Surrender to a Wicked Spy Read Online Free

that!
    Dane had consulted a physician once—and only once. The man had laughed aloud and dismissed him with a clap on the back. "That's no problem, my lord—that's an asset!"
    An asset? When even the most experienced courtesans drew back from him in alarm? When he was supposed to father an heir on an innocent, virtuous girl?
    Some men would force her regardless. It was his right as her husband. The law was clear. Dane shuddered, appalled that he could even think it. There was much that he would do to protect the future of Greenleigh, but never that. If there was another heir, Dane would not even have attempted to wed, preferring to die forever celibate rather than beset a woman with his… problem.
    Yet here he was, about to enter the bridal chamber, his problem growing unabated.
    He had done his best to delay this moment, even to spending most of his wedding night working in his study. Then, when the clock had chimed eleven times, he had known he could not put it off any longer.
    Across the desk from him, his best friend and protégé, Marcus Ramsay, Lord Dryden, caught his grimace and shook his head at Dane. "She's not unattractive, you know."
    Dane shrugged carelessly, his expression carefully neutral. "She is precisely as I wished. A truly lovely woman would be far too distracting."
    Marcus tilted his head. "So what is your difficulty? Why are you here working when you ought to be in the arms of your bride?"
    Dane sighed and shoved himself out of his chair with both arms. "I'm off to her now. Are you satisfied?"
    Marcus grinned, a flash of mischievous youth crossing his usually serious features. "I don't think I'm the one who is to be satisfied tonight."
    Not likely, but he couldn't very well tell Marcus why. Dane frowned. "This is my lady wife we are discussing."
    Marcus raised both hands against Dane's glare. "My apologies. Now, begone. I'll take these documents to the Prime Minister myself tonight. With Napoleon's spymaster still on the loose, I'd rather not trust these to a courier."
    Dane nodded. The Chimera was not to be underestimated. The Royal Four had made that mistake already. For the better part of a year, the mysterious leader of the French espionage in London had avoided identification by the Liar's Club, the band of elite spies who acted at the command of the Royal Four. Only in the last weeks had it been discovered that the Chimera was a master of disguise who had walked among them as a petulant young servant they had all dismissed as harmless.
    Denny—not his real name, surely, but all they knew to call him—had passed from Liar to Liar when his disagreeable attitude had made him impossible to keep around. Now Dane wondered if that had not been another part of the Chimera's plan. Passing through the households of several spies was bound to be more useful than remaining solely in the service of former spymaster Simon Raines, who had now retired.
    The Chimera knew far too much about the Liar's Club—but how much did he know about the Royal Four? Only the Prime Minister and the Prince Regent himself knew the entire truth about the Four, and the current spymaster of the Liar's Club, Dalton Montmorency, Lord Etheridge, who had once been one of them.
    Pondering the issue, Dane slowly climbed the stairs toward where his bride awaited him. If the Chimera learned the truth—if anyone on the other side knew of the power the Four wielded, power over the throne itself!—if the Four were exposed, the entire government of England would be ripped asunder. Especially when it was learned that it was the Royal Four who had declared King George mad and secreted him away, appointing Prince George IV as Regent of all Britain. The Cobra, the Lion, the Fox, and the Falcon had committed the highest treason, all in the deepest loyalty.
    Although that particular decision had been made by Dane's predecessor and mentor, the previous Lion, as the current Lion, Dane upheld that decision with all his being. One man, king or no,