Apart from the faintest of flushes against those high cheekbones, he didn’t look in the least bit affected by her impromptu performance. It irked. Here she was fantasizing about him, and he had probably put her from his mind like yesterday’s leftovers. She wanted to cover herself and scream at him to leave. This was her private bath! But a more perverse part of her wanted to make him react. Wanted to deconstruct that careful expression of cool boredom.

“What do you want?” she asked, meeting his unreadable eyes as she reached for the washcloth on the side of the tub and began to wash her already clean body in leisurely circles.

Those hawklike eyes flared, but he didn’t move, ever in complete control. “We need to talk.”

“And that couldn’t wait?”

He glared. “I couldn’t take the chance that you would coerce a servant to assist with your cause.”

“To do what?” she asked, moving the cloth to her neck and her collarbones before trailing it down her torso. “Push me through a porthole?”

“I wouldn’t put that past you.”

“I might be imprudent, Your Grace, but I am not stupid. Where would I go? I have no good soul in Philadelphia to help me.”

“No aunt?” he shot back.

“You know there’s no aunt,” she said mildly and drew the rag over her breasts. The moan that crept past her lips was inaudible, but she sensed rather than saw him tense.

Bronwyn had half expected him to avert his gaze, but the competitive creature in him wouldn’t, recognizing her ploy for the game of seduction it was. His eyes were riveted as the cloth dipped through the valley between her breasts and lower down the expanse of her belly, still moving in small, maddening circles. When that muscle slowly flexed to life in his cheek, she hid her glee.

He glared. “Who was your contact? Richards?”

“She’s a free Black woman with her own troubles. She’s gone.”

“Where?” he demanded.

“Back to Richmond, I expect. To the home of Elizabeth Van Lew.”

Bronwyn saw the moment recognition glittered in that saturnine gaze. Thornbury might not have heard of Richards, but anyone worth his salt as a British operative would have known the name of the abolitionist who had freed her father’s slaves after his death over twenty years ago, brought food and medicine to Northern soldiers incarcerated at Libby Prison, helped them escape, and ferried secret messages to Union leaders.

“Do you mean Mary Bowser?” he asked softly, eyes piercing.

“I suppose that is one of her names, yes.”

“The spy?” Thornbury pressed.

“As much as I am, I suppose.”