Seducing the Spy Read Online Free PDF

privy…"
    She wrinkled her nose. More dried paste drifted to the floor. "Not to my privy. I took it down the alley to the public house. I thought they might not notice a bit more filth in theirs."
    A highborn lady, in her nightdress no doubt, weak and ill, stumbling about the rear yard of that rowdy public house he'd seen on the street corner? "Are you completely without sense? You could have been killed, or worse!"
    The green cat eyes regarded him calmly. "Worse than killed? Are you sure there is such a thing?"
    Stanton did not relent. "Yes, there is. A lady's virtue is beyond price."
    "You're boring me again." She stood. "Go away."
    Stanton stood as well, automatic in his manners. She laughed. "You'd make a proper puppet." She turned that eerie green gaze on him once more. "I wonder who would be powerful enough to pull your strings?"
    There was no such person on earth, but this strange woman had no need to know that. Stanton bowed. "If you wish me to leave, I must." He straightened. "I will return tomorrow."
    She blinked. "Truly? You will keep returning and returning, all this inconvenient way, until you know the entire story?"
    He nodded. "Precisely."
    "And your poor coachman, sitting out there in this horrid weather? What of him? What of the valet who must clean the filth from your boots and the laundress who must brush the mud from your trousers?"
    Stanton nodded slowly. It seemed he had found the lady's weakness. She cared overmuch for those being vastly overpaid to serve him. "Do not forget the horses, forced to stand in the chill and wet, and the grooms who must rake the mud from their coats—"
    One crusted brow rose. "Don't overdo," she said caustically.
    Stanton knew when to stop. He bowed silently and waited. He wished he could read her expression. Then again, remembering her blotched and scaling features, perhaps not.
    "Oh, sit down, you bothersome bulldog!" She flopped back down into her own chair. "If you'll shut it for five entire minutes in a row, I shall tell you everything as it occurred." She pointed at him. "No questions until I'm done."
    He nodded again and returned to his own seat. If he could learn all she knew now, he might never be forced to put himself in this revolting person's company again.
4
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    Across from Stanton in the tattered parlor, Lady Alicia Lawrence sighed.
    "I ate strawberry preserves. Sometimes I discover that a food I was once able to enjoy will suddenly cease to agree with me ever after. Thus with the strawberries. I knew after four bites that such was the case."
    Stanton could read her rue even through the clay.
    "They were rather large bites. I ought not to have been so gluttonous, but it had been so long—" She shook her head. Fragments of oatmeal went flying. "I induced vomiting at once, hoping to stem the damage. Once begun, I was not able to stop."
    What sort of lady discussed such things with a strange gentleman?
    This sort of lady, he soon discovered. He was treated to a blow-by-blow account of her encounter with the deadly strawberries, and soon knew more than he ever wanted to know about such illness.
    "Thus I found myself by the privy of the White Sow when I heard voices approaching. As you might imagine, I thought it wise to hide myself. There were three men—I saw them silhouetted against the pub lanterns, although I could not see their faces. One of them lighted a cigar but the other two did not. I thought they were merely having a smoke and settled myself for a wait of only a few minutes. I was rather weakened and I feared I would give myself away by stumbling in the dark."
    He watched her tell her story with a growing sense of unease. She spoke simply and convincingly, though her story was outrageous.
    Her delivery was not the problem, nor was he particularly disturbed by the story so far. What bothered him was the fact that he felt entirely blind… or perhaps "numb" was a better word.
    He couldn't tell.
    Truth or falsehood, fact or fiction, he could