Seduced by a Spy Read Online Free PDF

care to avoid any mistakes in judgment.”
    “You have nothing to prove, you know.” Sofia fingered the thin filigree chain at her neck. “To yourself or to others.”
    Not trusting her voice, Shannon jammed a last bit of clothing into her bag and pulled the strings taut.
    “One last thing…” Unfastening the clasp, Sofia took the length of silver and the hawk-shaped pendant and pressed it into Shannon’s palm.
    “T-this is your lucky charm!”
    “I am counting on you to bring it back, along with my book, so that I may depend on its powers when it’s my turn to fly.”
    Fisting the tiny talisman, Shannon gave her friend a fierce hug. “Time to go.”
    Fog. Rain.
The bone-chilling dampness pervaded every cursed corner of the creaking timbers. Orlov wrapped his cloak a bit tighter around his shoulders. Not even a layer of thick sable could keep it at bay. Glowering at the gray waves, he took yet another turn on the narrow deck.
    “You are not at home on a ship?” The Dutch captain fell in step beside him.
    “I prefer space to stretch my legs.” The schooner gave a yawing lurch. “And
terra firma
beneath them.”
    “With this wind, we shall soon be reaching our destination.”
    “It can’t be soon enough.” Orlov added a rather salty oath.
    The officer immediately knocked his knuckles on the wooden railing. “We sailors are a superstitious lot. It is bad luck to insult the sea gods.”
    “Then it is fortunate I have no ambitions for a nautical career. I hold very little sacred, save my own skin.” Wiping the drops from his brow, he grimaced. “Which may soon turn into fish scales.”
    “This is no more than a passing drizzle.”
    Cold comfort indeed.
“I think I shall go below,” he said, though his dank cabin was designed for someone only marginally larger than a bilge rat.
    Once he had wedged his lanky frame into the narrow berth—a feat that forced him to draw his knees to his chin—Orlov lit the lamp and thumbed through the sheaf of documents. He had, of course, read over them before.
    Ad nauseam
, he added wryly as his stomach gave an unpleasant heave. A touch of seasickness brought on by the foul weather did not improve his mood. By the bones of St. Sergius, he hated traveling by ship.
    He turned his attention back to the papers. Yussapov’s spies had been quite thorough. D’Etienne’s background and accomplishments were spelled out in grisly detail. The man was, by all accounts, a ruthless bastard whose list of victims included several women and a young child. Orlov’s expression clouded. He freely admitted to having precious little claim on morality, but he did not make war on the families of his foes. His profession was a dirty business, and killing a sordid necessity, but in this particular case he would not suffer any twinge of conscience.
    The maps appeared excellent as well. Routes were drawn, landmarks described, and several bolt holes marked along the way. He spent some time committing the information to memory, before nausea and a piercing headache forced him to extinguish the flame. However, the pounding of the waves against the hull was still foreign to him and he had trouble settling into the rhythm of the ocean.
    Were the sea gods seeking vengeance for his verbal slight?
Or was it some more earthly demon prodding a trident into his skull?
    He could not shake the feeling that something was not quite right. As of yet, he could not put a finger on it. The feeling was nebulous, like the crosscurrents of fog rising up from the sea. Impossible to grab hold of, but its swirl stirred a prickling at the nape of his neck. It might be only the ill effects of the
mal de mer
.
    But he didn’t think so.
    Instinct, a sixth sense for survival, had warned him in the past of impending danger. He had learned to trust these strange twinges—a leap of faith for someone who tended to view the world with sardonic detachment. Trust was, after all, not a very practical attribute in his profession.