Unmasking the Spy (23 page)

Of course, he didn’t know she was
her. He thought she was Elizabeth. Well, what’s in a name? It could hardly make
a difference to him. After all, she only knew him as Rogue. Alicia shrugged and
earned another pinch from Jenny.

Louis would be angry, but after
his efforts to ruin her yesterday, she didn’t give a fig about what he thought.
With the right man, a woman didn’t need to be forced. She made a little wicked
grin. With Rogue, she’d been unabashedly eager.

If he did press his suit, all her
problems would be solved. She’d have a marriage based on love, respect,
happiness. Passion.

Papa may not like such an
unexpected turn of events, but he’d promised he’d reconsider giving her to
Louis if she had another suitor. And here she was, late Thursday evening and
less than two days remaining, with another suitor!

Tomorrow when Rogue returned,
she’d have to tell him to present himself to her father at once. If he came
first thing the following morning, he could arrive before Louis had a chance to
monopolize Papa.

That is, she hoped he came
tomorrow night. Alicia frowned. Time had run away from them and he’d left
before they’d had a chance to plan their next assignation. Well, if he didn’t
come Friday, he’d come Saturday instead, and she’d just have to tell Papa
herself.

Alicia grimaced. Without Rogue
there to back up her claims, that was one conversation unlikely to go well. He
might even revoke her dowry, as he’d threatened. What if Papa cut off all ties
and Rogue didn’t have a penny to his name? No matter. Love trumped all. They’d
find a way through any obstacle as long as they had each other.

“There you are, miss. Beautiful,”
Jenny proclaimed, handing her a mirror.

“Thank you,” Alicia murmured,
giving her reflection a cursory glance. For once in her life, she wasn’t going
hunting for suitors.

She’d finally found one.

*          *          *

Alicia relaxed in her chair as
the men excused themselves to the adjoining room for their after-dinner drinks.
She’d forgotten how nice supper parties were without Louis around to make a
hash of everything.

Mr. Morrissey was here tonight,
although he hadn’t been seated close enough to be a conversational partner at
supper. If she got a chance to speak with him, she’d be sure to thank him again
for his timely rescue from Louis at the last soirée.

He’d turned out to be a sweet man
after all, even though she no longer needed to place him on her ill-fated
prospective suitors list. Alicia smiled to herself. Thanks to Rogue’s whispered
question, Mr. Morrissey had fallen out of the running for a race he hadn’t even
known he participated in.

Her friends had teased her
tonight for being quiet and introspective. She’d given the tantalizing reply,
“I’ve got someone on my mind.” When they couldn’t pry any additional
information from her, they left her alone for the most part, although they
continued to shoot her inquisitive glances from time to time. Alicia couldn’t
wait to tell them about Rogue, but she couldn’t breathe a word until they’d
“met” in a proper fashion. Even then, she’d never be able to tell anyone the
true story – except maybe her children or grandchildren someday.

When the men rejoined the women
in one of the large sitting rooms, she sighed in relief. The party wouldn’t go
on for more than another hour or two and she could go home and think about her
delicious secret in private.

While the men filed back into the
room, another door opened, letting in an all-too-familiar figure, his blue
tails brushing his shins, his red hair sculpted in the latest wind-swept
fashion, and his noxious perfume ruining the taste of her tea.

As though she reeled him in on a
line, Louis made a beeline to her side and plopped into the chair next to her.

“Good day, cousin,” he said and
smirked.

“What are you doing here?” she
countered, without any pretension of enjoying his presence.

“Seeing you, obviously.” Louis
fingered the folds of his cravat and affected a nonchalant posture. “Of course,
I’ll no doubt see you tomorrow as well… when I drop by for Chadwick’s official
permission to marry you.”

“He said Saturday, not Friday.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”
Louis demanded in an exasperated voice. “I’m tired of waiting.”

“I could tell,” Alicia replied,
her voice laced with ice.

“Oh, cousin. Are you still piqued
with me about that little tiff in the garden? Aren’t you precious. Nothing came
of it, you know.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Blame yourself,” Louis answered
with an unrepentant shrug. “If you weren’t so damned
stubborn
. Who knew
Chadwick would make me wait two weeks?”

“Well, they’re not up yet,” she
muttered. “Leave me alone.”

“You’re not still holding out for
a knight in shining armor, are you?” he asked with a condescending smirk.
“Husbands are not prone to falling in love, and you are a fool to imagine
otherwise.”

“Fat lot you know,” Alicia said
and bared her teeth at him.

“I know a lot,” Louis countered
with a pout. “I know it’s not fair for you to have all that you have, just due
to the accident of birth.”

She frowned. “You want to marry
me just to someday have Chadwick House?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “I don’t
care about Chadwick House. Don’t be a ninny.”

“Do you expect me to believe it’s
me
you care about?”

He gave her a horrified look. “Of
course not.”

Of course not. Alicia grimaced.
She’d walked herself into that one.

“You do realize you must marry in
order to
be
someone. You have no other prospects. You never did, and you
never will. Without me, you’re nothing.”

Alicia leapt to her feet. “Go
away,” she said, enunciating each word in as forceful a voice as she could
muster. She glanced around the room for one of her friends, but each of the
girls was engrossed in conversation and couldn’t come to her aid.

Louis tossed his head and showed
no signs of leaving.

*          *          *

Ian happened to turn toward
Alicia Kinsey’s direction just in time to see her frantic glance around the
room. That blasted cousin of hers made some comment and she jumped up, looking
like she was about to bolt – either that or slap her cousin in the face.

He was going to have to rescue
her again.

Sighing, Ian loped over to
perform yet another intervention. As he neared, he heard Larouche needling her
in his inimitable whine.

“I don’t know why you think
you’re so special. What was for supper, cousin? What was the main course? Was
it duck? You like ducks, don’t you? What about–”

Ian walked right past the
bickering couple, grabbing Miss Kinsey by the arm as he did so and towing her
out of the room. She stumbled once when she turned to give Larouche an
over-the-shoulder glare, but quickly regained her balance.

Out in the hall, he pushed her
back to the wall and crossed his arms. “What is the deal with that scab? I
thought I’d seen the last of his shenanigans two days ago.”

Her pinched expression betrayed
her frustration. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it with a loud
click of her teeth when she caught sight of a footman passing by.

Clenching his jaw, Ian took her
by the arm again, headed back down the corridor, trying the handles of doors as
he passed. The second one was unlocked and opened to a room filled with rows of
uncomfortable-looking chairs and a large black piano in the corner. He led her
to the back, pulled out the bench, and sat her down with her back to the keys.

“Now we’re alone. Tell me.”

“I want him to go away, but he
doesn’t listen to me!” she cried, balling her fists in her lap.

“What exactly did you say to
him?”

“I said, ‘Go away.’”

Ian inclined his head. “Seems
clear enough.”

She sniffed. “That’s because
you’re not stupid.”

“I appreciate that,” Ian said
with a half-smile. As far as compliments went, being smarter than Louis
Larouche was no great feat. “Why does he always badger you about supper?”

“What do you mean?” she asked
with a too-innocent expression.

“‘What’s for supper, cousin?’”
Ian mocked. “‘Did you try the
coq au vin
?’”

She stared at him through narrowed eyes and didn’t
answer.

Ian threw out his hands in
exasperation. He’d had his suspicions since the first, but now he was sure.
“Why don’t you just tell him you don’t eat meat?” he demanded.

Alicia sighed. She gazed over his
shoulder for a moment then patted his arm. “He already knows,” she said with a
bitter smile. “Why do you think he brings it up all the time? He says it’s
incredibly rude of me not to eat what the hostess offers, whether I’m
vegetarian or not. I
do
like ducks,” she added with a self-deprecating
chuckle, “but not like that.”

“Couldn’t you avoid offending the
hosts by explaining the situation?”

“I can,” she agreed. “And I do
when I have to. But I’ve no wish to be the main topic of conversation. Why
should they be forced to know whether I ate it or not? I tend to avoid
unnecessary confrontation. Perhaps I’m more passive than I ought to be. Yet
another of my faults.”

“Come on, Alicia. No bouts of
self-pity.” Ian tried to think of a way to cheer her. “I’m sure you have plenty
of fine qualities.”

“Oh?” she asked, batting her
eyelashes at him in a mockery of flirtation. “What would those be?”

“Well,” he answered, pretending
to give the question great thought. “You have a nice nose. I could tell from
the moment I looked at you that it had never been broken practicing pugilism.”

She tilted back her head to look
down her nose at him, playing along. “It is a fine nose, isn’t it?” she agreed
in haughty accents before spoiling the effect with a grin.

“And… your hair.”

“My hair?”

Ian paused, giving her a critical
inspection. A pile of curls spilled from a coil on her head, and tiny ringlets
were arranged in artful positions to frame her face. She looked gorgeous. “It’s
yellow,” he answered in a decisive tone. “Quite yellow.”

“You’ll have to be more poetic
than that, if you want to impress women.”

“Fine.” Ian tried to think of a
poetic metaphor. Failing that, he decided on, “It is a golden mane of
yellowness, much like the sun.”

She burst out laughing. “You say
that now, but come morning, my hair appears more a matted pelt than a ‘golden
mane’.”

An image of waking up next to her
sprang unbidden to his mind. He pushed the thought away and continued with the
game, noting that her color was improving and her fingers no longer clenched in
her lap.

 “And mine?” he asked, giving his
head a violent shake so that wavy hair fell across his forehead at a rakish
angle.

“Brownish-black,” she pronounced.
“And not quite curly. Rather like–” Just as she reached out her fingers as if
to touch one of the stray locks of hair falling past his eyes, the door to the
music room flew open and the entire supper party flooded in.

She froze, with her hand arrested
partway between his face and hers. He froze. The entire party froze.

Larouche, of course, was the
first to speak.

“Alicia!” he shrieked, barging
through the crowd of gaping onlookers. “What are you doing, hiding in here with
him?”

Her face turned three shades of
red as she bit her lip and clamped her hands to her sides. “Nothing,” she
mumbled, knowing all possible responses would be ineffectual.

Ian felt like clapping his hands
to his face and moaning. So much for his daring rescue. Now he needed someone
to rescue him.

The crowd was already murmuring their scandalized
conclusions amongst themselves when Larouche pranced over and hauled Alicia up
by her sleeve. “I saw you touching him! What kind of lady goes around touching
people? How could you!”

“I didn’t touch him!” she cried.
“We were just talking.” She turned to Ian, a look of abject panic on her face.
“You’ve compromised me!”

“From the sound of it,” he
answered, dropping his head in his hands, “
you
compromised
me
.”

Larouche waved a fat finger in Ian’s face. “Don’t
think you’re going to marry her!” he shrilled.

Lady Thornwaite stepped forward
and took Alicia’s hand. The silver-haired matron bent forward to level her face
with Ian’s. “Don’t think you
aren’t
going to marry her,” she intoned
with steel in her voice. Giving Larouche a black look, she tugged Alicia from
his grasp, put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and led her out the door.

“Aahh!” Larouche cried, his head
flipping from Alicia’s departing form to Ian and back again. He pivoted on his
heels and flounced after Alicia and Lady Thornwaite.