Tempting Her Reluctant Viscount by Catherine Hemmerling Read Free Book Online Page B

ago,” Lady Lancaster began. “My beloved James was still alive and we both were working for the war office. By that time, we were well past our prime, but still founts of knowledge, and the war office was loath to let us retire. So, we had taken it upon ourselves to find new talent and recruit them into the spy business. One of our first recruits was the young Michael Ashmore.”
    Of course, Hope had known that Lord and Lady Lancaster worked for the war office, but this was the first she had heard of them recruiting other spies. Knowing that she, herself, along with the rest of the Garden Society, had been recruits of a sort, Hope suddenly realized just what that meant. Lady Lancaster must have seen some of the same skills and talents in them as she had in the spies she had brought into the war office.
    Feeling rather pleased by that, Hope asked, “What made you choose Michael?”
    “Michael has an uncanny skill with languages and accents, in addition to an unassuming, trustworthy air about him. Even the most suspicious and paranoid people failed to perceive Michael as a threat. That is a spy’s greatest asset, really. It is why women do so well in the field. We are so often…underestimated.”
    Hope had to smile at that. Lady Lancaster had said as much before and on more than one occasion.
    When the Garden Society was first formed and the ladies told of their mission, the duchess said their success would come from being relatively unseen and undervalued, because men, in general, wouldn’t hold their tongues around them, believing—erroneously, of course—that women didn’t have the intelligence to understand the simplest of concepts or intrigue.
    And in Hope’s experience, Lady Lancaster was correct. Even her father, knowing Hope’s skill with numbers and odds, thought she was unaware that the amount of money he was making from her investments and betting advice was not actually making it into the bank and certainly not into the household accounts. He was skimming the funds. Hope was not sure for what reason, as he was the only one who had access to the bank accounts and therefore all of the money anyway, but thus far, she had not mentioned anything to him about her findings. He must have his reasons. Or so she hoped.
    Returning to the more comfortable topic of Michael, Hope said, “So that is why you know Michael so well. You worked with him in the war office?”
    “That is how we met, yes, but there is more to it than that,” Lady Lancaster said with a sigh. “You see, Michael was just nineteen when we brought him into the war office. His mother had passed away when he was quite young and his father was simply more interested in his eldest son—molding him for the title, you understand?”
    Hope just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She had no idea Michael had lost his mother young, nor was she aware of his relationship—or lack of one—with his father.
    “I suppose he was looking for some parental figures and James and I…well, we never had children of our own and something about Michael…touched our hearts.”
    “He is like a son to you, isn’t he?”
    “Just as you are like a daughter, Hope-girl.”
    Lady Lancaster’s eyes welled with tears and Hope found she was hard pressed to hold back her own emotions in light of the heartfelt words.
    …
    Standing just inside the doorway of the Rose Room, Michael wondered what Lady Lancaster and Hope had been discussing for them both to be so obviously maudlin. He hoped to God it wasn’t him. The last thing he needed were two women such as these discussing him. Certainly that would only end in no good.
    “Ahem,” Michael coughed from his vantage point near the door.
    Both ladies jumped at the sound, their heads whipping around to see him standing there. Turning back to look at each other again, Hope and Lady Lancaster both started laughing. Then they gave each other a brief, but heartfelt, hug.
    “Michael, dear, don’t just stand there. Please