…N. When.

English.

James sagged back onto his pallet, his relief so great that it momentarily washed away the pain in his head.

The news-sheet was in English. Which meant he wasn't in France or Portugal, but home all along. If he did manage to escape the ship, he'd be able to find help from any solid British fisherman or farmer on the way to London.

For the first time, he began to hope he might really make it out alive.

Returning to a sitting position propped against the side of the ship, James examined the papers in the crack of daylight afforded him there.

They were a varied bunch. A page from a local farmer's bureau, which put him near a village on the coast that he believed lay somewhat west of London.

A sheet from a fashion journal. And, amazingly, three pages from the London
Times
.

Real news! James pressed close to his light source and forced his eyes to work together. The account of a battle won made his heart race, the list of dead made him want to rip the ship apart with his bare hands. He read every word of the sheets he held in his hands.

They weren't consecutive, just a jumble of pages, most likely kept by Bull for privy paper. James doubted the burly thug could read in his own language, much less English.

James read the fashion page and the agricultural sheet as well, starved as he was for news and the sight of his own language. Then he read everything again. And again.

It wasn't until the third time through that something caught his eye. Just a name mentioned in a society column, the one thing he was least interested in.

Who of the nobility was seen where, what they were wearing, and who they did and did not speak to.

There it was. Applequist.

"… and spent much of their evening speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Applequist of Carriage Square."

Mortimer Applequist? There couldn't really be such a person, could there? It was so unlikely. No, it must be Agatha. But who was playing Mortimer? Had Agatha married while he was gone?

She wouldn't. He couldn't imagine her going through with something so monumental without his presence or knowledge. She would wait for him to come home, he knew she would. Unless she was convinced he was dead.

But if that were true, she'd never make up a Mortimer and parade him around London.

No. James was forced to believe that his conniving little sister had done so for this very purpose. A signal for him to come home.

Well, he was on his way. Just as soon as he could figure out how.

Oddly enough, his mind was quite clear now. As far as he could tell, no drugs clouded his thinking for the first time since his capture.

Had his captors stopped bothering, figuring him too badly beaten now to be a problem?

James looked around his personal little hell. His water bucket stood where Bull had left it last night. His bread crusts continued to molder where they lay, for his loosened teeth hurt far too much to tear into the stale—

The bread.

Could it be the bread? He'd always suspected the water, for it tasted so foul and bitter. The bread he had striven not to taste at all. The flavor of the mold was so sickening that it had put him off fancy cheeses forevermore.

So, the bread was drugged somehow. He seriously doubted that his captors baked it specially for him, then let it rot for effect. They probably dusted it with some powder, which he'd hardly notice over the varied blotches on the crust.

Well, he now had his mind and will back, along with the beginnings of a plan for escape. Avoid the food entirely and drink only the water he needed to live.

He'd not have long, for without the sustenance of the bread he'd be dangerously weak within days.

Time for some hard thinking. James hid the papers and fell limply back down on his pallet, appearing for all the world a beaten and broken man.

But inside, the professional was back on the job.

Another ballroom, another escapade. Another toe-crunching dance with a man in uniform. After four such evenings, Agatha knew the drill by heart.

She smiled at the stout general with whom she waltzed, took a deep breath to draw her host's attention to her bosom, and raised three fingers behind the man's back to signal Simon.

Within moments she saw the footmen who were serving the guests begin to gather at the exits of the ballroom, then disappear toward the kitchens.

She wondered what Simon had done this time. During the last three evenings, she had been astonished and sometimes appalled at the lengths he would go to provide a distraction.

As long as he wasn't secretly setting loose a bagful of rats again. Agatha had hardly been able to sleep last night for thinking of her poor hostess, who had been embarrassed beyond belief by the rat streaking through her dining room in the midst of dinner.

Simon had promised no more vermin, but Agatha didn't entirely trust him. Honestly, men had no idea what a woman went through to put on an event. Agatha had been sure to spread the rumor of a prank played on last night's dinner party, for she would hate for anyone to think that there really were rats in that household.

The general was speaking, and Agatha tried very hard to listen. She had already pumped him for information about Jamie and had led him to speak an opinion on the subject of the famous Griffin. Unfortunately, her digging had given him the impression that she wished to hear all his war stories.

Chronologically.

In detail.

With accompanying blast noises.

Agatha certainly hoped Jamie knew what she sacrificed for him. He was going to owe her forever after tonight.

The waltz ended. Agatha pleaded exhaustion and thirst, which spurred her general into battle to fight for a glass of champagne to save her.

As soon as he had disappeared in the crowd, Agatha made a run for it. Simon was taking too long. Usually he was in and out of the safe-boxes in a flash, with no one the wiser for it.

Simon was a talented thief, but she feared he was also a bit reckless. If he continued in his current path, he was going to get himself into terrible trouble.

And now she had made it possible for him to gain welcome in the finest homes. No petty pilfering here, but some of the finest jewelry and art collections in England. Temptation indeed.

He was on a dangerous path, and it was all her doing.

Well, perhaps not all.

Agatha had smiled and dodged her way through the crowd to the front of the ballroom. Now she climbed the stairs to the main floor of her general's grand house.

She wasn't the only lady traversing the halls, for the powder room was on this floor. There was a great deal of giggling traffic, and a certain amount of edgy shuffling of feet from impatient swains.

Consulting the map in her head, Agatha continued past the powder room and smoothly turned a corner. This hall was deserted but for an amorously engaged couple.

Agatha crossed her arms and put on her best outraged duenna expression. She cleared her throat.

The youngsters sprang apart, red-faced and gasping. Agatha remembered her own interrupted rolling-on-the-floor kiss with Simon and bit back a laugh.

"The two of you should be ashamed. I shan't inform your families," she said sternly, "but I shall expect better behavior in the future."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Oh, yes! Thank you, madam."

The couple clasped hands and ran for the ballroom. As they left, Agatha heard them whisper to each other.

"Was that your chaperone?"

"No! I thought it must be someone from your family…"

There was no danger that those two would ever come forward about seeing Agatha loose in the house. That secret was as good as kept.

As she continued quickly to where she knew the study was located, thanks to Button, Agatha pondered Simon's own little secret.

She had wanted to ask him about it tonight, but the plan had taken every moment to prepare for. And really, how was she supposed to question him?

"By the way, Simon, I noticed that you disappear nearly every day without telling me where you are going and without answering my questions when you return."

Thanks to Button's connections among the servant populace, Agatha had a memorized map of the house in her head. She counted doors until she was sure she had found the study, then gave a quick three-two-one tap on the polished wood.

The door opened swiftly, and a hand thrust out, grabbing her elbow and yanking her into the darkness.

"Really, Simon," she muttered, rubbing her arm. "You have such a flair for the dramatic."

A warm hand pressed over her mouth, giving her a start. Before it could frighten her, it was gone.

A voice whispered warmly in her ear, "Shut it, darling. We have company."

Simon's body pressed closely to her back as he maneuvered her through the darkness to where a glimmer of light appeared under another door.

It was terribly difficult to keep one's mind on housebreaking when one's body was on fire. Simon's breath was warm on her neck, and his grasp on her shoulders reminded her of the kiss in her parlor.