We didn’t speak. He pointed silently to the desk, and I nodded. In my bodice, I carried a small set of lock picks I’d procured in Chicago, and while I didn’t consider myself a true expert, I could handle most locks within five minutes. A simple desk lock like this should take no more than three. I drew the packet out, pinched a slender rod between my thumb and forefinger, and bent to the task.
While I worked on the desk, Tim quickly scanned the books on the shelf, tapping and nudging to look for anything out of place. A book either more or less dusty than its neighbors might hold a secret compartment. A shocking number of people went to the trouble of hiding things yet did it poorly. A quick inspection, however hasty, might turn up anything.
After the books, Tim moved on to the wall, lifting each painting to check behind it for a wall safe. He was quick and nearly silent. I was breathing softly, systematically working the lock from a succession of angles, waiting for the click of the tumblers.
So when someone turned the doorknob of the study from the outside, we both heard.
He gestured for me to run toward him, and I did, as fast as I could, but the couch was between us. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pulled me over it, and I landed hard on the cushion. He threw his body on top of mine. I didn’t know what he planned until I felt his hand tearing pins from my hair and his mouth suddenly on mine, taking my breath away.
He tasted like tobacco and flesh and heat.
My mind was spinning in three different directions at once, but the most important direction was linked to my ears—listening for whoever was coming in the door. I couldn’t see, not with Tim covering my entire body with his own. The side I’d landed on throbbed under my corset; I could barely breathe. And even with all of that, I found myself caught up in passion. My body arched against his, pressing closer as he pressed down, and his other hand came up to my waist, even though it wasn’t visible from the doorway.
A sliver of light fell across us when the door was opened.
“Pardon!” exclaimed a man’s voice.
We looked up, and Tim pulled away from me, leaving my neck and chest suddenly cold. My mouth felt bruised and raw, swollen from his fierce kisses, and the pain was not entirely without pleasure.
“Do you mind?” Tim said with superior frostiness. Even in my current state, I could appreciate what a good actor he was. No one would take him for anything other than a man in lust, interrupted.
Then he raised himself on his elbows, and his weight shifted, and as his hips pressed mine into the soft couch, I could feel the evidence that his lust was not entirely an act.
Mrs. Greenhow’s butler stood in the doorway, his silver hair glinting in the half-light. He appeared undeterred. “I’m afraid you can’t be in here, sir.”
“We are. And we’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t stand there gawking.”
The butler’s expression did not change. He was well trained. “Of course, sir. But I have to ask you and your companion—”
“My wife.” Tim’s indignant sneer was spot-on.
“I have to insist that you and your wife rejoin the other guests in the drawing room. Mrs. Greenhow does not care for visitors in her study.”
Sensing that the man would not relinquish his position, Tim backed down from his. “All right then. We meant no harm.”
He swung his legs off the couch and stood in one fluid motion, running one hand through his disarrayed hair to smooth it—I realized that was my work—and then turned to offer me his hand.
At that moment, I realized I had left my lock picks. The entire packet lay under the desk behind me, the short metal bars in their sleeves, and the one I’d been using when we were interrupted likely lay exposed and glinting on the carpet. I couldn’t leave them. Even if the servant didn’t notice as he escorted us out, someone would, and only a fool could look at the set of tools and not know what they were for. It wouldn’t take a spy to realize that we, the couple interrupted in the study, had left them. Then all would be over.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Ma’am?”
“Dear?”
“I need a moment, please, needs must—” I looked down at my disarrayed bodice, then up at Tim, through lowered lashes.
“My wife would like some privacy, please,” he said firmly.
“Of course. Sir, ma’am. I’ll wait for you outside and escort you back.”
As soon as the door was closed, I rose from the couch, swept the packet and loose pick from the floor, and tucked them back into my bodice. I then took a half minute to array the bodice flat, tugging and smoothing it into place, so nothing would show. The drawer remained stubbornly closed, and with the butler aware of our presence, it was now too dangerous to attempt to break in. We’d missed our chance.
I did not meet Tim’s eyes as we left the room. I knew we were both disappointed that we’d found nothing we could use yet satisfied that our cover identities were still intact. At least not all was lost.
And if we both felt something else—rattled, confused by pleasure, clouded by the discovery of what seemed to be a mutual lust—we did not discuss it. We lay in the same room in separate beds, across a narrow but steady distance, breathing in the dark.
? ? ?
There were a few steps forward, a few steps back. The war felt like war—surging and sinking, grinding on forever. Washington was a city that would not let us forget. Perhaps back in Chicago, things were different, but in Washington, there were troops in the streets and uniforms in every room we entered, large or small. The city was under martial law, and every stroll down the street carried some small risk of erupting into violence, though thank goodness, it happened less often than we feared. We learned the identities of Mrs. Greenhow’s frequent visitors and dutifully relayed all we learned in long reports to Pinkerton. But we still had no real evidence, nothing we could use to hasten Mrs. Greenhow’s arrest or name her conspirators. All we knew for sure was that she was likely a spy—and a careful one.