Read In Bed with a Spy for Free Online

marriage?”
    “Ah. Well—” the dowager began. “Um.” She fingered her needlepoint contemplatively.
    “There’s always . . . hm.” Lisbeth stared out the window.
    “A wife can warm your bed,” Maggie piped up. “Your bed must be very cold, because Grandmamma says that half of the women in London have tried to warm your bed.”
    “Grandmamma!” Lisbeth slid down in her chair while Elise snickered from the floor.
    “I suppose a warm bed would be nice.” Amused, Angel watched his mother’s face flush with embarrassment as she busied herself with the needle and thread.
    “And then of course, there’s love, isn’t there?” Maggie finished. Every eye in the room fastened on her. “Grandmamma says she married for love, and she was happy her sons did as well. She says no one should ever marry for anything but love.”
    “Your Grandmamma is a very wise woman,” Angel said softly, eyes on that solemn pixie face. “I hope you listen carefully to her.”
    “Angel.” The dowager’s needlepoint lay forgotten. “Isn’t there anyone . . . ?” But she stopped. She always did. She had never met Gemma, but she’d known there was someone. He supposed mothers usually did. Then it had all ended, and there had been no one important since.
    “Excuse me, Mother. Ladies.” He bowed to the collective female company. The only woman not watching him with some pity was Maggie, who was busy with her soldiers. “I was informed I had a missive waiting for me when I arrived. I must attend to it.”
    —
    T HEIR VOICES ECHOED down the hall and into his study long after he had left them. He kept the study door open. He wanted to hear that bright, feminine sound.
    He broke the seal on the message, smoothed out the folds in the paper. He sifted through multiple sheets, thumbs skimming across the smooth surface. What had the lovely Widow Fairchild been doing in the last few years? And where had she come from?
    If the reports were to be believed—and they should, as he’d asked his best informants—she was the daughter of a country squire. She’d married the only son of a neighboring family, who went to war against his father’s wishes, but with the support of his mother. And her own family? What of them? The report did not say.
    The quill on the edge of his desk was light in his fingers as he made a note to pursue information on her family. Then he turned to the next portion of the report. Lilias Fairchild had followed Major Fairchild on nearly every campaign, usually traveling with the troops, though she did occasionally travel separately with other families.
    He had a good idea of her experiences on the march. She might sleep anywhere from a local inn with clean sheets to a tent in an open field. Perhaps even a makeshift hut, if necessary. Disease, low rations. Cold. God, he remembered the cold himself. It didn’t just seep into the bones. It pierced with such bitterness a man could barely sleep or eat. Worse was the danger of retreating armies after a battle and the plundering that occurred.
    Not a pretty tale. But she had lived it, according to the official military records. The question was, what part of her life was not in the official records?
    He could find nothing untoward in her history, so he turned to Major Fairchild’s military record. It was exemplary. He had earned his promotions, was well respected by his men. Angel studied a list of campaigns the regiment had been on. He ran a finger down the rows of letters. They had not been in Pamplona when Gemma had been killed, but the regiment had been at the siege of San Sebastián. Only fifty miles. Less, perhaps. It had been a two-month siege. Plenty of time to travel to Pamplona.
    It could be done
. But it was not Mrs. Fairchild’s hand that had held the knife. Gemma’s killer had been a man. Still, there was more than one Death Adder, and they did work in pairs on occasion.
    And she had the medallion. He could not find an explanation for that.
    The