Ten
“Sir Jonathan?” Evangeline’s voice filtered through the fog in Jonathan’s brain. “Sir Jonathan, can you hear me?”
He blinked her face into focus while wrestling his temper into submission. He drew in a deep breath, fighting to control his exhale. Xavier had positioned himself in front of the women and was glaring at Dom.
Jonathan removed his hat and plowed his fingers through his hair.
Damnation! He had lost control of his faculties, barreling into this situation half-cocked, and abandoned every rule he had learned in his training.
Observation, assessment, and action only after every piece of information has been gathered.
But when he had spotted Dom with the women, a wave of protectiveness had slammed him from behind, knocking the solid ground out from beneath him. Jonathan was in charge of this mission. He had ordered Dom to keep his distance.
Dom slapped his hand against his jacket a second time, appearing to be clearing it of dust. The purposeful movement registered.
All clear. No danger.
He wasn’t making a move against Evangeline or her sister, but that didn’t explain his sudden appearance.
“Sir Jonathan?” Evangeline was speaking again. “Am I mistaken about this man’s identity? I assume he is a colleague.”
“Something of the sort.” He donned his hat as well as his bumbling persona to salvage the mission. “Er… Lord Dominic, our appointment—I must admit, I’d forgotten about meeting you.”
“Since breakfast? What a short memory you have, Hackberry.”
Jonathan ground his teeth, not appreciating the insinuation that he was even more dotty than he was pretending to be.
“No apologies are necessary,” Dom said with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile as he turned toward Evangeline and her kin. “I know my colleague here very well. He became caught up in the moment and forgot about me. Typical Hackberry.”
“Sir Jonathan isn’t to blame for missing your appointment,” Evangeline said. “I fear we were monopolizing his attention.”
She locked eyes with Jonathan and offered a warm smile.
You surprisingly generous woman.
Her smile widened as if she could divine his thoughts.
Dom smirked. “I would be a petty man if I faulted him for choosing such charming company over mine. Introduce me to my house guests, my friend.”
Jonathan would rather eat his cravat, but he did the honors. “Allow me to present Lord Dominic Mikleson. His father is the Duke of Valmont.”
“We are estranged,” Dom added with a touch of cheer. “My father and I. I get on well enough with Hackberry here.”
Xavier’s hostile stance lessened. “I hope you and your father are able to mend fences soon.”
Dom shrugged. “Either we will or we won’t. I’ll not lose sleep over it.”
“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Dominic,” Evangeline said. “I did not realize you and Sir Jonathan were in the same field.”
“I don’t want to bore you with talk of my work, Miss Darlington.”
“Far from it, my lord. I’m an antiquarian myself. What is your area of expertise?”
His fellow spy’s eyes darted toward Jonathan, and he subtly signaled for help. Jonathan stood back, allowing Dom to squirm under the lady’s direct gaze.
“I would rather ask how you like Athens,” Dom said. “Have you taken in any sights?”
“Do you mean besides the Acropolis?”
Dom coughed into his fist, shooting a venomous glance at Jonathan.
Regina took pity on Dom and moved to her husband’s side, twining her arm with his.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord. I wish our introduction had not been quite so dramatic, but a lady can never be too careful. She never knows when a scoundrel might surprise her and take a tumble on the stairs.”
“Ma chérie,” Xavier murmured, red staining his cheeks.
The couple looked into one another’s eyes longer than customary. Did they have a secret method of communication like the Regent’s Consul? A pattern of blinks perhaps? Jonathan remained watchful but couldn’t discern anything out of the ordinary.
One message was clear enough, though. Xavier Vistoire adored his wife.
Jonathan shifted his weight. He had never looked at Miss Thorne that way. When he had surrendered his former fiancée to another man, he mourned the loss of a settled life with a kind young woman. He was tired of being alone. Now he realized how selfish his proposal had been.
A wife deserved to be adored.
“As my sister-in-law stated, we are grateful to you for opening your home to us,” Xavier said in a much friendlier tone. “We will not remain in Athens much longer, but if you prefer we seek other lodgings—”
“Nonsense,” Dom said. “There is ample room at the villa. Tonight, we will dine and become better acquainted. I fear we set off on the wrong foot, ladies.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have sneaked up behind them,” Jonathan said.
Dom smiled and nodded. “Forgive me. It will not happen again.” He pinched his earlobe then rubbed his chin. We need to talk.
Jonathan suppressed a sigh. He wasn’t ready to end the tour with Evangeline, but duty usurped personal enjoyment.
“I imagine Evangeline would appreciate an evening of discussing methodologies,” Xavier said. “Someday she will be in charge of her own excavation site.”
“Indeed!” Evangeline beamed at her brother-in-law before turning her electric smile on Jonathan. “Thank you for joining us today, Sir Jonathan, but we don’t want to keep you from important work.”
As they prepared to go their separate ways, Evangeline suggested it might be in her sister’s best interest to end the tour early and return to the villa. “I believe she became overheated,” she said to her brother-in-law.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina said when her husband and sister regarded her with concern etched on their foreheads. “I have never felt better; I refuse to leave until we have seen every stone on this hill.”
“There are a lot of stones, Gigi.”
Regina lifted her chin. “And?”
Evangeline and Xavier didn’t argue with her, which seemed a wise choice. Jonathan had noted her fighting spirit from the first time he observed her sparring with her husband.
“I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the rest of the tour, Miss Darlington,” Jonathan said. “Until this evening.”
In silence, he and Dom followed the path they had climbed earlier, encountering a pair of well-dressed young men speaking German.
On Grand Tour, no doubt. Jonathan had never taken one himself.
He had already seen much of the world in the first seventeen years of his life, and after his parents’ unexpected demises, he had lost the desire. Then Farrin had approached him.
When he and Dom reached the dusty street, they headed south toward the villa. Anger over Dom’s insolence still burned in Jonathan's gut.
“You will develop a sudden illness tonight,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t want you dining with us.”
“Why deny myself the pleasure?”
“Pleasure? I expect an evening discussing antiquities is your version of hell.” And Evangeline would realize the lie at once.
“It is my version of hell.” Dom lobbed a bored glance his way. “But after supper, while you are distracting my guests, I will slip into Miss Darlington’s bedchamber—”
“The hell you—”
Jonathan bit off his words when a gate in a garden wall swung open and five men spilled into the street. Their blue skullcaps identified them as Greek Orthodox. They were deep in conversation and didn’t acknowledge Jonathan and Dom as they passed.
Even though the men were out of earshot, Jonathan lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Stay away from her. I have the situation in hand.”
“Mm-hmm.” How a simple sound could drip with sarcasm was beyond Jonathan’s grasp, but his companion excelled at it.
“Need I remind you this is my mission, Dom. If I fail, it is of no consequence to you.”
“You requested my assistance, and upon my honor as a gentleman, I won’t allow you to fail.”
Jonathan bristled at the other man’s arrogance. “You approached the targets without my blessing.”
“Targets.” Dom scoffed. “You were addressing them by name moments ago.”
“Don’t you think it would rouse suspicion if I had referred to them as Target One, Two, and Three?”
A bitter taste coated his tongue. Charles Wedmore was his only target. He didn’t know why he had identified Evangeline and her kin that way.
“You’re becoming too close,” Dom said, speaking aloud what Jonathan knew to be true. “Whatever fantasies Miss Darlington has inspired, you must give them up. She is a means to an end."
“I agree, so stop lecturing me.”
“I will say no more.”
“Splendid.” Jonathan sighed, his body deflating. His actions were usually based on rational thought, every eventuality considered and consequence calculated. To admit he had abandoned reason with Evangeline Darlington was embarrassing.
“She doesn’t suspect anything is amiss,” he said.
At least he didn’t believe so. Sometimes she looked at him a bit suspiciously, but she hadn’t worked out that he was more than an antiquarian.
“I overheard something that might be of value,” Dom said. “And it is the reason I offered to search her bedchamber. Miss Darlington found her uncle’s journal.”
“No!” Jonathan was gobsmacked. “I searched everywhere.”
“She probably totes it around in that giant bag with her sketchbook.”
Damnation! He might have been carrying it around for her today.
“Wedmore must have written something about his whereabouts,” Jonathan said. “She is convinced he has an excavation site close by.”
Dom shrugged. “Perhaps, but Miss Darlington cannot make sense of it. From what I gathered, every page is written in cipher.”
A low buzz started at the back of Jonathan’s mind.
The Regent’s Consul communicated through an alphabetic substitution code, using a common keyword.
Surely Wedmore wouldn’t be careless enough to employ a code any Regent’s man could decipher.
But if he had taken pains to hide his actions from his fellow spies, there could be little doubt to his guilt.
Jonathan had never taken his assignment lightly, but now that he had met Evangeline and looked into her brilliant eyes, he needed definitive proof.
“I want Wedmore’s journal,” he said with steel in his voice. “Whatever it takes, I must have it.”
Dom inclined his head. “And you shall. All you have to do is distract the lady.”