Page 23 of Whiskers and Wiles

It was like being doused in cold water. Kat pulled back, shoving herself all the way into the rear-facing seat as she panted to catch her breath. What had she done? What had she been about to do?

It was too dark to see Waldorf’s expression with any clarity, but the lamps outside of the club let in enough light through the cracks and spaces of the carriage that she could see the heat burning in his eyes. He’d wanted her as much as she’d wanted him, that much was clear. He still wanted her, she could feel it. Any other man would not have allowed her to stop when and how she just had.

Waldorf was not any other man.

“I must go,” Kat said breathlessly, lunging for the door.

She fumbled for the handle and nearly spilled out of the carriage onto the street as the driver pulled it open before she was ready. The man was kind enough to help her and see that she made it to her feet and up the stairs to the club’s front door. Beth was on duty as footman that night, and she opened the door with a welcoming smile, allowing Kat to rush inside without having to glance back to Waldorf to see what he must think of her now.

But no, Waldorf would not think any less of her for taking what she wanted. He had just told her that he’d admired her confidence when they were together. His voice and actions that evening told her that he still admired her that way.

That did not stop Kat from cursing herself inwardly and burning with the heat of both embarrassment and unfinished passion as she reached her rooms and unlocked her door. She rushed into her rooms, closed the door behind her, then leaned against it, eyes squeezed tightly closed.

Napoleon meowed in greeting and jumped down from the bed to rub against her legs, but Kat barely noticed him for a change. Her heart was on fire with old passion, and her head wasscreaming at her that she was a fool. She could not allow herself a moment of weakness in which she might be hurt all over again. She had too much at stake now, her independence, her pride, and her duty to her queen. She could not let Waldorf distract her from any of that.

As if to prove that point, when she finally opened her eyes, she spotted a small, white card on the floor that had not been there before.

“Have you knocked something from the table?” she asked Napoleon as she bent to pick it up.

Napoleon purred and rubbed against her hand, so she scratched his head before standing and reading the card.

“The wolf is at the door.”

That was all that was written on the card, but Kat knew at once what it meant. Someone was aware of her actions, knew that she was a spy in Queen Matilda’s service, and if the code she and her sisters had developed held true, they were actively working against her.

It had to be Waldorf. She should have known it.

Seven

“I understand congratulations are in order,”Waldorf’s brother, Lawrence said, inviting himself into Waldorf’s bedchamber as he finished dressing for Lady Ryman’s ball on Friday.

“What?” Waldorf snapped, frowning at his reflection as he attempted to tie his own neckcloth. His valet, Bambridge, was in bed with a head cold, and Waldorf had urged the man to rest rather than attend to him. Which meant that his neckcloth was an utter mess. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Lady Thistlewhite’s supper party the other night?” Lawrence asked in a wheedling way, moving to Waldorf’s side.

Lawrence batted Waldorf’s hands away from his neck and turned him so that he could tie the neckcloth himself. It grated on Waldorf to be treated as the baby of the family. It’d grated on him when he was a child and everyone fussed over him, and those feelings still nagged him. He was a fully capable, grown man of nearly fifty. He could tie his own neckcloth.

At least, he should have been able to.

“I still have no idea what you are speaking of,” he grumbled, looking down at Lawrence’s deft hands. In fact, he had some idea what his brother had meant.

Lawrence, ever the smiling, amiable fool, met his eyes with delight. “Why, the gossip about you and Lady Katherine Balmor is all over London at the moment,” he said.

“What gossip?” Waldorf snapped, scowling. “I never listen to gossip at any rate. It’s all lies and?—”

He stopped midway through his sentence as he remembered that listening to gossip and lies was what had landed him in the desperately uncomfortable position he was in at the moment.

“So you were not witnessed flirting with Lady Katherine across the supper table, then?” Lawrence asked, finishing with Waldorf’s neckcloth, giving it a pat, then stepping back. “You did not escort her home in your very own carriage?”

“It’s the family carriage, not mine,” Waldorf said, though the excuse was ridiculous.

Lawrence knew it and smiled more. “Oh, I see. That makes a world of difference.” His voice dripped with honeyed sarcasm.

“And we weren’t flirting, we were doing battle, waging war,” Waldorf went on.

Lawrence tilted his head to the side in a way that caused the black and silver in his hair to catch the light. “It strikes me that flirting and waging war are not very different from each other,” he said.

“Bugger off,” Waldorf grumbled, turning back to his looking glass and taking up his brush to sort his hair. “Nobody asked for your opinion to begin with.”

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