Eloquence and Espionage Read Free Page B

hundred,” Emily had
told her. “Then Daphne and I will follow you. Be careful.”
    Very likely wise advice. But Ariadne didn’t
feel careful and cautious. She felt bold and brave and true. This
time, she would catch him.
    As if he knew she was after him, he walked
faster, and she had to scurry to keep pace, her skirts flapping
about her legs. The shadows of the overhanging branches crossed her
face like a lace veil, making her blink after the sunlight. She
stopped amidst a copse of trees, bushes blocking her view in all
directions. She turned in a circle, put her hands on her hips in
consternation. He’d disappeared!
    “You aren’t a ghost,” she challenged aloud.
“I will find you.”
    “Why?” a voice demanded behind her. “You
must have something better to do with your time than chase after
me.”
    She whirled, but still she did not spy him.
“Perhaps I enjoy a little mystery,” she said, head cocked to hear
his reply, eyes narrowed for the least movement.
    “There is appreciating a mystery, and then
there is being foolhardy,” he retorted.
    The sound came from her left, where the
bushes were thickest. She purposely turned to her right and
strolled closer to the edge of the clearing.
    “Is it foolhardy to seek a gentleman’s
attentions?” she said, keeping her voice calm and curious. “I was
under the impression that was the entire purpose of the
Season.”
    “You do not wish my attentions,” he
said.
    She wove a crooked path across the clearing
as if detouring around tree roots and leaves left over from the
winter. The mossy ground betrayed no sound of her footsteps. “Why
not? Are you such a loathsome creature behind that black leather
mask?”
    His chuckle warmed her more than her quilted
blue pelisse. Oh, but she should have worn a cloak when she’d
ventured out this morning; it was so much more romantic for a
clandestine meeting!
    “I have been told I have a pleasing façade,”
he admitted.
    And was rather amused by the fact. Or
perhaps he simply knew his worth, like Priscilla. “Then perhaps
those broad shoulders are the result of a clever tailor and copious
amounts of padding,” she said, edging nearer as if to smell a
blossom on one of the bushes.
    “Possibly,” he said. “Or long hours of
practice at fencing and boxing.”
    A shiver ran through her as she made out a
shape through the branches. “And of course you have such problems
expressing yourself with eloquence.”
    She was certain she saw his sigh sway the
leaves. “Only with you, my dear.”
    She stopped in front of the bush, convinced
he was only on the other side. “You can come out, you know. I
shan’t bite.”
    “I might.”
    The bush rustled as if he were about to push
through it, and despite herself she stepped back. “I’m not
afraid.”
    Still, he did not show himself. “You should
be. You are messing about with things beyond your ken.”
    She raised her chin. “Espionage is not a
mystical pursuit, sir. It is a matter of two people or two
countries attempting to outsmart the other. Just as I have
outsmarted you.” She reached for the limbs, ready to yank them
apart and see his face at last.
    From behind her came the snap of a foot on a
twig. Her stomach sank even as her arms fell to her sides. Somehow,
she’d mistaken his direction. He’d been the one to outsmart her.
Turning, slowly, she gazed across the clearing to where a man with
midnight black hair and broad shoulders stood watching her. In the
shadows of the trees, she could not see his face, but she could
make out the pistol held in one gloved hand.
    “Down!”
    The bushes behind her were wrenched aside,
and someone leaped at her, knocking her to the ground. The pistol
roared with a flash of powder, and something flew past her bonnet.
Then her assailant was on his feet and dashing across the clearing
in pursuit of the man who’d fired.
    Ariadne pushed herself into a sitting
position, trying to find her breath, stop the stuttering of her
pulse. The