‘So it’s finally happening.’
I knew what he meant. After all the years of denial and secrecy, it was hard to believe that soon, I would be marching down the aisle to meet him at the altar. There was a tiny part of me that was wondering whether this was all actually happening, or whether it was just a dream.
Time to reassure myself.
‘Come here,’ I said, and grabbed him by the lapels.
He didn’t waste a moment. Before I knew it, his lips were on mine and taking everything I offered and more, with no possibility of a refund. We kissed and kissed and kissed. When I finally came up for air, it was just for a moment, to drag in a much-needed breath. But when I pulled him close again, he placed a finger on my lips, stopping me.
‘Wait.’
‘Wait?’ I grinned up at him ‘Waiting is for time-wasters, Sir.’
His face remained expressionless, and so did his eyes. Slowly, the grin melted from my face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I didn’t just call you out here to ask about your sister. There’s news.’
My heartbeat picked up. ‘News about wedding planners?’
‘No. News about Dalgliesh.’
Ice spread through my veins at hearing the name. ‘What?’
‘I’ve been receiving interesting reports from Europe and India. After that business in France, I asked to be updated by my agents on all the latest developments regarding Dalgliesh’s power base. What happened in Paris…’ Mr Ambrose shook his head. ‘It was an incredibly risky operation, even for a man of Dalgliesh’s audacity. If he’d been found out…well, let’s just say the French would have had a use for all those guillotines left over from the revolution. Normally, Dalgliesh would never risk his own neck. To go to such extremes he must have been under an extraordinary amount of pressure.’
My brow creased. ‘What could pressure a man like Dalgliesh? Present company excepted, of course.’
‘That’s what I thought. Then I contacted my agents, and they had most interesting things to report. It appears that Dalgliesh is having increasing troubles within his own power base. Things are stirring in India. The people aren’t willing to slave for the British anymore. The various principalities are starting to realize that they are one people, and quite a large one at that. Things are beginning to move.’
‘Not in a direction His Lordship approves of, I gather?’
‘Not at all.’ Mr Ambrose gazed into the distance, his face more cold and inscrutable than ever. Not for a million pounds would I have been able to guess what thoughts, plans and stratagems were going through his head right then. Abruptly, his eyes snapped back to me and burned into me with icy intensity. ‘Which means that now we must be more vigilant than ever. A snake is most dangerous when it’s injured.’
‘But also most vulnerable.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Well, then.’ I held out my hand. ‘Is it time to attack?’
With an icy gleam in his eyes that told me I didn’t want to be in the shoes of Lord Daniel Eugene Dalgliesh, he took my hand.
‘Yes. But first…’ Pulling me toward him, he grabbed me and pressed a hot, hard, swift kiss on my mouth. ‘Time to go to London. We have a wedding to attend.’
Knock, Knock
It took a few days before we could return to London. Mr Ambrose had insisted on dispatching one of his not-so-merry men to the city to check if the epidemic was passed before he would let me within fifty miles of the capital. Explaining to my friends and family why exactly they had to wait for word from a man they didn’t know existed, employed by another man whose name they didn’t yet know, wasn’t easy, but, accomplished truth-bender that I was, I managed.
One thing was noticeable, however: with the exception of Ella, nearly everyone suddenly treated me differently. Edmund was almost worshipfully grateful for all I’d done for his beloved. He would have put his coat down for me to walk on over puddles if the weather hadn’t been so consistently sunny and dry. Lisbeth and Gertrude as well as Edmund’s parents looked at me with a sort of shocked awe, probably caused by the reverence of the hotel staff and the fact that somehow, inexplicably, I suddenly seemed to be in charge of everything. Patsy was angry as hell. Not at me so much as at the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to hate my prospective suitor. I had shared with her the little detail that he’d been instrumental in saving Ella’s life, and she had looked at me as if she’d swallowed a lemon.
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘So…I shouldn’t whack him over the head with my parasol, or push him into a duck pond?’
‘No.’
‘Damn!’