To Wed a Scandalous Spy (7 page)

"What were you speaking to the innkeeper about, downstairs?" she asked him. Not that she was curious—except that she always did seem to be curious—only she wanted him to speak to her, to have conversation, to ease the way the room seemed to be shrinking around them. "Is there something of which I should know?" She put one fist on her hip. "Are you ever going to answer me?"

He gave her a brief glance. "No."

An answer at last! "Wait—which question are you answering?"

He went still for a moment, then shook his head with a rueful twist to his sensual lips. "You choose for me. I've lost track again." He bent to take some items from his bag, then swung it into the corner. All very interesting, and Willa did so enjoy watching her new husband in motion—especially all that bending over—

He stepped away and she followed, for some reason compelled to make him speak to her. Her foot trod on something on the floor where he'd been sorting through his things. A small packet, wrapped in a simple handkerchief. Willa picked it up and unrolled the linen to drop a thick gold ring into her hand. "What is this?" she asked, holding it out to him.

Nathaniel reached automatically, then went very still when the ring dropped into his waiting palm. It was heavier than he remembered, but that was somehow appropriate. The Reardon crest had been carved into the old gold in the days of knights and tourneys, when the title of Marquis of Reardon was first created by a grateful king and the ring given by the royal hand itself. The stone had been reset a few times through the intervening centuries, so last spring Nathaniel had felt no qualms replacing the inferior emerald that had previously occupied the setting.

The large stone was a fine ruby, cut and polished in Vienna by the finest jewel smiths in the world. He knew because he'd chosen the stone himself. His former fiancée, Daphne, loved rubies, though they reminded Nathaniel of blood. Now the ruby simply reminded him of all that he had freely given up yet still mourned.

His mission fired within him anew. Downstairs he'd taken the innkeeper aside for a moment to ask if he'd seen Foster. The man grudgingly had affirmed that Foster had indeed passed this way. The traitor was an entire day ahead now.

Oddly, Nathaniel had not truly expected Foster to take this route. Nathaniel had diverged to the south road in order to reach London all the faster and deal with his unfortunate marital situation. He'd hardly dared hope that Foster would be traveling the same road.

And why? Why had Foster also turned suddenly hard toward London? At great speed as well, according to what the innkeeper had said. Nathaniel's fingers tightened unknowingly on the ring in his palm, until he felt the gold edges pressing deeply into his skin. He eased his grip enough to display the ruby in the candle's glow once again.

Willa seemed fascinated. She reached to stroke the insignia worked into the shoulder. "Is that a boar? And a sword? What does that mean?"

"Not a bloody thing." Not anymore.

She pulled her hand back and Nathaniel cursed his harsh words. But how could he explain the fresh loss he felt just looking at the damned thing? The grief welled within him again, the destruction of his honor and with it all his private dreams. With a swift motion, he pulled back his fist to throw the ring into the fire.

"No!" Willa reached out to stop him but halted when she saw his bleak face. Nathaniel seemed almost sinister, lit spookily as he was by the flickering fire.

Yet he stopped. With a curse, he shoved the ring back to the bottom of his pack.

"You'll sleep there," he said brusquely, indicating the bed. "I'll spread a blanket before the fire."

Then he stalked to the door.

"Wait!" Willa suddenly didn't mind his presence. Suddenly the strange shoddy room seemed more dangerous without him. "Where are you going? May I come with you?"

He stopped with his hand on the door. "To the necessary. And no, I'd rather you didn't."

She subsided, blushing. "Oh. No, of course. That would be—"

He seemed to relent a bit. "I'll be no more than a moment. Turn the key after I leave if you wish."

He was being kind again and she was being silly. "I shall be fine," she said gamely. "I'm of age to spend ten minutes in a room alone."

He only nodded shortly and left her. Willa dutifully restrained herself from locking him out Instead, she spent those suddenly precious moments getting herself ready for bed. A quick swish in the chill water kept in the pitcher on the washstand and into her wedding night gown.

Just in case. So far Mr. Stonewell didn't seem inclined to claim his marital rights, but that didn't mean she shouldn't expect something of the sort from him.

The sheer fabric did nothing to keep her from chill and the hearth was only beginning to glow, so Willa slid beneath the thin coverlet on the bed.

She had to admit a feeling of relief that she needn't share it with anyone. With nothing more than a stretch and a yawn, she felt herself slipping gratefully away into sleep. She hoped Mr. Nathaniel Stonewell would be as comfortable as she was.

Just before she slid completely off, a single thought crossed her mind.

This morning, when she'd offered him her hand during the wedding…

He'd said he had no ring.

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Wrapped in his blanket on the hard plank floor before the, fire, Nathaniel wasn't able to rest. It was always worse at night, feeling the weight of his disgrace, the pain of his lost honor excruciatingly memorable in the dark and the quiet.

Without the busy noise of his day with Miss Trent—Willa—in the quiet his mind began to willfully recount what he had lost. His father disdained him. His family rejected him. His engagement had been dissolved.

Well, that had turned up a twist, hadn't it? He had a wife at last but, like Peter, Peter Pumpkin-Eater, couldn't keep her.

The isolation only bit more deeply in the sprightly company of the woman. She simply made him think all the more about what he could never allow himself to have.

Finally, he slept.

Willa slept restlessly despite her exhaustion. She'd not slept anywhere but her own bed for twelve years. To be sure, her own bed was finer than this one, but still, one would assume that a long day of equestrian exertion would leave one inclined to sleep.

As she lay there, staring at the cracking plaster ceiling yet again, a soft, low snore emerged from the blanket across the room.

"I just knew it," Willa muttered.

She sat up and glared in Mr. Stonewell's direction. One bare, muscular arm was the only thing visible, outflung as it was. The snore subsided after its single foray into the room, but the damage was done. Willa was thinking about what Mr. Stonewell was wearing beneath that blanket.

She tried to lie back down and erase that wicked thought from her mind.

No. Not effective at all.

After a moment of indecision, Willa left her bed and padded silently across the room. If he woke up, she would simply say that she was tending the coals. She knelt next to him and peered into his face. He truly was extraordinarily handsome. She'd often been told she was pretty herself, but Willa had the uneasy feeling that Mr. Stonewell's looks were quite another degree of attractiveness.

He still smelled good, except that now Moira's homemade soap was added in the mix. Willa didn't mind. It made him smell a bit like home, as well.

Was the rest of him as fine as his face? She couldn't bear not knowing. With two fingers, Willa lifted the covers and peeked down the length of Nathaniel Stonewell. The nightshirt went quite properly past his knees, but she could still see muscled, naked, hairy calves and square, naked, hairy feet.

"Goodness," whispered Willa. "What big feet you have."

She didn't live over a tavern for nothing. Willa knew a bit more about life than either Moira or John suspected. If one sat at an open window on a summer's night, one could hear all sorts of conversations from the tavern window just below. One of those conversations had once touched upon the correlation between the size of a man's feet and the size of his… parts.

It seemed a little indecent to be peeking at Nathaniel's naked body parts, but Willa couldn't resist lifting the loose placket at the front of the nightshirt and peering down his wide, naked, hairy chest.

It was a handsome chest, plated with firm, powerful muscles even in his lax state. She could see a little line of light brown hair trailing down his flat, hard belly. Now where did that go? Lifting the shirt a bit higher, she peeked lower—

Oh… my.

Clamping her eyes shut, she flipped his collar back to his chin and shot back to her own bed. No, she definitely shouldn't have been looking at big, naked, hairy… parts. Bad Willa.

But definitely intrigued, curious, slightly mystified Willa. What she had seen and what she ought to do about it was surely a puzzle.

Oh, she had a vague idea. She lived over an ale room, after all. Yet those accounts had usually assumed male willingness. But if he wasn't going to do his share, could it even happen? How did that work? Various incomplete images came to mind.
Oh my
.

Suddenly the room was on its way to being stifling. Willa dropped the blanket from her shoulders with relief. No point in hiding from a man who didn't even know she was in the room.

To be truthful, Willa liked watching him sleep, at least since he had stopped snoring. He was terribly handsome, especially now that he had been cleaned up a bit. Lying back down on her cot, she willed herself to sleep once more. She was hoping she'd dream about what she'd seen…

Nathaniel was dreaming. He dreamed he rested on a vast lush mantle, surrounded by satin and velvet. The air was warm and fragrant, and he heard the soft lilt of music.

Peace. Comfort. Ease. He felt as though he were finally home.

Gradually, he became aware of the rising dawn and the hard floor beneath his shoulder and hip, but still the velvety warmth remained.

It was lovely, but it was just a dream. In a moment, he would wake entirely and the sweet comfort he was feeling would disappear, as dreams always did.

Inhaling deeply, he shifted, burying his face into a fragrant pillow of silken hair and sliding his hand up Willa's warm belly to cup her satiny breast.

"Oh, bloody
hell
!" Flinging himself away from her, Nathaniel stumbled to his feet. Willa gave a feminine little grunt and rolled into the warm spot his body had left in the blankets.

Daylight peeked through the clumsy shutters that were hung over the window.

With a rush, the memories flooded back into his mind. He remembered the girl, the innkeeper, and the twin giants with their casual sympathy and their never-ending vigilance.

Oh, bloody hell.

Then came the memory of the wedding ceremony. His wedding ceremony. Witnesses, white lace, and all.

Oh, bloody
hell
.

Willa got up on her elbows on the mattress and blinked vigorously to wake herself up. Then she rolled her head to rid herself of the crick in her neck. Goodness, she felt as though she had rested on a rock all night.

It wasn't until her bleary vision cleared enough to see the man stalking about the room that Willa remembered that she was now a married woman.

"Hello, Husband," she chirped brightly.

He turned to her, evidently about to speak. Instead, his eyes widened with astonishment.

Curious as to why, Willa looked down at herself. She still wore the gossamer scrap of lawn that Moira had given her. Blushing a bit, she shyly returned her husband's gaze.

She wiggled uncomfortably, feeling very exposed in the light of day. His eyes bulged at the motion, and hope began to stir in Willa.

"I wore it especially for you. Do you like it?"

For a moment, Nathaniel didn't take the words in. He was too busy staring at the appetizing sight before him. Huge dark eyes looked at him from the midst of a cloud of tumbled hair that trailed down to white shoulders and the beginnings of succulent round breasts.

She wore only a sheer white nightgown with no sleeves and a scooped neckline that did nothing to hide the mouthwatering shadow of her cleavage. The night rail did nothing to hide anything at all.

Moreover, her excuse for a nightdress gaped open all down its laced front, and somehow Nathaniel knew that he himself had done the unlacing.

"Hellfire! How did you get here?"

Willa looked around as if surprised herself by her location. "I don't remember. I think I was cold."

Nathaniel gestured wildly to her gown. "Well, close that up or you'll be colder yet!"

Jerking at her gown, Willa glared at him. "Well, that I didn't do!" Standing to face him, Willa planted a fist on each hip. Unfortunately, she also released her hold on the front of her nightdress, and Nathaniel could see everything from the valley between her breasts to her navel.

It was very distracting.

"What are you looking at?" she demanded, then looked down. Quickly wrapping it shut, she frowned at him. Her chin went high. "I'm going to get dressed now," she said grandly, hardly faltering at all. Her blush gave lie to her poise, however.

With that, Willa strode across the room to the splintery screen provided in the corner. She never looked back to see Nathaniel standing in the circle of morning sunlight, smiling his first smile in a very long time.

The road had widened considerably since Derryton and they had passed through a number of entertaining-looking villages on their way, but at the moment the view held little more than fields bound by stone walls, and sheep.

Since this was nothing that Willa had not seen every day of her life, she cleared her throat and tried once more to talk to her husband.

"If you are embarrassed about being too incapacitated last night to bed me, rest assured that I am willing to try again tonight," she called helpfully.

Then again, she'd heard men were sensitive on this subject.

"Not that I am in any hurry or anything. No pressure at all."

Nothing. Not a nod, not a word.