His Silken Seduction: A brotherhood of spies in Napoleonic France (The Aikenhead Honours Book 4) Read online

  HIS SILKEN SEDUCTION

  Book 4

  of

  The Aikenhead Honours

  A Brotherhood of Spies

  Driven by Duty—Tamed by Love?

  HIS SILKEN SEDUCTION

  The Aikenhead Honours Book 4

  by

  JOANNA MAITLAND

  Published in the United Kingdom by Joanna Maitland Independent in 2020

  LibertaBooks.com

  His Silken Seduction

  ~The Aikenhead Honours Book 4~

  a revised and expanded edition of the ebook novella

  originally published by Harlequin Mills & Boon Ltd in 2009

  by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  Copyright © Joanna Maitland 2009, 2015, 2020

  Third revised edition 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-913915-03-2

  The right of Joanna Maitland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Thank you for purchasing this eBook. Please note that it is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you think this book is worth sharing with someone else, please purchase additional copies for each recipient. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete or return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the rights and hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Requests to publish work from this book should be made to:

  [email protected]

  Cover Design: Joanna Maitland

  Cover Images: Joanna Maitland; Adobe Stock / Jonathan Stutz, yuriyzhuravov

  Interior Formatting: Joanna Maitland

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Historical Note

  The Aikenhead Honours Series

  Dear Reader : from Joanna Maitland

  Joanna Maitland Titles

  Chapter One

  France, March 1815

  They were coming for him.

  They had come out of nowhere. Five of them. And they had knives.

  Ben started to run. What choice did he have? He was alone. No…no, Jack was about somewhere. Where? Ben couldn't see him, but he must be—

  No time to think about that. It didn't matter anyway. Two against five was very poor odds, especially when the two were unarmed and the five were not. It was every man for himself.

  Run, you idiot. The voice in his head was insistent. Faster. If they catch you, you're dead meat.

  Ben put on a spurt. He could do this. He could.

  He must.

  He was almost out of the old port area. Only another few yards to the end of the quay. There must be safety up ahead. Somewhere. Somewhere less dangerous. With civilised people. If only he could—

  Pain ripped through him.

  Then—only then—he heard the report. A shot. One of those blackguards had shot him. And he was falling. Falling…

  His last thought was to wonder why the ball had hit him before he had even heard the shot.

  And then he was floating. Surrounded by shifting dark mists that rolled and twisted into fantastical patterns and shapes. Bringing with them strange, sun-drenched scents.

  Am I dead? He dragged in a desperately needed breath. And discovered how much it hurt. If it hurts, I can't be dead, can I?

  He sucked in another breath. And a blinding light burst through the pain. He remembered. If he was injured, how could they continue with their mission? Their mission for Wellington was vital. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. He groaned out the precious words. "Mission. Wellington." As if, by speaking them aloud, he could make all right again. "Mission."

  Those perfumes were swirling around him once more. This time, they swept him off to a hot sunny hillside, where he found himself lying on springy grass, gazing up at the sky through yellow puffs of mimosa flowers, drinking in scents of lavender and rosemary. But with his next breath, the dark shrouds closed in again, suffocating him and swallowing the sky.

  He wanted to cry out, to fight against the blanketing mists, but he did not have the strength. Their long grey fingers stroked him into darkness, deep as a pit.

  Even in the darkness, there was pain. Piercing, unbearable pain, like daggers in his flesh. Ben tried to move, to throw them off, somehow, anyhow, but the enveloping web was looped around and under him, tying him in a tangled thicket from which it seemed he would never break free. And always the daggers. The daggers. He groaned and thrashed his body from side to side. If he was not dead, he must fight. He must.

  "Sleep now," said a soft voice. It was barely a murmur but it soothed. It must have been sent from heaven. An angel? Cool clean linen was laid on his forehead, as refreshing as joyful rain on dry earth. Ben felt the knots unravel as his bonds receded into the grey mist, defeated by the angel's hand.

  If I can sleep, I cannot be dead. If I can sleep… If I can only sleep…

  It was not sleep that came. It was torture. Suddenly, he was being tossed back and forth between giants. And they were rejoicing at his groans of pain. This was not heaven. This was hell, full of red-hot needles and tongues of fire. From this, there could be no escape. His angel had forsaken him.

  He cried out.

  And his angel returned. His fair-haired angel. Calling his name, through the whirling flames. He wanted to reach for her, but he was pinioned. He could not escape.

  "French," the angel said sternly. "You must speak only French. No English. Only French."

  He was in a French heaven. Or was it hell? But his angel spoke French and so he must do so, too. "No English," he croaked.

  Which language had he spoken? He could not tell. He could not hear his own voice. The circling shrouds were sucking it away, swallowing his words, swallowing everything. Were they trying to suck out his soul?

  He gave a great cry of anguish. But it could not save him. The pit was opening at his feet and he was falling. Down, down, down.

  Into blackness.

  He must climb out of the pit. He must. If he could free his arms, he could climb. He could claw his way out of this blackness. He began to struggle against the invisible bonds that held him…

  "Herr Benn."

  It was his angel's voice. No, not hers. Another's. Another angel?

  He struggled even harder to break free of the darkness. To reach her.


  "Herr Benn, no. You will injure yourself. Wake up. Oh, pray, wake up."

  A hand on his shoulder. Shaking him.

  He was out of the pit. He could open his eyes. There was light. Bright, blinding light.

  And his angel was still there, still there behind the light, still speaking to him in that sweet, urgent voice.

  "Herr Benn. Oh, Herr Benn, you are yourself again. Thank heaven. You were having such a nightmare and I could not wake you. Are you…are you well now?"

  She was speaking French to him. And the room was spinning. Had he really been dreaming? The pit was not real? Nor the giants with their red-hot needles?

  A hand stroked a cooling cloth across his brow. Then it brought a cup to his lips and helped him to drink. The prickle of sharp lemon on his tongue was no dream. He was alive. This was real.

  He turned his head a fraction to search for his angel's face, hoping desperately that she, too, was real.

  Everything was blurred. The light was too bright. In desperation, he screwed up his eyes against it, struggling to focus. There was… Yes, he could make out a halo of fair curls filled with sunlight. And then, at last, a face.

  He sighed out a long, thankful breath. His angel was still at his side. She was real.

  And she was beautiful.

  He did not know who she was, but all at once he understood the meaning of his dream. It was all true, even though it was a weird jumble of memories, interlaced with pain. He and Jack were on a spying mission for Wellington. They had been set upon by a gang of villains as they left Marseilles. And one of the assailants had had a gun.

  "Did they shoot me?" he croaked, in French, gazing pleadingly at his angel. He was hot and aching. Covered in sweat. And the pain was certainly real. It seemed to be worst on his right side. He began to reach with his left hand, to find out how badly he was wounded.

  Soft fingers caught his hand and held it. "Do not distress yourself, Herr Benn," the angel said, frowning down at him. "Yes, you were shot, but the bullet is gone and the wound is clean. Pray do not claw at your bandages. Your shoulder will heal better if you rest." She pushed him gently back on to feather pillows and laid his hand firmly on the coverlet.

  "I… Where am I?" He had not seen this girl before, had he? She looked familiar and yet she was not. He would not have forgotten such fragile beauty.

  She smiled at him. The frown melted away, leaving her skin smooth as a peach. "You are in Lyons. You were brought here by your friend, Mr Jacques, and my sister, Marguerite Grolier. You are safe here, in our weaving house."

  That was why she seemed familiar. The silk-weaver was her sister. And he had seen the silk-weaver in his dreams, had he not? Had she not admonished him to speak only French?

  He was having difficulty working out what was real and what was fantasy. "Jacques is here? I need to speak to him." Jack would be able to explain everything. Jack would set Ben's topsy-turvy memories to rights. Unless… "Jacques? Did they shoot him, too?"

  "Be easy, sir. Your friend came off with a whole skin. As did my sister. You were the only casualty."

  Ben sighed. What a relief. He said as much.

  "For a German, you speak very good French, Herr Benn," she said, smiling broadly at him now. "You have very little accent."

  Another piece of the puzzle slotted into place at her words. Ah yes. Since, unlike Jack, Ben could not speak French like a native, they had agreed that Ben would pretend to be a German. He had become Herr Christian Benn, while Jack had become Louis Jacques, a bourgeois from Paris. Ben must remember to play his part. Was there anything else that he needed to remember? And beware of?

  He must speak French. Only French. No English.

  And he must find out the name of this fair-haired angel.

  She offered him the cup again and he drank greedily. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you, Miss…er… Your pardon, ma'am. I'm afraid I do not know your name."

  "It is Grolier, of course. Suzanne Grolier."

  "Suzanne." He repeated it several times, relishing the taste of the syllables on his tongue. "It is a beautiful name. It suits you."

  She was blushing. "You must not say such things," she said, flustered. She grabbed the cup and made a great show of gathering up the linen she had been using to bathe his face. Then she retreated towards the door.

  "Please don't go," Ben said.

  "I must. You need to rest."

  "But I cannot rest if I do not have your promise to return. Will you promise?"

  Her blush was even deeper now, but after a moment she bit her lip and gave a tiny nod. "I will come back later to tend your wound. Provided you promise, in your turn, Herr Benn, to do everything I tell you to."

  He frowned, puzzled. He was missing something important here.

  She took a few steps forward so that she was standing at the end of the bed, looking gravely down at him. "You are an invalid. I am your nurse. A patient must obey his nurse or he will never get well." She smiled swiftly at him, a mischievous smile that lit up her delicate features. "You do want to get well, don't you, Herr Benn?"

  If getting well would lose him that wonderful smile, he was not at all sure that he did.

  Safely back on the dark landing, Suzanne leant against the door and closed her eyes. Only for a second or two, while she tried to order her tumbling thoughts.

  He was surely going to recover now. And he had said she was beautiful.

  Did he feel it too, then? That extraordinary moment of recognition when she had first seen him, broken and bloody on the floor of the old carriage, and known that they were meant for each other. One look was all it had taken. For her. Had he looked at Suzanne in the same way? Had he seen it, too?

  Her practical self intervened. He has only just regained his senses. He is badly wounded, and still very sick. He will need all his energies for staying alive.

  But he had said she was beautiful.

  She sighed and shook her head to clear it. It didn't help. Her love, and her hopes, were fighting with her reason, and no amount of squabbling was going to produce a winner today. It was too soon. Herr Benn needed time to recover his health and strength. She would stay by his side while he did, and she would be able to see, soon enough, whether her love was returned. And in the meantime, she would remember how he had looked at her, his blue eyes very wide, and how he had repeated her name, caressing each syllable. Those were memories to treasure. Even if she could not be sure of exactly what they meant.

  She smoothed her skirts and ran lightly down the stairs to find her sister in the kitchen, making coffee.

  "What on earth have you been doing all this time?" Marguerite demanded. "We have to finish the Duchess of Courland's silk, and Mama is having one of her bad days, and—"

  Suzanne laid a consoling hand on her sister's arm to stop the stream of angry words. Marguerite, as the elder, carried most of the load of running their weaving house. If she was cross, she had cause. She had been doing all their chores while Suzanne sat stroking cooling cloths across her invalid's forehead. "I am sorry, Marguerite. I was with Herr Benn. He is awake at last and himself again. He spoke to me." She beamed at Marguerite. "You saved him and now he is going to get well."

  "If he is awake, you should not be alone with him. It is most improper."

  "What risk can he be to me when he is so ill?" Suzanne protested. "He needs a nurse, not a…a paramour. And there is no one else, is there? Berthe has to stay with Mama and Guillaume has too much else to do, besides having hands that are far too rough for tending open wounds. You yourself said that we should not send Herr Benn to the nuns at the Hôtel Dieu."

  "I think it was actually you who said that," Marguerite said with a gentle smile.

  "Well, you were certainly the one who said we owed them a debt."

  Marguerite took a long breath and sighed it out. "Yes, I did. And we do. Mr Jacques saved me when those men broke into my room in Marseilles. They would have taken all the silk." She shuddered. "I think they would have killed me, too
."

  "So, in return, we will nurse Mr Jacques's wounded companion until he is recovered," Suzanne said flatly. "I will nurse him."

  "But—"

  "You sound like Guillaume, Marguerite. He lectures me about the risk of losing my reputation. And—"

  "And he is right."

  Suzanne shook her head. "My reputation cannot be at risk unless someone in this house gossips about what I am doing. You would not, and neither would Berthe or Guillaume. So what is there to fear?" When Marguerite opened her mouth to protest again, Suzanne said placatingly, "I know you all have my best interests at heart. I have promised Guillaume that I will only dress his wound and take up his food. Guillaume is going to see to the rest, though I cannot imagine how he will find the time. And to allay your concerns, Marguerite, I will promise that…that I will not be alone with him once he is strong enough to rise from his bed. There. Will that content you?"

  Marguerite shrugged. "I suppose it will have to." She shook her head and dropped a kiss on Suzanne's cheek. Then she stiffened and said, "But remember, Suzanne, that we must be very careful. Mr Jacques and Herr Benn are strangers. We do not know where their sympathies lie. So we must say nothing—nothing—about ours. It is vital. You know it is. Promise me, Suzanne."

  Suzanne could not understand why Marguerite was suddenly so wary of their guests. Did Marguerite know more that she was telling about Mr Jacques? They had spent several days on the road together, while Herr Benn was insensible, but still, it seemed to make little sense. "Surely these men would never betray us, no matter where their loyalties lie? You saved them."

  "Men do strange things in the name of honour, Suzanne. And loyalty—loyalty to a cause—can be part of their code. Who knows what they might do, if their duty to their cause was in conflict with their gratitude to us? I would rather we did not test it."

  "Pooh. In that case, I am surprised you allowed them into the house, given your poor opinion of them."