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She was stripping down the prototype weapon – quietly, efficiently, with total concentration in her locked booth – when she heard them. Two male voices approaching the other side of the door. Barely on the edge of awareness, until one of them, deep, cultured and self-consciously correct, spoke her name.
“I’m going to invite Purdey to dinner,” it said, with the supreme assurance of a man who knew he would not – could not – be refused.
MacIntosh, her preoccupied mind supplied. Roger Devane Cameron-MacIntosh. Knightsbridge Prep, Eton and the Coldstream Guards. Daddy a former C.O of the regiment, if she’d overheard him correctly that morning she’d been skulking in Files. When he came to introduce himself as the new chap on the block.
“I wouldn’t waste your breath, old man.” Collins – hadn’t he been in Prague since Tuesday? – replied with a touch of condescension that made her already-crawling flesh prickle further. “She’s off-limits. Everybody knows Purdey is Gambit’s girl.”
Secure in her windowless booth, Purdey allowed herself a small smile. “Oh, do they, now?” she murmured, schooling herself to ignore the thrill of raw feminine pride that raced down her spine. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, typing pool!
“Professionally speaking,” MacIntosh amended, turning the eavesdropper’s smile decidedly grim. Collins laughed.
“Professionally and personally,” he stated, with utter certainty. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. But you’re new to the field staff, aren’t you? Made your three-month assessment yet?”
“Passed with flying colours, so don’t try changing the subject. You’re not seriously suggesting that incomparable woman is involved with Steed’s pet guttersnipe?”
Said incomparable woman’s finger tightened on the half-forgotten trigger of her top-secret experimental pistol. Not that she would waste a bullet, Purdey told herself fiercely, blinking against the bloody haze that engulfed her. Bare hands could (as Gambit was wont to say) be infinitely more satisfying in certain exceptional situations.
“Guttersnipe?” Collins echoed, incredulous. MacIntosh emitted a low, animal growl.
“Those Savile Row suits don’t fool me,” he snarled, his footsteps stilling on the other side of her door. Purdey tensed every muscle, her ear pressed to the barrier. Waiting. Assessing. Fingers gripped around the handle. “Scrape the surface polish and you’ll soon hit rotting timber! Likes a bit of rough, does she, the perfect Purdey? Fancies slumming it down at the Old Bull And Bush? I don’t know why Steed wastes his time on a backstreet urch— ow!”
“Oh, I am sorry, Mister MacIntosh. I didn’t know you were standing there.” As he staggered, nose already purpling from its impact with the reinforced steel of a viciously-thrown bulletproof door, Purdey smirked cruelly at him, arms folded and foot tapping, waiting with visible impatience for the dazed agent to right himself.
“You see, I don’t need any instruction in being rough,” she hissed, glittering blue eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “I’m a senior field agent, and a damned good one. I’m also – and don’t ever forget it, unless you’d like a shattered spine to go with your broken nose – eminently capable of breaking any supercilious ex-Guardsman into a dozen pieces, if he annoys me enough. Good afternoon, Collins. The new pistol’s still a touch out of balance, I think, but I must dash. I have a date.”
She could feel the resentful burn of a pair of watering eyes in the middle of her back all the way down the long steel corridor. And whether he intended it or not, Collins’ bark of laughter broke loose an instant before she closed the armoured outer doors of the range between them.
Safely on the other side she paused, feeling the fury drain so fast it left her giddy, forced to rest her burning cheek against the wall’s peeling paint. Macintosh’s sneering voice replayed however she tried to block it out, pure patrician disdain knifing every syllable. Steed’s pet guttersnipe. Her bit of rough.
Angry tears burned the back of her eyes, the urge to run back and follow through her threat almost overpowering. Gambit knew his background set him apart in a department where even a Harrow education was looked down upon. He took a mischievous delight in thumbing his nose at the Old Boys of Eton, the Cavalry and the Guards: and he had the skill to get away with it, backed as he was by John Steed’s affably understated authority.
Most often the snobbery was subtle: a matter of tone, or a flick of the eyes. She’d seen it with hackles rising, her instinctive objection stopped by his hand on her arm, a flash of warning in the blue-green eyes the moment before he cut the culprit down with a quipped insult of his own. No one dared to baldly express contempt for their working-class, knockabout-educated colleague to his face.
Hardly surprising. What she could do to the human backbone in two minutes, Mike Gambit could certainly better in one. She doubted even Roger Devane Cameron-MacIntosh, Captain (retired) would take his chances, one-on-one, with the man himself.
“Pity,” she spat, giving herself a vigorous shake. He was supposed to be picking her up at six-fifteen, and it was already gone five. Tossing her borrowed weapon at the armed guard on duty with barely a grunt, Purdey bolted for her car, a hot shower, and a change of clothes suitable for a romantic evening with the man of her dreams.
Not, she reminded herself sternly, easing her sporty little two-seater into the rush-hour melee, that she would reinforce his armour-plated ego further by telling Gambit that.
*
Still, MacIntosh’s scornful tones followed her down the steps and beyond the beaded curtains that divided her living quarters, even echoing in the patter of the shower while she scrubbed unwontedly hard, hoping to remove the hateful sounds with an extra layer of skin.
Collins, she reminded herself, towelling off hurriedly in the bedroom. He’d been horrified, and Collins was a classic Establishment Chap: the backbone of the Empire, in the parlance of Purdey’s father. There was nothing in his response to imply he might, even secretly, share that appalling opinion.
She was not, Purdey discovered, reaching for the pretty cap-sleeved red dress with its flaring skirt left out in readiness that morning, actually angry: not now. She was hurt.
Bitterly hurt, for him. And even if he never knew why, she was going to make it up to him. Let him know how deeply some people – the ones who mattered – appreciated everything he was.
She executed a few smooth moves before the barre, taking pleasure in the graceful swirl of bloody fabric against her knees. As a young girl she had dressed exclusively in pastels, it being her mother’s adamant belief that porcelain-skinned blondes ought not attempt to carry primary colours, and during her ballet days Purdey had clung devotedly to parental wisdom. Now, with the proverbial Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome by her side, she made a gleeful point of flouting it.
He seemed to approve, and Purdey felt her leaden spirits soar at the memory of his smile – sly, knowing, altogether too pleased with himself as well as her – when she had stepped out in the same dress on their first official date.
Dinner and the disco. Nothing they hadn’t done a hundred times before, yet magically novel in the knowledge it wouldn’t end with a peck on the cheek when the sleek red XJS pulled up at her gate. “It suits you,” he had whispered, almost reverent as his palms skimmed from short, lace-edged sleeves, down bare arms tingling with gooseflesh, to rest at her waist. Then, suddenly self-conscious, he had thrown a rare, uncertain crooked grin, adding a candid: “But what doesn’t?”
Under the circumstances, Purdey was thankful she had refrained from offering the kind of cutting brush-off he might have anticipated. Instead she had smiled, feeling quite ridiculously shy, and admitted that he looked rather lovely, too.
“Doesn’t he always?” she murmured, watching her reflection light up at the familiar playful rat-a-tat of his knuckles on the front door. “You do have a key, silly man!” she hollered.
“I’ve also got more sense than to use it when the lady of the house might be in a state of undress,” Mike Gambit retorted smartly, affecting a comic disappointment on finding her fully clothed and reaching to retrieve her bag from the sofa. Purdey tutted.
“Patience, Gambit,” she trilled, patting his freshly-shaven cheek as he ducked for a teasing peck. “You’ll see my underwear later.”
“Yes, but not for long,” he promised with a playful leer. She rolled her eyes.
“Well, try not to damage anything this time. It’s my best silk.”
His adam’s apple worked violently. “Special occasion?” he managed at length, sounding ever-so-slightly strangled. She stuck out her tongue at him.
“That depends on your behaviour, doesn’t it?”
He eyed her sceptically, taking in the flushed cheeks and the over-bright eyes. “Purdey, if you’re asking me to keep my hands to myself, it would’ve been kinder not to mention your sexy underwear,” he said plaintively. Purdey giggled.
And that was the moment Mike Gambit knew his instincts were right. For Purdey to succumb to a discernible giggle, something must be very, very wrong indeed.
*
She watched him over the main course, scanning his calm features for any sign of the tension she could feel trying to contort her own. The restaurant he had chosen was one of their established favourites. Small enough to be intimate, with tables for two tucked into cosy alcoves screened by red velvet drapes and exuberant potted plants, he knew from experience it would still be busy enough that all four waitresses were kept occupied, allowing their customers ample privacy.
It was also – more important than usual in Purdey’s eyes - far enough from the Ministry that the chance of bumping into any professional acquaintance was gratifyingly remote.
“Is it all right?” Gambit indicated her very pink lamb with some reluctance, only too glad to return attention to the thoroughly charred steak filling his plate. Purdey shook herself, studying the chunk of tender meat falling from her fork as if she had never seen its like before. “The food,” he added, unnerved to the edge of irritation under her unblinking stare. “Purdey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Too defensive and she knew it, resting her free hand over his on the pristine tablecloth by way of apology. “Sorry. I had rather a trying afternoon.”
“Anyone you need me to clobber for you?” he offered, mild concern deepening into full-on, siren-shrilling alarm when she didn’t smile or roll her eyes. “All right, you’ll do your own clobbering, but is there anything you want to talk about?”
“I’m being silly, that’s all.” She gave the hand beneath hers a light squeeze, feeling her stomach drop at the tension that hardened his eyes, dimming their lovely jade lights and bringing the Arctic chill of permafrost. Gambit shook his head.
“You may be many things – as I know better than most – but silly is never one of them,” he said, so sincere she ached to cry before he brightened, flashing his most winning smile. “Will extra chocolate on your profiteroles help?”
“It might.” He turned his hand, letting their fingers lace together, and Purdey followed his gaze toward them, warmed from the brush of his leathery palm against hers. “You, Mike Gambit, are an angel,” she told him, much to their mutual surprise. An inky brow arched.
“Any chance I can get that in writing?”
Briefly her laughter was natural, and the spring in his belly uncoiled. “You’re not getting that into the files,” she chided, suddenly digging into her fluffily boiled new potatoes with characteristically Purdey relish.
“It was worth a try,” he sighed, relinquishing his grip just long enough to summon the waitress with more water. “And if it gets me a look at those silky smalls later…”
“You have a one-track mind,” she accused, without heat. Gambit unleashed a honeyed chuckle that dripped deliciously down her spine.
“Purdey, you know me better than that. My mind has several tracks where the contents of your lingerie drawer are concerned.”
“None of them fit for polite company.” He dipped his head in acknowledgement, lamplight glinting off the lush raven curls and, unusually, Purdey felt herself giving way to a very familiar impulse. She stretched, ruffling them fondly.
“You really are upset, aren’t you?” He captured the retreating hand, and the mood, brushing a kiss across her tight knuckles. “Public displays of affection – all right, semi-public, if you’re going to be pedantic… What happened?”
“Nothing that’s going to come between us and a good meal.” MacIntosh had ruined her day. She refused to let him spoil Mike’s evening, too. “And I have a promise of extra chocolate…”
“So it’s not that bad after all?” When she wagged her head, he laughed, and the sound alone could dissipate a whole hurricane of black clouds, swelling her heart with affectionate pride. Whatever the privations of his childhood, Mike Gambit was a thousand times the man Roger MacIntosh could ever hope to be. As long as she knew that, nothing else mattered.
Did it?
*
Though it cost her, Purdey kept her end of the conversation going over the remnants of the main course and an unexpectedly long wait for dessert. She batted her lashes at him when the prettiest waitress ventured too friendly a smile during the obligatory apology; muttered something uncomplimentary about the fabled Gambit charm; then borrowed his untouched wine on the grounds that she needed the alcoholic support, given the absence of the sole waiter who usually gravitated to their table. But for the occasional masked glance and the sudden, sharp nip of a perfectly plumped lower lip, even Gambit might have been deceived.
But he saw them, and he wasn’t.
Another man would badger. Question. Frankly, nag. Not Gambit. He sat back, watched, and waited.
Purdey wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hug or hit him. It was the perfect way to coax a confession, and only he knew her well enough – and had sufficient patience – to do it while she chewed her way remorselessly through a gigantic stack of chocolate-smothered, cream-stuffed pastries without tasting their sweetness, watching the thoughtful, almost serene expression that settled over his face as he savoured the tartness of lemon meringue pie.
Patience was less a virtue than a necessity in their work. Sitting for eight hours at a stretch in the confines of a car waiting for an unsuspecting double agent to make his drop required a certain discipline, and Mike Gambit, despite the restlessness of his nature, was its master. He’d get her in the end. They both knew it.
Luxuriating in the warmth of his gaze while she lovingly reacquainted herself with his every feature, Purdey couldn’t quite bring herself to care.
“Coffee?” he suggested, his voice husky after, by their standards, a prolonged silence – all of five minutes by Purdey’s surreptitious watch-check. She shook her head.
“All right.” Gallant to a fault he stretched to his full height, snagging up her shawl and ducking around to draw back her chair with a gentle hand. “Time to tear up the dancefloor.”
Perfect pearly teeth worrying at her lips, Purdey dragged her delicate linen wrap over hunched shoulders. “I don’t really feel like dancing tonight,” she muttered, hanging her head to avoid his troubled stare. “Take me home?”
The vibration of the air from his quick inhalation brought her head flying back, eyes widening on contact with his stricken face. “Or, to put it another way… Come back to my place, Mike.”
The relief that rolled through him, clearing his furrowed brow and softening his battle-ready stance, broke her heart: and that organ, generally held to be forged of cast iron, had always been suspiciously vulnerable to corrosion around him. “I want to be alone with you,” she promised, planting a finger across lips already parting in a (no doubt) salacious suggestion. “I’ve had a rotten day, and I need you to make it better.”
“My healing hands are at your service. As soon as I’ve paid for your dinner,” he added quickly.
“Of course.” She didn’t want to tell him.
“But you’re going to,” she breathed, flashing a dagger’s warning with her eyes to the svelte brunette whose finger rested just a moment too long against a paying customer’s well-cut sleeve. “Mike Gambit, you really are impossible to resist, aren’t you?”
*
“All right, Purdey.” After receiving the silent treatment through an excruciating fifteen-minute drive back to her flat, Gambit’s patience – or, more accurately, his nerves – could take no more. “What’s going on?”
She dropped onto the cosy couch, amused despite herself that he still awaited the crooking of a finger before joining her, one long arm draped across the backrest as he perched awkwardly at the farther end, his fingers stretching just far enough to ghost against her shoulder. “Have I done something?” he bit out.
“No!” Of course, he would blame himself: the dear, sweet, ridiculous man. “I overheard something at the rifle range that upset me, that’s all.”
“Could be worse. It could’ve been the typing pool again.” Head tilted, Gambit eyed her with barely-concealed amusement. Purdey sighed.
“It was the new man – MacIntosh,” she muttered, keeping her eyes on the gentle sway of beaded curtain behind his shoulder. “Oh, I wanted to kill him!
“No,” she amended, before he could interrupt. “Maim him. Slowly. And very painfully. That he could dare to say those things about you…”
“And now we have it.” Good humour bubbling through the words, Gambit scooched along the couch and drew his quivering partner into the crook of his arm. “Questioning the wisdom of allowing the lower orders into the inner sanctum, was he? Doesn’t like the cut of my jib, and – unlike some – hasn’t got the brains to hide it.
“Don’t let him get to you, Purdey-girl! If I don’t have the respect of a pompous ars – ‘alfwit like Captain Cameron-MacIntosh, I must be doing something right.”
The belated correction, with its attendant slip from his usually controlled diction, broke her. On a sound that was half a laugh, half a sob, Purdey flung her arms around her best friend and squeezed hard enough to jeopardise a couple of ribs. “It was awful, Mike,” she gasped into his neck, inhaling deeply of his familiar scent to ground herself: calm herself. “The way he talked about you – about us. He made it sound so sordid…”
“Us?”
Cold. Clipped. A sign the dangerous temper he kept so tightly leashed was fraying. Purdey raised her head, tilting her chin to meet his gimlet gaze.
She doubted MacIntosh would have the guts to do the same.
“He was planning to ask me out,” she confided, softening the offence with a small smile. “And he didn’t take well to being informed that – apparently – the entire department refers to me as “Gambit’s girl."
“Does it?” Masculine self-satisfaction briefly overcame pique, and on this occasion alone Purdey was prepared to indulge it.
“It does,” she affirmed, swooping to plant a noisy peck on his nose. Gambit chuckled.
“So, sexual jealousy added to the class war,” he mused, his mouth twitching a bare inch from hers. “No wonder I’m out of favour with Colonel MacIntosh’s little prince! Can’t believe a nice, well-bred Home Counties gel would fancy a bit of rough, eh?”
The words found their mark as accurately as any shot he’d ever fired, and he knew it. “We’re not an obvious match,” he soothed, brushing the blonde fringe from her eyes when she might have most appreciated its protection. “And I’m certainly not cut from the usual Ministry tweed…”
“Thank goodness,” she muttered, sullen as a rebellious child. “I never could stand the mothballs.”
“And even Steed can’t resist throwing out the odd little jab about my not being responsible for my background…”
“Steed,” she informed him, pulling back to give the full benefit of her wide-eyed, beseeching stare, “is quite ridiculously fond of you. You can’t believe…”
“He means no harm, but it’s a distortion of the same Sons of Empire attitude.” Mischief sparkling in his eyes, Gambit leaned closer. “Never mind the only Empire I can see MacIntosh governing competently’s the bingo hall in Walthamstow…”
“Mike Gambit, you are incorrigible.” He was also changing the subject, and much as she loved him, Purdey wasn’t having that. “Steed adores you, background and all,” she told him sternly, willing him to read the truth of the words in her eyes. Surely even he must recognise the near-paternal pride behind the legend’s frequent, soft-spoken “well done’s”?
Given that legend’s sometimes fatherly demeanour toward the final member of their triumvirate, the thought made Purdey’s plans for the remainder of the evening appear uncomfortably incestuous, but she pushed the notion aside, concentrating on the man holding her lightly, perfectly calm as he considered the question before them. “One of the most brilliant field operatives it has ever been my privilege to know,” she quoted, glowing at the memory. Gambit shot her a crooked grin, sheepish in the face of merited praise.
“I think you’ll find the accolade was shared. Which made it all the sweeter,” he added, dipping in for a kiss that deepened beyond his (relatively) pure intentions. “And I’ve had to be good. I wasn’t going to be accepted for the old school tie, or Pater being a member of the right clubs. I had to prove a poor kid from Sarf London could out-think and out-fight the best of them. And I did.
“It’s not the way I would’ve chosen, but the choice wasn’t mine to make. Their arrogance made me a better agent; being a better agent earned their respect. They’re still nervous about sending me into polite society, but that’s where you and Steed come in.”
“Guarantors of good behaviour?” It would have been funny, if it wasn’t so utterly appalling.
“Someone to make sure I don’t attack my dover sole with the steak knife and blow our cover.”
He wasn’t joking. Realisation stole over her like a cold shadow. “Someone actually said that to you,” she grated, over the grind of her teeth.
“Harlow, the first time we were paired undercover. Chinese state visit,” he added, forestalling the question already skipping over her tongue. “A bit before your time. And don’t worry, he didn’t say much else for the next four hours. I learned a few tricks in the senior service, even before being seconded to the Paras.”
Harlow. Purdey had known the name, but something about the man’s overly-assured manner and strident tone had ensured she kept her distance.
Until the morning she stood at the roadside with Gambit, seeing as no one else would the trace of anguish so carefully repressed in his taut stance as they stared at a colleague’s cold corpse. I knew him, slightly.
“You set him straight?” she questioned. Gambit’s lips twitched.
“As I will MacIntosh, given the chance,” he promised, giving a quick squeeze before setting her back onto the couch at his side. Purdey sighed, letting her head fall to its favourite pillow on his shoulder. “Has he had his three-month yet?”
“Passed with flying colours,” she parroted, imitating the new man’s languid drawl. Gambit snorted.
“Won’t make his twelve, unless the corners are knocked off pretty quickly,” he prophesied. Her head shot up.
“How so?”
“His type never do. They sail through training, but unless they take a beating in the first few weeks’ active service, they get cocky. Born to rule, remember?”
“I do.” She had seen it happen, more than once. The promising new recruit, top of every training course and raring to take the world by storm, found dead in a ditch having under-estimated an opponent; or over-estimated himself. “I suppose he’ll always have the bingo hall,” she added brightly. “As long as he manages not to upset me again.”
“Oh, I’ll make sure of that.”
“Don’t be silly, Mike,” she scolded. “I’ve already done that myself.”
“Oh?” Just the beginnings of a smirk appeared. Purdey patted his cheek.
“Of course,” she promised. “And don’t pretend you’re not dying to know…”
*
She loved the timbre of his laughter. It was the first thing about her colleague that Purdey had dared to attach the “l” word to: something safe; innocuous. I love making my friend laugh. What could be more natural? Less dangerous?
She loved it even more when it faded into a long, leisurely kiss that left both parties too breathless for more than a shared tender smile after. “You’re incredible, do you know that?” Gambit murmured, cupping her face between his hands. “I’ll give MacIntosh one thing. He does have superb taste in women.”
“Something you share.”
“Impeccable taste, then. And I’m damned if I’m sharing you.”
“Except with Steed.”
“Only when duty calls. Or a party.”
“Or he’s buying us dinner.”
Her eyes were shining, her lips, still warm from his kiss, turned up into a wicked smile. “Oh, all right, Steed stays,” he mock-groused, holding her still for another delicate peck. “Day getting better?”
“Much better.” Her limbs felt loose to the point of liquification. Purdey snuggled contentedly into his embrace, trailing a fingernail from the arch of one eyebrow, over the bump at the bridge of his nose and down to trace the fullness of upturned lips. Gambit held still beneath her questing touch, content to wait until her fingers had followed the strong line of his jaw and trickled south, loosening his collar as they went, and the casual question he sensed hanging in the air took form.
“Is there anyone else from your background in the department?”
He cocked his head, letting the card index in his mind ripple through. “Not since Talmadge conked out on Kendrick’s floor,” he confirmed, alert expression clouding at the memory. “We had some laughs at the toffs’ expense, Talmadge and I.”
“Or as he would probably have put it, Gambit an’ me,” she corrected, an intent, quizzical look settling on her delicately-cut features. “His accent was much more pronounced than yours.”
By Purdey’s standards, it counted as a subtle interrogation. Gambit grinned.
“He cultivated it to stand out as a scholarship boy at Cambridge,” he explained simply. “While I took the edge off mine to blend in aboard ship.”
“The academic route,” she mused, playing absently with the knot of his tie. “The right college. The right people. Being identified as potentially useful. Am I right?”
“Aren’t you always?” Her smug grin was reward enough, but as her dextrous digits finished with his tie and moved onto shirt buttons, Gambit decided against telling her. “They liked to congratulate themselves on Talmadge: a shining example of the benefit of education among the lower classes. He used to come out raging that they’d almost been patting him on the head for bettering himself…
“Anyway, the gentry find it useful, having a couple of plebs around. To do the dirty work, you see.”
“Not concerned about getting mud under your fingernails?”
He winked cheekily. “The last time mud was involved, it ended up under more than my nails.”
Purdey shuddered. “Yes, and it took me a week to remove the contents of that field from my plughole. You might at least have used your own shower,” she complained. Gambit pouted.
Far too attractively, her treacherous mind pointed out. “I did offer, but apparently someone had missed me.”
“Did I admit that?”
“Mitigating circumstances. You were drugged to the eyeballs.”
“And you didn’t like leaving me alone.”
She expected the smirk; and the throaty comeback he poured straight into her ear. “Have a heart, Purdey-girl. I never like leaving you alone.”
His shirt fell open around her splayed fingers, the unexpected friction of skin on skin sending a shock straight through his chest. “Then it’s lucky you don’t have to,” she purred, slithering low enough to replace wandering fingers with warm, soft lips. Gambit’s eyes drifted shut, the exquisite sensation of her tongue circling a nipple flowing via his susceptible heart to another, equally vulnerable, location. “Oh, Purdey,” he breathed.
“The one and only.” Tender hands plucked at his, as if the brilliant blue eyes smouldering with desire were not enough to have him follow wherever she might lead. “Come to bed, Mike.”
Two years, he thought fleetingly as he rose, ducking to meet her when she stretched onto tiptoes with lips already parted, inviting his plundering kiss. Two years’ playful flirtation, all the cautious back-and-forth of tease and withdrawal, to mask the deeper connection neither dared acknowledge aloud. All leading to this.
The knowledge alone was enough to have Gambit thoroughly breathless, long before he was granted his glimpse of the lingerie drawer’s finest skimpy offering.
*
“Does it bother you?”
Her voice, soft but entirely too alert, fractured his tranquil doze and, careful not to jolt the beautiful woman still entangled in his longer limbs, Gambit twisted to peer into wide eyes that glinted much too brightly in the basement’s shadows. “Not sure anything short of the balloon going up could bother me in the next few minutes,” he teased, sliding his fingers through the tousled silk of her tumbled hair while she clambered up his chest to plant her head alongside his on the pillow, nose to nose. “Care to be more specific?”
“The snobbery,” Purdey scolded. “Honestly, Mike! You have the attention span of a moth.”
“I’ve been very attentive in the last couple of hours,” he protested, shifting a warm hand onto her bare hip. Purdey considered for a moment before mirroring the gesture.
“If you’re fishing for compliments…” she warned. The smear of a smirk on his bruised lips widened.
“I got enough of those when you were screaming my name, thanks,” he parried, and even the mere sliver of starlight penetrating the bedroom comprehensively betrayed her blush. “And no. It doesn’t bother me. The snobbery,” he added hastily as the fingers around his hipbone tightened. “Careful! My annual physical’s coming up, and we don’t want Kendrick asking awkward questions.”
“He’ll know who left her mark. Gambit’s girl, remember?”
His turn to press forward, barely feathering her mouth with his. “It’s no wonder the gallant Captain hates me,” he murmured, mischief gleaming in eyes and smile alike.
“Hmm, and don’t you out-rank him too, Major? I’ll have to mention that.”
“I suspect he’ll be giving you a wide berth. At least until his nose heals.”
Their soft laughter mingled before she captured it in another tender kiss, savouring the quiet happiness only his presence in her arms could bring. “It bothers me,” she told him. Gambit frowned.
“The snobbery?” he clarified.
“It’s so ridiculous. Simply because you didn’t go to a good enough school, and Daddy wasn’t high up in a suitable regiment. You’ve done more for Queen and Country than most of the Sandhurst staff officers could ever imagine, and yet…”
“Purdey.” Touched as he was by her outrage, Gambit knew better than to let her stew. “I don’t give a flying... fig, that some overgrown prep-school prefect takes umbrage at the presence of a social inferior. I get a kick out of rubbing their noses in it. You’ve seen that.”
“Two fingers to the Establishment?” she suggested, the furrows smoothing from her forehead.
“With knobs on, as my granny would say,” he affirmed. “Yes, it rankled at first, but I’m a big boy.”
“Mike, this isn’t the time to brag about… mwmph!”
“Someone needs her dirty mind scrubbing out,” he chided, much too prim in the wake of a thorough kissing. “Seriously, Purdey. I can handle the peering down the odd patrician nose. The genuinely well-bred ones take as they find, like Steed. I don’t waste my time on the rest, and neither should you.”
“I’m still going to shatter MacIntosh’s spine. In fifteen different places.”
“He deserves it,” Gambit agreed solemnly. “For putting you off your dinner,” he added with a grin. “I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t put you off…”
Purdey’s hand slipped forward on his hip, slender fingers angling south. “Afters?” she suggested huskily. “Oh, I think he reminded me of just how much I appreciate my afters, Mr Gambit.”
Probably the first useful thing he’s ever done, Gambit decided, feeling kinder toward the pompous upstart (and all his ilk) than he ever had before as he flipped onto his back with Purdey sprawled all over him. Maybe the MacIntoshes of the Ministry have their place, after all.