You Only Love Once (18 page)

“Doubtless not,” Nate murmured. She went to the rectory before beginning new assignments, which meant she must have mentioned something to Mrs. Carswell. Most likely Mrs. Carswell had known, or suspected, who he was the moment he opened his mouth and spoke to her in his American accent. “Who lies in the grave you visited?”

“An Englishman and his wife,” she answered, although he could see the spark of warning in her eyes.

“Ancestors?”

“Of someone, I am sure.”

“But not yours.” For some reason, he felt sorry for that.

“No.”

“So you pretend to mourn them?”

“I cannot visit my own parents' grave,” she said coldly. “I mourn them, and all the rest of my family, and at the end I say a little prayer for the English
man and his wife, too. Does that satisfy you?”

“No,” he said, staring at her thoughtfully. “Not nearly.”

She sniffed. “Pity. It is more than you deserve to know.”

“I meant,” he said in a low voice, “that I want to know more. You are a riddle to me—one I find myself unable to resist.”

His words acted as a killing dose on her prickly manner. The anger faded from her dark eyes, leaving them shadowed with something wistful and a little sad. “You do not want to know more,” she replied at last, even more quietly. “Believe me, Nate. I keep my secrets for good reason.”

N
ate spent the whole of that day regretting pushing her to talk about her family; it had chilled Angelique's mood ever since. She hadn't been cold to him, as she had been before, but the warmer, tender side she'd shown last night and early this morning had vanished. By the time he'd gone back to his room to wash and get dressed, she had directed her attention to finding Dixon, and nothing of their scorching night together, not to mention the more intimate morning, was mentioned. She was clear-eyed and focused, a professional spy operating at her most efficient. It was time to get down to work.

For the first time Nate felt his determination wavering. He still wanted to find Jacob Dixon, but more and more of his attention was wandering to Angelique. How had she become a spy? What was she really up to? And how could he draw out that sympathetic, tender creature who visited the maid who raised her and said a prayer for long-dead strangers? As fascinated as he was by the beautiful, dangerous temptress, that other woman could bring him to his knees. To tell the truth, she might have already done so.

But there was no way to bring that up. As she outlined plans for luring Dixon into the open where they could abduct him, other plans for sneaking into the hotel and spiriting Dixon away from his own room, and still other plans for waiting it out until Dixon chose to leave, Nate could barely keep up with her. No matter how hard he tried, part of his mind kept returning to her—how her skin glowed in the sunlight, and the way her eyes could sparkle at him even when she caught him not paying attention. It was the closest she came to evidence of affection, until they went to bed that night and she was once again his unrestrained lover, with no talk of plans or Dixon. Perhaps it was the dark, he thought, holding her as she slept. At night she was his, while in the day she remembered she was Stafford's. Or perhaps it was all a fancy of his, a waking dream he never wanted to end.

They went to the Pulteney the next day, when the rain had stopped. The Pulteney Hotel was in Piccadilly across from Green Park, where they could stroll unremarked as they studied the hotel. It was reputed to be one of the finest in London, famous for the czar of Russia's visit a few years past. To Nate's eyes it was a large, though rather unremarkable, mansion, although Angelique did point out the balcony where Czar Alexander had waved to the crowd some years before. He wondered if Dixon, who had an affinity for fine things and powerful people, had contrived to stand on that balcony.

“Tell me more about Mr. Dixon,” Angelique said, as if she could hear his thoughts. “What sort of man is he?”

“He likes luxury,” Nate replied, turning his gaze
away from the pillared hotel. “I suppose that's why he stole such an enormous sum. At first glance he is clever and capable, quiet mannered and unprepossessing. He appeared the perfect head clerk, in other words.”

“And that is how he embezzled from your government?”

“Yes. The man who was appointed Collector of New York—responsible for collecting all the duties due at the biggest port in the country—lost an arm in the War for Independence. He needed a capable clerk, a secretary, to assist with the running of the port.”

“The War for Independence,” she repeated. “That was decades ago.”

“Yes, he's an old man,” Nate conceded. Ben Davies
was
old, nearly eighty years or so. That was no excuse for leaving so much of the port duties to Dixon, not to mention overlooking the absence of almost half a million dollars from the accounts, but General Davies was an honorable man. His fault was one of trusting too much, not one of duplicity or corruption. “He thought he was doing the right thing by hiring Dixon, and for years it seemed to be true. Jacob Dixon is an able administrator, a quick thinker, and adept with numbers.”

“He will have secreted the money away, then.”

“He's also a thief who must know he's not going to just walk away with a stolen fortune. He's clever enough to know he might have to flee at any time. I'll wager he's got most of the jewels close by, ready to be snatched up at a moment's notice. He'd be a fool to sell them all at once and call attention to himself; it's a truly impressive collection he bought.”

“It must have taken him some time to commit such a fraud.”

“At least five years,” Nate admitted. The fault for that was also General Davies's. Ben had stopped even cursory examinations of the books after a few years of Dixon's demonstrated competence. “I didn't examine all the books, but it seems Dixon must have started siphoning off small amounts within the first few years of his employment.”

She turned to him thoughtfully. “That was very lax on someone's part.”

“It was.”

Her perceptive eyes saw past his curt reply. “You are motivated by more than duty to your country, aren't you?”

Nate drew in a deep breath. “Dixon's theft ruined a good man—a man who risked his life, and lost his arm, for his country. Yes, he was responsible; but he was not complicit. He was horrified by his clerk's actions, and pledged his every possession to repaying the debt. It will never be enough, of course. If I can recover even part of the money, it will go some way toward restoring his peace of mind, and save him from living the rest of his days in disgraced poverty.”

“You respect him.”

“I do,” he replied. “Even though he was lax in overseeing Dixon for years.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It takes a great deal of respect to overlook that lapse.”

“It didn't happen because he was lazy or indolent or incompetent. He's a soldier, not a businessman. I admit he wasn't well suited to the post, but it was
what the president offered him, and he tried to do it well.”

They crossed the street and turned into the park. Even if Jacob Dixon walked right out the door, there was nothing else they could do at the moment, and truthfully, Nate would rather walk in endless circuits of the park with her than sit and watch for Dixon. He knew they were living on stolen time already. The sooner he got Dixon and the money, the sooner he would have to leave; his first duty was to keep his vow to his country, to his president, to his parents, to Ben. It would take weeks to return to New York, and even if he got on the next ship to London that same day, it would be months before he could see Angelique again, without any unpleasant business dividing them. She said she was quitting Stafford's service after this, but that could change; Stafford might persuade her otherwise. And there was always the risk that someone like Viscount Barings would recognize her and retaliate for some long-ago action of hers. He was caught between promises he had made before he knew her, and the bone-deep determination to stay with her.

“How did Melanie escape France?” he asked, turning his thoughts to something more appealing.

“Smugglers,” she said briefly.

“I thought it might be instructional,” Nate said, thinking quickly. “One can never know too many tricks for avoiding trouble. It was quite a feat, slipping out during the Terror with a small child.”

Her hand flinched on his arm. “I suppose it was.” She was quiet a moment, then sighed. “My parents gave her a fortune in jewels to bribe her way out.
She must have told a great many lies as well. She has never said much about it, just the bare details.”

“She must have been devoted to you.”

She smiled. “Not to me. I was only an infant then. Melanie was devoted to my mother. She still is; she worries over me as a hen might over her chick, fretting that she will have betrayed my mother's memory if she lets something happen to me.”

“That sounds like devotion to you, not just to your mother,” Nate murmured.

“We had no one but each other. I cannot even remember my mother's face, and Melanie lived many years in fear that her flight would be punished by those still loyal to the Revolution. She saw Napoleon as a great savior, come to restore order to France.”

“Does she know what you do?”

“Yes.” Nate glanced at her, surprised. She looked back, her lips curved with faint amusement. “Does your mother know what you are doing now?”

“She does, as a matter of fact, and she approved.” He grinned. “She insisted Prince come along, thinking we could help each other. I've no idea what she'll think when she hears what really happened.”

Again her eyes flickered toward him, and he knew what she was thinking: What would he tell people about her?

Nate had no idea. Maybe nothing, for her own protection. But saying nothing of her would leave a large hole in his explanation for why he must return to London without even seeing Jacob Dixon stand trial, not to mention leave people under the impression he had found Dixon on his own. And that wasn't even the most important thing about Angelique he wanted to tell his mother. He thought his
parents would be quite taken with her. “She'll not be surprised to hear a woman had to step in and help us both, of course,” he added lightly.

“No woman is.” But she smiled at him—her true smile, nothing false at all. Her eyes lit up and her nose crinkled just a little, and she looked so lively and happy he could almost forget the other sides of her. Of course, there was no side of her that didn't fascinate him. Even when he didn't understand her moods, they were all part of her, and he loved them all.

He loved
her
.

God help him, he was in love with her, a dangerous woman who spied for a living. Who probably had a dagger hidden somewhere on her body right now; he had noticed she preferred knives to pistols or other weapons. He was in love with a woman who could be cold and calculating, sensual and dominant, clever and practical, and then tender and thoughtful. He was mad—and as evidence, he wanted to shout for glee and throw his hat in the air.

That would be the wrong thing to do, naturally. He had already reflected on how he could win her, and now he realized of course it was her heart, not just her mind, he wanted aligned with his. Which meant he had no time at all to lose.

“Tell me more about what you will do once you're done with this work,” he said. “You'll visit Melanie more.”

“Yes.” She smiled again. “I will. I shall take a small cottage somewhere quiet, where I can lie in bed all day if I wish. Read a great many books. Learn to play a violin. Perhaps I shall get a dog, and spend
my days wandering about the countryside taking the air.”

“Hmm. That sounds…” He glanced at her, his eyes dancing. “Dull.”

“Do you not read, sir? How uncivilized Americans are.” She was teasing him again.

“Oh, I read,” he said. “And enjoy it greatly. But after this life? Reading will seem tame and sedate. Wandering the fields with your dog? All alone?”

“You sound as if it is a bad thing, to be alone.”

“Not always,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But do you wish to be alone for the rest of your life?”

She tilted her head in reflection. “No. But I am used to it. My life has not admitted much in the way of society.”

“Just Mellie.”

“Mellie is my family.”

Nate seized on the word. “Do you wish to have a family of your own, though? Wouldn't Mellie wish that for you?”

“Mellie would wish a great many things for me,” she said. “To marry a Frenchman. To return home and reclaim my father's lands. To raise a pack of children for her to fuss over, since she had no children of her own. But Mellie also still wishes, after all these years, to see Marat's body unearthed from his grave and dragged through the streets before it is fed to rabid dogs. She is bound for disappointments.”

“But what do
you
want?” he asked again. “Do you not wish to marry?”

She stopped walking and faced him with a slight smile. “No one has ever asked me.”

“Perhaps no man ever thought you would say yes.”

She paused, then inhaled a deep breath. “They would have been right,” she said lightly.

Nate hesitated, too. Did that mean she still would say no to any proposal of marriage? Or just that she never would have married any man she met before? Some women, he knew, did not want to be married; to be married meant they belonged to their husbands, with no property of their own, always subject to another's decree. If any woman would chafe under being subordinated to a man, it would be Angelique Martand. And the truth was, if she were opposed to marriage, Nate would go without it. He wanted her, any way she would have him.

“Shall we walk on?” she said, and he realized he had hesitated too long. She was already strolling down the path again, and he hurried to keep up. What he wouldn't give to know what she was thinking. Her expression was serene, and she might have been any lady out for a walk. In her crisp, pale green dress she was lovelier than any other woman he'd ever seen; her hand was so dainty and light on his sleeve in her white kid glove. He cursed his hesitation. If he'd been just a moment quicker, he might have prolonged the conversation along the vein he was growing unbearably interested in, but now the moment had passed.

They came to the Mall and turned back toward the City. Angelique's parasol snagged a tree root and clattered to the ground. With a muffled sigh, she stooped to retrieve it before Nate could move, and they walked on as before.

Or rather, almost as before. Nate felt as if the wind had suddenly switched directions. She had been relaxed and easy a moment ago, and now she wasn't. He could feel the change in her, even though her hand never flinched on his arm, and when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, her expression hadn't altered an iota.

“What did you see?” he asked on impulse.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”

“You changed,” he said evenly. “You saw something, or someone, who made you drop your parasol. Or else you dropped it on purpose to take a closer look at something that caught your attention.”