room, certainly. From the country, if possible. I understand there are often ships in need of crew and none too particular about where the men come from. Use your initiative.’
Patrick looked at Barton, and back to the maid beside him. And he said softly, to Susan, ‘This is the man who hurt you?’
Susan’s eyes grew round, and she nodded her head.
Patrick’s smile was broad and full of menace. Suddenly, he did not look like a humble manservant, but a large, and very threatening, man. He seized Barton from off the floor and punched him once, hard and in the face. ‘No problem, sir.’ He dragged the limp body towards the door.
‘Breakfast will be late tomorrow, Patrick,’ Tony called after him. ‘Do not trouble yourself.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Susan stepped out of the way and closed the door again.
Tony listened to the sound of Patrick and Barton retreating down the hall, before stepping close and seizing her around the waist. Then he spun her around in his arms, kissed her once, full on the mouth, and threw her on to the bed.
He was alive. Young and strong and safe. And she loved the feel of his hands on her, even as her mind struggled to sort out what had just happened. She pulled herself up to lean upon her elbows, trying to regain decorum. ‘Tony, what the devil are you doing?’
He was standing over her with a most curious expression on his face, a mixture of joy and lust. ‘Celebrating. You are safe, and Barton is in the soup. And I have done it, Constance. I have picked the unpickable Bramah lock. What say you to that?’
‘Thank you?’ she said, hesitantly.
‘Actions speak louder than words, Constance.’ And he climbed into bed after her and threw up her skirts.
‘You do not mean…’ She reached to smooth her skirts back down.
‘Oh, yes, I most certainly do.’ He caught her hand, and placed it on the front of his breeches, so she could feel how ready he was. Then he began to undo his buttons.
She had just threatened to shoot a man, after attempting to seduce him, and now, she was going to make passionate love to another. If she looked into the mirror, would she recognise the woman she saw? ‘Do not be ridiculous. I cannot. I am still dressed. The door is not locked. I—’
He pushed her down on to the bed, kissing her in a way that left no doubts as to how much he wanted her, and how soon.
‘Well, at least take off your boots,’ she suggested breathlessly, recognising the old familiar Constance, trying to regain control.
He ignored her.
And the woman that she had become did not care in the slightest. He came into her fast and hard, and she arched as the shock of it ran through every nerve in her body and hummed in her blood. And as he thrust, he told her of things he wanted to do to her, and with her, and for her, each one more scandalous than the last.
And she wanted it all. She wanted his breath on her throat and his voice in her ear, and his body hard inside her for ever. But for now, she wanted him harder and faster, and she told him so over and over again until her breath was a gasp and her voice a sob and her body was trembling with the need for release. And when he demanded it, she came with him, and they collapsed, shaking with weakness, into a tangle on the bed.
He moved against her and she caught her breath in surprise as her body shuddered again, and he rolled away so that he could look into her eyes, reached a hand to her and stroked her to another climax.
And somewhere, deep down, her brain was screaming that this was madness, and it must stop. What had she just promised him? And what could he make her do, when he took her to this state? He knew her body, and he used his knowledge. She was helpless to resist him because it was all too good, and the waves ran through her again as she trembled at his touch.
She looked into his eyes. They were not empty, like Barton’s, but full of shadows. He looked into her soul and he knew her. But who was he?
She sat up and looked around her in confusion. She was lying fully dressed in her bed with a strange man, whose boots were leaving mud on the sheets. And he’d just taken her so violently that her body ached, and then soothed the ache away with his hand.
And he’d done it all because she begged him to.
Now, he was undressing her with exquisite care, undoing her gown and removing her stays, pausing to touch and kiss with featherlightness in ways that he knew pleased her. And now he was taking the pins from her hair and letting it down, combing it out with his fingers.
He knew every inch of her. He knew her life and her finances, and her body, all the intimidate details that she’d never dared share with Robert…
Why had she told him? And why had she not told her husband? Who had she become, now that she’d chosen to fall from virtue with such wanton abandon? Because she certainly was no longer herself.
And who was he? What did she know of him, other than that he was a thief, and that he said she could trust him?
And that he loved another.
He was still fully dressed, and she was naked beside him with her hair free around her shoulders. He was smiling his enigmatic smile as he admired her in her vulnerability.
She pulled the sheet around herself before she let him pull her down beside him and love her again.
He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to speak.
‘It is truly over, then, with Barton?’
‘He would be a fool to remain in the country, even if Patrick allows him to. I will turn the plates over to the Earl of Stanton in the morning, to be destroyed. If Barton reappears, St John will have no trouble hanging him as a traitor. You need never worry about him again.’
He might as well have been speaking nonsense. ‘You spoke of the plates before. What are they? And what does St John Radwell have to do with it all?’
Tony pulled away from her, and puzzled for a moment, before saying, ‘Ah. Yes. I’d meant to tell you about that. Barton was a counterfeiter. Or wished to be. And St John works for the government, and they wanted the plates back, so he hired me to steal them.’
‘So you are not a thief at all.’
‘Well, I am still a thief. A very good one. But currently, I steal when I am ordered to, by a higher authority.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps I am a humble civil servant. I quite like the idea. It sounds most respectable.’
‘Then why did you not tell me?’
He looked evasive. ‘Frankly, it had not really occurred to me that there would be a difference. Stealing is stealing, and I have not much concerned myself with the reason. St John does not wish me to discuss our association, since the world knows little of what he does, and to reveal my part in it reveals his.’
‘So you are a spy, then.’
He thought about it. ‘I suppose you could say that.’
The truth began to dawn on
