Read To Kiss A Spy for Free Online Page A

swiftly moving. But where Philip would not be ruled by his mother, Miles obeyed her every dictate with the faithful devotion of an old dog. Where Philip would have refused to touch anything remotely underhand, Miles would have followed her instructions to the letter and relished every moment. No, surely he would have done his work well. He would have left no traces.
    She glanced at Joan, whose attention had as usual wandered. Lady Bryanston spoke softly to her son. “ ’Tis probably time to check the arrangements. If there’s anything left, make another move. Do it soon. You understand me?”
    Miles grunted a response and called for more wine.
    “You have no need of more wine,” his mother said impatiently. “I want to know what you discussed with the Duke of Northumberland. You were in his company for close on twenty minutes.”
    “Hunting,” Miles said, extending his goblet to the servant who’d run up with a flagon. “We talked of hunting.”
    “Is that all? You didn’t discuss the king’s health as I told you to?”
    Miles hiccuped. In truth he had completely forgotten his mother’s instructions; they had somehow become lost in the wine wreathing through his brain. But he couldn’t admit to that. “It didn’t arise.” He looked soulfully at his mother. “I couldn’t just open the subject myself, could I?”
    Lady Bryanston sighed. “Yes, Miles, you could have done. Everyone is interested in the king’s health, it would not have been remarked upon. If you don’t talk with the duke or try to gain his confidence, how can you suggest the possibility of a new treatment? Sometimes I think—”
    She stopped, for her son was not listening, or if he was he was not capable of absorbing anything she said. “We will discuss this when your head is clear,” she declared with a snap. “I am going to my rest. I bid you both good night.” She swept to the stairs.
    “ ’Tis possible I angered her,” Miles muttered into his goblet. He raised bloodshot eyes and looked at his wife, whose attention seemed to have returned. “D’you think ’tis possible, Joan?”
    “Maybe,” she said mournfully. “ ’Tis not wise, Miles. You should have remembered to talk of the king’s health.”
    “I know but my head was full of the cards and I could think of nothing else.” He tipped the contents of his newly charged goblet down his throat. “Let’s to bed, sweetheart.”
    He gave her something very like a leer but Joan knew from experience that the leer promised nothing. The spirit might be willing but the flesh would be definitely droopy. Sometimes she thought her barrenness might have something to do with her husband’s infrequent ability to perform adequately in the marriage bed, but of course she knew that couldn’t be so. The inability to conceive was always a woman’s problem. Her womb was barren, unfriendly to her husband’s seed, and she knew her mother-in-law blamed her. The dowager countess’s anxiety to have the succession tied up was almost as much of an obsession as Pen’s with her dead child.
    With a tiny sigh, Joan followed her husband’s stumbling progress up to their bedchamber.
    The tavern was set back from the Horseferry steps in its own garden. It was lime washed, half timbered, with a low-pitched thatched roof from which smoke curled in the bright freezing air. Its windows, however, were dark behind their shutters.
    “They’re all abed,” Pen said as Owen, still holding her elbow, unlatched the gate to the path. “I’ll take a wherry at the steps.”
    “Nonsense,” Owen said placidly. “Mistress Rider will be pleased to assist us.”
    “She’ll not be pleased to be woken,” Pen protested, hanging back.
    “She will be pleased to be woken,” Owen responded with cheerful serenity. “Cedric, run around to the back and see if anyone’s up in the kitchen.”
    Cedric trotted off, and Owen adjusted the hood of Pen’s cloak so that it covered her more tightly. The clouds had