To Kiss A Spy by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

lyre.”
    “It’s the Welsh in me,” he said with a soft laugh, and Pen realized what it was about his voice: those lilting cadences were Welsh. “I sing a passable tenor, too,” he said, and now it sounded as if he were teasing her.
    “But your name is French and Mistress Rider gave you the title of chevalier. A French knight’s title.”
    He put a hand on her head, a warm palm steadying her, and the sudden intimacy of the touch sent a jolt through her belly and brought the fine hairs of her nape on end. “Hold still, please.” He bent closer, applying the hot cloth like a compress.
    “How bad is it?” Pen asked, struggling to regain her composure.
    “Not as bad as I first thought. But it’s ragged and I’m afraid it might scar.” He straightened and dipped the cloth in the basin again. The water turned pink.
    He continued to talk in his calm fashion as he returned his attention to her wound. “Anyway, to answer your question, my father was French, my mother is Welsh. I spent most of my growing years in France, mostly at court, but when I speak English my mother’s accent takes over.”
    “I like it,” Pen said, wincing at the sting of witch hazel as he splashed it into the wound.
    “Why, thank you, madam.” He laughed a little and she found she liked his laugh too. It was light and soft and seemed to indicate that he found more than the issue at hand amusing. In fact she was beginning to think that he was the most relaxing person she’d ever been around. Which was a curious paradox when she was also utterly convinced that he was the most dangerous person she’d ever been around.
    He smoothed soothing cool salve into the cut, and the contrast after the heat of the water made her shudder. “So what were you looking for in the Bryanstons’ library?” he inquired casually.
    Pen’s head jerked upright. “What makes you think I was looking for anything?”
    “I have eyes and can in general put words to what they’re seeing. . . . There now, I’ll put a bandage over it and a physician can decide when you get home whether it needs to be stitched.” He suited action to words, binding a soft pad over the cut with a strip of bandage that circled her throat.
    “You were married to the Earl of Bryanston, I understand?” he continued in the same casual tone.
    That would not be hard to discover, Pen thought. It was perfectly common knowledge.
Why was he interested in her?
    “Yes,” she agreed.
    “Perhaps you were looking for something that had belonged to your husband,” he suggested, turning to the door as Cedric entered with a tray. “Good lad, put it down there and then find yourself a bed in the kitchen. We’ll not be going anywhere until it grows light.”
    “But I must go home!”
    “I’ll escort you as soon as it’s light.” He brought a pewter tankard over to her. “This will soothe whatever aches and pains you still have.”
    “Thank you,” Pen said faintly, taking the fragrantly steaming tankard from him.
    “I see no virtue in going back into that frigid night when we can sit and drink companionably before a warm fire,” Owen pointed out, hitching another stool to the fire with his booted foot. He sat down with his own cup of strong distilled waters and took a deep draught.
    “Your husband died nearly three years ago, I believe. Did he fall ill?” His melodious voice was so gently interested, his tone so intimately confiding, that Pen found herself answering him without hesitation.
    “Yes, it was very sudden. One day he was fit as a fiddle . . . he was never very strong, quite the antithesis of his brother.” Scorn laced her tone. “Miles has a weak brain and a strong body. Philip was the opposite.”
    She paused, then continued into the inviting silence, “But he was well that autumn. Stronger than I’d ever seen him, and he was so delighted about the baby. . . .” Her voice faltered. She drank from the tankard.
    Owen waited peacefully, his steady gaze revealing nothing