Seducing the Spy Read Free Page B

however, languid ease never lasted long. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling casually, and fixed Stanton in his suddenly fierce gaze.
    "No, no, a thousand bloody times
no
."
    "No, what?"
    "No, you are not going to involve Jane in another of your 'deadly consequence be damned' cases. She barely survived the last one." His gaze went dark and inward. "When I saw her burns…"
    Stanton had been spared such visual confirmation of the deadly error that had nearly cost Jane her life at the hands of the Chimera a few months ago, but he had not forgotten his own guilt in the matter. He'd thoughtlessly sent Jane into the thick of conspiracy with no way to reach him quickly enough to help her, should things go wrong—and they had.
    Still, he found himself defending his position yet again. "She was only supposed to observe her uncle's household, not involve herself."
    Ethan grunted. "Then you didn't know her very well."
    Another regret. "No, I' in afraid I didn't." Young Lady Jane and her delicate, emotionally unstable mother, the previous marchioness, had been banished to a life of poverty and neglect when Stanton's father had become the new Marquis of Wyndham. Not Stanton's fault precisely, but then he'd never bothered to ask what became of them either, until he'd taken over the title two years ago and discovered the appalling conditions the two ladies were living in.
    He'd done what he could to make the late Lady Wyndham's existence more comfortable for her last days. Jane, however, he'd immediately seen as valuable and had promptly put her into use for his own ends. England's ends.
    However, Stanton wasn't about to let the irritating Ethan in on his personal misgivings. "You seem to have no objection to Jane's working within the Liar's Club."
    Ethan didn't back down. "It isn't the spying, and it isn't that Jane isn't more than capable. The problem is you and your willingness to sacrifice anything and anyone to achieve your ends, you cold bastard."
    There it was again. "Actually, I prefer 'bleak bastard,' " Stanton muttered faintly.
    Ethan didn't slow his attack. "Sometimes I wonder if you think everyone has your lack of interest in life—or if you simply think so little of the welfare of others that you expend them like lamed horses or soiled gloves!"
    The shot went deep. Stanton felt himself grow colder as Ethan went on. "I do not consider Jane expendable," he said stiffly. "And I do not need her for this mission."
    Ethan leaned back, only partially mollified. "So you have someone else to sacrifice this time?"
    "Lady Alicia is not going to be sacrificed," Stanton said tightly. "She is merely the source of some information that I am not yet sure merits investigation."
    Ethan raised a brow. "Lady Alicia? Not Lady Alicia Lawrence?"
    Stanton tilted his head. "What do you know of her? I remembered her being involved in some social mishap a few years ago."
    "Mishap? Debacle, more like. She wreaked havoc at a house party in Devonshire, taking on three men in one night—and her a mere maid of eighteen too. Actually, I was there, although I missed the worst of the uproar. Apparently several reputable witnesses found her—in all her tumbled glory, mind you—in the arms of a simpleton stable boy."
    Ethan raised a finger. "I never held it against her, myself. She was a good sort before all this—always game for a laugh, not above a bit of harmless flirting with the common gambler. Not that she ever did anything out of bounds, until that night."
    "It might have gone easier for her if she'd not denied it all so vehemently," Ethan mused. "She claimed that she had thought the stable boy to be someone else, a lord I think, although anyone could see he was a homespun horse boy without the sense to keep his hands off a titled lady. Then it came out that someone saw two other fellows leave her room in the wee hours. The man she claimed to have been ruined by—Lord Almont, that was it—denied having anything to do with her. Came up