One Night With a Spy by Celeste Bradley

stood there earlier pondering the gray afternoon?
    Now, with it properly concealed, he could wedge it open a crack and listen quite easily from outside. He quickly descended from the hillside—keeping within the cover of the ancient tree trunks—and made his way from the shadow of the trees across the dark lawn to the planting bed beneath the front parlor window. A push of a finger was all it took to open the window enough to hear the conversation within.
    Two voices, one deep with a lazy cadence that was unmistakably Elliot, one fight with that succulent pronunciation that sent unwanted tingling up Marcus's spine.
    Elliot certainly seemed surprised about something. "Me, my lady? But I thought Blythe-Goodman—"
    Lady Barrowby cut off Elliot's astonished voice. "I hardly know the man," she said briskly. "Now, I know you have a realistic grasp of the situation."
    Damn, he'd missed something important.
    "Of course." Elliot's surprise was no longer apparent. He did seem the sort to bounce back quickly. "I can provide you with a valuable service. You will provide me with compensation."
    Marcus blinked. Service? Compensation? Elliot had no skills to offer that he could think of, other than his charm.
    Lady Barrowby laughed softly. Marcus's nape hairs rose in reaction.
    "No, Mr. Elliot, you do not understand," she said. "I do not wish a merely temporary solution to my problem. I would like to make it permanent."
    There was a moment of silence. Marcus burned to know what was to be permanent.
Bloody hell, answer her, Elliot
!
    "I know you are not interested in false protestations of love, my lady," Elliot said slowly, "but at this moment I do believe you are my favorite woman in the world."
    Marcus heard that soft laugh again, like cream on his tongue.
    "Mr. Elliot, if you agree to this, I. had better remain your favorite woman in the world, till death do part us."
    "That will not be a hardship… Julia."
    No
. Marcus couldn't believe it.
    Till death do part us?
    Julia?
    She was going to wed that useless, pretty boy? That mooching, shallow, debt-ridden tea leaf—
    All right, perhaps "tea leaf " was going a bit far, but for pity's sake, Elliot was a blot on England's masculine population! He was a lazy, overdressed, undermotivated, frivolous gnat! Julia was far too intelligent and lovely to waste herself on such a person of little consequence—
    Julia?
    Marcus realized he was standing ankle deep in the soft soil of Barrowby's flower bed, cursing soundlessly under his breath, absolutely enraged at the idea of his target wedding another man—er,
a
man.
    If he was worried about anyone's welfare, it ought to be Elliot's. After all, Elliot had no previous—dead!—spouses under his belt.
    Then again, if he was going to worry about anything, he ought to be worried about how he was going to accomplish his mission and save the Royal Four from contamination now that Lady Barrowby had neatly foiled his plan to ingratiate himself.
    There were no more voices coming from the parlor. In his moment of fury, Lady Barrowby and Elliot must have made their good-byes.
    Damn.
    Without a second to spare, Marcus threw himself to the ground behind the naked thorny trunks of the rosebushes, just as the front door opened to emit Elliot. Marcus watched from his concealment as Elliot coolly strode down the stately entrance stairs of Barrowby to wait for his horse in the drive.
    As soon as the door behind him closed and cut off the golden triangle of light, Elliot threw back his head, threw out his arms, and hoarsely whispered, "Thank you!" to the heavens.
    Then he performed a brief, elated jig on the gravel drive.
    He's a poor winner, Marcus thought sourly.
    And you're a poor loser.
    Which was absurd, for he'd lost nothing. This was a minor setback, that was all. Lady Barrowby could wed a thousand dandies and it wouldn't stop Marcus from accomplishing his mission.
    He wasn't jealous. He was… merely disappointed. For the sake of his mission, of