Page 78 of To Love A Spy
“But at that age, it is viewed as a rite of passage,” she mused. “A mark of being a man.”
“A man,” he repeated hollowly. “Oh yes, so it is.” A pause. “We passed a place, an expensive establishment, despite the dirt, where men came for young girls. The door opened . . .” His eyes shut. “A girl ran out, chased by a gentleman. A very highborn gentleman.”
“You recognized him?” asked Valencia.
“Yes,” answered Lynsley, his turning voice bleak. “A sanctimonious son of a bitch, known for his speeches in Parliament railing against the drunkenness and depravity of the poor.” He sucked in a deep breath. “The bastard beat her, and I simply watched. Did nothing to help.”
“Thomas, you were a boy.”
“I was old enough to want to bury my own prick in some poor lass’s body. I was old enough to know right from wrong. Yet I didn’t lift a finger.”
Reaching out a hand, she touched his cheek. “You counseled me to forgive myself. Now you must do the same.”
“I . . .”
Her stroking had suddenly turned far, far more intimate.
“Do we teach you that in the Academy?” he asked through a groan of pleasure.
“It’s the class before Art History.”
“Hmmph.” The sound reverberated deep in his throat. “I may have to see about changing the curriculum.”
“Why? Did I get a failing grade?” she teased.
“You aretoowell-schooled, Valkyrie,” replied Lynsley. “You possess too many weapons . . . it’s not fair. No man can fight back.”
“Discipline. Detachment. Devotion to duty.”
He gave a harried chuckle. “Yes, but it is proving damnably difficult.”
Valencia’s laughter joined with his, but only for an instant. “Then we must take care that I am not a distraction.”
“As well as the other way around.” Essaying a light tone, Lynsley added, “So for the good of the mission, we had better lock away passion prepare ourselves for tomorrow.”
“Right—discipline, detachment, devotion to duty,” responded Valencia, repeating her earlier words. Slipping out from beneath the sheets, she gathered her wrapper from the floor.
“A demain,Thomas,” she whispered before returning to her room.
Lynsley lay awake for a long while, the breeze from the window raising gooseflesh on his naked body. Taking up one of the pillows and clasping it to his chest, he was acutely aware that it was still warm and sweetly scented with her perfume. The lightness of verbena and the darker lushness of exotic spices.
Like a drowning man, he drew in deep lungfuls of air.
Nothing had changed, said the rational part of his brain.
But the rest of his body begged to disagree.
Everything had changed.
He shifted, the rumpled sheets, still damp with their lovemaking, sent a shiver along his spine.
She had touched him places he had thought too well guarded for anyone to reach. Oh, what hubris to think that he had made himself invincible.Invulnerable.For years he had believed that his defenses was impenetrable. Yet they had going up in smoke.
Fool.
He must somehow pile the ashes into some semblance of a wall, must somehow keep his personal feelings separate from the mission.
Always the mission.
