Adele swallowed.
Evelyn smiled, her rouged lips thinning. “No, I didn’t think you did.”
Adele fired and threw herself to one side. Evelyn’s small caliber gun made a soft coughing sound, while Melville’s heavy pistol bellowed.
Evelyn cried out as she was thrown backward into the corner of the room. At the same time, the dressing table mirror shattered. Glass tinkled.
“What on earth was that?” someone said from the corridor.
Adele pushed herself to her feet and moved over to where Evelyn sprawled on the floor, a hand to her stomach. Blood oozed through her fingers.
“Evidently, I do have the requisite type of courage,” Adele told her.
Evelyn’s eyes were glazed with pain as she looked up at Adele. “We know about you, now.” Her voice was hoarse.
Adele shook her head. “Peter is dead, Evelyn. You are the only person who knows I work for Melville. If you survive that wound, you will be kept in a prison for a good long while. You won’t be telling your comrades anything.”
Heavy footsteps outside the door.
“Adele!” Daniel shouldered his way into the room.
Adele put up her hand to stop the door slamming into her. “It’s alright, Daniel. I’ve dealt with her.”
Daniel took in Evelyn’s slumped figure on the floor, as Melville and a regimental officer arrived, both breathless and both holding pistols.
Melville spotted Evelyn and rolled his eyes. “The husband, too?” he demanded.
“No.” Adele shook her head. “This will be a nasty surprise for him, poor man.”
“Two of them…” Daniel breathed.
Melville turned to the regimental officer. “Do you have a cellar with no window and a stout lock, Sergeant Major?”
“We can certainly arrange a secure place to put her, sir,” the Sergeant Major replied. “Perhaps a doctor to see to the wound, too?” He moved to the door and gave a whistle. “Beams!”
“Reporting, sah!” came a distant call, and the sound of running feet.
While the officer was at the door, Melville picked up the pistol from where Adele had dropped it and put it on the dressing table.
“That thing is far too heavy,” Adele pointed out.
Daniel choked back a strained laugh. “I’ll get you a lighter one.”
Melville touched her shoulder. “Well done, Lady Adelaide. Very well done, indeed.”
THE TRAIN HAD PULLED OUT of the station and was puffing heavily, picking up speed, when Daniel tapped on the glass of the compartment door and slid it aside. “May I?” He gestured at the seat opposite Adele.
She gave a small smile. “I suppose it was too much to hope I might have the compartment to myself all the way to London.”
Daniel closed the door and sat. “Feeling unsociable, Lady Adelaide?”
“I was hoping for some time to think,” she admitted.
Daniel’s gaze met hers. “I can understand that.”
“You and Melville were rather chummy, this morning at breakfast,” Adele observed.
“That’s what you wanted to think about?”
“Among other things. Mr. Melville seems to feel that I was remarkable, which is…well, quite an odd sensation. I don’t think anyone has ever thought about me in that way before.”
“Which makes every man but Melville an idiot,” Daniel said. “Even me. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Adele gave a soft laugh. “Thank you…I think.”
Daniel reached into his coat pocket. “There is something I wanted to give you. I was hoping to do it at breakfast, but you left Balmoral too quickly.” He pulled out a small leather-bound book, which he held out to her.
Adele took it and turned it around. “Aristotle…” she breathed.
He tapped the cover. “Organon. I wouldn’t recommend trying to read it from cover to cover, though.”
She looked up at him. “Oh?”
“It’s dry as dust,” he admitted.
Adele laughed again.
“There’s many more where that volume came from,” Daniel added.
“Your coat pocket doesn’t look nearly large enough.”
He smiled. “There is a whole world of books out there from which you can acquire even more wisdom.”
Adele smoothed her thumb over the cover.
“Can I see you again, Adele?” Daniel asked, his voice low.
She looked up into his grey eyes. “Are you going to work for Mr. Melville?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “He makes it sound as though one really doesn’t have a choice in the matter—that the fate of the world rests upon doing exactly what he wants you to do, whether you feel up to the challenge or not.”
“I know how that feels,” she admitted.
Daniel leaned forward. “You aren’t about to say no because we might possibly be working for the same man sometime in the future, are you?” His tone was urgent.
Adele sat back. “I seem to have overthrown rather a lot of rules about what one should and shouldn’t do, in the last few days. I suspect one more broken rule will hardly be noticed.”
Daniel considered her. “Is that a yes, Lady Adelaide?”
She opened the book. “Yes.”
______
The Next book in the Adelaide Becket series is
The Rosewater Debutante
Adele learns just how ruthless German agents can be.
In Edwardian England, Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket, continues her work for William Melville, spymaster, even though it has left her with no time to live the life she would prefer, which includes spending at least a little time with Daniel Bannister.
When she refuses to travel to Germany to watch over King Edward while he visits the German Emperor to discuss disarmament of their increasingly more competitive navies, Melville gives Adele an alternative, superficial task of watching over a young, sweet debutante, Lady Winnifred.
Adele perseveres with the useless, quite horrid task of trailing an innocent girl through the Season. It puts her in the path of German agents, who demonstrate just how dark and dangerous her new work really is…
Get your copy of The Rosewater Debutante now!
In the
