Page 35 of The Spy and His Lady Love
Harry scoffed. “I met with Prinny.” He reached into his inner coat pocket and threw a large envelope onto the desk top. “Everything you asked for returned to you.” Harry waited until the baron scoured the documentation before he continued. “Now. I would like to collect my wife and leave without further ado.”
“Yes. Yes. One moment please.”
Chills of warning crawled up Harry’s spine and he knew Littleton stalled for time. Perhaps he didn’t have it in him to kill him and instead waited upon the butler’s return to do the deed. Too bad killing him wouldn’t be all that easy. Because Harry could hear the commotion coming from down the hall. His men had arrived. Harry whipped out his pistol, cocked it, and aimed it at Littleton’s head. “I wouldn’t move if I were you. I have a twitchy finger. One never knows when it will…twitch.”
Littleton’s face drained of blood. “Come now, Newbury. We had a deal. I get what I want and you get your wife. You didn’t even give me time to have my butler retrieve her from her room. A room I might add that had all the comforts of home.
Penelope heardvoices and banging from downstairs. Hurried footsteps rushing by her door. Her pulse roared. Something was happening. Could she dare get her hopes up? Had Harry stormed the front door, knocking aside all who got in his way to rescue her? Her mind resembled one of Emma’s gothic novels. When her door did not crash open, she tried to hide her disappointment as noises came from Smythe’s room next door.
“It’s about bloody time you arrived.” Smythe’s voice was recognizable through the wall.
“You’re bloody shit lucky we came for your sorry arse at all.” A voice she thought was Harry’s valet, Edmond. Was he in the organization as well? Before she had her answer, the man she’d come to know as Littleton and Harry bolted through her door. Just as her husband reached her, the baron somehow shoved him aside. He then wrapped a hard arm around her waist. His other hand raised a blade to her neck.
“You better not move if you want to see tomorrow,” Littleton said, breathing hard as though he’d run up the stairs and down the hall, which he no doubt had.
She screamed, “Harry!”
He looked more like Hugh than Harry since his cane was gone, his patch missing. The only resemblance to Harry was the fake scar.
“Don’t move,” Harry barked. “Please don’t move.”
She froze, afraid to move, frightened the baron would kill her anyway as a means to punish Harry. He hated Harry and all the good he stood for. The baron and the people he worked with, and for, had no moral compass. He wouldn’t think twice littering the ground with dead bodies. Oh, dear. She gasped. Stop thinking terrible thoughts. Think positive. Harry won’t let anything happen to her. But what about him?
“What do you want now, Littleton?” Harry asked, standing feet apart, arms across his chest, looking for all the world as though nothing were amiss.
“What I was promised. Freedom to take my title and lands and live my life in safety. I’ll give up my spying for France and your lovely wife.”
“How do I know you will hold up your end of the bargain? That you will not continue to spy for France? That you won’t exact revenge on those who have wronged you?” Harry said with an even tone.
To Penelope’s way of thinking, he gave nothing away. Showed no emotion. Meanwhile, her insides tumbled over and over again. Her pulse pounded inside her ears, and she thought she might faint from lack of air. She’d never fainted in her entire life and would not let it happen now. Think, think, she said to herself. What could she do to distract the baron?
Littleton laughed. “You don’t. You just have to trust me.”
Before Harry could answer, several things happened at once. A crowd of men entered her room with guns in their hands pointed at Littleton. The baron, momentarily distracted, loosened his grip on her waist and at her throat. Harry crashed forward, smacked the knife from the man’s hand, and Harry fell to the floor with her. He twisted so his body took the brunt of the force. She landed hard on him, the air knocked from her lungs, and it took her time to be able to breathe normally. By then, two of the other men marched Littleton by gunpoint out of the room. No doubt he would hang for his crimes to the crown. Penelope tried to feel bad for him, but according to her husband he’d caused many innocent lives to be lost and she could not find it in her.
Once most everyone was gone, Harry helped her stand and hugged her close. His body trembled as hard as hers, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on as tears of relief streamed down her cheeks.
“Before I leave,” the one man still in the room said, who looked an awful lot like Mary Spencer’s husband, “is there anything you need, Your Grace?”
“No, Smythe. With Littleton in custody, I’m taking my wife home and begging her forgiveness. I suggest you do the same with yours.”
Smythe bowed. “Thank you.” He nodded his head, acknowledging Penelope. “I hope to see you under better circumstances next time we meet.”
“Yes,” was all she could manage as he exited the room. As Harry led her toward the door and freedom she said, “Was that Mary Spencer’s new husband?”
“Yes indeed.”
Her head snapped his way just as they entered their carriage. “Does everyone you associate with work for the Crown?”
“Not everyone.”
