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Back Stealth Save as PDF
Chapters (71)
  1. Cover
  2. BOOKS BY STUART WOODS
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  66. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  67. Excerpt from TREASON
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  70. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  71. What’s next onyour reading list?

“And are the Balfours of Rutland County well enough off to endow her thus?”

“They are important landowners in that county and have been for two hundred years.”

“So, Daddy and Mummy don’t feed the chickens and milk the cows?”

“Her father is the cousin of a local duke and is a member of White’s and the Garrick Club. Her mother is a bulwark of half a dozen Rutland charities. She has a sister who seems to be edging toward an aristocratic marriage.”

“My goodness,” Stone said. “Ms. Balfour seems to be too good for MI-6, doesn’t she?”

“No one is too good for MI-6,” Felicity replied. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and see if that institution is still where it was this morning.”

“Lunch is on me,” Stone said.

“Of course it is,” she said, opening her handbag and fishing out a computer thumb drive. “Here is the recording of your escapades of last night,” she said. “It’s the only one.”

With that, Felicity flounced out to her waiting car.

18

Stone had nothing further to keep him in London for the remainder of the day, so he got his things and asked for his car. On the drive down to Windward Hall he reviewed his evening and morning and decided he knew not much more than he had the day before, save a new name. Everything else he knew was the same.

—

Back at Windward Hall he gave the car and luggage to Stan, then went to the library. Dino was asleep on the Chesterfield sofa, a light blanket over his feet. Stone found his book on the mantel—a new biography of Winston Churchill by Andrew Roberts—and sat down to read, pleased to see that he had passed page five hundred in a book of more than one thousand pages. He was immediately sucked back into the existence of the greatest Englishman as he became prime minister during World War II.

He had read another twenty-five pages when Dino stirred, then sat up, rubbing his eyes, seeming surprised to find Stone there. “How did you sneak in here without waking me up?”

“I didn’t sneak in, but I did try not to wake you, and I didn’t.”

“Then why am I awake?”

“You are awake of your own volition, since I’ve been sitting here for an hour. Is Viv still in London?”

“Yes. How long were you in the bugged suite?”

“Yesterday afternoon and evening. We ordered dinner from room service. Rose left before nine this morning.”

“Now, let me get this straight,” Dino said. “You agreed to have yourself filmed while fucking Rose?”

“Dino . . .”

“You can’t tell me that you spent hours with Rose in a room with a bed without fucking her and vice versa.”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“So, MI-6 now has what most people would call a ‘compromising sex video’ of you and Rose together?”

“They do not.”