Page 68 of Irresistible
That was preposterous.
If the Chesmores were spies, then Dougal had no business working for the Foreign Office, because he just couldn’t see it. And after four years, he trusted his instincts.
Unfortunately, none of that even mattered. Very soon, hewouldn’tbe working for them. He just hoped he could determine what had gone wrong before he had to walk away.
In the meantime, he had a matter of hours until he had to walk away from Jess.
The drive from Prospero’s Retreat had gone much more quickly than the trip there. Or so it seemed to Jess. She could feel the time with Dougal slipping away as if she were desperately holding onto a branch of a tree and was down to her last fingertip. They would arrive at Lady Pickering’s soon.
And then what?
Instead of asking, Jess kept the conversation easy. “This weather is much better than when we traveled the other direction.”
“I should say so,” Dougal responded. He’d been quiet, pensive, even. She’d asked what he was thinking about earlier, and he’d only said that his mind was on many things. He hadn’t indicated a desire to talk about any of them.
They were nearly out of time. Jess would be thoroughly angry with herself if she didn’t ask about the future. Or discuss last night. They hadn’t exactly acted as if it hadn’t happened, but neither had they addressed it. “What will happen when we’re both back in London?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Jess pressed her lips together in a slight frown. Was he being purposely obtuse? “I mean, is our work finished? Will we deliver a report to the Foreign Office?”
“I will deliver a report. I don’t know what will be required of you. Presumably, you will be directed as to what to do.”
She took that to mean that Lady Pickering would instruct her on what happened next. But that wasn’t what Jess wanted to know. That was, however, what she’d asked. In a cowardly fashion, she’d talked about the mission instead of what she really wanted to discuss—what had happened between them.
“What about last night?” she asked, stealing a glance at him to see his reaction.
He didn’t reveal a thing. His attention remained on the road ahead, and his features were bloody impassive. At least he’d given up the damned spectacles.
“Yes, about that,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”
Anapology? “For what?”
Now, he slid a look her way—but only very briefly. “I should think it would be obvious. I overstepped the boundaries of our partnership. I breached your trust, and I’m wholly sorry for all of it.”
Allof it? Anger swirled through her and gathered into a hot ball in her chest. “Well, I amnot. I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I’d harbored hope that we might share such an evening at some point in the future. If you were amenable. Apparently, you are not.” She felt like such a fool.
“You sound angry.”
“I am. I thought we mutually desired each other and decided to act upon that. Yet here you are, prattling on about overstepping boundaries and breaching trust. Did we not both agree to do what we did?” Multiple times, in fact!
“Yes, of course. But I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. You trusted me to be a gentleman, and—”
“You were a perfect gentleman. Last night. Today, I may need to revise that opinion.”
He exhaled, and they drove in silence for a few minutes, during which her frustration did not lessen. “I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I didn’t enjoy last night. I did. Very much. I will treasure the memory always.”
She believed him, but it still didn’t take away the sting, both of his earlier words and the knowledge that it truly wouldn’t happen again. Hadn’t she known that?
He drove the gig onto Lady Pickering’s estate. “I expect when we return to London, you will continue as you did before. Just as I will. We can’t act as if we know each other, because in the eyes of Society, we do not. Furthermore, if we are familiar, we risk exposing how we know each other. And that, we cannot do.”
She hadn’t even thought of that. It would be as if this stretch of days, this wonderful time as Mr. and Mrs. Smythe had never happened.
Only she would know it had. And so would he. They just had to behave as if they didn’t.
Jess had a sudden sharp and visceral dislike for the Foreign Office and its bloody missions.
“You understand, don’t you?” he asked.
