Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Ashbridge’s reply to that was nonverbal—or, if it was verbal, then it was not any language Vesper recognized.
But she was too busy pushing herself backward, giving herself just enough space to crouch between his spread thighs, lean down, and lick him from hilt to tip, before taking him into her mouth.
And Ashbridge’s contributions to the conversation, for the next few minutes, continued to be entirely incomprehensible.
“Do you think an hour’s passed yet?” Vesper asked, stirring against his chest.
“Hmm?” Max murmured, feeling vaguely stupefied.
He’d managed to tuck himself back into his trousers, but had made no other move to make himself more presentable, and instead had been leaning against the wall with Vesper slumped against the bare skin of his chest for some indeterminate amount of time.
Her skin was impossibly warm, and she smelled like bluebells, but also like sweat and female pleasure and herself, and it was the best thing he’d ever smelled in his life.
He shook his head, trying to clear it enough to take stock of his current situation: half naked, having just had one of the best orgasms of his entire life with Vesper Holloway, who was also, currently, half naked and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his neck that was making his cock—which he’d thought would be out of commission for at least another hour—perk up and take notice.
And he was meant to be conducting a professional investigation.
It was a good thing he didn’t actually like his job that much, because he was fairly certain that if Raffles caught wind of even half of what had occurred so far tonight, she’d have his head.
It would have been entirely worth it.
“The time,” Vesper said, enunciating clearly, as if concerned that he wasn’t entirely fluent in English, or was perhaps just very stupid. Both descriptions felt somewhat true at the moment. “Do you think the coast is clear?”
Ah, right. Because they were meant to be working, not shagging in a cupboard.
“I can hear you mentally scolding yourself for taking your eye off the mission,” she said, a bit unnervingly.
She sat up and, judging by the rustling sounds, was shifting her dress back into place.
“Don’t suppose you have a handkerchief, do you?
” she asked after a moment, and he reached into his jacket pocket, produced one, and, after fumbling for a moment, found her hand to press it into.
He made quick work of the buttons on his shirt and trousers. They likely looked a state, but on the off chance their gauging of time was off and there was still staff about, at least they’d lend credibility to their cover story.
There was more rustling as Vesper rose into a crouch and opened the cupboard door; the sudden light pouring in from the hall was a bit blinding, even though it was fairly dim and muted, coming from a couple of lamps burning low in sconces farther along the corridor, and Max squinted.
Vesper’s face, he saw, was her own again, so they must have passed the three-hour mark since drinking the batches of Fresh Faced.
Vesper poked her head out and did a brief bit of reconnaissance, then glanced over her shoulder at him. “Looks safe.”
Max rose to a crouch, wincing slightly at a twinge in his knees—he was getting too old for shagging in cupboards—and crept out of the tight space, joining her in the deserted corridor.
She looked… well, she looked as though she’d been doing precisely what she’d been doing: Her golden curls were disheveled (by his hands) and her lipstick was smudged (by his mouth) and the strap on her dress was a bit off-kilter.
Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were shining.
She looked younger than usual, and as beautiful as ever. The sight of her made his chest ache.
He reached out and laced his fingers through hers. “Shall we?”
They crept cautiously down the corridor, their ears alert to the sound of anyone approaching, but the club did seem to be empty; the overnight guard was nowhere in sight, and they were able to make their way unmolested around a couple of corners, up a flight of stairs, and into a narrow upstairs hallway that was clearly not meant for members.
They tried the doors, which were unlocked, for the most part, and revealed nothing more interesting than storage closets, a couple of bedrooms (Max wondered with a shudder of distaste what purpose his father might put those bedrooms to), a loo, a small lounge.
At last, however, they reached a doorknob that would not turn beneath their hands, and Vesper said, quietly victorious, “Aha.” She leaned close, scrutinizing the doorknob itself, the sheen of the paint on the door; her nose was about six inches away from its surface, which again made Max vaguely nervous, though he couldn’t have offered any sort of logical explanation, if pressed, for what he thought would happen if she came into too-close proximity with a magically enchanted door.
“Stop fretting,” Vesper said without pausing her inspection.
“I’m not fretting.”
“You are,” she insisted, still not looking at him. “I can hear it from here.”
Max felt that further protests along these lines would not serve him well, and so he instead contented himself with watching her carefully, reassuring himself that he would spring into action at a moment’s notice, should…
er… some unknown and mysterious magical reaction emanating from a slab of wood occur.
Reassuring.
At last, Vesper straightened. “I don’t think it’s enchanted,” she said, with slightly less certainty than Max would have preferred.
“Think?” he repeated. “You don’t think?”
“It’s quite old,” she said defensively. “And with old magic, it can sometimes be difficult to tell. With age, the signs of lingering spells become a bit less obvious—it’s the same reason no one notices the magic still lingering around St. Paul’s, or the Tower of London, for example.”
Max didn’t wish to be sidetracked, but this was simply too much to ignore. “I’m sorry—are you implying that there are magical hazards lurking round every corner at our nation’s greatest architectural treasures?”
“I hadn’t realized you were so patriotic,” she said waspishly, and he gave her a repressive sort of look.
“Yes, Ashbridge, there’s magic lingering around all those piles of stone you hold so dear.
Magical education in this country really is shocking,” she added in a disgusted mutter. “The fact that this is news to you—”
“All right,” he said. “So, you don’t think this door is enchanted—shall we pick the lock?”
Vesper stepped back, and reached into her hair, presumably searching for a hairpin.
“Don’t bother,” Max said, reaching into his jacket pocket and retrieving a small, pocket-size lockpicking kit.
Vesper was delighted. “This is very attractive,” she said, watching as he got to work. “I’ve never seen a man pick a lock before; men are so terribly dull, usually.”
“I’m beginning to think those men have the right of it,” he muttered, his gaze focused on the lock before him.
It was old, of good quality, but not terribly complicated.
“I don’t see any of them engaging in criminal activities in the dead of night.
I expect they’re all safe in their beds.
” But even as he said it, he felt the strangest desire to smile.
He realized, disconcertingly, that he would not wish to have spent tonight peacefully in bed.
This had all been rather fun, in fact. He’d not realized that was something his life was missing.
In a matter of minutes, he had the lock picked, the doorknob turning in his hand. He held his breath, waiting for—well, he didn’t know what.
“It probably would have just triggered some sort of magical alarm, if it were enchanted,” Vesper said.
“So it must not be, then?” Max asked, relieved, given that the corridor was still quiet around them.
“Unless it’s a silent one that merely alerts the security for the building, or the owner,” she said blithely, then did a double take at the undoubtedly horrified look on his face.
“Which is why it might be wise to hop to it, Ashbridge.” She pushed past him into the room, and he rose to his feet and followed her, his ears attuned to the sound of approaching footsteps.
For the moment, at least, he heard nothing.
Behind the locked door was an office, as he might have expected.
A quick glance at the diary on the desk showed the handwriting that Max recalled from stiffly worded missives that he’d received over the years.
He began to thumb through the diary, not certain what he was looking for; at first, he didn’t see anything interesting—dinners with an exhausting-sounding rotation of women with names like Fleurette; weekends away at so-and-so’s country pile (eurgh); meetings with various names that he recognized, power players in the world of business and several politicians who Max knew to be pro-magic advocates. So far, so expected.
He paused, however, on one entry from a few days earlier.
Meet with M.K.R. He flipped through another several pages to confirm—but yes, this was the only meeting solely noted with initials, rather than a full name, or at least a surname.
He began to look more carefully through the pages of the diary, until he spotted, a fortnight before the entry he’d noted, an identical one.
And there, earlier in the year, another.
And another. Each time, initials were used.
“Vesper,” he said, eyes still on the page before him. “Do the initials M.K.R. mean anything to you?”
“What?” She crossed to stand next to him.
Max pointed at his father’s diary. “He’s arranged a series of meetings with someone called M.K.R.”
She shook her head. “I’ve no idea. Do you think it’s a… coconspirator?”
“Perhaps. If we could work out who it was—”