Desire Never Dies Read online

  “Listen to me,” he said softly, but she felt his gaze burn on her mouth. “This is not your fault. And this case, this investigation and your part in it doesn’t have to end if we use the situation to our advantage.”

  Ana shivered. Somehow this didn’t sound like she was going to like it.

  “How can we do that?”

  He let out a low breath. “For some reason, society is fascinated by the idea of a romance between us. So…let’s give them one.”

  The blush that had darkened her cheeks bled away as she stumbled back a step, pulling at her hand. “What?”

  He wouldn’t release her. “Think of it, Ana. If we pretend an engagement, that will allow us to hide in plain sight. If we are caught together talking, whispering, people will believe it is because we’re in love. And if the initial interest and the increase in my invitations is any indication, the ton’s matrons won’t be able to resist inviting us to every event. That kind of access could be pivotal in this case.”

  Ana could hear his words, she understood what he was saying, but it seemed like his voice had been slowed to half time. There was a dull ringing in her ears matched only by the racing of her heart. That was not excitement churning in her stomach. There was nothing thrilling about this!

  Yet it thrilled her.

  “An engagement?” she whispered, reaching her free hand up to cover her eyes. “This is not happening.”

  Lucas released her hand immediately and when she dared to peek at him between her fingers, she saw his jaw had suddenly set with frustration. Almost like her denial irritated him.

  “Do you have a better suggestion, Ana?” he snapped, folding his arms across his broad chest and making the heavy fabric of his overcoat flatten against the muscles there. For a moment she was mesmerized, but she forced herself to look away. “Please, do tell me if you have an alternative that is less distasteful to you than pretending to be engaged to me for a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks!” she cried, backing away another step. Dear God, she wasn’t sure she could pull off such a deception for a few days, let alone a few weeks.

  His lips thinned. “Don’t overwhelm me with your enthusiasm.”

  She let her hands drop to her sides. “You don’t understand what you are asking of me.”

  Her thoughts drifted to Gilbert, just as they had been the past few days. It was bad enough to go around kissing this man…but to involve deeper emotions…even if they were pretending? Gilbert had been the one great love of her life. The only man she had ever wanted and certainly the only one who had ever wanted her back. Shoving that away was like denying that powerful, once-in-a-lifetime feeling had ever existed.

  Wasn’t it?

  “I am asking you to do your job,” Lucas snapped. “And yet you are behaving as if I’m taking you to the gallows, not a few balls.”

  “To do this would be such a betrayal,” she whispered.

  He moved toward her one step and his eyes were lit with fire. “Of whom?”

  His voice was so cold, she ventured he’d already guessed.

  Lifting her chin, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “My husband.”

  His jaw twitched as he clenched it. There was something almost…proprietary, territorial in the way his shoulders stiffened and his back straightened. “You cannot betray a dead man.”

  She flinched at the harshness of his words. Tears stung her eyes a second time, but she blinked them back. She would not let Lucas see them. “I already have.”

  His brow wrinkled. “With that kiss?”

  Slowly, she nodded. There was a long moment of silence, and she did not dare to look at Lucas so she shifted her focus to the floor.

  Finally, he spoke. “This engagement wouldn’t be real, Ana. Once we have completed our mission, you can return to your basement. You can go back to being the mourning widow and use your grief to hide from the world if that pleases you so much.”

  She snapped her gaze up at that mocking tone and met his fiery stare. Every fiber of her being told her to snap back. To argue. But she couldn’t. Lucas might be cutting her to the very quick, but he was only stating the truth. She was afraid to live again.

  Without answering, she started to turn away, wanting to escape that knowing stare. Wanting to separate herself from the burning anger and equally potent desire that so reflected her own faithless heart. But he didn’t let her escape so easily. He caught her arm and forced her to turn back. Pulling her in, he surrounded her with sudden heat.

  “It is only a betrayal if you feel something,” he whispered.

  Then his lips came down to crush against hers.

  The first time he kissed her, it had been a surprise. Not gentle, but not forceful. This time, his lips waged a war against her resistance.

  She was lost the moment he swept his tongue over her lips.

  Ana opened to him, reveling in the thrusting heat of his tongue, arching into the hard angles of his body as her hands came up to fist the arms of his jacket. She clutched the heavy fabric, clinging to him for support and longing for more. More. More.

  What was happening to her? Need and desire had been there with Gilbert. She had enjoyed his kiss, his touch, the moments they shared in and out of their marital bed. But it had never been like this. This heat that suffused her every pore. This aching, driving need that made her want to tear at Lucas’s clothing, bare herself to him shamelessly.

  His hands stroked her back, sparking the nerves along her spine until her knees actually shook. Dear God, if he laid her back on the settee right now, if he lifted her skirts…she wouldn’t resist. And despite that shocking insight that rocked her to her very core, she did not pull away. She couldn’t.

  But apparently, he could. Breaking the contact of their lips, Lucas took a long step away. His gaze flickered with serious danger, and she realized she had barely escaped the very fantasy she’d been entertaining. Unlike the first night they kissed, she knew for certain that this meant more. That her touch enflamed him as much as he made her burn.

  “Tell me, Ana,” he asked, his voice rough. “Did you feel something?”

  She swallowed hard. Did she feel something? She felt everything! It was like her nerves had never been fully alive until the moment he touched her. Like she had been sleeping and he woke her from that slumber with a kiss.

  “No,” she whispered and the tremble in her voice was so pronounced that she knew he would hear it and realize what a liar she was.

  He smirked and she was right. He knew. A man like him had probably made a hundred women tremble like that in the past. Of course he knew.

  “Well, as much as that pains me, my lady, I can tell you the only feelings you inspire in me are desire.” He looked her up and down, and she felt stripped under the intensity of his gaze. “Which I can master. So if you feel nothing and I am able to keep whatever I feel in check, then there can be no betrayal of your beloved husband.”

  She winced at the mocking that had entered his tone again. She hardly knew this man, yet his opinion of her somehow mattered. And right now he clearly believed she was a simpering hypocrite.

  And wasn’t she?

  She refused to meet his gaze. “But the plan—”

  He shook his head. “It changed, Ana. The plan changed. If we want to have any chance of continuing this investigation, you’ll have to adapt.”

  Ana shut her eyes. There was no arguing. She didn’t want to give up the chance to catch whoever caused Emily’s attack. And she had no alternative to Lucas’s suggestion. Even if she did, she was shaking too hard to formulate a reasonable argument.

  “Very well,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying.

  Lucas stared at her for a long moment, then turned on his heel to go.

  “I’ll make certain an announcement is circulated to a few of the papers and that the news makes it to some key ears. In the mean time, I will send over some snippets of code that were intercepted by agents in the field. Perhaps those will give us clues. Good afternoon.�
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  Ana lifted her gaze in time to see the door close behind him. With a shiver, she sank down into the nearest chair, clutching her hands over her chest.

  It was only then she realized she’d been holding her breath.

  So much for not feeling anything.

  “I don’t have time to accept an invitation.” Ana moved to her work table and carefully laid out another page of encoded symbols and signs. Some of the items Lucas had sent over to her were incredibly complicated.

  Meredith leaned back against the edge of the table and looked at her. “Yes, I can see you’re very busy.”

  Ana looked up at the tone of her friend’s voice. Meredith was watching her so closely. For the first time, she realized just how she must appear, flitting from code to her notes and over to a long-forgotten invention she’d been working on. A lady’s compact mirror with a strip of putty hidden behind it for making impressions of keys, coins, or other items.

  “I am very busy!” she insisted. There was no way she was going to admit to Meredith that for the second time in as many days, she was hiding from Lucas. That he’d sent her three notes since their “engagement” that she had left unanswered. It was better to blame her work for her hibernation.

  “Could you explain all this again?”

  Ana sighed. Meredith seemed so cool. So pulled together. She knew her own hair was a sloppy bun. That she looked like an owl with her spectacles perched on her nose. Versus Meredith, with her sophisticated sleek hairstyle and calm disposition. She had probably never felt like this. Out of sorts, confused on a case.

  Ana hesitated. No, that wasn’t true. Meredith had married a man she once investigated. She’d fallen in love with Tristan even while wondering if he was a traitor. Certainly that must have been much harder than feeling unexpected and unwanted lust for a fellow spy.

  Except Ana had no hopes for a happy ending like Meredith’s waiting for her at the end of this case. Not that she wanted one.

  “I don’t know what part you don’t understand,” she snapped, peevish at herself more than her friend. “Society heard about our…our kiss in Sansbury’s private office. Lucas felt an engagement was our only remaining cover.”

  Meredith shook her head. “That part I grasp fully, Anastasia. After all, this Lucas Tyler does his work very well. Word of your engagement is in”—she reached over and snatched up a pile of papers she had brought with her to Ana’s work room—“The Times, The City Herald, and Blighton’s gossip sheet is heralding its own foresight by claiming it knew of your secret love nearly a week ago.”

  Ana winced. She’d been avoiding the papers. Trust Meredith to force the truth down her throat.

  Meredith set the items aside and folded her arms. “I was asked about your engagement no less than five times at various teas and luncheons in the past few days. Even Tristan entertained inquiries at Whites. A few of the gentlemen have some rather unsavory bets riding on these supposed nuptials.”

  “Bets?” Ana repeated, horror rising in her.

  Meredith ignored her outburst. “What I don’t understand is why you’re hiding away two days after this engagement was announced? And why you haven’t yet been seen in public with Lucas Tyler?”

  Ana hesitated. How could she explain how frightened she was to Meredith, who had never feared anything?

  “I told you,” she said softly. “I have been busy.”

  Meredith shook her head as she pushed away from the table to catch Ana’s hands. “This is a golden opportunity! The pile of invitations and calling cards waiting for you upstairs should tell you that. Society is enamored. Your work with the Sisters of the Heart Society for Widows and Orphans is being praised by all! We’ve even seen an increase in donations.”

  “Really?” Ana blinked with shock. How could such a small thing cause so many ripples?

  “Yes.” Meredith grinned. “I have heard your face described as ‘uncommonly pretty’ and ‘classically beautiful,’ both of which I agree with wholeheartedly.”

  Blood flooded Ana’s cheeks. She met her best friend’s eyes. “I never asked for the spotlight.”

  Meredith’s face softened with understanding. And Ana knew she did understand. Both her friends knew her so well. “But you have it, Ana. You must take advantage of it! Emily and I don’t understand why you aren’t. If she wasn’t confined to that bed—”

  Ana yanked her hands free and walked away. “She would be down here railing on me as you are. Why do you think I’m down here where she can’t reach me?”

  When she turned around to look at Meredith again, she found her friend staring at her, eyes wide and mouth open.

  “I’ve never heard you use that tone. What is it? This is more than mere shyness at your newfound fame.” She looked at her for a long moment, then Meredith’s face registered a glimmer of understanding. “Is it because of Tyler?”

  Ana hesitated a fraction of a second too long. Long enough that Meredith lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “That is it! Why didn’t I see it?”

  Ana dipped her head with shame. There was no use hiding the truth. “I liked it when he kissed me.” She heard Meredith’s sharp intake of breath. “I know it’s only part of the case, but it’s been so long since I felt that way. Maybe I’ve never felt that way.”

  Meredith nodded. “He is very handsome. And charming from everything I’ve seen. It’s understandable why you would feel something when he touched you, Ana. It isn’t wrong to want.”

  Ana lifted her gaze. “Yes, it is. It is for me.”

  Her friend pursed her lips. “Because of Gilbert?” Ana didn’t answer. “It’s been five years, dearest.”

  Ana shook her head. Lucas kept telling her that, too. As if time alone could change her heart and her past. Could make her forget.

  “Do you know how long I loved Gilbert?” she asked.

  Meredith shook her head, but Ana could see her shock. Ordinarily Ana’s grief was not something she discussed, not even with her two best friends.

  “Since I was twelve years old,” she admitted softly. She thought back and was frustrated when all she could conjure was a blurry image of what her husband had been like then.

  “Our families had estates close to each other, so we grew up together and I loved him from afar,” she whispered. “But he never noticed me. No one ever noticed me except for my parents. And then, one day, he did.”

  Meredith smiled sadly, but didn’t interrupt.

  Ana fiddled with the items on the tabletop as she continued, “No one had ever been interested in me before. I was a wallflower the first few months after I came out. But when he began to court me, it was like every fairy tale I’d ever heard come true. I had never thought I’d have a love match, and yet, somehow, I did. I knew that was something rare. Especially for me. Something that would only happen once in a lifetime.” She sniffled as tears began to sting her eyes. She looked at Meredith evenly. “So that is why it is wrong for me to want Lucas. Why this engagement, false though it may be, feels like such a betrayal.”

  Meredith shook her head. “Why? I still don’t understand.”

  Ana let out an exasperated sigh. “If I feel something for another man, it is as if I am forgetting that once-in-a-lifetime love with Gilbert.” She clenched her fists. “Like I’m saying it wasn’t special. As if I believe the vows I made on my wedding day were interchangeable.”

  Meredith covered her mouth and now tears sparkled in her friend’s eyes, as well. “Oh, Ana. No…No—”

  Ana shook her head. “Please don’t argue. You don’t understand! You didn’t love your first husband, so when you found love, you were free to accept it with all your heart. But tell me, if Tristan were gone, can you imagine going on with your life as if his existence meant nothing to you?”

  Her friend hesitated. “I—I—”

  “Then please don’t judge my feelings,” Ana said. She swiped at her tears and lifted her chin. “Now, that is enough of this talk. Let us get to the matter you came here for. Did you find
any information about Henry Bowerly?”

  Meredith paused and Ana could see she was struggling, wanting to press further on the subject of Gilbert, but finally she let out a sigh of reluctant acquiescence.

  “The Marquis of Cliffield is not an easy man to investigate,” she admitted. “He has used his position in the War Department to mask his life, especially since the attack on his life a year ago.”

  “What did you find?”

  “On the night Cliffield was injured, Lucas was there. But he wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “No?” Ana asked and relaxed as the painful subject of her past gave way to the comfort of the particulars of her case. She’d never thought she could find peace in an investigation.

  Meredith shook her head. “Although Tyler and Cliffield were often partners in investigations, for the case Cliffield was working on, he’d asked to be paired with another man. A man of no title named George Warfield. But Warfield took ill the night of the attack and Tyler stepped in. It was very last minute. Apparently, even Lord Cliffield didn’t know about the switch until he saw Tyler. When the shooting began, Cliffield pushed Tyler out of the way and he was struck instead.”

  Ana lifted a hand to cover her lips. No wonder Lucas was so guilt ridden over the injury to his friend. Cliffield’s protective interference had caused him to be confined to the wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  “My God.”

  Meredith nodded. “But if you look at your map that Charlie provided, you’ll see that George Warfield, himself, was attacked soon after. His was the second death.”

  Ana drew back. That could very well mean that Warfield had been the target that night. In the darkness, the assailant had probably mistaken Lucas for the other man. A dark, sick feeling churned in her stomach at the thought of Lucas being cut down.