The Prince of Spies (Hope and Glory #3) - Elizabeth Camden Page 0,2
your death of cold.”
“Always a ray of sunshine,” Luke chided, but he didn’t resist as his brother nudged him toward the carriage. Luke climbed inside, but before he closed the carriage door, he met her gaze across the frozen landscape and flashed her a wink.
The carriage rolled away, and just like that, the most amazing man she’d ever met was gone.
Luke Delacroix wrapped his hands around the mug of hot cocoa, leaning so close to the fireplace that the heat from the flames baked the side of his face. He savored the sensation, for he was still chilled to the bone. A weird sense of elation lingered as he thought of that moment on the ice, lying flat with his hand clinging to a woman who had more courage than all the bystanders on the shore put together. She was a complete stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger at all. She had dark hair and pretty blue eyes filled with trepidation, but she was out there. He’d been in her presence for only a few minutes but already admired her. Sometimes people revealed their true character very quickly.
He didn’t know who she was, but he’d have it figured out before the end of the day. It would be easy. Number one: he was a spy and good at ferreting out information. Number two: the Brownie camera she used had a government stamp on the case, meaning she probably worked for the Department of the Interior. How many female photographers named Marianne worked for the Department of the Interior?
Gray stomped into the parlor and set a bowl of steaming chowder on the table along with a wedge of cheese.
“Eat all of it,” he ordered, still annoyed over what had happened at the Boundary Channel. They had been on their way to move in to Luke’s new office when snarled traffic slowed their carriage and Luke noticed the bystanders watching a lone woman venture onto the ice to save a floundering dog. He’d ordered the carriage to stop so he could help.
Luke exchanged the mug of cocoa for the soup and began eating even though he wasn’t hungry. The chowder was hot, filling, and the doctor said he still needed to gain another ten pounds to replace the thirty he’d lost in Cuba.
“Should I send a wire to the landlord, telling him we can’t take possession of the office today?” Gray asked. “I don’t want you leaving the house if your hair is still wet. You could get pneumonia.”
Luke was thirty years old, but Gray still smothered him like a mother hen since he got back from Cuba, sick and emaciated. Luke didn’t mind. He’d put his family through a lot over the past year, and he owed them. So he tolerated Gray’s fussing, ate even when he was no longer hungry, and tried to behave himself.
Tried but didn’t always succeed. What sort of man would he be if he ignored that woman attempting to rescue a dog all on her own?
He leaned his head toward the fire, rubbing his hair to make it dry faster. “We can still move in today. I need to get the Washington bureau of the magazine up and running. The November elections might seem a long way off, but I’ve got an interview with Dickie Shuster at the end of the week. I need to be moved in before that.”
“We have to be careful,” Gray said, and this time Luke knew the warning had nothing to do with wet hair or proper nutrition. It had everything to do with the fact that Dickie Shuster was slick, underhanded, and probably the cleverest reporter in all of Washington. “Dickie is still an ally of the Magruders. He will be quietly working to undermine you in hopes of promoting Clyde and the Magruder cause.”
“Wrong,” Luke replied. “Dickie will do whatever is necessary to promote himself.”
The Delacroixs and the Magruders had been bitter rivals for generations. They’d never liked each other, but their animosity boiled over shortly after the Civil War. The Delacroix family, long one of the wealthiest merchant families in Virginia, had lost everything in the war. Their home was burned to the ground, and all four of their merchant vessels were seized by the federal government and never returned. Following the war, their ships were put up for auction. Luke’s father attended the auction to bid on The Sparrow, the smallest of the ships, in a desperate attempt to start rebuilding their fortune.