A Code of Love (The Code Breakers 1) by Jacki Delecki Read Free Book Online

scholar instead of one of us was a mistake. I know the situation called for a linguist, but what experience does Kendal have in judging dangerous situations?”
    “Sir Ramston did the best he could with the choices he had. Brinsley was sent to protect Kendal and I expect to hear from Brinsley any day,” Cord said.
    “Brinsley is watching Kendal?’ Ash waved his cigar in the air, his voice laced with disbelief. “It’s hard to imagine that Sir Ramston trusted Brinsley after the scandal with his brother’s fiancée.”
    “Sir Ramston seems to have chosen quite a few of us to make amends in our lives by serving His Majesty on the Continent.” Sir Ramston had saved Cord from a self-destructive path after the accidental death of his older brother. The former head had created a network of talented young men in France who, for various reasons, needed to take a break from their lives in England.
    “Last night you didn’t look like you were making amends. You looked like you’d picked up right where you’d left off.”
    In his isolation as a spy, he believed his fantasies of the indomitable Henrietta Harcourt had been magnified. Last night reconfirmed every yearning. There was one brief moment when his eyes had locked with Henrietta. He felt the same forceful connection, until Henrietta saw Isabelle pressing her breast against his arm and whispering into his ear. Henrietta turned away and never made eye contact for the rest of the evening.
    He risked his life every day in France yet last night he felt trepidation at attempting to please one virtuous woman.

 
    Chapter Five
     
    “They call themselves gentleman, pshaw.” Henrietta plunked her boot into a muddy hole on the sidewalk outside the Abchurch offices. Cold water seeped through to her toes. “Arrogant, self-righteous….” The unpleasant feel of wet stockings only served to fuel her anger at the clerk and all the men in the Abchurch office, the bastion of male superiority.
    Her body shook from the insult and her soaked clothes. The clerk, who had refused her admittance to speak with Sir Ramston, had implied she was a spinster worried for naught about her brother. She bowed her head into the driving rain, glaring down at her sodden black boots. Her dark mood festered like the foul weather plaguing London this last week of April.
    The impact was sudden. She stumbled backward, her arms swung in an outward arc. The slippery mud grabbed at her boots.
    The man thrust his hands into the mud, trying to stop the impact of his large body driving her farther down on the wet ground.
    The shock of the fall left her immobile and speechless. She was flat on her back in the middle of a main London thoroughfare with Lord Rathbourne’s hard body pressing against her. The huge man loomed over her, grinning with all the nerve of a blatant libertine. Looking up into his chiseled face, she noticed the small lines surrounding his bright eyes, laughing back at her.
    He had no discomfiture in his posture and took longer than necessary to right himself. He stood above her, so large, so confident and so male. “Lady Henrietta, are you injured? Allow me to help you up.”
    She heard amusement in his tone. Her whole body quivered with outrage, as did her voice. “I’m perfectly capable of getting up myself.”
    She refused the large hand beckoning to her. She tried to stand, but she was unable to gain any traction in the mud. She pushed against her wet heavy skirt, teetered a few inches from the ground and flopped. Attempting to regain some poise while lying flat on her back, she straightened her crumpled, dirty skirt, pushing it back down to cover her ankles.
    Lord Rathbourne bent, grabbed her by the waist and heaved her upward.
    Her body was thrust against his solid thighs and his expansive chest. Like a flash of lightning, his body heat burned into her, penetrating her soaked clothes. She felt hot, breathless, and furious. She pushed against his chest with her muddied gloves,