Do You Want to Start a Scandal

He’d been good at this once. Hadn’t he?

She had some naïve, fanciful idea of espionage that involved downing stiff drinks and swanning through gaming hells. If she knew the cold, brutal reality, she would regret having ever guessed.

He took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You must let go of this silly notion. The truth of it is, I am a boring, stuffy, proper lord. There are no dashing missions, nor thrilling escapades. And I am most emphatically not a sp—Down.”

He pushed Charlotte to the side.

A footpad lunged from the shadows, reaching for her reticule strings with one hand and brandishing a grimy knife with the other.

Years of training took control.

With his left hand, Piers grabbed the cutpurse’s wrist, immobilizing his knife hand. Then he lowered his right elbow in a vicious strike—not quite hard enough to break the rogue’s arm, though he would have deserved it.

Once the knife went clattering into the shadows, he dealt the scum a swift kick to the stomach and flung him into the gutter.

It was over in less than five seconds.

As the criminal lay doubled up and groaning, Piers straightened his gloves.

Charlotte’s eyes widened. She looked at the cutpurse, then back at Piers. “You were saying?”

Charlotte ought to have guessed how well Piers would take it when she unraveled his secret.

Which was to say, not well at all.

He abandoned any further discussion, hustling her with purpose to the corner where his coach stood waiting, and all but shoved her into it.

“It’s all right,” she assured him, once the carriage was in motion and they were alone. “I promise, I won’t tell anyone.”

He looked straight ahead. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“I really can’t believe I didn’t guess earlier. I should have known from your special Finch pistol. Or the stickpin that opens locks.”

“Any pin would have opened that lock.”

“Do you have other spy tools?” She began to look around the carriage compartment. “False mirrors? Bullet-deflecting doors? Oh, I’ll wager there’s a hidden compartment under this seat.”

“Every carriage has a compartment under the seat.”

“Secret codes tucked in your hatband, perhaps? Ooh, what about this walking stick?” She reached for a cane he kept on the back of the seat. “A man in his prime of life doesn’t need a walking stick. I bet it’s really a sword or a rifle, if one knows the trick of opening it.” She turned it this way and that, swishing it experimentally through the air.

He wrested it from her and set it aside. “It’s a walking stick. Nothing more.”

“But you’re an agent of the Crown. You must have some kind of exciting, lethal weapon on your person.”

“Since you mention it . . .” He caught her by the waist, dragging her onto his lap. He said in a seductive growl, “That’s not a pistol in my pocket.”

She laughed. Where had he been hiding this wicked, dangerous charm?

The irony was rich. She should not have been so keen to uncover his secrets. This revelation made him desperately attractive. She might start to like him even more. Not only in flashes and rare moments, but at regular intervals.

From there, it was only a short jaunt to friendship. Then a mere hop to affection . . . or worse.

Oh, drat. Why had she been so curious?

But there was no undoing it now.

She hadn’t nearly puzzled him out yet—but she’d gathered enough pieces to understand this: The entire picture of Piers Brandon was wider and more complex than she’d ever dreamed it could be. He wasn’t maddeningly perfect.

He was perfectly thrilling.

“Are you on a mission here in Nottinghamshire? Is that why you hid in the library?” She slapped a palm to her brow. “Of course. It all makes so much sense now. You couldn’t leave your assignment. That’s why you insisted on proposing. No one’s that honorable, and I knew it couldn’t simply be that you’d taken a fancy to me.”

“Listen to me.” He caught her chin in his hand, forbidding her to look away. “You are dead wrong about me in almost every particular, but you are right about that last. I hadn’t simply taken a fancy to you.”

“No?”

He shook his head slowly. His thumb traced the shape of her lips. “Fancy doesn’t begin to describe it. This is closer to . . . an obsession. An enchantment, or perhaps a curse. You’re like a little fair-haired witch who cast a spell on me, and I can’t concentrate. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but hearing you laugh and holding you close and imagining what you’ll look like naked in my bed. Do you understand that, Charlotte?”

She nodded, breathless. His left eyebrow hadn’t moved once.

The longer he stared at her, the more excited she grew. This was a game they’d been playing all day . . . his hand on her waist at the coaching inn, his breath on her ear at the perfume shop.

“What’s your plan, Agent Brandon?” she whispered. “Do you mean to kiss me so long and so hard that I’ll forget your identity?”

“No.” His hand slid to the back of her head, tangling in her hair—so tightly she gasped. “I mean to kiss you so long and so hard that you’ll forget yours.”

His lips fell on hers, and this time he offered her no light, patient kisses as a preliminary. He claimed her mouth, thrusting his tongue deep to toy with hers.

She clung to his neck, trying her best to keep pace.

He bent to kiss her neck, her ear, her cheek. She loved the urgency in his kiss, how much he seemed to want her.

Perhaps even need her.

Arousal pounded through her body, made her swell and tighten and yearn. It was as if the more boldly he tried to possess her, the more independent she felt.

He gave her power, and she wanted to use it. She wanted to choose passion over propriety, knowledge over innocence.

He stroked her breasts through the fabric of her frock and spencer, driving her mad with need. It wasn’t enough. She needed more. His hands on her bare skin. His fingers pinching, pulling. Anything to ease the ripe, coiling tension in her nipples. The need was so intense, so urgent, it made her wonder how she’d lived this long without his touch.

Her shame was gone, and yet she didn’t know how to ask for such things.

“Please,” she whispered, arching her spine to thrust her breast into the cupped palm of his hand and hoping it would be enough. “Please.”