Read Online To Kiss A Spy by Jane Feather - Free Book Online Page A

and honest.”
    Pen turned her head against the pressure of his hand and looked up at him. “How could you know that? You couldn’t have known anything real about me before you followed me to the library yesterday.”
    “Ah, well, there I was following a hunch.” Still holding her hair, he leaned sideways to the table where the basket of salves and bandages remained from earlier. “If you could hold your hair clear for me, I’ll dress the wound again.”
    Their fingers brushed as she took the swatch of hair from him and her spine jumped with a sharp current of energy. “And where does this interest take you, Chevalier?” She bent her neck sideways under the gentle pressure of his ministering hand.
    “That rather depends upon you, madam.” There was a laugh in his voice. “As I said, I like my partners willing.”
    “And awake, as I recall,” Pen returned in the same bantering tone. It was mad to be having this conversation, and yet with that energy racing through her it seemed perfectly natural.
    “Certainly awake,” he agreed, winding a fresh bandage around her throat. “There, at least you won’t return to your friends and relatives looking like a bloodstained veteran of battle.”
    Pen let her hair fall again. She touched the bandage with her fingertips. “Is it healing?”
    “The wound is closing nicely. I doubt there’ll be a scar. Let us go now. Cedric will have a wherry waiting.” He picked up her heavy furred cloak and draped it around her.
    Pen pulled up the hood and tucked her loose hair out of the way. The high collar was torn where her neck had been gashed. The jeweled circlet and gold pins of her discarded headdress were still on the mantel. She selected a pin and craned her neck to fasten the rent material together.
    “I’ll do that.” He took the pin from her, brushing her hands aside as naturally and easily as Robin would have done.
    Pen found she was becoming accustomed to this confident and friendly manner. It seemed absurd to think of him as a stranger now, even though common sense told her that he remained so. She knew a little about him, but probably less than she knew about any other of the myriad slight acquaintances she had among the king’s courtiers. But she had never before spent such a curiously intimate night with a bare acquaintance. At the thought she was aware once more of that strange sensation of energy prickling her spine.
    Owen gathered up the rest of her pins and gave them to her. Pen opened the little purse at her waist, dropping the pins inside. The folded sheet of paper from the accounts ledger rustled against her fingers.
    Would Owen d’Arcy help her? He seemed to believe her. But would he help her?
    “What is it?” he asked as she stood in reverie, immobile, a tiny frown drawing her brows together, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
    “I was wondering if you would help me try to discover what happened to my child,” she answered slowly.
    “How could I help?”
    She met and held his gaze. “You talked of going into High Wycombe, asking some questions. . . .”
    “I suggested it as a possible avenue,” he agreed.
    “One that you might help me take?” Pen asked directly.
    He was silent for a minute and she could hear her heart thump in the stillness. “I will think about the problem,” he said finally.
    Pen would have preferred a more definite response but she would take what was offered. She felt that in this man lay her only hope. How or why that should be was a mystery, but it was true, and her spirits lifted.
    She said simply, “My thanks, sir.”
    She withdrew a silver coin from her purse but hesitated a second before laying it on the table. The circumstances had been so peculiar that it might be considered offensive to offer to pay the landlady for her services. But Mistress Rider was still a woman in business and Pen knew her obligations. “I would like to leave Mistress Rider some token of my thanks.”
    “Of course,” Owen said