Free You Only Love Once by Caroline Linden

eh?”
    Nate threw an empty powder horn at him. Prince caught it and gave him a severe look. “The best thing it will do is get us off this ship,” Nate said. They had reached London a week ago, but he’d stayed on board the Water Asp because he didn’t want to announce himself in any way. The Water Asp belonged to his father’s shipping company and was here on a routine trading run. Nate’s parents had sent him with their blessings to capture Ben Davies’s thieving secretary, but no one else save President Monroe knew he was here. Everyone had been told Nate was going back out west, exploring the wilderness beyond the Mississippi. His name wasn’t on the Water Asp ’s manifest, and he had routed every expense through the ship’s captain, who had been with Boudin Shipping for years and was sworn to secrecy.
    Now he and Prince were snapping at each other from too much time in too close quarters. A house would allow them to spread out—although how he would explain Prince’s work was something Nate hadn’t figured out. There would be the servants who were on Stafford’s coin and couldn’t be entirely trusted, much like his new, temporary, wife. Nate allowed himself a little smile at the thought of how that first meeting would go. He might as well find some enjoyment in this venture.
    And then, of course, he had to set a trap to catch a thief.
    Â 
    She had already arrived by the time he reached the house in Varden Street the next morning. Nate paused on the threshold of the wide-open door, listening to the voices abovestairs. The house was furnished, but very simply, and sound echoed off the bare walls and floors. She was speaking French, with another woman—perhaps her maid, he thought, recalling the servant he’d seen when he followed her the other day. He glanced at Prince, coming up the steps behind him with a large crate of equipment in his arms, and unconsciously squared his shoulders before stepping into the house.
    Servants were cleaning the dining room, sweeping briskly. Holland covers still shrouded the furniture in the drawing room while a maid cleaned the windows. By the time he reached the second floor, he could make out some of the conversation. His French, learned from the fur traders of Quebec, wasn’t quite on par with Madame’s, but he understood enough. He leaned against the doorway. “ Bonjour .”
    She looked up from folding stockings into a drawer. “Good morning,” she replied evenly.
    Nate grinned. That hadn’t been what she was saying to her maid, who was the sturdy-looking woman he had seen the other day. Madame Martand might have agreed to this plan, but apparently not with much enthusiasm. That would have to change, at least nominally, because failure was utterly unacceptable to him. “A very good morning it is, since it brings me the sight of you, dear wife.”
    Her expression grew severe at the endearment. She nodded at the other woman. “My maid, Lisette,will help you unpack, if you have no man with you.”
    Prince had tromped up the stairs behind him and chose that moment to peer into the room, no doubt wanting a look at the French lady. Nate had the pleasure, and chagrin, of seeing Madame’s eyes widen and blink at the sight of him. They were going to have a very difficult time if she objected to Prince, and yet anything that discomposed her gave him some satisfaction.
    â€œNo need,” he said easily in reply to her remark. “I can unpack my trunk myself. Prince will see to the other things; he’ll need a workshop. The next floor up, do you think? It must be a bright room.”
    Her dark eyes moved back to him. “ Oui ,” she murmured. “There is a nursery, large and bright.”
    Prince nodded and carried his crate to the turn of the stairs, pausing just out of her view to flash Nate an absolutely gleeful grin. “Make sure you get all the trunks up