She chuckled, that rich real sound that he preferred over the false one she put on for her admirers. “Better than being dead, I suppose. How’s your wound?”

Valentine reached up to the dried line of blood and winced. It wasn’t deep, but it stung. He didn’t want to touch it, but it probably needed a good cleaning, just in case, once they got back to civilization. He’d seen sepsis set in from an insect bite that had gotten infected. “It’s fine for now.”

“You were lucky it wasn’t worse,” she said.

“Thanks to your shout of warning.”

Valentine blew out a breath, all of his questions rising to the surface again. They had skirted long enough around the issue of how they were in this predicament in the first place, and now it was time for some answers. It was clear that she knew what he was, even though he had avoided admitting anything with his usual, automatic deflection. Technically, he wasn’t a spy any longer. It was Lisbeth’s mission, though that was splitting hairs at best.

“Exactly what kind of trouble are you into?” he asked bluntly.

She exhaled. “I’m not in trouble. Well, not technically.”

Valentine fought the bubble of frustration at her stubbornness. He couldn’t help her if he didn’t know the scope of the mess she’d found herself in. He’d long revised his earlier speculation that she was meeting a lover, unless it was a tryst gone wrong. A disagreement on terms or jealousy or some such. He had seen it a thousand times in the rookeries. But this wasn’t that. Back at the tavern, there’d been no desire on her face at all.

“Bronwyn, you nearly got killed by a group of hoodlums. You’re dressed in clothes that no lady of your station should be caught wearing, and you’re sneaking off to meet with strangers in seedy taverns three thousand miles away from where you should be.”

“Snug in my bed like a good little girl?”

Hell if her words didn’t make his traitorous blood simmer. She was a paradox, this woman. Sweet, and cloyingly innocent one moment and then a saucy hellion with a sword for a tongue the next. Who was Lady Bronwyn Chase? Had he been wrong about her all along? Lisbeth had sensed there was more to her, but he’d been so blinded by antipathy that he’d missed all the signs. Blinded by obvious misdirection. Devil take it, the little minx had pulled one over on him.

“Was it an act?” he asked with a narrowed glare.

She eyed him back, her shadowed blue gaze glimmering with yellow and red tones from the flames. “What?”

“The flirtations. The intrigues. The love letter.”