Most unfairly, Hugh quickly put a damper on her spirits. “Beth, I am not a spy.”

  Beth’s shoulders drooped. “Oh. Well. You’d have to say that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Beth Mead—”

  “Oh, you can’t get around me by saying my name; I am the youngest of three siblings!” Beth said dismissively, waving a hand as her spirits rose. “I cannot believe it. I could not have chosen a better man to help me!”

  And though there was no real reason to be cheerful, though they had no additional information on Matthew, Beth could not help but feel better.

  A spy, even one down on his luck, was precisely the sort of gentleman perfect for hunting for a missing brother. Why, he would surely know all the tricks of the trade. Ways to get information out of people—he had said, hadn’t he, that bribes wouldn’t work!

  “I understand why you have to be cagey,” Beth said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “But you do not have to worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  Hugh raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you had anyone to tell.”

  A little chastened, she said, “Well. The point is, even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

  For some reason, this seemed to antagonize the spy in disguise rather than comfort him. “Drop it, Beth. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  Of course he didn’t, Beth thought with pleasure as they continued silently along the road. A spy who had been brave, perhaps risked his life for another, would not wish to draw attention to that fact, would he?

  Perhaps she had misjudged him. Hugh Shardlow had evidently been weary when she had come across him, but he had attempted to rescue her the moment they met, had he not? Was that not proof positive that he had a good heart, even underneath all the gruffness?

  Well, he could keep his secret and she would keep it too, Beth decided. No mention of it to anyone, not even Matthew when they found him.

  Perhaps when they got back to England, she mused, she could tell Matthew and Nancy. But no one else.

  “Cheer up, Hugh, we’ll soon be home in England,” she said bracingly, nudging him. Using a gentleman’s first name still felt strange, but she was beginning to consider him more “Hugh” than “Mr. Shardlow”. Strange how that had happened. Perhaps because of the kiss—

  Oh, lord, she’d kissed a spy!

  “What is it that you miss about it?” Hugh asked quietly.

  “Oh, everything, I suppose,” Beth said without giving it much thought. It was England. She missed it all. “What about you?”

  It was not exactly a subtle investigation into his past, even Beth would admit, but she couldn’t help it. She was looking at Hugh Shardlow with new eyes after discovering his secret.

  He was handsome, wasn’t he?

  “I don’t want to talk about my past,” Hugh said shortly. “Look, you obviously have a great home to return to, but my family made sure not to make me welcome.”

  He continued in silence as Beth stared in confusion. No, that wasn’t right. Was it?

  “I wish to return to England because…because my sister is due to be confined at any moment, and I am the only family she has.”

  “Except…except your sister,” she said timidly.

  Hugh glanced over, a frown across his face as a cloud drifted over the sun, casting them immediately into a chill. “What do you mean my sister?”

  Beth swallowed. There was a strange feeling in her stomach, one of great discomfort.

  “I wish to return to England because…because my sister is due to be confined at any moment, and I am the only family she has.”

  That was what he had told her when they had struck their bargain. That he wished to return for his sister—but now he had forgotten his sibling’s entire existence?

  “You said,” she began uncertainly. “You said, you wanted to go back to England because—”

  “Oh, my sister, yes, her confinement,” Hugh said hastily, a lopsided grin creasing his face. “Goodness, forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on. You see, I could never be a spy.”

  Beth nodded, though she said nothing.

  Well, there were two possible explanations, she thought as they continued along the road in uncomfortable silence.

  Either he had truly forgotten about his sister. That felt unlikely, but then, he had been in rather a rough state when she had first found him.

  Or…or it was all part of his cover, Beth thought with hope sparking in her heart. Of course! A spy would not admit he needed to return to London to report back to his superiors. No, he would make up a story about a sister!

  Beth smiled, warmth spreading through her chest as she slipped her hand through Hugh’s arm. He really was rather handsome.

  He looked at her with surprise. “What’s that for?”

  “No reason,” Beth said, not really understanding it herself. “No reason at all.”

  Chapter Seven

  By the time they reached a place they could stay for the night—an inn which had seen better days—Hugh was on the edge, exhausted, and wondering just how long he could put up with this. Beautiful woman notwithstanding.

  “You are a spy, aren’t you?”

  His shoulder twitched, as though encouraging a fly off his coat.

  It was maddening. He had told the truth—at least, most of it. He had denied the lie, at any rate, Hugh told himself, and that should have been enough.

  So why did he feel so uncomfortable that Beth Mead believed him to be some sort of spy, or war hero? It was ridiculous. Foolish!

  “Beth, I am not a spy.”

  “Oh. Well. You’d have to say that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Almost there,” said Beth quietly.

  Hugh glanced over and saw the tiredness in her bones. She had pushed herself too hard—I have pushed her too hard, he could not help but think. This day has been long, and entirely unfruitful. There was a special kind of tiredness in that.

  Strange. Back in England, he had never done a day’s work in his life, unless one counted hunting, which somehow, he did not. But six months here in France…

  “Let’s hope they have two rooms,” Hugh quipped as they stepped up the path to the inn. “Or else we’ll be sharing one.”

  Beth shot him a look. “If you think for one moment I would allow you to—”

  “It was a jest, nothing more,” he said wearily.

  One he probably should not have made. It was pouring all sorts of ideas into his head, ideas he should ignore. Even if he wanted to pull the hopefully unresisting Beth into his arms—

  “Hugh? Hugh, can you hear me?”

  He blinked. Beth’s voice sounded different. She was standing before him in the doorway of the inn, inexplicably not moving. She was also grasping at her wrists in a strange sort of frenzy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My purse,” Beth whispered, eyes wide as she looked up. “It’s gone.”

  For a moment, Hugh had to carefully parse out her four words to ensure he’d understood.

  “My purse. It’s gone.”

  But that couldn’t be. “I saw you tie it to your wrist, I saw you—”

  “Well it’s not there any longer!” Beth said, her voice rising in both temperature and pitch as panic overcame her. “I don’t understand, I thought it was safely—”

  “It must have fallen off,” said Hugh, his throat dry.

  Well, hell. This was the last thing they needed. Now both of them were in the same sorry position he’d been in when they had met—or perhaps worse. He could get by without any sort of protection, even if no one knew he was a duke, but Beth?

  Hugh’s stomach twisted. A woman, in France, alone, without money?

  It was a dangerous place to—

  But she wasn’t alone, was she? She had him.

  For some reason, Hugh’s chest puffed out and he glanced around as though he might see the purse lying just behind them. Who knew when the wretched thing had fallen—all that money, it was sod’s law that—

  “Perhaps someone stole it,” Beth whispered, eyes filling with tears. “At the market. I was so busy asking—”

  “You would have noticed,” said Hugh with far more certainty than he felt.

  After all, how would he know? He was just a duke who’d come to France for a little pleasure, bored out of his mind in London, and found himself penniless in the middle of a war. He knew nothing of such things!

  But Beth was looking up with such trust, such eagerness, that Hugh’s chest tightened. Oh, blast it all. She thought him a spy, didn’t she? So she would assume—

  “If you say I would have noticed, then I would have noticed,” Beth said softly, trying yet failing to smile. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s gone.”

  “And all the money within it, too,” groaned Hugh, unable to keep his feelings hidden.

  The funds which would have provided a hot meal and a bed to sleep tonight—more, his literal ticket home. Now he would need a new plan. Damn it, and with Beth tagging along.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Beth took a deep breath, and Hugh was surprised to see that after the initial panic, there was something approaching relative calm on her face. Now that, he had not expected. Since when did misses from goodness-knew-where overcome such a shock?

  Even more incredulously, she was now smiling. Smiling? With this disaster?

  “I don’t know what there is to grin about,” Hugh snapped, exhaustion finally overwhelming good manners. “We’re out here with no money for food or lodgings, the ferry to England—”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I never keep all my money in one place, I suppose,” Beth said with a raised eyebrow.

  Hugh stared. “What on earth do you…?”

  His voice was unable to continue. That was because, without taking her gaze from his, Beth had slowly reached down her own corset.

  Hugh swallowed. Oh, hell, this was all too much. How was he supposed to concentrate with—?

  Then his mouth fell open. “A pound note and three livres?”

  Beth shrugged. “I wanted to be prepared for all eventualities. I thought, worst case scenario, if I was robbed or I lost the purse—”

  “You’d still have money,” breathed Hugh.

  Darnation, how on earth had this woman reached whatever age she was without being wed? This Beth Mead was far more impressive than any woman he had ever met—why, even half the men.

  Hugh shifted on his feet. And it was playing havoc with his body, this visceral reaction he was suffering. He had to get a hold of himself—this was not the time to—

  “The trouble is, I don’t imagine it will be enough to sustain us for the next month and get all three of us back to England.”

  Hugh frowned. “All three of us?”

  He realized his mistake the moment he had spoken, but that did not prevent him from cringing at the coldness in Beth’s eyes.

  “You, me, and my brother,” she said icily. “Though you are right. Perhaps it will just be the two of us.”

  Hugh did not need her to state outright that “the two of us” was most certainly Beth and her brother, not Beth and himself. It was plain in her manner, the way she strode into the inn without saying another word.

  Still. It was pleasant, just for a moment, to imagine that “the two of us” could be something far more interesting…

  The inn was a welcome source of warmth. Hugh had barely noticed he was shivering until he stepped into its yellow glow, standing beside Beth, hovering with clear indecision.

  He could see why. That was the trouble with stopping off at any inn that was available. One had no ability to discern whether the place was any good or not.

  Hugh almost laughed. God, he would never have thought like that back in England. He wouldn’t have to! Stopping off at inns was something other people did, not dukes. Certainly not the Duke of Martock.

  Yet here he was, incognito, and or whatever it was called. Putting up with the rabble.

  And goodness, it was a rabble.

  “Ah,” said Beth weakly.

  Hugh nodded. No more needed to be said. The whole place was filled with ruffians and rogues. There appeared to be no tables empty, and though a few only had one man seated, they did not look like the sort of men with whom a lady should converse.

  A noise caught Hugh’s attention and he looked to the left. He had expected a table of that sort, and there was one empty chair. Ideal.

  Well, they needed more money. This inn provided the perfect opportunity to earn it.

  “Beth,” Hugh said in an undertone.

  Beth stepped closer, her sudden presence causing a most distracting rush of something through his lungs that Hugh did not care to investigate.

  He swallowed. “Give me the money.”

  Beth’s eyes immediately narrowed. “Not on your life.”

  “We need more, and I can get it for us—I can win it for us,” Hugh said urgently in a low voice. “Look just behind me.”

  He watched the way a curl fell over her eyes as she tilted her head. His stomach lurched. Now is not the time, he tried to tell himself. Lord, it would never be the time. Beth was a lady!

  Her gaze returned to his. “You intend to take all the money I have in the world, and…gamble it away?”

  “I intend to win a great deal more,” said Hugh confidently.

  Well, it was only a small stream of bad luck that had brought him to the position of no money at all. If those louts had played fair—

  “You must be out of your mind,” Beth said flatly.

  Hugh’s jaw clenched. “Believe it or not, I am quite sane, and quite able to win.”

  Why did he need to do this so badly? Oh, it wasn’t because they were short on coin, though that was certainly a factor. It was probably, though Hugh was loathe to admit it even to himself, a continuation of this strange desire to…

  Well. Impress her.

  It was nonsense. Hugh Shardlow, Duke of Martock, always impressed.

  He stood a little straighter. Yes, he could not think of a single situation in London when he had not impressed! He was an impressive man. Except…

  Hugh’s mouth went dry. Except that in all those situations, everyone knew he was a duke. Was it possible—was it in any way possible that the only reason people had been so impressed, so charming, so respectful, was because of the title?

  Nothing to do with him, as a man, at all?

  “You honestly think you can win?”

  Hugh blinked. Beth was still standing before him, and if anything, he thought she was closer. Her voice was certainly lower. She had a mercenary look in her eyes that he liked.

  There were layers upon layers of this woman. He wanted to unravel every single one.

  “I am sure, as long as they are not cheating,” Hugh said. Well, that was true enough. “But I think in a place like this, no man would be so foolish.”

  “Really?” Beth looked unconvinced. “I would have thought people would be more likely to cheat in a place like this.”

  Hugh grinned. Well, she may not have the manners of a lady, and she may be bold and reckless. She may have entered a war torn country to find a man Hugh was half convinced did not want to be found. But it was moments like this that proved Beth a gentlewoman.

  “Quite the opposite,” he said quietly. “There are probably so many knives in this place, one would be a fool to even consider cheating. Come on.”

  “Knives? Hugh—”

  But Hugh did not wait to hear what Beth was going to say. It was all going to be platitudes and hesitations, and he didn’t want that sort of fear in his mind. If he was going to be bluffing, he needed to be focused. Completely focused.

  “Good evening,” he said pleasantly to the men at the card table. “May I join you?”

  Beth stood by his shoulder, her breathing playing havoc with his concentration.

  Hugh blinked. What had the man said? “I beg your pardon?”

  A couple of the men laughed. One said, “If you’re that easily confused, by all means, pull up a chair!”

  Now the whole table was laughing.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth hissed in his ear. “Why are you being so strange?”

  Hugh shuddered as the warmth of her breath tickled his neck. Hell’s bells, this was never going to work if she was standing right behind him! In fact, now that he came to think of it, having Beth in his line of sight at all was certainly going to mean he would lose.

  Blast. He should have thought of this.

  “Go and sit at the bar,” he muttered.

  “I beg your—”

  “You, Beth Mead, are a distraction,” Hugh said, turning to her and murmuring in her ear, desperately trying not to notice the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breast. “And if you want me to win anything, I cannot be distracted.”

  She met his eye for a painful few heartbeats, and Hugh realized he almost lifted a hand to his chest. Dear God, what was this woman doing to him? He’d bedded plenty, but this was the first who’d managed to get his heart racing before the bedchamber.

  Beth bit her lip and Hugh almost groaned aloud. Did she have any idea—?

  “Fine,” she said darkly, glowering as though he’d mortally injured her. “But hurry up.”

  Hugh nodded curtly and turned away, not trusting his voice. It would almost certainly be shaking, and the last thing he needed was for her to know it.

  He was in enough trouble as it was.

  All the men watched him carefully as Hugh lowered himself into the only empty chair.

  “So, friends,” Hugh said as pleasantly as he could muster. “What are we playing?”

  As it turned out, it was a game he had never played before. Well, that could be a setback, Hugh tried to tell himself, but it only meant he wouldn’t be making any assumptions. He could enjoy the game as it was, without presuming to—

  “Oh, what a shame, you’ve lost,” said the man to his left with a sickly sad smile. “Hand over the coin.”

  Hugh swallowed. Blast. He really had to focus.

  “Who’s your lady friend?” the man to his right asked.

  Forcing down the instinct to push the man off his chair and punch him in the nose for even considering Beth, Hugh tried to smile. “My…wife.”