“That’s quite all right.” Amy shook out her skirts and flashed him a smile that dazzled even through the moonlit darkness of the study.

“May I inquire as to what you were doing under that desk?”

“Waiting for you,” Amy said brightly, as if that were all the explanation that was needed. “You are the Purple Gentian, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you think it would be rather foolish of me to answer that question?” Richard asked dryly.

“Only if you fear that I might have the secret police stashed away behind the curtains.” Impulsively, Amy grabbed one of his gloved hands and led him to the closed curtains of the other window and flung them open. She twirled to face him. “See? No Fouché, no Delaroche. You’re perfectly safe.”

Standing far closer to Amy than propriety would have ever allowed, in her brother’s darkened, deserted study, Richard had his doubts about that statement. It would be so easy to lean just the slightest bit forward, to brush that unruly curl out of her eye, to cup her face with his hands. . . . Richard pulled back, away from Amy; if he couldn’t make her leave, he would feign departure and lurk under the windowsill.

“You’re not planning to leave! I’ve been under that desk for ages waiting to speak to you.”

Amy fervently hoped that he wasn’t considering a rapid leap out of the window. While she could grab on to the end of his cloak and refuse to let go, somehow, that wasn’t the way she had envisaged her first meeting with the Gentian progressing. Bad enough to have him haul her out from under the desk—blasted hem!—when she so desperately needed to impress him with her intrepid espionage abilities.

“I want to help you,” she said eagerly.

“Help me?”

Amy chose to ignore the skepticism in the Gentian’s tone. “Yes! I could be a great help to you! I have an entrée into the palace—I’ll be giving Bonaparte’s daughter English lessons. No one except you knows I can speak French, so they’ll talk freely in front of me and I can overhear all sorts of useful things. I’m not squeamish and I’m excellent at disguises and—”

“No.” The Gentian stalked rapidly towards the window. “It’s out of the question.”

“Why?” Amy darted after him. “Do you not trust me? At least give me a trial! Let me do something to prove myself! If I fail, I’ll go away, I promise, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

Richard paused, arrested by echoes of his own voice nearly a decade ago. He had stood there in Percy’s study, pleading with him, begging him, promising anything at all for the chance to go on just one mission.

Richard’s face hardened. It really wasn’t the same thing at all, he decided. True, he had only been a little older than Amy at the time, but he rode, he boxed, he fenced, and, damn it, he wasn’t a tiny female who could be flung over the shoulder of the first lout who happened along.

How could he let Amy wander off on missions on her own? She had said she was excellent at disguises. Imagining Amy roaming the streets of Paris dressed as a highly unconvincing boy made Richard’s blood run cold. Amy might be fine-boned, but Richard had conducted a thorough inspection of her form—in the interest of her safety, of course—and it was eminently clear that the curves so helpfully revealed by her scooped neckline could not easily be compressed into male proportions.

“Wouldn’t you be happier practicing your embroidery?” Richard suggested irritably.

“Embroidery?”

“Or you could always take up an instrument.” Richard tried to herd Amy towards the door. “Why don’t you go see if there’s a harp in the music room?”

“Are you trying to fob me off?”

There didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. “Yes.”

Amy planted her hands on her hips and looked the Gentian firmly in the eye—or, rather, in the mask. “You don’t seem to understand. I came to France for the express purpose of joining your League. This isn’t some silly whim. Unlike some people, who flit about the continent and consort with the enemy . . .”

Like Lord Richard Selwick, Amy added mentally.

Like me, Richard specified, with an inward smile. So she was still brooding about that, was she?

“. . . I take the plight of France very seriously, and I intend to do something about it.”

“An unusual interest for an English debutante.”

“Most English debutantes,” Amy explained with a wry twist of the lips, “don’t have a father who died on the guillotine. I do. And I intend to make sure his death does not go unavenged.”

Something about her demeanor killed the flippant reply that had rested on Richard’s lips. “Your father,” he said instead, “might consider it a greater tribute for his daughter to live long and happily. A spy cannot hope for either.”

“My parents were robbed of long and happy life by the Revolution.”

“All the more reason for you to aspire to both.”

“How could I live long and happily knowing that their murderers prosper?” Amy’s hands clenched into passionate fists. “I have spent my entire life in training for this moment! You can’t just turn me away with platitudes about playing the harp and living a happy life.”

Damn, thought Richard, who had fervently hoped to do just that.

Amy took a deep breath, and tried to school her voice into a calmer tone.

“All I ask is one chance. Is that so unreasonable?”

“Yes. It is.” The Purple Gentian seized Amy by the shoulders and marched her over to the mirror over the fireplace. “You”—he pointed at her image in the glass—“are a girl.”

“That’s not exactly an original observation.” Amy squirmed out of his grasp. “And besides, I really don’t see what that has to do with the matter at hand. I—”

“It has everything to do with the matter at hand,” the Gentian cut her off. “Don’t you realize the sort of risk you’d be putting yourself into?”

“No more than you do every time you undertake a mission. I understand the danger. And I’m not worried. Really.”

The Gentian’s gloved hands flexed impatiently. “Well, you ought to be. You shouldn’t even be here now! It can only be termed criminally idiotic of you to be alone, in the dark, with a man whose identity is entirely unknown to you. With any man, for that matter,” he ground out.

“But your identity is known to me. You’re the Purple Gentian! And if it’s propriety that you’re worried about, who is there to see us? As long as no one knows you’re here, my reputation is perfectly safe. And I’m certainly not telling.”

Richard resisted the urge to drive a fist into the wall. “God, Amy, your naïveté is terrifying!”

Neither of them noticed that he had used her first name.

“I am not naïve,” she said stiffly. “Unless it’s naïve to weigh all the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion. I’ve read about everything you’ve done. Everything! You’ve always been the very soul of honor. Why would you do so much good for so many people only to behave ill towards me? Is that naïve?”

“Yes,” said the Gentian sharply. “And what proof do you have that I am the Purple Gentian? I could be a bloody highwayman for all you know.”

“I felt your ring.”

“You what?”

“I felt your ring. When I took your hand, when you first came in. I could feel the shape of the flower engraved on your signet ring through your glove. After all,” she added smugly, “there was no other way I could be sure it was you. I am not quite so naïve as you think.”

“Minx!” the Gentian exclaimed with grudging admiration. “Subtle, too. I had no idea what you were about.”

“That’s because I didn’t intend you to.” Amy basked in his approbation. “Does this mean . . . have I passed?”

Richard closed his eyes. Damn, damn, damn. If he were intelligent, he would leave now, before this ridiculous conversation went any further. Only, given the determined set of Amy’s jaw, she would probably try to follow him. Just what he needed: Amy blundering after him down the midnight alleyways of Paris.

He could solve the problem by making her despise him. He could mock her ambitions, belittle her abilities, dwell crudely upon her physical attributes. Within ten minutes, rather than begging him to stay, Amy would be pushing the Purple Gentian headfirst out the window with a boot in his back for good measure. All he had to do was make her hate him.

He couldn’t do it.

“I am losing my mind,” muttered Richard.

“What was that you said?” Amy asked hopefully.

Ping! Ping! Ping! The china clock on the mantelpiece rocked alarmingly on its base as its high-pitched chimes rang out the hour.

Amy froze.

“Midnight,” Richard said grimly. Blast! If his suspicions were right, Balcourt could be here at any moment.

The last chime of the clock was still reverberating through the room when it was replaced by a very different sort of sound. An uneven series of clumps and thuds filtered softly through the closed French doors. Just on time, Richard thought dourly, listening to the footfalls on the flagstones of the courtyard. Not only Edouard Balcourt, by the sound of it, but a whole series of booted feet.

Damn. He couldn’t allow himself to be found here. Even if Balcourt wasn’t an agent for Bonaparte, Richard’s presence in his study, at midnight, in the company of his young and nubile sister, would be bloody hard to explain.

Swift action was required. So Richard acted. Swiftly.

Grabbing Amy’s arm, Richard pulled her with him behind the curtains of the window seat.

Chapter Sixteen

Whump! Amy fell back with a thud against the Purple Gentian’s chest.

Swallowing an automatic exclamation of surprise, she struggled to catch her breath and her balance. She had lost her footing entirely when the Purple Gentian hauled her behind the curtain, and was sprawled across his lap in a very unsettling way. Under her cheek, she could hear his heart beating in rapid staccato through the thin linen of his shirt. That made two of them—her own pulse was racing, whether from sudden movement, fear of discovery, or in imitation of the pulse beating in the masculine chest beneath her, Amy wasn’t sure.

The linen of his shirt pressed warmly against her cheek, lightly scented with the clean, spicy tang of orange peel. Amy pushed against an uncomfortably hard cushion to lever herself up off the Purple Gentian. The cushion shifted beneath her hand in a most uncushionlike fashion, displaying an impressive array of muscles. Oh good heavens, had she just grabbed the Purple Gentian’s thigh? Amy snatched her hand away with a speed that would have done Miss Gwen proud.

Losing her balance, Amy tumbled back against the Gentian. “Oof,” grunted the Purple Gentian.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Amy mouthed, which was pointless, since she was facing away from the Gentian, but made her feel better anyway.

One would think he might lend her a hand, instead of lying there, impersonating a cushion. Oh, wait—his hand was pinned under her elbow.

Amy twisted her body to free the Gentian’s hand, winding up with her nose wedged into a citrus-scented sleeve.

From the courtyard, the sound of the men’s voices had become louder, despite the extra barrier of the heavy fabric of the curtain. Not just one voice, but several. Grabbing the end of the window seat for balance, Amy wiggled off the Gentian’s lap. The Gentian emitted a sort of muffled groan. Amy winced, mouthing another unseen apology. She really did have to stop injuring the man if she hoped to convince him to accept her into the League. Squirming around to face the draperies, she tucked her knees up underneath her so that her legs wouldn’t dangle off the edge of the window seat and possibly disturb the fall of the fabric.

Outside, someone dropped something—was that wood splintering?—and a rough voice cursed loudly. It sounded, Amy thought, straining to hear, like that man who had been quarreling with Lord Richard’s coachman in the courtyard several days ago. Good heavens, was he robbing the house?

Or could this be something to do with the plans of the Purple Gentian? Amy cast a quick, sideways glance at the man on the window seat beside her. His face revealed nothing. Which, Amy thought with a certain amount of aggravation, might have been due to the fact that, between the mask and the hood of his cloak, there was very little of his face revealed to begin with. Amy chafed at the futility of trying to read emotion from the set of someone’s nose.