The Gentleman Spy: A Guardian/Ward Historical Romance

Chapter 20

Within a minute of entering his room, Beau knew someone had been there. Within two, he knew it was Miss Doubleday—and that she remained. With such delicious information in mind, he purposefully ordered a bath. She could not attempt an escape while he bathed if he left the door between the rooms open. Then, with his back to her to hide his amused expression, Beau removed his shirt while reconsidering his previous belief on torture as barbaric and unnecessary.

He was certain she could see the tapestry of scars on his back, evidence the life he lived away from Oakmoss was not so frivolous as she believed. When he turned, he revealed the whole of his tattoo and wished he could watch her watching him. Beau would give up his title and lands to know what she thought of the damage to his body and the art stretching across his chest.

A footman entered to announce his bath. There was a muffled thud in the background, and Beau bit down on the tip of his tongue to stop both a laugh and his smile. The footman’s eyes darted in the general direction of the noise but he made no other reaction.

‘That’s all, Andrew.’ Beau always preferred bathing unattended, particularly with Miss Doubleday tucked under his bed.

Beau walked into his bathing room, indulging in a wide, self-satisfied smile while he stripped the rest of his clothing. As the hot water slipped around his body, rigid with constraint, he released a throaty, primal noise, notes of longing, desire, and indulgence cutting through the steamy air.

One hand rubbed his chest, while the other closed around the hard evidence of his arousal. He allowed himself several long strokes, skimming the tender head with the pad of his thumb on every rise while he imagined burying himself inside her. A deep moan rose up from his belly. He sank under the water and expelled a breath. Hundreds of little bubbles rose around him, each one a piece of his fracturing restraint.

In one swift motion, Beau pushed himself up to standing. Warm rivulets rushed down the landscape of his body, catching in its contours. He looked down at his erection with narrowed eyes. Hands to hips, he huffed and waited. Minutes later, he was able to step out and retrieve his banyan without his arousal parting the fabric of the robe.

Beau was undecided on what he wished to do next, but when he stepped back into his bedchamber, he heard a quiet murmur followed by slow, rhythmic breathing floating from underneath his bed as he drew closer. Carefully, he lowered himself to his knees and peeked under the valence. His mouth curved with tenderness.

Miss Doubleday’s eyes were closed, the perfect petals of her lips parted. Several pins in her hair had come loose. He couldn’t resist. With this heart in his throat, Beau wrapped one silky black curl around his finger, rolling the strands between his thumb and forefinger. Her faint hum brought him to his senses.

After pulling the bell for Saunders, Beau waited and greeted the man with a finger to his lips. In near silence, the valet helped Beau dress and left as quietly as he came. With a last lingering look at his bed, Beau left his room.

As much ashe enjoyed knowing his ward had trapped herself under his bed, he was even more diverted by the furtive glances she cast his way at dinner hours later, particularly after his mother commented on how revitalised Miss Doubleday looked. She demurred at the compliment, but couldn’t prevent her gaze from slipping his way, if only for the briefest of moments. Beau sipped from his wine to avoid smiling outright.

He ought to have been furious with his ward for any number of reasons, not least of which included her total want of propriety and her invasion of his privacy, but far from feeling rancour of any shade, he was delighted with her antics and found her both admirable and amusing.

The small party retired together to the drawing room after dinner. The dowager, seating herself in a chair near the fire, pulled some embroidery from a basket and entreated Louisa to recount whatever lessons she’d had that day. For her part, Miss Doubleday was looking through a small pile of books stacked up on an end table when Beau approached and challenged her to a game of backgammon.

His voice was even, his face devoid of emotion, and after regarding him with hesitation for a brief moment, she acquiesced. The board was always set up at the opposite end of the room near the long windows, which afforded them some privacy.

‘May I say, my ward, I am quite in agreement with my mother. How refreshed you look this evening.’

Her eyes narrowed subtly in clear challenge, and he treated her to a rare warm smile that held a touch of approval.

The game began, and he allowed them each to take several turns in silence. When her shoulders relaxed and her mind had turned to the game, he said, ‘You have something that belongs to me.’

There was tension in her neck and a touch of pink tinging her cheeks, but she met his gaze evenly and replied in a firm voice. ‘Oh? I cannot even begin to fathom what that might be.’

‘Miss Doubleday.’

‘My lord guardian.’

He broke eye contact, rolling the dice and moving his pieces almost by rote. ‘If you are unwilling to return the letter, it’s incumbent upon me to warn you that you will not approve of the means by which I will reclaim it.’ When he looked up from the board, her stare was both hard and baffled before she recovered her spirits.

‘And if I keep it close to my person?’

Beau pushed aside thoughts of tearing her dress from her lithe body and instead employed a tactic that had long served him well. He sat as he was, made no riposte, offered no apology or contradiction to her intimation, not a single expression that might indicate any unwillingness to do what needed to be done.

With a little huff of annoyance, Miss Doubleday reached into the bodice of her dress.

Beau pushed down a dry swallow.

She pressed the missive into his hand, the paper warm from being nestled against her breast.

A flurry of sensation swelled his chest. He slipped it into his coat pocket, catching a hint of her sweet, clean aroma as he did so.

‘How did you know I was there?’

‘Are you aware you drool while sleeping?’

The huff of air sucked in by his ward was so loud, so shocking, as to draw the attention of his mother and sister.

‘’Tis nothing but a handsome, if unexpected, manoeuvre,’ he tossed over his shoulder to quell their questions without bothering to turn round.

Burning, reproachful eyes met his when he looked up from the board to Miss Doubleday. ‘I do not,’ she hissed between clenched teeth with a glance beyond him to ensure they were once more alone in their conversation.

‘You are able to observe yourself while you sleep? How fascinating. Someone somewhere will want to study you, to be sure.’ For a full minute, she answered him with nothing more than hardened features, her lips pressed so firmly they were ringed in white, and a withering stare capable of shrinking a lesser man than the one with whom she was faced. ‘It was only a little, nothing to put you in a pucker, and if you feel it necessary to be cross with anyone, be cross with yourself. No spy worth his salt would ever sleep on the job.’

‘I was not spying,’ she countered in a frosty voice.

He tilted his head to the side for a studied moment. ‘Oh? Tell me, what title have you assigned to your furtive undertakings then?’

Miss Doubleday took a deep breath and rolled her dice. With airy defiance, she said, ‘I was merely investigating.’

Beau’s deep, gentle laugh rippled in the space between them, surprising them both. The curious sound had the effect of expunging the heat from her eyes, leaving behind an expression not unlike that of a confused puppy.

‘My apologies, Miss Doubleday. You had not expected me after so soon departing my company. Had I been mindful of your wish to ransack my chambers, I could have avoided putting you to the blush.’

‘Ransack! Well, I—’ She broke off, seeming to catch the light in his eyes, the crinkles at their corners a sign of his restrained mirth. ‘You tease me?’

‘Shocking, to be sure, but what else would you have me do? Cut up at you? Retrieve the magistrate? A trifle excessive, if I may humbly offer my opinion on the matter.’

‘You haven’t answered the question. How did you know?’

‘That my letter was in your possession, or that you tucked yourself under my bed?’

Her eyes flicked towards his mother and sister. ‘Both.’

‘You must think me a poor correspondent to assume I would not notice one of the few letters in my care missing. Are you fluent in Portuguese, Miss Doubleday?’

‘I am not. The language is not one in which most ladies receive instruction—or men, as I understand it. What other secrets are you hiding?’

‘Plenty, but allow me to reassure you, you would not have discovered any single one in the letter from Monsieur Allard. We often correspond in foreign languages simply for the practice and pleasure of it. And such letters serve as excellent red herrings, do they not?’

Her pretty mouth opened and closed several times without a single sound escaping. She had dropped her eyes once more to the game in front of them, each drawing out their turns longer than necessary.

‘Emerald.’ Louisa’s sweet voice sliced through the thick silence. ‘When you’re finished winning, perhaps you can help me understand what Byron is trying to say with his verses. Do you think you’ll meet him in London? ’Tis hard to believe we leave on the morrow already.’

Miss Doubleday pushed back her chair, but as Beau prepared to protest, he realised she had in fact won, although he couldn’t recount bearing off the stones settled snugly in their pocket at the edge of his home board.

He rose from his seat. ‘If I don’t see you before you leave, I wish you a pleasant journey to London.’

‘Thank you.’ Her body swayed where she was standing before she turned on her heel, and he wondered if she was as reluctant to leave him as he was to watch her go.

‘Miss Doubleday?’

She looked back over her shoulder at him, her ink-black eyes pulling him into an abyss. If he couldn’t find a hold, he would lose himself forever.

‘Save me your first.’

‘In London?’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘Is there one you had in mind?’

‘All of them.’ Beau brushed past his ward where she was rooted in place to search out the mind he had apparently lost.