Beauty and the Spy by Julie Anne Long Read Free Book Online Page B

walking dress in blush-colored muslin. She dispensed with drawers for now, a nod to the heat and to the fact that no clucking maid was about to object. She rolled on stockings, however, because she liked her garters; they were pretty, and they cheered her.
    She twisted her hair into a quick knot. Out of habit, she seized her sketchbook, and then all but tiptoed down the stairs, discovering that the third one from the top creaked. Soft, snuffling snores came in intervals from behind Aunt Frances's door, but the house was quiet otherwise: no maids about starting breakfast or getting in wood or coal for fires.
    The house was so tiny . The sort of house a gardener would live in, she imagined, with its faded wallpaper and scrubbed wood floors, its plain, serviceable furniture. The settee in the parlor was a faded ruby and sagged in the center; there was a large nick in the surface of the small table, which supported the small vase of flowers, a vase lacking any sort of pedigree, no doubt, unlike the one she'd threatened to heave at a cockney workman.
    Panic squeezed her lungs. She desperately needed to step outside, if only to remind herself that the world was indeed bigger than this little house.
    So she pushed open the front door. It was just past dawn, and the roses lining the front of her aunt's cottage were in full exuberant bloom. They were the brightest things as far as Susannah's eye could see; they reminded her of young ladies in ball gowns, with their delicate flounces and rich color—everything else around her was green, green, green. That tiny pressure began somewhere in the center of her chest again, and she knew it might very well blossom into despair if left unchecked, so Susannah reflexively opened her sketchbook.
    With sweeps of charcoal, she captured the roses, their contrasts in texture and color, the tiers of petals, the red shading into crimson at their tips; the tiny stalks topped in yellow fuzz springing from their hearts.
    Finished with the roses, she lifted her head. Outside her aunt's gate, a tree-lined path wound tantalizingly off into two different directions; to the right, where it surely lead to the town of Barnstable; to the left, where it appeared to lead into a wood—the trees were taller there, the greenery denser.
    Something reckless in her reared up. I shouldn't walk alone . Mrs. Dalton certainly would have frowned upon it, as would have all of the duennas who preceded her.
    Which seemed an excellent reason to proceed.
    Overhead, the birches and oaks and beeches had latticed together, creating a romantic sort of arch. It could hardly be dangerous, could it? She entered into it, hesitantly, and then more boldly, and followed it furtively, promising herself with each step that she'd turn back after just a few more. There was something about paths, however: they drew one forward as surely as a crooked finger, and on she went, over soft dirt and leaves crushed to a fine powder by the passage of other feet over the years.
    And she thought, perhaps, if she kept moving, she could outpace the feeling of being dropped outside the comfortable confines of society. Of exile.
    A hot spark of green, very like light glancing off an emerald, tugged her eyes off the path. She braved a few steps into the trees toward it.
    The spark of green expanded into a pond as she approached, luminous as stained glass. Not an emerald, perhaps, but pretty enough, and the dense smell of wet dirt and green things was strangely agreeable. From where she stood, she could see the tip of what appeared to be a faded wood pier; something pale glared atop it. She squinted. It looked like—could it be—
    Good heavens, it rather looked like a pair of feet.
    She craned her head to the left, and stood on her toes, and—
    Clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a yelp as she ducked back against the nearest tree.
    The feet were attached to a man.
    More specifically: a rangy, breath-catchingly nude man.
    Susannah peeped out from around